imagiCal club members who will present at the finals: Jasmine Zheng, BS 24 (business), BA 24 (art practice); Claire Shao, BS 24 (business) BA 24 (media studies); Sydney Fessenden, BA 25 (global studies); and Anika Srivastava, BS 24 (business) BA (psychology)
The students, presenters for the 30-member Haas-sponsored imagiCal club, will compete against eight other teams in the finals June 3-4 in Nashville, Tenn. They will pitch a marketing campaign to promote the Meta Quest 2, a headset by virtual reality systems maker Meta Quest.
The presenters include Jasmine Zheng, BS 24 (business), BA 24 (art practice); Claire Shao, BS 24 (business) BA 24 (media studies); Sydney Fessenden, BA 25 (global studies); and Anika Srivastava, BS 24 (business) BA (psychology). ImagiCal is UC Berkeley’s official American Advertising Federation chapter.
This year’s team heads to the finals for the first time since 2016. According to Continuing Lecturer Judy Hopelain, imagiCal’s faculty adviser since 2013, “the team recommendations were based on a solid strategy, keen user insights, and creativity. The Meta Quest clients said their beautiful design and clever execution were key to the team’s success in this year’s competition.”
The students competed against teams from over 200 universities at the district and regional levels to make it to the finals. In Nashville, they’ll pitch to a panel of judges including brand and marketing leaders from Meta, and advertising, marketing, and communications professionals.
Members of the imagiCal club at Haas, which made it to the national finals for the first time since 2016.
Asked what sets the team apart, Zheng said it was about putting together a group of “the most eccentric, worldly, empathetic, creative individuals in a room together” and asking them to create a marketing campaign.”
“We’re telling a story,” she said. “We’re connecting with our audience. And we’re seeking to expand the capacity to be empathetic and creative at every step of the journey.”
This year’s competition will be the first time since the COVID-19 pandemic that teams will be presenting in front of a live audience, rather than a computer screen on Zoom. While nerves are understandably high, imagiCal’s philosophy is to “go big or go home,” Zheng said.
MBA students gather behind stage at the Greek Saturday before commencement. (Photo: Natasha Payes)
Exuberant grads tossed beach balls and danced salsa in the aisles of the Greek Theatre at Saturday’s commencement ceremony for the Berkeley Haas Full-time and Evening and Weekend MBA Class of 2022.
It was a moment of unfettered joy, as speakers rallied the graduates for the challenges ahead.
“The world right now has lots of huge unsolved problems—from political polarization to climate change to artificial general intelligence to augmented humanity to disease to inequality—so you have lots of big problems to choose from,” commencement speaker Jagdeep Singh, EWMBA 90, told about 600 graduates, who gathered under blue skies and sunshine. “Pick one that you have passion for, that you can’t help but want to spend all your time day and night on even if others think it’s too idealistic, too big, or too unsolvable. You’re Berkeley MBAs now. You don’t need to settle.”
Jagdeep Singh, EWMBA 90, speaks at MBA commencement. Photo: Jim Block
Dean Ann Harrison welcomed Singh, an entrepreneur who in 2010 co-founded battery technology company QuantumScape. She acknowledged how special it was to be together for the first in-person MBA commencement in two years.
“This felt like the best closure for a two-year process that has been life changing,” said Ignacio Solis, MBA 22, an international student from Chile.
Harrison praised the students for their resilience during their program, noting that those experiences will serve them well throughout their careers. “Because of who you are—your fierce intelligence and your deep understanding of the forces that drive business– you will have power,” she said. “Power is not always about how many people report to you or whether you have the CEO’s ear or whether you are the CEO. Power is the ability to make a difference—one day at a time; one project at a time; one function at a time.”
Evening & Weekend grads: “Pause and savor”
Noting how many life events happened for the EWMBA class during the program, Harrison said that 32% of the class was promoted, 41% of the students changed jobs, 13% got married, and 30 babies were born.
MBA students at the Greek Theatre. Photo: Natasha Payes
Evening & Weekend program student speaker Paulina Lee, a marketing director at Procter & Gamble, told graduates to stop and consider how much they’ve changed at Haas.
“What Haas has afforded us is the opportunity to redefine ourselves, to explore the edges of our comfort zone, and that’s why as we end this chapter and start our new paths to our own definitions of success we are faced with so many different emotions,” she said. “Joy, anxiety relief, excitement to move on to the next thing, get on with it, but perhaps we shouldn’t. At least not right away.”
Lee asked students to pause for a moment and savor, after spending the last three years on a sprint. “The first ask (from me) is to pause, really pause, and see the space that school used to take up and protect it,” she said. “Now that you have become the person you are today, reevaluate, sit down with yourself and honestly seek to understand who you have become.”
Full-time MBA: The opportunity to “fail and learn”
The 2022 full-time MBA class is the most diverse ever, Harrison told the graduates, including 39% women, 50% U.S. minorities, 8% veterans, and 10% first-generation college students.
“For two years we had the opportunity to try and fail and learn and try,” Kokei Otosi, MBA 22. Photo: Jim Block
Full-time MBA student speaker Kokei Otosi, who will join IBM as a senior consultant in August, opened her speech by thanking her classmates. She also expressed thanks for the time that the MBA program gave her to explore.
“What I know now is that the MBA is a sandbox,” said Otosi, a Bay Area native-turned-New Yorker whose parents are Nigerian immigrants. “When you leave you may still not know what you want to do, but for two years we had the opportunity to try and fail and learn and try. We may not get that kind of freedom again.”
Throughout the ceremony, speakers paid tribute to classmate Nadeem Farooqi, who died in fall 2020.
Otosi said the shock and grief the class experienced over his death was palpable. “Nadeem, we cannot believe you aren’t here with us celebrating today, but we haven’t forgotten you,” she said. “We miss you.”
Honors for both MBA programs
Dean Ann Harrison congratulates an MBA student. Photo: Jim Block
Harrison asked all students with GPAs in the top 10% of their classes to stand and be honored for their achievements.
Here are the EWMBA program honors:
Outstanding Academic Achievement Award: Laura Jacobson
Defining Leadership Principles awards:
Question the Status Quo: Eleanor Boli
Confidence Without Attitude: Cheick Diarra
Students Always: Steve Odell
Beyond Yourself: Nana Lei
The Berkeley Leader Award: Nana Lei and Frances Ho
Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, weekend MBA program: Ricardo Perez-Truglia, for macroeconomics
Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching, evening MBA program: Professor Max Aufhammer, for data and decisions
Cheit Award for Graduate Student Instructor: Kimberlyn George
Photo: Jim Block
FTMBA program honors:
Outstanding Academic Achievement Award: Jon Christopher Thompson
Question the Status Quo: Aliza Gazek
Confidence Without Attitude: Casey Dunajick-DeKnight
Students Always: Mathilde De La Calle
Beyond Yourself: Kevin Hu
Cheit Award for Graduate Student Instructor: Griffin Grail-Binghman
Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching: Associate Professor Ned Augenblick for Strategic Leadership
PhD commencement
Earlier this month, seven Phd candidates participated in a hooding ceremony.
PhD graduates, left to right: Alexey Sinyashin, Daniel Stein, Shoshana Jarvis, Kristin Donnelly, Łukasz Langer, Young Yoon, Petr Martynov
The PhD program at Haas stands out among all six academic programs, Harrison told the graduates. “It is our smallest, but it’s also the program nearest and dearest to the hearts of our faculty, all of whom are PhDs and are deeply committed to training the researchers and professors of the future,” she said. “This is a core part of my mission, and of all of our faculty’s mission.”
Graduating students included Kristin Donnelly, Shoshana Jarvis, Łukasz Langer, Petr Martynov, Alexey Sinyashin, Daniel Stein, and Young Yoon. The Cheit award for excellence in teaching in the PhD program went to Professor Panos Patatoukas of the Haas Accounting Group.
As the sun pushed through the morning fog today, the Berkeley Haas Undergraduate Class of 2022 was more than ready to celebrate four years of hard work, persistence, and overcoming unprecedented challenges.
“Class of 2022, congratulations, we did it,” student commencement speaker Saahil Shangle, BS 22, said as students, surrounded by a jubilant crowd of family and friends, cheered. “We just completed one of the best undergraduate business programs in the country.”
Dean Ann Harrison welcomed the graduates and wished them well on their new lives and careers. “The great skills you have mastered during your time at Berkeley go beyond those of a bachelor in business,” Harrison said. “In addition to accounting, marketing, strategy, sustainability, and entrepreneurship, you have learned how to persevere against the strongest headwinds, how to keep your spirits high when the world around you was struggling, and how to achieve your goals during a global pandemic.”
The Berkeley Haas Global Management Program graduated its first cohort this year. Photo: Jim Block
Most of the 475 undergraduate students who were eligible to graduate this year attended Monday’s ceremony. The 2022 class included several firsts: the first Global Management Program (GMP) cohort included 33 students, 10 who graduated a year or semester early. And the inaugural Robinson Life Science, Business, and Entrepreneurship Program (LSBE), a partnership with the Molecular Cell and Biology Major, graduated its first cohort of 10.Harrison also pointed out that more than half the class (51%) are women; 47% of the students earned a simultaneous degree in another college and major; and 17% of the students are first in their families to graduate from college.
Josue Vallecillo, BS 22, said his degree means everything to him. “My parents have worked so hard to make sure that I get to where I am and I know that I’ve had to sacrifice so much,” he said. “This degree is not just a culmination of four years but a lifetime of hard work and dedication.”
“How can I help others succeed?”
Commencement speaker Aaron McDaniel, BS 04, an entrepreneur, corporate leader, speaker, and author, recalled his days as a Haas student—with highlights including the $1 noodle deal on campus and the “coolest device that everyone wanted”: the Motorola Razr. “YouTube was a few months from being invented, and you folks were still in pre-school,” he said.
Aaron McDaniel, BS 04, undergraduate commencement speaker holding up a Motorola Razr. Photo: Noah Berger
McDanielurged students to be flexible in life, to never quit before considering every option, and to help others always. “Don’t ask yourself ‘How can I advance my career?’” said McDaniel, who teaches entrepreneurship at Haas. “Ask ‘How can I help others succeed?’”
A founding partner at Grow Scale, a commercial real estate private equity firm, McDaniel praised Barbara Felkins, director of academic affairs, Sojourner Blair, admissions director, and Dresden John, student experience manager, who are retiring from the Haas Undergraduate Office this year, for helping students succeed and for working together to keep Haas a top business school.
McDaniel told students to try to avoid choosing one thing or the other in life. “There’s a way to have or be both,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be nature or nurture, Coke or Pepsi….Failing and succeeding, profiting and positively impacting society. We don’t live in an either or world. We live in an “and” world.”
Berkeley Haas student athletes gather backstage before the commencement ceremony begins. Photo: Natasha Payes
“Do not delay happiness”
Shifting to a more serious tone, Anna Shim, BS 22, president of the Haas Business Student Association (HBSA), spoke poignantly of losing her 25-year-old brother, who died three months ago in his sleep. She shared what she learned while working through her grief.
“Do not delay happiness,” she said. “Life is short, so live every day like it’s your last.”
Chosen by his peers as the student speaker, Shangle reflected on how the people at Haas made his time special—from courtyard conversations they shared to Taco Tuesdays. “We are transfer (students), veterans, underrepresented minorities, international, first generation, athletes. We are leaders, creators, social media celebrities and everything in between,” he said. “Best of all, we’re a team.”
Shangle, who said his younger brother will be a UC Berkeley freshman this fall, also thanked the Haas faculty and staff. “We deeply appreciate all the time, passion, and knowledge you all share with us every single day.”
Dean Ann Harrison congratulates a Berkeley Haas undergraduate on stage at the Greek. Photo: Kim Girard
Honors at commencement
Those honored at undergraduate commencement include:
Department Citation (for most outstanding academic achievements): Josh Greenberg
Question the Status Quo: Vanshika Sapra
Confidence without Attitude: Jeena Chong
Students Always: Anna Katharina Giebel
Beyond Yourself: Anna Shim (GMP program)
Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching for the Undergraduate Program: Distinguished Teaching Fellow Richard Huntsinger
Outstanding Graduate School Instructor (GSI): Paige Wahoff
Haas Business Student Association President Anna Shim, BS 22. Photo courtesy of Anna Shim.
With graduation ahead Monday, we interviewed Haas Business School Association President Anna Shim, BS 22, about her experiences at Berkeley Haas and where she plans to go next.
Best memory from your time as an undergrad at Haas?
One of my best memories as a Haas undergrad was not related to recruiting, coffee chats, or classes, but a social event: 2018 Haas Winter Formal. I was extremely eager to meet fellow Haasies and attend this formal dance organized by Haas Business School Association (HBSA) at the SF Conservatory of Flowers. There was food, a dance floor, a photo booth, and more. My team and I organized a similar Haas spring formal this year, which was a fun way to celebrate the end of the semester!
Favorite place to get food around campus?
I’ve grown fond of many restaurants here during the past four years so it’s hard to choose. Some classics are Mezzo, Sliver, and Gypsy’s. Healthier options include Freshroll, Poke Parlor, and Berkeley Thai House. My favorites that are closer to downtown Berkeley are Imm Thai, Berkeley Social Club, and Marugame Udon.
What are you most proud of during your time here?
I am most proud of the myriad of experiences I had during my time at Berkeley and Haas. Whether it was studying abroad in London through the Global Management Program during fall semester of my freshman year, representing Haas in the National Diversity Case Competition at Indiana University, or serving as president of the Haas Business School Association, Haas has offered me many unique opportunities that I would not have otherwise.
What was the hardest challenge you had to overcome?
The most difficult challenge that I had to overcome and am still coping with is the sudden loss of my only brother (also a Cal alum) three months ago. I urgently went home in the middle of the semester to support my parents and am fortunately still graduating on time. Experiencing grief at a relatively young age has undoubtedly taught me many invaluable lessons, including gratitude, humility, and resilience.
Where will you live and work next?
I will be living in SoCal with my family and working as an M&A management consultant at PricewaterhouseCoopers in Los Angeles.
Kanyinsola Aibana and Danielle Dhillon, both MBA 22
Kanyinsola Aibana and Danielle Dhillon, both MBA 22, will travel to Germany and Poland this summer to participate in Fellowships at Auschwitz for the Study of Professional Ethics (FASPE), an intensive 12-day program for students studying business, journalism, law, medicine, or religion.
Fellows learn about the roles played by people in their professions in Nazi Germany, and explore the ethical issues facing those professions today. Daily seminars are led by specialized faculty who engage fellows in discussions and critical thinking about both the historical and the contemporary.
We interviewed both students about the fellowship.
What led you to apply to the FASPE Fellowship?
Kanyinsola: I applied to the FASPE Fellowship because it would allow me to go beyond my core Ethics course and explore practical ways to address ethical issues as a business leader. I was intrigued by the structure and setting of FASPE, which provides a unique opportunity to delve into topics in business ethics, both historical and contemporary, and a forum to engage and learn from fellows from different graduate programs to create a genuinely enriching and impactful experience. FASPE will serve as a great capstone to my MBA.
Danielle: I applied to the FASPE fellowship because I truly see it as a culmination of my educational journey. I’ve always enjoyed my ethics and philosophy classes in undergrad and here at Haas. In college I minored in German and had the chance to study parts of the German economy via my finance and international business major. Being part of the FASPE Business Fellows community will give me a community to share with and learn from as we examine the role of business and capitalism in making the world a better place through a lens of the harm that it once contributed to.
What do you hope to take away from the trip?
Kanyinsola: I hope to take away tools to help me resolve, avoid, or prepare for the nuanced ethical issues I will face as a business leader. In addition, I hope to leverage the multidisciplinary discussions and different perspectives of other fellows to examine and better understand the actions and complicity of business executives during Nazi Germany and other contexts to reinforce my professional responsibility to promote ethical and moral decision-making.
Danielle: I hope to take away a renewed sense of what business ethics can and should look like, particularly given the ambiguity created by context and time. I hope to walk away with a better understanding of how systemic evil can make it impossible to make the right choices, especially for businesses. But I also am eager to hear stories of businesses that did the right thing—because we don’t tend to focus on those or have good, accessible examples of what ethical business leadership looks like.
How does the fellowship align with your career goals?
Kanyinsola: I aspire to be a business leader in the sustainable food and agricultural space. I am driven by a desire to promote individual well-being by facilitating access to nutritious food products while minimizing the detrimental impact of large-scale food production on the climate and environment. While I hope to be an innovator in this arena, I anticipate tension will sometimes arise in balancing my ultimate mission with the fiscal responsibilities of running a business. I want to be a business leader who continuously reflects upon and confronts ethical issues in all aspects of my business operations. FASPE will provide a great foundation to accomplish this goal.
Danielle: I came to Haas to pivot to a career in impact investing, where I will be responsible for advising and structuring investments that have a double or triple bottom line. In July I’ll be joining the Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation where I’ll source, evaluate, and select early stage, high impact social entrepreneurs to support via the model of venture philanthropy. This fellowship will give me an additional lens to truly become a prudent impact investor because business isn’t inherently ethical or unethical: business will always have the ability to perpetuate good or harm. An ethical capital allocator needs to be able to dissect and understand the potential harms as well as see the bigger picture if they choose to go forward.
Graduates of the Berkeley Haas Full-time MBA classes of 2020 and 2021 reunited at Oakland’s Paramount Theatre last Friday for in-person commencement.
The graduates crossed the stage and celebrated with classmates, family, and friends in downtown Oakland and on campus. (The ceremony coincided with Haas’ MBA Conference and Reunion.) The in-person events followed separate virtual commencement ceremonies held in May 2020 & 2021.
Here are some highlights from Friday’s ceremony:
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Award winners for the full-time MBA class of 2020:
Academic Achievement Award: Brian Shain, the MBA student with the highest GPA.
Question the Status Quo: Evan Wright
Confidence without Attitude: Celeste Fa’ai’uaso
Students Always: Nina Ho
Beyond Yourself: Benny Johnson
Berkeley Leaders: Molly Zeins & Ezgi Karaagac
Haas Legacy Award: Santiago Freyria and Francesco Dipierro
Award winners for the full-time MBA class of 2021:
Achievement Award: Devan Courtois
Student always: José Ramón Avellana
Beyond yourself: Kendall Bills
Question the status quo: Fayzan Gowani
Confidence without attitude: Fede Pacheco
Cheit award for Graduate Student Instructor: Devan Courtois
(L-R) Alexander Sergian, Joseph Aharon, John Aquino, all MBA/MEng 22, worked on a business plan for the U.S. Department of Energy’s American-Made E-ROBOT competition as a capstone project in their program.
A group of Berkeley Haas MBA students helped build the business plan for an attic-retrofit system based around heat sensing drones and foam-spraying spider robots that took the top prize in the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) 2022 American-Made E-ROBOT competition.
Alexander Sergian, Joseph Aharon, John Aquino, all MBA/MEng 22, built the business plan for team RoboAttic/Thermadrone, along with Zixuan Chen, EWMBA 23, and Vincent Chang, MBA 22. The robotics project was led by Dr. Avideh Zakhor.
Dr. Zakhor led the team of about 35 people, including UC Berkeley students, professionals, and consultants, who developed the RoboAttic/Thermadrone technology. The three top winners in the multi-stage competition were announced April 7 by the DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). (Watch the robot in action in the video below)
Homes lose up to 20% of their heat and air conditioning due to poorly insulated roofs. Yet just 1% of building floorspace in the U.S. undergoes a meaningful retrofit each year due to the high cost and invasive nature of construction and renovation, according to Ram Narayanamurthy, a Program Manager in the Department of Energy’s Building Technologies Office.
Thermadrone’s software uses thermal drone camera images to diagnose and identify opportunities for attic insulation retrofits. Once attics in need of insulation are identified, Roboattic robots clean, air seal, and apply spray foam insulation to the building envelope. This enables construction workers to retrofit previously inaccessible attics with a PS4 controller. Finally, Thermadrone software provides quality assurance by measuring and verifying the retrofit was done properly.
An earlier round of the E-ROBOT Competition challenged participants to design and build robot prototypes that could be used to retrofit buildings to improve energy efficiency. For the second and final phase of the competition, 10 finalists were tasked with building viable business models for their respective startups.
Sergian, Aharon, and Aquino worked on the business plan for RoboAttic/Thermadrone for both the competition andas their capstone project, a required component of the MBA/MEng Program.
Their work included estimating the total market size, sales, marketing, channel partners, and go-to-market strategy. “As MBA/MEng students, we were brought on as folks who were not only technical enough to understand the technology, but also strategic enough to put together a compelling business vision,” Aharon said. “It’s an example of the sort of cross-disciplinary collaboration that we constantly see around UC Berkeley.”
To be successful, the team had to prove the energy consumption and cost reduction benefits as well as worker safety potential.
To be successful, the team had to prove the energy consumption and cost reduction benefits as well as worker safety potential.
“We were presented with an exciting technology,” said Sergian. “It was our challenge to figure out how to commercialize the product and make it a market success.”
Zixuan Chen, EWMBA 23, worked on the business plan with UC Berkeley Professor Avideh Zakhor.
The students said they applied lessons from their MBA coursework in research and development and finance to the project. They calculated a total market size for building envelope retrofits in the US at about $1.25 billion, estimating that contractors would be willing to invest about $10,000 per robot. The value of the robot is that it can access places in attics that are hazardous and foul for construction workers to crawl through, Aharon said.
Chen, who also worked on the project while in the evening & weekend MBA program, helped with marketing research, identifying potential user groups and conducting interviews with facility managers, utility companies, and government agencies.
“In the business plan stage, I worked with Avideh to identify critical cost components and revenue sources,” she said. She also developed profit and loss statements, cost performance models, and a manufacturing and scalability analysis.
The other competition winners included a semi-autonomous flying quadcopter air duct inspection drone and a robotic retrofit tool used for caulking, aerosol sealing, and foam insulating buildings.
MBA teams from top business school around the world competed in EGAL’s Investing in Inclusion Pitch.
MBA teams competed for top prizes at the 5th annual Investing in Inclusion Pitch Competition last Friday, pitching ideas to address issues of exclusion, marginalization, and belonging at the workplace and beyond.
The Berkeley Haas team, Firstly, pitched a virtual mentorship program that aims to help first-generation college students with on-campus recruitment and internship placement. The team tied for second place and won $5,000 in prize money.
Team members included Kevin Hu, Divya Vijapurapu, Elle Wisnicki, all MBA 22; Austin Long, MBA 23; Stacey Li, BA 15, and Leanne Do, BA 19 (both from UC Irvine).
Other winning teams included:
First place: Innerlytic Innerlytic offers an online assessment tool that helps people detect their inner-biases. The team included Jordan Rose, MBA 22, (Yale School of Management) and Vernae Rahman-Smith, MSW 20, (Howard University). The team won $8,000.
Second place: Firstly and Paraventures Paraventures provides outdoor excursions for people with disabilities. Team members included Yosuke Ochiai, Cassandra Christian, and Vincenzo Morla, all MBA 22, from IE Business School in Madrid, Spain. Firstly and Paraventures each won $5,000 in prize money.
Third place: Nema Nema is an AI and natural language processing (NLP) tool that aims to help businesses better understand and reach multicultural audiences. Team members included Mbere Monjok, Keyaira Lock Adewunmi, Braylong Gurnell, Carmen Del Valle, all MBA 23, from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. The team won $2,000 in prize money.
The competition truly embodies the Berkeley Haas Defining Leadership Principles, said Genevieve Smith, associate director of EGAL. “Our hope is that this competition will help move the needle forward in creating a more equitable society for all,” she said.
“Competitions like these are changing the way people are valued at work and how they show up at work,” said Ulili Onovakpuri, who served as one of the judges and is a partner at venture capital firm Kapor Capital. “Companies are beginning to prioritize diversity, equity, and inclusion issues and are changing organizational structures.”
Members of the winning team that competed at University of North Carolina’s Kenan-Flagler Business School on April 8-9 included Berkeley Haas student David Wang, BS 22, (Business & Chemical Engineering); Victor Li, BS 22, (Electrical Engineering & Computer Science), Carol Xie, BA 22, (Computer Science & Statistics); Allen Wang, BA 23, (Economics & Data Science); and Blair Wu, BA 24, (Economics & Biology).
A team of Berkeley Haas evening & weekend MBA students took third place, including Andrew Celin, John Eastman, Shenshen Hu, Terrence Tse, and Georgia Wright-Simmons, all EWMBA 22.
The Berkeley Haas EWMBA team, left to right: Georgia Wright-Simmons, John Eastman, Terrence Tse, Andrew Celin, and Shenshen Hu, all EWMBA 22.
“I’m blown away by these wins,” said Rhonda Shrader, executive director of the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Program (BHEP). Shrader, who accompanied the students, said she was pleased that VCIC returned as an in-person event this year.
More than 120 university and graduate school teams compete at VCIC. The competition has a two-fold mission: to make students VCs for the day and allow startups to jumpstart their fundraising. Since the competition’s inception in 1998, more than 800 founders have received 1,500 practice term sheets from student investment teams.
At the finals, the Berkeley undergraduates performed due diligence on three startups. After writing up term sheets, the team recommended a $5.25 million investment in agriculture technology startup Atira. Atira is developing an indoor system that promises to grow vegetables 40 percent faster without energy waste or pesticides.
“The business has a lot of potential,” said Wu, who took a gap semester off to work at a venture capital firm last year and met her teammates through Berkeley’s Association of Chinese Entrepreneurs (ACE). “They’d already acquired patents and had a strong team. Their product was solid and there’s strong market demand.”
The UC Berkeley undergraduate team at work during the competition.
David Wang, BS 22, said he believes that two key factors helped with the win: team dynamics and mentorship. “We purposely looked for folks with diverse functional and industry experience ranging from energy consulting to healthcare investment banking to tech entrepreneurship,” he said.
“We purposely looked for folks with diverse functional and industry experience ranging from energy consulting to healthcare investment banking to tech entrepreneurship.” —David Wang.
Wang also credited Haas MBA alumnus Elan Tye, a principal at JAZZ Venture Partners, and Matt Kirmayer, a partner at law firm Perkins Coie, for spending “countless hours preparing us for the competition…We could not have done it without them,” he said.
Shrader said the team “crushed” its partner meeting round, nailing both the startup valuation and the Q&A session.
“Everybody had a role and everybody spoke at the finals and you could see that their emphasis was on team work,” she said.”This team definitely had confidence without attitude.”
Helen Hatch, EWMBA 22, and Adjunct Professor Paul Jansen believe that every nonprofit organization could benefit from hiring a chief governance officer. So what’s holding them back?
We asked Hatch about why a chief governance officer is essential and how she’s helping with a plan to train the first class of chief governance officers through a pilot program sponsoredby the Center for Social Sector Leadership at Haas.
Berkeley Haas News: How did you get interested in the topic of improving nonprofit governance?
Helen Hatch: Good governance is integral to thesuccess or failure of nonprofit organizations. My interest in investigating nonprofit governance wastwofold. First, I work in development at a large nonprofit arts organization and wanted to understand the nuances of governance while exploring a solution to thechallenges that frequently face nonprofit boards, and second, I was excited by theopportunity to impact the entire nonprofit sector by providing an actionable way for boards toaddress common governance obstacles before they become major issues.
How did you and Paul Jansen decide to work together on this?
Nora Silver, adjunct professor and founder and faculty director for the Center for Social SectorLeadership, introduced me to Paul in August 2020 when he was developing a hypothesiscalled “Board Chair as Chief Governance Officer” and seeking a research partner. I sawa tremendous opportunity to learn from Paul, who has deep expertise in the nonprofit sectorand nonprofit boards, and was excited to immerse myself in a subject that was so relevant tomy professional field. Paul and I met virtually in September 2020 and have been workingtogether ever since.
Good governance is integral to thesuccess or failure of nonprofit organizations.
Adjunct Professor Paul Jansen, Business & Social Impact
What’s at stake when a nonprofit has poor governance, and can you provide a fewexamples of how it hurts an organization?
High-profile governance failures make headlines and come with real costs to nonprofits. For example, the Wounded Warrior Project was hit by allegations of “waste and unbridled spending” by leadership in 2016. The CEO and COO were fired, and total revenues fell from a peak in 2015 of $483M to $280M in 2017 and still have not returned to pre-crisis levels. In higher education, How USC Became the Most Scandal-Plagued Campus in Americadetails how the University of Southern California suffered from a “contagion of shaky oversight and money grabbing” with the cost of lawsuits expected to exceed $1 billion. Damage to reputation and the finances of nonprofits likewise transpired from oversight scandals at the United Way USA, Boy Scouts of America, and numerous private high schools and colleges around the country.
Governance failures, however, are not always so public or so headline grabbing. Still, the costs in terms of weaker strategies, underperformance against mission, donor hesitancy, ineffective advocacy, discouraged employees, and time spent managing potentially damaging revelations are just as real and go a long way to explain why some nonprofits successfully grow and increase their impact while others quietly fail.
Do any nonprofits have a CGO? Why should nonprofits appoint one?
No such position currently exists, but the experienced directors we spoke with agreed that an “independent, objective, organization-first mindset and willingness to ask hard, sometimes uncomfortable questions” constituted the essential skill set for this role.
And while the idea of “Board Chair as CGO” was the initial hypothesis of our research, we quickly realized that it would be more impactful for the board chair to have a trusted, governance-focused thought partner who was empowered to credibly raise and address issues when they happen. The CGO is proposed as a board leadership role that seeks to improve board effectiveness by sharpening compliance oversight and helping the board dedicate time to high-value organization leadership activities and mission fulfillment.
What’s next for the research?
We are now looking to test and refine the CGO concept through a pilot program sponsoredby the Center for Social Sector Leadership. We plan to train a class of CGOs, measure theimpact on board performance over time, and use the learnings to refine the CGO concept.We invite interested organizations to contact us at [email protected]and[email protected].
Graduates of the MFE Class of 2022. Photo: Jim Block.
Berkeley Haas Dean Ann Harrison urged the 79 Master of Financial Engineering (MFE) graduates at Friday’s commencement to “use their power wisely” as they are at the center of global change.
“Your work is at the heart–the very foundation–of business and governments around the world,” said Harrison who commended the MFE class of 2022 for completing one of the most rigorous financial engineering programs in the world.
“You are at the heart of the sea change in banking, the financial system, global supply chains, and so much more that is transforming our world.”
As parting words to graduates, Harrison encouraged them to lean into the Berkeley Haas Defining Leadership Principles whenever they’re at a crossroad and to never forget their 40,000-strong Haas family.
L-R: Commencement speaker Dr. Robert Litterman, Jim Gilliland, MFE 02, and Linda Kreiztman, executive director of MFE program. Photo: Jim Block.
Jacob Gallice, program director of the MFE program, praised the tight-knit class who successfully navigated their program–amid a global pandemic–for their perseverance and their desire to better themselves professionally and personally.
“If this year has taught you anything, it’s that life will throw many challenges at you. It’s up to you how you respond to those challenges,” Gallice said at the ceremony held in person at UC Berkeley’s International House.
“I hope you will take with you the tools, lessons, and skills which you have learned this past year to navigate your lives with the same prowess you’ve shown during your time at Berkeley.”
Commencement speaker Robert Litterman, founding partner of Kepos Capital, spoke to the importance of investing in oneself by developing strong social networks, finding work that will engage one’s talents, and exploring ways to give back to society.
“Take what you’ve learned here, think deliberately about your financial and social capital, and give back to society,” said Litterman. “You will be richly rewarded.”
Members of the MFE class of 2022. Photo: Jim Block.
The commencement ceremony also included a tribute video to Linda Kreitzman, executive director of the MFE program, who established the program 21 years ago; a keynote from Jim Gilliland, MFE 02, president and CEO of Leith Wheeler Investment Counsel; and speeches from student speakers Joseph Yang and Edward Huang who reminisced about their class gatherings, including trips to Napa and Lake Tahoe.
Members of the class of 2022 will go on to work at leading global financial firms, including Barclays, Blackstone, Morgan Stanley, PIMCO, Goldman Sachs, Citadel, and Credit Suisse.
And now for the awards…
Award winners at commencement included:
Valedictorian: Sarthak Sagar
Salutatorian: Pradeepta Das
Earl F. Cheit Teaching Award: Professor Eric Reiner
Haas Graduate Student Instructor Award: Nicolas Corthorn
Embodiment of All Four Defining Principles: Dmitry Silantyev
Alumni Award: Wen Luo, Morgan Kidd, Paul-Noel Digard, Atanas Vanchev, Peisen Ma
Morgan Stanley Applied Finance Project Prize: Krishna Goel, Apeksha Jain, Alec Madayan, Shrey Samdani, and Dmitry Silantyev for Using Option-Implied Correlations for Derivatives Pricing and Alpha Generation. Advisor: Professor Kevin Coldiron. (The award includes a $5,000 to be shared among all team members.)
New class arrives
Meanwhile, the MFE class of 2023–a total of 79 full-time and seven part-time students–began classes today. Students in the incoming class come from 17 countries, including the U.S., Chile, China, France, Malaysia, Morocco, India, Lebanon, and Switzerland. Women make up about a third of the class.
Kashish Juneja, BS 22, is opening Aura Tea shop in downtown San Francisco at the end of March.
Kashish Juneja, BS 22, is learning about running a business in real-time as she prepares to open startup Aura Tea’s first shop in downtown San Francisco on March 27. In between juggling a mid-term and going to class she’s taking calls from her contractor and interviewing for counter help at the shop that will serve boba tea with a twist: It’s sugar free, made with plant-based milks, and under 100 calories.
“It’s insane from the operational side,” said Juneja, whose first shop is strategically located on Spear Street across from Google and Databricks offices, where employees are starting to trickle back. “We need to make sure there’s a demand and that we’re making sure the product is good enough so that people will continue showing up.”
In many ways, Aura Tea has been a team effort from the start. Juneja recruited 22 interns from the UC Berkeley community who help with marketing, TikTok, and Instagram, where she’s drawn support from NFL players to local musicians. Students and Cal athlete ambassadors helped her host on-campus events that offer “boba for de-stressing”—and she recently held a pop-up on Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley, giving away Cal-themed boba tea drinks.
Aura’s new shop will open March 27 on Spear Street in San Francisco. Photo: Kashish Juneja.
Kaitlin Dang, BS 24, an intern who serves as business growth lead at Aura Tea, said her favorite Aura flavor is mango pineapple.
“Before I started working here I was an avid milk tea connoisseur, trying new places,” said Dang, who is in her second year of the Berkeley Haas Global Management Program. “My taste has changed from sweeter teas and now I drink a lot of fruit teas. Most fruit teas are very sweet and not refreshing. Aura tea has a refreshing taste.”
Solving her own problem
Juneja, who grew up in Cupertino, has always loved boba. “Our high school was boba central, with a boba shop across the street that was open during lunch every day,” she said. “I played tennis every day so it balanced out.”
Kaitlin Dang, a sophomore in the undergraduate Global Management Program at Haas, is Aura’s business growth lead.
Her boba addiction continued at Berkeley, but drinking those 500 extra boba calories without her usual tennis playing led to an unwanted 30-pound weight gain. Aura Tea, she said, was founded in part to solve her own problem.
The idea to start making healthier boba tea emerged during a Plant Futures course that she took with Will Rosenzweig, the faculty chair of the Center for Responsible Business at Haas who co-founded the Republic of Tea.
She’d already taken an entrepreneurship bootcamp and was interested in starting a company. Plant Futures, a collaboration between Berkeley Haas, Public Health, Engineering, Public Policy, and the Berkeley Food Institute, pushed her idea forward.
Throughout the pandemic, Juneja could be found crafting tea in her apartment, testing different oat, almond, and pea milks, which make her tea drinks vegan, and sweeteners, using fresh loose leaf green and black teas from the grocery store. (Boba pearls are naturally vegan, as they’re made of tapioca starch, which comes from cassava root.)
Juneja tested her teas on friends and classmates. In the early recipe days, she conducted a blind taste test: her milk tea against the Boba Guys’ tea and others. (Boba Guys was co-founded by Andrew Chau, MBA 11.) “We didn’t win but it was a good start,” she said. “Our taste was nowhere that it is now.”
It took time to get Berkeley-based impact investor David Jiang to take a chance on her venture, she said. Jiang’s wife’s father was a tea farmer in China, and they all shared an interest in tea. “There was a lot of making it and taking it back to them,” Juneja said. “I was taking what I learned in class and bringing them my tea and my pitch deck.”
I was taking what I learned in class and bringing them my tea and my pitch deck.
Valuable startup experience
The shop, which will take to-go orders online, will offer a combination of grab-and-go and fresh-brewed drinks with boba tea in flavors including strawberry, matcha, pineapple, and mango. Aura will offer coffee drinks, too, and a masala chai with infused with spices and CBD for relaxation. (Aura’s boba pearls are made by US Boba Company in nearby Hayward, Calif. Her tea is sweetened with Purecane, which she says she chose for its lack of an aftertaste.)
Students sample the tea on a campus rooftop last week during Aura Tea’s launch party.
Dang said she’s getting valuable experience working for Aura. “There’s a lot of creativity involved,” she said. “I have the space to try the things I want to try. We’re appealing to a certain wide demographic: corporate employees, health influencers, healthcare professionals, and foodies. I like to try things I’ve seen work in other industries, casting a wide net.”
Juneja, who will work in the shop part-time until graduation, said she’s grateful to her entire community of classmates, professors, and advisors for all of their help with Aura’s creation.
“When I wrote my essay to get into Haas I said I wanted to solve a problem,” she said. “My dream came true.”
Sneha Solanki, David Siap, and Adriana Penuela-Useche, all EWMBA 22, helped Berkeley Haas host a Feb. 23 Climate Tech Cocktails Happy Hour.
A crowd of more than 600 people—from engineers and investors to Bay Area startup founders and students passionate about the environment—bundled up in the Berkeley Haas courtyard on a recent chilly evening to network about climate tech.
“We hope the night helped inspire the cross-pollination of ideas beyond the MBA community,” said Adriana Penuela-Useche, EWMBA 22, who helped organize the Feb. 23 Climate Tech Cocktails Happy Hour with classmates Sneha Solanki and David Siap, also EWMBA 22. “Climate tech is a necessity for humanity and seeing so many people completely engaged and alive talking about climate encourages all of us to roll up our sleeves and act fast.”
Climate Tech Cocktails Happy Hours, founded by climate tech investor Matt Myers, have brought more than 1,200 people from the climate tech innovation community together across the country since its launch in summer 2021. “My hope is that the Climate Tech Cocktails platform can help inspire MBA students to create or work for climate tech startups to save humanity from itself,” said Myers, who produces a podcast of the same name.
A crowd of more than 600 people attended the Climate Tech Cocktails event in the Haas courtyard Feb. 23.
The night came together at Haas after Penuela-Useche, Solanki, and Siap reached out to Myers, who was looking for a venue to host his next event.
“Sneha, David, and I had been going to these in the Bay Area,” said Penuela-Useche, who recently left her job to focus on a career in venture capital funding for climate tech. “When Matt’s email went out asking for a venue, we jumped on board.”
Major climate tech investors, including Strawberry Creek Ventures, Fifty Years Ventures, Lowercarbon Capital, and Sapphire Ventures, co-sponsored the event.
Matt Caspari, MBA 06, is a managing partner at Strawberry Creek Ventures, a UC Berkeley alumni venture fund that invests in companies led by UC Berkeley alumni. “It was the largest in-person gathering I’ve been to in a couple of years and it was energizing to see so many people passionate about climate and sustainability,” he said.
“It was energizing to see so many people passionate about climate and sustainability,” said Matt Caspari, MBA 06 and managing partner with Strawberry Creek Ventures.
Holding the event at Berkeley Haas and having so many students, along with 20 startups, attend made the event special, said Caspari, who started climate-focused venture-backed company Aurora Biofuels while he was at Haas.
“Being back at Haas and seeing how much interest has grown in this sector made it significant for me,” he said. In 2006, venture creation was focused heavily around alternative fuels and solar, he said. “Today, every industry is being transformed—and that creates a much broader opportunity for startup creation for entrepreneurs interested in sustainability/climate.”
Penuela-Useche, Siap and Solanki enlisted the help of 15 MBA volunteers to help welcome and register attendees. Avni Kansara, director of student experience with the Berkeley Haas EWMBA program, helped with event logistics and Rhonda Shrader, executive director of the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Program, rounded up climate tech startups to attend.
Solanki, who like Penuela-Useche studied chemical engineering as an undergrad and is now interested in early-seed stage venture investing, couldn’t get a visa in time to attend the event, but said she was present “in spirit.” “I think it was amazing to have people standing in the middle of campus speaking from the heart about climate change,” she said.
Siap, a former intern in business and strategy at X, the moonshot factory, where he consulted on climate-related projects including direct air capture, e-fuels, and carbon offsets, said the event came together well. “There was a ton of organic interest from startups, VCs, and, most importantly, students,” he said. “I would love to see Haas use its position in the ecosystem and make this its own annual event.”
Winners of the UNC Real Estate Competition: (left to right) Alijah Talley and Vicky Li, both MBA 23, Timothy Werby, MBA/JD 22; and Santiago Recabarren, MBA 23.
A team of Berkeley Haas MBA students won the 2022 University of North Carolina Kenan-Flagler Business School Real Estate Development Challenge for a plan to transform part of an historic Washington D.C. neighborhood.
“It’s great to bring this home for Haas and for Berkeley,” said Timothy Werby, MBA/JD 22, whose teammates included Vicky Li, Alijah Talley, and Santiago Recabarren, all MBA 23. Haas last won the competition in 2011.
The UNC Real Estate Development Challenge,hosted annually by the Leonard W. Wood Center for Real Estate Studies at Kenan-Flagler, convened 12 teams from the country’s top MBA programs on February 18.
This year, the teams had to plan, design, model financials, and create an investor presentation for development of a 9.25-acre site in Washington D.C.’s Anacostia neighborhood, south of the U.S. Capitol Building. To be successful, plans had to incorporate “the highest level of sustainability, embrace the surrounding neighborhoods, and deliver attractive risk-adjusted returns to investors.”
Focused on the community
Split across four presentation rooms, each team presented to a group of local real estate experts in 20-minute rounds, followed by five minutes of questions from the judges. Four finalists were then selected to present again in front of all of the judges, UNC students, and other competitors.
The Haas team’s presentation was designed thematically around the Nacotchtank, or Anacostans, an Algonquian-speaking, indigenous people who lived along the southeast side of the Anacostia River. Their design included a circular plaza to host pop-up farmer’s markets, an outdoor event space to be called the Frederick Douglass Pavilion, a new neighborhood grocery store, renovated school space, and a jazz stage that could be used for outdoor block parties and community events.
The team also pushed to include new multi-family housing and additional community spaces in future phases, including 43% more affordable housing units than was required.
“We all had our superpower”
Recabarren said the team excelled in part because it covered the project’s central issues comprehensively.
“We decided to pay more attention to the conceptual aspects of the project, which we defined as the four core values of our development: honoring local culture, health and wellness, sustainability, equity and inclusion,” he said.
The team had just four days to develop the whole project. “We were very fortunate to have Tim, who had a lot of experience in these competitions,” Recabarren said. “He convinced us on where and how we should use our resources.”
Talley said the team’s power was in its diversity, which enabled team members to tap into each of their strengths.
“Each of my teammates have different professional backgrounds, varied levels of real estate experience, and different lived experiences,” he said. “I think that we all had our own superpower and something tangible to bring to the table.”
Finally, Li said that the team was highly motivated to “do what it takes to take home the grand prize.
Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management took second place while Rice University’s Business School and Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business tied for third place.
The shock and disbelief that rippled through the Haas community after Russia attacked Ukraine last week is turning into unity and action by the many students, faculty, staff, and alumni with deep connections to the region.
Fiodor Otero, MBA 23, shows his support for Ukraine at a rally at San Francisco’s City Hall last Thursday.
Today, the student-led European Business Club held a “Haas for Ukraine” forum for Ukrainian and Russian students to share their perspectives on the conflict. Others are launching fundraisers, and a faculty member has begun organizing a collective of fellow Ukrainian economists to brainstorm how to help the country both short- and long-term.
“We hope we can be of help, because the feeling of helplessness watching the situation unfold from afar has been among the worst parts of the emotional rollercoaster,” said Assistant Professor Anastassia Fedyk, who was born in the Ukraine and immigrated at age 10 when her mother Tatiana Fedyk, PhD 08, began her doctoral studies accounting at Berkeley Haas.
The violence is taking a huge emotional toll. Like many Ukrainians, Fedyk’s family has been preoccupied with checking in on their close family back home, some of whom are now leaving for Romania. Dima Okrimchuk, MBA 17, calls his parents in Kyiv every few hours to make sure they are okay, anxiously waiting to hear their voices.
“Watching live reports of my country torn apart by the Russians is just devastating,” he said in an interview from Lisbon. “This is something I will never forget.”
“We hope we can be of help, because the feeling of helplessness watching the situation unfold from afar has been among the worst parts of the emotional rollercoaster.” -Anastassia Fedyk, assistant professor of finance
A startup disrupted
Okrimchuk said he feels some guilt for leaving family and friends in Kyiv two weeks ago, relocating to Lisbon with his wife. But he said he’s now focused on raising funds for the Ukrainian army and spreading awareness of the conflict, while he continues work on his online game startup Organization.GG. He started the company while at Haas before moving back to Kyiv, where he recently received seed funding.
Dima Okrimchuk, MBA 17, (fourth from left) with his team of Organization.GG employees who left their Kyiv headquarters after the invasion.
Rhonda Shrader, executive director of the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Program, worked with Okrimchuk when his company placed third in the fall 2020 LAUNCH accelerator competition at Haas. Last year, Okrimchuk served as a mentor in a class that Shrader taught online for Ukranian entrepreneurs as part of GIST Innovates Ukraine, a U.S. State Department-sponsored program. Shrader taught students the Lean Startup methodology.
Having developed relationships with so many of the country’s entrepreneurs, Shrader says she is devastated by the Russian invasion. “I loved working with these students,” she said. “I’m in tears.”
Before deciding to leave Ukraine, Okrimchuk asked his Organization.GG team whether they planned to leave Kyiv as well. “Everyone else had their own plan on what to do,” he said. “Out of the five of us, one remained in Kyiv, and four headed for different parts of Ukraine. They took their cars or found cars and left. A lot of people were running out of gas and there were huge traffic jams.”
Okrimchuk said he’s unsure when or if he will be able to return. “I can only hope that this won’t last long and we find a diplomatic solution,” he said. “There can’t be winners in the war. At the end of the day Ukraine is not only fighting for its own independence, but for peace and stability globally. I urge everyone to put pressure on their governments to help Ukraine with financial, military and political support before it is not too late. We are fighting for you, too.”
“There can’t be winners in the war.” -Dima Okrimchuk, MBA 17
Lives left behind
Fiodor Otero, MBA 23, shows his support at the Haas for Ukraine event Monday. (Photo: Mary O’Connell)
Fiodor Otero joined a rally for Ukraine in San Francisco’s City Hall Plaza Thursday, which left his throat sore from shouting. A Russian classmate who supports Ukraine came along with him, moved to tears by the speeches.
“It’s been a roller coaster,” said Otero, MBA 23, whose mother is Ukrainian. He has an aunt and cousin living in Donetsk in Eastern Ukraine, where conflict between Russian separatists and Ukrainian government has continued since 2014. His voice cracks as he discusses the past week of worrying about his family as the Russian forces advance.
“For them, war has been a normal part of life for eight years,” he said. But now, on her way to the market, she’s noticing the bombing is getting closer and louder. At 68, she is now considering leaving the same apartment complex where she’s lived her entire life.
“I was talking to my cousin last night, asking what it was like for them,” said Otero, who grew up in his father’s native Panama. His aunt and 33-year-old cousin are now talking about fleeing to Panama, where his mother is living. “It’s just so hard. My aunt is saying she will be a refugee for the rest of her life. She’s going to leave their entire life behind.”
She now talks about giving away her things before she leaves, including her fine china and her nice glasses.“My cousin said something that struck my heart: ‘We’ve been saving these nice glasses and china to celebrate the good things in life, but those good things will never come,’ he said. ‘It’s time to start drinking from these every day before we leave.’ It’s so hard for me to emotionally process that.”
Global fears
Dimitry Livdan (Photo: Jim Block)
Dmitry Livdan, a Berkeley Haas associate professor of finance, grew up in Kharkiv in Eastern Ukraine before immigrating to the U.S. at age 24. He lost his mother to COVID last year, and wasn’t able to return to say goodbye. She was the last of his close family there.
He takes a dim view of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s prospects for success and hopes he will fail quickly. “I hope this is just for show, and he gets slapped in the face in two weeks,” he said of Putin.
With Russia’s wealthy elite losing billions already, he believes any support for Putin will erode quickly as the economic sanctions hit hard. Livdan says his big worry is that Putin’s invasion will embolden China to make a similar move. “I worry most about what this means for Taiwan,” he said.
Fedyk, a Berkeley Haas assistant professor of finance whose research focuses on behavioral biases and in individual and group decision-making,said her reaction on Wednesday night and Thursday morning was anger, panic, and “the understanding that the unimaginable had happened, and that things will never be quite the same again. I taught on autopilot while inwardly feeling like my world was coming apart and could not say a word about the situation in class lest I start crying.”
By the end of the week, Fedyk said, her emotions shifted to a mix of “pain, hope, determination, and of course pride in my compatriots. Like the entire world, I am inspired by the resistance of the Ukrainian people—but I am worried whether the newly mobilized global support will be enough.”
The stakes are high, she says, eight years into the conflict that has been simmering since Russia annexed Crimea in 2014. If Ukraine falls, “Putin would very likely not stop there, and there is a security risk to other parts of Europe; by contrast, if Ukraine succeeds in pushing off the aggression, it might have positive spillovers in Belarus and perhaps even in Russia.”
As an economist, she believes that “letting Putin win would effectively plunge Ukraine into the economic dark ages together with Russia. And if we succeed in fighting off the invasion, there will still be much work to do on reconstruction, but at least there will be something to reconstruct, and we will have global support.”
That’s why she is organizing with other Ukrainian economists at U.S. schools to brainstorm solutions both for the immediate term and in the months and years to come. At the same time, she is glued to the news alongside her parents and her grandmother, who has been visiting from Ukraine since September. She is also trying to parent her three-year-old son, who refers to Putin as “the bad guy,” and talks about throwing him into a prickly cactus bush.
“We have been trying to teach him to use his words rather than fighting, but it’s very hard when we are watching this unfold,” she said.
WIL Conference guests gather outside Chou Hall’s Spieker Forum. Photo taken March 16, 2019. (All guests provided proof of vaccination to attend conference.)
Increased family responsibilities and burnout are just a couple of outcomes brought on by the pandemic, pushing many women to reevaluate everything from relationships to family planning to work.
The 26th annual Women in Leadership Conference intends to carry that conversation forward and inspire attendees to redefine their professional and personal lives under this year’s theme “Re:set, Re:imagine, and Re:build.” The conference will be held March 5 in Chou Hall’s Spieker Forum, with optional programming on Friday, March 4.
“Coming to Haas was my way of reimagining what my life would be like,” said conference co-chair Clara Pomi who left her job as a project manager at fitness company ClassPass due to pandemic-related layoffs. “I could have found a new job, but the pandemic forced me to reevaluate everything, especially my career.”
Organized by the Women in Leadership club, the conference is one of the longest-running and most well-attended events at Berkeley Haas. It is expected to draw more than 300 students, alumni, faculty, scholars, and other professionals to campus.
Conference organizers include Pomi, Emily Shapiro, Danielle Dhillon, Camila Rico, Pooja Bag, Charlotte Harris, Neha Dutta, Katherine Willcox, Bailey Daum, Julie Warshaw, Tess Krasne and Lily Sahn, all MBA 22.
The one-and-a-half day event will begin with a Story Saloon, a homage to Story Salon, a Haas tradition in which students share their lived experiences through storytelling, on Friday evening.
Saturday’s events include a welcome address by Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer Élida Bautista followed by a discussion with Kim Malek, co-founder and CEO of Salt & Straw, led by Dean Harrison. Breakout sessions focused on negotiating salaries, entrepreneurship, and allyship are also planned. Vicky Tsai, founder of skincare line Tatcha will give closing remarks.
Other notable guests include Dr. Sahar Yousef, a Haas lecturer and cognitive neuroscientist; Michelle Kim, BS 11, political activist and founder of Awaken; Jordan Sale, MBA 19, founder of 81cents; Amy Fan, MBA/MPH 19, founder of Twentyeight Health; and Kellie McElhaney, executive director of the Center for Equity, Gender, and Leadership (EGAL).
Haas Voices is a first-person series that highlights the lived experiences of members of the Berkeley Haas community.
In honor of Black History Month, we spoke with Jordan Bell, MBA 23, an Oakland native who’s determined to rise to the C-suite and open doors for younger generations of Black youth interested in finance careers.
Bell is the community engagement officer for the Haas Black Business Student Association; a “manbassador” for the Women in Leadership Club; and a fellow of the Robert Toigo Foundation and the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management. He’s also one of 11 Finance Fellows at Berkeley Haas. This summer, he will work at Amazon as a senior product manager.
Tell us about your family and upbringing?
I was born and raised in East Oakland, California, the second oldest of three sons. My parents are college-educated, working-class people. They strongly believed in the value of getting a quality education as the way to change the future. They scraped every extra dollar they had to send my brothers and me to private schools. I went to St. Mary’s College High School in Berkeley, and after graduation, I went to Morehouse, a historically Black, all-male college in Atlanta, Georgia. To this day, I wouldn’t have gone anywhere other than Morehouse.
What led you to go to a historically Black college (HBCU)?
I wanted to go to a college outside of California where I could grow and learn more about being a Black man. I also wanted to study in a place where I was not a minority. For many Black people in the U.S., there’s this extra thought process that we go through whenever we leave our homes and enter public places. Things like, “Do I belong?” “Am I doing enough?” “Do I fit in?” “Am I assimilating into a society that is not really built for me?” All of these questions are burdensome. Studying at Morehouse alleviated that stress because almost every other person around me was an African American man. There is literally no place in America where an African American of any sex can see so many Black professionals in one setting other than at an HBCU.
Bell attended Morehouse College, a historically Black, all-male college in Atlanta. Pictured left, second student from the bottom.
I chose Morehouse specifically because it has an amazing history and legacy of producing Black leaders. I think about the alumni who came before me—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., actor Samuel L. Jackson, civil rights activist Julian Bond—and I think about all of the barriers they broke through to lay the groundwork for future generations of young Black men. They inspire me to be the greatest I can be. There’s no excuse but to be great.
What led you down a career in finance, and why did you choose Haas?
During sophomore year at Morehouse, I attended a speaker series featuring former CEO of Goldman Sachs Lloyd Blankfein. He spoke about how going to college and choosing a career in finance changed the trajectory of his life. His speech convinced me to explore the world of corporate finance and capital markets.
After college, I landed a full-time job at J.P.Morgan as a capital markets research analyst. There, I learned the importance of networking and honed my technical, presentation, and client-facing skills that are transferable to any industry. Two years later, I moved west to work at the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco as a financial regulator. I worked my way through the ranks from a junior to a senior examiner. After seven years, I was at a crossroads: Should I keep going down the financial regulator path, or should I go to business school? I chose the latter. Haas was one of the best decisions I ever made. I appreciate how collaborative Haas is. While business schools can feel very competitive or cutthroat, there’s a different kind of competition at Haas. We bring out the best in each other. We rise together is how I see it.
While business schools can feel very competitive or cutthroat, there’s a different kind of competition at Haas. We bring out the best in each other. We rise together is how I see it.
Bell with his grandmother and mother.
What does Black History Month mean to you?
Black History Month means recognizing the accomplishments and struggles of African Americans. It allows us to tell our own narrative on our own terms. Black people were brought and enslaved here. We didn’t come here voluntarily like other cultural groups. And yet, we survived and are thriving. Our collective stories make me feel so proud to be a Black man. I wouldn’t want to be anything other than a Black man. During the month, I celebrate by reading a story daily about a historical figure, or I talk to the elders in my family to soak up their wisdom, especially the Black women in my family. They’re the strongest people that I know and the structural glue of my family.
Our collective stories make me feel so proud to be a Black man. I wouldn’t want to be anything other than a Black man.
What are your goals, and what kind of legacy do you want to leave behind?
In the short term, I hope to become a senior product manager or fintech strategist. My long-term goal is to be in the C-suite. I want to be a chief executive officer for a technology or financial services company. I want little Black boys and girls to see that there are Black people performing at the highest levels in executive positions. I want to show them that it’s possible to occupy these spaces.
The winning Citadel Data Open Team: (from bottom left, clockwise) Dmitry Silantyev, MFE 22; Jennifer Kampe and David Buch, PhD students from Duke University; and undergraduate Julian LaNeve of Southern Methodist University (SMU).
The cross-school Team 13 won $100,000 for a data-led project that addressed how international trade impacts global plastic pollution. The group included Silantyev, MFE 22; David Buch and Jennifer Kampe, PhD students from Duke University; and undergraduate Julian LaNeve of Southern Methodist University (SMU).
The team presented their project at the end of the week-long global Data Open Championship sponsored by Citadel LLC and Citadel Securities in partnership with Correlation One last December.
Dmitry Silantyev, MFE 22
At the start of the competition, the team was given a dataset on international trade and asked to assess the impact that trade has on global plastic pollution. They were tasked with coming up with a hypothesis based on the data set.
The team’s winning question: “Should the world ban the global waste trade, and should the U.S. sign on to the Basel Convention, an international treaty designed to reduce the amount of waste shipped between countries?” Their work recommended an introduction of trade restrictions based on specialization in different types of plastic waste treatment to counter the global pollution crisis.
Silantyev said the team benefited from having complementary skills.
“David and Jennifer were the masterminds behind the statistical model we used,” he said. While LaNeve served as the data engineer “capable of testing any hypothesis about the data in minutes.” Silantyev provided case studies to support the team’s narrative.
To work on the project in person with all four team members, Silantyev and LaNeve flew to Durham, NC, renting an Airbnb and working 12-hour days. “While working together online has its benefits, nothing beats working together in person,” Silantyev said. “We could easily bounce ideas off each other.”
The global championship was the culmination of the year-long competition, where over 6,000 students from more than a dozen countries participated in nine regional events. Team 13 was invited to the championship after placing in the top 3 in the Europe Regional Datathon and the East Coast Datathon.
KwikKart, co-founded by Aaron Gyure, BS 20, and Sean Houlihan, BA 20, won first place at LAUNCH Demo Day.
Three Berkeley Haas startups nabbed top honors at Demo Day for LAUNCH, the University of California’s accelerator for early stage startups.
The event, organized by Haas and UC Berkeley students and sponsored by the Berkeley Haas Entrepreneurship Program (BHEP), was held online on Friday, Jan. 14.
KwikKart, a smart cart that allows customers to scan and purchase items from a smartphone while shopping, took first place; The Blue Box, an at-home urine test that can detect breast cancer, placed second; and PWR WMN, a women’s blazer company, nabbed third. Cleo, a THC and CBD gummy startup, won Audience Choice.
Eight out of the 14 teams that completed the three month accelerator program made it to the finals, where they pitched to VCs and angel investors. LAUNCH, now its 7th year as an accelerator, aims to transform early-stage startups into fundable companies.
Rhonda Shrader, executive director of BHEP, which oversees LAUNCH, said this fall’s cohort was exceptionally diverse, with eight underrepresented founders and 11 women founders. “Every year our cohorts get more diverse and reflect more diverse thinking around solving the world’s biggest challenges,” she said.
KwikKart, co-founded by Aaron Gyure, BS 20, and Sean Houlihan, BS 20 (electrical engineering and computer science), netted $25,000 in prize money; PWR WMN, led by two Texas A&M University grads and Ana Martinez, EWMBA 23, won $10,000; and Cleo, co-founded by Haas students Andrea Berrios and Spencer Perron, both MBA 22, landed $5,000 in prize money. The Blue Box, led by UC Irvine grad Judit Giro, won $15,000.
Each year, more than 200 startup teams, which must include one UC-affiliated member, apply for a coveted spot in the accelerator. During the program, teams get to test their products with customers, connect with industry experts, receive guidance from Haas mentors, and get the chance to pitch to investors on Demo Day.
LAUNCH has helped build more than 150 companies, including Haas’ first unicorn, Xendit, co-founded by Moses Lo, MBA 15. Lo, who joined Demo Day for a Q&A, spoke about his entrepreneurial successes and challenges.
LAUNCH Demo Day is now available to stream via YouTube.
