UCLA Graduate Finding Fulfillment in Helping Girls

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When Anna Ouroumian, the president of the Academy of Business Leadership, laid out her life’s plan, she saw herself with a high-flying career in a high-pressure world.


“I thought I’d be an investment banker at Wall Street pursuing my American dream,” said Ouroumian. “I never pictured myself being a president of a non-profit organization.”


After graduating with honors from UCLA with an economics degree, she applied for an investment banking job in New York. However, the company rejected her, saying she was too nice.


A couple of years later, after working at public service organization AmeriCorps, she received an offer from ABL, a Rosemead non-profit that prepares underserved girls for entrepreneurial careers and strives to bridge the economic and educational divide among minority and low-income students. She took the position of executive director without hesitation.


Having grown up in orphanages in Lebanon, she was well aware of importance of an education. She came to the United States alone when she was 16 through a church program.


“As an orphan, I felt like I had no opportunities. I thought I would never see what’s at the end of the tunnel,” Ouroumian said. “I felt that this organization would be a vehicle for me to help these children.”


One of the first changes she ushered in was widening the pool of advisers with which the ABL worked. She started bringing in volunteer graduates from UCLA and USC. She also called in juniors and seniors from local business schools to give her girls an idea of what it is like to be a young entrepreneur.


“If you want to learn about business,” she said, “you need to hear from people who have done the work.”


Aside from maintaining a high quality of education offered by ABL, Ouroumian’s main task is to bring in funding.


ABL receives funds from corporations including Washington Mutual, HSBC and more. This year, it received $200,000 from Bank of America and $500,000 from Merrill Lynch. It also gets help from more than 3,000 volunteers.


Ouroumian is single and lives in Santa Monica. She loves writing poetry, dancing and travel.

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