Coronavirus Updates

Impact Awards Recent Winners

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2022 INDIVIDUAL IMPACT AWARD WINNERS: 

Nora Mansfield
Associate Director, VC Programs and Startup Engagement
Polsky Center for Entrepreneurship

Nora has been with Booth for just over 5 years and has progressed within the Polsky Center to her current Associate Director role.  It was noted that her portfolio of programs has been a “pillar of excellence.  She has trained new staffers, taken on new responsibilities, and acted as a role model for students and staff alike. Not only is she the point person for students to navigate resources, she has also led the implementation of new tools and platforms to help the team work better while remote or hybrid. Ultimately she is the definition of excellence, and does it all exhibiting incredible empathy for the students and staff that she works with.”

Erik Halloway
Associate Director, Academic Services
Faculty and Academic Services

Erik has been with Booth for nearly 6 years, initially starting with Evening and Weekend MBA Admissions team before moving to Faculty and Academic Services Advising team.  In his current role he has had a tremendous impact on the Academic Services team through his leadership, guidance, and empowerment of his colleagues. He has demonstrated these qualities by spearheading Slate implementation for the team, and reimagining the vision for how advisors connect with students. Erik has also served as a mentor through his collaboration of the Slate implementation process and has been described as a true asset to his team and Booth.

Sam Pincich
Senior Associate Director, Finance
Accounting and Budget

Sam has been with the University and Booth for over 16 years and has been described by peers as dependable, loyal, consistent, and willing to help in any situation. Besides providing excellent deliverables Sam has, on numerous occasions, brainstormed various scenarios outside of his responsibilities for the sole purpose of helping a colleague work through an idea or flush out a process to make it better. He always demonstrates an unwavering commitment to thoroughness and doing what it takes to provide excellent services no matter how much time is takes. Sam’s work not only covers US accounting functions, but he also provides support to our Asia and London campuses.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2022 TEAM IMPACT AWARD WINNERS: 

Advancement Events Team

  • Jane Rodriguez – Director, Global Event Strategy
  • Kara Kendall – Senior Assistant Director, Global Event Strategy
  • Morgan Tomaso – Associate Director, Global Event Strategy
  • Lenora Yung – Events Manager

When the COVID-19 pandemic began in March 2020 and in-person events were no longer an option for Booth alumni to engage with the school, the Office of Advancement Events team was able to begin providing a variety of virtual events that supported the needs of internal and external stakeholders. They were able to do this quickly, and used the virtual format as an opportunity to expand our reach to alumni all over the world.  A prime example of their strategy shift can be seen with Booth Reconnect where they were able to not only shift to a virtual format, but also ensure that prior alumni classes who may have missed out on this event as a result of COVID restrictions had an opportunity to connect, all while increasing the attendance by 59% over pre-pandemic statistics. 

Booth Masterclass

  • Makini Allwood – Executive MBA – Associate Director, Global Marketing and Communications
  • Meghan Keedy – Executive MBA – Director, Global Marketing and Communications
  • Ryan Crisp – Executive MBA – Assistant Director, Admissions
  • Kara Northcutt – Admissions – Senior Director, Admissions and Employer Engagement
  • Kate Spencer – Admissions – Director, Admissions Marketing
  • Lizzie Seidenstricker – Admissions – Associate Director, Admissions Marketing
  • Kimberly Epps – Admissions – Senior Assistant Director, Enrollment Strategy
  • Josh Dennee – Admissions – Senior Associate Director, Admissions Operations
  • Craig Schultz – Information Technology – Audio Visual Technician

Born as a pandemic pivot to provide a classroom experience for prospective students, the MBA Masterclass series is now an evergreen offering that showcases the thought-leadership, dynamic engagement, and real-world impact of Chicago Booth faculty and our MBA degree. The MBA Masterclass initiated as a collaboration among all MBA program admissions teams. It is one of the few projects where Full-Time, Evening, Weekend, and EMBA have come together to address a need/problem/issue. It proved to be an exceptional example of cross-departmental teamwork through an ongoing, ever-evolving effort to support Booth offerings and branding efforts.  This team had to navigate large scope planning and logistics from crafting the idea and getting faculty on board, to creating a website presence and marketing across the globe, to managing the virtual events via Zoom and providing recorded classes as post-event offerings. Through it all, the team consistently and swiftly tackled every stage as a cohesive unit that truly leaned into each person’s expertise area.

Future of Work Committee

  • Pete Aiello – Admissions – Director, Financial Aid
  • Char Bennington – Human Resources, Director, Employee Development
  • Stacey Ergang – Student Life – Senior Director, Student Life
  • Kate Malloy – Human Resources – Associate Director, HR
  • Julie Morton – Executive MBA – Associate Dean, EMBA
  • Joe Przybylski – Marketing and Communications – Senior Creative Director
  • Melanie Scarlata – Corporate Relations – Director, Corporate Relations
  • Katie Claussen Bell – Kilts Center for Marketing – Director, Kilt Center
  • Caroline Edringhoff – Advancement – Director, Operations
  • Sarah Gusanders – Conference Center – Director, Conference Services
  • Sona Margaryan – Marketing and Communications – Director, Institutional Research and Strategic Insights
  • Steve Mullin – Information Technology – Director, Service Management
  • Mairead Saleh – Marketing and Communications – Director, Collaboration and Community Strategy

The Future of Work committee was tasked with making a recommendation for the best work arrangements for future work at Booth and worked incredibly well together as a team to do it effectively and efficiently. In a matter of a few months the team created a strategy, performed a great deal of benchmarking research, gathered a tremendous amount of valuable data from staff at two different points, and synthesized a variety of inputs to create a recommendation for moving forward. The team organized into smaller sub-teams to move forward more quickly with multiple work streams operating in parallel that built on the strength of each team member. The result of their dedicated and hard work was a recommendation to the Deans that provided new insights and possibilities for the future of work at Booth that was grounded in research and supported the continued achievement of Booth’s mission.