L Brands Guest Speaker Preparation Essay

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Speaker name: David M. Smith, L Brands

Assignment: Guest Speaker Prep

Purpose:

  1. To investigate background of our guest speakers.
  2. To investigate current retail news, focusing on company of guest speaker, and/or implications of events/trends on their company.
  3. To practice being curious by developing and asking thoughtful, insightful questions of retail industry practitioners, questions that will enhance your knowledge of the field.

Procedure:

  1. Search for information about the guest speaker. Pay attention to experiences in the speaker’s background that relate to the retail industry.
  2. Search for information about the guest speaker’s company, including both history and recent news about the company.
  3. Develop a list of 3-5 questions relating to career matters, general retail knowledge (relevant to course content) and recent company news. Questions should ask about information that is not obvious from publicly available information.
  4. Compose a document (one-page maximum (not including reference list), single-spaced):
    • Summarizing information about the speaker using terminology from the course.
    • Summarizing information about the speaker’s company/industry events relevant to speaker’s company using terminology from the course.
    • Listing your questions.

Grading: Each Guest Speaker Prep is worth 10 points.