🔀 Issue #35: The Convergence of Impact & Gig Economies
Zach Weismann shares how he's been able to make a career in social impact and what he thinks the future holds for the impact and gig economies
💬 Welcome to issue #35 of Between the Lines
With flexibility as the facilitator, technology as the driver, and the pandemic as the accelerator, the gig economy has truly gone mainstream. The gig economy is estimated to already contribute over $1T to the U.S. economy, and it has progressed far past just app-based drivers to consist of a more diverse and highly skilled workforce. This week, alumnus Zach Weismann shares some of his thoughts on how the gig and impact economies can benefit each other, the founding story of MAG Impact Collective, and his tv-stardom with Jackie Chan.
Also, a very happy National Women’s Day (a few days late) to everyone and especially to our amazing Claremont female technologists!
~ Josh & Miles
👤 Community Spotlight: Zach Weismann
Zach is the founder & CEO of MAG Impact Collective. MAG is a collective that brings together leaders, freelancers, and consultants in the areas of branding, strategy, and design to work with clients around the world. For the last 15 years, Zach has worked at the intersection of social impact and branding, working on projects in climate change, innovation, and healthcare with companies like Google, Virgin, IKEA, MD Anderson, Sabin Vaccine Institute, GreenWave, and the NBA. In his spare time, Zach spends a lot of time playing hide and seek, “daddy be a horsey”, twirlee’s, spooky ghost, and tickles with his 3-year-old and 1-year-old sons. He is also married to fellow CMC Alum, Kevyn Klein.
Like many CMC graduates, you went straight into accounting/finance after college, yet ultimately have now made a switch to social impact and media. Give us the backstory — how did this happen?
After majoring in accounting & economics at CMC, I went on to get my Masters in Professional Accounting (MPA) from the University of Texas in Austin and took a job with PwC in Dallas. A year into the job, I wasn’t feeling fulfilled at all. To be honest, I was miserable. I quit on the exact day of my one-year anniversary so I didn’t have to pay any of my signing bonus back, ha!
I had always been passionate about the environment but hadn’t done much in the field. I knew I needed to get some hands-on experience. So, I took some time off to go volunteer in Peru with a health & sanitation NGO founded by a Pomona Professor, Dr. Heather Williams. This was a trip and experience that changed my life.
From there, it became a question of how can I leverage my skills and experience to work in the social/environmental sectors. I knew you could do good work and get paid for it, and I wanted to disprove his notion that to make a positive social change you had to make all these sacrifices (including not making a good living).
Finding my first job at a wildlife media & documentary nonprofit wasn’t easy, but it enabled me to fully switch sectors, and then it was off to the races. Shortly thereafter, I found myself on a commercial set with Jackie Chan and a very real 6,000 pound rhinoceros, but more on that soon.
Read more below about Zach’s founding of Mag Collective and what their mission is, his thoughts on the convergence of the gig and social impact economies, and his tv-stardom with Jackie Chan and Richard Branson. 👇
📣 Pardon the Announcement: Spring Job & Internship Virtual Career Fair
Have full-time STEM roles or intern positions you’re looking to fill? Harvey Mudd’s Spring Job & Internship Career Fair is now live and will be hosted on Handshake on April 21st, 2022!
You and your team will have the opportunity to recruit top STEM talent from all seven of the Claremont Colleges. Which gives you access to 5,500+ STEM majors at SEVEN selective and diverse institutions. Register today.
Reach out to Jeanette Martinez if you have any questions or if you or your company are interested in attending.
🚨Claremonster Call-Out: Neal Kemp
Meet Neal Kemp. Neal is a Claremonster software engineer and developer, a 3x founder (Women.com & GovPredict - which was acquired by Capitol Canary), and the current CEO and Co-founder of Strider.
Did somebody say the gig economy was booming? Strider is a talent marketplace that helps companies hire top technical talent in Latin America. All of their engineers speak English, live in American time zones, and come technically vetted with a full-day coding project. The cost of technical talent you'll hire with them typically costs half or less than a US-based equivalent. If you’re interested to hear more or want to get involved, reach out to Neal and check out their career page.
💼 Who’s Hiring?:
The Holdsworth Group is a trusted provider of capital and advisory services to family offices and high-net-worth’s, public/private companies, and boards of directors. THG’s expertise includes general business issues, corporate finance, investment strategy, board and governance issues, succession planning, real estate, and philanthropy. Charlie Thomson (CMC) and the Pasadena office are seeking an intern to analyze, process, and monitor prospective securities investments for a securities fund managed by an affiliate. This is a unique opportunity to work directly with Mark Holdsworth (PO) - former Co-Founder of Tennenbaum Capital Partners - and Zack Levenick - former Principal and co-head of Europe at Taconic Capital Advisors. Please send all applications to Charlie here.
Make sure to check out the other 5,000+ open jobs at 400+ Claremont-affiliated companies here on our Storyboard. Plus, make sure to create a profile and enter your preferences to get alerted to new job postings relevant to you, be they the 750+ remote jobs, 180+ internships, or 30+ part-time positions available. We’ve published research that shows that Claremont-founded companies that disproportionately hire Claremont talent outperform — so pay attention Claremonsters!
As always, if any of these roles catch your eye 👀 , apply and mention Between the Lines. Or if you are an employer and are looking to hire tip-top Claremont talent, fill out this form to have your jobs featured.
🗣️ Conversations on the Interwebz:
This week’s top read 🔥
Living Carbon, founded by Maddie Hall (CMC), is on a mission is to responsibly rebalance the planet’s carbon cycle using the inherent power of plants. The thread below helps lay out how they’re doing it and you can read more about the scientific process here.
Everything else you need to know….📖
A fantastic thread on some of the characteristics of the best leaders, shared by investor and managing partner of Altos Ventures, Ho Nam (HMC).
Congratulations to the whole LanzaTech team and CEO Jennifer Holmgren (HMC) on their exciting plan to merge with AMCI Acq Corp and hit Wallstreet.
Daniel Kan (CMC), co-founder of Cruise, on how they’re saving people from the ride of shame with their autonomous taxi service.
Your Thursday dose of earth’s incredible beauty, courtesy of Patri Friedman (HMC) - the founder and General Partner at Pronomos Capital.
Can’t get enough Between the Lines? Follow and connect with us on Twitter!
🍽️ BTL Snacks:
🌳 A Very Peppy Poplar….. just might help fight climate change. On the heels of their $15M Series A round, Living Carbon - founded by Claremont’s Maddie Hall (CMC)- has announced their first experimental results. Their genetically enhanced poplars grew more than 1.5 times faster - allowing them to soak up more atmospheric carbon dioxide.
📺 The Most Magical Place On TV….. Disney just inked their first-ever third-party vendor partner deal with Samba TV. Samba TV, founded by Claremont alumnus Ashwin Navin (CMC), creates data at the heart of TV, powering a more scientific approach to advertising and a better viewing experience. Through the partnership, Disney will be able to provide their ad partners access to Samba's "True Reach and Frequency tool," which shows the number of people that watched a piece of content, even on different devices.
👩⚕️ New Kidney Engineering Tech….. Trestle Biotherapeutics, co-founded by Alice Chen (PO), just received a license from Harvard to commercialize a suite of stem cell- and 3D bioprinting-based kidney regenerative medicine technologies to continue to help patients suffering from types of organ failure.
🤓 10 Lessons I’ve Learned in 25 Years….. Neal Dempsey, former long-time CMC Board of Trustees Member, CMC parent, and investing legend shares some takeaways from a career in venture capital.
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