Greater Purpose Values & Purpose

An Accidental Pursuit

Neda Navab

05.25.23

Compass President, Neda Navab, likes to joke that when she was growing up her parents said she could be one of three things: a doctor, a lawyer, or a failure. Turns out, she went on an entirely different path altogether after a scary accident while on the pre-med track. Find out what inspired her to pursue a degree in economics, and later an MBA.

An Accidental Pursuit

Summary:

Compass President, Neda Navab, likes to joke that when she was growing up her parents said she could be one of three things: a doctor, a lawyer, or a failure. Turns out, she went on an entirely different path altogether after a scary accident while on the pre-med track. Find out what inspired her to pursue a degree in economics, and later an MBA.

Thuy

I have been reading up on you, and you have long had an interest in business. You earned an MBA from Harvard and a bachelor’s degree in economics from Columbia University. Was there someone or something that inspired you to embark on this path?
Neda_Navab

Neda Navab

I often joke that in my household, you could be one of three things. You could be a doctor, a lawyer, or a failure.

Thuy

Oh, no.
Neda_Navab

Neda Navab

It was from my upbringing. I started out actually in college as pre-med. And it wasn’t until I had an accident in a chem lab where I burned the skin on my face, where I really realized this is not the path you were meant to be on.
And so I took one principal of economics course at Columbia with this professor named Sunil Gulati. Picture one of those big auditoriums, 800 students. It could be completely anonymous. And it spoke to me.
Supply curves and demand curves and comparative advantage and pricing and all of that. It was music. It explained to me how I actually saw the world, but I didn’t have the words or the tools to describe it. And I just fell in love with economics from then forward, and never turned back to pre-med from then.
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