Why do I coach?

If you take the Blue Line to Wonderland Station, where the sea breeze of the Atlantic meets the smoke of Kelly’s Roast Beef, you’ll find a seaside city that lives just within the shadow of Harvard and MIT: Revere, the inner-city, a deeply impoverished underbelly of greater Boston. In Revere, dreams and reality are always conflated. Why? The ability to dream is not guaranteed to everyone. At Leland, I aim to rewrite that narrative. Growing up in Revere—and born to Moroccan, Muslim immigrant parents—the past was a rollercoaster of competing truths trying to come up like fish in water. I had always dreamed of building a connected world, of marrying my cultural identities, of telling the stories of others like me, but those dreams were often silenced. Never American enough for the Americans, never Moroccan enough for the Moroccans, never Muslim enough for the Muslims, and never Western enough for the West, with the damning identity of “poverty” slapped onto it all, my life became a rhythm: a rhythm of inner-city violence, diminishing returns, and numbing anger that translated into a low-performing high-school career and little promise for the future. I was not seen, not heard, not recognized, not wanted. The invisibility was deafening. In these types of environments, I learned, you have to choose whether to sink down into the shadows, or rise above the fray. I chose the latter. As an undergrad at Bentley University, I started by observing. In silence. I often took the metro car into Cambridge, just to hear what the students at the neighboring top business schools were talking about. I worked late nights in the underbelly of Harvard and MIT’s innovation lab, and listened to what the MBAs would say after their team meetings. (The way they spoke, what they said, how they thought about things would all form the foundation of my future graduate school essays.) I spent long years balancing at least two-part time jobs to make ends meet, all while imagining a life filled with higher education, where dreams and reality would somehow meet. I share this not to boast, but because this type of thing was simply necessary, as it is for so many in this country. Fast forward several years. I’m now completing a Masters in Management at IESE Business School. I’ve reconnected with my dream of building a more connected world, via education and technology. I’ve worked my way from Revere, a poor community, and Bentley, and non-target university, to a top business school (IESE) and Harvard Business School’s Summer Venture in Management Program. I’ve trotted the globe from Asia to Europe, worn my heart on my sleeve, and fought to be seen, heard, and recognized. I suppose you could say I’m wanted. Now that I’m here, of course, all I can think about are all the other people following in my footsteps, who are still unseen, unheard, and unrecognized. Someone has to want them. I’ve therefore started coaching others who, like me, come from underserved communities, but who still nurture dreams of top-rated higher education. I coach undergraduates, graduates, post-graduates, and professionals. I coach because I fundamentally believe that we need to democratize access to higher education; that education can break the cycle of poverty, uplift whole communities, and change the world. Take the Blue Line to Wonderland Station, and you’ll find that the streets of Revere are far removed from the halls of elite institutions like Harvard and MIT. With hard work, a little luck, and some coaching, an underserved kid from a bad neighborhood can make it just about anywhere. That’s why I coach.

Work Experience

Senior Associate

Nike

May 2021 - Present

Sabrina currently serves as an Insights Analyst II for the Data Product Management organization at Nike, working directly under Nike’s Chief Procurement Officer in establishing Nike’s end-to-end data governance ecosystem for EMEA (valued at $4B).

Consultant

Tableau

August 2021 - August 2022

Senior Consultant

Monsarrat - The Next Big Thing in Mobile AR Gaming

June 2020 - June 2021

Summer Intern Analyst

Google

March 2021 - May 2021

Head of Marketing

ME PER ME

December 2019 - August 2020

Enterprise Data Solutions Intern

Alibaba

August 2019 - December 2019

Consultant

Harvard Business School

December 2018 - May 2019

Education

Imperial College Business School

MSc in Strategic Marketing / Engaged with several admissions representatives , MSc in Strategic Marketing (Part-Time, Online)

2021 - 2023

Imperial is a leading public research institute in London, whose BSc, MSc, and MBA programming takes a very scientific approach to the management sciences, and as a result, pulls in accolades from all corners of the world, consistently ranked number one in their niches. As a successful applicant in their MSc in Strategic Marketing program, Sabrina has acquired an acute understanding of the end-to-end means with which Imperial identifies, attracts, selects, and retains global and local talent to their MSc programming, interacting with the director of the MSc in Strategic Marketing as well as with the Executive Director of the greater Imperial College Business School.

IESE Business School

Masters in Management (MiM) / Worked directly alongside admissions, MiM Masters in Management (Data & Analytics)

2020 - 2021

IESE Business School is a world-renowned business school in Europe whose MBA, EMBA, and MiM programs have been consistently ranked by the Financial Times as the best and leading graduate business school in Europe and globally. As an IESE Masters in Management candidate, Sabrina has worked alongside the Admissions Committees from the MBA and MiM programs (which are the same) to find, source, and improve the Admissions experience at IESE, collaborating directly alongside IESE’s dean Franz Heukamp.

Bentley College

Bachelor of Science, Global Service Operations & Supply Chain Management

2016 - 2020

Bentley University is an esteemed, Boston-based, business school focusing in the accounting, finance, and managerial sciences. As a Bentley University undergraduate who graduated as a part of the Top 10% of the 2020 graduating class, with Honors, Sabrina has worked alongside the Admissions Committees from the MBA, Masters, and undergraduate areas of Bentley, with a particular focus in diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI).

Harvard Business School

Non-Degree: Summer Venture in Management / Engaged directly with admissions committee, Summer Venture in Management (SVMP) Program

2019 - 2019

Harvard Business School’s SVMP (summer venture in management) program is a highly selective management training program for underrepresented, diverse talent to simulate the Harvard Business School (HBS) MBA student experience, engage in famous HBS casework methodologies, and develop a critical understanding of the 21st century’s developing business landscape, while constantly being evaluated by (and engaging with) HBS admissions counselors. Sabrina has spent the passed two years engaging with HBS admissions members, acquiring a deep, intimate understanding of the intricacies of the HBS MBA (both on a deferred MBA front, and for Traditional MBA applicants), successfully coaching colleagues into getting into Harvard Business School.

Sabrina was also personally admitted to

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  MIT Sloan