A new organization at Binghamton University seeks to promote Asian representation in the business community.

The Asian Business Collective is one of the University’s newest organizations and was founded this year by three of its E-Board members: Genesis Li, the organization’s co-president and a sophomore double-majoring in finance and business administration; Maxwell Chan, co-president and a sophomore double-majoring in computer science and business administration; and Ellie Park, executive vice president and a sophomore double-majoring in accounting and business administration.

They formed the Asian Business Collective with a vision to form a community and address the lack of Asian representation in University business programs. The group is not affiliated with any larger national organization and is independently run at the University.

“When I was doing my search process, I kind of realized how there was a lack of Asian representation at these firms and corporations,” Li said in an interview with Pipe Dream.

The group’s E-Board has since expanded to include Emily Siu, vice president of finance, Chloe Pellegrino, vice president of marketing, and Hailey Chin, vice president of professional development, all sophomores majoring in business administration. The mission of their organization remains to empower and support Asian students across all fields of business through “mentoring, networking and professional development.”

“There really aren’t much resources for Asian people,” Chan said. “There’s other groups for other minorities, but even though Asians kind of represent a big portion of business, there isn’t that resource that really helps people form a community. And I think that’s what we really care about, that community aspect of sharing our identity with each other, and I think with that community, that’s how you build yourself more professionally.”

The organization also seeks to aid members in applying for the highly competitive Consulting Development Program and Dean’s Mentoring Program, with the latter only accepting roughly 25 mentees each year.

The Asian Business Collective hopes to lessen the pressure of this intimidating application process. This also inspired them to host their upcoming recruitment workshop event.

The organization also hopes to build an extensive alumni network, particularly Asian graduates from the University. In the past few decades, Li said that there has been a significant uptick in School of Management alumni who were accepted into prestigious firms, adding that the Asian Business Collective wants to build connections between these alumni and new graduates.

One example is Dylan Chong ‘24, who has spent the past year working at Oliver Wyman, a management consulting firm. He spoke last Tuesday at the Asian Business Collective’s first speaker panel event with consultants from top firms like McKinsey & Company, Oliver Wyman and Bain & Company. It was a collaboration with the Management Consulting Group, a student-run University group “dedicated to training the next generation of consultants through interactive workshops, case competitions, and pro bono consulting.”

Chong and the other speakers were asked to discuss their road to becoming consultants, including where they started, what their application was like and how their experience has been so far in the field. Chong said his route to becoming a consultant started with niche actuarial work for Oliver Wyman and then pivoted into strategy consulting, where he now works mostly with banks and asset management firms.

After speakers took turns answering questions from the club representatives, Park opened the floor to questions from the audience. Students asked the speakers about a range of topics like the ethics behind using ChatGPT for research and advice regarding networking, interviewing and the application process.

“As my mentor always told me, a network is your net worth,” Chan said. “And being able to latch on to that identity, I think, really helps us explore ourselves more professionally.”