Amanda Fritz ’12, recent graduate of the Columbia Business School, is one of 14 students across the globe chosen for the 2023 Business Program of the Fellowship at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FAPSE). The program will take place in Germany and Poland over the course of two weeks this summer and will focus on ethical problems faced by individual business professionals in the various settings in which they practice using the conduct of business professionals in Nazi-occupied Europe as a way to reflect on business ethics today.

“The aim of the fellowship is to analyze business ethics against the backdrop of the Holocaust and to look at what went into the atrocities that occurred— why did they happen and how could they have been prevented,” relayed Fritz. “I think that, for me, the most applicable aspect is to look at the role of the everyday citizen. In terms of the business world, it really makes you think. When I start my career after business school, I might be put in a position where an authoritative figure tells me to do something that might conflict with my own morals. How will I respond to that? I think that business ethics is an extremely relevant area of study — especially for future leaders.”

Fritz joins a diverse group of 84 total FASPE fellows across six separate disciplines who were chosen through a competitive process that drew applicants from across the U.S. and the world. FASPE covers all program costs, including travel, food and lodging for the various programs in addition to business, including journalism, law, medicine, seminary, and design & technology.

FASPE studies the perpetrators and those complicit in the Holocaust to emphasize the essential role of professionals and to ask how and why they abandon their ethical guideposts — underscoring the reality that moral codes governing business professionals can break down or be distorted with devastating consequences. With this historical background, the business fellows are better positioned to confront contemporary issues. To learn more about FASPE and its programs, visit www.faspe-ethics.org.

“Since I was a little girl, my parents instilled in me the value of being nice to others and treating others as I would like to be treated. I have carried that with me my entire life, and it was reflected in my Catholic school education and my time at Oak Knoll,” Fritz explained. “I think that the Holy Child curriculum pushed me to be the best that I could be, both academically and socially. It also encouraged me to be myself. I learned the value of hard work, the value of failure and also the value of learning from your failures. I don’t think that that’s something you necessarily get at every academic institution. It’s something I didn’t appreciate until later in life, but, reflecting back, is definitely true. Be a leader, don’t be a follower, be yourself. That’s something that Oak Knoll brings out in its students and for which I am grateful.”

Fritz just graduated from Columbia Business School, where she was co-president of the Gourmet Club. Prior to Columbia, she worked at abrdn on its U.S. Private Equity Team, where she invested into lower middle market primary investments, co-investments and secondaries. She began her career at Goldman Sachs in Private Wealth Management. Fritz graduated from Dartmouth College with an AB in Mathematics. She currently sits on the Alumnae/i Board of Oak Knoll, where she graduated as Valedictorian in 2012. Fritz also returned to speak at the Cum Laude induction in the spring of 2022. 

Fritz is an avid New York Giants fan and in her spare time enjoys going to the Jersey Shore, skiing, baking and exploring the New York City dining scene.