New Directions Connects MBAs with New Industries

by Behnaz Abolmaali

Corporate recruiters from financial and consulting firms have longstanding relationships with McCombs and many other business schools. But students in two new MBA student organizations want to help open doors to industries that don’t historically recruit on campus—travel, hospitality and retail.

With the help of a $10,000 grant from the MBA Alumni Endowed Excellence Fund, students created the New Directions for MBAs initiative, a one-day networking and career-building event held at the AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center in November. New Directions was organized by the Travel, Tourism and Hospitality Association (TTHA) and the McCombs Retail and Luxury Club, and organizers hope to make it an annual event.

“There are so many different opportunities in these industries—you can work in finance, marketing, operations and accounting all within the same hospitality or retail industry,” says Jolene Hood, MBA ‘09 and a vice president of TTHA. “Also, many of the companies in these industries have a culture that is very customer-service oriented. Being in an environment where you can see that your work has a direct effect on making your customers happy can be very rewarding.”

The conference panelists represented both local and national companies, including Amy’s Ice Cream, Whole Foods, Home Depot and JetBlue. Hood points out that the travel industry alone employs 231 million people across the world and generates more than 10.4 percent of global GDP. While some companies in this industry, including American Airlines and Sabre Holdings, do recruit at the university, many others lack exposure to Texas MBA students.

“In general this is a very new area for MBAs to enter, so all schools are in the early stages of building relations with employers and learning about the role of the MBA in these industries,” says Randi Graham, assistant director of MBA Career Services. Graham’s team works with the student organizations to help students target companies and plays an important role in maintaining the connections even after one generation of student leaders graduates.

Graham adds that nonprofits are becoming increasingly appealing to students despite lower starting salaries; careers in government, which tend to be a more stable in a shaky economy, are also generating more interest.

Panelist Amy Simmons, MBA ’94 and founder of Austin-based Amy’s Ice Cream, challenged students to take risks and do what they are passionate about. JetBlue’s Rick Zeni relayed insights from 25 years of enduring the ups and downs of the airline industry.

Suzanne Burley, MBA ’10, said the panelists effectively explained how different industries are coping with the economic recession. Burley’s own background is in retail, and she would like to secure a position with a vertically integrated fashion retailer.

“There are many departments and roles that are crucial to making a retail company successful. I believe that if you excel at any of them, you can move up. Retail is definitely an industry that rewards experience,” she says. “What New Directions helped me with was to open a dialogue with other MBAs in the industry, to see where my skills could take me.”