Impact Awards 2022 Recent Winners

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2022 INDIVIDUAL IMPACT AWARD WINNERS:

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

Kimberly has been with Booth for nearly five years. Her peers describe her as helpful, patient, delightful to work with, and willing to go the extra mile to provide the best service to others. Kimberly offers meaningful solutions to problems, helps bring large packages to destinations when she is not required, and has stayed after her shift to help students mail their packages. Kimberly assists faculty and staff quickly and efficiently, even when the requests have a short turnaround. She has a way of calming stressful situations. Kimberly embodies excellence in her work and treats everyone with respect and kindness. She creates an environment of competence we can all rely on, and trust in her expertise.

Erik Halloway
Associate Director, Academic Services
Faculty and Academic Services

Erik has been with Booth for nearly six years, initially starting with the 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 advisers connect with students. Erik has also served as a mentor through his collaboration on 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 his responsibilities for the sole purpose of helping a colleague work through an idea or flesh 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, it also supports our Asia and London campuses.

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE 2022 TEAM IMPACT AWARD WINNERS:

Advancement Events Team

    Jane Rodriguez – Director, Global Events Strategy
    Kara Kendall – Senior Assistant Director, Global Events Strategy
    Morgan Tomaso – Associate Director, Global Events 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 began providing a variety of virtual events that supported the needs of internal and external stakeholders. They did 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 not only shifted to a virtual format, but also ensured that prior alumni classes that may have missed out because 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 navigated large scope planning and logistics from crafting the idea and getting faculty onboard, 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, Kilts 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 arrangements for the future of 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.