Combining Passions
Seeking a broad range of experiences, Shakori Fletcher ’16, a broadcast and new media major, forged her own path with a focus on business.
Shakori Fletcher ’16 remembers arriving on campus as a first-year student and feeling inspired by the drive, dedication and passion of faculty, staff, students and alumni.
As a major in broadcast and new media in Elon’s School of Communications, Fletcher wanted to pick up a broad range of education in other fields. She minored in professional sales in Elon’s Martha and Spencer Love School of Business and also picked up a statistics minor so she would have the skills to succeed in areas of analytical focus, such as media strategy and business development.
These experiences emboldened Fletcher to combine her passion for business, media and sales and create her own path. She served as a Diversity Ambassador and interned in the Office of Admissions, worked as a writer and editor in the Office of University Communications and served as a sales associate for The Pendulum, Elon’s student newspaper.
Fletcher turned her passion for success in sales into a competitive sport and joined the Chandler Family Professional Sales Center Team, taking part in many regional and national sales competitions. She took first place in the 2015 BSU Regional Sales Competition at Ball State University and was named first runner-up in the October 2014 University of Wisconsin Great Northwoods Sales Warm-Up Challenge.
Fletcher’s first real-world sales experience came during the summer of 2014 when she served as an Inside Sales Intern for the Boston-based technology company EMC Corporation. In 2015 Fletcher was selected for the prestigious Summer Fellowship by the International Radio and Television Society Foundation, which selects 30 students from across the nation to work with New York-based media corporations.
The program included a “media boot camp” with sessions at CBS, The New York Times, Google, Facebook and HBO, among others. Through the program, Fletcher served as an Advertising Sales Intern with NBCUniversal, working on direct response advertisements among all cable properties, including Oxygen, E! Entertainment, Bravo and MSNBC. Networking throughout the Fellowship Program with key players in the media industry also led to the opportunity for Fletcher to serve as an Advertising Sales Intern with Turner Broadcasting in Atlanta, Ga. during the 2016 Winter Term, where she worked with the Entertainment group to facilitate the sales process for TBS and TNT advertisements.
Additionally, Fletcher represented Elon both globally and nationally. She completed a semester abroad in Alicante, Spain, and conducted communications research with the Imagining the Internet Center in Berlin, Germany. She was selected to present that research at the 2014 National Conference of Undergraduate Research. In the local community, Fletcher served as a public speaking coach for a program she created at the Burlington Housing Authority. On campus, she also served as vice-president of Elon’s circle of the Leadership Honors Society, Omicron Delta Kappa.
Fletcher’s success and campus leadership won the attention of Elon alumni. The Elon Black Alumni Network honored her with its 2013 scholarship award, which annually honors one African-American student for an impact on the Elon community.
My time at Elon has taught me to focus on doing the things that matter, for reasons that matter. It’s about finding your passions, chasing your passions and diving in headfirst at the sight of things that you truly believe will make a difference.
Following graduation, Fletcher had a post-graduate internship with the Los Angeles, California-based Television Academy Foundation, the governing body for the Emmy Awards. She reported directly to HBO Entertainment and served as an intern within the Business and Legal Affairs department. Following the internship, Fletcher accepted a position at Lionsgate Entertainment as an assistant in Business and Legal Affairs for the Motion Picture Group.
