Author: Laura Counts

Haas MBA Students Create an Open Forum to Discuss Race

| by Laura Counts

Part 2 in a series of articles covering diversity and inclusion at Berkeley-Haas

By Laura Counts

More than 80 MBA students spent a recent lunch break in an unusually candid conversation on a topic that many shy away from: race.

Bolstered by an online platform that allowed all participants to submit questions anonymously and an agreement that all comments and stories would be kept in the room, a panel of students with diverse backgrounds opened themselves up to classmates eager to gain fluency in discussing race and, learn how to be better allies.

“Fear of saying the wrong thing and fear of asking questions often prevent the dialogue necessary to address issues of race,” said Lauren Dugard, MBA 17 and class VP of diversity, who co-organized the event and moderated the panel. “We wanted to create an event where people could overcome this hesitation.”

The event, called “Ask Me Anything: an Open Conversation With the Black Business Students Association (BBSA),” was sparked by a Black Lives Matter demonstration organized last month by BBSA co-presidents Jenelle Harris and Jay Obaze, both MBA 17. After more than 200 Haas students, staff, and faculty showed up at short notice to stand with the BBSA in solidarity, they were inspired to carry the conversation forward, Obaze said.

“I was genuinely moved by the groundswell of support that arose here at Haas,” Obaze wrote in a letter to the community. “I am aware that conversations on race in America are often very difficult for people, but Haas has shown that it’s open to learn and be educated on the issues that are directly impacting people of color in this country.”

The “Ask Me Anything” format allowed participants to ask questions anonymously via the web platform sli.do; others could vote up those they found most compelling.

“Don’t take time to toil over the vocabulary you use in your questions,” said Dugard, as she introduced the panel. “We’ll assume everything is coming from a place of love here today.”

Many of the questions reflected students desire to learn what they could do to support black classmates and future colleagues. What kinds of “micro-aggressions” (actions or comments that feel dismissive or offensive) have you experienced at Haas? What can I say to support black friends after police shootings without adding more stress? Are you tired of talking about police brutality and is there something you’d rather see addressed? Does it feel exhausting to be in a white-dominated environment all day, and what can we do to change that?

Other questions were about how to avoid blunders that might be seen as insensitive—or downright racist. “When I see a group of black students I often won’t approach because I think you’re in a safe space at that moment and don't want to interrupt. Is this good, bad?”, or “Can you talk about how to balance personal safety as a female with not wanting to be perceived as discriminatory?”

Answers reflected the diversity of experiences on the panel, which included two students from Nigerian families, one student with an Ethiopian father and white mother, a student who is half Trinidadian and half Haitian, and a white student who recently married a black partner. All agreed, however, that even though panelists were sharing their experiences that day, people of color shouldn’t bear the responsibility of educating non-minorities on racial issues.

“When I see people who look like me being shot in the streets, it’s hard to go to work and have no one say anything about it,” said another panelist. “I appreciate it when someone other than me can help bring it up as a conversation.”

“It’s important to have these conversations while I’m in the room, but it’s just as important to have these conversations when I’m not in the room,” one panelist said. “Part of this conversation is about making sure that when we are all in positions of power, we can ensure there is no discrimination taking place.”

“Ask yourself, ‘do I want to work with my black colleagues as much as with my white colleagues?’ If not, why?” another added.

Event organizers Jay Obaze, MBA 17, and Lauren Dugard, MBA 17

Participants also watched a video providing context on racially discriminatory legislation dating as recently as the past 60 years, myths about “black crime,” and data on income disparities (e.g., the median white household is now worth 13 times more than the median black household, a gap which has widened during the economic recovery according to the Pew Research Center).

“Part of being an ally isn’t necessarily saying things like ‘I don’t think that’s nice,’ but having the facts to say ‘That’s not true,’” Dugard said.  “It’s not just showing up and being willing to wear a black shirt, it’s being willing to dive deep and know the facts.”

The session also revealed the depth to which some black students feel traumatized by the relentless series of police shootings now under media scrutiny, and how much the issues they’ll face in the workplace weigh on them. In response to a question to panelists on how they experience the color of their skin on daily basis, one student described walking down the street as a tall black man and seeing people hug their purses to their bodies—even when he’s wearing a suit. Another student expressed frustration with managers hesitant to give her the same feedback as white colleagues because “I don’t look like them.”

“This gave insights into what many people in the room might not have known about the black experience, and also that the black experience is not monolithic,” Obaze said after the session.

The BBSA is planning more events to bring discussions of racial issues into the open. Next month, the group plans to organize a screening of the documentary “13th,” which makes the case that when the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution outlawed slavery, it ushered in a new racist system of mass incarceration.

MBA Students Question the Status Quo on Diversity & Inclusion

| by Laura Counts

This is the first in a series of articles covering diversity and inclusion at Berkeley-Haas. Part 1 looks at the growing number of student-led inclusion initiatives in the full-time MBA program.

Race Inclusion Initiative leaders from the full-time MBA classes of 2016 and 2017

When a group of full-time Berkeley MBA students surveyed classmates on attitudes about race and diversity, they found a marked incongruity: almost 90 percent said understanding racial dynamics is critical to being an effective leader, but less than half said they are comfortable talking about race.

Not so for a group of students who decided to address issues around race and ethnicity in their program head on, launching the research-based Race Inclusion Initiative last spring. They enlisted faculty mentors, scoured admissions and demographic data, and conducted interviews, surveys, and focus groups to pinpoint areas in need of change.

“The Race Inclusion Initiative seeks to understand and improve the Haas experience for full-time MBA students as it relates to underrepresented minorities—African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans,” said Lauren Dugard, MBA/MPH 17, vice president of diversity for the MBA Association and one of the initiative leaders.

Inspired in part by the successful Gender Equity Initiative, which has helped boost the number of women in the program and continues under a third generation of leaders, the RII is among an increasing number of efforts by students to drive a more inclusive culture at Haas.

Haas Gender Equity Initiative leaders after a meeting with Dean Rich Lyons in May

They reflect a generation of students who say they chose the school for its culture, and are determined to make sure it lives up to expectations—and leave it even stronger than when they came in.

“People came in with a heightened awareness of how they want our culture to be, and we all want it to be really inclusive and balanced,” said Neha Kumar, MBA 17 and vice president of social for the MBA Association—which set its three guiding principles for the year as transparency, collaboration, and an inclusive culture. “Everyone’s eyes are very open to these conversations.”

Over the past several years, students have not shied away from confronting issues that can be uncomfortable to talk about—and which they will likely face as managers. Among the activities they’ve started are Hot Topics, a discussion series focused on hot-button issues such as accessibility to firearms; Story Salons, where students can share their personal stories; a Diversity Digest newsletter; a Haas Perspectives Blog, and a Humans of Haas podcast (a recent episode covers the politics of hair).

Affinity groups like Q@Haas, a club for LGBTQ students and allies, host talks such as “Sex, Gender, and the Tax on Being Different”; the Women in Leadership Club has an active group of “manbassadors,” who are leading initiatives to get men to stop seeing gender equity as a “women’s issue” and get comfortable talking about gender dynamics.

2nd-year students at a full-time MBA diversity session during orientation week

While some of the efforts are based around specific groups, students are also talking about “intersectionality”—the concept that race, class, gender, and other aspects of identity are interconnected and can’t be looked at in isolation. At a diversity session during MBA orientation in August, 2nd-year students spoke about parts of their identities that are both visible and unseen: one spoke about growing up gay in Texas with Vietnamese immigrant parents; a Chilean student spoke his split identity as both Jewish and Catholic, and of the assumptions people make about him since an accident in his 20s left him confined to a wheelchair.

“There is plenty of fertile soil, we just need to plant more in it,” said Dugard (left), who led the session. “Learning how to have open conversations about the diversity we bring to Haas each day is important to foster empathy, build deep relationships with individuals from different backgrounds and perspectives, and prepare us to lead diverse teams.”

Even so, it’s clear from the research done by the Race Inclusion Initiative that there are still topics that are hard to talk about for many—and race is at the top of the list. In one of the surveys the group conducted, students said they feel more comfortable talking about gender or sexual identity issues than race. Many international students said they feel like they didn’t have the right tools to approach the debate.

“Eager to learn, yet uncomfortable to discuss—bridging the gap between those perspectives around diversity is critical to our success as a top public institution in one of the most diverse states in the country,” said Monica Stevens, MBA 96, a senior vice president at Wells Fargo Bank who chairs the Haas Alumni Diversity Council.

And while non-minority students say Haas does a better job of talking about race than the business world at large, underrepresented minorities feel there are still too few discussions about racial diversity at the school. Perhaps not for long, as students continue to lead the charge on conversations about diversity and inclusion. This week, for example, the Black Business Students Association—which recently organized a Black Lives Matter demonstration that attracted more than 200 students, staff and faculty—is hosting a lunchtime session called “Ask Me Anything: An Open Discussion with the BBSA.”

 

 

 

 

 

 

Diversity Symposium Attracts Record Interest

| by Laura Counts

 

Students at orientation week.
Incoming full-time MBA students pose for a selfie during orientation week.

At a time when issues of race and diversity lead the daily news cycle and are top-of-mind for educators, business leaders, and hiring managers, a record crowd of more than 250 prospective students is expected at the Berkeley-Haas Diversity Symposium Oct. 15.

They’ll join more than 100 current students, alumni, faculty, and staff for a day of panels and workshops on issues affecting women, racial and ethnic minorities, the LGBTQ community, and veterans in the MBA program and in the workplace.

Though the symposium is largely geared toward potential applicants to the school’s three MBA programs—with sessions on financing and balancing school and career—the day also serves as a mass networking opportunity and a chance to showcase Haas’ culture.

“Our mission as a school is to develop leaders who redefine how we do business, and that requires people who experience the world in different ways, who think differently, and who welcome different ways of thinking,” said Dean Rich Lyons. “We want to do everything we can to create an environment where everyone feels included and has the support to succeed.”

A recent Haas admissions survey found that an inclusive culture is the No. 1 reason students choose the full-time MBA program. Last year, the school adopted a new strategic business plan that puts a high priority on ethnic diversity, gender equity, and leading in a diverse world.

Dean Rich Lyons will speak at the symposium.

“We’re at a point in history when we’ve got this interesting global workforce, and increasingly companies are saying ‘I want someone who can manage anyone, anytime, anywhere,’” says Eric Abrams, director of diversity initiatives. “The more people learn about each other while they’re here, the better managers and leaders our graduates will be—and the more in demand they’ll be.”

To further the strategic plan goals, Assistant Dean Erika Walker has taken on an additional role as student equity officer, reviewing how diversity is reflected in the curriculum, extracurricular activities, and the school community across all programs. Profs. Jenny Chatman and Jonathan Leonard are serving as faculty equity officers, working on equity issues among students and faculty; Human Resources Director Denise Boyd serves in a similar role for staff.

A growing number of student-led efforts such as the Race Inclusion Initiative and the Gender Equity Initiative, as well as active clubs like Q@Haas, the Black Business Students Association, Haas Veterans Club, and the Women in Leadership Club’s “manbassadors” highlight the value students place on a culture of inclusion. The evening & weekend MBA program and the executive MBA program have recently added VPs of Diversity in their student governments; an implicit bias workshop is part of orientation for the executive MBAs.

Cristy Johnston-Limón, EMBA 16, is the executive MBA program’s first vice president of diversity.

Haas has also put in place some admissions initiatives that have paid off. While the University of California has been restricted in its use of affirmative-action criteria in the admissions process since the 1996 passage of Prop. 209, the school works closely with organizations such as the Robert Toigo Foundation and Management Leadership for Tomorrow, which help build the pipeline of talented students from diverse backgrounds.

One effort that has helped boost applications from underrepresented minority students to the full-time program is the school’s participation in the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, which seeks to increase the number of African Americans, Latinos, and Native Americans in top business programs and corporate management. It offers fellowships that include training and some merit-based scholarships for exceptional MBA candidates with a track record of promoting diversity and inclusion in their schools, jobs, or personal lives.

This year, the incoming full-time MBA class includes a record 47 Consortium fellows, which is the largest group among the organization’s 18 member schools. Among them are 19 African American students, who make up 7.5% of the incoming class.

The full-time MBA office has also worked closely with the student-led Gender Equity Initiative to increase the proportion of women in the program, with direct outreach from alumnae and senior women leaders from Haas. Women make up 38 percent of the incoming class and 40 percent of the program overall. The working professionals MBA programs have similar outreach efforts, and host a popular Women’s Dinner for prospective students.

“There’s increasing competition for the most talented students among all top MBA programs, and we’ve been increasingly able to attract a diverse group and remain one of the most selective programs in the country,” said Morgan Bernstein, executive director of full-time MBA admissions. “What we hear time and again from applicants is that Haas really stands out for its inclusive culture.”

The symposium also includes a Friday night welcome reception in San Francisco, hosted by Wells Fargo Sr. VP Monica Stevens, MBA 96, and the Haas Alumni Diversity Council. The alumni council is actively involved in the school’s efforts to increase diversity on campus and in building a strong alumni community.

876 New Students Jump Into Life at Haas

| by Laura Counts
Photo: Full-time MBA students run the three-legged race at the Cohort Olympics

Berkeley-Haas this month welcomed 876 new students, who bring to the classroom accomplishments as diverse as working on a robot currently on Mars, launching a social enterprise to turn recyclables into profit in a Nairobi slum, and sinking jump shots for the Cal Bears.

The new students began the evening & weekend MBA, full-time MBA, undergraduate, and PhD programs with immersive orientations.

Evening & Weekend MBAs

The incoming class of 252 EWMBA students arrived on campus July 29 for a packed “WE Launch” orientation weekend of work sessions, skits and team-building exercises, and an introduction to the Haas Defining Principles.

Courtney Chandler, assistant dean of the EWMBA program, said it was remarkable to see the class transform between Friday and Sunday. “So many students arrived as strangers, and after just a few days have become their own unique community, feeling confident about starting an intense, exciting three years of work together.”

All orientation events were held on the Haas campus, serving as an opportunity for students to get to know their cohort members and other first-years, professors, and second- and third-year students.

As a group, the students have a median of seven years work experience and work in 35 industries. They represent 184 companies including Google, Apple, Disney, Wells Fargo, Target, Oracle, Chevron, Salesforce, and Genentech. Seventy-one percent of the class is multilingual, hailing from 22 countries.

It’s an accomplished and eclectic group. Several students have been deeply involved in the sciences: one did clinical research examining the role of music in treating Alzheimer’s patients, another developed inhalable measles vaccines for the developing world, while another has 41 patents to her name.

Two students worked on Mars exploration projects—including one who worked on a robot currently on Mars. One is a photographer who chronicled the migration of Kazakh eagle hunters in Mongolia; another is a professional violinist who performs internationally. Among the many entrepreneurs in the group is a student who started her own fashion company designing headscarves for Muslim women.

Full-time MBAs

The full-time Berkeley MBA Class of 2018, also made up of 252 students, got their introduction to Haas in mid-August with a full week of orientation activities that ranged from lessons on the practicalities of MBA life to moments of inspiration and self-reflection to the all-out zaniness of the annual Cohort Olympics.

Each day of “Week Zero”—which was co-chaired by 2nd-year students Alison Underwood, Rachel Adams, and Mario Siewert—was centered around one of the four Haas Defining Principles: Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Beyond Yourself and Students Always.

For the Beyond-Yourself theme, for example, students heard from Revolution Foods co-founder and CEO Kristin Richmond, MBA 06, about how classmates pitched in with tasks large and small as she and classmate Kirsten Tobey launched their healthy school lunch company during their last semester at Haas. They also learned about the Teams@Haas curriculum, which is integrated throughout the program and gives students a skillset to lead in teams, and then spent the afternoon sprucing up the grounds at the Alameda Point Collaborative program for homeless families.

It was a fitting start: a recent admissions survey found that Haas’ unique culture is the No. 1 reason students choose the program. Full-time MBA applications for the incoming class were up 12 percent.

“This program does an unbelievable job focusing on a student development from a personal and professional perspective,” said student Reggie Davis. “You can go to any top business school to find a good job, but you come to Haas to find yourself and what drives you. Also, the students that I’ve met are the most talented, bright and self-aware people that I have ever come across.”

Nahry Tak is returning to Berkeley after earning her bachelor’s in art history here, and then working at the Trust for Public Land.

“While the MBA students at Haas are diverse on many fronts, I find that all of them share a concern for positively impacting others,” she said. “I recently heard Dean Rich Lyons say that Berkeley-Haas cultivates leaders who ‘instill purpose in those around them.’ This idea resonates strongly with me, and I am thrilled to return to the institution that I know will challenge me to become the best and most impactful version of myself.”

The incoming students have an average GMAT score of 717 and average GPA of 3.64.

Undergraduates

The Haas Undergraduate program welcomed 359 students at Monday’s orientation, with an address from Dean Rich Lyons, an overview of career services and the alumni networks, a social mixer and team-building activities.

The class is made up of 258 continuing UC Berkeley students and 101 transfer students. The program received the largest number of applications ever; the acceptance rate was 14.5%; and the yield was 98% for continuing students and 94% for transfers. The Berkeley students have an impressive average GPA of 3.65, while the average among transfers is 3.93. Nearly half of the new students are women.

This year’s group is especially athletic, said Assistant Dean Erika Walker. For the first time in at least 30 years, it includes two Cal Men’s Basketball players—guards Stephen Domingo (left end) and Sam Singer (right end), along with athletes (left to right) Josh Lewis, track and field; Asha Culhane-Husain, track and field; Camille Doan, lacrosse; Jazmyn Jackson, USA Softball; and Parker Garrett, lacrosse.

PhDs

Thirteen new students began the Haas PhD program this summer, commencing advanced study in the fields of accounting, business & public policy, finance, marketing, and real estate.

Students in Haas’ two other degree programs, the Berkeley MBA for Executives and Master of Financial Engineering, began earlier this year.

 

The Man Behind Pokémon Go: John Hanke, MBA 96

| by Laura Counts

John Hanke(Photo by Jim Block)

He put the earth in your pocket, and now he’s unleashed pocket monsters on the earth.

John Hanke, MBA 96 and CEO of Niantic Labs, is the driving force behind Pokémon Go, the hottest craze to hit smartphones—ever. Since its release just a week ago, the “augmented reality” game has sent millions of phone-toting players to the streets on the hunt for animated Japanese characters that pop up with the help of location services. The crush of downloads nearly crashed Niantic’s servers, and the number of active users is nearly on par with Twitter.

It’s one of those moments, The New York Times declared this week, “when a new technology—in this case, augmented reality or A.R., which fuses digital technology with the physical world—breaks through from a niche toy for early adopters to something much bigger.”

Yet it’s not the first time Hanke has propelled a breakthrough technology into the mainstream. As an MBA student at Haas in the mid-1990s, he co-founded a company that developed one of the first online games to allow hundreds of people to play together in a virtual environment.

Hanke went on to co-found Keyhole, which bridged the gap between geospatial data visualization on high-end computers and the navigation apps we all carry in our pockets. Google acquired Keyhole in for $35 million 2004, and Hanke stayed on to lead the development of Google Earth, Maps, and Street View. He then launched Niantic Labs inside Google to focus on next-gen games, and spun it out as a separate company last year.

“John represents many of the best attributes of entrepreneurship and Berkeley-Haas: Leadership through continuous cycles of innovation, without attitude or bravado, creating value for society and all who collaborate with him,” said Jerome Engel, founding executive director of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship, who recently wrote a business case that explored Hanke’s decision to separate from Google. (Hanke made a surprise visit to Engel’s executive education class last month for the debut of the case.)

The success of Pokémon go is, for Hanke, a realization of the vision he came to Haas to achieve.

“My essay to Haas was written about the opportunity in the space of interactive gaming and technology,” Hanke said in 2014 Haas video. “I wanted to build applications that would deepen people’s involvement in their town or community, to encourage people to actually meet up in the real world.”

Niantic Labs’ first augmented reality game was sci-fi based Ingress, which—like Pokémon Go—takes advantage of the cameras and GPS on every smartphone. Gamers must visit places of cultural significance, such as statues or historic buildings, to open virtual “portals” and capture territory. Yet the real magic—and Hanke’s motivation in developing the games—is in what happens offline.

“It gives people an excuse to meet other real people. It’s incredibly rewarding for me to see these people coming together and to see the happiness, the joy that people are getting from exercising, exploring their city, and making new friends,” Hanke said in the video interview, referring to Ingress.

Niantic’s other app, FIELDTrip, acts as a guide to historic and cultural sites.

The concept of digitally enhanced social interaction has exploded with the new game: As of July 12, more than 5,000 people had RSVP’ed to the Facebook invite for a “Pokémon Go Crawl” in San Francisco on July 20, with 22,000 more responding as “interested.”

Pokémon Go brought A.R. mainstream through the appeal of cute animated characters—Pokémon translates as “pocket monster”—beloved by those who came of age playing the video games and trading cards in the late 1990s. Niantic developed the game in conjunction with Nintendo, which partially owns the Pokémon franchise, and Pokémon Co.

Hanke credits Berkeley-Haas for helping him cultivate not only the skills, but also the mindset to become a professional entrepreneur.

Watch the full video.

 

Undergrad Advertising Team, Ranked #2 Nationally, Advances to Finals

| by Laura Counts

A Haas-sponsored undergraduate team has been selected from among competitors at 200 universities to pitch their $50 million advertising campaign to top executives at Dr. Pepper Snapple Group in the National Student Advertising Competition finals next month.

The advertising and creative consulting club imagiCal is one of eight finalist teams that will present at the American Advertising Federation’s ADMERICA 2016 Conference in Anaheim, June 4-7.

“The team did an amazing job synthesizing a diverse array of information to create a campaign that is truly creative in everything from the research and analysis, to the media plan, to how the information is presented,” said Marketing Lecturer Judy Hopelain, who serves as faculty sponsor. “They drew knowledge and ideas from unexpected places and many disciplines.”

ImagiCal’s campaign took 1st place in the NorCal & Nevada district competition, and the team is currently ranked #2 nationally. This marks the fourth time since 2009 that imagiCal has advanced as a finalist in the national competition, which is sponsored by the American Advertising Federation.

About half of the core 18 imagiCal team members are Berkeley-Haas students, while the rest are from a variety of other undergraduate majors.

The finalist presenters: Michael Lee, BA 16; Whitney Ziesing, BS 19; Davit Dovlatian, BS 16; Divya Suri, BA 17; and Tricia Flynn, BA 17

 

imagical team

Studying Ethics in Notorious Auschwitz

| by Laura Counts

As a lawyer in the US Navy, Jean-Marc Chanoine, MBA 17, saw that it was possible to follow the letter of the law, while going against its spirit.

It was his fascination with that gap—which at times can be a chasm—that led him to apply to a fellowship studying professional ethics in one of the world’s most notorious places: Auschwitz.

In May, Chanoine will travel to Germany and Poland to participate in Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics, an intensive 12-day program for students of business, journalism, law, medicine, or religion. Fellows in each program learn about the roles played by people in their professions in Nazi Germany, and explore the ethical issues facing those professions today.

“The holocaust is an extreme—there were dozens of companies that took advantage of the ‘legal’ slave labor, but I believe they were very much complicit,” said Chanoine, a former Judge Advocate General’s Corps officer. “We still have companies using what’s tantamount to slave labor today, and it may be completely legal within the context they are doing it. At what point do people suspend their judgment and tell themselves it’s ok? ”

It’s that kind of question that drives the fellowship program. The trip begins in Berlin with visits to the Memorial for the Murdered Jews of Europe and the Forced Labor Museum, and continues for six days of visits and seminars, including one at the Topography of Terror Documentation Center. The fellows then continue to Krakow and Auschwitz-Birkenau.

Through visits to Holocaust sites and seminars on the roles businesses and business leaders played, fellows tackle issues like loyalty, ambition, leadership, and tension between ethics and the bottom line The end result is a program that will help them address moral questions, not only through the lens of history but beyond business school.

That’s what Megan Wong, MBA 16, got out of the program. Wong, who won a fellowship last year, said she came away with less certainty and more humility, but also a stronger grasp of the difficulties of systemic inequalities and the role of the bystander.

“This is exactly what I came to business school for: to be an ethical leader and act on my beliefs,” she said.

Chanoine said he applied to the fellowship because he had never seen an opportunity like it. He already had had a good understanding of the military context of World War II: He joined the Navy straight out of law school, and by age 27 he was the general counsel at Naval Nuclear Power Training Command. “This is a chance to learn whole different side of the Holocaust, the profit side, which is something that’s less talked about.”

Chanoine, who will go straight from Berlin to New York to an internship at Goldman Sachs, wants to pursue a career in management at a Fortune 500. “I hope this experience will serve as a backdrop for decision-making throughout my career,” he said.

Berkeley-Haas Gives Crash Course to “America’s Greatest Makers”

| by Laura Counts

The next reality TV celebrity may not be a desperate housewife or a wannabe chef, but an aspiring entrepreneur with an idea that could be the next big thing in Internet-enabled gadgetry—thanks to a little help from Haas instructors.

The new series “America’s Greatest Makers," from the creator of “Survivor,” “The Voice,” and “Shark Tank” in conjunction with Intel, debuts on Tuesday, April 5 on the TBS cable channel and online. It pits 24 teams of inventors against each other in a $1 million competition to develop a wearable or smart device using the Intel Curie—a button-sized computer designed for wearable tech.

The contestants got a crash course in business fundamentals from Andre Marquis, Executive Director of the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship, along with Lester Center Senior Fellow Mark Searle. “We taught the makers the same principles we teach at Haas—how to run a lean startup and solve real problems for real customers,” Marquis says.

Watch the America's Greatest Makers promo video featuring Marquis and Searle.

Marquis and Searle, along with Elizabeth Saunders, a program manager at the UC Berkeley Center for Executive Education, spent time with the teams in San Francisco and Los Angeles, where the show was filmed from November through late February.

Marquis says they taught contestants to build on the frameworks pioneered by Lecturer Steve Blank in his Lean LaunchPad course at Berkeley-Haas. Those principles are now used in programs with the National Science Foundation and National Institutes of Health (NIH) Innovation Corps, and have been embraced not only by by startup entrepreneurs but also corporate innovators.

Berkeley-Haas has a deep history of working with Intel to cultivate entrepreneurs, partnering on both the Intel Global Challenge, an annual competition that ran from 2005 to 2014, and the Intel Make It Wearable competition. Marquis says their work on the show also "helps Intel build the pipeline of innovation for the Curie Module."

“America’s Greatest Makers” contestants range in age from 15 to 59 years. A panel of celebrity judges, including NBA star Shaquille O’Neal and “The Big Bang Theory” actress and neuroscientist Mayim Bialik, will winnow down the teams each week and pick the $1 million winner.

Among the products that will be featured are a collar that stops dogs from running away, a wearable device that helps with stroke rehabilitation, and a device to create a new bike-sharing economy.

“It's going to be a mesmerizing show. I hope all our aspiring Berkeley-Haas innovators and entrepreneurs get a chance to watch it,” Marquis says.

Transforming Gender Roles in Latin America

| by Laura Counts

With Haas partnership, Colombian multinational takes the lead on building an inclusive, sustainable culture

Colombia-based industrial conglomerate Grupo Argos broke new ground as the first company in Latin America to name a woman as board chairman. The $4 billion multinational also extended the length of maternity leaves, adopted flexible policies to accommodate work-family balance, and hired more women into traditionally male-dominated roles—from managing IT to driving cement mixers.

Now the cement, real estate, and energy conglomerate has embarked on a top-to-bottom culture overhaul, and has partnered with Berkeley-Haas to bring science and practice into their vision. The multi-year partnership includes training, sharing of leadership expertise, and mentorship through the UC Berkeley Center for Executive Education (CEE) and Berkeley-Haas.

The partnership is one of many custom and open-enrollment programs CEE offers around the globe, but the program is unique because of the sweeping vision of Grupo Argos' CEO: to not only make the company a leader in inclusivity, but to influence the region's broader business culture.

"We hope to develop a model of leadership that encourages equal opportunities for promotion and development," says CEO José Alberto Vélez. "Additionally, this program supports the creation of a collective consciousness about the respect for differences, a principle that is consistent with our corporate culture."

Last August, Grupo Argos flew in 55 female managers from its holding company and subsidiaries throughout the Americas and abroad to Berkeley for an immersive course on equitable leadership with Prof. Laura Kray and Assoc. Prof. Dana Carney.

On April 4, Kray and Carney will travel to Grupo Argos headquarters in Medellin to teach a week-long follow-up course to the same group of women. It's an unusual opportunity, Kray says: she's taught variations of the equitable leadership course many times, but never to such a large group of women from the same organization.

Assoc. Prof. Dana Carney & Prof. Laura Kray

"They were sent here together and given this time to do this work. That was part of the magic," she says of the Berkeley course. "There were a lot of women who said they came in with doubts about the work-life tradeoff and doubts about themselves as leaders. They came out saying they are equal to men as leaders, they bring unique skills to the workplace, and it's worth the sacrifice to stay in the game."

In addition to the focus on gender equity, the Berkeley-Haas/Grupo Argos partnership also emphasizes innovation and sustainability. The company's full board convened in Berkeley last October for courses on innovation with Prof. Toby Stuart and adaptive leadership—which emphasizes techniques to lead in fluid, uncertain situations—with Sr. Lecturer Homa Bahrami. 

Latin American women have moved into the workforce in record numbers, yet they are still largely shut out of leadership roles: women occupy 5.6 percent of board seats in the region's 100 largest companies—the lowest of any world region except the Middle East—and serve as CEOs of less than 2 percent of the 500 biggest companies, according to an analysis by the Americas Society/Council of the Americas.

Colombia is the leader among Latin American companies in terms of women moving into leadership roles, and the Grupo Argos subsidiary Cementos Argos stands out as the country's equal opportunity trailblazer, becoming the first firm in the country to receive a gender equality certification from the United Nations Development Program.

The recognition is especially notable since the conglomerate grew out of the solidly male-dominated cement industry before diversifying into four other sectors in 17 countries, including the US. Although 63% of the 100 employees in the Grupo Argos holding company are women, just 13 percent of the 9,000 Cementos Argos workers are women. 

Jorge Perez, senior director of talent and culture at Cementos Argos says the company has set a goal to reach 30 percent women by 2025.

"This isn't a topic that is only interesting for women, but for everyone," says Perez, who also attended part of the Berkeley course with Kray and Carney. "We hope to plan a similar course for men soon."

 

Lending Club CFO Carrie Dolan Named Commencement Speaker

| by Laura Counts

Carrie Dolan, an influential financial leader and advocate for women in finance who managed Lending Club’s $1 billion IPO as its CFO, has been chosen to speak at the combined Full-time and Evening and Weekend MBA Program graduation.

Commencement will be held May 20 at the Greek Theater.

In her speech, Dolan, BS 87 and MBA 97, will cover the impact of crowdfunding on the financial industry as well as share her experiences working in new ventures.

She’ll also address the importance of creating greater gender balance in finance and technology.

Dolan joined San Francisco-based Lending Club in 2010 as its first CFO, helping to build the company into the world’s largest online marketplace that connects borrowers and investors. In an interview, Dolan told industry publication American Banker that she wasn’t entirely sure what peer-to-peer lending was when a recruiter first called her about the Lending Club position.

But she did her research, met with company CEO Renaud Laplanche, and ended up convinced about its future. “My gut feeling was that this business model would change financial services,” she told American Banker. “So I decided to take a risk.”

That risk paid off. Over the past five years, Dolan has shepherded Lending Club’s revenue growth from $2 million in 2010 to $81 million by 2015. In Dec. 2014, she managed  the company’s IPO—one of the top 10 US-based Internet public offerings of all time. The company raised $1 billion, a first for a peer-to-peer lender.

Dolan has received a growing number of accolades in recent years from leading financial organizations.

In 2013 and 2014, she was named the Bay Area CFO of the Year for Emerging Companies by the San Francisco Business Times, which honored her as a leader who advises women seeking to advance their careers.

In 2015, the Financial Woman of San Francisco named Dolan as Financial Woman of the Year, an honor for demonstrating remarkable commitment to her profession, service to her community, and support for the advancement of women.

And last September, American Banker named her one of  “The Most Powerful Women in Finance.” The list recognizes women who have had the most impact across the financial industry.

“At Haas we have a tradition of inviting our most distinguished alumni to speak at commencement, and Carrie certainly fits that bill,” said Dean Rich Lyons.

Prior to Lending Club, Dolan was senior vice president and treasurer for Charles Schwab and CFO for the Schwab Bank, which she helped launch in 2003. Earlier in her career, she held various financial positions at Chevron, where she launched the Chevron Credit Bank to simplify Chevron’s credit card business.

Dolan is a member of Financial Executives International (FEI), CNBC’s CFO Council, and Watermark’s CFO network.

 

An Outpouring of Thanks at Donor Appreciation Week

| by Laura Counts
Students wrote thank-you cards to donors
Photos Copyright Noah Berger / 2016

Students, students, faculty, and staff wrote 535 letters of appreciation last month to the thousands of donors who ensure that Berkeley-Haas carries on its tradition of excellence.

Donor Appreciation Week is celebrated every January to acknowledge that tuition covers only half the cost of running the school. Philanthropy supports one-third of the other half. Berkeley-Haas also has donors to thank for its new $60 million North Academic Building, which is 100 percent privately funded. The building is expected to be completed in early 2017.

A thank-you letter to a Berkeley-Haas donor

Here’s a sampling of some of the letter writers’ sentiments, as well as photos of a few of those who stopped by the letter-writing tables in the Bank of America Forum to express their appreciation.

Your generous support is not only important to sustain quality research. It sustains quality life. Thanks to your donation I can support my wife and two daughters Cristina (2) and Teresa (5 months). We talk a lot about having real impact. I hope this gives you a tangible measure of the impact you make.
—David Echeverry, PhD student, Real Estate (2017)

 

As a graduate student instructor in our Haas undergraduate program, I am constantly blown away by the maturity, quality and ability of our students. Then I get to know their stories and am inspired by the diversity, both economic and social, of students in one of the top business schools in the world. Thank you for continuing to support the University’s public mission, without which nothing would be possible.
—Christian Kaas, MBA16

 

Thank you for supporting Haas! Your donations really make a difference in continuing to provide a top-notch educational experience for our students. Speaking from personal experience as a member of the Haas admissions team, being able to talk about the wonderful resources available when speaking to prospective students really makes a difference in my recruitment conversation. Thank you for all you do!
—Chelsiah Scouras, EWMBA Admissions Offic

Being a Haas student has been one of the most rewarding experiences of my life. The professors, my classmates, and opportunities that Haas has given me have been incredible. Thank you for your help in continuing to give me the best possible business education. Because of your support, I’ve been able to get my dream internship at Goldman Sachs while learning skills to help me succeed and thrive! —Anonymous

Stodgy? Not! Research shows family businesses out-innovate the competition

| by Laura Counts

Family businesses have a reputation for being more conservative and tradition-bound than their non-family counterparts. But new research demonstrates that in many ways, they’re more innovative.

That’s the focus of the Fall 2015 issue of the California Management Review, which also includes a case study by Prof. Laura Tyson and Haas Social Impact Fellow Jennifer Walske.

Family firms—a heterogeneous group that includes mom-and-pop shops as well as giants like Wal-Mart, Bechtel & Ford—are able to tap into unique resources: family assets. Those include a brand legacy and shared values that are often established over the course of many generations. Rival firms scramble to create similar assets, without the same quality of family connections.

Articles exploring family businesses in the new issue include a study on how family-owned airline Climber, based in Denmark, managed industry turbulence over 60 years, as well as a system to assess “innovation readiness,” allowing firms to prepare in the early stages before rolling out new processes or technologies.

The case study co-authored by Tyson and Walske explores the challenges for Fair Trade USA, which is the leading third-party certifier of fair trade products in North America. Yet despite its 55 percent brand recognition among US consumers in 2014, the $10 million dollar non-profit currently certifies less than six percent of all coffee consumed in the U.S. There’s ample room for Fair Trade’s CEO  to increase market penetration, say Tyson—director of the Institute for Business & Social Impact at Berkeley-Haas—and Walske.

Watch the CMR video on Family-Driven Innovation here.

The full issue is now available online and on the Haas campus.

Condensed versions of each of these articles are available through the CMR Executive Digest initiative.

Classified: Learning to Let Go in New Product Development

| by Laura Counts

 “Classified” is a series spotlighting some of the more powerful lessons faculty are teaching in Haas classrooms.

Four students sit around a table, staring at a small plastic device, round with a button on top. On the screen of one of their laptops is a mockup of an app that shows how the device—once it’s rigged with microphones—will help MBAs track meeting agendas. Prof. Alice Agogino is sitting with them, quizzing them on their product’s name.

She doesn’t like it.

“I like the idea of something subtle, but ‘Imprint’ doesn’t do it for me,” says Agogino, the Roscoe and Elizabeth Hughes Professor of Mechanical Engineering and an affiliated faculty member at Haas.

Agogino is co-teaching the course Managing the New Product Development Process, where students learn the process of bringing a new product from pitch to prototype to market. It’s a class that’s intended to help students figure out how to think nimbly and flexibly—and it’s clearly working. After just a moment’s hesitation, the students start throwing out new names, while Agogino gives feedback.

“’Mentor’ is really hot right now,” she muses.

The team is working on their product for the class final, a tradeshow where each of the seven teams present their work to each other and a panel of judges. The product, “meetingMentor,” is designed to develop leadership in small groups.

Lecturer Michael Borrus, a venture capital investor co-teaching the course with Agogino, says it introduces students to a variety of ways to approach product development. “What we try and do is say, ‘Look, there are a different ways of thinking, each with its own strengths and limitations,’” says Borrus, pictured above with Agogino and Autonomous University of Mexico City instructor Marcelo López (left).

More than a hundred ideas

The course attracts not only MBAs, but also students from the schools of engineering and information sciences. Together, they form deliberately multidisciplinary teams.

Some projects come from the students’ own ideas, and some from sponsors like Samsung, which this fall backed two projects—one of them the note-taking app for MBAs. One team was a collaborative effort with a parallel class at the Autonomous University of Mexico City, and sponsored by the appliance company Mabe.

The students follow a demanding schedule, first pitching ideas and assembling teams, then doing some intensive idea creation. “You have to come up with more than one hundred ideas,” says Laura Burkhauser, MBA 16, (pictured with her team).

And that means the final product may be far from its original plan. Burkhaus and her teammates started with a mirror that took a photo, and ended up with a marketplace app for amateur photography that they dubbed Foto.

“There’s a whole unaddressed market between the selfie and wedding photography,” she explains.

Getting there took a lot of steps, including conducting in-depth interviews with potential customers, prototyping, and then going back to customers again. That back-and-forth is a necessary part of the process, Agogino says.

“And then their customers usually don’t like what they’ve initially come up with,” she adds with a smile.

So it’s back to the drawing board again, refining and refining until they have something they can present. Along the way, they receive help from coaches as well as guidance from Agogino and Borrus.

Judging the work

At the tradeshow, students’ work is judged by the types of people who may one day employ them. They use criteria like the effectiveness of how the teams have gauged customer needs, their creativity, and how well they’ve looked at the costs, revenue, and societal impacts of their product.

It’s a way of checking whether the students have been able to be flexible about their approach. “The real world’s messy,” Borrus says.

Sneha Sheth, MBA 16, learned that this isn’t something you can do while sitting in a classroom—or a conference room. “The process requires you to get out of the building,” she says.

Sheth’s team worked on a game they name “Character Quest,” which helps parents develop positive character traits like grit and perseverance in their children.  “I think the essence is getting a framework and toolkit to be innovative.”

Photos: Lee-Huang Chen

 

Infographic: Hiring Strong, Entrepreneurship on the Rise for Full-time MBAs

| by Laura Counts

More than 95 percent of job seekers in the Full-time Berkeley MBA Class of 2015 received offers—and 94 percent accepted offers—within three months of graduation. The class, which showed a strong bent for social impact and entrepreneurship, also had a slight uptick in salaries.

Average starting salaries were $123,043, with signing bonuses averaging $28,000 and other compensation averaging $26,000. The median starting salary was $125,000, up 4 percent from $120,000 last year.

“It was a strong class with a lot of interest from recruiters,” said Julia Min Hwang, assistant dean of the MBA Career Management Group and corporate engagement. “We’ve found that recruiters seek out Haas grads for culture fit—they are known for being leaders with innovative problem solving and team-building skills, and for having confidence without attitude.”

Hwang also credited the strong hiring outcomes to the business school’s Bay Area location, which gives easy access to a wide range of employers and allows companies to engage with Haas by bringing projects into classrooms.

Haas MBA culture is also collaborative, and students support each other in their searches, Hwang noted. One example is network job search teams: career services brings together those students who are interested in nontraditional industries that don’t participate in on-campus recruiting. “The key to the success of this facilitated groups is that students motivate each other and hold each other accountable,” she said.

Although many students are pursuing non-traditional careers, 40 percent of the 248 graduates accepted jobs in the MBA bedrock industries of consulting and financial services. Another 38 percent went into tech. The next most popular industries were healthcare, energy, consumer products and real estate. More than 12 percent of graduates reported that their jobs had a social impact component.

Meanwhile, the class produced an unprecedented number of new entrepreneurs. A record 31 graduates, or 12.5 percent of the class, are launching their own ventures, compared with six grads last year. Startups range from platforms for on-demand health services, global money transfer and student loans, to an innovative financial instrument aimed at combatting drought and wildfires.

The increase in student founders, along with the fact that 14.5 percent of jobseekers accepted offers from startups, reflects the growing strength of the entrepreneurial ecosystem at Haas, UC Berkeley, and the Bay Area.

“The most important reason why I chose Haas is its entrepreneurial environment and resources,” said Leo Popov, MBA 15, who cited the MBA program’s electives and applied innovation courses, the LAUNCH startup competition, and resources such as the Lester Center for Entrepreneurship and Skydeck. “I was 100 percent sure that I want to start my company in the short or medium future, but I needed the skills and knowledge to do so.”

Popov met his business partner, Bimohit Bawa, MBA 16, in Lecturer Steve Blank’s Lean LaunchPad course, and they worked on their startup idea throughout the rest of the program. In October, they launched TrueCare24, a digital health smartphone app that gives users access to urgent care clinicians who make house calls or consult by phone 24 hours a day.

“In my previous job I didn’t have any experience with about 60 percent of the tasks I am doing currently. All these skills are newly acquired at Haas or UC Berkeley,” Popov said. “The most inspiring resources for me are the success stories of my peers and Haas alumni who dared to start their own ventures, and within several years built amazing companies.”

New Cleantech Startup Competition Offers $100K Prize & Mentoring

| by Laura Counts

There’s a new startup competition underway on campus: entrepreneurs pursuing environmentally friendly technologies are vying for the $100K Berkeley Cleantech University Prize (CUP).

Seven teams—which include four Haas MBAs—have been accepted into the competition, which includes 15 weeks of entrepreneurial training, mentoring, and access to UC Berkeley expertise and facilities. The winner will be announced at the Berkeley Energy & Resources Collaborative (BERC) Energy Summit on Feb. 19.

The competition is the result of a winning proposal to the Department of Energy by MBAs and other students in BERC—a multidisciplinary, cross-campus network started by Haas students—along with the Berkeley Energy & Climate Institute (BECI), which is managing the new program.

“We expect that the competition will highlight UC Berkeley’s tremendous capacity to promote and stimulate innovation,” says BECI Analyst Sean Wihera, the competition program director.

UC Berkeley is one of eight schools around the country chosen by the DOE to host competitions for aspiring clean energy entrepreneurs. The regional winners will go on to the national University Prize competition, which carries another $100,000 award.

Berkeley and Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory have long been at the forefront of clean technology development, and Haas is a key part of efforts to promote innovation and commercialization of new technologies. In addition to BERC, which is co-led by MBAs, the Cleantech to Market Program (C2M) assigns teams of student consultants to help nascent technologies break out of the lab.

“There’s nothing like the UC Berkeley ecosystem and the people within it to launch cleantech initiatives,” says Brian Steel, co-director of C2M, which is housed at the Energy Institute at Haas. “Increasingly, they are doing this by leveraging an array of commercialization resources, from programs like C2M and Cyclotron Road to organizations like BERC and BECI.”

BERC co-president Katie Pickrell, MBA 2016, says one of the seven finalist teams includes three Haas MBAs; one other Haas MBA is on another team.

The teams will make their final pitches at the BERC Innovation Expo on Feb. 18; winners will be announced at the BERC Energy Summit the next day. The events also coincide with the BECI Philomathia Forum.

Photos: campus cleantech leaders, clockwise from top left: BECI Analyst Sean Wihera; BERC Co-president Katie Pickrell, MBA 2016; and Brian Steel, co-director of the Cleantech to Market Program

Haas Healthcare Conference to Bridge Industry and Innovation

| by Laura Counts

 

What if technology could help doctors forecast spikes in particular illnesses—say, the flu—and prepare them to provide better care? There could be an app for that, which is why a team of students have shaped this year’s Berkeley-Haas Healthcare Conference around the themes of technology and innovation.

A sold-out crowd of more than 500 students and industry professionals are expected for the 9th annual conference at UCSF’s Mission Bay Conference Center on Nov. 6.

“This year, we’re focusing on how technology innovation and design can change the future of healthcare—for example, using data analysis to predict when patients will require care over the course of their lives,” says Ramya Babu, MBA 16, and marketing co-chair for the Haas Healthcare Association, which organized the conference. “Our goal is to highlight the connection between industry research and healthcare practice through the use of digital technology.”

Along those lines, the conference will feature a digital design challenge focused on Type 2 diabetes. The contest is unfolding in three stages: a hackathon on Oct. 24, where teams developed concepts to help healthcare providers and patients prevent and manage the disease; a best-pitch competition at the conference itself; and a final judging of design prototypes next spring. The first-place teams at each stage will be rewarded with $1,000, $2,000, and $5,000 prizes.

Babu says organizers worked hard to bring in a wide range of speakers and panel topics. “The conference is much more diversified this year than in previous years,” she says. “We also want to emphasize entrepreneurship, and give attendees opportunities to meet people in the healthcare field.”

Dr. Bob Wachter, interim chair of medicine at UCSF and author of the new book Digital Doctor: Hope, Hype and Harm at the Dawn of Medicine Computer Age, will give the opening keynote. Throughout the day, six panels will address topics from the growing pains involved in starting a digital health venture to the role of technology in serving vulnerable populations. In between, hackathon participants will present their pitches and current healthcare startups will showcase their ideas.

Jennie Chin Hansen, an elder care expert and former CEO of the American Geriatrics Society, will give the closing keynote before the conference wraps up with a reception and career expo.

 

—Kate Madden Yee

Press >PLAY: The Massive Student-Run Digital Media Conference is Back

| by Laura Counts
A participant at >Play 2014 checks out virtual reality with the Oculus Rift

This year’s >Play digital media and tech conference will offer a chance to do just that: in addition to absorbing the latest from top industry leaders, pitching startup ideas, and hobnobbing with recruiters, attendees can check out cutting-edge gadgets and immerse themselves in the Bay Area tech scene.

The 11th annual conference, to be held at San Francisco’s Pier 27 Events Center on Oct. 30, is expected to draw a sell-out crowd of 1,000—including tech hungry students from schools around the country and Bay Area professionals. Organized by MBAs from Haas’ Digital Media and Entertainment Club (DMEC), >Play is the largest student-run tech and digital media conference in the country.

Conference co-chairs Andrew Hill, Jamaur Bronner and Michael Young, all MBA 16, have been working since March to put the event together. Their goal, Hill says, is to make >Play “a digital media event that happens to be run by business students, rather than a business event that happens to be about digital media.”

Organizers have focused on three elements: making the conference integrated, interdisciplinary, and immersive. “For the integration piece, this year we reached out to 25 business schools around the country. On the interdisciplinary side, >Play is open to students across multiple programs, including information, design, and engineering,” he says. “On the immersion side, there will be opportunities for students to get involved throughout the day, rather than just attending lectures.”

Diversity and inclusiveness were also cornerstones of the planning process, organizers say. >Play 2015 boasts record numbers of underrepresented minority and female speakers from across the tech landcape. A Diversity in Tech Design Thinking workshop features leaders from Facebook.

Events actually begin the day before the conference, with the “Hack All Night, >Play All Day” hackathon on Oct. 29. Hackers from UC Berkeley, the Bay Area and other schools will compete to present a prototype and product pitch to a panel of Silicon Valley executives and venture capitalists. The winners will present at the conference the next day, for the chance to win $3,500.

A unique Entertainment X Tech panel features musicians, VCs, and digital strategists who are bridging the gap between the entertainment world and the tech industry. The panel features Grammy-nominated R&B producer Ryan Leslie. >PLAY participants will also get the scoop on more than 40 startups.

Speakers include keynote presenter John Oberon of Cisco, as well as Signe Brewster of Gigaom, Makezine, and Wired; Nelson Kunkel of Deloitte Digital; Chris Nyffeler of IDEO; Emily Peters of Uncommon Bold; and Michael Seibel of Y Combinator leading a Pitch 101 workshop—just to name a few.

At the end of the day, attendees can bust a few moves at a massive Halloween after-party at the Armory on Mission Street—a “Deadly Disco” co-sponsored by Tilt and hosted by Crossroads Nightlife.

Tickets are available for the conference alone, or bundled with after-party. Check out more details on the conference and buy tickets here.

—Kate Madden Yee

Prof. Paul Gertler to be Honored by Erasmus University in Rotterdam

| by Laura Counts

Paul GertlerProf. Paul Gertler will receive an honorary degree from Rotterdam’s Erasmus University in November in recognition of his extensive research in global health care.

Gertler, who holds the Li Ka Shing Foundation Chair in Health Management at Haas, is known as a pioneer in global health evaluation. His work has earned him numerous awards and an appointment at the World Bank, where he served as chief economist of its Human Development Network from 2004 to 2006.

“The Netherlands is a world leader in global health economics, and Erasmus is one of the top places currently researching in this area,” says Gertler, who is also scientific director of the Center for Effective Global Action (CEGA) at UC Berkeley.  “It’s an honor to be recognized by this university.”

In a letter announcing the degree, Erasmus cited Gertler’s economic analysis of financial incentives in healthcare that earned him the Juan Jose Bobadilla Medal for Global Health from the Mexican National Institutes of Health in 2013. Gertler was the first economist to win the annual award, which is typically given to medical professionals or epidemiologists.

“Paul is among the pioneers in applying randomized control trials in the evaluation of healthcare interventions in developing countries,” said Erasmus Prof. Eddy van Doorslaer, one of three faculty members to sponsor the honorary doctorate.

Throughout his career, Gertler has worked for several ministries of health and social development, co-leading an impact evaluation of the Mexican government’s welfare program, Oportunidades, as well as the Rwandan government’s rollout of results-based financing for health. Other research has examined the impact of computers in Honduran schools; promoting hand washing in Peru; and improving slum housing in El Salvador, Mexico, and Uruguay.

Gertler has published in a range of economics and public-health journals, as well as in top science journals including PNAS and Science. His body of research has addressed early childhood development, education, fertility and contraceptive use, HIV-AIDS, energy and climate change, housing, job training, poverty alleviation, labor markets, and water and sanitation. His 2014 paper in Science showed that early childhood stimulation leads to a 25 percent increase in income later in life.

In a recent paper co-authored with Berkeley-Haas Assoc. Prof. Lucas Davis, Gertler pinpointed the relationship between temperature, income, and air conditioning. The study, which focused on Mexico, found that in warm areas there’s a close relationship between household income and air conditioner adoption, which threatens air quality in emerging economies.

Frequently Discounting Maximizes Retailer Revenues

| by Laura Counts

JC Penney implemented a “best price” strategy in 2012, assuming consumers prefer fair, everyday prices as opposed to sale prices that are discounted from original, inflated prices. It was wrong. Longtime customers—loyal fans of sales and coupons—rejected the new pricing policy, and JC Penney reinstated its old pricing model that included frequent discounts.

In contrast, retailers like Zara, which sells women’s and men’s clothing, relies on a low rate of discounting and low stock replenishment or high product turnover. If customers don’t buy a new product right away, it may disappear before they commit to buy.

But there is a third pricing strategy that incorporates the benefits of both approaches and allows the retailer to better match supply with demand. The “discount-frequently” pricing strategy allows retailers to charge high prices when demand is high and is flexible unlike an “every day low price” strategy or “static pricing.”

“A firm that cares about attracting customers to the store as well as maintaining the flexibility to match supply with demand would benefit from the discounting frequently policy,” says Pnina Feldman, assistant professor at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, Haas Operations and Technology Management Group.

In the paper, “Price Commitments with Strategic Consumers: Why it can be Optimal to Discount More Frequently … Than Optimal” (Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, July 2015), Feldman and co-author Gérard P. Cachon, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, found the discount-frequently strategy proved to be the most optimal.

The findings are based on game theoretic models that compared expected revenue and profits within different pricing strategies. All of the models assumed that customers incur a purchase “cost”—time and effort—to physically shop at a store and will only go shopping when they think it will be worth their while.

Typically a retailer may increase prices when demand is high, or lower prices when demand is low. This is called “dynamic pricing.”

When a retailer discounts prices frequently—even in cases where they would rather charge a high price—Feldman says customers are more likely to visit the store because they value the discounts. At the same time, by not committing to an “every day low price,” it can still raise prices if demand turns out to be very high, and their customers will not abandon them. In this scenario, customers understand that demand may be high so they may not get a big discount; but given the store’s history, they believe they are not being taken advantage of so it’s worth it to continue to shop that store more.

The researchers also contend that customers are equally as strategic as merchants. The discount-frequently strategy is good, says Feldman, if the merchant wants to get more customers to visit the store. Customers may also delay their shopping in anticipation of future discounts. If the latter behavior is more important to the retailer, discounting frequently may not the optimal strategy.

“Committing to discount frequently maximizes revenues by balancing the trade off between dynamic and static pricing,” says Feldman.

“The discount-frequently strategy is about making commitments without sacrificing flexibility. Retailers think of dynamic pricing as charging the best prices to match supply and demand, “ says Feldman. “But by implementing a dynamic pricing strategy that makes no price commitments, retailers do not take into account today’s smart and savvy customers who will visit the store less frequently if they can’t depend on good prices and product availability.”

Patrick Awuah, MBA 99, Named “MacArthur Genius”

| by Laura Counts

Education pioneer Patrick Awuah, MBA 99, founder of Ghana’s Ashesi University, has been named a fellow of the John D. and
Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.

Awuah, 50,  is one of 24 fellows to receive the so-called “genius grant,” awarded to people “who have shown extraordinary originality and dedication in their creative pursuits and a marked capacity for self-direction.”

Awuah overcame many obstacles to launch Ashesi University in 2002 as the first Ivy League-style school in his native country. He had arrived at Berkeley-Haas after nearly a decade at Microsoft, and was looking to do something more. He developed the idea for Ashesi in the International Business Development (IBD) program.

The nonprofit university’s mission is to educate ethical, entrepreneurial leaders who will help transform Africa.

The MacArthur Fellows Program awards “no strings attached” grants to extraordinary people. The fellowships come with $625,000 stipends paid out over five years. This year’s “genius award” winners also include University of California, Berkeley, Prof. Peidong Yang, a chemist who is trying to capture carbon dioxide from the air and turn it into a sustainable transportation fuel.

“These 24 delightfully diverse MacArthur Fellows are shedding light and making progress on critical issues, pushing the boundaries of their fields, and improving our world in imaginative, unexpected ways,” said MacArthur President Julia Stasch. “Their work, their commitment, and their creativity inspire us all.”

Awuah certainly personifies commitment and inspiration. He left Ghana in 1985 with $50 in his pocket and a full scholarship at Swarthmore College. He rose through the ranks at Microsoft to become a program manager, but after the birth of his first child he decided to turn his focus to making a difference in Africa.

“Being a father of someone who was a member of a new generation of Africans I felt I needed to return and be a contributor to Africa’s rise for the sake of my children and for the sake of my children’s children,” Awuah said in his MacArthur announcement video (below). Most problems Africa faces are related to leadership, he said, noting that some of the leadership is corrupt. “I felt if we could change the way that that group is educated then we would change the continent,” he said.

Above: Evening & weekend Berkeley MBA students, pictured with Awuah, on a consulting trip at Ashesi in 2014. They were the 10th Haas team to consult at the university.

It took extraordinary persistence to found Ashesi, which required Awuah to question Ghana’s status quo—dominated by large public universities and rote learning. Ashesi’s graduates are continuing to buck the status quo: while an estimated one-third of African professionals leave Africa, nearly all of Ashesi’s grads have stayed.

In 2012, as Awuah celebrated Ashesi’s 10th anniversary, Haas awarded him the school’s Leading Through Innovation Award. “Patrick Awuah has gone beyond himself, questioning the status quo with a bold mission to develop a generation of ethical, entrepreneurial leaders with the courage to transform a continent,” says Dean Rich Lyons. “We couldn’t be more proud of his vision and tenacity.”

Awuah was named to Fortune’s list of the world’s 50 greatest leaders in March 2015—joining Pope Francis, Bill and Melinda Gates, and Mark Zuckerberg. The list honors “extraordinary men and women who are transforming business, government, philanthropy, and so much more.”

Three other new MacArthur Fellows have UC Berkeley connections. William Dichtel, professor of chemistry and chemical biology at Cornell University, received a Ph.D. from the College of Chemistry in 2005. John Novembre, a computational biologist and associate professor of human genetics at the University of Chicago, received a Ph.D. in 2006 while working with Montgomery Slatkin in the Department of Integrative Biology. Gary Cohen, a cofounder and president of Health Care Without Harm in Reston, Virginia, studied at UC Berkeley between 1983 and 1984.

“I hope that being a MacArthur Fellow helps me to connect with other people who are moving the needle in the world and this will help further the work I’m doing,” Awuah said.

Watch Awuah’s announcement video here: