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Lepage Center honors graduating fellows

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Toast to the Future Ceremony
The Lepage Center honored its student fellows during the first Toast to the Future ceremony. From left, Henry Stewart (BSM '25), Kalen Ingram (BSM '25), Senior Programs Coordinator Carl Briggs, Ariana Virani (BSM '25), Jillian Tobasky (BSM '25) and Richie Cantwell (BSM '25). 

The Albert Lepage Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation honored its students fellows and named its 2025 Lepage Fellow of the Year at the center’s first Toast to the Future ceremony. The event took place on May 13 in the Goldring/Woldenberg Business Complex.

Selected each year from a competitive applicant pool, the Lepage Fellows support the center by helping student entrepreneurs, collaborating with the center's community partners, conducting entrepreneurship research and writing blog posts. 

Carl Briggs, senior programs coordinator at the Lepage Center, said the Toast to the Future ceremony was created to recognize the work of the current fellows and inspire future fellows. During the ceremony, Henry Stewart (BSM ’25) was named Fellow of the Year in recognition of his efforts to create a more sustainable fellows program. 

“At the beginning of the 2024 academic year, the Lepage Center was faced with a dilemma,” Briggs said. “All of our senior Lepage Fellows would be graduating and taking their experience and know-how with them, so we needed a way to bring on new fellows while retraining our existing ones. Henry developed a new, more sustainable promotion-based model that ensures the center will have a knowledgeable cohort of fellows at every stage of their educational journey.”

After receiving the award, Stewart reflected on his time in the program. 

“This award is a great conclusion to my time here at the Lepage Center,” he said. “Serving as a Lepage Fellow has probably been my most impactful experience at Tulane, but I want to remember that we are all a team. I really loved working with all the Lepage Fellows because everyone brought something different to the table.” 

Lepage Fellows Kalen Ingram (BSM ’25), Richie Cantwell (BSM ’25), Jillian Tobasky (BSM ’25) and Ariana Virani (BSM ’25) were also recognized at the ceremony. 

“In addition to celebrating Henry’s contributions, we wanted to honor all our graduating fellows for the work they’ve done,” Briggs said. “This year we reached more students than ever through our Spark Hours, which offer student founders free venture support. We also saw more engagement at our events, and we’ve begun to see our programs recognized across campus. Much of this is due to the passion, dedication and commitment from our senior fellows.”

To find out more about the Lepage Fellows and their post-graduation plans, see the student spotlights below. 

Kalen Ingram (BSM ’25)

Kalen Ingram
What are your post-graduation plans? Next, I’ll be moving to Washington, D.C. to work at Accenture as a Strategy and Consulting Analyst. I shamelessly talked about the Lepage Center in all of my interviews—and for good reason. The experience gave me real, hands-on insights and skills that helped me stand out and ultimately led me to this next chapter. I'm really grateful for everything I learned during my time there.

What did you enjoy most about the Lepage Center, and what will you miss?
My favorite part was hosting Spark Hours. I loved meeting new people from different schools across Tulane and hearing passionate students talk about the changes they want to see in their own communities. It was inspiring to see how driven and thoughtful they were about making a real impact.

Richie Cantwell (BSM ’25)

Richie Cantwell
What are your post-graduation plans? I’ll work as a tax associate at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Indianapolis, Indiana.

What did you enjoy most about the Lepage Center? One of my favorite things about being at the Lepage Center has been getting a glimpse into the minds of student entrepreneurs. Working with them has helped me develop a unique perspective—seeing how they think, make decisions and build something from the ground up. That experience has given me valuable skills I can apply to accounting. In many ways, accounting is about taking a deep dive into how a business operates and viewing it from a different angle. Having that entrepreneurial lens adds an extra layer of insight that I think will be really helpful in my future career.I also enjoyed getting to know everyone at the Center, both the other Fellows and the staff. It’s a really supportive and collaborative environment and being part of that community has made the experience especially meaningful.

Henry Stewart (BSM ’25)

Henry Stewart
What are your post-graduation plans? I am moving back up north and will be doing an operations job at a clean energy company. 

What did you enjoy most about the Lepage Center? My favorite part of being a fellow was meeting all the interesting founders and individuals the Lepage Center is connected with. It was a very important part of my time here in Tulane and I really enjoyed it. 

Jillian Tobasky (BSM ’25)

Jillian Tobasky
What are your post-graduation plans? After graduation, I will be moving to New York and working in consulting at PWC.

What did you enjoy most about the Lepage Center, and what will you miss? My favorite part of being a Lepage Center fellow was the people and everyone’s collaborative spirit. I also really enjoyed helping with the center’s programs such as Pitch Fridays and the Greater New Orleans Startup Report.

Ariana Virani (BSM ’25) 

Ariana Virani
What are your post-graduation plans? I’m in the process of interviewing for jobs, but I know that my experience at the Lepage Center will help me during this process because it’s taught me to approach everything with curiosity and to stay open to new ideas.

What did you enjoy most about the Lepage Center, and what will you miss? My favorite part of being a Lepage Center Fellow has been all the wonderful incubator companies on campus I’ve been able to work with. 

 

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