St. Michael's Prep

🎓✨ US Career Speaker Series ✨🎓

This spring, our Upper School students connected with an incredible group of professionals (including SMP moms and an alum) across industries, gaining insight into careers in medicine, pharma and biotech, AI, marketing, and global technology leadership.

Our illustrious speakers included:

💼 Carrie Palin, SVP and CMO of Cisco, who leads global marketing and brand strategy and has been named to Forbes’ World’s Most Influential CMOs list in 2023 and 2024.

🌎 Pilar Schenk, VP of Global Sales, a dynamic tech executive and leader in global sales transformation who has led major mergers across public, private, and private equity–owned companies.

🤖 Anjou Kay, Head of AI at Google Cloud North America, who leads strategy and adoption of advanced AI solutions to help companies innovate and grow—and somehow finds time to be an entrepreneur and philanthropist.

🌽 Lauren Yurko ’04 Sammons, Software Engineering Manager at H-E-B, who shared her expertise and experience in web and software engineering across a wide range of diverse business environments.

💊 Allison Trucillo, M.D., who shared her career journey from medical school to practicing medicine to finding her niche as a biotech leader involved in every stage of drug development.

Through their stories and advice, these leaders inspired students to explore new possibilities, embrace challenges, and envision bold futures.

Some key takeaways included:

1. Careers are rarely linear—they zigzag.
2. Pursue what genuinely interests you, and your path will unfold.
3. Stay connected—your network is your net worth.
4. Many of the jobs our students will have in 20 years don’t even exist yet.
5. Be sure and develop your soft skills- communication, teamwork, adaptability, emotional intelligence, time management, etc. AI will never be able to replace those.

Thank you to each of you for sharing your journeys, answering our students’ questions, and empowering the next generation of innovators! 💙🚀

Happy Mother’s Day to all the incredible moms in our St. Michael’s Prep community! 💐

Thank you for the love, faith, and guidance you pour into your families each and every day. Your strength, sacrifice, and example inspire us all.

We are so grateful for you today and always! ✝️