Announcing the new McCormick Scholars

4/4/2013 - Kellogg students Varun Jain and Jessica Lane (both ’14) have been named the Kellogg School of Management’s McCormick Scholars for 2013-2014.

The scholars program is funded through a grant from the Chicago-based McCormick Foundation and honors students planning careers in media management. Jain and Lane will receive full tuition for three academic quarters at Kellogg. They were chosen after a rigorous application process by a panel of judges from media and academia.

Varun Jain ’14

Commitment and passion
“Varun and Jessica are outstanding choices for the scholars program,” said Michael Fishman, senior associate dean of curriculum and teaching at Kellogg and Norman Strunk Professor of Financial Institutions. “Their experiences before coming to Kellogg and the work they have done here have prepared them to become leaders in the media industry. Each has shown the commitment and the passion to achieve that.”

Jain and Lane are both students in Kellogg’s Media Management Program.

Jain previously worked as a senior manager, marketing and new initiatives, at Mint and LiveMint.com, India’s second largest national business daily. Mint is published in partnership with The Wall Street Journal. With the stipend that accompanies the scholarship, he intends to investigate the digital technologies that will shape the newsroom of the future. Jain is a graduate of Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology and the Mudra Institute of Communications.

Before attending Kellogg, Lane worked as an interactive marketing specialist at Turner Entertainment, where she coordinated show-specific interactive strategies for the TBS and TNT networks. She plans to use her stipend to study the impact of digital over-the-top technologies on the cable TV market. Lane is a graduate of Northwestern’s Medill School of Journalism, Media, Integrated Marketing Communications.

Jessica Lane ’14

Rising to the top
“Varun’s and Jessica’s applications rose to the top of a pool of outstanding submissions. They impressed the selection committee with their innovative proposals for research,” said Rebecca Baldwin, advisor to the scholars and a member of the selection committee.

The scholars program was created by the McCormick Foundation in 2005 to cultivate a new generation of leaders in media management. Over the course of the program, the foundation will grant 20 merit scholarships to Kellogg Media Management students.