Grace Ueng: What stayed with me from my 35th Harvard Business School reunion

July 7, 2026 - 01:26

Thirty-five years after arriving at Harvard Business School as a nervous first-year student, Grace Ueng found herself standing at the front of the classroom leading a very different conversation. This time, she was not the one being grilled by a professor. Instead, she was the one asking the questions.

Ueng recently returned to campus for her 35th reunion. The experience, she says, was less about nostalgia and more about reflection. What stayed with her was not the case studies or the cold calls, but the quiet moments between the official events. She watched classmates who had built empires, raised families, and weathered personal storms. Some had lost spouses. Others had reinvented their careers entirely. The common thread, she noticed, was resilience.

One conversation stood out. A former classmate told her that the most important lesson from business school was not about profit margins or market share. It was about knowing when to walk away. That advice, she said, took decades to fully understand.

Ueng also observed a shift in priorities. At 25, her peers were obsessed with titles and salaries. At 60, they talked about purpose and health. The reunion, she realized, was a mirror. It showed her not just where her classmates had been, but where she still wanted to go. The biggest takeaway was simple: the best investments are not in stocks or startups, but in the people who show up for you over the long haul.