The Bryant University Chapter of Collegiate Entrepreneurs Organization (CEO) has earned the Global Chapter of the Year Award, an honor announced at the CEO Global Conference, held virtually this year. CEO is a global network of more than 250 chapters and 8,000 students. The win marks the 7th time in the last 14 years that the Bryant chapter has received the Best Chapter award.
According to the CEO website, “The global chapter of the year award is presented to a CEO Club that has demonstrated excellence in developing its organization, its leaders and offering a comprehensive and meaningful entrepreneurship experience for CEO members.”
Bryant's CEO aims to help members learn entrepreneurial modes of thought and skills through numerous opportunities, events, conferences, grants, and leadership experiences. It also supports student businesses through its enterprise accelerator, Bryant Ventures, and plans and hosts BUNEEC (pronounced "be unique"), the largest collegiate entrepreneurship conference in the Northeast.
“Entrepreneurship is crucial right now to society. Our idea is to transform it into a mindset that can be used by anyone and in all facets of life.”
“Entrepreneurial spirit is at the heart of our organization,” says Bryant CEO President Melissa Gurzenda '21, who has focused on weaving this spirit throughout fabric of the club since joining three years ago.
“Entrepreneurship is crucial right now to society. Our idea is to transform it into a mindset that can be used by anyone and in all facets of life.”
“We earned the award through many hours of work by our dedicated leadership and members, as well as with our new initiatives planned thoughtfully and with creativity.”
Praise from faculty experts
“CEO students, especially the executive board, understand that they need to run CEO like a business and not like a club,” Senior Lecturer of Management Adam Rubin, M.B.A., said of the recent win. “They do what needs to get done for the benefit of the organization so that everyone involved ultimately succeeds.”
Isil Yavuz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Entrepreneurship and director of the entrepreneurship program, which supports CEO and Bryant Ventures, credited the students' determination. “CEO reflects the entrepreneurial spirit not just in the program but all over at Bryant," she said. "It’s considered a great asset here on campus, including to the entrepreneurship program.”
“We’d always had an amazing group of leaders who really lived up to the entrepreneurial spirit.”
As for Bryant CEO’s dynastic success over the years, among the reasons cited by Gurzenda and faculty supporters as crucial is the club’s culture of leadership, collaboration, and delegation, which have been perpetuated since the early days of the club.
Michael Roberto, D.B.A., Trustee Professor of Management and former advisor of the club, agreed. “We’d always had an amazing group of leaders who really lived up to the entrepreneurial spirit,” he said. Then as now, the key for the club was to “build a good team, a good board, and then give young members of the club a chance to showcase their talent,” said Roberto, who advised the club for nine years starting in 2006.
A vision for growth
Gurzenda and her team have kept the entrepreneurial spirit at the heart of the club by applying their knowledge and looking at the club entrepreneurially, which has been key for continued growth and membership, says Gurzenda, a Team and Project Management and Management: Leadership and Innovation double major.
“We feel there’s no limit to the improvements we can make to our chapter.”
“At the heart of entrepreneurship is the understanding that there is never a limit to what we can do,” says Gurzenda. Placing this as the club’s brand strategy “has gotten us to a place where we feel there’s no limit to the improvements we can make to our chapter. For example, now we're not only having speakers come every week to our meetings to talk about entrepreneurship, but we're also asking them, can you teach us something?”
And by expanding the definition of entrepreneurship to incorporate how one overcomes challenges, the club is useful to students of any major.
“If you're able to say, ‘I'm entrepreneurial,’ you’re able to adapt to new situations and you are able to provide people with new solutions," she said. "It does really help you set yourself apart from others.”
