More than one year, celebrating diversity
NAMIC Detroit just celebrated one year of the chapter's existence in June 2018. We celebrated the chapter’s anniversary at our signature event the evening of June 20th at the Garden theater in midtown Detroit – “Leap of Faith: Identifying desires, conquering fears and steps to make your career dreams a reality”. Our presenters were Angela B Turner, SVP of REVOLT, Raina Kelley, Managing Editor of ESPN’s “Undefeated” and Christina Shanks, VP at Altice USA. 2018 is shaping up to be an exciting year for NAMIC Detroit. We have increased our members to over 200. Our programs continue to provide our members with enriched career guidance and networking opportunities. In March, we held a Membership Mixer where over 50 members and potential members networked and shared career best practices. In recognition of Women’s History Month in April, we partnered with WICT Great Lakes to host “Fireside Chat with Congresswoman Brenda Lawrence” to facilitate an educational dialogue designed to empower women both professionally and personally.
I would like to thank our committed volunteers that help us execute NAMIC’s mission and our chapter’s vision. - Jackie Lenton, president of NAMIC Detroit
In addition to growing our membership and creating a program calendar of impactful events, we continue to prioritize partnering with organizations across the Detroit footprint. The Board has identified key potential partners to team up with to grow our NAMIC Detroit brand, our mission and membership throughout metro Detroit. In closing, I would like to thank our committed volunteers that help us execute NAMIC’s mission and our chapter’s vision. I work closely with and appreciate our featured member and Finance Committee Chair, Shezaina (Ina) Akyalcin, who exemplifies how you can leverage NAMIC Detroit to build your skill set, network across the industry and grow your career through our abundance of programs and talents within the organization. An avenue our members can use to either provide career guidance or seek career insight is our L. Patrick Mellon mentorship program which will begin a new mentor cycle in September.
Ways to stay involved in NAMIC Detroit are vast from volunteering to work on a committee, attending upcoming events, becoming a mentor or mentee or following us on social media. I look forward to connecting with you in the near future! Regards, Jackie Lenton NAMIC Detroit, Chapter President www.NAMICDetroit.com
Featuring NAMIC Detroit Member and Volunteer
Shezania (Ina) Akyalcin What is your position within Comcast? Finance and Accounting Analyst for Central Division Finance How long have you worked in the cable industry? Eight years, originally hired in sales. How has membership of NAMIC Detroit impacted you personally and professionally? Professionally it has helped enhance my skill set as a volunteer on the finance committee specifically, with project management, budgeting and financial planning. It has also helped me network and build relationships with outstanding professionals within the communications industry. As a result of my involvement with NAMIC Detroit, I have had the pleasure of working closely with the Senior HR Director, who has provided me with valuable career and personal development. For example, the previous guidance provided by this leader was extremely helpful during one of my recent meetings as it helped me facilitate a positive and extremely productive session where the desired process improvement was achieved. Is there achievement that you are most proud of? Although we are a fairly new organization, I am extremely proud of the great membership strides that we have made thus far. We grew our organization from 50 to 200 members in just a short period of time this year. This spoke volumes to me, as it validated that NAMIC Detroit is a great organization providing value not only to professionals in the communications industry, but also to the diverse communities in the metro Detroit area. With so many other great organizations to support, why should others choose to support NAMIC Detroit? Personally, I think we should all pay attention to NAMIC Detroit, and not only because all of the enriching programs designed to develop your career, or just the exciting networking events, but mainly because in NAMIC you have a voice. NAMIC is all about inclusion and making sure that diversity is recognized and celebrated.
Upcoming Events
Stay tuned for more upcoming events.