Elena Potoupa Receives Outstanding Young Alumni Award from Fairleigh Dickinson University
Madison, NJ (October 17, 2006)—In celebration of her accomplishments and activities as an alumnus of Fairleigh Dickinson University, Elena Potoupa, General Manager at Eastern Regional Communications and President/Owner of Wow Things, Inc., is the 2006 recipient of FDU’s Outstanding Young Alumni Award. She is a resident of Tenafly.
The Alumni Association honored Potoupa for her impressive achievements since receiving her Masters in Business Administration from FDU in February 1998. This award is presented to a graduate who has achieved exceptional success in his or her profession, and who has graduated in the past fifteen years. Recipients are recognized for being emerging leaders in their fields or for service to the University and/or Alumni Association.
A native of Minsk, Belarus, Potoupa earned two degrees by the age of twenty, a B.S. in Physics and a J.D. in International Law. She came to the United States as an international student and earned her M.B.A. from Fairleigh Dickinson University by twenty- two.
Potoupa began Wow-Coupons, a website for printable in-store retail coupons, as a hobby. The website is one of the first of it’s kind, concentrating on providing discounts for retail, rather than online stores. She received an overwhelming interest from visitors and media and began developing Wow-Coupons as a business in November, 2004. Her success won her the prestigious e-commerce LinkShare Golden Link “Innovative Affiliate of the Year” award in 2005, which celebrates extraordinary achievements in performance-based marketing.
In addition to growing a successful online business, Potoupa has spent a considerable amount of time helping other small businesses and startup companies develop their business plans. She hopes to use her expertise in management, marketing, finance, accounting, law and web design to start a nonprofit organization that will continue to help small businesses grow and thrive.
Natively fluent in Russian and Belarusian, Potoupa also speaks English, Polish, Italian and Spanish, and is currently taking classes in Hebrew and French.
Barbara Stewart, member of FDU’s Alumni Board of Governors, presented the award to Potoupa, saying, “Today we celebrate her extraordinary achievements. We congratulate her and thank her for bringing such distinction to the University.”
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