Legends Among Us: Mark Tomkins

My AIESEC Life

By Mark Tomkins

As with so many AIESECers, countless aspects of my life can be traced back to a fateful info session. You know what I’m talking about – shuffle into an auditorium on campus and get told about how you can change the world. Fresh off a foreign exchange year in Germany that replaced what would have been my senior year in high school, I joined an info session about “Eye-Seck” at Northwestern University. Mainly because of an offer of free pizza, a funny name, and some mumbo-jumbo about the world’s largest student-run organization. 

That one fateful evening in 1991 set me upon a path for my career, to find my wife of almost 30 years, and a zest for exploring, most recently on an AIESEC Life Study Tour to Colombia. 

Back to Northwestern, where I was an applied math major. Not the most common AIESEC field of study. I preferred proofs and theorems to business and networking. Fresh off my exchange year, I jumped into the world of TN and SN forms. Trying to match interns from Poland, Belgium, Australia, Turkey, and so many other countries to jobs our LC was raising in Chicago. And sending a few of our LC members abroad. 

At this point, I have to thank so many AIESECers who opened new worlds for me, there are too many to list, but I’ll name a few. Starting with Samantha (Sowers) Wallace who suggested I attend an international conference in Izmir, Turkey. In a small twist of fate, that’s where I first met AIESEC Life’s current Executive Director, Jennifer (Chung) Farley, who was representing her LC at Purdue University. Sam and her successor as LCP, Geoff Smart, one of the founders of AIESEC Life, encouraged me to get involved raising trainees, not just matching them, igniting my interest in business. Then Thierry Chau, who taught me and so many AIESECers of our generation how to sell. To AIESEC Passau for raising a traineeship in a small town in the Bavarian forests. There, I helped set up my company’s first plant outside of Germany in another village in the Czech Republic, which had just opened to western investment. That was my first experience with foreign direct investment, which now permeates my daily life. To AIESEC Germany and Slovenia for inviting me to be a part of the organizing committee for the first international AIESEC conference hosted in the newly independent country of Slovenia. That was my first conference organizing experience. That set off another chain reaction, leading to joining the organizing committee for International Congress in Barcelona, and taking on organizing the largest National Conference AIESEC US had ever seen at the time, with over 500 attendees. A big thanks go to national team members like Jeremy Findley, Jeff Popiel, and David Bizer, who supported this journey and entrusted such an undertaking to an upstart LC like Northwestern, and an organizing committee led by an applied math major… 

Most importantly, along this path, I met Jennifer, my wife of almost 30 years (and international travel buddy) at a regional conference in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin. As fate would have it, our AIESEC paths crossed a few months later at a conference she was organizing at Northern Illinois University, and we’ve been inseparable ever since. We both graduated in 1995, and not being procrastinators, promptly got married in December of that year. 

Not only my life companion, but also my career stem directly from AIESEC. A referral from an AIESECer got me started in a small international consulting firm after graduation. This led to joining the German American Chamber of Commerce staff several years later to build out their consulting operation to help German companies expand their presence in the US. That was back in 2006. We’re now the second-largest German Chamber in the worldwide network of 130 offices, promoting trade & investment between Germany and the US. As one of the only non-Germans worldwide leading such an office, I have to remind myself constantly of the small twists and turns of fate, mostly linked to AIESEC, that led me to this point. I still get to “do AIESEC” every day, and now they pay me for it! 

One note of encouragement - I’ve hired AIESECers. My organization also contracted with an AIESECer, Cynthia Wong, to support my staff with virtual wellness training during COVID. And her yoga retreats are amazing too! We hired an AIESECer-owned firm, Acacia, to provide DEI training and strategy development for our team. There are so many talented AIESECers out there improving the world. They might just help change your world too. 

It's also important to give back. For almost 20 years, I’ve served on the Board of Advisors for AIESEC Northwestern. I’m proud to attest to the AIESEC spirit that is alive and well at Northwestern, even as the number of LCs in the US have dwindled to only a handful. As a former AIESEC Life board member, I’m proud that we launched the Study Tours during my tenure on the board. I’ve attended every single one since the first in 2020 to Puerto Rico. It has become an annual tradition to reunite with AIESEC Lifers every February, as we have embarked to Costa Rica, Maui, Belize and now Colombia. Thanks to my co-conspirator, Tina (Chung) Hurley, we also hosted a weekend Study Tour in Chicago, and I’m still waiting for another weekend Study Tour to another great American city… (Hint, hint… to any alumni who might want to organize the next one in their city.)

In closing, thanks to so many AIESECers who still live an AIESEC Life, endeavoring to craft a better world one day at a time. You never know what impact you have on the world… just never give up.

“Mark’s unwavering commitment to AIESEC Life and our alumni network is truly admirable. His dedication to staying involved with both alumni and current students reflects his passion for AIESEC and sustaining his relationships, not to mention mentoring the next generation of global leaders.”

-Jennifer Farley, Executive Director of AIESEC Life