At St Margaret’s 2005-2009
After graduating from St Margaret’s, Lucy Shaw studied a Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering at the University of Melbourne. She began her career working at Boston Consulting Group, a global firm with a very strong social impact culture, firstly in Australia and then later in the US.
Most recently, Lucy was working in the international development sector in Africa and South America. While in Ethiopia she was a strategy manager with the government’s agricultural department, working with young professionals to develop and implement projects that could transform the agricultural value chain. In Kenya and Peru, Lucy was working in the private sector trying to improve the quality and reduce the cost of rural electricity providers.
In 2017, Lucy received an esteemed Fullbright Award, one of the most prestigious and selective scholarship programs in the world, to study at Harvard in the USA.
She is currently a double Masters candidate at Harvard, studying an MBA at Harvard Business School and taking a development economics Masters at the Kennedy School of Government. She is focusing on how both the public and private sector can join forces to enhance infrastructure and service provision in Africa, with an emphasis on the energy sector.
Reflecting on her St Margaret’s experience Lucy said: “It always strikes me that small moments in your high school years can have a big impact on you later on, even though you don’t realise it at the time. My teacher, Mr Cross, steering me towards an engineering degree led me to study in a logical, problem-oriented and pragmatic discipline in which I thrived. Mr Farrelly encouraging me to attend a science camp when I was 14 led to me making the decision to study in Melbourne at age 17. This experience also gave me confidence to join and later lead organisations that promoted science and engineering pathways to women and students from under-represented backgrounds. I don’t think I would be where I am today without these nudges while in high school that led to bolder decisions later in life, and I’m very excited by where the next bold decision will take me.”
Lucy was the recipient of St Margaret’s Young Past Student of Distinction Award in 2019.
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