Rebecca Grossman-Cohen and Sudhir Muralidhar have been chosen as the Kellogg School of Management’s McCormick Scholars for 2008, Media Management Center executive director Michael P. Smith has announced.
Rebecca and Sudhir will receive full tuition for three academic quarters at Kellogg, where they are majors in the media management program. They were chosen after a rigorous application process by a panel of judges from media and academics.
Rebecca is an MBA candidate at Kellogg and is scheduled to graduate in June of 2009. Prior to her studies at Kellogg, she worked a development associate at National Public Radio. Her primary responsibilities included managing strategy, solicitation, stewardship, cultivation and benefit implementation for the NPR Councils, a group of nearly 300 major NPR donors. She was selected to participate in company strategy sessions, including the Newsroom of the Future team and the Major Giving Task Force, a group of more than twenty representatives from across NPR and its affiliates. This group’s mission was to bring a local-national collaborative funding model to the public radio market. The Newsroom of the Future was created to identify new methods and best practices for increased efficiency, along with a physical re-design of the office space and operational changes. This will enable NPR to better cover breaking events and share information across the company, including News, Digital Media, and Corporate.
Rebecca has held numerous leadership positions at Kellogg, including KSA (Kellogg Student Association) Board Member and Section President (during both her first and second years); a selected contributor to Student Diaries; and a consultant to the Neighborhood Business Initiative. She was selected as a fellow of the Kellogg Board Fellows, and serves as the Co-Chair of the Program.
She earned an undergraduate degree in sociology and political science from Tufts University.
Sudhir is also a candidate in the MBA program at Kellogg, and is also scheduled to graduate in June of 2009. He has worked as an associate in the Strategic Planning Group of Boston Globe Media. While at the Globe, he was charged with identifying new, online revenue-generating initiatives for the company while helping the strategic planning team craft a strategic plan that would be new media focused. This was a radical departure from the company’s previous plans. His recommendations, many of which have since been implemented, ranged from niche online magazines to targeted email newsletters.
In addition to his strategy experience, he also has experience as a journalist, having worked at Slate and as a contributor to the American Prospect.
He has been elected President of the Kellogg Media and Entertainment Club for the 2008-2009 academic year. In addition, he was a leader of the New York media trek, a first year director of Academics for the High Tech Club, and a first year director of strategic initiatives for the Business Leadership Club.
He majored in economics and political science at Columbia University.
Consistent with the guidelines of the scholarship, both winners plan careers in media management.
Says Rebecca: “I will bring my experience with NPR and the knowledge I acquire at Kellogg to support an organization wrestling with the challenges of the new media frontier. I will be able to apply my understanding of industry best practices, organizational alignment, and the applicable frameworks I acquire in my studies at Kellogg. I will use the critical thinking skills I have honed in my work experience and studies and bring creative ideas to help drive new strategies and missions. I will also have an acute understanding of the media industry and its history so that I can provide helpful contextual information to whatever challenges the company faces.”
Sudhir’s long-term career aspiration is to be a c-level executive at a media company, preferably working with strategic issues around new technologies. “I view my experiences at Kellogg as being very important to helping me reach that goal. For example, my media management courses have stressed the importance of consumer-focused strategies and marketing plans by demonstrating that many media companies have struggled to adapt because they were not keeping up with their customers. These case studies offer clear ramifications for how content companies should behave in today’s rapidly changing environment, and I hope to use these lessons when I am working at either a major media company or at a digital startup.”
This summer, Rebecca will work for the Associated Press as a Strategic Planning Intern, where she expects to assist in research and strategic planning for the implementation of the “AP 2.0” business plan. This project is the centerpiece of the company’s future strategy and involves the introduction of both new technology and a new, advertising-supported, business model for AP. This project will comprise the bulk of the Strategic Planning department’s time and resources in 2008.
Sudhir will work as a summer associate in the business development division of Fox Entertainment Group. He will most likely be analyzing the effects of certain disruptive technologies on Fox’s business, and assist with any deals or transactions that occur over the summer. Upon the internship’s end, he will be researching how young media consumers engage with and receive the news.
They become the fifth and sixth McCormick media management scholars at Kellogg. They will join 2007 scholars Jillian Crawford and Suneel Gupta, and 2006 scholars Maggie Hulce and Kailei Richardson as part of a media management scholars braintrust. The Scholars Program was created by the McCormick Foundation in 2005 to cultivate a new generation of leaders in media management. The Foundation will grant 20 merit scholarships to Kellogg Media Management students and 60 merit scholarships to students in the Medill School over the course of 10 years.
More information about the McCormick Scholars Program can be found on the Kellogg web site
here .
