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Student Lunch with Kellogg’s Professor Hennessey

Just two weeks ago, I had the great pleasure of having lunch with one of Kellogg’s most regarded professors, Professor Julie Hennessy. Not only was it a great chance to talk with one of Kellogg’s revered marketing experts but it was also a way to get her thoughts on the leading companies in the industry and some of the innovative marketing strategies they’re employing in the future.

One of the things I learned quickly at Kellogg, is that business school has much more to offer than academic and professional (i..e recruiting) experiences, it also provides students with access to a variety of other things, social, cultural, and professional. One of those resources is having access to are the top notch professors.

Every student, both first and second years, has  lots of opportunities to interact with the professors both inside and outside the classroom. One of the first ways students do that is by taking part in lunches that most professors host with students at the Allen Center.  Professors will invite the class to attend lunch in small group sessions, where you’ll have a chance to chat with the professor and other students in a more intimate setting over a good lunch. And the lunches are filled with free quality food that is usually reserved for executive programming that takes place during the day.

In this case, we were a group of about a dozen students from my marketing class, and we had the pleasure of attending lunch with one of Kellogg’s best marketing professors – it usually costs more point to get into professor Hennessy’s class than any other introductory marketing class.  So after my marketing class finished on a Friday afternoon, we went over to the Allen center, and chatted about how school was going, how we thought class was going, and what her recommendations were for future classes in the marketing department. We also discussed marketing more broadly and about things that we thought were most interesting in the class.

Toward the end, I asked her, “what companies do you admire” seeing if she’d give the group a bit of insight into her marketing genius.  Professor Hennessy mentioned a couple of companies she thought had great strategies, including Apple, Walmart, Target, and Costco. Her response was interesting because we had students at the lunch who had previously worked at Apple and at Target. And I was also excited for her response, because Costco is also one of my favorite companies. I’ve always admired its branding strategy not only to consumers who span all income and geographic segments, but also to employees who in aggregate seem to really enjoy working there, especially when compared to other companies.

Before Kellogg I never thought that this would be such an important part of my business school experience, but today I thoroughly enjoy it, and am fortunate that at top business schools these types of experiences are common. For example, I’ve already had similar luncheons with Deans and Professors at Kellogg this quarter. Today, I have a lunch at the Allen Center with my Median Management Professor, Daniel Gruber. And tomorrow I have lunch off campus with my Finance Professor, Jiro Kondo.

It’ll be interesting to see how the next few lunches turn out.