As the first in her extended family to leave home and study in a country where she knew no one, Sojo Alex—now serving in her first term on the National Association of College & University Food Services (NACUFS) Board of Trustees—knows about breaking barriers.
Born in Kerala, India in 1980, her family has lived in the Kingdom of Bahrain since the 1960s, which is where she moved at 3 months old. There, she attended The Indian School from kindergarten to high school, moving to Bangalore, India for just three years to earn her Bachelor of Business Management at Jyoti Nivas College in 2001. She then immigrated to the United States, receiving her master’s in integrated marketing communications at Loyola University Chicago in 2004.
Alex is proud of having made this challenging move to study in the United States, far away from her home and family. A natural storyteller, she uses her story to help encourage others.
“This was a difficult journey, but it paved the way for my younger cousins—especially the girls in the family—to pursue their career dreams away from home,” Alex said.
Bahrain, a small island nation in the Persian Gulf between Qatar and Saudi Arabia, is a close partner of the United States, but only granted women the right to vote in 2002.
That was a year after Alex graduated college and found herself brand new to the U.S., starting out as a student dining employee at Loyola. Her career took off from there, and she became a marketing assistant for Aramark in Chicago in 2004, then a marketing manager for Chartwells Higher Education at the University of North Florida in 2005. She continued her career ascension as a brand manager at Michigan State University in 2008 where she developed and managed MSU’s “Eat at State” brand and other culinary services brands. Since 2013, she has worked as a consultant at Envision Strategies where she is now a principal, providing support for higher education clients and architects through dining master planning and more.
“I am proud of my career path from an international student to a student employee in a dining hall … to strategic brand manager to a consultant,” she said. “I am proud of the barriers I had to break over 20 years as a diverse, young woman in the foodservice industry.”
Alex has been active in NACUFS since her time at MSU, serving on the NACUFS Marketing Committee from 2010-2013 and as marketing committee lead for the Midwest regional conference in 2014. She has volunteered and presented educational sessions at regional and national conferences, served on the National Conference Committee in 2019, and was a member of the Industry Advisory Task Force in 2020.
Starting from her first job in dining—where she learned to make a mean quesadilla and hone critical soft skills—to now, where she is leading high-level strategic planning, Alex said she has always made it a point to learn as much as possible and make a difference in every position she has held.
“Not only in advancing the brand or achieving goals and increasing revenue, but most of all, loving on my peers, colleagues and competitors around me and meeting them where they are,” she said. “That has made the biggest difference in my life and humbled me.”
She now lives in Collierville, Tennessee, with her husband, Finny Mathew, whom she married in 2005, son Akash Mathew, 13, and daughter Diya Mathew, 9. They also have a dog, cockatiel, and two parakeets. She was granted U.S. citizenship in 2020.
She said her greatest challenge has been overcoming self-doubt, even in the areas in which she excels.
“I know we have all felt that from time to time,” Alex said. “However, through encouragement from my colleagues and peers and assistance from my executive coach, I have been able to work on situations to my advantage and have been helping others do the same.”
In addition to the support and mentorship of colleagues throughout her career, she also credits her Christian faith as her and her family’s foundation.
“No matter how successful or unsuccessful I get in life and career, I will remain strong in my calling to love and serve people around me,” Alex said.