By Andrew Morse

Nevin Kulangara, GSB ’15, has been working for three years to get Fordham Student Holdings (FSH) up and running. His hard work paid off this past Wednesday, as FSH was approved by the operations committee and has official club status.

FSH still has to go through OSLCD and Dean of Students Christopher Rogers and be approved by United Student Government, but Kulangara is optimistic that the process will be complete in approximately one month.

FSH will serve as the infrastructure and support system for Fordham students to create their own businesses. “It is a platform for student- run businesses on campus, because right now there is no platform for them,” said Kulangara. FSH will be a holdings company with each student run business serving as a brand underneath it. All of the funds from each business will flow up to Fordham Student Holdings and the executive board will determine how to allocate those funds.

The club’s first business will be an air mattress rental company for students with guests on campus. Students will be able to rent out an air mattress for a few dollars a night. Kulangara believes the business model should be successful, mainly because there is nothing like it on campus. “It does not represent a repetitive need. We have run the logistics of the potential business by Dean Russell and Dean Rogers, and neither of them have any issue with it,” Kulangara said.

FSH will be organized and structured like all the other clubs on campus but with a more business-like spin. Instead of having a president, vice president and secretary, the FSH Executive Board will have a chief executive officer, a chief operations officer, a chief financial officer and a chief marketing officer.

The club will also have a board of directors which will consist of five faculty members. The faculty members will come from both Fordham College Rose Hill and Gabelli School of Business with no more than three teachers coming from either school at any point in time. This will ensure that FSH does not become too synonymous with either school.
The board will serve in an advisory capacity but will not have any decision-making power in how the businesses operate. They will collect applications for e-board positions and select the most qualified candidates to move on to the general election process. “One important role for the board of directors is to make sure that the e-board is as qualified and competent as possible,” said Kulangara.

There are two main challenges to FSH that Kulangara is working on right now. The first is working out whether students can be compensated for their work through the club. The majority of clubs on campus have self-generating accounts, and they can fund themselves.

For example, Mimes and Mummers charges admission and this money goes toward funding the club. There is no precedent for students being able to directly profit from club participation; however, not making a personal profit from starting a business is a little counterintuitive. “There are plenty of reasons to be involved in the club besides the money, but it would add an extra layer of incentive to participate,” said Kulangara.

The second is the challenge to find a group of underclassmen to take over the responsibilities and leadership roles within the organization. As a senior set to graduate at the end of the spring semester, Nevin Kulangara will not be on campus for the club’s first year of operation. He is looking forward to starting the process of finding younger Fordham students who share his interests and want to get involved in the club. “We are looking at clubs like Compass Fellowship and the Entrepreneurship Society. We are really looking for motivated student leaders and students who have an interest in marketing and finance.”

Kulangara is excited to see how FSH grows and develops moving forward.

“I don’t have a plan for it in terms of a business portfolio,” said Kulangara. “I just want to be able to look back as an alumnus and say, ‘Wow, I didn’t even think of this’ It can really go in any direction. I hope there is trial and error and that they learn from their mistakes.”