I am honored to have received the Graziadio Alumni Network “Star” award from the Graziadio school of business at Pepperdine University, where I earned my MBA.

Geoff Koboldt - Pepperdine University - council star award winner  Geoff Koboldt winning STAR award at Pepperdine University

A lot of hard work has been put in over the past 2 years so it is nice to be recognized, although I humbly served from the heart to benefit students and alumni.

My passion was setting up the Waves Ignite program, which helps entrepreneurs by providing them an entrepreneurial community with a myriad of business resources and contacts.  Need an accountant?  We got 15 vetted alumni CPA’s.  Need a lawyer?  We got 15 vetted Pepperdine attorneys.  Need access to venture capitalists?  The list goes on towards what we are creating.

Geoff Koboldt with Dr. Deryck van J. Rensburg - dean of the Graziadio business school at Pepperdine University

When I started with GAN-LA, I initially had dinner with the council near Christmas in 2015.  During that dinner, I met Dr. Michael Williams who was overseeing the alumni staff.  I reached out to him at a later time and we met up at Pepperdine West LA campus over coffee to learn more about how I could teach at Pepperdine.  He then introduced me to Dr. Kyle Murphy, and I was able to be a guest speaker at one of his entrepreneurship classes in Encino, as well as help review the final presentations of another class in Malibu.  I later then met Dean David Smith, who just so happened to be a MSU alumni like myself; go Spartans.  He introduced me to others within Pepperdine to see about teaching.  While creating the first night of the Waves Ignite event, I reached out to another alumni and professor Shawn Herrera to speak at the event.  I recently invited Shawn to come speak at my business management class I’m teaching at another university’s MBA program.  Another time I met President Andrew K. Benton.  Recently I met our new Dean – Dr. Deryck van J. Rensburg.  This doesn’t even include all the amazing students and alumni!  The point is…  relationships are important and I likely wouldn’t have gotten chances like this to meet such wonderful successful people unless I graciously donated my time to Pepperdine.  So what are you waiting for?

 

Geoff Koboldt - Graziadio alumni network council board member at Pepperdine University