Anit Gupta, a 2009 graduate of Goizueta’s full-time MBA program, reflects on building a global community of changemakers—and why bringing the North America chapter to his alma mater feels like coming home. Images courtesy of Anit Gupta and the Global Sustainability Awards.
When Anit Gupta 09MBA arrived at Goizueta Business School in 2007, he was focused on becoming a better business leader. Nearly two decades later, his career has spanned technology, consulting, corporate strategy, entrepreneurship, and social impact. Now, one of the initiatives he has helped build is bringing him back to where that journey began.
On September 12, Goizueta will host the North America chapter of the Global Sustainability Awards, an initiative co-founded by Gupta and Ritu Malhotra to recognize students, educators, organizations, entrepreneurs, and other changemakers putting sustainability into action.
Launched in 2021, the Global Sustainability Awards have drawn participation from more than 20 countries and recognized more than 600 recipients across a range of categories. The initiative has an ambitious long-term goal: creating 100 million changemakers through 100 chapters in 100 cities by 2030.
For Gupta, bringing the event to Goizueta is both a homecoming and an opportunity to connect the work he is doing today with lessons and relationships that began during his MBA experience.
“The Global Sustainability Awards coming back to Goizueta is, in many ways, a full-circle moment for me,” Gupta says. “I came to Atlanta in 2007 to learn how to become a better business leader. Today, I am returning with an initiative that is trying to answer a much bigger question: How can we use leadership to make the world better?”
Ahead of the event, Gupta shares the story behind the Global Sustainability Awards, how his Goizueta connections helped bring the initiative to Atlanta, and why he believes business education has an important role to play in building a more sustainable future.
What inspired you to launch the Global Sustainability Awards, and what problem were you trying to solve?
The Global Sustainability Awards were born from a simple but powerful realization: recognition leads to repeatability. We are all aware of the problems our planet faces, but awareness doesn’t necessarily translate into action. Recognition, on the other hand, really inspires people to keep taking positive actions for the planet.
My co-founder Ritu Malhotra and I wanted to create a platform that would not simply celebrate sustainability as an idea, but recognize the people actually putting it into action. We began by focusing on educators and students because we believe lasting change starts with education and with young people developing the confidence to see themselves as changemakers.
Our larger vision is to create 100 million changemakers through 100 chapters in 100 cities by 2030.
The problem we are trying to solve is not a lack of good ideas. It is the lack of visibility, recognition, connection, and scale for people who are already doing extraordinary work. We want to help turn individual acts of change into a global movement.
You earned your MBA at Goizueta in 2009. How did your experience here influence your commitment to sustainability and social impact?
My time at Goizueta shaped much more than my business career. It taught me to look at business not simply as a mechanism for creating financial value, but as a powerful platform for creating value for society.
Goizueta’s close-knit community and core values helped me look at problems from multiple perspectives. That mindset has stayed with me.
But perhaps even more important than the classroom were the relationships. Goizueta has an extraordinary culture of connecting people around ideas and purpose. Many years later, those relationships continue to create opportunities for collaboration.
The Global Sustainability Awards coming back to Goizueta is, in many ways, a full-circle moment for me. I came to Atlanta in 2007 to learn how to become a better business leader. Today, I am returning with an initiative that is trying to answer a much bigger question: How can we use leadership to make the world better?
Why is it special to bring the North America chapter to your alma mater?
It is deeply personal.
Goizueta was an important part of my own transformation. It gave me knowledge, confidence, friendships, and a global perspective. To now bring the Global Sustainability Awards to the same campus feels like bringing a part of my journey back home.
But there is also a larger significance. Goizueta represents the intersection of business, leadership, innovation, and societal impact. Those are exactly the values we want the Global Sustainability Awards to bring together.
I also love the symbolism of having students, educators, entrepreneurs, alumni, and changemakers come together at a business school to talk about sustainability. The future of sustainability will require business leaders, and the future of business leadership must include sustainability.
So for me, this is not simply an awards event being held at my alma mater. It is a conversation about the kind of leaders we want to create for the future, taking place at a place that played a significant role in creating me as a leader.
Several members of the Goizueta community—including Professor Jagdish Sheth and Brian Goebel—played a role in bringing this event to Atlanta. How did those relationships help turn your vision into reality?
This is one of my favorite parts of the story because it demonstrates the power of relationships.
The conversation began with Professor Jagdish Sheth, whose encouragement and belief in the initiative gave us an important opening. Professor Sheth introduced me to Dr. Paul Lopez of TiE Atlanta, and that introduction became an important bridge between the Global Sustainability Awards and the Atlanta ecosystem.
Then there was Brian Goebel, my Goizueta MBA classmate from 2009, who today serves as managing director of the Business & Society Institute at Goizueta. Brian immediately understood the alignment between what we were trying to build and Goizueta’s commitment to business and society.
Each person played a different role, but the common thread was trust.
This is what makes the Goizueta community special. Sometimes an idea needs resources, sometimes it needs an introduction, and sometimes it simply needs someone to say, “I believe in this, and I will help.”
In this case, those connections helped transform an idea into an event that will bring a global sustainability community to Atlanta.
The awards recognize educators, students and changemakers working toward the UN Sustainable Development Goals. What kinds of impact or stories have inspired you most through this work?
The stories that inspire me most are not necessarily the ones with the biggest budgets or the largest organizations behind them. They are often the stories of ordinary people who looked at a problem around them and decided they could do something about it.
We have seen students turning waste into useful products, educators integrating sustainability into everyday learning, schools mobilizing their communities, and young people developing solutions to environmental and social challenges.
What is particularly inspiring is the change in mindset we see in young people. A child who plants a tree, a student who starts a recycling initiative, or a young person who teaches their family about sustainability may appear to be doing something small. But that person is beginning to see themselves not as someone waiting for change, but as someone capable of creating it.
That is the real purpose of the awards. The trophy or certificate is not the destination. It is recognition that says, “What you are doing matters. Keep going. And inspire someone else to do the same.”
Business schools are increasingly focused on preparing leaders to address society’s biggest challenges. What role do you believe business education should play in advancing sustainability?
I believe business schools have a responsibility to move sustainability from the margins of business education to the center of leadership education.
The world’s biggest challenges—climate change, inequality, resource scarcity, access to education, and sustainable development—are not problems that governments or NGOs can solve alone. Business has enormous resources, innovation capabilities, and the ability to scale solutions.
Future business leaders therefore need to understand not only how to create shareholder value, but how to create shared value.
Business education should teach students to ask three questions alongside the traditional questions of growth and profitability:
What value are we creating? For whom? And what impact are we having on the planet?
I would also like to see more opportunities for students to work on real-world sustainability challenges, engage with changemakers, and understand that people, profits, and planet can and should go hand in hand.
What do you hope attendees will take away from the Global Sustainability Awards?
I hope they leave inspired, but I want them to leave with something more powerful than inspiration: a sense of personal responsibility and possibility.
I want every person in the room to think, “What can I do?”
The event will celebrate people who are already creating change, but it should also make everyone understand that they do not need to wait for permission, a large organization, or a huge amount of money to become a changemaker.
I also hope attendees discover people they can collaborate with. One of our ambitions is to build a global network where awardees, educators, students, entrepreneurs, NGOs, and institutions can learn from one another and amplify their collective impact.
Ultimately, I hope people leave believing that sustainability is not someone else’s responsibility.
It is all of our responsibility, and every one of us can be part of the solution.
Why should members of the Goizueta community join you on September 12?
September 12 will be much more than an awards ceremony.
It will bring together an extraordinary mix of people—sustainability leaders, educators, students, entrepreneurs, and academicians—all connected by a common belief that positive change is possible.
Attendees can expect powerful stories, meaningful conversations, and the opportunity to meet people who are doing remarkable work across different parts of the sustainability ecosystem.
But most importantly, I think they will experience hope.
There is so much conversation today about the challenges facing our planet. The Global Sustainability Awards shifts the conversation toward the people who are actually doing something about those challenges.
And there is something particularly meaningful about experiencing this at Goizueta.
For me, returning to the school where I earned my MBA and seeing the campus filled with people working toward a more sustainable future will be a very special moment.
I would encourage anyone who cares about leadership, education, sustainability, or simply making a difference to be in the room.
Come to celebrate the changemakers. Come to meet the community. And perhaps most importantly, come to discover the changemaker in yourself.
The North America chapter of the Global Sustainability Awards comes to Goizueta Business School on September 12. Learn more about the event and how to participate.
At Goizueta’s Business & Society Institute, students, faculty, and partners work together to address complex challenges at the intersection of business and society. Learn more about the Institute’s work and impact.
