Penn students gathered in a small Hunstman Hall classroom to hear the secrets to career success from someone who has achieved it.
1990 Wharton graduate Richard Gay, the executive vice president of Strategy and Operations for MTV and VH1, part of the MTV Networks division of Viacom, gave the keynote speech to conclude Penn’s first Media and Entertainment Week. The week, a collaboration between the professional business fraternity Alpha Kappa Psi and the Undergraduate Media and Entertainment Club, invited Penn alumni with careers in media and entertainment to give speeches and participate in interactive events with students.
Gay began by sharing his family and educational background, comparing his family to the Cosbys and revealing the roles that Wharton and Stanford Business School had in leading him to his current career.
He then described his career, In a presentation called “Why I Am the Luckiest Man in Business,” he provided flowcharts, technical terms and comedic descriptions, saying, “I work for a brand as crazy as Jersey Shore and as impacting as Teen Mom … I get to work across the whole company and some days it’s all finance and some days I get to watch TV all day.”
Gay ended by presenting his formula for the perfect career: “Something you love plus something you’re good at plus something you can get paid for equals you win.”
The presentation was followed by a question-and-answer session in which Gay spoke further about career opportunities for minorities — saying that there are more opportunities in the entertainment field for minorities than in other fields — as well as the inevitably difficult path of career ascension and the limits of reality television.
The audience of about 30 students reacted positively to the speaker’s prestige and career insight. “I love that the speaker is a Penn alum and I love reality TV and thought that he did a good job of highlighting its good things,” College senior Parker Unruh said.
Yong Lin Lee, College senior and Co-Director of Media and Entertainment Week, felt the week’s first run went well. “We have great plans for future M&E weeks, with good formats and big sponsors.”
President of the Undergraduate Media and Entertainment Club and Wharton senior Victoria Polubinska has high hopes for future events based on the success of this week. “There are about 7,000 alumni working in media and entertainment who love their jobs and this week has been a great way to showcase some of them,” she said. “There are so many opportunities out there in media and entertainment and now interested students will have great people coming to them to talk about these opportunities.”
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