On Sunday, more than 4,500 people braved the frigid waters of Lake Michigan to take the 2015 Chicago Polar Plunge and raise more than $1.1 million for Special Olympics.
Along with celebrities who took the dip — like Vince Vaughn and Lady Gaga — were nine Kellogg students, including four Kellogg Board Fellows.
The team of Board Fellows raised nearly $4,000 for the cause.
What is DAK? That was my first question as I began my role as Managing Director of the Career Management Center (CMC) just over a year ago. DAK stands for “Day at Kellogg” and we held our first DAK of 2015 this past February.
DAK is an extended weekend where admitted students and their spouse, significant other, partner, etc. come to get a feel for the real Kellogg. It is a peek behind the curtain and a glimpse into what a life at Kellogg would feel like, from the social experience and academic life to my personal favorite – navigating your career life!
I spoke with a few hundred admitted students about the high-quality student and alumni career support they could expect to receive as a member of the Kellogg community.
Tree farms that bring green space, jobs, and new hope to American towns in the grip of post-industrial decay; investments that help small businesses thrive in the face of withering conditions: these are just a few of several forward-thinking projects being implemented by this year’s cohort of Youn Impact Scholars.
The program, in its second year, honors students and alumni who have demonstrated a commitment to becoming leaders in social impact in any chosen field, says Elizabeth Coston, Kellogg’s manager of social innovation. “We’re agnostic about whether they’re going into nonprofit, corporate, government, education — they are committed to somehow having a positive impact on society or within their organization,” Coston says.
The chants rose to the roof of the Owen L. Coon Forum: “Manny! Manny! Manny!”
The Cash Cows had just won the Kellogg School of Management’s new student Olympics, and soon Manny — who had emerged as a leader during the weeklong orientation program that pits teams of first-year MBA students against each other in collaboration-inducing competitions — was being tossed in the air.
“It was like a high school football game for me,” says Manuel Dorantes, who is also known as “Father Manny.” “It was phenomenal.
In our first Microeconomics class this quarter, our professor spoke of her experiences presenting research to audiences that included Nobel Prize winners. She noticed that the Nobel Prize winners were most often the ones who raised their hands and asked questions. Some of the questions could be perceived as “stupid” questions as they occasionally sought to clarify some of the most basic concepts of the discussion.
When she observed this pattern repeat over and over again, she realized it was that willingness to learn and dig deep that made the Nobel Prize winners special. They might not have understood the topic when they started, but they saw to it that they didn’t stay uninformed for long. Our professor’s message to us was to make sure we asked questions about any concept we didn’t understand in class.
Our original team was formed serendipitously and through a comedy of errors.
Matt showed up to the kick-off meeting thinking it was just an info session. He quickly realized the competition was kicking off immediately and that our team’s school-wide presentation was due in two days. Andry and Matt pulled a team together within the next 12 hours, and off we went to beat the clock.
We presented along with other Kellogg teams to a group of judges from the Deloitte Chicago office, where we were honored to take first place. Winning the school-level competition opened the door to compete with 14 other teams from top MBA programs across the nation.
Minerva Capital Group Founder and CEO Jocelyn Cortez-Young ’07 understands what it takes to drive and change a market at the same time. Cortez-Young focuses on investments that serve a dual purpose: to activate social change in Latin America and to turn a profit. With a focus on innovation in small– to medium–sized companies, she seeks to rectify the… Continue reading
As natives of Brazil, Thiago Pinto ’15 and I want to give back to our homeland. Thanks to our time at Kellogg, we’re on our way to accomplishing that goal.
We wanted to leverage what we’re learning at Kellogg to impact Brazil’s economy, and we think we can do that by transforming the country’s underserved recycling industry. That is why we created New Hope Ecotech, a B2B startup that aims to connect packaged goods manufacturers with waste collectors via direct servicing and tradable environmental securities.
We recently pitched our company in the mai Bangkok Business Challenge in Thailand, and after finishing second in the competition, we’re ready to take what we learned and continue building a company we think will have a great social impact.
Ben Dowell spent more than nine years in the US Army, a span that included combat deployments to Iraq and Afghanistan. His dream, though, was to become an investment banker. So in 2013, Dowell left the Army and enrolled in Kellogg’s Full-Time Two-Year MBA Program. Since then he’s been elected President of the Kellogg Student Association (KSA), secured an internship —and ultimately a job — with Robert W. Baird & Co., traveled to Ireland and Scotland with his classmates, and much, much more. Oh yeah, and he received a Challenge Coin from President Barack Obama.
Tour Ben’s interactive timeline to see how he shaped his Kellogg experience and how you can shape yours.
What happens when you start a business at age 22, grow it into a $20 million company and then lose it all in a day?
If you’re Frank Muscarello ’03 (EMP-55), you start another company. And this time, you build a better one.
It’s been a busy few weeks for members of Kellogg’s Women’s Business Association. One of the key parts of programming in our mission to connect, support, and develop Kellogg women involves hosting business leaders for small group dinners. Students recently took advantage of two of these dinners, where they were able to learn from and network with three successful and inspirational women.
Two teams of Kellogg students recently escaped Chicago’s winter for the sun in Los Angeles to compete in the Media and Entertainment Case Competition at UCLA’s Annual Pulse Conference.
The conference hosted a series of panels that spanned the gamut of media and entertainment industries. With representatives from Hulu, Lionsgate, Spotify, and Live Nation, just to name a few, the conference certainly wasn’t lacking on insight from impactful leaders.
This year was the first year UCLA incorporated a case competition into the conference. Paramount Pictures sponsored the event, challenging teams to create a strategy to overcome diminishing margins in a world of mobile media consumption and streaming services. Sixteen teams from nine different schools were put to the task. Our team was really excited to tackle this prompt since each of us shares a passion for navigating the tumultuous digital media landscape.
Each team was given a week to come up with a solution to the prompt. We then presented to a panel of judges that included representatives from Paramount, UCLA Anderson and other industry experts. From our brainstorming process up until we put the finishing touches on our presentation, we came away with a handful of valuable insights.
