91短视频鈥檚 2019 Young Alum of the Year Liza Heavener ’07 says she is 鈥渘ot afraid to jump into unchartered territory.鈥�
Her passion for changemaking has taken her from Souderton, Pennsylvania, to 91短视频 to Capitol Hill to remote Borneo to her current position as the chief operating officer for the New York City-based community of next-gen philanthropists, impact investors and social entrepreneurs: NEXUS Global.
Heavener will honored with two other alumni awardees: Distinguished Service awardee Wu Wei MDiv ’06 and Alum of the Year Erik Kratz ’02 [here’s an article about Erik published in May but we’ll have an update shortly on his career] at the Oct. 11-13 2019 Homecoming and Family Weekend.
Its 5,000-plus members, which include young people from over 70 countries and from some of the world鈥檚 most influential and wealthy families, have 鈥渁 proven track record of knowing how to move the needle on the most pressing issues of our generation such as climate change, human trafficking, animal welfare and refugees and countless other topics,鈥� Heavener said.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 believe that all the money in the world can change the world, and I don鈥檛 always believe the best ideas are enough to change the world,鈥� she said. 鈥淏ut if you bring those two things together with the right passions, synergies and collaboration, then we鈥檙e able to accelerate solutions that are going to help the planet and hurry history in the right direction.鈥�
91短视频 was 鈥渁 safe space鈥� for Heavener, with professors and staff willing to be her sounding boards as she earned a liberal arts degree with courses in pre-law, music, global studies, political science and business. She played field hockey, went on a Middle East cross-cultural, and spent two terms at the Washington Community Scholars鈥� Center, where one of her two internships was in the Senate Majority Leader鈥檚 office and the other later employed her.
Those real-life experiences expanded her identity as a 鈥渃itizen of the world鈥� who is geared for creating 鈥渓asting change and impact,鈥� she said, and she has since worked to build common ground in Congress, managed a campaign that 鈥渇ailed spectacularly,鈥� worked for an international consulting firm 鈥� and, on a whim, applied (and was chosen) to star in a documentary and television series about fighting illegal deforestation and releasing endangered orangutans in Borneo.
At her first NEXUS Global Summit at the United Nations in 2012, though, Heavener thought, 鈥淚鈥檓 home. These are my people.鈥�
Now married for five years to a man she first met in a crowded Metro station and the mother of a toddler, Heavener said that following her intuition has rarely led her astray.
鈥淓veryone has their own passion, and their definition of impact will be different,鈥� she said 鈥� 鈥渂ut strive to do whatever you can to make the world a little bit better than it was yesterday.鈥�