The Young Entrepreneurship Speaker Series, started this year by sophomores Alexis Geller and Russell Rosenthal, provides an opportunity for members of the Riverdale community to explore the work of entrepreneurs who change the world for good. “We found it really important to go down the entrepreneur track,” explained Geller about the start of the series. She continued, “In this crazy, always-changing world, it's really great to be able to create your own path as an entrepreneur and to bring people in to show others about that.”
The series has featured one entrepreneur so far—jewelry designer Jessica Mindich—and Geller and Rosenthal plan on hosting three or four more this year. Rosenthal has always been disappointed in “how schools never specifically trained people for jobs,” so he wanted to create the series as an outlet for “kids to come and explore different entrepreneurs with really interesting stories about how they’ve become successful in their independent fields.” The entrepreneurs who have been selected all incorporate philanthropy in their businesses, either directly or through the broader social impact of their work. Many of the planned speakers to come have, as Rosenthal said, “faced adversity younger in his or her career and fought their way up to the top [to create] a really successful business.”
The first speaker, Ms. Jessica Mindich, created Caliber Connection, a company that repurposes seized gun and bullet casings from gun buybacks into jewelry. In addition to repurposing thousands of guns, the company has also given back more than $165,000 to local police departments to aid more buybacks. Ms. Mindich uses her success in business to facilitate philanthropy. “If you can do well, you can do good,” she said about giving back. “There are some people that go join the Peace Corps, and then there are some people who have a business mind and can create innovative products and incredible businesses, but find a way in that to make a strong social impact.” Ms. Mindich’s impact on gun safety in America is the type of social change that future speakers in the series will present on: philanthropy through entrepreneurship. “I’m here to inspire people that you can use business for social good,” Mindich said.
At Upper School assemblies, Riverdale students have the opportunity to hear stories from very impressive guest speakers, some of whose chief missions are to change the world for good. At the Young Entrepreneurship Speaker Series, however, students can learn to make positive change for the world in the process of doing practically and financially well for themselves. As Ms. Mindich said, “to be released from the burden that everybody has to just be doing good, you also have yourself to support and take care of and figure out how you can best give back.”
The speaker series, which has been in development for a while, started out as an idea by Geller and Rosenthal for a club during activity period, but has transformed into the series it now is. Assistant Head of the Upper School Ms. Blair Parker, who has overseen the process, said that one of the goals for the series is to “expose members of the community who are interested in hearing from entrepreneurs that are doing something for good.” Ms. Parker added that this goal “connects to Riverdale’s mission statement that we’re here to change the world for good.”
Geller and Rosenthal hope to continue to bring informative and inspirational speakers to the Riverdale community, providing students with the opportunity to hear from and interact with guests whose work might be applicable to their future plans in life.