Jenni Dinger Spotlight - May 2025
- What made you want to come back for your MBA after your semester experience?
Honestly, I probably never would have studied abroad if my good friend Sarah Martin Hood wasn’t already planning on it. No one in my family had ever had a passport. I had only been on one other flight in my life. And I fully expected to be horribly homesick during my semester on the Paderno campus. But that homesickness never came. So, when I realized that I could come back to the area, it was a given. And, I should probably be embarrassed about this, but I don’t think I ever made it to Asolo during my semester in Paderno. Things were so different back then. There was one or two taxi drivers (Flavio and Stefano) in the area and we were on a shoestring budget. There weren’t organized trips to make pizza with Saverio (unfortunately!) or anything. So, the summer in Asolo was its own unique experience with different professors and different classmates. After having had classes with the same cohort in my program in Fayetteville for a year, it was really great to be in the classroom with the CIMBA full-time students as they were finishing their program.
- How does it feel to be back and guiding new CIMBA students through their experience?
It is wonderful. I love hearing the students make really astute observations about differences in culture and consumer behavior. And also seeing how they work through frustrations and their American perspective evolving to realize that the in some cases slower and “il dolce far niente” vibe has some serious merit. And their confidence growth! This summer’s crew started with a bang with a national train strike on the first day of their first travel weekend. So as they approached the second week, they were acting like old pros.
- How is the interest in sustainable business models in the US growing?
I was very fortunate to stumble into a leadership role of Walmart’s very early efforts in sustainability in 2005. There was so much low-hanging fruit in terms of what we, as the largest company in the world, could do. And the way that then CEO Lee Scott and VP of Sustainability Andy Ruben introduced it was absolutely brilliant. They demonstrated that it was already in line with Walmart’s culture and ethos, it was just the next iteration. They empowered individuals at all levels to come up with ideas and solutions. And they celebrated those. I remember a janitor from a store sent in one of the things that he had done….removing the lightbulbs from the soda pop machines that were outside of stores and in the employee breakrooms. He pointed out that everyone already knew what was in the machines as they hadn’t changed much in 20 years and that the breakrooms were so brightly lit already. Implementing that one idea across the nearly 4000 stores at the time saved $22 million (if I recall the number correctly) the first year! A lot of our effort was getting buy in. The big difference in how Americans and people working in the US view sustainable business models is different. It’s the cost of entry now, particularly as Gen Z continues to enter the work force. While Gen Z is not a monolith, what I see and hear in the classroom tells me that progress will be accelerated. I look forward to their march toward leadership positions so that those gatekeeping for the sake of their profits will have less power.
- What are good incentives for women to become the entrepreneurs the world needs?
First of all, I think there are incentives for everyone to become entrepreneurs! It gives people autonomy and allows them to really lean into who they are. For women in particular, I think it is a way to ensure that our perspectives are heard and that our needs as consumers are better met. In thinking about this question, I realized that the majority of my female friends have traditional professional careers working for a corporation but that most also have entrepreneurial ventures on the side. I launched an art business during the pandemic over 5 years ago and it was one of the best things I ever did. It has made me more connected with my community and allows me to make connections with people that I never would have met otherwise.