Valerie Ramirez Mukherjee WG03 gets to know her audience when she speaks about her experiences as a first-generation, low-income (FGLI) student. “Raise your hand if you’ve been raised by a single mom,” she’ll say. “Raise your hand if you’ve almost been homeless as a kid.” Usually, nobody raises a hand. But when Ramirez Mukherjee visited Wharton in October as part of Lunchtime Legacies, a program through the offices of MBA Student Life and External Affairs, she was surprised at how many students shared their personal stories.
Since she graduated, Ramirez Mukherjee has taken paying-it-forward to another level, bringing awareness to how FGLI students often start out miles behind their peers. In 2019, she started the Ramirez Mukherjee Foundation, which creates a path for disadvantaged teens to attend four-year universities. She is also the founder and executive chair of MindStreet Inc., a digital health company with the mission to improve access to mental-health care.
During her visit to campus, Ramirez Mukherjee sat down with Wharton Magazine in Huntsman Hall’s bustling MBA Commons to share her empowering and “gritty” story.
Wharton Magazine: Students from the Wharton Graduate 1Gen Club attended your Lunchtime Legacies talk on campus. What do you hope they gained from it?
Valerie Ramirez Mukherjee: When they were introducing themselves, so many of the students — probably 50 percent, I’d say — were in the first-gen club. What I was telling them today is, “Let people know your background, and be proud of it.” They were proud of it. And I love that they were proud of it.
WM: You were a first-generation student yourself, at UC Berkeley, Columbia, and Wharton. What were some of the challenges you faced?
VRM: I was competing in a whole new environment where the students had a lot more experience and knowledge than I had. I had to up my game, but that’s no problem.
WM: I’m curious if your mother was an inspiration for that hard work.
VRM: Yes. She didn’t understand the path my brother [Gus Ramirez WG00] and I took, but she would always remind me — whatever you choose to do, set out to be number one. You may not get to number one, but try your hardest, be on time, work hard, and be humble.
WM: How have you channeled your own experience into your family’s organization, the Ramirez Mukherjee Foundation, which provides scholarships and mentoring for FGLI students?
VRM: When my son was in sixth grade, he loved building computers. I realized: If we can take his love for computer building with our desire to give back, how can we join those together? Coming from a poor background, I don’t really believe in handing things to people, because you don’t appreciate it as much versus doing the work yourself. So we launched our BYOC initiative — Build Your Own Computer. We invited eighth graders from a local underrepresented low-income school and would teach them how to build their own personal computers in a two-and-a-half-hour session. The pandemic hit, so we couldn’t do it in person, as initially planned. So instead, my son and I recorded a video, shipped the parts to the school, and that was how it started. Now, we set a budget, buy the parts, and then the students come in and build them. At the end, they plug it in, turn it on, and their eyes light up, like, “I built this.”
For many of these students, they don’t have a computer in their home, so they get to take it home, along with a mouse, a keyboard and a monitor. Then we ask them to come back and help teach the next classes to pay it forward. My daughter and I are expanding this initiative now to a four-hour session that includes a lunchtime healthy cooking program.
WM: Why do you think it’s still important for students to get a college degree?
VRM: The places I got to in life were because I came from these institutions. It shows someone is serious. It’s a big conversation right now in education: Is the degree important? The answer is yes. If you come from a wealthy family, maybe not, because you have that network. But if you don’t, it opens doors, and it gives you access to things that you can’t even imagine.
WM: Why is Wharton an ideal community for FGLI students?
VRM: Because you can just blend in. You have such a variety of people from around the world that you don’t have to feel like you’re out of place. And the people you’re going to meet — as smart as they are, they’re going to push you so far at that early age, and it’s going to make you better.
WM: What overlaps are there between the population you’re serving through the foundation and those you serve through MindStreet?
VRM: In high-income worlds, what I’ve found is, friends of mine were proud that their kids had multiple therapists to talk to. But in the low-income communities, if you try to say you need help, that’s a problem.
We don’t want to have any barriers to access. That’s why we did digital mental health — so that it’s private, accessible anytime, and at a fraction of the cost. You can do it from your device wherever you are and whenever.
WM: You were raised by a single mother in a low-income neighborhood and went on to earn three degrees from top universities, work in Wall Street and Silicon Valley, launch your family investment company, run for Congress, start a health tech company, and give back. What wisdom can you share with the Wharton community?
VRM: It’s like the book by [SAS psychology professor, Wharton OID professor and Rosa Lee and Egbert Chang Professor] Angela Duckworth, Grit. That would be the thing I tell people: Grit is first-generation, low-income kids. We had nothing growing up. So you figured it out.
Having the hardship in my life as a kid — I’m grateful for it now. I really believe it’s what gave me the entrepreneurial spirit, because I had the luxury to make my own choices from a young age. I’m not always going to get it perfect, but I’m not afraid to try. If you give people a chance to see their full potential without telling them they can or can’t do something, they’ll figure it out, and they’ll step up. So we’re continuing it with the next generation, which is fun.
