Lauren McGlory: Blazing trails at Emory’s Goizueta Business School

This blog post comes to The Consortium courtesy of Cherice Daniels, student liaison at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

Lauren McGlory

Lauren McGlory

Weeks away from earning her MBA at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, Consortium fellow Lauren McGlory is also earning high honors from her student colleagues for her service as the president of the school’s Graduate Business Association—the MBA program’s student government body.

As the first black female to hold the top GBA post, she’s led efforts to revitalize the organization, while learning skills to balance her work in two challenging roles: student and board president.

“It’s very rewarding. but there is a lot of pressure,” Lauren said. “As a double minority, I have to deliver triple the amount of work as someone else.”

Among her greatest accomplishments, she cites rebuilding GBA to be a structurally sound organization. She led the team in formalizing processes such as goal and objective setting, and has made the process easy for next year’s GBA board to hit the ground running.

“Reflecting on my time as section rep and being able to see inside of GBA, I knew what needed to change in order to improve how the board functioned,” she said. “I prayed to God and also thought about the encouragement I had received from my peers to run for the role.”

She’s also helped get more Consortium students involved in the organization by encouraging members of the Class of 2017 to get more involved with GBA and encouraging first-year students to run for positions.

More Consortium leadership on the GBA

Next year, for the first time in Goizueta’s history, Consortium members will hold six out of 11 GBA positions, including Jamie Perkins, a black and Hispanic woman who will serve as president. The five other Consortium students who will serve as board members are:

  • Jane Cole, executive vice president
  • Donnell McGhee, vice president of career services
  • Julius Bryant, vice president of marking and communications
  • Kiara Hinton, vice president of multicultural affairs
  • Lee Rensch, vice president of academic affairs

Although rewarding, Lauren admits that the role came with many challenges. However, the challenges allowed her to grow and become a stronger leader.

In the executive board meetings, Lauren had to learn to be warm and friendly while being direct, as that was the only way to gain the respect of her colleagues. While working to balance her life, she had to continually remind herself that you can’t do it all—not even all of the important things—and that you have to be OK with that. These two lessons alone will bring her success well into the future.

The GBA is one of the leadership opportunities available to MBA students at Goizueta, which prides itself on the emphasis of seven core values: courage, integrity, accountability, rigor, diversity, team and community. These values are neatly woven into the program and combine to form the foundation blocks for principled leadership. Goizueta strives to provide opportunities for students to sharpen their skills and become the leaders of tomorrow.

Lauren’s leadership is recognized both at Goizueta and abroad. Last year she traveled to China and represented Goizueta at the Global Business Forum—a network of student leaders. Lauren’s leadership at this session impacted this group in such a way that she has been asked to lead a session at this year’s conference in Switzerland.

Additionally, for her work with GBA and for the legacy she will leave at Goizueta, the school has nominated her for Who’s Who in America and for Poets & Quants Top 100 MBA Graduates.

When asked about words of wisdom for anyone pursuing leadership, Lauren references a quote from Honorable John Lewis: “Get in the way of anything that you know needs to change. If you don’t, it will keep happening.”