The Frank G. Zarb School of Business hosted “Meet the C-Suite” – a panel discussion designed to prepare students for success in the job market after graduation – on Thursday, March 28, in the Monroe Lecture Center. Panelists of business professionals offered advice from their personal experiences.

The panel included alumna Stella Mendes, the Senior Managing Director of FTI Consulting, and Michael Roberge, the CEO of MFS Investment Management.

The discussion was moderated by Frank G. Zarb, the namesake for the school, who currently serves as a senior advisor to Promontory Financial Group and is a former chairman and CEO of the Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc.

The panel began with opening remarks by newly-appointed Zarb School Dean Janet Lenaghan and Hofstra President Stuart Rabinowitz, and eventually moved into questions posed by Zarb to the panel. The initial part of the conversation focused the impact of technology on an ever-evolving industry.

“Technology is disrupting every industry … as a CEO, you really have to be close to that change. You have to be learning all the time what’s on the cutting-edge of technology and what it’s doing to the business. Where are the opportunities? Where are the risks? Where should we be investing?” Roberge said.

The panelists then shifted the discussion to the need for cultural awareness in business.

“Most businesses now are global businesses,” Mendes said. “It’s a challenge sometimes when you go work in other countries and you don’t understand the culture or how they do business. It’s really, really important now that people understand how different cultures go about doing things,”

“Creating a culture in an organization where risk is really important that starts at the top and cascades down into the organization, makes you much less likely to run into problems,” Roberge added.

In her parting words of advice to the audience, Mendes emphasized the importance of interpersonal and communication skills in the technological age.

Roberge spoke on the ethics and integrity of working in the private-sector, saying how “learning to do the right thing even if there’s personal cost associated with that is super, super important.”

“[T]he part focusing on ethics was very important,” said senior finance major Daniel Frankel after the panel. “People in my position, who are seniors, need to know even if it’s not going to benefit you to do the right thing. That was a big takeaway.”