Category Archives: Features

Kevin Felisme (Photo by Kathy Hillegonds)

That’s what inspires me and drives me—not just to be a leader, but to work with people and support them. That’s what we’re called to do as humans— support each other, love each other and be better people.”

MBA student Kevin Felisme has been living in Chicago for just four years, but his passion for improving the community in his adopted hometown runs deep.

A native of Manchester, N.H., Felisme delivered the TEDxDePaul talk “Reimagine Chicago: Power to the People,” in which he proposed using economic development to revitalize the city’s low-income communities. He hopes to develop programs, supported by either public or private dollars, that will allow neighborhood residents to own and operate businesses within the community.

“When I look at low-income, African-American communities in Chicago, I see a lack of economic development and businesses that are owned by the people within those neighborhoods,” Felisme says. “I believe that if we have the ability to control the economics in our communities, they should have businesses that are run by us, who cater to us and who will inspire people to start somewhere and say, ‘Hey, this is our foundation.’”

Growing up in a single-parent household where money was tight, Felisme first visited Chicago in 2014 during an alternative spring break trip as an undergraduate student at American University. The trip took students to tour various organizations, including Mercy Home for Boys and Girls, a therapeutic residential facility for youth. Despite having a full-time job waiting for him in Washington, D.C., Felisme was moved by the organization’s mission and decided to relocate to Chicago and work for the organization as a youth care worker.

Kevin Felisme presents his talk, “Reimagine Chicago: Power to the People,” at TEDxDePaulUniversity in the Lincoln Park Student Center. Through the theme, Reimagine, 11 diverse presenters provoked stimulating conversation on powerful topics that invited the audience to consider questions and subjects in a new light. (DePaul University/Jamie Moncrief)

“I’ve always thought that it was important that if you want to work with people in the community, you actually have to live there,” says Felisme, who lives in one of the city’s South Side neighborhoods. “It’s important to know who your neighbors are, not just to come in and help and then leave. You should get to know people because you’re in kinship.”

Now, Felisme is a coordinator for Mercy Home, where he manages the nonprofit’s volunteer program. In 2016, he launched an open basketball gym program through the Port Ministries, a nonprofit on the South Side that serves those in need. He’s also one of the basketball coaches for Mercy Home’s Hoops to Homework League, which partners with the Chicago Bulls to boost young men’s sportsmanship.

DePaul’s Vincentian values and connection to the city inspired Felisme to enroll at the Kellstadt Graduate School of Business in the fall of 2017. Earning an MBA degree in entrepreneurship and management moves him closer to his goal of creating businesses in low-income Chicago neighborhoods, he says.

“That’s what inspires me and drives me—not just to be a leader, but to work with people and support them. That’s what we’re called to do as human —support each other, love each other and be better people.”

More student leader profiles:

• Bevon Joseph: A Leader for Career Access
• Olena Cruz: A Leader on Campus
• Rebeca Mitrea: A Leader on the Court

Rebeca Mitrea (Photo by Kathy Hillegonds)

By being a leader, you really have more avenues to help people. As long as it’s reflected in helping others and making an impact in the community, I think really that’s what inspires me.”

When Rebeca Mitrea moved to the United States to play on DePaul University’s women’s Division I tennis team, she was thousands of miles away from home. Mitrea was born and raised in Romania, where she began playing tennis at just five years of age. At 16, she was the No. 1 ranked tennis player in Romania and ranked 22nd in Europe.

After she joined DePaul on a full tennis scholarship, her list of accomplishments quickly grew. Mitrea became the all-time DePaul record holder for most overall tennis wins, most singles wins and most singles wins in one season. While serving as the team captain for two years, she earned several awards, including the Intercollegiate Tennis Association Cissie Leary Award for Sportsmanship, which is given to an NCAA Division I women’s player who displays inspiring dedication and commitment to her team.

Mitrea originally majored in health sciences but then transferred to the Driehaus College of Business to study finance. In 2016, she graduated summa cum laude with an undergraduate finance degree, and last year she completed her DePaul MBA in finance and international business. She now works as a credit risk analyst at HSBC Bank in Chicago and is active in its employee group, Balance, which advocates for the recruitment, development and engagement of a gender-balanced workforce.

Romania native Rebeca Mitrea was ranked the No. 1 tennis player in her home country. At DePaul , she became the all-time DePaul record holder for most overall tennis wins, most singles wins and most singles wins in one season. (Photo courtesy of DePaul Athletics)

Despite living far away from her family, Mitrea says DePaul came to feel like home. “It would help that I would go home to Romania in the summers and the winters during the breaks, but for me DePaul was family,” she says.

Mitrea credits the Athletics Department with fostering a welcoming and supportive environment for its student- athletes to become leaders. Staff members, who knew all of the athletes by name, would frequently ask Mitrea how she was doing. The department also offered a team of academic advisors, as well as other resources, to help student-athletes balance their academic workload with the demands of playing tennis.

“One of the greatest things that tennis has helped me achieve is being a higher performer, doing a number of things at the same time and doing them to the best of my abilities—not just doing 70 percent of one thing, but giving it my all with everything I did,” says Mitrea, who graduated valedictorian from high school in her home country. “It really forces you to do your best.”

Mitrea now plays tennis whenever she can and hopes to help DePaul’s tennis team as much as possible. She also plans to become a mentor in DePaul’s Alumni Sharing Knowledge Network, which connects DePaul students with alumni.

“By being a leader, you really have more avenues to help people,” she says. “As long as it’s reflected in helping others and making an impact in the community, I think really that’s what inspires me. As long as I could help all of the other girls on my team, that’s what really made me feel fulfilled and happy with all that I was doing.”

More student leader profiles:

• Bevon Joseph: A Leader for Career Access
• Olena Cruz: A Leader on Campus
• Kevin Felisme: A Leader in the Community

Student leaders creating a positive impact: Rebecca Mitrea, Kevin Felisme, Olena Cruz and Bevon Joseph, with Business Dean Misty Johanson (photo by Kathy Hillegonds)

Whether they are millennials or members of Generation Z, DePaul business students and recent graduates were born to lead.

Ninety-one percent of millennials aspire to be leaders, the Millennial Leadership Study survey conducted by WorkplaceTrends.com found, and nearly half of those surveyed define leadership as “empowering others to succeed.” Meanwhile, according to Forbes magazine, surveys of Gen Z (those born after 1995) show that this latest generation to hit campus wants to “make their mark, in part, by making our society better than past generations have managed to do.”

Grounded in Vincentian values, DePaul provides opportunities for students to exercise their interest in socially responsible leadership from the minute they come onto campus as first-year students. Campus-wide initiatives like New Student Service Day and the annual Vincentian Service Day, and projects led by the Steans Center and Campus Ministry, allow students to become change-makers in the Chicago community DePaul calls home. In 2018 alone, DePaul students completed hundreds of thousands of community service hours.

At the Driehaus College of Business, students develop their leadership talent through classroom lessons, experiential learning, student organizations, mentorships, internships and even their own businesses ventures founded with the help of the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center and other resources. These opportunities produce young leaders who get to work immediately at solving marketplace and societal problems, inspiring peers to reach new, heights and pushing the boundaries of achievement on campus, in business, in sports and in the community.

In the following stories we highlight four soon-to-be and recent DePaul business graduates who are pursuing different paths but have one thing in common:  they use their business acumen to lead and empower others.

• Bevon Joseph: A Leader for Career Access
• Olena Cruz: A Leader on Campus
• Kevin Felisme: A Leader in the Community
• Rebeca Mitrea: A Leader on the Court

The late John P. Graven (back row, far left), a World War II veteran who attended DePaul on the GI Bill, established scholarship funds to help others earn DePaul degrees.

John P. Graven (BUS ’49, MBA ’50) was in DePaul’s first class of 15 MBA graduates. Like many college students of his era, he was a veteran of World War II. He served in the U.S. Army, and memories of his wartime experiences were still fresh in his mind when he entered DePaul. One memory, which he later shared with his wife, remained especially vivid.

“He was among the troops that liberated Buchenwald,” says Anastasia P. Graven (MA ’64) of her husband, who died at age 81 in 2006. The Buchenwald concentration camp near Weimar, Germany, held Holocaust survivors and political prisoners from across Europe. “The American Army wanted to reassure the prisoners that they were not another army coming to overcome them. The generals said, ‘We have to explain to the prisoners that we are here to save them.’”

Anastasia Graven
and her husband,
the late John Graven.

The commanders asked GIs who spoke the detainees’ various languages to step forward to tell the survivors they were free. Graven, the son of Greek immigrants who settled in Chicago, volunteered to talk to the Greek survivors. “They told him to say, ‘We are Americans, we are here to help you and save you and return you to your own countries,’” Anastasia says. “The Greek prisoners fell on their knees, kissed (the soldiers’) hands and thanked them. He was a 19-year-old kid, overwhelmed by all this. It was a very moving event in his life.”

When Graven’s service ended, he returned to Chicago. “It was an opportunity to proceed in life after a harrowing experience,” his wife says. “He wanted to go back to school on the GI Bill, which of course was a big godsend. The GI Bill opened up education for many of that generation. Going to university then was an elite thing.” DePaul’s mission served the non-elite, including military veterans and the children of immigrants who wanted to expand their prospects through education. “DePaul opened its arms and made them feel welcomed, comfortable and accepted,” she says. “He treasured the whole experience.”

Graven entered DePaul’s MBA program right after earning his bachelor’s degree in accountancy. “He always was a numbers man,” Anastasia says. “He worked in accounting at a CPA firm, but he wanted to have the MBA.” He left the firm, attended MBA classes during the day and taught accounting at a junior college at night.

John and Anastasia met in 1949 after Easter Sunday services at Saints Constantine and Helen Greek Orthodox Church, then located on Chicago’s South Side. “He introduced himself and said, ‘Who are you?’” she recalls. “I told him, and he said, ‘I think you are the woman I am going to marry.’” They tied the knot in 1952.

John convinced Anastasia to get her master’s degree at DePaul, and they both went to work in the Chicago Public School system. John was a principal at Taft High School and an assistant superintendent; Anastasia was a principal at Boone Elementary and Stephen Decatur Classical School.

John considered DePaul his “saving place,” Anastasia says. “He told me, ‘When the time comes, and if I have the capacity, I want to support students who go there.’” In 2008, Anastasia established the John and Anastasia Graven Scholarship Funds to benefit business and music students, and she later added an accountancy student scholarship fund.

“John always said he got a good education and it provided him with opportunities to develop and move into the future,” says Anastasia. Through the Gravens’ scholarship funds, 29 DePaul students to date have had the same opportunity to attend DePaul and expand their horizons.

By Robin Florzak

Read about DePaul MBA grads from other decades:

• The 1950s: From GI to MBA
• The 1960s: Scholars of Change
• The 1970s: MBA-Powered Leaders
• The 1980s: Chicago-Educated, World Ready
• The 1990s: Cultivating People and Profits
• The 2000s: Leaders Who Pay It Forward
• The 2010s: The Career-Changing MBA

Richard Driehaus (BUS ’65, MBA ’70, DHL ’02) gave DePaul a $30 million gift in 2012 to support the recruitment and retention of top business faculty members, and also has contributed to international business and finance education initiatives.

Richard H. Driehaus (BUS ’65, MBA ’70, DHL ’02), a finance industry pioneer and philanthropist, and James Jenness (BUS ’69, MBA ’71, DHL ’06), former Kellogg Co. CEO and chairman, both rose from humble beginnings on Chicago’s South Side to become successful business leaders after earning MBAs from DePaul.

Driehaus remembers fondly many of his DePaul business professors and credits one of them, economics Professor William A. Hayes, for encouraging him to finish a final class assignment necessary for earning his MBA. “I was out of the program for a couple years, and he called me up to tell me I had to get in a paper in order to get my MBA degree,” he recalls.

Driehaus submitted a paper titled “The Formation of a New Theory on Growth Investing.” “I was always interested in growth stocks and growth investing,” he says. “Earnings growth is the primary motive of business, so we seek stocks with the following characteristics: accelerating sales and earnings, desirable supporting fundamentals, upward estimate revisions and positive earnings surprises.”

My DePaul education was an important factor in how my career and life have evolved. I commend the university for creating an environment that not only excels in education, but does so in a benevolent way.” – Richard H. Driehaus

The paper coalesced Driehaus’s momentum investing philosophy, which he used to found Driehaus Capital Management in 1979. The philosophy still guides his firm’s investment decisions today.

James Jenness (BUS ’69, MBA ’71, DHL ’06), former Kellogg Co. CEO and chairman, says DePaul “opened up the world” for him.

Jenness, a graduate of Chicago’s Fenger High School, says he wasn’t a very good student until he came to DePaul’s business college. “The quality of the teachers was great,” he says. “Most of the teachers had real-world experience, which I found very valuable.”

“DePaul opened up the world for me,” he says. “I was really interested in marketing, and I wanted to work for a major company. Getting an MBA was a critical piece to be able to do that.”

Jenness rose in the ranks to become vice chairman and chief operating officer of the Leo Burnett advertising agency, and later was tapped to lead Kellogg, one of Burnett’s clients. “I have been lucky enough to work for some great companies and to become the chairman of the board of one of the world’s greatest companies, Kellogg, where I still serve on the board,” he says. “Without a DePaul education, my undergraduate and MBA education, that would never have happened. DePaul was great enabler for me to reach my potential, and I am very grateful for it.”

Both Jenness and Driehaus have given generously of their time and resources to support DePaul’s mission. Jenness chaired DePaul’s Board of Trustees (2011–14) and serves on the business college’s advisory council. Driehaus gave DePaul a $30 million gift in 2012 to support the recruitment and retention of top business faculty members, and also has contributed to international business and finance education initiatives. DePaul acknowledged his devotion to the university by naming the business college for him.

“My DePaul education, as both an undergraduate and through the graduate school of business, was an important factor in how my career and life have evolved,” Driehaus said at the college naming ceremony in 2012. “I commend the university for creating an environment that not only excels in education, but does so in a benevolent way.”

By Robin Florzak

Read more about DePaul MBA grads from other decades:

• The 1950s: From GI to MBA
• The 1960s: Scholars of Change
• The 1970s: MBA-Powered Leaders
• The 1980s: Chicago-Educated, World Ready
• The 1990s: Cultivating People and Profits
• The 2000s: Leaders Who Pay It Forward
• The 2010s: The Career-Changing MBA

Faculty members Harold Welsch and Helen LaVan found their callings to become professors while earning their DePaul MBAs.

DePaul business professors have long been known for incorporating the real world into their teaching and scholarship. In their classroom discussions and research, they explore emerging trends and what they mean for business and society. For management professors Helen LaVan (MBA ’69) and Harold Welsch (BUS ’66, MBA ’68), the seeds of this teaching philosophy were planted when they were DePaul MBA students themselves.

LaVan was taking night classes in the MBA program and working days in the human resources department of Montgomery Ward when executives at that Chicago-based retailer tapped her to work with a team on a special project. She and her colleagues were tasked with researching solutions for the violent unrest that had erupted in Chicago and other American cities in the wake of the 1967 assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. and the 1968 Democratic Convention. “They wanted to be good corporate citizens, and they were trying to help prevent the riots from happening again,” she explains. The report advocated for better jobs and educational opportunities, among other remedies, to address the roots of violence.

“The fact that I was singled out to work on this was kind of amazing,” LaVan says. It solidified her interest in pursuing an academic career in business from the human resources perspective. One of only four women in her MBA class, LaVan became the first woman graduate assistant at the college. After she finished her DePaul MBA and earned a PhD in organizational behavior from Loyola University of Chicago, she returned to DePaul to teach human resources. This year, she celebrates her 49th year on the faculty.

It was the business school’s first computer class that led Welsch down a groundbreaking academic path. The use of computers in business “was new, innovative, something that appeared from nowhere,” he remembers. The college’s faculty “had the foresight to realize that we needed to harness this for creating some good, and that got me thinking, how do you harness innovations? If the computer is one of the new things happening, what other new things are just around the corner?”

Entrepreneurship was that next big thing, Welsch realized. He finished his MBA, joined DePaul’s management faculty and completed a PhD at Northwestern University. In 1973, he began working with small-business clients to test and apply some of the theories he taught in his classes. In the early 1980s, he founded DePaul’s entrepreneurship program, one of the first in the country. Since then, the nationally ranked program has produced hundreds of successful entrepreneurs who are harnessing innovations to address a wide range of business and societal challenges.

Earning an MBA was a rare accomplishment in the 1960s, Welsch says, and he treasures his degree. With an MBA, “you stood out as a candidate for the career fast track in your chosen endeavor for whatever organization you selected.”

By Robin Florzak

Read more about MBA grads from other decades:

• The 1950s: From GI to MBA
• The 1960s: Scholars of Change
• The 1970s: MBA-Powered Leaders
• The 1980s: Chicago-Educated, World Ready
• The 1990s: Cultivating People and Profits
• The 2000s: Leaders Who Pay It Forward
• The 2010s: The Career-Changing MBA

More memories from a 1960s DePaul MBA graduate:

“After graduating from DePaul with a bachelor’s degree in business in February of 1965, I immediately entered the MBA program at DePaul. All classes were in the evenings. During the day I worked as a staff accountant at J.P. Varkala & Co., a small CPA firm on the South Side.

“Among the professors I remember best was Ed Cohen. He taught a graduate financial accounting class that was outstanding. His classes were interesting and very challenging. Between taking him as an undergraduate, the CPA Review and graduate accounting classes, I had Ed for five accounting classes. It provided an excellent background. Later, when I earned a doctorate in accounting from University of Kentucky, I was ahead of my classmates in accounting knowledge and understanding, all because of Ed.

The DePaulia student newspaper highlighted the impact of the Blizzard of ’67  on students.

“(I also remember) Helene Ramanauskas-Marconi. Helene taught the capstone accounting class…She required us to present the results of our research in front of class, which was unusual for the time.

“The two years in the MBA program went fast because I was working in public accounting at the same time. My last class was with Marketing Professor Jack Goldstucker. Getting to the final exam for this course was a chore because it was the night of the Blizzard of ‘67 and Chicago was shut down. I had to hitch hike to the final exam. Only about a third of the class was able to get to the exam.”

— John Ahern (BUS ’65, MBA ’67)
Associate Professor of Accountancy & MIS
Director, Richard H. Driehaus Center for International Business
DePaul University

Sebastian Cualoping (BUS ’77, MBA ’81), former CEO of Ampac International, a worldwide design and plastic packaging company,

Sebastian Cualoping’s short commute to DePaul’s MBA program in downtown Chicago was the first leg of a long adventure in global business. Cualoping (BUS ’77, MBA ’81), former CEO of Ampac International, a worldwide design and plastic packaging company, was a young professional fresh from earning his bachelor’s degree at DePaul when he entered the MBA program. His dream was to found his own international business.

“I decided to pursue my MBA at DePaul part time so I could work during the day,” he recalls. “DePaul being right in the Loop and offering most of its MBA classes at night gave me the opportunity to do that.”

When he began the part-time evening MBA program, Sebastian Cualoping’s dream was to found his own international business. He discovered the foundation he needed in the courses International Finance and Money & Banking.

Two courses, International Finance and Money & Banking, had a big impact on Cualoping. They were taught by James A. Hart, an economics professor for more than 40 years who also served two stints as dean of DePaul’s business college. Hart, who died in 2003, “recognized the importance of international business before ‘globalization’ became a household word,” according to the Chicago Tribune. Under his leadership, DePaul became one of the first business schools in the country to offer an MBA in international business in 1962, one year before Harvard University.

Cualoping remembers Hart as a supportive teacher whose lessons still resonate today: “His classes were outstanding. His method of teaching was empirical, and I was able to apply what I learned to my business.”

DePaul has a very strong network in Chicago. Pursuing an MBA is not just taking classes, but also building relationships and networking with your fellow students. – Sebastian Cualoping

Beyond the knowledge and skills he learned in the classroom, Cualoping, who serves on the business college’s advisory council, says being part of DePaul’s large alumni community has had a lasting impact on his career and life.

“DePaul has very strong networking in Chicago, especially in the business and finance sectors,” he says. “Pursuing an MBA is not just taking classes, but also building relationships and networking with your fellow students.”

By Robin Florzak

Read about DePaul MBA graduates from other decades:

• The 1950s: From GI to MBA
• The 1960s: Scholars of Change
• The 1970s: MBA-Powered Leaders
• The 1980s: Chicago-Educated, World Ready
• The 1990s: Cultivating People and Profits
• The 2000s: Leaders Who Pay It Forward
• The 2010s: The Career-Changing MBA

More memories from a 1980’s DePaul MBA graduate:

“On my way to night classes, I would stop at the McDonalds on State Street between Adams and Jackson. One night,(civil rights leader) Jessie Jackson, in the midst of his unsuccessful presidential run, stopped in for a burger and, seeing my books and note pads, came by my table and chatted for a while. I just don’t think you get experiences like that outside a school that is not in the heart of the Chicago Loop.

Happy 70th anniversary, DePaul University MBA Program. Thank you so much for all you did for me, and here’s wishing you many, many more great years.”

— Bob Matia (MBA ’88)
President, Bob Matia Agency

Paul Gunning credits the DePaul MBA program for helping him develop skills to create a strong company culture and cultivate disciplined processes for turning revenue into profit.

In 1992, Paul Gunning (MBA ’99) was driving toward Vail, Colo., when his 1969 Volkswagen bus broke down in the middle of Chicago. Gunning, who had just finished an internship in Washington, D.C., was planning to move to Colorado with friends. That plan never came to fruition, and Gunning ended up calling Chicago home.

The Cleveland native now works in advertising as president and chief operating officer of DDB Advertising U.S., overseeing the agency’s offices throughout the United States. Founded in 1949, the global advertising agency is owned by Omnicom Group Inc. and serves major brands such as MillerCoors, Capital One and State Farm.

Gunning’s advertising career started when he began working as an account executive for Frankel & Co. in 1996. His employer offered to pay his MBA tuition. Since Gunning earned an undergraduate degree in history, he took night classes to earn math credits at Harold Washington College before enrolling at DePaul.

“It took a lot of drive to complete (my MBA) but I remember fondly working in groups with other people who had full-time jobs and learning about their jobs, their industries and their roles,” he says. “I liked meeting folks who were in banking, health care, finance and other industries.”

Gunning had a knack for sales and began working for Tribal Worldwide, an agency that is also owned by Omnicom, after completing his MBA in 1999. Thanks to his advanced degree and ability to win new business, Gunning was named CEO of Tribal and oversaw the agency’s financial, strategic and operational leadership globally.

“I was good at sales,” he recalls. “I landed a lot of accounts and, because I was bringing those in and using the skills from the MBA, (I was able) to run them quite profitably.”

Prior to becoming president and COO, Gunning served five years as president of DDB Chicago. Under his leadership, DDB Chicago brought in new accounts including MillerCoors, Symantec and Scotts Miracle-Gro, among others. Gunning credits the DePaul MBA program for giving him the skills necessary to lead.

Those skills include the ability to cultivate both people and profits, he says. “There’s a lot of competition for a qualified workforce, so you need to have a strong culture but also disciplined processes to make sure you can turn that revenue into profit. A lot of those skills were developed because of the DePaul program.”

By Jaclyn Lansbery

Read about DePaul MBA grads from other decades:

• The 1950s: From GI to MBA
• The 1960s: Scholars of Change
• The 1970s: MBA-Powered Leaders
• The 1980s: Chicago-Educated, World Ready
• The 1990s: Cultivating People and Profits
• The 2000s: Leaders Who Pay It Forward
• The 2010s: The Career-Changing MBA

More memories from a 1990’s DePaul MBA graduate:

“Probably one of my fondest memories was going to France and Germany (on a study abroad seminar) with Professor (Ashok) Batavia from the Department of Economics. Professor Batavia was well known among the students for his ability to teach, especially the lessons that were being taught in the world, as they were unfolding in the news. He was a renaissance man and had so much charisma; he spoke five languages, he had multiple post-graduate degrees, he was an international traveler, yet he was so humble and generous with his knowledge. And I remember sitting on a Euro rail train on that trip, talking to him about how to optimize the game of black jack and just sitting there thinking, ‘Is there anything this guy cannot do?’ He was challenging me to use this skill that I really hadn’t used in a long time.

I just remember thinking, ‘He was living his life on his terms.’ I remember thinking to myself this is the way that I should carve out my path – to grow a set of skills and optimize them to the highest level that I possibly could and then use those tools not just to work in corporate America but to carve my path as to how I wanted to live my life. And that was really a distinct memory while I was studying for my MBA at DePaul.”

— Chris Mah (MBA ’96)
Advanced Manufacturing Engineering Product Manager
Xylem

Malik Murray (BUS ’96, MBA ’04) credits DePaul alumni mentors
with helping him find success.

When Malik Murray (BUS ’96, MBA ’04) graduated from DePaul’s undergraduate finance program, his mother, Linda Murray, a former high school principal with two master’s degrees, would not give Murray his diploma.

“When I saw my parents at the conclusion of the ceremony, my mom took my diploma and said, ‘You’re not done yet,’” Murray recalls. “So in her mind she was already thinking about me going to graduate school.”

Recruited by former DePaul Blue Demons basketball coach Joey Meyer (CSH ’71), Murray attended DePaul on a full basketball scholarship and, like his father, Leonard Murray, who is a judge, had a natural gift for athletics. Along with his fellow teammates, Murray had dreams of playing in the NBA.

As an undergraduate, Murray interned at First Chicago Futures after being introduced to the industry by Brett Burkholder (BUS ’83) and worked every summer in the eurodollar pits at the Chicago Mercantile Exchange. Burkholder, an eighth-round NBA draft pick, showed Murray he could earn an NBA salary working in investment finance.

“I have so many examples of experiences where people have shown me what was possible in life, in business, and personally,” says Murray. “I took it in like a sponge.” Murray had worked for eight years in finance when his employer, First Chicago Bank, now part of JPMorgan Chase, told him the company would subsidize his tuition. Most of his peers in the industry had MBA degrees, so Murray knew he would need a graduate degree to continue advancing in his career. Although he looked at other graduate programs, DePaul, a “city school,” felt like home.

“Ultimately, I decided to come here and it’s a decision that, hands down, is the best one I made at the time,” says Murray, who now works as senior vice president of institutional marketing and client services at Chicago-based Ariel Investments, which is the first African American-owned investment management firm in the country.

I’m in a stage of my life where I really want to think about the people behind me, because I think that’s very important. It’s not enough to just look back, you have to reach back. I’m a big believer in that.” – Malik Murray

True to the Vincentian values he learned at DePaul, Murray gives back to the community and helps others find their own path. He’s a graduate of the Greater Chicago Leadership Fellows Program and sits on the boards of St. Ignatius College Prep, where he attended high school, and Ariel Community Academy. He is also director of the National Association of Securities Professionals.

“I’m in a stage of my life where I really want to think about the people behind me, because I think that’s very important,” he says. “It’s not enough to just look back, you have to reach back. I’m a big believer in that. So while I’m kind of entering a window of having some professional success, I also realize that life is much bigger than me, and I welcome the responsibility to help future generations to have the opportunity to participate fully in the American economy.”

For Adam Robinson (MBA ’03), an MBA was key to launching his own business.

Hireology CEO Adam Robinson credits the real world perspectives and network he built through his DePaul MBA program with helping his business grow.

Robinson took management Professor Harold Welsch’s (BUS ’66, MBA ’68) new venture formation class; in it, he built the business plan for Illuma, a recruitment company that Robinson ran for six years. Robinson later co-founded Hireology, a software company that helps organizations improve and systemize their hiring processes. In addition to overseeing Hireology, Robinson is a nationally recognized keynote speaker, an author, a podcast host and an Inc. Magazine columnist.

Hireology was No. 4 on Crain’s Chicago Business 2018 Fast 50 list. In 2017, the company expanded from 111 to 129 employees. Robinson currently serves as CEO.

“The value (from DePaul) was in the network that I built,” Robinson says. “Some of my first connections to entrepreneurs were through the Coleman Entrepreneurship Center and guest speakers Dr. Welsch brought in. Here were people who learned these things and accomplished things I aspired to accomplish.” He credits the network that he built through his DePaul MBA program with helping his business grow.

Robinson studied real estate finance at DePaul and learned the skills that allowed him to manage finance and accounting for the first four years of running Hireology. “I was a history major at (the University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign),” he says. “I had never taken an accounting or business course in my life. Most first-time business owners struggle with accounting and finance, and I struggled less because I had that education.”

“What I liked most about the program were the people,” he says. “Most, if not everyone in the class, were working. They were in careers, and they were contributing real perspectives and calling on their own real-world experience, (and) that contributed to the class. That made a big difference.”

By Jaclyn Lansbery

Read more about DePaul MBA grads from other decades:

• The 1950s: From GI to MBA
• The 1960s: Scholars of Change
• The 1970s: MBA-Powered Leaders
• The 1980s: Chicago-Educated, World Ready
• The 1990s: Cultivating People and Profits
• The 2000s: Leaders Who Pay It Forward
• The 2010s: The Career-Changing MBA