FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Joins Consortium of Leading Corporations and Top Business Schools Increasing Women’s Access to Business Education and Careers
(Austin, TX, July 11, 2011) – Notre Dame, IE Business School, and Michigan State have joined Forté Foundation, a consortium of leading multinational corporations, top business schools in the U.S. and abroad, and the Graduate Management Admission Council® (GMAC®).
“Forté Foundation welcomes these leading MBA programs, who, through a competitive process, have demonstrated their proven leadership in educating women in business,” said Elissa Sangster, Executive Director of Forté Foundation. “We’re looking forward to a fruitful partnership as we make an even greater impact over the next decade by expanding our outreach and aligning with their global and diverse networks and alumnae connections.”
The Forté Foundation is the leading organization that provides a national infrastructure for college students, business school women, and working professionals to access the “real world” information, scholarship opportunities and essential networking connections they need to succeed in business careers.
Called to action by a landmark research study, Women and the MBA: Gateway to Opportunity, looking at why women are under-represented in leading business schools compared with medical or law schools, the Forté Foundation was founded in 2001 to address this inequity and its impact on the business landscape.
Forté Foundation enables its corporate and business school sponsors to effectively reach, recruit and retain top female talent. Forté’s agenda to reach college-aged women, MBA candidates, and MBA alumnae will build on its founding commitment to increase the number of women in the early business pipeline, and will create partnerships with academic and advocacy groups, as well as its own sponsors, to attract and retain women in business careers.
When Forté Foundation was founded in 2001 it set out to direct women through educational gateways and into business leadership positions. 10 years later, Forté has built an online community of over 60,000 women, reached thousands of MBA prospects through its Forté Forums educating women on the value of an MBA, supported over 750 MBA candidates with nearly $30 million in scholarships through the Forté Fellows program, driven the corporate recruiting dialogue through Corporate Best Practices Summit and Network of Women’s Networks events, and provided hundreds of MBA women at Forté sponsor schools with professional development workshops through its annual MBA Women’s Conference and Company Expo.
To learn more about Forté Foundation visit www.fortefoundation.org
FORTE SPONSORS
Forté Sponsor Companies: AIG, Bain, Bank of America, Barclays Capital, BlackRock, The Capital Group Companies, Capital One, Chevron, Citi, Citizens Financial Group, Credit Suisse, Deloitte, Deutsche Bank, Eli Lilly and Company, Ernst & Young, ExxonMobil, Fidelity Investments, Goldman, Sachs & Co., The Hartford, IBM, Intel, Liberty Mutual, New York
Life, Pfizer, PIMCO, The PNC Financial Services Group, UBS
Forté Sponsor Business Schools: Babson Graduate School of Business, Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota, Chicago Booth, Columbia Business School, Cox School of Business at Southern Methodist
University, Darden Graduate School of Business Administration at Virginia, Eli Broad School of Business at Michigan State, The Fuqua School of Business at Duke, Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, Goizueta Business School at Emory, Harvard Business School, HEC-Paris, IE Business School, INSEAD, The Johnson School of Management at Cornell, Kelley School of Business at Indiana, The Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern, London Business School, McCombs School of Business at Texas, Mendoza College of Business at Notre Dame, Mills College Lorrey I. Lokey Graduate School of Business, MIT Sloan School of Management, Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis, Queen’s School of Business, Ross School of Business at Michigan, SDA Bocconi School of Management, Simmons School of Management, Stern School of Business at NYU, Tepper School of Business at Carnegie Mellon, Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, UCLA Anderson School of Management, College of Business, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School, University of Rochester, Simon Graduate School of Business, USC Marshall School of Business, Wake Forest (Babcock), The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, Yale School of Management
Non-Profits: The Graduate Management Admission Council® (GMAC®)
ABOUT FORTÉ Forté is a nonprofit organization with the goal of achieving gender parity at all levels of business. Forté works closely with business schools, corporations, and universities to ensure women have access to opportunities at every stage in their careers. Forté offers a wide variety of resources, including MBA prep, professional development, leadership education, and a diverse community of successful women. For more information, visit fortefoundation.org. Media contacts: Michele Vana, BCW Global, michele.vana@bcw-global.com; Katie Stanfield, Forté Foundation, katies@fortefoundation.org Download the PDF
