Safa Mohamed (BSBA ’26) is sowing seeds for social impact and personal growth
By Margaret Farnham
Fisher College of Business
Beyond macroeconomics, corporate finance and risk management, Safa Mohamed’s time at Fisher offered another invaluable lesson: the impact of giving back.
“It’s what I wrote about in my homecoming essay, my Pace Setters essay and my Pace Setters speech,” she said. “This was my central theme during my time at Ohio State.”
Less than a month after graduation and just weeks before starting her career with PwC in New York City, Mohamed put her words into action during a month-long trip to Sinal do Vale, a center dedicated to reforestation and environmental sustainability in a heavily deforested region of Brazil.
As a volunteer, she planted saplings and shucked seeds in the nursery and worked on fundraising and women’s empowerment initiatives at the campus located in the Atlantic Forest 30 miles north of Rio de Janeiro.
“It’s essentially an education,” said Mohamed. “You pay to learn and be there.”
She financed her trip with scholarship money she received as part of the Robert E. Georges Senior Award, one of five special Pace Setter awards presented by Fisher annually. It is given to an outstanding fourth-year student who excels in academics, leadership and service.
Student Pace Setters are celebrated for their passion and purpose as Business Buckeyes — qualities that clearly define the recent grad.
“I’ve always been very passionate about social impact,” said Mohamed. “Even though I’m going to New York to be a consultant, I would like my life’s work to have some social impact meaning for me. I don’t know what that looks like yet; there are a lot of interesting things I’m still learning.”
She believes that her pursuit of a career in business and her desire to affect profound change will converge; in many ways, they already have.
She interned during her final semester as a consultant with Trailmark Strategies, advising and strategizing with philanthropists, nonprofit leaders and others seeking to direct their capital in meaningful ways.
“You’re responsible for millions of dollars and where they go and how they help,” she said.
As a student, she engaged in various impactful initiatives as part of Honors Cohort, Ohio State’s homecoming court and Buckeye Professional Advancement and Development, a professional development organization for students across all disciplines at the university.
“I gave and got the most I possibly could from Ohio State,” she said. “I feel very lucky. Things happened very serendipitously.”
She ended up at Sinal do Vale following a trip to Sao Palo and Rio de Janeiro with members of Honors Cohort in December 2025. The cohort has traveled to Brazil for the past seven years, giving students access to global business initiatives, different cultures and Fisher alumni who are working abroad.
“It’s really international exposure and understanding how different countries operate,” said Ty Shepfer, senior lecturer of management and human resources and director of Honors Cohort. “Brazil is still a developing country and behind in many ways. There is kind of a shock factor for students; it’s great because it gives students a mix of both worlds.”
During a day trip to Sinal with the cohort, Mohamed shared her professional goals and dreams with Thais Corral, founder and director of Sinal, who also co-chairs the advisory board for the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration.
“I had a conversation with her afterwards about the fact that I’m going into corporate consulting, and that I want to do impactful work,” said Mohamed. “She gave me really great insight, and we exchanged contact information.”
“After I got back, she reached out and told me I needed to come back and volunteer. Then, it was a matter of ‘How do I make this possible?’”
Within weeks of her return from that trip, and with Corral’s invitation top of mind, Mohamed learned she would be receiving the Georges Pace Setters Award.
“I feel sometimes that it was meant for this trip; it made it possible,” she said. “The timeline of everything was just perfect.”
Mohamed returned to Brazil in June and spent the month volunteering and learning from her 69-year-old mentor.
“I got to have so much time with Thais and soak up what she had to teach,” she said. “Sinal gave me way more than I could have given it.”
People from all backgrounds and ages come to Sinal’s living laboratory, known as a biohub, to work on reforestation projects and other sustainable solutions for the region. The campus provides immersive experiences for volunteers from around the world to raise awareness and support for their work.
Mohamed learned how programs like Sinal raise funds through ecotourism while preserving the environment and promoting sustainability.
“You’re not going for a luxury stay,” she said. “Businesses will go for retreats, and professionals might take time off to do a residency.”
In addition to her work in the nursery and with fundraising initiatives, she developed a proposal for a global consulting project for Fisher Impact Fellows, a program launched this summer that currently pairs Fisher students with nonprofit organizations in Columbus.
“Safa looked at how the program could work there, and Fisher’s Office of Global Business is evaluating her proposal now,” said Shepfer.
“It would be a consistent stream of revenue for Sinal, and students like me could come every year and learn,” said Mohamed.
She came to Fisher thinking a business degree would likely lead to a position in brand promotion, investment banking or a C-suite office, but her experience with Honors Cohort, extracurricular organizations and volunteering have presented her with a host of other possibilities.
“I have a technical finance background, so I can think practically, but at the same time I am a very heart-on-my-sleeve, starry-eyed kind of person,” she said. “My whole time in college was an exploration of how to join the public and private sectors to maximize what social impact looks like. I’ve always been curious about that intersection, and being at Sinal was a good way to explore that.”
She recently moved to New York City to begin work as a consulting associate with PwC. She doesn’t yet know the full scope of her responsibilities, but she is ready to learn and grow as her role with the company unfolds.
“The decision to be a consulting associate was hard for me, but I’m grateful for it in the sense that I’m building all of these skills and growing as a person,” she said. “It makes sense for me now.”
It’s clear that fundraising and giving back will continue to be a part of her plans. It always has been. As a member of the homecoming court, she was required to raise funds for a program or organization, and she chose Honors Cohort.
“It was my way of giving back,” she said. “I would love to get to a point where I make enough money to fund a scholarship. That would be such a dream.”
“What I like about the Buckeye culture is how willing people are to help others and pull others up. I think that really informed how I approach my professional life and the business world. You can learn all the technical skills; that’s not the hard part. I think the value of the time I spent in college came more from the people I met and the way they taught me to be resourceful, referred me to jobs and provided random little avenues of instruction. I was really lucky that it was a space where people believed in me and invested in me.”