Corporate careers for minorities

When Marco Materassi, a high school junior from Englewood, New Jersey, was considering a college program, he was hesitant to limit himself to only one field of study. He was curious about the business world, but was not familiar with what the private sector had to offer.

Through his counselor's advice, Materassi applied for admission to a Columbia University business education program sponsored by PepsiCo., Inc.

The program, called LEAD (Leadership Education and Development Program), turned out to be custom-made for Materassi. Its purpose is to show bright minority high school students the variety of career options available in the private sector and to familiarize them with ways in which they can pursue these careers.

After participating in the month-long summer program in business and economics at Columbia's Business School, Materassi was more clearly focused.

"I've seen that virtually any background is acceptable when one goes for an MBA. So i plan to develop myself more fully by majoring in economics, which taking a minor in international affairs or foreign languages at Columbia this fall," he says. "Then I plan to get my MBA."

LEAD, which is now in its third year at Columbia, is a mini-MBA program that allows high school students entering their senior year to become exposed to an entire business curriculum, with the direct intention of preparing the student for a future management-level position.

This year 30 students from 13 states studied economics, industrial relations, investment banking, operations management, marketing, government relations, anti-trust policy and strategic business planning at Columbia.

The July programs served some 240 minority students nationwide. Columbia is one of eight of the nation's leading business schools participating in the 1984 LEAD program. The others are the University of Arizona, University of Maryland and Howard University (working together), University of Michigan, Northwestern University, University of Pennsylvania, University of Texas, and University of Virginia.

To make the classroom experience more meaningful, lectures are supplemented by guest speakers and field trips to major corporations and financial institutions. Some highlights of the Columbia LEAD program this summer are visits to the Commodities Exchange, the New York Stock Exchange, Dow Jones, and a minority-owned Wall Street brokerage firm.

The Columbia students also meet with minority college interns and executives at PepsiCo's world headquarters in Purchase, N.Y. Pepsi Co's manager of Corporate Relations, Jacqui Gates, talks with them about corporate survival skills for minorities.

Another interesting component is a student stock market tournament sponsored by Goldman Sachs and Company, a Wall Street brokerage firm. LEAD students at each school are divided into teams and asked to pick a portfolio of five companies on the New York Stock Exchange. The students monitor their selections daily. Halfway through the program, a winning team is selected at each LEAD campus. The teams then compete nationally through the end of July.

The Columbia students also spend three days in Washington, D.C. to visit the Federal Reserve Bank, and to meet with Emmet Rice of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors.

Objectives

The primary objectives of LEAD are:

* To encourage promising young minority students to begin thinking about the business world as a career opportunity.

* To increase the minority pool in MBA programs nationwide.

"Studies have shown that minority students do not generally focus on careers in the business world," says PepsiCo's Gates. "Business is not seen as a traditional career path by minority high school students, as is law or medicine. Through LEAD, we hope to familiarize them with opportunities in the private sector and encourage them to consider a career in business."

LEAD organizers believe that the summer before a student's senior year in high school is an excellent time to influence a young person's ultimate career decision.

Each year, PepsiCo chooses protential high achievers from colleges across the country to participate in its summer minority intern program. In 1983, 37 minority undergraduates came to work at PepsiCo headquarters and in the field at various bottling operations nationwide. The minority intern program was further expanded in 1984.

In 1980, Donald M. Kendall, chairman of the board of PepsiCo, Inc., founded the Million Dollar Corporate Club, which donated $1 million to the United Negro College Fund. Other corporations have since followed PepsiCo's lead and have made similar contributions through the Club.

PepsiCo's support of minority education also includes scholarship programs and donations of computer equipment in an effort to improve the quality and availability of educational opportunities for minorities.

LEAD student selection

LEAD relies on A Better Chance, Inc. (ABC), the country's most prominent secondary-level, minority academic talent search organization, to identify the most promising and capable students for LEAD.