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by Dan Edelen
“A lot of young alumni are nostalgic about college, but reality hits when you have to look into your future,” says Simmone Chaddan ’04.
Chaddan understands recent Lafayette graduates’ reality and strives to ensure that the College helps meet their needs. As chair of the Alumni Association’s Young Alumni Committee, her focus includes prepping new and soon-to-be grads with useful life skills. She has championed the Orientation to Life program, whose debut edition gave young alums and current students an opportunity to learn about investment issues directly from financial experts.
Chaddan calls herself blessed by relationships forged at Lafayette. She keeps in touch with professors, classmates, and other alumni.
“My Lafayette network is incredibly strong,” she says, adding that “more times than I can count,” alumni have taken the time to help the government & law and English grad on her career path.
That path took her into luxury goods and branding. She quickly worked her way through floor-sales positions at several high-end retailers to emerge as a merchandise analyst at Saks Fifth Avenue, New York City, where for two-and-a-half years she called upon strengths in discerning present needs and making projections for the future.
Chaddan saw greater opportunity when an alum told her about SpaFinder, a company that pairs spa facilities with clients concerned with personal wellness. As a business-to-business specialist, she promotes SpaFinder’s brand to companies, linking 4,000 spa partners with customers secured through incentive programs and promotions offered by her clients. She’s often on the road, building relationships one face-to-face meeting at a time.
“The industry is exploding,” she says. “I wanted to be where I saw growth potential not only in the company, but for myself.”
Indeed for Chaddan, life is as active now as it was at Lafayette. She was student representative on the Trustees’ Committee on Development and Alumni Affairs, president of the multicultural women’s support group NIA, member of Association of Black Collegians, executive board member of Lafayette Activities Forum, and resident of the volunteer floor in Keefe Hall, where she promoted the Relay for Life fundraiser for cancer research. Not to mention that she directed a play on the main stage of the Williams Center for the Arts.
“I’m passionate about what I do,” she says. “I chose Lafayette because I wanted to attend a college where I could be seen and heard, not be faceless or just another number in a classroom. It was important to my academic and social balance to be involved.”
Chaddan credits her success to a positive, assertive personality and to her father, who “pushed me to get an excellent education. There’s something about a father’s spirit and a little girl that creates an unparalleled bond,” she says. After suffering a cerebral hemorrhage during her first year at Lafayette, her father emerged from a coma and spoke only her name, an act Chaddan believes gave her the will to persevere.
Chaddan supports Dress for Success, an organization that provides disadvantaged women with professional attire, and organizes an annual Lafayette alumni Christmas mixer to support the Marine Corps’ Toys for Tots campaign.
Her word of wisdom is to stay connected: a golden thread links people and opportunities. “It’s all one big circle – 360 degrees of gratitude.”