The Lakeside Group

The Lakeside Group is University of Richmond’s premier student-run consulting group spun from the mind of Jessie Barford, senior business administration major studying management, in 2012. 

“In my sophomore year, I was volunteering at CrossOver Healthcare Ministry, the largest free healthcare clinic in Virginia, and saw first-hand how many organizational and management problems many nonprofits experience due to lack of volunteers and other resources,” Barford shared. “I wanted to do find a way to help these types of organizations, and I knew my classmates and I could do this through our education and business knowledge.”

She explained, “Our goal is to conduct pro bono consulting work for nonprofits while also providing students with avenues to gain consulting experience and to give back to the community. We started with three officers and 20 members, and today we have over 75 members and an officer team of 12. Our biggest hurdle has been organizing a brand-new system that works for us, but I know we’re getting closer to perfecting our processes.” 

Several officers shared their experiences and vision for the group.

Dwight Ramseran, ’16, a business administration major concentrating in management, described, “As director of consulting, I’m building an organizational framework for the consulting branch as well as devising the group’s mission and values system. We’re recruiting students to oversee our human resources and business development sections as well as creating a skeleton of the duties and responsibilities for these positions. The students have been fleshing out their positions over the semester, setting the standard for those who take over for them in the future. It’s been exciting to see the titles grow from words on a page into team members who take charge and define what it means to be a student leader in The Lakeside Group.”

Mel Shuaipi, ’15, a business administration major with concentrations in international business and economics, shared, “As director of business development I first met with several administrators at the Bonner Center for Civic Engagement to select potential organizations to work with during the semester. We’re excited to announce that The Lakeside Group will be working with Higher Achievement, an afterschool and summer mentorship program for middle school youth. The consultants will work with the organization’s administrators on a project to improve mentor retention and identify key characteristics of mentors that chose to stay with the program for longer periods of time. We’re extremely excited to embark on our first engagement."

Diego Leal Pereira, ’16, a business administration minor with an interdisciplinary major in political science and Latin American studies, is the project manager assigned to the engagement. “We chose five student consultants from a pool of applicants based on three criteria: their ability to work in a team, their communication skills and their willingness to act as leaders throughout the project. My goals are to facilitate teambuilding and to motivate each consultant to lead different aspects of the project. We’re lucky to have highly talented students on our team, and I hope to support each of them as we develop our teamwork, leadership and communication skills.”

Robert Nogay, ’17, an accounting major and co-president of the group, spoke on the group’s activities in preparation for the engagement. “Our club events have included speaker events during which faculty speak on their careers and fields of expertise. We follow each event with a relevant social activity to illustrate the lecture. For example, after a group dynamics talk presented by Professor Forsyth, we went to laser tag to observe teamwork and our own group dynamics.” 

Barford reflected, “The faculty support has been incredible. Professor Thekdi and Professor Whitaker have taken so much time to help us create this organization, whether they are providing guidance on how to shape the group or bouncing ideas around with us. Their classes have further prepared us to take on our future projects and developed the group as a whole. Through our hard work, we hope to create a long-standing, valuable group to benefit the campus and community.”

Photo: Diego Leal Pereira, Mel Shuaipi, Sarah Restivo, Jessie Barford, Colby Abrahamoff, Meaghan Colby, Domniki Athanasiadou and members of the University of Richmond golf team hold golf activity to supplement a lecture in personal branding