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Columbia CollEgE Today CLASS NOTES
raji Kalra ’97 Finds Fulfillment in Finance for nonprofits
the stairwell in the construction
site is pitch
black. The lights have
burned out. But Raji Kalra ’97,
’04 Business wants to go to
the second floor, where by this
fall the Museum for African
Art’s main gallery will be. Her
cell phone screen isn’t bright
enough, so she borrows a hotdog-sized
LED flashlight from a
construction worker and enters
the darkness.
“This is kind of an adventure,”
she says.
Kalra is the CFO of the New
York museum. She manages
the day-to-day funds and makes
sure the museum operations
are sustainable. But since taking
the position in June 2010,
the most significant aspect of
the job has been overseeing
the capital financing of the museum’s
first self-owned location
in its 27 years of existence. In
previous years, the museum
occupied rented space, first
on the Upper East Side, then in
SoHo and most recently in Long
Island City, Queens.
“To say that I was part of
this groundbreaking event by
managing the costs is really
exciting,” Kalra says.
Scheduled to open this fall,
the museum will sit off the
northeast corner of Central
Park, “where Museum Mile and
Harlem meet,” Kalra notes. She
holds in her left arm a stack of
placards that show renderings
of what the museum will look
like. In one image, the main entranceway
opens to a tall room
with large, mullioned windows
on one side and a curving wall
of light brown African wood on
the other.
“We’re not sure if it’s technically
feasible, but if it is, we’re
going to do it,” she says of the
bending wall.
Kalra is familiar with the
nuances of overseeing new
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projects. After graduating with
a double major in economics
and political science, her plan,
she says, was to enter private
industry, retire early and then
teach. But she also did volunteer
work, and during the next
three years, she came to a lifealtering
conclusion: Working in
the private sector did not give
her enough time and energy to
volunteer.
“I got a lot of fulfillment and
pleasure from volunteering and
I thought, ‘Why can’t I do that
full time?’ ” Kalra says.
She decided to return to
school to better position herself
for a job in nonprofit finance.
Kalra spent the next three years
getting an M.B.A at the Business
School and a master’s in international
policy at Johns Hopkins
through a dual degree program.
In 2006, Kalra became the
first director of finance in New
York City for the Knowledge
Is Power Program, a national
network of public schools.
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B y aL B e r t sa m a h a ’11J
Raji Kalra ’97, CFO of the Museum for African Art, stands at the site
of the museum’s new East Harlem home, slated to open this fall.
PhOTO: ALBERT SAMAhA ’11J
MAY/JUNE 2011
73
Then she joined a consulting
firm that took part in the openings
of eight schools ranging
from elementary to high school
in post-Katrina New Orleans.
Afterward, she was hired by
Harlem RBI, a nonprofit youth
development center in East
Harlem, as it sought to launch
its charter school in 2007. All
in all, 11 new schools opened
under Kalra’s watch.
“It takes guts to change careers,
especially from finance to
nonprofit. That says a lot about
Raji’s character. I respect that,”
says Joy Lin ’97, who was on
Columbia’s student council with
Kalra.
It is a courage that was mold-
ed during Kalra’s time on campus.
While she fondly remembers
favorite classes, such as Professor
David Downie’s “Economics
of the Environment” and University
Professor Jagdish Bhagwati’s
“International Monetary
Theory and Policy,” perhaps her
most rewarding experience took
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umbia.edu/2001mobile.
annie lainer Marquit and
Jonathan Marquit were married
place inside the residence halls.
When Kalra moved onto cam-
pus at the start of her first year,
many of her classmates had
already befriended each other at
pre-orientation events. The social
circles had already formed,
it seemed, and she wasn’t sure
how she was going to make
friends.
“I cried my first two days of college,”
she admits with a chuckle.
Kalra’s mother told her to
knock on every door on her
dorm’s floor and introduce herself.
“I definitely was not going
to do that,” Kalra says. “So I did
the next best thing.”
There was a TV in a lounge at
the end of her hallway. Nearly
every day for the next two weeks
she sat by that TV and let the
friends come to her. It worked.
She got to know everybody. She
became class v.p. her freshman
and sophomore years and class
president her final two years.
“Raji is genuinely interested
in people,” says Lin. “She really
brings people together. She’s
always giving.”
Seventeen years later, it’s
hard to imagine Kalra anxiously
sitting by the TV. She glides
across the cold concrete floor
of the construction site, toward
a pair of glass doors that lead to
a patio area. She tries to push
one open but it won’t move.
The doors have been blocked
by several inches of packed
snow. She pushes harder, really
leans into the door and finally
plows it open. It is freezing,
raining and slushy outside, but
Kalra doesn’t seem to notice.
She walks to the ledge of the
patio and breathes in the view.
Albert Samaha ’11J writes
primarily about social justice.
His work has been featured in
publications such as City Limits,
Examiner.com, Philippine Headlines
and CollegeFanz.com.
on January 16 in Los Angeles at
the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly
Hills. It was a spectacular wedding,
and I was fortunate to be
one of the many Columbians in