Seventy freshman College Park Scholars (CPS) students competed in the fifth annual Strategy Board Competition, showcasing their business savvy for more than a dozen high-powered companies. In the competition, held on Dec. 12, 2002, four- or five-member teams study, and make strategic recommendations for, real-world companies. Each team illustrates its recommended strategy on a display board, which is evaluated by a team of three judges, including a representative of the company.

Sakisha Jackson and Carolina Lasso are just two Smith School undergraduates who hope to be the business leaders of tomorrow. Sakisha, a graduate of Oxon Hill High School, Md., chose the Smith School over Wharton and Kenan-Flagler.

New QUEST Students Test Out Survival Instincts at Intense Orientation Although there was no bug-eating or immunity challenges at the annual QUEST Program orientation retreat, walls were climbed, alliances were formed, and participants got to know themselves a little better. New QUEST Program (Quality Enhancement Systems and Teams) students spent this past weekend in Camp Horizons in Harrisonburg, Va., at their three-day annual orientation retreat.

Each of the seven global mindset competencies is integral to Mark Lenhart’s MBA ’00 work as executive director of study abroad organization CET Academic Programs. As a manager and leader, he finds self-awareness and humility to be a particularly important competency. Lenhart explains, “the leaders I admire most are the ones who approach their world with humility. If you don’t approach a conversation with a certain amount of humility, you manage to create barriers instead of creating learning opportunities.”

Erika Hall ’07, assistant professor of organization and management at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, studied finance at Maryland Smith while maintaining an interest in entrepreneurship. The path to her professional journey and the development of global mindset competencies began with an influential summer research assistantship with former Smith professor Ian Williamson. She witnessed the global nature of his work as his research took him to conferences and presentations across the world. Hall explains, “I just kept thinking, this is such an awesome job!

Approaching cultural differences with curiosity and openness is fundamental to leading with a global mindset. Scott Samels '92, global delivery lead within the global enablement team at McCormick & Company, Inc., oversees approximately two hundred people halved between North America and Europe, specifically in Poland. So for Samels, understanding the cultural differences in the countries that his company operates in and how that impacts the employee workforce is an important factor in developing his global mindset and leading a global team.

For Nick Gardner ’18, a marketing degree was the perfect opportunity to pursue two of his passions: storytelling and connecting with others. “Marketing is really about communicating a message through a story,” he said. “Whether that is through video or podcast, it’s really about trying to connect with someone.” Now a podcast host, and video producer and editor at Adweek in New York City, Gardner has turned his passions into his profession.

The problem, says Rachel Epstein Klausner ’11, isn’t that she wasn’t giving to charity, the problem was her giving habits. Although she set aside money to donate each year, Klausner found she was spending most of it contributing to peers’ pet causes via social media, rather than focusing her contributions on issues that mattered to her. “Anytime someone would ask me, I would give,” she says. “It was very reactive and had no correlation with impact or what I cared about. It was totally embarrassing, actually.”

David Rosenstein chose the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business for its connections and its energy: two things he knows plenty about. “It’s a very happy place,” he says of Van Munching Hall. Now a senior marketing and management dual degree undergrad, New York native Rosenstein considers that building to be his home base in College Park. “Getting to walk up and down the business school hallways, and getting to say hi to upwards of a dozen people,” he says, reflecting, “I think there’s a real sense of community and a real sense of home.”

Maryland Smith alum finds a niche and a career in perfect balance By 10 a.m., Lauren Filocco ’12 has already been in her barre studio for four hours. She weaves around the mats and exercise equipment, dances around patrons as they warm up and cheerfully shouts counts over upbeat pop music blaring through the speakers. She demonstrates each upcoming move, dipping gracefully into a low squat or effortlessly balancing with the eponymous bar in her hands. Neither her form or energy ever falter.