Scott Levine ’90, communication studies, was an active student during his time at URI, being involved in the Student Alumni Association during the 1988 basketball season. Growing up in a family that owned a multi-generational business, Levine always knew he wanted to go into business. After studying business during his first semester at URI, though, he realized his interests were in communication. He credits this development to his father and Professor Agnes Doody’s encouragement to find his voice.

After graduating, Levine started working in his family business before making his way to an executive search firm. Since then, he has worked his way up to become the Director of Human Capital at Parthenon Capital, a private equity firm.

Why did you choose to study at URI?

I applied to business schools all around the country. All roads pointed to the West Coast for me. I just wanted to be over there. I didn’t know where specifically, but I wanted to be anywhere outside of New England. 

But, what ended up happening the week of acceptance was that my father had an aortic aneurysm and ended up having a ten-hour open heart surgery in Rhode Island Hospital. In the waiting room, I looked around when my 26 relatives were sitting there, and I thought, I can’t leave. So, I contacted my high school’s headmaster and explained the situation. He told me to come to school, pick up my transcript, drive down to the URI campus and meet with the dean of admissions for the business school. I went, he opened up the packet, we had a conversation, he hit a button on his phone, and a woman came in with a piece of paper; I signed it, then he signed it, and I was admitted to the University of Rhode Island.

Now, the funnier part of that was there was no housing for me because I was so late in the process, so I literally stayed in a closet in Hopkins Hall. There was a bed and a wooden dresser with four drawers; that was it. I waited three months before there was actually a room available for me. 

But there were some headwinds, if you will, in my life at a very young age. I didn’t know what to expect when I showed up at the University of Rhode Island. As I was walking the campus, I would see people from my past, from my preschool, from my elementary school, from other local high schools or folks that I just knew all different age groups who all ended up at campus. And it became so familiar to me. The world shrunk very quickly, and I loved it. 

Why did you choose to study in the College of Business?

I come from a five-generation family business and a family of entrepreneurs. At the breakfast, lunch, and dinner tables, Mom and Dad were talking about business. So, you know, it was ingrained in me. Understanding credits and debits were like peanut butter and jelly for me.

What I realized is when you put something on a PowerPoint or a piece of paper, you script out the way something should go. One company buying another company, integrating them, taking out costs, and putting them on a system should go screamingly on paper. If you write a play and cast member A has to interact with cast member B, they just say what’s in the script. It should go smashing. The reality is, how do they communicate with one another? What does one hear the other one say? I learned at a very young age that there’s the right message in the wrong delivery, and there’s the wrong message in a great delivery. So,  I understood business, but what was interesting to me was the people. I honed in on that at a very young age, and I found my voice. It was actually extracted out of me, my voice, by Professor Agnes Doody. 

What brought you to add a major in Communication Studies?

I went home after my first semester at URI, and I was really just not happy. I took 8 am classes on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday and on Tuesday and Thursday. My intent was to work at 1:00 or 2:00 in the afternoon on the road sales for one of our companies while carrying a full course load. And I thought I could pull this off. The reality was I was burning the candle at both ends, and I was not healthy. 

My father identified the fact that I just wasn’t happy. My father went to Bryant University, so I thought I must go to business school to be confident, qualified, and respected enough to run one of our companies if I had the opportunity to. He told me I was looking at it the wrong way. He wanted me to be exposed to challenging, interesting, and exciting things. So immediately, the next semester, I took an intercultural communications class with Professor Doody and loved it. 

[Professor] Doody liked people, she was funny, and we all responded quite well to her. Intercultural communication has always been fascinating to me. Cultural norms don’t necessarily translate to the other, and I like to lean into that. I get excited about that part of the learner in me, if you will, the observer in me. I found my lane and realized that I could take more business classes, but I could concentrate, if you will, on what I liked, which was the communication stuff.

What was your favorite course at URI?

There was the intercultural communication class with Professor Doody, and my other favorite course was business communication. It was a class about producing internal communications in business. Today it would be things like an internal newsletter, taking lots of content, synthesizing it, and delivering it in a structured format. We learned how to indent, use bullet points, choose font size, etc. Things like that, very specific tactical things. I still use all those things today. The professor [whose name I can’t remember] had foresight. He essentially said pads and papers will be a thing of the past, so you need to learn typing skills, dictation, and, more importantly than any of that, listening. The power of silence, the power of listening, all these things were sort of wrapped up in that business communications class. 

How do you use the skills you learned at URI today?

Let me take a step back and explain a bit of my journey. After graduating from URI, I went into the family business, married another URI graduate, and found myself applying my listening skills and observation skills rather than trying to outdo others. I wanted to learn about what made others successful in their functional roles.

We had a consulting firm come into my family’s companies to get them ready to be sold to an investment group. I didn’t know what that meant, but it turns out a private equity firm bought one of our companies. I went to work at a large public company in sales, and a childhood best friend called me and put me on the phone with his wife, who wanted me to work at an executive search firm that she was working at. It sounded super interesting and exciting to me. I was brought out to Menlo Park,  CA where I interviewed, and got an offer, which I accepted. 

I moved out to California and learned about the world of executive recruiting and about writing skills, writing up position descriptions, and asking questions of people who have no attention span, who are very busy, and who want you to get to the point. They aren’t necessarily warm and fuzzy after that first meeting.  I had to learn how to interact with demanding bosses, deal with short timeframes, get to the point, and communicate faster, quicker, and more succinctly.

I would go in and ask a ton of questions about a company, learn about the business, how they made money, who is running the company, who is their competitors, how they define success, what they were looking to add to their company, and what the culture is like. Then I’d put all that on a document to send to executives who don’t know you, trying to get their attention, maintain credibility, tell the story, and represent your client company. This is what I do all day for the past 25 years. 

Where do you see or how do you use A.I. tools now? Or if you’re not using them now, how do you see them being used in the future?

For me, functionally, there are opportunities to improve business processes for my role and my firm. We’re not there yet, but I’m very well aware on a much bigger, broader scale across all of our companies, specifically professional services-oriented companies, we see where AI can be used to improve and make sort of redundant, repeatable, boring processes faster, more efficient. They do require people to manage, but there are tools there to be used.

What is your favorite memory from URI? 

I’m a class of 1990 graduate, so I think my favorite memory was 1988, the year when the University of Rhode Island men’s basketball team was really good. I was a member of the University of Rhode Island Student Alumni Association. Another student, Ross Kaufman, and I built the first University of Rhode Island Noise Meter. It was this giant board with the four letters RAMS. At the basketball games, we would bring it out and sit there. And as the crowd got louder, the RAMS would light up. It would go back and forth like a noise meter.

I have very, very funny memories of building it and running it at games. I remember how excited the crowd got because it was a great season for the school. The basketball team did really well, but more importantly, the cultural impact that it had sort of brought so many groups together. Keaney Gym was packed every game.

What one piece of advice would you give students who are preparing to enter the workforce?

Students who are coming into the Harrington School should recognize that this is their opportunity to learn, challenge themselves, explore, stretch themselves, and try things and fail. And failure is okay. The key is to learn from your failures. Don’t shy away from them; own them.  

There is an extraordinary alumni base out there. Make networking part of your curriculum. Don’t be afraid to reach out to people. You’ll find that most people are human, and they’re interested in helping younger people. None of us got where we were without someone helping us.  

Finally, no one expects an undergraduate student coming out of school to have all the answers or to have any answers candidly. What they all want in any industry, in any functional role, is people who are interested in what the company or the industry is. They’re looking for people who are curious and thoughtful, who won’t have the answers to everything but are willing to go figure things out, and who are excited about figuring things out. 

Harrington has built an excellent infrastructure again between the professors, the students, the resources, and the alumni network. It’s a great launching pad, and I’m excited for all the students. Having watched the evolution of [the Harrington School] from my days all the way up to today is pretty remarkable.