Global Business Association (GBA)

Building a global community, then doing the work to bring it together.

The Global Business Association brought Foster MBA students together through cultural celebrations, practical workshops, and conversations about doing business internationally. I started as a first-year representative, helping run and promote events, then became co-president in my second year. My work connected the club’s creative ambitions with the budget, people, and logistics needed to deliver them.

3

marquee cultural celebrations: Diwali, Lunar New Year, and Latin Carnival

$2,008

in membership dues recorded in the club’s annual finances

$6,824

in final Latin Carnival expenses, matched by funding and ticket revenue

From first-year representative to co-president

In my first year, I helped with events and their promotion. As co-president, I took on the work of running the club alongside my fellow co-president: setting membership fees, agreeing on goals and a structure for the year, and assembling a board with responsibilities across programming, marketing, partnerships, and operations.

I marketed GBA at the club fair and throughout the year, explaining why students should join and promoting the cultural events and professional-development opportunities membership offered. The goal was to turn awareness into paid memberships and participation. Our membership promotion offered free or discounted cultural-event admission alongside global professional-development events, and the club collected $2,008 in membership dues.

I also helped recruit the next group of first-year representatives and represented GBA within the Foster community. That kept the work moving beyond a single event and brought newer students into the team.

Making the program work financially

I built the club’s finance tracker and used it to create the budget, compare planned and actual spending, and track income across autumn, winter, and spring. Keeping that view current helped us balance the three marquee celebrations with smaller workshops, speaker sessions, and the international potluck.

I also maintained membership and payment records. The work continued through event day: checking whether guests were members, applying the appropriate entry price, receiving ticket payments, and keeping track of the money coming in.

I partnered with other clubs and MBA student government to secure funding and share resources for our events. We also explored creative sponsorship approaches to help fund more programming. For larger celebrations, I kept GBA’s contribution separate from the overall event budget so we could see what each partner was covering and plan within the resources available.

Marketing the club and making events accessible

Marketing was an ongoing part of my role, from recruiting members to promoting individual events. I worked on how we presented the club, communicated the value of joining, and gave students reasons to keep participating throughout the year.

Pricing was part of that work. We used lower-cost early-bird entry followed by higher prices closer to the event, alongside member and non-member ticket categories. I planned around what students would be willing to spend and how ticket revenue would support the event budget. That meant balancing affordability, an incentive to commit early, and the cost of delivering the experience.

For Latin Carnival, the final reconciliation recorded $1,200 in ticket revenue alongside $5,624.25 in allocated funding. The combination of promotion, ticket pricing, and partner funding helped cover the full event cost.

Diwali: supporting the team behind the celebration

Diwali was our autumn marquee celebration. My fellow co-president and the MBA student government’s VP of International Affairs led the event. I supported them through financial coordination, entry and ticket payments, setup, and operational help.

My responsibility was to make the money side and supporting logistics dependable while the event leads coordinated the wider program.

← Previous1 / 4Next →

Día de los Muertos: leading a smaller event from idea to delivery

I led our November Día de los Muertos event, organizing the room booking and delegating food sourcing and preparation across the team. We combined a presentation explaining the meaning of the celebration with a screening of Coco and food for the group.

That required bringing the cultural content, room, refreshments, entertainment, and guest arrangements together. I also kept track of membership so we could distinguish club access from paid entry for other guests.

GBA Money Talks: navigating U.S. personal finances

We invited a financial advisor to discuss managing personal finances in the United States, including questions relevant to international students. We arranged lunch and promoted the session so students could ask practical questions in a familiar setting.

Lunar New Year: supporting the celebration

For Lunar New Year in February, we supported the event leads with decorations, setup, and food-vendor coordination.

← Previous1 / 2Next →

Language learning through memes and conversation

Our first-year representatives helped bring language learning into the club through an informal session using memes and other accessible examples. The event gave students a fun way to explore new languages together.

Global business lessons and an international potluck

We hosted a global business-scaling session with Foster alumna Jeri Wait, founder of Orca Wave, and held an international potluck in spring. These events gave members ways to learn from one another between the larger celebrations.

Latin Carnival: bringing the whole operation together

Latin Carnival was the largest event I took the lead on. For the May 8, 2026 celebration, I coordinated the team’s work across venue selection, vendor sourcing, food, entertainment, promotion, registration, and event setup. I delegated responsibilities while staying involved in the decisions that connected cost, timing, and the guest experience.

We compared venues and quotes, checked availability, and worked through whether each option could accommodate outside food and live entertainment. I negotiated with the owner of Xtadium and coordinated the venue arrangements. Venue choice affected the rest of the plan, including sound, food delivery, and how much of the budget remained for programming.

Food planning meant forecasting demand, comparing Latin American catering options, negotiating prices, and coordinating quantities and delivery. The final expense record includes Mexican food, Peruvian food, empanadas, and tequeños. We also had to account for dietary preferences as we planned the menu.

The entertainment brought several moving parts together: a live band, a DJ, dance lessons, and an interactive photo booth. I helped coordinate performers and the sound system while the team handled other parts of the program. Promotion, ticket categories, membership checks, and payment tracking connected that plan to the people coming through the door.

For the off-campus event, I forecast $6,820 in costs and planned around partner funding and ticket revenue. Actual expenses came to $6,824.25, within $5 of the forecast. We covered the full cost with $5,624.25 in allocated funding and $1,200 in ticket revenue, with GBA contributing $1,000 of that funding. The tracker helped me keep the event plan, funding, and spending aligned.

The result was a shared celebration with food, music, dancing, and space for classmates to connect. The work behind it was a sequence of operational decisions: who owned each task, which quotes fit the plan, how much to order, when vendors would arrive, and how to keep spending and payments aligned.

← Previous1 / 7Next →

Promoting the club and its events

← Previous1 / 4Next →