{"id":7934,"date":"2014-12-18T11:59:54","date_gmt":"2014-12-18T11:59:54","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.vanderbilt.edu\/magazines\/vanderbilt-business\/?p=7934"},"modified":"2015-06-08T14:40:20","modified_gmt":"2015-06-08T14:40:20","slug":"life-at-owen-owen-for-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/life-at-owen-owen-for-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Life at Owen, Owen for Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Catalina Lizarralde\u2014\u201cCata\u201d to her friends\u2014seems to operate at the accelerated pace of time-lapse photography. Or at least that\u2019s how it can appear to those who, like Dean Eric Johnson, describe her as a powerhouse of energy and innovation.<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Cata
Catalina “Cata” Lizarralde, Class of 2015<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Give her just a little time, and Lizarralde, a second-year MBA student, gets a lot done. A native of Colombia who grew up in Ecuador, Lizarralde spent a year in Austria after high school studying music and honing her Deutsch. While there, she found time to volunteer at the 2006 World Cup in Germany. \u201cWho could know when another such opportunity might arise?\u201d she decided.<\/p>\n

The next year, without fully mastering English, Lizarralde was in Columbus, Ohio, pursuing a bachelor\u2019s degree. Amid a difficult job market following the financial crash in 2008, she reasoned, \u201cI thought if I graduated faster it would show employers I could work at a high level.\u201d She graduated from Ohio State with a double major in just three years.<\/p>\n

She was right. After graduation, Lizarralde went straight to New York, where she\u2019d landed a job as a strategy and operations consultant with Deloitte. Working with clients around the United States and internationally, she says, \u201cI learned that companies can be very different across industries and regions, but what drives their success is the caliber of their leaders.\u201d<\/p>\n

Two new chief executives<\/h2>\n

She arrived at Vanderbilt in August 2013. Opting to pursue an MBA because she believes it is the best way to grow as a business leader, it\u2019s not surprising that Lizarralde was elected to the Owen Student Government Association three weeks after arriving on campus\u2014or that she is serving this year as OSGA\u2019s president.<\/p>\n

Owen\u2019s other new female chief executive\u2014Erika Bogar King, MBA\u201999\u2014took a more deliberate approach, both to her career and to her newly assumed leadership of the Owen Alumni Board<\/a>.<\/p>\n

For one thing, she says, she waited a little longer than most of her classmates (she was in her late 20s) to seek an MBA. For another, she didn\u2019t immerse herself into activities. \u201cI wasn\u2019t hyperinvolved as a student,\u201d says King, who serves as senior vice president of human resources for Avanade, a technology professional services firm established as a joint venture between Microsoft and Accenture.<\/p>\n

In fact, though she met her future husband, Rogers King, MBA\u201999, at Owen\u2014they had classes together during the first two mods\u2014King even took a deliberate approach to their relationship. \u201cWe didn\u2019t start dating until much later in the year,\u201d she says, recalling the academic demands of that first fall.<\/p>\n

It was as a student that she realized what a gift alumni give when they come back to campus. She saw, she says, how valuable it was to \u201chave alumni with real-life experience coming in and talking about what they\u2019ve done in the real world.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Erika
Erika King, MBA’99<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

King concentrated her MBA in human resources and organization management and joined Deloitte after graduation. In her two decades with the global giant, she moved from Deloitte Consulting\u2019s Human Capital practice to leading Performance Management, where she focused on best practices, standards and tools, performance programs and effectiveness measures for all Deloitte U.S. firms.<\/p>\n

Shaped by personal experience<\/h2>\n

Though Lizarralde and King took divergent paths, their respective presidencies illustrate something quintessentially Owen: They are drawing on their own perspectives, styles and experiences to help shape how students and alumni interact with the school.<\/p>\n

Lizarralde\u2019s international background, for example, has given her a wide-angle lens to view opportunities for new OSGA initiatives. During her year in Austria, and even more as an undergrad in the Midwest, Lizarralde grappled with what she calls the cultural adjustment. But she also gained an acute appreciation for the advantages of working with diverse types of people.<\/p>\n

That shaping experience, in turn, gave Lizarralde a clearer sense of what she might contribute as a leader. \u201cEven though we have an international community here,\u201d she says, \u201cit\u2019s not that large because the school itself is small. I felt like I could add value because a lot of students hadn\u2019t been exposed to other cultures. And I wanted international students to understand you can really make a difference here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Under Lizarralde\u2019s leadership, Johnson says, \u201cOSGA has already launched several initiatives to build the Owen community and expand our global perspective.\u201d And that was before the new academic year even began.<\/p>\n

Connecting students<\/h2>\n

After being elected in March, Lizarralde and OSGA senators and committees explored ways to increase the interaction between students from differing years and backgrounds. One of their big ideas\u2014an international immersion and trip for incoming students\u2014was rapidly adopted, and implemented barely three months later.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was the first time we\u2019d had something structured like this,\u201d Lizarralde explains. \u201cWe worked with the dean, and we created trips to Costa Rica for July that would be led by faculty and staff. The trips would provide some bonding but also include a component on how international business is done.\u201d<\/p>\n

The OSGA team finished planning the details before the end of April, when Lizarralde left for New York and a summer internship with Diageo, the beverage company that owns such household names as Crown Royal and Guinness.<\/p>\n

\"Cata
On top of classes and course work, Lizarralde spends 10\u201315 hours a week on Owen Graduate Student Association business.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The internship didn\u2019t interrupt Lizarralde\u2019s work for OSGA. During the summer, she and her team worked with the Career Management Center to develop a timeline checklist to help incoming students better organize themselves. She and three members of OSGA\u2019s international student committee also created a guidebook for international students. \u201cWhen I came here, I didn\u2019t know where to grocery shop, where to bank, where to get a driver\u2019s license, or what I should avoid,\u201d she explains. \u201cWe hope that having a guide like this can make the first-year experience easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

And as the first mod in the fall began, OSGA was busy implementing a new program to increase interaction between first- and second-year MBA students. \u201cOur idea,\u201d Lizarralde explains, \u201cwas to divide the community into pods of 20 people, and give each pod a budget to do something fun together during the semester. We think this will especially benefit people who are less outgoing as well as the international students.\u201d<\/p>\n

Giving back from day one<\/h2>\n

Just as Lizarralde\u2019s ideas for OSGA were influenced by her international background, King\u2019s perspective on the efforts of the Alumni Board were shaped by her own experience as a young alum. While giving back has always been important to her\u2014she and her husband both serve on the board of a nonprofit organization that supports early learning and quality childcare\u2014she found that, in the years after graduating from Vanderbilt, her contributions to the school involved gifts of time more than money.<\/p>\n

\"Erika
King and her husband, Rogers King, MBA\u201999, in their Atlanta home. Parents of two sons, the couple met in their first year at Vanderbilt.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Her postgraduation job in consulting enabled her to fly to Nashville from client sites easily. So at first, King maintained her connection with Owen by speaking to the consulting club, then at events for women in business, then as part of a series on leadership, then as an Alumni Board member. \u201cIn any area where I had subject knowledge, I\u2019d go back and meet the students and share my thoughts,\u201d she says. \u201cTo me, that\u2019s one of the best ways our alumni can give back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Understandably, one particular interest for King as a new board president is engaging more young alumni more deeply into the life of the school. Perhaps looking back on her own experience as a newly minted Vanderbilt MBA, King says, \u201cI think sometimes people think the only way you can participate is with your money, and that\u2019s not true.<\/p>\n

\u201cA recent alum may not be in a position to give money or to make hiring decisions, but they can offer insight to students or help them get an internship. From there, they might be in a position later to come speak to a class,\u201d she says. \u201cWe hope to engage people early, in small ways, and then see that engagement grow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The effort is part of a broader diversification strategy that the board is developing in consultation with the dean. Within the next several years, Owen will have more than 10,000 alumni, increasingly dispersed across the United States and around the world. \u201cIt calls for a little more formality around how we engage those alumni,\u201d says King, whose own work routine\u2014she travels frequently between her home in Atlanta and Microsoft\u2019s Seattle headquarters\u2014illustrates Vanderbilt\u2019s geographic reach. \u201cWe\u2019re not a regional school anymore. We don\u2019t all know each other.\u201d<\/p>\n

Connecting alumni<\/h2>\n

One strategy the board is pursuing involves building on the successful City Owen events, which aim to increase opportunities for alumni to meet other Owen graduates in their market. \u201cThis year,\u201d she says, \u201cwe\u2019re looking at experimenting with events in smaller cities, like Chattanooga, and regional events.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe Owen alumni office can\u2019t do it all by themselves, so the onus is on the alumni board to recruit more people to get involved, and then ask each of these volunteers to bring five new people into the fold every year. If we set this up properly, it will sort of take off on its own,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

In keeping with the evolution of the school\u2019s student and alumni population, King and her colleagues are looking to tweak the composition of the board\u2019s diversity in terms of age, race, gender, business area and location. \u201cThat has always been a goal,\u201d she points out, \u201cbut we are being more intentional about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

For example, the alumni group has established a goal of filling eight of its 40 board slots with young alumni, including graduates of Vanderbilt\u2019s one-year Master of Finance, Master of Accountancy and MAcc Valuation programs for young professionals.<\/p>\n

Additionally, the board is exploring ways to involve international alumni in particular. \u201cIf we have 500 international alums, should we have formal representation for them on the board as a segment, given the time zone and geographical challenges?\u201d King says. \u201cHow can we make it work?\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Erika
In addition to their Owen experiences, King and Lizarralde have more in common: both are Deloitte veterans. Lizarralde will return to the company after Commencement.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Dynamic leadership<\/h2>\n

One reason the Alumni Board and OSGA are both working well, according to Johnson, is the quality of leadership. \u201cI am grateful to have this pair of dynamic women leading at Owen,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

For their part, King and Lizarralde credit the strong teams of students and alumni working with them, and others in previous years who helped build a strong foundation. But perhaps, too, there\u2019s a cultural factor at work at Owen that makes people want to be involved during and after their years in school.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe administration lets us have a real voice,\u201d Lizarralde says. \u201cThat\u2019s why it\u2019s easier to get things done here. There is a lot of trust and a lot of communication. Princeton Review named Vanderbilt as having the happiest students, and I think it\u2019s true with Owen, too. It\u2019s because we feel that connection with leadership.\u201d<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Erika King, MBA’99, and MBA student Catalina Lizarralde are drawing on their own perspectives, styles and experiences to help shape how alumni and students interact with the Owen School.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":368,"featured_media":8430,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37,15,64],"tags":[16],"class_list":["post-7934","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-cover","category-features","category-homepage-highlights","tag-main"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7934","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/368"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7934"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7934\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":9188,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7934\/revisions\/9188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/8430"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7934"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7934"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.owen.vanderbilt.edu\/vanderbiltbusiness\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7934"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}