TAMID at Lehigh: Three Years Strong
Since TAMID at Lehigh was founded three years ago, it has grown from a few interested people to a large and active group on campus. Michael Lefkoe, former TAMID at Lehigh president and National Director of Education has been involved in the success of TAMID at Lehigh from the start. “When I co-founded TAMID at Lehigh three years ago, my mission was to create an organization that would allow more Lehigh students to engage with Israel in a way that genuinely appeals to their interests. We already had political and cultural pro-Israel groups on campus, but not one organization that appealed to business-minded students. Since Lehigh has many business and engineering students, there was a wide gap there that had not been addressed. My goal was for TAMID to fill that gap.”
I am very glad that TAMID came to Lehigh. Before joining, I felt that I was missing experiences I wouldn’t be able to get from my classes. Through TAMID, I had the opportunity to meet new people, connect with CEOs across the globe, and work with companies such as Soom Foods, Any.do, and Deloitte in Israel. I served as Secretary for two years and I’m currently the Director of External Communications. These experiences allowed me to gain practical skills that have helped me during my internships and that I will keep with me upon graduation.
During my time in TAMID at Lehigh, the organization has flourished. We have managed to recruit over a hundred students into our chapter through competitive application processes. We have greatly improved the quality of our consulting program by working with some of the best clients and creating a more effective consulting operation overall and our education program has become a lot more hands-on and engaging. Our chapter has also sent members to Israel through the fellowship program and has had two members on TAMID’s National Board. We have begun putting in place an official chapter bylaws and constitution, which will help to ensure our chapter’s continued success in the future as well.
TAMID at Lehigh’s Director of Fund, Drew Berger has been working with members to continually improve our investment strategies. “Our investment fund is going well. We changed our investment approach from last year and it paid off in the fall. We used to split up into teams based on sector and now we are split into groups like earnings/IPOs, M&A, and macroeconomic events. Unfortunately stocks got battered over break, but we are looking to recover in the spring.”
David Morency, Lehigh’s Director of Consulting, is excited for the future of our consulting program. Morency stated, “TAMID at Lehigh’s talented group of incoming members have demonstrated a strong interest in consulting. They are driving the incredible growth of our program, which is now twice as large as last semester’s and encompasses several diverse industries, such as enterprise risk services with Deloitte, data analytics with a mid-sized startup, and pharmaceutical technologies with PharmPool.”
With the new semester just kicking off, we are excited to get to work again. Our members are dedicated and looking forward to the opportunities ahead of them. Now that we are a more established chapter, we can work on strengthening relationships with companies, guest lecturers, and alumni in order to make TAMID at Lehigh the best that it can be.
By: Jennifer Barry, TAMID at Lehigh’s Director of External Communications