Students visiting Saxbys typically see a picture of the Student Cafe Executive Officer on a nearby wall while they are ordering lattes and mochas first thing in the morning before class. If the student CEO happens to be on shift, they do not stand out more than the rest of the crew. Sitting down with Angel Zamora, pre-junior Sports Business major and inaugural Saxbys SCEO at their Health Sciences Building location on 36th Street, revealed that there is more to the role than meets the eye.
“The Experiential Learning [Platform] is what [Saxbys] calls it,” Zamora described. From serving customers alongside their student co-workers to being responsible for the location’s finances, being an SCEO means being the face of that cafe. While Saxbys’ most visible new location is in the LeBow College of Business building, less-known is their new location at the Health Sciences Building on 36th and Filbert streets.
While discussing the role, Zamora mentioned how the first Saxbys on campus, located at 34th St. and Lancaster Ave., was the first location to have a student manager. When that location first opened in 2015, Saxbys’ CEO Nick Bayer outlined his goal for this partnership: “to create a space for those students to flourish while they still had time to learn, before entering the job market and the ‘real world.’”
Bayer has remained active in the student CEO hiring process, serving as the final interview for candidates who had made it through the preceding rounds. As Zamora laid out, candidates first go through a recruiting operator for the local area, then to the Operations Lead and VP of Operations, then to the VP of Brand and Marketing, and then a final interview with Bayer. One may wonder: with that much responsibility, coupled with the rigorous interview process, why would anyone aspire to be an SCEO in the first place?
When asked, Zamora summed it up as: “It’s probably one of the most difficult, yet rewarding experiences that you could ask for as a co-op, because not only are you given the accountability and responsibility to oversee everything and to really be on top of your day to day work… But you also have such an immense support crew.”
The role of the SCEO does not seem to garner much attention on campus, but it remains an integral part of the day-to-day operations of the Saxbys locations across Drexel. After sitting down with Zamora, it is clear that those who serve in the role have a sense of responsibility and accountability for what they are a part of, even just for a six-month co-op.
This article was revised to clarify the name of Saxbys’ SCEO program, the Experiential Learning Platform.