The FINAnCIAL — Oxford MBA alumnus Albert Cho has been awarded a White House Fellowship. Founded by President Lyndon B Johnson in 1964, the White House Fellowship programme is one of America’s most prestigious programmes for leadership and public service, and is designed to give recipients first-hand, high-level experience with the workings of the federal government.
Albert Cho most recently worked at Cisco Systems, where he directed environmental innovation projects and led development of a new approach for monitoring global deforestation. Prior to that, he was an Engagement Manager at McKinsey & Company, where he helped found the Sustainability and Resources Practice and advised clients in the aerospace, industrial, high tech and financial sectors on strategy and risk management. He has also worked at the United Nations with Jeffrey Sachs on a global plan for achieving the Millennium Development Goals.
Albert volunteers as a strategic advisor to the Nobel Prize-winning Green Belt Movement in Kenya and as a consultant to the World Resources Institute. He serves on the board of the Telluride Association, an educational non-profit organisation, and is a trained crisis hotline counsellor and hospice volunteer. He has lived, worked or travelled in over 70 countries, including a year supporting financial sector reform in North Africa. As a Rhodes Scholar at Oxford, he received an MSc in Development Economics and an MBA with distinction from Oxford.
Individuals selected as White House Fellows typically spend a year working as a full-time, paid assistants to senior White House staff, cabinet secretaries and other top-ranking government officials. Fellows also participate in an education programme consisting of roundtable discussions with renowned leaders from the private and public sectors, and trips to study US policy in action both domestically and internationally. The selection process is very competitive and there can be as many as 1,000 applicants for under 20 fellowships.
The programme has fostered leaders in many fields, including Former Secretary of State Colin Powell, Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao, former CNN President Tom Johnson, and United Nations Foundation President and Former US Senator Timothy Wirth. Sarita James, another Oxford MBA alumna, was appointed a White House Fellow in 2008.
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