Black History Month Closing Celebration

February 27, 2020

For the final event of Black History Month, BFIT hosted a luncheon and panel discussion featuring Rahkeem Morris, a BFIT trustee and founder of Syrg, which offers flexible staffing solutions, and Clayton Samuels, chief financial officer of MentorWorks, which provides education financing for students. Morris and Samuels gave the students valuable insights about navigating college, life, and the workplace.

Morris described being a high-school dropout who balanced multiple part-time jobs to make ends meet and how that experience shaped him. A graduate of Cornell University and Harvard Business School, he overcome many obstacles on his way to jobs at Google and GE, and then to raising $5 million to launch his own start-up business.

Morris said he felt woefully unprepared when he first stepped onto the Cornell campus. But he seized opportunities to get outside his comfort zone and grow, including attending a study abroad program in the Dominican Republic.

“I was very under-prepared to go to this school, which caused a lot of anxiety,” Morris said. “It came down to really wanting to catch up to my peers.”

Samuels talked about growing up as the child of immigrant parents, who relied on him to pay bills and do many other chores that wouldn’t typically fall to a grade-school child. “My life was very different than a lot of my friends in class,” he told the BFIT students. “A lot of the things that I went through, you all are going through.”

He told the students that a good work ethic is important, but there is a lot more to success in the business world.

“Doing your job is only half the job,” Morris said. “The rest is office politics and how you interact, comport yourself, and allow the people around you to know that you are knowledgeable, competent, and good to work with.”

Both men recommended that students embrace every opportunity they can during their BFIT education and beyond.