Connecting with Alumni

Wisconsin Business Alumni is a powerful network
providing benefits and networking opportunities to
our more than 35,000 alumni around the world.

Wisconsin Business Alumni (WBA) works to continually enhance the value of a business degree from Wisconsin. One of those ways is by hosting networking events for business alumni around the country. Over the past year, WBA stepped up efforts to engage a wider audience by expanding our event schedule and creating more networking-type events. We experimented with different formats for alumni events to make them as valuable as possible to alumni and to find ways to encourage more recent graduates to attend. In 2005-06, 19 alumni events were attended by almost 1,500 alumni in Chicago, Minneapolis-St. Paul, New York, San Francisco, Milwaukee and Madison.

The WBA Board of Advisors, created in 2004 and expanded in 2005, continued to provide strategic direction to WBA throughout the past year. A key goal of the board is improving the participation rate of alumni providing financial support to the business school. We have set a five-year goal of increasing our participation rate from12 to 20 percent.

Over the past year, alumni helped us implement the school’s strategy in scores of ways—by serving as guest speakers, making financial gifts, hiring our students and fellow alumni, sharing their real-world experiences with students as informal mentors, attending Executive Education classes and supporting employees enrolled in our part-time Wisconsin Enterprise MBA programs. Alumni also played a critical role by providing word-of-mouth advertising for our newly redesigned full-time Wisconsin MBA program to attract an outstanding class.

Alumni interact with each other and with students at events throughout the year.


Recognizing Achievement

In 2005-06, two outstanding alumni received Distinguished
Business Alumnus Awards:

Mike LehmanMichael Lehman
BBA ‘74
Chief Financial Officer
Sun Microsystems
Santa Clara, Calif.

 



Curt CulverCurt Culver
BBA ’74, MS ‘75
Chairman and CEO
MGIC Investment Corporation
Milwaukee, Wis.

 

Looking Ahead

Alumni will benefit from several enhanced online
options, including an upgraded WBA online alumni directory and more functional WBA Job Board which will be launched in 2007. We will explore opportunities to partner with the Wisconsin Alumni Association to provide opportunities to network with other Wisconsin alumni who work in business.