Melissa Vega’s Group Mentoring Session – Group 2, Session 1
Group 2 – Session 1
On October 7, 2014, Melissa Vega, ’17, kicked off her first Group Mentoring session alongside 8 students and 4 executives.
Melissa began her session by inviting the team to participate in something she called “30 Minute Crisis Management”. Melissa plans to open up all of her meetings by allocating the first half hour to 2 real life scenarios, in which the team will respond to.
The two scenarios Melissa delivered in her first session were:
- The Johnson & Johnson Tylenol Capsule Case from 1982
- Toyota’s fiasco from 2010
Melissa described the crisis in each scenario and then encouraged the students and executives to place themselves in the shoes of the company’s CEO. Melissa offered the following questions to framework the thinking of the students and executives:
-What would you do?
-Who would you involve?
-How do you address the issue?
-What course of action would you take with the product?
Students and executives successfully broke down each case. The following factors came up in the discussion:
-How to rebuild the reputation of the company
-How to rebuild customer loyalty
-How to control the media
-Use of marketing strategies during a crisis
-Use social media during a crisis
Every student and executive shared his/her course of action if presented with these scenarios. Melissa then shared the company’s course of action, and invited students and executives to respond to how the company handled the situation.
After engaging in the Crisis Management segment, Melissa began the group discussion. The themes were: majors, future careers, expansion opportunities, and technology/social media.
Melissa closed the meeting by inviting the executives to trace how they reached their career paths in the fields of Marketing, Hospitality, Finance, and Accounting. The take aways from the closing discussion were:
-Interact with start-up companies
-Intern with differing companies
-Social Media is powerful
-Use LinkedIn as a networking tool
-Be open to various career options
- Three Minute Leadership: Thoughts from a Mountain Top
- Brooks Mencke’s Monthly London Update – Part 1