Former CPA Owes Her Career Pivot to Consortium

For as long as she can remember, Gabrielle Clark (’20) has loved athletic competition — whether as a spectator or a participant. While a student at Atlanta’s Emory University from 2010 to 2014, the Chicago native excelled in both track and field and tennis — becoming the first African American woman to win an NCAA singles championship at any level.

But as an undergraduate, Clark wasn’t exposed to the possibility of a sports-related career; instead, after earning her degree in business administration and accounting, she moved to New York City, became a CPA, and began working in audit and financial services as an associate at PwC. “It was a great experience,” Clark says. “But I knew I wanted to get closer to sports.” She moved in that direction with a position as a financial analyst for a media company, but ultimately concluded she yearned for a shift in function as well as industry, and that the best path to that goal was through an MBA program.

“For me it was always UCLA Anderson,” recalls Clark, who was drawn to the robust sports-and-entertainment curriculum offered through UCLA Anderson’s Center for Media, Entertainment & Sports. That Los Angeles boasted a wealth of successful sports franchises and venues added to the appeal. But another development made the decision especially compelling. An ardent fan of the Olympics, Clark had attended the 2016 Summer Games in Rio de Janeiro as a spectator. In 2017, as she was pondering MBA programs, Los Angeles won the bid to host the 2028 Summer Olympics. “That was like the cherry on top,” Clark says. “I thought it would be great to somehow become involved with the planning for the Games after business school.”

After completing her MBA, Clark started at what she calls her dream job: working at LA28, the private, nonprofit organization responsible for delivering the 2028 Olympic and Paralympic Games in Los Angeles. In her role as senior manager of strategy and operations, Clark is responsible for venue strategic planning and integration at the Los Angeles Organizing Committee for the Games. As part of LA28’s Games planning and delivery team, she supports venue infrastructure with scheduling forthe design, architecture and construction of the multiple event sites. As a member of the venue management team, she helps to manage operating processes and engagement with venue partners.

“What’s exciting is that every year looks so different,” Clark says. “When I first joined, we were very much in the strategic planning phase, and now as our sports program and venue plan to take shape, we’re shifting into an operational phase — bringing in event people and going to the venues more frequently to see how the designs are progressing.”

Clark attributes her successful career pivot to the financial support and connections she made as a Consortium fellow. Founded in 1966 at Washington University in St. Louis and now including 23 member universities, the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management aims to enhance diversity and inclusion in global business education and leadership by reducing the underrepresentation of African Americans, Hispanic Americans and Native Americans in the enrollments of leading business schools and the business community. Each year, nearly 600 incoming MBA students who demonstrate a commitment to uplifting underserved communities are offered membership.

At UCLA Anderson, which joined the Consortium in 2010, a typical class now has more than 40 Consortium fellows; the Class of 2025 is the second largest among the Consortium’s 23 institutions. Through programming that includes the annual Orientation Program and Career Forum, these students connect with Consortium fellows at other top business schools as well as at UCLA Anderson. They gain access to a network of more than 50 corporate partners, including Fortune 500 companies, as well as to Consortium alumni. And not least, Consortium fellows at UCLA Anderson receive a tuition-free education.

“Having the Consortium as a partner has helped us attract outstanding candidates across the country,” says Alex Lawrence (’99), UCLA Anderson’s assistant dean of MBA admissions and financial aid. “Given the expense of business school, that financial assistance from the university draws students who wouldn’t otherwise be able to afford to attend and allows them to pursue jobs without having to worry about the need to repay large debts. And for our Consortium fellows, this provides a second network they can tap into, beyond their Anderson network. They attend the orientation program, where they meet other fellows and corporate partners, and often they have locked in their summer internship for the next year even before they’ve stepped onto the business school campus.”

Lawrence is quick to point out that Consortium fellows aren’t the only ones to benefit from the partnership. “Having these students at UCLA Anderson enriches the experience for everyone,” he says. “They bring a diversity of perspectives to the discussions, and a passion for giving back and making positive contributions that resonates with our mission as well as with the Consortium’s. And in my experience with our corporate partners, I have seen that these individuals tend to be in high demand after they graduate.”

Gabrielle Clark knew all about the benefits of becoming a Consortium fellow. Her uncle was part of the first Consortium class at Washington University in St. Louis, and her sister had followed suit as a member of the 2017 Consortium class at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Business.

In choosing UCLA Anderson, Clark recalls, she was purposefully stepping out of her comfort zone by moving across the country to an unfamiliar city where she didn’t know anyone. She remembers attending the orientation program and feeling energized as she began building her network among the hundreds of incoming Consortium fellows preparing to matriculate at one of the member institutions, as well as the Consortium alumni and corporate partners in attendance. When she got to UCLA Anderson, Clark immediately felt at home. “It was comforting to have a community of like-minded people who shared a desire to uplift underserved communities,” she says. “We would get together and feed off each other’s expertise. I found the supportive environment so powerful that I became a Consortium liaison for my second year so that I could get to know the fellows in the class behind me.”

Although she had entered UCLA Anderson intrigued by the idea of one day landing a position at LA28, the possibility didn’t start to feel like a reality until one day when Casey Wasserman, who chairs LA28’s Board of Directors, and Kathy Carter, LA28’s CEO, came in to speak in one of Clark’s classes about the preparations for the Games. “I still have the notebook I wrote in that day,” Clark says. “After that, I began to think about it seriously, and then in 2020 I started seeing LA28 jobs on LinkedIn that I thought I could do.”

Managing strategy and operations for such a complex and historic event presents a myriad challenges. “This is unlike any other type of event planning, in that it’s multiple events at multiple venues going on simultaneously in the same region — and that complexity raises all kinds of questions that you wouldn’t have with a single event at a single venue,” Clark says. “It’s a difficult project, but it’s been a way to grow and stretch myself. People love the Olympic and Paralympic Games, so it’s going to be exciting to integrate with the communities all over L.A.”

Clark says her UCLA Anderson education prepared her to thrive in the type of fast-paced dynamic she now finds herself in. “I wouldn’t have been able to go to business school without the Consortium fellowship,” Clark says. “And without my UCLA Anderson education, I wouldn’t be where I am now.”