Menlo College Welcomes Guy Kawasaki for Women’s Business Society
(PRWEB) December 17, 2015 -- Noted social media expert and author Guy Kawasaki recently spoke about ways to improve personal branding at Menlo College.
Menlo College President Richard A. Moran credited Kawasaki with popularizing the use of the term “evangelist” to define the person who builds a critical mass of support for a given technology. Kawasaki fulfilled that role first at Apple, and his career has been notable for ongoing roles promoting the use of a product or technology through talks, articles, blogging, and demonstrations. Kawasaki is currently the chief evangelist of Canva, an online graphic design tool.
His message to Menlo College students at the Women’s Business Society event concerned branding in social media. Personal branding such as Kawasaki’s suggestions are emphasized by The Women’s Business Society, founded by Ashley Diamond ’15 in 2011. Diamond said “We started the Women’s Business Society that focused on three pillars: business, social, and philanthropy. By 2015, there were 70 active members – a huge proportion for a school with less than 700 students at the time! It was a huge learning experience for me in volunteer management.” Diamond is now a marketing manager at Adello, a global advertising technology company in Redwood Shores.
Kawasaki is also on the board of trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation, a brand ambassador for Mercedes Benz USA, and an executive fellow of the Haas School of Business (UC Berkeley). He was the chief evangelist of Apple and also the author of The Art of the Start 2.0, The Art of Social Media, Enchantment, and nine other books. He has a BA from Stanford University and an MBA from UCLA, as well as an honorary doctorate from Babson College.
When Diamond graduated from Menlo, the Society leadership was assumed by Natalie Leesakul. Leesakul is a bilingual double major in marketing and international management who lived abroad for many years in Thailand, and she was one of the original members of the Society.
Under her leadership, the Society has grown to 80 members. “We’re very selective about membership,” she explained. “Every member must commit to active participation and volunteering in the Society.” Under Leesakul’s leadership, the Women’s Business Society has sponsored successful events such as the recent Guy Kawasaki presentation.
When asked why new female students might want to join the Women’s Business Society, Leesakul concluded “Join the Society if you’d like to be a part of an organization that empowers women through mentoring so that they can conquer the world.”
About Menlo College
Menlo College was established in 1927 in Atherton, California as a small, private school that focuses on business education with a strong liberal arts emphasis. Located in the heart of Silicon Valley midway between San Francisco and San Jose, Menlo has been named among the "Best Colleges in the West" by The Princeton Review seven years running and a U.S. News "Best Regional College" for the last five years. http://www.menlo.edu
Darcy Blake, Menlo College, http://www.menlo.edu, 650-543-3901, [email protected]
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