Snead Earns GBF Student Leadership Award

As the vice president of inclusion and professional development of Maryland Smith’s MBA Association, Jasmine Snead ’17, MBA ’21, has dedicated herself to being a force for positive change. Now, she’s receiving recognition for those efforts.

Snead was recently announced by the Graduate Business Forum as its 2021 Student Leadership Award winner.

Through her position, Snead helped launch initiatives such as Orientation diversity sessions for incoming first-year MBA students, as well as helping shape curriculum and culture of the full-time MBA program at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business.

To Snead, being recognized in this capacity is an honor and is testament that the hard work that’s been put into the DEI space at Maryland Smith is paying dividends.

“I was initially just excited to be named a finalist for the award, but this all started from conversations with our team and identifying how we could respond to the needs of BIPOC students and, in particular, our Black students last summer with the vigil for George Floyd,” says Snead, founder of Aurora Tights and 2019 Pitch Dingman winner. “We made a very consistent theme throughout the year that there’s more work to be done, but this is incredibly encouraging for the Smith MBA program to continue down that path.”

Now that she has graduated and relinquished her role to her successor, second-year MBA student Frances Ampah, Snead is focused on continuing to promote DEI initiatives at her startup, Aurora Tights. After all, “performers of all shapes and sizes have tights that they need to compete and perform at their best,” she says.

What’s important, Snead says, is that the MBA program is in great hands and that the foundation has been laid for even greater change and progress to take place long after her time at Maryland Smith.

“The biggest thing is that the ball is now rolling and I’m happy to have played my part in these efforts,” says Snead. “I’m fortunate to have had my cohort place its trust in me to take on this role and I’m grateful that the administration supported us. I’m looking forward to coming back for events and I’m excited to see what Fran does next.”