Hello & Goodbye to our Kellogg Student Association Presidents

As we celebrate the graduates from the Class of 2022, it’s bittersweet to say goodbye to a tremendous team of Kellogg Student Association (KSA) presidents. KSA is the representative student group for the Full-Time MBA and Evening & Weekend MBA communities, led by students elected by their classmates. 

Over the past year, these leaders have worked to coordinate activities and initiatives on behalf of students. These individuals continue to set the bar high through their empathetic and collaborative leadership.

However, we are excited to welcome in another group of exceptional Kellogg leaders, who will continue to improve the initiatives created over this past year and make their unique mark on the Kellogg community. 

Hear from the outgoing and incoming KSA presidents:

Margo Beam ’23, Incoming president, KSA - Evening & Weekend MBA

What are you most looking forward to doing as president this coming year?

In our first board meeting, I asked my team of VPs to share what they hope to gain from their time on the KSA Board. The common theme I heard was creating relationships with a group of fellow students and getting more involved with the Kellogg community. I am most looking forward to supporting the KSA Board to achieve this purpose, feeling great about the time we committed to this student leadership experience and building a new legacy to share with the future Kellogg community. 

Yesuto Shaw ’22, Incoming president, KSA – Full-Time MBA

Tell us about your team and the message you ran on.

Our team, “One Kellogg, One Community,” ran on a platform of increasing inclusivity and a sense of a united community at Kellogg. We believe that most students who came to Kellogg did so with the intention of getting out of their bubbles. However, coming out of the social isolation of COVID-19, it has been easy for people to find solace in the sub-communities that they were already most familiar with before coming to Kellogg, whether those be affinity-based, career-based or even based on the regions of the world people come from. As KSA leaders, we have planned a range of initiatives to help facilitate deeper connections between people from different backgrounds so that every Kellogg student has ample opportunity to expand their perspectives and learn from each other.

Simona Kovatcheva ’22, Outgoing president, KSA – Evening & Weekend MBA

From this past year of leadership, what are you most proud of?

I am most proud of the Evening & Weekend KSA VPs’ collective efforts to create meaningful opportunities for students to contribute and participate in the Kellogg community. Our board worked hard to visualize what the “new normal” would be after the pandemic and how best we could serve the needs of our student population. For example, we launched the DEI Task Force in collaboration with administration and the Kellogg Inclusion Council, which will serve as a thought leader to promote inclusivity across club programming and many other initiatives. We also collected feedback from students to find which modalities and types of programming would be most valuable, and we partnered closely with the CMC to ensure a smooth transition with the new leadership and coaching additions.

This past year it was truly heartwarming to be able to bring our Kellogg community back together in-person safely at several social events. We hope that through all our efforts this past year, we set the stage for future leadership teams to continue improving the student experience at Kellogg

Sammy Goldstein ’22, Outgoing president, KSA – Full-Time MBA

What’s the biggest lesson you learned as president?

The role of KSA President is truly a crash course on executive management. You learn to synthesize conflicting points of view to build a solution, influence complex organizations, develop symbiotic stakeholder relationships and empower a large organization of ~100 leaders to create change. Following Kellogg, I will be working in a Chief of Staff role, and I can confidently say that this experience imparted a number of lessons to lead strategically and through ambiguity.

What’s something you’re excited to see the new leadership team take on?

I'm excited to see the new leadership bring some of the in-progress projects to life. For example, Em Kuo has been building Common Grounds, an immersive DEI retreat, and "If You Knew Me", a podcast series to cover diverse perspectives. I am also excited to see them continue improving the initiatives that we managed over the past year. They will do a phenomenal job!