Jacobs Social Entrepreneur Fellow

Mercy Kavivi Ndambuki

MIT Sloan

Mercy is a second-year MBA candidate at MIT Sloan School of Management. Prior to Sloan, Mercy worked in product strategy at MarkLogic, a database start-up in California, where she helped shape the marketing strategy of the company’s flagship database product. As a Kenyan native, Mercy has always been passionate about advancing education equity and access in the developing world. To that end, she interned as a pre-MBA fellow at Nova Pioneer, an independent system of primary and secondary schools in Kenya and South Africa, where she helped the school identify the next seven counties for school expansion in 2020.

Mercy holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from Princeton University. During her time at MIT Sloan, Mercy founded Mbavu, a workforce development company focused on upskilling entry-level employees at mid-sized, private organizations in Kenya. Mbavu’s ultimate goal is to increase Kenyan workers’ productivity, retention and mobility by helping these employees develop and apply 21st century skills on the job. To that end, Mbavu is focused on equipping entry-level employees with the proper communication, problem solving, team work and project management skills needed to excel and deliver significant impact to businesses.

Mercy looks forward to leveraging Jacobs’ research to inform her approach to soft skills development in Africa. She is also excited to learn how to scale education-based ventures in the developing world and engage government support from her Jacobs’ network.