Communications & Marketing Professional
Elevating Brands, Businesses, and Mission-driven Initiatives Through Transformative Storytelling
In response to emerging global challenges and evolving stakeholder needs during the 2020-2021 academic year, I was entrusted with envisioning a new future direction for the NYU Leadership Initiative department. My successful pitch to senior leadership, presented here in an abridged version, marks the beginning of a new and transformative chapter for the organization. This strategic shift has since proven to align seamlessly with the needs of today's students, alumni, donors, and senior leaders.
To craft the proposal, I leveraged qualitative and quantitative feedback from key audience segments, facilitated targeted listening sessions with a diverse cross-section of students and alumni, and conducted extensive market research on industry trends, examining peer institution landscapes and analyzing employment and career trends relevant to our domain. I delved into research on the professional and career preferences of Gen Z, with a focus on their inclinations towards social impact.
Relying upon my research and guided by my creative vision, I presented the proposal to senior leadership, securing board investment and increasing the department’s team personnel by 160%, along with substantial funding for new and innovative programming.
In 2023, I spearheaded the complete repositioning of the NYU Leadership Initiative brand to the newly created NYU Changemaker Center in order to address evolving stakeholder needs, audience feedback, and industry trends.
The main challenge here was to create a visual look that appealed to our audience who were familiar with the old brand, while also showing growth and change to match the department's new name and mission.
In partnership with the NYU Marketing and Communications team, I oversaw the entire process from original visioning to the final brand refresh with distinctive visual and editorial language, including updated positioning statements, art direction, copywriting, videography, and asset creation.
This style guide showcases the strategy and design process behind the visual refresh and is now used to guide the Changemaker Center team members and partners as a reference when creating content or materials for the brand.
NYU Changemaker Brand in Action
Before the start of the academic year, I engage in cross-functional collaboration with programmatic leads to jointly define precise data parameters and establish key performance indicators aligned with our organizational objectives.
Through detailed analysis, I distill extensive data into meaningful insights for a semiannual report shared with stakeholders, including students, alumni, University senior leadership, existing and potential donors, the board of directors, and other campus partners.
This example is an abridged version of 2023 End of Year Report which showcases the department's growth and key initiatives. This report stands as a visual and narrative example of the seamless integration of branding elements, data visualization, and storytelling to provide a comprehensive overview of the organization's impact and successes.
Writing Samples
Blog Post
Leadership Spotlight on Musa Malik
Name: Musa Malik
School: NYU Shanghai, majoring in Neuroscience
Graduation Year: 2020
Participation with NYU Leadership Initiative: NYU Leadership Fellow, Class of 2019
“The most wondrous thing that could ever happen in this world is that all around us people can be dying and we don’t realize it can happen to us.” -Mahabharata
For CAS junior Musa Malik, empathy isn’t something you do, it is a way of life. Musa’s story is an example of what you can achieve when you stop viewing difference as a barrier and instead view it as an opportunity.
Musa was born and raised in Islamabad, Pakistan as the youngest of three brothers. He describes himself, from an early age, as “always being a strong advocate of protecting minorities in any community.” He did not waste any time in turning this passion into substantive work, celebrating his 18th birthday by launching Pirangi, a charity organization focused on assisting economically disadvantaged children in Pakistan, who are often unable to access proper medical attention.
As this initiative grew, Musa observed a growing need for support of minority groups. With this in mind, he re-oriented the vision of Pirangi to focus on the protection of religious minority groups, working actively during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and helping large Christian families living in the underserved populations of Pakistan.
Musa also served as the Youth Ambassador to China from the Pakistan National Youth Assembly, and is currently serving as the Youth Director for International Affairs, where he carries out multiple cross-cultural youth programs that educate and expose young Pakistanis to an ever evolving international community.
Musa’s vision of cross-cultural exchange and empathy is a global one.”There is a moral degradation in today’s society,” he explains, “and the root cause of that moral degradation has been the rampant dehumanization of communities by political and religious bigots all around the world. When humans are reduced to everyday stereotypes and media labels in the eyes of one another, humanity has no room to survive. I want to try and encourage people to think about the positives of engaging on the state of humanity across cultural, religious and ethnic divides.”
This passion for dialogue across difference motivated Musa to found “Humans”, a street portraiture mobile application inspired by the popularity of Humans of New York and the many spin off “Humans of…” pages online. Musa celebrated the popularity of such pages as signaling the start of a global online revolution. He also recognized that with the overflow of content aggregated daily across several social media platforms, many inspirational stories were getting lost in the fray. He saw a need for a single platform dedicated to the theme of human portraiture. The vision for the “Humans’ app is rooted in the transformative power of storytelling as a bridge across cultural divisions. “Storytelling is the most ancient form of art,” he explains, “and these global stories not only help break stereotypes of different communities but also serve as an alternative lens to understand people from the perspective of unbiased media labels. Human portraiture highlights vulnerable moments of pure emotion that allows readers to connect with one another, and I believe that the truest form of love, beauty and compassion lie in those little moments.”
Although he came to the program with an already impressive resume, Musa credits the NYU Leadership Initiative with helping him to crystallize his vision and giving him the tools needed to turn his value of empathy into a leadership purpose and approach.
“The Leadership Initiative helped me assess myself in a completely different way” Musa explained. In the fellowship he experienced “collaborating as a first amongst equals, all working within a web of mutual accountability. The eventual goal is to create a team of leaders. The strongest teams are those in which more members inspire, support, challenge and hold each other accountable.”
One particular lesson Musa carries with him is the importance of developing a personal narrative. “I think people today are becoming more and more receptive to authenticity,” he says, “Defining a personal narrative is certainly important for you to to understand the values and principles you stand upon. If you do not know where you yourself come from, where you are now, or where you are headed, how will you be able to align your targets authentically or effectively? This self-awareness helps ground those beliefs that can guide you throughout your adult life.”
What is Musa’s advice for having difficult and fruitful conversations in today’s polarized climate?
“Put yourself in the shoes of another. If you really do it, if you really try and immerse yourself in the perspectives of others, you begin to realize the shared aspects that make you one of them, and them one of you.”
Thank you Musa for sharing your story, insights, and advice! We can’t wait to see what’s next for you!
And now, just for fun…
Favorite Quote: “Sometimes life is going to hit you in the head with a brick. Don’t Lose Faith.” -Steve Jobs
Guilty Pleasure: “I’m a Belieber”
Hidden Talent: Singing pop ballads
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Interested in joining a supportive peer and mentor network to build your leadership capacity?
Make sure to learn about the NYU Leadership Fellows Program! The NYU Leadership Fellows Program, a year-long fellowship for rising sophomores and juniors, equips you with the skills needed to turn vision into reality, giving you a competitive edge as you pursue your academic and professional goals. Applications are due by May 1. Start your application here: bit.ly/nyuuglf!
Want to nominate a person or group for the next spotlight feature?
If you would like to nominate an individual, pair or group of students to be featured in our #LeadershipSpotlight series, simply email leadershipinitiative@nyu.edu with a name and email as well as two to three sentences about how your nominee(s) is practicing ethical, collaborative, and inclusive leadership!