Entrepreneurship program allows senior to embrace the unknown, find limitless opportunities
Finance major Sofia Bowman becomes first student to lead The Catalyst cohorts
Sofia Bowman refuses to let a major confine her to a singular path.
From leading cohorts in an entrepreneurship organization on campus, to completing a marketing internship in Singapore, the senior studying finance from Bonner Springs, Kansas, has pushed her boundaries and learned valuable lessons that helped shape her future and define her journey as a Business Jayhawk.
Since entering KU in 2021, Bowman’s goals and perspectives have evolved along with her. She came to the school as a triple-major studying international business, marketing, and psychology, but as she gained real-world experience and narrowed down her future goals, she landed on a finance major with a minor in psychology along with three certificates in professional selling, entrepreneurship and risk management.
She says what attracted her to the School of Business specifically was the classes she could take and the atmosphere of the school itself.
“The attitude in this building really resonated with me,” Bowman said. “I love learning about psychology and my other liberal arts courses, but I think business in general is something that I fit into a lot better.”
She originally chose KU because it was close to home and familiar, allowing her to travel in the summer while being close to family and friends during the school year. Because of this, she took advantage of the global opportunities offered by the school as soon as she could, participating the CIMBA Italy Study Abroad Program in the summer of 2022, following her freshman year.
This experience helped her gain international perspective and showed her that studying business doesn’t have to limit you to one career path. She talked to people in the business industry about the different ways to grow within the business world, ultimately opening her eyes to the creativity within the industry.
“I was so confused on how everyone else around me seemed to know exactly what they wanted to do, and I knew that I wanted my career to be so ambiguous” Bowman said. “I started talking to people, and I learned from them that going out and getting a job at a big company doesn’t have to be limiting. You can take what you want from it and learn how to be successful in an organization and then take everything you learn and create a new organization with their joining smaller organization and so on.”
Following her trip in summer 2022, Bowman began her sophomore year and discovered an entrepreneurship program that the school was revamping: The Catalyst. Already having worked on her own ideas and small businesses through KU’s Entrepreneurship Club, attending a lunch- and-learn event promoting The Catalyst pushed her to join and expand her venture.
The Catalyst is a three-stage program in the School of Business that encourages entrepreneurship and provides KU students of every major the opportunity to work on ideas and ventures with the support of mentors and industry resources.
When Bowman joined, she was one of six students in the first cohort led by Ryan Rains, the school’s director of entrepreneurship co-curricular programs. Bowman had started an LLC and was working with small businesses in Lawrence when she joined and found that the connection to local entrepreneurs and the creative outlet provided through The Catalyst inspired her to continue growing in the program.
“I’m learning how you can be entrepreneurial and be creative and unique in big organizations and how they don’t have to be so black and white and boring,” Bowman said. “Going somewhere where you are unconfined from all these boxes and templates regulations was really energizing for me. So, I just kept doing it. Now I’m on my fourth semester with the program, and it’s grown ever since.”
After deciding to let go of her venture, Bowman learned that she was more drawn to helping others and being a sounding board for their ideas. Being one of the longest members of the organization now, Bowman is leading her own cohort of student entrepreneurs alongside Rains.
“As the program has grown and evolved, we’ve added cohorts to support the growth,” Rains said. “Sofia is the first student to guide her own cohorts, further developing her leadership skills, other students’ entrepreneurial growth and our program’s growth. Sofia’s willingness to step into ambiguity and problem-solve, and her ideas and contributions have been immensely helpful. She has grown as an entrepreneur and as a leader. I am very proud of her accomplishments.”
The Catalyst also has been also a resume-building experience that helped Bowman expand her professional horizons.
“For a while, I had CEO on my resume because of The Catalyst,” Bowman said. “And it doesn’t matter if I have one client or 10 clients. The fact that I’m in college and went through the process and the effort of establishing a brand, I think really helps attract companies because I’m doing more than just going to my classes and going home.”
This organization has been a stepping stone in her journey to finding where she fits in professionally and pushed her to find unique opportunities outside of the classroom.
Following her sophomore year, she completed a digital marketing internship in Singapore for a Boston Consulting Group (BCG) backed business in summer 2023, where she not only gained professional experience but also found her love for working and living in a big city.
This led her to apply for a sales internship in San Francisco, where she could explore a new aspect of the business world while navigating a new city and culture once again.
She says the School of Business and her involvement in organizations like The Catalyst are some of the things that helped her get a competitive edge when applying for internships and eventually led to her securing a position as a trauma sales intern with Stryker, a medical device and equipment manufacturing company in San Francisco last summer.
In the internship, she worked in a fast-paced environment with healthcare professionals and even sat in during orthopedic trauma surgeries in the Bay Area to assist surgeons on how to properly use Stryker products. She says she saw similarities between this work and her experiences at KU.
“My job is to consult people on how to use the tools in front of them, and that’s exactly what I’m doing in The Catalyst,” Bowman said. “I’m consulting people. And I see a lot of synergies between them because it’s not about me. Clients listen to what I have to say, and by doing that they can connect dots that maybe they couldn’t connect before.”
She looks forward to continuing her work with Stryker full time after graduation in May 2025 where she will work as a full-time orthopedic trauma sales associate in the Bay Area.
She says she’s most excited to return to her team and explore everything the area has to offer with more time on her hands after graduation.
With the rest of her time at KU, Bowman hopes to truly leave an impact on the entrepreneurial spirit at the school, and within the programs she has been thankful to be a part of.
“I hope that I can be one of those mentors that I had as a sophomore who just wanted to start their own business,” Bowman said. “I want them to know that they could reach out to me. I just want to make myself available to the future students.”
Learn more about The Catalyst and other Entrepreneurship co-curricular programs at business.ku.edu/entrepreneurship.
By Lauryn Zebrowski
