In collaboration with the Enterprise Education Trust (EET), the Wharton Club of the U.K. conducted a program called “Ambition to Reality” for 120 high school students at the Charter School in Dulwich, London, on June 19.
The goal of the program was to teach valuable business skills to the students. The day consisted of several modules including dress for success, resume and interview workshops, and a presentation tutorial, and it culminated with a presentation competition among the students. The winners of the competition received Wharton T-shirts. The students were also invited to participate in mock interviews with the Wharton volunteers later in the week.
The Wharton U.K. Club has donated more than £2,000 to the EET and committed to complete three additional volunteer days at the Charter School or other schools in the London area.
To date, most of the Wharton Club of the U.K. activities have centered around social events and guest speakers, so we thought it would be beneficial to organize a Wharton volunteer event. Many alumni are interested in giving back to the community, and there was a real demand for the event. Personally, I enjoy working with students and serving as a mentor, and the EET charity was an excellent fit.
Besides me as organizer, other Wharton alumni volunteers included Fabiana Eggers, WG’03; Aleksander Baranski, WG’10; Kamil Zniber, C’11, W’11; Soo Maghar-Han, WG’90; Barbara Duvoisin, G’90, WG’90; Carlo Palmieri, WG’02; Diana Diaz-Luong, C’99, WG’05; Ivonne Cantu, WG’96; Olivier Blechner, W’98; Vikram Bhandari, ENG’01, W’01; Sanjeev Verma, WG’99; and Rosie Unite, WG’95.
The event went quite well. The students enjoyed meeting the Wharton alumni and appreciated the opportunity to ask important career- and university-related questions and receive candid feedback. The Wharton alumni were impressed with the charter school and its students.
The EET is one of the U..K’s leading business and enterprise education charities, delivering a wide range of flexible, interactive programs that use real life business experiences to inform, involve and inspire young people of all abilities. Sir Paul Judge, WG’73, is the chairman of the EET.
—Jon Koplovitz
Jon Koplovitz, C’90, WG’95, is a senior managing director in Blackstone Advisory Partners LP based in London. Before joining Blackstone in 1996, Jon worked in the mergers-and-acquisitions group at Wolfensohn & Co. and the corporate finance department at Bear Stearns. He received a Bachelor of Arts in economics from the University of Pennsylvania, where he graduated magna cum laude, and an MBA in finance from Wharton, where he graduated as a Palmer Scholar. He heads the Volunteering U.K. Education committee for the Wharton Club of the United Kingdom. Anyone interested in learning more or getting involved can contact them by email at educationvolunteers@whartonclubuk.net. He was kind enough to write this report for the Wharton Blog Network on behalf of the Wharton Club of the U.K.
