ExxonMobil’s Rob Wilson, MBA 1991, represented the company in awarding the grant on October 2. The grant is a bounty of sorts, awarded to the business school in recognition of the company’s success in recruiting and retaining WashU Olin grads.
Wilson, global payroll and HR accounting process manager for the company, said the size of the grant is based on an algorithm that looks at how many Olin students ExxonMobil recruits, how many it retains and how they advance over the years within the company.
For the last I-don’t-know-how-many-years, we’ve gotten three or four people from Olin. For our sized school, we have a lot of alumni at Exxon.
Rob Wilson
This year, ExxonMobil is providing $1 million in grants to 78 colleges and universities nationwide through this program. The grants are unrestricted and in the past, schools have used them to support scholarships, visiting speakers, equipment purchases, student and faculty travel and other academic activities.
A recent report from Olin’s Weston Career Center showed that in 2018, ExxonMobil had 148 WashU alums working at the company, of whom 38 had been WashU Olin students. The company recently hired four alumni into permanent positions and three for internships. All seven were MBA students.
Pictured above: Lee Pelligreen, Ashley Macrander, Steve Malter, ExxonMobile’s Rob Wilson, MBA 1991, Jen Whitten and Dorothy Kittner.
