If you’ve done a PhD in anthropology, you know these types of questions—particularly if you do not plan to become a professor.

When I was eight, I read Margaret Mead’s biography and fell in love with anthropology. From that day, I wanted to be an anthropologist. I was drawn to the exoticness of it, the curiosity behind it, and the ability to interact with people different from myself. I thought I would travel to remote places to learn about people different from myself.

However, my trajectory is different. I am not traveling to remote places to learn about Indigenous groups. Instead, I am a business owner in the United States. Prior to getting my PhD, I spent 13 years obtaining work experience in the nonprofit sector. During this time, I fell into program evaluation. The best parts of my job included interviewing clients on how we, the nonprofits, could help them. I enjoyed tracking their progress through quantitative measures and hearing their stories through interviews. I credit this love for hearing stories to my undergraduate degree in anthropology.

After teaching myself program evaluation over the course of 10 years I decided to obtain a PhD. I wanted to know how to collect the best stories and use them for the public good;  to make the world a better place through direct connection to communities.

I earned my PhD while working full-time as a program evaluator within local government. I was expanding my knowledge through my coursework and dissertation project, while increasing my experience in program evaluation, specifically through my work with evaluating hunger, poverty, youth development, volunteer retention, and maternal-child health programs with local government and nonprofit organizations. I slowly began the process of starting my own research and evaluation firm —Change Amplifiers Research and Consulting.

It was a difficult balancing act. Managing full-time PhD work, alongside a full-time career, while trying to build a business, and maintain some semblance of social life, was not easy. But I did it.

Throughout my journey, so many people, including colleagues within industry and academia, asked, “Why are you putting yourself through this much stress when you do not want to become a professor? You don’t need a PhD to do program evaluation; you don’t need a PhD to start a business.” While all of this is true, my dream of becoming an anthropologist stuck with me because I so badly wanted a PhD in anthropology.

Employers in the government and nonprofit space prefer work experience over a PhD. They would rather see a decade of work experience in program evaluation than a decade getting a PhD. The same applies with business clients. They want to see your accomplishments in deliverables, not degrees.

However, I believe that my PhD in anthropology sets me apart from everyone else. At its core, anthropology is all about understanding people—their behaviors, cultures, and systems. Program evaluation is similar: understanding how programs affect real people, how communities respond, and what initiatives and policies work. The analytical rigor I developed during my PhD—designing research, collecting data, and interpreting findings—is what organizations need to measure impact and improve outcomes.

Qualitative methods? I have got them. Survey design? Check. Interviewing diverse stakeholders and synthesizing complex data? That is my bread and butter. In short, my PhD training gives me the methodological toolkit to design and conduct evaluations that are thoughtful, ethical, and evidence-based.

Beyond the research skills, anthropology teaches perspective: to see systems, patterns, and unintended consequences. That makes me a natural at translating messy program data into actionable insights that funders, nonprofit leaders, and policymakers can use.

These same skills fuel my entrepreneurial side. Building a program evaluation consulting firm requires curiosity, attention to detail, and the ability to communicate insights clearly—all strengths honed during my doctoral work. My expertise helps me stand out in a crowded market, and my ability to navigate complex human systems is invaluable when managing clients, projects, and teams.

So, was a PhD in anthropology a requirement for building my own program evaluation consulting firm? No. But it gives me a leg up in the market because I learned a skill that is highly coveted – systems thinking.

So, if you are an anthropologist eyeing program evaluation consulting, think of your PhD not as an academic credential, but as a launchpad. Your fieldwork in understanding humans can become your roadmap for helping programs succeed—and your business thrive.

The post How do you use your anthropology PhD to start a business? appeared first on The Anthropology Career Readiness Network.