Michael Ruderman's blog

Giving Voice to Values

OUBC Board Member Mary Gentile, a faculty member at Babson College and former faculty member at Harvard Business School, is releasing her new book this month entitled Giving Voice to Values: How to Speak Your Mind When You Know What's Right (Yale University Press).  We congratulate her on the new book and wish her lots of luck as it debuts.  Recently, Mary wrote a blog post for the Huffington Post about the BP oil spill and the need for organizations to encourage employees to speak up and voice potential concerns.  Please check out the post here.  Similarly, you can learn more about the book at www.marygentile.com.

Keynote Speaker Announcement

We received confirmation today that John Berry will be able to join us at OUBC this year as a keynote speaker.  John Berry is the Director of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management.  He is the highest ranking openly LGBT member of the Obama administration, or any presidential administration for that matter.  His full bio is here

He will be speaking at the dinner on Saturday evening, the final event of our weekend conference.  We expect Director Berry to discuss his career and provide anecdotes about his experiences as an LGBT member of political circles.  He will also encourage students to come out of the closet after graduation, as he has been open about his sexuality since his 20s and it has not hindered his professional success.

We hope you share our excitement about Director Berry's attendance.

Apply for OUBC 2010 Now!

We are now accepting applications for the 2010 OUBC!  Due to lots of demand from students on campuses across the country, we decided to accept applications and open up registration before the end of the academic year, earlier than we ever have before. 

A committee of OUBC organizers and professionals from sponsoring firms will review the applicants.  Each application will be reviewed for strong academic performance, extracurricular and professional involvement, and a thoughtful personal statement.  While a resume is not required for acceptance, it is highly encouraged that you upload a copy of your resume.  We hope to accept as many students as logistically possible, and we are already planning on having more student participants than we had in 2009.

You should also consider applying for one of our merit-based travel scholarships.  We have limited funds to offer students free travel to and from New York City and a hotel room over the weekend.  So, if you are traveling from out of town, we encourage you to click the travel scholarship box on the application form.  Nothing additional is needed if you are applying for this scholarship, though you must submit a resume to be considered.

We will review applications on a rolling basis and will get back to you within four weeks of your application, so apply now!  The earlier the better.

If we are not able to offer you a spot at OUBC or you are unable to attend for any reason, you can log back in to receive a full refund.  You can also continue to update your resume and other personal information as needed before the conference just by logging back in.

Click here to apply!

Date and Location Announcement

The organizers are happy to announce that OUBC 2010 will be held Friday, October 1st and Saturday, October 2nd at JPMorgan's midtown offices in New York City.  Conversations are already underway with JPMorgan about how we can use the bank's numerous conference spaces in their 383 Madison building to provide our enriching content to participants in varied and appropriate settings.  We are excited to have large auditorium seating for our plenary sessions, smaller rooms to best facilitate small group discussions, and rooms of all sizes in between that can accommodate first-time events we are dreaming up.  The JPMorgan facilities also have open spaces that are perfectly suited to our networking events and career fair. 

JPMorgan has provided us great facilities in the past and this year will be no different.  See you in early October!

Campus Ambassador Program Now Accepting Applications!

ATTENTION ALL STUDENTS!!

The sponsors of the Out for Undergraduate Business Conference (OUBC) invite you to apply to be your college’s Campus Ambassador for the 2010 conference, to be held in the fall in New York, NY.  
OUBC’s Campus Ambassadors will play a key role in executing the conference’s campus outreach strategy. As the primary contact for OUBC at your college or university, you will be responsible for representing the conference to key campus stakeholders and for promoting the conference to top LGBT student talent.   In thanks for your service, you will receive a scholarship to cover the cost of travel to and from the event, a hotel room for the weekend, and increased exposure to our corporate sponsors.

In addition to submitting a recent resume, student applicants are asked three questions:
1) Why do you want to become an OUBC campus ambassador?
2) How are you involved in your school's LGBT and pre-professional communities?
3) What are your OUBC marketing goals and how do you plan to achieve them?

Please see the attached description of the role and ambassador application.  All applications must be received via e-mail to info@outforbusiness.com no later than Friday, February 12, 2010 at 12 noon.

Thanks, and we look forward to working with you on OUBC 2010!

Diamond Sponsors