Alumni: Recent Alumni Transformational Leadership Award

Meg Rudy MBA '22

Principal, DRK Foundation

Meg Rudy is a Principal at DRK Foundation, where she works to identify and support innovative social entrepreneurs tackling some of the world's most pressing challenges. Prior to DRK, Meg spent six years developing and scaling education programs at Purpose in Motion, a China-based social enterprise empowering young people as changemakers. She also served as a REDF Farber Fellow, developing a scaling strategy for a tech recycling social enterprise, and as an Impact Investing Fellow at CapShift, sourcing and evaluating impact investments for donor-advised funds.

At Fuqua, Meg co-chaired the CASE Impact Investing Initiative and led a project for a community development bank focused on expanding growth capital for BIPOC-led small businesses in the Southeast. She holds an MBA from Duke's Fuqua School of Business and a B.A. in History from Grinnell College. Meg lives in San Francisco with her husband, where on any given weekend you can find her trail running, pranking friends, or hunting for the freshest organic produce at Rainbow Grocery.

What impact has your Fuqua experience had on your career/life?

Fuqua gave me the space to explore impact investing and discover my place in it. I came in with so many questions and left with a clearer sense of the work I wanted to do and why. But the best thing it gave me wasn't a framework or an answer. It was a group of friends, peers, and mentors I deeply admire and with whom I was able to explore alongside. I'm still learning from them today.

Professionally or personally, what are you excited about right now?

The housing affordability crisis sits at the intersection of so much of what drives me: economic opportunity and community. I've been working on it both professionally at DRK and locally in San Francisco with D9 Neighbors for Housing. What energizes me most is seeing how much ordinary people can move the needle when they get engaged—on zoning decisions, on neighborhood plans, and on what kind of city we want to build together.

What does Team Fuqua mean to you?

Team Fuqua has become a reminder for me that none of us got here alone. Someone made time for a coffee chat with us, opened a door, or challenged us in ways that made us better leaders. I try to remember that and do the same for others.