Upcoming Events

The Houston Fellows Program will be recruiting current Sophomores and Juniors this Fall for the leadership development program. Please email Houston@ml4t.org to join the list for more information.

Past Events

July 13 - 25, 2008 Houston Civic and Business Leaders Help Facilitate 2 week Leadership Summit: Over fifty students from 34 different high schools in the Greater Houston Area convened for the 2008 MLT Houston Leadership Summit. The residential program housed students at the University of Houston for one week and at Rice University the second. The Fellows first worked on the core ingredients of leadership - knowing yourself, personal mission, functions of leadership, and building strong teams. The University of Houston Bauer College of Business helped set the tone of the leadership summit by facilitating a discussion and exercise on StrengthsQuest. The Fellows were privied to their personal strengths as well as the strengths of their peers.

The second portion of the leadership summit focused on experiencing Houston through both a civic and career lens. Fellows went on Government, Poverty, Quality of Place, Healthcare, Energy and Technology, and Real Estate learning journeys. The students created and delivered presentations on their findings. The summit ended with a career dinner where over 30 mid to senior level leaders from financial services, legal, sports, and healthcare industries led roundtable dinner discussions about their professions and daily lives.

The leadership summit's success was a result of the business, non-profit, government, and education communities combining to invest in the Fellows - Houston's future leadership.

July 12, 2008 The Houston Astros host MLT Houston Fellows Class of 2008 College Send-off Celebration: Larry Stokes, Senior Director of Human Resources for the Houston Rockets, hosted the Fellows for a day of collegiate preparation and program reflection. The MLT Houston alumni and program staff facilitated a 30-60-90 day goal setting discussion for the Fellows' first few months of college. The alumni were on hand to help demystify the keys to collegiate success.

After lunch, each Fellow was awarded a certificate of completion and an embroidered MLT Messenger bag provided by McKinsey & Company stuffed with gifts from AIG American General. The Fellows ended the day by sharing personal expressions and touring Minute Maid Park.

June 27, 2008 MLT Houston Partners with McKinsey & Company and Yes Prep for Personal Board of Advisors and Elevator Pitch Preparation: Every year, the entire McKinsey & Company Firm shuts down operations and focuses on their values. It is a time of reflection, bonding and rededication to the fundamentals that make their organization so strong. This year's theme focused on mentoring and the staff decided to put that into action by dedicating half of their day to MLT Houston. Yes Prep Students and MLT Houston Fellows prepared elevator pitches and began writing out short and long-term goals as pre-work.

Jackie Martin, former CEO of the United Way-Houston presented on mentoring and Andrea Hodge, Executive Director of MLT Houston presented on creating a personal "board of advisors". The McKinsey team re-inforced the personal board of advisors concept by working individually with students to refine their personal pitch. The Fellows uniformly declared this workshop to be the best one they had attended.

April 5, 2008 McKinsey & Company and University of Houston partners with MLT Houston to host Goal Setting and Giving & Receiving Feedback Workshop: The University of Houston's 2nd Ranked Entrepreneurship program facilitated a discussion on leadership and career goal-setting. The students explored the key ingredients to their ideal work environments and were briefed on the mechanics of what makes the McKinsey & Company work environment ideal for its staff.

MLT Houston Board Member and McKinsey & Company Partner, Tommy Inglesby, presented on the the nuances of giving and receiving feedback. Fellows performed mock - work scenarios and were critiqued on their techniques by McKinsey consultants. The day ended with an optional tour of Discovery Green Park.

March 7, 2008 MLT Houston hosts luncheon featuring national spokesperson John Legend : Management Leadership for Tomorrow announced that Grammy-award winning recording artist, and former MLT employee John Legend signed-on to be the national spokesperson. On March 7, 2008, MLT-Houston hosted the organization's first publicity/ fundraising event with John Legend. The event was attended by 170 influential individuals who, in addition to enjoying a wonderful private performance, learned about the work MLT-Houston is undertaking to develop the next generation of Houston's business and community leaders.

Event attendees included representatives from current corporate partners and prospective corporate partners including Reliant Energy, BP, Texas Instruments, Exxon Mobil and Continental Airlines; influential non-profit organizations including the City of Houston, Rice University, the Greater Houston Partnership, Genesys Works and Teach for America; and several wealthy Houston-area philanthropists.

January 5, 2008 MLT Houston and Rice Summer Business Institute Host 2nd Annual Networking Seminar: The Rice Summer Business Institute partnered with the MLT Houston Fellows to host an informative day about personal branding, effective networking and building your personal pitch. Valerie Griffin, an MLT Career Prep Professional Coach, presented on the importance of building a personal brand. "Apple has had to reinvent itself to remain in the forefront of technology" Griffin explained; "sometimes you will, too". Career Prep Fellows Aerin K. Williams and Krystine Meyer shared their personal brands and how they developed them.

Anthony Jewett of Bardoli Global, a non-profit organization whose goal is to empower diverse student leaders to experience international immersion and exchange, charged students with truly becoming a part of the global society.

All of the students dined with Rice Executive MBAs, and had the opportunity to practice their newly created personal pitches. The seminar ended with a dessert networking social.

November 17, 2007 MLT Houston Financial Aid and Entrepreneurship Workshop: The Houston Fellows Program includes follow-on workshops throughout the year. The November Workshop Featured college admissions expert Donald Kamentz , Director of College Counseling for the YES! Prep Schools. Donald debunked myths about the FAFSA and college scholarship process and answered all of the students’ pressing questions about award specifications, debt, and how to best maximize their financial situations.

Immediately following the financial aid workshop, Team Business facilitators led the Fellows through an intense hands-on workshop that created a basic understanding of business concepts, roles, functions, and challenges. The Fellows were divided into teams and completed a production simulation that addressed the importance of efficiency in manufacturing, gauging supply and demand, marketing, price points and the use of technology.

October 29, 2007 MLT Houston Partner Reception: On October 29, 2007, several of MLT’s partners, Houston’s business, education and civic leaders, gathered in Shell’s Plaza Club to celebrate the success of the regional MLT program. MLT’s Founder and CEO John Rice unabashedly shared the MLT strategy of working with high-performing youth to create a pipeline of future business leaders. Albert Myers, the Senior Adviser to the President of Shell Oil Company, explained why Shell partnered with MLT to solve the problem. Several Fellows from the Class of 2008 shared how the MLT program was personally impacting their lives.

Shell Oil Company hosted the reception. Albert Myers welcomed the guests and shared his sentiment on the dire need for the senior executive hallways of top companies to better reflect the cities they serve. Noting a specific need for energy and engineering professionals in Houston, Myers charged the attendees to join him in supporting an organization that has gone beyond identifying the problem of the diversity pipeline to senior business leadership, but has enacted a solution.

September 22, 2007 Houston Fellows Teamwork and Networking Workshop: The Fellows commenced this Fall for a Teamwork and Mentoring workshop. City leaders and professionals led in-depth discussions on the importance of acknowledging and addressing stereotypes as well as securing and managing mentor relationships.

August 3, 2007 College Application & Financial Aid Workshop: The 2008 Fellows re-convened for their first Follow-on Session as an entire class for the year to get an edge on the college application and financial aid process.