On February 3rd, the Retail and Apparel Club hosted top executives from Limited Brands for a full day of events. This year, for the first time in their history, Limited Brands chose to begin official MBA recruiting and HBS was fortunate to be on the receiving end of their corporate MBA Recruiting Kick-Off.
The day’s events began with an invitation only cocktail hour luncheon at the Charles Hotel where over 50 Retail & Apparel Club members had the amazing opportunity to meet and greet top level executives from Limited and the leading retail expert professors from HBS. Immediately following was a formal sit down luncheon where students were able to discuss industry trend and career opportunities in a more intimate setting with over 15 Limited Brands executives. No one left empty-handed as each attending student received a lovely gift bag which included Trading Up, one of the most talked about books on retailing, written by the CEO of Limited’s Bath and Body Works Neil Fisk. Some were even more fortunate winning raffle prizes such as gift certificates to Express and gift baskets from Victoria’s Secret and Bath and Body Works.
After lunch, the club members and executives were bused back to Spangler for the event open to everyone on campus, a key note address by Dr. Len Schlesinger the COO/Vice Chairman and ex-HBS professor. For about an hour Dr. Schlesinger captivated the audience of about 250 students and faculty in Spangler Auditorium with his humor and frank discussion about the competitive landscape and changing trends in the retail industry as well as sharing with us Limited Brands’ new strategy for growth. Following what many have since called the best presentation on campus, Christine Beauchamp, Senior Vice President of Commercialization, talked through specific examples of how Limited has begun to apply their new strategy to their different store brands. She also related about the fantastic opportunities that summer interns and full-time MBA graduates would have to work towards helping Limited expand internally on their strategy shift.
To top off the day, Limited invited the audience to continue discussions with the rest of the Limited executives during a cocktail hour in the Meredith Room. For over two hours, close to 100 students took the opportunity to snack and drink while further discussing career opportunities with many of the functional experts in attendance from Limited.
