UToledo Prepares Finance Senior for a Future in Sustainability

UToledo Prepares Finance Senior for a Future in Sustainability

Ailean Arias Gutiérrez followed her passion for preserving the environment right to The University of Toledo.

"I've always been interested in the environment and the climate crisis," she said. "My time at The University of Toledo has taught me that businesses can be the solution to keeping our current lifestyle while reducing our negative impacts on the climate."

Arias Gutiérrez and her family immigrated from Metepec, Mexico, to the United States in January 2022 for her father's temporary engineering assignment. She began at UToledo's John B. and Lillian E. Neff College of Business and Innovation as a finance major with a minor in sustainability shortly after she moved.

She explained that UToledo was an easy choice because of the flexibility of online courses and the option for a sustainability minor.

"It was a challenge to leave Mexico where all my friends and my dream university were," she said. "I had to start from scratch learning a new language and culture, but at The University of Toledo I found community in the International Student Association."

Arias Gutiérrez served a one-year term as vice president internal of the association, overseeing 12 member organizations. She's also involved in several other campus organizations: Women in Business Leadership, where she served a year term as treasurer; the Global Latin Student Union, where she served a year term as treasurer; the Klar Leadership Academy; and the Student Green Fund, where she served as an executive secretary for a semester and played a vital role in installing refillable water stations in Savage and Associates Business Complex.

Arias Gutiérrez also has been active with internships. Over the summer she completed an internship with the financial services firm Northwestern Mutual, and she currently serves as an intern with the UToledo Family Business Center, a position she's held since May.

"Working at the Family Business Center has taught me that you can learn so many things from building relationships with people," Arias Gutiérrez said. "The Family Business Center works with several business owners in the area, some of which are generational businesses. The information I've learned from family businesses resonates with me much deeper than reading the same information in a textbook."

The Family Business Center is a member-based organization housed in Neff College of Business that helps local family businesses succeed by providing a safe venue for learning and focusing on issues that are unique to family businesses. Angie Jones, the center's director, said Arias Gutiérrez has been a tremendous asset.

"She's hardworking, thoughtful and consistently engaged," Jones said. "Through her involvement with the Family Business Center, she's had the opportunity to connect with many of our local family businesses, and she approaches each interaction with professionalism and genuine interest. It's no surprise that everyone she meets is impressed. Her ability to build relationships and learn from generational business leaders is already setting her up for a successful future."

Arias Gutiérrez said she is grateful for all that UToledo has done for her.

"I want to do many different things and explore the many paths of finance," she said. "After graduation I plan to pursue personal finance and corporate finance. Down the road, I'd love to be in corporate sustainability merging finance and sustainability to help change the world."