Columbia Essay_Neha Singh Bais/ Shashank

MPA-DP ESSAY Prompt: What policy/public service issue(s) are you passionate about
and has personally motivated you to make an impact on the world? Please elaborate
on why you have chosen to apply to the MPA in Development Practice program. How
will this program enable you to achieve your career goals? Describe your academic
and research interests and career objectives.

(600 words maximum)

MPA in Development Practice at Columbia is perfect for me because it provides a holistic

approach to understanding human development issues from a policy perspective. A balance of
that perspective with my skills in leadership and management will be valuable in designing and
implementing effective and efficient solutions at scale.

I am the youngest leader of a sixty-employee team at Evalueserve in Chile that supports clients
with technology-driven products and research solutions to optimize decision-making and drive
outcomes. My team supports sectors such as healthcare, finance, retail, and ESG1, and
generated a revenue of USD 3 million in the last financial year. But today I ask myself — what
positive systemic change have I initiated that produces long-lasting results for a better society?
After eleven years of pursuing and achieving success as defined by the corporate world, I now
want to embark on a career where I can employ my learnings to make a measurable social
impact. My cross-functional, multinational, and multi-sectoral experience can be leveraged to
solve complex development problems of our society. Appropriate academic training is the first
step in that direction.

A significant portion of my career has been dedicated to leading evidence-generation &

research efforts in healthcare to inform business decisions of organizations in India, the US, and
Chile. I have developed a deep understanding of public health issues like value-based care,
healthcare access in rural areas, and social determinants of health. Recently, my role expanded
to management and leadership with the setup of a dedicated healthcare research desk. As
rewarding as the effort was, I felt that I was only supporting short-term goals with a myopic
vision of much bigger development problems.

As a Senior Manager, when I was mandated to increase revenue, expand service portfolio,
enhance cross-center collaboration, and improve client relationships, I was excited at the scope
of the opportunity but soon I realized that where market-based proposals have the potential to
drive to large scale sustainable solutions, a lot remained outside the company’s strategic vision.
As a result, we met our goals, increased revenues, and improved productivity but were far away
from influencing systems-level changes that could fundamentally improve the environment for
all relevant stakeholders. I want to design system-based solutions for human development
issues in health and related areas like nutrition and food security.

1
ESG: Environmental, social, and corporate governance
At this point, I have decided that I want to pivot to the development sector. I aspire to work at a
multilateral organization like UNDP or join impact consulting firms like Dalberg or consult with
the government to pursue my goal.

The MPA-DP program will help me to prepare for this transition. Courses like Macroeconomic
Analysis for International & Public Affairs will teach me techniques and tools helpful for
diagnosing problems and designing policy. I am excited about the Development Practice Lab
which brings diverse highly skilled practitioners to discuss practice-based approaches and
subsequent impact of policies in the real-world context. I am interested to learn from Prof. Glenn
Denning who focuses on understanding global food systems and food security issues as my
inclination lies toward preventive healthcare.

I believe that I bring immense value to the cohort. As a leader at the intersection of business,
research, and human development issues, my experience can inform class discussions about
leveraging market forces for social upliftment. As a woman of color who led a team representing
6 nationalities and spanning engagements across 4 countries, I bring a set of experience,
expertise, and intelligence that will benefit social leaders of different backgrounds at Columbia. I
look forward to being a part of the class of 2024.