Author: Laura Counts

Global Social Venture Competition to Host Record Number of Worldwide Finalist Teams

| by Laura Counts

Reducing malaria in Africa via a mosquito-repelling soap, addressing the planet-wide plastics pollution crisis with pulp-and-paper packaging alternatives, and decreasing infant mortality rates in rural India via a low-cost mobile phone application are among the objectives of the record 18 finalists who will compete for $50,000 in prize money at this year’s Global Social Venture Competition Global Finals and Conference at the Haas School April 11 and 12. 

The GSVC attracted nearly 650 entries from 37 countries this year. The competition, first organized by Berkeley MBA students in 1999, supports the creation of businesses that bring about positive social change via sustainable practices.

"The Global Social Venture Competition continues to grow globally," says Andre Marquis, executive director of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship at Haas and director of the competition. "This year we are excited to welcome 18 global finalist teams, including a record four from Africa, who are doing amazing work to make a difference in the world.”

On the first day of the competition, Thursday, each finalist team presents to a panel of judges, which then selects six teams to move on to the Round 2 Global Finals on Friday, which will be open to the public. These six teams then compete for the $25,000 first prize, $15,000 second prize, and $7,500 third prize.

On Friday, the audience also will be asked to pick its favorite team to receive the $1,500 People’s Choice Award.  Each of the remaining 12 teams from the first day of the competition also will make a 90-second pitch to the audience, which then votes to determine the winner of the $1,000 Quick Pitch Award.

In addition to prize money and exposure, the 2013 GSVC finalists will provide more educational opportunities. “This year the GSVC will include the first-ever ‘Bootcamp’ that will provide the finalist teams with experiential learning and training from UC Berkeley faculty and Bay Area social entrepreneurs and investors," Marquis says.

The GSVC is now supported by numerous outreach and regional partner organizations from across the globe that funnel entrepreneurial teams to one of several regional finals.  The two top teams from each regional competition then advance to the Global Finals held each spring at UC Berkeley. This year, Haas students participated in 19 different GSVC teams, including nine that made it to the US-Western Regional Finals. 

In addition to the Round 2 Global Finals, Friday’s event includes a conference with a keynote speech and two breakout sessions of panels and workshops. Panels and workshops will address topics such as “The Role of Technology in Creating Global Impact” and “Improving Global Health – Go-To-Market Strategy.” The sessions also include a debate for the first time: “Should we be focusing on challenges at home or abroad?” Participants include Zach Friedman, program director, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab Institute for Globally Transformative Technologies; Allison R. Rouse, co-founder and CEO, EdVillage, a global education nonprofit; Amy Omand, director of finance and operations, Tipping Point Community; and Richard Kohl, founder and principal, Center for Large Scale Change.

The public is invited to the April 12 GSVC Global Finals and Conference, to be held from 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. at Haas. Early-bird registration is available until April 5 at gsvcconference2013.eventbrite.com. More details also can be found at gsvc.org.

IDEO General Manager Tom Kelley to Headline Alumni Conference, April 27

| by Laura Counts

From lessons on design thinking to a series of talks modeled after TEDx events, the Annual Alumni Conference on April 27 will feature a full day of teaching by more than two dozen alumni, faculty, and staff.

Alumnus Tom Kelley, MBA 83, general manager of design firm IDEO, will give the morning keynote talk, sharing meta-lessons his firm has learned from working with clients worldwide on thousands of design-thinking innovation projects. He will explain the importance of looking Beyond Yourself, starting with empathy to find new opportunities and latent needs by observing human behavior in relevant settings.

The conference also will feature a menu of lectures given by faculty and industry leaders—five to choose from in the morning and five in the afternoon—on everything from the principles of persuasion and influence to guiding your children for high school success to the art of leadership presence.

Dean Rich Lyons, BS 82, will kick off the conference with a welcome and brief update on the school, including a perspective of how its unique culture and leadership style empowers Berkeley-Haas alumni to create positive change in organizations and markets.

The day will culminate in the afternoon with HAASx Talks featuring fast-paced five-minute presentations by more than a dozen alumni sharing ideas that will inspire, engage, and provoke conversations that matter. Some of the topics and speakers are:

  • Strategy in the Real World (and Why Design Helps to Deliver it) – Sue Adelhardt, BCEMBA 03, CEO, Embarcadero Partners
  • The Difference Between Working and Working with Passion – Nico Goldstein, MBA 03, CEO, LAN Airlines Peru
  • Music to my Ears: The Next Big Thing – Larry Marcus, MBS 93, venture capitalist, Walden Venture Capital
  • The ROI of Values: Don't mess with Touchy Feely – Danae Ringelmann, MBA 08, co-founder, Indiegogo

The talks will be moderated by Adjunct Assistant Professor Kellie McElhaney, faculty director of the Center for Responsible Business.

The day will close with a networking reception from 5 p.m. to 6 p.m.

For more details on the conference, visit haas.berkeley.edu/groups/alumni/reunion/2013/conference.html. 

Marketing Expert David Aaker to Talk on Threats to Brand Relevance, April 9

| by Laura Counts

Branding guru and Haas Professor Emeritus David Aaker will return to the Haas School for his annual marketing lecture on April 9 at 12:30 p.m. in the Wells Fargo Room.

The lecture, “Three Threats to Relevance—Strategies that Work,” is part of the David Aaker Distinguished Speaker Series and is sponsored by the Dean’s Speaker Series, MBA Marketing Club, and Undergraduate Marketing Club. Registration is required; more details on registration will be provided as the event approaches. Boxed lunches will be served at the event.

Aaker says creating brand relevance, not brand preference, is the key to developing competitive marketing strategies. His work on brand relevance relies on substantial or transformational innovation in new categories and subcategories that make competitors irrelevant.

“Brands today are facing the prospect of losing relevance because they are not making what customers are buying, because they have lost energy and visibility, or because they have developed a reason-not-to-buy,” explains Aaker. “As a result, customers, even some who still have a high regard for a particular brand, are no longer considering it. It is important to recognize these threats and deal with them before they damage the brand and business."

Since retiring from teaching in 2000, Aaker has returned to Haas every year to present the "David Aaker Distinguished Speaker Series in Marketing" and to speak to a new generation of marketing students. Aaker is also vice chairman of Prophet, a global brand and marketing consultancy firm, founded by Haas alumni based on his teaching.

Aaker's extensive research in brand building, portfolio strategy, and global brand management was honed during his 30 years at UC Berkeley.

He is the author of 15 books, including Spanning Silos (2008), Brand Portfolio Strategy (2004), and From Fargo to the World of Brands (2006). His latest book, Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant, was published in 2011.  

Aaker's first of four brand books, Managing Brand Equity (1991), defined brand equity. His second, Building Strong Brands (1995), developed the brand identity model used by many firms. His third, Brand Leadership (2000), extended the brand identity model and discussed how to develop brand-building programs. The fourth, Brand Portfolio Strategy (2004), developed tools and concepts to create brand portfolios that are prioritized, clear, energized, and synergistic. 

Profs. Williamson, Yellen Named Berkeley Fellows

| by Laura Counts

Haas Professors Emeriti Oliver Williamson and Janet Yellen were honored as Berkeley Fellows earlier this year by Chancellor Robert Birgeneau.

Williamson, the 2009 Nobel laureate in economics, and Yellen, vice chair of the Federal Reserve, were introduced to the prestigious group of Berkeley Fellows at a private dinner with the chancellor in February.

The Berkeley Fellows are an honorific society of distinguished friends of the Berkeley campus, selected by the chancellor. The society was created purely as a means of recognizing contributions to the university.

"We are very fortunate to count Janet Yellen and Oliver Williamson as part of the Berkeley community. Olly's accomplishments in the field of economics and Janet's public service with the Federal Reserve have brought great prestige to our university," says Birgeneau. "In naming them Berkeley Fellows, we hope to express our sincerest thanks for their decades of dedication to Berkeley."

Williamson was awarded the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences in 2009 for his pioneering analysis of economic governance, particularly the boundaries of the firm. He joined the Haas School faculty in 1988.

 

Yellen was named vice chair of the Federal Reserve in 2010. For 26 years, from 1980 to 2006, Yellen taught macroeconomics at Haas and held a joint appointment with the Department of Economics. She was twice awarded the Earl F. Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, in 1985 and 1988.

The Berkeley Fellows were created with 100 members in 1968, the 100th anniversary of the chartering of the university by then Chancellor Robert Heyns. In 1981, the number of fellows was expanded to match the age of the university, thus increasing the size of the group by one each year.

Other Berkeley Fellows from Haas include former Dean Budd Cheit; Professor Emeritus Robert Cole, and Lecturer and alumnus Leo Helzel, MBA 68. The group also includes several other Haas alumni and friends: Gerson Bakar, BS 48; Ed Bartlett, BS 51; Frank Baxter, BA 61; Kathleen Correia, BS 76; Rick Cronk, BS 65; David Flinn, Richard Greene, and Claude Hutchison, all BS 60; former Levi's CEO Bob Haas; Harry Hathaway, BS 59; Paul Hazen, MBA 64; Pres Hotchkis, BS 51; Pat Hyndman, BS 38; Grant Inman, MBA 69; Steve Keller, BS 59; Ted Lee, MBA 66; George Miller, MBA 61; Norm Mineta, BS 53; Robert O'Donnell, BS 65, MBA 66; Ed Peterson, BS 58; Ted Saenger, BS 51; Tom Schneider, MBA 62; Peter Shea, BS 57; Barclay Simpson, BS 43; Carol and Ned Spieker, BS 66; Paul Stephens, MBA 69; and Carl Stoney, MBA 71.

Outside of Haas, well-known Berkeley Fellows include author Joan Didion and chef/restaurateur Alice Waters.

Haas, Stanford Deans to Discuss Educating Leaders, March 29

| by Laura Counts

Berkeley-Haas Dean Rich Lyons will join Stanford Graduate School of Business Dean Garth Saloner in a discussion about incubating global leadership on Friday, March 29, at the 10th annual Global Technology Symposium in Silicon Valley.

Lyons and Saloner will talk about the role of educators in combining innovation with integrity. Their discussion will be moderated by Don Dixon, co-founder and senior managing director of Trident Capital.

The symposium is the leading investment conference on venture capital, technology, and entrepreneurship in emerging markets. Since 2004, the event has brought more than 300 selected leaders to Silicon Valley each year to share insights on the opportunities and challenges of globalization.

Two Alumni Make SF Business Times “40 Under 40” List

| by Laura Counts

Kevin Chou, BS 02, and Sheldon Kimber, MBA 07, were named to this year's "40 Under 40" list of young professionals who "hit home runs," compiled by the San Francisco Business Times.

Chou, 32, is co-founder and CEO of Kabam, a free-to-play video game maker. Kimber, 35, is chief operating officer of Recurrent Energy, a solar energy developer. They were recognized at an event at AT&T Park March 7.

Chou has grown Kabam into a company with more than 500 employees, more than 4 million players a month in 100 countries, and $180 million in annual revenue. A former venture capitalist, Chou was named by Fortune as one of the “Smartest People in Tech.”

In his interview with the Business Times, Chou also made a plug for another Haas firm, noting his guilty pleasure was suits made by AlbertMing, a custom-suit company co-founded by alumnus Albert Shyy, MBA 12. Chou's goal by 40: Earn a place on “50 under 50.”

The Business Times called Kimber "one of the youngest, most successful executives in the solar industry." Kimber has led the expansion of Recurrent Energy’s development strategy from a small-scale rooftop developer with less than 100 megawatts in the project pipeline to a leading utility-scale solar developer with hundreds of megawatts of contracted projects and a pipeline of over 2 gigawatts. His goal by 40: "inner peace."

Kimber, who lectures on project finance at Haas, also recently co-wrote an article about solar power in BerkeleyHaas magazine.

Read more about Chou

Read more about Kimber

UC Berkeley Startup Competition Offers Larger Prizes

| by Laura Counts

Thirty-nine teams, including 16 from Haas, are competing for larger cash prizes and a new $100,000 grant and mentorship program in this year's UC Berkeley Startup Competition, a marquee entrepreneurship event at the university.

Teams will practice their pitches and get feedback from lawyers, entrepreneurs, and VCs at an upcoming Launchpad event April 3. Then the 39 teams will compete in the April 23 semifinals.

Teams compete in four tracks: IT & Web, Life Sciences, Energy & Cleantech, and Products & Services. From the pool of semifinalists, judges will choose eight finalists—two per track—who will head to a final competition at Haas on April 25, including a private event in the afternoon and a public round that starts at 6 p.m.

First-place track winners in the semifinals will receive $5,000; second-place track winners will be awarded $2,500 each, up from $1,000 in previous years. The final grand prize winner will receive $20,000. A $5,000 People’s Choice Prize and a $2,500 Elevator Pitch Presentation Prize, up from $1,000 last year, also will be awarded.

In addition, all semifinalist teams will be eligible for a $100,000 funding grant and mentorship program from Founder.org, the competition's newest sponsor. Founder.org's mission is to inspire students to chase big ideas and become founders of impactful companies that drive innovation and economic growth.

A new competition format, launched in 2011, reflects a shift in the competition from long-form business plan to an approach that includes a high-level summary, pitch, and prototype.

Earlier this month, students received startup guidance from veteran entrepreneur Guy Kawasaki, former chief evangelist of Apple and co-founder of Garage Technology Ventures. The title of his talk was "Top 10 Mistakes of Entrepreneurs," but he actually shared 11 mistakes because he said he likes to "under-promise and over-deliver."

Kawasaki spelled out the top mistakes in the context of a hypothetical online dog food business, poking holes in common practices from market sizing to fundraising. He went on to praise entrepreneurs with meager beginnings, noting that “poverty is a very motivating force.” Watch a video of Kawasaki's talk.

This year’s judges include Kawasaki; Steve Hahn, a research fellow at The Dow Chemical Company; Jed Katz, MBA 96, managing director at Javelin Venture Partners; Rebecca Lynn, MBA/JD 08, partner at Morgenthaler Ventures; George Willman, MBA 93, of Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati; and Don Wood, managing director at Draper Fisher Jurvetson.

For more information about the competition, visit bplan.berkeley.edu.

Entrepreneur Hansoo Lee, MBA 10, Founder of Magoosh, Passes Away

| by Laura Counts

Alumnus and entrepreneur Hansoo Lee, MBA 10, passed away March 4 after a 15-month battle with lung cancer. A memorial for Lee was held today in San Francisco, and classmates are currently setting up an entrepreneurship fellowship in his name.

Lee came to Berkeley-Haas knowing that he wanted to pursue a career in entrepreneurship. Once here, he encouraged prospective students to do the same by graciously participating in a Lester Center promotional video highlighting the entrepreneurial spirit at Berkeley-Haas.

During his time at Berkeley-Haas he co-founded Magoosh, an online education company focused on providing everyone with fun, convenient, effective ways to learn. Under Lee’s leadership, Magoosh grew from a business school idea to a funded, cash-flow-positive business that has helped thousands of students improve their test scores.

Magoosh went on to win second place in the Intel+UC Berkeley Technology Entrepreneurship Challenge in 2010.

“Hansoo was a visionary, a leader, and an integral part of the Haas community,” said Magoosh co-founder Bhavin Parikh, also MBA 10. “He had a pronounced impact on those around him, pushing them to make a tangible difference in the world.”

As a way to honor his memory, Parikh is joining with classmate Pejman Pour-Moezzi, MBA 10, and Lee’s fiancée, Wendy Lim, to create the Hansoo Lee Fellowship for Entrepreneurs. The fellowship will be awarded annually to support a first-year full-time Berkeley MBA student focused on pursuing an entrepreneurial venture. More information about how to donate to the fellowship will be available in the coming weeks.

To share a memory about Lee, visit facebook.com/HansoosCancer.

To give to the Hansoo Lee Fellowship for Entrepreneurs, visit givetocal.berkeley.edu/fund/?f=FM8331000.

Recovery or Bubble? Fisher Center to Examine State of Real Estate, April 22

| by Laura Counts

“Real Estate Markets: Cautious Optimism or Another Bubble?” will be the complex question posed at the 18th Annual Fisher Center Real Estate Conference on April 22 at the Palace Hotel in San Francisco.

Keynote speaker and Fisher Center Chairman Ken Rosen will share his popular annual real estate forecast at the conference, which runs from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. A second keynote speaker will be confirmed soon.

The annual conference, organized by the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, comes as the U.S. housing market shows signs of recovery with increased new construction, rising home sales, and slightly higher sale prices, which are helping to trigger market growth for the first time since 2005.

Panel speakers include :

  • Michael Covarrubias, chairman & CEO, TMG Partners, a private real estate development company focused exclusively on urban infill projects in the Bay Area. The firm has developed about 20 million square feet of property and more than 400 acres of land in the past 27 years.
     
  • Matt Field, managing director, TMG Partners. Field has been responsible for more than $2 billion of acquisitions and dispositions for TMG since 2003.
     
  • Jon Haveman, chief economist at the Bay Area Council’s Economic Institute. Haveman is one of California’s leading experts on the economics of seaports, goods movement, and international trade policy.
     
  • Patrick Kennedy, owner, Panoramic Interests, which has added more than 500 new units of housing and 100,000 sq. ft. of commercial space around downtown Berkeley since 1990. In 1998, the firm's Berkeleyan Apartments were the first new rental housing project built by a private developer in downtown Berkeley since World War II.
     
  • Scott Miller, managing director, Redwood Trust. The publicly traded firm invests in, finances, and manages real estate assets. Miller is responsible for commercial loan originations.
     
  • Monique Moyer, executive director, Port of San Francisco. Appointed by Mayor Gavin Newsom in 2004, Moyer is the second woman to serve as executive director in the port’s 149-year history and one of only three female port directors nationwide.
     
  • Mary Murphy, partner, Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher. Murphy is one of the most influential land-use attorneys in San Francisco, working on negotiations to redevelop Treasure Island and representing such clients as Lucasfilm and the Golden State Warriors.
     
  • Isaac Pesin, co-president, LNR Partners. The firm is the world's largest commercial mortgage special servicer.

For conference details and registration information, visit groups.haas.berkeley.edu/realestate/ExecEd/AnnConfinfo.html. 

Haas Leads $3.75 Million Innovation Program with National Science Foundation

| by Laura Counts

Berkeley-Haas is spearheading an educational program funded by a $3.75 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) that aims to commercialize university research and foster innovation.

The three-year grant will create one of three new Innovation Corps Nodes (or I-Nodes) that the NSF is establishing across the nation. The goal of the NSF program is to increase the impact of NSF-funded research by setting up innovation ecosystems within universities that will train the next generation of entrepreneurs, encourage partnerships between academia and industry, and commercialize science and technology. The resources of the program are available to NSF principal investigators and their graduate students, as well as local and national startups.
 
The Bay Area I-Node led by Haas also includes UC San Francisco and Stanford University. The node is headed by Dean Rich Lyons and Haas Lecturer and Silicon Valley entrepreneur Steve Blank. André Marquis, executive director of the Haas School’s Lester Center for Entrepreneurship, serves the role of I-Node manager. 
 
The Bay Area I-Node is one of several new entrepreneurship efforts spearheaded by the Lester Center at Berkeley-Haas. Other recent entrepreneurship initiatives include the creation of the UC Berkeley Skydeck Accelerator, health care hackathons, and the development of a new entrepreneurship course called Lean LaunchPad, which also will be part of the NSF program.
 
“The NSF has built an incredibly smart program to bring together the best of science and technology invention with all the advances we have made in teaching entrepreneurship over the past decade,” says Marquis. “Given our unique location within the national network for entrepreneurship, we have a great deal to bring to the I-Corps network.”
 
All of NSF’s I-Corps nodes will teach the Lean LaunchPad framework, a training program developed by Blank that focuses entrepreneurs on developing business models, rather than business plans, and on iterating their models quickly and frequently based on customer feedback. The framework grew out of an earlier customer development course Blank taught at Berkeley-Haas after observing that few business plans ever survived first contact with customers. 
 
"We will teach scientists to do three things: think not only about their technology but a business model; test hypotheses about their business outside the building; and iterate and pivot when results don't match their hypotheses," says Blank. "Business school students also will play a role in helping scientists as mentors," he adds.
 
Blank teaches the Lean LaunchPad framework in the Berkeley MBA Program and at Stanford’s School of Engineering. At UCSF, where Blank also will begin teaching this fall, this will be the first time the framework will be used in a bioscience setting.
 
The Bay Area partner institutions will also build novel pedagogical tools to provide much of their training programs online and track the progress of their startups, which will help to advance best practices for teaching and fostering entrepreneurship in the future. The online trainings will be made available publicly.
 
“This node builds on early work with Berkeley in developing the I-Corps effort," says NSF Program Director Don Millard. "We see it to helping bring I-Corps training to a new level. The addition of the San Francisco Bay Area/Silicon Valley node will help advance the I-Corps program’s National Innovation Network.”
 
Lester Center Executive Director Andre Marquis

Haas Teams Earn High Marks in Education Leadership Competition

| by Laura Counts


Education Leadership Competition Winners: Alma Rico, Vishal Shah, Sheila Bharucha, and Eddie Medina, all MBA 14.

An interdisciplinary team proved to be a “secret weapon” for the second-place Berkeley winner in the Education Leadership Case Competition at Haas Feb. 15-16.

The team included full-time MBA students Eddie Medina, Alma Rico, and Vishal Shah, all MBA 14. Sheila Bharucha, MPP 13, a student at Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy, rounded out the team and, according to Rico, was the aforementioned ace in the hole.

“She offered a number of valuable insights and helped our MBA team think beyond business frameworks,” says Rico. “I felt our success was rooted in Haas collaborative culture. We brainstormed together, listened and built on each other’s points, and eventually came together to structure our final recommendations.”

Ten teams from top business schools competed in the challenge to help High Tech High, a charter school in San Diego that uses project-based learning methods, structure its services and market itself to new segments. Chicago Booth placed first. Another Haas team took third: Alex Justice, Fanzi Mao, Tom Pryor, and Skyler Soto, all full-time MBA 14.

High Tech High specifically reached out to the Education Leadership Competition for help with marketing a new graduate school of education aimed at spreading the reach of the organization by training new teachers and school leaders.

 “We recommended that they focus on the San Diego area for their two master's degree programs but cast a broader net when thinking about their Leading Schools Program (a professional development product for teachers and principals),” says Shah. “This program is more financially viable and had the potential to scale much more quickly."

The team pulled an all-nighter to make their strong showing (“worth it and lots of fun,” says Shah) and impressed judges with a structured approach that clarified points of confusion. “They really liked the social media approach to marketing that we developed—something they didn’t really understand how to use before,” says Shah. “They also appreciated our suggestion that they separate themselves from the High Tech High brand in order to appeal to a broader segment of teachers and school leaders.”

Shah credits two courses from the Berkeley Innovative Leadership Development (BILD) curriculum–Leadership Communications and Problem Finding Problem Solving—for helping the team's presentation come alive. "Our presentation came off as stories that the judges could see themselves in, rather than just a typical PowerPoint,” Shah says.

Rico came to Haas to transition into a role in education management and appreciated the opportunity to apply business learning to a complex education issue. "I feel very fortunate to have had the opportunity to work with a high-performing innovative school like High Tech High,” she says, “as I hope to use my MBA to create innovate solutions for education reform.”

This was the seventh year for the student-run Education Leadership Competition at Haas, the country’s oldest MBA case challenge focused on education management. 

Haas Faculty Launch Crowdfunding Campaign for Solar Light Research in Uganda

| by Laura Counts

Three Haas professors are bypassing traditional grants and going straight to crowdfunding to raise money for a study on how to get people in rural Uganda to replace dangerous kerosene lanterns with life-changing solar lamps.

Professor David Levine and Assistant Professors William Fuchs and Brett Green have launched a campaign on Indiegogo—a crowdfunding website co-founded by Haas alumni Danae Ringelmann and Eric Schell, both MBA 08—to research the barriers to widespread adoption of low-cost solar lights. The trio aims to raise $20,000 by April 23 for their study.

“Traditional research grants are tied to strict inflexible cycles,” explains Fuchs, a finance professor who specializes in contracting. “Crowdsourcing is a way to get funding more quickly. Going with Indiegogo was a no-brainer given the Haas connection.”

The project grew from Levine’s past research on incentivizing Ugandans to switch to fuel-efficient charcoal cook stoves. Although the stoves are cheap and much safer than traditional stoves, adoption has been frustratingly slow. Levine tested a new sales offer: a free trial, a payment plan, and the chance to return the stove if it didn’t work. It was a hit: 47 percent of those studied took the free trial and just 2 percent returned their stoves, compared with a 5 percent adoption rate with the cash-and-carry offer.

The question was, why don’t local retailers use these types of offers themselves? The answer: small retailers don’t have the financial capacity to extend credit themselves. Levine joined up with Fuchs and Green to devise a business model that a larger distributor or manufacturer could use to extend credit to their retailers, who in turn would be encouraged to do this with the final consumers. The team now wants to test the alternative sales model to expand the use of solar lamps.

Worldwide, more than 1.3 billion people lack electricity. Many of them use kerosene lanterns, spending billions on fuel and risking burns and carbon monoxide poisoning. Portable solar lamps have been shown to be transformational, casting a renewable supply of high-quality light that allows children to study and adults to extend their working hours.

“Even though these lights cost $20, for many people it’s like what buying a refrigerator would be for us—or even more,” Fuchs says. “But is it just a case of being expensive, or do people not trust the technology? We are trying to understand why these markets aren’t developing and come up with a model for organizations to follow.”

The research team is in the process of “hiring” 640 Ugandan women who are already involved with a microfinance program through BRAC, the world’s largest nongovernmental development organization. The plan is to give each woman four $20 lanterns, which she can sell for $24 each. She can then repay the money and purchase more at $20, keeping future profits. The test will be whether the women come back.

“They could just disappear with the four lamps, but we want to entice them to come back,” Fuchs says. “It’s very important to have a dynamic relationship so the small entrepreneur can see the benefit of growing the business.”

The researchers have partnered with Ugandan economist Vastinah Kemigisha and Barefoot Power, which has developed a range of low-cost lamps that also charge cell phones and other devices and is already working in Uganda.

Visit the Uganda Solar Light Campaign on Indiegogo

Latin American Business Conference to Explore Region’s Investment Opportunities, April 5

| by Laura Counts

With Latin America representing 8 percent of global GDP, the region's role as an important destination for local and foreign investment will take center stage at the fourth annual Latin American Business Conference at Haas on April 5.

Titled "Creating Value in a Thriving Region," the full-day conference is organized by the Latin American and Hispanic Business Association.

“Latin America is becoming a key region in the world,” says conference organizer Sandro Del Rosario, MBA 13. “Most of the economies went through the crisis pretty well, and that’s mostly because of their solid macroeconomic status.”

The keynote speakers will be Carlos Orellana, MBA/MPH 10, co-founder and general director of salaUno, which provides affordable eye-care services in Mexico; and Daniel Vargas, former minister of strategic affairs in Brazil. Orellana was named an entrepreneur of the year in 2012 by CNN Expansión magazine.

Two panels are also planned: one on private equity and venture capital and another on technology and Internet-based companies.

Keynote speakers and panelists will discuss successful business cases, strategic approaches for macroeconomic investment, and investing opportunities in several Latin American economies, particularly Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Chile, and Mexico.

The conference opens at 9:30 a.m. and closes at 5 p.m. with a networking event in the Bank of America Forum. For more information, visit lahbaconference.net.

Carlos Orellana, salaUno

Silicon Valley Veteran Heidi Roizen to Headline Women in Leadership Conference, April 6

| by Laura Counts

Silicon Valley venture capitalist Heidi Roizen, the subject of a popular case study on networking, will give the final keynote address at the 17th annual Women in Leadership Conference April 6 at the Haas School of Business.

With a focus on pathbending leadership and the four Berkeley-Haas Defining Principles, this year’s conference will explore the type of leaders that help drive business towards a more sustainable, healthy, and just future.

In addition to Roizen, the event will feature a keynote with Haas alumna Joy Chen (pictured left), BS 87, CEO of Yes To, a global natural skin care company. Earlier this year, Chen was among the 15 winners of the San Francisco Business Times 2012 Most-admired CEOs Award. A third keynote will feature a conversation between Sue Gardner, executive director of Wikimedia Foundation, and Haas Professor Jenny Chatman.

Roizen, a venture partner with Draper Fisher Jurvetson, will participate in a conversation with Haas Adjust Assistant Professor Kellie McElhaney, faculty director of the Center for Responsible Business. Roizen has spent her career immersed in the Silicon Valley ecosystem—as an entrepreneur, corporate executive, educator, and board member of private and public companies and nonprofits. She founded an early personal computer software company in 1983, which she led as CEO until its acquisition in 1994. In 1996, she joined Apple as vice president of worldwide developer relations. She left Apple three years later to become a venture capitalist, first at Mobius and then at Draper.

Roizen teaches an entrepreneurship course to engineering students at Stanford and serves on the board of several companies, including TiVo. She is so well connected that she became the subject of a Harvard Business Case study on the role of networking in building a successful career, although she has said she hates the term “networking.”

In addition to Roizen’s keynote, the conference will incorporate a new format in the afternoon, with interactive workshops based around the four Haas principles: Question the Status Quo; Confidence Without Attitude; Students Always; and Beyond Yourself. The Students Always workshop, for example, will feature an interactive, role-playing exercise to teach about the “The 10 People You Need on Your Personal Advisory Board” in order to be a Student Always in your career and life.

Similar to previous years, the conference will feature three keynotes (two to be announced) industry panels in the morning on everything from financial services to retail to technology.

The event, the longest-running student-organized conference at Haas, is expected to attract 500 attendees.

Early-bird tickets are available until March 6. For more information, visit http://wilconference.org. To register, visit wilconference2013.eventbrite.com.

Center for Responsible Business Becomes Secretariat for the U.S. Network of U.N. Global Compact

| by Laura Counts

The Haas School's Center for Responsible Business (CRB) has been named the new secretariat for the United States Network of the United Nations Global Compact. As secretariat, the center will play a major role in helping the nearly 500-organization U.S. Network support the U.N. Global Compact's goals in such areas as human rights, labor conditions, environment, and anti-corruption.

 “The Global Compact asks companies to embrace universal principles and to partner with the United Nations," says U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon. "It has grown to become a critical platform for the U.N. to engage effectively with enlightened global business.”

The CRB will lead activities to grow the U.S. Network, the eighth largest among the U.N. Global Compact’s approximately 100-country networks, through Dec. 31, 2013 (with the option and expectation of renewal). Specific responsibilities will include developing a comprehensive Network Strategic Plan and providing ongoing strategic advice.

“Our students and faculty are looking forward to supporting and expanding this platform to unleash the opportunities associated with collaborative action," says Jo Mackness, CRB’s executive director.

The U.S. Network has grown increasingly active in recent years. In addition to participating in an annual international forum on the U.N. Global Compact, the U.S. Network convenes yearly working conferences covering key sustainability and corporate responsibility topics. Previous working conferences have covered such diverse topics as “Managing Climate Risk” and "Business and Human Rights.”

The Haas School also is a signatory of the U.N. Global Compact’s Principles for Responsible Management Education, which seeks to advance the tenets of sustainability and corporate responsibility in management education and research.

Learn about Quantitative Finance Careers, March 12

| by Laura Counts

"Quants" from the Federal Reserve, Barclays, and BlackRock will share their personal stories on building careers in quantitative finance during a panel discussion March 12 at the International House.

The "How I Became A Quant" panel, designed for students considering careers in financial engineering, will run from 5:30 p.m. to 7 p.m., followed by a reception for students and panelists. The event is hosted and sponsored by the Berkeley Master of Financial Engineering Program and registration is free.

Without PowerPoints or formulas, panelists will share their own experiences pursuing careers in quantitative finance and answer student questions. The panel will be composed of:

  • Matthew Beier, MFE 10, assistant vice president, Barclays Capital. Beier helps serve institutional clients with options products in G10 and emerging markets. He began his career in currency exchange sales after graduating from the MFE program.
     
  • Tanya Roosta, quantitative risk analyst, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. Roosta previously worked as an analyst on PricewaterhouseCoopers' Complex Derivative Instruments group and as an analyst at Allianz Global Investors Capital's Systematic Portfolio team.
     
  • Emmanuel Vallod, MFE 11, researcher, BlackRock. Vallod began his career as a mortgage trader and then moved to BlackRock in a research role working on their fixed-income systematic hedge fund. He now works on the BlackRock FIGA fund.
     
  • Peter Vranich, director and quantitative finance manager, Bank of America. Vranich leads the Model Management team in Bank of America's Enterprise Capital Management – Quantitative Analysis and Capital Policy group. His previous positions at the bank include forecast consultant and quantitative finance analyst. 

For more information on the event, visit iafe.org/html/QuantUCB3.12.13.php. 

Berkeley MBA Team Pinpoints Pain Points to Take Second in Health Care Competition

| by Laura Counts


Second Place in Emory’s Leadership in Healthcare Case Competition: Felice Espiritu, Christine Chu, Alana Tucker, and Alex Leung.

Taking pains to understand the different needs of health care executives and doctors garnered second prize for a Berkeley MBA team in the Emory Leadership in Healthcare Case Competition Feb. 15 at Emory University's Goizueta Business School.

The Haas team, which took home a $2,500 prize, consisted of full-time students Christine Chu, Felice Espiritu, and Alana Tucker, all MBA/MPH 14, and evening and weekend student Alex Leung, MBA 15.

The team was asked to provide a strategy for implementing a computerized provider order entry (CPOE) system at a hospital in the Emory health care system. A CPOE system provides for electronic entry of physician instructions for patient care.

Recognizing that administrators and physicians might perceive such a system differently, the Haas students were the only team to completely revamp a round-one presentation made to administrators for a second round in which the judging audience was physicians.

“Physician resistance appeared to be the biggest hurdle, so we conducted root-cause analysis to understand underlying concerns and developed corresponding recommendations,” says Tucker. The team’s ideas included providing on-the job training rather than classroom training to save physician time and engaging peer champions to promote adoption.

The Haas team topped Emory and USC; Vanderbilt came in first.

Judges also praised the Berkeley-Haas team for having a solid grasp of current health care regulations, for good interaction with each other and the room, and for not being “afraid of the tough questions.”

Tucker says the Haas course Healthcare in the 21st Century enabled the team to speak knowledgeably about health care reform and its specific implications for different players. She said the design thinking tools gleaned in Problem Finding Problem Solving helped the team map the customer journey to understand pain points for patients, administrators, and physicians.

The team also tapped their own work experience as well as that of their classmates. “These included a physician who had practiced in the UK’s National Health Service and a former employee of a leading electronic health record software company," Tucker explains.

Telecom and Consulting Execs to Speak at Commencements

| by Laura Counts

Arun Sarin, MBA 78, MS 78 (Material Sci. and Eng.), former CEO of Vodafone, will share his insights from more than 20 years in the telecom industry during the Berkeley MBA commencement at 2 p.m., Friday, May 24.

Marc Singer, BS 86, based in San Francisco as director of McKinsey & Co.'s Marketing and Sales Practice for the Americas, will talk on his experiences, including guiding top companies through dizzying technological advances, in his speech at undergraduate commencement at 9 a.m. Thursday, May 23.

Their speeches carry on a Haas tradition of inviting distinguished alumni to speak at the commencement of the program from which they graduated.

Arun Sarin, MBA 78, MS 78

Sarin's career began in 1984 at Pacific Telesis Group, where he pioneered the expansion of the mobile communications industry. He went on to become president and COO of wireless spinoff AirTouch Communications in 1997.

Sarin became CEO of Vodafone’s US/Asia Pacific region after the 1999 merger of AirTouch and Vodafone, which became the world's second-largest mobile phone company. He served as CEO of Vodafone from 2003 to 2008, overseeing the firm's expansion into emerging markets including India, Ghana, Romania, and Qatar.

Sarin was named the Haas School's Business Leader of the Year in 2002 for his outstanding contributions to the telecommunications industry and the school. Sarin is a member of the Haas School's advisory board and a

San Francisco Bay Area-based senior adviser to asset management firm Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. He sits on the boards of directors of Cisco Systems and Safeway. He previously served on the boards of such companies as Gap and Charles Schwab and as a non-executive director of the Court of the Bank of England.

Marc Singer, BS 86

Singer worked his way through Berkeley's undergraduate business program at a bike shop in his native Walnut Creek. He spent four years as a staff accountant and manager and Deloitte and earned an MBA from Stanford before joining McKinsey. He celebrated 20 years with the consulting firm in August.

Technology has played a major role in Singer's work as he has helped leaders in a variety of industries with all aspects of marketing and sales. In 1999, he co-authored the bestselling book Net Worth: Shaping Markets When Customers Make the Rules, which examined the impact the Internet was already having on business, and marketing in particular. Today, his focus has shifted to advising companies are their social media strategies.

Singer's recent work includes developing an integrated customer experience and loyalty program strategy for a leading multibrand global hotel chain; helping a premium retailer improve conversion rates through better and more frontline uses of shopping and loyalty program data; working with a top bank to develop an integrated program to improve customer satisfaction while lowering attrition.

Singer is also a member of the Haas School's board.

Berkeley MBA Team Ties for First in Wharton Private Equity Competition

| by Laura Counts


Winning at Wharton: Berkeley MBA students Javier Aranguiz, Dani Alonso, Carlos Prada, and Alex Igoshin, all MBA 14

Leveraging knowledge of the region to identify investment opportunities, a team of Berkeley MBA students tied for first place with Chicago Booth in the Wharton Latin American Private Equity Competition Feb. 2.

The competition asked students to present an investment opportunity in Latin America. The Berkeley-Haas team—Dani Alonso, Javier Aranguiz, Alex Igoshin, and Carlos Prada, all MBA 14—proposed a buy-and-build strategy to assemble a regional multi-brand fast food chain by acquiring a leading chain in Chile and additional companies in Colombia and Peru. The firm the team proposed as its initial investment offered a proven business model, strong brand equity, and relationships with real estate developers in the region.

Judges also found the exclusive nature of the deal appealing. “We selected a target company you could only come up with if you really know the market,” says Prada.

The Berkeley-Haas team drew upon skills and knowledge from their Leadership Communications and Finance courses, according to Prada. He also noted that the team’s diverse background was an asset: Aranguiz has worked in public equity investments, Igoshin in private equity, Alonso in consulting and retail, and Prada in private equity and consulting. Igoshin says an understanding of team dynamics, honed through the Teams@Haas component of the Berkeley Innovative Leader Development (BILD) curriculum, played a role as well.

After topping teams from Wharton, Stern, Ross, and HEC in Paris, Berkeley-Haas went head to head with the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business in the competition’s second round, which resulted in a tie. In this round the teams made recommendations regarding investment in a Colombian private energy generation company under financial distress.

In addition to bringing home $2,000 in prize money, the team heard from leaders in Latin America about their investment analysis process, their motivations to invest in the region, their thoughts on the future of private equity in the region, and their firms’ career opportunities, according to Prada. Another opportunity: “learning from fellow students—our future colleagues and industry leaders—about their experiences and establishing relationships for future deal sourcing.”

 

Social Gaming Exec Colleen McCreary to Share Insights from Zynga, March 20

| by Laura Counts

Zynga Chief People Officer Colleen McCreary, who guided the social gaming company through its breakneck expansion from 130 to nearly 3,000 employees in three years, will share her insights with the Haas community at a Dean's Speaker Series event on Wednesday, March 20.

The Dean’s Speaker Series event, which begins at 12:30 p.m. in the Wells Fargo Room, is free and open to the Haas community. Visit the Dean’s Speaker Series website to complete the required registration.

McCreary joined the company that created FarmVille, Mafia Wars, Words with Friends, and dozens of other social games in 2009, near the start of its meteoric rise. Zynga was founded by Mark Pincus two years earlier with the mission of “connecting the world through games.”

Zynga’s 2011 initial public offering was the biggest Internet IPO since Google went public in 2004, but the company is now struggling to regain its footing as consumers shift to mobile platforms. The company says it has 240 million monthly active users.

Prior to Zynga, McCreary spent five years as global human resources director for Electronic Arts and seven years at Microsoft as a technical recruiter. She holds a bachelor's degree in mass communication and public relations from Boston University, and a master’s in higher education administration from Columbia University.

According to her company profile, McCreary likes to tell employees, “If you don’t like it, make it better for everyone else.”