By Melody Luo, grade 10

In early December, CareerConnect held a professional speaker event featuring Mariette Wharton, renowned social and business entrepreneur. She shared a variety of valuable insights on her experience creating and investing in startups and had a wonderful discussion with students about applying business knowledge. During her presentation, Wharton discussed her journey as an entrepreneur and gave valuable advice to the students on overcoming adversity and building individual branding. Additionally, she spoke about her motivation for founding her company, Nimble, and gaining a competitive advantage. Rohan Arora, grade 12, said, “It was really interesting to hear about the experiences of being able to bootstrap many companies. I can draw a lot of lessons from that for my own nonprofit.” 

Wharton’s insightful slideshow provided good advice to students that transcended business and can be applied to daily life. Andrew Sun, grade 11, noted the importance of her advice on branding: “I think the advice is very applicable not just in business but beyond life in general because people can think of what’s positively associated with you.”

Notably, Wharton pointed out the transformative process of good ideas and how to pivot daily inspirations to new opportunities. Overall, the event was a great success with students learning a lot from her presentation, which has greatly enhanced their business knowledge.