Fourth-year student Nora Kertache has a gift for connection and approaches new spaces with warmth and curiosity. She’ll remember someone instantly from a single introduction years ago.
“I’m very good with names,” she says. “Sometimes I freak people out because I knew their name and I met them first year and I haven’t seen them since.”
That instinct to connect shaped her experience at McIntire and has guided the important decisions to step back from studying Finance to pursue Management.
A first-generation college student from Falls Church, VA, Nora grew up in a family rooted in resilience. Her parents immigrated from Algeria and represent her only relations stateside, as most of her extended family remains in North Africa and France. UVA offered proximity to home and critical scholarship support for first-generation Virginia students like her. “I thought that would be a great fit.”
As such, she always planned to study business, and McIntire stood out for its academic excellence and emphasis on learning by doing. Today, she’s concentrating in Management on the Global Commerce & Society Track, with a minor in Public Policy & Leadership at the Batten School. It’s an academic pairing that reflects both her analytical strengths and her interest in broader impact.
From Finance to Management: Choosing Alignment Over Expectation
Like many McIntire students, Nora began her time at the Comm School studying Finance. But the material didn’t resonate. She worked hard, meeting with professors weekly and seeking tutoring, but felt increasingly unsure of herself.
“It just felt very disconnected from me,” she says. At the same time, she found herself drawn to courses in organizational behavior and policy. The challenge became clear that it wasn’t capability; it was alignment.
The pivot required courage. “I was going to take the hardest classes I could possibly take,” she recalls of Finance. Her parents were supportive but confused. “They asked me: ‘Isn’t this what you said you wanted to do?’” But she had changed her mind.
Encouraged by faculty and peers, she chose the path that felt authentic. “And I’m glad I did,” Nora says.
Her Strategic Leadership class confirmed her decision. The course pushed her to think deeply about influence and communication. “It made me think about things that I wouldn’t have otherwise, like how to get people to care,” she says. Through interactive exercises and a semesterlong company project, she explored how leaders build buy-in and drive change.
Global Management with Professor Paul Seaborn expanded her perspective further. Focusing on organizations in India, her team analyzed business strategy across cultural contexts. “I wanted to learn about how business is done in other cultures,” she says. Together, the courses reshaped her goals and sparked her interest in international business—one that has led to her plans of returning to McIntire after she walks the Lawn and enrolling in the M.S. in Global Commerce.
The one-year program felt like “perfect timing,” she says.
Leadership in Action and a Global Vision for the Future
She will be an asset to the live-and-learn grad program next year, as she has a track record of building community wherever she’s been.
As Provisional Membership Chair of the Washington Literary Society and Debating Union, she helped welcome 71 new members in one semester. “My job was mainly just to help people find community,” she says. She led workshops, mentored students, and stepped in when needed, often on short notice.
Her leadership style is grounded in empathy and flexibility. “I try to approach everyone with nonjudgment,” she says. In team settings, she is comfortable stepping up or supporting others. “If no one else is taking that lead, I feel comfortable figuring out who should do what, but I also do just as fine completing tasks or asking for help.”
She has also mentored first-generation students through Hoos First and supported peers in the Middle Eastern and North African mentoring program. Alongside campus roles at Newcomb Hall and McIntire, and now at the local Trader Joe’s market, she has strengthened her communication skills and service mindset.
Next year, Nora is looking forward to fueling her passions as she continues her learning journey in the MSGC program both on Grounds, with partner school ESMT in Berlin, Germany, and at a third location students choose for the MSGC’s capstone project: “I can take classes that feel very personalized to what I want to do, and then I’m also able to go abroad. I also want to challenge myself to go beyond what I already know, think more critically, and learn from people that have different viewpoints than I do.”
At McIntire, Nora found the confidence to choose alignment over expectation, as well as the preparation to pursue leadership on a global stage. Wherever she goes next, she’ll bring curiosity, conviction, and a deep commitment to people, as she always has.
