TMP 1998

I hope that you have enjoyed your summer. Before you hear about our latest alumni updates, I encourage you to remember that by signing up for e-mail forwarding you get exciting notices of class events and the Kellogg Alumni Club of Chicago! To establish your e-mail forwarding go to www.kellogg.nwu.edu/alumni/services.htm.

After two years in New York and Revlon brand marketing, Annette Lee is happy to be home in Chicago. She is working as an e-commerce marketing manager at Discover Financial Services.

Paul Bodine (pbodine1998@alum.kellogg.nwu.edu) writes, “I will be an adjunct professor at DePaul’s Kellstadt School of Business this winter teaching the MBA course E-Business Architecting. My wife Peggy and I vacationed in St. Andrews on the Bay of Fundi in August and enjoyed some great whale watching. We highly recommend it to everyone. Peggy, who joined us on the 1996 GIM trip to China, is president of the Junior League of Chicago, and one of the 2000 Women Making a Difference. Many of their members are Kellogg grads.”

Niels Rasmussen writes. “I am still with Hewitt Associates and enjoying my role tremendously. I have spent the last two years in our Cleveland office (Cleveland is nowhere near as bad as people make it out to be) but we are ready for our final move back to Europe and I will relocate to Munich by the end of this year.

Lots has happened on the private front since graduation and we have a two-and-a-half-year-old son and expecting our next child by March next year. So in the end we will end up with an American son, a German boy/girl (although neither of us came from these parts of the world). Truly does show the global economy we live in today though!

Jilana Dellal writes, “I am living in New Jersey and still working for AT&T. I have recently moved into the new enterprise marketing division and I’m managing sales programs for our business services division. On the personal front, I am happily in love with a man I met when I moved to New Jersey. On the Northwestern front, I am involved in the Kellogg and NU alumni clubs in NY and I’m working with the Alumni Admissions Council for NU (Undergraduate admissions).”

Allison Zelen writes, “After seven years at Kraft, I left my brand management stint last summer (’00) for a director position at a research company specializing in the tween/teen market, consulting on clients such as Coke, Frito-Lay and Kraft. I missed ‘being the client’ so much that I just joined Unilever in June as the consumer and market insight manager for the Salon Selectives hair care brand. Truthfully, I just missed all the free product.”

Jim Kvedaras writes, “Another summer bites the dust. Although day by day things sometimes drag out, it seems like the years fly by anymore.”

As I continue to advance in my career, I am always sensitive to how my educational background serves me. As customers or other parties inquire about my credentials (of course in a very professional manner), I personally am impressed with the reaction I get when I indicate that Kellogg is my alma mater. It speaks extremely well of the reputation that Kellogg has earned over the years.

It’s kind of a funny; before I went through TMP, I was oblivious to how people in the business world treat others differently, depending on their educational background. It makes me glad I went the Kellogg route, especially since my company was acquired by a foreign company. One of their key criteria in deciding whom to take seriously was the level of formal education attained, and the more prestigious the pedigree, the more interest the new company expressed in the individual. Two years post-acquisition, and the MBA degree (nee MM) is still hard at work, as we in turn staff up management teams for additional acquisitions. Thanks, Dean Emeritus Jacobs!

Something I just started to do this year that I never made time for is to participate in a couple alumni events. I don’t think many of us have schedules that permit consistent participation, but I recommend that you all consider checking out an event or two throughout the year. You don’t have to be a fanatic; just stop in. See you there!