A group of MBA students at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University have created a firm called BRC (which stands for Big Red Consulting). BRC is working with local minority-owned or women-owned businesses in an effort to help them increase their sales to the university. The effort is part of the university’s Supplier Diversity Initiative aimed at having university departments achieve a greater percentage of their procurements from minority-owned and women-owned firms.
“The MBA students have enabled the university to have a much richer dialogue with suppliers,” said Tom Romantic, senior director of Procurement Services. “This collaboration greatly strengthens the pipeline of diverse suppliers, which the university has identified as a strategic objective.”
The effort also has been beneficial to the MBA students who gain practical, real-world consulting experience with actual companies. And their work with BRC gives them a resume booster that will be attractive to employers when they complete their MBA.
