Emily Glaser is an MBA2 at NYU Stern. Prior to Stern, she spent four years at Restaurant Brands International in communications and marketing for the Burger King brand. At Stern, Emily serves on Student Government and the Graduate Marketing Association. She loves dogs, musical theater, and hiking.
One of the things that drew me to Stern for my MBA was the school’s focus on EQ + IQ. Stern looks to not only educate intellectually exceptional students, but to also challenge your thinking and develop you personally. Stern is looking to produce leaders who are not only smart, but able to adapt to and understand change. I loved the idea of a school that focused on the whole person and their impact on others, rather than solely their achievements on paper.
A great example of this focus is the Leadership Fellows program. Leadership Fellows is a selective yearlong mentorship program, which aims to develop both personal and professional skills through reflection and storytelling activities, one-on-one coaching sessions, and small-cohort roundtable discussions. We meet as a group monthly to go over our most recent reflections and share our life stories – we share experiences of loss, hardship, achievement and growth. We share where we want to go and who we want to be in the future, as well as how we plan to get there. Through the Leadership Fellows program, we work to improve our self-awareness and active listening skills, and to develop actionable plans for achieving our personal goals. It’s an extremely vulnerable but enriching environment where we can both challenge and encourage each other constantly.
One of the best aspects of the program is the small cohorts we’re assigned to for the duration of the year – each is comprised of individuals from highly diverse personal and professional backgrounds, so we benefit from the wisdom of others with vastly different experiences from our own. My cohort of 12 students consists of a former teacher, a future lawyer, a first-generation college student, several international students, a part-time Langone student, marketers, consultants, and of course others. Because we’re all so different, we’re able to ask each other questions and offer perspectives we may not have otherwise considered. We develop deep relationships and foster incredible trust through our activities, an ultimately learn and grow together.
Another key benefit of the Leadership Fellows program is our monthly meetings with current and former changemakers across many different industries; we have intimate access to business leaders who have seen it all and can now tell us about what they’ve learned along the way. This fall, we’ve had the pleasure to meet with the interim CEO of Patagonia as well as the former CEO of Chase Card Services, both of whom led their organizations through times of immense change and needed to inspire others to achieve big goals. Our speakers talk to us about risks they’ve taken, decisions they’ve had to make, and how they’ve dealt with both successes and failures throughout their careers. No question is off the table when we meet with these amazing individuals.
Through these deep conversations and ongoing discussions of goals and growth my cohort has become not just a random group of students, but a family of leaders who can call on each other throughout our careers as we continue to learn and grow. Participating in Leadership Fellows has given me the ability to share my past, illustrate my future, and develop the leadership tools and skills to make it a reality.