Record VC Hires In This Top B-School’s 2023 MBA Class

Will McKelvey, MBA 23 (right), met with 43 founders in five days on a cross-country trip to Berkeley in 2021 with his college roommate. McKelvey was planning on pursuing venture capital at Haas. He now works at VC fund Lerer Hippeau. UC-Berkeley photo

From Berkeley, California: Before Will McKelvey arrived to enroll in the full-time MBA program at Berkeley Haas in 2021, he and his college roommate drove cross-country to California. Along the way, McKelvey, who was planning a career in venture capital, met with as many startups as possible—a whopping 43 founders in five days. McKelvey, an Ohio native, even launched a blog sharing his impressions of venture opportunities from Dayton to Detroit to Chicago.

“You can’t dabble in VC,” McKelvey, MBA 23, who became interested in the economic power of startups while working for Democratic Congressman Ro Khanna for four years, said. “If you decide it’s your thing, go all in. It’s not a space for tourists.”

At Haas, McKelvey didn’t let up, interning at multiple venture firms and serving as co-president of the Haas VC Club. Now an investor at early-stage VC fund Lerer Hippeau, McKelvey is among a record number of 2023 Berkeley Haas MBA graduates working in the field of venture capital.

“VC is the second-biggest sector for finance jobs among our MBAs,” said William Rindfuss, a member of the Haas Professional Faculty who leads strategic programs for the finance faculty group and manages financial services recruiting at Haas. “Only investment banking drew more recent grads.”

Read more

The 2024 Outstanding Case Teacher Award goes to …

Euvin Naidoo, professor of practice for global accounting, risk and agility at Thunderbird School of Global Management, is the winner of the 2024 Outstanding Case Teacher Competition. Case Centre photo

From London: On the annual World Case Teaching Day, the Case Centre reveals Euvin Naidoo, distinguished professor of practice for global accounting, risk and agility at Thunderbird School of Global Management at Arizona State University, as the winner of the 2024 Outstanding Case Teacher Competition.

Euvin’s teaching at Thunderbird focuses on accounting, risk, board governance, agility, digital transformation and artificial intelligence. In January 2024, he launched Thunderbird’s inaugural program on artificial intelligence, “AI and the Future of Work.”

A firm believer in “learning by doing”, Euvin uses cutting edge digital tables to deliver a high-impact case experience for his programmes. Students work to engage in a case and synthesise information in real time and deliver insights as part of a “learn by walking around” philosophy, inspired by Peter Drucker.

Euvin regularly uses roleplay in his case teaching to simulate workplace and boardroom scenarios, with a focus on also having participants develop a skill set to ask the right questions. He is perfectly placed to do so, drawing on his experiences as former Managing Director and Partner for the Boston Consulting Group’s Banking and Public Sector Practices across Africa with a focus on innovation, digital transformation, agility, ESG, risk and controls.

Euvin is also Director of the Thunderbird Case Series. Researched and developed by faculty, the cases are used in Thunderbird degree programs and executive education environments to illustrate real-world global management occurrences, and initiate deep analysis and professor/student discussion of causes and solutions.

Read more

From left, Nikhil Khurana, Sarah Cohen, Nick Rojas, and Alex Reid are the student co-chairs for the ClimateCAP 2024 MBA Summit held at the Ross School of Business in Ann Arbor, Michigan February 9-10. Ross photos

Meet the Michigan Ross student co-chairs hosting ClimateCAP 2024

From Ann Arbor, Michigan: The ClimateCAP Initiative is a global partnership of more than 40 schools dedicated to preparing MBA students to take on the climate crisis challenges of today and tomorrow.

Each year, the ClimateCAP Initiative hosts a summit event that brings together students and business leaders from across the country and the world to discuss how climate change is impacting the global economy, as well as what actions businesses could take to mitigate risk and make meaningful change.

Michigan Ross will be hosting this year’s event, which was put together by a student planning team, three faculty advisors from the Erb Institute, and four student co-chairs leading the organizational effort.

Read more

DON’T MISS THE NO. 1 ONLINE MBA PROGRAM IN THE U.S. TURNS 25 THIS YEAR