Diversity Equity Inclusion (DEI) | Page 4 of 6 | Haas News

Haas to publish “playbook” to support dual-career couples

January 11, 2020| by Kim Girard

Though women now make up 47% of the workforce and hold over half of management, professional, and related occupations, companies are still struggling to support the needs of dual-career couples.

Enter the Supporting Dual Career Couples: An Equity Fluent Leadership Playbook, launching Jan. 16. It’s the first in a series of guides — dubbed “playbooks”— developed by the Center for Equity, Gender & Leadership (EGAL) at Haas.

From more flex-time to paid parental leave for all employees, the guide offers strategies and tools for organizations struggling to create a workplace that better supports dual-career couples. “Diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace isn’t a one-size-fits-all solution, which is where the playbook can help,” said Kellie McElhaney, EGAL’s founding director. “We can’t assume that what works for a white woman works for a black woman or what works for a straight woman works for a transgender man. We’ve designed every play to be different based on the myriad of diverse lived experiences.”

An outdated workplace structure

Genevieve Macfarlane Smith, EGAL’s Associate Director, who developed the playbook with coauthor Ishita Rustagi of EGAL, prototyped it with the help of Gap Inc., Zendesk, and the Boston Consulting Group. She said the current workplace structure is outdated. “Though about 62 percent of full-time employees in the U.S. have a partner working full-time, workplaces are built for a traditional heterosexual couple with one partner (often assumed to be a man) who supports the family financially and another partner (often assumed to be a woman) who stays home to support unpaid care and household needs.”

Genevieve Smith coauthored the playbook with Ishita Rustagi of EGAL.

The playbook offers seven evidence-backed actions — which Smith and Rustagi call “plays” — that employers can implement. Each play includes the steps to put it into action, as well as the business benefits and methods for measuring success. Plays also include mini-cases from company leaders such as IKEA, Patagonia, Boston Consulting Group, and Gap Inc.

IKEA, for example, offers 16 weeks of paid parental leave to adoptive and foster parents as well as birth parents at the company’s U.S.-based locations. The company makes paid leave available to all workers, not just top-tier, salaried, and/or full-time workers. Patagonia provides employer-sponsored onsite childcare at its headquarters in Ventura, California, and at its distribution center in Reno, Nevada, with the capacity to serve over 250 children between the ages of three months to kindergarten. Patagonia reports that 99% of working mothers return to work after maternity leave.

More satisfied workers

Boston Consulting Group (BCG) launched a program in 2004 called PTO (predictability, teaming, and open communication), which is now a global initiative across 900 BCG teams in 30 countries. Under PTO, consulting teams set terms for working remotely and meeting etiquette (e.g., no meetings before 8 am), and set expectations for being accessible online.

Since launching PTO, BCG has seen improvements in personal satisfaction and project performance. Teams that embraced PTO were more likely to be efficient than those that did not (75% vs. 42%) and individuals on those teams were more satisfied with their work/life balance (62% vs. 38%) and more likely to imagine themselves at BCG for the long term (69% vs. 40%).

Abby Davisson, a senior director at the Gap Foundation who founded Gap Parents—an employee resource group at Gap Inc.— in 2019, said she met with McElhaney when she was planning to start the group, which now has nearly 400 members. Gap Inc., where 70% of employees are women, already had a very family-friendly culture, she said, but Gap Parents has brought people even closer together—with even employees who are just starting to think about having children joining.

“A lot of parents were reinventing the wheel with figuring out how to get childcare or how to take advantage of their family leave, and now they have a formal community where they can connect and share tricks and hacks,” she said. Sign up to receive the playbook when it goes live.

Q&A with new MBAA President Geoffrey Easterling

January 10, 2020| by Natasha Payés

Geoffrey Easterling, pictured center, was a U.S. Army Assistant Squadron Operations Officer.

Geoffrey Easterling, MBA 21, a U.S. Army veteran who served in Afghanistan before coming to Haas, is taking on a new role here as the newly-elected president of the MBA Association (MBAA), the full-time MBA student government body. We talked to Easterling about his upbringing, military service, and his plans as MBAA president.

Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Columbia, MD, outside of Baltimore. At the time, it was America’s first planned community. It was very utopian in a way. Everything was very egalitarian. For example, no schools could have lights at their football stadiums or new books until all 12 schools could afford them. There was purposely low-income housing developments built next to million-dollar houses. It was just a very different way of seeing the world. That was something that I was always very proud of and gives me hope that everyone in world can work well together. However, I didn’t realize at the time that that wasn’t how the rest of the world worked.

I went to West Point for my undergraduate studies. I wanted to play football and it was the only football school that recruited me so that’s where I was going. I loved West Point. I met people from all over the world. I travelled a lot and I think I gained a greater understanding and respect for what it takes to make this whole country and planet tick.

What was it like serving in the military?

I came straight from West Point to my first unit in Fort Hood, Texas. Three months later, I was deployed to Afghanistan. I was a fire direction officer and counterfire officer, which are two jobs relating to rockets, bombs, and artillery. I learned about myself and leading others and having a little grace and patience. You don’t realize how good you have it in America and how different things could’ve gone until you take the time to meet with an Afghan local. That was an experience I needed to have.

Did you always want to go to business school?

I didn’t always know that I wanted to go to business school. I found Haas because my former boss, Kendrick Vaughn, MBA 16, went to Haas. I always had the utmost respect for him. He was the kind and smart leader that I wanted to be. If this [Haas] business program can help me become half as smart and talented as he is, then I will have made the right decision.

What drew you to Haas?

At the end of the day, I wanted to be around the kind of people whom I’d met at Haas. The other big draw was as a veteran coming from diversity. I appreciated the fact that Haas was very upfront in saying, ‘Hey, there’s a diversity problem here and we’re trying to fix it.’ I like that people owned up to it and that they had a clear and articulate plan that seemed to be working to improve the number of veterans, to improve the number of women, to improve the number of African Americans.

What would you like to accomplish as MBAA president?

One, the main goal so far is to really celebrate the culture of Haas.

Two, taking the next step in diversity and inclusion. There are plenty of ways to change what it means to be inclusive, but what I’m going to focus most on is making sure our entire community feels included. Also, I want to make sure we engage with Haasies from all six degree programs.

Three, I plan on working with as many faculty and staff members as possible to make sure that we’re in tune with their goals for the school. I hope to speak with the dean, DEI officer, and other key leaders. I’ve already been in conversation with some program officers, but there are 12 people on our board, so there’s plenty of conversation to go around.

Where can people find you on campus?

I’m usually in the MBAA lounge at Haas or the stadium gym. I’m back and forth between those places.

What are you most excited about this year?

I’m unbelievably excited to work with my board members. I have the most amazing board. I think they represent the best of our school, which is already an amazing group of people. Our board spans the entire gamut. We have people from across the United States, Asia, South America, men, women, Latinx, black. I think that the Haas community is well represented and we’re proud of that representation. We look forward to serving our Haas family.

Alex Lopez, EMBA 20: Honored after serving in Benghazi, fighting for banking equity

September 30, 2019| by Kim Girard

Alex (second from right) with a group of Marines at the US Navy vs Notre Dame Game in Dublin, Ireland in September 2012. — *Alex Lopez (second from right) with fellow Marines at the US Navy vs Notre Dame Game in Dublin, Ireland, in September 2012*

In honor of Latinx Heritage Month, we’re featuring interviews with members of our Latinx community.

After the attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi that killed four Americans in 2012, U.S. Marine Sgt. Alex Lopez, EMBA 20, was deployed to Libya, where he led a team that provided support to the U.S. Embassy as Americans were evacuated.

*Outside of work and class, Alex Lopez, EMBA 20, a vice president at U.S. Bank, teaches financial literacy to ESL students in Nevada.*

Now a student in the Berkeley Executive MBA program and a vice president at the U.S. Bank in Las Vegas, Lopez has post-graduation plans to continue assisting people from Latinx backgrounds with financial literacy.

We talked to Lopez, who was born in Chihuahua, Mexico, about his time in the Marine Corps, and his new project to promote financial literacy in schools.

Where did you grow up?

I was a teenager when I came to the U.S. with my dad. I came to Las Vegas in 2006. After I graduated high school, I joined the Marines. I wanted to change the world….That was important to me. My siblings were in the Navy and Army so I decided to enlist in the Marines, and spent five years serving.

Tell me about your role as a Marine after the attacks in Benghazi, Libya.

Right after American Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was killed on Sept. 11, 2012, our company received the call to deploy as part of Operation Jukebox Lotus. We were a hand-selected group, assisting the Department of State with evacuation, protecting people and assets at a time of extreme diplomatic sensitivity. Four Americans lost their lives during the Benghazi attacks.

Our small military company had limited knowledge and experience, since none of us had operated in Libya before. I learned that in the presence of chaos, I had to take the initiative to complete every task to the best of my ability, whether it was high priority or something seemingly unimportant. I’m confident that during those extreme times of uncertainty that the Marine Corps’ leadership principles were critical to preserving the integrity of my Marines. When we returned, our company was recognized with the Meritorious Honor Award by the Department of the State.

Alex on board the USS Fort Henry as part of the Marine Corps Ground Combat Element in August 2012 — *Lopez on board the USS Fort McHenry in August 2012*

Did you always want to go to business school?

I moved to the U.S. to pursue an education. Business school was always attractive to me, but I never knew what I wanted to do in business. I was involved in college in leadership positions and by the time I graduated from college I had several offers from banks, and so I started my career in finance. One of the reasons why I decided to come to Berkeley for an MBA is because Haas truly embodies diversity and inclusiveness across the board. Learning from a diverse executive MBA class is enriching and furthering my capacity to innovate and go beyond my own possibilities.

Why did you choose to study finance?

My grandmother owned a restaurant. I grew up watching her and my family manage it. One thing that made a big impact is how basic financial literacy concepts could have helped the family-owned business to flourish in a more efficient way. In Mexico, I noticed a big disconnect between small businesses and banks. There’s a lack of financial literacy in Mexico that stops people from getting the help they need. This is true in the U.S., too.

*Lopez (age 3 in photo) immigrated to America from Mexico at age 13 with his father.*

You are already working on fixing this in your community?

Outside of work, I’m working on a project with a couple of friends from college. We go to community schools in Clark County, Nevada, that offer English as a Second Language (ESL) classes and provide a 30-45 minute workshop that focuses on basic finance topics like compound interest, retirement plans, home mortgages, personal and business loans, and credit cards. We’ve received extremely positive feedback so we hope to take the next step on this project and provide a more efficient way to increase financial literacy within the Latinx community.

What aspect of your cultural heritage do you enjoy most?

Food. Mexican dishes are very popular worldwide—tacos, burritos, enchiladas, and tamales. I love that in every part of the U.S. or the world I visit I can always count on Mexican food to be there. Our traditional food and culture is well-known worldwide, and I love to be able to eat tacos pretty much anywhere.

Brenda Illescas’ passion for radio and her Guatemalan heritage

September 16, 2019| by Alyssa Fong

In honor of Latinx Heritage Month, we’re featuring interviews with and profiles of members of our Latinx community. For this interview, we caught up with Brenda Illescas, a senior associate and data analyst in Development & Alumni Relations at Haas.

On most Tuesday evenings, you’ll find Brenda Illescas at the microphone at KPFA’s Berkeley studio, co-hosting a weekly radio show called “La Raza Chronicles/Cronicas de la Raza.”

Illescas focuses on public affairs in the Bay Area Latinx community and beyond, sharing music between interviews, too. “We interview all types of people—poets, painters, activists, community organizers, and musicians, and promote events happening in the Bay Area,” says Illescas, whose parents were born in Guatemala, and raised her in Los Angeles.

Illescas, who has been on-air at KPFA for more than four years, got involved because a friend of a friend was searching for a co-host, and she’d wanted to return to radio since her college days.

We asked Illescas about her radio show, her family’s history in Guatemala, and her passion for music.

How did you get involved with radio shows for the Latinx community?

I started doing radio shows as an undergrad at KDVS, the UC Davis campus station. My show was called Sin Fronteras Without Borders, and aired weekly for over five years. I played music and interviewed bands and musicians across the Latinx diaspora . My husband and I met at the station when we were both juniors and immediately connected over our passion for music of all genres. Our vinyl collection consists mostly of Latin, African, jazz, soul, electronic, and hip hop. Together we have about 1,500 records and always jump at an opportunity to dig for more.

Brenda Illescas with her husband and daughter — *Brenda, a senior associate and data analyst in Development & Alumni Relations at Haas, with her husband, Dave Severy, and daughter, Camila.*

Tell us a bit about your Latinx heritage?

Both my parents were born in Guatemala on opposite sides of the country. When my mom was in her teens, she worked in my grandmother’s tortilla shop in Guatemala City, where she met my dad. He was serving in the military, and would regularly come into the store not just to eat, but to see my mom. As the violence of the civil war escalated in the 80s, they decided to leave everything behind in search of a better life. They migrated to America, settling in Los Angeles, and started their family. My grandparents were all born in Guatemala, and some of my great-grandparents were born in Spain, which is the origin of my last names, Illescas, and Aragon. I still have immediate and extended family who live in Guatemala. I love to visit my parents’ homeland, seeing all the places they grew up going to, and eating all the yummy dishes from my culture.

Brenda at age two with her parents. — *Two-year-old Brenda, who grew up in LA, at a house party with her parents, Luis Illescas and Ana Barrios.*

How do you believe that your heritage shapes your cultural values?

My cultural values stem from my family being really close. Family comes first, period. Pretty much all of my aunts and uncles moved to LA and had kids, so I have over 30 immediate cousins and many more second cousins. My parents were the first among their siblings to buy a house, so we always hosted everyone for the holidays and cooked lots of food together. I also spent lots of weekends going to birthdays, baptisms, quinceañeras, weddings, graduations, and other reunions. My parents still visit their extended families in Guatemala once a year, and have instilled in me the importance of staying connected to family.

Brenda with her husband and son at the beach. — *Brenda (holding two-year-old Camila) met her husband, Dave Severy, at their college radio station at UC Davis.*

Is there an aspect of your cultural heritage that you enjoy sharing with others?

People know that I love anything related to food…talking, eating, cooking, etc. My mom is known as the best cook in our extended family. She can cook anything. She loves cooking for anyone who comes to our house—she’s one of those moms who keeps feeding you and feeding you even when you’re full. You just can’t get enough of her food. I remember my friends in middle school would make requests for my mom’s sandwiches every week.

Also music! We would always play music, dance, and sing at parties. My family really encouraged me to listen to their records and CDs, and fostered my passion for seeing live music and hosting radio shows. One of my favorite photos was when I was two years old playing with my dad’s old record player and his 1960s/70s rock and oldies collection. LA is such a nexus for Latinx music and culture, and I was fortunate to be exposed to so much of it growing up and still today when I visit.

Brenda as a baby playing some tunes on her parents' stereo — *Brenda at age three in her parents’ LA apartment, where she loved playing oldies and rock albums on her dad’s record player.*

New Berkeley Haas artificial intelligence initiative to focus on inclusivity

September 17, 2019| by Kim Girard

Well into Beena Ammanath’s career as a leader for data science teams in artificial intelligence, she often found herself the only woman at the table.

“As I set up AI teams, there were never enough women,” said Ammanath, who is co-president of the new Alliance for Inclusive Artificial Intelligence (AIAI), launched this month by the Fisher Center for Business Analytics at Haas. “I couldn’t hire them and I couldn’t find them, and it became really obvious that we did not have enough women or underrepresented minorities. I knew that AI wouldn’t be as robust or safe if you didn’t have them involved in this process, where we’re encoding human intelligence and human bias.”

Gauthier Vasseur and Beena Ammanath, founders of the AIAI initiative with Haas — Beena Ammanath, who was honored as Businesswoman of the Year at last year’s Fisher Center for Business Analytics summit, and Gauthier Vasseur, the executive director of the Fisher Center for Business Analytics, are leading the new AIAI initiative at Berkeley Haas. Photo: Jim Block

To help solve the problem, Ammanath, a managing director at Deloitte and founder of the nonprofit Humans for AI, joined Gauthier Vasseur, the executive director of the Fisher Center for Business Analytics, to launch the new AIAI initiative at Berkeley Haas.

The alliance is focused on building a more inclusive future for women and underrepresented minorities in AI.

Plans include fundraising for scholarships and educational activities around AI and analytics; new programs that promote awareness of AI and inclusion; plans to host conferences on AI and analytics; new courses and access to learning within AI research projects; professional training and coaching and career support; and support for internships, job placement, and ongoing mentoring from AI experts.

“AI is the future and it has the potential to profoundly transform the work that people will do,” said Assoc. Prof. Zsolt Katona, faculty director for the Fisher Center for Business Analytics, which is part of the Institute for Business Innovation (IBI). “Haas plays a unique role within the Berkeley artificial intelligence ecosystem, with its focus on educating the next generation of business managers and leaders. With the sweeping changes that AI will bring, it’s critical that everybody has the opportunity to weigh in on how AI is used and who uses it, not just one group.”

*“AI…has the potential to profoundly transform the work that people will do.” – Assoc. Prof. Zsolt Katona.*

Associate Adjunct Prof. Thomas Y. Lee, the Fisher Center’s director of data science, notes that Haas’ comparative advantage is not in building better algorithms. By training leaders, Haas will influence how AIs are trained and how they are applied to benefit society. “This is about how you encourage people to get involved, how you think about collecting the data, how you train systems, and how you evaluate impact,” he said. “As this world evolves and matures, there are a lot more ways to be inclusive and build a better society and the idea is that the technology can be used in positive and negative ways. Haas is in the business of preparing leaders to take on the bias.”

The new AIAI initiative was founded last spring after Ammanath and Vasseur met and realized that they both shared similar views about AI— computer systems that interpret and learn from data to perform tasks that normally require human intelligence.

Vasseur, who is co-president of the alliance, said people on teams aren’t often asking the right questions, and are susceptible to groupthink.

photo of Thomas Lee — *“Haas is in the business of preparing leaders to take on the bias,” Assoc. Adjunct Prof. Thomas Y. Lee.*

“This is counterproductive for many companies and closes so many doors—when they are not being diverse in their analytics process, their data collection, and their analysis,” said Vasseur, a data analytics industry veteran and teacher who previously worked at Google and Oracle. “They need to see the big picture and pay attention to details. You won’t get that with a team of only white males.”

While a lack of diversity is a well-documented problem at tech companies, a recent study by WIRED magazine and Montreal startup Element AI estimated that only about 12% of leading machine learning researchers are women. That estimate came from tallying the numbers of men and women who had contributed work at three top machine learning conferences in 2017.

Hoping for better representation for both women and underrepresented minorities in AI, Celeste Fa’ai’uaso, MBA 20, a mechanical engineer who is co-president of the Haas Data Science Club, said she’s planning to meet with AIAI organizers.

The potential problem with AI, she says, is that people are using data to train these algorithms without considering how the data could be biased or how systemic issues can cause the patterns we see today, and whether the data is accurate or representative of many groups. “There’s been a lot of hype and excitement around AI and the thing I worry about is garbage in, garbage out,” she said. “We live in a world today where there are inequities and biases. If you take the data from that world to train machine learning and AI algorithms, we risk reinforcing these inequities even more.”

Ammanath, who was honored as Businesswoman of the Year at last year’s Fisher Center for Business Analytics summit, wrote in a recent LinkedIn blog post that to avoid bias, an artificial intelligence system should ideally have many data sources, from as wide a range of viewpoints as possible.

Examples of this that she cited include when Nikon created a camera that could detect if someone blinked at the crucial moment—but did not take into account that not all people around the world have the same shaped eyes—and when Winterlight Labs built auditory tests for neurological diseases like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and multiple sclerosis that only worked for English speakers of a particular Canadian dialect.

“The problem with AI comes when we knowingly or unknowingly expose the engine to data which only tells one story or does not show the whole picture,” she wrote.

You are welcome here: Q@Haas reaches out to new admits

August 26, 2019| by Kim Girard

Wyatt Davis arrived at Haas for full-time MBA orientation last Friday already surrounded by people she considers friends.

Back in December, she’d been assigned a buddy, Katie Rentz, MBA 20, with whom she shared a passion for triathlons, and the two of them hit it off immediately. By the time Davis visited for admit weekend, she had met so many students on the Q@Haas Whatsapp that many recognized her name and welcomed her as a new member of the group.

“It is really comforting to arrive with friends and a support system already in place,” said Davis, a native of Concord, Massachusetts, who came out as gay three years ago. “Q@Haas was a huge draw for me when applying, and it’s exciting to be in a place where I can really dive into the strong and healthy community and make it part of my experience here.”

Haas over the decades has built a strong queer community in the full-time MBA program, working hand in hand with Q@Haas, the student-run organization that supports LGBTQ students, partners, and allies. This year, the number of admits who identified as LGBTQ during the application process held steady at about 20 students, or 7 percent of the class.

But that number typically grows throughout the year, says Minh Leu, MBA 20, vice president of admissions for Q@Haas. “There are always more students who either missed that section of the application or decided not to identify themselves while applying,” Leu said, noting that in the class of 2020, about 10 more people had come out by year’s end, bringing the total closer to 30.

Being “my whole self”

Q@Haas creates an environment where people feel safe and welcome, students say.

“I wanted to be my whole self and I was more sure that I could do that here than at any other school,” said Fayzan Gowani, MBA 21, who identifies as gender non-binary. During the application process, Gowani, who is from Los Angeles and spent recent years working in international development in Kenya and Kyrgystan, reached out to a second-year Q@Haas student who could speak to Haas’ diverse queer culture.

Talin Abrahamian, associate director of admissions for the full-time MBA program, credits student commitment for much of the school’s LGBTQ traction.

“People come to Haas for our culture and the desire to build a community early on,” said Abrahamian, who is the LGBT+ designated point person in admissions. “Our Q@Haas students play an important role because they have lived the experience of being Q-identified. We have a strong relationship with these admits, but they are the ones who really sell the program.”

*Fayzan Gowani, MBA 21. Photo: Jim Block*

While Q@Haas leaders say they won’t change what’s worked to date for the group—such as buddy assignments and WhatsApp—there are a few new efforts, including a welcome party to introduce students from both classes to each other, a potluck at HaasBoats, an Oakland Pride Brunch, and prep sessions for Reaching out MBA (ROMBA), an LGBTQ-focused MBA conference in October. (Last fall, 40 Haas students attended ROMBA, up four-fold from the prior year.)

Q@Haas also worked to bring Backstage Capital founder Arlan Hamilton, who invests in people of color and LGBTQ startup founders, to campus next month for a Dean’s Speaker Series event.

“Elevating this conversation to the Dean’s Speaker Series level is a great reflection of the support the administration has given to students to shape the campus agenda,” said John Monaghan, MBA 20, and Q@Haas’ vice president of onboarding.

Easing the path to coming out

A big part of the Q@Haas mission is to reach all students — no matter where they are on the path toward discovering and sharing their own sexual identities. For students from conservative backgrounds or foreign countries where homosexuality and other sexual and gender identities are stigmatized or even illegal, guarantees of anonymity can be especially critical.

Alan Man, who is co-president of Q@Haas, was born in China and raised in New Zealand, where he grew up in an environment where he didn’t feel comfortable disclosing his homosexuality.

Man came out to friends at age 20 and parents at age 25, when he was planning to move to Australia to be with his now-husband. He interned this past summer at fintech company Credit Karma with the head of diversity and inclusion to drive more inclusion at the company.

“I know from experience how difficult the process of coming out is and that everyone is on a different journey,” said Man. “Whatever their choice, we want students to feel comfortable with themselves and supported and safe so they can bring their authentic self to both work and business school.”

On the careers side, company recruiters and Haas alumni who are committed to sexual diversity and inclusion host get-togethers on campus. McKinsey & Company and Google, for example, meet Q@Haas members over dinner. The chief financial officer of Ford North America was one of several alumni to hold informal chats about their experience as queers in the workplace.

“It’s important that we show LGBTQ students that they can be successful, even if they face challenges because of their sexual identity,” said Darren Le, MBA 19, the first-ever vice president of career services at Q@Haas.

—Krysten Crawford contributed to this article.

Questioning the status quo: a Q&A with Chief DEI Officer David Porter

August 6, 2019| by Kim Girard

David Porter, Haas' first chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer, started July 15. Photo: Brittany Hosea-Small — *David Porter, Haas’ first chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer, started July 15. Photo: Brittany Hosea-Small*

David Porter, Berkeley Haas’ new chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer, believes in questioning the status quo—which happens to be his favorite Defining Leadership Principle.

“I’m not a ‘follow the rules’ kind of guy,” said Porter, who started his job July 15. But before he shakes things up, Porter is getting acclimated with the Haas campus and community, meeting with his team, and setting his priorities.

Porter comes to Haas from the Walter Kaitz Foundation, a media nonprofit, where he served as CEO. He’s also the former director of graduate programs at the Howard University School of Business and was an assistant professor and faculty director at UCLA’s Anderson School.

We sat down to interview him last week.

Tell us a little bit about your background. Where did you grow up?

I grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, although I was born in Nashville. Kansas City was a great place to grow up. It was a large enough city that you had access to all the city stuff, but it wasn’t so big that my parents had to worry about my safety. Of course, it was a different time, so as long as you were in by the time the lights came on, it was all good. My father was a pediatrician. My mother was an assistant dean at the University of Kansas Medical Center, where she ran the medical center’s diversity programs. I have one sister, who’s now a psychiatrist.

When did you first come out to California?

In 1981, I drove cross-country to attend Stanford, where I stayed for eight years. At Stanford, I was very active in the black community. In addition, I was elected president of the student body and later served as the chair of the student senate. These experiences helped shape my understanding of universities and honed my leadership skills. As a student activist, I was the guy who often stood in the middle working to negotiate creative solutions with the administration.

My experience as a leader helped prepare me to serve on Stanford’s University Committee on Minority Issues. This was my first opportunity to think strategically about how one might diversify an organization. The committee was created in response to student protests in the spring of 1987. Its role was to make a comprehensive review of the entire institution. We worked for two years to develop a report which made numerous recommendations, many of which were adopted. That’s where I developed a lot of the skills around exercising influence without authority which I still use to this day.

What drew you to this position at Haas?

What I was really looking for was an organization where I thought the leaders were serious. A lot of diversity roles are what I call “diversity eye candy.” These companies often hire individuals who will come in and make the organization look good, without making real change. When I saw this role, I said to myself, “Let’s go through the process and see.” And as I went through the process, it seemed like Haas was serious with the DEI action plan. The fact that Haas has responded so energetically to the issues raised was impressive. You don’t often see a dean and her senior staff say they’re going to take the next 30 days to dig into a problem and actually take specific actions to address it.

When you first read our Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion plan, what did you think of it?

I think it outlined some great first steps. For example, it recognized that the admissions process has some inherent biases which needed to be addressed. It also made some quick changes that were critical to impact the incoming class and it identified additional resources, including the expansion of the DEI team. These efforts helped Haas to yield a critical mass of underrepresented students in the incoming class. It is my hope and expectation that these students will have a great experience which they will be able to share with future prospective students.

What are your first priorities here at Haas?

My first priority is making sure that the students, particularly students of color, have the best experience possible. I don’t want any of them to say, “Hey, this was a bad choice for me.” Part of that will be about meeting with them, being a good mentor, being a good resource. Another part of it will be working with my team to make sure that the environment continues moving in the direction that we’re going: to become more inclusive, to make sure that we put true meaning in the word “equity.”

I’d also like to get a better understanding of all the diversity activities going on at Haas. I’ve been amazed that in almost every conversation I’ve had, I’ve learned of another diversity initiative or an individual who has taken it upon themselves to do something to make this place more inclusive. I want to know what everyone is doing regarding diversity-related efforts and I’d love to create a big flow chart, because I think that we can do a better job of telling that story. I also think that better coordination could take place. All of those people who are doing that diversity work in addition to their regular day jobs—they are instant allies.

What are some of the things that can be done inside of the classroom?

There are lots of ways in which we can make a more inclusive experience in the classroom. For example, including more cases with diverse protagonists or covering diversity-related topics or bringing in more diverse guest speakers. Hopefully, over time as our students see a broader range of individuals who are successful leaders, their view of what a successful leader looks like will change.

Will African American enrollment increase this fall and do you think that will change the campus environment?

We don’t have the final numbers yet, but we’re definitely expecting to have more African American students on campus this fall.

Every class comes in with a different mix. You can never really predict who will step up early on as leaders. But I do think that when you have a more diverse group of folks, there are more ingredients in the mix, and if Haas does a good job of creating an inclusive environment where everyone can come in and feel like they can be who they are and contribute actively, it will be a great experience for everyone.

Off to college they go: celebrating 30 years of Boost transformations

August 4, 2019|By Dua Shamsi

Boost students together in a group — *The Boost mentoring program for high school students is celebrating 30 years at Berkeley Haas. Photo: Jim Block*

Alessa Moscoso’s Berkeley Haas journey began the summer after her freshman year of high school, when she commuted four hours from San Luis Obispo to Berkeley and back to attend Saturday classes at the Boost mentoring program.

“I’d be doing homework in the back seat as my parents drove,” she said.

Moscoso—who went on to be valedictorian of San Luis Obispo High School and graduate from Harvard University—is now back at Haas, the first Boost student to attend the Berkeley MBA program, as an Evening & Weekend MBA student.

“It seemed like a great fit for me,” said Moscoso, who is an engagement manager at life sciences company Trinity. “The program is allowing me to continue working and developing my own career, while at the same time going to a premier business school and learning from other amazing people across various industries.”

Alessa Moscoso attended Boost and then returned to Berkeley for an MBA. Photo provided by Moscoso. — *Alessa Moscoso attended Boost in high school and then returned to Berkeley last year for an MBA. Photo provided by Moscoso.*

Founded by former Haas School dean and professor Raymond Miles in 1989, Boost is a mentoring program designed to bridge the opportunity gap for first-generation high school students from economically disadvantaged families by teaching them about business and entrepreneurship. Boost is celebrating its 30th anniversary this year—and is still going strong with its largest-ever summer class of 50 students.

A transformative experience

Over the years, more than 1,200 high school students have attended Boost, and, impressively, all program graduates have gone on to attend college. Oftentimes, they are first in their families to do so, said program director Lucas Abbott.

Abbott, who has been involved with Boost for almost 14 years, said watching the students transform, and often return to the program later as mentors as Moscoso did, is the most rewarding part of his job.

“When they first come in, they’re very unsure of themselves,” he said. “But by the end of the four years, they are confident individuals who know their worth and where they’re headed.”

Students apply to the program during the 8th grade and enter the summer before freshman year. Students practice life skills such as time management, financial literacy, and problem solving, and business skills including interviewing, resume writing, business dress and etiquette, and internships.

Berkeley Haas undergraduate, MBA, and PhD students, as well as other university students and local business professionals, teach and mentor in the program.

Freshmen work on real-world case studies and leadership/communication workshops. Sophomores spend the entire school year developing business plans on teams. And juniors and seniors are offered the opportunity to apply for paid positions as camp counselors and peer leaders, providing leadership opportunities and experience in cross-age mentoring. Off-campus field trips bring the group to top companies such as Airbnb, Deloitte, and Clorox, where they explore different career paths and get a chance to network.

Boost students climbing trees — *The Boost program includes confidence-building and problem-solving challenges for high school students. Photo: Jim Block*

“It made me believe I could get into any university”

Juniors and seniors also attend college readiness workshops, where they get help navigating college applications and financial aid documents, take SAT preparation classes, and go on college tours.

Vanessa Lopez, college adviser for Boost, notes that all members of the Boost class of 2019 are headed to college. Arelia Díaz, who just graduated from the Boost program, will attend UC Berkeley this fall.

“Boost put me at ease,” she said. “It made me believe that I could get into any university if I put my mind to it, that I could be greater than I think I am, and that there are still people in this world who want to see people of color, people of low income, and people of first generation, succeed.”

Malik Harris, who just completed his first year of Boost, said both his older siblings graduated from Boost, which made him excited to be a part of the program.

“Boost has always been an inspiration to me since I was a kid,” he said. “It’s always been something that I wanted to be a part of and now that I am, it’s great. I just want to try and be the best I can because it’s really going to help me go far.”

Dean Harrison signs national diversity & inclusion pledge

August 1, 2019| by Kim Girard

*Dean Ann Harrison signing the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion Pledge at Haas. Photo: Brittany Hosea-Small*

Haas Dean Ann Harrison this week signed The CEO Action for Diversity & Inclusion pledge, joining 50 academic institutions and more than 750 CEOs supporting the sweeping national diversity commitment.

Through the pledge, spearheaded by accounting & consulting firm PwC, Harrison agreed to create environments that support open discussions about diversity and inclusion; to implement and expand unconscious bias education; and to share both successful—and unsuccessful—actions with members and the broader community.

“When I arrived at Haas, I realized that the school did not reflect the diversity of the surrounding community, and this pledge is part of my ongoing commitment to change that,” Harrison said. “Through this new initiative, we’ll continue to move forward in implementing best practices that will help take our DEI [diversity, equity, and inclusion] efforts to the next level.”

At the signing, three PwC partners, who are also UC Berkeley alumni, joined Harrison: Jane C. Allen, BS 95 (College of Natural Resources), PwC firm relationship partner for UC Berkeley recruiting; Kevin Schwartz, MBA 98, the PwC liaison for recruiting for the Berkeley MBA program; and Laura Martinez, MBA 89.

“We’re thrilled that we’re having this meeting today to start the conversation,” Martinez said. Allen said Haas’ pledge is about sharing what’s worked at the university level. “A plan is in place,” she said. “We can talk about facilitating the plan and the tools that we have that can be leveraged and what Haas would be willing to share with others.”

Group shot from diversity pledge meeting at Haas — Left-right: John Clamme, director of corporate partnerships at Haas, Marco Lindsey, former dean’s chief of staff who is transitioning to a new diversity role at Haas; Jane Allen (PwC); Dean Ann Harrison; Laura Martinez (PwC); Kevin Schwartz (PwC); and Haas’ new Chief Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Officer David Porter joined the pledge signing meeting.

A focus on both companies and universities

PwC launched the CEO Action initiative in 2017 after the company’s U.S. Chairman Tim Ryan initiated a series of companywide conversations about race.

Today, the effort continues to expand, addressing diversity and inclusion on behalf of groups including African Americans, Latinx, Asians, Native Americans, LGBTQ, people with disabilities, veterans, and women.

CEO Action focuses on both companies and universities, with a President’s Circle and a university-focused corporate working group. Both are working to adapt the pledge to higher education by engaging faculty and staff, and discussing campus programming, including a CEO speaker series, recruiting events, and a “Check Your Blind Spots” mobile tour that helps students explore the concept of unconscious bias —everything from poor hiring techniques to how people decide who to sit next to in public spaces. “The mobile tour brings home the issue of diversity,” PwC’s Schwartz said. “It’s a great immersive experience and we’re hoping to find a time to get it to Haas.”

Other universities that have signed the CEO Action pledge include Cornell, Duke, Penn State, Texas A&M, Ohio State, the University of Michigan, and Georgetown.

Harrison’s pledge builds on ongoing DEI initiatives at Haas. Last October, the school delivered an action plan that outlined specific ways to bolster enrollment of underrepresented minorities and to develop a more inclusive environment schoolwide. Efforts in the Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Action Plan included increasing overall scholarship money for underrepresented minority students and adding a question on the MBA application to include a student’s experience in the areas of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

Alan Man, MBA 20, on how inclusion became a passion

June 27, 2019| by Louise Lee

Alan Man, MBA 20, has made inclusion his passion. The son of Chinese parents who immigrated to New Zealand when he was five, Man is a student board member at the Center for Equity, Gender, and Leadership (EGAL) at Haas, the recipient of a fellowship from the national LGBTQ leadership organization Reaching Out, a Haas Student Ambassador, and co-president of Q@Haas, the Haas student-led club for LGBTQ students and their allies.

We spoke with Man, who has a background in law and accounting and is working in diversity & inclusion at a fintech company this summer, about struggling emotionally as a teenager, building support networks to serve others, and promoting inclusion at Haas and beyond.

What was your experience growing up?

Growing up in Auckland, I had a typical Chinese-immigrant upbringing. Still, New Zealand is such a beautiful, safe country to grow up in. I feel super-privileged and grateful to my parents to have sacrificed so much in order to give me all the opportunities to succeed. Despite the fact I was this short Asian kid with glasses, braces, acne and was kind of geeky, I managed to make it through OK.

Photo of Alan with his father in China — *Alan (left) with his father and cousin in China before the family immigrated to Auckland, New Zealand.*

How old were you when you figured out that you might be gay?

As soon as I hit puberty, I knew something was different about me. In psychology, there is this concept of the seven stages of grief. I went through pretty much all seven stages; denial, anger, depression, to try to come to terms with my sexuality. I was in denial for most of my teenage years. For example, I went to a traditional all-boys high school that was hyper-masculine. If you crossed your legs, you heard, “Oh, don’t do that, that’s gay” or, “that hand movement was gay, that’s disgusting.” It was not conducive to figuring out who I was. To be frank, it was kind of a horrible experience.

What was the process of coming out like?

Once I started university, that’s when I started to be more comfortable with who I am. I was an early-entry university student and it was wonderful, sort of like a coming-of-age experience at 17. As I began to gain confidence, make friends, and figure out where I fit in. I believe we all go through this process. I started to slowly accept my sexuality. The first step was acknowledging it myself and then once I came to terms with it internally, it was time to start coming out to friends when I was 20. That was such a big deal at first. It was filled with so much dread and anxiety and fear of being rejected. There was the time I told someone in confidence, and this person went ahead and told others which was a huge betrayal of my trust. The experience taught me an important lesson about trust, about being intentional with how you share information and ultimately, about not caring so much about what others think of me.

How did coming out to your parents go?

I didn’t come out to my parents until I was 25, and only because I was going to move to Australia to be with my boyfriend of three years (now husband!). Coming out to my parents was a huge deal to me and I didn’t feel comfortable doing it for the longest time. At that point, I had already told everyone in my life, my work, friends, everyone except my parents. They grew up in a country where the common belief is that people who are gay can’t be happy because they’re ostracized by society. My mom was the one I came out to first. Even though I had already come to terms with my sexuality, I completely collapsed, crying, and I couldn’t even say the words. It was hard at first, with my parents not truly understanding and saying hurtful things without meaning to. But today, it’s all better. My parents have gotten to know my husband, who is such a kind, intelligent, thoughtful person, and they can see how happy I am. Although my extended family in China still don’t know about my sexuality or my husband, at least my parents treat him like family and I am so grateful that my parents could look at my sexuality through the lens of love, rather than the homophobia that is so pervasive in the places they grew up in.

Photo of Alan with husband Dane Renner. — *Alan with husband, Dane Renner, in Medellín, Colombia.*

Have you been open about your sexuality in your professional life?

Interestingly enough, I went straight back into the closet as soon as I started working at my first job in New Zealand at the age of 21. At the time, it made so much sense because it was a male-dominated, hierarchical firm. But when I moved to Australia, I decided to finally come out. There was no escaping the fact I had moved there for my partner and I didn’t want to lie in my interview about the reason I had moved. I had support from my managers, but unfortunately there was no support network or affinity group or employee resource group in my office. So I started one.

I wanted to make sure that my office was safe and inclusive for all LGBTQ employees. In a short space of time, we had a calendar full of events and even a budget which was a huge deal for me. The most impactful moment was when a colleague of mine came up to me at after-work drinks to tell me that he was so glad and thankful that I established the LGBTQ network. He had never understood “the whole gay thing” and it was only after attending an LGBTQ awareness training session I organized, and some self reflection, that he realized why it was important to be inclusive of LGBTQ folk and he then became one of our biggest supporters—even joining the organizing committee and contributing to the network.

Have you had fears that you think non-LGBTQ people haven’t had?

The first thing that comes to mind is holding hands in public, especially in the beginning of my relationship. My husband and I have been together for eight years now, and we held hands in public for the first time three years into our relationship, which I think would be unusual for a heterosexual relationship! I can remember it like yesterday. We held hands for what felt like 30 seconds in a street with no one present, and then immediately dropped our hands when someone walked around the corner. Even though we were probably safe, at that time it felt so risky to be open. Even to this day, outside of the Bay Area, we still get odd stares when we hold hands in public.

photo of Alan Man with husband, Dane Renner — *Alan with husband, Dane Renner*, *who are both from New Zealand, at a wedding at Stanford Memorial Church on the Stanford University campus.*

How are you promoting inclusion outside of Berkeley Haas?

My internship this summer is at a fintech company called Credit Karma in San Francisco, working with the head of Diversity and Inclusion to drive inclusion at the company. I never imagined I’d be working on this full-time. Coming into business school, I only had exposure to consulting or other traditional post-MBA roles. However, after I did a bunch of exploring and talking to people about their careers. I decided to take a risk and explore what it means to drive diversity and inclusion at a company full-time rather than as something on the side.

How has your experience at Berkeley Haas been so far?

The Berkeley Haas community is wonderful and accepting and has allowed me to lean into my inclusion work. I’ve been privileged to come out fairly early in life, but we have classmates who are still grappling with their sexuality. Now that I’ve gone through this journey myself, I want to be a leader in the space, creating community and a safe space for other queer people—and driving other aspects of diversity and inclusion as well. As a result, I have taken on a number of leadership positions during my MBA and I am proud to share that this led to me recently receiving the Haas Student Leadership Scholarship for continuing students at Berkeley Haas, something I never expected. It is fantastic to be recognized for the contributions I’ve made to the Haas community and I am so grateful to be able to pursue my passion of creating community and driving inclusion among such an amazing group of people.

Joe Castiglione, MBA 21, on coming out to his devout family

June 17, 2019| by Kim Girard

right to left: Joe Castiglione and his partner, Seth, with Joe's parents on vacation in Key West. — *(right to left): Joe Castiglione and his partner, Seth, with Joe’s parents on vacation in Key West.*

In honor of Pride Month, we’re running a series of profiles and Q&As with members of the LGBTQ community at Haas. Follow the series throughout June.

In this interview, Evening & Weekend MBA student Joe Castiglione, a manager of strategic initiatives at healthcare accreditation organization NCQA, talks about coming out to his devoutly Baptist family at age 22, how he found pride in the close-knit gay community in Washington D.C., and being out openly at Haas.

Where did you grow up? I grew up in a few different places around Texas, all rural and suburban, but we moved around a lot. Lived a bit outside of Houston and I went to high school outside of Fort Worth, in a small town called Burleson. Kelly Clarkson, our hometown hero, went to our high school — the one claim to fame that we have! I went to college at UT in Austin, moving to Washington D.C. about 48 hours after I graduated. I spent six years in D.C. working in health policy before moving to the Bay Area for Haas.

Joe as a baby with his dad. — *Joe Castiglione, who grew up in the Baptist church in Texas, celebrating a birthday with his dad.*

What was your experience growing up?

I come from a devoutly religious family. I went to Baptist church every Sunday, church on Wednesdays, Youth Group on Wednesdays, the whole kit and caboodle. We even went for a brief period to a mega-church in Houston called Lakewood, where Joel Osteen is the pastor. I didn’t really have much of a safe environment where I could explore my queer identity until much later in life.

When did you first think that you might be gay?

I think the first time I knew something was when I was watching “Saved by the Bell” with my older sister, and I was like way more interested in the cute blond guy Zack Morris than in Kelly Kapowski, the cutest brunette of the 90s. I didn’t have any access to LGBTQ people or media in small-town Texas, so it was a while before I recognized what my interest in Zack Morris was all about.

So when did you finally come out?

I came out in 2012. I was 22, and it was shortly after moving to D.C. Despite my fear of coming out, and really every effort that I put forward to fight coming out, being in D.C. just yanked the gay right out of me. There’s such an amazingly vibrant queer community in D.C., and I am forever indebted to the queer community there for helping me discover a sense of self-love and pride in being a part of that community.

Joe Castiglione, MBA 21, (right) with his boyfriend, Seth, who helped Joe's father open up to their relationship. — *Joe Castiglione, MBA 21, (right) with his boyfriend, Seth, who helped Joe’s father open up to their relationship.*

How did your family take the news?

When I came out to my mom, she secretly told everyone in my family, really depriving me of what I think is for many queer folks a watershed moment in our lives. The rest of my family did struggle with it a lot at first as well. There was the “gay people go to Hell” thing, and the “gay people can’t have children” thing. The hardest was my dad, who took a couple of years to really come around. He started to open up in 2015 when I began dating my partner who I’m still with today. It was almost immediate as my partner is similar to my dad in some ways and has many of the personal qualities that he values. Fortunately, since 2012, we’ve come a super long way as family and today my mom is my fiercest supporter and a huge ally for the entire LGBTQ community. Today she’s one of the “Free Mom Hugs” women at Dallas Pride!

Joe during WeLaunch orientation has Haas. — *“Being out at Haas was really my first opportunity to be openly queer in a classroom setting.” – Joe Castiglione, MBA 21.*

Did your experience as a Q-identified person change at all when you came to Haas?

Being out at Haas was really my first opportunity to be openly queer in a classroom setting. I’ve discovered a new sense of pride and confidence in my queer identity by bringing that perspective into a classroom on things like management and leadership. It’s been a real pleasure to challenge myself to be more thoughtful and more nuanced in the way that I articulate my experience as a queer person in the workplace.

Do those experiences translate into the workplace?

Management and leadership are the big areas where this comes up at work—when we’re talking about how to interact with people, how to manage people individually, and manage to their expectations and things like that. What was so immediately clear to me is that Haas prides itself on intentionally creating environments that cultivate diversity, particularly in leadership. That’s a philosophy that I’ve really taken on since coming here–this desire to push that mission forward.

What’s a challenge that you’ve lived through that others who aren’t Q-identified might not be aware of?

For a long time, I was closeted and struggled with self love, but coming out and embracing my queer identity has been the biggest gift I could ever give myself. People who aren’t Q-identified may not see that, although I think it’s something everyone can identify with. It may sound cliché but because of this self love that I’ve found, I’m on this journey of learning how to treat people as you would treat yourself—considering who they are, and what that means for the way that you interact with them, and the way that they interact with the world.

EMBA students’ Alabama road trip: Reflections on racial injustice

May 31, 2019| by Kim Girard

A trip to Montgomery and Selma, Alabama, over Memorial Day weekend led Lisa Rawlings, EMBA 19, to redefine courage.

“Putting myself in my grandparents’ shoes, I realized that courage was not always resistance, but sometimes it was simply endurance, which often required unthinkable compromises to their dignity to save their lives and those of their loved ones,” said Rawlings, whose African American grandmother was born in Alabama and left for Memphis as a teenager.

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Rawlings was among a group of six students in the MBA for Executives program who traveled to Alabama to connect the history of racial injustice in America to the present day. Rawlings was joined by Adam Rosenzweig, John Gribowich, a priest who made the same trip last year, Alexei Greig, Claire Veuthey, and Suprita Makh, all EMBA 19.

In Montgomery, the group visited the National Memorial for Peace and Justice, also called the lynching memorial, which opened in 2018 and was built by the the non-profit Equal Justice Initiative. They toured the City of Saint Jude Parish and the Dexter Avenue King Memorial Baptist Church, the first church where Martin Luther King Jr. served as pastor. After visiting the Lowndes Interpretive Center (in 1965, 80% of residents in Lowndes were African-American and not a single one was registered to vote), they walked across the Edmund Pettus Bridge in Selma, the scene of the stand-off between the marchers for voting rights and law enforcement on Bloody Sunday in 1965.

(All photos by John Gribowich and Adam Rosenzweig)

Prof. Xiao-Jun Zhang’s intentional teaching

May 28, 2019| by Laura Counts

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we’re featuring profiles and interviews with members of our Haas community.

Prof. Xiao-Jun Zhang moved to the U.S. for love, and stayed because he built a family and a career here.

Since he joined the Haas Accounting Group in 1998, Zhang has become a much-loved professor, opening the minds of generations of students to accounting—even those who start out thinking it’s boring. He twice won the Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching in the Evening & Weekend MBA program, and last year he made Poets & Quants’ list of the favorite professors of executive MBA students.

Zhang shared how his his life has been a “fate-guided series of decisions,” and how his cultural perspective influences the way he runs his classes in a very intentional way.

Where were you born and where did you grow up?

I was born and raised in Beijing, China. I went to primary school, high school, and college all in Beijing.

When did you move to the U.S., and why?

I moved to the U.S. in 1992 and the reason was simple: My wife—who was then my girlfriend—transferred to Mount Holyoke College in Massachusetts, so I decided to follow her to the U.S.

Did you think you’d stay here?

I was young then and didn’t think too much about my long-term plans, including whether to stay in the U.S. or not after graduation. The end result of staying here was more of a fate-guided series of decisions, driven by family more than a deliberate career path.

How did you come to Berkeley?

At the time, I was choosing between several schools—including Berkeley, Chicago, Yale, and Duke. What made Berkeley stand out was my research area of financial statement analysis. My advisor, James Ohlson, had worked here, and my frequent co-author, Steve Penman, was here at that time. From the research collaboration perspective, Berkeley was a natural fit. Also, my wife really wanted to live in the Bay Area.

Was there anything about Berkeley’s culture that attracted you?

If you look around the country, I would characterize Berkeley as of one of the most open-minded places. There’s a strong emphasis on equality, on judging people based on what he or she can contribute, rather than more superficial aspects. For people of Asian origin, feeling that sense of fairness is important. I would choose to work among colleagues who share that same sense of equality and fairness.

Having grown up in China, do you feel like you have a different perspective—as an academic and a teacher—than your American-born colleagues?

I would say so. The way you grew up shapes you consciously and unconsciously in so many ways. I’ll give you an example. In the classroom, I find it easier to understand certain student behaviors, especially with students from Asian countries. In the classroom in China, all we were supposed to do was take notes and memorize what we were told. You’re not supposed to ask questions. I suppose there’s similar cultures in Japan, Korea, and other Asian countries. When you teach graduate classes at Berkeley, you notice students from those cultures tend to be more reserved. I tend to be understanding, and when I design my class, I try to create a very relaxing environment without a lot of pressure to participate. It’s really rewarding when you see these students gradually warm up, and at the end of the semester they are as active as the others.

So do you put less emphasis on participation in their grades?

I put as much emphasis on participation, but I redefine it. I don’t count the number of questions they ask. To me, whether a student has been following the class is the most important thing. I tell the students that, after so many years of teaching, I know just by looking at your eyes whether you’re following the class. Once you take that pressure off, students start to participate in a natural way, rather than trying to think of a question just to ask a question.

That’s so interesting. There’s a lot of discussion around Haas and at business schools about inclusion. People have noticed that men often dominate classroom conversations and are working on changing that culture. Do you find that women tend to speak up more in your classes because of the atmosphere you create?

I don’t pay attention to whether it’s a man versus a woman, but I do tell students, “You may notice sometimes you raise your hand but you don’t get called on. Don’t take it personally, but I want to give priority to whoever hasn’t spoken so far.” Most of the students have no problem with that. Once you tell them, “Your role is just keep raising your hand,” they are likely to continue doing it but they can relax.

You’re a well-loved teacher—you’ve won the Cheit Award twice, and last year you were on Poets & Quants list of favorite exec MBA students. What do you like about teaching accounting?

I like helping them realize that accounting is not just a bunch of rules. Accounting is a way of thinking, in the sense that it’s looking at a business from the financial perspective. You can have all these fancy business plans, but in the end, you’re going to be measured by how the financial aspect works out. When students realize they need to learn this to operate in real life they get excited. Most rewarding is when you see the light bulb go on, and they see that accounting is not boring and it can actually be exciting. Then you just leave the rest to them. They will learn it all by themselves. At the end of the day, they give you credit for what they’ve learned, and they start liking you.

So from that perspective, you don’t have to teach them much beyond the first week?

In some sense yes. Once you help them realize what accounting really is, they will do all the work and teach themselves.

Can you share an example of your recent research?

In finance and accounting there is the book-to-market ratio phenomenon. Basically, people find that the book value (or accounting value) divided by the market capitalization somehow correlates with future stock returns. People got very excited about this idea because it seems they could make money off it. From the academic perspective, the question is why? I think part of the reason has to do with accounting, in the sense that the book value tends to reflect a stock’s downside risk due to the conservatism-bias in accounting. As a result, the book-to-market ratio reflects a stock’s upside potential relative to its downside risk. Another ingredient to this phenomenon is investors’ preference for “positive skewness” in stock returns: In other words, when you make an investment and receive huge return from it, you get a disproportionately high degree of satisfaction. Now you can brag about it at dinner parties, for instance. Maybe the other nine of your ten stocks don’t do well, but that doesn’t seem matter as much. Putting these two ingredients together, we start to see why investors like stocks with a low probability of huge upside potential, which leads them to prefer the so-called growth stocks.

That sounds like almost like a behavioral finance perspective. Is it rational to put faith in a low probability of a high return over a more certain, smaller return?

I would say yes, because these investors get significant happiness from this one big return. The same reasoning underlies people’s preference for gambling. Going after things that make you happy is rational. Trying to understand human behavior and what really gives humans happiness—or what they call in economics “utility”—is quite complicated and quite fascinating to dive into.

Do ever think you’d move back to China?

I don’t see any reason why I’d want to go somewhere else. I couldn’t ask for a better academic environment than Berkeley, in terms of freedom of thinking. Also my family loves living here. Your home is where your family is. I go to Beijing from time to time, but the Beijing of today is completely different from the city I grew up in. The hometown I grew up in will just be in my memory forever.

Kellie McElhaney named to “Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business” list

May 29, 2019| by Kim Girard

Kellie McElhaney in classroom teaching. — *Kellie McElhaney teaches students to be “equity fluent leaders.”*

Kellie McElhaney, distinguished teaching fellow and founding executive director of the Center for Equity, Gender, & Leadership at Berkeley Haas, has been named among the “Most Influential Women in Bay Area Business” by the San Francisco Business Times.

McElhaney was featured among more than 100 Bay Area women leaders in real estate, law, tech, finance, health care, and education, among other industries. The women chosen all share a passion for what they do and are leaders in their organizations and their communities, according to the SF Business Times.

McElhaney joined Berkeley Haas in 2002 as an adjunct professor and founded the Center for Responsible Business, serving as its executive director. In 2008, The Financial Times rated Haas #1 in the world for corporate social responsibility.

Over the years, McElhaney has been interviewed as an expert on gender equity and inclusiveness, women in business leadership, the gender pay gap, and #MeToo by media outlets ranging from Bloomberg and The Washington Post to NPR and Forbes.

McElhaney, who earned a PhD from the University of Michigan, told the SF Business Times that her biggest professional accomplishment was being dubbed “chief inspiration officer” by her MBA students. She said she’s also proud of teaching more than 1,000 Berkeley students a year to be “equity fluent leaders,” a term she uses to describe leaders who understand inclusiveness and how to lead people from all gender and ethnic backgrounds. McElhaney is currently teaching “The Value of Equity Fluent Leadership” across all degree programs.

She said the biggest challenge of her career was finding her voice to stand up to gender discrimination and harassment. “I’ve learned that I need to practice what I teach, and that by speaking up, I help countless women, not just myself.”

Her sister, Mary Lynne, is her personal hero, she said. A triathlete who weathered difficult professional and personal circumstances after she came out, her sister was able to reclaim “her authentic self,” McElhaney said.

“She’s a fearless big sis crusader for me and always has my back,” she said.

McElhaney, the mother of two college-age daughters, serves on the board of Sierra Global Management LLC and is involved in the community as a board member of the national nonprofit Empower Her Network. She also serves on the gender equity committee for the California Athletics Board.

Catherine Start Pradhan, MBA 20, on helping the Pilipino community rise

May 28, 2019| by Kim Girard

Photo of Catherine Start Pradhan, MBA 20 — *Catherine Start Pradhan, MBA 20: “I aim to make my family and the broader Pilipino community proud.”*

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we’re featuring profiles and interviews with members of our Haas community.

Catherine Start Pradhan, MBA 20, is the daughter of Pilipino immigrants. Raised in Union City, California, she went to UC Berkeley as an undergraduate, studying political economy, and quickly became involved with the Pilipino campus community. We talked to Start Pradhan about growing up in a close, extended family in ethnically diverse Union City, advocating on campus and off for Pilipinos in careers and education, and her favorite family dishes.

How did your family first come to the United States?

My maternal grandfather was recruited to the Navy and served in Vietnam. Through the Navy, my Lolo (grandpa) and grandma were able to move to the U.S., along with my aunt and my mom, who was 13 then. They initially lived on the naval base in San Diego, later moving up to the base in Alameda and settling in the Bay Area.

My paternal grandfather was recruited to the U.S. Army and served in WWII. My father moved to the Bay Area to find work after completing his engineering degree in Manila. He had been petitioned by his parents who had already moved to the U.S.

Catherine Start Pradhan during her first trip back to the Philippines with her grandparents in the swing that they bought her mother for her fourth birthday. — *Catherine during her first trip back to the Philippines with her grandparents in the swing that they bought her mother for her fourth birthday.*

Several relatives similarly immigrated here from the Philippines, so I have a huge family who all live within a 10-mile radius of each other here in the Bay Area. That 30+ group of people in the bleachers cheering at the top of their lungs while holding a shiny banner that spelled “Catherine” at my high school graduation? That was my family.

Where did you grow up and go to school?

I was born and raised in Union City, California, a 75,000 person town about 25 miles south of Berkeley. My high school had over 4,000 students and was very ethnically diverse. In fact, my high school offered Tagalog (the Pilipino national language) as a result of the large Pilipino population in Union City and was one of the first in the country to have an ethnic studies department.

Can you talk about what the the Pilipino community is like at Cal?

There are eight Pilipino undergraduate student groups dedicated to various interests from STEM careers to culture building and collaboration within the Pilipino community at Cal was impressive. At the beginning of every year, leaders from each organization would get together for what we called calendering day, during which we looked ahead to the upcoming year and scheduled event dates so as to not host events at the same time to maximize attendance. I joined a group called Partnership for Pre-Professional Pilipinos (P4), an organization dedicated to advancing Pilipinos in law, business, and other professional fields. P4 became my family at Berkeley, and I met some of my best friends through the organization.

As an MBA student, I work with P4 members as a mentor and recently attended their flagship Professional Sunday event, an afternoon of professional development and networking sessions.

Catherine with her parents at her UC Berkeley undergraduate commencement. — *Catherine with her parents at UC Berkeley undergraduate commencement in 2011.*

What was it like visiting the Philippines for the first time?

Growing up I had always wanted to visit the Philippines, and finally made it happen as an adult. During the summer of 2016, I worked as an intern for Edukasyon.ph, an ed-tech social enterprise focused on increasing access to higher-education opportunities for Pilipino youth. What really stood out to me was the culture of support I felt from people in the space.

I was working on a project to support Edukasyon.ph’s inclusive education efforts and on the first day of my internship, I set up over 10 meetings with people who wanted to help, and each of them connected me to several more. During my second week, I found myself invited to a meeting with community leaders from all over the Philippines who had been advocating for inclusive education policies.

That summer, my grandparents had also been visiting the Philippines, so I was lucky enough to spend time with them in their hometown, Imus, Cavite. It was surreal to meet new family and tour the places in scenes of stories my grandparents told me growing up, with them as my tour guides!

What does it mean to you to be Pilipino-American?

For me, being Pilipino-American means valuing my family and being there for them. Growing up, I spent virtually every weekend with my extended, close-knit family. We spend holidays together and hold joint birthday parties, and show up for each other for dance recitals, graduations, and more recently, births of babies. Just earlier this year, I became both a Tita (auntie) to a new nephew as well as an Ate (older cousin) to two new babies.

A family wedding with extended family. — *Catherine with her extended family at her wedding last year in Saratoga.*

Of course, no family gathering is complete without an overabundance of food, another part of my culture I cherish. My favorites include my Lolo’s beef tapa, thinly-sliced grilled sirloin marinated in calamansi, (lime), soy sauce, and sugar, and my grandma’s nilagang bulalo, a hearty beef marrow stew.

What is challenging for you?

Being Pilipino-American sometimes means needing to clarify your identity. Because of the Philippines’ complex colonial history, it can be hard to place Pilipinos racially in the U.S. On several occasions, I have been mistaken for another Asian race or Latino.

Being Pilipino-American also means being resilient. Throughout history in both the Philippines and the U.S., Pilipinos have endured instances of oppression, tyranny, and inequality. Pilipinos have fought for their country’s independence, but also marched for civil rights in the U.S. There is strength and perseverance in our blood.

Finally, it means remembering where I came from. My grandparents and my mom and dad made sacrifices and brave moves to create a better life for myself and future generations, and I am where I am today because of them.

That said, I am proud of my heritage and extremely grateful for the community I’ve felt from fellow Pilipinos throughout my life. As a second generation Pilipino-American, I aim to do what I can to build that community within business, and ultimately make my family and the broader Pilipino community proud.

Jaskirat Gaelan, BS 19, goes beyond herself

May 23, 2019| by Haas News

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we’re featuring profiles and interviews with members of our Haas community.

Jaskirat Gaelan, BS 19, at 2019 commencement last Sunday — *Jaskirat Gaelan, BS 19, at commencement last Sunday, where she was honored with a Culture of Haas Award for “Beyond Yourself.” Photo: Joshua Edelson*

When Jaskirat Gaelan, BS 19, was honored at last Sunday’s commencement with the “Beyond Yourself” Haas Culture Award, few would argue that it wasn’t deserved.

The daughter of immigrants from Delhi, India, Gaelan has served as president of the Haas Business School Association (HBSA), and as an associate consultant with the student-run Bay Area Environmentally Aware Consulting Network (BEACN), helping local nonprofits and small businesses to be more environmentally friendly and profitable. She’s also used her henna and photography talents to collect donations for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

We spoke with Gaelan, who will work at Accenture in San Francisco after graduating, about growing up Sikh in Modesto, California, her family’s commitment to education, and her commitment to service.

Jas with her parents. — *Jaskirat Gaelan, BS 19, with her parents, Manpreet (Mona) Kaur and Bhupinder (Sunny) Singh, who brought her to Berkeley when she was little to show her the Campanile and “what college was like.”*

Tell us about your background.

I immigrated to California with my parents from Delhi, India, when I was four years old. We first lived in Alameda, and my parents used to bring me to Berkeley when I was little to show me the Campanile and to show me what college was like. Getting me into a good school was a really big deal for them.

We later moved to Modesto, California. My parents had an ice cream store and a small convenience store and worked from 6 a.m. until 10 at night. I started working when I was young and helped them with whatever they were doing. This year they opened up a beautiful furniture gallery. They inspire me with the mentality: We start with what we have and dream big.

Jaskirat Gaelan in Alameda for her preschool graduation — *Gaelan at her preschool graduation in Alameda, about a year after the family immigrated from India. (Family photo)*

How did the diversity of California influence you?

I love that my parents chose to immigrate to California. California is a melting pot and I really felt that. My friends were a diverse group—Mexican, Taiwanese, Indian. What brought us together was the desire to learn and ask questions and explore. I think that’s why we all got along so well. We all believed in how important school is and had the curiosity to learn and seek help and ask questions. Many of us have parents who immigrated here and were busy with their businesses and didn’t go through the process of the SAT and learning about scholarships and financial aid.

What do you think people misunderstand about Sikhs?

Sikhs are often misidentified to be of other religions. In reality, Sikhism is a unique faith and is not derived from any other religion. Sikhism spans all geopolitical boundaries. People believe Sikhism is all about outer appearance. In reality, Sikhism is a simple religion with three fundamental principles: Naam japna (remember God and goodness in everything that we do), Kirat Karna (earn an honest living), and Vand Chakna (selflessly serve others).

Has being a Sikh in the U.S. been challenging for you?

The nearest Gurdwaras (Sikh places of worship) have been 30 to 40 minutes from the houses I’ve lived in, but every trip there has only been empowering to me. Though I may not be a strict follower, I have a deep desire to explore more about Sikhism.

What was your experience as an Asian American and a Sikh at Berkeley Haas?

I took a class in Asian-American history my freshman year. I loved it, I loved the people. It created an avenue for us to open up to each other about our families, our pasts. It’s been exciting here. I’ve met many other Asian Americans, children of immigrants. We realized that so many things about us, from how our parents encourage us to the types of jobs we want, are all very similar.

Before coming here, I never really had other Sikh students in my classes. (The Sikh population isn’t that large in Modesto.) But here, I could connect with many through the Sikh Students Association and other clubs. That was beneficial because they understood what my family is like, what my culture is like. They’ve helped me with applications and job searching, even praying with me before a class or cheering me up. Having that encouragement was why I was able to get through and figure things out.

What lessons have you learned from your community and culture that you want to share with others?

I’ve learned to help others. You can make a difference in more than your own life. Any success we have is much sweeter if it helps more than just you. Incorporate service at every point in your life, however you can, whether it’s helping one person, or a school, or a business, or a community. I’ve also met a lot of Asian Americans who have helped me to learn who I am and who I want to be. Regardless of your background, be willing to share your culture. It’s so valuable to be surrounded by diverse groups of people. Figuring out things together will help empower us even more to make an even bigger impact.

Michael Kim, EMBA 20, on snacking to success

May 16, 2019| by Kim Girard

In honor of Asian Pacific American Heritage Month, we’re featuring profiles and interviews with members of our Haas community.

The 2020 EMBA Class — *Michael Kim (front row, center) is one of 68 students in the new class of Berkeley MBA for Executives. Photo: Noah Berger.*

Twenty years after founding 180 Snacks, a healthy snack company he started up in his kitchen, Michael Kim, EMBA 20, decided to seek a formal business education. His goal was to leave his $30 million company in good shape for his children.

Kim, who arrived in the U.S. from Korea as a child and attended UCLA as an undergrad, launched 180 Snacks in 1998 for personal reasons: to feed his four kids an alternative to the sugar-packed Twinkies, Hostess donuts, and candy bars that he grew up with. The trick was making his snacks not only healthy but delicious. Today, the Anaheim-based company’s products—organic Almond Square Crunch, Pistachio Squares, Nut & Seed Crunch, and the latest, the Skinny Rice Bar—are sold online and at big retail chain stores including Costco, Trader Joe’s, and CVS.

We spoke with Kim about his childhood as an Asian immigrant, the hurdles he faced, and why he enrolled in the Berkeley MBA for Executives Program.

Where did you grow up and what was your experience growing up Asian in your community?

I was born in Seoul, Korea, and lived there until I was 10 years old, when my parents emigrated to Southern California. I lived in many places as a kid, usually in the rougher area of Los Angeles. We were a typical Asian American family. My parents went through tough times, working 12 hour days, carrying multiple jobs, and they finally managed to own and operate a small beauty supplies shop. Growing up in America was tough, mainly due to racial discrimination, but I was determined to make the best out of the cards I was dealt.

*“I want my children to know that they are 100% American, and at the same time, they are 100% Korean.”* – Michael Kim, EMBA 20.

Did you learn about Asian American history at all in school?

No. When I came to the U.S. in the early 1970s, as many Asian families did, Asian history wasn’t of interest yet in schools. As part of the first wave of new immigrants, my parent’s priority for their children was to assimilate by making sure we learned English and adapted to American culture quickly. They believed that was the expressway to college and the guaranteed path to success in America.

You have four children in their 20s. Was their upbringing different from yours?

They were all born in the U.S., so their first language, unlike mine, was English. They grew up in Southern California, surrounded by a large Asian population, so it was very competitive—in fact, too competitive—so we moved to Mission Viejo, California, to give them a more normal childhood. My two sons have since graduated from university (UC Irvine and UC Berkeley) and I have two daughters who are still in school (at Wellesley College and UC Riverside). My children understand about 90 percent of spoken Korean, but they can only speak about 40 percent. They’re working on it!

Why is that important to you?

As a Korean American, I believe that understanding the mother language and ancestry is of paramount importance. I want my children to know that they are 100% American and, at the same time, they are 100% Korean. We take many trips to Korea and to many other Asian countries so that the Asian heritage is ingrained in their identity, alongside their pride in being American. I am the 29th generation of the Kim family and I want my children to be proud to be the 30th generation, and for their children to be the 31st generation of the Kim family.

Michael Kim with his wife, Katherine, and children. — *Michael Kim (center) with his family: Josephine, Eugene, (wife) Katherine, Timothy, and Rachael.*

How did 180 Snacks break into Costco?

It started in the Fall of 1998 when I approached the regional Costco buying office, at a time when being an Asian American and selling to the mainstream U.S. market was not so well received. When I got there, they saw a young Asian fellow and said, “Delivery is in the back.” They assumed I was a delivery guy because I wasn’t white. However, after the meeting with the buyer and some trial sales, my product was well received. The real shocker came when the buyer gave me a whole truckload for an order, which was impossible for me to fulfill. My journey into the world of Willy Wonka’s snack factory had become real.

What brings you back to get an MBA after running a successful business for years?

With my company, I did everything instinctively. I came back here to see if I did it right—so this is more of a confirmation for me. My sons Timothy and Eugene are now training with me to be the company principles. But we’re a small family that sells to major chains so I want to make sure that when I leave this company everything is set up the way it should be. At Berkeley Haas, I am wearing different shoes than the rest of my cohort. So many people here want to be entrepreneurs and live the American dream. I hope that my experiences encourage future entrepreneurs, and that I can be a reference and share my experiences. This is just one small way I can give back.

Who are your Asian heroes?

I read a lot of Confucius and Taoist teachings growing up. The teachings of these great teachers share many similarities with our Berkeley Haas Defining Leadership Principles: Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself.

Bree Jenkins, MBA 19, will prepare young scholars to have agency over their lives

May 20, 2019| by Haas News

Portrait of Bree Jenkins smiling — *Bree Jenkins is the student speaker at her Haas School of Business commencement ceremony on May 24. (Photo courtesy of Bree Jenkins)*

“If you had asked me five years ago if I’d be walking out of Berkeley Haas to start a new elementary school in Hayward, California, I would have politely smiled and shook my head. I had no interest in going to graduate school, never mind business school.

Bree worked as an industrial engineer at Disney. (Photo courtesy of Bree Jenkins)

At the time, I was an industrial engineer at Disney, and every day, I created magic. My favorite project was with Disney Cruise Line, supporting the largest dry dock in cruise line history, the Disney Wonder. In Cadiz, Spain, I joined thousands of people from all over the world renovating the ship. We switched out ceilings, floors, stages and walls to convert to new themes like Tiana’s Place (a restaurant themed to Disney’s the Princess and the Frog), my team handling the scheduling.

My work was chaotic and intense, and I couldn’t have been happier. Decades could have passed quickly and I might have stayed on at the company, if not for one question nagging me: Were there other jobs, other opportunities, that I could equally love and find purpose in?

That’s what brought me to Berkeley to earn my MBA, with a focus on social impact.

Making a move

Growing up in Flint, Michigan, I was steeped in a community that cared deeply about its children, but lacked adequate resources. My mom, a military reservist, earned her bachelor’s degree in business and worked seven days weeks — sometimes only to come home to eviction notices on our apartment door. She struggled knowing that the schools were not providing a great education, and she needed a better job. So, we moved to Southfield, Michigan, where we found both.

bree with her mom and grandma — *From left: Bree with her grandma, Shirley, and her mom, Angela. (Photo courtesy of Bree Jenkins)*

A different zip code meant a better school and more opportunities. I had access to the Academic Games, where I could “get my nerd on,” competing to outwit my opponents with mathematical equations. My mom encouraged me to join the band and, thanks to a small black clarinet and a brilliant teacher named Mr. Scott, I learned to train my fingers and mind to the sounds of music. Our lives changed.

Years later, at Disney, I recognized that I had gained everything my mother could have wished for when she moved my brother and me to Southfield: responsibility, independence, mobility and financial security. But it wasn’t enough. While I enjoyed these privileges, my family and friends back in Flint, who were just as talented and intelligent, lacked the security that I felt. They were let down by their zip codes and school districts.

Turning to friends

So, when I was considering my career path at Berkeley Haas, I thought of all the teachers and mentors I had and how my educational experience had changed me. Through a social impact speaker series at Haas, I heard someone talk about their work in education and got curious. How could I use my skills in operations in this field?

I turned to my Consortium mentor and friend, Om Chitale, who helped me find an internship as an Education Pioneers Fellow at ACE Charter School Network. Because of him, I started thinking about how I could work in education and, as a result, I built Cheetah Tank, a Shark Tank-style pitch competition for elementary school students in Oakland. Co-created with the incredible Andrew Davis, the program focuses on idea generation stemming from the simple question, ‘What problem are you trying to solve?’ This project, and an introduction from Om, led me to my full-time position at Hayward Collegiate Charter School.

What we think is possible

As head of operations, I’m working with our determined founder, Neena Goswamy, to open a new tuition-free charter school to serve the students of South Hayward and provide them with an opportunity for an excellent education. I know that opening this school will not be easy. I’ve been working on it part-time since January, while finishing my MBA program. Each time we speak with families, we promise that we will prepare their scholars to have agency over their lives. We are being given an incredible responsibility to make a positive difference, striving to ensure that our students leave us as hardworking, creative and kind individuals. Not only that, we want them to know where they come from — and that they represent and belong to a community that supports them.

I believe that who we are surrounded by affects what we think is possible. Whether it be in the form of blood relationships, teachers, my amazing partner and his relatives, my peeps at Disney or the talented individuals inside and outside of Haas who I call my friends, my family has held me up and shown me that anything is possible for me. As I leave Berkeley this month, I want to do the same for my young students.”

Bree Jenkins standing on a balcony with hot air balloons in the air — Bree says the people she’s had in her life — family, friends, colleagues — have held her up and shown her that anything is possible. “As I leave Berkeley this month, I want to do the same for my young students.” (Photo courtesy of Bree Jenkins)

Roundtable explores diversity in hiring, inclusive work environments

May 3, 2019| by Kim Girard

em>Victoria Williams-Ononye, MBA 19, (center) discussed an interviewing experience during the recent CMG Employer Roundtable event. (with Matt Hines, left, and Rafael Sanchez, right) Photo: Noah Berger</em> — *Victoria Williams-Ononye, MBA 19, (center) shared a job interview experience during the recent CMG Employer Roundtable event. (with Matt Hines, left, and Rafael Sanchez, right) Photo: Noah Berger*

A group of employers, diversity leaders, and MBA students came together for the recent 2019 Berkeley Haas Employer Roundtable to share stories and to discuss the tangible steps employers can take to attract diverse talent.

The April 23 roundtable, sponsored by the MBA Career Management Group, explored many ways to nudge diversity strategies forward—by taking steps like setting up Employee Resource Groups (ERGs) (based on shared characteristics or life experiences,) supporting underrepresented employees’ career development, understanding how to tackle unconscious bias during the recruiting process, and sending diverse employees and allies to recruiting events.

Abby Scott, assistant dean of career management and corporate partnerships, and Haas Dean Ann Harrison welcomed conference attendees. Harrison noted the progress that the school has made with its Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion strategy, a sweeping action plan that provides concrete ways to bolster enrollment of underrepresented minorities at Haas and to develop a more inclusive environment school-wide.

“Diversity, equity, and inclusion is front and center at Haas, so I think that we’re well positioned to continue moving that conversation forward in career management to address challenges in both recruiting and in creating a more supportive workplace environment,” said Jennifer Bridge, senior director of external engagement at Haas.

Hector Preciado, MBA 11, director of global sales development at tech hiring marketplace Hired (right) in a fireside chat with Elida Bautista. — *Hector Preciado, MBA 11, director of global sales development at tech hiring marketplace Hired (right) in a fireside chat with Élida Bautista, director of Inclusion & Diversity at Haas.*

Several alumni speakers—Peter Poer, MBA 14, senior director of operations at test prep company Magoosh, and Hector Preciado, MBA 11, director of global sales development at tech hiring marketplace Hired—shared their personal experiences in hiring for diversity and their best workplace practices.

During a fireside chat with Élida Bautista, director of Inclusion & Diversity at Haas, Preciado, who came to the U.S. from Mexico when he was three years old, said that cultivating an inclusive company culture is even more important than recruiting diverse people.

Preciado said companies could do a better job in this area by supporting and funding Employee Resource Groups, giving these groups key problems to solve, and setting objectives and goals that are tied to the performance reviews of those involved with ERGs. He also recommended connecting summer interns to ERGs when they arrive.

Offering formal DEI training also gives employees the opportunity to identify as “certified” allies, Preciado said.

*MBA students discussing diversity and inclusion at the roundtable event. Photo: Noah Berger*

As allies, Magoosh’s Poer said that employees have to become more actively engaged in making change. “Just listening can also be an excuse to not do anything,” he said. “Don’t just listen.”

Poer discussed the journey he and his co-workers have taken since 2015 to decrease unconscious bias at the company and create a more equitable hiring system.

Magoosh worked to set and reach diversity goals that would track over the course of five years and hired IQTalent Partners to help the company find more diverse candidates.

The company focused on using inclusive language in job descriptions and decided to anonymize the first stage of the hiring process. When Magoosh removed the names from resumes, the rate of URM candidate resumes that made the pass-through to the interview phase doubled. Poer said that the quality of the candidates brought in to interview was exceptional—and that all candidates made it past the first round.

After the alumni speakers, a panel discussion that covered everything from interviewing challenges to finding the right mentors at internships was held with students Tam Emerson, Christina Chavez, Matt Hines, Rafael Sanchez, and Victoria Williams-Ononye, all MBA 19, and Catherine Start, MBA 20.

Embracing diverse values in company culture pays off—literally

April 3, 2019| by Laura Counts

Zappos says its 10 core values are a “way of life,” while Netflix details seven aspects of its culture, nine “highly valued behaviors and skills,” plus deal-breakers like “no brilliant jerks.” Nordstrom has just one rule of thumb: “Use good judgment in all situations.”

More and more companies are asking employees to adopt a set of core values, seeking to build a culture that will give them an edge. But while getting everyone on the same page makes it easier for people to work together, too much of the same thinking can stifle creativity. What’s the right balance of cultural values to drive profitability, growth, and innovation?

An analysis of 500,000 Glassdoor.com reviews of S&P 500 firms found that companies whose employees disagree on core values are, indeed, less profitable than similar companies where workers are culturally aligned. Meanwhile, the firms that are the most highly valued and innovative have something in common: They embrace a diverse range of cultural values throughout the organization.

“Past research has suggested there’s a tradeoff between diversity and productivity,” said Berkeley Haas Assoc. Prof. Sameer Srivastava, co-author of the study, which is forthcoming in Administrative Science Quarterly. “We suggest it’s a false tradeoff. You can have a multiplicity of ideas and values and also have cultural alignment on those ideas and values.”

A new way of thinking about cultural diversity

The paper defines a new way of thinking about diversity in organizations and reconciles a fundamental contradiction in current thinking. On the one hand, deep differences in how people think can create problems when they have to coordinate on tasks; research has found that a strong and unified culture increases productivity and efficiency. On the other hand, diverse viewpoints and perspectives can help people respond to change and uncertainty, and ultimately recombine ideas into something novel.

To get a more nuanced view of the cultures of different organizations and their relationship to business performance, Srivastava and collaborators Amir Goldberg of Stanford and Matthew Corritore of McGill drew on the power of the Computational Culture Lab, which Srivastava and Goldberg co-direct. The joint Berkeley-Stanford lab uses data science to develop new ways of measuring organizational culture. (Srivastava, Goldberg and co-researchers previously analyzed 10 million internal emails from a technology company to learn about culture fit within an organization.)

This time they looked at differences between organizations, turning to Glassdoor, a job search platform with 17 million monthly users who post anonymous reviews of their employers. The company has a data science team that agreed to share data with the research team to gain new insights.

The power of machine learning

The researchers used natural language processing and machine learning to identify hundreds of topics in comments about company culture—ultimately choosing 500 topics to cover as wide a range as possible. After “training” their statistical model to identify patterns in culture-related sentences, they scanned over 500,000 reviews of 492 S&P 500 firms posted between 2008 and 2015. They matched companies with similar characteristics for purposes of comparison, limiting the sample to companies with at least 25 reviews.

By looking at how many topics were mentioned in reviews of each company, how many times they were mentioned, and how much commonality there was between reviews, they were able to determine whether a company’s culture was diverse or uniform, and divided or aligned.

For example, they classified a company as divided when they found little overlap in topics mentioned by reviewers—as might happen at a company where customer service reps prioritize delivering “wow,” but engineers care only about technical progress, and the finance team is laser-focused on profits. They found other companies where everyone talked about the same few topics: They were culturally unified, but had little diversity.

It was the companies in which employees, on average, talked about many different culture-related topics that seemed to hit the sweet spot for innovation. That kind of diversity was strongly associated with a higher market valuation—as measured by Tobin’s Q. Those firms also produced more patents on average, as well as higher-quality patents that were built on by other companies, than similar firms where the typical employee mentioned relatively few topics related to culture.

Conversely, the researchers found that firms with highly divided, rather than unified, cultures were less profitable: those types of cultures were associated with lower returns on assets (ROA).

Diversity of values, distribution of values

Interestingly, these statistical relationships were true no matter which specific values were mentioned (e.g. collaboration, adaptability, playfulness). The important factors were the variety of culture-related topics discussed and how consistently people mentioned those topics throughout the organization.

The paper suggests that in assessing a company’s culture, it’s important to look beyond which values are emphasized to how they are distributed in a group. While diversity may arise from differences between people—which the researchers call “interpersonal diversity”—it’s also true that individual people often hold multiple values, which may even be contradictory. They define this as “intrapersonal diversity.” This view builds on research that finds when people have a broad “toolkit” of cultural resources, they have greater capacity for creativity and adaptability.

New technique for measuring culture

In addition, the power of data science and natural language processing offers an exciting new way for organizations to understand what makes for a successful culture. Traditional approaches such as collecting demographic information like age, gender, or ethnicity may or may not relate to underlying beliefs, and surveys are not only expensive but also relatively static. This approach allows researchers to examine topics that people are actually talking about and how these topics vary over time.

“This gives us a much more granular measure of culture over time,” said Srivastava, who also co-leads the Berkeley Culture Initiative, which he founded with Prof. Jennifer Chatman to develop new approaches to organizational culture research.

Srivastava cautions that a limitation of Glassdoor data is that people are writing for an external audience, and they choose to write reviews for a complicated set of reasons—including in response to campaigns by their employers. To the extent possible, the researchers did account for these dynamics in their analyses, he said.