Courtesy: Angelina Massa
You’ve heard of HSA. I’ve heard of HSA. You might be renting one of their microfridges, or using their laundry service. Or maybe you’ve even taken their bar/mixology class. (I’ve taken it, and I highly recommend. I might not be old enough to drink, but I’m certified to make you a martini.) Harvard Student Association (HSA) is the largest student-run company not just at Harvard, not just in the United States, but in the world, and they employ more than 500 Harvard students each year. But progress doesn’t sleep; despite its success, HSA is still looking for new ways to improve itself and to expand, whether it is by launching new initiatives or improving upon the old. But these accomplishments don’t just belong to HSA–they belong specifically to the people there: each and every worker, and the leadership.
Meet Angelina Massa–she’s a junior in Quincy studying Applied Mathematics and Statistics with a secondary in Economics, a PAF for Matthews 4, a ballerina, and the first female president of HSA since Ryley Reynolds ‘15. For decades, centuries even, business has been a field dominated by men, especially higher up in the corporate ladder–forming a thick glass ceiling that many women can only look through. But there has been progress–whether it is the increasing number of women CEOs and executives, or the growing female politician population (and a potential female president), women have made many cracks in that glass ceiling. So we’re here today to talk to Angelina Massa a little about her experience as a woman in business.
HCH: I know you mentioned never thinking you would ever get really into business. And here you are, president of an organization that’s all about business. What do you enjoy about business? What about it makes you tick?
AM: To answer your question, I really enjoy the ownership and responsibility that comes with running a business. It can be difficult to face real risks and have real money on the line, but I love the challenge. I love working in teams and motivating other team members, and nothing is more rewarding than putting in a lot of hard work and long hours as a team and then meeting budgets and seeing tangible results at the end!
HCH: I see. And how did you get into HSA, specifically– what prompted you to join the organization and stick with it? And more specifically, what’s your favorite thing about it?
AM: I actually joined as an hourly employee during my freshman spring because I needed a part-time job. My roommate worked as a tutor for HSA Tutoring and convinced me to apply to the same position, which I held for about 5 months. At the beginning of my sophomore fall, I applied to be a manager through the HSA fall recruitment process, and I was given the opportunity to become the Partnerships Manager for HSA Tutoring—the same agency I had worked for before as an hourly employee. Working as an hourly employee and observing how my manager ran things was really what made me want to get more involved with HSA and apply to be a manager. I saw how much responsibility she had and how mature she was as just a freshman in college, and I wanted to see what that was like for myself!
After an amazing academic year working on partnerships, I became the Managing Director of HSA Tutoring starting this summer. HSA has really become the defining experience of my time at Harvard, so looking back, it’s crazy to think that I initially joined as an hourly employee on a whim when I needed some extra money.
What I love most about HSA is that it offers real business experience to undergraduate students. There is no better way to learn skills than by actually putting them into practice, and “learning by doing” is something that we really pride ourselves on at HSA. As managers, we have an incredible amount of autonomy to handle the business strategy for our agencies and to come up with our own new ideas and then use the resources that HSA provides to actually implement these ideas and see them all the way through to the final, tangible product.
HCH: Business really isn’t my thing, but you do make it sound quite amazing. So now, for the HSA specifica questions. Could you just briefly go into what HSA does, and what its goals are, as an organization or for its members?
HSA is the largest student-run company in the world—we have 15 different agencies and we employ more than 500 students on this campus each year! Our core values include providing experience for our managers and employees and offering products and services to the Harvard community and beyond. These are expressed in our mission statement:
“…to conduct and supervise enterprises for the benefit of students of Harvard University who are in need of financial assistance to defray the expenses of their education; to provide opportunities for such students to be gainfully employed; to study, cultivate, promote, and encourage new business ventures to afford additional employment opportunities for such students; to provide experience for its members.”
Our agencies and services range from retail to tutoring to bartending and everything in between, so we offer a wide variety of services and job opportunities to students on this campus. This year we are starting a tech agency, so we will offer more employment opportunities than ever before to students who are interested in tech, which we are very excited about!
HCH: Very impressive–and you have to be on top of it all. You’re the first woman president of HSA since Ryley Reynolds (’15). That’s a pretty big thing. It is often very common to see the leadership of clubs be predominantly male. Do you think that’s a pattern or issue? And if so, how should we go about understanding or trying to address it?
AM: Yes, I am so excited about this—I met up with Ryley last week and she is just such a great role model!
I can’t speak for every business club on campus, but it does seem like many of them have predominantly male leadership. Even through running recruitment for HSA managers over the past month I have seen significantly more men apply and go through the process than women. I think one factor that sometimes holds women back from applying for certain things is the feeling that they should only try things out when they have significant experience and can check off every single prerequisite or skill necessary to do the job. But at HSA, for example, most managers come in with no concrete business experience at all—we go through a lot of training and learn on the job. Everything is not about prior experience. Your attitude, confidence, and willingness to work hard and learn quickly goes such a long way. I would love to see more people, particularly women, come into this process with more confidence in themselves and their strengths and less concern about what their resumes might be lacking right now.
From my experience I have found that sometimes women will also be more hesitant to speak up in meetings or share their ideas at work. And of course that does not apply to everyone, but as a woman in a leadership position at HSA I want to do what I can to mentor other women through the kind of transformation in self-confidence that I have had while at HSA.
HCH: Yeah. I’ve definitely read an article about women being less confident when they apply for jobs. I’m really glad that you noted that. But it must have been a great experience to bond with Ryley–are there a lot of alum connections?
AM: Yes, we have an incredible alumni network! Alumni come back to give talks to our management team, mostly about what they have gone on to do in their careers after HSA. Many will also come back for big events like our annual Hail & Farewell event where outgoing managers are honored and incoming managers are welcomed to the community. This year will also mark the 60th anniversary of HSA, so we are already planning a big event for next October that many of the alumni will come back for!
HCH: 60 years! That’s a pretty long time. I imagine HSA must have been very different. How has HSA changed over time? And How do you see it in the next few years (after you graduate)?
AM: We are always looking to add new initiatives and agencies. This year, we will be starting up HSA Dev, a tech agency that will work on internal HSA tech projects as well as outside projects from local startups and businesses. I think that this will play a huge role in HSA’s growth and legitimacy in the next few years—it will be so important for us to keep our websites, apps, etc. up to industry standards in order to remain competitive, and HSA Dev will help us achieve this.
HM: Does HSA offer sort of internships or some sort of special event over the summer or winter?
AM: Yes, almost all of our management positions stay through the summer, so managers officially start their jobs on February 1st each year (beginning of the fiscal year) and end the following January 31st. We work full-time—40 hours a week—over the summer, which is always a highlight for managers. It’s so nice to be able to focus all of your energy on your job instead of having to think about classes, meetings, work, and homework all at once during the semester. All of a sudden having 40 hours a week to do your job instead of the 10 or 15 hours during the year also leaves time for managers to launch new initiatives and find ways to improve their agencies, so the summer is a big time for growth at HSA. The team also gets really close over the summer and gets together for everything from exercise classes to dinners to parties outside of work.
HCH: Sounds awesome. Alright. So last question. What is the biggest challenge that you’re facing or what is something you want to change?
AM: The toughest thing about HSA is that the entire management staff rotates every single year, so institutional memory is something that it is difficult to maintain. Making sure that information doesn’t slip through the cracks from year to year is a challenge that we constantly face.
HCH: Alright. Well those are all the questions I have. Thank you.