Minding Their Business

In order to succeed in business, you need to work hard. Very hard.

That was lesson No. 1 in the third annual Executive Leadership Workshop sponsored by the Office of Entrepreneurial Studies. Over spring break (March 5 – 9), 33 Holy Cross students — including yours truly — learned that lesson as we remained on campus while many of our friends traveled to the exotic tropics of the Caribbean or participated in service opportunities around the country or simply relaxed.

Organized by David Chu, associate professor of accounting and director of Entrepreneurial Studies, the workshop seeks to improve students’ understanding of the business world, examines the life-cycle of a business, offers training in basic business skills and grants students more confidence as they pursue a career in the business field. The program is a combination of lectures by Holy Cross alumni executives, business simulations, and case studies, as well as team projects and presentations.

The program is funded by a generous endowment by Arthur Ciocca ’59, current chairman, CEO and owner of The Wine Group, Inc. The recruitment of the alumni lectures is conducted by his classmate William Maloney ’59.

The week included four days of lectures by alumni including, Brian P. Kelley ’83, president and chief executive officer of SIRVA; Peter G. George ’81, president and chief executive officer of Crossbeam Systems, Inc.; Carolyn M. Risoli ’86, president of Marc Jacobs Inc.; and Doug M. Baker Jr. ’81, president and chief executive officer of Ecolab, Inc.

These savvy alums focused on varying aspects of keeping a business well-oiled, such as exploring a business life-cycle that includes starting and building a company to things that can go wrong and how to fix them and maintaining its growth. As part of the workshop, we were asked to work on a group project that was presented at the end of the week to seven executives, including Mary Coffey Moran ’77, owner of MCM Financial Consulting; William P. Maloney ’59, president of Osprey Holdings Ltd.; Tara McCabe ’97, vice president in alternative investments at Morgan Stanley; and William Stapleton ’86, chief executive officer of Health Plan One.

As an art history major, the program was a lot like putting myself through a real life business boot camp. Experiencing the various aspects of a business such as research and development, sales and marketing and its financial features, I learned what makes a healthy company tick. In the midst of my second semester senior year, as I currently apply to jobs, the workshop has allowed me to focus on career goals that I hadn’t yet considered.

The experience also helped me gain an even greater appreciation for the skills I’ve gained through my liberal arts education by realizing the value of critical analysis and clear communication skills necessary to run a business.

The workshop is focused on meeting the needs of Holy Cross’ liberal arts curriculum. This year’s participants included majors in accounting, biology/premed, classics, economics, English, history, mathematics, political science, psychology, religious studies, sociology, Spanish, and visual arts. From my perspective, the varying majors helped teams with their thought processes and enhanced creativity. The program welcomes students from all areas of study by attracting alumni who themselves hold rich liberal arts backgrounds and work in a variety of businesses.

Though I enjoyed the entire week’s worth of events, the most exciting day was when Marc Jacobs fashionista Risoli created an interactive business simulation. Our goal was to create a handbag and successfully market the product for high return in sales. As part of the challenge, my group was late to enter into the market scene, so we had to create alternative strategies in order to succeed. After my initial panic thanks to receiving total rejection from prospective buyers, our group banded together to come up with some pretty interesting tactics.

Racing around from the bank for payments, to the advertising agent and then to the prospective buyers, we finished the session sweaty and exhausted yet full of laughter generated through triumph.

Come to think of it, that neatly sums up the entire week. And needless to say, I spent much of the weekend catching up on some much-needed sleep.

By Alexis Coyle ’07

Related Information:

* Business 101 – Holy Cross Magazine Fall 2005 Cover Story