In this episode of High Velocity Careers, Stone Payton talks with Dr. Robin Cheramie, Dean of Kennesaw State University’s Coles College of Business, and Dr. Alison Keefe, Associate Dean of Graduate Programs. The discussion centers on their career paths, the growth of KSU’s business programs, and the pivotal role of faculty in student success. Dr. Cheramie and Dr. Keefe share personal stories of students overcoming challenges and highlight innovative programs, such as the fintech master’s degree. They emphasize the importance of lifelong learning, community engagement, and mentorship in fostering a supportive and dynamic educational environment.
Dr. Robin Cheramie is the dean for the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University. She is the Tony and Jack Dinos Eminent Scholar Chair of Entrepreneurial management and Professor of Management. During her 18-year tenure at Kennesaw State University, she provided leadership within the university and her profession as an administrator and faculty member.
She holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration from Louisiana State University in the area of organizational behavior and human resource management. Prior to her current position, she served as the Director/department chair for the Michael A. Leven School of Management, Entrepreneurship and Hospitality at the Coles College of Business at Kennesaw State University where she led the development of the first BBA in Entrepreneurship in the University System of Georgia.
As a faculty member, Dr. Cheramie has taught numerous management courses at the undergraduate and graduate levels at Louisiana State University, Loyola University in New Orleans, Winthrop University and Kennesaw State University.
She earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Management from Southeastern Louisiana University and a Master of Business Administration degree from the University of New Orleans. Prior to her academic career, Dr. Cheramie worked in New Orleans and Dallas in commercial real estate and human resources.
Dr. Cheramie has presented her research at national and international conferences on topics such as feedback seeking, career success and training/development research. She has authored/co-authored numerous papers in many top journals within her field of management.
During her tenure as Dean of the Coles College of Business, she has successfully steered the college through accreditation with AACSB, created new academic programs in Hospitality Management, Cybersecurity and FinTech, and raised over $15 million in the last three years. Recently, she completed the USG Executive Leadership Institute and is a graduate of the Leadership Cobb program.
Dr. Alison Keefe is the the Associate Dean for Graduate Programs in the Coles College of Business Executive MBA program at Kennesaw State University. She holds a Ph.D. in applied economics from Auburn University (War Eagle!) with specializations in international and resource economics.
Alison holds the distinction of being a Coles College of Business Distinguished Scholarship Award recipient with research specialties in the fields of include international economics and commodities trade as well as economic development, and resource economics.
She has over 15 years of academic work experience and over 11 years of international commodities trade consulting experience.
Connect with Alison on LinkedIn.
This transcript is machine transcribed by Sonix
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: Broadcasting live from the Business RadioX Studios in Atlanta, Georgia, it’s time for High Velocity Careers. Brought to you by Kennesaw State University’s Executive MBA Program, the accelerated degree program for working professionals looking to advance their career and enhance their leadership skills. For more information, go to kennesaw.edu/emba. Now, here’s your host.
Stone Payton: Welcome to another exciting and informative edition of High Velocity Careers. Stone Payton here with you this afternoon. You guys are in for a real treat. Please join me in welcoming to the broadcast Dean with Coles College of Business and Professor of Management at Kennesaw State University, Dr. Robin Cheramie. How are you?
Dr. Robin Cheramie: I’m doing great. Thank you so much for having me here today.
Stone Payton: Well, it is a delight to have you on the broadcast, and a special treat to have you here in studio. Robin, I got a ton of questions, I know we’re not going to get to them all. But I think a great place to start is, if you could paint a picture for me and our listeners of your career path, your role, and mission and purpose of this work here in our community.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: Absolutely. I’d love to. I don’t know if I had a traditional path or not, but as most academics, you start loving school. So, I started loving school a long time ago. I’m originally from South Louisiana, and I went to my undergraduate program in Louisiana, Southeastern Louisiana. I went straight to University of New Orleans for an MBA. I tell this to Tom Devaney, our director of the EMBA program, I did actually start in accounting and realized quickly I did not like that, and I switched to management fairly quickly, not really knowing what to do in that area, but went straight to earn my MBA at the University of New Orleans.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: In the meantime, I had worked in commercial real estate in the New Orleans area and was doing market research. I loved interacting with different people, loved the idea of kind of managing groups. It was a lot of fun. But when I finished my MBA, I wanted to kind of move. So, I picked up, moved to Dallas, Texas and worked in commercial real estate at that same time. I also discovered something that I liked and didn’t like. So, it was a ton of cold calling that I had to do in sales. Hated cold calling with a passion, but thank God I did that because I can see how much I’ve used it in my career since then. But really loved the relationships and working with people. It did not work out too well with that organization. I will tell you and you’ll learn, I learned from a lot of unethical bosses or bosses I did not like to work with where I ultimately ended up.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: Then, I became a corporate recruiter for a financial services company. Again, really loved that, didn’t necessarily like who I was working for. And I’d had a series of these events where I was working with all these bad bosses, is what I would say, and I had to figure out there’s got to be a way to do this differently.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: And the class I love the most in school was organizational behavior and human resources. So, I had talked with friends and decided to go back and pursue my PhD. So, I moved back to Louisiana, went to LSU, earned my PhD in organizational behavior and human resources. And in a kind of indirect sort of way, I went to Winthrop University for one year as a tenure track faculty member.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: And then, ended up in Atlanta at Kennesaw State University for very personal reasons. Then boyfriend, now husband of 20 years is what got me here. And I wish I could say I had a better reason for coming to KSU, but that’s how I got here. But I will tell you one thing, that’s been 20 years and I’ve loved it ever since. And so, I had a traditional professor route until I became an administrator in 2014 as a department chair. And then, I was tapped on the shoulder to be the interim dean of the college in 2019, and became the permanent dean in February of 2020, six weeks before the pandemic, and have had quite a ride since then, and trying to deal with higher education in a pandemic and all the other challenges that we have.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: But I will say this, I grew up at KSU in the Coles College. It’s been a fantastic place. And having the background of organizational behavior and human resources, this has been the most fun and the most challenging role of having to practice what you preach, and really try to bring together the understanding of how much people are important to the culture and the outcomes of any organization, especially in higher ed. So, it’s been quite a ride and a lot of fun.
Stone Payton: It sure sounds like it. It sounds like great work if you can get it. So, now that you have been at it a while clearly, what are you finding the most rewarding? What’s the most fun about it these days for you?
Dr. Robin Cheramie: Always, always the most rewarding is seeing students succeed and knowing that a big portion of our student population, especially at the undergraduate level, are first generation college students. I, personally, am a first generation college student, and I can see the transformational impact of having an undergraduate degree and a graduate degrees as well. So, seeing students get excited about ideas, seeing them try new internships, seeing – I used to call it – the light bulb moments – when you’re a teacher, you could actually see in their face when they got a concept and it made sense to them, and it’s that immediate kind of positive reinforcement and satisfaction. So, clearly, to me, the success of our students has been the most fun, and I think it’s what keeps us all going.
Stone Payton: Well, I’m going to come back to you in just a moment, because I’d love to hear one or two, you know, kind of brief versions. You don’t have to use names of maybe some of those students, the stories that stand out for you, because I think we’d all be interested in that. But before we do that, tell everybody who you brought with you.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: So, I brought along my partner in crime, my Associate Dean of Graduate Programs, Dr. Allison Keefe, who has been at KSU longer than I have, 21 years. So, she’s been there slightly longer than I have. And I’ll let her talk a little bit about herself. But she really is helping us with our strategic priority of growing relevant and timely and innovative graduate programs, and I’m glad to have her on our team.
Stone Payton: So, Allison, we got to know the back story. How did you get here?
Dr. Allison Keefe: Mine is somewhat similar to Dean Cheramie’s in that I didn’t plan on this. I had no aspirations of actually being a professor. I was headed out to the world of bioeconomic modeling.
Stone Payton: Oh, my.
Dr. Allison Keefe: Yes. And I was going to work with the National Marine Fisheries Service in different capacities in terms of being able to look at demand for different seafood products throughout the world. That didn’t work out, and I happened to get a call from Kennesaw to say we’d love to have you come in and interview for this position, and I said no. But I had some very convincing people that I had worked with in my PhD program. And not only that, I had some very convincing people at Kennesaw and said please just come in and just see what we’ve got to offer. And I said, all right, I’ll try this thing out, and did that. And they called and said we would love to offer you the position. And at the time, I said, all right, I think I’ll take you up on that.
Dr. Allison Keefe: And it was the best decision, I think, I’ve ever made in my entire life. It was one that, initially, I wasn’t going to do at all. But in being able to work with the people I have over the past 21 years, to have a culture that rarely to me exists in the real world – I know that there are companies out there that really try to get a collaborative and innovative culture going – and what Dean Cheramie has done and inherited and progressively gets better at throughout the years is the fact that we have a group that we work with very, very well, and that are excited about teaching students, and excited about coming up with unique and different ideas. And so, that’s what gets me excited every day, is to be able to take their ideas, take my own ideas, morph them together and just see where we can go with them.
Stone Payton: I got to say, what you’re describing both me, personally, but also our listeners now, we know what you’re saying to be true. We’ve had some faculty members in here, in studio over the last couple of episodes, and you can see it in their eyes, you can hear it in their voice, everything you’re describing, that really is the way it is in Kennesaw State, isn’t it?
Dr. Allison Keefe: Well, we’re given the freedom to do that. No one is telling us no. You know, across the board we may get a few no’s, but nobody’s telling us we can’t do that. They’re saying, well, these are the obstacles that you may face when you’re trying to start up a new program or create this environment for the students. But if you want to do it, go for it, and you can figure out how to do that. And so, it is, it’s empowering to be able to not know. There’s no nos. And so, I’ve kind of inherited that, in that anybody who comes to me with an idea, especially one that I really believe in, it’s an automatic yes. Now, I don’t know how to get it done right away, but it’ll be a yes.
Stone Payton: This reminds me of my business partner’s penchant – and I think it came from the improv world – yes, and. It’s some version of yes.
Dr. Allison Keefe: That’s the thing, yeah.
Stone Payton: So, any of these student stories come to mind? You don’t have to mention names if you don’t want to.
Dr. Allison Keefe: Well, I’ve actually got quite a few of them, but it more so deals with when I was the executive director of the MBA program before Tom Devaney. And so, mine had to deal with women. I dealt a lot with the imposter syndrome, where about the first semester I had at least one or two students who were women come to me and said I can’t do this. I’ve got children that miss me at home. I’ve got a husband who may not be supportive. I don’t think I’ve got the intellectual capability to do this. I’ve heard a number of different stories.
Dr. Allison Keefe: And so, they had the foresight to come and ask for help, even though they actually didn’t ask for help. They were asking to possibly leave the program. And so, I brought them into the office, we’d sit down, we’d talk about things. I’d give them some advice. Mine was, Christmas is almost coming up. Put the books down. Schedule time with your family. Schedule time just to relax. Come back the new year, talk to me again and see if you’ve got a different attitude. And then, we’ll also talk about scheduling time for studying, scheduling time for family, doing things a little bit differently than you have been doing.
Dr. Allison Keefe: And every single one of those women came to me at the end, when they graduated and were successful, and said I wanted to jump off the cliff, figuratively. Figuratively, but you stopped me. And that is where I get my joy and those are my success stories.
Dr. Allison Keefe: So, for all those women, hopefully, you’re listening, that came to me at that time, I’m proud of you. I am so happy that you did this program and look at where you are now.
Stone Payton: So, I am on record more than a couple of times just sharing flat out, I actually prefer to work with women. I find them more comfortable in their own skin. I find them more collaborative. I find them more coachable. I find them better with money. And I don’t know, you have to tell me, Robin, I don’t want to cross any legal lines, but given a choice, I would rather work with a female any day. A student’s story or two that stands out for you, Robin.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: Sure. There’s a recent one that comes to mind, it’s an undergraduate student. And I’m not just picking, I’ll give a male story as well. But she was a great example of a first generation student who had some tough times at home. A parent had died early, and she was finishing high school early and had started on one undergraduate path, ended up in accounting, and just caught people’s attention. And so, could have gone to any school in the state, because I believe she was valedictorian of her high school, and stumbled upon KSU and got so much attention from many different faculty because they recognized her talent.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: She was part of our undergraduate. We have a Leadership Scholars program, which is kind of our honors program for business students, became a part of that. Was just phenomenal. In her spare time of studying, she was doing all these volunteer work, went straight into a masters of accounting program. She won many of our outstanding student awards and is now gainfully employed and doing really well in the profession and has truly transformed her life.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: And so, again, going back to the stories that are so meaningful, she just needed that little extra attention. And even though we are a very large institution – I can give you numbers in a minute – I think one thing that we’re quite proud of is that our faculty really do care about our students and they want to see them succeed. So, that’s some of our undergraduate stories, but also turned into a master’s of accounting student story as well.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: But we see it with our graduate students. A lot of our graduate programs are career changers. What you may not know is we have the first master’s degree in fintech in the State of Georgia, and we believe the first one to focus on digital payments exclusively in the United States. And in that program, which launched two-and-a-half years ago or two years ago – excuse me – we have about 100 students in the program right now, a significant number of them are career changers and are seeing fintech and this idea of digital payments.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: Another fun fact you may not know is Atlanta is called Transaction Alley, where over 75, 80 percent of all financial transactions go through the City of Atlanta. So, we have a ton of fintech companies here, and so we’re quite proud of the fact that we developed a very innovative program. But what I’m proud of, too, is we’ve got all these adult learners who are coming back and making transitions and changing their careers, and they’re doing it through education. And so, I’m quite proud of those type of stories, too.
Stone Payton: Well, no, I did not realize that you had that concentrated and focused effort in the fintech arena. We were just broadcasting live at Fintech South 2024 last week.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: And we were a sponsor.
Stone Payton: It was a marvelous experience. We had 20 scheduled interviews. One guy couldn’t make it, so we conducted 19 interviews. I think they started publishing today. But one of the reasons that I knew I was going to mention it today, I’ll bet you there were a-half-a-dozen or more people connected to Kennesaw State University in one way or another that came through where we were broadcasting.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: Yeah. Very excited about that initiative and the work of our faculty. But I think that’s a testament to the culture that Allison was talking about earlier of innovation and kind of entrepreneurial type of mindset that we’ve always had in our college. I was dean, I think, a couple of years and had some faculty, we are affiliated with what’s called the Georgia Fintech Academy, and that’s from the University System of Georgia, so we created our own courses at the undergraduate level. And then, the faculty came to me and said, what about a master’s degree? I’m like, okay, let’s do it. And so, we did. And we actually got it in and approved in our system in a year, which is very hard to do.
Stone Payton: Man, that sounds fast for the academic environment.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: It was really fast, really fast. So, we launched two years ago, and again, it’s an online program. You can do it in a year if you really want to. It’s 30 credit hours. And I’m really quite proud of the relationships that we’re forming with the community, because that’s the other part, too, right? We’re so lucky to be where we are geographically in the City of Atlanta, and to be able to work with these types of companies hands on. So, we’ve created for the past two years what’s called the Fintech Summit on campus. And we’ve brought in industry leaders, and we’re trying to get our undergraduate and our graduate students to interact with them and have panel discussions. But more importantly, I want my faculty to interact with these business leaders to make sure that we are talking and we’re teaching the most current curriculum related to digital payments.
Stone Payton: Well, let’s talk about curriculum a little bit. The program or programs – and I’m getting the distinct sense that you probably have some numbers to share along with them. You seem to be on top of your game there – many of us that don’t know these particulars. Kennesaw State University has a marvelous reputation in this community, that, I know. But, yeah, speak to, and I guess maybe also, what you feel like are some key distinctions between this and maybe other programs that are probably perfectly fine, but that in your mind, make them maybe a better choice for a lot of folks.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: So, first of all, numbers. Unofficially, we are over 47,000 students this semester. And when I started 20 years ago, we were roughly about 17,000 students. So, just think about the magnitude of our growth. We’re one of the top 50 large institutions in the country. In the Business School, we hit for the first time over 10,000 students, and so that puts us in a pretty elite group of maybe about 20 or 30 business schools across the country that fit that number. And so, again, I’m proud to be large, but I also want to be the best, and I think we are in many, many ways in terms of our entrepreneurial attitude and our innovation that we have.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: What makes us a little bit more distinct is our undergraduate proportion versus graduate students. We’re about 10 percent of that total population is the total number of graduate students or graduate programs that we may have across campus. It’s similar in the College of Business, but I’d love to see that grow, and I think that’s an opportunity for us moving forward in the future. And Allison knows this, she’s got a charge to grow our graduate programs and to make sure that we continue. But I think the future of higher education is that idea of lifelong learning and continuing to update your skills. And we want to be that trusted partner in the community where people know when they come back and they pursue a graduate degree, that they’re really learning what’s needed to help them be successful, and to gain promotions, gain career success, whatever they’re looking for in their life.
Stone Payton: Allison, I feel like she’s answered that question before.
Dr. Allison Keefe: I don’t know what you’re talking about.
Stone Payton: That was incredibly eloquent, articulate, equally concise, and informative. That was marvelous. So, tell us, what is a day in the life of Allison like? Because you certainly have an important charge.
Dr. Allison Keefe: It’s never the same. So, I don’t know what I wake up to when I get my emails in the morning. But a typical day is walking through my building, because I’m in a separate building than the rest of the Business School, but we have our own graduate suite area in our building. And so, just walking through, saying hello, seeing if anybody needs anything. I usually get stopped by the first door in five, ten minutes. You know, this is what I need, this is what I’m thinking. I have those many conversations every day just to make sure that everything’s going smoothly. And nine times out of ten, it’s just a pleasant conversation, and then it may be something, I need you to do this. And so, I may make it back to my office about 45 minutes after I go through the building.
Dr. Allison Keefe: But then, I’m able to sit down and say, okay, now here’s my list of things that I need to get accomplished after I’ve walked through that building, and get those done, and then start on my real projects. So, as an example, looking at new programs and what does that entail. Working with all of our directors of our graduate programs so that they have their finger on the pulse of what companies need. That’s my most important job, is to make sure that the curriculum that’s being taught in all of our graduate programs is exactly what is going to make our students workforce ready or be able to stand out in the workplace.
Dr. Allison Keefe: And what does that mean? What do companies need? A lot of that is the leadership skills, the communication, the conflict management, those types of skills. And that’s one of the things in the Executive MBA that we stress, it’s about 25 percent of the curriculum in terms of I like to look at that curriculum as being a holistic curriculum, and it touches all of the leadership skills and business acumen skills that our students need. But it’s always focused in on the leadership skills and what’s going to propel our students to that next level.
Stone Payton: So, that word, holistic, I’ve seen it in the promotional copy. I have seen members of your faculty chest out, just proud and beaming that that is a major intent. But it’s also the methodology, the way that things are taught. It’s very integrated. Is that the right word? You don’t go to this class and then, okay, put those books in the locker. Speak to that song.
Dr. Allison Keefe: So, that’s for the Executive MBA program. Now, not all of our programs run that way. We do have certain classes that are the siloed approach. But for the EMBA, because we are taking that integrated approach to our curriculum, it can’t be siloed. It has to be either team taught across a management professor and a marketing professor, or an accounting professor in finance to see how they all work, because you’ve got vertical integration in your companies that you can aspire to. We want horizontal integration as well. So, when you become a leader of a certain functional area or in your company itself, we want you to be able to understand all functional areas. So, that’s where the integrated curriculum comes in and is extremely important.
Stone Payton: I got to believe to pull that off, you have to have the right talent in place teaching these classes. And at least one thing they’d have to be is collaborative, but there’s probably a lot of other markers and characteristics that you’re looking for. Your selection process, what is that like? It must be unique.
Dr. Allison Keefe: They go through the rigor.
Stone Payton: I thought she was going to say hell.
Dr. Allison Keefe: I almost did. I changed my mind right before I said it. No, I’m just kidding. No. We are looking for that almost needle in a haystack. And that comes from Dean Jeremy’s direction, is, I want to look at that utility player. I want to look at that individual who has that corporate background, who has been in several roles throughout his or her tenure in their career, and then decided that wasn’t enough for them. I want to go back for my PhD or a DBA, and I want to be able to to teach because that’s what I’d like to do for my second career. Or on a side note, I’d like to be able to teach while continuing to work in corporate.
Dr. Allison Keefe: So, those are who we like to hire in for our EMBA. Although, I would love to be able to hire more of those individuals that can be a utility player for many of our programs, because I think they bring that applicability and that relevancy into the programs.
Stone Payton: So, Dr. Robin, I was stalking you earlier today on the internet because I knew I was going to get a chance to visit with you in studio, and I saw a lot of neat stuff. I saw you post or repost some information around 40 Owls Under 40, and another thing about collaborating with MUST Ministries on ACE. Can you speak to those?
Dr. Robin Cheramie: Absolutely, I’d love to. So, KSU, for the first time in their alumni association is going to have 40 Owls Under 40. So, we’re trying to promote our alumni community, which is over 120,000 plus over the past 60 years. I mean, that’s one thing to remember about Kennesaw State University, we’re still a relatively young institution when you think of other established institutions in the area, 61 years, I think, is what we are officially. So, we’re really excited at KSU to promote that.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: In the Coles College of Business, we also try to highlight some of our successful alumni, and we’ve created our own, what we call Five in Flight Alumni Award, where we recognize different alumni at the undergraduate or if they were graduate students for their kind of entrepreneurial as well as their societal impact and their success in life. So, that’s that part of it.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: But something that’s relatively new to us, you know, I emphasized entrepreneurship, being entrepreneurial not only on what we do, but we have a very successful entrepreneurship program. We have the Doug and Robin Shore Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center, which helps our students who develop new innovation and ventures as students.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: But the one that’s recent that you’re referring to is called the ACE Program, it’s Aspiring Community Entrepreneurs. And we partnered with MUST Ministries, and we took the lead from Notre Dame. Notre Dame has this institute called The Urban Poverty Business Initiative, and they’ve created partnerships with different universities around the country to help teach entrepreneurship to those that are disadvantaged in the community. So, non-KSU students, these are people outside in the community, and we are partnering with MUST Ministries because of the fantastic work they do, not only with homelessness and providing food, halls, but they also have a strong workforce development opportunity.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: So, the ACE Program is a three-phase program for disadvantaged individuals. And the first six weeks is a boot camp taught by my faculty. And they teach them the basics of what it is to run their own business or to start an idea and what do you do. Then, the second phase is they work with mentors in the community, and we partner with MUST Ministries to find successful entrepreneurs. And then, the third phase is the people who get to that stage, the ACE entrepreneurs work with our students at KSU in kind of finalizing their business plan, and then there’s a graduation at the end of it.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: So, give you an idea of the success, the first cohort started a year ago. We had almost almost 200 people apply in the community for 40 slots. By the time they graduated, there’s a natural attrition that occurs, about 50 percent of them actually completed and have gone on to receive a little bit of seed money. But this is truly transformational and it speaks to me at the college level. I think it emphasizes our values of collaboration and wanting to work in the business community, but I’m so proud of this program.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: So, we just launched the second cohort in the beginning of August. And this year, we have over 50 people that start. But we had roughly about 150 people apply again. And we love working with MUST Ministries and are really excited to see where this goes. So, this is a big priority for me and the college to make sure that we are partnering with people in the community, and we’re trying to use the expertise that we have internally at Coles and kind of share it with the society at large if we can.
Stone Payton: Wow. Congratulations on the momentum. I find that inspiring and exciting as an entrepreneur. I have an observation, or maybe more accurately, an assertion that even if a person does not end up founding a company and building something, to develop those entrepreneurial skills, to cultivate an entrepreneurial mindset, even if they go to work for IBM, that is an incredible asset in that employee that has that level of personal accountability and all the other characteristics that I often associate with the entrepreneur.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: And I’ll tell you my model for that, my inspiration for that is my wife, Holly. She had a very distinguished career – she’s hung up her cleats, so we’re poor again – at IBM and she rose through the ranks. And, yes, she was part of that big system, but she ran her day-to-day work like she was CEO of Holly Incorporated and she had this client, IBM. Do you agree with that kind of characteristic?
Dr. Robin Cheramie: Totally. So, we have our undergraduate degree and it focuses on entrepreneurship. And we don’t believe that all of our students are going to go and start a company. In fact, we not necessarily would encourage it right after college. But we give them the skills, so we focus on that idea of corporate entrepreneurship and in teaching that same type of mindset. And what we’re hearing from business leaders is that is the skills that they’re seeking in the future workforce is those that can be critical thinkers, be inquisitive, be innovative, and just kind of think differently. And I think that’s kind of that entrepreneurial mindset that you’re talking about.
Stone Payton: Yeah. So, you mentioned mentors, have you had the benefit of one or more mentors along the way on your career path?
Dr. Robin Cheramie: Absolutely. It’s always fun to sit back and reflect on who are those people that had that impact on you. Not that you want all these details, but I can actually vividly remember a high school teacher that nudged me and said you should be taking this class. And it starts with that idea of belief and someone else recognizing something that maybe you don’t recognize that I think is so important. And I’ve taken that to this day, like I’ve nudged faculty members and say, “Hey, have you ever thought about this?” And just to get them thinking differently.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: But I have a current mentor right now. He used to be on my board. I’ll keep him nameless. But a very successful former executive and he’s retired and we have lunches quarterly. And I figured out early on, he was taking notes on me and kind of quizzing me. He was kind of an informal coach, but I can go to him for anything and really talk to him and say I’m struggling with how do I approach this, what advice would you give me. And it’s really healthy for me to have someone that’s outside of KSU, I think as well, but he’s been a great person for me just to bounce ideas off of.
Stone Payton: Allison, you were nodding your head as well. So, you’ve had some positive experiences with mentors over the years, yeah?
Dr. Allison Keefe: Well, I think if you look at it from the perspective of we didn’t get to where we are by ourselves, it’s almost a necessity in life to have those people that you can bounce ideas off of, that you can ask for advice. And so, that started very early on in my career. What I’ve noticed is that I was able to take that idea of having that mentor apply it to the Executive MBA program, apply it to others in the office, encouraging them to have mentors and, again, outside of the organization because, to me, that gets you the best unbiased results, but also to have that mentor in the organization as well just to be able to talk to.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: So, I’m involved in many, many different mentoring organizations, not only in the Executive MBA. We’ve got an Associate Dean and Assistant Dean Mentoring Group at KSU that I’m a part of, and I get mentored as well as to be able to mentor to others. We’ve also got a Women’s Mentoring Group that we run through the Atlanta Business Chronicle, and that Kennesaw Coles sponsors as well. So, I’m a firm believer of it and it’s just something that I advocate for as many people as I can talk to.
Stone Payton: I’m so glad I asked. All right. Before we wrap, I would love to leave our listeners with, if we could, some lessons learned, or a couple – I call them – pro tips on pursuing a high velocity career. And I’m going to ask you both, but I’d love to start with you, Allison, if you’ve got a couple of ideas or just some things to keep in mind, a pro tip.
Dr. Allison Keefe: Just say yes. So, my favorite saying, and in all seriousness, is, when a door opens, walk through it. So, you know, a lot of people will come to me and talk about different careers and they’re not sure, and, yes, you talk about the pros and the cons, but I’m also if a door opens, walk through it.
Stone Payton: Fantastic. Robin?
Dr. Robin Cheramie: That’s a great one. I really love the idea of lifelong learning, and I’m not just saying that as an academic, but I’ll use AI as an example. I’ve got lots of education to my credentials to get me to this point, but no one prepared me for the idea of AI, and what does that look like, and how do we need to learn and constantly adapt. So, I think that’s an excellent example for all of us to think about, that you never should stop learning. And that doesn’t mean necessarily go back for a degree, although I would be a big advocate of that, but read books, read current literature, keep up with current trends, go to conferences, professional conferences and learn from that. Be affiliated with networking groups or associations where you can kind of talk to each other and learn from each other.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: Those that sit still are going to be passed up, and you see that in every industry and every organization. And if you’re not paying attention to AI, I would tell you that’s another one where if you sit still, you’re going to be passed up. So, lifelong learning is something that I firmly believe in, and I think it’s advice that everyone could take and run with to be successful.
Stone Payton: Okay. Where can our listeners tap in, learn more about these programs, get some ideas, and some insight, and some input on pursuing continuing to advance their career? Whatever coordinates you think are appropriate and the best way for them to tap in.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: So, I would say go to the Coles College of Business website at Kennesaw State University. And we’ve got undergraduate programs and we have graduate programs that we could tap into. And there’s a ton of information there. That’s where you’d get started.
Stone Payton: Well, it has been an absolute delight having you two on the program. Thank you for your insight, your perspective, your enthusiasm, and your commitment to the work. This has been a marvelous way to invest a Thursday afternoon. You guys, you’re doing such important work and we sure appreciate you.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: Oh, thank you.
Dr. Allison Keefe: Thank you. Thank you.
Dr. Robin Cheramie: It’s been my pleasure.
Stone Payton: Mine, too. All right. Until next time. This is Stone Payton, for our guests today and everyone here at the Business RadioX family, saying we’ll see you again on High Velocity Careers.
