Post by Stanford University Graduate School of Business

Mohammad Al-Moumen, MBA ’15, never intended to work in comedy. But when his passion inadvertently seeped into his professional life, he found a new calling: bringing humor to the workplace. It started during COVID, while Al-Moumen was working at McKinsey. “I tried to boost workplace morale by making videos poking fun at our bosses,” he explains. Before long, he was producing comedy videos for internal events worldwide, and Professor Jennifer Aaker, PhD ’95, and lecturer Naomi Bagdonas, MBA ’15, were writing a case study about how he was shaping culture at the firm. A conversation with a global managing partner convinced Al-Moumen to make it a career. “You’re disrupting change management through humor,” the partner told him. “You’re driving behavioral change by making people feel something different and do something different.” Today, Al-Moumen runs Wazza Studios, helping businesses and leaders connect with their people through humor and storytelling. Instead of advising Fortune 500 executives, he “punches up” at them — often at their own request — “to humanize them, make them approachable, and help them become more effective leaders,” he says. “I believe strongly in the power of levity to boost culture and break down barriers,” Al-Moumen says. “Humanizing ourselves and our stories through creativity… shows that, regardless of our titles or accomplishments, we can relate to each other in ways that make our collaborations so much more powerful.” https://brnw.ch/21x43yS