Ten years of Forté Fellowships at Smith

A few years ago, Rebecca To, a Californian working in Silicon Valley, turned her attention to a dream she’d had since gaining her undergraduate degree in 2007: attaining an MBA. Visiting business-school fairs, Rebecca began to hear about “Forté Fellows”, a scholarship program for women seeking a master’s in business.

“I’ve always thought more women should get their MBA. I found it inspiring that this kind of program even existed…I wanted to be part of it.”

“The more successful stories we have of women in business, the more women will see themselves in those stories.”

She was further delighted to learn that a school at the top of her list — Smith School of Business — was a Forté partner. “It was more than a happy coincidence,” Rebecca, MBA’14, recalls.

Women in business

Based in Austin, TX, the Forté Foundation aims to bolster women’s ranks in business schools and C-suites. Its launch, in 2001, was spurred by the study “Women and the MBA: Gateway to Opportunity”, which found that the percentage of women in business schools lagged other professions, such as law and medicine.

Smith was the first Canadian school to join with Forté, and this past year marked the partnership’s 10th anniversary. Each year, the school provides up to four women in the full-time MBA program with $40,000 Forté scholarships.

Teresa Pires, Associate Director of Recruitment and Admissions for the full-time MBA program, says Forté is an important way to drive women’s interest in a business career. “You can’t be what you don’t see,” she says. “The more successful stories we have of women in business, the more women will see themselves in those stories.”

Teresa notes the steady growth in the proportion of women in the full-time MBA program: 34 per cent of the most recent class are women, up from 20 per cent a decade ago.

A growing fellowship

Forté recipients get more than just tuition help. They can avail themselves of Forté-hosted webinars and events on topics such as personal branding and career advancement, and there are mentoring and networking opportunities. More than 6,200 women around the world are Forté Fellows, and 130 business schools, universities and corporations, such as Deloitte, IBM, Goldman Sachs and McKinsey & Company, are members of the foundation.

Twenty-nine alumni of Smith’s full-time MBA program are Forté Fellows, including two grads this year: Aditi Nayak and Samantha Cochrane (both MBA’18).

Aditi grew up in India and worked on a startup venture in the U.S. before coming to Smith. Samantha, from Toronto, had managed a community-investment program for the Canadian Women’s Foundation. Both have experience mentoring girls and were immediately drawn to Forté. “It really showcases [Smith’s] commitment to elevate women in leadership,” Samantha says.

Last June, the Forté Foundation held its annual conference in Seattle, drawing business leaders, Forté alumni and speakers from such companies as Starbucks and Amazon. “It was a great chance to meet other women and see what their journeys have been like,” says Aditi. Both she and Samantha attended the conference.

Meanwhile, three years after earning her MBA at Smith, Rebecca To is back in Silicon Valley. After working at Deloitte in Toronto, she’s now in marketing at the semiconductor maker Xilinx.
“I’m still proud of the fact that I’m a Forté Fellow,” she says. “It’s helped me in my career. It’s given me that little edge.”