Alumna discusses culinary business with students
MARQUETTE — Nearly 70 students at Marquette Senior High School gathered to listen to an alumna talk about her success in New York.
Umber Ahmad appeared over Skype early this morning to chat with students in the business and culinary classes to discuss owning a culinary business.
Ahmad graduated from Marquette Senior High School and attended M–I–T before starting her own investment and advisory firm where she took on Tom Colicchio from Top Chef as a client. After realizing Ahmad’s love of baking, the two worked on a plan that led to the creation of her bakery, Mah Ze Dahr.
In her presentation, Ahmad discussed several ideas about what owning a business entails.
“When you run your own business, one of the great things about it is that you get to learn every aspect of what you do,” Ahmad said. “Because if you don’t know how to do it and somebody knows how to do it better than you, you’re going to lose your business.”
The interactive experience allowed students to run their own business plans by Ahmad and ask her questions about the industry.
“It’s always good whenever you can bring real life examples of success into the classroom,” said business teacher Danielle Dickson. “The fact that she’s so successful and has done so many great things already, when you hear somebody is from Marquette, somebody that can be so successful. She’s no different than any of these kids here.”
Ahmad may be in New York, but she still hasn’t found fries that measure up to Vango’s waffle fries.