Pierre ’06 Helps Others Find Career Insights and Opportunities through Networking Events

Nkrumah Pierre ’06 loves networking. He believes in it, because he knows that the connections he made through Lafayette internships, and now as a driven young professional, have already proven invaluable. For that reason, he is willing to go the distance to help students and young professionals realize the benefits of networking.

• The McDonogh Report celebrates the contributions of African Americans to the Lafayette community.

“The career services office was instrumental for me in getting acclimated to the corporate world and learning from other people who knew much more about it than I did before graduating,” he says. “I want to be able to provide that same type of service in the area that I live in now.”

Before he even graduated, he founded a networking organization called Young Entrepreneurs Entertainment. More than 100 people attended his first event in Manhattan during the summer of his junior year.

“All the networking events I had in college helped me immensely by the time I was getting ready to graduate,” he says. “You can learn so much from others in the field, [and] from each other. I felt I could help others do the same.”

The economics and business graduate already is well on his way to a successful career, working as a commercial real estate analyst with M&T Bank on Park Avenue in Manhattan. Starting after graduation, he immediately entered into an intense training program that introduced him to the high-stakes work of underwriting multimillion-dollar loans for developers. It’s a job that requires him to work as a team with developers and high-ranking bank officials in determining whether to fund a project, and how to best go about doing so.

He loves his new position.

“I’m a salesman at heart,” he says. “This involves sales, but at the same time I’m doing analytics. It’s really a hybrid job.”

But Pierre isn’t so caught up in his new life that he’s forgotten about his commitment to networking. Since starting his job, he’s managed to maintain Young Entrepreneurs Entertainment, organizing three networking events at a lounge in Greenwich Village that have each drawn more than 100 people. These events simply allow people the opportunity to meet and mingle.

“The idea is to get young professionals together, and college juniors and seniors with them,” he said. “There is a lot students can learn about the corporate world from those who are in it, and there is also a lot of networking between professionals that can be helpful. The ultimate goal is to create a circle of successful young individuals who can contact one another in times of need, and also for advice and guidance.”

Another networking get-together for alumni and students age 21 and older is scheduled for 5:30-10 p.m. Thursday at Duvet, 45 West 21st Street, New York City. To RSVP or learn more, contact Pierre, NkrumahPierre@gmail.com.
(516) 690-3581.

The events aren’t exclusively for minorities, but Pierre does aim to include them.

“Corporate America is predominantly white,” he observes. “A big push for me is to make minorities feel more comfortable in corporate America.”

A natural leader, Pierre put together his first function for minorities during his senior year when he served as president of Brothers of Lafayette, a support group that strives to achieve unity within the African American community through campus and community outreach programs. “Minorities in Corporate America” was a panel discussion on personal pathways to success.

“I was trying to figure out why the African American students weren’t all utilizing the career services and internship programs available to them,” Pierre explains, speaking about two Lafayette programs that he found very beneficial. “I found that African Americans were discouraged because they didn’t see a lot of faces like theirs in positions that interested them.”

The panelists he invited were all people he had met through his internship with Bloomberg LP in New York.

“The whole point was to show how networking was key and how we all need to network,” Pierre says. “And it was evident because we were all connected through Bloomberg.”

Although he’s graduated, Pierre is interested in organizing another panel discussion at Lafayette. That’s just one way he would like to continue encouraging other young minorities to pursue their dreams in the professional world.

“What I would like to do after I’m established professionally is to consult with high school seniors and talk to them about my process of becoming a professional and give them insights into the corporate world,” Pierre says.

Eventually, he’d like to line up sponsors for Young Entrepreneurs Entertainment so he can hold a variety of events, such as golf outings.

Pierre has set his sights on moving up the ranks and becoming a vice president at M&T Bank. But equally important to him is his goal of helping other African Americans receive the kinds of educational and career opportunities that he found at Lafayette.

“Intellectually, I feel Lafayette can compete with a lot of the Ivy League schools. The classes are great, and the professors are great,” he says. “Some day I would like to sponsor some type of scholarship program for African American students at Lafayette.”