LFM ’98 Randal Pinkett Advises Sloan Students
Apprentice IV Winner Reflects on Leadership
By Sarah Foote, Editor, News@MITSloan
March 8, 2006
Two first-year MBA students who volunteered to put together a video for prospective students during AdMIT weekend, Daya Fields and Allison Marshall, showed that tenacity pays off when they had the good fortune to meet TV’s latest Apprentice, Randal Pinkett, LFM ’98, before he begins his new position working for the Donald Trump organization. In his role under Trump he will be responsible for overseeing over $100 million in renovations for his Atlantic City, NJ casinos.
From left, Daya Fields, MBA '07, Kerry Twibell, MBA '07, Randal Pinkett, LFM '98, and Allison Marshall, MBA '07
Daya Fields and Allison Marshall, members of the MBA Class of 2007, attempted to contact Randal a number of times before reaching him at his consulting firm BCT Partners, headquartered in Newark, NJ. Allison and Daya wanted to meet and interview Randal for the leadership segment of the AdMIT video. After many phone calls and several e-mails to every possible email address they could find for Randal, they were finally able to make the connection.
Allison and Daya, including Kerry Twibell, MBA Class of 2007, spent an hour and a half interviewing Randal, peppering him with over 20 questions about his leadership style, the value of MIT’s business curriculum in the real-world, student activism, and the nurturing environment at MIT which fostered his entrepreneurial interest (Randal also received a doctorate degree from the Media Lab at MIT).
Randal offered both prospective and current students advice that helped him succeed – not only winning the Apprentice position with Trump – but enabled him to successfully start several other businesses (Access One Corporation, Inner City Consulting Group, MBS Educational Services & Training, and Mind, Body & Soul Enterprises). Randal also finds the time to serve on several non-profit boards and is heavily involved in his local community.
“Randal is a genuine soul!” says Daya. “He is very humble for someone who is so successful. You can tell he really enjoyed meeting and spending time with current students. It was amazing how generous he was with his time.” Randal even took a few extra minutes to take photos with the three students after they completed the interview.
Randal’s advice to prospective students was to find “the right fit [school] for them.” His advice for current students seemed to reflect his experiences on the TV show “be ready for any opportunity and maximize every minute at MIT…you never know who you are going to meet while you are in school or what opportunities may come your way. It’s important to put your best foot forward at all times,” said Randal.
The video was completed at the end of February in time for the first AdMIT weekend March 3-4. Randal begins his new job with Donald Trump this spring.