Darden Turbocharges Corporate and Foundation Relations

In the summer of 2010, Scott Creighton (MBA ’82), global vice president of marketing excellence at Johnson & Johnson (J&J) and Darden “team captain” — responsible for J&J’s recruiting efforts at Darden — wanted to know how the company could deepen its engagement with the School in order to broaden its talent pipeline.

J&J Consumer Marketing had experienced several years of increased success in recruiting Darden students, primarily in marketing, and Creighton wanted to further build the relationship. J&J was willing to invest in great ideas.

Creighton, who serves as a member of Darden’s Corporate Advisory Board, which advises Dean Bob Bruner on strategic issues related to the MBA program, met with the School’s corporate relations team. Together, they mapped out a multipronged approach for J&J that would enable a corporate-wide, cross-sector initiative to maximize efforts and secure broad support. J&J:

• Signed on as corporate sponsor at the visionary level, giving the company first access to recruiting and student events
• Invested in Darden’s MBA orientation week by writing a case with a faculty member and sending a senior executive to discuss it with the entire First Year class
• Offered a one-day program for all First Years on the subject of energy management, organized by the company’s subsidiary, the Human Performance Institute (HPI)

“By investing in Darden’s orientation program and first-term activities, the J&J brand is top of mind with First Year students,” says Creighton.” The HPI program encouraged Darden students to associate J&J with a healthy lifestyle and employee engagement, differentiating us from other recruiters. After year one, we are seeing great results: offers across different functional areas beyond marketing, first-time offers from our ‘sister’ sectors and an overall, richer applicant pool. We see our partnership with Darden as a model at J&J for engagement with business schools.”

Darden aims to sign on more visionary-level corporate partners and accelerate its corporate and foundation relations (CFR) program. “We want to build deep, long-lasting, mutually beneficial relationships with our partners,” says Trip Davis, president of the Darden School Foundation and senior associate dean for external relations.

The School takes a customized approach and offers a menu of programs, services and branding opportunities through which corporations and foundations can interact with the Darden community.

“These relationships are absolutely critical to Darden’s success,” says Everette Fortner (MBA ’87), Darden’s executive director of corporate relations. “It’s a cycle: Our partners recruit and hire our graduates. Our graduates grow within these organizations and become our ambassadors and champions. They perpetuate the recruiting cycle by hiring the next class of Darden students.”

In parallel, Darden’s partners develop their executive talent and refine their strategic direction through Darden’s top-ranked Executive Education programs. They write cases with Darden’s faculty — recognized as the world’s best — and support the School’s research centers as they develop new knowledge. This thought leadership is brought into the Darden classroom, and the cycle repeats.

The Darden team is working to develop an even stronger CFR competency, with a strong fundraising component. Assisting the effort is a network that includes an internal Corporate Action Team, Darden’s development team, an external Corporate Advisory Board of Darden alumni working in top corporations and a new Corporate Partners Committee of the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees.

“We welcome conversations and connections,” says Fortner. “What begins as a simple phone call or an e-mail can, over time, build into a mutually beneficial partnership through which great things occur.”

View a list of our Corporate Partners Committee of the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees 

View our Darden Corporate Advisory Board Members 

Learn more about giving opportunities for Infrastructure, Experience & Technology.

For more information, contact the Office of Advancement at +1-434-924-6576.