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Suzanne Brown
BBA ’96, MBA ’04 |
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“I’m very passionate about being an alum,” says Suzanne Brown, BBA ’96 and MBA ’04. Brown, who is director of strategic alliances and business intelligence for GSD&M Idea City, will conclude her two-year term as co-president of the Austin MBA Alumni Chapter in August.
The Austin chapter is one of the nation’s largest and most active, and Brown oversaw the implementation of several new initiatives. These include a happy hour with Harvard MBA alumni, a concentrated theme for the year’s professional development activities and creating a yearly strategic plan for the chapter. Previously the chapter introduced the concept of having co-presidents who rotate each year.
“The strategic plan and rotational co-presidency have been really great for the chapter,” Brown says. “That way, we always have someone who has experience as a president and someone who is coming in with fresh ideas.”
Brown is also on the executive committee of the MBA Alumni Advisory Board and serves as chairperson of the Mentorship Committee, connecting alumni mentors with current MBA students.
“I was lucky that my first boss out of college became a wonderful mentor to me, and he is still my mentor today,” Brown says. “It’s an invaluable relationship, but not everyone has the opportunity or capability to make that kind of connection, so we want to help students find someone who is a good match.”
Brown says roughly 140 alumni participate in the mentorship program, which she has found to be an ideal way to reengage pre-1995 alumni who had lost touch with the McCombs School.
“This is a wonderful opportunity to tap their experience in a really meaningful way,” Brown says.
Overseeing the mentorship program seems like a natural extension of Brown’s work in strategic alliances at GSD&M Idea City, which she says essentially boils down to relationship management.
“Most of our clients are too large to employ only one agency, so I help build relationships with other agencies and work with our client teams to choose partner firms,” she says.
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Top Stories
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Last Updated
Wednesday, July 23, 2008