Out for Undergrad Leadership Summit attendees on the Georgetown University campus

One student said she wanted to join the United States Foreign Service. Another wanted to build medical devices. Others listed career interests in consulting, psychology, academia, fashion, and communications. Each student, however, had the chance to discuss their shared interests in LGBT leadership at the first annual Out for Undergrad Leadership Summit held April 26-27, 2013, at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C.

The two day Summit brought twenty-three students together from the nation’s top universities to help them develop their leadership skills and explore the possibilities for LGBT leadership across a wide range of disciplines.

The Undergrad Leadership Summit was the brainchild of Garrett Hall and Chris Lloyd, who created the conceptual framework for the Summit during their time at Harvard Business School.

The idea was formally put into action in December 2012, when a small group of volunteers led by Jay Serpe, the Executive Director of the Leadership Summit and Ned Shell, Director of Student Outreach and Development began reaching out to select universities to recruit outstanding students for the Leadership Summit. “The student selection process was extremely rigorous,” said Ryan Ebanks, who developed the Summit’s programming with Chris Fleming. “We wanted student leaders from a wide variety of backgrounds to reflect the Summit’s unique purpose.” Rachel Cohen coordinated the Admissions effort to ensure the 2013 OULS cohort included high-potential and diverse leaders.

During the Summit, students broke into small groups and participated in a number of leadership activities. The Summit organizers brought in representatives from the Boda Group, a leadership consulting firm, for a Myers Briggs-type evaluation to help each student understand his or her leadership type.

“By the end of the Summit, students were discussing their different leadership styles and saying, ‘I’m an introvert!’ or ‘I’m an extrovert!’” said Serpe. “The Myers Briggs exercise was a great way for the attendees to get to know themselves, and one another,  better.”

The students convened to listen to keynote speakers Kate Kendell, the Executive Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights, and Charles O’Bryne, currently Senior Vice President of Government Affairs at Related Companies in Manhattan, and formerly the Chief of Staff to Governor David Paterson of New York.

“Kate Kendell discussed the importance of authenticity in leadership and gave an overview of LGBT advocacy from a historical context,” said Serpe. “She really instilled a sense of ‘paying it forward’ to the audience.”

Charles O’Bryne, a former Jesuit priest, discussed the intersection of religion, sexuality and gender and his work in politics and law.

The Summit concluded with each student giving a short presentation on their goals and the impact they want to have on the world to Summit attendees. Students then had the opportunity to network with young LGBT professionals from the D.C. area.

Serpe described the Summit as a “launching pad” for the students and that he looks forward to seeing the impact that the attendees will have on their communities as LGBT leaders.

“This Summit was a starting point for these students to collaborate,” said Serpe, who will be working with fellow organizers Ned Shell and Martin Pawlik on continuing student development. “We will continue to engage them based on their interests and we look forward to having them involved next year.”

For more information on the Out for Undergrad Leadership Summit and the Out for Undergrad organization, please visit www.outforundergrad.org.

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When did you first become involved with Out for Undergrad?

I first became involved with Out for Undergrad when I attended OUBC as a recruiter for Booz & Co. I never participated as a student, but had always heard great things and was very impressed with the organization when I recruited at OUBC.

What are you most looking forward to at the Leadership Summit?

My coworker Ryan Ebanks and I developed the content of the leadership summit, along with lots of help from outside advisors. Our primary focus has been on the type of experience we want to create for students, the value they get out of the summit, and the ways in which we can create a really strong network of leaders that will stay intact after the conference.

Something I’m really excited about is the experiential nature of the summit. We wanted to stay away from anything that felt too theoretical. The students we are selecting for the summit have real-world leadership experience already, and so our job is to equip them with the tools and perspectives to help them understand what being a leader really means to them and how they’ll make a difference in the world. We want to challenge students to think about their values and what’s really important to them.

As an aside, we have a couple great speakers already. We confirmed Kate Kendell, Executive Director of the National Center for Lesbian Rights. And Charles O’Bryne, former political staffer to Governor of New York David Paterson, who has a really interesting leadership story for his life.

What is your advice to current LGBT undergraduates?

Students should be as creative as possible in exploring career opportunities. Engage and connect with anyone who will have a coffee with you. Take time to figure out what’s going to make you happy in the day-to-day work instead following the path that peers or career services office might offer. Risks only get harder to take, so start early!

The Leadership Summit will be held April 26-27, 2013, in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit http://www.outforundergrad.org/leadership/.

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OULS Founders Garrett Hall (right) and Chris Lloyd (left)

What was your inspiration for creating the Leadership Summit?

Garrett: I’ve been involved with Out for Undergrad for a decade now and have always been super excited about the impact we’ve had, connecting different students and challenging people to bring their full selves to work.

With the Leadership Summit, we wanted to focus on a great number of exceptional undergraduate leaders who don’t necessarily attend OUBC or OUTC. We wanted to build a weekend of content around helping students develop their leadership style and give the students the tools to have a positive impact on the world.

Chris: I’ve been involved with O4U for two years and the last time I attended OUBC I remember attending a workshop on how to be an active networker and was impressed with how the students wanted to put those skills to work immediately. At the summit we hope to similarly give students the opportunity to develop a skill set around leadership and apply it through a series of exercises.

What do you hope attendees will gain from this summit?

Chris: Number one is that I want attendees to connect with other LGBT leaders who they can learn from and who will inspire them. Second, I hope students will learn and apply the leadership skills and self-reflection that is the focus of the summit. Finally, I hope students will have a lot of fun!

How does the summit differ from the current OUBC and OUTC conferences?

Garrett: It will be a lot smaller with about 20 or 25 students because we want a tight-knit cohort. Since it will be a lot smaller, it will be much more individually customized to help each attendee develop his or her leadership skills.

Chris: I think something that is missing for O4U is LGBT student leaders who aren’t necessarily interested in technology or business. We want to attract the student who, for example, is interested in starting a non-profit organization or becoming an academic.

Any last thoughts on the Leadership Summit?

Garrett: Chris and I have been working together with a great group of volunteers to put the leadership summit together. The volunteers are from all walks of life and came together around this idea of a leadership summit. We tried to bring in a diverse group of organizers that would look and feel like the group of students we wanted to bring together.

The Leadership Summit will be held April 26-27, 2013, in Washington, D.C. For more information, please visit http://www.outforundergrad.org/leadership/. 

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The four parties were a huge hit and took place in San Francisco, New York, Chicago, and Washington, D.C., hosting over 400 guests in total. The events were a great way to get everyone excited about O4U’s momentum, and to inspire people to get more involved with the organization. It was wonderful to see so many alums and supporters across the past decade of O4U come out to celebrate this milestone.

Now that Out for Undergrad is 10 years old, what’s next? We are formalizing our O4U alumni community and working on creating a platform for everyone to stay closely connected with the organization after graduating – and we encourage everyone to get involved! Please visit the alumni section of our website at http://www.outforundergrad.org/get-involved/alumni-opportunities/ to find out what you can do to stay active in the organization.

Here’s to another 10 years of educating, inspiring, and advancing LGBT undergrads!

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2013′s OUTC also introduced new content such as the Project Pitch — where students were teamed up randomly to rapid-prototype a business or product concept, which they then presented to Venture Capitalists, product managers, and developers for feedback. Some of the pitches had such legs that VC’s encouraged those teams to consider pursuing their projects beyond concept-stage. Other product ideas made us wonder, “Why didn’t we think of that?!”

On Saturday evening of OUTC, Amy Errett, Venture Partner at Maveron, gave an electric keynote speech, in which Amy echoed the spirit of Out for Undergrad that all of us should bring our authentic selves to what we do everyday. She shared that since she wasn’t out at the start of her career, she wasn’t able to discover what she was truly good at — and implored the audience to embrace who we are in order to “discover your individual genius”. She also talked about her experiences as CEO and co-owner of Olivia in San Francisco, a vacation and travel company for lesbians, which Amy said established her as a “Professional Gay”! It was impossible for anyone in the audience not to feel inspired and motivated to pursue their passions.

More OUTC highlights:

• Engaging panels and Tech Talks from companies spanning from fast-growing startups to tech giants, including Twitter, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Pandora, LinkedIn, Netflix, Airbnb, Uber, Box, Square, and more.

• Some of San Francisco’s most popular food trucks pulled into Facebook’s Hacker Square for Saturday’s dinner

• Many attendees left their mark on Facebook’s literal Wall.

• VentureBeat covered OUTC and summed up why a tech company should hire high-calibre LGBTQ candidates: “at the end of the day, you should hire a gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, queer, curious, or other developer because in all the ways that matter, they’re just like the rest of us.”

Check out photos of OUTC on our O4U Facebook page, here!

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Join us in celebrating O4U’s 10th anniversary! We will be holding 10th anniversary kickoff parties in four cities across the country: San Francisco, New York City, Chicago, and Washington, D.C.

O4U San Francisco 10th Anniversary Party

• Date: Friday, February 1st
• Time: 7:30-10:00pm
• Location: Starbelly (3583 16th street, San Francisco, CA 94114)
• Dress Code: Smart Casual
• Admission Fee: Free!  Plus, the first drink is complementary of Out for Undergrad
• Contacts: Nick Danford and Victor Eng
• Kindly RSVP by January 30th at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SMXK3JH to ensure efficient admission.  Guests not registered are still welcome, but will have to register at the door.

O4U New York City 10th Anniversary Party

• Date: Friday, February 8th
• Time: 7:00-9:00pm
• Location: SL (409 West 14th Street, New York, NY 10014)
• Dress Code: Smart Casual
• Admission Fee: Free!  Plus, the first drink is complementary of Out for Undergrad
• Contacts: Will Dowling and Victor Eng
• Kindly RSVP by February 6th at https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/SMXK3JH to ensure efficient admission.  Guests not registered are still welcome, but will have to register at the door.

O4U Chicago 10th Anniversary Party

O4U Washington, D.C. 10th Anniversary Party

Additionally, if you are interested in joining the O4U Alumni Committee, please apply here.

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Our annual conferences bring together the nation’s most high potential undergraduate lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) leaders for a weekend of education, inspiration, community development and career recruitment:

• The annual Out for Undergrad Business Conference (OUBC) for students interested in careers in financial services, management consulting, and accounting
• The annual Out for Undergrad Technology Conference (OUTC) for those interested in technology
• A weekend leadership summit (OULS) to hone the leadership skills of a select group of emerging LGBT leaders

OUBC and OUTC include informational events about various positions in students’ chosen fields, from basic 101s to more in-depth conversations. Students will also have resume reviews, mentor discussions, a career fair, hear from inspirational community leaders, and attend many networking events where they will have the opportunity to interact with peers and professionals.

Outside of our annual conferences, O4U offers mentoring relationships to students and social events for past attendees and friends with the aim of creating a strong and supportive community of out LGBT professionals.

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9th Annual OUBC a huge success!

For those of you who were not able to attend, the 9th annual Out for Undergrad Business Conference held October 5th and 6th in New York City was a huge success.
Over 250 students from around the country attended and heard from inspirational LGBT speakers with prominent careers in finance and consulting. Pictures from the event are available on our facebook page.

Apply for the Out for Undergrad Tech Conference

OUTC is geared towards undergraduates interested in technology as a possible career path, for both CS and non-tech students. The application is currently open, with an early application deadline of November 30 and a regular application deadline of December 30. Apply early to receive a discounted application fee and your application decision sooner!

Please refer anyone you know who might be interested and remember to connect with us on Facebook.

The post November Highlights appeared first on Out for Undergrad.

Thanks to the hard work of Dian Liu, a former ambassador, fellow campus ambassador Joe Hennessy and me, we were able to present about OUBC to a community of over 700 students and faculty. We have all been studying abroad together on the Semester at Sea program, which takes us around the world by ship. Since beginning work on OUBC we have not only been marketing it to our home institutions but also to our shipboard community. As part of the enrichment efforts of Semester at Sea, a day was set aside for seminars and panels about the LGBTQ community. This culminated in a Queer Panel, where we were allowed to talk about OUBC. In preparation we made a presentation that gave information about the conference. We showed pictures of last year’s conference, giving a glimpse of the sights attendees could expect, as well as the high quality of the speakers and past attendees. Our presentation aimed to show the prestige of OUBC, and encouraged listeners to speak to us and apply. We presented to hundreds of students in attendance, as well as many more on the ship’s CC TV.

We were very warmly received by students and faculty. Many students came up to not only express their support but also to inquire about attendance. Faculty members approached us to express their admiration of the work we were doing, as well as their own organizations they were a part of. Our presentation allowed us to reach out to many students from many schools, many of whom seemed eager to inquire about OUBC. The experience was gratifying, and I know my experience as a campus ambassador will continue to follow that trend.

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Being a new board member on Penn’s LGBT pre-professional society, the Wharton Alliance, I had heard the four letters “OUBC” uttered in conversation many times. But it wasn’t until our Campus Ambassador’s information session that I began to really understand what OUBC was and what it was all about. A conference for the LGBT community to come together and talk about business and how we as LGBT individuals could and would fit in. Sounded great. I applied, and a few months later, I was in NYC!

Little did I know how many amazing LGBT individuals there were living out and happy in corporate America. I literally teared up at the words of the keynote speaker, she was so passionate and kind, and had nothing but wonderful things to say about her time as an out lesbian in a bulge bracket bank. Throughout the conference, I met truly inspiring people, one after another. And that’s what OUBC was for me. I certainly built upon my existing knowledge base of what consulting and finance are, and built up my network of professional contacts, and got a chance to address certain issues that could come up in the workplace as an LGBT individual. But OUBC really, for me, was about finally coming to the realization that I could be out and happy at work. Meeting a ton of incredible people who were out and happy was at the same time gut-wrenching and heart-warming.

OUBC is an incredible experience, with a slew of interesting workshops and conversations to be had, and an even greater number of friendly and diverse people with whom to share those workshops and conversations. As I look forward to my summer internship with Monitor, I also look forward to the opportunity to go back to OUBC, meet more new friends, and learn more new things about the intersection of business and LGBT individuals.

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