Whitney Bouey (ESTEEM '19)
New Orleans native Whitney Bouey had never left Louisiana until her mentor during her time at Louisiana State University, a Notre Dame alum, recommended ESTEEM. He had noticed her entrepreneurial initiatives – writing resumés for sorority sisters, personal training, consulting with Deloitte – while she was earning a degree in engineering. The move to South Bend brought an education, new lifelong friendships, and a career with global business travel.
“I was always one to juggle a lot of things,” Bouey says. “I told him I didn’t know if going straight into an engineering career path was for me. I learned so much in ESTEEM that I use in my day-to-day work. ESTEEM gave me a lot of business acumen that I didn’t have before. Pitching and networking are typically not natural skill sets for engineers.”
Bouey, who had also been a spin instructor at LSU, considered a Founder’s project to build a new stationary bike but instead worked with the biking giant SRAM on developing such a device. The company hired her when she graduated in 2019, and she became its first software focused product manager ever. Before COVID-19, she represented her company and traveled to the United Kingdom, Germany, and Canada.
In addition to her coursework and capstone, Bouey was a venture coach and marketing intern at The IDEA Center and chaired the benefit bike ride for the Ara Parseghian Medical Research Foundation. The variety of experiences prepared her for the SRAM role where she helps expand direct to consumer relationship building digital assets and efforts.
“In ESTEEM, I was able to explore a variety of my interests, and that’s what I do every day at SRAM,” she says. “I love getting in the mind of what my customers want. On my first project, I got to help revamp their website so now some of our brands sell direct to consumer.” Now she’s building out an improved mobile and web application for the cycling giant.
“I am very grateful for my experiences at ESTEEM,” she says. “My life did a 180 when I went to that program.”