About OUBC

The Out for Undergraduate Business Conference was created as part of the leadership curriculum requirement of two Park Fellows at Cornell’s Johnson School in 2004. These Park Fellows successfully raised corporate sponsorships from leading companies to fund the first Out for Undergraduate Business Conference in 2004. Feedback received from participants was extremely positive, which led to the creation of the volunteer board and annual conference execution in place today.

The conference was inspired by the Reaching Out MBA Conference, which was founded in 1999 at the Harvard Business School with McKinsey & Company as the sole corporate sponsor. Reaching Out MBA promotes the education, visibility and networking capabilities of LGBT graduate business school students around the globe and has since grown into an annual conference attracting over 1,000 participants.

VISION

Educate

  • Educate students with the necessary toolkit to:
    • Succeed in the recruiting process
    • Overcome adversity they may face related to their identity
  • Drive employers to recognize value in diversity, specifically the existence of exceptional
  • LGBT applicants who need targeted outreach to be reached effectively
  • Provide the next generation of LGBT leaders the opportunity to learn more about the business world

Inspire

  • Inspire students to recognize their responsibility to affect change as members of the
  • LGBT community; give them the confidence to be themselves at work
  • Encourage and motivate students to seek employment in the industries they desire
    • Dismiss homophobic stereotypes of Wall Street and other industries
  • Give employers the confidence to make bold investments in workforce diversity
  • Develop the next generation of LGBT business leaders

Place

  • Facilitate opportunities for interested companies to meet targeted groups of students
    • Attract exceptional students to sponsoring companies
    • Include sponsor companies that are a marketing draw for students
  • Create networking opportunities for sponsors and students
  • Strive to have conference participants recruited by, and accept offers from, sponsor companies

Prior participants say...

  • After attending the OUBC conference, what struck me most is the level of commitment the sponsors have to building a diverse workforce. Prior to this conference I'd always dismissed those claims as just a nice ideal--but participating in this conference and meeting the recruiters really drove home how important diversity is and what kind of opportunities exist for GLBT undergraduates. It's an intense, busy weekend-but you will leave with a new appreciation of where your career can take you. 

  • At my school, I rarely meet other GLBT students who are interested in business. Besides the great speakers, and helpful information, one of the best things about the OUBC conference is meeting other people like me. 

  • After suffering a particularly challenging summer as a gay person in Investment Banking, it was with enormous relief to come across a highly visible conference such as this one featuring Out participants in the Banking and Consulting world. As a result of the conference, I found an Out mentor at the firm I worked at this summer, and was able to reach out to people from all over in recruiting and beyond - it was truly extraordinary.

Diamond Sponsors