Kamehameha Schools

Alex worked for the Strategy Intelligence team at Kamehameha Schools, a group dedicated to ensuring KS remains futures-ready as it educates the next generation of Native Hawaiian leaders and works for the wellbeing of the Native Hawaiian people. As one of the largest private landowners in Hawaiʻi, one of the largest Native Hawaiian organizations, and an organization that manages a multi-billion-dollar trust, Kamehameha Schools has deep kuleana (responsibility) to the Native Hawaiian people. Alex’s work on the Strategy Intelligence team gave him a front-row seat to many different projects, initiatives, and issues facing KS and its communities. He contributed to research involving Native Hawaiian leadership, the impact of COVID-19 on Native Hawaiian communities, measures of Hawaiian economic wellbeing, early childhood education funding, affordable housing, and more. One of his most impactful research projects—the costs, benefits, challenges, and opportunities of hybrid and remote work and how KS employees felt about their current work-from-home arrangements and potential future work arrangements—played a key role in shaping the new hybrid work model of his team and department as they transition out of the pandemic. A key focus for KS in the summer Alex completed his field placement was how the organization and its employees could develop and apply foresight to develop, test, and adapt strategies that advance a thriving lāhui. Foresight can be defined as insight into how and why the future can be different from today. Alexʻs field placement gave him a unique opportunity to develop foresight skills and apply them in an Indigenous context.

 “My time with Kamehameha Schools really gave me a chance to demonstrate so many of the competencies I developed in the MDP program. But beyond that, the chance to live and work in Hawaiʻi on behalf of my own people is something I will always cherish. Like my mom says every time she visits the islands, ‘when I’m here, my blood sings.’”