Gill Cafiero ’22 Receives Fellowship to Study Professional Ethics and the Holocaust
As a FASPE fellow, Cafiero will join a select group of students and young professionals studying the role business executives and enterprises played in Nazi Germany
Gill Cafiero ’22, a Yale School of Management MBA candidate, is among a select group of business school students and young professionals who will spend two weeks this summer in a unique program studying issues of professional ethics posed by the Holocaust. Cafiero ’22 is one of 13 students chosen for the 2022 business program of the Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE.)
Each year, the highly competitive program chooses 12 to 15 business fellows to spend two weeks in Berlin and Poland, where they visit key historical sites and participate in daily seminars.
Run under the auspices of the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York, FASPE examines the role that professionals in business, journalism, law, medicine, and the clergy played in Nazi Germany and how breakdowns in moral codes can have devastating consequences. FASPE offers fellowships across these five disciplines.
Cafiero joins a diverse group of 80 FASPE fellows across all five programs who were chosen through a competitive process that drew applicants from across the U.S. and the world. FASPE covers all program costs, including travel, food, and lodging.
The 2022 fellowship will take place in Germany and Poland. The business program will be led by Mollie Painter, professor at Nottingham Business School, and Paul T. Harper, clinical assistant professor of business administration at the University of Pittsburgh’s Katz School of Business.
Prior to Yale SOM, Cafiero worked in software and network operations for British Airways and Verizon, in London. She plans to return to her home city of Rome to work as a management consultant following SOM.
“I applied to fellowship for the same reason that I applied to Yale SOM—I care about the mission to serve both business and society,” Cafiero said. “In Tony Sheldon’s Global Social Entrepreneurship class, I learned that real impact can only be achieved with a clear vision of desired outcomes and strong evidence that one’s actions further that mission.”
Working with the FASPE team, Cafiero aims to learn from the errors of the past. “I hope to refine my personal mission and to also gain access to a network of global advisers who can help me establish the most impactful ethical business practices,” she said.