Paula Price (BUS ’82) shares her insights from an extraordinary career as a leader By Meredith Carroll Look at Paula Price’s (BUS ’82) resume, and it could be tempting to split it in two. There’s her leadership experience, as extensive as it is varied. There’s her tenure as CFO for multiple Fortune 500 companies; her…
Category: Alumni Profiles
From Chicago to the FBI: The Education of Sean McWeeney (BUS ’61)
The retired FBI agent, corporate executive, author and philanthropist reflects on the educations he received — in school and outside of it By Meredith Carroll Now retired, Sean McWeeney (BUS ’61) lives a quiet life in Reston, Virginia, with his wife, Millie Cronin. They are both widowers; in fact, they met through Cronin’s first husband,…
Where the Classroom and Careers Meet
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. 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…
Researcher in Residence Program Builds Bridges Between Theory and Practice
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. 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…
Embracing the Entrepreneurial Spirit: Laura Kohl (MBA ’94), Global CIO of Morningstar
Laura Kohl (MBA ’94) remembers when she started to think like an entrepreneur, and it involves Airfone, a pioneering company at the time. She was working toward her MBA in management information systems at DePaul in the early 1990s and had an assignment to bring in a business leader to talk about starting their company….
Blending Business and Mission: Alumna Nicole R. Robinson, CEO of the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago
“I was a kid of the four P’s: public school, public libraries, public parks and public safety net programs,” says Nicole R. Robinson (BUS ’92, MBA ’00), a proud Chicago South Sider and the CEO of the YWCA of Metropolitan Chicago. From the time that she was a teenager, Robinson had an unflinching curiosity. She…
Alumnus Brian Ruben: “Paying It Forward Is the DePaul Way”
When Brian Ruben (MSA ’95) started his graduate program at the School of Accountancy & MIS nearly 30 years ago—right around the time he began working at Deloitte in Chicago—he wasn’t sure which direction he wanted to take in his professional career. He chose accounting because “it’s the language of business and every organization needs…
From Inspiration to Innovation: A Q&A with Serial Entrepreneur Russ Gottesman (MBA ’11)
Entrepreneur Russ Gottesman’s first venture, CommuterAds, began as a business idea he pitched to win the 2008 New Venture Challenge, an annual student competition for aspiring business founders sponsored by DePaul’s Coleman Entrepreneurship Center. Today, Gottesman (MBA ’11) is CEO of CommuterAds, a Dayton, Ohio-based business that has placed more than $25 million in audio…
Accounting Graduate Brews Coffee Business with Soul
Leticia Hutchins’ four-year-old coffee business has been 500 years in the making. “My family has been coffee farming in Honduras for five generations,” explains Hutchins (BUS ’16), cofounder of Alma Coffee, a Georgia-based coffee roaster and importer. “For generations that was all my family knew, the farming side of coffee. They never roasted their own…
Alumnus Leads Data Tech Firm That Helps Hospitals Curb Costs
“I never even considered running a company until I interviewed for this job,” says Dan Michelson (MBA ’94), who celebrates his ninth year as CEO of Chicago-based Strata Decision Technology this June. Growing up in the Chicago area, Michelson “was an introverted kid, very insecure,” he explains, “and when I got to DePaul, I was…