Matthew De Meulder

Georgetown University, McDonough School of Business

“The Matt De Meulder Show: A family-driven sitcom around a personable, passionate, and driven lead.”

Fun fact about yourself: I co-host Georgetown’s first (and only) country music radio show, “The Honky Tonk Show.”

Hometown: Tampa, Florida

High School: Ridgewood High School (Ridgewood, New Jersey)

Major: Accounting & Marketing

Minor: French & Francophone Studies

Favorite Business Course: Marketing Across Borders: Central to my journey is my multicultural upbringing, shaped by my family’s roots in Western Europe, South Korea, and the United States. My background instilled in me a deep commitment to cultural competence.

Marketing Across Borders, taught by the legendary Professor Charles Skuba, allowed me to connect my personal experiences to a business context. During the semester, I dove head-first into the course content, finding each reading and lecture incredibly fascinating. In the end, for our final project, I was able to apply my learnings to my niche specialty interest – developing a comprehensive report on the market entry strategies of American television streaming services into Western Europe.

Extracurricular Activities, Community Work and Leadership Roles During College:

Involvement

Four-year tenure as Administrative Assistant McDonough School of Business Undergraduate Program Office
Mentor to 80+ first year and transfer students as Peer Ambassador and First Year Seminar Coach
Administration-nominated student representative to Undergraduate Curriculum & Standards Committee and Undergraduate Admissions Committee

Student Organizations

The Georgetown Entertainment & Media Alliance (Director of Operations)
Georgetown Marketing Association (Vice President / Director of Operations)
The 1634 Society (Vice President / Director of Operations)

Awards

Highest Honors for all semesters
Beta Gamma Sigma Sophomore Year Inductee
Ventures and Values Competition Award Winner

Where have you interned during your college career?

August Point Advisors (New York, NY) – Associate Consultant Intern
FOX Entertainment (New York, NY) – Entertainment Research Intern
Walmart Connect (Hoboken, NJ) – Food Sales Team Intern

Where will you be working after graduation? I will be working at Capco Consulting as an Associate in New York City

Who is your favorite business professor? Professor Ronnie Goodstein (AKA Goodie) was recently awarded McDonough’s most prestigious, student-voted award, Professor of the Year. I am here to say that the award was well-deserved. Having taken two classes with Professor Goodstein, my view of how people operate has vastly changed. His view of “championing the customer” no matter what is so basic but so complex in its application. So many doors opened for me as a result of adopting this mentality. Professor Goodstein knows how to champion the customer AND the student. I am lucky to have learned from him.

What is the biggest lesson you gained from studying business? Perhaps it is my personality, or possibly the roles that I have been fortunate to hold. However, I believe I have discovered an overarching truth about business: it is all about people. At Fox Entertainment, I spent every day combing through TV viewership metrics and presenting trends. In my Financial Statement Analysis course, we analyzed the non-verbal communication an energy company uses to communicate business strategy and health with their shareholders. As a leader of the Georgetown Marketing Association, I mentored our Strategy and Creative Consultants on how to craft marketing campaigns for our pro bono clients based on consumer behavior. While these examples do not overlap at first glance, from finance to marketing to operations, everything is about people. Any software or procedure can be learned relatively easily. However, understanding people – now that is a challenge.

What advice would you give to a student looking to major in a business-related field? Growing up in a family business, I witnessed my mom’s undying passion for her employees and her craft. She introduced us to her passion through kitchen table conversations about hiring, lessons on machinery, and late-night trips to the office. That was real passion.

While I was always interested in business, I developed my only passions based on the environment at McDonough. I vividly remember my Academic Dean, Catherine Vaz, explaining how to realize one’s passions. She believes that you can trace your passions to the “nuggets” of information from classes or speakers that you think about for the days and weeks following. At Georgetown, I streamlined my passion for the metrics behind customer engagement. It can be easy to be swept up by external forces, but I encourage anybody entering business to search for their passions. I challenge you to explore an unknown area or field. You never know where you will obtain your “nuggets.” The first step is simply to explore.

Looking back over your experience, what is the one thing you’d do differently in business school and why? During my summer at Walmart Connect, one of my most important takeaways from my amazing supervisor, Gabby Stoller, was the intense power of a “thank you.” A simple “thank you” can open doors, foster relationships, and create connections.

It takes a village to succeed in business school. This village is wide-ranging and full of individuals you would and would not expect. Regardless, looking back, I would have expressed my gratitude even more to those around me who contributed to every aspect of my success. I could not have succeeded without my daily interactions with the kind faces at Whisk Bake Shop, our on-campus coffee shop. Additionally, I would express my gratitude to the individuals within the McDonough Undergraduate Program, who instilled in me so many essential lessons on how to be an effective communicator and how to thrive in a professional environment.

A “thank you” is only the start, however it is the first step to showing my gratitude to my village for helping me to achieve my goals and dreams.

What is one way that your business school has integrated AI into your programming? What is one insight you gained from using AI? In my opinion, the McDonough School of Business is at the cutting edge of AI programming. Across our classes, large language models are incorporated into programming in order to enhance the process of skills development as opposed to replacing skills development. For example, in Strategic Management, we were encouraged to use generative AI to expand upon our ideas and formulate our thoughts.

My experience with AI has only affirmed my fervent belief in the importance of relationships in business. While there are amazing functions of AI, it cannot replace the functions of communication, clarity of thought, and persuasion. Understanding this, I will continue to double-down on the constant growth and development that is building and maintaining relationships.

Which academic, extracurricular or personal achievement are you most proud of? I was never selected as the President of my student organizations. Instead, I served as “Director of Operations” for three different student organizations, developing a reputation school-wide for my detail-oriented and people-driven skills. This is where I showed my impact.

I explored my interests in television analytics and restaurant management during the past four years. For this reason, I have become a strong advocate of searching for one’s passions and how to connect passions with (well-paid) employment.

Through my impact in my role in the McDonough Undergraduate Program, I was invited onto faculty-led committees, school strategy focus groups, speaking engagements, and mentorship opportunities. In these activities, I believe I have reached almost every undergraduate business student.

As I leave McDonough, I am incredibly proud of my ability to show my (specifically younger) peers that there are multiple paths to succeed, paths that they would never have considered.

Which classmate do you most admire? The most important aspect to my identity is my identical twin, Patrick. My accomplishments are his accomplishments and vice versa. I have been so fortunate to have experienced business school alongside him.

Still, I would have selected him even if he was not my twin brother. When Patrick was unsuccessful in his recruitment for student organizations on campus, he forged his own path. He collaborated with the Undergraduate Program to increase open enrollment for student organizations, giving younger students the chance to benefit from experiences he was not able to.

Even outside of this initiative, Patrick’s legacy of kindness and inclusion will extend far into the future. That is just the kind of person he is. I cannot wait to cheer him on in his future endeavors, just as I have all of our lives.

Who would you most want to thank for your success? While my success has been a team-effort, I would like to give a special shoutout to my dad, Olivier. Any time I grapple with a difficult decision, academically, professionally, or socially, I know that he will give me calm, level-headed, and actionable advice. Even when I am not with him, I often think about his mantras when I need a moment of clarity. Even more so, my dad has set the example of how to be a good employee, manager, and overall person. He has never stopped learning, and he constantly searches for new mentees. He also is the first person to help anybody, even if it means great inconvenience to him. As I move onto the next chapter, I cannot express the impact of my dad on my success and my personhood.

What are the top two items on your professional bucket list?

1. Serve as a mentor for the next generation in people leadership role

2. Direct strategy for a major entertainment conglomerate – I have already promised my mom that she would be my date to the first award show I am invited to, and I intend to fulfill that promise!

What made Matt such an invaluable addition to the Class of 2025?

“I have taught Matt three accounting courses over his career at Georgetown. There is something very special about him. He’s obviously very intelligent and works hard to achieve his academic successes. He is a joy to have in class and always has great points during any discussion. However, what I admire most about Matt is his empathy and his willingness to pitch in and help anyone who needs it. He will help a fellow student who is struggling or a professor who needs help with any task. His commitment to Georgetown and the McDonough School of Business is unparalleled. I currently work on the Undergraduate Admissions Committee with him. His attention to detail as he reads freshman applications is amazing. In addition, the committee is always interested in his insights about an applicant, as he sees things from such an interesting perspective. I can see him working toward making the next class at Georgetown a special one. He is 100% committed to keeping the McDonough School of Business a special place and it shows every day.

I teach and mentor hundreds of students each year, and Matt is truly special. It will be quite an adjustment next year when I don’t have a chance to talk to him or see him greeting visitors to the Undergraduate Programs Office, where he works part-time as the receptionist.”

Kirsten Anderson
Teaching Professor of Accounting

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