2019 Best & Brightest: Andrea Goldstein, Tulane University (Freeman)

Andrea Goldstein

Tulane University, A.B. Freeman School of Business

You can’t put a price on fun!”

Fun fact about yourself: It’s sort of in a ‘past life’ of mine, but I’m actually a certified figure skating coach!

Hometown: Cincinnati, OH

High School: Sycamore High School

Major: Marketing, Management

Minor: Psychology

Favorite Business Course: Legal, Ethical, Regulatory Environment of Business (LGST3010) with Dean Michael Hogg. Although taught through legal frameworks, this course would be incredible for anyone looking to learn critical and analytical thinking, problem solving, and how to apply theory to any given problem. Dean Hogg is a masterful professor who truly understands how to make occasionally less-than-thrilling material engaging; he frequently uses his students as hilarious test material (proving how easy it is to pull our photos off Facebook), gives out cash during class, and allows students to call him any time of the night with even the simplest questions.

Extracurricular Activities, Community Work and Leadership Roles During College:

Most Significant Activities: President of Women in Business, Teaching Assistant (TA) to the Senior Associate Vice President of Campus Services, Teaching Assistant for Fundamentals of Marketing, Lab Manager for the Marketing Behavioral Research Lab, BSM Ambassador, Green Wave Ambassador (Campus Tour Guide), Sigma Delta Tau

Awards and Honors: Dean’s List- 7 semesters thus far, Founder’s Scholar, Honors Program, Beta Gamma Sigma, Mortar Board, Nominated for 1834 Award

Where have you interned during your college career?

Most significant internships:

AlphaSights- New York, NY- Summer Associate

LaunchPad- New Orleans, LA- Business Development Intern

Systematic Inventive Thinking- Tel Aviv, Israel- Consulting Intern

Hobsons- Cincinnati, OH- Digital Marketing Intern

Where will you be working after graduation? After graduation, I plan to return to the company that I interned for this past summer, AlphaSights in New York. I was offered and accepted a position in the company’s class of Associates for Fall 2019.

What company do you admire most? Trader Joe’s. Although I, personally, am a lover of all things ordinary, most are not. Any company that can spark the amount of joy and utter happiness from its customers over groceries is certainly worthy of admiration in my mind. All jokes aside, I believe that it must take serious planning, coordination, and execution of a well-thought-out business strategy to create a business like Trader Joe’s. The company does everything right in my book; they follow consumer trends, pay their employees well, have affordable products, and bring light to a usually dull part of people’s lives.

Who is your favorite professor? Rob Hailey, who teaches Relationship Marketing and is the Senior Associate Vice President for Campus Services. After taking his course—which was inspirational, unique, and topical—Rob invited me to be his Teaching Assistant to manage interactive, real-world consulting engagements between students in his course and various senior staff from Tulane’s Campus Services.

Through this experience, I have had the privilege to work with executives from core university services such as Dining, Athletics, and Technology Support on active, ongoing projects that shape the lives of Tulane students. Rob’s support both as a professor and as a friend has helped me hone my skills in project management, active listening, professional communication, ‘managing up,’ time and expectations management, flexibility, and so much more. I cannot think of a more unique or impactful experiential learning experience to have while in college, and I have Rob to thank for that.

Aside from being an excellent professor, Rob Hailey is an eccentric, entertaining, and delightful person who strictly enjoys Taco Bell, Cane’s chicken fingers, and never eating any vegetables.

What did you enjoy most about your business school? Freeman has an excellent reputation and set of programs for giving students a wonderful international experience. The summer after my sophomore year, I interned at a consulting firm in Tel Aviv, Israel and then immediately left to spend the fall semester of my junior year in Vienna, Austria. Far too many of my peers at other institutions were discouraged from studying abroad as it could ‘interfere’ with their coursework, but Freeman takes quite the opposite approach. My professors in my junior and senior years at Tulane have embraced the international experience as relevant and important to classroom learning, and I really appreciate that Freeman provides a tangible support system to make these experiences happen for students.

 “If I didn’t major in business, I would be majoring in or studying…Psychology! Before attending Tulane, I was certain that I would double major in Marketing and Psychology, given the natural fit between the two disciplines. I love learning about people, and I thought that psychology would provide the perfect structure to support my knowledge and skill in marketing. However, when I discovered that my passion was more closely tied to corporate strategy than my original CPG marketing focus, I picked up a Management major and decided to pursue Psychology as a minor.”

Who most influenced your decision to pursue business in college? My father has undoubtedly been the biggest supporter and influence in my decision to pursue business in college and as a career. As did many Cincinnati natives, I grew up in a P&G family with plenty of exposure to marketing, branding, and strategy. Even from when I was a child, my father watched shows with me like Shark Tank and its predecessor, American Inventor (Does anyone remember this show? Just me?); told stories about my grandfather’s success at P&G; gave me articles and books to read about prominent and unique business leaders; emphasized education as my most important investment; and prepared me for the potential challenges of being a woman in business. Although it’s probable that I was always heading towards a career in business, my father’s influence was instrumental, undeniable, and extremely impactful on my decisions.

Which academic, extracurricular or personal achievement are you most proud of? The opportunity to serve as President of Women in Business has been, without a doubt, the most rewarding experience of my career at Tulane. Although I have held many leadership positions throughout my time, this organization allows me to make a direct impact on the mindsets and future careers of young women. At the start of the year, I made a resolution that if I could inspire just one young woman to take one baby step in the right direction to pursue the career of her choice, I would consider myself successful as President.

Fortunately, I have had so many wonderful opportunities to take this organization far beyond this goal. This year alone, Women in Business held over 35 events, hosted dozens of empowering business leaders for hundreds of guests, taught workshops to empower and inform young women on topics like interviewing, networking, and salary negotiation, created student-to-student mentorship programs, and initiated new board positions and committees to provide even more opportunities to our members. I take great pride in the work that our executive boards have done so far, and I am so excited to see what we can produce in the future.

Which classmate do you most admire? I’ve learned in my psychology classes that proximity is the number one predictor of friendships among all people. One of my closest friends in college, Katie Zipkin-Leed, and I have been unintentionally close in proximity since before we were even students at Tulane. We were assigned the same advisor during our freshman orientation and signed up for many of the same classes after knowing each other for only one day. Since then, she has proved to be one of the most outstanding, hardworking, creative, knowledgeable, dedicated, and dynamic students I know. I admire her intellectual curiosity above all; after countless hours of studying together, we have discussed thousands of business articles, current events, internship anecdotes, and random factoids that only we would find interesting. Although we will likely end up on very different career trajectories, I will always admire her dedication to success in all that she does.

Who would you most want to thank for your success? Although I never had the opportunity to meet him as he passed away 10 years before I was born, I owe my grandfather the majority of my success. Growing up, my family constantly reminded me that my grandfather would accept nothing less than perfection in everything that he did. I was pushed to challenge myself, set the highest standards, and to never put my name on anything of which I was not proud. I believe that my knowledge of his success, both in business (as the Chief Marketing Officer of Proctor and Gamble) and in his family life (where integrity reigned supreme), his legacy has always served as the gold standard in my mind of how I can and should be successful.

What are the top two items on your bucket list? I can’t explain it, but I have always wanted to serve as a bartender at some point in my life. Not because I particularly enjoy late nights or crowded establishments, but because my parents always told me that I could practically talk to a wall, and I can’t imagine how much fun it would be to get to meet so many new people in one place.

Traveling has always been a huge passion of mine, and I actually love visiting off-the-beaten-path cities and towns across the world. Even when I studied abroad in Vienna, I would rope my friends into trekking out to lesser-known cities in Austria just to see what they were like for a short period of time. Based on this, I would definitely want to visit all 50 states and hopefully all seven continents before I die.

What are your hobbies? I love to exercise, specifically Pilates and cycling, real estate TV shows, traveling to new places, reading books; mostly social psychology or behavioral economics, eating my way through New Orleans, doing hair and makeup, and spending time with friends and family.

What made Andrea such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2019?  

“Andrea is more than smart – she is the kind of student who knows the answer before the question is asked. As my teaching assistant, Andrea was the key driver in improving processes that will benefit my future classes, and her exceptional organization kept the class (and me) on track.  Lastly, she is very fun to work with.”

Rob Hailey
Senior Associate Vice President of University Services and Adjunct Lecturer

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