Alumni Reflections

Clare Spottiswoode (1972)

Clare became the first woman to be admitted as an undergraduate to Clare in its history. She is now Chair of Xoserve, a central data service provider for Britain’s gas market, and a non-executive director of RBC Europe.

“I had visited Clare the previous Easter with my father, who was also at Clare. I had fallen in love with the College and had been welcomed by all the porters and everyone else I came across.

Dr Nigel Weiss gave me an apocryphal Cambridge interview by pointing, without explanation, to a pile of wooden blocks. He clearly intended me to put them together into something coherent by quickly testing what no exam could have done – my ability to think fast in three dimensions. He was kind, thoughtful and genuinely interested in his students and their strengths. He was a tremendous mentor and was clearly watching throughout my career – interested in what happened to his students later in life.

Clare absorbed women easily. The first year was mildly strange as there were 28 of us in a College of 300 or so. But by the second year it felt totally normal – mainly because Clare did not make a fuss. We all felt that we belonged. The few die-hard objectors fell silent as they saw how well it was working and that women could actually enhance the College.

Clare not only gave me an extraordinary education, but enabled me to move smoothly from Mathematics to the subject I had wanted to study since my mid teens and which has become the focus of my working life – Economics.

However, the best of Clare was outside the academic world in the social hubbub of hundreds of students thrown closely together, studying a melange of different subjects, with differing backgrounds, personalities and extraordinary talents. This was all held together in a caring and supportive environment.

The intensity of this experience stays with you forever, and undoubtedly helped enormously in setting up my fascinating and varied career. Perhaps even more importantly I met my amazing husband (on the first evening, even if it took a year to realise that we should get together).

My career has spanned HM Treasury at the heart of Government, being an entrepreneur and creating and selling two companies, creating four wonderful human beings who are going on to create their own careers and children. I led the Gas industry as its Regulator through the huge transformation of creating competition, in a model which has been copied all over the world, including in the UK in electricity; and more recently I have been on many boards, including chairing the Ukrainian 100% state owned oil and gas company, Naftogaz.”

Afua Kudom (2000)

Afua read Law at Clare. She now works as a Careers Consultant at Queen Mary University of London and is also Founder and Lead Coach at Sambamba Consulting and Coaching.

“I am a proud Clare alumna, filled with nostalgia every time I walk through Old and Memorial Courts. Hailing from Sydenham, a girls’ state secondary school in south London whose motto was ‘Aim High’, you could say I was destined for a university like Cambridge. However, it was not on my original UCAS shortlist until my A Level Sociology teacher, Ms Belger, recognised my academic potential and encouraged me to apply. I was unsure at first, as I wrongly believed I didn’t fit the ‘typical Oxbridge student’ profile. But I thought ‘why not try as you have nothing to lose?’ I am so glad I did and the process taught me that anyone with an enthusiasm for their subject and a willingness to explore complex and challenging ideas should definitely apply.

I was the first person from my school in ten years to get into Oxbridge and I look back on my time at Clare with very fond memories. As they say, ignorance is bliss. I hadn’t visited Clare prior to my application so didn’t fully appreciate what made it such a popular College choice: its beautiful grounds, friendly and laid-back community, reputable Ents in the Cellars; and, for us lawyers, its leading law fellows and exclusive Lipstein Law Reading Room. All of these things and more are what made Clare such a great match and contributed to some of my favourite moments.

Clare was also the place where I experienced the sweet taste of sporting victory by winning cuppers as part of the women’s football team during my second year. This was one of my proudest moments and, to this day, I still recount the story when the opportunity arises. I grew up loving football and hoped to hone my skills at secondary school. This didn’t happen, as sports like netball and hockey were prioritised. I was delighted to have the opportunity to play football regularly when I joined the Clare team.

My time at Clare and being part of the football team helped shape the values and attributes I have continued to draw upon since graduating, namely: the importance of pursuing goals with tenacity, determination and dedication; believing in yourself even when the odds look stacked against you; and learning to play to your strengths when part of a team.”

Melony Mahaarachchi (2019)

Melony studied for an MBA at the Judge Business School. She is now a Partner at Cambridge Global Ventures, founder of not-for-profit enterprise iSTEM Without Borders, as well as a rocket engineer.

“It can get overwhelming to be one of the 20,000 students at Cambridge University. But my Clare experience vastly influenced how I experienced Cambridge, both as a city and as an institution.

Established as the second oldest college, Clare’s location by the River Cam with lush gardens and old architecture are second to none. When you walk through Clare, from Old Court to Memorial Court and over the oldest of Cambridge’s bridges, 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 ethos and the intellectually diverse cohort reshaped my thinking and post-MBA goals. As a grad student and the elected member for technology representing over 2,000 students at Cambridge, I made every opportunity to interact with fellow Clare students and other colleges’ students to learn from them in order to better serve them. 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 the next level by providing new tools to imbue a new wave of career and life opportunities to youth and students in Sri Lanka.

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. 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. 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 percent of the time.

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.”