Tag: Scholars in Business

What happens when you combine a profound appreciation for the power of education, deep gratitude for opportunities opened by a scholarship, setting priorities, and career success?

For J.T. Mosbacher and Heidi Morris-Mosbacher, you get the chance to be among the youngest alumni ever to endow a scholarship for future business students at WashU Olin Business School.

“Education and philanthropy are very important to our family. It has shaped who we are,” said J.T., AB 2010/PMBA 2015. “These are some of our biggest priorities. Heidi and I have deep discussions about how to pave the path forward.”

Indeed, for Heidi, AB 2009, it’s a perfect opportunity to give back after being a self-described “scholarship kid.” Thirteen years after graduating from WashU, she was excited to let her own scholarship donor know of their gift.

Both J.T. and Heidi work as financial advisors for Edward Jones in St. Louis, where they take great pride in serving in coaching roles with their clients, helping them to set and achieve goals. The couple sees the ability to endow a scholarship as an extension of some of the work they do with clients—prioritizing and establishing a legacy.

Impacting lives ‘in perpetuity’

“We’ve been blessed with career success,” Heidi said. “Our hope is that we can impact the lives of others in perpetuity. With what we do for a living, we are confronted by the following questions: ‘What do we want our legacy to look like? What impact do we want to have on the world?’ on a near daily basis. I see our legacy as threefold: the human beings we shape our children into, philanthropy, and being a part of our clients’ life stories.”

The couple also hopes to instill these values into their three children.  “Our hope is that our actions will inspire them and others along the way,” said J.T.

The pair met at WashU thanks, in part, to what J.T. described as his “snaking path” to a career. Initially, he felt pressure to declare a major early on and chose architecture but soon realized that was not going to be his career. “Going to a university that was forgiving if I changed my major was a prerequisite.  I also have a second major in American Culture Studies,” he said. “That’s how I met Heidi. She’s a dual major in Political Science and American Culture Studies.”

For her part, Heidi found a path as a WashU student looking into investment research. “I didn’t grow up around investing jargon. I didn’t know what stocks or bonds were,” she said. “I stumbled upon investing my freshman year and ended up in a brokerage firm office at 18 years old telling them I wanted to open an account. The advisor looked at me and asked if my parents knew I was there.”

Her path eventually led her to study at the London School of Economics.

Enduring influence of WashU

“Not only do I enjoy wealth management and financial planning, the true highlight of my career is forming relationships with the families that I serve,” she said. “I enjoy getting to know people on a very deep level and helping them achieve their version of financial success.”

J.T. and Heidi’s contribution brings the number of endowed scholarships at Olin to 205 as of December 2022. Their endowed scholarship was established with a gift where a portion of the earnings are reinvested, helping to ensure resources for the scholarship will always be available.

Both J.T. and Heidi specifically recalled a personal finance course they took under Mike Gordinier as a highlight of their WashU education. “That was a phenomenal class,” Heidi said. “It opened my eyes to a career path.”

For J.T., joining a cohort of young professionals in their PMBA program was also a formative experience as successful classmates worked together to catapult their careers: “The discussions and ability to relate to our work experiences helped bring the theories we learned in the classroom to life.”

To join J.T. and Heidi in supporting financial aid resources for our students, please visit the Scholars in Business website for more information.

Longtime WashU benefactors Judy and Jerry Kent have again stepped up with a new challenge designed to raise $2 million toward new and increased scholarship pledges, multiyear pledges and endowed scholarships aimed at supporting WashU Olin students.

Dean Mark P. Taylor announced the Kent Scholarship Challenge on Thursday at the annual Scholars in Business event, designed to recognize students who have benefitted from scholarships—as well as the many benefactors who have contributed to support them.

“Judy and Jerry’s commitment to scholarships is evident in their ongoing generosity that dates back to 1998,” Taylor said at Thursday’s event. “They have personally impacted at least 75 Olin students through the Kent Scholars Program and hope to inspire others to give back and support the bright and deserving Olin students who are the next generation of business leaders.”

The Scholars in Business program was established in 1979 with 17 business scholarships at Washington University. In the ensuing 42 years, more than 6,000 students have benefitted from nearly 500 scholarships, including more than 45 Legacy Scholarships. These are scholarships given by donors who themselves received a named scholarship when they attended Olin.

Jerry Kent, BSBA ’78, MBA ’79, and Judy previously established the Kent Scholars Program at Olin in 2008 with a $3 million contribution. The program awards five four-year scholarships to first-year students in the bachelor’s in business administration program.

This new challenge will provide a dollar-for-dollar match for every new or increased annual fund gift up to $50,000. It will also provide up to a $100,000 match for new endowed scholarships. The challenge begins effective immediately and will remain in place until the $2 million goal is met. Click here for more details on the Kent Challenge.

Jerry Kent began his career as a CPA with Arthur Andersen and moved in 1983 to build a career in the cable television industry, starting with the upstart Cencom Cable Associates, where he eventually became CFO before it was sold in 1991. He co-founded Charter Communications in 1993, leading that firm to become one of the 10 largest cable operators in the US with 1.3 million customers.

Judy Kent is a longtime St. Louis-area volunteer, notching service for organizations including Stages St. Louis, Easterseals Midwest and the St. Louis Zoo. This year, the couple was awarded the Jane and Whitney Harris St. Louis Community Service Award.

 Learn more about how Olin scholarships affect the lives of our students and enrich donors by clicking here.  Meanwhile, make your scholarship commitment today by clicking here.

On most Friday nights in the 1970s, you might find teenage Mark Taylor outside a pub in the UK’s working-class Warwickshire community hawking “American hotdogs” to the patrons who had just tipped back a pint or two.

Taylor made the circuit throughout the weekend, from the pub until 2 a.m., to the soccer ground on Saturday afternoon, to a nightclub on Saturday night, pocketing 20% of the proceeds to cover basic needs—school supplies, clothes and a few meals here and there.

Taylor knew he needed to ease the burden on his parents and three brothers—who either worked for—or were destined to work for—the local auto plant in the gritty industrial town. He had different dreams in mind.

Skip ahead six years. With innumerable hotdogs and a year working as a tutor behind him, Taylor had become the first in his family to complete the British equivalent of high school. With straight A’s on his exit exams—and intervention by a visionary headmaster—Taylor became the first in his family to attend college.

And not just any college: The oldest campus in the English-speaking world—tracing its origins to the 11^th century—Oxford University, where Taylor had earned a seat to study philosophy, politics and economics.

“I suppose arriving at Oxford and being able to measure myself against people with different backgrounds—that was the first time I realized how transformational this could be,” Taylor said, recalling his early days at university. “Without financial assistance, it would not have been possible.”

That financial assistance came in the form of British government-sponsored scholarships available to high-achieving students who had been accepted by a university. With straight A’s on his exams, a seat at Oxford and working-class parents, Taylor not only qualified to have his fees covered, but he received a small government stipend to help with living expenses during his studies.

“You’d get one check at the start of each term, so you had to be very careful not to blow the lot in the first week,” Taylor said.

Taylor is particularly keen on the importance of undergraduate scholarships, which he views as the first and most formidable barrier. Once he had earned his undergraduate degree, Taylor was able to leverage that to get his first job in a professional career track.

From there, he could finance his further education, including a master’s in economics at Oxford, a PhD in economics from the University of London, a higher doctorate in finance from from the University of Warwick and a master’s in English renaissance and romantic literature from the University of Liverpool.

“For me, education was a totally transformational experience,” said Taylor. “The difference is not only in material well-being, but also in terms of ways you can enjoy and view the world in different ways.”

Learn more about the ways Olin works with scholarship recipients and donors—and learn how you can become one—on WashU Olin’s scholarship page.

“When I found out that our offices were literally across the street from each other,” Amanda Signorelli, BSBA’13, said, “we had to meet.” The newly named CEO of Chicago-based TechWeek, a conference and media company focused on building startup communities, couldn’t wait to meet Rick Weisberg, BSBA’81. After all, he had made it possible for her to graduate from Washington University.

Signorelli had just been named one of the Top 20 Female Entrepreneurs to Watch in 2017 by CIO.com and was preparing to share her success story at the Scholars in Business dinner last fall. Meeting Weisberg would provide an important piece of the story from her undergrad days.

During her sophomore year, Signorelli learned that her family was in financial straits and could not afford to pay for college; she would have to drop out of WashU. “It was terrifying,” Signorelli recalls. The prospect of leaving the school she had worked so hard to attend, and where she was happily pursuing interests in languages and entrepreneurship, was devastating.

Signorelli was unaware of the Scholars in Business Program and the generations of students, like her, that it has helped since 1979. She was overwhelmed when she learned that she qualified for a scholarship and would be able to stay in college and earn her degree at WashU. “It was amazing to see how connected the Olin network was, to sense I needed help, and they were there,” she said.

Signorelli was a recipient of the Lawrence Krulik Memorial Scholarship created in 1991 by Rick and Sheryl (BA’81) Weisberg in honor of her father. More than 25 students have benefited from the fund. Each year, the Weisbergs have received notes of appreciation and thanks from grateful Olin students, but until this past year, the Weisbergs had never actually met one of their scholarship students in person.

At their first meeting in a Chicago coffee shop, Signorelli told Rick Weisberg, “I don’t think you have a sense of just how important this scholarship was for me.” Amanda remembers the meeting as, “Very surreal. It was a really special moment for me.”

Amanda Signorelli and Rick Weisberg chat during video shoot for Scholars in Business Dinner.

The feeling was mutual for Weisberg. “Frankly it really hit me in a very, very positive way. I was very touched that she reached out to me. I never really fully understood the impact that the scholarship had made on her and others who received it because I never saw the outcome.”

Weisberg is quick to add that he takes no credit for Amanda’s success. “If I helped her on her path that’s one thing, but you know it’s up to the individual to find their path and be successful at it.” Weisberg found his path and passion in finance while at Olin. He says he will never forget the support and encouragement he received from Dean Bob Virgil when applying to graduate school at New York University. “Dean Virgil set up an interview for me with the dean of NYU’s business school. Thanks to that conversation, I was accepted into the MBA program right out of WashU and it changed my life.”

On Giving

“I’ve been involved in a lot of organizations, whether it’s been in in the theater, religious, or otherwise, but I have not found a better organization than Washington University both in terms of the purpose of donations and in terms of the operational side of the equation. The attention to detail in terms of the care that you feel from the university prior to the contribution, during the contribution, and after, it seems seamless and effortless and actually makes it a very pleasurable experience, and it’s just a great place to be a part of.”   – Rick Weisberg

After 26 successful years with Goldman Sachs, Weisberg continues to work as a private investor. He has remained connected to WashU through the Eliot Society and the regional cabinet in Chicago where the Weisbergs have lived since 1988. Meeting Amanda, Weisberg admits was a learning experience. “It has re-motivated me in a very positive way to re-think my philanthropic process. When you give to a large organization you know you’re doing something good, but you never directly see the outcome. In the case of the scholarship program, you know there is a proportionate and direct impact from what you provide.”

Amanda Signorelli will never forget the impact that the Weisberg’s generous gift had on her life. And now that she has connected with the fellow alumnus and donor who made it possible, she realizes she is a part of the Olin network that will be there to support the next generation of students with time, money, mentoring, and friendship.

Link to Entrepreneur’s Business Rockstars video with Amanda Signorelli.

Link to 2016 Scholars in Business Dinner video featuring Bob Virgil and Amanda Signorelli.

“Getting to finally sit down for coffee this week with my Scholars in Business Scholarship Sponsor, Dan Manoogian, BSBA’82, was truly a highlight of my semester thus far,” said Lexie Sprague, BSBA, Class of 2017. “It was so fun to be able to share with him everything that I’m doing at Olin and on the soccer field.” (more…)