Zachary Harrison

I work at Amazon.com as a manager in Operations. During my time outside of work, I am also a student at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business where I study Finance, Strategic Management, and Analytic Management as part of an international MBA program. My second language is Mandarin Chinese - a skillset that I earned during my 14 years of service in the US Army.

My long-range goal is to work in Africa to help Chinese and US companies compete and cooperate to develop the continent. By 2015, China's investments in Africa are expected to reach $50 billion with over $300 billion in bilateral trade. The roadmap for Africa's development will intersect both the US and China. A 2011 Brookings Institute report outlined an assertive effort by the US to develop sub-Saharan countries in the next decade; meanwhile, China's economic growth is pacing its ambitious expansion into Africa but China admits a dearth of managers. Ultimately, I want to become a General Manager for a transnational company with a social conscience seeking to secure a solid footprint and profitability in Africa.

I want to spend the rest of my life positively impacting people and cultures. Along the way, I hope to meet good people are are equally ambitious as I am to change the world for the betterment of all of us.

"If you control a man's thinking you do not have to worry about his action. When you determine what a man shall think you do not have to concern yourself about what he will do. If you make a person feel that he/she is inferior, you do not have to compel him/her to accept an inferior status, he/she will seek for it. If you make a person think he/she is a justly outcast, you do not have to order that person to the back door, that person will go without being told, and if there is no back door, the very nature of that person will demand one." - Carter Godwin Woodson