Five Global Entrepreneurship alumni to join Lehigh's class of 2030

Five incoming members of the class of 2030 began their Lehigh experience while still in high school, at the Iacocca Global Entrepreneurship Intensive (IGEI). Established in 2001 by the Lee Iacocca Institute for Global Leadership, IGEI is Lehigh's premier precollege program, bringing learners from around the world to Lehigh's campus for an immersive residential experience focused on business & entrepreneurship, leadership development, and intercultural effectiveness. We are thrilled to welcome the following talented IGEI alumni back to campus in the fall!

Jah-Mere Grant, IGEI '24, of East Stroudsburg, PA, will be joining Lehigh as a member of the Integrated Business and Engineering program, focusing on finance and mechanical engineering. During his time at IGEI, Jah-Mere worked on a business consulting project for the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, researching the phenomenon of burnout among medical school applicants and creating a process map identifying key pain points in the medical school application process. Jah-Mere was also member of the team that won the 2024 IGEI Hackathon competition, pitching Evergreen Solutions: a design/build consultancy with a mission to address urban air pollution by increasing dramatically the number of trees and green spaces in densely populated areas.

Henry Hasty, IGEI '25, of Flourtown, PA will be attending Lehigh's College of Business as a Finance major with a minor in Entrepreneurship. For his IGEI business consulting project, Henry and his team worked for a local real estate company to create a strategic growth plan to address marketing, recruiting, and retention challenges by enhancing the firm’s digital presence, strengthening ties to the local community, and creating an authentic, growth-oriented work culture to attract and retain top talent. As part of his IGEI program curriculum, Henry attended classes on Data-Driven Decision Making with Dr. Burak Eskici, a professor in the department of Decision and Technology Analytics, gaining insight into quantitative methods for evaluating opportunities.

Elizabeth Diaz, IGEI '25, of Sparta, NJ, will be joining Lehigh's College of Business in the fall. As an IGEI participant, Elizabeth was part of the consulting team working for the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine. Picking up where AACOM's 2024 team left off, Elizabeth and her team mates used survey and stakeholder interviews to identify six major stressor categories in the medical school application process and provided operational recommendations to address these challenges. During the program's field trip to New York CIty, Elizabeth was among the group hosted by Lehigh University alumni employees at Waterfall Asset Management for a company visit. This visit provided an inside look at the world of finance and an opportunity to hear personal journeys from a Lehigh education to the professional world.

Mustafa Pektas, IGEI '25, of Inverness, IL, will be attending Lehigh's College of Engineering as part of the Industrial Engineering program. During the IGEI program, Mustafa was also a member of the consulting team working with the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine. The research Mustafa and his team carried out will be integral to the success of AACOM's 2026 consulting project, which will build upon the work of the previous two years to design a support program for students applying to colleges of osteopathic medicine. During his New York City field trip, Mustafa had an opportunity to meet Stephen DeSimone, Chairman and CEO of DeSimone Consulting Engineering and learn about how professionals at DeSimone employ innovation to solve great challenges.

Milan Nikolov, IGEI '25, of Bethlehem, PA, will be joining Lehigh's College of Business in the fall. During the IGEI program, Milan was a member of the business consulting team working for Trillion Sources, Inc. to support its expansion from a purely B2B logistics and supply chain company into the direct-to-consumer market by optimizing customer online engagement. Milan was the winner of the 2025 Iacocca Global Leadership Award, given to the participant the staff felt exemplified the ideas of leadership we seek to teach in the program: awareness of self, collaboration with others, and engagement with the world in pursuit of solving problems that matter. He also served as the inaugural chair of the High School Advisory Board for 2025/2026.

The Lee Iacocca Institute for Global Leadership welcomes learners ages 15-17 to IGEI: an immersive residential precollege experience held each summer on Lehigh's Bethlehem, PA campus. Applications open each October for the following summer; for more information and to apply, visit us at go.lehigh.edu/IGEI. Start your Lehigh journey next summer, at IGEI.