This Is Our Story

Behind every great brand are stories that carry it from one generation to the next, the messages reflecting the era’s challenges and opportunities. 

With the world not just accelerating but at an inflection point, Haas engaged hundreds of community members in an eight-month strategic narrative project to articulate what makes Haas indispensable in these unprecedented times. 

The endeavor was of utmost importance. With declining numbers of college-age students projected to create an “enrollment cliff” beginning this year and lasting potentially for decades, Haas needs to differentiate its value proposition in a competitive business school landscape where the words “innovation,” “social impact,” and “leadership” and have become commonplace.

More than 500 students, faculty, alumni, employers, and staff shared their experiences and insights.  After this thorough and inclusive process, the following strategic narrative emerged. It guides how we tell Haas’ story, laying claim to our legacy of reimagining business: 

The messaging acknowledges the global scale of the problems Haasies tackle while illustrating the school’s essential role in reshaping future leaders to address AI’s disruption of business. At Haas, human capabilities are a competitive advantage, not obsolete skills—a sentiment that addresses Gen Z’s anxiety about AI replacing jobs by positioning our graduates as AI’s strategic directors, not its replacements. Enhanced by technology but rooted in our values, Haasies can uncover bold solutions—what we call “the human edge of innovation.” Over the coming months, this messaging will come to life in the school’s digital and social storytelling and beyond.

Four brand pillars create a comprehensive framework for our brand essence that competitors can’t easily replicate: 

Path-Bending Leaders: Haasies are a diverse community of leaders who challenge assumptions, reframe problems, and create entirely new possibilities, proactively building the next industries, ideas, and institutions that serve markets and society. We are not leaders who just adapt to change. We are leaders who anticipate change, bending the paths on our journeys, creating what never existed before. 

Innovation Ecosystem: Haas is where the entrepreneurial spirit converges with Berkeley’s public mission and excellence, the Bay Area’s innovation engine, and the West Coast’s spirit of possibility and its gateway to global perspectives. 

All-Encompassing Rigor: Academic excellence and analytical rigor are the foundation of a Berkeley Haas education. Our Defining Leadership Principles guide us, holding us to a higher standard that couples integrity with intellect. These critical-thinking skills last a lifetime, guiding decisions throughout careers, no matter how business and technology change markets and industries. 

Exponential Impact: Our community’s collective impact is exponentially greater than the impact of any one of us alone. Haasies show up for one another, which is core to the power of this global network for life. That power multiplies through our connection to UC Berkeley. 

As with any authentic brand, none of this should sound new. Haas has a 127-year history of questioning the status quo. We are, after all, the only leading business school founded by a woman, the first founded at a public university, and the second oldest in the U.S. 

Indeed, the Defining Leadership Principles—Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself—will continue to underpin Haas messaging as they convey our school’s core values and character, providing a unifying framework for how Haas leadership is practiced. In fact, research reveals that the DLPs are a determining factor for many students choosing Haas over other schools.

Dean Jenny Chatman, PhD 88, supports finding fresh ways to tell the Haas story while honoring our foundations. “Brand is the other side of culture,” she says. “This brand positioning dials up the importance of being innovators who lead strategically, purposefully, and with lasting impact.”

Community Endeavor

The eight-month strategic narrative effort, led by Chief Marketing Officer Joey Schmit, became one of the most comprehensive stakeholder engagement processes in the school’s branding history. In all, more than 500 Haas and UC Berkeley community members provided input, including in-depth interviews with more than 130 students, faculty, staff, alumni, employers, and leadership. This qualitative feedback was paired with robust quantitative data via surveys of alumni and students and analyses of competitors and media sentiment.

Together, a core team of leaders and subject-matter experts modeled the project’s discovery phase on the successful codification of Haas’ Defining Leadership Principles 15 years ago, a collaborative effort that sought extensive community input and became the cultural backbone of the school. 

“The DLPs served as both case study and inspiration for this project, showing how community-driven brand development can create lasting impact,” Schmit says. 

Since students are the core audience for this brand refresh, members of every degree program provided continual feedback during the project and were instrumental in shaping the messaging so it felt true to them. 

“Stories are how humans think,” Schmit says. “When someone considers Haas, they’re not just evaluating rankings and statistics. They’re asking themselves: ‘What’s the story I’ll be part of here? Who will I become?’ That’s why this couldn’t be a top-down approach. We needed to listen to hundreds of voices until the true narrative emerged.”

Professor Emeritus David Aaker, considered the father of modern branding, was one of those voices. His influential work on brand equity and brand portfolio strategy provided a foundation for the project. “Branding has a lot of components, and you’ve got to make those work together,” Aaker says. He consulted with the team during the project, and his insights drove them to arrive at unified, distinct messaging that was uniquely Haas—and could be adapted across different degree programs

Additionally, a group of Haas community members offered their insights, including Frank Cooper III, BS 86, the CMO of Visa; professional faculty member Janet Brady, BS 74, MBA 76, the former CMO and CHRO of The Clorox Company; Ute Frey, former Haas CMO; and Bill Pearce, the former CMO of Haas, Del Monte, and Taco Bell.

Schmit says the goal of the project was to shift the perception of Haas from underestimated to unmistakable—starting with a brand anthem video that captures the energy and spirit of Haas. “This is an opportunity to elevate our story and visual expression to speak to a new generation of students and alumni,” he says. The video serves as a rousing call to action to a new generation of future business students to become the Haas leaders society needs.

“Every touchpoint we have with students, alumni, and employers is an opportunity to tell our story in distinctive, memorable ways,” Schmit says. “We hope this narrative focus inspires our alumni and makes them proud.”

Anatomy of the Haas brand refresh

The challenge

Haas programs are highly rated, but research of prospective and current students revealed that Haas was in “the muddy middle”—known for similar brand associations as top competitors but lacking a distinctive edge. 

Data shows that most MBA prospects apply to only the three to five programs in their initial consideration set, making early brand presence and clear value proposition crucial. Additionally, AI has transformed career paths, reshaping how candidates evaluate educational investment.

Discovery phase

Quantitative data and anecdotal insights from stakeholders representing the entire Haas community helped guide the refreshed brand.

Our research showed that both prospective students and employers increasingly prioritize strategic thinking, problem-solving abilities, and AI fluency paired with business judgment—skills that align directly with Haas’ strengths.

One common theme among students, faculty, alumni, and staff is that Haas is a place that they intentionally sought out because it’s one of the few business schools where there’s a deep cultural belief that humanity (empathy, authenticity, humility, curiosity, compassion, and companionship) is not a “soft skill” but a form of rigor and a core advantage in our evolving world.

Our Refreshed Branding

A narrative and visual identity that emphasizes movement, action, and the humanity needed at the cutting edge of innovation sets Haas apart from peer schools and elevates our reputation across diverse audiences.