Donna Dei-Baning (BIC '16) Receives LAGRANT Scholarship & Attends 3-Day Festivities in Chicago
I'm back from Chicago!
I had an amazing time with the other LAGRANT Scholars. We started with a welcome dinner on Sunday evening hosted by Pam Edstrom of Waggener Edstrom Communications. Her transparency on issues such as diversity in the workplace and gender bias was a breath of fresh air.
We spent all day at Golin on Monday where we heard an amazing (And I mean amazing) talk from the CEO, Fred Cook. We also had an opportunity to work on a project for one of their clients. Golin ended the day with a panel on diversity with a few of their employees. From Golin, we then headed over to Googe for the main event-- our scholarship ceremony. I was surprised by the number of industry-leading executives who were in the room for us that night. I was able to talk to Pat Ford, Burson-Marsteller's Worldwide Vice Chair, Chief Client Officer and Regional Chairman of Asia-Pacific (Say that 3x fast). He was so interested in learning more about my interests and career aspirations. The amount of support we have as LAGRANT Scholars is really uncanny!
Tuesday was Y&R Chicago/Wunderman day. We learned about the company, their workflow, had sessions on creative ideation and consumer context planning, took a look at case studies, and worked on projects for a few of their clients. I was also able to get connected to Adrian Fogel who is the Planning Director there (And was also excited to hear that I had Belle Frank as my Research Professor). I'm excited to pick her brain about account planning. Our jam-packed schedule didn't leave much room to explore Chicago, but I had a wonderful time and came back to NYC feeling inspired. Kai Simmonds and I represented CCNY well.
-Donna
Donna Dei-Baning M.P.S. Branding + Communications City College of New York, 2016 Linkedin
