Innovation and Empathy: How These Alumnae Are Leveraging Commerce for Global Health Equity
After a summer in Tanzania and a year at their respective positions, Carolin Fabian (A&S ’23, McIntire ’23), Senior Associate in the East and Southern Africa region at Chemonics International, and Liza Khutsishvili (A&S ’23, McIntire ’23), Strategy Analyst with UVA Health, clearly see commerce’s potential for enabling better outcomes for many.
Carolin Fabian and Liza Khutsishvili
Corey Mittenberg
Senior Content Writer
August 26, 2024
Affiliated Faculty:
Paul SeabornPeter MailletPolina Landgraf
Working and living abroad is a transformative experience for many that simply can’t be replicated within the safe confines of one’s home turf.
Carolin Fabian (A&S ’23, McIntire ’23), Senior Associate in the East and Southern Africa region at Chemonics International, and Liza Khutsishvili (A&S ’23, McIntire ’23), Strategy Analyst with UVA Health, quickly found much to learn about and people to connect with in Moshi, Tanzania, when they became Center for Global Health Equity University Scholars at the Kilimanjaro Clinical Research Institute (KCRI) last summer.
It wasn’t the first time Fabian had been to Tanzania, as she went on a volunteer trip to the East African country during winter break of her fourth year at UVA. That initial visit was her introduction to any developing country; it both opened her eyes and instilled in her a strong connection with Tanzania and those she met there.
“I had a desire to learn more about different cultures and customs and the challenges that other parts of the world face,” she says.
In Khutsishvili’s second year at the University, she joined a case competition hosted by UVA’s Center for Global Health Equity (CGHE) on reproductive care in Ecuador, an opportunity that aligned well with her global health interests and McIntire aspirations. During her fourth year, after nearly two years of McIntire coursework, she took on another competition to bring an interdisciplinary perspective to a global health challenge.
Fabian chose to join to take part in a deep dive into a health crisis in another country. “Carolin had just returned from Zanzibar, so it was a surprise when we opened the prompt and saw ‘Tanzania’!” Khutsishvili says.
Despite not winning the competition, Fabian and Khutsishvili stayed involved with the CGHE by attending different events and connecting with guest speakers. April Ballard, CGHE Associate Director of Program Development, informed them of international summer research opportunities, some of which were taking place in Eastern Africa. One project—a qualitative research study investigating the feasibility of a smartphone intervention to support people with tuberculosis (TB) in Northern Tanzania—stood out.
“This opportunity felt like a great fit because of the applicability to our Commerce studies (being a strategic app intervention with various stakeholders), my Psychology background (being a qualitative research study with a human-first design), and Liza’s interest in studying medicine (taking place in a hospital setting),” Fabian says, adding that they came ready due to the extensive research they had undertaken for the case competition.
They applied that March, and the following month were notified that they were chosen to be Global Health Equity Scholars and to receive the John and Faith Burns Global Health Scholar Gift. Scholarship founders John and (A&S ’15) and Faith Burns (McIntire ’16), current Trustee Board Members of UVA’s Jefferson Trust who were both Echols Scholars as students, had a connection to the location in Africa, as John’s interdisciplinary major in Global Health Economics and minor in Mathematics took him to rural Tanzania to conduct a comparative analysis of micro-health insurance. Commerce School alumna Faith earned a B.A. in Global Development Studies in addition to her McIntire degree, and now serves as Associate Partner at McKinsey & Company, where she works in its SHaPE (Societal, Healthcare and Public Entities) and Organization practices, advising public, private, and social sector clients in areas such as strategy, organizational design, and culture change.
The study that Fabian and Khutsishvili joined was led by Jacqueline Hodges from UVA and Kennedy Ngowi from KCRI.
Jackie Hodges M.D., Carolin Fabian, and Liza Khutsishvili
Cultural Differences and Commerce Connections
Fabian was excited to be returning to Tanzania, and soon found out about the regional differences within the country.
“When I was in Zanzibar, Tanzania—a majority Muslim island—everyone wore long dresses and skirts. I packed for Moshi in a similar way and told Liza to do the same,” she recalls. “I did not realize how many cultural differences there were in Christian-dominated mainland Tanzania. When we arrived on our first day at KCRI, our fellow researchers were surprised to see our ‘Zanzibarian style.’” Discrepancies in speech also arose, as some of the Kiswahili words she used went unrecognized, as they were specific to Zanzibar.
“Coming in as an outsider, even if you have been to the country before, there are so many things you don’t know,” she says. “The best thing you can do is be open to learn and participate.”
Fabian says she considers herself and Khutsishvili attuned to cultural distinctions, as she was born in Germany and her study partner is from the Republic of Georgia, and adds that in her Global Management class with Professor Paul Seaborn, students talked a lot about how cultural differences can impact professional interactions. “However,” she observes, “you can be aware of foreign customs or analyze them in a class, but you will always learn the most by being immersed in the culture.”
Referring again to Seaborn’s class, she notes how they discussed differing perceptions of time, with some seeing meeting times as fixed, while others, as fluid. She gave an example of when the two arrived at 9:50 a.m. for a 10 a.m. meeting at KCRI, only to find themselves still waiting for others at 10:20.
“Nobody else was there. One Tanzanian researcher arrived a bit later and said we should go get a soup at the hospital canteen, since it was raining and the others wouldn’t be arriving for a while,” Fabian says. “It was such a surprise for me that this was taken as a given that the professional meeting would be later due to the rain.” Fabian and Khutsishvili began to welcome the flexibility. “Throughout our time there, our Tanzanian colleagues would tell us to ‘pole pole,’ or slow down, because, as Americans, we’re often so in a rush to complete tasks or get somewhere on time that we miss small details on the way.”
Saumu Pazia Ph.D., Liza Khutsishvili, Carolin Fabian, and Margaretha Sariko Ph.D.
Concerning timing, Khutsishvili says that the two were fortunate to join the research team when they could contribute to shaping the interview guides for the patient and provider populations. “Much of this process reminded me of Professor Polina Landgraf’s Marketing class, where we learned about developing specific but open-ended and non-leading questions for research,” she says, explaining that she and Fabian also began using a design thinking approach to flesh out the app prototype, skills she was taught in McIntire’s Project and Product Management course.
In McIntire IT classes, she learned about AI and other tech advancements, but some of their TB/HIV patients didn’t even have a smartphone, she says.
“This stark difference had us asking questions about the future penetration of technologies but also the political, economic, and social forces necessary for widespread digital access,” says Khutsishvili. What her McIntire education provided her with was the tools to brainstorm about the app’s future implementation.
Fabian says that she knew working on this research opportunity would be a new challenge for her, as she didn’t have a background in health or medicine, but felt ready because of her UVA coursework.
“Foundations of Global Commerce with Professor Peter Maillet, which I took in the fall of my fourth year, was pivotal in preparing me for this experience and significantly impacted my professional trajectory,” she says, pointing out that the class gave her a framework to break down complex issues and ask important questions. “We discussed global themes like demographics, climate change, and technological advancement and how these will impact parts of the world differently in both the short and long term. Researching and discussing these trends in class empowered me to have more meaningful discussions with people from around the world, including with Tanzanians during our summer there. This constant dialogue about the future led me to my career in international development.”
During the study, Fabian relied on the knowledge she developed from various Comm and Psychology seminars, the latter of which gave her a background in research design and qualitative studies. Like Khutsishvili, Fabian drew from the Product and Project Management class, while her Managing Sustainable Development class taught her to “rethink conventional methods to adjust to different country contexts or environmental needs,” she insists.
She credits the Integrated Core for giving her the tools to quickly get accustomed to unfamiliar situations, “whether that be helping Hilton Hotels or Tanzanian tuberculosis patients,” and allowing her to think through solutions from various angles—financial, behavioral, strategic, and system-based. “My expectations were that I would learn the hard skills that were needed for the study, like the interview coding process, while there, but that I was coming with the ability to problem solve and think critically to support the research team,” she says.
Continued Engagement
The experience in Tanzania, coupled with her time at UVA and McIntire, has significantly impacted the work that Fabian currently does in international development. She is grateful that the University offers opportunities such as the Global Health Equity Scholar programs that are open to students from all majors.
In her current role at Chemonics, what she learned from her Commerce and Psychology majors has given her a unique skill set that brings a diversity of knowledge and understanding to projects, ranging from project financing, and systems thinking, to group dynamics and motivation and more.
Krisanta Wilhelm from KRCI, Liza Khutsishvili, and Carolin Fabian
As a Strategy Analyst with UVA Health, Khutsishvili calls the Tanzania experience “immensely enriching, both through a scholarly engagement and knowledge viewpoint, but also personally.” Noting that both she and Fabian immigrated to the U.S. as children, and that she spent her formative years outside of her comfort zone, Khutsishvili says being in Moshi presented her with another chance for growth.
“Global engagements require you to explore other cultures and environments while also spending significant time reflecting on yourself. This experience prompted me to evaluate my personal and professional values and vision for both. The takeaways positioned me as a mission-driven employee in the health system and future clinician,” Khutsishvili says.
Still actively involved in the Moshi study, Fabian and Khutsishvili are currently in the process of coding the qualitative interviews to determine thematic takeaways. “This summer, we hope to write the manuscript and afterwards publish and present the paper,” says Khutsishvili, who starts medical school at George Washington next year.
“I feel invested in this study and want to see it through. It continues to be a great experience working with and learning from the research team, and it allows me to have exposure to interesting work outside of my full-time job,” says Fabian.
Though they both miss a great deal about being in Moshi, from the local foods and spending time with their neighbors to building trust and being welcomed into their fellow female researchers homes for barbecues, they continue to keep in touch with many individuals—even people they didn’t work with directly.
Commerce for Good
After a summer in Tanzania and a year at their respective positions, they both clearly see commerce’s potential for enabling better outcomes for many.
“I believe commerce has the greatest potential to create good in society,” says Fabian. “Companies are rethinking how they can balance and support all stakeholders, including the community that they do business in and the communities up and down their supply chains. Commerce will drive the innovation needed to combat climate change and its rampant effects,” she says, believing that corporations are obligated to hold themselves to and be held accountable for “moral limits” that take into account their stakeholders from across society.
“The measure of success is shifting,” she says. “The bottom line and profit will always be a key driver in business; however, customers are holding companies to a higher standard to do good. I support McIntire’s mission of commerce for the common good, and I hope they continue to develop new courses and empower students to drive this change as they move into the professional world.”
Khutsishvili says that though the rapidly changing world of tomorrow may outpace some content taught today, she says McIntire taught her and her classmates how to be leaders in the future and to engage in education throughout their lives.
“Business plays a significant role in supporting global and local efforts. The skills we acquired at McIntire—teamwork, collaborative brainstorming, public speaking, stakeholder engagement, and more—are all crucial for addressing challenges and opportunities for societal good.”
Studying global public health and working in Tanzania have influenced Khutsishvili’s view that people need to be flexible—especially when it comes to measuring success: “Though financials are important for maintaining sustainability, doing good in your community is the biggest ROI of all.”