Welcome to Penn Global Alumni and Alumni Clubs
With over 25,000 alumni living outside the United States, the University of Pennsylvania truly has a global presence in just about any community in the world. Moreover, Penn Alumni can be found leading organizations of every type all over the globe ranging from large corporations, to government offices, and small local associations. Penn alumni are using their education and experience to make a difference in their home country and beyond. Penn’s alumni pride also can be found around the world as exhibited by the many volunteer leaders who work diligently to serve Penn as alumni interviewers, club leaders, and local ambassadors.
In Penn’s diverse community of engaged citizens, Penn’s Regional Clubs include over 120 clubs around the world offering alumni the chance to reconnect, to attend lively events and to get involved in collaborative initiatives that impact people and communities. Club activities range in size and topics, from discussions featuring Penn Integrates Knowledge faculty members at Engaging Minds programs to intimate salon-style conversations, from celebratory happy hours to Penn sports viewing parties and from community and neighborhood service projects to group trips in the great outdoors. Penn Alumni Regional Clubs are charged with providing alumni with a variety of ways to connect to Penn from their own backyard. Events are sponsored and organized in large part by Penn Alumni volunteers and leaders.
For a listing of current Penn Clubs and School specific clubs around the world, please visit the Alumni and Alumni Club section of the Global Activity Map
Alumni Making a Global Impact
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Name: Lee Gonzalez
Country: Spain
Current Global Engagement: After I finished my undergraduate degree at Wharton in 2003, I worked at Goldman Sachs in Private Wealth Management in New York for three years. After finishing my analyst program, I moved abroad to Barcelona, Spain with my sister Lauren (WG’12) to start a chain of hostels. In the six-plus years I’ve lived outside my home country, we have opened two boutique hostels in Barcelona, Somnio and Duo, and are working with a fellow Penn alum to open more in New York City. During this time, I took a year out to get my MBA at INSEAD, one of Wharton’s international exchange partners, and I had the opportunity to live on the campuses in both France and Singapore.
I chose to study at Penn because, coming from the rather homogenous suburbs of Chicago, I found the handful of people I met during the Penn welcome week event to be the most diverse group I had ever encountered. I knew the greatest opportunity for personal growth would come from surrounding myself by those of different backgrounds. Since that decision, I have taken every chance to explore the world around me. I encounter people from hundreds of different countries every day in my hostels and my network of friends spans the globe. My four years at Penn unlocked the world.
Q & A
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What book are you reading now?
- I just finished (restaurateur) Danny Meyer’s book Setting the Table about his theory of enlightened hospitality.My business partners and I are gearing up for our New York venture and have created our own fashion of book club.We put Meyer’s ideologies to the test recently when we had a business lunch at Gramercy Tavern.Knowing the thoughtfulness behind the service, we were all the more impressed.
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What is the one thing that all visitors in your city must do, or see?
- While there are many famous tourist sites in Barcelona, I always tell people that this is a great city in which to be a “passive tourist”. The food and wine in Barcelona is top notch, the weather is fabulous, and there is amazing architecture to take in. Rather than rushing around to must-sees, it’s an incredible place to just be. That said, everyone should visit the Mercat de la Boqueria. This centuries-old open air food market has the freshest of products as well as some charming bars where you can always get seasonal specialties. (It is closed on Sundays)
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What is your favorite Penn Tradition?
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I’m a sucker for the historical stuff-- the really traditional traditions. I was in awe of the history of the campus and just loved simple things like living in a room in the quad that had a fireplace! Along those lines, I always got a kick out of the well-preserved, old-timey lyrics of the school fight songs and events like Hey Day that hearken to a bygone era.
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Looking back, what advice would you now want to give to yourself while you were at Penn?
- I wish I had spent my entire junior year abroad instead of just a semester. Wharton’s programs made it very easy to achieve the credit necessary to graduate while also studying abroad.I think I chose to return to Penn’s campus for the spring semester in order to partake in junior year traditions like Hey Day and for general fear of missing out on campus fun.In retrospect, I wish I had opted to prolong my studies in Spain.Just as I settled in and made friends during my time abroad in Madrid, it was time to come back to Philadelphia.My experience would have been much richer if I’d had a few more months to challenge myself.
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What have you done or are doing now that you believe have the most impact?
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I’m really excited about the hostel (and hopefully subsequent hostels) that my partners and I plan to open in New York City. Currently, New York is off limits to most young, budget travelers, as lodging is prohibitively expensive. We’re hoping to bring enough high quality yet economical stock to the market to encourage more youth and budget travel.
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Can you tell us more about your Penn connections abroad?
- Since moving to Barcelona, I’ve had a lot of Penn connections, my favorite ones being coincidental. Right when I arrived, some Penn friends were passing through on vacation and they set me up with one of their Penn friends from a different class who happened to live here. When I went to meet this friend in common, I was delighted to find that it was Amy Chernasky (C’02), president of the Penn Club of Spain and a girl I’ve had multiple Spanish classes with at Penn! During this time, I’ve also had the pleasure of spending an evening with a group of older Penn alumni traveling through on a European tour. From time to time, I’ll connect the dots with hostel guests to find out that they are studying at Penn or recently graduated. The Penn experience is never far away when you randomly encounter alumni all over the globe.
Penn Alumni Travel
Penn Alumni Travel offers a wide variety of tours to destinations around the world. Trips provide a rich travel experience thanks to their educational character, unique access to special lectures with Penn faculty, and the camaraderie of like-minded intellectually curious travelers. To find out more, please visit the Penn Alumni Travel site.