Sponsors Make Future Executive Academy a Success

In June, McCombs hosted the Future Executive Academy, inviting high school students interested in business to spend one week on campus and participate in a marketing challenge. This year, students worked with Austin marketing company, Enviromedia, on the Don’t Mess with Texas Rock the Bag campaign, generating ideas for a reusable litter container for vehicles. Research shows that people ages 16 to 25 are the most likely to litter, so these young adults were an ideal group to develop something appealing for their peers.

Four student teams spent the week working with an industrial designer and marketing coaches to create different prototypes for litter containers and the marketing campaigns to launch them. At the end of the week, participants presented their ideas to a team of judges made up of executives from the companies that sponsored the event, McCombs staff and Project Runway’s second season winner, Chloe Dao. Enviromedia and its client, the Texas Department of Transportation, took the prototypes on a road tour over the summer, garnering votes to determine which container was the favorite.

In addition to the marketing challenge, the students spent the week living in a university residence hall, networking with McCombs faculty and staff, taking seminars on the college admissions process and learning about different business school majors.

Now in its fifth year, the program had more than 100 applicants, the highest applicant pool yet for the 45 open spots. McCombs hopes to offer opportunities to more students in the future.

While all students are welcome to apply, one mission of the McCombs Future Executive Academy is to support McCombs’ goal of attracting diverse student populations to the school. Therefore, the McCombs Future Executive Academy first considers applications from economically disadvantaged students or those who are the first in their families to attend college.

We would like to thank the following companies who supported the McCombs Future Executive Academy: BP, Caterpillar, ExxonMobil, GE, Halliburton, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Walgreens. The event would not have been possible without their participation, effort and financial resources.