Driehaus entrepreneurship program ranked #10 in the nation; curricular innovations honored; and more good news from the Loop.
As the fall quarter draws to a close, we have much to celebrate here at DePaul’s Driehaus College of Business.
Two of our very own initiatives, the Driehaus Cup pitch competition and the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center, received top honors from our peers.
As you learned in the last issue of the Business Exchange, the Driehaus Cup is an engaging “Shark Tank”-style pitch competition that gives Business 101 students the chance to explore entrepreneurship early in their careers. In October, the Driehaus Cup earned the annual Curricular Innovation award from the MidAmerican Business Deans Association.
We already knew this year would be a special one for the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center (CEC). A hub of entrepreneurial community in Chicago, the center celebrated its 20th anniversary this October. Just before that gathering, we received fantastic news. At the Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers annual conference (which boasted more than 700 attendees representing 300 universities from across 19 countries!), the Consortium honored our very own CEC with its Nasdaq Center of Entrepreneurial Excellence award. This award is given annually to just one university from among those with an enrollment of 5,000 or more students. It is regarded as the highest honor a university entrepreneurship center can achieve.
In no small part due to the success of these initiatives, our undergraduate entrepreneurship program was ranked 10th in the nation by the Princeton Review. I am so proud of this achievement. It attests to a culture of innovation at Driehaus. And this culture isn’t just created and sustained by our students, faculty and staff. It is also a product of our alumni and community supporters. Everyone I have spoken to involved in entrepreneurship at Driehaus can tell you this: Supporting entrepreneurs is a team effort. Our entrepreneurship program is only as strong as our connections. And those connections are strong indeed.
From entrepreneurship to sports marketing and management, this issue of Business Exchange is all about connections. You’ll read about the Coleman Center’s role as a hub of entrepreneurial community. You’ll hear how that community has supported Driehaus junior Gretchen Shuler as she launches a coffee business designed to empower foster youth. You’ll drop in on Director of Sports Business Programs Andy Clark’s (MBA ’87) “master classes” in networking. And you’ll hear about an exciting new program launched by Richard Rocco, associate professor of marketing, that promises to build bridges between research and industry.
In all four stories, you’ll find alumni and supporters of Driehaus and the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. Some are mentioned by name. Others play equally crucial roles just off the page as mentors, as panelists and guest speakers, as pitch competition judges, as bridge-builders and change-makers.
If you are looking for ways to get involved yourself, the CEC would be delighted to hear from you. I would be too. Regardless, I am confident that you will find the stories of our students and faculty just as inspiring as I do.
From mentorship to venture funds, learn how the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center has served as a hub of entrepreneurial community in Chicago.
Over the 20-year history of the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center (CEC), one definition of entrepreneurship has risen above the rest.
Entrepreneurship at its best is about meeting a need in your community.
As CEC Executive Director Bruce Leech (MBA ’81) puts it: “I want to honor the student who walks in here and wants to open a grocery store on the South Side of Chicago because there isn’t one — a business that will create jobs and sustain their family.”
It’s a definition of entrepreneurship that reflects what’s distinctive about DePaul University: A commitment to its Catholic, Vincentian mission of making education accessible to all. And promoting peaceful, just and equitable solutions to challenges faced by communities in Chicago and around the world.
The center’s work has garnered recognition. At this year’s Global Consortium of Entrepreneurship Centers conference, which brought together 700 participants from 300 universities across 19 countries, the CEC won the Nasdaq Center of Entrepreneurial Excellence award. The award is the highest honor a university entrepreneurship center can achieve.
And when the Princeton Review released their rankings of university entrepreneurship programs for 2024? The undergraduate program at Driehaus ranked 10th in the nation.
Local solutions to local needs: A look back
Students in the audience for University Pitch Madness, an entrepreneurship competition hosted by CEC that brings together student teams from universities across the Midwest.
The CEC was founded in 2003. Its history stretches back decades before that.
Harold Welsch (BUS ’66, MBA ’68) was the founding chair of the center. Before entrepreneurship was a buzzword, Welsch taught students much like the ones Leech interacts with today: first-generation college students and others who are invested in using business to better their communities.
In the ’90s, Welsch’s focus on empowering small-business owners coincided with rising interest in entrepreneurship.
“Harold was kind of the godfather of entrepreneurship,” Leech says. “The people I look up to now looked up to him. He saw a need” to equip students to “help their family businesses, help their communities.”
Welsch’s work resonated with Mike Hennessy, CEO of the Coleman Foundation from 1995 to 2020 and a champion of entrepreneurship in Chicago. In 2003, with Hennessy’s support and a generous gift from the foundation, the CEC was born.
In 2023, the center’s mission — entrepreneurship as a way of meeting a local need — has proven as relevant as ever. If anything has changed, Leech says, it’s the scope. Students aren’t just bringing an entrepreneurial spirit back to communities in Chicago. From Honduras to India, they’re also making a difference around the world.
A mindset, a skill set, an ecosystem: The CEC’s impact today
A mindset: Cultivating wonder
For Leech, teaching entrepreneurship starts with recognizing that entrepreneurship “isn’t a subject. It’s a skill set.”
It’s also a mindset: a way of engaging with your work regardless of your role.
“One of the best traits you can have as an entrepreneur is a sense of curiosity,” Leech says. “I relate it back to a childlike sense of wonder. At some point, as we get older, we get blinders on. We don’t question anything anymore.”
In teaching entrepreneurship, Leech says, his task is to help students cultivate curiosity.
“Even if you go to work for a big company, don’t just sit there and do your job,” he advises students. “Ask yourself: If this were my place, how would I do it differently?”
A DePaul student admires jewelry at the Coleman Center’s Welcome Back Market.
A skill set: Internships with an impact
Cultivating an entrepreneurial mindset can benefit all students — not just those who see themselves as entrepreneurs.
Director of Emerging Company Programs Emily Doyle runs the center’s internship program. After the COVID-19 pandemic limited students’ access to work experience, Doyle says, “the need for internships skyrocketed.”
Fast-forward to this year, when the CEC received more than 120 applications for internships. This summer, 36 students participated in paid internships — many funded directly by donors — tailored to their interests and goals. Many of these students came from fields other than entrepreneurship, and many are international students.
Interning in an entrepreneurial environment gives students “unparalleled access to creativity, innovation and problem-solving,” Doyle says.
For many students, an internship is their first exposure to a work environment where there are opportunities to define your role for yourself. It can be daunting and rewarding in equal measure, Doyle says.
Companies benefit too. Interns have taken on significant projects, such as designing logos or launching branding initiatives.
“Students get to make an impact within just a few months,” Doyle says, “in a way that’s not possible at other kinds of companies.”
Put another way, the internship program not only prepares students for the workforce. It also helps students launch their careers while they’re still at DePaul.
An ecosystem: Creating a hub of innovation and connection
Indeed, according to Program Manager Kathia Hernandez (BUS ’22), many students are already engaged in entrepreneurship. They just don’t see it that way.
“Having a side hustle, making art, selling jewelry — all of that is entrepreneurship,” she says. She encourages students to visit the center even if they don’t have specific questions. “Just come in and tell us what you’re doing. We’ll figure it out together.”
This philosophy pervades the center’s work. It applies equally to the center’s role as a hub of entrepreneurial community in Chicago.
The CEC has long supported women in entrepreneurship. The Women in Entrepreneurship Institute — launched in 2018 and now housed in the CEC — supports and empowers women founders through all stages of their entrepreneurial journeys.
Yaxi Yang and Kimberly Moore speak at A Tech-Enabled Future Powered by Women Entrepreneurs, a panel discussion hosted by the Women in Entrepreneurship Institute in partnership with the Tech Unicorn.
Additionally, the CEC welcomes community members to participate in much of its programming. The Social Impact Incubator takes this community involvement to the next level.
Now entering its third year, the incubator brings together a small cohort of students, alumni and community members — all of them building businesses with a social impact.
For eight weeks, participants get a crash course in how to launch a business. In the process, they create community that can be hard to find elsewhere.
“The common mission of building a business really brings the group together,” says Coleman Chair of Entrepreneurship Maija Renko, who created the program alongside Leech. “You can’t tell who’s a student, who’s a community member. The learning goes in all directions.”
Sina Ansari, assistant professor of management and entrepreneurship at DePaul, pitches his business as a participant in the 2023 Social Impact Incubator.
Many participants of the incubator have gone on to host DePaul student interns. Others have offered up their expertise as mentors. The incubator and other community-focused programs feed into Chicago’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. Students, alumni and local communities all benefit.
Evolving in community: Looking ahead to the future
As the center looks ahead to its next 20 years, entrepreneurship will continue to evolve. The CEC’s role in Chicago’s entrepreneurial ecosystem will continue to evolve along with it.
The newly created Halperin Emerging Company Fund — which provides capital for DePaul to make equity investments in startups founded by DePaul students, alumni and select community entrepreneurs — is one indication of what that evolution might look like.
As an evergreen venture fund launched with a $3 million gift, the Halperin Fund gives students the chance to get firsthand experience with the venture-funding process. Two students sit on the fund’s board. Students participate in early rounds of the vetting process, hearing founders’ pitches and offering feedback.
In this way, education goes hand in hand with giving back.
“Even if it’s a no” on funding, says Doyle, who administers the program, “we can leverage our DePaul network to help businesses continue to grow. We can offer that partnership; we can offer that community.”
It’s a community that will go with students wherever their journey takes them next — from neighborhoods in Chicago to cities around the world.
For Leech, it all comes back to the CEC’s mission.
“Let’s honor and serve the students we’ve got here,” he says. “If I can help them in any way, that’s what I want to do.”
Gretchen Shuler, a junior entrepreneurship student at DePaul, has taken a whirlwind journey from ordinary student to student and entrepreneur. One emotion stands out above the rest.
For Shuler, entrepreneurship is joy.
“Entrepreneurship is enjoying what you do,” she reflects. “Entrepreneurs create companies because they want to do things in a different way. They want to bring their ideas to life and share them with others. That’s such a big part of it.
“Shuler is in the final stages of opening her business: ReBrewed, a fair trade and sustainable mobile coffee cart that will empower foster youth through employment and mentorship. ReBrewed is brewing every cup with a purpose.
The vision for ReBrewed is uniquely Shuler’s own.
As a high school student living in a single-mother household, Shuler relied on her job at a local coffee shop. There, she discovered her passion for coffee and experienced firsthand how flexibility and support at work made it possible to stay engaged in schoolwork and in her community while saving for college.
Supporting foster youth is central to Schuler, whose extended family includes several foster and adopted children. Throughout high school, Shuler also cared for and mentored foster children through an organization that started in Chicago, RePlanted.
The experience gave her an in-depth understanding of the challenges many foster youth face. Many lack access to reliable transportation, making it difficult to participate in extracurriculars, access employment or even attend school regularly. According to the Juvenile Law Center, over 50% of foster youth face incarceration by the age of 17. Children moved to five or more placements are at a 90% risk of being involved in the criminal justice system.
ReBrewed aims to change that.
Shuler envisions a workplace built around the emotional and financial needs of foster youth. Mentorship for employees will be part of that.
“Integrated into the workday, there would be an hour of meeting with your mentor,” she says. “Or you do your homework assignments while you’re at work, rather than when you’re in a home environment that might be chaotic, unsupportive or unsafe.” Shuler’s vision of mentorship is expansive. It’s not only about connecting youth with volunteer mentors, she says; it’s about connecting them to networks of support.
Shuler serves up one of ReBrewed’s first cups of coffee at the CEC’s Welcome Back Market
In this way, Shuler’s vision reflects her experiences at DePaul’s Coleman Entrepreneurship Center (CEC).
“If I had not been mentored throughout this process, I would be so lost,” Shuler says. CEC Program Manager Kathia Hernandez (BUS ’22) guided her through the process of setting up her LLC. The center’s mentorship program connected Shuler with Jazmyn Lopez, a Chicago-area growth strategist specializing in marketing and operational solutions. Lopez was instrumental, Shuler says, in supporting Shuler as she established her online presence and her continuing steps in opening ReBrewed.
CEC’s pitch competitions acted as their own form of mentorship. Shuler competed in, and won, the Student Innovation Expo in February 2023. She placed third in the student category of the Purpose Pitch competition later that spring. Over the summer, she was selected as the DePaul student representative for Pitch Madness. She placed fourth in this competitive, regional competition.
A ReBrewed cup, designed and sustainably produced in collaboration with Sharath Kalappa (CDM ’24)
Feedback from these competitions helped Shuler refine her business model. It got more streamlined. It became more focused on doing good, not only for the foster youth she’ll employ but also for the environment. She collaborated with Sharath Kalappa, founder of EcoPlate and a student in the M.S. in Business Analytics program at the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business, to create cups from sustainable materials. She sourced her coffee from Alma Coffee, a sustainable, farm-to-cup operation founded by Leticia Hutchins (BUS ‘16), whose family has been farming coffee in Honduras for five generations.
When Shuler reflects on her entrepreneurial journey, it’s about dualities: a willingness to ask for help paired with the ability to stand your ground. She has figured out how to delegate even as she found herself taking on role after role: founder, accountant, designer, barista.
“Entrepreneurship,” she reflects, “is that sense of holding your own ground, even when people don’t necessarily believe in you or in what you’re doing. It’s collaboration, independence, innovation, iteration – just a whole mosh pit of self-reflection.
“One last thing I’ll say: It’s about never getting comfortable. Never settling. There’s always something you can do better or affect more people. It’s about being open to change.”
To take a class with Andy Clark (MBA ’87) is to get a “master class” in networking – one that launches you straight into your career.
Director of Sports Business program and Senior Instructor Andy Clark.
Andy Clark is the director of the sports business program at DePaul’s Driehaus College of Business. In 2023, he was one of two faculty selected by graduating seniors in business to win the Lawrence W. Ryan Distinguished Teaching Award at Driehaus.
When he was his students’ age, he didn’t know a career like this existed.
He recalls one moment when it all came together.
It was a basketball game: DePaul vs. Northwestern. It was the early ’80s: the height of Ray Meyer’s tenure as DePaul men’s basketball head coach. The stadium was packed: a sea of blue on one side and purple on the other, Clark recalls.
“DePaul won on a last-second shot,” Clark says. “To be there for that — to be a small part of that — was amazing.”
At the time, Clark was an intern for DePaul Athletics, after graduating from Fordham University. It was a position he’d heard about through a friend from Fordham.
“A hundred bucks a week, a room in McCabe,” he recalls of the arrangement. The flight to Chicago, he says, was his first time on a plane.
The internship gave him a glimpse into what was possible at the nexus of management, marketing and the sports world he loved so much. After his internship, he got hired as the manager of DePaul Athletics ticket sales. Eventually, he decided to earn his MBA from DePaul.
Forty years and an extensive career in sports management and marketing later, Clark has returned to where he started.
“Making relationships and keeping them”
Getting work done, Clark says, is all about “making relationships and keeping them.” This is the central message he hopes to impart to his students.
Gridiron in the Classroom: Referee Tony Michalek helps Clark’s class make the right calls.
Clark has cultivated connections with an impressive roster of guest speakers. There’s an NFL referee and an NHL player agent. There’s an Olympic silver medalist who started a nonprofit to empower girls in swimming. There are DePaul alumni, many of them Clark’s former students, hailing from every corner of the sports world.
Clark has also forged partnerships with Chicago’s top sports organizations. He’s worked especially closely with the Chicago Cubs, where a number of alumni hold posts in senior leadership. Every so often, Cubs chairman Tom Ricketts makes an appearance to speak to Clark’s students.
Clark has two criteria for each guest speaker he invites: Can they keep students — and Clark — engaged? (He “never gets bored” of site visits, he says.) And can they discuss their career in a way that imparts lessons relevant to any field, not just sports business?
“What I like about teaching,” reflects Clark, “is being a connector: connecting experts to our students, so they can learn how their skills apply to the workplace.”
In this regard, taking a class with Andy Clark is like getting a master class in networking. He schools students in crafting thoughtful, well-researched questions for speakers. He teaches them how to dress for site visits (a suit and tie are no longer required). And as part of his final exam, he tasks each student with writing thank-you notes to three guest speakers — by hand.
From classroom to career
In Clark’s courses, students aren’t only learning from the sports business world, they’re also contributing to it by partnering with leading sports organizations to carry out real-world research.
Andy Clark’s classes visit where the action all happens.
Projects for the Chicago Cubs have included an analysis of their customer service and a study on their rollout of a mobile ordering platform.
“Knowing that the work we were doing was going to be useful right away was highly motivating,” says Kenzie Mocogni (BUS ’19), who worked on the Cubs customer service study. “Working with a real client reminded us that what we are learning in the classroom at DePaul is preparing us for the business world.”
The Cubs aren’t the only team with close ties to Clark and to DePaul.
“It’s been incredibly inspiring to see DePaul students come up with innovative, impactful ideas,” says Tony Rokita, a onetime DePaul student and the former director of alumni relations for the Chicago Bulls, regarding a project that worked on a Bulls community partnership in Chicago’s West Garfield Park neighborhood.
For Clark and his students, there’s a direct line between theory and practice and between classroom and career.
“I’m not a teacher by training,” he’s quick to say. “With most of the stuff I do, no one told me I had to do it this way. For me, teaching feels like an evolution of what I was doing before [in the business field].”
As Clark reflects on teaching, he says the best part has been seeing how students’ careers unfold, outside sports as much as within it.
“It’s almost more gratifying,” he says, “when I hear from former students who don’t work in sports that they apply things from my class to their jobs now. That’s what this is all about: helping students apply what they learn.”
Teaching has taught Clark a lot, too.
“Every day,” he says, “is an education in empathy.”
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On the first day of his Introduction to Sports Management course, Clark has one question for his students. It’s perhaps the best summary of what Clark accomplishes in his courses — and how Driehaus overall approaches preparing students for their careers.
“When do you think your career in sports is going to start?” Clark asks.
Clark’s answer? “If you’re in this class, it already started.”
In the Doctorate of Business Administration (DBA) program, industry insights and research acumen meet. A new program in the marketing department amplifies the impact of DBA research.
Thomas Dammrich (BA ’74, MBA ’78, MS ’85, DBA ’19), Research in Residence.
When industry experience and academic research join forces, both fields benefit. This is a core tenet of the Doctorate in Business Administration (DBA) program at DePaul’s Kellstadt Graduate School of Business. It’s the same principle that led Associate Professor of Marketing Richard Rocco to establish the Researcher in Residence program within the Department of Marketing.
Rocco, who teaches in the DBA program, saw firsthand how industry experience amplifies the impact of research, first through writing his own dissertation while working full-time and later through advising DBA students.
Rocco launched the Researcher in Residence program in Fall 2022 based on feedback from DBA alumni. These researchers wanted to amplify the impact of their work and publish it in peer-reviewed journals where it could reach a wider audience.
To do that, they needed access to university resources, ranging from databases and data sets to Kellstadt’s vast network of faculty, students and alumni.
The program provides access to these resources. The university, Rocco says, will benefit in return. Faculty and current DBA students will gain new collaborators. As researchers publish more widely, their work will extend the reach of Kellstadt and DePaul.
As the program enters its second year, all three researchers in the inaugural cohort have returned for another year. They represent a wide range of fields.
Chris Hansen (MBA ’98, DBA ’21), vice president of university partnerships at Everspring, has over 25 years of experience in educational technology, where he has helped senior administration and faculty bring their offerings to life online.
Tammy Higgins (DBA ’18), a consult partner at Kyndryl, brings more than 35 years of experience in the information technology (IT) industry to her research on IT sales strategies.
And Thomas Dammrich (BA ’74, MBA ’78, MS ’85, DBA ’19) earned his DBA after more than 20 years as CEO of the National Marine Manufacturers Association.
As for Rocco, he hopes that the program as it exists now is just a starting point. The model could easily expand to other departments and programs, he says.
“We have a wealth of resources in our DBAs,” he adds. “This is a way to expand on that. It’s a way for DePaul to get our name out there. It’s a way to influence the conversation. You never know where those kinds of connections might lead.”
Researcher in residence Q&A
Thomas Dammrich reflects on his research and its impact and how the Researcher in Residence program helped him expand on that work.
College of Business: Give me the elevator pitch for the research you conducted for your DBA. How are you building on this work as a researcher in residence?
Dammrich: I worked in an industry where manufacturers and dealers do not advertise the price of boats for sale. You can only find this out by speaking with a boat dealer or attending a boat show.
Every model of the consumer purchase journey includes an evaluation phase. Much has been written about other aspects of that phase. But very little, if any, empirical work has been done to understand what happens to consumers’ path to purchase when an objective price is not available.
I designed my dissertation research to address that gap in the literature.
As a researcher in residence, I have been working with DePaul faculty to extend and publish the results of my work in a Tier 1 or 2 academic journal. Not only have we identified a gap in the literature, we also believe we can provide practical advice to practitioners.
College of Business: How did your industry experience influence your research?
Dammrich: Because of my knowledge of the industry, my relationships with many industry players and the willingness of a third-party website that was a significant resource for consumers shopping for new boats, I was able to design and conduct a field experiment with random assignment. This form of research provides the opportunity to learn causation, not just correlation.
The third-party website believed the industry would sell more boats if prices were more available on their website. They were eager to help me gather evidence to test this proposition. And because of my relationships with the CEOs of many boat builders and dealers, I was able to get them to agree to participate in an experiment where price was randomly shown or not shown to visitors to the third-party website.
My research confirmed that displaying price increases search, leads and purchase intent.
College of Business: How has the Researcher in Residence program allowed you to further collaborate with the DePaul community?
Dammrich: I was delighted to be invited to be part of the Researcher in Residence program. I had been working closely with Richard Rocco to publish an article related to my dissertation. As we began this effort, I quickly realized that I was at a disadvantage because, after graduation from the DBA program, I no longer had access to library resources, Qualtrics and other necessary tools. The Researcher in Residence program gives me access to those resources.
The program also allowed Dr. Rocco and me to speak with other faculty about what we were working on. Associate Professor of Marketing Zafar Iqbal has joined our team and contributed excellent recommendations that extend the analysis to create an article that should be of great interest to academia and practitioners.
College of Business: How is the Researcher in Residence program allowing you to amplify the impact of your research on industry?
Dammrich: One of the primary goals of the DBA program is to cross the chasm between academic research and practitioner implementation. By bringing additional faculty, Dr. Iqbal, and new perspectives to our work, I am confident we will be able to publish our work in a journal read by academics and practitioners alike.
The research I did for my dissertation has a high level of relevance for industry while addressing a gap in the literature that should be of interest to the academic research community. Getting the results published in a peer-reviewed journal, which is our goal, will significantly magnify the impact of the research I did for my DBA dissertation.
Student teams competed to build the tallest spaghetti-and-marshmallow structure — and learn how different kinds of leaders emerge from within teams in the process. [Image by Kathy Hillegonds.]
By Meredith Carroll
What does leadership look like? Not just in general, or for people in positions of power, but for you, right now?
These are the kinds of questions that the inaugural cohort of the William E. Hay Leadership Accelerator will work together to answer. The cohort met for the first time on Friday, September 15, kicking off a year of collaborative workshops, networking opportunities, and other programming designed to empower students to lead with purpose.
To Meghan Anderson, a senior studying digital marketing, the accelerator’s approach to developing leadership skills felt familiar.
“You can be a leader at every level,” said Anderson. It’s a piece of advice an internship supervisor gave her early in her time at DePaul and it’s stuck with her ever since. “Often, that looks like having really good soft skills, or being a really good listener.”
Anderson is part of a select group of forty juniors and seniors from across DePaul. Together, the Hay scholars represent 21 majors – ranging from theatre and animation to finance and marketing. Forty percent of the scholars are first-generation college students. Half of the cohort are students of color.
Over the coming months, students will learn directly from real-world experts and engage in experiential exercises and self-reflection. In this way, the accelerator offers a rare opportunity; these experiences were modeled after the top training programs in companies known for their emphasis on professional development. In recognition of this effort, each student will receive a $2,500 scholarship and a certificate of completion.
Most importantly, the accelerator will equip students to enter the workforce as purposeful leaders. With learning opportunities spanning skill assessments, in-person and live sessions, as well as microlearning, the accelerator leverages multiple tactics to deliver engaging and impactful experiences to boost leadership competencies. Students will also participate in résumé reviews, job interview skills exercises, and networking opportunities – gaining skills that are critical to employability and career building.
In-depth and focused leadership training is rare in companies even at senior levels, according to Professor and William E. Hay Leadership Fellow Erich Dierdorff. Dierdorff leads the program along with Associate Dean of Graduate and Executive Education Robert S. Rubin and Associate Director of Operations Clarissa Short.
“To have something like this at the undergraduate level is exceptionally rare and represents such a unique opportunity for our students to get significant boosts in the competencies that we know underlie long-term professional success,” Dierdorff said.
These skills are only becoming more crucial in a workplace environment that is rapidly changing. A recent study by Business Name Generator surveyed 1,000 employees and employers across the U.S. to uncover the changing demand for soft skills in the workplace. Findings indicated that 84% of employees and managers believe new employees must demonstrate soft skills upon entering the organization. Foremost among these? Leadership, which was the skill rated most valuable for career advancement.
For many Hay scholars, like Meghan Anderson, it was precisely the chance to develop these soft skills – and to develop them in collaboration with others – that drew them to the accelerator.
“When you’re a college student, you get so focused in on your major. This is an opportunity to meet new people and broaden your horizons,” said Harper McCoy, a senior majoring in film and television who hopes to become a film director.
Andrew Gomes, a junior studying finance, cited his experience launching an investment club in high school as the beginning of his leadership journey.
“I want to contribute value to the next generation,” he said of his career goals. “Maybe one day I’ll be able to help a student like me.”
And in this emphasis on people and purpose, the accelerator is part of a broader legacy left by William E. Hay (MBA ’66, DHL ’06), a longtime trustee and benefactor of DePaul.
The inaugural cohort pictured with President Robert L. Manuel. [Image by Kathy Hillegonds.]“Hay didn’t just the job done,” said DePaul President Robert L. Manuel in his remarks to the cohort. “He got it done in a human way.”
A substantial gift from Hay’s estate funded the founding of the Hay Center for Leadership Development, which houses programs in executive education along with the leadership accelerator.
“You can study management and business” at any number of schools, Manuel concluded. “But to couple that with the human, organic nature of the world — that’s a special gift.”
The William E. Hay Leadership Accelerator is a comprehensive, co-curricular leadership development experience open to juniors and seniors from across DePaul. Students can learn more and apply here.
