Hello everyone! This week I got to opportunity to meet with a few people that have relations with Leadership Columbus. Over this summer, I have made it a personal goal of mine to meet for coffee with people in my organization or have worked with my organization. For me, networking has not been my strong suit throughout college. I would get nervous even sending an email to someone I didn’t know. I have used this opportunity during this fellowship to change that, and I am so glad I did.

The first person I met for coffee this week was Jay Delaney, one of the board members at Leadership Columbus. I had met and spoken with Jay on a couple occasions already but I knew I wanted to get together and talk more with him one on one. I may have mentioned this before, but Leadership Columbus only consists of 5 employees including myself, which means we get to work very closely with our board members. I have been so grateful to have met and gotten to work alongside our board members this summer. I have gotten to see the behind the scenes work and the collaboration between us and the board members. Alright back to Jay, him and I had some great conversations about work experiences and the opportunities that networking can bring. After an extremely interesting life that including some filmmaking around the country, he ended up here at Ohio State University thanks to networking he had done with people around Columbus. It’s always wonderful to talk with someone on the board about what made them want to join our board in the first place. For Jay, a Signature Program graduate of 2020, his experience with us was so wonderful that he wanted to keep it going and continue to offer us his help as a board member and I thank him dearly for all he’s done. I truly took a lot of our talks and what doors can be opened just by sending a mere email or meeting for one coffee.

The second person I met with this week was one of my more nervous asks. I had the honor of meeting with a 2008 Signature Program graduate, Columbus Business First 2015 40 under 40 recipient, recipient of the 2019 Columbus Foundation’s Spirit of Columbus Award, and the first female auditor of the City of Columbus, Megan Kilgore. I feel like I just wrote that as if I was announcing it like she was on the first tee of a major golf tournament. I am so grateful to have talked with her and got to learn all about her job as auditor. I honestly didn’t know what our city auditor does but after she explained it, it made total sense. We had some great conversations revolving around technology and data that our city is using to help guide the auditor’s office into smart and correct decisions. We then got into our values and why we enjoy doing what we do. I’m a big Columbus Crew supporter so I found this really cool and interesting, but her help with the Save the Crew campaign in 2019 was what helped make her a recipient of the Spirit of Columbus award in 2019. To me, it is still so cool to see how strong our community was at that time to work endlessly in order to keep the Crew in Columbus. I am so glad we succeeded. This city would not be the same without the Crew here, and I genuinely mean that. Back to our conversations though, her and I also had talked about the importance of networking and she even recommended me talk with some more people as well. I fully plan on taking her up on that and meeting with these people. For me, the best thing I can do going into my senior year at Fisher’s College of Business is to just meet with as many people as I can to see the various industries and what’s all out there, as well as expanding my networking circle. I truly thank her for taking the time out of her day to meet with me.

This week, other than networking, was a preparation week for our Central Ohio Leadership Academy that takes place all next week. I am very excited for it and I am excited to share all about it but you’re going to have to come back and tune in next week to hear about my time there. Also, thanks to all of you reading this, I truly appreciate those who do. To see people actually read this inspires me to give it the best I can, so thanks.

I’ll see you next week,

Austin Gray