The Nicholas Center held its spring board meeting on Friday, April 19th in Milwaukee, WI at the Iron Horse Hotel. This was the first spring meeting for the Center since 2016 and we were pleased to have 14 of our board members along with 14 alumni and our first- and second-year students in attendance. We wanted to gather our board together as we have welcomed five new board members since the start of the school year and felt it important for the entire board to come together to interact with our students and engage as we further develop our future strategy.
New Advisory Board members include:
Dave Honan, Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer at Quad
Erin Schmidt, Director of Commercial Analytics at Molson Coors
Troy Van Beek, Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer at American Family Insurance
John Weyer, Chief Financial Officer at Industrial Physics Group
Jenny Kray, Chief Financial Officer at Ashling Partners
Our students arrived early and participated in a presentation with Carey Bongard, former Chief People Officer at Grupo Ferre Rangel. Carey spent her executive career in human resources, learning and development, and executive coaching and communication. Students learned about managing their career and had deeper discussions on creating a development plan, defining their personal brand, and other strategies to enhance their finance careers.
Dean Samba joined the meeting and shared his vision of The Nicholas Center along with the broader MBA program. He then provided an overview of the positive progress the Wisconsin School of Business has made in the five years he has served as our Dean. He took a number of questions from our meeting audience before departing.
We had a wonderful and interactive afternoon which started with a recap of the key Center activities that have occurred over the academic year which have included our speaker series, career treks and social media and communication initiatives. Our second-year students gave a heartfelt summary of their experiences in their MBA program and specifically CFIB and what the program has meant to them. That was followed by awards to our graduating students with the awards recognizing ways in which our students lived our Center values, mentored others, exhibited leadership and achieved academically.
Xander Kessler was awarded the Ab Nicholas Award for outstanding contributions and achievements to the Nicholas Center program, student body and community as a whole. Hector Aviles was awarded the Howard Thompson Award in recognition of remarkable leadership skills and mentorship to others. Goncha Muradli was also recognized with a Certificate of Achievement for embodying the principles and core values of the Nicholas Center. Henry Jeong received a Certificate of Appreciation in recognition of his professionalism, collaborative mindset and strong work ethic.
The rest of the meeting was spent discussing progress on our growth strategy. We had a very engaged discussion on opportunities to grow and leverage The Nicholas Center as we go forward. While the work on our strategy isn’t complete, we are making good progress and will focus on leveraging our differentiators to our target markets.
At the end of the afternoon, we had a social gathering where we further developed the bond between our board, alumni and students. We thank all who attended and look forward to our next board meeting this fall which will be held on October 25th, 2024.
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