Saxbys, a Certified B corporation and coffee company, announced that Chloe Knill, C’23, is the first student CEO (SCEO)— student café executive officer—for the new student-run Saxbys café in Mount St. Mary’s University’s Knott Academic Center. Working alongside Saxbys executives, Knill, of Fairfield, Pennsylvania, will manage the operations of the campus café, as part of The Saxbys Experiential Learning Platform (The Saxbys E.L.P.). The café will open for the Fall 2022 semester.
Knill, currently finishing her junior year, is majoring in business, with a concentration in management. As soon as she heard about the Saxbys SCEO opportunity during a presentation in her supply chain and operations management class, she immediately decided to apply. After multiple interviews, including one with Saxbys CEO Nick Bayer and several executive board members of the company, she learned that she had been chosen for the position.
“I have never seen anything like this on a college campus,” Knill noted. Under The Saxbys E.L.P. model, the campus café, led by Knill, will be staffed entirely by students, who have the opportunity to not only earn an income, but also put into practice what they’re learning in their business-related classes, through the managing of the café. “I did have some prior leadership experience as SGA president [at the community college she transferred from],” Knill stated, but the chance to helm an on-campus eatery as a student is one that’s hard to match. AS SCEO, Knill will work directly with the Saxbys board and receive mentorship from Christina Green, Ph.D., an assistant professor in the Richard J. Bolte, Sr. School of Business.
In her six-month tenure as SCEO, Knill will be trained in the Saxbys’ three pillars of team development, community leadership and financial management. She’ll guide her staff of fellow students, not only in the day-to-day operations of the café but also in creating a fun and relaxing environment for Mounties.
Knill, who has already begun her training, most looks forward to ensuring that the café becomes “the place to be for the students.” She emphasized the value of Saxbys, not just to business students, but to the wider campus community. She believes having a Saxbys on campus will help make the Academic Center a place for gathering and connecting—and not simply for classes.
The Academic Center is currently undergoing an expansion and renovation that will bring technologically advanced collaborative spaces and a Bloomberg Classroom Laboratory as well as more classrooms and faculty offices. In this prime location, the café will be a busy cornerstone of campus life, providing the student leaders with a dynamic business that presents real-world challenges and opportunities.
After launching The Saxbys E.L.P. in 2015 and opening 15 university-based cafés primarily in the region around Saxbys’ Philadelphia headquarters, Saxbys has grown to both the south and the west, opening in Maryland with Bowie State University in 2019 and more recently launching cafés in Pittsburgh and Ohio in 2021 and 2022. Mount St. Mary’s will be the first Saxbys E.L.P. café in a private institution in Maryland, the second Saxbys E.L.P. café in the state, and the third within a Catholic university.