Five accomplished students recently had the experience of their college careers: The opportunity to participate in high-level meetings of IMA’s Global Board of Directors as part of the Student Leadership Experience.

This year’s event took place in Orlando on February 14-16, with the following students – all from schools endorsed under the IMA Higher Education Endorsement Program – in attendance:

• Shailey Doherty, University of Massachusetts Lowell
• Marcel Greimel, Lucerne University of Applied Sciences and Arts
• Nhu Nguyen, University of Scranton
• Jacob Roedell, Washington State University Vancouver
• Christian Sutanto, University of North Texas

Participants in this year's Student Leadership Experience (pictured from l. to r.): Christian Sutanto; Marcel Greimel; Shailey Doherty; Nhu Nguyen; and Jacob Roedell

The experience began on Thursday with an extensive back-of-the-house tour of the host hotel, the Rosen Shingle Creek. The next day, students attended a breakfast with the IMA Global Board and sat in on select committee meetings, including the Committee on Ethics and the Volunteer Leadership Committee.

As part of the Ethics Committee meeting, the students helped select the winner of the 2019 Carl Menconi Ethics Case Writing Competition, which was the highlight of the event for Shailey. “My favorite part of the three-day experience was definitely the ethics case review,” she said. “We discussed various ethics case submissions and helped the ethics committee select the winner.”

On the final day, the participants shared breakfast with former Board chairs and IMA’s CEO and President Jeff Thomson. They also got to witness governance in action by sitting in on the Global Board of Directors meeting, followed by a special recognition luncheon.

For many students, a highlight of the event was the networking they got to experience. Nhu shared, “The best part of the event was hearing stories from the members and how IMA has impacted not only their professional lives but their personal lives as well.” Christian agreed: “The networking was amazing – having the chance to talk with so many professionals from different companies and to talk not only about accounting but other things, like hobbies, family, and IMA, too.”

Other students came away from the experience with a new appreciation for the value of volunteering. Said Jacob, “This experience showed me the importance of giving back when being a leader. This can come in the form of sharing experiences or knowledge, as well as mentoring individuals on a personal level. The program helped me realize the importance of connecting everything you do as a management accountant to the larger picture.”

Christian echoed a similar sentiment: “After attending, I realize the importance of giving back to the community. It has encouraged me to be more involved with IMA in the future and to share my experiences and knowledge with other students.”

Students also took away insights that they expect to apply to their future careers. Observed Marcel: “The biggest lesson I learned is that people are key. The example of IMA shows you that if you find a group of people with the same passion, you can achieve a lot. When you support and advance each other in such a group, a great atmosphere is created and people are motivated to get involved.”

The Student Leadership Experience is only open to students who attend IMA-endorsed schools. The application for the February 2020 experience will be available in September. For more information on the program, contact Jodi Ryan, CAE, IMA director of member engagement, at jryan@imanet.org.