by jlansber | Apr 25, 2019 | Features
Bevon Joseph
The whole motto of Greenwood is you can’t be what you can’t see. These kids come to us with almost no social capital.”
An immigrant from Trinidad, graduate business student Bevon Joseph has forged his own path in tech, finance and nonprofit management since coming to the United States at 18 years old.
Joseph is founder and CEO of Greenwood Project, a nonprofit he launched three years ago to help academically talented youth from underresourced Chicago communities gain access to the finance industry. Thanks to Joseph’s connections with firms in New York and Chicago, the Greenwood Project has collaborated with about 30 financial and tech companies, including Goldman Sachs, NASDAQ, Google and LinkedIn.
Joseph joined the world of finance in 1996 when he began working as an IT services provider on a New York trading floor, and later worked for some of the city’s largest Wall Street exchanges and financial services firms. He moved to Chicago, eventually working his way up to be a chief technology officer for a hedge fund—all with just an associate’s degree in computer electronic technology and a high school diploma from Trinidad.
Fascinated by the passion he witnessed on trading floors, Joseph noticed the lack of diversity among employees. “Most of the time I would be one of (a few) or the only person of color at a firm,” says Joseph, who runs the Greenwood Project with his wife, Elois. “I was always curious why other students who look like me weren’t given that opportunity.”
In 2014, Joseph enrolled in DePaul’s School for New Learning and became the first in his family to earn a bachelor’s degree. Joseph developed the idea for the Greenwood Project through a class assignment that challenged him to create a social media campaign around a social cause. After his professor encouraged him to pursue the idea, Joseph approached top-level financial executives he knew to gauge their interest in funding internships for students from low-income communities. His nonprofit began taking shape as interest from companies grew.
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Bevon Joseph and his Greenwood Project received the most votes to become DePaul’s entry into the 2018 Final Four Business Pitch competition at 1871.
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More than 150 attendees showed up at the Greenwood Project’s third annual fundraiser at the Wit Hotel in Chicago. (Photos by Kathy Hillegonds)
“They (students) are smart, they’re doing well in school, staying out of trouble, getting good grades, but they don’t know anyone who works in finance,” says Joseph, who now is enrolled in the Driehaus College of Business’s combined bachelor’s and master’s in entrepreneurship program. “The whole motto of Greenwood is you can’t be what you can’t see. These kids come to us with almost no social capital.”
The nonprofit works with high school juniors through recent college graduates. High school students attend, free of charge, the Summer Financial Institute, a six-week program that helps them build soft skills and financial literacy. The students also visit a different company each day of the program, in both New York and Chicago. In addition, Greenwood hosts Women in Wall Street student networking events in Chicago that feature panel discussions by female executives at top firms.
To help fund the nonprofit, Joseph manages a for-profit arm of Greenwood that charges companies to have access to recruit students who have been involved with the Greenwood Project.
“Running your own business, whether it’s nonprofit or for-profit, is a 24/7 job,” Joseph says. “But for me it doesn’t feel like work, just because we see the results and the impact that it’s having. And it’s changing the lives not just of the students, but their family and community. So I think that’s my motivation to keep doing this.”
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by jlansber | Apr 25, 2019 | Features
Olena Cruz (Photo by Kathy Hillegonds)
I love building excitement among people and bringing them together to do more than they would have been able to do individually. I am a big believer that together we can succeed even more than on our own.”
Marketing, chess and salsa dancing are disparate talents Olena Cruz pursues with the diligence and boundless curiosity that has made her a force to be reckoned with.
Cruz, who graduates in June with an MBA in marketing, has been instrumental in turning the Kellstadt Marketing Group (KMG) into one of the most active student organizations in DePaul’s business school. During her one-year tenure as KMG president, the organization sponsored 16 events that collectively attracted participation from more than 1,000 students, faculty members and Chicago marketing professionals.
She is most proud of convincing Microsoft to work with KMG to create a new case competition at DePaul. “Our idea was to get a real-world business scenario that would allow students to pitch their strategic recommendations and apply business concepts they have learned in class,” she says. “We had such great engagement. Microsoft came to campus, and students, professors and the president of the university all came together to support this event, which showcased the talent of students here at DePaul.”
Cruz says her drive comes from her mother, Lubov, an immigrant from Ukraine. “She helped build my work ethic. She started her own cleaning business in Chicago, not knowing the language or many people. She’s not only an entrepreneur; she put me and my brother through college as first-generation graduates in the family. I am very proud of my mom.” Cruz’s father died of amyotrophic lateral sclerosis when Cruz was 20, and every year since she has participated in fundraising walks to find a cure for the neurodegenerative disease.
Olena Cruz served as president of the Kellstadt Marketing Group, one of the most active student business groups on campus. Cruz helped organize the annual 2018 KMG Symposium, which was also attended by Associate Professor of Marketing Zafar Iqbal (right). (Photo by Kathy Hillegonds)
During her undergraduate years at Northwestern University, Cruz, who speaks four languages, studied international relations. “Originally, I thought I would go into diplomacy. But I soon realized that I can apply those skills to business, because now every company has a global presence.” After graduating, she worked as a sales strategy coordinator at Beam Suntory, a premium spirits company. At DePaul, her curiosity led her to the field of big data analytics. She now works as a solutions analyst at IRI, which uses predictive analytics to help clients develop customer strategies.
Cruz knows how to make the right moves not only in her career, but also on the chessboard and the dance floor. She played chess competitively in high school and won the National Girls Chess Championship in 2006. A semiprofessional salsa dancer, Cruz won first place with her partner at the Chicago International Salsa Congress two years ago.
Cruz uses her dancing talent to empower others as a founding member of Inspiración Dance Chicago, a Latin dance organization that seeks to enrich the lives of young people through dance. “We teach youth to express themselves in a healthy way, to collaborate in teams, and to find creative outlets for mentorship and development.”
Of her wide-ranging success as a leader, Cruz says, “I love building excitement among people and bringing them together to do more than they would have been able to do individually. I am a big believer that together we can succeed even more than on our own.”
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by jlansber | Apr 25, 2019 | Features
Kevin Felisme (Photo by Kathy Hillegonds)
That’s what inspires me and drives me—not just to be a leader, but to work with people and support them. That’s what we’re called to do as humans— support each other, love each other and be better people.”
MBA student Kevin Felisme has been living in Chicago for just four years, but his passion for improving the community in his adopted hometown runs deep.
A native of Manchester, N.H., Felisme delivered the TEDxDePaul talk “Reimagine Chicago: Power to the People,” in which he proposed using economic development to revitalize the city’s low-income communities. He hopes to develop programs, supported by either public or private dollars, that will allow neighborhood residents to own and operate businesses within the community.
“When I look at low-income, African-American communities in Chicago, I see a lack of economic development and businesses that are owned by the people within those neighborhoods,” Felisme says. “I believe that if we have the ability to control the economics in our communities, they should have businesses that are run by us, who cater to us and who will inspire people to start somewhere and say, ‘Hey, this is our foundation.’”
Growing up in a single-parent household where money was tight, Felisme first visited Chicago in 2014 during an alternative spring break trip as an undergraduate student at American University. The trip took students to tour various organizations, including Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, a therapeutic residential facility for youth. Despite having a full-time job waiting for him in Washington, D.C., Felisme was moved by the organization’s mission and decided to relocate to Chicago and work for the organization as a youth care worker.
Kevin Felisme presents his talk, “Reimagine Chicago: Power to the People,” at TEDxDePaulUniversity in the Lincoln Park Student Center. Through the theme, Reimagine, 11 diverse presenters provoked stimulating conversation on powerful topics that invited the audience to consider questions and subjects in a new light. (DePaul University/Jamie Moncrief)
“I’ve always thought that it was important that if you want to work with people in the community, you actually have to live there,” says Felisme, who lives in one of the city’s South Side neighborhoods. “It’s important to know who your neighbors are, not just to come in and help and then leave. You should get to know people because you’re in kinship.”
Now, Felisme is a coordinator for Mercy Home, where he manages the nonprofit’s volunteer program. In 2016, he launched an open basketball gym program through the Port Ministries, a nonprofit on the South Side that serves those in need. He’s also one of the basketball coaches for Mercy Home’s Hoops to Homework League, which partners with the Chicago Bulls to boost young men’s sportsmanship.
DePaul’s Vincentian values and connection to the city inspired Felisme to enroll at the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business in the fall of 2017. Earning an MBA degree in entrepreneurship and management moves him closer to his goal of creating businesses in low-income Chicago neighborhoods, he says.
“That’s what inspires me and drives me—not just to be a leader, but to work with people and support them. That’s what we’re called to do as human —support each other, love each other and be better people.”
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by jlansber | Apr 25, 2019 | Features
Rebeca Mitrea (Photo by Kathy Hillegonds)
By being a leader, you really have more avenues to help people. As long as it’s reflected in helping others and making an impact in the community, I think really that’s what inspires me.”
When Rebeca Mitrea moved to the United States to play on DePaul University’s women’s Division I tennis team, she was thousands of miles away from home. Mitrea was born and raised in Romania, where she began playing tennis at just five years of age. At 16, she was the No. 1 ranked tennis player in Romania and ranked 22nd in Europe.
After she joined DePaul on a full tennis scholarship, her list of accomplishments quickly grew. Mitrea became the all-time DePaul record holder for most overall tennis wins, most singles wins and most singles wins in one season. While serving as the team captain for two years, she earned several awards, including the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Cissie Leary Award for Sportsmanship, which is given to an NCAA Division I women’s player who displays inspiring dedication and commitment to her team.
Mitrea originally majored in health sciences but then transferred to the Driehaus College of Business to study finance. In 2016, she graduated summa cum laude with an undergraduate finance degree, and last year she completed her DePaul MBA in finance and international business. She now works as a credit risk analyst at HSBC Bank in Chicago and is active in its employee group, Balance, which advocates for the recruitment, development and engagement of a gender-balanced workforce.
Romania native Rebeca Mitrea was ranked the No. 1 tennis player in her home country. At DePaul , she became the all-time DePaul record holder for most overall tennis wins, most singles wins and most singles wins in one season. (Photo courtesy of DePaul Athletics)
Despite living far away from her family, Mitrea says DePaul came to feel like home. “It would help that I would go home to Romania in the summers and the winters during the breaks, but for me DePaul was family,” she says.
Mitrea credits the Athletics Department with fostering a welcoming and supportive environment for its student- athletes to become leaders. Staff members, who knew all of the athletes by name, would frequently ask Mitrea how she was doing. The department also offered a team of academic advisors, as well as other resources, to help student-athletes balance their academic workload with the demands of playing tennis.
“One of the greatest things that tennis has helped me achieve is being a higher performer, doing a number of things at the same time and doing them to the best of my abilities—not just doing 70 percent of one thing, but giving it my all with everything I did,” says Mitrea, who graduated valedictorian from high school in her home country. “It really forces you to do your best.”
Mitrea now plays tennis whenever she can and hopes to help DePaul’s tennis team as much as possible. She also plans to become a mentor in DePaul’s Alumni Sharing Knowledge Network, which connects DePaul students with alumni.
“By being a leader, you really have more avenues to help people,” she says. “As long as it’s reflected in helping others and making an impact in the community, I think really that’s what inspires me. As long as I could help all of the other girls on my team, that’s what really made me feel fulfilled and happy with all that I was doing.”
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by jlansber | Apr 25, 2019 | Faculty Focus
Associate Professor Grace Lemmon. (Photo by Kathy Hillegonds)
I try to make students see how my research is relevant to their own lives. I advise students, if you have a particular vision of what work-life balance should be, that absolutely needs to be part of the conversation when you are interviewing for a job to make sure there’s a good fit.”
It was “a disagreement with American work culture” that led Grace Lemmon (BUS ’06) to choose the intersection of work-life balance and employee engagement as her academic specialty.
“The culture we’ve established in the U.S. is go, go, go, and there’s no time for recovery or adequate stress management,” says Lemmon, an associate professor who teaches courses in management and leadership. “It’s become the default to be overwhelming busy at work, and it’s frustrating that that’s the default.”
Lemmon’s most recent research focuses on low-skill workers, a population often ignored in discussions of work-life balance and engagement. “The big issue is that employers tend to treat low-skill, low-wage workers as if they have a problem if they are disengaged at work. Yet, there’s often nothing about their work that would engender engagement,” she says. “My suggestion is that organizations with low-skill workers not only pay them enough, but also have clear paths for building additional skills on the clock. If organizations truly believe in the up-by-the-bootstraps (American) dream, then they need to provide the kind of support that white-collar workers take for granted.”
Lemmon is clearly passionate about shaping leadership practices through her award-winning scholarship and teaching. But back when the Glenwood, Ill., native was deciding where to go to college, an academic career wasn’t even on her radar.
“I had no idea that those avenues would be open for me,” she recalls. “My family culture was not one where there was a lot of education. It seemed like that was what other people do—wealthy people, in particular—but not me.”
Lemmon applied to only one college—DePaul—after visiting the Lincoln Park Campus to attend a concert. She majored in marketing, but soon realized it wasn’t her calling. She did notice, however, that her professors “were immersed in their classrooms and energized by their jobs,” she says. “It made me curious about academia as a whole.”
A faculty mentor convinced Lemmon that her curiosity could lead to a rewarding career. “I was lucky enough to work as a research assistant for management faculty member Patrick Murphy, and he brought me on to an academic paper,” she explains. “He gave me some data, academic papers to read and a small section to write. He made me co-author of the paper, which opened the door to graduate school—literally. He took me over to UIC (University of Illinois at Chicago), knocked on doors of professors he knew and got them to talk with me. Patrick took me under his wing and championed me in a way that I hadn’t experienced before. It was incredibly touching and meaningful, and completely changed the course of my life.”
Lemmon earned a PhD in business administration from UIC, and in 2012, she jumped at the chance to return to DePaul as a faculty member. She feels a strong connection to the student body because of DePaul’s commitment to educate students who come from less-privileged backgrounds.
Lemmon is now the one taking students under her wing, including future academics enrolled in DePaul’s Doctorate in Business Administration program, for which she serves as an associate director. She also shares her work-life balance research with her undergraduate and graduate students to help them make good career decisions.
“I try to make students see how my research is relevant to their own lives,” she says. “I advise students, if you have a particular vision of what work-life balance should be, that absolutely needs to be part of the conversation when you are interviewing for a job to make sure there’s a good fit.”
By Robin Florzak