Melony Mahaarachchi, 2019

Melony Mahaarachchi did an MBA at the Judge Business School. She is now a Partner at Cambridge Global Ventures.

Who was your greatest Clare influence and why?

I learned about renowned philatelist, Sir Ernest de Silva, a fellow Sri Lankan and Cambridge Clare College alum, through my passion for collecting stamps when I was young. His stamp collection was said to be world class and second only to that of King George V. Although his stamp collection is why I came to learn of him, it was ultimately de Silva’s pioneering efforts to instil free education in Sri Lanka’s education system that cemented his influence on my current personal and professional missions.

Melony's Story

It can get overwhelming to be one of the 20,000 students at Cambridge University. But my Clare experience vastly influenced how I experienced both Cambridge as a city and as an institute. Established as the second oldest college, it is situated by the beauty of River Cam with lush gardens and old architecture, second to none. When you walk through Clare, Old Court to Memorial Court and over the oldest Cambridge’s bridge, walls will whisper the history of struggles and triumphs each student went through. This experience always gave me a sense of awe, reminding me of who walked on my path before and the prestige in the community I am part of. 

Clare’s liberal and progressive ideologies and the intellectually diverse cohort reshaped my thinking and post MBA goals.  As a grad student and the elected member for technology representing over 2000 students at Cambridge, I made every opportunity to interact with fellow Clare students and other college students to learn from them in order to better serve them. Clare’s unique forums like the underground bars and extravagant formal dinners provided an exciting backdrop that elicited an exciting flow of ideas. What fascinated me with Clare students is their unwavering enthusiasm to contribute across borders.  I was always excited to engage with them and learn of the varied experiences they each bring to the Cambridge culture. The myriad of unique world changing experiences I heard of in turn made me question the scope of my original professional goals. 

As an American and a Sri Lankan, I have experienced both sides of the coin when it comes to opportunity. I have learned that the cornerstone of inequity is opportunity or lack thereof. To combat inequity in my own world, I am currently taking my non-profit organization, iSTEM Without Borders, to next level by providing new tools to imbue a new wave of career and life opportunities to youth and students in Sri Lanka. With the current political and economical crisis in Sri Lanka, the quality of educational resources continues to stagnate and even deteriorate, especially in the country’s rural areas. We are working on a few large-scale projects to provide aid, sponsor and adopt each qualified school with the help of donors and organization. We will also provide a new extended curriculum focus on technology, industry and international languages that prepares students to be equally competitive not just within the country but also across borders.  We intend to help these schools course correct the path of the unfortunate students, stricken by a crisis that they had no part in creating. 

Before coming to Cambridge Judge Business School and Clare College, I was quite certain I’d be a consultant at a global consulting firm or the very least an investment banker post MBA. I thought my love for numbers, creative thinking, and professional competitive drive will only be satisfied with a career in consulting or banking. Clare’s progressive community has led me into another path I never expected to be on. I learned that donating my time and effort to taking care of those who ‘stand to lose more’ does not necessarily have to be a non-profit endeavour.  I wanted to choose projects that make an impact on the environment, sustainability, governance, future of space industry, and female entrepreneurs, five tenets that imbue core parts of my identity and motivations. I couldn’t find a single company aiming these five core criteria as their primary focus. So, I went ahead and created my own company, Cambridge Global Ventures, where I get to work with industries and on projects that align with my motivations one hundred precent of the time. In engineering we always strive to find equilibrium, so the system is stable. The only way we will find equilibrium in our society is when we take care of the people and the initiatives that stand to lose the most.

Opportunity changed my life from a fulltime mother and a homemaker to an aerospace engineer designing rockets and spaceships at SpaceX for Elon Musk and on NASA’s Mars Perseverance Rover mission. Now, Clare College and Cambridge University have extended my horizons by letting me look through others’ experiences. I’ve learned that true stellar change comes when we propel the people who need our help the most.