Recruited on a scholarship to come to SFU and join the men’s basketball team, Dominic Postle’s journey at SFU Beedie has been one of overcoming adversity due to four years of persistent injuries. With the team behind him, Postle was determined to make the most of his time at SFU Beedie and took every opportunity he could to grow both personally and professionally.

Now, set to graduate in June with a BBA honours and certificate in Business Analytics and Decision Making (BADM), Postle has secured a position as a business advisory intern with Slalom Consulting, a business and technology consulting firm headquartered in Seattle, Washington that employs more than 13,000 people across North America, Europe, and Asia Pacific.

“Looking back at who I was in my first year versus who I have become four years later, it’s evident that SFU Beedie has provided me with a place to grow, develop and learn,” says Postle. “I connected with mentors, professors and staff at SFU Beedie who supported me and inspired me to become a leader.”

Through the encouragement of his professors and staff at SFU Beedie, Postle explored sports analytics and launched an eight-month analytics project with SFU Men’s Basketball, securing funding through the SFU Work Study Program without any past experience in analytics or project management.

Postle also became a writing mentor in SFU Beedie’s Writing Mentorship (BWM) program at the suggestion of his BUS 360W instructor and was later selected to help run the BWM program as a program assistant. In addition, he served as the SFU Beedie Living-Learning Community advisor, leading the Living-Learning community in collaboration with SFU Residence and mentoring first-year SFU Beedie students on how to succeed in their transition to university.

Most recently, Postle was recruited to become a program manager for the Marketing Accelerator Program (MAP), a career prep program for marketing students founded in partnership with SFU Beedie’s Career Management Centre (CMC). The program seeks to provide hands-on learning opportunities for top marketing students and connect companies and students through networking.

“Once people showed belief in me, it gave me the reassurance that I could do cool things and it allowed me to thrive beyond my expectations,” says Postle. “And being a part of SFU Men’s Basketball and SFU Athletics gave me a family that has stuck by me through thick and thin.”

Postle has experienced more than his share of setbacks and injuries. Before coming to SFU, he suffered a bad concussion that took eight months to heal. SFU stuck by Postle and extended him an athletic scholarship. Early in his first year, he suffered another concussion that took an additional nine months to recover from, and Postle’s doctors recommended that he quit basketball and drop his courses. With the team’s support, he remained enrolled in his courses and even went on to earn the highest GPA on the team. SFU Athletics also guided him through reconstructive knee surgery and rehabilitation when he later tore his ACL.

“Each year was riddled with its own challenges, and even though I never got to see the court due to four years of persistent injuries, my team stood by me and supported me through it all,” says Postle. “It showed me that I would always have a team of people to fall back on if I needed it, and that was a source of motivation to push forward in all areas of my life.”

Postle’s position with Slalom Consulting would have been a surprise to himself even months earlier. Back then, he was expecting to go into a full-time career in marketing post-graduation. But this past March, when he was narrowing down his full-time options in marketing, he received an invitation to interview at Slalom for their internship.

“My application to Slalom was the only consulting position I applied for,” says Postle. “But in the process of interviewing and meeting the team, I felt there was a strong match in culture, values and our shared passion for problem solving. Ultimately, I turned down competitive full-time roles in marketing because my heart told me I would regret not exploring consulting as a career path.”

On lessons learned and advice for future students, Postle has this to say: “If there was only one lesson I could teach my first-year self, it would be to celebrate and embrace your failures as much as your successes. Failure is necessary for growth and learning, and how you move past and navigate your failures is what defines your story.”

This story was originally published on the Beedie School of Business website on May 25, 2022.