Full-time UST MBA

Meet Kate Herzog '09 M.B.A.

Founder and CEO, House of Talents

I spent my early years living in someone’s garage with my parents and three other siblings in Accra, the capital city of Ghana. When I was seven, my dad secured a job as the headmaster of a secondary school in a village close to our hometown; this is where I spent most of my childhood and teenage years. In this village we had a house and wide spaces. We grew our food and raised our own chickens, turkeys and rabbits.

I learned to read at the age of 10 or 11 through the generous gift of books given to us by an American I only know as “Davis.” Davis was an anthropology student from California pursuing his master’s degree in Ghana. He didn’t seem to have much; he stayed with us for a short time, took pictures of my family and left.

Later in the mail we received from him the first colored pictures ever seen in the village and our first series books, The Adventures of Tintin. It is during this stage that I recall bringing a bigger brush and more colors to the canvas of my dreams and aspirations by traveling with Tintin and his dog Snowy to the wider world that existed beyond that village. I have traveled far with the gift of Davis’ books and I thank him and the many Davis’ who do the best they can and are not deterred by doubts that their gift perhaps might be too small to make a difference.

I didn’t expect to have an M.B.A. and now I have a hard-earned UST MBA degree.  I am living one of my childhood dreams to build an organization that makes a dent in alleviating poverty. At House of Talents, we connect talented artisans in developing countries to consumers worldwide so that, by their work, they may construct the lives they envision for themselves.  We do this for them and for ourselves, borne out of the knowledge that whenever we open our hands to give we do receive more in return – we do this for everyone’s wellbeing.