Leverage Your Potential

Menlo College’s former CFO Frank Wasilewski takes us through his journey from first attending a Meet The Firms event during his undergrad years to accepting his current role as Senior Manager of Finance at the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, where he is helping to affect change at a national and global level. Along the way, Frank shares wisdom and advice for students majoring in accounting. 

Provost Lum came to Menlo after years working on conflict resolution projects and serving as an adjunct professor Stanford. After completing his bachelor's in Psychology from UC Berkeley and JD from Harvard Law, Provost Lum went on to serve as Partner for Conflict Management Inc. before working with the Obama Administration in the US Department of Justice as the Director of Community Relations Service.

Books and Audiobooks:

➺ Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell (audiobook is excellent)

Podcasts:

➺ The Rewatchables 

➺ 99% Invisible 

Documentaries:

➺ A Beautiful Day in the Neighborhood 

Mikkel Bertelsen is originally from Denmark and graduated Menlo College in 2018 with a degree in International Management. He is currently working as a Project Manager for Vaco on-site Google on a content curation project. At the same time Mikkel is a full-time MBA student at Westcliff University majoring in Organizational Leadership.

➺ Open: An Autobiography, by Andre Agassi

ICS coffee chats are held every two weeks on Friday from 9:30 am - 10:30 am, open to current and prospective Menlo students and alumni. Join us for the next one on July 10th: https://zoom.us/meeting/register/tJIvc-mhqTooEtTJLh0t5uE_HSNkE_mM-p91

An excellent conversation between Box’s Sabrina Degon and ICS hosts Bianca and Kelly touching on changes to the work place during shelter in place, translating college activities to skills, mentorship, and Sabrina’s work to advocate for a diverse, equitable, and inclusive world.

Sabrina Degon was born and raised in the Bay Area of Northern California and graduated from the University of California, Merced in Business Management & Sociology. Being heavily involved with mentorship work and professional development efforts, Sabrina was involved in roles that allowed her to work closely with the school's career center and led her to coordinating a site visit at Box, a cloud content management tech company in the heart of Silicon Valley. Her tour guides during the time are now her direct teammates now! Since then, she's kick-started her career in University Recruiting at Box and promotes candidate experience, leads all HQ tours, expands diversity & inclusion efforts such as go-to-campus events and candidate sourcing at HBCUs / HSIs, as well as supports intern programming.

Outside of work, Sabrina identifies as a traveler, student, performer and big sister! Some of her goals include moving out of the country, reading 6 books by the end of 2020, and slowly transitioning into a plastic-free lifestyle! Some fun facts include performing Hula / Tahitian since she was 4 years old, being involved in Girl Scouts until graduating high school, and being trilingual (English, Tagalog, and French)!"

Recommendations for Listeners:

Books:

➺ Brotopia: Breaking Up the Boys’ Club of Silicon Valley, by Emily Chang

➺ Becoming, by Michelle Obama

Podcasts:

➺ The Tim Ferriss Podcast

➺ Getting Curious with Jonathan Van Ness

Documentaries & Movies:

➺ 13th

➺ Just Mercy 

Courses:

➺ The Science of Well-Being, now free from Yale University

On April 8th, 2020, Ash Hunt '20 and Joshua Salazar '20 interviewed four of Menlo's more recent alums about their first couple of years after completing their Bachelor degrees. The conversation covers four main topics: 1. Experiences transitioning out of college; 2. Career advice; 3. Dealing with student loans and finances; 4. Taking care of mental health and finding work-life balance. 

Featuring Menlo alums: 

Chelsea Garcia '17

Caitlin Sorensen '19

Maxwell Barnes '18

Richard Runkle-Edens '19

Dr. Annika Steiber is a full-time professor at Menlo College and the Director of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program. She is originally from Sweden where she obtained her PhD in Management of Technology from Chalmers University of Technology. In this episode, Dr. Steiber shares how her focus on innovation brought her to Silicon Valley, where she has engaged in research on a number of corporations and startups to investigate models of entrepreneurship. Towards the end, you will hear her plans for the future of the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program at Menlo.

“The Silicon Valley Model: Management for Entrepreneurship”: By Annika Steiber & Sverker Alänge

“The Google Model: Managing Continuous Innovation in a Rapidly Changing World”: By Annika Steiber

Title: Episode 7: Leadership with Dr. Marianne Neuwirth

Dr. Marianne Neuwirth is the Director of Menlo College’s Oral Communication Program. She teaches courses on Persuasion and Negotiation, Public Speaking - and Leadership. Listen in on a conversation between Dr. Neuwirth and host Kelly Davis as they discuss theories of leadership, and find out a few tips for developing your own leadership style from Dr. Neuwirth’s wisdom and extensive research on the subject.

Show Notes:

Derek Sivers, Ted Talk: “How to start a movement” 

William Deresiewicz, 2010 commencement speech at West Point: “Solitude and Leadership”

Lev Vygotsky’s concept of “Zone of Proximal Development”

Joel Peterson: The 10 Laws of Trust: Building the Bonds That Make a Business Great (2016)

Meet Casey Porter, a 20 year veteran at Enterprise Holdings Inc., one of the largest private companies in the world and the single largest employer of college grads in the country. In this episode, Casey shares his journey from Enterprise intern to Talent Acquisition Manager for the South Bay and describes how college students can prepare for the future and stay positive amid the uncertainty of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Bianca Barros interviews Colton Wirth (May ‘20), Brenda Flores-Reyes (May ‘20), and Sam Baker (Dec. ‘20) about their experiences working remotely for their jobs and internships. Sam works for Casca Designs, a startup in his hometown, Vancouver, B.C, and Brenda works for a startup named Intrida. Both Sam and Brenda were already working remotely before the COVID-19 pandemic started. Colton had to shift his in-person internship at Oracle to a remote position in the midst of the global pandemic. Learn about their tips and best practices on how to succeed (and even network!) in the remote workplace.

The Leverage Your Potential Podcast is excited to introduce its third host: Bianca Barros! Bianca is a Finance major at Menlo and is the student worker for ICS. Take a listen to learn about how Bianca found herself at Menlo as a Finance major and some of the many initiatives she actively contributes to in her school community!