The Graduate Baruchian

By Maria Shpokayte

Societas: Meet a Mentor, a mentorship event, hosted by Zicklin Women in Business (ZWIB) on Thursday, October 25^th 2012 at Baruch College, was a tremendous hit with Ziklin’s students for a second year in a row now. MBA and MS students from Zicklin’s School of Business had an opportunity to network and get one on one mentoring advice from a number of mentors that came from various business sectors and non-profit areas of New York. They received career advice from a distinguished pool of mentors who came to Societas: Meet a Mentor ready to share valuable experience and extensive knowledge.  Mentors not only brought advice, and volunteered their time and energy, but also exuded enthusiasm and inspiration throughout the session.

The event started with some career coaching from Sharon Belden Castonguay, director of Graduate Career Management Center at Zicklin. Sharon shared her knowledge on networking and provided students with some excellent tips on how to network. One of her tips on networking was a clear winner that most students don’t really think about: “Networking is not just one-way networking”. Often students don’t realize that it is important to build on the new networking relationships, and that it takes time. It’s not just what they can do for you. It is also what you can offer them as well.

The event had 18 mentors that were fully occupied from the time they sat down at their individual tables till the completion of the event, and, of course, with plenty of questions to answer that were posed by Zicklin’s students. The mentors this year were: Katie.L.Collett from Pepsi, Jhoanna Abragan from Coty U.S., Kelly Quinn from Barclays Capital, James Carlone from HSBC, Jannie Pilgrim from The Deal, Sarah J. Peltzer, Kristina Chan and Maria Borbon from KPMG, Diana DePaola-Nelson from Coty U.S., Demi Williams from The Advertising Research Foundation, Jacqueline Gleason from BHR Capital, Kraleigh Woodford form UBS Wealth Management, Tami Kesselman from United Nations, Calvin Hung from Grant Thornton, Allison Scott from Colgate-Palmolive, Barbara Zung from American Management Association, Kevin J. Corcoran from Colgate-Palmolive, and Liz Hogan from Societe Generale. Conversations were flowing, the room was buzzing, neither the students, nor the mentors wanted to leave.  At the end of the event, during an informal networking session, most of the mentors stayed behind to talk to as many more students as they could.

Students continuously thanked the ZWIB board for organizing this event. Many of them extended positive comments such as: “This was the best advice I got, and I attended many other events that were not as personable”, and “Thank you for this kind of event. I received so much good feedback. Someone actually took the time to listen to me and give me advice.” The students truly enjoyed the event, and were able to connect with their mentors to receive much needed advice for their upcoming career journey. The mentors had wonderful feedback on Zicklin students as well. They were impressed with how smart, diverse, and ambitious the student body was.

To those of you who could not join us, we hope to see you in the future. To those students that did join us, thank you again for your support. We hope to see everyone next year. ZWIB is committed to creating a long-term network for the Zicklin community. We actively connect our 500+ members with distinguished alumni and professionals.  We host discussions on important topics such as successful negotiation techniques, the use of emotional intelligence, and the breaking of the corporate glass ceiling. For more updated information about ZWIB, please visit our website at or add us on Facebook to take a look at our future events.