University of Virginia

The Darden School of Business at the University of Virginia (UVA) joined the LEAD family in 1983. Since then, 750 high school students have benefited from the LEAD experience at UVA.

The program begins with 30 students presenting a three-minute oral presentation on a topic of personal/cultural importance in order to prepare them for making impromptu and planned presentations in front of groups.

At the Darden Business School, LEADers participated in an intense marketing challenge and business plan competition. The students learn the fundamentals of marketing and new product placement and are challenged to develop a marketing campaign for the product or service of their choice. For the business plan competition, LEADers develop and pitch a business idea to a panel of local entrepreneurs and business leaders.

The 2009 LEADers at the Darden Business School learned about business topics ranging from accounting, negotiations, marketing and business ethics. Students were taught the fundamentals of marketing and new product placement. As a result the LEADers were required to develop a marketing campaign for the product or service of their choice. The business plan is then developed further and presented to a panel of entrepreneurs and business leaders. LEAD-UVA 2010 will focus on Social Media Strategies for business. Through the use of Web 2.0 technologies, such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube, LEADers will start their own firms and create a significant web presence for those firms by the end of the three-week program. This cutting edge curriculum will be augmented with visits to major corporations, such as ExxonMobil, AOL, and Capital One.

The LEAD experience at Darden is topped off by a number of educational field trips in the local community. Over the past five years, the following businesses have participated in the LEAD program at the University of Virginia: Arch’s Frozen Yogurt, Black Entertainment Television, The Central Intelligence Agency, DuPont, Exxon Mobil, Hershey’s, Merrill Lynch, Monticello, (Historic Home of UVA founder Thomas Jefferson), and The Akwaaba Inn, a bed and breakfast franchise with several US locations.