Over the past several years, Arrow Electronics has elevated its focus on recruiting strong future leaders from leading universities nationwide—and at the University of Denver, the company has cultivated a university talent pipeline program with the goal of discovering the next generation of builders, designers, engineers and imaginers and recruiting them to Arrow for fulfilling careers.
Headquartered in Centennial, Colorado, Arrow Electronics guides innovation forward for over 100,000 of the world’s leading manufacturers of technology used in homes, businesses and daily life. With a strong Colorado job market, Teresa Kostenbauer, senior manager of university recruitment and relations, says that the company wants DU students and graduates to know of its myriad career opportunities.
“Arrow’s goal is to be the best in our backyard,” Kostenbauer says. “Over the past several years, we’ve built a great relationship with several colleges within the University of Denver, including the Daniels College of Business, and we are excited to continue to build that relationship because it is so beneficial for both sides.”
Arrow brought on 18 DU interns between 2010 and 2013, several of whom joined the company full time. Since 2014, the company has increased its recruiting and hiring efforts even more, with 20 DU interns in 2015 (15 of which were Daniels students), 14 interns in 2014 (nine of which were Daniels students), and many full-time hires. On the DU campus, Arrow has five “Arrow ambassadors,” who are current students and former Arrow interns who act as liaisons between Arrow and the students, faculty and career centers at DU. Currently, 67 Arrow employees self-identify as alumni of DU.
The company is also highly engaged with Daniels and DU. In addition to its financial support—Arrow has donated to the Pardee Center for International Futures and supports the Josef Korbel School of International Studies, among other areas. Arrow has also participated in interview preparation and career informational workshops for Daniels students and students in other colleges at DU, and it launched the inaugural Arrow Diversity Day in November 2015.
Arrow Chairman, President and CEO Michael Long was the featured speaker at the September 2012 Voices of Experience, the Daniels signature speaker series that invites C-level executives to campus to share their experiences and insights with Daniels students, alumni, faculty, staff, corporate partners and friends. Chakib Loucif, vice president of engineering, was the keynote speaker of the Daniels Executive Summit in the Rockies, speaking about the topic of the Internet of Things and Arrow’s semi-autonomous motorcar (SAM) for quadriplegic former racecar driver, Sam Schmidt.
In spring 2016, Arrow will sponsor the Daniels Ideation Challenge, an innovative, interdisciplinary partnership between Daniels, the Daniels Felix Ritchie School of Engineering & Computer Science and the Sturm College of Law. This half-day immersive experience will invite teams to apply a design-thinking framework to come up with new, innovative technologies to further the SAM car’s evolution.
“Arrow Electronics is engaged at so many levels and in so many different ways throughout DU and here at Daniels,” notes Kate Dillon, assistant director of external relations at Daniels. “They enthusiastically support a wide range of programs, events and projects, from student competitions to career prep programs for students to educational events for our extended community. They are truly the type of partner that makes it possible for us to create transformative experiences for students and offer students an exceptional student experience, and we couldn’t be more grateful for their unwavering support.”
A Fortune 150 company with 18,500 employees worldwide (in 85 countries), Arrow Electronics (NYSE: ARW) brings technology solutions to a breadth of markets, including telecommunications, information systems, transportation, medical, industrial and consumer electronics. The company moved its global corporate headquarters to Colorado in 2011 and has 1,800 employees in the Denver area. Learn more at arrow.com.