Summer School: Jaleesa McIntosh’s Dedication to Growth

Jaleesa McIntosh makes Daniels’ signature experiences possible

Each Friday this summer, the Daniels Newsroom is telling the stories of the behind-the-scenes staff who empower students, faculty and the College at large. Read past stories on our blog.

Experience Daniels Weekend. Race and Case. The Sustainable Business Symposium. Voices of Experience. Four Academic Hood ceremonies.

So many of the signature events at the Daniels College of Business—the things that make Daniels, Daniels—have a common denominator.

Jaleesa McIntosh, assistant director of events.

“In order to be an event planner, you definitely need to have certain personality traits that allow you to be flexible and adaptable,” McIntosh said, “and also to think through details, have foresight and be creative. There are some people that have an idea, but they don’t necessarily know how to take that idea and transfer it into a reality.”

Creativity has always been a defining part of McIntosh’s personality. It grew in her northeast Denver neighborhood, where she regularly attended the Colorado Black Arts Festival with her mother.

It surfaced when her best friend encouraged her to audition for the Denver School of the Arts in the fifth grade. (She made it, singing an acapella version of Mariah Carey’s “Heartbreaker.”)

It shined brighter when she auditioned for Denver Idol after singing Whitney Houston’s “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” in front of hundreds of people at the Ellie Caulkins Opera House.

“I was very nervous,” McIntosh recalled. “I’m always nervous when I go on stage to perform. I think it’s one of those things where you know not everyone is going to like you, but you have to have the personality and the ego to be like, ‘I don’t care.’ I don’t really have that. I really do care what people think.”

Taking a leap of faith

McIntosh attended Colorado State University on the Daniels Fund Scholarship with a dream of being a pediatrician. After her first science class exploring the depths of the human body, she realized it wasn’t for her—something a lot of other smart freshmen also experienced, she recalled. She pivoted to the music therapy program for a year or two, but it didn’t feel quite right either. Instead, she got a music minor and earned a degree in general studies.

Where did she start to look for the next thing after graduation?

“Uh, nowhere,” she said, laughing. “I moved back in with my mom and worked at Macy’s. But you know what, I think it was just one of those things where I was in a pattern of not knowing and understanding myself and what I wanted to do.”

Jaleesa McIntosh, with her daughter, London

She did well at Macy’s, climbing from general sales to the fine jewelry counter. But it was what came next that changed her life forever: a seasonal job as an event facilitator with the City of Denver, and the birth of her daughter.

“I think London was my saving grace,” McIntosh said of her nine-year-old. “She forced me to just kind of grow up, go onto the next thing, find a new job, something that could sustain. I knew I had to take a leap of faith to be better for her and I. So, I applied at DU.”

It wasn’t long before McIntosh was thrust into the events manager role on the alumni relations team at Daniels. Three months into her tenure, her boss left the organization. On a compressed timeline, McIntosh took charge of an annual alumni holiday party, known as Snowball.

“I think that was the event that told myself and my colleagues at the time that I could do this,” she said. “I think that was the turning point in the events world, being able to work on an event like that in my first year, entry level. Like I do have a skill that I can grow with.”

She soon settled into a role overseeing all of the College’s big events—from the kickoff planning meeting, to booking the right venue, to coordinating with her colleagues across campus, to ordering the right food, to ensuring it goes smoothly the day of.

“It takes a lot of collaborative effort. It takes a lot of patience. It takes understanding the challenges and effects of past years’ experiences and understanding what your audience is looking for,” she said. “I think at a lot of events, because things are changing so much, there’s usually not a best fit. You can just get close enough—and know not everyone’s going to be happy.”

Preserving a space for Black culture

McIntosh has only continued to increase her aptitude over the last few years. She earned a master’s degree in organizational leadership and recently, outside of the office, became the executive director of the Colorado Black Arts Festival—the same event she grew up attending.

“The Black community and artists really needed a space to be creative and be our authentic selves, and show pride and boost our self-esteem, especially when it came to equity in the art space in Colorado,” she said of the festival, which began in the ‘80s. “I wanted to continue to see the festival grow for years to come and just be sustainable.”

Keeping the celebration going feels more important than ever, McIntosh said, as Denver’s demographics change and historically Black neighborhoods become gentrified.

In her role with the festival, not only is McIntosh coordinating logistics, she’s writing grants, fundraising, managing a team, planning strategically and conducting community outreach.

“It is a huge job, but I’m up for it,” she said. “I think the organization is in such a transformative place now that it gives the opportunity for someone like me to really turn it into something I feel it should be. It’s one of those moments where I’m stretching my wings and growing.”

With her DU master’s degree in hand, McIntosh says she is ready to start reaching even higher. She has intentionally and confidently become a more vocal leader, both at Daniels and with the Colorado Black Arts Festival.

Where she came from—a single-parent home in Park Hill—and where she’s been gives her the motivation to move forward.

“I could have easily been caught up in the gang life from where I lived in northeast Denver,” she said. “But I didn’t, and I think that’s a lot to say, that some of us don’t have to get lost in our happenings of life and family circumstances.

“We can grow. We just have to have the opportunity to do that.”