BGS students visits international conference

(From left to right) Christopher Burns, junior marketing major, Lucas Notarianni, junior finance major, and Shehreyar Rehman, junior accounting major, attended Beta Gamma Sigma’s 2018 Global Leadership Summit in Chicago from Nov. 1-4.

By Shehreyar Rehman, Lucas Notarianni and Christopher Burns

The three of us— junior marketing major Christopher Burns, junior finance major Lucas Notarianni and junior accounting major Shehreyar Rehman, ventured to Chicago for the international business honor society, Beta Gamma Sigma’s (BGS) Global Leadership Summit (GLS) of 2018 from Nov. 1 to 4. 

We were selected by our chapter’s adviser, Hee Young Kim, through an application process. After we were selected by Kim, each of us were designated as an executive officer, a title that all three of us share equally.

We decided to attend this trip because we saw it as a great opportunity to not only represent Rider, but to learn from the experience and apply it to our local chapter.

Beta Gamma Sigma was founded as a national organization on Feb. 19, 1913. It formed from a merger of three separate societies established to honor academic achievement in business at the University of Wisconsin, University of Illinois and the University of California. BGS became the first national honor society in business. 

We had the opportunity to explore the vast possibilities that BGS offers students from all over the globe, such as networking events, workshops and team building exercises. We were also given the chance to present a comprehensive case competition while at the conference. 

At the conference, students were broken up into groups of 10, separated by four colors. There were 10 groups within each color. Each color presented a different type of case study. 

The goal of this competition was to figure out a creative solution to common business problems, such as how to market to a certain demographic or determine how a company respond to a public controversy or scandal. Each group deliberated for three hours. 

Following that, presentations were held to select the best group within each color. The winner from all four colors would advance to the finals until there was one group declared a winner.

During the leadership summit, the three of us had the chance to be enlightened by many different speakers, such as entrepreneurs, body language experts and business executives. We had sessions pertaining to entrepreneurship, networking, leadership, innovation, body language and ethics. The amount of knowledge that we took from the leadership summit was unparalleled. 

There was a total of almost 400 students from over 197 premier business schools that convened at this summit, including several chapters from Australia, Colombia, Ecuador and Beirut, among others. 

It was a great experience to meet students from all over the world and discuss universal business ideas and practices.

We made lasting bonds with incredible BGS members, in addition to learning how to better work in a group setting from my experience with my diverse case competition team and the Clifton Strengths exercises.

The trip would not have been possible without all expenses being covered by Rider. 

Our experience at the summit was the second time that students were sent to   

represent Rider. Last year, Loris Humbert was the sole student who attended the GLS on behalf of Rider. Humbert’s experience at the conference was one of the main reasons why Rider decided to send more students to attend this conference.

As we said at the summit: “We are BGS.” 

Published in the 12/5/18 edition.