The Bonds of Babson: Inside the No. 1 Alumni Network

Senior Journalist

John Crawford

A writer for Babson Thought & Action and the Babson Magazine, John Crawford has been telling the College’s entrepreneurial story for more than 15 years. Assignments for Babson have taken him from Rwanda to El Salvador, from the sweet-smelling factory of a Pennsylvania candy maker, to the stately Atlanta headquarters of an NFL owner, to the bustling office of a New York City fashion designer. Beyond his work for Babson, he has written articles and essays for The Philadelphia Inquirer, Notre Dame Magazine, The Good Men Project, and other publications. He can be found on Twitter, @crawfordwriter, where he tweets about climate change.

April 8, 2026

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By John Crawford

LinkedIn ranked Babson No. 1 for the strength of its alumni network, a landmark recognition for the College and its 46,000 alumni, who form a global community defined by its connections, entrepreneurial spirit, and willingness to lend a helping hand.

Babson College alumni show up for each other. Philip Boulton ’97, P’28 knows this well.

Just over a decade ago, a fire ripped through his company’s warehouse. Thankfully, no one was hurt, but the blaze was a blow to the business, Kannoa, a Miami-based manufacturer of outdoor furnishings that Boulton co-founded.

“The building was burned to the ground,” Boulton says. “We lost everything.”

Afterward, Boulton needed to figure out what to do next, how to get Kannoa back on its feet. For starters, he required the basics of an office, somewhere to work and make calls. That’s when an old friend, Antonio Turco-Rivas MBA’05, stopped by and asked how he could help.

“I need an office, and I need phones,” Boulton said. Turco-Rivas replied, “No problem.”

Soon enough, Boulton had what he needed. In that moment of distress, of being knocked down and working to get back up, Boulton didn’t need to worry about the critical but time-consuming task of setting up an office. “It just made everything easier and quicker,” Boulton says. “I could focus on what I needed to do.”

Turco-Rivas had set up Kannoa’s temporary office in the space of his own company, P’kolino, a maker of children’s furniture he co-founded with J.B. Schneider MBA’05. Eventually, Kannoa would bounce back and move to a new building of its own, but the fire had served to link the two furniture companies together. Going forward, over the next 10 years or so, they integrated their operations. “It led to a great partnership,” Boulton says.

“We are this little school in Wellesley, and we are outdoing them all. That continues to be the story of Babson—we punch above our weight.”
Gerri Randlett, assistant vice president of alumni engagement and annual giving

Last year, LinkedIn named Babson the college with the No. 1 strongest alumni network in the country. The ranking was a landmark recognition for Babson and its 46,000 alumni, who hail from 128 countries around the world. For Boulton, the honor wasn’t a surprise. “It is true,” he says. “We are there for each other.”

Nowadays, Boulton plays a big role in the Babson community. He serves as a member of the Babson Board of Trustees, and he’s chair of the Babson Alumni Advisory Board. His daughter, Emiliana Boulton ’28, is even a student. When he heard about the LinkedIn ranking, he immediately took a screen shot of the announcement. “I sent it to every group chat I’m part of,” he says. “I was proud.”

With its ranking, LinkedIn highlights an alumni network filled with a can-do, we’re-all-in-this-together spirit—one that’s quick, as Boulton has witnessed in his own life, to reach out and offer a helping hand. “You meet anyone, and they say, ‘If you need help, call me,’ ” Boulton says. “I really think that’s what makes the network so strong.”

“You meet anyone, and they say, ‘If you need help, call me.’ I really think that’s what makes the network so strong.”

–Philip Boulton ’97, P’28, chair of the Babson Alumni Advisory Board and a member of the Babson Board of Trustees

Friendships and Business Deals

Babson’s No. 1 ranking for the strongest alumni network came among a bevy of other impressive recognitions from LinkedIn last year. The social network also named Babson No. 1 for alumni working internationally, for fueling business development careers, and for the largest share of alumni who become founders or entrepreneurs. Overall, LinkedIn ranked Babson the No. 7 college in the United States (shortly thereafter, The Wall Street Journal named Babson the No. 2 college in America for the second year in a row).

For the alumni network ranking, Babson beat out institutions with dynamic alumni communities. Think of the elite connections of the Ivy League colleges, for instance, or big state schools with alumni networks in the hundreds of thousands. “We are this little school in Wellesley, and we are outdoing them all,” says Gerri Randlett, an assistant vice president of alumni engagement and annual giving. “That continues to be the story of Babson—we punch above our weight.”

To calculate the ranking, LinkedIn data measured how connected alumni of the same school are to each other on the platform, as well as how connected they are to current students. To go on LinkedIn is to see a snapshot of Babson people in action, how they connect, how they praise each other’s accomplishments. Interactions are many, and they’re warm and supportive.

“The platform is a microcosm of our community in so many ways,” says Edward Chiu, the Governor Craig R. Benson Endowed Executive Vice President for Advancement.

Chiu, who has led Babson’s advancement efforts for more than a decade, believes that the College community is built on a network of deep relationships. Alumni do business together. They mentor each other. They hire each other. They speak to Babson classes and offer internships to Babson students. When they face an issue at work, they reach out to the community to bounce around ideas. When they move to a new city, they reach out for recommendations about where to live and eat.

The community, in short, is active and interconnected. “It has led to friendships and business deals. It speaks to the power of that connectivity,” Chiu says. “There is something about our people that sets this place apart. There is a lot of love and passion and engagement.”

Chiu is amazed by the power that the simple act of wearing a Babson T-shirt can have. When Babson alumni spot someone sporting a Babson shirt or hat, they are compelled to introduce themselves. “You have an instant connection,” he says.

The strength of the community also leads to direct support of the College. Many alumni volunteer for the school, and they regularly attend community events (Babson holds some 350 events around the world annually). Every year, about 30% of alumni make donations to Babson, a rate of giving much higher than the average alumni giving rate in the United States of approximately 8%. “It’s a successful community who hasn’t forgotten where they come from,” Chiu says.

Paying It Forward

Anjali Wali ’09 has never forgotten where she came from. “I was heartbroken when I graduated. I loved this place so much as a student,” she says. “There was always a feeling of being formed by this place that I wanted to repay.”

Today, Wali is Babson’s senior director of alumni engagement, a job that takes her on the road five weeks a year to meet with alumni around the world. Before she came to work at Babson, Wali had an interest in relationship management, and one fateful night, she attended a Babson alumni wine tasting event, spending the evening talking with Carol Hacker, a beloved longtime Babson staff member who is now retired.

“It was her and I and a bottle of wine, and we talked about the idea that relationship management is best done for a place you love,” Wali says. Within a month of the event, Wali was starting at Babson.

In her work, Wali often serves as a matchmaker of sorts, connecting those in the community in need of assistance with those who might help. She is almost never turned down. “Our response rates are remarkable,” she says. “There is a real desire to pay it forward that runs through this community.”

Alumni also value each other’s opinions and often seek feedback from the College community. “They see the Babson network as really good pilots for their ideas, their thoughts, their investments, their next challenges,” Wali says.

Boulton has tapped into the collective knowledge of the Babson community. About seven years ago, he wanted his company to begin manufacturing in Colombia instead of China. Looking for advice on making that pivot, he reached out to his network. “The whole world opened up,” he says. “They said you need to call this guy in the government. Call this attorney. Call my cousin, who knows a guy in logistics. It was amazing.”

They Understand Each Other

Like Wali, Randlett is a connector. In her alumni engagement role, she is in constant contact with graduates of all ages, whether from the Class of 2025 or the Class of 1965. “I think it’s the greatest job in the world,” Randlett says. “Alumni send me letters. They send me Christmas cards. The love for Babson runs deep.”

Randlett facilitates all kinds of connections. If an alumnus is looking to expand his company but has never pursued venture capital before, Randlett may introduce him to alumni who have. If a student needs a summer internship in her hometown, so she can be close to her sick mother, Randlett may reach out to an alumnus who can potentially give her one. If an alumna is taking the daunting step of selling her venture, Randlett may identify others to talk with who have already gone through that process.

“Alumni have an instinct to act. They pick up the phone. They make introductions. They are happy when the other person succeeds,” Randlett says. “They are generous in every way a person can be generous.”

This generosity and connection among alumni, Randlett believes, reflects their appreciation for the one thing they all have in common: the education they received at Babson. “They believe so deeply in the possibilities that flow from a Babson education,” Randlett says.

So, when they do business with a fellow Babson graduate, or hire one or mentor one, they know exactly the type of entrepreneurial skills and knowledge that person will bring to the table. “They speak the same language. They understand each other,” Randlett says. “There is this built-in respect.”

A Community for Life

For students, being a part of such a strong, interconnected community can be one of the defining features of their Babson experience. “It is part of the competitive advantage of a Babson education,” Chiu says. “If I’m an incoming student, this becomes a competitive advantage to have a No. 1 alumni network to tap into.”

Students interact with alumni in many ways. Student clubs may invite alumni to speak at an event, for example, or students may connect with an affinity or regional alumni group. “We try to expose students to the alumni network throughout their time here,” Wali says. “It is alumni’s favorite thing to interact with students.”

Boulton often hears about alumni who are mentoring students and recent graduates, though he admits that, as a young man, he didn’t bother much with Babson’s alumni community. He was too focused on establishing himself in business and later starting a family. Connecting with his old school wasn’t a concern. “I never looked back,” he says.

Then, in 2015, he decided to attend the first Babson Connect Worldwide, held in Cartagena, Colombia. At the global entrepreneurship conference, he was surrounded by Babson people filled with the entrepreneurial spirit, looking to grow their businesses and make an impact on the world. “That specific event just flipped everything for me. It was a breakthrough moment,” Boulton says. “I felt the energy, the passion, the connectivity of the network.”

Little by little, Boulton grew more involved in the Babson community, eventually becoming chair of the Babson Alumni Advisory Board and joining the Babson Board of Trustees. He jokingly likens his journey, from first drifting away from his alma mater to then returning to the embrace of its community, to that of Al Pacino in The Godfather Part III. “Just when I thought I was out,” Pacino famously utters in the film, “they pull me back in.”

Now Boulton’s daughter, Emiliana, goes to Babson. While seeing her start college may have felt bittersweet, a feeling many parents know all too well, he’s happy and amazed at the path life takes, how she’s now part of the larger Babson community, just like him. “That was a proud moment for the family,” Boulton says. “Babson feels like home.”

That feeling of belonging never has to end. The community of Babson, this No. 1 network of entrepreneurial people, is always there for alumni and students who wish to engage with it. “It’s a lifelong affinity, starting from the moment a student first steps foot on campus,” says Babson President Stephen Spinelli Jr. MBA’92, PhD.

Spinelli has lived that himself, having experienced various roles at Babson through the decades: professor, campus leader, and, of course, student. “I have spent many fulfilling years in the Babson community,” he says. “That network has helped me, challenged me, and inspired me. To be a part of it is one of the great privileges of my life.”

Babson Alumni Are…

The Babson alumni network is the strongest in the nation because of the unique bonds that connect them. In the Spring issue of Babson Magazine, we highlight nine examples that illustrate the varied types of relationships. Click the photos below to read each one.