A good business leader is honest, has integrity, and is willing to be held accountable, according to the Las Vegas Business Academy.
The non-profit organization is dedicated to mentoring in business and supports doctoral students at UNLV with a full scholarship. Students also receive direct mentoring to become a business leader beyond the balance sheets and boardrooms, said Rino Armeni, founder and CEO of the nonprofit.
“The best part about the program is the complexity of the program,” said Armeni, who noted that he has worked in beverage marketing and purchasing for companies like Caesars Entertainment and Walt Disney World Resorts. “This is not about writing a check. The point here is that they learn real life lessons. “
Armeni and other board members have made such a name for the program that they have decided to expand it. The nonprofit is partnering with the Chinese Global Celebrity Women Organization to create a subsidiary of LVBA called Las Vegas University of Business Etiquette.
An early agreement between the two groups indicates that the LVBA will create a month-long program focusing on business, social etiquette, and mentoring for a class of around 20 to 30 women. Similar to the local program, the courses take students behind the scenes of various industries in Las Vegas.
“It’s an opportunity for us to expand,” said Armeni. “It’s not the money, it’s an opportunity to teach other people in other countries how to run a business.”
Keeping talent in Las Vegas
Founded in 2011 in response to the brain drain during the Great Recession, the academy wanted to encourage bright and dedicated people to stay in Las Vegas, said Gary Charmel, Western Regional President at Johnson Brothers. The program is there to keep highly skilled business people in town, he said.
“The country suffered, but we suffered especially,” said Charmel, who serves as the academy’s officer and mentor. “We decided, ‘What can we do here to keep people from leaving Las Vegas, especially talented young people?’ ”
The five-year program accepts a handful of PhD students each year. Students spend one to three months accompanying various board members, including executives in banking, hospitality, law, sales, and sports. You will also learn lessons outside of the classroom, such as eating etiquette and dressing for an important meeting.
Students are expected to stay in Las Vegas for at least three years after completing their two-year college studies.
Students are challenged to learn outside of their comfort zone through job shadowing and rotations. If they don’t like sales, they could spend a day negotiating with their mentor. If they’re unfamiliar with restaurant operations, they could take a rotation in the kitchens of Wynn Las Vegas.
The adversity of a new situation pushes the students. MacKenzie Jones, a current student at the academy, said she initially shied away from sales positions.
“(Armeni) asked me: ‘MacKenzie, do you like sales?’ and I said absolutely not. I worked in an olive garden and it was hard to sell a dipping sauce, ”said Jones, a sophomore MBA student at UNLV.
But the lessons were worth it. After her mentoring experience with Armeni, she sold her economics professor a pen in a class exercise so well that Professor Jones said it was the only time he had called a student “brilliant”.
LVBA student Nikolas Fava, who will begin his Masters in Hospitality Administration in January, said the learning opportunities were invaluable and unique.
Fava’s mentor is Paola Armeni, an attorney at Clark Hill PLC. Fava wants to work in the gambling industry but is using the right rotation to expand its knowledge base, he said.
“I didn’t know anything about law and I go to this office every day and I’m a sponge,” said Fava. “I learn so much every time I’m inside.”
McKenna Ross is a corps member of Report for America, a national utility that places journalists in local newsrooms. Contact them at mross@reviewjournal.com. Follow @mckenna_ross_ on Twitter.
