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Innovation, the Driehaus Way: A Message from Dean Sulin Ba

  By Sulin Ba • November 23, 2024 , , ,

A Message from Dean Sulin Ba

Dear Driehaus alumni, supporters, and community members:

Welcome to the fall 2024 issue of Business Exchange. Read on to learn about how our faculty are advancing knowledge, how our students are building careers, and perhaps most importantly, how our alumni are forging change in their fields.

A group of smiling students poses with donuts, accompanied by Dean Ba in a bright blue, business formal dress

Driehaus Dean Sulin Ba, at left, serves donuts to students to welcome in the fall quarter.

The latest from the college

First, though, a few pieces of good news.

For the second year in a row, Driehaus was ranked a top school for entrepreneurship by the Princeton Review! Driehaus was ranked #12 among undergraduate programs and #15 among graduate programs. The rankings testify to the vibrant entrepreneurial community we’ve built in Chicago and around the world and to the entrepreneurial spirit of Driehaus grads.

You can read more about the news here.

I am proud and grateful to share that, thanks to a generous $2.6 million gift from Dr. Curtis and Mrs. Gina Crawford, DePaul is launching a Business Technology Leadership Institute. Housed right here in the Driehaus College of Business, the institute will facilitate collaboration with technology experts in DePaul’s Jarvis College of Computing and Digital Media.

Side-by-side portraits of a smiling, elderly couple in formalwear and stylish glasses

Dr. Curtis J. and Mrs. Gina Crawford (Photos courtesy of the Crawford Family)

Like so many of our faculty, students, and alumni, the Crawfords recognize that cutting-edge technologies have the potential to transform how business gets done. Indeed, much of that potential is already being actualized.

Their gift will empower our students to drive this change. More importantly, it will empower our students to drive this change in a meaningful way, informed equally by the subject-matter expertise, entrepreneurial spirit, and commitment to social good that already make Driehaus distinctive.

You can read more about the initiatives this gift will fund here. My gratitude goes out to the Crawfords for their generosity — and to the faculty, students, staff, and alumni who are already doing exceptional work in this space.

Driehaus is already driving change at the intersection of business and technology. Our Halperin Emerging Companies Fund recently invested $100,000 in Orgaimi, an AI tech firm specializing in data science models and predictive analytics.

In this issue

In this issue of the Business Exchange, you’ll read about how we’re working to prepare students for meaningful careers at the forefront of change. Students at the Northern Trust competition got the chance to delve into timely, real-world issues with guidance from industry experts. Opportunities like this don’t just set up our students for jobs after graduation. They set up our students for meaningful career trajectories, which will surely include jobs we can’t yet envision.

Read more about the case competition here.

Our faculty are also driving change by advancing our understanding of real-world issues. Read on to hear insights into how brands should and shouldn’t intervene in hot-button political issues and learn about the widespread, damaging phenomenon of weight-based mistreatment in the workplace.

Learn about pioneering research into weight-based mistreatment in the workplace.

Hear the surprising results of a study that examined how to approach discussing controversial political issues.

Underpinning so much of this work — as I know it underpins so much of your work — is the entrepreneurial spirit. The two alumni profiled in this issue, Triple Demon Dana Alkhouri and the late, prolific entrepreneur John Goode, embody that spirit.

Read the story of John Goode’s remarkable life and legacy here. 

Hear from Dana Alkhouri about making a career pivot and centering women’s stories.

In closing

Many of us are preparing to spend the holiday season with friends and loved ones: with members of the communities that make us strong. Although there are many challenges ahead, for Driehaus College, for DePaul, and for the larger world we live in, I find comfort in returning to what makes Driehaus what it is: our alumni and our students. Your passion — not just for innovating or forging your own path, but for taking others with you along the journey — are making a difference.

Sincerely,

Sulin Ba, PhD

Dean, Driehaus College of Business

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For Driehaus Students, a Deep Dive into Forex Becomes a Testament to Teamwork — and a Launching Pad for Careers

  By Meredith Carroll • November 22, 2024 ,

The foreign currency exchange market is endlessly complex and constantly shifting. For the institutions that trade on it, being able to do so seamlessly — and in a way that maximizes profits — is paramount.  

Four young men in suits -- three of them visibly related -- pose, smiling, in front of a modern, glass-walled classroom.DePaul students dived headfirst into the complexities of the foreign exchange market (also known as Forex) at the inaugural Northern Trust case competition on October 17 and 18.  

Co-organized by Driehaus’ BETA Hub and the School of Computing and sponsored by Northern Trust, the competition charged teams of students (who could compete on a business or technology track) with improving a hypothetical bank’s process for Forex, including cryptocurrency. With guidance from Northern Trust professionals, students had just over 24 hours to devise a workable solution — and sell it to a panel of experienced judges. 

Preparation, delegation, details — and trust

For the four Driehaus students who won the business track, the victory was a testament to the importance of preparation, delegation, details, and trust.  

“I think DePaul did a great job preparing us,” said team member Diego Villaseñor. “What really helped us was knowing how to do due diligence, how to do your homework, and how to ask the right people the right questions.”   

Diego, his brothers Fabian and Maximos, and their teammate Nick Lopez came in with a wide array of strengths. All seniors, their majors span accounting, marketing, management, and finance. 

“The last thing you want is to be stressed about your other team members,” said Lopez. “I don’t think there was a single moment where that happened. We were able to divide and conquer. I took over the cryptocurrency side, and I knew my part forward and backward. We knew that we could trust each other with what we were assigned.”  

Four young men in suits gather close around a whiteboardThe team had been working on building trust since long before the competition — or even their time at DePaul. The three Villaseñor brothers are triplets; Lopez is a longtime friend who grew up down the street in Orland Park, a southwest suburb of Chicago.  

The group found a room where they could focus. They brought in a whiteboard to jot down ideas. Diego, the group’s finance expert, brought in a second monitor. Feedback from the judges helped them quickly to home in on the main questions: 

“There are a lot of buzzwords when you talk about crypto in particular,” said Maximos. “You can come up with a lot of ideas. But how are you going to do them?  What are the legal parameters? Those are the common questions teams kept getting asked by judges.”  

On selling your idea

Once the team had the framework of a solution in place, they faced a second hurdle: How to sell their solution to a panel of judges in just under 10 minutes? And how to ensure their solution would be memorable?  

Fabian’s experience in sales helped them arrive at a solution. They would anchor their presentation around Carmen: a fictitious pension fund manager who needed her bank to be able to make trades on foreign assets.  

“It’s so important to make the information tangible,” said Fabian. “You can have great information. But if customers don’t understand it, what use is it?”  

“With the Carmen story, we were able to talk about a particular client and specific issues she might have,” echoed Maximos. “It really made our presentation come full circle.” 

Equally important was being ready to embrace the unexpected:  

“During the Q&A portion,” said Diego, “it was so important to defend your answers, to make sure the judges were able to understand. We had to get comfortable with being asked questions on the spot.”  

Connections, careers, and where to go from here

Four young men in suits pose, smiling. They are wearing nametags and lanyards.Reflecting on the experience as a capstone of sorts for their time at DePaul, the team returned to the value of making connections — to one another, to professionals, and to their careers.  

“I think a lot of times, students are nervous about doing a case competition – or to network with people there,” said Lopez. “One of the mentors we spoke with was the Senior Vice President of FX Technology and Product Development for Northern Trust. He’s a very successful individual – but at the end of the day, we’re all people. I think a lot of the success we had was connecting with people on a personal level.” 

All four teammates see direct connections between their experiences at Driehaus, in the case competition, and where they’re going next.  

Maximos will be starting a full-time role in HR at Plante Moran, where he’s been working part-time while he finishes up his studies.  

“A lot of what I work on relates back to this case study,” he said. “There’s a lot of communication. You need to be able to have trust, and to be able give and receive constructive feedback.”  

Fabian will continue pursuing his passion for tech sales in a role at Salesforce. This work, he hopes, will allow him to continue helping fellow Blue Demons advance their careers.  

Diego is choosing among competing offers in consulting. It’s an industry, he said, that speaks to his passion for project management and learning about new, complicated topics quickly — both skills he got to hone at the case competition.  

Lopez, who is graduating in June, is preparing to sit for his CPA exam. After graduation, he has an offer lined up with Apercen Partners, a boutique tax consulting firm for high net-worth individuals: the kind of setting where he may well be able to implement what he’s learned from his deep dive into Forex and cryptocurrency.  

When the team looks back on their time at DePaul, they think of opportunities like this case competition. Over time, the team said, such opportunities can accumulate into invaluable experience. 

“All four of us are first-generation college students. That, and coming from a Latino background, really lit a fire under us to make the most out of our time here,” said Maximos. “I think case competitions like this really help you build those connections and get experience. Win or lose, you’re still going to get something – and it’s those connections with those people.” 

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Finding your Towering Strength: Paula Price’s (BUS ’82) Extraordinary Career

  By Meredith Carroll • June 24, 2024 ,

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 years of teaching for Harvard Business School; and her current role as an independent board director for four major, publicly traded companies.

And then there’s the part of her career that started right here at DePaul. The part where she mastered accountancy, the “language of business.” The part she spent on the ground, immersed in the many small but critical details that keep businesses running.

It is easy to imagine these two phases as diametrically opposed: first the view from the ground, and then the view from 30,000 feet. First the microscope, and then the panoramic lens.

Diametrically opposed, that is, until you hear Price tell her story.

A Tale of Dedication to Curiosity and Craft

Photos of Price on stage in conversation with Sulin Ba, Dean of the Driehaus College of Business, on April 22 (Photo credit | Working Anchor)

On April 22, Paula Price returned to DePaul to share insights from her career. She was the first speaker in the college’s Executive Speaker Series: a series, established with a gift from Cory Gunderson (BUS ’91) designed to help DePaul students envision and embark on their own paths to success.

Sitting across a small stage from Dean Sulin Ba, Price speaks in the measured tone of an experienced leader. She chooses each word with care and clarity. She is passionate about taking the time to get it right — whether “it” is a major decision in a corporate boardroom, or a visit to her alma mater.

What shines through above all else, though, is Price’s commitment to curiosity.

She lights up when talking about her early career. You can see the student in her; the young DePaul graduate, eager to master a notoriously challenging discipline.

“I spent the first several years of my career in public accounting really honing my skills and honing my craft,” she recalls. After that came a tenure in industry, when she began working with senior executives.

“What they wanted to know,” she says, “was: ‘is this a good business idea? Does this create value for our shareholders? Does this idea have a good return?’ It became very evident to me that accounting should do more than talk about the past. It should illuminate the path forward.”

It is the first of many moments of clarity – in the way Price speaks about the world of business, in the way she charted her own course through it. That fundamental insight led her to the University of Chicago, where she earned her MBA in finance and strategy. She became obsessed with putting her insight into action.

“How do you create financial models for looking at new product lines? For looking at acquisitions? For looking at research and development projects?” she remembers asking herself. “I just began building all these models. People knew that I was modeling these things. And they were asking me to work with them. They were asking me to lend my models to them.”

“I kind of thought,” she adds with a smile, “I could build a financial model for anything.”

From left to right: Malik Murray (BUS ’96, MBA ’04), Dean Sulin Ba, Laura Kohl (MBA ’94), Paula Price (BUS ’82) and Cory Gunderson (BUS ’91). Murray, Kohl and Gunderson are all members of the Driehaus Business Advisory Council. (Photo credit | Working Anchor)

Price’s curiosity, and the keen insights it generated, propelled her to the C-suite.

“Even as a CFO, the idea of fusing accounting, finance and strategy together was essential,” she says. “It was essential to telling the story of our business, to telling the story of our strategies and how they created value. To telling the story of what they would do in the future.”

There’s such clarity to the way she tells her story that it can be hard to imagine her path as anything other than foreordained. Hard to remember, too, that her time as a top leader spanned multiple major financial crises.

When Price looks back on moments of turmoil, it’s her dual perspective she returns to. Her ability to see the big picture without losing sight of the small but crucial details. To keep her eyes on the horizon without losing sight of the world around her.

“The biggest role of the CFO is to create space for innovation,” she says, when asked about difficult decisions she has faced. “And economic downturns often coincide with the greatest need to invest in innovation. That leads to tough decisions.

“What’s hard,” she adds, “is that at the end of those kinds of decisions are people.”

The People Factor

And that’s what Price returns to, what she never loses sight of in telling her story: people.

During her visit, she is asked about her seemingly inexhaustible career: the way her resume encompasses seven top leadership positions at major, publicly traded companies. That’s not to speak of her time teaching the next generation of leaders at Harvard Business School, or her service to nonprofits and her community.

It was all simpler, she says, than it might look from the outside.

“For every major move in my career,” Price says, “I can point to a relationship that is based on trust. Trust in my work. Trust in my abilities. Trust in my integrity. These relationships – they lead places. Connections lead places. Every person. Every change. Whether it’s moving to London. Moving back to the U.S. Moving into teaching. Moving out of teaching. Pivoting back into corporate. Pivoting onto boards. I can point to a person. For each move, I can point to a person.”

“You can’t be my friend overnight,” she quips, later, when Dean Ba points out that many of her friendships have lasted decades. In fact, some of them have lasted since high school. Two of her friends from her days at what was then called Jones Commercial High School sit in the front row, laughing. All night, they’ve been cheering her on.

Price and Dean Sulin Ba pose with two of Price’s close friends, both of whom attended DePaul alongside her: Charlena Griggs (far left) and Aaron Tolbert (BUS ’82, far right)
(Photo credit | Working Anchor)

Price sums up her advice to the students and young alumni in the audience by reflecting on her own career and the principles that have guided it:

“I have four pieces of advice. The first is: to find your towering strength. That is, the thing that distinguishes you from the next person. And, when you find it? Own it, hone it, and leverage it.

“The second, third, and fourth, is to: Build great relationships. Build great relationships. Build great relationships.”

From Chicago to the FBI: The Education of Sean McWeeney (BUS ’61)

  By Meredith Carroll • June 24, 2024 ,

The retired FBI agent, corporate executive, author and philanthropist reflects on the educations he received — in school and outside of it

By Meredith Carroll

An elderly couple posts against a scenic, outdoor backdrop

Millie Cronin and Sean McWeeney | Photo provided by Sean McWeeney

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, a coworker of McWeeney’s. They volunteer for their local parish. They spend time with their family. They support causes close to their hearts, including DePaul. Just this year, McWeeney established the McWeeney Family Scholarship Fund to help under-resourced students attend DePaul.  

McWeeney’s life up to this point was anything but quiet. He served for decades in the FBI, where he played a central role in the capture of notorious Mob boss Carlo Gambino. He rose through the ranks to become the longest-serving section chief of the Organized Crimes division. After his retirement, he launched Corporate Risk International, a global security firm specializing in kidnapping and extortion cases. It’s a career so action-packed that, with the encouragement of his family and friends, he wrote a book about it, entitled “Up by the Bootstraps.”

Like many success stories, McWeeney’s life attests to the ever-shifting balance between luck and hard work. It’s a story about being in the right place at the right time, but it’s also about having the right skills to rise to the moment. It’s a story about education, broadly defined: the kind of education you get from the people and environments around you. The kind of education you make out of what you are given.

McWeeney’s education would ultimately take him around the world. But it began right here in Chicago.

A Chicago Childhood

It has been decades since McWeeney lived in Chicago – a lifetime, even. But his roots are still evident. He speaks with a faint Chicago accent. He talks about himself with a distinctively Chicagoan strain of understatement: humble yet direct; self-effacing yet also, justifiably, proud.

McWeeney was born in 1938 to two Irish immigrants. Among the kids in his West Side neighborhood, he can’t recall knowing anyone whose parents were born in the U.S. Being in that environment at that time was an education – only McWeeney didn’t know it yet.

“I was a scrappy kid,” he recalls. “I had an unusual name for that time, and they made fun of me for it.”

It was easy to fall into trouble.

“A lot of people I grew up with became Mafia,” McWeeney says. “We had one person we knew quite well whose brother was killed by the Mafia.”

It was an environment that offered up two ways to navigate the world.

“You either win one way, the good way,” McWeeney recalls, “or you win the bad way. And I happened to be lucky in who I turned out to be. Going to a school like DePaul certainly helped – and so did having good parents. I was lucky in that regard.”

The West Side gave McWeeney one kind of education. In school, he received another.

For high school, he earned a four-year scholarship to St. Ignatius College Prep. It promised to be a pivotal moment for McWeeney. But it lasted just two weeks.

McWeeney was kicked out after a fight with a boy who made fun of his name. He transferred to St. Mel’s, another Catholic school.

“St. Mel’s identified me as a bit of a thug,” he says.  “They assumed that ‘this guy isn’t going to college. This guy won’t go much further because he’s a scrapper.’ That’s part of being from the West Side, I guess.

“Anyway,” McWeeney adds, with his trademark understatement, “I outdid their expectations.”

From DePaul to the FBI

Outdoing those expectations began in earnest when McWeeney enrolled in the College of Commerce at DePaul University.

At DePaul, McWeeney found his place.

Despite working a grueling overnight shift at the railroad switchyard off 35th and Pulaski, he was active in sports and in his fraternity. In his senior year, he was elected class president.

He also met his first wife at DePaul: the late Joan Hennessy, a fellow student. They were set up on a blind date. They would travel the world together, raise a family, and launch Corporate Risk International from their kitchen table.

When McWeeney looks back on his time at DePaul, it’s his good fortune that he stresses. The good fortune to have met Hennessy; the good fortune to receive an education that allowed his world to expand, equipping him with tools he’d need to earn his MBA and launch a second career as a successful entrepreneur. Good fortune — and the commitment to taking advantage of it.

A black-and-white photograph of a man with a bowler hat and a rueful grin, escorted by a younger man behind him

McWeeney, at right, escorts Carlo Gambino into the courthouse for his hearing. The photograph would be widely reproduced, leading McWeeney to receive media enquiries up until today. | Photo provided by Sean McWeeney

From DePaul, McWeeney ventured out into the world. He joined the Navy as an officer candidate. He moved to Rhode Island, where he earned his MBA.

The MBA allowed him to stand out when he applied for his dream job as an agent at the FBI.

From day one, working in the FBI was its own kind of education. He lived in cities in distant corners of the U.S. He learned all he could – from the culture, and from agents who were stationed in these posts as discipline.

“The punished agents knew how to get the job done,” he writes in his memoir. They were also repentant, “eager to share their story and what they learned from it.”

In the summer of 1969, McWeeney and his family landed in New York, where he was eventually assigned to the Gambino Squad.

Thanks to his upbringing, he was precisely the right man for the job.

“There were a lot of agents, believe me, who were a little leery of talking to the Mafia,” he recalls. “But when you grow up where I did, you just kind of learn to talk to them. I used to go right up to them – let them know who I was and what I wanted to know.”

He approached his work as a plain dealer: collected, straightforward, respectful. In McWeeney’s hands, even the arrest of Gambino was understated.

Gambino’s wife and children were with him, McWeeney recalls, when McWeeney and his agents pulled him over near his home in Brooklyn.

“He seemed surprised,” McWeeney writes, “but consistent with his typical demeanor, he remained calm and gave us no trouble during the arrest.”

The Capstone of a Remarkable Career

The Gambino arrest, like McWeeney’s years at DePaul, was a turning point in a much longer story. From there, he would go on to senior leadership positions in the Bureau. He would found a successful, global company.

A book cover. The title is Up By the Bootstraps and the cover displays a pair of worn, old-fashioned leather combat boots with a pair of handcuffs lying at their feet

McWeeney’s memoir, Up by the Bootstraps, details his life and extraordinary career. | Photo provided by Sean McWeeney

But if you ask McWeeney, it’s those early days as an FBI agent that stand out.

“If anyone ever asks what I did, my first reaction is to say I was an agent,” he says. “I was a top executive, of course. But I’m very, very proud of the fact that I was an FBI agent.

“It was the first time my father ever said he was proud of me – and I heard that from secondary sources,” he recalls. “My dad was soft-spoken, a tough guy. All he did was work, work, work. For him to have said that meant a lot.”

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Reflecting on 20 Years of Innovation and Vision at the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center

  By Meredith Carroll • November 14, 2023

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.

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 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.

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.

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.”

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For Gretchen Shuler, Entrepreneurship Is Joy in Action

  By Meredith Carroll • November 14, 2023 ,
Gretchen Shuler speaks into a microphone on a stage. Her hands are in motion, and she appears intent

Shuler at the 2023 Purpose Pitch competition

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.

Gretchen Shuler reaches over a table crowded with coffee supplies to hand a student a cup of coffee

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 coffee cup. It is medium-sized with a bright, modern logo made up of the letters RB super imposed on brightly colored coffee beans

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.”

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“Getting the job done in a human way”: William E. Hay Leadership Accelerator Convenes

  By Meredith Carroll • September 25, 2023 ,
Students building marshmallow structure: 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.

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.

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.

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Reimagining the Business Major

  By Kate Silver • May 18, 2023

DePaul’s refreshed bachelor’s in business curriculum is energizing and engaging career-minded students

Pictured from the Drift Team (L to R): Shivani Patel (at podium), Suzanna Linek, Omar Hatamleh, Ethan Brock. [The fifth member, Arshdeep Singh, is not pictured.]

Business students (L to R): Shivani Patel (at podium), Suzanna Linek, Omar Hatamleh and Ethan Brock pitch their business idea, a resale shop called Drift for DePaul students, at the Driehaus Cup Competition. [The fifth  team member, Arshdeep Singh, is not pictured.]

This spring, a temporary thrift store will pop up on DePaul’s Lincoln Park campus. Called Drift, the store will be filled with clothing and accessories donated by students, for students, in an effort to support pocketbook-friendly, repurposed fashion.

Fittingly, students designed and pitched the thrift concept last fall at the Driehaus Cup, a new business competition within the Driehaus College of Business. Business major Ethan Brock says he never imagined he’d be planning and running a business, especially during his first year of college.

“Everybody has ideas. But making it come to life is a different thing,” he says. “So this project has definitely forced me to change the way I look at things.”

In fact, that understanding of business principles isn’t just the goal of the Driehaus Cup, which caps off the new course, BUS 101: Introduction to Driehaus, Fundamentals of Business & Entrepreneurial Thinking; it’s the focus of the redesigned core curriculum of the Driehaus College of Business’s Bachelor of Science in Business (BSB) program.

The new core is the culmination of years of planning and discussions that started in 2019, when the college’s undergraduate curriculum committee first came together to imagine the ideal education for the modern business major.

Management Professor Jaclyn Jensen, a member of that committee who is now associate dean of student success, says the updated curriculum, which includes four new interdisciplinary courses, is designed to offer students more opportunities for community, connection and career-readiness.

“It was time to update the core to make sure that we were delivering a modern and refreshed experience to our students that aligned with what employers are seeking today,” says Jensen. “And also to get them connected to their experience as a business student sooner than they have had in the past.”

The New Core

From the moment they set foot on campus, students now get a deeper understanding of what business is and whom it serves, says Associate Professor of Marketing James Mourey, who is faculty coordinator of BUS 101 and also served on the curriculum committee. “Business is about uncovering human needs that are unfulfilled and finding ways to create products, services or experiences that fulfill those needs,” he says. “So at the end of the day, it’s fundamentally human.”

Starting with BUS 101: Introduction to Driehaus, Fundamentals of Business & Entrepreneurial Thinking, all first-year and transfer students learn about core business fundamentals and glean a better understanding of disciplines such as accounting, economics, finance, hospitality, marketing and management. The second half of BUS 101 teaches students about the entrepreneurial mindset — something Driehaus College of Business is known for.

That’s where the Driehaus Cup comes in. In groups, classmates develop business ideas and compete in the signature pitch competition, which is sponsored by Morningstar, the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center at DePaul and Protiviti. Finalists from each section advance to take the stage of the Lincoln Park Campus Student Center and pitch their idea before a panel of judges and an audience of around 300, competing for scholarship prizes and bragging rights for the Driehaus Cup trophy.

“In any given quarter, there are over 50 new business ideas that are coming out of the course,” says Jensen. Past ideas have included a water bottle that monitors intake, a continuous glucose monitor that doesn’t make disruptive alarms and a food delivery service that brings orders to specific seats at a sports or event venue. “It tells students the value of being in a place where the learn-by-doing philosophy is true through and through,” she says.

BUS 101 also aims to help students make the most of DePaul. Every week, students watch a video called “The Driehaus Difference” that highlights services and supports on campus, such as where to go to get help with writing, how to learn more about study abroad and how to go about getting an internship. In fact, Mourey, who has taught at DePaul for nearly 10 years, says he’s seeing students think seriously about internship and career opportunities earlier than ever.

“What I see now is my first-year students are landing internships or have their resume and their LinkedIn page polished and ready to go,” he says. “That’s game changing for career trajectory.”

Three other classes also make up the new core curriculum:

  • BUS 102: Business Analytics gives students the tools to understand evidence-based decision making, says Jensen, and it’s something that is top-of-mind for employers these days.
  • BUS 103: Business for Social Good explores how enterprises can help people and the planet, while also making a profit. “The course is oriented around big, sticky problems that organizations face today and how the different business disciplines can help address those exact problems,” says Jensen. “It’s also aligned with our mission at DePaul around doing good and doing well.”
  • BUS 202: Business Technology teaches students about the latest technologies that successful businesses use, such as artificial intelligence and blockchain, and prepares students to adapt to future innovations.

Looking ahead

It’s the first year for the core curriculum revamp, but so far, it’s receiving rave reviews. Jensen says that student evaluations have been extremely positive. Anecdotally, Mourey says he’s hearing students talk excitedly about signing up for study abroad trips and joining networking groups, such as the professional business fraternity Delta Sigma Pi.

Business major Suzanna Linek, a junior transfer student who recently completed BUS 101, is one of those students. She joined Delta Sigma Pi after learning about it in class and feels energized by the possibilities. “The opportunities are endless and a great stepping stone to so many connections and great experiences,” says Linek.

One of those opportunities is Drift, which Linek is working on with Brock. After the two students and their teammates presented the concept in the Driehaus Cup, judges and students told them they loved the idea. So they decided to pursue it. They secured funding from the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center and began collecting donations for a series of pop-up events around campus before the school year ends.

In time, Brock says the team hopes to open a physical store on campus and employ student workers. It’s been laborious, but Brock says he’s learned a lot about himself and what’s possible. “It’s a lot of work right now, but as it comes to life it feels more and more rewarding and just goes to show the number of things that I can accomplish thanks to the resources and programs provided for undergrad students in DePaul’s business programs.”

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Olivia Perez: Greenwood Project and DePaul opened “a whole new world for me”

  By jlansber • November 13, 2022
DePaul business major Olivia Perez

DePaul business major Olivia Perez

DePaul business major Olivia Perez only started college in September, but she already has a solid base of knowledge about the finance industry, thanks to her participation in summer finance programs hosted by the nonprofit Greenwood Project and DePaul.  

Two summers ago, a guidance counselor at her high school, De La Salle Institute on the Chicago’s South Side, suggested that Perez enroll in the Greenwood Project’s Summer High School FinTech Institute. The program teaches computer coding, financial literacy and career skills to students of color. “I was initially planning to major in technology, specifically computer science, but I also had an interest in finance,” Perez says. She didn’t seriously consider finance as a career path, however, because she knew little about it and didn’t know anyone working in this field.  

Her involvement in the Greenwood Project changed that. “I found the bridge that connected technology and finance,” she says. “It was a whole new world for me. I didn’t have anyone in my family in finance. So, it was nice be able to connect with other people who, like me, were interested in finance.” 

After graduating high school last spring, Perez applied to the Driehaus College of Business and enrolled in a second Greenwood Project summer program, this time a 10-week finance boot camp at DePaul’s business college. Taught by DePaul finance professors, alumni and industry leaders, the program covered the fundamentals of finance and investing, as well as skills for communicating and presenting yourself effectively in a business setting.  

Perez appreciated the program’s holistic approach and found a presentation by DePaul finance instructor Joe Silich (BUS ’92), head of The Silich Group at Morgan Stanley, particularly meaningful. “He mentioned that in order to be successful, you have to immerse yourself in the culture of finance professionals. You have to dress the part, and you have to come in with the right mindset.” 

Perez says the program made her more confident about her decision to come to DePaul this fall and major in finance. “The professors gave us a glimpse of the curriculum at DePaul and were really approachable,” she says. “They made the subject easy for us to comprehend and made us feel comfortable to ask questions.” Perez plans to enroll in the Greenwood Project-DePaul program for college students next summer, which includes summer internships with financial service firms. 

Creating more opportunities for underrepresented students to enter finance benefits both students and the industry, Perez observes.  

“I feel that diversity is incredibly important,” she says. “The more diversity of thought and voices that an industry allows, the more creativity there is. For example, my being Hispanic and a woman—those are both groups that are not really well-represented in finance. And so I want to be a voice and to inspire others as well.”

By Robin Florzak

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Seerat Kaler (BUS ’21): Paying it Forward to Empower Women in Finance

  By jlansber • November 13, 2022
Seerat Kaler (BUS ’21)

Seerat Kaler (BUS ’21)

Seerat Kaler (BUS ’21) is the daughter of immigrants who came to the United States from Punjab, an agricultural region in India, seeking to raise their children in a place that they believed would offer more opportunities for success. For Kaler, those opportunities came to fruition at the Driehaus College of Business, where she found people and programs committed to empowering her success.  

Kaler entered DePaul with an interest in economics, but she didn’t quite know which career path to pursue. That changed when she attended DePaul’s annual career fair during her sophomore year and met representatives from CIBC U.S., including the head of the multinational bank’s financial institutions group. Before she knew it, Kaler and the executive had spoken for more than 40 minutes. She recalls sharing her passions, interests and motivations in life, and “he was gracious enough to look at my résumé and provide honest comments. It was an experience unlike any other career fair visit.” 

Later on, Kaler successfully landed multiple internships at CIBC and interacted with stellar mentors along the way. “My internships at CIBC were my first exposure to commercial banking, and I really enjoyed it,” she says. “The hands-on experience taught me about various industries and their business models. The clients we serve taught me substantially about building wealth in America—specifically in business industries that are unexplored by my community.”  

During her junior year she was accepted into the Keeley Center Academy, a selective, rigorous, two-year DePaul career-readiness program that provides students with the skills and contacts to become successful in finance. “It was a really intense experience, but what it did was it bridged the gap for people, like me, who have this great ambition to do something, but don’t really understand how this industry actually works. It taught me the ropes and made meeting industry professionals easy.” 

Kaler and the seven other women students in her Keeley Center Academy cohort formed a tight-knit group to support each other as they pursued their studies and future careers in a field where men greatly outnumber women. The group began discussing how they could expand this support network to other women and business students from diverse backgrounds. This led Kaler and her classmates to found Females in Finance, a DePaul student organization dedicated to promoting allyship and leadership empowerment for women in finance.  

“We launched in fall quarter (2020) and quickly went from eight to 64 members,” Kaler says. The organization also attracted strong industry collaboration, amassing a sizable endowment and support from companies that include Morgan Stanley, BMO Harris Bank and William Blair. The effort helped Kaler earn the Keeley Academy’s 2021 Most Inspirational Student Award. 

After graduating with a bachelor’s in finance, Kaler joined CIBC full time as a commercial banking associate and, this past summer, was placed in the Loan Syndications group. 

One of the key values Kaler holds as a follower of the Sikh religion is Vand Chhako, which means to share what you have and consume it as a community. Kaler embraces this value as a member of CIBC’s DePaul Campus Champion college recruiting team. Through her continuing contact with DePaul’s Females in Finance, she has helped recruit four female students for internships and full-time roles at CIBC in the past two years.  

“This is the kind of progress I am trying to make,” Kaler says. “My main goal is to help as many people as possible. I don’t think there’s anything to gain from competing with people. That’s how I interact with people, and I’m hoping to keep that going for the rest of my career.”

By Robin Florzak