Our History

The annual Reaching Out MBA educational, networking, and recruiting conference was founded in 1999 by the LGBT student organizations at Harvard Business School and the Yale School of Management. It has been held in Boston, Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Philadelphia and San Francisco - and organized by students at Columbia, Harvard, Kellogg, MIT Sloan, NYU-Stern, Purdue, Stanford, Thunderbird, Tuck, UCLA Anderson, USC Marshall, Wharton and Yale. For more information regarding past conferences, please view the "Archives" from the menu above.

Since its inception the Reaching Out LGBT MBA Student Conference has grown to be a true world-class event: Over 600 attendees from the United States, Canada, Asia and Europe, sponsorship by top global firms from a variety of industries, panels and keynotes comprised of "A-list" business and community leaders, and a results-oriented recruiting fair that introduces the best LGBT MBA talent to sponsoring firms.

In 2004, Reaching Out MBA, Inc. was recognized as a 501(c)(3) non-profit corporation by the Internal Revenue Service. In 2005, Reaching Out MBA, Inc. formed an expanded board of directors and supported student efforts to produce a conference in November that would better align with the corporate recruiting cycle.