Notre Dame MBA joins Forté Foundation to support women in business

The
University of Notre Dame MBA, a leading graduate business program located in
the Mendoza College of Business, has joined Forté Foundation, a consortium of
leading multinational corporations, the Graduate Management Admission Councilâ (GMACâ) and top
global business schools. 

The
Forté Foundation is the leading organization that provides a national
infrastructure for college and business school women to access the “real world”
information, scholarship opportunities and essential networking connections
they need to succeed in business careers. 

“Just
as the Forté Foundation strives to significantly increase the number of women
business leaders, Notre Dame seeks to be a gateway for the thousands of bright
and talented young women the University graduates each year,” said Carolyn Y.
Woo, Martin J. Gillen Dean of the Mendoza College of Business. “I believe our
alliance will prove quite powerful in advancing the careers of women in
business.”

In
seeking membership in the Foundation, Woo pointed to Notre Dame’s strong
commitment to diversity in its student body, faculty and staff, as well as the
University and the Mendoza College’s longstanding missions of supporting human
development and community. Mendoza has awarded nearly $1.4 million in
fellowships to women in the classes of 2011 and 2012.

As
part of the new partnership with the Forté Foundation, the College will now be
offering a minimum of $60,000 in fellowship dollars each year to fund no fewer
than four Forté Fellows. These prestigious fellowships will be awarded to the
top female admitted MBA students and include an array of benefits, including
exclusive access to Foundation events.

The
membership will have additional benefits for Notre Dame business undergraduate
and alumnae as well, such as networking events, professional development tools
and access to premium content on the Forté website.

“Forté
Foundation welcomes Notre Dame, with its proven leadership in educating women
in business, as a vital partner in our mission to increase the number of women
in business leadership positions,” said Elissa Sangster, Executive Director of
Forté Foundation.

Forté’s
membership of 39 schools includes: Chicago Booth, Harvard Business School,
INSEAD, The Johnson School of Management at Cornell, The Kellogg School of
Management at Northwestern, London Business School, Ross School of Business at
Michigan, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, USC Marshall School of Business,
Wake Forest (Babcock), The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and
Yale School of Management.

“The
University of Notre Dame and the Mendoza College of Business are honored with
our membership to the Forte Foundation,” said Brian Lohr, Notre Dame MBA
Director of Admissions.  “This membership is extremely important in
our continued commitment to support and promote women in business.  This
promise is central to our University’s mission and the mission of the Catholic
Church.”

The
Forté Foundation was founded in 2001 to address a significant
under-representation of women in leading business schools compared with medical
or law schools as revealed by a landmark research study, “Women and the MBA:
Gateway to Opportunity.”

Forté
Foundation enables its corporations and business school members to effectively
reach, recruit and retain top female talent. 
Forté’s agenda to reach college-aged women, MBA candidates, and MBA
alumnae will build on its founding commitment to increase the number of women
in the early business pipeline, and will create partnerships with academic and
advocacy groups, as well as its own corporate sponsors, to retain women in the
workplace.

Since
its founding, the foundation has built an online community of over 60,000
women, reached thousands of MBA prospects through its Forté Forums educating
women on “The MBA Value Proposition,” supported over 750 MBA candidates with
nearly $30 million in scholarships through the Forté Fellows program, driven
the corporate recruiting dialogue through Corporate Best Practices Summit and
Network of Women’s Networks events, and provided hundreds of MBA women at Forté
sponsor schools with professional development workshops through its annual MBA
Women’s Conference and Company Expo.  To
learn more about Forté Foundation visit www.fortefoundation.org

The
Notre Dame MBA at the Mendoza College of Business enrolls approximately 340
students annually in its one-year and two-year programs. The program is
designed to sharpen students’ analytical and problem-solving skills, enhance
their leadership ability and increase emphasis on ethical decision making.
Students have the opportunity to study the complexities of global business
through international immersions in Asia, Latin America and other locations.

During the week-long Interterm Intensives, the MBA students analyze,
investigate and offer solutions for real-life problems presented by executives
from large global organizations. The Notre Dame MBA is ranked 24th among U.S.
business schools by Bloomberg Businessweek, and No. 5 in the Aspen Institute’s
2009-10 Beyond Grey Pinstripes, a biennial survey and alternate ranking that
indicates the school’s success in integrating social, environmental and ethical
issues into its program.

For
more information about the Notre Dame MBA, contact Brian Lohr,
Director of Admissions, at (574) 631-8488 or Lohr.1@nd.edu,
or visit business.nd.edu/mba.

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