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In 2000, Senior Lecturer Gerald Chertavian (MBA 1992) founded Year Up United, a national nonprofit that works to close the opportunity divide by connecting young adults without four-year degrees to meaningful careers. The organization provides training, mentorship, and paid internships at leading employers like Harvard Business School, creating a pathway for overlooked talent into fields like technology, finance, and operations. Since their founding, they have served more than 50,000 young adults across the country. As Year Up United marks 25 years, we talked with Chertavian about the organization’s journey, his decision to step down as CEO and teach at HBS, and the lessons learned along the way.

Last fall, first-year MBA students at Harvard Business School arrived at their classroom under an unusual circumstance: they had purposely not read a case prior to class. Professor Tony Mayo dimmed the lights and played a short video clip of AMD CEO Lisa Su—Time magazine’s 2024 CEO of the year—describing a company on the verge of collapse and her early days confronting skepticism from customers, investors, and her own engineers. Mayo asked, “What would you do next?”