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            My favorite lecture this year was led by guest speaker Casandra Pan. Casandra is the former president of Fenner-Dunlop Americas. I enjoyed this presentation mostly because she didn’t just focus on talking about her career, but also how anyone has the potential to become a CEO. She was not a business major, and she never planned on owning her own company or being the president of one when she was in school. This really moved me, because it let me know that I’m not stuck in whatever career path that I choose.

            Working in a publically traded company is not easy, and it’s even harder to be the president of one. When working for a publically traded company, you have two main jobs; to eliminate the incentive for shareholders to file lawsuits, and to boost the incentive for directors to spend time with their company in order to increase its long-term value. While these jobs might pay well, they can take a lot out of you. In the article Why Sane People Shouldn’t Serve on Public Boards, William A. Sahlman said that the position on a publically traded company’s board would have taken time away from his family, his job, and himself. These people have to constantly work to keep the interest of their investors, and that’s why people in this business do not keep their position for long.

            Casandra also talked about mergers and acquisitions, which is covered in the textbook. A merger is when two companies combine to form a new company, and an acquisition is when a company is purchased by another company. This topic related to Casandra’s work, because Fenner-Dunlop was acquired by Michelin for over $1.8 billion.

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            To practice building my professional network, I attended the internship and job mixer that was run by Chatham University’s Business and Entrepreneurship Department. This event was held in the Welker Room, and hosted employers from all over the general Pittsburgh area. Some of the employers that I networked with were the Garden of Peace Project, Muscular Dystrophy Association, and Venture Outdoors.

            The Harvard Business Review gives tips on how to effectively network and practice “inbound marketing” in their article How Successful People Network with Each Other. Inbound networking is the idea of drawing people to you instead of you going to them. If you make yourself seem interesting by talking about your interests (and not just your work background), then important people are more likely to seek you out. Building connections on interests outside of the workplace can often form even stronger bonds, like that between Warren Buffet and Bill Gates, who got to know each other by playing card games.

            What my experience at this mixer and this article have taught me, is that I still have a far way to go before I’m a professional networker. I need to go into a situation with questions and topics that I plan to talk about with employers. I also need to do my research on the people coming, and possibly find out about their interests so that I can find a way to connect with them. Overall, I need to learn to not be so stiff, and lighten up in situations like this. Being professional is important, but you won’t stand out if you’re boring.