Eccles Business Buzz Podcast

S8E9: Creating Connections: Alumni and Eccles’ Strategic Vision

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Season 8 continues with our conversations about the new strategic direction at the David Eccles School of Business with a particular focus on the third pillar of the strategic plan: reputation and legacy.

Paige Erickson is the chair of the Eccles Advisory Board. She works as a strategic consultant, board member, and board leader. Nick Marsh is the chair of the David Eccles Alumni Network Board. He works as a financial advisor with the Mikolos Group at Morgan Stanley.

Frances, Paige, and Nick discuss the importance of alumni engagement in enhancing the school’s reputation and legacy, as well as the exciting goal of becoming a Top 10 Business School by 2030. Both Nick and Paige share insights on how alumni can contribute through mentorship, internships, and other forms of involvement, emphasizing the personal and professional benefits of staying connected to the Eccles community. Additionally, they highlight the transformative power of higher education and the ongoing efforts to create opportunities for current and future students.

Episode Quotes

Giving back is a gift for students and a reward for yourself.

[7:55] Nick Marsh: The goal of going, I think we’re somewhere in the thirties right now, but if we are able to achieve getting to the top 10, the value of that degree goes up. You have the ability to change the outlook of not only the students but yourself as well. You can make your degree more powerful, and open more doors for yourself. I remember when I was in college, I thought I had no time. And then now that I’m a father of three and I’m like a full-time working stiff, I have found that I truly have no time now, but I still have the ability to chair this board and give back to the U in as many ways because I spent a whole lot of time at the U and I tried really hard to get my degree and I have the ability to make it worth more than what it was when I graduated in 2013. And you could do that with mentoring and, using your time to give back to the business school.

What keeps our alumni tethered to the school?

[10:38] I think the number one thing that I hear from almost everybody is that the opportunities that they had at the school to get a degree and then the following career changed their life. I know that was my case, right? I went there. I was on scholarship. And then I was able to launch a really successful career because of the University of Utah and also because people cared about me when I was there. I really do think most of us feel like it helped us and we want to give back. I think that’s number one. I think another interesting fact is that a lot of the members who are on the advisory board have either got children or grandchildren, even, at the U. And so, they’re also hearing, really, current information. And so, they have, really, relevant experience that they’re getting, either back through their kids or grandkids or friends and family, you know, that also have students at the U today. So, I think that they are current, more than you’d think, with what’s going on at the school. And they do participate heavily.

How staying connected to the university benefited alums like Nick

[14:43] Nick Marsh: I get the ability to meet people at Google, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, and Adobe, all the big companies around the valley that I want to meet. And so my network has gotten to grow [and] has bloomed because I have been active at the U. It’s worked out really well that our school’s gotten much more powerful.

Paige shares what alums can do now to support students

[18:13] Paige Erickson: I do think the main thing that we need to do more of is provide internships [and] real opportunities for students. Because what I’ve seen is many of these kids graduate, and they have all the technical skills in accounting or marketing, but they don’t have relevant experience. And what business wants is both, they want them to be technically capable, but also to have the experience and the ability to work on projects and work on teams and collaborate together and not just have the core skills. So, I think that’s another way people can provide ways because we don’t have a lot of huge businesses in Salt Lake, but we have lots of small businesses. Giving them an opportunity to figure out a way that they can help students get experience, I think would be a really good way for alumni at any company to think about how they could help the youth.

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