College students from around the world gathered at the Hynes Convention Center Saturday to network and hone their business skills at the Intercollegiate Business Convention for women.
Held by the Harvard Undergraduate Women in Business organization, the all-day gathering featured speakers, workshops and networking opportunities, attracting more than 1,200 students from over 45 countries. Attendees also had a chance to attend a variety of breakout sessions, dealing with marketing the female image, earning a job after an internship, understanding how body language can make an impression in the workplace and more.
Influential women in business were chosen as the day’s speakers, with keynote speakers Rosalind Brewer, president and CEO of Sam’s Club; Phyllis Yale, advisory partner at consulting firm Bain & Company; and Jeanne Jackson, president of product and merchandising at Nike.
“IBC is an annual conference we run for students all throughout the world,” said Sara Allan, associate logistics director of IBC. “We hope to connect them with mentors and teach them practical skills, give them advice, inspire them to continue pursuing a career in business. [We also hope to] connect them with girls who share a similar passion, so they can develop a network and start to gain experience and form a community that way.”
Though the conference has a different touch each year, networking is the overarching theme that organizers carry over from one year’s convention to the next, Allan said.
“We really think it’s important for girls to connect with one another,” she said. “We hope that IBC isn’t an experience just like showing up to a classroom … but [an] opportunity to … build really meaningful relationships that will help carry them throughout the rest of their college experience and as they head into their first real-world experiences.”
Several attendees said IBC allowed them to meet and be inspired by many different people.
“It’s been amazing to meet other women who are interested in the same industries and talk about the same issues that we all have,” said Priyanka Jain, a senior at Stanford University majoring in science, technology and society. “I’ve been able to meet a lot of women who I know I will keep in touch with for the years to come.”
Attendees also said IBC is a chance for college women to seek out ideas about what they will pursue during their careers.
Victoria Euyoque, associate director at the University of California, Los Angeles Anderson School of Management and a speaker for one of the breakout sessions at IBC, said attending the convention can be a huge help for aspiring businesswomen.
“I think [attendees] are going to gain greater clarity, in terms of the direction that … their lives can go into, as well as just looking at new opportunities they might not have thought of before,” she said.
Lindsey Kelt, a senior studying economics at Vanderbilt University, said IBC reflected the broad scope of the business world and catered to a variety of different interests.
“[I’m amazed], especially [at] the range of the topics covered by the breakout sessions,” she said. “Whether you’re interested in business school, law school, consulting or finance, there’s really something for everyone.”
Many attendees also said choosing Boston as the convention location exposed attendees to many different startups and companies and reflected the attendees’ enthusiasm for innovation and creativity.
“It’s a big city, and definitely has a lot of opportunities within companies,” said Jillian Damaris, a sophomore at Boston College.
Overall, Allan said, the event aimed to inspire young women and help them realize their power within the business field.
“To be surrounded by a community of ambitious, talented and hardworking young women has been so empowering,” Allan said. “As a woman, you can feel like a minority at times in the workplace, but coming to [this] place and being surrounded by incredible women, it’s really exciting to see that you’re not alone and that you’re apart of a much bigger network of women in business.”
