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 More than 4,000 Wharton Alumni live and work in the Washington, D.C.-Baltimore-Richmond region. Joining our Wharton Club is one of the best ways for you to leverage the power of the Wharton network and to develop your career in this area. If you're far outside the Beltway, you're still welcome to join our Club, and work with us on events closer to your home or office of interest to others in this opportunity-rich region.

Develop your career or business
  • Networking Happy Hours at bars and restaurants in the District, Montgomery County, Maryland, and Northern Virginia.  They are a great way to stay in touch with old friends and make new professional contacts.
  • Career Workshops.  Our Club has had many popular career-themed programs over the years. In recent years, we have focused on "Winning Career Strategies in a Tough Job Market.”  This includes topics, such as creating and executing a career plan and finding the best opportunities in today's job market, that are vital for you to move ahead, not just tread water.
  • Annual Conferences. Each of these has a theme that is relevant to members' businesses and careers. At our Fourth Annual Conference in 2005, for example, we will focus on "Driving Global Business: Public-Private High Tech Ventures.”  This features high-profile keynote speakers, moderators and panelists who will guide entrepreneurial attendees to potentially lucrative opportunities in the multi-billion dollar government marketplace in the U.S. and worldwide.
  • Our vigorous Leads Council meets twice each month to facilitate networking among people with the knowledge and connections to develop real business.  Leads generated here have already led to substantial new revenues for many members' firms. Unlike other leads groups, this one offers much camaraderie and strategic insight to help you and your business progress.
Stay involved in the Wharton Community
  • We are all united by our time at Wharton and do much to keep Wharton traditions alive here in Washington.  Most notable is our annual Joseph Wharton Award Dinner, now in its 36th year and again at the prestigious Park Hyatt.  Recent dinners, attended by 150-200+ members and guests, honored distinguished alumni such as Malcolm Bund, President of Bund Capital; Tony Calhoun, Treasurer of D.C.; Joe Semo, Partner, the Feder Semo Law Firm; Andrew Heller, Chairman, Heller Capital; and Joan Walsh Cassedy, CAE, President, American Council of Independent Laboratories. This year’s dinner promises to be successful as well, with awards to Jack Evans, W'75, DC City Councilman and Chair of the City's Finance Committee, and Alan Schlaifer, W'65, who has led our Club for many years.
Experience the Washington, DC region with fellow alumni
  • At the heart of this region, Washington is an exciting, international city known for government but also brimming with business opportunities.  Our varied events focus on our home community, and the most popular are frequent embassy receptions and briefings.  Our calendar typically includes five to seven each year. Last year, popular events included France, Norway, and Pakistan. This year's diverse lineup includes the Philippines, Jordan, Kyrgyzstan, and a reception hosted by the British Embassy, with more to be announced. Some of these are for members and their guests only, and members always get savings on reservations.
  • Part of our area's allure is that it offers a varied palette of programs featuring top government, business, academic, cultural, and nonprofit leaders. We make available some of the best to members and their guests only at such venues as the National Press Club, and with strategic partners, such as the Harvard Business School Club of DC. Examples are Robert Rubin, former Treasury Secretary; Meg Whitman, CEO of eBay; Bill Novelli, CEO of the 35-million members AARP; John Engler, President of the Natl. Assn. of Mfrs.; and Eliot Spitzer, New York's Attorney General. But our calendar also offers the chance to meet, learn from, and be stimulated by Nobel Prize winners, outstanding performing artists, Wharton faculty members, and innovators, such as aviation pioneer Bert Rutan.
  • Food and wine events are on our menu of activities. We recently held a wine tasting and winery tour at a winery owned by one of our members, an “Art & Business of Beer” seminar, and a “Celebration of Art & Wine." We periodically give you the opportunity to attend wine dinners with renowned chefs and culinary authorities, with more to come.
And more . . .

You get many perks from membership in the Wharton Club of D.C. We offer reduced Members-Only prices to club events, some events (such as the reception at the exquisite French Ambassador's residence) for members and guests only, and the chance to sign up for popular events before they are sold out.  We give you a free members-only Career Advancement Guide, now being revised, that focuses on the area job market and send members weekly email updates and special alerts.  We’ll soon offer a Membership Directory and robust exchanges among members on our new, improved website. Membership has already doubled since we switched to this robust new platform.

Club membership is a high yield, low risk investment that may easily pay for itself in other ways, such as these (and check under our Member Benefits tab on this site):
  • You get discounts at Club Quarters executive hotels in the heart of Philadelphia, NYC, Boston, Chicago, London, and other major cities.
  • With ReproCITY, you can attend events of other active Wharton Clubs in the U.S. at the same prices as their members.
  • Substantial savings on books from Wharton School Publishing and other parts of the huge Pearson catalog.
  • You also have incentives to improve your health and fitness - vital for your career and business - with big savings at our area's 20 Washington Sports Clubs (part of the 140 club Town Sports Intl., with many clubs to use on your travels to New York, Philadelphia and Boston), and the luxurious Sports Club/LA).

Click here to become a member!