Creating Professional Opportunity from ‘the Beauty and the Brutality’

What do you want to do? Who do you want to be? Though commonly conflated, those are two separate questions, according to professor and pharmaceutical industry executive Kalahn Taylor-Clark, J99, MG01 (MPH).

“You don’t have to identify yourself only through your career. I did that for a long time [but] it’s incredibly limiting because we’re all so much more,” Taylor-Clark told a Tufts audience on the Medford/Somerville campus on December 2. 

“You should always pursue your passion, with the caveat that your ‘job’ may not be the only contributor to doing the ‘work’ that fuels your passion. Sometimes you just have to pay the rent. And that is not only ok, it is necessary—a job can help with that. But do not lose sight of the idea that your passion(s) can be fueled beyond a job," she said. "The 'work' to pursue your passion can be fueled through volunteering, board service, and committing to social, political or economic causes that you care about beyond the job you have. And if you are lucky enough to acquire a job that fuels your passion—even better. It’s about, holistically embracing, who you are."

Taylor-Clark is vice president and head of social impact and sustainability for Merck, an adjunct faculty member at the Carey Business School at Johns Hopkins University, and a Tufts trustee. She holds a Ph.D. in health policy from Harvard University.

She addressed the students as the inaugural speaker in the Industry Insights Series. Co-sponsored by the President’s Office and Career Center, Industry Insights will feature trustees and prominent alumni as well as leaders from among the university’s business and community partners and is designed to impart advice to students to help them prepare for success on the job market.

Here are four takeaways from the event—three takeaways formally presented by Taylor-Clark and one unscripted:

Your “why” matters more than your major. Significant personal losses have compelled Taylor-Clark to pursue her path in the health industry. In 1985, when Taylor-Clark was 8 years old, her father, 52, died of prostate cancer. She cites a lack of access to culturally appropriate care as contributing to her father’s loss: “We didn’t know what the options were for Black men at that time.” She later lost her mother to triple-negative breast cancer. 

“They’re my why,” she said, citing the loss of both her parents as inspiring her to pursue her degrees in public health and a career in the health industry. Now, of her work at Merck, she says that she stresses to colleagues the importance of thinking “first about the people and then about the profits … Find my mother, find my father, and the money will follow.”

Find the opportunity in the beauty and brutality of your experiences. From talks she gave earlier in her career at the NAACP, the Urban League, and elsewhere, Taylor-Clark recalled having exhorted her audiences to heed a statistic from the time: Black college-educated women have higher rates of infant mortality than white women with no eighth-grade education. 

In 2011, Taylor-Clark recalls that she became a victim of the statistics that she cited readily for others. That year, Taylor-Clark would lose her own infant daughter, Zora Grey, to meningitis, and eight months to the day later, she lost her mother to breast cancer. In the immediate aftermath of tremendous personal loss, her reevaluation of where she was professionally led her to change gears dramatically and become the director of health policy for the National Partnership for Women and Families and to teach health policy at George Mason University.

Taylor-Clark encouraged students to consider, when they, too, confront difficult—or tragic—circumstances, the impact on their way of thinking, and how they could go on to make something good from something terrible. 

“How can you create an opportunity from—I hope—the beauty as well as the brutality?” she asked. “You can plan all you want but things of life change you and put you in a different trajectory … You have to figure out what is the meaning for you.”

Celebrate and bring your unique skills to your work. From her early days as a Tufts trustee, Taylor-Clark recalled her nervousness and difficulty in finding her voice having been appointed as one of the youngest trustees in Tufts’ history. “My heart would palpitate. I couldn't talk,” she said. 

But when the university embarked on its institutional anti-racism efforts in 2020, Taylor-Clark recognized the opportunity to make a significant contribution. “I was able to talk about it and share exactly what I thought about it—I had authority,” she said.

“I know every single one of you knows what you're good at,” she said. “Keep bringing that to the table. Don't sit and worry about all the things you don't have; think about and worry about the things that you do have … It's really important that you own who you are and that you feel empowered to share that with the world.”

During Taylor-Clark’s remarks, a special guest, Professor of Political Science Pearl Robinson, joined the audience, clearly surprising—and delighting—the speaker. Pausing to greet her former professor, Taylor-Clark said of Robinson, “She was not just my mentor when I was in college. She was everything to me … she taught me how to think, how to analyze, how to be engaged … If you can find a professor or mentor like Pearl Robinson, you hit the jackpot.” 

Taylor-Clark—as well as Robinson—took the opportunity to exhort the attendees towards a fourth takeaway: the importance of seeking out mentors while at Tufts and beyond. “Mentors are there for your life, whether they’re in your field or not. They are someone you want to know you well and help guide you.” She noted that no one can do it alone. 

After the presentation, many students expressed relief and excitement to embark on a new way of thinking about their careers and their work. Information about the next offering in the Industry Insights series will be available on the Tufts Career Center website in the spring semester.