What began with an innocuous digital forum post has snowballed into a full-fledged future workforce cooperative almost six years later.
In the past nine months, the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce and Tulane University have formed a multi-layered partnership designed to equip students with the necessary networking tools to land coveted internships or post-grad, entry-level employment with myriad South Louisiana businesses.
“This relationship has developed rapidly thanks to the feedback we’ve received from our stakeholders, leadership at Tulane, and really, the students who have made invaluable connections at these Chamber events,” says Sandra Lindquist, President & CEO of the New Orleans Chamber of Commerce. “The momentum has been so positive that we’re focusing on ways to expand and grow this partnership.”
But that wasn’t always the plan. In fact, as Lindquist explains, none of this was truly planned, but, rather, grew organically from a single reply from a single Tulane student.
In 2020, William Bai, then a freshman student/entrepreneur at Tulane University, reached out to Lindquist (a Tulane graduate, herself) seeking guidance in his first business endeavor. They spoke over Zoom, touching on every topic imaginable, from organizational structure to marketing strategies, to the benefits/disadvantages of non-profit or for-profit designation for Bai’s entity. As the conversation continued, Lindquist recommended that Bai attend one of the Chamber’s upcoming networking events in order to spread the word about his business.
He did. His business grew. And Bai joined the Chamber.
“That interaction kind of got the ball rolling,” Lindquist recalls. “Later, I was asked to speak at Professor (Kara) Schonberg’s PR class and I asked, ‘How many of you want to stay in New Orleans after you graduate?’ All these hands went up. To that I said, ‘Well, have you done anything to start looking for a job?’ and keep in mind, this is a room full of sophomores and of course no one said anything. I relayed to them, you can’t expect to graduate and just get a job, that’s not how New Orleans works. It’s not that type of city. It’s all about connections.”
Lindquist extended an invitation for students to attend an upcoming ‘Chamber After 5’ event.
Three female students took her up on the offer.
“When they got there, I was just so happy to see they did this,” Lindquist says, with a bit of a laugh. “Our Chamber ambassadors made them feel so welcome. In fact, the business community that was in attendance just rallied around them. It was so fabulous, and it got us thinking, ‘How do we expand this?’”
This year alone, the Chamber worked with Tulane’s School of Professional Advancement (SOPA) program to organize a modified Power Hour for Tulane students. Normally, a 60-minute B2B networking opportunity where local businesses hone and craft an elevator pitch explaining/promoting the products and services they offer, the Tulane version of Power Hour had students develop a personal 30-second elevator pitch introducing themselves to potential employers or investors.
Then, in April 2025, for the first time ever, the Chamber, in collaboration with Tulane’s SOPA program and A.B. Freeman School of Business, hosted its signature ‘Chamber After 5’ gathering on a college campus as 300 business leaders and 50 Tulane students from the Freeman School of Business met and conversed inside the Green Wave’s football stadium.
Lindquist notes that the Chamber is already in contact with other local colleges in hopes of replicating this Tulane partnership at institutions like Dillard, UNO, Loyola, Xavier and others. Over the summer, Tulane President Michael Fitts and his team hosted the Chamber’s board of director’s meeting to update the business community on Tulane’s commitment to expanding their footprint downtown, including the redevelopment of Charity Hospital. “It’s developed into this strong partnership between the New Orleans Chamber and Tulane University on multiple levels – from professors, faculty, administrators, students and Chamber board members – and the feedback we’ve received has been overwhelmingly positive,” Lindquist says. “This dovetailed into what it has become so quickly, that we are now finally examining what the next developmental steps will be.
“But the biggest win, in my mind, is that the students have felt so comfortable coming to Chamber events – shifting from reluctance to enter what many of them perceived to be an intimidating environment to genuine enthusiasm to network and make connections years before entering the workforce.”
