As part of the Corporate Champions program, all first-year MBA teams are paired with a local organization at the beginning of the fall semester. During the course of the semester, representatives from the organization work with the members of your team in a series of activities, including MBA Advantage, an organizational analysis project that incorporates three core courses, a company site visit, a community service activity, and an end-of-semester reception. The 2011 Corporate Champions include local companies, such as First Niagara, Pepsi Bottling, and Roswell Park Cancer Institute to name a few.
My team’s Corporate Champion is The Buffalo News, and for the past three months, we have been working closely with one of The News’ promotions managers and one of their digital sales managers to help strengthen our understanding of the world of business and our connection to it. About a month ago, my four team members and I, along with the School of Management’s Assistant Dean, David Frasier, were taken on a special tour of The Buffalo News headquarters in downtown Buffalo, as part of our site visit. We learned a lot of really interesting information about the daily production of the paper, had the opportunity to meet Margaret Sullivan, the editor of The Buffalo News, and were invited to a meeting with the company’s president, Warren Colville, to discuss the status of our team’s organizational analysis project.
My Team's Corporate Champion: The Buffalo News
Next week, my team members and I will present our organizational analysis project to our Organizational Behavior, Communications, and Statistics professors, as well as to our classmates and eventually, to our Corporate Champion. This project has not only allowed my team members and I to become more involved in a local Buffalo business and the local Buffalo community, but has also supplemented the knowledge that we have gained from our first semester courses. It has provided us with a valuable real-world perspective on the current business environment, and my team members and I hope that we are able to provide our Corporate Champion with some value also!
Samantha Chmura MBA Candidate, Class of 2013
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