Gwen Corner on Making IDEA a Well-Oiled Machine
By: Aaisha Balakrishnan
Tags: Women In Business, Idea Northeastern, Entrepreneurship, Northeastern University, Program Management

Her Role as Program Manager

Gwen Corner has been at Northeastern for two-and-half years, and her role as Program Manager at IDEA is a pillar of this organization. She finds herself interacting with many stakeholders, and having to put on many hats. Her primary function is to support the student management team and to ensure assistance and guidance where needed. On the other hand, Corner also corresponds with IDEA’s venture side, focusing on the Ready Stage entrepreneurs. She hosts the orientation sessions for them and even evaluates their pitches. These interactions allow Corner to get a sense of the entrepreneurs’ needs coming into the IDEA program. Over time, she has taken on the role of conducting communication with the IDEA coaches, organizing onboarding for all of them, and ensuring that these volunteers feel supported when operating within the entrepreneurship community.

In addition to these functions, Corner also manages the Legal Officer roles and corresponds with the external community, specifically the university and the greater Boston area. She actively seeks new connections and partnerships to help build IDEA. the most recent one being with Mass Challenge. The last piece of her role as Program Manager is working on IDEA’s system management, with the entrepreneur database, keeping it up-to-date, making sure it’s accurate, and keeping tabs on the venture community as a whole.

How She Got Involved with Entrepreneurship

Corner went to Indiana University and got a Mathematics degree, with minors in Spanish and Sociology. She has always enjoyed problem-solving and critical thinking, which she now applies to her role at IDEA. After graduating, she found her way to non-profit management, which is where she got her first taste of how she wanted to impact the world and led her to go for higher education at Colorado State University. There she earned an MBA in Global Social and Sustainable Enterprise, which focused on social entrepreneurship and sustainability, specifically creating impact through business and utilizing business as a force for good. Eventually, she found her way to IDEA after a Project Management role in the renewable energy industry. Her goal was to advance social entrepreneurship and demonstrate how business tools can solve challenging global social problems. Through happenstance, she found this role. Her path was not linear, but she is happy to have found her way here.

The IDEA Impact

Corner really enjoys getting to know the students involved in IDEA and seeing them grow, adapt, and prosper — which she feels happens organically. A large part of her work centers around interacting with the Altschuler-Meyer CEO of IDEA, the Student Management Team, and aspiring entrepreneurs, which is her favorite parts of the job. The vast network of people she has met has been joyful and is something she will take with her wherever she goes.

The incredible work she sees from the community members and the collaboration involved across organizations, teams, and cultures is rewarding. This leads to feeling impacted as a bystander to this process, watching them flourish and mature throughout the program. The quantity of people passionate about entrepreneurship is astounding and makes IDEA unique. Knowing she has helped members of the community and impacted them in some way is another reason she loves being a part of IDEA.

Corner’s Journey: How has IDEA Evolved Since?

Given that IDEA has only just celebrated ten years in March 2020, things have become more established, with a greater foundation over time. In addition to this, watching the student team turn-over and new leaders take over every year is akin to watching a start-up team working on an established organization. Each year is a new experience with new goals and tasks, creating an ever-growing, ever-adapting community. Even with an established core offering, there is room for innovation and growth, no matter where you lie in the IDEA network. When Corner began, IDEA’s goals were considerably more operational, until the tenth year focused more on brand awareness and narration. This year has been a shift for everyone, looking at the world of virtual interaction, which ultimately ended up opening doors to a broader audience. The IDEA team is doing everything in their power to create an inclusive environment and ensure that they are putting their best foot forward.

“What is so amazing about Northeastern and partly what drew me to this role, in particular, is that you’re able to test and see if you enjoy something. And when else are you going to get a safe space to do that? It creates a different breed of young people that are interested in exploring things.” — Gwen Corner.

The Essence of IDEA

There is a hunger for experiential learning, that IDEA can be used as a tool to sate. The experience of being involved in IDEA and other Mosaic organizations is so appealing to the stakeholders and its community, that it is hard to recreate. Corner also said that having IDEA work as this free service for entrepreneurship education is unique, as it is available to the Northeastern student body and broader community. There are two sides to what embodies these aspects and what creates the essence of IDEA: the Student Management Team, working long hours to make a difference, and the passionate ventures, who give their all.