Christina Mainero, president of the alumni council, met with seniors on Jan. 7 to discuss the council’s work. She hoped to welcome current Sage seniors to the alumni community and ask them for feedback.

Mainero has organized five and ten year reunions, as well as all-alumni reunions, every year. Last October, she launched Sage Connected, an online platform that connects alumni.

Sage Connected is based off of Linked In and Facebook. Alumni can create a profile, link to social media, get involved with the Sage Hill Internship Program (SHIP), update the alumni database, get information about jobs and more. “It’s an all in one network where we can expand outward,” Mainero explained.

“We’ve been able to work more in parallel and figure out main interests and best allocate limited staffing to have biggest impact,” said Mainero.

An alumna (and Bolt writer) herself, Mainero (’06) graduated from Claremont McKenna in 2010 and went to Yale University for a Masters Degree in Public Health. She describes Sage graduates as people who “constantly do amazing things, [are] entrepreneurial and find ways to blend their interests.” She commented, “It’s something you don’t find across the board. It’s an intertwined community and I want to tap into our resources.”

Since the council’s founding in 2013, Mainero’s two goals have been to reconnect alumni with each other and to see how alumni can help improve and support Sage. “Alumni are interested in giving back to students because of their time here,” she said.

Mainero credits business school with the new direction she is taking the alumni council. “We talk a lot [in business school] about clear direction. With an organization so new, we have all these great ideas and it’s about figuring out where our main focuses should be,” said Mainero.

Despite growing alumni numbers, most alumni are working or still in school. “Communication is really hard. We don’t know where people are, or what their industries are,” she said.

But, regardless, Mainero will continue to push the program. “The value of networking is so profound. So when you go out in the real world, a lot of times it’s a recommendation from a friend that helps you get your foot in the door. I want that connection going forward from what we have here [at Sage],” she commented.

From current seniors, she asks for contact information and feedback on what they want to see. And if for no other reason, she laughs, “we send [first-year alumni] care packages in February.”