Mentor Blog #2

One of the most important things that i have learned thus far from my mentor is the importance of networking and etiquette. Mr.Morgan always stresses the importance of networking to us and always tells us how it is a key aspect in the business world. Once you meet people and make connections you get their information so that if need be you will be able to stay in touch with them and use that contact to your advantage one day. Another thing that we learned from Mr.Morgan was etiquette and how you have to act accordingly to your surroundings. Because Mr.Morgan works in the marketing industry he is often times entertaining clients and taking them out to dinner and different locations in the New Orleans area. He explained to us that every client is different and that he always likes to get a feel of the client and their likes and dislikes before he takes them out.
One job that i have learned that i might like is one in the marketing field. I'm not sure of a specific job in that field but i have developed a certain interest in marketing after discussing it with my mentor.
I am most looking forward to the parades. I have heard so much about the different parades, floats, and festivities that go on during Mardi Gras and i am excited to experience all of it. I want to definitely avoid getting lost in the crowds of rowdy, inebriated people.
Mardis Gras is important to New Orleans because the Mardi Gras holidays play a pivotal role in New Orleans' early history. It is a perfect representation of New Orleans Culture.

Networking Event

1) Mason G. Couvillon is the president, principal/owner, and financial planner of Dardis Couvillon & Associates. He attended Jesuit High School, Georgetown University, and Harvard University. In the past he has worked as the financial planner and retirement planning specialist for Morgan Stanley Dean Witter in Washington, DC. The vice president, portfolio manager, and trust investment officer for Hibernia/Capitol One National Bank in New Orleans, Louisiana. As well as a financial consultant for the Companies of Becker and Suffern.

H. Jude Boudreaux is the director of financial planning for Bellingrath Wealth Management. Mr. Boudreaux is a Loyola New Orleans Alumni as well as a certified financial planner practitioner, granted by the certified financial planner board of standards. He is currently pursuing a Master’s of Science in Financial Services from the American College in Bryn Mawr, PA.

Andrew Goodwin recently completed the Uniform Certified Public Accountants exam and is currently awaiting certification from the Louisiana State Board of CPAs. Mr. Goodwin is a Loyola New Orleans Alumni with a bachelor of Accountancy with degrees in International Business and accounting. After graduating Mr. Goodwin began working for Ernst and & young LLP as a staff accountant in the Fraud Investigation & Dispute Services practice.

Michelle L. Huck received her Bachelor of Arts in economics and history from Loyola University New Orleans and her Master of Science in Accounting from the University of New Orleans. She served as an intern at Entergy Services Inc. in the Finance Operations Center in New Orleans, LA. Ms. Huck is currently serving as a staff accountant at Ernst & Young, LLP.

Rodney Crosby graduated from the University of New Orleans with a Bachelor of science and degree in Finance in 2001. He began working in the bank industry in 2000. At one point he was the portfolio manager and credit analyst with Hibernia National Bank/ Capitol One. He is currently holds a credit specialist position with Region’s Commercial Real Estate Department in New Orleans, LA.

2) I thought that I did a good job of asking questions that kept the conversation flowing. In the beginning it was a little difficult to come up with things to say and questions to ask but as the night progressed I felt the questions and conversation topics coming to me a lot quicker.

3) One thing I could do better in the future is introduce myself using my full name. One of the business professionals pointed that out to me during the event and I realized that that was something I needed to work on.

4) One business professional i would want to emulate is Russell Simmons, the most influential mogul in hip hop.

5) BNI is the largest business networking organization in the world. We offer members the opportunity to share ideas, contacts and most importantly, business referrals.

Executive Mentor Program

The Executive Mentor Program for the College of Business for freshmen at Loyola has many objectives. It helps open up student’s minds to different career paths and opportunities. It serves as a networking tool for students as well. The mentors also take students on fieldtrips, which lets us get a closer look at the business world.
The experience that resulted in the most value for me was a few weeks ago when me group and I went to a fundraiser that was being held at the office of my executive mentor’s rival company. My mentor, Eric Morgan, is in the marketing industry and at the fundraiser they were auctioning off various prizes to benefit a good cause. At the fundraiser we got the chance to meet a lot of important people in the New Orleans marketing industry as well as find out more about our mentor’s company and how they do business. We were able to sit down and talk with each of Mr. Morgan’s seven employees and hear about their jobs. They seemed like a lively and fun group of people, which really cleared up my misconception of successful people in the business world. I had a lot of fun at the fundraiser and for a brief moment even considered switching my major from international business to marketing!
My expectations of the mentor did change dramatically from the beginning of the semester to now. Towards the beginning I was a little skeptical of the program and expected nothing more than monthly meetings at school about business. Instead our mentor really took an interest in our lives as well as our education. Mr. Morgan even invited us to dinner at his house where we met his wife and one year old daughter. The program proved to be a lot more intimate and in-depth than I thought it would be.
I would tell them to pick someone who works in their field of interest so that they can give them specific guidance. I would also tell them to pick a mentor that is from or lived in the city they are in for a significant amount of time so that they are very familiar with the area.
Next semester I look forward to going to more functions with my mentor and learning more about the marketing industry. We also have a trip to his office planned for next semester as well as a visit to a casino, which is one of his clients.
Some websites I would recommend for my blog readers to look at to stay updated over the break would be; www.forbes.com, www.cnnmoney.com, and www.businessweek.com.

Wolves on the Prowl

I have to admit that the only reason I ended up at the Wilson Charter School was because of the additional five points offered to those of us who went. As we pulled up to the school and listened to the introduction given to us by the school’s administrators I began looking around at the school and letting my mind wander. It was not until after everyone began to clap and file into the school that I realized that I had missed the entire introduction. In retrospect, I really wish that I had paid attention as the principal of the school told the school’s story, because maybe then I would have realized the significance and impact that our work that day had. As I was researching the school to write this blog I found out that the neighborhood it had been in was devastated by Katrina and they lost their public school. In an effort to save the neighborhood and school Latoya Cantrell, a resident of New Orleans’ Broadmoor neighborhood, along with other members of the Broadmoor community started the Charter School where we volunteered.
I started out painting a wall (which had a considerable amount of mold on it), of a first grade classroom. Once we had finished painting the wall I came to the realization that because of the little time that my peers and I put aside to help, a group of first graders will have a clean classroom in which they can feel comfortable and breathe easily. Once we had finished the first coat of paint the teacher asked me to grade some tests for her. I was happy to help make her workload a bit lighter seeing as how there was a lot to be done at the school before the kids came back that Monday. After grading the papers we applied a second coat of paint. We then began making little story books for the kids by ripping out the stories from books and folding them.
I feel as though we were very productive on our trip to the Wilson Charter School but I do wish I knew what I know now about the school while I had been there. I feel as though the school stands for a lot more than just education, but for the strength and resilience of a community that had everything taken away from them but found a way to re-establish their community from the ground up.
One service organization that I have found compelling in the New Orleans area is ARNO: Animal Rescue New Orleans. ARNO is a grassroots volunteer organization dedicated to the rescue and aid of animals that have been displaced or abandoned in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.

Career Beam

Vision Statement: After i finish school i hope to work towards becoming financially stable enough (by working in the international business field) to pursue my real dream of being a humanitarian. I have always been a strong believer in the saying; "you can't help others before you help yourself" which is why i chose a major that i think will open more doors for me in terms of monetary gain as well as networking. Once i feel comfortable with my financial status i plan on moving to Ethiopia (the country where my parents were born) and start my own humanitarian organization. I'm still not sure what the focus of the organization will be but i do know that the purpose of it will be to alleviate, in some way, the plight of the people who live there.

I think that the benefits of having a written vision statement are being able to look back at it once in a while when you're feeling unmotivated or loosing track of what you want and be able to remind yourself of what you really want. That's not to say hopes and aspirations don't change which is another benefit of writing a vision statement because you can go back and compare your vision statement to what you really accomplished. But i do think it is hard to map out your future on paper, especially if you aren't sure what you want out of life. This is an exercise that requires a lot of introspection which is hard for a lot of people.

The two values were most important to me are humanitarian and pursuer because those two are things I've always strived to be. I've always been involved in different clubs and organizations at school that allowed me to display these values. In high school i started an Invisible Children club at my school and worked extremely hard to have a screening of the Invisible Children documentary at my school (despite the protest of the school administration). Me and my friends ended up raising over $1,000 to send to the CA based organization that helped raise awareness about the child soldiers and displaced people of Northern Uganda.

The mission statement of Invisible Children is to improve the quality of life for war-affected children by providing access to quality education, enhanced learning environments, and innovative economic opportunities for the community. I hope to one day intern for Invisible Children and travel around the US raising awareness for the cause and screening the documentary in high schools and colleges all over.

Executive Mentor

I must admit that when I first heard about the Executive Mentor Program I thought it was going to be a lot more structured and formal. What I realized during our first meeting with our mentors is that one of the program’s main focuses is to ensure individual growth and successes by having the groups decide what sort of path they want to take for themselves. I liked how the groups were very small which made it much easier for you to get to know your mentor.
My mentor was Eric Morgan; he is in the communications and advertising field and owns his own advertising company called Morgan + Company. Mr. Morgan told us about his family and juggling family life along with running a business. During our meeting we discovered that our biggest obstacle would be finding a time when everyone is free so that we can have some of our off campus meetings. By the end of the year we will have hoped to visit Mr. Morgan’s office, learn more about his industry discuss and possibly visit a hospitality related company, and discuss resume and interview strategies.
I am hoping that by the end of this program I will have picked up many valuable tips to help me succeed in the business world. I would like to one day start my own non-profit organization and the fact that Eric Morgan has experience building his own company from the ground up is going to be very valuable to me.

Bio

Hi! My name is Elleni Giorgis and I’m from Rockville, MD. I’ve lived in the DC metropolitan area all my life and love it. One of the things that attracted me to Loyola was the size and location, it’s close to a city which I love but a small enough school that the students quickly develop a sense of community. Another thing that attracted me to Loyola was the strength of the Business Program as a whole and especially the International Business Program. Ever since I was young I have always wanted to go into a profession that will require me to travel around the world. I am Ethiopian and my parents have always been very adamant about making sure I stay in touch with my culture so they send me there as often as possible. My experiences in Ethiopia and a few other African countries that I have visited have really shaped me into the person I am now. Seeing that sort of extreme poverty and devastation in person made me realize that I want to go into a profession that will allow me to work towards helping to alleviate the plight of the people I saw. I do believe however that in order to help others you must help yourself first, so by studying international business I can make sure that I am financially stable before I begin any sort of humanitarian work.