Building Community for Those Who Build Change

Service takes many forms. For Sooah Rho, it began in a classroom. For Billy Huang, it started on the streets of New Haven. For Brandon Jones, it was forged in the military. But all three paths eventually converged at Yale School of Management — and led, ultimately, back to it.

Three paths, one mission

Sooah Rho '23 has spent her entire career in impact. After joining Teach For America following college, she became acutely aware of the structural inequities embedded in American education — and committed to addressing them. "I joined TFA because I learned the educational system in the U.S. was inequitable, and some of the experiences I had growing up were a systemic problem rather than a personal experience." Rho said.

From teaching, she moved into nonprofit consulting and capacity building, and now leads social impact programming at PSEII — a role she describes as a "nice blend" of education and her consulting expertise.

For Billy Huang '21 the entry point was connecting to place. Arriving in New Haven nearly a decade ago, he was struck by the sharp contrast between Yale's campus and the communities surrounding it. That friction became a calling. Huang notes, "One of the interesting things about New Haven is that it's very much a town-and-gown environment, where you see the Yale 'bubble,' and then you have the communities around it — and that really struck a chord with me." That observation led him into housing stability work, then homelessness services, and eventually state-level health policy.

Brandon Jones' '23 path started in uniform. As a former active-duty Air Force officer, Brandon left the military with a deep sense of service and was looking for a way to carry that forward in civilian life. Nonprofit consulting fit the bill. After graduating from SOM, he joined The Bridgespan Group, where he now advises nonprofits and foundations.

How SOM shaped the journey

Each alumnus points to Yale SOM as a meaningful inflection point — not just as a credential, but as an intellectual and professional catalyst.

For Sooah, SOM opened the door to nonprofit consulting and impact investing — a career she hadn't anticipated. Brandon, the school provided a structured way to test his interest in the nonprofit sector through coursework, the Golub Capital Consulting Fellows, and professors like Kate Cooney. "These opportunities made me a more competitive candidate in recruiting," he says, "and they also allowed me to validate for myself that the nonprofit sector was a good fit."

Billy’s experience at SOM was an awakening to the full range of levers available to those who want to create change. "I was very community-oriented before, but I didn't really think beyond, 'What is the biggest impact you could have on a community basis?' The other levers, such as institutions or capital, weren't on my mind. SOM was a place where I was able to incubate my ideas."

Guiding the Vision of the New SOM & Society Alumni Group

The SOM & Society Alumni Group grew out of a simple recognition: alumni working in this space needed each other. SOM asked Sooah to lead the effort; she recruited Billy and Brandon, both of whom she'd worked with and trusted to "roll up their sleeves and do stuff."

Their vision for the group is deliberately low-key. They want it to be a space for connection and shared learning — not another structured obligation. The goal is to create a place where SOM alumni active in or curious about social impact can learn together, exchange ideas, and build community. As Sooah puts it, "I want this to be a low-stakes environment where people have fun and build community through shared interests and passions.”

Beyond social connection, the group also aspires to be a substantive resource — a network where alumni can collaborate on projects, share expertise about career trajectories in impact work, and help current students understand what a life in social impact looks like. An alumni mentorship program is in development through PSEII, and the group hopes to be a conduit for that effort as well.

Billy sees particular value in helping people understand the field's breadth: "Being able to introduce people who are interested in the space to what it means — the values, the job roles, the competencies, what industries are involved — is really important." And with so much shifting at the federal level, he sees the group as a place to make sense of change: "Understanding the thinking at the state level is important. Having ties locally to New Haven and regionally to Connecticut matters."