Featuring:
Robert Horn & Chris Sikora

Degree:
EMBA Alumni Mentoring Program

Biography:
Baltimore’s business leaders have always been accessible to Loyola’s MBA alumni. In fact, many of the region’s industry executives are alumni themselves. Now the connections are even stronger through Loyola’s Executive MBA Mentoring Program,which pairs mentors and protégés for periods of six months or longer.

While the mentors can offer feedback and guidance based on decades of business experience, the pairs usually find the relationship to be a two-way street. Such is the case with Robert Horn, a vice president for McCormick Company, and Chris Sikora, president and general manager of Fisher’s Bakery.

“This is a tremendous opportunity for talented professionals to learn from one another,” notes Horn, a 2001 EMBA alumnus. “The mentoring program is a good way to stay in touch with younger professionals. I’m finding that I’m learning quite a bit from Chris.”

The mentoring pairs are matched based on shared industries or professional interests, which allows for discussions at a very specific level. Yet it is the diverse and individual experiences that each brings to the relationship that is frequently valued the most.

“As an entrepreneur, I am very appreciative of the third-party, independent opinion that Bob provides,” explains Sikora, a 2005 MBA Fellows alumnus. “He knows the food industry but he still brings an outside perspective and broad life experience to our conversations.”

In spite of Horn’s hectic schedule (he travels to Mexico two weeks out of every month), the pair prefers to meet face to face, typically at the bakery where they can tour the physical space as they discuss Sikora’s plans for the future.

Horn is enjoying the birds-eye view of a thriving entrepreneurial endeavor that the visits provide and is excited to participate in the bakery’s growth.

“I think I act as a listening resource for Chris,” Horn explains. “Coming from similar industries, we speak the same language. I can help him look to the future and provide feedback on his ideas, based on insights I’ve gleaned from my own experiences.”

Sikora would like to continue the mentoring relationship as his business moves forward and can also see himself becoming a mentor one day.

“I’ve always known that my Loyola education went beyond books and the classroom experience,” Sikora says. “The Mentoring Program is just one way to take advantage of the life-long learning that Loyola’s MBA program provides.”
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