Social Capital: Working Together to Create an Online Professional Community

As a result of the Gay and Lesbian Conference 1999, the LGBT Business School Online Network, a networking collection of Gay and Lesbian Business School groups from around the world, was formed. This website embodies our ideas and events. Please signup and help us make the organization useful for you -- join the many discussion lists (over 100 student/alumni school lists, job lists, industry lists, geographical lists, focus group lists, and many others) available in Membership Services. The network now boasts over 1300 users (1100+ members and 200+ guests) representing over 100 business schools from around the world. Not an MBA? Attorneys, Doctors, Legislators, and other business people are welcome as "guests" in the system. Help us spread the word!

NetworkQ is a non-profit in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and is based in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The organization is 100% staffed by volunteers. Help us all work together to cohesively benefit the collective community we all live in. Want to become an active volunteer for NetworkQ? Volunteer to become a discussion list champion/administrator (we have over 60+ such volunteer alumni that currently serve these roles). Email us at NetworkQ@NetworkQ.org

The NetworkQ Board

O. Mac Chinsomboon (omac@alum.mit.edu),Executive Director. Mac is a former consultant to the Board of Directors of YPO, the world's preeminent consortium of CEO's on matters of strategy, alliances, and education. Mac also spent a stint as an investment banker at UBS Warburg in London doing high-tech/telecom M&A, a long stint as a Manager at Andersen Consulting in the Chicago/Palo Alto telecom practice, and as an entrepreneur in San Francisco/Bangkok. He holds a BS in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of Colorado at Boulder with a minor in Bio-Engineering and Pre-Medicine, and an MBA with a concentration in Financial Engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Sloan School of Management. Mac is also an avid athlete (rower, boxer, hockey player) and co-founded the ground-breaking charitable Gay & Lesbian Athletics Foundation (GLAF),www.glaf.org, see the press coverage.

Jason P. Lorber (www.aplomb.com), Director With a strong belief that business and community values can - and should - be intertwined, Jason founded Aplomb Consulting. The company stemmed from Jason's desire to bridge his own experiences working in Corporate America with his activist support for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender communities. With an MBA from Stanford and a decade of experience in public relations and marketing, Jason has written and implemented company-wide marketing plans; helped statewide health departments create HIV prevention guidelines; developed GLBT community relations programs; established and nurtured ties for companies with HIV/AIDS community activists and organizations; launched new products and services; and created and implemented corporate visibility programs for Hewlett-Packard, the AIDS Quilt, Home Access Health, the NY AIDS Institute, Xerox, PlanetOut, Silicon Graphics, and many others. He was featured as a commentator on Public Radio International's Marketplace radio program remarking on emerging trends in marketing to gay and lesbian consumer, and he has spoken at national GLBT conferences on the same subjects. His articles on GLBT and HIV/AIDS issues have been published in nine publications nationally. The New York Times, Business Week, and numerous business and GLBT publications profiled Jason for a 1995 research study he designed and conducted. His report - which documents the gay-friendliness of the nation's top business schools - received acclaim from students, professors, and school administrators across the United States and in Australia, Canada, China, France, South Africa, and Sweden. Jason has served two terms as Board President of the STOP AIDS Project in San Francisco where he led marketing efforts. Jason also served as the media relations director for a successful domestic partners campaign in San Francisco. Jason has been seen country-western dancing, working out at the gym, and performing stand-up comedy. He's received laughs in all three venues. See Aplomb's website for their updated business school LGBT rankings.

Joseph Bland (mjbland@gsb.uchicago.edu), Director, is a current MBA student at the University of Chicago, and works in Web Development at DaimlerChrysler. He holds BS with Highest Honors in Computer Science from Michigan State University.

Steve Deitsch (SDeitschNY@aol.com), Director, a graduate of the Wharton School at University of Pennsylvania, founded and led MBAQ, a New York City-based organization for gay/lesbian business school alumni and business professionals. MBAQ was dissolved and it's membership is now a part of other organizations, including NetworkQ. Steve is Vice President at Ruder Finn Public Relations in New York.

Dmitri Ponomarev (dponomarev@mba2002.hbs.edu), Director is an MBA graduate of Harvard Business School. At HBS, Dmitri was co-president of the Gay and Lesbian Student Union and a VP of the Media and Entertainment Club. Dmitri holds a BA in Economics Summa Cum Laude from University of California at Los Angeles. Previously, Dmitri worked as Director of Business Development at Commerce.TV, an interactive television startup in Braintree, Massachusetts where he managed relationships with technology, content, and distribution partners. Prior to Commerce.TV, Dmitri worked as a consultant for the Media and Entertainment Strategy Practice of PricewaterhouseCoopers in Los Angeles where he consulted film and television studios on distribution strategy. Prior to that Dmitri worked as a consultant at Digital Coast Partners, a consulting firm in Santa Monica, California specializing in telecommunications and media. Dmitri is now the Director of Business Development at Gemstar (TV Guide) in Los Angeles.

Bob Mack (rmack@post.harvard.edu), Advisor, is a former Co-Chair of the Harvard Gay & Lesbian Caucus, composed of more than 2,500 Harvard University alumni, faculty and staff. Bob Mack is a graduate of Harvard College and Harvard Law School, and is Co-Director of Information Technology at Hale and Dorr, a large Boston-based law firm. Bob is the programming genius behind MemDir.org, the database backend that powers the NetworkQ online network as well as others such as the The Harvard Gay & Lesbian Caucus, The Harvard Latin@ Alumni National Network, The Gay & Lesbian Ivy Alumni Network of Southern California, The Lesbian & Gay Bar Association of Los Angeles, The Gay & Lesbian Ivy Network of Philadelphia.

Louis Thomas, (Thomas@wharton.upenn.edu), Advisor, Associate Professor at the Wharton School of Management, visiting professor at INSEAD. PhD, Harvard University, 1992; AM, Harvard University, 1990; BA, Yale University, 1986. Associate, Booz (Allen & Hamilton, 1991-92; Associate, McKinsey & Co., 1988. See Wharton Profile.