(By Karen Raiti Thigpen MI '96, US '97)
Thanks to AIESEC Life Hub Leader, Sarah Ketvirtis, the alumni community was not only ""connected"" last Friday night in Chicago - it was energized! More than 44 alumni and guests turned out at Chicago's famed Jake Melnick's along with 20 students from AIESEC Northern Illinois, AIESEC Northwestern and the new initiative group starting at the University of Chicago. Attendees laughed, networked, and met new friends. This effort was part of a nationwide charge given to our hubs to hold Spring events that would both draw new alumni to the hub while generating traineeship referrals for the students.
The attending alumni at Friday's event represented 7 countries around the globe, 16 local committees from across the U.S. and 4 decades of AIESEC history. While the bulk of the event was comprised of alumni casually mixing and meeting, a small formal agenda afforded time for some key speakers to update the alumni on AIESEC's exchange program, including the recently launched Executive AIESECer Program. Most notably, alumnus Sal Venegas, Director of Learning and Development for Walgreens, took time to share details of how exactly he's working to bring traineeships to his company and encouraged other alums to do the same.
All in all, many new friendships were established and more than two dozen traineeship leads were formally submitted. One might say that the AIESEC Life Chicago Hub most certainly did its job of providing a true ""connection"" event and demonstrated their commitment to the growth of AIESEC's exchange program.
Want to get involved with the Chicago Hub? Contact Sarah Ketvirtis at sarahketvirtis@gmail.com.