THERE IS more to management than entrepreneurship.
The Blue Consulting Club, the first management consulting club in Ateneo and in the Philippines, aims to equip its members with competencies for developmental consulting.
Blue Consulting Club was founded by a group of students who just returned from the Junior Term Abroad program. Cofounder and president Ian Denver Sanchez said, “We’re merely looking for an avenue where we can contribute to society in the context of us being management students.”
Apart from teaching the members developmental consulting, the club will also “provide them [the students] opportunities to apply what they learned and contribute to nation-building,” said co-founder Joseph Castro.
The new club was launched in the event “Eureka!” on July 10. The guest speakers were Leadership and Strategy Chair Darwin Yu, Ph.D. and Mitchell Madison Group Country Manager Samuel Montecastro.
Getting started
The group of students who established the club asked help from Yu, who is now their moderator. Yu was hesitant at first until he saw the group help uplift the lives and families of jeepney drivers for 1UTAK (United Transport Koalisyon).
“The group of students of the Blue Consulting Club had a certain drive. They felt that the things they have learned here in school have to be useful beyond writing papers and getting good grades,” Yu said.
Blue Consulting Club then partnered up with Mitchell Madison Group, one of the leading management consulting groups in the world. Mitchell Madison Group provides guidance and mentorship to the Blue Consulting Club members.
Celebrating the possible
The club will give its members opportunities to gain hands-on experience by working in actual projects in cooperation with outside firms, non-government organizations, small and medium enterprises, and social enterprises.
Yu said that a consulting club is necessary in the Ateneo to remove the limits of service learning. “We are bound by the academic calendar. But for the Blue Consulting Club, there is more continuity; there is more consistency in supporting…communities.”
Yu also said that the Blue Consulting Club is an example of driving towards “new levels of excellence” and “excellence that makes a difference for others.”
“They [the Blue Consulting Club] saw that they had certain expertise, and they want to channel this expertise for the greater good,” he added.
Castro also said that since Ateneo is celebrating its sesquicentennial year, this is part of the efforts to “celebrate the possible” in the University.
He said, “We feel that there is potential for these types of activities [Blue Consulting Club] for the benefit of the community, and for the benefit of our fellow Ateneans as well.”
Good future ahead
Junior Kyle Favorito said that the launch got him more interested in joining the Blue Consulting Club. “I’m actually trying to pursue a social entrepreneurship career, that’s why when I heard that they are actually planning to provide consulting service for the society…I got more excited.”
Favorito also said, “I believe that they have a good future ahead of them, especially since they are supported by an experienced consulting group, by the Ateneo faculty and by a group of students who are socially oriented and proactive.”
