In honor of Pride Month, the OneHaas Alumni Podcast is pleased to welcome Lucas Chagas Vital to the show. Lucas is a graduate of the full-time MBA program and a principal in corporate strategy and development for Intuit.

For Lucas, growing up gay in Sao Paolo, Brazil wasn’t always easy. He knew he was gay from a young age, but between attending conservative catholic schools and starting his career in the conservative banking world of Brazil from over a decade ago, he worried he wouldn’t be accepted if he came out at work. So he set out to find a more welcoming and accepting culture for LGBTQ people, and found one at Berkeley Haas.

On this episode, Lucas joins host Sean Li to talk about his childhood in Sao Paolo, his fulfilling experience with Q@Haas as co-president, and how he’s continued that advocacy work since then through inclusion programs at Intuit and other workplaces.

*OneHaas Alumni Podcast is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

On his decision to leave Brazil for the U.S.

 ”So I was not out in the work place. I grew up attending a Catholic school and a Catholic university. And even though I was out earlier than many back then, because I came out in junior high school, I was gay-bashed with my two lesbians friends, so there were a lot of stories of coming out and being back in the closet and getting discriminated against and working through that. And when I learned more about the difference of the reality here, at least 10 years ago, that was one of the things that motivated me a lot, right?”

On the work that still needs to be done for LGBTQ rights

 ”Our rights should never be taken for granted, right? Because the LGBTQ+ rights and any other minority rights, they can be lost at any time… Definitely as a cisgender gay man, I acknowledge the better privilege that we have when we compare with the transgender population, right? They are in the front. They are the ones who have so much more attacks and hate and we're hearing more and more right now. So how can we be an ally for that?”

On celebrating Pride

“ Thinking about the Pride month ahead of us, I feel that Pride Month, it's not only for fun and parties. I think Pride Month, it's how we got here, right? …I remember when I got here in the US and I was so excited with all the Pride initiatives, and I used to hear a lot of complaints of people saying, "Oh, but there is so much corporate all around."

And I said, "Yeah, but the first Prides, most of the early Prides actually that I went to in Brazil, we didn't have any corporate support, and we did not have that much visibility. We didn't have that much support, and we had to hide a lot" So there are positive things that we can think about how far we got here”

On his time with Q@Haas

“ I spent most of my time at Haas, apart from recruiting, at Q@Haas. So we had a very active group of people…So we organized many events…one event was called Not Your Gay Best Friend, to help break all the stereotypes of just being “the gay best friend”, which for me was very interesting as well because it was also a very American culture thing to learn.

And then of course, the Coming Out Week, which was a big event. The Coming Out Monologues was actually my first time telling my coming out story to a big audience, and in English.”

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On this episode of the OneHaas Alumni Podcast, meet Brittany Jacob, a former news anchor turned senior consultant at Deloitte thanks to her career-transforming experience at Berkeley Haas.

Growing up in Texas, Brittany fell in love with theater and the arts, a passion that propelled her to a career in journalism. For Brittany, community is at the heart of everything she does – a passion that shone through while she was at Haas when she decided to create the podcast, Belonging@Haas.

Brittany joins host Sean Li to chat about her upbringing in Texas, what she learned during her time as a news anchor and reporter, what brought her to Haas, how she’s now using her MBA to shape stories, and how she built community through Belonging@Haas.

*OneHaas Alumni Podcast is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

On her time in the news biz

“Imagine, I was lugging around a tripod, a camera, setting up my own interviews, doing my interviews, going back, editing them, writing them, and then setting up my live unit so that I can go live. And I did all of that by myself at the beginning of my career. So when you think about reporting… It was nothing fancy or pretty. It was work and you got into the industry because you loved what you did.”

One of her fond memories from her time at Haas

“ It felt like we were like 17 years old again – we were in the car on our commute to Berkeley for our accounting quiz, and we're like going through our flashcards and I took a moment to realize, I was like, how crazy is this? We're all in our thirties and we're running through flashcards on our way to class for accounting.”

On her pivot from journalism to consulting

“ I didn't wanna just tell stories. I wanted to shape them. And so that curiosity led me to Berkeley Haas and just really expanding my storytelling into strategy while still rooted in community and impact.”

On the creation of the podcast, Belonging@Haas

“A big part of it was like, how do we leave a legacy that lives beyond this year … and we ran a survey of all of our peers, like, what do you want? Do you feel like you belong? What do you wanna see from the classroom? What are your needs? And we really went through that survey to understand our classmates, like we had two years on this campus to make an impact. And so, we heard them loud and clear. They wanted to hear from their peers. And what better way than a podcast being able to listen on the go while you're cooking, while you're working out, when you're on the flight. Everyone messaged me like, we're downloading this before the winter break to listen. But really it was about giving a voice to students.”

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On this episode of OneHaas, learn about the incredible, globe-spanning career journey of alumna Ann Hsu, Founder and Head of School at Bert Hsu Academy. From high tech to yogurt to revolutionizing the approach to public education, this double bear’s story is not one to miss!

Born and raised in Beijing, China, Ann moved to the U.S. with her family at age 11 but has always maintained a strong cultural connection to China. After getting her Master’s degree in electrical engineering from UC Berkeley, she moved back to China and launched into a successful career in high tech. When the need arose to add more business acumen to her skillset, she knew Berkeley Haas was her best option for an MBA.

Ann’s latest career pivot has been into education, where she’s opened the first American-Chinese bicultural school in the U.S., named in honor of her father, Bert Hsu.

Ann joins host Sean Li to discuss the exciting ways they are reimagining education at the Bert Hsu Academy, how her Berkeley degrees have supported her career journey, and her advice for current MBA students and young alumni. She also shares her memories of moving to the U.S. as a young girl in 1978, her family’s history in China, and how her own bicultural experience has shaped her career and worldview.

*OneHaas Alumni Podcast is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

On her assimilation to American culture

“ I remember a discussion in class and they were talking about china, the bowls and plates. Well, I thought they were talking about the country of China. And I raised my hand, I said, ‘I'm from China.’ Yes, I knew the word, but I didn't know that we were talking about plates and bowls china and not the country of China. That's what I mean by cultural assimilation or Americanization. It took me four years.”

On where the idea for a Chinese-American bicultural school came from

“ I thought back to my own experience of going to school in China and the U.S. and then watching my sons go to school in China …and about what's good about the Chinese education approach, what’s good about the American ones, what’s bad about each. And I thought, I want to combine the Chinese education philosophy, approach and practices with the American ones because both have pros and cons. And if I'm going to design [a school] from scratch, I'll just pick the good ones. The pros!”

On her decision to name the school after her father

“...It came to me that the person who embodies the bicultural and bilingual Chinese American experience, whom I have the utmost respect for, is my father. And he was bicultural, in addition to being bilingual. He not only survived, but thrived in both China and in the United States because he understood [the culture] and could really thrive in both cultures. And I thought, that should be the goal. I want all of our students to be able to do that.”

Her advice to current MBA students

“ MBA students, they fret about,what should I do [after MBA]? Which job should I take? What career should I pursue? what I tell them is that you only have so much information. You're never going to get complete information, and you're never going know whether that decision you made is the right decision. So what you do is you take all the information you have, make a decision, and then make that the right decision.”

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