In Memoriam: Pat Murphy, Longtime Staff Member at Institute for Business Innovation

Pat Murphy

Pat Murphy, a longtime Berkeley staff member who was instrumental in the development of several centers on campus, passed away May 21 after a private battle with cancer.

During her approximately four decades working at Berkeley, Murphy worked with Haas Professor David Teece to create many programs, including one of the first entrepreneurship programs on campus; the Law and Technology Program; and the Management of Technology Program, a joint program between Haas and the College of Engineering. She managed the Center for Research and Management Science as well as its successors: the Center for Research and Management, the Institute for Management Innovation and Organizations (IMIO), and the Institute for Business Innovation (IBI).

In addition, Murphy organized many conferences and seminars, hosted visitors, and managed PhD student scholarships. She also was instrumental in the founding of the St. Petersburg University’s School of Management, the first business school at a major Russian university, six years after helping to create a student exchange program between UC Berkeley and the university in 1987.

Murphy initially joined the Berkeley staff in a word processing role but was also enrolled in MBA courses, according to Teece. Recognizing that she had an “intellectual capability far beyond” that position, Teece hired her for an administrative position in the Center for Research and Management Science. She then moved up to a senior position after her predecessor retired.

“We took what was a moribund organized research unit with a budget of less than $300,000 a year to $5 million to $7 million by successfully raising grant monies and creating an endowment,” said Teece. “Pat’s role was considerable.”

“The institute under her control essentially was the incubator for many of the programs that the university is most proud of today,” Teece added. “Pat showed intense loyalty to the broader purposes and goals of the Haas School.”

One thing Teece says he appreciated most about Murphy: “She could get stuff done.” “Once she understood what our vision was, you didn’t have to tell her what to do,” he explained. “She showed incredibly strong initiative across the board.”

Teece is currently raising an endowment fund for visiting scholar and a staff award in Murphy’s honor.  He has already received significant contributions from faculty and alumni.

Murphy is survived by her daughter, Jennifer, who held a family-only funeral service for her. The Haas community is invited to attend a celebration of life in honor of Murphy at 3 p.m. June 9 in the Wells Fargo Room.

Alumni Brainstorm for GO Public Schools

Jonathan Klein, MBA 06, Founder, GO Public Schools

Every week, Jonathan Klein, MBA 06, gets a call from someone in another city challenged with trying to improve urban education. “How does the model Klein started at GO – Great Oakland Public Schools Leadership Center – work?” they inevitably ask.

Since Klein founded the nonprofit in 2008, GO has helped make school board operations more transparent to the public, put muscle behind winning ballot measures and school board elections, and started initiatives to measure outcomes.

Now Klein, executive director since 2012, and his growing staff of 11 are grappling with a question of their own: How do you scale up so other urban districts achieve the same results as GO without ignoring your current client?

Last week at GO’s Jack London Square headquarters, a team of seven Haas alumni helped answer that question in a pilot program called Solutions Lab, started by the Haas School’s Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership. Solutions Lab queries Haas alumni in a cross-section of professions during a two-hour brainstorming session intended to help the nonprofit achieve its goals.

“We are confident Solutions Lab will be successful in several areas, including helping a nonprofit with some ‘high power’ thinking on a critical business issue; providing an avenue for our alums to go ‘beyond themselves’ by using their talents, skills, and educational training to improve their community; and building the Haas brand through the networking,” says Cathy Garza, director of alumni engagement at the Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership.

Volunteers at the session  were alumni with expertise in marketing and product management and  past and current consultants. “Education is about the toughest nut to crack,” said one volunteer, Himawan Gunadhi, PhD 90, CEO and founder of Sankia Inc., a marketing analytics startup. “I admire anyone who is trying to make it better.”

After presenting its mission, operating structure, and goals, GO posed two key questions to the alumni volunteers:

  1. How might GO ensure that new staff and new stakeholders are aligned with GO’s core mission and mode of operation?
  2. How might GO expand into new locales without raising concerns about diminishing its impact in Oakland?

Alumni had seven minutes to independently brainstorm solutions on Post-it notes. Then they paired off to cluster their responses into categories, choosing the top two to present to Klein and Iman Mills Gordon, GO’s director of special projects.

Centralization was a topic of debate. Talking with three alums, Klein pondered moving into other communities and putting someone else in the lead in Oakland. “I don’t feel like I can put out a job announcement for a new Executive Director. People would say, ‘Where is Jonathan?’”  Klein said.

Alumni said the strategy session fell in line with their day-to-day careers.

The design-thinking process was similar to real-world consulting, said Belinda Lyons-Newman, MBA 12, principal of Lyons-Newman Nonprofit Management Consulting. And, she added, “It feels great to be a part of Haas and building capacity for nonprofits.”

The group generated a market research idea that prompted Gordon, GO’s director of special projects, to say, “We could put that in a work plan and do it tomorrow.” A few other ideas about decision-making mechanisms and managing people differently also piqued the GO leadership team’s interest.

Klein said he was grateful for the help: “The feedback was a mix of good ideas and questions.”

Volunteer consultants can participate in additional Solutions Labs planned through the end of the year. The next session will be held in San Francisco at the Foundation for Sustainable Development on June 5. To join this or a future Solutions Lab, visit nonprofit.haas.berkeley.edu/alumni/create-impact.html.

Jonathan Klein, MBA 06, Founder, GO Public Schools

Leadership Changes at the Energy Institute at Haas

After 20 years of leadership at the Energy Institute, Haas Professor Severin Borenstein will be stepping down as faculty director June 30. Associate Professor Lucas Davis will assume the role of Faculty Director alongside Professor Catherine Wolfram, who has shared the role with Borenstein since 2009.

Borenstein (right) will remain an active member of the Energy Institute community. He plans to spend more time on energy economics research and participation in the policy process.

"It has been a great run and I'm very proud of what we have built at the Energy Institute, but it's important that an institution stay fresh and nimble,” Borenstein says. “I'm confident that Catherine and Lucas bring those qualities to the Energy Institute and that they will be great intellectual leaders of EI."

Catherine Wolfram"I look forward to continuing to work closely with Severin as EI engages on California's and the world's most pressing energy challenges," says Wolfram (left). "Rigorous analysis is more important than ever to develop effective policies that foster efficient markets and address climate change."

Lucas DavisDavis (right) adds, "Under Severin's leadership the Energy Institute has become a globally recognized hub for energy markets research. I look forward to continuing EI's commitment to training future generations of energy leaders and producing the highest quality research."

Andrew CampbellWolfram and Lucas will be working with Andy Campbell (left), who joined the Energy Institute as executive director in February, and Karen Notsund, the associate director, who has been at EI since 2001. Campbell brings a wide breadth of experience in the energy industry to the position, including working in Citigroup's Global Energy Group, at ExxonMobil as a reservoir engineer, and at startups offering new energy efficiency and electric grid management technologies and services. He also served as a senior adviser to two commissioners at the California Public Utilities Commission.

Study Shows Early Childhood Stimulation Intervention in Jamaica Yields Better Pay in Adulthood

In the May 30, 2014 edition of the journal, Science, researchers find that early childhood development programs are particularly important for disadvantaged children in Jamaica and can greatly impact an individual’s ability to earn more money as an adult.

The 20-year study, “Labor Market Returns to an Early Childhood Stimulation Intervention in Jamaica” by Professor Paul Gertler, an economist at the Haas School of Business and the School of Public Health, and Nobel Prize winner James Heckman of the University of Chicago, tracks the employment status of adults who once lived in the poor Kingston neighborhood as toddlers in the 1980’s. Those exposed to high-quality psychosocial stimulation have positive earnings and better economic status today.

In the program, designed by Sally Grantham-McGregor of University College London and Susan Walker of the University of West Indies, community health workers made weekly home visits and taught mothers how to play and interact with their children in ways that promote cognitive and emotional development. For example, mothers were encouraged to talk with their children, to label things and actions, and to play educational games with their children, emphasizing language development and the use of praise to improve the self-esteem of mothers and children.

Mirroring the mission of the Head Start program in the United States, this simple intervention focused on reducing developmental delays faced by children in poverty.

Twenty years later, the researchers interviewed 105 of the study’s original 127 child participants who were now adults. They found that children randomized to participate in the program were earning 25 percent more than those in the control group, enough of an increase to match the earnings of a non-disadvantaged population. The intervention compensated for the economic consequences of early developmental delays and reduced later-life inequality.

“To our knowledge, this is the first long-term, experimental evaluation of an early childhood development program in a developing country,” said Gertler, who also works with the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA), a UC Berkeley-based research network designing anti-poverty programs for low- and middle-income countries.

This study adds to the body of evidence, including Head Start and the Perry Preschool programs carried out from 1962-1967 in the U.S., demonstrating long-term economic gains from investments in early childhood development.

“Head Start programs are critical to breaking the cycle of poverty,” said U.S. Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), a member of the Labor and Education Appropriates Committee. “By investing in the academic and developmental needs of young children, we are preparing them to thrive in the economy of the future.

Results from the Jamaica study show substantially greater effects on earnings than similar programs in wealthier countries. Gertler said this suggests that early childhood interventions can create a substantial impact on a child’s future economic success in poor countries.

“We now have tangible proof of the potential benefits of early childhood stimulation and the importance of parenting in a developing country. At a time when inequality around the globe is increasing, it is encouraging to see how much good can be accomplished with early intervention,” Gertler said.

CEGA designs and tests solutions for the problems of poverty, and draws on a network of faculty researchers at the University of California, Stanford University, and the University of Washington who combine randomized trials, behavioral experiments, data analytics, and novel measurement technologies with expertise in international agriculture, health, education, engineering and the environment.

In the May 30, 2014 edition of the journal, Science, researchers find that early childhood development programs are particularly important for disadvantaged children in Jamaica and can greatly impact an individual’s ability to earn more money as an adult. The 20-year study, “Labor Market Returns to an Early Childhood Stimulation Intervention in Jamaica” by Professor Paul Gertler tracks the employment status of adults who once lived in the poor Kingston neighborhood as toddlers in the 1980’s.

Senior Gift Campaign Attracts Record Participation

Senior Gift Campaign Fundraisers: Alessandra Demmons of Haas Alumni Relations; Lucky Sandhu BS 96; Roschelle Lowe, Caleb Kenney, Lauren Closson, and Rosemary Hua, all BS 14; Steve Etter, BS 83, MBA 89; Michelle Kaliski, Shubhit Noor, and Jackie Zhou, all BS 14; Debby Budiman, BS 15; Evan Santiago, BS 14; and Tim Carlson, BS 63.
The annual Senior Gift Campaign set new records this year in overall participation, helping to raise a total of $44,123.01 for Berkeley-Haas.

A committee led by campaign President Roschelle Lowe, VP of Logistics Jackie Zhou, and VP of Marketing Shubhit Noor achieved 57 percent participation, surpassing its 55 percent goal and last year’s 53 percent participation.

The campaign drew donations and pledge from 179 seniors, 24 juniors, one sophomore who will begin studies at Haas next year, and two professors, bringing the total raised by individual donors to $9,018.13. The total donated by seniors climbed 12 percent from last year, and the amount donated by juniors jumped even more–41 percent.

A 3:1 “Beyond Yourself Challenge Match” by a group of undergraduate alumni raised an additional $27,250 for the Senior Gift Campaign. The alumni in that group, who committed to the match for three years, are Dean Rich Lyons, BS 82; Haas Lecturer Steve Etter, BS 83, MBA 89; Tim Carlson, BS 63; Brad Howard, BS 79; Tara Kramlich, BS 03; Kathryn O’Connor , BS 98; Lucky Sandhu, BS 96; and Kinman Tong, BS 03. The Haas Development and Alumni Relations Office is seeking additional alumni to participate in the future.

In addition to the “Beyond Yourself Challenge Match,” a university-wide 1:1 match of senior gifts contributed $7,854.88 to the Senior Gift Campaign.

To acknowledge donors, Haas hosted a Senior Sendoff Party with the theme “Oh the Places You’ll Go,” the name of a well-loved Dr. Seuss book. The campaign committee [UF1] presented a check to Etter because Dean Lyons was out of town. Since then, even more donations have been received.

“You’ve done so much work to get us here,” Dean Lyons told the students via video at the sendoff party. After urging students to continue leaning into the school as alumni after they graduate, Lyons left them with a few parting thoughts from Dr. Seuss:

“Congratulations, today is your day.
You’re off to great places, you’re off and away.
You have brains in your heads, you have feet in your shoes.
You can steer yourself any direction you choose.
You’re on your own and you know what you know.
And you are the guide who will decide where to go. …
And will you succeed? Yes, you will succeed.
98 and three-quarters percent guaranteed.
Kid, you will move mountains …
You’re off to great places, today is your day.
Your mountain is waiting, so get on your way.”

Haas Senior Brandon Hagy Picks Up Three Honors in One Day

Haas Senior and Cal golfer Brandon Hagy, BS 14, added three new honors to his already impressive collection of accolades on Monday: the Byron Nelson Award, the Tom Hansen Pac-12 Conference Medal as Cal’s outstanding senior male student-athlete, and a Golden Bear Achievement Award.

And those awards came just two days after Hagy picked up both a co-team MVP award and the squad’s Ben Furth Award for academic and athletic excellence at the Cal men’s golf annual banquet Saturday night.

Hagy is the first Cal player to win the national Byron Nelson Award, which he received during a live television appearance Monday morning on Golf Channel’s Morning Drive.

Candidates for the Nelson Award must be graduating seniors. The selection committee considers equally a nominee’s entire collegiate academic and golf career and his character and integrity while in college. Particular consideration is given to a nominee’s good citizenship, as portrayed by Byron Nelson, who was known for giving back to the community over the course of his life and golf career.

“It is an incredible honor to receive the Byron Nelson Award,” Hagy said. “It is humbling to be associated with Mr. Nelson’s name and this is a memory I will keep for the rest of my life. …  I have tried to have balance throughout my golfing career and I feel it is our obligation to give back.”

 “This award is a very special when you include the student, the athlete, the integrity and the community service,” said Cal head coach Steve Desimone. “No one has done it better than Brandon … I’d be hard pressed to believe that there was anybody more deserving of this award.”

Hagy is involved with a number of community service and volunteer activities. Off campus, he works with The First Tee, Special Olympics, and the Northern California Golf Association’s Youth on Course for underprivileged children. Hagy is also an officer and the golf team’s representative on the Golden Bear Advisory Committee, a group that organizes student-athletes in community service, including feeding the homeless, visiting local hospitals, and Jog for Jill (a cancer awareness and fundraising project).

The Tom Hansen Pac-12 Conference Medal also received by Hagy Monday is awarded by each university in the Pac-12 to an outstanding male or female student-athlete with the greatest combination of performance and achievement in scholarship, athletics, and leadership. Cal's Golden Bear Achievement Award recognizes the individual with the highest GPA from every sport.

In addition to having the highest GPA on the golf team, Hagy is the No. 7 collegiate player nationally in the latest Golfweek rankings and No. 8 according to Golfstat. He has been an individual medalist three times this season and has finished in the top 10 in nine of 12 events with eight of those in the top five. He has also been Cal’s top finisher in four events and leads the Golden Bears with a 70.83 stroke average.

Hagy redshirted during the 2010-11 season to gain entry into the Haas School. "I have always had an interest in business, and the Undergraduate Program at Haas is one of the main factors that led me to Berkeley," Hagy says. "Haas has an incredible reputation of graduating students that think differently and 'challenge the status quo' and that connects with me very well."

After graduating this month, Hagy will represent the U.S. for the Palmer Cup in England at the end of June – his last amateur event – and then turn pro. 

A longer version of this article appeared on the Cal Athletics website.

Courtesy: Todd Drexler/SE Sports Media

Haas to Provide Executive Program in Shanghai

The Haas School of Business is providing an executive-level program in Shanghai that presents a Silicon Valley perspective on business, innovation, and leadership topics to top Chinese leaders. The program is taught by Berkeley-Haas faculty, starting May 6, 2014.

This Partnership for CELAP and Berkeley-Haas is a three-year pilot program between Berkeley-Haas and the China Executive Leadership Academy Pudong (CELAP) in Shanghai, according to a memorandum of understanding signed by Berkeley-Haas Dean Rich Lyons and Professor Feng Jun, executive vice president of CELAP. CELAP is one of three preeminent Chinese government leadership academies and provides international, contemporary leadership development for China’s senior officials.

"We are creating a powerful educational partnership by bringing together the #1 public research university in the U.S. with China's premier leadership academy for developing high-level public officials," said Rich Lyons, dean of Berkeley-Haas. "Our partnership is further strengthened by the culture we share, one that emphasizes innovative leadership and a commitment to long-term, positive impact on our societies."

Professor Feng Jun, executive vice president of CELAP, said, “It opens a new chapter for strengthening our partnership in leadership development. And I’m confident that our partnership would help both Berkeley-Haas and CELAP bring about more potential opportunities for future collaboration such as scholar exchange, joint research, joint training, joint publication, and so on.”

Four times a year, a member of the Berkeley-Haas faculty will travel to Shanghai to teach an intensive course focusing on current issues in business, innovation, and public policy.

As part of the first course Professor Andrew K. Rose, Haas associate dean for faculty, is presenting on the impact of European and U.S. monetary policy on the Chinese economy for Chinese ministers and district governors from May 6 to May 7. Dean Rich Lyons is scheduled to present the next course on innovative leadership in September.

Haas board member Mr. Wu Hsioh Kwang, executive chairman and director of Straco Corporation Limited Singapore, was a key driver and architect of the partnership, conceptualizing the program and engaging CELAP senior management to help bring this partnership to fruition.

Professor Teck Ho, chair of the Haas Marketing Group and faculty director of the Haas School’s Asia Business Center, coordinates the curriculum. The collaborative nature of the partnership means the sessions are designed based on input from CELAP senior management and participants.

“The partnership is a win-win situation,” says Ho, “We are excited to have the opportunity to work with China’s leading academy for training the country’s senior government officials.”

The partnership will also help Berkeley-Haas explore future opportunities for providing internships, scholarships, international education programs, and study trek trips for its students to participate in CELAP programs.

Partnership for CELAP and Berkeley-Haas is made possible by Mr. Wu Hsioh Kwang and the Wu Hsioh Kwang Family Foundation.
 

Shanghai/Wikimedia Commons

Study Discovers the Downside of African-American Success Stories

African-Americans such as Brown University President Ruth Simmons, Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, and of course President Barack Obama have reached the pinnacle of success in historically white domains. But a new study finds there is a downside to African-American success stories: these positive examples prompt white Americans to think less successful African-Americans simply need to apply more effort to achieve their own success.

The findings are reported in the paper, “If He Can Do It, So Can They: Exposure to Counterstereotypically Successful Exemplars Prompts Automatic Inferences,” published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology (March 2014) and co-authored by Clayton Critcher, assistant professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and Jane L. Risen, University of Chicago Booth School of Business.

Critcher and Risen find that there is a divide between what people say is the significance of these success stories and the actual conclusions people – white and other non-African-American racial groups – draw about the role of race in modern America after being exposed to these examples of African-American success.

“On the one hand, the fact that it is so notable to see an African-American CEO or university president might be assumed to serve as a reminder of the legacy of racism in this country,” says Critcher. “But in actuality, our studies found that being reminded of the success of Obama and others more often prompts the belief that other African-Americans could succeed if only they tried harder.”

Even though research participants said that their beliefs about race relations would not and should not change on the basis of a single person’s (e.g., Barack Obama’s) experience, carefully designed experiments showed that following exposure to such examples, non-African- Americans tended to become less sympathetic to the idea that African-Americans continue to face race-based challenges in America. In fact, those who most strongly denied that a single example of African-American success justifies a shift in beliefs were those whose beliefs actually shifted the most toward less sympathy for African-Americans in this country.

Furthermore, non-African-Americans drew similar conclusions when told that these examples of African-American success were exceptions to the rule (e.g., that Ken Frazier of Merck is the only Fortune 75 Black CEO). 

These findings in particular extend to the workplace by demonstrating a challenge that comes from incremental advances of achieving greater employee diversity. Given the study’s results, Critcher suggests the presence of a “token” minority in the workplace could lead to the perception of an egalitarian workplace climate, even though that conclusion is based on only a single example.

In total, the researchers conducted eight experiments using a mix of college students and community participants from various regions of the country. In each study, participants were exposed to different famous people, supposedly as part of an unrelated study on recognizing different celebrities. For most questions, all participants saw the same white exemplars (e.g., John Grisham). But on some questions, some participants saw a successful African-American (e.g., Merck CEO Ken Frazier), whereas other participants saw a matched White exemplar (e.g., Lockheed Martin CEO Robert Stevens). Then as part of a supposedly unrelated study, participants indicated their beliefs about the role of race in modern America.

“What is particularly interesting about this is that people have no idea that their beliefs are changing after exposure to these examples of counter-stereotypical success,” says Critcher. ”When people observe African-Americans whom they are used to seeing in highly successful roles, such as NBA athletes, the same thing doesn’t happen. But when people see Merck CEO Ken Frazier, who is African-American, they are likely to say that they can’t really conclude anything on the basis of one person’s experience, but then unknowingly shift their beliefs in a way that suggests they think that disparities in outcomes between whites and African- Americans are mostly the latter’s fault.”

See full paper.

African-Americans such as Brown University President Ruth Simmons, Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison, and of course President Barack Obama have reached the pinnacle of success in historically white domains. But a new study by marketing Asst. Prof. Clayton Critcher finds there is a downside to African-American success stories: these positive examples prompt white Americans to think less successful African-Americans simply need to apply more effort to achieve their own success.

Haas Honors Faculty with Bakar Fellowships

The Haas School has recognized five faculty members as Barbara and Gerson Bakar Faculty Fellows.

“The Bakar Fellowships recognize associate or assistant professors who demonstrate a record of accomplishment and a very bright future,” says Prof. Andrew Rose, associate dean for academic affairs and chair of the faculty.

The new Bakar Faculty Fellows are:

In 2007, alumnus Gerson Bakar, BS 48, and his wife Barbara, donated funds to the Haas School to provide five new faculty positions and enable the tenure-track faculty roster to gradually reach an all-time high of 86 members. As a part of the gift, the Bakar Faculty Fellowship was created to acknowledge young professors with extraordinary potential.

Gerson Bakar is a prominent real estate developer and pioneer. In 1965, he developed the country’s first multi-family housing complex called Woodlake in San Mateo, Calif. The garden community model marked the first of its kind and breakthrough in American housing. Bakar also developed a new facility for Levi Strauss & Co. in San Francisco that was widely regarded as a “a gift to the city.”

Bakar is also a longtime adviser to the Haas School and founding and advisory board member of the Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics.

 

Dean Rich Lyons Participates in White House Working Families Summit

Dean Rich Lyons was among 14 top b-school leaders who met at the White House last Thursday to share insights on how higher business education can help improve conditions for women–and families–in the workplace.

The deans met with Obama's economic advisors, who are preparing for a June summit on working families. The group also included the heads of Harvard Business School, Kellogg School of Management, and Yale School of Management.

"It was fascinating—1.5 hours, 14 deans," Lyons said. "I came away with tons ideas for follow-ups at Haas to sharpen how we are cultivating the next generation of leaders."

The President’s team will compile a set of best practices and promising experiments to distribute back to the attendees and leaders of other universities. The goal is to create a document with a set of goals that business school deans can sign onto.

Thursday's conversation centered not only on gender balance, but also on recognizing women's crucial role in driving the economy and how business schools can help move the needle on the number of women in senior leadership rolls.

Lyons said the discussion ranged from big-picture topics such as the definition of leadership and research on gender and ethical judgment, to concrete measures such as mentoring programs and helping both male and female alumni on post-family workplace re-entry. B-school graduates will need the skills to balance their own lives with work, and manage others who need flexibility.

Lyons told the Wall Street Journal that research on gender issues, which is strong at Haas, is important for getting our faculty even more comfortable addressing these issues in the classroom. He has also been a proponent of using technology to increase flexibility both in the workplace and in business education, with, for example, hybrid on-campus/online programs.

Haas faculty members are trailblazers for women in leadership. As chair of the Federal Reserve, Professor Emeritus Janet Yellen is now the most powerful woman in U.S. history—and one of the most powerful women in the world. Professor Ulrike Malmendier was named as the top finance scholar under 40 last year. And Professor Laura Tyson, former dean and the first woman to hold two top presidential advisory positions, is a leading champion on rethinking the role of business in society.

 

Berkeley-Haas: The Best-Kept Secret for Vets Who Mean Business

Jose Fierro, MBA 15, flew F-18s for the Marines for 16 years, and now he’s serving the military in a different way. A student in the Full-time Berkeley MBA Program, Fierro is helping veterans in California become more aware of the services, funds, and other benefits available to them. As the team lead for a student project in the Haas School’s Social Sector Solutions course, he’s coordinating a marketing plan that will allow a government agency called the California Department of Veteran Affairs (CalVets) to reach more former members of the Armed Forces.

Fierro represents one of nearly 50 U.S. military veterans attending the Haas School’s MBA and undergraduate programs–a number that climbs even higher when including students from the military in South Korea, Israel, Germany, and Turkey. Over the last few years, the Full-time MBA Program has seen a nearly fourfold increase in the number of students with military backgrounds. Why? It’s the combination of educational excellence, cultural values, career opportunities, and financial support, vets say.

“If you want a business education, there’s really no reason to go anyplace else than Haas," says Fierro. ”The education is world class and the values are highly compatible with what we learn in the military. It's a great place to make the transition back to civilian life."

The image of a campus waging a war on war has transformed with the times, and these days veterans are finding a home at Berkeley. “When I started looking on the school’s website, it was definitely the Defining Principles that attracted me because they’re similar to the values you find in the military–and basically encapsulate who I am,” says Hugo Chacon-Acosta, BS 14, who served in the U.S. Air Force for nine years.

Indeed, numerous vets at Haas say the school's Defining Principles–Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself– resonate with those in the armed forces, such as the Air Force’s “Integrity First,” “Service Before Self,” and “Excellence in All We Do.”

“Coming from the U.S. Navy, an institution rich in tradition and values, I sought a similarly ethical and value-centric entity in a business school, ” says U.S. Navy Ensign Brandon Doll, MBA 14. “Just as the Navy emphasizes ‘Honor, Courage, and Commitment,’ Haas truly embodies its Defining Principles through faculty, curriculum, and culture.”

Financial support is another reason vets are choosing Berkeley-Haas, where up to 100 percent of all costs could be covered by the GI Bill and Veterans Administration’s Yellow Ribbon Program.

“The Berkeley MBA is a tremendous value for military students—no out-of-pocket costs plus a generous housing stipend each month,” says Steve Weddle, MBA 15, who served as a captain in the Air Force. “I don't think many prospective military applicants realize how good of a deal the Berkeley MBA is; I certainly didn't when I applied.”

The San Francisco Bay Area also offers a diversity of career options for vets, with several firms targeting candidates with military experience or hiring for leadership rotation programs. Veterans benefit from one-on-one career management assistance to help them target their job search and translate their experience.

“We don't all want to be managers just because we were officers in the military,” says Emma Cuevas, MBA 14, a former member of the U.S. Army Reserves. “Haas is great at not pigeonholing us to one track but giving us tools and support to explore many industries and roles.”

Tanya Chavez, MBA 16, a graduate of the Air Force Academy, has already started applying her business learnings on the job. A student in the Evening & Weekend Berkeley MBA Program, she focused a project in her marketing class on research to help her wine industry employer, G3 Enterprises, establish a new line of business on more solid footing.

“Being a student here, I feel I have a very good path before me,” says Chavez. “It was a great choice."

Still, the transition to business school and civilian life can be challenging at times for vets.

“But our Defining Principles resonate with military officers. By coming to Berkeley-Haas, they join a community that shares the same values and a community that pushes them outside their comfort zone, challenging them to grow in new ways,” says Stephanie Fujii, executive director of Full-time Berkeley MBA Admissions. 

Fierro echoes that sentiment, while also noting that Berkeley’s long-held reputation for social impact dovetails well with the military’s emphasis on making a difference. Fierro’s own project in the Social Sector Solutions course will help more vets in California not only navigate government bureaucracy in getting their services, but also partake of other offerings such as bond-sponsored home loans and special housing arrangements.

“By coming here, we continue to have an impact even once we hang the uniform up,” Fierro says.

Watch a video saluting Haas veterans.

Jose Fierro, MBA 15

In Memoriam: Accounting Professor Emeritus George J. Staubus, Known for the “Decision-Usefulness Theory of Accounting”

George J. Staubus, the Michael Chetkovich professor emeritus at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, died on March 21 in Oakland, Calif., from bone marrow failure. He was 87.

Professor Staubus dedicated his life’s work not only to the teaching and research of accounting but to continued improvement of the standards and practices of financial reporting.  Staubus’ colleagues say his work developing the “decision-usefulness theory of accounting” is an important contribution to financial accounting theory in the twentieth century.

The decision-usefulness theory of accounting provides direction for all accounting and financial reporting choices. Under this theory, the primary objective of financial reporting is to provide information that is useful in making investment decisions. 

“Professor Staubus was the first to explicitly identify that objective and to link it to enterprise cash flows or a cash flow-oriented view of how assets and liabilities are measured. Staubus' work has surged in importance in recent years as the debate about accounting's underlying theoretical framework is being re-examined by standard setters worldwide,” says Maria Nondorf, executive director, Haas Center for Financial Reporting and Management.

Prior to Staubus pointing out the importance of cash flows in investment decisions, the theory was solely focused on accounting-based net income. Despite numerous rejections of Staubus’ insight in the 1950’s, the academic community embraced the decision-usefulness theory in the sixties, and the standards-setting community followed suit in the seventies.

Staubus developed the “decision-usefulness theory of accounting” with his dissertation, An Accounting Concept of Revenue (1954/1980), and two subsequent articles in The Accounting Review (1958 and 1959). The theory was presented in his 1961 book, A Theory of Accounting to Investors.

More recently, Staubus commented on the theory in the preface of The Decision-Usefulness Theory of Accounting: A Limited History (1999), “From today’s perspective, it is not a broad theory of accounting. The key to the decision-usefulness theory is the decision-usefulness objective. It is the base on which a coherent, broad structure of ideas has been built. No other such structure of accounting ideas has been developed, to my knowledge.”

Staubus served on the Haas accounting faculty for 40 years, from 1952 until 1992. Post-retirement, he continued to play an active role in the accounting program including by participating in student activities, the annual Center for Financial Reporting and Management conference, and initiating the Berkeley Award for Distinguished Contributions to Financial Reporting, and serving on the Award's selection committee.

“George was a very serious accounting scholar. He published more articles in The Accounting Review than anyone during his active period. George served as research director of the Financial Accounting Standards Board,” says colleague Alan Cerf, accounting professor emeritus.

 Staubus received the Lifetime Achievement Award for Distinguished Contributions to the Accounting Program at the Haas School in 2009 and the school’s Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Undergraduate Program in 1991. In 1982, the American Accounting Association named Staubus “Distinguished International Lecturer.” The California Society of Certified Public Accountants honored Staubus with its Distinguished Professor Award in 1981.

Former Haas School Dean Raymond Miles remembers Staubus’ sage-like personality and demeanor,“George Staubus was a constant source of good advice, particularly in the periods when I held administrative posts. George always presented a calm appearance, one that cooled off heated moments, and lent good cheer to positive situations.  He will be missed.”  

Staubus is survived by his wife of 65 years, Sarah, and their four children, Lindsay, Martin, Paul, and Janette.

The family will announce details of a remembrance ceremony at a later date. Contributions in memory of George Staubus may be made to these organizations that were dear to his heart:

Unitarian Universalist Church of Berkeley
1 Lawson Rd
Kensington, CA 94707

The Lair of the Golden Bear
Camp Blue c/o Cal Alumni Association
1 Alumni House
Berkeley, CA 94720-7520

Exec Ed Strategy Course to Include Insights from Most Inventive Companies

In addition to learning key strategy skills for today’s fast-pasted, competitive business landscape, participants in an upcoming Berkeley-Haas executive education course will hear of firsthand experiences of executives at some of the nation’s most inventive companies.

“What will make this particular offering of the course unique is we’re having various functional heads, such as a CTO and CIO, come to speak to participants,” says Professor Toby Stuart, a leading educator in corporate strategy and entrepreneurship, who is the faculty director of the Strategy in Competitive Markets course offered by the UC Berkeley Center for Executive Education at the Haas School.

Executives from a handful of Silicon Valley companies are expected to speak during the five-day course, which will run from May 12 to May 16 in Berkeley. The course also will cover such topics as corporate strategy, business models, collaboration across divisions, and innovation strategy.

So Sasaki, principal of the incubation business department of Global Brain Corp., an early-stage venture capital firm in Tokyo, came from overseas to attend the course last June.  

"Joining this program was truly fabulous experience for me, in terms of its intensive coursework, massive information of selected business cases, and Professor Stuart's careful guidance throughout the course,” Sasaki said. “It was engaging, encouraging, and worth traveling abroad and physically being present at Berkeley. I recommend it to a person who is truly serious about strategic thinking. "

The course is recommended for vice presidents, general managers, and functional directors in sales, marketing, finance, operations, technology, human resources and other roles that impact company strategy. Haas alumni enjoy a 15 percent discount on all CEE classes.

Learn More about the Strategy in Competitive Markets Course

 

Professor Toby Stuart

Financial Engineering Students Graduate, Class of ’15 Arrives

The (MFE) Program cheered 68 graduates at their commencement March 21 and welcomed 68 students into the 14th class of the program on March 24.

Commencement speaker Emanuel Derman, author of My Life as a Quant and Models Behaving Badly, sent off the 13th graduation class of the MFE Program, the nation’s first financial engineering program to be housed in a business school.

Derman, a professor at Columbia University and co-author of one of the first interest-rate models, shared his perspective on the evolution of financial engineering from the 1960s to today and talked about how he relied on the writings of Haas Professor Emeritus Mark Rubinstein. He also stressed the value of introspection, qualitative and quantitative skills, and the combination of nontechnical and math skills to understand human affairs.

Class of 2014

A trio of students was awarded the $5,000 Morgan Stanley Applied Finance Project Award during the commencement ceremony: Rajat Goyal, Mayank Gupta, Sasha Karimi. Associate Professor Terrence Hendershott advised the team on their winning paper, “Extension of birth-death stochastic model.”

Goyal was also the class valedictorian; Zhuozhou (Billy) Liu was salutatorian.

Executive Director Linda Kreitzman presented the MFE Defining Principles Awards to Ekaterina Matrosova (Beyond Yourself), James Wang (Confidence without Attitude), Christopher Phillippi (Question the Status Quo), and Yajie Liu (Student Always). Li Sun was recognized as the student who embodied all four Defining Principles.

Geoffrey Simmons received a new Outstanding Teammate Award, which was created because so much work in the program is team-oriented.

A Cheit teaching award was presented to Yu (Ben) Meng, MFE 02, for his Risk  Management course, while a graduate student instructor award was given to Te (Tony) Ke. Three alumni received special awards to recognize their outstanding service to the program: Tanya Roosta, MFE 11; Emmanuel Vallod, MFE 11; and Alfred Haohan Yuan, MFE 13 .

Kreitzman also delivered a playful tongue-in-cheek slide show of her “prediction model” showing who was most likely to make big money, most likely to head the SEC and bust up banks, and most likely to find a yeti mountain climbing.

Students in the graduating class are going on to jobs at Citi, Kohlberg Kravis Roberts, Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, BlackRock, Mellon Capital, Putnam Investments, Credit Suisse, and AIG in locations such as Hong Kong, New York, Chicago, Dallas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.

Class of 2015

The 68 students in the MFE class of 2015 arrived at Berkeley-Haas Monday, March 25, for orientation and began classes today, March 31.

Students in the new class come from 15 countries, including Slovenia, South Africa, China, India, Nigeria, South Korea, France, and Russia. They bring experience from a wide range of organizations. There’s military experience from the U.S. Navy, French Air Force, and Israel Defense Force; central bank experience from the European Central Bank and Federal Reserve Bank of Boston;  and tech experience from Facebook and Texas Instruments. Students also come from the University of Texas School of Public Health  and Lawrence Berkeley National Lab, as well as a diversity of financial institutions such as JP Morgan, BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank, the Royal Bank of Canada, and the, Bank of Thailand.

About half the students have graduate degrees, including 12 percent with PhDs.

 

IPO-bound TubeMogul Traces Origins to Berkeley-Haas

The story of TubeMogul—the latest tech company to file for an initial public offering—starts at Berkeley-Haas.

The trio of Haas alumni who founded the online video ad company—Brett Wilson, John Hughes, and Mark Rotblat, all MBA 07—met in an MBA class on entrepreneurship run by the school’s Lester Center for Entrepreneurship. They went on to spend a year working in the Haas School’s startup incubator, raised money from classmates, and competed in the Lester Center’s Business Plan Competition twice, first making it to the semifinals and then tying for first place.

“There would be no TubeMogul without Haas, and in particular, the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship,” Wilson, the CEO, told CalBusiness, the Haas School’s magazine, in 2011.

“The Lester Center was just an awesome launch pad to help us create TubeMogul,” Wilson added in another Haas article about the company. “Absolutely couldn’t have done it without Haas.”

“There is so much entrepreneurial energy at Berkeley-Haas, it’s contagious,” adds Lester Center director André Marquis, a Berkeley MBA alum and founder of a number of tech startups himself. “The TubeMogul team was impressive from the start in their focus and ability to pivot their business based on customer feedback. That is what we teach our students and that is why TubeMogul won our UC Berkeley Startup Competition in 2007. It’s gratifying to see their hard work over the years lead to such a big success.”

TubeMogul, a media-buying platform for online video advertising, has enjoyed explosive growth since its founding at Haas. Fast-forward to fall 2013: The company’s rapid revenue growth placed it at #239 on the Inc. 500 America’s Fastest Growing Private Companies list. The company made the San Francisco Business Times’ “Fast 100” list of the Bay Area’s fastest private companies in 2011 and 2012 (#7 each year) and its revenue has grown 517.7 percent from 2010 to 2012. In 2013, CEO Wilson says, TubeMogul was on track to more than double business as well.

Staying true to its Berkeley-Haas roots, TubeMogul’s cast of employees includes more than 50 Berkeley alumni worldwide out of a total staff of more than 225 employees as of October 2013. Other Haas alumni include Keith Eadie, MBA 08, chief marketing officer since February 2014 and previously VP and director of marketing, and Daniel Schotland, BS 87, VP of operations since 2013. The company, headquartered in Emeryville, also has offices in London, Singapore, Sydney, Toronto, New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, and Detroit.

After launching a new ad platform in 2011, TubeMogul went on to generate more than 800 million views spanning more than 200 campaigns for such firms as Unilever, Microsoft, and Sony Pictures. In October 2011, the company closed $10 million in Series B funding.

What’s the secret to such growth? Knowing when to pivot is one reason for the company’s success, Wilson says. The company switched from focusing on video distribution and analytics to building software to power video ad-buying based on feedback from its first clients, ad agencies.

Being discerning with new hires also helps TubeMogul stay ahead. “We tend to shun perfect pedigrees in favor of people who embody several key traits: do what you say, go fast (making mistakes is OK), and do a lot with a little,” says Wilson. “And it works. Ad agencies voted that we have the best customer service in the industry, and our engineering team is constantly building tools to simplify brand advertising and make it more effective.”

Watch a video of CEO Brett Wilson, MBA 07, talking on the importance of Haas in TubeMogul’s success.

 

TubeMogul co-founders Mark Rotblat, Brett Wilson (CEO), and John Hughes (president of products), all MBA 07.

The unconscious mind can detect a liar–even when the conscious mind fails

When detecting deceit, your unconscious instincts may be more accurate than conscious thought while making judgments about others, according to research co-authored by Leanne ten Brinke, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

In the paper, “Some Evidence for Unconscious Lie Detection,” published in Psychological Science (online March 21, 2014), the authors find that conscious awareness may hinder our ability to detect whether someone is lying, perhaps because we tend to seek out behaviors that are supposedly stereotypical of liars, like averted eyes or fidgeting. But those behaviors are not indicative of an untruthful person.

“We set out to test whether the unconscious mind could catch a liar – even when the conscious mind failed,” says ten Brinke, the lead author. Along with Berkeley-Haas Assistant Professor Dana R. Carney, ten Brinke and UC Berkeley graduate Dayna Stimson, BA 13 (Cognitive Science), hypothesized that these seemingly paradoxical findings may be accounted for by unconscious mental processes.

“Our research was prompted by the puzzling but consistent finding that humans are very poor lie detectors, performing at only about 54 percent accuracy in traditional lie detection tasks,” explains ten Brinke.

That’s hardly better than chance, as if participants were simply guessing whether the person was lying. And it’s a finding that seems at odds with the fact that humans are typically sensitive to how others are feeling, what they’re thinking, and what their personalities are like. Further, it doesn’t make evolutionary sense that humans evolved no ability to accurately detect deception.

The researchers first asked 72 participants to watch videos of “suspects” in a mock-crime interview. Some of the suspects in the videos had actually stolen a $100 bill from a bookshelf, whereas others had not. However, all of the suspects were instructed to tell the interviewer they had not stolen the money. In doing so, one group of suspects was lying, whereas the other group was telling the truth.

When the 72 participants were asked to say which suspects they thought were lying and which were telling the truth, they were often wrong. They were only able to detect liars 43 percent of the time and truth-tellers only 48 percent of the time.

But the researchers also probed participants’ more unconscious instincts about the suspects with widely used measures of less conscious mental processes. Such measures are able to tap into the extent to which a word or idea is active in one’s mind. The Berkeley-Haas researchers tested whether seeing someone tell a lie would activate lie-related concepts and ideas in the mind. Likewise, when one sees someone telling the truth, do concepts and ideas associated with the truth become active in one’s mind?

Using reaction time measures, results showed that participants responded more quickly to deception-related words (e.g. “untruthful,” dishonest,” and “deceitful”) when they were thinking of suspects who were actually lying. At the same time, participants responded more quickly to truthful words (e.g. “honest” or “valid”) when thinking of suspects who were actually telling the truth.

The findings provide evidence that people may have some intuitive sense, outside of conscious awareness, that is able to tell when someone is lying.

“These results provide a new lens to examine social perception and suggest that – at least in terms of lie detection – unconscious measures may provide additional insight into interpersonal accuracy,” says ten Brinke. Although further work is needed before the practical implications of these findings will become clear, this insight represents one aspect of a research program led by ten Brinke and Carney which aims to uncover some of the simple, effective, and free strategies ordinary people can use to better detect lies in their daily lives.

See Abstract.

When detecting deceit, your unconscious instincts may be more accurate than conscious thought while making judgments about others, according to research co-authored by Leanne ten Brinke, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business.

Berkeley Financial Engineering Teams Shine at Rotman International Trading Competition

One team from the Berkeley Master of Financial Engineering (MFE) Program took third place among more than 50 rivals and first place among U.S. teams in the Rotman International Trading Competition, the largest trading competition in the world. A second Berkeley MFE team finished fourth among U.S. competitors and took the “gold” in an options case.

Berkeley MFE Team A, which took third overall in the Rotman competition Feb. 20 to Feb. 22 in Toronto, consisted of Varun Tomar, Weijian Chuah, Darren Ho, Ekaterina Matrosova, Gursahib Narula, and Wilson Wong. (Teams from LUISS University in Italy and Université Laval in Canada tied for first in the competition.) Among U.S. competitors, Berkeley MFE Team A outflanked such schools as MIT, Princeton, Stanford, Duke, Cornell, and the University of Chicago.

What set the Berkeley MFE Team A apart was how each student consistently performed well in every trading session. "Every team member trusted and pushed one another to perform to the best of their abilities, as they have been doing since the beginning of the program," says MFE Executive Director Linda Kreitzman.

The MFE Team A students consistently performed extremely well across different asset classes, earning “silver” in the CIBC Yield Curve (Interest Rate) Trading Case, “bronze” in the BP Commodities Trading Case, sixth in the Options Trading Case, and ninth in both the Sales and Trader and Algorithmic Trading cases.

The Berkeley MFE Team B won the “gold” in the Options Case, earning a cash prize.  The team consisted of Queeny Cheng, Jun Du, David Elledge, Mayank Gupta, Rahul Gupta, and Alex Li.

The Berkeley MFE Team B also placed fourth overall in the Algorithmic Trading Case and was the top American team with an algorithm that consistently made profits. They finished fourth among American teams and 15th worldwide.  "Like Team A, Team B's success can be attributed to the efforts they set forth in each and every case, something they have consistently practiced in the program," says Kreitzman.

MFE students on both teams gave kudos to MFE High Frequency Trading Lab Manager Charles McCutchen, who worked tirelessly to help them by painstakingly customizing cases to replicate the scenarios the teams actually encountered during the competition and providing strategic advice and guidance on risk management before the competition.

MFE Team B

Berkeley MFE Team B: Mayank Gupta, Jun Du, David Elledge, Queeny Cheng, Rahul Gupta, and Alex Li.

Berkeley MFE Team A: Weijian Chuah, Varun Tomar, Ekaterina Matrosova, Darren Ho, Gursahib Narula, and Wilson Wong.

Travel Industry Leader Ralph Bahna, MBA 65, Passes Away

Ralph Bahna

Haas alumnus Ralph Bahna, MBA 65, founder of the Club Quarters business hotel chain and longtime chairman of Priceline.com, passed away Monday, Feb. 24. He was 71.

Born in Grand Rapids, Mich., Bahna attended the University of Michigan, where he was a Big Ten wrestling champion for the Wolverines. After earning his MBA at Berkeley’s business school, Bahna went on to drive countless innovations in the travel industry.

Bahna was credited with helping to turn Trans World Airlines (TWA) around by inventing business class while still in his 20s. He then led a turnaround as CEO at Cunard Line in the 1980s and in 1993 founded Club Quarters, private, city-center hotels, which he led until his death. Bahna also was a founding investor in Priceline.com, the “name your own price” travel booking engine, which he had served as board chairman since 2004.

In August 2012, Bahna shared his “secret sauce” for leading change in a rare talk with Berkeley MBA students, building on his work with Dean Rich Lyons on the school’s innovative leader curriculum. Bahna spoke on the difference between “thinkers” and “transactors” and described how to become a “thinker” to solve problems and transform organizations.

“If a person can add another half hour or an hour in a week [to thinking], their power increases immensely,” said Bahna, who had spoken only one other time publicly in the last 20 years.

His recipe for success included the ability to boil down a challenge or course of action very concisely, sales skills to convince others to implement a solution, and determination and tenacity. He noted, for instance, how his efforts to successfully create the predecessor to business class travel at TWA in the late 1970s required him to rewrite a proposal more than 20 times.

Bahna, a member of the Haas School Board, was a generous supporter of Berkeley-Haas as well as the University of Michigan wrestling program. He served on the boards of the King and Low Heywood Thomas Schools and was active in the Young Presidents’ Organization. He supported Columbia New York Presbyterian’s atrial fibrillation research and served on its heart steering committee. He also was involved in developing the Center for Integrative Medicine & Wellness at Stamford Hospital in Stamford, Conn., where he lived.

Bahna is survived by his wife, Dorothy Ballard Bahna; two daughters and a son; and eight grandchildren.

A Mass of Christian Burial will be held at 10 a.m. Tuesday, March 4, in St. Cecilia’s Church, 1184 Newfield Avenue, Stamford, Conn. Interment will be private. The family will receive friends from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m. Monday March 3, at the Hoyt Funeral Home, 199 Main St, New Canaan, Conn. For online condolences and directions, visit hoytfuneralhome.com.

In lieu of flowers, contributions may be made to the Bahna Fund for Electrophysiology/ New York- Presbyterian Fund, Inc. c/o Adele Conner, Office of Development, New York Presbyterian Hospital, 654 West 170th St., NY, NY 10032.

Read an interview with Bahna in the Fall 2012 issue of BerkeleyHaas magazine.

First YEAH Grad Attends Haas

For nearly 25 years, the Young Entrepreneurs at Haas (YEAH) Program has been offering local youth the chance to live up to their potential—and churning out college-bound teens from underserved Bay Area schools. For the first time, one YEAH graduate has come full circle, back to Haas as an undergrad.

Palwasha Khatri, BS 15, joined YEAH as a high school sophomore in Alameda and quickly reaped the benefits. Her first year, she competed in a marketing case competition that asked for solutions to boost BART ridership. Her team won with an idea for a rewards card redeemable at local and national retailers, and Khatri discovered a passion for marketing. "I'm majoring in business because of the YEAH Program," she says.

Khatri was accepted into other business programs but had her heart set on Haas, even though she couldn't apply until her sophomore year. “I really appreciated the sense of community that I got when I was at Haas, and I met some great undergrads and MBAs when I was in the program,” Khatri says. “I knew that this was the community I wanted to be in, and it made a huge impact in my decision to come to Berkeley."

A shy teenager, Khatri also credits YEAH with helping her develop the confidence to succeed socially and professionally. She's a resident assistant in the dorms  now—something she never would have imagined pursuing—stays in touch with her YEAH mentors and friends, and landed an internship with a social media agency in San Francisco. "Because of the YEAH program, I broke out of my shell and learned how to make my way through the world," she says.

Khatri continues to help with YEAH whenever possible, working with the middle school summer camp, at new-student orientation, and helping seniors with college applications. “The program gave so much to me so it's really nice to be able to give back,” she says.

A full 100 percent of YEAH participants who learn about business, entrepreneurship, and finance from Haas students continue on to higher education—most the first in their families to do so. YEAH grads have attended schools from Columbia to Cal, majoring in a variety of disciplines.

Visit the Center for Young Entrepreneurs at Haas Website

Palwasha Khatri, BS 15