{"id":11427,"date":"2011-08-19T08:45:19","date_gmt":"2011-08-19T13:45:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/?p=11427"},"modified":"2015-09-25T13:33:20","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T17:33:20","slug":"grad-spotlight-stephanie-barnes-donor-volunteer-entrepreneur","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/2011\/08\/grad-spotlight-stephanie-barnes-donor-volunteer-entrepreneur\/","title":{"rendered":"Grad spotlight: Stephanie Barnes \u2013 donor, volunteer, entrepreneur"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Stephanie<\/a>

Stephanie Barnes (BBA '91)<\/p><\/div>\n

Stephanie Barnes (BBA \u201991) is a graduate of the Co-op Accounting program in the Faculty of Business. She\u2019s a long-time donor to Brock University\u2019s Annual Fund, the inaugural chair for the B-BAN (the Brock Business Alumni Network) and a mentor for Brock\u2019s Mentorship Plus program.<\/p>\n

She\u2019s also a mentor with McMaster University and sponsors a girl in the \u201cBecause I am a Girl\u201d program run by Care Canada.<\/p>\n

Barnes lives in Toronto and for the past eight years, has been managing her own business, Missing Puzzle Piece Consulting, and is the Canadian franchisee for U.K.-based knowledge management consultancy, Knoco.<\/p>\n

What attracted you to Brock University?<\/strong>
\nI liked the small campus and the approachability of faculty members. Back in the late 1980s, students who applied to Brock had to come for an interview, so I got to see the campus and meet one of the faculty members\u00a0 before I started; it made a big impression on me.<\/p>\n

What activities were you involved with at Brock that were outside of the classroom?<\/strong>
\nAs Co-op Accounting students, my fellow classmates and I took a lot of our studies in the summer when everyone else was off campus working summer jobs. We were often the only students on campus, so, naturally, we hung out with each other: we went bowling, played volleyball and helped each other with homework in the lounge. I have fond memories of swimming at the rec centre and living on campus. There weren\u2019t a lot of organized activities for Co-op Accounting students then, and I\u2019m glad that\u2019s changed now.<\/p>\n

How have you been involved with Brock since graduating?<\/strong>
\nA couple years after I graduated, I started donating to Brock\u2019s Annual Fund when its team of student callers phoned. I\u2019ve donated almost every year since. Over the last few years, I\u2019ve become more involved with Brock by participating in a focus group\/strategy session, volunteering as an alumni mentor for Brock\u2019s Mentorship Plus program, and taking on the role of chair for the B-BAN (the Brock Business Alumni Network). I\u2019m quite excited about building the B-BAN and helping Faculty of Business alumni connect with each other for both social and career purposes.<\/p>\n

What has been your career\/life path since graduating from Brock?<\/strong>
\nDespite my undergraduate education in accounting, I did not end up becoming a chartered accountant. However, my Brock education has informed a lot of my decisions and has helped me discover my passion for knowledge management and aligning business processes and IT. I ended up completing an MBA in Information Systems from McMaster and working for Hewlett Packard for almost seven years before going out on my own and starting my own business: Missing Puzzle Piece Consulting. I\u2019ve recently published a report called Aligning People, Process and Technology with Knowledge Management<\/em>.<\/p>\n

What is the most rewarding part of your career?<\/strong>
\nI get to expose people and organizations all over the world to a different way of thinking. I help them discover how they can be more effective and efficient with what they know and how to find the knowledge and information that they don\u2019t have.<\/p>\n

What is your \u201cother side of the brain\u201d? <\/strong>
\nI like to make art and do photography. I love creating something from scratch; taking something that is my idea, creating it and experimenting with how to get the effects that I envision in my head.<\/p>\n

What do you want most out of life?<\/strong>
\nBalance: to be able to do the things I like to do; have people around me who support and love me and who I support and love; do work that I love; be creative; and hold space for spirit and compassion in my life.<\/p>\n

What advice do you have for recent graduates\/ new alumni?<\/strong>
\nEmbrace whatever opportunities come your way, even if they don\u2019t look the way you thought they would look. I thought I was going to be a chartered accountant and have my own practice; instead I have my own business doing knowledge management. The important part of my original dream wasn\u2019t the accounting: it was having my own business, which I\u2019m doing and I love.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Stephanie Barnes (BBA \u201991) is a graduate of the Co-op Accounting program in the Faculty of Business. She\u2019s a long-time donor to Brock University\u2019s Annual Fund, the inaugural chair for the B-BAN (the Brock Business Alumni Network) and a mentor for Brock\u2019s Mentorship Plus program.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":11428,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[119],"tags":[3333,236],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11427"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11427"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11427\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11445,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11427\/revisions\/11445"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11428"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11427"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11427"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/brocku.ca\/brock-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11427"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}