NEWSROOM

Black History Month: Highlighting GM Financial’s Partnerships With HBCUs

GM Financial is strengthening its partnerships with Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) by helping to prepare the students for entry-level technical roles at GMF.

Black History Month is a perfect time to highlight these partnerships. Each February, GM Financial celebrates the history and accomplishments of African Americans and other African cultures, and HBCUs have contributed to those achievements since the early 19th century.

HBCUs were established to provide college educations and leadership opportunities to people of African descent who were barred from existing colleges and universities because of segregation. Today in the U.S., there are 101 HBCUs and Predominantly Black Institutions, or PBIs, as schools established after 1964 are called.

GM Financial’s recruiting strategies

Bryan Blackwell, Senior Talent Advisor for Campus and Early Careers in GMF's Talent Acquisition department, and an HBCU graduate, said the company uses several recruitment strategies at HBCUs.

In September, GMF hosted a virtual information session for HBCUs and participated in career fairs at two HBCUs in Texas: Prairie View A&M University and Texas Southern University. Bryan said the company plans to expand its efforts to other HBCUs within the state.

In October, GMF’s Commercial Vehicle Lending division also delivered in-depth classroom presentations and conducted on-site interviews at Prairie View A&M and Texas Southern.

“Providing students with opportunities at leading companies such as GMF is essential," Bryan said. "We build authentic relationships with students and support their career development by participating in college fairs, engaging directly in classrooms, assisting with résumé development and promoting awareness of our internships and full-time opportunities.”

He added, “Our vision is to increase our brand recognition and make GM Financial an employer of choice.”

Rodney Dixon, Vice President of Software Development – Digital for GMF, attended Texas Southern University and is involved in GMF’s efforts to recruit HBCU students.

“It’s a good way to give back,” Rodney said.

“We are constantly trying to recruit entry-level talent, but the curriculum is not geared to what we do, so we want to partner with the schools on the curriculum. We haven’t started that yet, but this relationship will give us an opportunity to do that. We can enable the students to get the skill set and the mindset they need to be successful at GM Financial.”

Sophomore Leadership Intern Program

In 2021, GM Financial created the Sophomore Leadership Internship Program (SLIP) to foster relationships with students from HBCUs and Hispanic Serving Institutions (HSIs) and to help the students gain an understanding of the auto finance industry.

During the eight-week summer program, the students rotate through different departments and shadow GMF team members to learn which areas interest them. They can then tailor their academic studies to those areas.

SLIP has sponsored 18 interns in its first four summers, and the program will sponsor 10 more during the summer of 2025.

Chamari Minnieweather, a finance major at Prairie View A&M, learned about GM Financial when she visited the company’s booth at a career fair during her freshman year. She was a SLIP intern in 2023, the summer before her sophomore year.

In the summer of 2024, Chamari joined GMF’s Corporate Treasury department as an intern and has continued working part time in the department as a project and system analyst while attending school. She plans to graduate with a bachelor’s degree in May.

She said the experience she’s gained at GM Financial has been invaluable.

“A lot of companies want interns who are juniors or seniors, but the SLIP program allowed me to get corporate experience right after my freshman year,” she said.

“Both internships required us to give presentations at the end of the summer, and that really improved my skills. And networking has been very important, too. We talked to the executives of different departments each week, and they gave me a lot of advice about the direction of my career.”

The executives shared that most careers are not a straight line up to higher positions. Instead, a successful career often means moving laterally to acquire knowledge and skills in other areas to become more well-rounded.

“As a student, you don’t always know what direction you want to go in your career yet, so that advice was very beneficial,” she said. “This experience has also given me great insight about the importance of working for a company with a good culture and good people.”

By Sonny Bohanan, GM Financial

Sonny Bohanan is a writer who loves telling stories and has a special passion for writing about life events that help foster diversity, equity and inclusion. Libraries and used bookstores provide the ideal backdrop for Sonny’s penchant for reading and writing fiction.