Alumni Volunteer Stories

Linda Yang and Serene Chen's Story

Linda Yang (left) and Serene Chen (right)

 

After Serene graduated, she volunteered to speak at LSE about the Barclays graduate scheme. Her talk inspired Linda, a current student at the time, to join the programme. Their paths crossed within Barclays over six years before they each changed career. Over seven years later, Linda and Serene were reunited when they both volunteered for the same virtual career changers panel. 

Sherry Coutu's Story

When I arrived from my lumber town in Canada, I was amazed to be in a classroom that had representatives from 28 different countries in my programme. I’d never seen so many countries. Some of them I had never heard of because I was such a naïve country bumpkin. Mostly it was a culture shock to see how cosmopolitan it was and how they drew people together. And then over the course of the year their perspectives were so amazing and so different and added such value. It brought to me an understanding of how the world worked on a global basis. I really had no idea whatsoever. The appreciation of great people coming together from all sorts of places, working together and making a difference. That’s my fondest memory and it fundamentally impacts the way I think about life every day. So that’s brilliant.

It was at LSE that I discovered I was an entrepreneur. Actually, I was told I was an entrepreneur, because I didn’t discover it myself. I was told by one of my fellow classmates, and I really didn’t know it then because neither of my parents had gone to university. My mother was a civil servant and my father was a union leader. Entrepreneurship does not run in our blood, or my blood. But a classmate said “Oh, you’re totally an entrepreneur….” He later became an angel investor.

And I also met a role model here, Steve Shirley. She was a case study that one of the professors gave us in Industrial Relations. I hadn’t really considered running a business and I thought it was an amazing thing that you could do. You could start up a business, you could have people working from their homes. It challenged ideas that I had about how work was. That was brilliant, and that made me choose to be a programmer after my course. I definitely hadn’t been thinking that I’d be a computer programmer before the course, and it also opened up my mind and eyes to being an entrepreneur afterwards.

So I’m very fond of everything in the LSE. It prepared me for a career in entrepreneurship, in making a difference and understanding how I could make a difference, even if I arrived not having any idea whatsoever over how I might make a difference in the world.

I have stayed in contact with the LSE and by participating in a public lecture is a good example. I do come back for events quite often and I’ve made some donations. Considering the impact it had on me as a person, I should come back more often.'

Sherry Coutu, MSc Industrial Relations and Personnel Management, 1987

Love at LSE

Krystle and Anthony

Krystle Adesoye Onibokun, (MSc Management, Organisations, and Governance, 2014) dreamed of studying at LSE after visiting London with her family as a child, and with a love of LSE's international culture. Krystle met Anthony James Zitkus at their graduate student housing, The Sidney Webb House. As Anthony was studying a differnet programme, they always joked that if they never lived in the same accomodation, they might have never met. The couple now live in San Francisco Bay Area and got engaged on 1 August 2020. Krystle recently joined a nonprofit organisation, Innovate Public Schools, as their Vice President of Finance and Strategy while Anthony works at Facebook as a Business Incident Response Escalation Specialist. They are planning an intimate wedding with live-streaming for friends and family this July. 

 

Abiola and Pamela

Abiola Enitan (MSc International Employment Relations and Human Resource Management, 2010) and Pamela were drawn to LSE because of its reputation, quality of education, and by fate. The couple met at LSE Garrick at a weekly meet up of African Students studying their Master's at LSE. Abiola went to the meet up only once, but he caught Pamela's eye. Four years later they were married. The couple now live in Switzerland, Abiola works for an NGO and Pamela is doing corporate doping investigation in a private bank. They are now proud and happy parents to their five year old daughter.

If you would like to share your fondest memory of studying at the Department of Management, or a story about what you have gained or enjoyed about volunteering, please get in touch via dom.alumni@lse.ac.uk