Mary Ellen Alu recently published a report on Lehigh College of Business and Economics’ blog on a recent lecture that focused on building effective personal brands.
Senior VP for global corporate financial planning/analysis at Coach Inc. and Lehigh alumnus Kim Rogoff ’94 was the keynote speaker at the school’s Women in Business conference this past Wednesday, which “focused on the power of networking and entrepreneurship.” Rogoff emphasized the importance of personal branding in properly conveying one’s values in professional relationships. Personal branding, Rogoff posits, suggests, “The impact you make on others. It’s part of your legacy.”
Rogoff initially believed her personal brand was synonymous with the “strong work ethic” she inherited from her parents. According to the article, Rogoff had “no work/life balance” a decade ago. Rogoff told the audience that “personal brands need to develop in tandem with where you are in your life” and used her pregnancy as an example. Rogoff’s brand immediately became “more well-rounded and nuanced” with the first of three pregnancies. The article reports that once Rogoff became a mother, “she was no longer only defined by her work, and had to quickly figure out how to prioritize her responsibilities.” Rogoff began advising women in finance who came back to the workplace following maternity leave.
The conference, which John C. Swartley Jr. ’24 Marketing Professor Steven L. Savino led, offered a panel comprised of the NFL’s director of business development David Highhill ’06, ‘08G, and Bravo and Oxygen Media’s executive VP of marketing Ellen Stone ’87, both of whom stressed the “importance of in-person, online, and phone networking in landing a job.” Stone and Highill advised students to “open a dialogue” with mentors and potential contacts from Lehigh’s “vast alumni network” by asking for information, “perhaps about the industry they have their sights on, rather than for a job.”
Co-executive director of the Baker Institute for Entrepreneurship, Creativity and Innovation Lisa Getzler moderated a panel on entrepreneurship, entitled “Starting from Scratch.” In her opening remarks, Getzler explained that she believes entrepreneurs are people who “recognize a problem as an opportunity to create a solution that will provide value in the marketplace.”
Getzler probed four Lehigh alumni—all of whom mastermind successful businesses—about their specific trajectories: Susan Yee ’82, CEO of Active Data; Alita Friedman ’87, CEO of Alita’s Brand Bar; and Amy Mazius ’13 and Randi Tutelman ’12 ’13G, co-founders of Eleanor Kalle Jewelry LLC. Getzler and the panelists discussed the importance of “experience [and] gut instincts” but emphasized that “timing can be one of the more important things that you think about as an entrepreneur—or in life.”
Getzler referenced an old Wild West parable to further hammer her point home: “Timing has a lot to do with the outcome of a rain dance. If you’re a rainmaker and you’re doing a rain dance, and there hasn’t been any possibility of rain in six months because you’re in the middle of a drought,” it’s unlikely your dance will be successful.