Communicator of the Year
Swati D. Joshi, Comm '94
Alpharetta, Ga.
Swati Joshi has had a vibrant 30-year career in communications, with experience at Siemens, GE and now Beacon Partners, her own flourishing boutique communications consulting firm. Along the way, Marquette has been a beacon for Swati. “It is at the core of my success,” she says. “So much of the goodness in my life traces back to this incredible community.”
As a young Marquette graduate living in Atlanta, she attended an alumni event where she met a fellow alum who worked in communications at GE and encouraged Swati to send over her resume. “The rest, as they say, is history,” Swati says.
Marquette also helped Swati navigate a difficult time earlier in life. Her father died suddenly when she was in ninth grade, and she and her mother faced significant challenges in the years that followed. Swati struggled academically early in high school. When it came time to apply for college, “my prospects were bleak,” she says.
She feels grateful to Marquette for “looking beyond my transcripts to see potential. MU gave me a chance to prove myself as part of the Freshman Frontier Program,” a five-week summer bridge program that helped prepare her for college academics and her future career success.
Swati remains deeply committed to her alma mater: mentoring students, speaking to communications classes, participating on alumni panels and supporting new initiatives to advance the Diederich College of Communication mission.
To Swati, success is “less about titles and more about doing things I love and that truly matter, staying connected to my roots and giving back in meaningful ways.”
Name someone (past or present) with whom you'd like to have dinner.
Any (or all) of my grandparents, who I never got to know. I’d like to hear their stories — about my parents as kids, about raising a family during tumultuous times in India and about the moment my father told them he was moving to America. That was a profound turning point in our family’s history, and I’d love to understand how they experienced it and how that moment shaped everything that followed.
Name a Marquette faculty or staff member who had an impact on you, and how.
Mary Minson, director of the Freshmen Frontier Program, welcomed me in the summer of 1994 with warmth, open arms and a clear understanding of what I had been through and what I needed. From the very first orientation session, she created a safe space where I felt seen and supported. Her thoughtful and very personal approach made all the difference in helping me find my footing and believe I could succeed at Marquette.
