Aditi Bansal is vice president of external partnerships for the Women’s Intergraduate Society of Entrepreneurship, a student-run organization at Northeastern dedicated to mentoring the next generation of business leaders.
Bansal’s responsibilities include assembling an expert panel on the Women in Sports Conference at Dodge Hall at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business on September 20.
Bansal was originally thinking of a small panel for the event, which she thought would bring together around 15 to 20 people. That was before she was introduced to Mary Ciampa by Betsy Ludwig, executive director of women’s entrepreneurship at the university.
Ciampa, a 1992 Northeast graduate and serial entrepreneur, quickly connected Bansal with high-profile panelists. Since then, interest in the event has grown.
“The project became so important because Mary agreed to collaborate with us,” explains Bansal. “For me, it all started small: some students are interested, let’s organize something. But in talking to Mary, I realized how much interest there is.
Even though Bansal is a student, she says Ciampa doesn’t treat her like one.
“She treats you like an equal,” Bansal says. “Which is sometimes rare when it comes to entrepreneurs who have grown so quickly. She is incredible.”
Amazing can best describe Ciampa’s resume, which includes starting an online marketing company, working for a nonprofit focused on creating opportunities for women, starting a school at bilingual Spanish and English charter and, more recently, the creation of an online education program reserved for women.
Ciampa also keeps a bucket list and has already checked off many things, including completing an Ironman triathlon. But others, like cycling across the United States and learning to drive a tractor-trailer, are still there.
Promoting women’s rights is at the top of her daily to-do list.
“Women are really at risk of losing their rights,” Ciampa says. “All we have is our knowledge, our brain. So I will do this until someone removes my body from this earth.
Ciampa grew up in New Jersey with her mother and two siblings, but she often visited her father in the Boston area, which solidified her love for the city. When it was time to enter college, Ciampa applied to an out-of-state school: Northeastern.
(Ciampa) treats you like an equal. Which is sometimes rare when it comes to entrepreneurs who have grown so quickly. She is incredible.
Aditi Bansal, Northeast student and vice president of external partnerships for the Women’s Interhistorical Society of Entrepreneurship
College, Ciampa says, allowed him to combine classroom experience with real-world experience through co-op placements and experiential learning. It was not until later in life that he was diagnosed with dyslexia.
“I don’t know how I ended up here, but it changed my life,” Ciampa of Northeastern.
During her four years on the Boston campus, she worked as a co-op at Smartfood, which was being acquired by Frito-Lay. Ciampa convinced the brand manager at Frito-Lay to tap co-op students who were familiar with the Smartfood brand before the acquisition to launch new national marketing campaigns.
Ciampa says it felt like the co-op students were running the business.
“It was incredible,” she said.
This experience and her subsequent studies in Paris, where she barely knew the language, gave Ciampa the confidence to pursue her ambitions after graduation.
In her 20s, Ciampa was working in business development at a startup when she landed a job at Razorfish Media. It was there that she met her future partners at Thinkmap, a company she launched in 1997 that developed online marketing for major brands such as Motorola, Merrill Lynch, the Smithsonian, PBS and Sony Music .
But then 9/11 happened. Ciampa’s office was on the outskirts of Ground Zero, and she was supposed to have a mid-morning meeting at the Merrill Lynch World Trade Center. Living in Hoboken, New Jersey, she learned about the terrorist attacks when she reached the ferry to New York.
She called her husband, who worked in the building next to the World Trade Center, to make sure he was OK. It was.
Ciampa then began to ask himself, “Why did I survive?” and I realized, “Life is too short.”
So she decided to leave the company she founded and went to work for the Business Council for Bpeace, a non-profit organization that works with entrepreneurs in conflict-affected countries to grow their businesses and create a economic power for women.
While her three children were growing up in Hoboken, she also helped establish the state’s first and only free Spanish and English bilingual public charter school, HoLa, in 2010.
About 10 years ago, Ciampa moved with her family to Boston, where her husband had landed a job. She joined the boards of the Museum of Science and the Berklee College of Music.
Most recently, Ciampa founded a women-only online education program called WomenX. Launched in summer 2018, WomenX offers in-depth courses with 16- and 20-week programs and partners with Northeastern to offer a degree pathway.
WomenX learners can earn transferable credits Northeastern College of Professional Studies. In late June, WomenX launched the HerSport summer series, which examines how society views male and female athletes.
If Ciampa can be described in one word, “she’s an adventure,” says Tiffany Bullock, WomenX’s director of operations.
“It’s really fun. She’s super brave. She’s super creative. She has big ideas,” Bullock says. “She also has a big heart for responding to big ideas.”
Beth Treffeisen is a reporter at Northeastern Global News. Send him an email to b.treffeisen@northeastern.edu. Follow her on Twitter @beth_treffeisen.
