Briana Buckles, MBA ’19, is global director of sustainability at Yogi, a holistic well-being company dedicated to crafting purposeful tea blends. She took the time to sit down with us to reflect on her time in the University of Oregon’s MBA program and the path that eventually led to her now seven-year career at the company. She also shared advice for current students who are navigating their early career.
From Mentorship to Full-Time Role
Briana’s MBA specialization was in sustainable business practices, and, due to her interest in international supply chain sustainability, she was able to find a mentor from Yogi during her second year in the program. After making a connection with the company’s sourcing director, she was hired part-time.
Yogi, located in Eugene, Oregon, is a tea company that sources its ingredients from across the globe. At the time Briana came on board, they didn’t yet have anyone in a full-time sustainability role. Briana, who had a passion for the work, ended up taking on those responsibilities herself and after graduating, moved into a full-time role as a sustainability manager.
Translating Passion into Career
For students who are finding it difficult to narrow down their interests into a suitable career, Briana advises getting exposure to the reality of those professions in the workplace. Meeting professionals in different roles and exploring various careers provides more insight than can be found in the classroom, allowing students to better understand and decide if it’s a path worth continuing.
Using her own experience as an example, Briana shared that data analysis is a big aspect of work in sustainability, a task that often falls to entry-level positions. Similarly, change management is another reality of the job.
“We talk a lot in formal sustainability courses about certifications and verifications and reporting and carbon accounting and all the science behind it, but the majority of my job is really change management,” Briana said. “At the end of the day, my entire job is convincing people to do something that they’re doing differently.”
Finding the Right Mentor
For those looking to get the most out of their professional connections, Briana’s advice is to dig deep.
As a student, she found the area of international supply chains to be especially compelling. Such goods as coffee, cocoa, sugar, and tea are typically sourced from regions half a world away from the companies that distribute them to consumers in the West. Throughout her time in the MBA program, Briana’s projects mostly revolved around these topics.
As a result of this specialized interest, Briana found that her networking connections were made more meaningful. It allowed her to establish rapport with people in the industry who had the same niche interests and were excited to talk about topics beyond general sustainability.
Briana also stressed the importance of finding the right mentor—one with whom the relationship doesn’t feel transactional, and one with whom a mentee can allow themselves to be vulnerable. A good mentor should also find it worthwhile to help their mentee find a role in which they thrive. After all, someone who cares about the future of their own profession will see their mentee’s success in the industry as vital to its continued success and growth.
Looking to Nature
When it comes to creating a workplace that feels welcoming for everyone, Briana shared that she often looks to the natural world. Ecosystems that thrive and are the most resilient in the face of change are typically those with a wealth of diversity in species. Similarly, a business with more diversity is one that is more creative, more inspired, and thus more able to find solutions to real challenges.