Today we’d like to introduce you to Rachel Georgian.
Thanks for sharing your story with us Rachel. So, let’s start at the beginning and we can move on from there.
Currently, I am a junior at the Cypress Woods High School and my career aspiration is to become a successful business leader. As a young kid, I grew up watching shark tank and also closely followed the success stories of great business leaders such as Steve Jobs, Indra Nooyi, Sheryl Sandberg, Tim Cook, Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, etc. to name a few. All of these leaders had some unique capabilities that enabled them to stand out and achieve phenomenal success. They exhibited leadership three core areas – leading innovation in the company, the ability to motivate employees and help others believe in a vision.
Also based on the career progression of these leaders, I strongly believe that leaders are NOT born but made. And with proper mentoring and opportunities, today’s youth can start developing their leadership skills right from middle school. However, I realized that schools today are mostly focused on academics and the schools lack opportunities to develop skills in business leadership.
So first I co-founded the ‘Young Enterprise Club’ at school with the main objective of connecting high school students with local entrepreneurs, to share their growth stories and learn from their experiences. And realizing that today’s youth lacks focused programs in leadership and public speaking, I co-founded a non-profit organization ‘Youth Executive Leadership Program’ (YELP – https://www.youthexecutivelead.org). The mission of YELP is to tap into the knowledge base and the experience of influential leaders across various facets of the industry to coach the youth on key skills such as public speaking, teamwork, and collaboration. With the great response and success of the leadership programs of YELP, my vision for YELP is to develop a business model to enable other high students to create similar programs in their own hometowns or cities. I believe that one can become a better leader by inspiring others to lead and enabling them to succeed as a leader.
Overall, has it been relatively smooth? If not, what were some of the struggles along the way?
No. It had not been a smooth road for us. We encountered several challenges along the way. First and foremost, one key challenge for us is funding for the working capital. We are overcoming this challenge by adopting a very lean model with minimal expenses. Long term we are planning to develop a sponsorship model to better manage our finances. Another challenge that we constantly face is marketing and getting the right level of engagement from the students. We are now focusing on social media outreach for our marketing purposes and added two resources to help us with this effort.
Please tell us about Youth Executive Leadership Program.
We are a non-profit organization ‘Youth Executive Leadership Program’ (YELP – https://www.youthexecutivelead.org).
The Youth Executive Leadership Program (YELP) is a non profit organization whose program centers around the Houston area, where students learn about leadership skills which include public speaking, various aspects of leading a team or an organization, etc.. Workshops (as part of the organization and partnership organizations) will be available throughout the year and this includes inviting business panels, internship opportunities, public speaking workshops, and leadership camps, empowering the young generation to become strong visionaries, speakers and leaders.
Our Workshops are available to kids between the ages of 11-18. Houston is such a large dynamic city, however, there aren’t many programs focused on building leadership and public speaking skills in this age group and we want to change that! The objective of the organization is to empower the next generation of young leaders with all the necessary skills to enter the real world. At the Youth Executive Leadership Program, we believe that leaders are NOT born but made. We want to help make and define these young leaders.
Our Business Strategy:
Educate – Our mission for YELP is to educate the youth on public speaking and leadership skills. We strive to offer an educational experience for students while still making the program fun and exciting. Through our workshops, we plan to create the new leaders of the generation.
Empower – Through our programs, we hope to empower many others to create leadership initiatives throughout the Houston area.
Lead – We are teens who want to create a stronger, more powerful generation. Not only will we be the ones leading through this program, and our initiatives, but also students from varying parts of Houston will have opportunities to lead others throughout the workshops.
Grow – We plan to grow the YELP program throughout the Houston area, and also into various parts of Texas. Our long-term plan is for this to become a nationally recognized program that enables students to become leaders in their community.
Any shoutouts? Who else deserves credit in this story – who has played a meaningful role?
My business partner and Co-Founder Tanya Manocha. She has stood by me and our non-profit through all of our challenges and trials we have faced. She has played a huge role in the success of our non-profit.
My family. They have supported me through thick and thin. They have always encouraged me to be the best version of myself and to never be afraid.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.youthexecutivelead.org/
- Phone: 8322062496
- Email: rachel.georgian@gmail.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/rachel.georgian/
https://www.instagram.com/youthexecutiveleadership/
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