In the early days of the civil rights movement, Washington University Professor Sterling Schoen experienced the Chicago Race Riot of 1964. This indelible experience prompted him to create a vision of our country in which businesses were more diverse, equitable and inclusive — one in which the most marginalized among us were provided the skills and opportunity to succeed and to lead. The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, the manifestation of Schoen’s vision, was founded in 1966 and continues to work toward the goal of enhancing diversity and inclusion in the American business community and beyond. Yet, despite all of the progress that has been made, recent events have demonstrated how much work remains to overcome the racism and prejudice that persist in our country. We are horrified and dispirited by the recent heinous and unjustified killings of members of our African American community, including George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and others. We hope that these reprehensible acts will not go unpunished. We are shocked and appalled by the treatment of immigrant LatinX families on our southern border – children separated from their parents and caged with no cogent plan for reunification. We are dismayed and disheartened by attempts to take control of tribal lands in the interest of creating more wealth for the wealthy irrespective of tribal sovereignty and ownership. We are angered and saddened by the anti-Asian American racism fueled by inflammatory language used to describe the Covid-19 global pandemic. We are outraged and sickened by Covid-19 and the systemic inequalities that have disproportionately impacted our African American, Hispanic American and Native American communities. And the list goes on… In the aftermath of these heartbreaking events, we recognize the urgent need to unite now, more than ever, to support our minority communities. We must all raise our voices in unison to say “enough is enough” and recommit to the causes of diversity, equity and inclusion. Now is the time to use the pain and anger we are feeling for effective change — to fight injustice, to dismantle racism and prejudice, to provide access to education and opportunity, to care for each other and our collective future. At The Consortium, we remain steadfast in our commitment to our mission to provide access and opportunity to underrepresented minorities pursuing graduate business education and careers in American business. At our annual Orientation Program & Career Forum, programming focused specifically on diversity, equity and inclusion has always been a cornerstone of the event. This year’s event is no exception. We encourage our members, partners and friends to join us in this effort and to help guide this critical work to fulfill the vision of Sterling Schoen and others like him. Let us come together to honor the memories of our lost brothers and sisters while working to ensure that racism and prejudice are removed from the landscape of our country. Diversity is not a minority problem, it is an American opportunity. For a PDF version of this statement, click here. The post The Consortium’s Statement on Recent Social Injustices appeared first on The Consortium.

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: Business (Not) as Usual: Kellogg’s Takes Multidisciplinary Approach to Business, Employee Advancement

When it comes to the world of business, people like companies are diverse, with varied interests and goals. The best companies know that, rather than competing, these interests and goals are often in tandem with one another. This is true of the Kellogg Company, where a new initiative aimed at building employees’ capabilities through immersion in complementary disciplines — called the Commercial Development Program (CDP) — is contributing to the advancement of both the company and these employees.

Gail Horwood, Kellogg’s chief marketing officer (CMO) of North America, says this effort is part and parcel to Kellogg’s people-centric approach. “I really truly believe that our people are everything,” she says, “and I want to make sure that we do anything we can to attract and retain the best, brightest and most diverse employee population.”

CDP helps Kellogg’s do this by creating a pipeline for MBA candidates and providing them opportunities for growth early in their career. The company leverages its partnership with The Consortium to drive this effort and attract diverse, top-tier MBAs. “What we’re saying is we value early-career, cross-functional move so that you build deeper understanding, knowledge and the ability to fluidly move between areas earlier in your career,” Horwood says.

Launched in July 2019, this three-year rotational program helps bridge marketing and commercial career paths by giving MBAs exposure to both areas. Students begin as interns, serving in a marketing function as an associate brand manager for the first half of the program, after which they rotate into a commercial position. In this function, they work with account teams to develop an understanding of the commercial side of the business.

“We can’t make decisions in silos and verticals. It’s no longer good enough to be a functional or a technical expert or somebody who understands the business side or the creative side in isolation,” says Horwood. “[In a] complex dynamic consumer landscape, we really need leaders who consider every aspect of the business as they’re making decisions.”

CDP allows Kellogg’s to effectively create more nimble business leaders with a comprehensive view of the end-to-end commercial planning process.

“We want people who have experience in these different areas so that they can have a broader perspective as they’re bringing products to market, as they’re working with our retail customers,” explains Horwood. “We believe the only way to make that happen is to give them hands-on rotational experience in these areas.”

For University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business Consortium alum Andoni Dieguez, who is currently a brand manager for Kellogg’s MorningStar Farms brand, CDP offers a unique opportunity to gain a broader perspective of the business “to better understand the sum of all parts,” he says. “This thinking carries over into your day-to-day as you learn to think how certain decisions impact the entirety of your business versus just your specific function.” Dieguez, who started as an intern on the Pringles team in 2016, was grandfathered into the program and will rotate into a commercial role this summer.

In addition to the rotations, CDP includes a curriculum, developmental experiences and meetings with senior leaders. The latter is one aspect of the program Dieguez has particularly come to appreciate.

“We get the opportunity to sit with senior leadership on a regular basis to better understand the direction of the company as a whole,” he says. “We recently sat with our CMO, Gail Horwood, to discuss how we can better improve Kellogg’s ‘Digital IQ’ and technological capabilities.”

According to Niki Ramirez, talent acquisition programs manager at Kellogg’s, this type of experience is atypical for MBAs — or any employee for that matter — and can help them accelerate “into positions of leadership and influence,” she says. “Historically, people come into marketing but never get experience outside of that, so it can be difficult for them to transition into other positions because they’ve been siloed.”

At the conclusion of CDP, employees move back into marketing in a senior manager or director-level position. Horwood says that with the comprehensive knowledge they’ve gained, especially in a consumer packaged goods company, these individuals are better prepared to lead.

“We believe that the leaders now and in the future need that sort of full commercial, end-to-end understanding, experience and capability,” she says, “and we believe that this sort of rotational, intentional training early in their career builds stronger leaders.”

With this new understanding comes the freedom to make decisions and lead without the bureaucracy that’s typical of large companies. “One of the things that’s unique about Kellogg’s is both the scale and the autonomy to really drive impact,” Horwood says. “Here, you get to see the products you create, the programs you conceive, the ability to put things in the marketplace and truly see the outcome through that end-to-end commercial process because you’re trained across all of it.”

“Because we have beloved brands, because we have scale, because we’re so trusted and have such long-standing relationships with our suppliers and our retail partners, there is this immediate ability to make an impact in the marketplace,” she adds.

New to her position as CMO, Horwood attended The Consortium’s 53rd annual Orientation Program & Career Forum last summer and says she was impressed with the caliber of the students. The experience helped further solidify Kellogg’s commitment to The Consortium specifically and to diversity broadly.

“For us, diversity and inclusion is something we’re trying to embed in all of our marketing efforts, starting with ensuring that our employee population is diverse and inclusive and reflects our consumers,” says Horwood. “It’s important that we also choose diverse partners to help us create and place our marketing messages.”

Although he has yet to complete CDP, Dieguez acknowledges, like Horwood, that Kellogg’s success is directly tied to the people who are leading it.

“It sounds cliché, but it’s the people at Kellogg’s that make the company special,” he says. “Kellogg’s is a relationship-based company with an open-door policy. People here are not just incredibly smart and capable; they are also willing to share that expertise with their colleagues who wish to learn.”

The post Business (Not) as Usual: Kellogg’s Takes Multidisciplinary Approach to Business, Employee Advancement appeared first on The Consortium.

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: 3M Honors Full Consortium Grant Despite Pandemic, Demonstrating the True Meaning of Partnership

Demonstrating its deep commitment to The Consortium’s mission to enhance diversity in business education and management, longstanding corporate partner 3M announced its intent to honor the entirety of its grant to The Consortium in 2020. This includes funds to support Consortium events including the 54th annual Orientation Program & Career Forum — which will be offered as a virtual experience this year — and the organization’s undergraduate conference, Competitive Advantage.

“It is more important than ever to support our partners like The Consortium through these [challenging] times so that they can continue to support the communities we live and work in. That is why we are honoring all grants and labeling them as general operations grants,” says Katie Ketterhagen, student programs and talent pipelining manager at 3M. “We understand the struggles that nonprofits might be facing, and even though there is not a traditional career fair this year, we want to ensure that continued support.”

As a founding corporate partner of The Consortium, 3M has been a stalwart supporter of the organization since the beginning. Even during these tumultuous and trying times, 3M continues to demonstrate its commitment to this important work of moving the needle for underrepresented minorities in business, while also providing much-needed supplies to combat the COVID-19 pandemic.

“We consider diversity and inclusion at the core of innovation at 3M, and we place value in being a founding partner because, although the world has changed since 1966, the importance of celebrating diversity hasn’t,” Ketterhagen says, noting that times like these require greater innovation than ever before. “3M has always believed that diversity of thought leads to new ideas and solutions, and in these unprecedented times, having people with a wide range of backgrounds and ideas will be imperative to finding solutions in the fight against COVID-19.”

The Consortium is grateful for 3M’s continued support during this time, understanding the impact it will have for members. “In these unprecedented times, 3M has shown itself to be a true partner of The Consortium. Through their support, in good times and bad, they have demonstrated their unwavering commitment to our cause,” says Peter J. Aranda, III, executive director & CEO of The Consortium. “From everyone at The Consortium, we sincerely thank you.”

The post 3M Honors Full Consortium Grant Despite Pandemic, Demonstrating the True Meaning of Partnership appeared first on The Consortium.

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: Empowering Employees to Save Lives: Merck Works to Achieve its Mission with the Help of its Diverse Workforce

For the 129-year-old global healthcare company and Consortium corporate partner Merck & Co., Inc., ensuring a diverse workforce is not just the right thing to do, it also happens to be good for business — not to mention, the world. With a workforce that represents its patient population, Merck gains invaluable insight into the healthcare-related challenges and decisions faced by diverse groups, helping the company achieve its mission to save and improve not just some but all lives.

Recruiting a diverse workforce, however, is only half the job.

Creating a welcoming and inclusive environment in which employees can bring their whole selves to work is key to ensuring they feel empowered to share and contribute, says Celeste Warren, vice president of the Global Diversity & Inclusion (GD&I) Center of Excellence.

“Part of being able to bring your authentic self to work is being able to incorporate different cultural perspectives into our business,” she says. “It’s not enough to have a diverse workforce; you have to make sure you’re ensuring accountability of leaders and people managers to drive an inclusive culture so that employees can feel empowered, engaged and enabled to drive our business.”

Facilitating this environment means making sure that diversity and inclusion are integrated throughout the entire company and everything it does. No small feat, ensuring a comprehensive and holistic diversity and inclusion strategy is challenging as with diversity comes a natural diversity of thought and perspectives.

“If you ask someone, ‘What’s your definition of or how do you think about diversity and inclusion?’, you can get as many answers as the number of people you ask,” Warren says. “So the challenge becomes getting everyone to think about it similarly. That’s not to say they necessarily have to see it one way.”

As one of the original signatories of the CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion pledge — the largest CEO-driven business commitment to advance diversity and inclusion in the workplace — Merck has made clear its commitment to this cause. The responsibility for driving this work is entrusted to the company’s GD&I Center of Excellence, led by Warren.

With a focus on education and awareness, she leads a small team to integrate the company’s diversity and inclusion strategy into all practices as well as its culture. They do this by providing coaching, counseling, tools and resources to business leaders. “We’re basically here to compel a more globally diverse and inclusive workforce for our employees,” Warren says, “and that means creating an environment of belonging, engagement, equity and empowerment.”

Beginning with recruiting, the GD&I Center partners with Merck’s global talent acquisition team to discuss and determine strategies for bringing in diverse employees and managers.

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Merck representatives at the 2019 OP

“We meet with them quarterly to talk about … opportunities where we can leverage some of our resources, external partners, to help in developing that pipeline of diverse talent,” says Warren. “We also work with them in ensuring that employees within global talent acquisition are building their skills around diversity and inclusion.” One way this is accomplished is by having them attend regular unconscious bias training, she notes. Additionally, diversity and inclusion are part of other Merck trainings, including its foundational managerial program and its leadership program.

Other efforts to integrate diversity and inclusion into the fabric of the company include ensuring that employees have opportunities for e-learning and professional development. This helps foster a sense of belonging among employees and aids in their advancement.

“We work with leaders in recruitment, learning and development and talent management to ensure we have a diverse workforce, ensure that people are able to develop themselves, ensure that they are getting the opportunities they need so that they’re able to reach their career aspirations, whatever they may be.” Warren says.

Attracting and retaining diverse employees also comes down to compensation and benefits, and the GD&I Center is focused on making sure Merck has the best policies in place to do this. According to Warren, this includes benefits that enable employees “to be able to optimize both their professional and personal lives.”

The GD&I Center of Excellence also collaborates with Merck’s global supplier diversity organization to ensure the company works with a diverse list of suppliers, including women-, minority- and LGBTQ-owned businesses.

Warren says this holistic approach ultimately benefits both the employees and Merck. “It’s all around building those diversity and inclusion capabilities so that people can take those into their roles and responsibilities throughout the organization, which will impact our drug discovery, development, manufacturing, marketing and sales processes,” she says.

It is important to Merck to also take the time to celebrate the diversity of its workforce. It does this every September during the center’s GD&I Experience Month; this year marks the fifth celebration. The event kicks off with a global webcast broadcasting from Merck’s Pennsylvania site and includes various activities and initiatives throughout the month across the company’s 120 locations worldwide. “The whole premise is to just pause and celebrate diversity and inclusion, and to provide education, awareness and an experience for our employees,” says Warren.

The nation’s second largest pharmaceutical company (and the seventh worldwide), Merck hopes that its efforts will empower employees to bring their whole and authentic selves to work — not just the skill set and competencies for which they were hired but their cultural insight as well. Marrying the two has the power to foster future innovation and reduce health disparities around the world.

Accomplishing such a task, however, requires all hands on deck. According to Mary Frantz, an HR team member at Merck, what makes all the difference is having a leader who is dedicated to this work. Fortunately for Merck, CEO Kenneth Frazier is a long-time, passionate advocate for diversity and inclusion.

“A lot of times, when I speak to students, and I ask them, ‘Why are you interested in coming to Merck?’, his name comes up more often than not,” says Frantz. “They really gravitate toward and appreciate the things that he is doing with us as a company, and I think that, in and of itself, speaks volumes.”

For Warren, all of the hard work and the time put in is worth it if it means they are able to have even greater impact for patients.

“We want an inclusive environment where everyone can thrive, and [with] the way that people come at it and the way that they have thought about it in the past, it takes a lot of education, it takes a lot of awareness, and it takes a lot of patience,” she says. “It also takes a lot of passion and energy because educating people, meeting people where they are, can be challenging, but it can also on the other hand be very, very rewarding.”

The post Empowering Employees to Save Lives: Merck Works to Achieve its Mission with the Help of its Diverse Workforce appeared first on The Consortium.

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: Focus on Doing the Right Thing Contributes to Liberty Mutual Insurance’s People-Centric Approach

A desire to always do the right thing permeates the culture at Liberty Mutual Insurance, where five key values guide the company’s work.

“We live by five values: being open, which means engaging with all people and possibilities; keeping it simple by being clear and transparent; putting people first by acting with dignity, empathy and respect; making things better by being proactive and challenging the status quo; and acting responsibly by doing what’s right and following through,” says Liberty Mutual Insurance Campus Recruiting Program Manager Kelly Scott, who leads all diversity and inclusion campus-related programs and partnerships at the company.

One thing that sets Liberty Mutual apart in its effort to do good, Scott says, is its emphasis on all people. “What I love about Liberty is that this focus doesn’t just apply to our customers, but we apply it internally as well,” she says. “So whether I’m working on a project or helping plan for a conference, I’m always thinking of these values — how can I be more open, how can I make things easier for people, how can I put people first — and I think, when you live by those values, you are putting your people first.”

Liberty Mutual’s people-first philosophy translates to providing a welcoming and inclusive work environment for employees as well as giving them the ability to drive positive change at the company and in the wider world. Through several efforts, employees play an active role in improving the company culture and are able to have an impact both inside and outside of Liberty’s walls.

The company’s six employee resource groups (ERGs) provide an opportunity for employees to connect with colleagues across the company who they otherwise may not have the chance to and who they share interests or affinities with, says Scott. With groups representing a variety of backgrounds and identities — including LGBTQ+, African descent, Asian Americans, Hispanics and Latinos, women and veterans — Liberty’s ERGs help foster a sense of belonging among all employees.

“[The ERGs] help employees by making them feel more comfortable bringing their whole self to work and help employees expand their network to other areas of Liberty,” Scott says.

Supported by the company’s Office of Diversity and Inclusion (D&I), the ERGs follow an established framework focused on four Cs: commerce, culture, career and community. They each have their own internal website where they can share articles, publish blog posts and post information about upcoming events. They also often help plan large-scale events. For example, last year, the LGBTQ+ group, known as Pride, sponsored and helped plan nine separate Pride parades across the country, Scott says.

“That’s all employee-powered,” she notes. “Liberty’s volunteers from different parts of the country organized the Pride parades, helped orchestrate the registration, gave out shirts, and then we worked with our brand and communication team on the question of ‘How are we going to show up at the Pride parade? What’s the messaging going to be?’”

Another important component of the ERGs is the inclusion of allies, which Scott says helps employees build awareness and understanding of groups that are different from them.

“As an example, I’m a Pride ally, and I’m really involved with that group. I’ve met so many people and learned so much about that particular group and the challenges they face,” says Scott. “I’ve also had the chance to leverage some skills that I haven’t been able to leverage as much in my day job through this group. So, it’s a great way to build out a skill that maybe I don’t have as much time to dedicate to in my day job as well as meet new people and explore different opportunities.”

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2019 MBA RISE program participants

Perhaps most importantly, though, through the ERGs, employees have the ability to help influence business and policy decisions at Liberty Mutual. One such recent policy update included an increase in parental leave for new moms to four months and for dads to 16 weeks. “That was a direct result of the work of our women’s and allies group,” says Scott, “and how they worked with D&I, HR and all of the groups across the organization to make the business case for why this is important and how it would make us a best-in-class employer.”

ERG leaders are also having an impact in other ways as they work to guide the next generation of business leaders through another one of Liberty’s people-focused initiatives, the MBA RISE program. Launched in fall 2019, RISE stands for Recognizing Inclusion in Successful Enterprise. Designed for students from underrepresented populations who are just beginning their MBA, RISE provides professional support and guidance to these individuals during their MBA program.

After Liberty Mutual’s recruiters noticed a dearth of women and people of color in MBA programs on campuses across the country, the company decided to follow the research to help bridge this gap.

“The research showed that more students from underrepresented populations are at a disadvantage when beginning an MBA program; maybe their parents didn’t go to college or never got a master’s degree, or they don’t have the same economic resources that someone else might have,” says Scott. “The research also shows that if you can provide them with mentorship and professional guidance that they may have not [previously] had, they’re more likely to succeed and graduate, so that is the goal of the program.”

RISE kicks off with a big event in July, before school starts, where students learn about Liberty and opportunities available there, network with company employees as well as their peers in the program, attend workshops and more. Given the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, the company made the decision at the end of April to host the kickoff event online as a virtual event. However, Scott says Liberty will provide ample opportunities for participants to engage pre- and post-summit with one another, current employees and mentors.

“We offer workshops that focus on and address things like imposter syndrome and how to navigate your MBA or your career,” Scott says. “We also provide a safe space to have constructive dialogue with our leaders about topics in diversity and inclusion and how that impacts the workplace.”

The MBAs are then paired with mentors, many of whom are ERG leaders, with whom they meet in a virtual setting every six to eight weeks throughout the duration of their MBA experience. “It’s really a mentorship circle,” explains Scott, adding that each mentor has two to three students assigned to them. “They meet as a group in that six- to eight-week cadence, and then the mentors also meet with them individually at least twice a year.”

Mentors are there to provide educational and professional guidance that might include advice on what classes to take, assistance if a student is struggling in a class or interview prep. “Just having that person there to help them can make a huge difference in whether they feel like they’re successful and have the support they need that they otherwise may not have,” Scott says.

Access to virtual professional development is another benefit of participation in the RISE program. This includes a bi-monthly e-newsletter, which generally centers around a theme. In addition to spotlighting employees and executives, it offers insight and tips.

“The December newsletter was focused on networking and case prep, so [we had] some of our employees who have gone through that process share tips and tricks,” Scott says. “We also offer quarterly professional development. For the first one we offered in the fall, we had one of our corporate development program alums do a crash course on insurance and how insurance companies make money, which we did through Zoom.”

Mentors help determine the focus of such content by providing insight into any areas of interest or need expressed or demonstrated by RISE participants. “Curating the content to make it more timely and meet the students where they are at is how we develop all of that material,” says Scott.

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Liberty Mutual’s 2019 MBA RISE program kickoff event

While one of Liberty Mutual’s hopes is that the program will result in some participants seeking out opportunities at the company, Scott says that is not the only goal of RISE. Participants do, however, gain early interview access to internships should they choose to apply, and mentors are available to help coach them through the process.

“We encourage them to talk to their mentor if they’re unsure, if maybe they want to go into tech, maybe they want to go into banking,” says Scott. “That’s absolutely fine as well. We just want to provide them with that professional support.”

The Consortium has been a large driver for the program as 42 percent of the RISE program’s inaugural class were Consortium members. Due to positive feedback from both students and business partners, Liberty Mutual is growing the program this year from 24 students to 30, creating the potential for the company to have an even greater impact.

“We are seeking out new talent pipelines for both our undergraduate and MBA space,” says Scott. “The Consortium has not only provided access to top-tier talent in this space, but they’ve also guided us on some best recruiting practices and have helped us promote our brand to students who may not have considered Liberty before.”

As a result of last year’s pilot program, Liberty Mutual hired five RISE students who will complete internships at the company this summer. One of them, Raquel Waite, is a Consortium student who will start as a Corporate Development Program summer associate in June.

“Not only did the program connect me with some of the most welcoming and brilliant professionals and MBAs during the summer, but it served as an additional recruitment and networking pipeline throughout my business school journey,” says Waite. “Overall, the RISE program helped me to be more intentional about my career and personal goals and provided a community of support which I could leverage to realize those goals.”

Despite the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, Liberty is committed to honoring its internship commitments and has taken proactive steps to help keep both interns and full-time employees safe and healthy. Interns will begin their internships working remotely, and the Campus Recruiting team has developed a robust virtual onboarding plan as well as a wealth of resources to ensure managers and interns feel supported during this transition.

Scott is pleased thus far with the MBA RISE Program’s success and notes that while it has been a “huge win” for the company, she hopes it is also a huge win for the students. Ultimately, she believes the MBA RISE program, like the ERGs, feeds into Liberty Mutual’s effort to always do the right thing. “It’s a demonstration of living our values,” Scott says. “Making things better is an important value.”

Learn more about and apply for Liberty Mutual’s MBA RISE program here.

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: Haas School of Business Takes Educational Approach to Improving Equity in Recruiting and Hiring Processes

A Consortium member school, Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley has made clear its commitment to enhancing diversity in business education and leadership. It has worked hard to be a welcoming place for all students, including those from underrepresented minority groups, as well as bring to campus attractive, big-name companies that share Haas’ commitment to diversity.

But, several years ago, it became apparent that an internal effort to advance diversity and inclusion was not enough.

At a town hall meeting of full-time MBA students, Jennifer Bridge, senior director of external engagement, MBA career management, says she was taken back when a student stood up during a discussion about diversity and inclusion to voice a concern. “[He] said, ‘I just went through consulting interviews, and I felt like there was bias in the process. I felt discriminated against — and actually, there are a few of us who felt that way,’” Bridge says.

In charge of overseeing all of Haas’ employer relationships, Bridge was shocked. “It was a moment for me where I was like, ‘Not under my watch,’” she says. “I was like, ‘Well, that’s not going to continue to happen because that’s not the way we do business; that’s not who we are as a school.’”

At the same time, Haas was brainstorming new ways to attract more minority MBA students to its campus and make sure they felt included. To address both challenges, Bridge and her team decided to develop an employer relations strategy around diversity, equity and inclusion focused on education.

“We felt we could be an educational partner,” says Bridge, “providing leadership and content to employers about how to improve their pipelines, how to think about recruiting, how to think about inclusion and create a safe space for them [and their employees] to come together to share best practices and learn about it.”

Bridge and her team have two vehicles through which they execute this strategy as they work to educate employers and improve the recruiting process. The first is quarterly communication with employers through Haas’ Employer Newsletter. Through this resource, the school shares helpful and informative articles with companies on topics such as how to remove bias from the hiring process, for example, that are very “prescriptive,” says Bridge.

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Haas’ Employer Roundtable event

“It could be a podcast that someone on the team has recently listened to that’s related to hiring practices or inclusion practices. We’re always looking for what we believe is really tangible, actionable, relevant content and thought leadership to share with employers,” she says. According to Bridge, Haas is the only business school talking to recruiters in this way.

The second way in which Bridge and her team deliver on their employer relations strategy is through Haas’ annual Employer Roundtable event, which takes place every April. Previously meant to serve as an annual update and thank you to employers, the event took a different form beginning three years ago. “It’s an opportunity for employers to hear from practitioners, faculty and students about their experiences to help improve their own diversity and inclusion strategies,” says Bridge.

The Employer Roundtable features a combination of students, faculty, staff and recruiters and is another way to provide actionable information and insight to help ensure more equitable recruiting and hiring processes.

“We’ve brought in faculty to share research they’ve been doing in this space. We’ve brought in admissions to explain what GMAT data exists out there around underrepresented minority recruiting and some of the challenges,” says Bridge. “We’ve also brought in business leaders who’ve changed their hiring practices to eliminate bias and have shared, very prescriptively, how they have scrubbed their entire hiring process to have it be as fair and inclusive as possible.”

The event has also included student panels where MBAs have shared their personal experiences engaging with employers — “their positive and challenging experiences and what’s working well,” Bridge notes.

The student panel has been particularly helpful for companies seeking insight into what diverse MBAs are looking for in an employer. Recruiters, Bridge says, are able to ask very specific questions of students. “The students are looking for transparency in data,” she explains. “So, many times, they want to know, ‘What do your numbers look like? How easily accessible are they to the person I’m talking to? How does leadership talk about diversity, equity and inclusion — do they walk the walk?’ And, ‘What kind of support groups and mentorship do you have?’”

https://cgsm.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/Networking-300x200.jpg
Attendees network during Haas’ Employer Roundtable event.

Bridge emphasizes among employers the importance of being able to demonstrate to students their commitment to diversity and inclusion. Part of this work involves making sure all company representatives are informed and on the same page with regard to the company’s overall diversity efforts and objectives.

“[It involves] working with the employers to make sure that they have eyes wide open around the types of concerns our students are expressing, as well as making sure that the people they send to campus, the people our students are engaging with, are knowledgeable,” Bridge says. “Something we tell employers is, ‘When you come on campus, you better be prepared to talk about what kinds of work you’re doing around inclusion because our students are going to ask.’”

She and her team have hosted other events as well, designed to benefit both students and employers. Following several requests by employers for access to diverse student groups, they decided to host a networking event specifically for full-time underrepresented minority MBAs and companies expressly interested in growing the diversity of their workforce.

“It was one of the most well received events we’ve ever had, and it filled up faster than any employer event we’ve ever had. The student turnout was fantastic, and the students said it was one of the best networking events they’ve ever been to,” says Bridge. “Additionally, we created an underrepresented minority résumé book that we can provide employers.”

Students and employers alike have experienced the positive difference made by Haas’ efforts and have been appreciative, Bridge says. What began as a reaction to a specific student’s concern has now become just an extension of the school’s commitment to ensuring an equitable recruiting process for all.

“It’s our opportunity to take a stand and really show our commitment to diversity, equity and inclusion,” says Bridge, “and to say, ‘You know what, this is part of our culture; this is important to us, and we think it should be important to you.’”

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21 May 2020, 12:00

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: Job Searching in the Time of COVID-19: One Expert Shares Advice on How to Land Your Next Gig (Yes, it’s Still Possible)

There is hardly a person who hasn’t been affected by the current pandemic, but while COVID-19 may be here to stay, life must go on. Despite the current economic crisis and continuing uncertainty, many Consortium members are beginning internships and full-time roles, adapting to the new, virtual normal.

For those who are still in the midst of their job or internship search, however, there are many challenges to landing a position in this volatile climate. Fortunately, there is still a lot you can do to get noticed and secure your next, albeit, not necessarily your dream job. (Not to mention, there are many companies that are still hiring.)

Career services expert Cynthia Saunders-Cheatham, assistant dean of the Career Management Center at Consortium member school Cornell SC Johnson College of Business, has some insight. She recently shared with us some tips to help students and recent graduates hoping to find their next big opportunity.

[list]
[*][b]Continue networking.[/b] Reach out to alumni; propose 15-minute virtual chats. People may have more time to chat and will likely welcome the opportunity to share their wisdom.[/*]
[*][b]Update your LinkedIn profile.[/b] Make sure to incorporate keywords and relevant courses into your profile so that recruiters can find you. In your headline and summary, be clear about what you are seeking and the skills you bring to the table.[/*]
[*][b]Use LinkedIn.[/b] Go beyond just having a profile to learn how to actually leverage the platform. The vast majority of people do not know how to leverage LinkedIn or how recruiters use it. There are many tricks to this; for example, typing in “I’m hiring” in the search bar will turn up thousands of individuals who have those words in their profile. There are many videos on LinkedIn and other platforms that can provide insight on this.[/*]
[*][b]Continue to apply to jobs.[/b] This is especially the case if they were recently posted. There are companies that are still hiring.[/*]
[*][b]Be flexible.[/b] You may have to compromise on target industry, function, or both.[/*]
[*][b]Be open.[/b] Accept that your internship or full-time role will look very different from what you expected. Many internships will be fully virtual, and some will have a later start date. Many full-time roles will begin virtually, and the start dates may be pushed out.[/*]
[*][b]Look in all locations. [/b]Now that many companies have a good portion of their employees working remotely, they can hire from a broader geographic pool. Twitter and Square, for example, just announced a permanent work-from-home policy. Don’t limit your search to a specific geographic area since you will very likely be working remotely anyway. This will expand your range of opportunities.[/*]
[*][b]Perfect the video interview.[/b] Students need to be very comfortable with video interviewing. We expect video interviewing to become the norm even into the fall 2020 recruiting season. Practice. Record yourself. Make sure you make good eye contact. Dress appropriately.[/*]
[*][b]Say thank you. [/b]Send thank-you notes to people you interview with. It is amazing how many students don’t do this — and recruiters notice.[/*]
[*][b]Make contact.[/b] Consider reaching out to recruiters directly. Research companies. Based on your research, develop a couple of project ideas that you could complete for the companies that fill a need that they have while utilizing your skills. This works! [/*]
[/list]
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29 May 2020, 14:00

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: The OP Goes Virtual: What This Means for Consortium Students and How to Reap the Benefits

This year, The Consortium’s class of 2022 will have the opportunity to participate in the organization’s first-ever virtual Orientation Program & Career Forum (OP), where they will kick off their MBA experience by becoming part of The Consortium’s ever-expanding family of students and alumni.

The decision to transition to a virtual event was made with students, staff and other constituents’ health and safety in mind as COVID-19 continues to put many in our community at risk. “We are confident that, in time, normalcy will return,” says Peter J. Aranda, III, executive director & CEO of The Consortium. “In the meantime, there are still reasons to celebrate. We invite our new members to celebrate their success thus far by joining our nationwide network of students, alumni, member schools, corporate partners and staff, beginning with our annual OP.”

Previously scheduled for June 6-10, 2020, in Seattle, Washington, the 54th annual OP will take place Friday, June 5 and Monday through Wednesday, June 8-10, 2020. Global, cloud-based technology platform Intrado will be used to host the event.

As one of the most powerful aspects of The Consortium experience for students, the OP can be both exhilarating and overwhelming. In just a few days time, they gain exposure to new fields and career paths, connect with top-notch companies, network and form long-lasting relationships with their peers, learn about and interview for internship opportunities and build a solid foundation for success during and following business school. Members of The Consortium class of 2022 can expect this same high-level experience and more from the 54th annual OP.

Similar to past years, students can expect workshops focused on diversity, ethics and healthcare and career tracks that dive deep into fields including consulting, marketing, technology and finance. As a virtual event, the 2020 OP will also feature new and expanded opportunities for MBAs to connect and build a solid foundation — just through a different means. For example, all sessions will be recorded, meaning students will be able to attend live workshops as well as flag those they want to return to, to watch at a later time.

To help students get the most out of the event, The Consortium has teamed up with corporate partner Liberty Mutual Insurance to create a guide with best practices and tips for navigating virtual events. It offers insight and advice in three stages: pre-conference, during and post-conference.

“The guide is designed to help students prepare for and successfully navigate a virtual event. It includes step-by-step instructions on how best to prepare leading up to the conference, in addition to tips to make the most of your time during the conference,” says Liberty Mutual Insurance Campus Recruiting Program Manager Kelly Scott, citing as examples virtual etiquette advice and ways to stay present in a virtual environment. “We recognize now, more than ever, the importance of being able to provide quality content in a virtual environment.”

With years of experience hosting virtual events, Liberty Mutual has noticed several advantages to these types of gatherings. Increased accessibility and comfort are two that come to mind, Scott says.

“It’s much easier to log into a webinar than it is to trek into a classroom at 7 p.m.,” she explains. “It’s also not as intimidating to type a question into a chat box as it may be to stand up and ask something in front of a large group.”

Scott’s advice for The Consortium’s class of 2022 is to do your homework and to treat it like any other event. “Do your research about who’s going to be there, and do everything you can to be present during the actual conference itself,” she says. “It’s so easy to get distracted checking your phone, scrolling through Instagram or banging out a few emails, but you’ll get so much more out of it if you treat it like an actual, in-person event.”

To truly get the most out of the virtual OP experience, though, Scott recommends that students follow up with employers and peers whom they met during the event. “Everyone is there to build their network, and shooting off a quick email or LinkedIn message sharing that you enjoyed meeting them as well as one thing you took away from the conversation can really make a lasting impact,” she says.

For employers, this shows that you listened and were really engaged — and that you are truly interested in the company. From a peer-to-peer perspective, Scott notes, “You never know where people will end up down the line, and it’s helpful to have a community of peers to support you as you navigate your career moving forward.”

These connections are what The Consortium family is all about, and for most students, the OP is where they were formed.

Consortium alumnus and Senior HR Manager at Microsoft Rashid Farrell recalls how the OP was both amazing and nerve-wracking. “I was in sheer awe that I was at an event with so many amazingly talented and accomplished people, and the caliber of companies that were present was just mind blowing,” he says. “My exploration and networking at the 2008 OP set a foundation for what would become my Consortium network.”

For 2014 alumnus of the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business Brandon Smith, the OP set the stage for a successful MBA experience, from beginning to end.

“Everyone who I met in The Consortium was competitive and impressive, and to have the OP before you even get to campus — it was such a powerful introduction to graduate school,” says Smith, who is the founder and CEO of Global Sports Analytics. “It allowed me to build a foundation to be leveraged throughout my entire time at USC.”

Access the virtual guide here.

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02 Jun 2020, 20:00

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: The Consortium’s Statement on Recent Social Injustices

In the early days of the civil rights movement, Washington University Professor Sterling Schoen experienced the Chicago Race Riot of 1964. This indelible experience prompted him to create a vision of our country in which businesses were more diverse, equitable and inclusive — one in which the most marginalized among us were provided the skills and opportunity to succeed and to lead. The Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, the manifestation of Schoen’s vision, was founded in 1966 and continues to work toward the goal of enhancing diversity and inclusion in the American business community and beyond.

Yet, despite all of the progress that has been made, recent events have demonstrated how much work remains to overcome the racism and prejudice that persist in our country.

We are horrified and dispirited by the recent heinous and unjustified killings of members of our African American community, including George Floyd, Ahmaud Arbery, Breonna Taylor and others. We hope that these reprehensible acts will not go unpunished.
We are shocked and appalled by the treatment of immigrant LatinX families on our southern border – children separated from their parents and caged with no cogent plan for reunification.
We are dismayed and disheartened by attempts to take control of tribal lands in the interest of creating more wealth for the wealthy irrespective of tribal sovereignty and ownership.
We are angered and saddened by the anti-Asian American racism fueled by inflammatory language used to describe the Covid-19 global pandemic.
We are outraged and sickened by Covid-19 and the systemic inequalities that have disproportionately impacted our African American, Hispanic American and Native American communities.
And the list goes on…

In the aftermath of these heartbreaking events, we recognize the urgent need to unite now, more than ever, to support our minority communities. We must all raise our voices in unison to say “enough is enough” and recommit to the causes of diversity, equity and inclusion.

Now is the time to use the pain and anger we are feeling for effective change — to fight injustice, to dismantle racism and prejudice, to provide access to education and opportunity, to care for each other and our collective future. At The Consortium, we remain steadfast in our commitment to our mission to provide access and opportunity to underrepresented minorities pursuing graduate business education and careers in American business. At our annual Orientation Program & Career Forum, programming focused specifically on diversity, equity and inclusion has always been a cornerstone of the event. This year’s event is no exception.

We encourage our members, partners and friends to join us in this effort and to help guide this critical work to fulfill the vision of Sterling Schoen and others like him. Let us come together to honor the memories of our lost brothers and sisters while working to ensure that racism and prejudice are removed from the landscape of our country. Diversity is not a minority problem, it is an American opportunity.

For a PDF version of this statement, click here.

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04 Jun 2020, 12:00

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: A Passion for Strategy and an Aversion to Corporate Sector Sparked this MBA’s Entrepreneurial Flame

The son of Haitian immigrants, Archel G. Desir was shaped largely by his parents’ emigration to the United states. “I grew up watching them re-establish themselves after they had basically been told that their academic and professional accomplishments didn’t count,” he says. “Their resilience and perseverance through it all are truly inspiring to me both personally and professionally.”

With his parents as motivation, Desir studied business and finance at Boston University before earning his MBA from Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business, in 2014, as a member of The Consortium. Today, he combines his interest in finance with his enthusiasm for entrepreneurship and strategy in his corporate development practice, Hyperion Advisory LLC.

Through Hyperion, Desir works with technology firm clients and their respective fund sponsors to grow revenue, increase profitability and reduce operational risks for the strategic benefit of healthcare, manufacturing and renewable energy portfolio companies. Hyperion works on private and public sector projects alongside executive management teams at firms like Sika Capital Management, Anheuser-Busch InBev, New York City and New York State, among others.

Desir recently spoke with The Consortium about his passion for executing business strategy, his deep-seated desire to dictate his own fate and his thoughts on how the finance industry will look post-COVID-19.

Was there something in your childhood that sparked your interest in business, finance and entrepreneurship?

Whether it was my advancement as a Boy Scout or my attendance at a new school after a recent family move, my discoveries of how I could best add value to others comes from witnessing my parents be gracious as they progressed in spite of experiencing many setbacks.

The dividends they’ve earned over the years from the equity they’ve accrued — monetary and not — with the different people they’ve impacted sparked my interest in doing the same in business, finance and entrepreneurship. To this day, that understanding of how to interact with and earn the trust of others is the greatest gift my parents have given me. It serves me well in everything I do as a professional.

Would you say you’ve always been strategy-minded?

It’s interesting that you ask that. Outside of homework and school-sanctioned, mom-approved extracurricular activities, the only means of entertainment for our household was strategy games — chess, Rubik Cubes, etc. So, developing a strategic mind was part of my upbringing and has stuck with me.

I also really liked doing math problems and enjoy them still. A lot of what I do now — finding simple solutions to very nuanced business challenges — follows similar approaches that were applied to “winning” strategy games or solving math problems.

Have you always had a desire to start your own business?

Yes, there was always a feeling of career unease at each level of the encouraged route of convention. From college graduation to working for larger corporations, I felt uncomfortable with my role as just another employee.

I didn’t quite understand my visceral dislike of working for corporate at first, but at around 25 years old, I’d had enough. I was ready to dictate my own fate through a business of my own design. Though I didn’t know exactly what I’d end up doing in the future, I vividly recall saying to myself, “I don’t want to do this anymore. If I’m going to work this hard for someone, it’s going to be for me on something that I want to build.”

It was farther into your career that you launched Hyperion. Did you feel that you still had something to learn or gain from working at other companies?

I was indoctrinated to believe that my career had to go the way of others before me, that there was only one of a few limited ways to get to where I wanted to be professionally. So, in my mind, more infrastructure, finances and schooling was what was needed in order for me to advance. None of that was true.

In retrospect, I should have taken the entrepreneurial leap earlier. Since I didn’t, the experiment that was my early career served as a lab of sorts that helped me, through trial and error, prove certain theories wrong. Those outcomes helped me realize what I absolutely didn’t want to do with my life and career.

I failed a bunch but succeeded in building tons of professional confidence from an earned set of technical skills. Those learnings have allowed me to deliver higher quality work products much faster.

Was getting an MBA always in the cards for you?

I wouldn’t say that an MBA was something I always thought I’d do.

When I was 13, my father graduated with another advanced degree. At the post-ceremony luncheon, I said a few words of appreciation that included my vow to outdo his achievement. I hadn’t even started high school yet, so an advanced degree — let alone an MBA — was not on my radar yet.

When it came time for me to consider attending graduate school, I wanted to fast track my investment finance career. However, going the standard post-MBA route and becoming an employee again was the last thing I wanted to do. The MBA program I selected would have to align with my expressed intent of growing as an owner and operator while further exploring the inner workings of the private investment markets within the broader financial sector.

It was my general curiosity of how I could ultimately compete to win within private equity that led me to pursue an MBA.

What was your experience like at Tepper?

The biggest plus about my Carnegie Mellon experience was that the campus had top-tier programs for computer science, engineering, public policy and business. It was the perfect petri dish for building lasting interdisciplinary connections that would be useful to me during and after my time in Pittsburgh.

I was elected the vice president of cross-campus collaboration for the Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital Club, a role that required the active engagement of all commercialization-focused players inside and outside of Tepper’s walls. The post proved to me that a true businessperson is supposed to serve as a commercial catalyst between disparate specialist silos in a way that aligns the group toward delivering mutual value.

Business school wasn’t only about taking the theories of the classroom to the boardroom. My time at Tepper went beyond reading case studies and passing exams; it helped to sharpen existing soft skills that are inherent to bringing people of different disciplines — from the executive suite to the factory floor — together to execute on strategies that deliver meaningful impact.

What has your experience been like getting your business off the ground? How has your MBA aided you?

Starting my own business is the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted to accomplish. My overwhelming desire to chart my own path, to build something of my own design and to solve real-world business problems has been extremely rewarding nonetheless. Though the challenges have been many, and are often daunting, I would do it all over again for the personal and professional growth that comes with this life decision.

No academic institution helped me form these sentiments; my upbringing did. Learned behaviors like firm handshakes, direct eye contact, substantive conversations and fearlessness when asking for help came through consistent practice well before I considered an MBA.

I would say that the MBA helped to polish my communications, presented opportunities that I otherwise wouldn’t have had access to via the Carnegie Mellon alumni network and established a small yet high-caliber group of contacts who want to see me win.

Tell me about Hyperion. What value do you add for clients?

Hyperion is a corporate development firm that executes on the following sorts of engagements: investment fiduciary advisory on project finance transactions and alternative strategies (there are two current infrastructure projects within renewable energy and beverage bottling), corporate development advisory (JV structuring, strategic partnerships implementation and M&A strategy execution) and interim executive management as either CFO or COO for client firms.

We primarily serve private-sector clients but plan to grow our public-sector-facing business in 2020. We’ve begun conversations with the city and state of New York to potentially serve as the vendor responsible for financial modeling and strategic investment guidance to a select number of those government agencies.

What do you love most about what you do?

What I enjoy most about what I do is the detective work. Financial statements reveal key performance indicators that serve as proxies to underlying business issues that require hands-on management. Yes, we do all of that financial and operational number crunching, but the uncovering of real risks and addressing those root causes goes back to the strategy game approaches I enjoy.

Solving for business nuance requires doing the extra detective work that business textbooks or the case method don’t teach. Developing sustainable solutions that can immediately be executed alongside all internal stakeholders is the best part of working with each of the companies we touch.

Our team [translates] the quantitative measures of business operations into qualitative actions that, together, involve the edification of a firm’s personnel and the augmentation of its systems. Making sure that an entire organization is aligned and headed in the same direction via engaged execution is the outcome we strive to consistently deliver on each project

What impact do you think the pandemic will have on your industry? What changes do you predict?

The current pandemic will lead to a transition away from certain legacy practices of the finance industry. New business models that don’t fit the conventional frameworks of the past are going to emerge on the other side of the economic shutdown of 2020. As such, added perspectives when evaluating financial and operational performance will determine which financiers are successful post-pandemic.

Look for the disintermediation of a number of industry sectors that include banking, retail, travel, energy production and agriculture to accelerate. Also, look for other service-based businesses like those that improve water and air quality, health and hygiene, to trend upwards due to increased regulatory and consumer attention.

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11 Jun 2020, 13:00

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: Consortium MBAs Launch Color of Change Campaign to Spark Positive Change for the Black Community

Roused by recent racial injustices, including the tragic deaths of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor and Ahmaud Arbery and other members of the black community, a group of Consortium MBAs felt compelled to act. Together, they launched a fundraising initiative to support the work of the nonprofit civil rights advocacy organization Color of Change to strengthen the voice of Black Americans.

This effort is being led by Harshita Pilla, an incoming first-year MBA at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business; Lauren Abu Ouf, a second-year MBA at Michigan Ross; and Cagney Spears, a second-year MBA at the University of Rochester’s Simon Business School. After launching the campaign the first week of June, they quickly exceeded their initial $20,000 goal and have since set their sights higher. (To contribute, click here.)

Pilla, Abu Ouf and Spears recently discussed with The Consortium their motivation and goals for the campaign and how they’ve worked to pull it off.

How did this campaign come together, and what inspired you to lead this effort?

Lauren: After seeing events unfold over the past few weeks, starting with Amy Cooper’s 911 call in Central Park, followed by the murder of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police a few days later, there was a strong motivation around what we could do as a Consortium community to respond.

We have a group chat with all of the 2021 liaisons, and I reached out to see if anyone was interested in doing a fundraiser in response. Cagney, representing Simon Business School, was one of the first 2021 liaisons who expressed interest in joining the planning committee. I then received a message from Whitney Pollard , a student in the class of 2022, who mentioned that the Class of 2022 was working on a similar initiative. She introduced me to Harshita, and we realized we were both at the same stage of planning at the same time, so it made sense to combine efforts.

Harshita: I think everyone in our group and the country was stirred by these acts of injustice. I can speak for myself in saying that I was feeling pretty helpless given the situation. I felt really dejected, but I knew that I could reach out to this Consortium community that I was just getting acquainted with as I started my MBA journey. Within our Consortium group chat, lots of people were speaking up about how they were feeling. We were all looking for ways to do something, to act and respond to the situation, so I saw an opportunity to band together. I posted a message saying, “Hey, is anyone interested in a strength in numbers strategy where we launch a fundraiser together instead of everyone doing this on their own?” I got a lot of immediate responses, and within hours, I was connected with Lauren who had already been thinking about this.

Cagney: I had a similar feeling of helplessness, as well as a feeling of anger and frustration, and I wanted to funnel that into action using my Consortium network. It was like, “OK, how can we as MBA students say that we hear and care about what’s happening and try to effect change immediately? What can we do right now? What organizations can we partner with?”

Tell me about the goal of the campaign. How have the goal posts or your strategy shifted?

Harshita: The goal of the campaign is to raise awareness, primarily, and give people a way to contribute to something that’s happening right now. I know that a lot of people, like we mentioned, were feeling helpless and angered and didn’t know how to direct their time or their resources. We started the campaign with a $20,000 goal to encourage a collective effort and provide a place where people can donate their resources. Now, as the goal has been met twofold — which is amazing — we’re trying to think long term about our strategy of being a hub for resources. There is a wealth of information that has been shared over the past few weeks and will continue to be. We are looking at a more sustainable fundraising strategy while also looking into how people can donate their time later on.

Lauren: Harshita, thank you for raising that point about awareness. I can’t tell you how many conversations we’ve had on campus where students are just not aware of some of the issues that black communities face and how that impacts the black students on campus. One of the reasons why we picked Color of Change for our fundraiser is because the organization tackles injustices across many sectors and is a robust platform for organizing issues around economic justice, criminal justice and the underrepresentation of black talent in corporate America.

Building on our original goal of $20,000, our new goal is to raise $100,000 during the month of June. That is a big, aggressive goal, but if I’ve learned anything in business school it’s that you have to aim high and think big.

Cagney: Originally, it was Consortium schools coming together trying to raise awareness, but then, after we hit our goal, it was like, “OK, how can we really engage with these other MBA programs through other networks that we are a part of, and how can we [do] this on a larger scale?” Here at Simon, I shared the fundraiser with our Consortium chat, then our recruiters in admissions and our president of the Graduate Business Council; she sent it to the entire school — the entire faculty, staff and students in the class of 2020, 2021 and 2022 — to get more engagement around the campaign.

I also posted it on my LinkedIn. For some of our classmates who want to be allies, that gave them the opportunity to do check-ins: “How are you doing? How can I help? Other than posting it on our stories, what can we do?” I think that was the goal of this. We want to reach $100,000, but we also want to engage with everyone so that this can be a conversation that continues. It’s not something that once we meet our goal, it’s one and done. How are we ensuring that this campaign starts conversations that can truly effect change at our universities on a larger scale and once we enter the workforce?

What went into your decision of what organization to support through this effort? Why did you select the organization that you did, Color of Change?

Lauren: Color of Change is an online social justice organization that puts pressure on governments and corporations to address some of the issues facing black America that don’t always rise to national consciousness. They call out and mobilize people through petitions or advocacy work to promote legislation that affects the lives of black Americans. So, we felt it was a good organization to target because their work applies not only to what’s happening on the ground right now but to thinking long term as an educational tool — giving people, one, awareness of what’s happening and, two, an action step; they can sign a petition, or they can donate. There’s a strong call to action in their messaging.

Harshita: The only thing that I would add to that is that Color of Change provides a platform for discussions on how to be better businesses. Their push for getting Zoom’s chief diversity officer in place was huge, and it was very timely and important, especially given how big Zoom is as a COVID resource.

At this time, we need to see clear examples of black leadership. Supporting an organization that not only provides a platform for petitions and organizing for black lives but is also a place where we can talk about how to be better businesses made a lot of sense to us as Consortium students.

How have you gotten the word out about the fundraiser and worked to achieve your goal?

Cagney: Originally, it involved just reaching out and posting things on the group chat’s that we are a part of, so The Consortium GroupMe ’21 and the Consortium GroupMe ’22, and then using our networks. Lauren and I are part of Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT), so we posted in our MLT ’21 chat. It was really everyone who’s part of the fundraising committee posting to their chats, their social media, any networks that they have, as well as using Consortium liaisons to get the word out to people who might not be on the committee. Then we reached out to the women’s organizations and the Black Business Student Associations (BBSAs) at large to get the word out.

Lauren: In addition to being a Consortium liaison, I’m involved in the leadership here at Ross in the BBSA. I’m starting to talk to BBSA leadership across other non-Consortium schools about what action steps they are asking their students to take. If they want to donate to an organization, we’re letting them know that this fundraiser exists to see if we can get other MBAs to be a part of it.

Harshita: The last thing I would add is, as an incoming ’22, we are still trying to understand the depth of these communities that we’re now a part of. It’s been an amazing thing to watch unfold. All of these incoming students are extremely excited and energized about not only being part of The Consortium but about pushing businesses and corporate America to be better. I definitely did not anticipate so much camaraderie prior to the Orientation Program & Career Forum (OP); I didn’t know that our community would be able to band together so quickly.

Within the class of 2022, our methods for communicating this fundraiser have been primarily via our GroupMe. We have used this platform to reach all of the ’22s and galvanize as many of them as possible to donate. I’ve been happy to see so many people sharing and actively following these efforts. I’ve never met them before, but we’re already so connected. I think the fact that this effort involves multiple Consortium classes is why this campaign is so strong right now.

How many schools have joined in this effort? How much have you raised thus far?

Lauren: Seven schools are primarily highlighted within the planning team, but we have reached out to The Consortium through our liaison network, so communications have traveled throughout the 20 schools that are part of The Consortium member network.

We just exceeded $50,000, with over 1,000 individual contributions.

On the donate page, you mention that you will be sharing educational resources and that you have additional plans to help these efforts endure. Can you tell me more about these plans?

Cagney: As of right now, we’re centered around education, so we’re using social media to provide education around Color of Change — what the organization is, what their pillars are, how they’re pushing the needle forward. We want to use the momentum we have and the ability to galvanize everyone to see how we can continue this in the long term so that this isn’t something that we’re just doing now because there’s all this attention around what’s going on.

What would you say to someone who is considering donating to the cause? What about those who want to help but may not have the funds to do so at this time?

Lauren: We always ask people to consider donating if they have the means, but we understand that we are in a very interesting economic climate right now and that may not be the best way they can help. I don’t think that you have to donate in order to show that you care. I would like to clarify that for people who feel that’s the only way they can make meaningful change. Self-education is huge. This is a platform by which people can do that. Take action steps like signing a petition or sharing on social media — that is also contributing to the cause. For those who are able to contribute, that is great, but otherwise, there are plenty of opportunities to help through Color of Change.

Harshita: The only thing that I would add is that if people are on the edge in terms of whether or not they should donate, yes, our goal is to raise a certain amount of money, but the overarching goal is to give people a way to donate anything that they have, whether that’s five minutes to read the fundraiser page itself or to visit the Color of Change website. We’re just trying to provide assistance for people to get from point A to point B, because it [can be] really confusing [understanding] how to show support as well as really overwhelming. I think the fact that 1,000-plus people have already donated to this means that people have looked at the website, people have read something and learned something that perhaps they didn’t know 24 hours ago. I think that is a win in and of itself.

Overall, what impact do you hope to have through this campaign or other efforts?

Cagney: I feel like the biggest goal of this is to provide people with education around what people of color, particularly black people, have been experiencing for years and how to be an effective ally, how to simply check in. There has been so much conversation amongst our class around what actions we can take to hold our schools accountable. What are other things that we can do that can hold this institution accountable for the mission that they promised to uphold by joining The Consortium? It’s not just about admitting us and providing funding; it’s also about when we get to campus, what do we see, what kind of cases are we reading, and are we educating everyone around the mission and the purpose of The Consortium? I look at this as a starting point for really effecting change in the MBA world.

When I think about what I would want my kids to experience if they decide to get an MBA, it’s “Are there black and brown people who are educating you? What cases are you reading? Are the cases that you’re reading around equality and what happened in 2020, 20 something years from now?” That’s my mission, now that I have this fire inside of me. How do I carry this into the workplace to effect the change that I want to see there? We need to be educating people who may not understand [on] how to go into the workforce and be a true ally.

Lauren: I think it’s twofold. First, being more intentional about the opportunity that The Consortium offers us and how we use that to create the change that we want to see. This campaign is a great example of how we not only came together very quickly but of how powerful this network is. I think there’s a lot to learn, but I’m hopeful that we’ll have something that can bring us together besides the OP experience long after we graduate.

I feel like there’s more openness to have these conversations now, and I think this is a moment where we’re practicing to be the leaders we want to see in the corporate world — to echo what Cagney said, how to be a good ally in the workplace, how to speak up, how to avoid being a bystander when you see something out of place and really take a stand on what values we have going into the workforce. I’m proud that this campaign was started by Consortium members. We’re rising to the occasion, and it’s a great thing to be a part of.

Harshita: I think Lauren and Cagney really eloquently summed that up. My personal goal in this is continuing on in my journey to be a good ally. I know there are a lot of students like me who are itching for ways to be supportive and be valuable allies to our black community, and I’m excited to continue that journey here in business school.

I think The Consortium provides a wonderful, almost self-selected group of people who already are invested in advancing diversity within the world of business. The most impactful thing to me so far in this process has been seeing how much people truly care and want to create space for conversation to discuss what effective allyship looks like and how we can support one another. I’m excited to grow alongside my peers in The Consortium and at Ross, as well as carry that over throughout the rest of my career and my personal life.

To learn more about this Color of Change fundraising campaign or to donate, click here.

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: Emory MBA Launches Organization to Provide Assistance to Small Businesses, Students Affected by Pandemic

For Danni El Tayeb, a Consortium fellow in Emory University Goizueta Business School’s class of 2021, simply staying home to help minimize the spread of COVID-19 was not sufficient.

“It’s not enough to just sit at home and do nothing. You are doing your part by doing that, but that’s sort of the minimum,” he says. “I wanted to take that to the next level and create an impact in a unique way.”

So, with the help of five classmates, El Tayeb launched Ponce & Friends to help small businesses in the Atlanta area that were hit hard by the crisis. In addition to providing pro-bono management consulting services to these businesses, the organization facilitates opportunities for Emory students, who have had their jobs or internships shortened, revoked or deferred, to get valuable hands-on experience. Projects focus on product and marketing strategy, digital transformation and supply chain transformation.

“Everybody who is part of this program is being helped in some way,” says El Tayeb.

In between his work, El Tayeb took some time to chat with The Consortium about how this unique project came about and how Ponce & Friends is working to make a difference for the Atlanta community.

Tell me about your background and how you got to where you are now.

I’m Sudanese. I grew up in the Middle East until I was about 16 and came to the U.S. in 2010. I went to the University of Illinois and studied industrial engineering, and while I was there, I grew really fascinated with entrepreneurship and tech and formed a couple of organizations that consulted for various startups around campus. When I graduated in 2015, I moved to Atlanta, Ga., and started working for a company called Manhattan Associates. I started out with them in technology consulting but moved into a more strategic role.

It was in that role that I decided to pursue an MBA. I really wanted to stay in the Atlanta area. I fell in love with the community at Emory and decided to pursue my MBA last year. I joined in the fall of 2019 and will graduate in May of 2021, and this summer, I’m interning at Apple.

Have you always had an interest in starting your own business, particularly one like Ponce & Friends?

I always had some interest in starting a business, but for this initiative, I was more interested in it from a social impact perspective. I’ve been involved with our impact investing organization on campus; we manage a pretty small fund, but still a fund in itself, that invests in various organizations around Atlanta. That is sort of how I got plugged into the small business community.

With coronavirus, there were a lot of articles that came out talking about how small businesses were some of the organizations that were most impacted by the crisis. That, combined with people saying that the best thing that you can do to help was to just stay home — I felt like that wasn’t enough. So I decided to start Ponce & Friends.

Ponce & Friends is a fully virtual consulting organization that works with small businesses around Atlanta. It’s a pro bono organization, so all of the people staffed across projects are students, and from a social impact perspective, it serves two purposes: On one end, we’re serving some of those small businesses in our community that have been affected by the virus, but on the other end, we’re also staffing those projects with students who have either lost internships or had their job offers deferred to 2021. We’re looking to have a double-edged impact.

When and how did the idea come to you? Where did the name originate?

I think there was a lot of frustration for me around wanting to help but not physically being able to leave the house to [do so]. I thought about this idea and talked to a few people who I knew had similar interests as me and who were also diverse in nature — in their professional and social backgrounds. I reached out to four people, and they all said they were on board. They all loved the idea, so we decided to start Ponce & Friends together.

Ponce de León is a really famous avenue in Atlanta, and we wanted our name to sort of reflect the fact that we are working with Atlanta small businesses and that we wanted to be a part of the community, so that’s where Ponce comes from. Then, when we were thinking about what to call ourselves, we started with Ponce & Company, Ponce Consulting Group, that sort of thing, but we really wanted to focus on the fact that we are working with the community, with small businesses. We don’t want them to see us as consultants, but more as friends that are helping them out. So, that’s where Ponce & Friends comes from.

How did things progress from there?

For about our first four weeks, we were super quiet. We worked a lot on partnerships, thinking about which organizations we should partner with, and started reaching out. One that we landed on was actually through Emory’s Social Enterprise Center. There’s an accelerator called Start:ME. Start:ME has accelerator programs in underserved communities in the Atlanta area for people who want to take their side hustle and make it a full-time business. They incubate businesses for about 17 weeks, after which they launch. We worked with the director of that program to get introduced to people who launched [through the] program four or five years ago, and are now running their businesses full time, who might have been impacted [by the pandemic].

Our first two projects were through Start:ME, and both of the founders of those companies were refugees, so there was definitely a big social impact focus there. We’re also working with a couple of larger organizations; we’re working with a large robotics company that works in the supply chain industry and a carbon-negative cattle farm here in the Atlanta area.

Do you still work through Start:ME?

The first two projects that we landed were through them, but the two that we just kicked off were through word of mouth. We’re still going to partner with Start:ME to identify new opportunities, but we’re not solely working with them.

Will you continue to do Ponce & Friends throughout your summer internship?

That’s something we’re trying to work through right now. Actually, four out of five of the team members have internships for the summer, so we’re working on figuring out some sort of autonomy — maybe bringing in some of the students who have lost their internships or that are going to be available over the summer to do some more operational type work. That way, I can just help out with decision making and brainstorming, be more hands off for the summer, and allow people who need the opportunity to run with this.

Are the students who are staffing these projects other MBA students?

Right now, one person on our team — her name is Tanya — is sort of our liaison with the undergraduate community, and she is very plugged into the entrepreneurship, startup and small business network for undergrads. What we’re doing is we’re initially staffing the projects with MBAs so that they can scope out what solutions should look like, and once it’s time for the actual work to be done, the MBAs can request undergrad resources to do a lot of the analytical type work. We’re mostly working with business school students, but we’re also open to taking other undergraduate students as well.

It’s all about the experience, honestly. It’s not about making money or raising revenues or anything like that. It’s about getting students who need experience good experience and getting small businesses that need the help some good minds to work with.

Why was it important to you to incorporate students into this work?

As most of us business school students know, the recruiting process is very taxing — it’s very stressful — and seeing somebody go through that process for three to six months only to land something and then have the rug pulled out from under them was really frustrating for me. That was happening to a lot of my close friends, classmates and colleagues, and I felt like there had to be a way to fix that. I was also very frustrated that a lot of the companies revoked some of these offers when a lot of the students were voicing that they were willing to work for free. When there are students who are willing to work for free who are as qualified as MBAs or even undergrad BBAs out of Emory, I think those resources need to be leveraged somehow.

Do you only offer consulting or do you also create, say, marketing materials for businesses?

The way that our projects are structured is they go in phases. Our first phase is ideating, what we think their products or a certain process should look like and that sort of thing. The way that it works is that if everything’s good with the client by the end of the first phase or the first project, we plan to re-sign so that we can actually do the implementation — whether that’s creating new messaging around their product or implementing a new payment platform for them to use or setting up an e-commerce channel for them. So, the first phase is kind of ideation, and if they want to pursue a second phase, we would be open to doing the implementation as well.

Can you tell me about some of the projects you’re working on?

One of them is a supper club that was started by two Ethiopian refugees. Essentially, they found that refugees were kind of separated from the core Atlanta community, and they [thought] what better way to connect the two than with food. So, what they do is they host monthly dinners where they’ll bring in a refugee chef to cook meals, and they get compensated for some of the seats. They have a pretty big following; they sell out their monthly dinners in minutes.

So are you helping them figure out ways to adapt in this new COVID-19 world?

So, since their business, the food business, is an experience business, is there a way to bring this experience to people if they can’t be around each other or super close to each other physically? That’s one of the questions that we’re trying to answer for them.

Is your hope to continue Ponce & Friends even after the crisis subsides?

It’s very much dependent on the resources and if we have enough supply of people who are willing to work for free or very close to free. So I think that’s a decision we can make at a point when we’re gauging if students are looking for more experiences like that.

Do you have any interest in expanding or working with companies outside of Atlanta?

Definitely. One of the things that we ask about when we’re looking at different projects is location, so that plays a huge role in the projects we are selecting and choosing to work with. However, another metric that we look at is impact, how much impact would this project have on the business and its community, and I think that if that impact number starts growing, even for a business that’s not in Atlanta, it might be worth pursuing a project like that.

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: The Consortium’s First-Ever Virtual Orientation Program Brings Students, Schools, Corporate Partners Together in New, Engaging Ways

Despite the unexpected hurdle posed by COVID-19, The Consortium successfully executed its 54th annual Orientation Program & Career Forum this year while welcoming the largest class in the organization’s history — 532 students. The Consortium made the decision in April to shift the OP from an in-person event to a virtual one out of concern for all constituents.

“Transitioning from an in-person to a virtual conference was an adjustment for all of us, and we appreciated the flexibility and willingness of all of our constituents to still be part of this life-changing event for our students,” says Peter J. Aranda, III, executive director & CEO of The Consortium. “As I participated in different sessions, it was clear that the virtual nature of the event had no effect on the quality or the value of the content being shared.”

Engagement data from the event demonstrate that the virtual OP served as a valuable resource to students and corporate partners alike.

“The experience was certainly different than what our team had originally planned before COVID-19, but we all came away extremely impressed at the flexibility both The Consortium and the students displayed to keep it an engaging event for all involved,” says Ximena Roth, who works in Diverse Customer Segment Marketing at UPS.

As The Consortium’s most anticipated event of the year — where new MBAs are welcomed by their member schools, meet their classmates and peers, network with corporate sponsors and learn more about specific career paths — the OP is an important entry into b-school. Because of this, it was important to The Consortium to not only move forward with the event but to make sure the experience was on par with the traditional in-person event.

“We have learned over the years that OP means a lot to many,” says Janice Wells-White, vice president of program administration for The Consortium. “The relationships that are cultivated and the student engagement opportunities are invaluable, and students consistently report that OP is life changing. The event is also an important part of The Consortium’s value proposition. Students receive pre-conference career prep from schools, gain early access to employers and build long-lasting relationships with classmates.”

An evaluation of several products led The Consortium to select the platform that Wells-White says offered the most functionality, one called Intrado. With 20 years in the virtual event and webcast space, Intrado brought invaluable experience and a certain level of trust. “We wanted a platform that could support our career forum, but also the many concurrent tracks, breakout sessions and workshops that we deliver each year,” says Wells-White.

With Intrado’s help — and lots of planning and communication, as well as late nights and early mornings — Consortium staff were able to transfer nearly all of the in-person programming to the virtual platform, with a few exceptions.

“There were a couple of items that did not translate as well,” notes Wells-White. “In those instances, we were able to create new student engagement opportunities that were congruent with the virtual platform.”

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The result was a robust online event and exhibit hall featuring live-video panel discussions with experts about different career tracks and industries, exhibit halls where students could learn about corporate partners and employment opportunities and school chats where they could connect with representatives from their school. Additionally, a networking lounge and a trivia game allowed them to make new connections and test their knowledge. Feedback from attendees, especially students, has been very positive, with many individuals sharing notes expressing their gratitude and detailing the value offered by the event.

“Our students reported that the organization of the conference was on point, especially compared with others that they have experienced — [with] clear instruction and site navigation,” says Lina Bell, director of diversity and inclusion at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. “They especially liked the ‘extras,’ like the Trivia Game. In fact, Rice Business took the No. 1 and No. 2 prize spots. Having that opportunity to [de-stress] and have fun while in the virtual environment was a positive.”

The online format — in particular, the individual space provided each corporate partner — helped spark as well as continue conversations, Roth says.

“By being able to reach out before OP started, we were able to continue quality conversations at OP as well as have introductory chats with new students to our virtual booth,” she says. “Having the ability to upload relevant documents and videos allowed us to advance the conversations quickly since there was often a good basis of knowledge before the student even reached out.”

Brittany Floyd, a member of The Consortium’s class of 2022, also found this feature helpful as it provided students in-depth information about employers. “Being able to access so much data 24 hours a day allowed us to really understand the company and roles [available there] so that when we did get a chance to interact, we could use the time to really dig deep and focus on information that wasn’t otherwise available to us,” says Floyd, who will join the University of Rochester’s Simon Business School this fall.

She says the range of communication options available via OP — such as private and group chats, phone and Zoom meetings and Google hangouts — helped “personalize the experience,” despite its impersonal nature. It also allowed students to speak with one or several company representatives at once. “What we missed out on with the in-person experience was made up for with what felt like unlimited access to recruiters,” Floyd says.

Another benefit of the virtual OP to students was the ease of attending and complete access to all sessions. “In person, students are asked to select one of three career tracks in the morning and one of three in the afternoon,” says Wells-White. “In the virtual environment, any session students missed or couldn’t attend could be viewed later ‘on demand.’”

This was one of many features that students appreciated, says Amy Mitson, director of admissions, recruitment and marketing at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business.

“Our students loved being able to watch sessions live and return to other sessions ‘on demand’ when time allowed,” she says. “Alongside our Consortium class, I thoroughly enjoyed the speaker session on authenticity. Post-OP, I heard very positive feedback for the formal sessions as well as the more casual and fun sessions.”

Jen Daw, who works in University Relations at Fortive Corporation, says she found the company booth a great way to connect one-on-one with students. She was most impressed, though, with the individual sessions. “The panels were authentic and engaging — simply outstanding,” she says. “They allowed for large audiences and great follow up conversations after.”

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Floyd was also impressed with the quality and commitment of the presenters. “It’s tough to sit at a computer all day, but I felt like all the speakers and panelists were incredibly knowledgeable, down to earth and very passionate,” she says.

For all of the benefits the virtual event provided, having close, personal interactions proved challenging for developing meaningful connections with classmates, Floyd says. “But my class is incredibly resourceful and was determined not to let this format keep us from sharing this unique experience with each other,” she notes. Floyd was charged with managing the class of 2022’s Instagram and is leading an effort to introduce incoming students to their new peers. “The student representatives also coordinated social events over Zoom — happy hours, meditation and yoga as well as live DJ sets to celebrate the end of the OP,” she says.

Mitson says Tuck also made an outside effort to engage with the incoming class. “Prior to OP, our class had connected so much, and had already worked on résumés and mock-interview prep for the Career Fair, that we used our school meeting [during OP] for a Consortium alum meet-and-greet instead of an ice-breaker or mock-interview session,” says Mitson, who expressed gratitude for the quality and content of the event.

“The Consortium team did an amazing job of leading us through unchartered territory very successfully,” she says. “Students, school staff, recruiters and sponsors were all able to connect through the virtual platform. Our students raved about career fair connections and will be arriving at school this fall with a refined sense of their career focus as well as a Consortium cohort they can lean on.”

Despite the last-minute shift in approach it caused, the pandemic ultimately forced The Consortium family coming together in new and meaningful ways, says Floyd.

“It’s such a dynamic time to begin an MBA program, and [the speakers] really empathized with us and made space for us to talk about how we were feeling and what each company was doing to make a path for candidates like us,” she says. “I am a big believer in the fact that people connect easier over common experiences, and I think this unprecedented time actually gave all of us a starting point to connect with one another in an authentic way.”

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: This MD-MBA Shares His Journey and Insight on Where the Healthcare Industry Can Improve Post-COVID-19

As a resident physician at Grand Strand Medical Center in Myrtle Beach, S.C., Adlai Pappy II has been working on the frontlines against COVID-19 and has seen firsthand both the strengths and inadequacies of the U.S. healthcare system.

But this anesthesiologist in training has found consolation in his ability to make a difference in the lives of his patients.

“Despite a difficult intern year, I have been touched by the support for healthcare workers from those in the community,” says Pappy. “I continue to learn how blessed I am to have the opportunity to do meaningful work treating patients.”

A 2019 graduate of Emory University’s School of Medicine and a Consortium alum of Emory’s Goizueta School of Business, Pappy has both an MD and an MBA. His hope is that the combination of the two degrees will ultimately allow him to play a larger role in “shaping what future healthcare looks like.”

In between treating patients and planning for an upcoming move to Boston, where he’ll train in anesthesiology at Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital, Pappy spoke with The Consortium about his dual focus, his experience treating COVID-19 patients and the impact the pandemic might have on the healthcare industry long term.

Where did your interest in healthcare and business begin? What motivated you to combine the two?

I went to Princeton for undergrad, and it was there that I kind of began to develop that interest. I always liked science, but that’s when I began to develop an interest in healthcare as a whole — as a systems-based approach — and I began to realize that having a business background could be really useful in terms of trying to improve the healthcare system as a whole.

After I left Princeton, I did two years of research at the University of Michigan to get a little more experience, to make sure this was the right path for me. I realized it was, applied and was accepted to Emory and, over the course of five years, completed my MD-MBA.

Did the fact that your dad is also a doctor help spark your interest in medicine?

I think, if anything, he really encouraged me to understand the business side of things. He’s seen how healthcare has changed over the last 30 years, and I think some physicians who have been around for a while aren’t as happy with how practice has changed over the last couple decades. My dad feels that we need to have a stronger influence and a stronger voice in shaping things moving forward.

As physicians, we must be focused on our patients. Yet, historically, this focus was only at a micro level. Physicians would rent out time at hospitals to do their surgeries or see patients and would go home. We generally didn’t take an active role in being leaders at the hospital to influence how patient care is delivered. This allowed other groups — without clinical experience — to be leaders and to dictate policy. In an effort to change this, we’re starting to see an increase in the merger of MDs and MBAs — a lot more people who have that healthcare background who also want to participate and be a leader to influence how we provide care as a whole.

How were you able to balance the demands of both the MD and MBA program?

Thankfully, the way that Emory has integrated getting a master’s degree with an MD works out pretty well. They accelerate the first two years of medical school into about 18 months. When I was finishing up my third year, it was February. I was able to take the second part of medical boards and have a nice transition into starting the MBA in May, taking a leave of absence from the medical school. The way the two programs work together allows you to be able to focus on one at a time.

You also have a concentration in entrepreneurship through your MBA. What do you ultimately hope to do with both degrees, and do you have any desire to one day go out on your own?

Coming into business school, I knew I wanted to get a concentration in healthcare. During my time there, I added the entrepreneurship concentration because of the fantastic professors within the department. I learned a lot that has many applications to my daily work in medicine.

That said, with entrepreneurship, you need a self-starter attitude, you need to be able to handle a lot of different things at once, be able to understand a lot of different facets of business as a whole. I think there are a lot of similarities to medicine with regard to that, in terms of not just being a practicing physician but one who is also working to improve your hospital system or to improve policy in your state or even nationally — trying to make sure that you’re balancing in an effective way taking care of your patients at a micro-level but also influencing things at a macro-level.

What has your experience been like as a member of The Consortium?

The Consortium has been great. I have really enjoyed the network I’ve developed. I was able to get an internship with Centene, one of the supporting companies, that I really enjoyed. It gave me a great 12-weeks of better understanding Medicaid. It gave me a better understanding of the healthcare system as a whole, and I made a lot of friends along the way.

Additionally, I was recruited by Wade Rakes, who spoke at the Orientation Program and has been instrumental in leading Centene’s diversity and inclusion efforts. I would highly recommend Centene to Consortium members starting the internship recruiting process.

When it comes to COVID-19, what has the situation been like at your hospital?

Our hospital was one of the luckier ones initially, but the number of cases has risen significantly in June. Overall, what I think initially helped was the layout of South Carolina — it doesn’t have a lot of mass transit, and it isn’t one of the most densely populated states. The state did a pretty good job of shutting things down early, but the early opening is likely why cases rose dramatically in June. Still, I have spoken with some of my colleagues in other places, such as Florida, who said that at least a fourth or half of their hospital beds had COVID patients.

We’ve really been able to manage it and have enough protective gear. Initially we had some sad patient outcomes, but clinically it seems like we’re turning the corner in terms of how we attack COVID, improving outcomes.

As a hospital, did you have a plan for how to deal with this crisis, or was your approach more reactionary due to how quickly the situation escalated?

Well, as a whole, we had a couple advantages. One, our hospital is part of a larger system, Healthcare Corporation of America, which is the largest company of hospitals in the country. A lot of things developed at the headquarters in Nashville and were top-down in terms of ensuring the safety of both patients and providers. Also, things came out in phases.

We initially started implementing protocols to quickly identify those with the virus. As soon as anyone was under investigation, they were placed in isolation and tested. Then the hospital counted all of our protective gear so that we knew what we had in order to identify items we needed to supplement. Things began to escalate from there, to where we had to limit the number of visitors. No visitors were allowed for a while, but we have now changed that to a limit of one visitor. We also made sure that we were checking everyone’s temperature at the door, limiting entry into the hospital, masking everyone who came in.

Now we’re at a point where we can test pretty much anyone with symptoms, and we’re testing anyone who is coming in even for elective surgeries. We’re trying to get back to a new normal.

I understand that, for a while, hospitals weren’t doing elective surgeries, and it was said that some people were avoiding hospitals to prevent exposure to the virus. This reportedly had some negative health and economic outcomes. Has this been a cause for concern at your hospital?

Thankfully, as a resident in training, I am essentially a government employee, and our salaries are guaranteed. I think, in part, that’s probably because we don’t really make a lot, so we’re pretty useful in terms of what we can do with our skill set for how much we make. That being said, though, it was definitely a worry across the hospital. We had to close different wings to consolidate costs when we were below capacity. I think at our lowest, we were at 30 or 40 percent capacity. Throughout the rest of the year, I can’t remember a time when we were much below 80 or 90 percent — and, a lot of times, we were over 100 percent.

Across South Carolina — and the country — volumes dropped a lot. It does worry us in terms of things you can prevent but that you shouldn’t really see a change in, like strokes, heart attacks, things like that. It makes us wonder if this is happening and unfortunately people are passing at home because they don’t want to seek care. Most places right now have really effective ways of treating people with strokes, heart attacks, things of that nature without having to risk exposure to COVID-19, and I would encourage people to seek medical attention if they feel like they’re experiencing something out of the ordinary.

How impactful has it been to see your COVID-19 patients, especially the more severe cases, recover and be released from the hospital?

It’s definitely a positive thing. I was working on ICU, and unfortunately, we had some people pass from COVID. But, being able to see the turnaround — especially when, the week before, we were unsure as to whether or not we thought a person would make it — see some of the interventions actually make a difference, see the smile on a person’s face and how happy they are with how things are progressing is why we got into this. It’s definitely what every physician wants, to see those really positive outcomes, especially with something as scary as this.

Has it been interesting to try different interventions and see what works?

Yes. A lot of times, we are basing our management on whether there’s any sort of published literature and clinical trial that supports the use of the intervention. Still, given the novelty of the disease, we collectively work together to determine if we feel the benefits outweigh the risks of a treatment.

What do you think this crisis has revealed about the healthcare industry as a whole? Do you think this has brought to light any areas for improvement?

I think it’s probably even too early to tell. One thing that I’ve noticed in talking to some of my Canadian colleagues, at least in primary care, is how, in America, we need to see patient volume in order to generate revenue and stay afloat, while in Canada and some other countries, it’s sort of the opposite. Physicians have the option to have a capped amount they receive each year, and a good day for them is not a busy day in the clinic, but one where their patients are healthy and living their lives well.

I think the pandemic will bring up some interesting questions in terms of disparity of care. We’re seeing COVID disproportionately affect minorities, African Americans like myself, and the research still needs to be done to figure out why that may be. Hopefully, we can move forward, learn from this and set certain things into place that could prevent this from disproportionately affecting minorities in the future.

Are there ways you think the healthcare industry might change as a result of this pandemic?

The big thing, actually, that I have seen and that a lot of my colleagues say is that telehealth has definitely taken a step forward in terms of reimbursement. A big issue previously was that there was very limited reimbursement for telehealth business, and so we weren’t really seeing it expand. But, given what’s happened, there have been some emergency changes put into place to allow telehealth visits to be reimbursed.

Currently, this works similar to going to your primary care physician, where you might have a copay, but physicians are getting reimbursed from Medicare or Medicaid for these visits. A lot of times you needed to be able to do a physical exam in order to seek reimbursement. Now, it’s a little more efficient, and it’s definitely safer for people to be at home. I think that’s been a big positive. I believe examples like this, where insurance works with hospitals to improve the efficiency of delivering care, will continue.

What is your main concern with regard to the pandemic and your hope for the future?

The hope is definitely for a vaccine. I think the big issue with vaccines is the question of “How do we give something safely to 300 million or 7 billion people across the world?” That kind of leads into my fear.

Ultimately, I worry about what might happen in the fall. We did a pretty good job in the spring of staying socially isolated, but even as things are opening up here in South Carolina, I’m definitely seeing some waning of people taking some of the precautions. There’s debate as to whether or not the heat helps. I think the heat prevents it from staying on surfaces as long, but if we get to the fall and it begins to linger longer, I worry that we’ll see a second outbreak. That’s what we’ve seen with pandemics in the past, but hopefully we can take the appropriate steps to be prepared if that were to happen.

Ultimately, COVID’s been difficult for the country, but I think there’s a lot of opportunity here to improve things. I’m happy to be able to have played a small part in trying to help people who have the disease.

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: Effort to ‘Make the Most of What I’ve Been Given’ Drives WashU Student’s Desire to Have Social Impact

Austin René Moulder is proof that you are never too young to aim high.

A current student at Washington University in St. Louis (WashU), Moulder is pursuing not just a bachelor’s degree in international development and economics — with a minor in Spanish — but also an MBA through Olin Business School’s 3+2 program. By the time he graduates in 2022, he hopes to have also completed a master’s degree in corporate finance and investments.

Moulder attributes much of his ambition to his humble upbringing and his desire to have an impact. “I’ve always been driven to make the most of whatever I’ve been given, and that’s my reason for doing a master’s in business administration,” he says.

His introduction to Competitive Advantage: The Consortium Undergraduate Program in 2019 paved the way for his 2020 summer internship — he is currently working as a global transaction services analyst at Bank of America — and, ultimately, his acceptance to The Consortium as an MBA candidate. This fall, Moulder will begin the MBA leg of his journey at Olin.

He recently shared with us his thoughts and insight regarding his path to graduate school and how he hopes to use his MBA and consulting and finance background to have a positive impact.

Tell me about your background. What was your childhood like, and how did you get where you are now?

I was born in Virginia, but most of my childhood was spent in Kansas City, in a small city called Grandview along the outskirts; it’s a lower-income area. I went to a predominately African American elementary school where the services weren’t that great. My family struggled a lot in 2008, as a lot of people did; my father lost his job, and we really struggled to make ends meet, but I did my best to keep up with my academics and succeed in school.

We ended up moving to a suburb in 2010, but then in 2013, my father passed away. That was really difficult for obvious personal reasons, but also, it was another huge financial toll on my family. I really wanted to live up to my father’s name. He was an expert carpenter, and any challenge he was presented with, he would make the most of it. He worked hard to achieve whatever goal he set out for himself. I always try to embody that.

I ended up valedictorian of my high school and was accepted into WashU, where I studied international and area studies and economics with a minor in Spanish. The reason for that is that it’s always been important for me to have a quantitative, data-driven approach to complex problems — which I get from economics — as well as be able to question some of the conventional assumptions that are placed on economics, which I get from international development studies. That background has really served me well. I have worked in the nonprofit sector and the for-profit world. I worked in Kansas City with the largest nonprofit homeless shelter as their development intern, and I went on the following year to do an externship with Boston Consulting Group. Now I’m about to begin my MBA, with a concentration in consulting and finance.

Initially, what industry or field did you hope to go into? How has that evolved or shifted over time?

My interests really lie in social impact, cultural diversity and education. I would say that those are the foundations of what I strive to achieve in my life, and I’ve really embodied that through certain activities — in the nonprofit world as well as in my extracurriculars. As far as my career trajectory, I’m studying consulting and finance, and the reason for that is I really think that a keen sense of strategy and a keen sense of quantitative financial management are the building blocks in organizations that break frontiers and disrupt industry trends. Because of that, I really want to leverage my skills in consulting and finance to enter a large management or strategy consulting firm.

However, whenever I think about my long-term career trajectory, I’m more interested in going into something like education or social impact. My ultimate goal, my passion project, is to one day found or contribute to a new university that incorporates high-level, breaking-edge technology with a liberal arts environment; that way, we can focus a lot more on how people can think and engage in critical thought as opposed to regurgitating information or doing something that machines are going to be able to accomplish in a decade.

Tell me about WashU’s 3+2 program. Why did you decide to pursue an MBA, and how do you think it will help you achieve your goals?

The way that the 3+2 Olin MBA program works is that during your junior year, you have the opportunity to apply if you are a WashU student. I’m not in the Olin Business School undergraduate program — I’m in the College of Arts and Sciences — but I really wanted to pursue this program for a couple of reasons. The first reason is in line with my philosophy with respect to life and where I’m at in terms of age. I think that during your late teens and early 20s, you really want to maximize your human capital by trying to learn as much as possible as quickly as possible; that way, you can really optimize your impact in an organization. So, being able to compound my liberal arts education with something really grounded in finances and business administration is the key driving factor.

The second factor is that we really are in an unprecedented time with the pandemic, so it makes pragmatic sense [to get my MBA now]. Whenever I think about the competition in the labor market and how difficult it is to get a job, I think that being able to utilize a master’s degree is not only going to give you a competitive advantage — no pun intended — but it’s also going to better suit you to time your entrance into the labor market.

The third reason that I would highlight is the ability to leverage fourth year scholarship benefits and maximize your return on investment [with regard to] education. The 3+2 program is amazing, especially for people who come from humble backgrounds and don’t have a lot of financial backing. I’m one of those people, and being able to leverage a 3+2 program is unique in the sense that your fourth year you’re considered an undergraduate. The reality is that a lot of fellowships are not available to undergraduate students like they are to graduate students. The Consortium is a good example of an organization that’s trying to break from that. I can use the undergraduate aid that I’m already receiving on a financial need basis and apply that to the first year of my MBA, which cuts my MBA costs in half. Once you factor in my fifth-year merit-based scholarships, it just makes sense from a cost-benefit analysis.

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Your introduction to The Consortium began with Competitive Advantage. So, how did you hear about the program and what drew you to it?

I’m so grateful for the power of networking. Coming from a public school background and not really having too many resources [or access to] top-name schools or organizations, I didn’t really know what networking entailed. But, whenever I entered WashU, I found all of these people who really wanted to help me succeed. Something that I’ve really utilized — although it may seem trivial — is the Latinx group chat on GroupMe; it’s a group of Latinos at WashU. We make up about 6 percent of the student population. Someone posted about this opportunity, Competitive Advantage 2019, and there were only three days left to apply. I thought it would be a great opportunity to meet Latino professionals, successful Latinos, and other people from minority backgrounds at top schools and leverage this network.

I was so grateful when I found out that I was accepted, but honestly, I didn’t really know what I was getting into. It really wasn’t until I went to Schaumburg and spoke with people from The University of Texas at Austin and all of these other schools that I really was able to understand the magnitude of the organization, as well as the power of networking and establishing connections with corporate partners.

What did you enjoy most about your experience at Competitive Advantage?

I really liked that it had a lot of focus on diversity, on including people of color, especially in the field that I’m interested in. In consulting and finance, it’s very pale and male. Because of that, whenever I’m networking or connecting with some of these companies, it can be very easy to sacrifice my culture to try and get the job or to try and meet a certain resume standard. The Consortium completely turns that on its head.

That was the thing that drew me most to Competitive Advantage, the fact that it doesn’t try to meet this conventional, outdated standard of what finance and consulting look like. Even on the program’s website, in the media it shares, the blogs it posts, it’s all about celebrating culture. I really noticed that when I was applying, and it really showed to be true whenever I was actually at the conference.

What did you hope to walk away with?

I was looking for a job or an internship. I was also there to network, and I think that I accomplished both. It was incredible because there was time to interact with these large groups, these large schools that were attending [with] 20 or 30 students. I came out of the conference with nearly double the size of what my original LinkedIn network was, and I still stay in touch with a lot of the participants.

I was able to leverage opportunities with corporate partners; that was my introduction to Accenture and Bank of America. Ruben Blaise was the representative from Bank of America, and he walked me through, on a very personal level, what it was like to work in investment banking and finance. As someone who, at the time, was predominately [focused on] consulting, I didn’t really know what a finance job looked like. What Ruben was saying about the integrity of the corporation and how they live by their values got me excited, so I continued my relationship with Bank of America, and that eventually led me to a summer internship that I recently started in Global Transaction Services.

As a side note, something that I have come to appreciate is that, while so many companies and corporations have rescinded internship offers because of the pandemic, Bank of America made a commitment that they weren’t going to lay off anyone this year. This speaks volumes of the corporation and how much they care for their employees.

How if at all did Competitive Advantage affect your decision of where to go next in your career and education?

Competitive Advantage really opened my eyes to the possibilities in the industries I was considering. In top 20 or top 30 undergraduate programs, there’s often the expectation that you’re going to come in as a freshman and you’re going to [become part of] this machine [and work] at a McKinsey, Bain or BCG type company. While that’s great and those organizations are fantastic, it’s really hard sometimes to see through the prestige and analyze other options.

I think The Consortium does a really great job of saying, “Yes, these are great opportunities, and these are great organizations that you should definitely reach out to, but it doesn’t have to just be this.” There are so many organizations, there are so many sub-industries. There’s insurance. There’s not just strategy consulting, there’s tech consulting. There’s not only finance, there’s also auditing. That was one of the main benefits of Competitive Advantage.

You mentioned that you like the program’s mission and its focus on diversity. Is diversity an area in which you would also like to have an impact?

Yes. It was so incredible to see the speakers from Competitive Advantage — Latinos, African Americans, groups with which I identify and ally — and I really hope to contribute such that whatever I do in my career has a social impact. My future employers and business ventures need to include diversity and inclusion as core values.

There are so many barriers to entry for people of color in managerial positions. My hope in the long run is that I can create something and be entrepreneurial in spirit such that these barriers are not so large — whether that’s creating a network like The Consortium, whether that’s creating educational opportunities for people of color, whether that’s integrating global culture and global diversity into a single geographic or digital space. That really is the key to what I want to accomplish in life.

What does it mean to you to have participated, first, in Competitive Advantage and to now continue your relationship with The Consortium as an MBA?

It means that I am a part of something fluid, something that will evolve alongside me and support me in my professional pursuits. I believe that organizations like The Consortium provide opportunities for life-long networking. To me, that means a relationship that develops over time. I think about Maura Quinn, a recruiter from Liberty Mutual, with whom I had the pleasure of engaging at both conferences.

Continuous engagement grants me the ability to establish sustained relationships. Ultimately, those networks create an important foundation for growth among our communities of color. I believe that being a part of Competitive Advantage as well as The Consortium’s MBA platform shows the organization’s commitment not only to creating connections, but also to cultivating them. I am grateful to The Consortium and plan to leverage my unique position to bridge the gap between thriving individuals at the undergraduate level and the MBA level, because closing those gaps are necessary for the advancement of our communities.

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: Emory MBA Bryan Shepherd Believes in Business as a Means to Change Society — and That’s What He’s Trying to Do

As a child growing up in a suburb of Atlanta, Bryan Shepherd would begin most days before the sun was even up.

“I lived in Decatur, Ga., which was about 30 to 45 minutes away from my elementary school,” Shepherd notes. “Me and most of my friends were in a majority-to-minority (M-to-M) program that allowed us to go to more academically robust schools in the county. We would wake up sometime around 5:30 or 6 o’clock in the morning, we’d take a bus to school and get back home at like 6 o’clock at night.”

The experience was challenging, Shepherd recalls, but it was also an opportunity — one that helped him develop the grit and determination that would carry him through the rest of his educational and professional life. It was also the first of many experiences that instilled in Shepherd, who was a first-generation college student, both the value of education and hard work.

Now an MBA candidate and Consortium fellow in Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, Shepherd largely attributes how far he’s come to his upbringing. Growing up, his parents helped foster his innate curiosity and desire to learn and instilled in him the importance of education and a strong work ethic.

With the knowledge and skills cultivated in him by his mother beginning at a young age, Shepherd developed exceptional test-taking abilities, which helped him get into elementary and middle schools for high academic achievers. Once in high school, his athletic ability helped carry him through to college.

“Unfortunately, my GPA in high school wasn’t incredible, but earning a football scholarship allowed me to go to college, gave me a way to pay for it, because it would have been pretty tough,” he says.https://cgsm.org/wp-content/uploads/202 ... 484640.jpg

That is how Shepherd ended up at a private liberal arts institution in the small town of Clinton, S.C., where he studied psychology and political science and was part of a class comprised of only 6 percent black students.

“That was a culture shock for me,” says Shepherd. “My parents invested a lot in making sure that I had a good education, but getting to college, there was nobody to talk to, and I couldn’t really talk to the counselors about some of the issues I was facing as one of the only black kids in the school.”

While the experience tested him, Shepherd says it also exposed him to different types of people and prepared him for professional life. “I think it taught me a lot about the world, and it gave me some tools to handle a lot of the situations that I’ve encountered in my career,” he explains. “I think being in Atlanta sometimes was being in a fairy tale; having principals and bosses who always looked like me wasn’t always the most realistic way that I experienced life.”

Following college, with little prospects and his father sick at home, Shepherd took a job at a dermatology office in Atlanta making $13 an hour. “I was just focused on trying to bring some money back into the house and help out with the bills,” he says.

The job — located in what Shepherd refers to as “the Beverly Hills of Atlanta” — involved working with very wealthy clientele. The experience forced Shepherd to learn how to deal with many different types of people and helped him further improve his communication skills. At the same time, his flame for psychology continued to burn. However, he did not want to go the traditional route.

“I knew that I had the potential to do more than that, and I had this innate kind of curiosity about people,” says Shepherd. “As a kid, I was always interested in why people think the thoughts that they do — why do I think the thoughts that I do? When I went to school, I was able to take a few courses on industrial organizational psychology, that more business-focused assessment and understanding of people, trying to understand employee engagement. I thought that was a really interesting challenge. I had this psychology background, and I wanted to apply it to business.”

Shepherd applied and was accepted into the master’s in applied psychology program at the University of Southern California (USC). Six months later, he was on the path toward pursuing his dream, living in Nashville and working for a small boutique consulting firm, IQTalent Partners, after being recruited by an old football teammate. His excitement over landing the opportunity, however, was quickly overshadowed by his father’s sudden passing.

“I moved up to Nashville in November of 2015, and at the end of the first week of me working in Nashville, my father passed away,” Shepherd says. “That was a life-changing experience; your life’s never the same after you have a parent pass away. So, I took some time working through depression, and I immersed myself in my work. I was working upwards of 55 or 60 hours every week.”

With the time he put in and the skills he gained being client facing at IQTalent Partners, Shepherd made the jump to Korn Ferry, the largest executive search firm in the world by revenue, where he was able to dive deeper into the consulting side of the business. In charge of hiring for a large number of Fortune 100 companies, Korn Ferry took a solutions-based approach to hiring, Shepherd says. “It was ‘We have a problem, how do we solve it?’”

At Korn Ferry, Shepherd flourished, and although he was hired as a recruiter, a role in which he worked with clients to attract and retain diverse talent, it didn’t take long for him to advance.

“Within about one year, I was able to earn a skip-level promotion, so I skipped over the senior recruiter role and became the managing associate, which is someone who manages engagements and leads client teams,” says Shepherd. “I had a team of recruiters who reported to me, and I was the person who would meet week after week with the client and walk them through any issues; I was their point of contact. That was a pretty cool accomplishment for me at 27. I was pretty proud of that.”

It was also at Korn Ferry that Shepherd began to lean into his belief in the power of business to change society for the better. He proposed and led the development and execution of a mock interview program for underserved minorities in the Atlanta community, through which Korn Ferry was able to share its learnings from working with prominent, publicly traded corporations.

“I said, ‘We work with all of these companies. We know what skills they want, we know what technical backgrounds they’re looking for, and we know what they mean when they’re asking interview questions,’” says Shepherd. “‘We can help people decode that process.’”

Two-hundred people participated in the initial program, and before COVID-19 hit, Korn Ferry had plans to scale the program to all of its offices. “It was so fulfilling to be able to work with a group of people that are incredibly talented but maybe don’t see value in themselves,” says Shepherd, who received the 2019 Spirit of Atlanta Award, in part, for this work.

It was this drive to have a positive impact that ultimately inspired him to get his MBA, which he will begin working toward this fall. However, business school wasn’t always his first choice.https://cgsm.org/wp-content/uploads/202 ... 617453.jpg

“I knew that I wanted to understand how to apply psychology to business, and I thought that getting a doctorate in industrial organizational psychology might be the right path,” Shepherd says, adding that a discussion with one of his master’s program professors shifted his thinking. “She mentioned to me that she has a PhD and that she consults with a lot of businesses, and there’s a perception that because she has a PhD, she only knows theory. She said that if you want to be a consultant or work in business, it may be better to get your MBA. That really switched my focus and let me know that for the impact I wanted to have on society, an MBA might be the best route to do it.”

A connection at The Consortium corporate partner Danaher Corporation — with whom Shepherd had worked at IQTalent Partners — had told him about The Consortium, and Shepherd loved how the organization’s mission aligned with his own goals. Short term, he wants to be a management consultant, but ultimately, he would like to start his own private equity firm “that will invest in underrepresented minorities to help grow and scale their businesses,” Shepherd notes.

It’s also important to him to give back in other, more immediate ways, to help young people not unlike himself see their own potential. Coming from a background with two supportive parents who were never able to go to college themselves but instilled in him the power and importance of education and hard work, Shepherd is fueled by these values, which he, too, hopes to impress upon others.

“It was never missed on me how much my parents invested their time and their effort into making sure that I had those opportunities. Having that familial support and somebody to give me those values, that’s privilege,” he says. “Just understanding the doors that were open to me simply because I had a piece of paper and a degree was huge.”

In addition to his parents, Shepherd attributes his success in life to his ability to turn the challenges he’s faced into opportunities to grow as a person and professional — and he encourages others to do the same. His advice: Value the work you’ve had to do to get where you are.

“Think back on some of the adversities you’ve faced, and take pride in the grit that it took to get to this point,” Shepherd says. “Lean on your experiences, value the stuff you’ve already done — even if it’s not getting into Yale or Harvard. For a first-generation student, you’ve had to navigate college, you’ve had to navigate with very little help oftentimes. That’s incredible. Don’t forget to see value in the stuff that you’ve done.”

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: These Leaders Are Moving the Needle for Underrepresented Minorities in Business

Every year, The Consortium recognizes individuals and organizations that embody its mission, with several awards. In 2020, The Consortium honored seven individuals and one company for their work to advance its vision for the future.

The following honorees have set themselves apart by demonstrating courageous leadership, championing corporate diversity, giving back to their communities and advancing the goal of equal opportunity in management.

[b]Bryan Johnson[/b]

[b]The Sterling H. Schoen Achievement Award [/b]

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Bryan Johnson

Established in honor of The Consortium’s founder, Dr. Sterling H. Schoen, this award recognizes individuals for their courageous leadership and commitment to advancing the goal of equal opportunity for underrepresented minorities in American business. In 2020, The Consortium bestowed this award on Bryan Johnson, an alumnus of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business.

In his current role as senior associate director of admissions, diversity & inclusion at Ross School of Business, Johnson is primarily responsible for recruiting underrepresented minorities to the full-time MBA program and helping advance diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives at the school. He also serves as a trustee of The Consortium and president of the Ann Arbor Public Schools Board of Education, among other roles.

Johnson is passionate about helping students of color reach their potential through education and feels that his role at Ross and his affiliation with The Consortium perfectly align with this passion. “Each year I have the opportunity to help hundreds of students realize their personal and professional goals in the MBA program and beyond. It’s very fulfilling work,” he says. “Getting recognized for the work is just the icing on the cake.”

[b]Patricia “Teesha” Hernandez

The Wallace L. Jones Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award[/b]

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Patricia “Teesha” Hernandez

Named for the man who contributed many years of service to The Consortium and touched the lives of thousands of students, the Wallace L. Jones Lifetime Achievement Award honors an alum who, among other things, has demonstrated a commitment to community involvement, mentoring, giving back and inspiring future leaders. Patricia “Teesha” Hernandez, a 1981 alumna of Wisconsin School of Business at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was recognized as the 2020 recipient of this award.

After 25 years, Hernandez recently retired from Emerson, where, in her last role with the organization, she served as corporate director of organizational development. As part of the talent management team, she was responsible for assessing current and future leadership needs through the succession planning process, tracking more than 2,000 high-potential employees and managing annual organization reviews with the CEO. Hernandez also managed the company’s MBA Leadership Program, identifying new high-potential talent and creating development and mentoring programs for them. In addition, she has served on the boards of numerous St. Louis nonprofits and has been a long-standing Corporate Advisory Board member for The Consortium. She continues to mentor students on business issues, making herself available as needed.

“Receiving the award means that during the past several years, I have accomplished my goal of making a positive difference in the lives of students I meet,” Hernandez says. “I have successfully paid forward the blessings I have received as a Consortium alum.”

[b]Rashid E. Farrell[/b]

[b]Phyllis Scott Buford Young Visionary Award[/b]

The Consortium’s third leader, Dr. Phyllis Scott Buford, is known for modernizing the organization’s annual Orientation Program (OP), expanding collaboration with corporate partners and exposing diverse young leaders to more opportunities through OP. This award recognizes young alumni who are leaders in action — who demonstrate vision, collaboration and creativity in driving diversity and inclusion in their professional lives. The 2020 honoree is Rashid E. Farrell, a Consortium alumnus from Indiana University Kelley School of Business.

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Rashid Farrell

Farrell is currently senior HR manager within the Cloud+AI Organization at Microsoft. Upon arriving at the company, he made it a priority to help establish a formal partnership between Microsoft and The Consortium. Farrell took steps to coordinate a Consortium Seattle event hosted by Microsoft, set up a number of key meetings between Consortium staff and Microsoft and created an internal Consortium community within the company — an effort that was ultimately successful. He was also part of the team that took Microsoft from having no presence at AfroTech to being the top sponsor two years running.

Outside of Microsoft, Farrell is on the board of Alexander Hamilton Scholars, a nonprofit focused on empowering and providing opportunities to high-achieving, underserved students to help them to succeed in college and career. He still dedicates much of his time and energy to supporting Consortium prospects and alumni as well as Kelley students.

“I give deep thanks to the generations preceding me that blazed paths I could follow. That same energy of deep gratitude ignites my passion to create spaces for other underrepresented minorities tirelessly working to achieve success both in business education and leadership,” says Farrell. “It is quite humbling to receive this award because I feel as if I’ve barely scratched the surface in this walk, and [I] truly hope to accomplish so much more for historically marginalized communities.”

[b]3M[/b]

[b]Consortium Corporate Pacesetter Award[/b] [b]

[/b][b]

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Established in June 2017, the Corporate Pacesetter Award recognizes a Consortium corporate partner that demonstrates dedication to the organization’s mission through extraordinary collaboration with Consortium constituents. Through communication, innovation and focus, the recipient of the Pacesetter award sets the standard for effective leadership in promoting diversity in corporate leadership. In 2020, The Consortium recognized 3M with this award.

As a founding corporate partner of The Consortium, 3M has been a stalwart supporter of the organization since the beginning. Recognizing the critical role that diversity and inclusion play in innovation, 3M continues to demonstrate its commitment to the important work of moving the needle for underrepresented minorities in business.

“This recognition shows that we’re making progress on our journey toward greater inclusion and representation at 3M,” says Katie Ketterhagen, the manager of student programs and talent pipeline for 3M Company, where she leads 3M University and diversity and inclusion recruitment strategies. “The research behind increased representation is complicated, but what we do know is that the act of seeing and hearing from influential and diverse leaders creates more inclusive spaces for employees and inspires future diverse leaders.”

[b]Melissa Davis[/b]

[b]The Peter C. Thorp Corporate Leadership Award[/b][b]

[/b]

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Melissa Davis

In honor of The Consortium’s longest-serving Corporate Advisory Board chairman and board member, the Peter C. Thorp Corporate Leadership Award was established in 2001. Recipients must demonstrate generous financial support of MBA fellowships, leadership as a corporate champion of ethnic diversity, support of innovative approaches to solving problems related to equal employment opportunity and a recognition by their peers as a leader and champion of diversity. Individuals must also show evidence of leadership and achievement in their industry, long-term corporate partnership with The Consortium, the largest number of Consortium hires, respect for diversity and the active pursuit of educational growth to advance diversity. In 2020, The Consortium recognized Melissa Davis with this award.

As the strategy campus inclusion and diversity lead at Accenture, Davis is responsible for non-core school and diversity partner hiring for the strategy, undergraduate and MBA teams. She has worked at Accenture for over 5 years and in her current role since 2018. Beyond her involvement with The Consortium, Davis is a board member, business coach and mentor for Kidz2Leaders, an organization that provides stability, opportunity and a Christian community for children of inmates to break the cycle of incarceration. She also volunteers with various organizations and is passionate about student achievement and mentorship.

“The main reason I am so grateful to receive this award is because it acknowledges my commitment to assisting underrepresented minorities with gaining access to higher education,” says Davis. “My passion has always been helping students through mentorship and advisement in my personal and professional life. It’s very rewarding to see a student go from acceptance in The Consortium, to Orientation Program, to an internship and then to full-time employment.”

[b]Dwana Jones

Circle & Flame Honorary Fellow Award[/b][b]

[/b]

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Dwana Jones

The Circle & Flame Honorary Fellow Award recognizes an individual — living or deceased — who through his or her work, actions and personal principles has exemplified a commitment to the mission of The Consortium, regardless of whether they have any formal connection to the organization. In 2020, The Consortium recognized Dwana Jones with the award.

In both her current role as manager of organization/talent development at Whirlpool Corporation and her previous role as associate director/career consultant at the University of Michigan Ross School of Business, Jones has been known for being a servant leader. As a first-generation, nontraditional college student, she understands the challenges these and underrepresented minority students face and holds a special place in her heart for them. While at Ross, Dwana co-led career education and exposure treks for women and minority students and collaborated with student organizations, corporate partners and nonprofits on career education initiatives.

“I am honored to receive the 2020 Circle & Flame Honorary Fellow Award,” she says. “It’s a blessing to be viewed as someone who walks in the purpose of this award. I am so grateful to have been given the opportunity to impact the lives of minority, under-resourced and underrepresented adult learners.”

[b]Dr. Sharoni Little[/b]

[b]Earl Hill Jr. Faculty Achievement and Diversity Leadership Award[/b][b][/b]

[b][/b]Established in May 2019 in honor of past Consortium board member and faculty member at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, the Earl Hill Jr. Faculty Achievement and Diversity Leadership Award recognizes outstanding academic and professional leadership on campus and to the community beyond the boundaries of the university. In 2020, The Consortium recognized Dr. Sharoni Little, vice-dean and senior diversity, equity and inclusion officer at the University of Southern California (USC) Marshall School of Business.

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Dr. Sharoni Little

Little is also a professor of clinical business communication at USC Marshall, and her commitment to students’ educational and professional excellence is evidenced through her teaching and mentoring. Beyond campus, she is an organizational and leadership strategist, educator, author, renowned scholar and CEO of The Strategist Company, LLC, who shares her expertise on workplace and educational inclusion and equity, bias, anti-racism, strategic leadership and global strategy. Also a social advocate, Little has partnered with the Aspen Institute and the Obama Foundation, and serves as a board trustee and vice president at Compton Community College.

“I am very honored and humbled to be the recipient of the 2020 Earl Hill Jr. Faculty Achievement and Diversity Leadership Award,” she says. “As the vice-dean and senior diversity, equity and inclusion officer at the USC Marshall School of Business, I recognize the vital importance of being an advocate and servant leader for inclusive excellence so that all students know that they belong and that their personal, intellectual and professional talents and gifts will be valued and affirmed. Educational and business leaders must ensure the authentic engagement and empowerment of all students and work to achieve and sustain an inclusive, diverse and anti-racist global society.”

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: Diverse in Many Ways, Class of 2022 MBAs Align in Desire to Improve Their Lives and Those of Others

Diversity takes many forms. Exemplifying this adage is The Consortium’s class of 2022.

We recently asked a group of incoming students to share with us what inspired them to pursue their MBA. The responses we received are representative of a diversity of backgrounds, cultures, experiences, interests, motivations and goals. What drives each one of them varies. However, the one thing they all have in common is a desire to better their lives and/or the lives of others.

[b]What inspired you to get your MBA?[/b]

“I wanted to become adept at navigating ambiguity, hone my leadership skills and learn alongside equally driven people from diverse backgrounds. Goizueta is the perfect environment to help me achieve my goals.”

—Taylor Benford, Emory University, Goizueta Business School

“Education has always been a driving force in my life. My hope is that an MBA from McCombs will provide me with the business fundamentals, data-driven tools and experiential learning opportunities that will help me launch into an exciting role in operations management.”

—Alejandro Johns, The University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business

“I am always striving to do more, learn more and achieve more. Equipped with an MBA, I will be able to empower organizations to execute their missions and subsequently drive value in the very communities in which they operate and serve.”

—Michael San Román, University of Virginia, Darden School of Business

“I was inspired to pursue an MBA after reading about the efforts to create more sustainable funding for environmental conservation through finance and consulting. I am particularly interested in rethinking how conservation is approached to take advantage of investment opportunities.”

—Natalie Gonzalez, Cornell University, Johnson Graduate School of Management

“[I want to] increase my future marketability and business acumen. I am very interested in venture capital, so I am using this degree to pursue VC opportunities and attain the knowledge necessary to succeed in the industry.”

—Joseph M. Kemp, University of Michigan, Ross School of Business

“Becoming a business leader for my community inspired me. I want to expand on my problem-solving abilities, develop advanced management understanding and sharpen my leadership skills to make a career shift. The Darden MBA was the logical and perfect next step for me to accomplish my professional and personal aspirations.”

—Antonio Brodie Jr., University of Virginia, Darden School of Business

“The power of community is what truly inspired me to pursue an MBA at Rice. I wanted to obtain my MBA to gain access to a top-tier network while developing my leadership and analytical skills. I know that Rice will give me an opportunity to grow as a business professional, while pouring back into my existing network and new community.”

—Raisha Smith, Rice University, Jones Graduate School of Business

“[I decided to pursue an MBA with an eye toward] opening the door for new career opportunities, growth and education, the stimulating challenges that an MBA offers and the network of amazing alumni and high-performing peers.”

—Travis Washington, The University of Texas at Austin, McCombs School of Business

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: 7 Easy Ways for Consortium Alumni to Stay Connected and Involved

With a mission to enhance diversity and inclusion in global business education and leadership, The Consortium relies on its vast network to achieve its vision for the future. The organization is only as strong as its network, and students, alumni, member schools and corporate partners all play a critical role.

Having experienced The Consortium’s mission firsthand, realized the value of an MBA and gained professional knowledge and insight, alumni in particular have a unique role to play in growing and sustaining this network and advancing the organization’s mission. There are many ways for alumni to get involved. Below, we’ve outlined seven of these for individuals hoping to stay connected, give back or both.

Become a Consortium alumni regional representative. Regional alumni chapters are being established across the country to help connect alumni and build strong Consortium communities. If you are interested in volunteering to be a regional representative, please contact Adrienne Thomas, manager of student and alumni relations, at [email protected] or 636-681-5448 for information on how to get involved.

Join a Consortium special interest group (SIG) — and the official alumni group. The SIGs, which are all on LinkedIn, were created to connect alumni by industry and function and include fields such as healthcare, energy, entrepreneurship, social impact and more. Keep up on current industry news and trends as well as new employment opportunities. Click here to learn more about our SIGs or to join. For those looking to simply stay connected, consider joining the official alumni group here.

Share your Consortium experience. Alumni can share their experiences applying to The Consortium, picking their school and choosing the right industry as well as the impact their choices have had on their career. For new Consortium students, this insight can be especially valuable. Contact Adrienne Thomas, manager of student and alumni relations, at [email protected] or 636-681-5448 if you are interested in sharing your perspective and insight. (If you have a unique and inspiring story to tell about your path to and following b-school and want to be featured on our blog, email [email protected].)

Attend recruiting events. Prospective MBA students are anxious to connect with Consortium alumni. Speak with prospective Consortium students to discuss the value of the membership and the Consortium student and alumni experience. Register here if you are interested in participating at an event.

Refer a student. Do you know of a student who would be a great fit for The Consortium and would benefit from membership in the organization? Let us know about him or her. Simply complete this form, and our recruiting department will contact the prospective student.

Volunteer at the Orientation Program & Career Forum (OP). Be part of The Consortium’s OP by serving as an alumni volunteer. There, you will have the opportunity to assist incoming students while also reconnecting with old classmates and peers. To learn more about volunteering at OP, contact Adrienne Thomas, manager of student and alumni relations, at [email protected] or 636-681-5448.

Encourage your company to partner with The Consortium. Is your company committed to diversity and inclusion and looking to diversify its ranks while demonstrating this commitment? Encourage them to pursue a partnership with The Consortium. Simply complete this form, and we will follow up with you and the company.

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: Lessons in Uncertainty: MBAs Share Virtual Learning Insight and Advice for Incoming Students

This spring, many MBAs got a firsthand lesson in uncertainty and what it truly means to be flexible. Schools and students were forced to adjust to the realities of the pandemic, as they had to suddenly and rapidly shift from in-person to solely virtual learning.

While everyone’s circumstances and experience varied, with some students adjusting more easily than others to the virtual environment, the one thing MBAs seemed to share was a positive outlook.

“A large part of business school is learning to navigate uncertainty and adaptability. Covid is unfortunately a very real case study on leadership, health equity, inequality, overconfidence, operations and numerous other topics,” says Olaseni A. Bello, Jr., a second-year MBA at the University of California, Berkeley Haas School of Business. “Virtual learning is both a byproduct and a solution that allows us to push forward.”

With COVID-19 showing no signs of waning, many MBAs are once again being forced to demonstrate their pliability as many schools have moved fall classes either fully or partially online. To help incoming students make the most of this new learning environment, we spoke with a few Consortium MBAs who shared insight and advice on navigating this new normal.

[b]Benefits of Virtual Learning[/b]

Some of the benefits of virtual learning are clear — the ability to attend class from anywhere, no commuting (which means more time, less stress and money saved) — while others are less obvious. For second-year University of Rochester Simon Business School MBA Sandy Saint Cyr, who returned home to Brooklyn when the pandemic hit, the positives of attending classes remotely were numerous.

“Besides being able to attend class anywhere, some of the benefits of virtual learning include having more free time and having the option to prepare lunch. I prepared a protein smoothie daily for lunch, which was something that I was not able to do when I was attending class in person,” she says. “Moreover, I had more time to participate in extracurricular club activities. Another benefit was that I was able to take exams anywhere, and most of my exams were open book.”

Zoom has often been the platform of choice for professors, many of whom record their lessons for students to reference later. For more difficult or technical subjects, these recordings have proved useful.

“In an in-person class, it can be easy to become distracted or miss a step or two during an Excel practice problem. In a virtual class setting, the professor shared his screen with us and showed us exactly how he did each problem,” says Priscilla E. Weninger, a 2020 graduate of The University of Texas at Austin McCombs School of Business. “Being able to replay the recordings later when doing homework provided a clear step-by-step process that I could reference and learn from in a different way.”

Where some struggle to engage via virtual learning, others thrive. Weninger says she found the chat function “fun and exciting because it allowed a steady stream of thoughts, reactions and comments from many classmates at once.”

“In a real classroom setting, you typically only hear one student speak at once,” she says. “In my healthcare business class, we had a constant stream of debate and resource sharing from many students at once, and I believe it allowed more reserved and shy students the opportunity to express their thoughts.”

Being forced into online learning also provides an opportunity to develop critical, career-enhancing skills. “I am entering management consulting, where I may need to work with global clients virtually regardless of COVID-19, so it was helpful for me to gain skills such as giving strong presentations online,” says Brinda Gupta, a 2020 graduate of Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School.

[b]The Challenges of Virtual Learning[/b]

Despite the many positives of virtual learning, nothing can quite take the place of the classroom experience and the engagement and social components that come with it. Some students, however, have found ways to overcome the challenges posed by remote learning.

For Bello, who thrives on the classroom experience, the sudden shift to virtual felt like a temporary setback, he says. “You can usually find me in the first couple rows in class as my preferred learning style is front and center, and admittedly, that helps minimize distractions as my focus is on the lecturer,” Bello says. “Fortunately, the fact that my classmates and I had a full and quite robust first semester with treks, study sessions and live classes helped us maintain perspective and adjust to the new norm.”

The distant nature of virtual classrooms can result in less engagement from and among students, as some opt to turn their video off and refrain from asking questions via chat. Longer classes can provide an additional challenge.

“The hardest part for me was staying engaged in three-hour-long night classes, but my professors did a great job balancing lectures with more interactive activities,” says Gupta. https://cgsm.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/08/Blog-post-template_Olaseni-quote-e1597937984145.jpg

Working with classmates proved to be both a negative and a positive for some students, like Saint Cyr, as the experience helped her hone her communication skills. “What was difficult was managing group projects, which are a considerable part of the MBA curriculum,” she says. “In hindsight, I found that having effective communication with my project teammates was crucial, and hence, my communication skills were throughout my virtual learning experience.”

[b]Adapting to the New Virtual Normal[/b]

Although the transition to virtual learning was abrupt, schools found ways to adapt, making MBAs’ experience easier and more enjoyable. Getting questions answered was as easy as signing on and taking advantage of virtual office hours, says Gupta, and many professors did their best to promote discussion and engagement among students using a range of online tools.

“Our professors were incredible in adjusting to virtual learning, quickly providing us with updates, adding videos on Canvas (our online learning platform) and hosting extra office hours to answer any questions we had,” she says. “Some of our professors had open discussion boards on Canvas where we could pose questions we had to the class in addition to the professor.”

Michael Juan, a second-year MBA at UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, says this involvement by professors helped make up for what was lost by not being in the classroom. “Our teachers started to insert students into smaller breakout rooms within the class to help jump-start conversations, and then [they had] representatives from each breakout group share the discussion,” he says. “It definitely helped ignite the banter and debate that we had grown more accustomed to seeing in a classroom.”

For students looking to maintain social connections with classmates and peers, virtual happy hours became the norm. Saint Cyr started a weekly weekend happy hour with some of her classmates where she says they would discuss the past week and the one ahead.

“It was a great space to unwind, and I found that it drew us closer,” she says. “Honestly, I found that although I was separated physically from most of my classmates, we were more connected as we had more touch points throughout the day as more of us were free to attend virtual happy hours or club-sponsored activities.”

[b]Virtual Learning Tips and Resources for Incoming Students[/b]

The most common piece of advice offered by MBAs is do your best to replicate the in-person experience. This means designating a single spot in your home (or wherever you are) as your learning space, making it comfortable and inviting, but also professional, while minimizing distractions. Doing so, “will get you in the correct headspace,” says Saint Cyr. This also helps “set boundaries between school and personal time,” notes Weninger.

Making sure you have the technology and office equipment necessary to ensure a seamless learning experience is also important. If you have a laptop, Bello recommends getting a second screen, which he has found to help increase his productivity. Juan suggests investing in a standing desk — “Your back will thank you,” he notes — and noise-cancelling headphones, especially if you have children or live in an apartment.

With comfort in mind, Weninger recommends a few additional items. “A laptop stand, a textbook holder, a ring light, blue light glasses, a yoga ball and some vanilla-scented candles are a few things that I added to my office space and helped on those days when I was sitting for long periods of time,” she says.

Additionally, Saint Cyr encourages students to not get in the habit of rolling out of bed and heading straight to class. “Even though you might be able to attend classes in pj’s, definitely make an effort to look the part and turn on your video,” she says. “It will allow you to stay engaged more and have a more similar classroom experience.”

While school work is important, so is your mental health. Managing your time while making time for yourself becomes even more important when learning remotely. To avoid burnout, Juan recommends blocking off time on your calendar for wellness breaks, whereas Gupta used the Pomodoro App to stay focused while also taking breaks. “Virtual learning can sometimes be challenging because it is hard to detach from schoolwork; there is a pressure to be plugged in’ at all times,” she says.

Getting the most out of virtual learning will look different for different people depending on personal preference and learning style, says Bello. No matter who you are, though, your experience will depend on you, he notes: “It becomes the quintessential situation where you get out of it what you put in.”

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FROM The Consortium Admissions Blog: Unemployed as a Result of COVID, This Incoming MBA Found Hope in Being Open to New Paths

For Ryan Fleer, getting laid off was just the impetus he needed to shift his career trajectory.

After years working in financial services, first as an equity derivatives middle office analyst at a large French multinational bank, Fleer knew a change was in order. “I was frankly not enjoying my job at the time,” he says. “I just felt that it wasn’t the right job for me, but I had no idea what I wanted to do.”

A new position as an associate at Emigrant Partners — “a capital and advisory services partner that makes non-voting minority investments into wealth managers to help achieve their goals,” Fleer says — helped point him down a promising new path: consulting. “I realized that I wanted to do something more transaction oriented, client facing,” Fleer says, noting that he wanted to work with companies on “improving strategic operations within their businesses.”

Enter COVID-19, and by the end of May, Fleer found himself without a job and forced to pivot his career sooner, and more suddenly, than expected. Now, this finance professional turned wannabe consultant is a first-year MBA at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s (UNC) Kenan-Flagler Business School. He recently spoke with The Consortium about his quick transition to business school and offered advice for other professionals facing similar circumstances.

What initially drew you to financial services?

My initial interest in financial services was very much rooted in a family friend. My mother’s best friend, who was her college roommate, worked at Goldman Sachs and had been a managing director in their compliance division for over 20 years. Also, growing up in the tristate area, financial services is one of the largest employer industry functions in New Jersey, New York and Connecticut. Financial services surrounded me, so I always felt kind of set up to go into the industry but didn’t fully understand why until I attended college at Tufts University. I had taken up two majors, economics and international relations, both that had some financial components — the reason being that finance touches everything in the world. I realized going into finance would be a really great way to gain a better understanding of the world we live in.

I was an economics and international relations major … and was studying abroad in Paris, France. I was also taking French in school and was very interested in French business. Therefore, I thought it would line up well if I could find myself in an internship at a French financial institution. I was able to obtain an internship at Societe Generale Corporate and Investment Banking, a French multinational bank, and while I didn’t actually have a background in finance, I knew that I could leverage my two majors to launch a career in financial services. As many people know, you don’t need to have a background in finance to excel in it. I didn’t realize how much I learned working in financial services until now, as I participate in Kenan-Flagler’s Analytical Skills Workshop.

Tell me about your experience getting let go from your job. Was that a result of the pandemic and economic downturn?

My understanding is that it was COVID-19 related. We were investing in businesses that were dependent on people’s investments in the economy, and obviously the economy tanked in March, so their revenues decreased substantially. Naturally, our investment model was throttled as a result.

It was definitely unexpected, and it was a very dramatic day in my life because I was actually moving apartments. My friend was moving to go to business school and had this gorgeous one bedroom in New York that I really wanted. I finally got the apartment and went to sign the lease that morning. I had been packing up my other apartment and was going to buy limes for margaritas that afternoon, because my friend was coming over later in the evening, when I received a call from HR saying that I had been laid off. I suddenly was like, “Oh, my God. I just signed a lease on an apartment.” Not sure what to do, I reached out to my friend — the same one whose apartment I was taking — to discuss my situation. She told me about the GMAT and GRE waiver many business schools had recently adopted as well the extended application deadlines due to COVID-19.

Because I had gone to the ROMBA Conference, [the world’s largest gathering of LGBT+ business students and alumni,] a number of years ago as a pre-MBA, I had been receiving emails from all these business schools, but I was ignoring them because I had a job. My ultimate plan was to attend business school a year or two from now — stay at my job for another year or two because it was a new company. When I was laid off, I thought about [applying] for this upcoming fall and decided to give it a shot. I figured if it doesn’t work out, I’ll just look for a new job, and the good news was that I would at least be receiving unemployment during that time.

So, in summary, my decision to go to business school was the result of a chaotic weekend of me trying to figure out what I wanted to do while in the midst of moving my stuff from one apartment to another. Once the move was completed, I went home to my parents’ house in New Jersey and immediately started applying to schools. It took me about two weeks to get all my applications in.

When did The Consortium come into play?

I have known about The Consortium for some time, but since I applied so late to business school, I was solely focused on the low-hanging fruit of simply completing a school’s application. I think The Consortium is amazing and always knew it was something I wanted to look into, but I thought I missed the deadline. Then, Kenan-Flagler sent me an email probably two weeks after I was accepted informing me that The Consortium’s final deadline was coming up and that I should apply. I was thinking about what I’ve done over the years to support the mission, and I realized this was something that I really did want to partake in.https://cgsm.org/wp-content/uploads/202 ... 908565.jpg

I knew The Consortium was right for me because when I was writing my essay, I didn’t feel like I was struggling to find things to talk about; I realized that this was exactly what I supported all along. I already felt like I belonged even though I wasn’t a member yet.

What attracted you to Kenan-Flagler?

I always knew about Kenan-Flagler but didn’t really know where it fit in. When I started my MBA application process, I found the easiest thing for someone who’s LGBT+ to [do] was to reach out to a school’s respective Pride club. That always gave me a flavor for the school. It told me if it was a place I wanted to be. So I said to myself, “If I can’t feel like I belong there for my identity, then academically, career-wise, those things will struggle also.” So I reached out to the Pride clubs at every school, and at Kenan-Flagler, two students replied to me. One them was named Ran. I spoke with him on the phone, and I felt so welcomed by him. But what really went a step further — and this is what told me that people at Kenan-Flagler are so willing to help and that they care about the LGBT+ community — was that after I spoke with Ran on Sunday, Monday afternoon I received an email from the current co-president Stephanie. She was like, “Let’s talk. I’m here for all the questions you have.” That told me that the people at Kenan-Flagler are willing to go the extra mile.

In terms of academics, I think what really sold me on the school itself was the fact that their expertise in the consulting field is unrivaled and not matched at the other schools I was looking at. On top of that, I loved the fact that there is a concentration in consulting and that the consulting-specialized career coach herself actually used to be a consultant. At the side level, I love the state school spirit aspect, which is something I did not get a chance to experience during undergrad.

What made you decide that now was the time to get your MBA?

I have a liberal arts degree. I very much enjoyed going to Tufts — it was great — but I found myself somewhat struggling in my first and second job without having had an undergraduate business degree. I felt that there were terms and concepts thrown around as well as ways things were done or explained to me that might make better sense with a business education. I felt an advanced degree, especially an MBA, would bridge that gap for me.

Secondly, as much as I enjoyed working in financial services, I knew I wanted to pivot out of it at some point. Even if I didn’t know what I was going to do yet, I knew the pivot would be much easier going through a business school program where there’s a structured format and a formal recruiting process. I knew it would be very difficult pivoting while in one industry into another one without bridging the gap in between. An MBA lined up really well, especially if I want to go into consulting. But why now?

I could have just waited for another job, moved on. But I took a step back and looked at what is going on in the world. We live in a world right now where our work has changed drastically in a very short span of time, and as a result, business leaders today need to be re-educated. I felt that there could not be a better time than now to go to school, to talk about how companies have adjusted to current affairs but also to new issues they face in the workplace — to talk about those in a classroom setting, work them out and better understand them. I think everyone wants to have these conversations; it’s already evident from being at Kenan-Flagler for a week now. These are the conversations people want to have now — how COVID-19 and how Black Lives Matter are having an impact on our work environment and our business future.

It’s clear through your volunteering that supporting underprivileged and marginalized groups is important to you. Why are these causes so important to you, and do you hope to use your business acumen for good in this way?

Oh, of course. I recognize the fact that I am a white cisgender male that is part of the LGBT+ community and I have it the easiest, to be honest. Being involved in the community was always something that just came naturally to me. [Even as far back as high school,] I felt the need to be in the community getting involved. When I came into the professional world, I saw that there was a need for me to be involved both outside of work but also inside of work helping my own community. When I was at my first job, the LGBT+ group had been recently organized, and toward the end of my tenure at the firm, when I took on a leadership position, I worked really hard to make LGBT+ employees feel more welcomed there.

My second involvement with the community came as a result of a friend telling me about a program called StreetWise Partners, which works with underemployed, unemployed individuals in the community. Because I love coaching and mentoring people, like [when I had the] opportunity to mentor some interns at my firm. That was really great, but I realized that was the easy mentoring. I thought, “Where is the mentoring where you have to pull people up, people who don’t have the skills, people who need the assistance?” I came to StreetWise Partners and was able to work extensively with three different individuals, all from very different backgrounds, and help project them on their career journey.

When I go back into the business world, what I really want to do is give back to my organization, but I would also hope that the organization I join offers initiatives within the company itself to educate future business leaders to help pull people up. I am particularly interested in working with LGBT+ individuals.

Do you have any advice for other professionals trying to navigate the current economic climate, particularly those who have recently been let go and may be considering business school?

My biggest piece of advice right now [is focused around] resilience. It’s such a powerful word, and it’s such a hard thing to accomplish. I can only speak from my experience, but … it can be so easy to just cop out, just give up. I found that the only way to get myself through it was to keep my head up, be strong and to keep pushing myself forward. So, for those who want to go to business school right now, I say go ahead and do it.

The most unexpected things come when you’re not expecting them. I know that sounds cheesy, but I was not expecting to get laid off; I was not expecting to go to business school, but I let myself be open to the process. If you can be resilient, keep a good head on your shoulders and … try to stay positive, it will work out. I’m a big believer in fate. Fate is the reason I ended up here in this apartment in Chapel Hill, currently with no furniture (it’s on its way!), but I know there is a reason I’m here today.

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