During the fall of 2008, MBA programs across the nation experienced a significant decline in on-campus recruiting as corporations responded to widespread economic uncertainty. While many students viewed the new realities of the job market as a serious setback to their career searches, Chris Petersen and David Chonowski, two former US Army officers and second-year MBA students at the University of Illinois, viewed it as an opportunity.
Recognizing an absence of military veteran advocacy within the broader MBA Diversity community, they organized and hosted the world’s first MBA Veterans Career Conference. The objectives of this initiative were simple, but bold – to connect military veteran students who exclusively represented the top-40 ranked MBA programs with the premier MBA employers.
Held on November 7th, 2008 at Symphony Hall in downtown Chicago, the inaugural conference was attended by recruiters from 10 corporations, 60 students from 10 of the Midwest’s leading MBA programs, and five alumni career panelists representing a wide range of industries. In addition, over $1,800 was raised and donated to the Wounded Warriors Project, a non-profit organization that provides support to severely injured combat veterans and their families.
Five months later, the Graduate Business Forum, a global consortium of 70 MBA programs, recognized Dave and Chris by awarding them the prestigious Student Leadership Award at its annual conference in Taipei, Taiwan. This recognition was the catalyst that enabled them to create a viable community of “MBA Veterans” into a reality.
As a result, Dave and Chris formally established the MBA Veterans Network® in August 2009 and hosted the organization’s first National Conference in October of that year. Since then this event has evolved into one of the nation‘s premier diversity conferences. In addition, MBA Veterans’ has launched a proprietary social media networking platform, expanded its network to Europe and Asia, been the focus of multiple media stories, and it has developed deep relationships with many of the world’s most prestigious companies.