Emily Auerbach and Anna Kamerow

Emily Auerbach is a first-year MBA and MEM student at the Yale School of Management and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. Prior to Yale, Emily worked with over 100 chocolate and cocoa companies to develop and refine their sustainable sourcing strategies at the World Cocoa Foundation. A longtime advocate of sustainable business models, Emily has also worked as an urban farm and edible landscape designer and community-based food system advocate.

Anna Kamerow is a second-year MBA at the Yale School of Management. Before business school, Anna taught for two years at a traditional public middle school in Richmond, California. Later, she joined a charter organization as a founding teacher of a new school. Her work focused on both improving pedagogical practice within the classroom and creating broader, sustainable school systems for a rapidly scaling model. In the short term, Anna is interested in gaining private sector expertise through strategy consulting work. Her long term goal is to return to the education sector and implement sustainable interventions at scale.

Their WFF Seed Grant supports  a project called “The Present and Future of Spaces for Queer Women, Non-Binary, and Transgender Individuals,” which leverages market research techniques to analyze the landscape of spaces that serve the female-identified LGBTQ+ community. Through business owner interviews, customer focus groups, and a customer survey, their project seeks to understand the strategies of existing spaces; clarify community expectations around profit, community obligation, and inclusion; and outline the ideal characteristics of future spaces.  

Grant Title and Presentation: The Present and Future of Spaces for Queer Women, Non-Binary, and Transgender Individuals