Philanthropy and Mentoring

Another good and interesting week this past week.

- Mon, Apr 19th — attended a terrific meeting at the home of the Rockefeller Foundation at 30 Rock Plaza.  I’m working on a strategic partnership opportunity with Legacy Connect — a terrific business that is aiming to “digitize philanthropy.”  And, it was great to be in the offices of one of founding families of philanthropy.

- Mon, Apr 19th — attended a dinner in the honor of President Kikwete of Tanzania.  This was a special and unique experience — my first-ever dinner for a president of a country.  Among the guests at the table I sat was Phil de Picciotto, President of Octagon; Kevin Liles, former President of Def Jam Records; Chaka Zulu, the manager of Ludacris; the head of tourism for Tanzania, etc.   The focus of the dinner was on improving the education system in Tanzania.  They are making remarkable strides under the leadership of President Kikwete, but there’s much more work that needs to be done.  It was definitely a memorable evening.

- Wed, Apr 21st — had a great dinner with two of my mentees, William and Mike, as well as a former co-worker from AOL, Rodney.   I’m so proud of the growth and maturation of both Will and Mike.  Mike graduated from Hampton a few years ago and is doing quite well.  Will is only a few classes away from getting his degree from Bowie State.  The focus of the dinner conversation was the importance of Will finishing his degree by the end of this year.  His graduation ceremony will be one of the great thrills of my life (I’ve been his mentor for 10 years).

- Fri, Apr 23 — we held our business case competition for the Year Up students at Georgetown University.   This was a spectacular day … our Georgetown Univ students from GAMBLE (Georgetown’s Aspiring Minority Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs) mentored / advised Year Up students on how to put together a business case.   There were 16 groups presenting to the judges — comprised of Georgetown faculty, MBA students and local corporate executives.   After a highly competitive and successful 4 hours of competition, we held an awards luncheon.  I was given the great honor of delivering the keynote speech.  I stressed the importance of mentoring as well as why both Georgetown University and Year Up have both been so important to me.  I made a pledge at the lunch to write a check for $2,500 for the first Year Up student to attend Georgetown.  We also had terrific speeches from Zaneta Chionuma, GAMBLE’s President, Dean Norean Sharpe and Assoc Dean Patricia Louison of GU and Tynesia Boyea-Robinson, the Exec Dir of Year Up.    It was a special day … one that I will cherish for a long time.

Great week in DC!

What a terrific week this past week has been … I wrote earlier this week about our first-ever Asian Leadership Forum.   Other notable highlights from this week:

- Wed, Apr 14th:  the Greater Washington Board of Trade hosted a session on the importance of  “leveraging strategic partnerships.”  Jim Dinegar, the outstanding CEO of the BOT hosted the sessions — the three panelists were Leslie Thornton of Courtesy Associates, Jim Van Eperen of the Washington Group and myself.    We had a terrific exchange, then a robust Q&A with the BOT members.  And, I’ve received over 10 terrific emails … in the process of scheduling follow-up meetings now.   The BOT is a great place to meet new friends and to generate new business.

- Thu, Apr 15th:  I delivered a presentation on “Working and Networking in the Sports Industry” to about 35 – 40 students from Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.  The class I teach is comprised of seniors — who are terrific — but this group was made up of mostly freshman and sophomores.  This was a home run of an event.  The questions they asked were terrific and some of the emails were absolutely tremendous.  Some of the ideas / thoughts generated from the 19 and 20 year olds blew me away …. so impressive.  I’m going to work with many of them in an advisory capacity in the coming years.  Then, maybe someday I’ll end up working for a couple of them. 

- Fri, Apr 16th:  I wrote last week about the terrific partnership between Georgetown’s GAMBLE and the Year Up organization.  On Friday morning, we hosted approximately 100 Year Up students on the Georgetown campus.   GAMBLE members advised / mentored the Year Up students on how to construct a business case — in preparation for the business case competition next Fri, Apr 23.  It was absolutely inspiring for me to see how well this partnership is working.  So looking forward to next week’s case competition.

- Sat, Apr 17th:  Took my mentee, Sally, to the dog park at 17th and S.  Sally has always wanted a dog but no pets are allowed in her apartment.  So, we went to visit with my friend’s dog.  That was my first experience in a dog park – what an experience!  So many dogs running around and chasing each other.  The look on Sally’s face was priceless – she loved hanging out with the dogs.  I’ve told her I may get a dog – but I also told her she’ll have to help me take care of it from time to time.

Asian Leadership Forum

My most recent blog posting was about one of my dreams coming through.  Well, I’m extremely fortunate to have another dream come true.  For the past 3 – 4 years, I’ve been trying to figure out ways to get the various Asian and Asian-American business communities working better together.  Each individual group is doing well in their own right, but it’d be great to see how we can collectively work better together.  A great working model is the Hispanic business community — which has collaborated well together — and shown the collective purchasing power and growing business opportunities within this powerful demographic.

Why is this important?  Because of the changing demographics taking place in the US (notice all of the press about the current US Census Bureau).  According to estimates, by 2040, the percentage of Hispanics in the US will grow from 15% to 30%, the percentage of African-Americans will grow from 9% to 12% and the percentage of Asians will grow from 6% to 9%.  Thus, the importance of companies and brands to realize the increase need for multi-cultural marketing and business efforts.

Washington, DC is the most international city in the US and is the most powerful city in the US and in the world.  But, yet, there hasn’t been an organization that has collectively woven the leaders from the various Asian business communities.  So, in partnership with the Greater Washington DC Board of Trade – and their dynamic leader, Jim Dinegar – we just held our first-ever Asian Leadership Forum on Tuesday night at one of the premier hotels in DC, The Hay Adams.

There’s four of us that have been laying the groundwork — George Cabalu, Julian Ha, Wade Tetsuka and myself.   This initial get-together this week was to invite 25 – 30 prominent Asian and Asian-American executives to see if this is a viable option to have the various Asian business groups interacting more with one another.  There are dual benefits — to grown one’s own personal network as well as to create incremental business revenue for one’s respective firm.

I’m proud to say the evening’s event was a smashing success.   A good number of DC’s most prominent Asian government officials, business executives and entrepreneurs were in attendance.  We generated excellent discussion in the room and the flow of emails over the past day shows that we’re on to something good and right.

There is a lot of work ahead of us …. creating a brand and logo … growing the network … identifying the key issues to focus on.  And, this will not just specifically for Asians.  The intended membership base will be Asians, Asian-Americans and executives focused on developing and / or growing their business opportunities in Asia.

And, last but not least, we’re going to tie in a philanthropy angle so we can benefit a few of the terrific Asian community service organizations — such as Asian-American LEAD, Asian Pacific Islander American Scholar Fund, etc.  If all goes well, we’ll create a signature black-tie gala event in 2011 – preferably in May which is Asian Pacific Islander Heritage Month.

More to come as we hold our next brainstorming session in the coming weeks.

Year Up and Georgetown’s GAMBLE

One of my many dreams is starting to play out and come true.   I’ve been working with non-profits in the greater Washington, DC area for the past decade, primarily focused on helping children from lower-income families pursue their college education and / or get started in their work careers.

In mentoring and working closely with these young adults, I’ve seen there’s clearly not much of a difference in intellect or desire to achieve success in life.  But, one of the drawbacks has been their socioeconomic background.  Some people are fortunate to be born into families with two parents, a beautiful home in the suburbs, multiple automobiles, excellent education opportunities, etc while others are born and raised by a single mother, often times a teen-aged mother, who may not have much in way of housing, food, and other comforts of life.

One of my dreams has been to take a group of inner-city children, especially ones from Wards 7 and 8, and give them a tour by children from the well-to-do suburbs of places like Fairfax and Montgomery Counties.   I want these youngsters to see that if they study hard in high school, attend college, and work hard, that they can achieve the “American dream.”  Some youngsters in Wards 7 and 8 rarely have been out of their neighborhood and have never been to the suburbs.  So, they don’t know anything else except their current environment.

At the same time, I’d love to see these young adults from Wards 7 and 8 and similar places provide a tour to the children from the well-to-do suburbs to show them their neighborhood … with the much tougher living environment, including small apartments, no cars, drug dealers in the neighborhood, etc.  For the suburban youngsters, it’d open their eyes and hopefully make them appreciate what they have in the suburbs.  Instead of complaining about not having the latest model tech gadget or a new piece of clothing or fancy car, it’d make them realize how fortunate they really are.

So, last Friday, we were able to start what I hope is a long-term partnership between one of the best non-profits in the area, Year Up, and Georgetown University’s GAMBLE (Georgetown’s Aspiring Minority Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs) group.   Thanks to the leadership from Norean Sharpe, the new Dean of Undergraduate Studies at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, and Tynesia Boyea-Robinson, Executive Director of Year UP DC, we’re creating a partnership between the two groups, which will include a business case competition taking place this month on the Georgetown campus.

Last Friday morning, we introduced nearly 100 Year Up Students to 30 GU GAMBLE students at the Year Up office in Rosslyn.  Tiane Mitchell Gordon, AOL’s Chief Diversity Officer, and I both spoke to the students.   Tiane spoke passionately about her terrific life, the importance of Diversity and Inclusion efforts and why it’s critical to believe in yourself and achieve your dreams.

I spoke about why education and philanthropy are so important to me — and why we need to do all we can to continue to give back and help others.

This coming Friday morning, Apr 16, we’re going to host the Year Up students on our Georgetown University campus — the GAMBLE students will have a mentoring session, specifically for the business case competition.  Then, a tour of the campus will be provided to the Year Up students.

Then, on Fri, Apr 23, we’re going to stage a business case competition among the Year Up students at the new business school building on campus.  I have been given the wonderful honor of delivering the keynote speech at the luncheon.

As noted at the beginning of this blog posting, this has been a dream of mine to expose inner-city, lower-income kids to places like Georgetown University – so it can inspire them to study, work hard and pursue their college education to make a difference in their lives.   At the same time, I’d like some of the GU students to go visit where some of the inner-city kids are from … like Wards 7 and 8 as well as PG County.  This will help the students, especially the ones from the nice suburbs, appreciate where they come from — and realize how good they’ve had it in life thus far.

This dream is indeed coming true.  This is part my continued efforts to keep ”paying it forward.”   I will update my blog regularly about this new and terrific partnership.

Sports, Sports, Sports.

What a great day in Sports today!  What a great week — what a great time in general for the Sports industry.

First, it’s Opening Day in MLB (although the Yanks – Red Sox did get it started with an entertaining game last night).  In DC, our hometown Nationals will host the imposing Philadelphia Phillies, featuring the best pitcher in baseball, Roy Halladay.  One of the highlights will surely be having President Obama throw out the ceremonial First Pitch today.  This had been a long-standing tradition but with DC having no baseball team for over 30 years, the tradition went away.  So, it’ll be great to have the POTUS in attendance.

Then, at 2:00 pm is the Tiger Woods press conference at the Masters in Augusta, Ga.  This will be one of the most historic and most-watched press conferences in the history of Sports.  Tiger, along with a handful of others, has been one of the most famous and popular athletes in the world over the past decade.  I’m sure he’ll feel much better after he’s done with the press conference this afternoon.  So many people will tune in — and the so-called experts will analyze the Q & A over and over and over.

Then, at 9:20 pm, is the tip-off of the NCAA Championship Game between the mighty Duke Blue Devils and the upstart Butler Bulldogs from the Horizon Conference.  This too will most likely generate huge TV ratings.   Coach K is deserving of the praise he generates — he runs a clean program, graduates his players and wins championships.  But, having Butler win it all would be one of the coolest sports stories in a long time.   They are certainly not a Cinderella team — they are legit and have NBA-caliber players on the squad.  I’m so excited for this game.

And, all of this is just today.  What else is going in Sports?  So much — the NHL season will end this week — then it’s time for the NHL play-offs.  Play-0ff hockey is one of the greatest things in Sports.  The teams crank it up another level and really go at it.  Kudos to the Washington Capitals for securing their first-ever Presidents Trophy for the most points in the league.  Verizon Center will absolutely be boisterous and “rocking the red” next week and hopefully for the next two months.

DC United kicked off its’ home schedule this past weekend.  Soccer will continue to become a bigger story in the Sports world – especially with the World Cup starting in June.  ESPN will throw heavy promotional weight behind this terrific sports event.

Oh, yeah, and how about those Skins?  Trading for Donovan McNabb?  Wow.  It’s hard to believe a team traded a star player within their own division.  But, the Eagles didn’t want to pay the huge bonus due in early May and the high salaries for the next few seasons.  They got what they wanted — draft picks.  And, the Skins and Coach Shanahan got themselves a Hall-of-Fame caliber QB.  Of course, now they need to focus on improving the offensive line to protect Donovan.

Whew, what a great time in Sports — today, this week, this month.  Love it.