Creating Community-Centered Institutions

Pierre Berastain, MDiv ’14, Regional Director, North America, Centre for Public Impact (Washington, D.C.)

View more stories on HDS alumni and their career paths.

Describe the work you do today:

I currently serve as the regional director for North America at the Centre for Public Impact, a global nonprofit founded by the Boston Consulting Group. In this role, I lead systems change initiatives in government, helping public institutions transform how they work—internally and externally—so they can be more responsive, adaptive, and centered on the communities they serve. Our work spans a range of complex challenges, including public health, climate change, and responsible AI. Much of what we do involves helping governments reimagine outdated systems—like child support, economic development, and public service delivery—through deep community engagement and a commitment to justice, humility, and learning. 

Outside of CPI, I also host a Spanish-language podcast titled Lo Que No Me Dijeron, which explores the intersection of faith, sexuality, and history. The project emerged from a personal and public realization: while one finds accessible material in English reexamining the Bible and LGBTQ+ identity, very little of that content exists in Spanish. The podcast was created to fill that gap for queer people of faith, for Latin American communities, and for anyone rethinking inherited religious narratives. At the heart of both endeavors is a vocation shaped by my time at Harvard Divinity School, which helped me solidify a commitment to public values, structural transformation, and the sacredness of human dignity.

How has your HDS degree experience influenced your career journey?

My time at Harvard Divinity School shaped not just what I do, but how I do it. It gave me a language for vocation...how to live out one’s deepest commitments through work that is both ethical and impactful. One of the most enduring gifts of HDS was the invitation to sit with complexity rather than resolve it too quickly. My work in liberation theologies and queer hermeneutics gave me the theological grounding to challenge dominant narratives. And my studies in existential anthropology—particularly with Michael D. Jackson—taught me to attend to the contradictions, longings, and relational fabric that underlie all systems, including institutions. That formation has proven essential in my work on organizational change. Most organizations don't know or even teach people how to transform relationships through conflict. Instead, they focus on how to manage or avoid it altogether. I learned that transformation requires different muscles: deep listening, meaning-making, and the courage to hold tension without retreating into binary thinking. These skills, rooted in conflict transformation and pastoral presence, have served me especially well in navigating high-stakes leadership, governance shifts, and strategic pivots. Whether I’m leading systems change at CPI or writing a podcast episode that reclaims queer dignity in scripture, I draw daily from what I learned at HDS. That formation centers human dignity, nurtures moral imagination, and honors the sacredness of struggle.

What career advice would you offer to current HDS students?

Don’t be afraid to honor the parts of your formation that don’t fit neatly into a job title. Some of the most important lessons I learned at HDS weren’t about career preparation; they were about how to live with integrity in complex systems. Whether you end up in ministry, public policy, advocacy, academia, or something else entirely, your formation at HDS will teach you how to ask better questions, hold tension with compassion, and stay anchored in values even when institutions falter. That’s not soft skill...it’s survival skill, especially for those of us working toward justice in spaces that often resist it. Also, don’t wait to feel “ready.” So much of leadership is learned in motion. But not feeling ready isn’t a license to go it alone. One of the greatest risks in leadership is when people step into it without the support or self-awareness to recognize the harm they might unintentionally cause. So while you shouldn’t wait for perfect timing, you should move with discernment. Surround yourself with people who will ground you, hold you accountable, and tell you the truth even when it’s uncomfortable. Find mentors who see your potential and build communities of care that sharpen your ethics as much as your skills. HDS gives you the depth. Trust yourself to carry that depth into spaces that may not yet know how much they need it, but make sure you aren't carrying it alone.

I’m deeply grateful for the way HDS continues to shape not just my thinking, but my presence in the world. It gave me frameworks for justice that are both rigorous and compassionate, and helped me see that institutions—whether religious, governmental, or nonprofit—can be reimagined when we center the margins and lead with moral clarity. I often return to the texts and conversations from my time at HDS when I’m discerning how to lead through complexity. That’s the gift of the Divinity School. It doesn’t give you all the answers, but it teaches you how to wrestle honestly, how to hold space for mystery, and how to keep going when the work feels heavy.