Unique Learning Opportunities

Learning at the Ted Rogers School is not restricted to lectures and textbooks. Students have unique opportunities to complement the skills they’ve acquired through traditional means with hands-on projects, international trips, entrepreneurship competitions and co-op placements in different industries.

A vintage learning opportunity for Ted Rogers MBA students

A group of Ted Rogers MBA students got a first-hand taste of the wine industry and experience presenting to international clients during their trip to Santiago, Chile.

As part of the International Experience Capstone, students worked on consulting projects varying from optimizing business practices to international expansion with one of three Chilean wineries. The teams, made up of five to six students, had meetings and communication with their clients throughout the term, and several teams made in-person presentations of their findings while in Chile in July 2022.

Valuable insights

During their trip, the MBA students toured several wineries and a wine retailer, and met with The Independent Winemakers Movement (MOVI) and Wines of Chile and Sustentavid, a non-profit, private organization of Chilean wine producers. 

They also went to Deloitte Santiago, the Chilean office of the international consulting firm, where they heard the Lead Consulting Partner speak about the political and social environment and its impact on the business environment, and visited the Canadian Embassy where they learned about trade agreements and the activities of the embassy. 

Exploring the wine industry in one of its most important markets and learning about the culture and lifestyle of Chile was invaluable,” says MBA student Isa Celik.

Client presentation

The students visited Marchigüe Wineries’ headquarters where they presented their Capstone Project to the company’s Commercial Director, Cristián Mubert. The two consulting teams that presented received high praise from their client.

Toronto Metropolitan University and [the program] are doing something very important, which is to have MBA students deal with reality,” Mubert says. “Theory is needed to understand the principles and framework on how to approach a problem to find an efficient solution, but I fully support your approach of linking your students with companies that deal with the real everyday challenges.

We walked in our clients’ shoes during our experiential learning program in Santiago, Chile,” explains Dr. Donna Smith, Graduate Program Director, MBA Program. “This significantly helped Ted Rogers MBA students/consultants gain a broader view of how to best meet the needs of the client.

Memorable experiences

The students also explored the city of Santiago, hiked to the top of the Andes Mountains and toured Valparaiso and Viña del Mar, important ports and seats of political power for Chile.

Although the trip was organized around the wine industry, we got the chance to dine in some of Chile’s finest restaurants, soak in the beautiful views of the Andes Mountains and experience the colourful cities of Valparaiso and Santiago.”

Isa Celik

MBA student

Joedel Macabontoc

Joedel Macabontoc, Human Resources Management student

Profiting from non-profit experience

The Ted Rogers Co-op program gives students the opportunity to work in fields ranging from healthcare and finance to the public sector, and recently, several students gained valuable experience – and made a difference – in the non-profit industry as well. 

Twenty-four Ted Rogers Co-op students had the chance to work at a variety of non-profit organizations in 2021, including the Daily Bread Food Bank, Elevate, Canadian Executive Service Organization, BlackNorth Initiative, Health Partners, Make-A-Wish Canada and Scarborough Centre of Health Communities.

I’ve had the pleasure of hearing stories from students thoroughly enjoying the opportunity to work one or even two of their co-op work terms for a non-profit organization,” says Jessica Kudlats, Manager, Corporate Partnerships at the Business Career Hub, which runs the Ted Rogers Co-op Program.Students thrive knowing the job they are doing will make a dramatic impact on the lives of others.

Read more about the BlackNorth Initiative

The BlackNorth Initiative, which has a mission to end anti-Black systemic racism throughout all aspects of our lives by utilizing a business-first mindset, hired five Ted Rogers Co-op students to be Project Co-ordinator Interns during the Summer term. The students came from different programs, including Law and Business, Marketing Management, Business Technology Management and Human Resources Management, and two of them continued their placements there in the Fall term.

The Ted Rogers Co-op students were creative, brought new ideas to the table, took the lead on meetings, asked questions and provided invaluable input,” says Célestin Owona, Director of Finance, Operations & HR at the BlackNorth Initiative. “I was amazed at the diverse backgrounds and experiences of the students, and how they were able to apply their theoretical knowledge empirically autonomously.

Human Resources Management student Joedel Macabontoc worked at the BlackNorth Initiative during her Summer 2021 co-op term.
Working as an Intern under the HR, Finance, & Operations team, Macabontoc was exposed to different HR activities, such as creating a hiring process, researching, proposing and supporting the priorities of developing the HR department, as well as looking further into different HR software and screening resumes.

I was really inspired to see the work that the team at BlackNorth Initiative has been doing, and the change they’re creating every single day,” Macabontoc explains. “I got a glimpse of why people love working for non-profits and how different communities are interacting and becoming involved with the organization’s mission to eliminate anti-Black systemic racism everywhere.

BlackNorth Initiative logo

Capital gains: Students learn valuable skills working on real investment fund

Students in a Ted Rogers School Finance course aren’t just playing with Monopoly money to learn about portfolio management and stock valuation. They have the opportunity to work on a real-money investment fund to gain hands-on experience.

The Ted Rogers School of Management Student Managed Investment Fund is a real-life investment fund managed by students in Applied Investment Management I (FIN65) and Applied Investment Management II (FIN75). The Fund has $500,000 seed capital and the investment objective is to generate a reasonable long-term return on the fund’s assets given suitable investment risks.

Hear what students had to say about participating in this course and the valuable skills they gained.

Competition gives students opportunity to win $25,000 to support business venture

For two decades, the Slaight New Venture Competition, supported by Slaight Communications Inc., has fostered student entrepreneurship by awarding $25,000 to a Ted Rogers School student. This increased to two $25,000 prizes – one for a founder who identifies as female and one who identifies as male – to encourage more female participation.

The six finalists for the 2022 competition had the opportunity to present their business ventures to a panel of judges: Al Lysne (Partner, Fastbreak Ventura), Katie Eva (Venture Capital Investor, Standup Ventures) and Madison Henry (Assistant, Talent Development, DMZ).

The winners were Hasan Kazmi (Law and Business) for Innowind, an energy solutions company, and Fiona Sun (Entrepreneurship & Strategy) for E-Girl, an innovative community server.

25,000

to support business venture
Hasan Kazmi (left) and business partner Rafat Jami building a prototype for Innowind
Innowind logo

Innowind

As Hasan Kazmi and childhood best friend Rafat Jami, a Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering student, progressed in their academic and professional careers, they wanted to use their skills to tackle climate change. One issue is that many on-reserve, rural, Northern and remote communities were still generating their power using diesel-powered generators, and the renewable technologies available weren’t adequate solutions for continuous power generation.

Kazmi and Jami’s company, Innowind, is designing an airborne wind turbine system, the SMART Glider. This technology harnesses the power of the wind and generates electricity without the typical drawbacks of classical wind turbines, such as intermittent, high cost and low energy output.

Winning the Slaight New Venture Competition is all about making a positive impact in my community and giving back to the people that made us,” explains Kazmi.

E-Girl

EParty is a business venture started by Fiona Sun and Adis Aganbegovic. Their company’s primary focus is to utilize discord.com as a platform because they believe it has great potential to easily gain a large user base for potential customers. Discord is a voice, video and text communication service used by over a hundred million people.

The pair plans to create the most active and safe community server on Discord called E-Girl. The server has gained a significant amount of traction on the platform with 17,000 users in just five months and with minimal investment.

e-girl logo

Co-op student’s idea scores with Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada

One of the main reasons fifth-year Marketing Management student Emily Rosen joined the Ted Rogers Co-op program was to discover her passions and explore potential career paths.

When she started her first internship at Scotiabank, she began dedicating time each week to networking and exploring different parts of the bank in order to fulfill this goal. During one of her many coffee chats, she was introduced to the bank’s Global Sponsorship team, and from that moment she knew where she wanted to be.

In January 2022, she started her dream role supporting the bank’s Hockey Sponsorship portfolio. In the third week of her placement, she not only got to put her first idea into action, but she also had the chance to have it featured on a nationally broadcasted event.

Read more about Scotiabank Hockey Day

Scotiabank Hockey Day in Canada is a day-long event and broadcast that took place in Scarborough in 2022. To support Scotiabank’s efforts to make hockey more inclusive for everyone, they used the literal barriers – the rinkboards – as a way to break down barriers in hockey. They asked Canadians to share their messages of inclusion and turned those into rinkboards to be featured in the broadcast.

Rosen suggested including a blank rinkboard for people to share their own messages and take part in the campaign. Her team was incredibly supportive and had her pitch it to their director, who was in full support and excited to see her getting involved.

“My addition to the event may not have been revolutionary, but seeing my idea turn into reality gave me a new perspective on what my hard work goes toward, beyond just a KPI,” says Rosen. “I gained so much confidence in myself and my abilities and it made me want to leave my mark that much more.”

My addition to the event may not have been revolutionary, but seeing my idea turn into reality gave me a new perspective on what my hard work goes toward, beyond just a KPI.”

Emily Rosen

Marketing Management, 2019

Hit The Beach: Retail students partner with local businesses to rejuvenate community

During the Winter 2022 semester, The Beach BIA partnered with the Ted Rogers School to match Retail Management students with local shops to support business growth.

Karen Cleveland, a Beach resident with a background in marketing and communications, approached The Beach BIA and faculty at the school to arrange the partnership, and invited local businesses to participate in the project.

Read more about this partnership

This project allowed business owners to work with groups of students to identify issues within their businesses and develop strategies to expand customer reach. Over 20 businesses sponsored students.

Juan Marcelo Gomez, instructor of the “Leading in Retail Service Organizations” course – the partner program of this project – believes that the best way for students to develop meaningful retail management strategies is to have access to work with real businesses. “Students are still learning while they’re being sponsored by the businesses and being able to apply the concepts that they’re learning in the classroom to support retailers,” he says.

In the Zone: Collaboration gives students peek into the real world

In Marketing Management’s Advanced Market Planning Capstone, students have the opportunity to work for real clients, analyzing the company, customers and competitors and developing marketing plans.

The course is a collaboration between the Ted Rogers School and Zone Learning, a new model of experiential learning built to allow students to apply their coursework to real world companies. Throughout the 13 weeks, students in small groups meet weekly with the instructor and their clients to produce a background report and marketing plan.

Read more about TOPdesk

Recent graduate Tianna De Mel, participated in the course while also working as a marketing coordinator at the IT company TOPdesk. In addition to developing a plan for the capstone company Elocity Technologies, De Mel would regularly apply concepts she learned in the course to her job at TOPdesk.

The course was an opportunity for De Mel to experience what it would be like to have a career in marketing. She was motivated by the fact that the marketing plan she was developing with her classmates was being used by a real world company.

Tiana De Mel

Tianna De Mel, Marketing Management, 2022

Speakers corner: Hearing from industry experts

Even with the pandemic creating distance between us, we found ways to connect our community with thought leaders for provocative and educational discussions. The Ted Rogers School Dean’s Speaker Series brings distinguished business leaders from both the private and public sectors together with our community, to provide insightful perspectives on effective leadership, and the opportunity for thought-provoking discussions on current topics facing the business community and the world at large.

Daniel Shapiro

Daniel Shapiro

Q.C., former Chief Adjudicator, Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat

In 2022, the school welcomed Daniel Shapiro, Q.C., former Chief Adjudicator, Indian Residential Schools Adjudication Secretariat, to reflect on the Independent Assessment process as a model for reparations for historic wrongs in the Residential School System and the future of mass tort claims in Canada.

Al Ramsay

Al Ramsay

Vice President and Head LGBTQ2+ & Black Customer Segments, TD Bank Group

We also invited Al Ramsay, Vice President and Head LGBTQ2+ & Black Customer Segments, TD Bank Group, to provide a unique perspective on the current state of corporate Canada in addressing anti-Black systemic racism and the role of allies in advancing inclusion.

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Ted Rogers School of Management, Toronto Metropolitan University

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