Harvard Business School Making a Difference Series
Austin Scee (MBA 2001) is the founder and CEO of Razorhorse Capital in Atlanta, Georgia. Starting in college and through his time at HBS, he volunteered as a mentor with Big Brothers, Big Sisters of America. In this interview, he talks about his experience and the impact it has had on one of his mentees, Michael Gandy (MBA 2016).
“I’m the oldest in my family—I have a younger sister—and so from a very early age I was a mentor in many ways. Just a natural progression.
“I had a Little Brother in college; I had a great experience with him. When I moved to Atlanta in 1996, I wanted to repeat that experience. It took about a year for me to get matched, but when they finally matched me with Mike, we just instantly clicked. He was a very quiet kid, but a very sweet kid. Smart, athletic. He just had no father in his life; he had no guidance.
“When he played baseball, he was 9 or 10 years old, he was the worst kid on the team because he’d never played baseball. He didn’t have a father to throw a baseball with. So, after practice he was crying, because he was aware that he was the worst person on the team. They stuck him into right-field; he couldn’t hit the ball. I said, ‘If you’ll commit to working with me every Saturday morning, I’ll teach you how to hit, I’ll teach you how to throw. You’ve got the talent to be one of the best players on this team.’
“So every Saturday we went out and threw a baseball. I taught him how to hit. By the end of the season, he was one of the best people on the team.
“For me, that’s when I saw that all this young man needed was somebody to point him in the right direction, and tell him that he could achieve some pretty amazing things. And so every year there were new goals that I put in front of him. And every time I put a goal in front of him, he rose to the occasion.
“He ended up getting admitted to HBS, and he actually graduated last week. It was one of the best experiences of my life. It showed me just what type of an impact I can have on another person’s life.”
