Georgetown Business Fall 2010

Georgetown

BUSINESS FALL 2010

Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business

A book

worthy

of Buffett

Going clean and green

Combat to Corporate

Service members swap boots for suits

The Dean’s Leadership Fund

Invest in the Future Giving to the McDonough School of Business Dean’s Leadership Fund has an immediate impact on our mission and success.

This fund provides flexible resources that enable us to innovatively invest in our curriculum, programs, initiatives, faculty, and students.

Throughout the year, the Dean’s Leadership Fund has supported student scholarships, faculty research, design and implementation of new curricular and co-curricular programs, and the bringing of world-class leaders to speak

to our students.

Invest in the future of Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. A gift of any kind is greatly appreciated.

To make a gift to the Dean’s Leadership Fund, visit msb.georgetown.edu/alumni/giving or call 202-687-6674.

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Georgetown

Business Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business

Combat Boots to Business Suits

Contents

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by Andrea Orr By seeking a business education and a corporate career, students and alumni bring their military skills from the war room to the boardroom.

Going Clean

by Melanie D.G. Kaplan

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Alumni and students with a passion for the emerging clean-technology industry move past enthusiasm and get down to business.

Understanding the Oracle

by Chris Blose Professor Prem Jain’s book on Warren Buffett compiles 20-plus years of study into a practical guide for investors, big and small.

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Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

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14 26 COVER: Photograph by Gary Landsman

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Georgetown

Business Dean

George Daly Associate Dean Marketing and Communications

Chris M. Kormis Editor and Director of Editorial Services

Jill Lindstrom staff writer

Teresa Mannix

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From the Dean Dean George Daly writes about changes in the air at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

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News Keep up to date on life at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business with stories about the Rafik B. Hariri Building’s green features, new faculty and administrators, a new home for real estate studies, global partnerships, and much more.

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Faculty Spotlight 12 Studying How We Choose Kurt Carlson, assistant professor of marketing, may know more about the decisions you make than you do.

Managing Editor

Chris Blose Art Director

13 Books Faculty address women as corporate leaders, the management of older workers, and the policy that covers communications service.

Jeffrey Kibler Photo Editor

Sara Elder Copy Editor

Tara Kawar Project Manager

Connie Otto Production Artist

Brenda Waugh Contributors

John Greenya Melanie D.G. Kaplan Dena Levitz Andrea Orr Chloe Thompson

GeorgetownBusinesswelcomes inquiries, opinions, and comments from its readers.

Please send an e-mail to GeorgetownBusiness@msb.edu.

Alumni should send address changes to addup@georgetown.edu or contact alumni records at (202) 687-1994.

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Alumni News and Class Notes Catch up with classmates and find out about the latest alumni news, events, and programs.

33 Hope for Haiti Stephen Davenport (IEMBA ’06) has worked in development for more than a decade and puts his skills to good use in a devastated Haiti.

35 Game Time By starting her own business, former Georgetown lacrosse captain Rachel Mech (BSBA ’07, MPS ’09) scored a goal off the field.

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37 The Turnaround After pulling a major Brazilian telecom company out of crisis, Mariano Sebastian de Beer (MBA ’96) earned his position as CEO.

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Business Sense 40 Accounting’s Next Challenge Assistant Professor Preeti Choudhary offers insight on the potential merging of U.S. and international accounting standards.

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From the Dean

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Change in the Air hange is in the air. When I say that, I refer to something much bigger than the cooler temperatures and changing leaves that come with the season. I refer to the way Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business is evolving, and to the changes in how the world sees us.

Our students and faculty are excelling in every way, including regularly winning awards and competitions. Here at the intersection of business, academia, and policy, our school is attracting the highest caliber of administrative and faculty talent. Five new full-time, tenure-track faculty members bring their diverse backgrounds and experience and add even more depth, both in teaching and research, to our already strong faculty. In addition, four full-time, nontenure-track faculty members carry a wealth of experience into the classrooms. Doreen Amorosa, former executive at American Express and Merrill Lynch, brings her global recruiting expertise to her new position as associate dean and managing director of MBA Career Management. Our students will benefit; so will the companies that want to hire them.

We also change as the industries and fields we teach and study change. Take clean technology, for example. As you’ll read in our feature, “Going Clean,” our students and alumni alike are making strides in this booming business, and we’re here to help them grow as the industry does. Likewise, we’re prepared to help the former and current military members featured in “Combat Boots to Business Suits” make their own changes in life. These men and women bring their already strong leadership skills to the school and leave with the additional skills a highlevel business education can provide. They come to Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business in part because this city and school are military-friendly.

The school also plans to build a better alumni experience for our graduates, which you can read about in the alumni section of the magazine. We highly appreciate your engagement with the school as our success only is possible through your continued contribution of your time and financial support.

You’ll read about these changes and many more in the pages of Georgetown Business.If you have your own ideas about how the McDonough School of Business can grow and evolve, we welcome them.

George Daly Dean

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

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News Hariri Building Earns Silver LEED Certification

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eorgetown University’s Rafik B. Hariri Building has been awarded LEED® Silver Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council and verified by the Green Building Certification Institute for its innovative design features and for using environmentally sensitive practices and materials during the construction process.

“We teach our students about leadership and social responsibility, and the new Hariri Building shows that we practice what we teach,” says George Daly, dean of Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. “We are proud that the

Hariri Building provides an ideal setting for learning while also minimizing its impact on the environment.”

The LEED Silver Certification is based on five broad categories: sustainable site design and development, water efficiency, energy, materials and resources, and indoor environmental quality. The Hariri Building’s green features include: • Expected energy savings of 15 percent through efficient lighting design and controls, optimized garage exhaust fan controls, and ultra-lowflow lavatory fixtures; • A 41 percent water-use reduction through use of ultra-low-flow fixtures and dual-

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flush water closets; Water-efficient landscaping; Operable exterior windows that contribute to indoor environmental quality; Building materials that contain recycled content and were manufactured locally; More than half the construction waste — 800 tons — was recycled and reused; Bicycle storage facilities, proximity to public transportation, and several preferred parking spaces for hybrid and electric vehicles; Highly reflective materials that were used to pave 68 percent of the non-roof impervious surfaces; Low-emitting paints, adhesives, sealants, and carpeting;

Rafik B. Hariri Building

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• 25 percent of the total building materials manufactured using recycled materials; and • Local products — nearly 31 percent of the total building materials were extracted, harvested, or recovered, as well as manufactured, within 500 miles of the project site.

LEED is the nation’s preeminent program for the design, construction, and operation of high-performance green buildings.

Undergraduate Program Ranked 19th

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.S. News & World Report has ranked the undergraduate program at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business 19th in the nation, up two positions from 2010’s ranking, in its “America’s Best Colleges” issue for 2011. The undergraduate ranking is based on assessment surveys sent to deans and senior faculty at business schools accredited by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business.

In addition, Georgetown’s undergraduate business program was seventh on the magazine’s list of schools with strong international business programs.

msb.georgetown.edu

®

News Nine Scholars Join Full-Time Faculty

Vishal Agrawal

Christine Porath

structure and debt, and pricing strategies, these new faculty members also will contribute to the depth of research conducted by our already outstanding faculty.”

The new hires include Vishal Agrawal, assistant professor of operations and information management; Christine Porath, assistant professor of management; Luc Wathieu, associate professor of marketing; Stephen Weymouth, assistant professor of strategy; and Jie Yang, assistant professor of finance.

Agrawal most recently was a graduate research assistant at the Georgia Institute

Luc Wathieu

Porath arrives at Georgetown from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California, where she was assistant professor of management and organization.

She has conducted extensive research about how incivility affects businesses, culminating in numerous publications.

Porath previously worked for the International Management Group as an assistant director and marketer, as a sponsorship coordinator for the Tampa Bay Devil Rays, and a consultant for the UNC-Chapel Hill Hospital and BellSouth. She holds a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and a B.A. in economics from the College of the Holy Cross in Massachusetts.

Wathieu comes to Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business from the ESMT European School of Management and Technology in Berlin, where he served as Ferrero Chair in International Marketing and professor and associate dean of the faculty.

He previously was an associate and assistant professor at the Harvard Business School,

Stephen Weymouth

an assistant professor at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology’s School of Business and Management, an assistant lecturer at the University of Namur, and a visiting scholar at the University of California at San Diego.

His research has been published in numerous journals and book chapters, and he has served as associate editor and on the editorial board for several journals. Wathieu holds a Ph.D. and an M.Sc. in management from INSEAD in Fontainebleau, France, as well as an M.Sc. in economics, a license in economics, a candidature in political science, and

a candidature in economics from the University of Namur in Belgium.

Weymouth was an instructor in the Department of Political Science at the University of California, San Diego before his appointment at Georgetown. He holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in political science and international affairs and an M.A. in Latin American studies, all from the University of California, San Diego. He also holds a B.S. in economics from Arizona State University.

Yang most recently was an

Phil hUMNicKY

Phil hUMNicKY

Jill liNdstROM

of Technology’s College of Management, where he earned a Ph.D. in operations management with a minor in economics. He also holds an M.Sc. in industrial and systems engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology and a B.A. in mechanical engineering from the University of Mumbai in India. His research interests include sustainable operations, new product development, the effect of consumer behavior on operations, supply chain management, and interdisciplinary research.

Phil hUMNicKY

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ive new full-time tenuretrack professors and four full-time nontenuretrack professors began teaching at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business in August.

“With a range of experience and expertise, each of these professors will enhance the classroom experiences of our students,” says George Daly, dean of Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. “With research interests in such areas as operations, employee behavior, capital

Jie Yang

academic fellow at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business and also has been a research assistant and teaching assistant at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University and a research assistant at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Her most recent research focuses on capital structure and debt. She holds a Ph.D. in finance from Duke University and a B.S. in economics from MIT.

Read more at msb. georgetown.edu/newsroom 5

Professor Arthur Dong and students in a First Year Seminar class

New Journal Publishes Research on Latin America

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icardo Ernst, deputy dean of Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, is the editor of a new online journal, Globalization, Competitiveness, and Governability, which seeks to provide business and government leaders with original ideas and innovative proposals to help improve the competitiveness and governability of companies and Latin American countries.

A joint project of Georgetown University’s Latin American Board and Universia in Madrid, Spain, the journal also aims to serve the region’s academic and scientific communities by becoming the publication of reference for new ideas by facilitating communication among the Latin American academic communities, bringing them closer together, and structuring them around the study of specific areas, duly analyzed by means of theoretical contributions, practical applications, and real case studies.

Read the articles online in English, Spanish, and Portuguese at gcg.universia.net

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RichaRd Mitchell

News

First Year Seminar Program Kicks Off

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his fall, the Undergraduate Program launched a new initiative designed to introduce first-year students at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business to important ideas in business and to foster intellectual and personal growth while students adapt to the rigor of college-level courses.

“This is an exciting opportunity for our students to join small learning communities that are focused on particular topics, such as strategic thought and entrepreneurship, while also learning about the challenges facing an area nonprofit organization,” says Undergraduate Dean Norean R. Sharpe. “I’m thankful for the hard work the school’s faculty has devoted to making this innovative program a reality. I also want to acknowledge the hard work of Senior Assistant Dean Patricia Louison and Associate Professor Robin Dillon-Merrill to finalize marketing and implementation plans for the seminars.”

The First Year Seminar (FYS) Program is an opportunity for students to embrace learning and to engage in discussions with their peers, while exploring topics ranging from

current issues in finance to the regulation of global economies. Though the focus is on business principles and foundational knowledge, the study of global leadership and public policy will be emphasized.

Each year, the FYS Program curriculum will include a case competition in which students develop a strategic solution to address current business challenges facing a nonprofit organization in Washington, D.C. This fall, the 2010 nonprofit case competition partner is DC Central Kitchen, whose mission is to distribute local food to area programs and shelters to address the pervasive issue of poverty and hunger. Faculty and advanced undergraduate tutors will coach each student team, and the finalists will present their strategic recommendations to executives at DC Central Kitchen.

“Getting involved from the very beginning and competing against their peers developing a strategic solution to address a business challenge will allow students to see the big picture from early on and to better define their plan of studies and selection of electives,” says Deputy Dean Ricardo Ernst. “This is a great example

of the type of innovations we are incorporating to our undergraduate curriculum in an effort to make it even more relevant, and adjusting it to the dynamic changes the new global environment requires.”

Students in the FYS Program meet several times during the semester to attend lectures given by Georgetown McDonough School of Business faculty members and outside speakers, who will share their experiences in the business community and illustrate how academic research can help answer important global public policy questions.

“Business school faculty find businesses fascinating — not just our particular subjects such as finance or marketing or strategy, but the actual doing of business,” says Elaine Romanelli, associate professor and teacher of the entrepreneurship seminar.

“This program is a chance for us to share that fascination and excitement. Our best hope is that students will gain a big-picture perspective on the importance of business and industry that will both enrich and motivate their study of cases, frameworks, and equations in future courses.” msb.georgetown.edu

News Undergraduates Coach “Year Up” Students sports marketing strategy at Georgetown.

Leading up to the event, 30 undergraduate student coaches from the Georgetown Association of Minority Business Leaders and Entrepreneurs (GAMBLE) mentored the Year Up students as they prepared their business plans.

“Through this collaboration, Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business is using its expertise in case analysis and entrepreneurship to provide a complementary co-curricular experience for both Year Up and Georgetown students,” says Norean R. Sharpe, undergraduate dean of Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business.

Lauded by President Barack Obama for its proven, innovative approach, Year Up is a national nonprofit organization that provides career training to low-income young adults and

helps them secure internships with top U.S. companies. The organization prepares students for the workforce using a combination of technical and professional skills, college credits, an educational stipend, and corporate internships.

Successful completion of the intensive, one-year program enables graduates to move into full-time employment and higher education. To date, 87 percent of graduates were placed into positions within four months of graduation, earning an average of $35,000 per year.

“This collaboration embodies the core of Year Up’s mission: to provide urban young adults with the skills, experience, and guidance to move into the economic mainstream,” says Tynesia Boyea Robinson, executive director of Year Up National Capital Region.

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Participants in the Year Up program

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his spring, Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business entered into a partnership with Year Up National Capital Region to host a Business Plan Competition event for young adults in the D.C. area enrolled in Year Up’s job training and higher education preparatory program.

Held in April, the inaugural Business Plan Competition featured presentations by 16 teams of Year Up students to a panel of judges made up of faculty, entrepreneurs, and advanced MBA students.

The winners of the competition received a trophy and a cash grant to launch their businesses. The finalists were honored during a luncheon following the event that featured a keynote speech

by Jimmy Lynn, former vice president for partnerships and strategic development at AOL and adjunct professor of

New Leader for MBA Career Management

oreen Amorosa has been appointed associate dean and managing director of MBA Career Management at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. She began in her new position in early August.

“Dean Amorosa brings to this position extensive recruitment experience and a track record of success at companies such as American Express and Merrill Lynch,” said George Daly, dean of Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. “As a Georgetown alumna, she understands both Doreen Amorosa our students’ aspirations and employers’ hiring requirements.”

Amorosa previously was the vice president for global recruitment and workforce planning at American Express, where she was accountable for recruitment strategy for hiring activity globally up to the director level, as well as service delivery of recruitment in the United States. She is a former member of the advisory board for Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business and is a senior adviser to the recruiting roundtable of the Corporate Executive Board.

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Bob Steers, Don Wood, and Bryce Blair at the Real Estate Summit

Executive Program Gets New Name, Office Welcomes New Team

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he programs formerly known as the International Executive MBA Program (IEMBA) and the Global Executive MBA Program– Georgetown Campus will now be identified as the Executive MBA Program (EMBA).

Melissa Trotta, associate dean for executive degree programs, notes that the revised name will allow more prospective students to find the school while searching for executive MBA programs. It also provides differentiation from the GeorgetownESADE Global Executive MBA Program (GEMBA).

In addition, the school announced new senior appointments in the Office of Executive Education. Paul Almeida will lead the office as senior associate dean for executive education, focusing on strategy, academics, public relations, and business development. Almeida is a professor of strategy at the school and the academic director of the GEMBA program.

Trotta was appointed associate dean for executive degree programs, responsible for operations, admissions and program delivery. She was the first leader of the school’s MBA Evening Program and, more recently, she oversaw a number of the new, school-wide initiatives.

A new assistant dean in the Executive Education Degree Programs office is Cindy McCauley, who previously served as assistant dean for Student Services in the MBA Full-Time Program.

The school also hired two directors of program development, Nancy Beer Tobin and Ashley Baker. Beer Tobin most recently was vice president of corporate social responsibility at CGI in Fairfax, Va. Baker came to Georgetown from Booz Allen Hamilton.

Finally, Brooks Holtom was appointed interim associate dean for custom executive programs. He is an associate professor of management at the school.

Richard Mitchell

Cindy McCauley, Paul Almeida, Brooks Holtom, Ashley Baker, Melissa Trotta, and Nancy Beer Tobin

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Real Estate Summit Opens New Initiative

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n recognition of the growing importance of real estate as an asset class and the need for high-quality education in real estate finance and development, the school launched the Real Estate Initiative to train the next generation of real estate industry leaders.

The Real Estate Initiative kicked off in April with the Georgetown Real Estate Summit.

Two panels of distinguished CEOs and executives gathered at the school to discuss important capital markets issues as related to raising equity and debt capital, including real estate investment trusts (REITs), commercial real estate trends, the impact of the credit crisis, and strategies for investors to survive this challenging environment.

“The Real Estate Initiative has gotten off to a tremendous start with the summit and other programs,” says Jeff Reid, director of the Entrepreneurship and Real Estate Initiatives. “As a result of connecting the industry’s best leaders with our students in a high-energy format, we have already seen increased interest from firms wanting to hire our graduates.”

The April summit was quickly followed in May by a real estate-themed reception in New York City at which more than 120 Georgetown alumni networked and discussed industry trends with an expert panel, which included

Lisa Helfert

News

Michael Graziano, managing director and co-head of Real Estate Investment at Goldman Sachs and Co.; Matt Lustig, vice chairman of U.S. investment banking at Lazard; and Keith Barket, senior managing director at Angelo, Gordon Co. — all distinguished Georgetown alumni. The event was co-sponsored by Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business Real Estate Initiative, the Wall Street Alliance, and Alumni Career Services.

“We are laying the groundwork to become one of the nation’s best real estate capital markets education programs,” Reid says. “Georgetown has the right ingredients with its strength in global finance, its location, and an incredible alumni base in the industry.”

As of press time, the Real Estate Initiative had two other events planned for the fall to showcase the new program. At the end of September, legendary real estate investor Sam Zell, chairman of Equity Group Investments, LLC, was scheduled to headline an event titled “Public to Private Real Estate Buyouts: State of the Big Deal” as part of the new Real Estate Luminary Series, along with other top industry players. The school was also planning to host the 50 top real estate CEOs for an industry briefing as part of the Urban Land Institute’s fall conference in Washington, D.C. msb.georgetown.edu

News

Colleen Newman, Kelly O’Brien, Jennifer Bradley Heflin, and Brooke Ybarra

Research on Women’s Roles Brings Win

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group of second-year MBA students took the top prize at the third annual Georgetown University Women’s Leadership Initiative (GUWLI) Gender in the Workplace Research Competition this spring. Their research examined why women tend to be “compilers” in small-group interactions and the implications choosing this role will have on their careers. For the purpose of this research, the term “compiler” was defined as the person responsible for assembling others’ work into the final deliverable and may include formatting, editing, or “wordsmithing.”

The team, including students Jennifer Bradley Heflin (BSBA ’03, MBA ’10), Colleen Newman (B.S. ’04, MBA ’10), Kelly O’Brien (MBA ’10), and Brooke Ybarra (MBA ’10), began its research after observing that when working in groups, many of the female MBA students assumed responsibility for compiling the team’s deliverable.

While seeking to understand whether this anecdotal phenomenon was real, the group found that women overwhelmingly choose the

compiler role — nearly five times more often than men — and that they feel that taking on this role is their way to add the most value to the group, though some use it to control, avoid risk, or to fit in. Lastly, their research concluded that the role is not seen as critical to team success within an MBA group, and women in the

workforce must show strength in other skill sets to reach senior management.

“While the compiler role is critical to organizational success, repeatedly taking on this function comes with several negative impacts for the individual,” Bradley Heflin says.

“It detracts from time spent on higher-value activities and,

given the ‘behind the scenes’ nature of this role, the individual’s contributions often go unnoticed.”

At the event, Georgetown University undergraduate and graduate students presented their research on gender issues in the workplace to a panel of successful businesswomen and research-trained faculty.

Groups were judged based on the rigor of their research and the relevance of their findings.

“Pairing our students with executives brings the real world to the classroom and helps reveal structural advantages and disadvantages of stereotypical gender roles in the workplace,” says Catherine Tinsley, associate professor at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business and executive director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative.

Georgetown and Berlitz International Partner to Create Global Leaders Program

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eorgetown’s McDonough School of Business and cultural and language learning leader Berlitz International have partnered to create an innovative executive program that integrates business expertise, communication skills, and cultural competency to accelerate development of the next generation of global leaders.

“We are pleased to partner with Berlitz International to create a truly innovative, global educational experience that combines our faculty’s expertise in the areas of international business, diplomacy, and leadership with Berlitz’s knowledge of language and cultural education,” says Brooks Holtom, interim associate dean for executive programs at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business.

As part of the program, participants will study under experienced professors from the McDonough School of Business in London, Shanghai, Bangalore, and Washington, D.C.,

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

allowing executives to gain first-hand perspectives and insights specific to each business hub.

Themes and content are tied directly to each program location.

Students will participate in webinars and roundtables with seasoned business executives, senior government officials, diplomats, and prominent journalists. Site visits also will allow participants to experience the culture and establish on-the-ground networks in each country. The program develops savvy leaders with a global mindset who can influence, persuade, and consistently succeed in economic, social, technological, and culturally diverse environments.

For more information about the Global Leaders Program, visit msb.georgetown.edu

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of India, this past spring. Both in small groups at the MBA Leaders Breakfast Series and at large events during the Distinguished Leaders Series, students and renowned experts came together to discuss real-world business issues and current events.

Former president of India Abdul Kalam shared his insights on “Life, Progress, Challenges, and Growth” during a Distinguished Leaders Series discussion on April 19.

New York times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin discussed his book, too Big to fail: how Wall street and Washington fought to save the financial system — and themselves, with students, faculty, and staff on March 26.

The event was sponsored by the McDonough School of Business’ Center for Financial Institutions, Policy, and Governance and was followed by audience Q&A.

chRis KORMis

Rafael sUaNes

tudents at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business enjoyed a multitude of opportunities to share ideas about leadership and management with distinguished leaders, from NASA astronauts to company CEOs and the former president

Rafael sUaNes

Top Leaders Visit McDonough School of Business

Phil hUMNicKY

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Dean George Daly, left, welcomed Stefan Jacoby, center, then president and CEO of the Volkswagen Group of America, for a talk with students about brand management and the automotive industry on April 22. The Q&A was moderated by Associate Professor Brooks Holtom, right.

Nobel Laureate Muhammad Yunus, founder of the Grameen Bank, spoke at the school on April 12. The event included a sneak preview of the film to catch a dollar: Muhammad Yunus Banks on america, which was first shown at the 2010 Sundance Film Festival. The film tells the story of Yunus and the Grameen Bank, focusing on Grameen America’s first U.S. branch in Jackson Heights, N.Y.

Jill liNdstROM

Phil hUMNicKY

Laura Liswood, senior adviser and former managing director for global leadership and diversity at Goldman Sachs and secretary general of the Council of Women World Leaders at the Aspen Institute, spoke to students about leadership as part of the MBA Leaders Breakfast Series on April 7.

Sir Richard Branson hosted a Q&A session with students on May 11 while visiting the school to participate in a conference on Creating Climate Wealth. “A Conversation with Richard Branson” featured a candid discussion with the self-made billionaire that touched on topics ranging from overcoming dyslexia to airline mergers and thinking green in developing countries.

J. Willard “Bill” Marriott Jr., chairman and CEO of Marriott International, Inc., spoke and answered questions about the hotel and service industries on April 12.

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msb.georgetown.edu

Nasa/PaUl e. aleRs

News On July 26, the McDonough School of Business hosted a discussion with the space shuttle Atlantis’ crew upon return of its final trip into space. The six astronauts gave a video presentation about their mission, answered questions from the audience in Lohrfink Auditorium, and signed autographs.

Undergrads Compete in Inaugural Stock Pitch Conference

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Sharon Pratt, founder and leader of Pratt Consulting and the third mayor of Washington, D.C., met with students as part of the MBA Leaders Breakfast Series on April 27.

On May 3, Henry Paulson, former secretary of the U.S. Treasury and former CEO of Goldman Sachs, visited the McDonough School of Business and talked to students, faculty, and staff about his role in the financial crisis and in the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

t the first-ever Georgetown Stock Pitch Conference (GSPC) this spring, teams of two to five undergraduate Georgetown students pitched a stock to a panel of judges in a tournament-style competition. Financial professionals judged teams based on the stock pick as well as the quality of the presentation.

Teams were allowed to propose a long or short position in any U.S. or international equity.

Companies had to have a market cap with a 30-day simple moving average above $200 million, and teams were advised to give a one-year target price for the stock.

In the first round of pitches, students gave a 10-minute presentation, which was followed by five minutes of questioning from the judges, consisting of financial professionals and Georgetown finance faculty. The

Charlie Leisure and Max Gaby

four teams that moved on to the final round, held in the Fisher Colloquium, competed for a total of $800 in prize money.

This year’s GSPC winners were Max Gaby (BSBA ’10) and Charlie Leisure (B.A. ’10), as the Prospect Investments group, with a pitch of a long position in Brazilian miner Vale (NYSE: VALE). The runner-up, Magrath, Wang & Co., consisting of Cole Magrath (BSBA ’10) and Lambert Wang (BSBA ’11), pitched a short position in Netflix (NYSE: NFLX).

Rafael sUaNes

Rafael sUaNes

Upcoming Events

Former Wall street Journal reporter Roger Lowenstein, author of the end of Wall street, presented an insider account on America’s financial collapse, detailing the crisis from speculative mortgages to the government’s response.

The April 26 event was followed by audience Q&A and a book signing.

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Oct. 12, 2010 Distinguished Leaders Series presents Runit Renjen, Chairman and CEO, Deloitte Consulting LLC 11:45 a.m.–1:00 p.m.

Lohrfink Auditorium

Oct. 27, 2010 Fourth Annual Entrepreneurial Alumni Networking Event 6:30–8:30 p.m.

Fisher Colloquium

Dec. 2, 2010 Distinguished Leaders Series Oct. 25–26, 2010 presents Thomas Donohue, Financial Reform: What’s Next? President and CEO, U.S. A U.S. and Global Perspective Chamber of Commerce Examining the Opportunities 4:30–6:00 p.m. and Challenges Ahead Fisher Colloquium Sponsored by Georgetown University McDonough All events are open to alumni.

School of Business and PricewaterhouseCoopers Rafik B. Hariri Building

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FA C U LT Y

SPOTLight

Studying How We Choose

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f Kurt Carlson, Georgetown McDonough School of Business assistant professor of marketing, asks why you just made a certain choice, be careful how you answer. He knows more about your decision than you do.

Carlson, who joined the McDonough School of Business faculty in 2009 after working as an assistant professor at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business for eight years, lists his fields of interest as “emerging preferences, consumer choice processes, biased predecisional processing, decision objectives, measuring goals, consumer predictions of future behavior, and biases in judgments and decision making.”

In other words, he studies how we decide to do what we do — or, as he would put it, “I look for systematic patterns in the way people process new information, especially unusual and interesting patterns and deviations.”

He and fellow researcher Suzanne Shu published a paper, “The Rule of Three: How the Third Event Signals the Emergence of a Streak,” in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. The title may sound daunting to those outside the field of marketing, but Carlson has an analogy for those more familiar with basketball than behavioral research.

“When basketball players hit three shots in a row, their objective belief is that they’re on a streak,” Carlson says. Most people would believe the players should continue shooting.

However, Carlson continues, “At that point, they have hit ‘maximum streakiness.’ Even if they hit shots number four and 12

five, they are no hotter than when they hit number three.

In fact, statistically, chances of making the fourth shot are below the chances of making any shot.” What the defense should then do, says Carlson, is leave those players alone and concentrate on the players who missed three in a row.

Asked if smarter coaches are aware of this situation, Carlson says, “No, even the smart coaches buy into the idea of a hot hand.”

Whether talking about basketball shots or stocks that rise (or fall) for three days in a row, the Rule of Three applies. It also applies in the use of multiple adjectives.

When someone uses more than three positive descriptors for a person, product, or idea, at number four listeners start to disbelieve the pitch.

A focus on words also

drives another current research project Carlson terms the Last Name Effect. “Why,” he asks, “do people stand in line for so long at Georgetown Cupcake?”

And why do some standees complain while others are unbothered?

His answer: It depends where your last name falls in the alphabet.

“People whose last names appear early in the alphabet think standing in line is silly because they

were privileged to be at the front of lines as children. Those with last names toward the end of the alphabet — who were forced to the end of lines as children — act more quickly to secure a good spot in a line and are content to wait in line to preserve their spot.”

Carlson and his researchers asked a group of “midalphabet” people if they would

msb.georgetown.edu

Books choose early- or late-alphabet names if they were going into the Witness Protection program.

“They chose early,” he says. The same group answered yes when asked if they thought women who marry men with earlyalphabet names would be better off.

“Whether talking about basketball shots or stocks that rise (or fall) for three days in a row, the Rule of Three applies. It also applies in the use of multiple adjectives.”

— Kurt Carlson

Historically, Carlson, who earned his doctorate from Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management in 2001, has avoided outside consulting in favor of pure research. Nonetheless, his work is relevant for both marketers and consumers. “Consumers who understand how they make decisions can make better decisions, and businesses who understand consumers can use this knowledge to set effective strategies,” he says.

— John Greenya

Women as Leaders in Corporate America

Catherine H.Tinsley, Georgetown University; Emily T. Amanatullah, University of Texas at Austin Chapter in Gender and Women’s Leadership

by Karen O’Connor

T

he statistics documenting women’s advancement paint a mixed picture.

Although women’s representation in the U.S. workforce is nearly equal to men’s, women are consistently underrepresented in upper management and receive less compensation. But the trajectory of women has been positive. In the early 1980s, there were no women in top executive jobs in the Fortune 100 companies, and in 1979, the average full-time female worker earned 62 percent of the average fulltime man’s wages, compared with today’s 80 percent.

Moreover, women are now starting more of their own businesses than are men.

This book chapter offers advice on how to continue such positive developments.

It reviews the career paths of successful women CEOs, showing how their strategies tend to cluster into three approaches to success. Then, based on research in management, psychology, law,

FACU LTY

SPOTLight

and economics, it provides suggestions for young women on how to negotiate their environments to maximize their success and leadership potential.

Managing the Older Worker: How to Prepare for the New Organizational Order

Bill Novelli, Georgetown University; Peter Cappelli, University of Pennsylvania

T

he number of older workers in the workforce is exploding.

At the same time, employers increasingly report they are looking for exactly the attributes older workers offer, such as stability and the ability to make immediate contributions. It sounds like a win-win situation, but older workers struggle to get hired.

The authors explain how companies can negotiate this new territory and maximize the value older workers provide.

The key, they say, is adapting management practices.

One of their suggestions is to embrace just-in-time capabilities as older workers offer the most cost-effective way to handle short-term projects and changing workplace demands. The authors also

dispel common myths about older workers, lay out the realities of age discrimination, and propose strategies for combating it.

Universal Service: Can We Do More With Less?

John Mayo, Georgetown University Chapter in New Directions in Communications Policy, edited

by Randolph May

T

he nation spends more than $7 billion annually to promote universal telephone service, much more than we spend on other important policy initiatives. Articulating economically efficient policies in this arena is important both for reforming current universal service policies and for shaping the future, which will include the goal of providing universal broadband service throughout America.

This chapter offers an economic review of the history of policy efforts to promote universal telephone service and shows that our well-intentioned policies have violated virtually every economic principle that would allow us, as a nation, to do more with less. The chapter concludes with a discussion of policy options for the future of both universal telephone and broadband service.

13

Combat

EMBA udson (G Wade Kn

’11)

In many ways, Wade Knudson (GEMBA ’11) is a typical student in the Georgetown-ESADE Executive MBA Program. Like other students in the program, a partnership between Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, Walsh School of Foreign Service, and ESADE Business School in Barcelona, Spain, Knudson balances a demanding career with an intense academic program that will teach him international business by way of immersion in five major cities across four continents.

But his day job makes him stand out among students.

Knudson is on active duty in the United States Navy.>>

By Andrea Orr

Boots to

Business Suits

GARY LANDSMAN

Students and alumni bring their military skills from the war room to the boardroom.

15

Since he graduated from the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis in 1984, Knudson has worked as an operational pilot, a test pilot, and a squadron commanding officer. More recently, he has helped manage the Navy’s acquisition of

Sam King , (MBA ’11 t) gh ri

fighter jets, missile defense systems, and other equipment; he oversees deals that would be off the charts by private-sector standards. As a program manager for the Navy’s $45 billion Joint Strike Fighter Program, Knudson ensured contracts were fulfilled on schedule, at cost, and according to performance specifications. Now, he is the executive assistant to the assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development, and acquisition, after having served 14 months as military assistant to the undersecretary of defense for acquisition, technology, and logistics, one of the Department of Defense’s topranking civilian positions, who oversees a $400 billion budget.

Knudson sees several parallels between the armed forces and business. During his 26 years in the military, he has managed large teams and seen big, complex orders through to completion. He has become practiced at sensitive negotiations and at swiftly adapting to unforeseen circumstances. But in recent years, as Knudson started to contemplate retiring from the military, he realized he had a lot to learn about doing business in the private sector.

Take marketing, for example. “In the Navy, we don’t think about things like market strategies, because we already have a market,” he explains. Accounting in the military is different as well: “We can’t have a profit, and we can’t have a loss.”

Because the GEMBA program places a strong focus on networking, Knudson says it allows students to “engage broadly” with leaders in a wide range of businesses.

16

He says its team-based — or “cohort” — in the communications field. structure, in which groups of students “Those who serve in the military are from diverse professional backgrounds charged with very high levels of responwork together to solve business problems, sibility,” she says. “One of the biggest has helped him appreciate all the factors challenges when you leave the military is that come into play in various business to convey that level of responsibility and situations. “The insights other students explain the kinds of duties you fulfilled in and faculty provided on things like a way people will understand.” marketing strategies, subsidies, and tariffs were all eye-opening to me,” From One World to Another Knudson says.

Work after life in the military is full of Active-duty and retired military paradox. On one hand, many young veterpersonnel within the Georgetown ans returning from deployment struggle to community collectively have a strong find work, let alone a fulfilling career. The track record in the business world for unemployment rate among young veterleading with creativity, empathy, and ans was 21.1 percent last year, significantly vision. Jason McCarthy (MBA ’11), higher than for nonveterans. a Green Beret who served as a comThe flipside is that America’s executive bat adviser in Iraq before going to offices are full of senior managers with business school, recently started his own military experience. Merck CEO Richard business (see “Military Grade, Consumer Clark spent two years in the Army, Amgen Ready”). And former Marine Lachelle Fryett CEO Kevin Sharer spent eight years in the (IEMBA ’10) already had established her- Navy, and Verizon CEO Ivan Seidenberg self in the Internet publishing and adver- served in Vietnam.

Soldiers returning from deployment, tising businesses, assuming various senior sales and marketing positions at AOL, even senior managers, and career counselors all before she decided to pursue an MBA to agree on the value of the skills acquired in the military, from time management and augment her business skills.

Most of these Georgetown students and stress management to negotiation and a graduates say they also have encountered strong work ethic. Chad Storlie (MBA ’02), bumps in the road as they shifted from a Green Beret in Iraq turned marketmilitary to civilian life. They describe the ing executive, says the biggest challenges military as a world unto itself that can be in leaving the military and entering the difficult for outsiders to understand and business world are often cultural. Storlie even harder for insiders to explain in a recently published a book inspired to help others mitigate the military-to-business résumé or a job interview.

“Being in the armed services laid an culture shock he encountered as a civilian incredible foundation for believing that businessperson, first at General Electric and there is very little you can’t do if you put then at Union Pacific Railroad. His book, your head and heart behind From Combat Leader to it. In the Marine Corps, you Corporate Leader: 20 LesChad Storlie (M BA ’02) learn that often the only sons to Advance Your Civilthing holding you back is ian Career Career, offers soldiers yourself,” says Fryett, who and officers returning has displayed an ability to from deployment or adapt, persevere, and rapending their military idly rise through the ranks service practical advice in both her military and about recognizing the civilian careers. Fryett spent value of their military the majority of her service experience, identifying in the Marines performgaps in their résumés, ing public affairs duties. and understanding the vast cultural differences By the time she pursued between military and an undergraduate degree civilian work worlds. in journalism and pubStorlie, who attended lic relations at Creighton Northwestern University University, she already on an ROTC scholarship, had extensive experience msb.georgetown.edu

then served as an infantry officer in South Korea and later led a 15-person combat plans section for a large special-operations task force in Iraq, says the biggest mistake he made in his initial civilian jobs was to see some aspects of business as an extension of the military.

“I initially approached corporate decision making as a hierarchy, and that was a complete mistake,” says Storlie, who describes the military leadership structure as a rigid system in which it is clear who is in charge and what skills are required to earn a promotion or approve a plan. When he finished business school and went to work, he found that the comparative lack of structure in the private sector was difficult to navigate. If the military offers a career path like a ladder, the private sector, he says, is closer to a checkerboard — wide open and full of choices to move forward, sideways, or even backward. Although it was counterintuitive to his military training, Storlie said he came to see that in business, lateral moves often provide the experience that will lead to a big jump forward in the future. And, because the leadership structure is far more complex in the private sector, Storlie says some recently retired soldiers and officers make the mistake of assuming that, as a junior person in the office, they may feel compelled to hold back.

Storlie’s advice is direct: “Don’t hold back, get in there, be active, contribute, and be a valuable team member.” He also offers simple tips such as not “wearing your rank” to the office and turning the “war face” off. “You may still be thinking of yourself as a general, but in your new job you’re a mid-level manager,” he explains.

And although a stoic presentation conveys seriousness and authority in the military, a somewhat relaxed demeanor usually works better in business, where people value collaboration and a willingness to listen, he says. Although many of his recommendations seem like common sense to someone who has never served in the military, he says many such mistakes are common, even among veterans with MBAs or other advanced degrees.

Although veterans such as Storlie acquired a wealth of leadership experience in the military — some heading units of 200 or more — when they set their sights on business, they often found they had a lot to learn, not just about corporate finance, Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Military Grade, Consumer Ready

A

fter serving five years in Africa, Europe, and Iraq and earning a Green Beret, Jason McCarthy (MBA ’11) learned the importance of execution. Without proper implementation, he came to understand, ideas have little value.

McCarthy’s commitment to following through on a vision has served him as a business student and an entrepreneur. In 2010, McCarthy launched GORUCK, a maker of military-grade backpacks and gear designed for civilians willing to pay more for quality.

McCarthy had experience with high-quality gear built to endure in the toughest of circumstances.

He also understood that too many companies offered claims like “built to

last” without really living up to that standard.

McCarthy’s mission was to design backpacks that were both aesthetically appealing and rugged enough that urban-warrior types would see them as an investment in quality.

GORUCK backpacks are priced from $175 to $395.

“There are some great names out there, but their products are just not military grade,” he maintains. McCarthy, who also serves as president of the McDonough Military Association, spent two and a half years designing GORUCK backpacks, which he modeled on the gear he had used in Iraq, minus features such as ammunition pockets.

He worked closely with a designer to make sure the backpacks would hold up to his “best on the planet” guarantee,

and then set out to find a domestic manufacturer so he could include a “made in America” label.

As he spent the summer after his first year in business school traveling the country with a small group of co-founders promoting GORUCK, ­McCarthy found that inspiring a team could even be more critical in business than it was in the military, which has a “rank structure” to keep everyone focused.

“In the military, there is less of a human element, given the absolute nature of the command structure.

In small businesses such as mine, people need explanations and need to be brought and kept on board. People need to be inspired. The human element is the greatest challenge, but also the most rewarding, on both fronts.”

Jason McCarthy (MBA ’11)

17

Beau Oliver (IEMBA ’10)

learning through collaboration and immersion in projects such as the global residencies, during which they travel abroad and help real companies tackle business challenges. While the MBA coursework provides background in hard skills like accounting and marketing, students who came to Georgetown from the military say the school’s collaborative experiences outside of the classroom are just as valuable. Interacting with other students from a private-sector background and with a faculty with extensive business experience helped them learn a new code of behavior more fitting for leadership in the civilian work world.

Indeed, even those Georgetown McDonough School of Business graduates who said they knew better than to wear a uniform to a job interview or pack a résumé full of arcane military language confess there was a period of adjustment as they left one world and entered another.

“In the military, there is a set hierarchy, and you know who your boss is. Business is much more blurry,” says Beau Oliver (IEMBA ’10), who spent nine years as a Navy pilot before going to business school. “The hardest part of making the transition is translating all of the 18

experience you’ve had in the military. Saying you were blank officer in blank division is hard to translate. A lot of people get stuck in the jargon.”

Oliver had studied economics as an undergraduate at the United States Naval Academy in Annapolis and had had a lifelong interest in business. When he retired from the Navy, he said he felt he had acquired an abundance of leadership experience, but lacked knowledge of specific industries. Despite that perceived disadvantage, once he was in business school, Oliver quickly found value in many of the time management and organizational skills he had acquired during his first career. Because his work as a pilot had entailed long hours in the air as well as what he describes as “a second full-time job on the ground,” he had superb time-management skills that helped him keep up with his classmates, most of whom had more direct business experience.

Oliver, who now works for Deloitte Consulting, experienced the same kind of cultural adjustments that Storlie and others describe, but says his studies at Georgetown helped him see that the military and business are more similar than he expected. Both, he says, require the judgment to know when to be a team member and when to take a project under your own leadership and run with it. Even more fundamental, both are continuously challenging.

“The learning curve is steep and never levels off,” says Oliver, who views an MBA as a strong foundation but “not a turnkey solution.” In business, as in the military, you never stop learning.

leadership training where he supervised large groups of soldiers and also lived with them. As a 26-year-old officer with authority over some older sergeants who had many more years of experience, King was placed into some inherently difficult situations that forced him to manage with authority while still being respectful so everyone felt empowered.

“It was a leadership lab every day,” says King, who stresses that many of the skills he acquired were the sort of “soft” leadership skills, like negotiation, that can be difficult to teach in a classroom, but critical to realworld success. “It was the most rewarding thing I could have done. I can’t say enough about how much I got out of it.”

King tries to give back through his work with the McDonough Military Association, which works to improve understanding between military and civilian worlds, counsel current and former military personnel who are considering pursuing an MBA, and improve Georgetown’s outreach to members of the military.

Others echo King’s focus on leadership.

Andrea Castillon (EML ’10) enlisted in the National Guard in 1996 and worked as an electrical engineer while attending college through the ROTC’s simultaneous membership program. She describes her early years in the military as a time of gaining valuable work experience, but being unsure of her long-term goals. That all changed shortly

A Leadership Lab

Sam King (MBA ’11), executive vice president of the McDonough Military Association, one of the school’s student clubs, attended Harvard on an ROTC scholarship and spent five years in active duty, heading large platoons in Korea and Hawaii before he was deployed to Iraq. He says his time in the military provided constant, intense

Andrea Castillon (EML ’10)

msb.georgetown.edu

GARY LANDSMAN

but also about collaboration and corporate culture. Many, including McCarthy, saw Georgetown as a natural fit for making this transition because of its location in a region with a strong military presence, and the fact that it sits at the intersection of business and policy. “It is an environment where veterans thrive,” McCarthy says.

Other veterans were drawn to the school’s strong focus on global business and on

after she graduated from the University of Wyoming in 2001, when two planes crashed into the World Trade Center.

“From that point forward, I was fully engaged,” Castillon says. She went to flight school and learned to fly the Black Hawk helicopter. In 2003, she was assigned to fly medical evacuation flights in Kuwait during Operation Iraqi Freedom, an experience that defined her notion of leadership and the grave responsibility it involved. “I was responsible for an entire crew, and for the aircraft,” she recalls. “We would have to fly at night, in low visibility, and in all sorts of dangerous conditions, carrying live ammunition. I learned that it is very important to communicate and to understand what your commanders are asking of you. And it’s very important to remain calm under pressure.”

Castillon was stationed in Washington, D.C., when she applied to Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. Shortly after starting classes, she was transferred to Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Dothan, Ala., to serve as a senior National Guard liaison. She began a grueling commute back to Washington, D.C., every other weekend to complete the education.

Although she entered the program confident that her work experience could open multiple doors in the private sector, she found attending business school expanded her notions of leadership and teamwork.

“What I took away from my Georgetown experience was that you can accomplish a lot if you collaborate. You have to earn respect, but that only goes so far.” In fact, she says that one of the best aspects of the program was her cohorts. Just attending class and working on projects with students from different backgrounds, she says, taught her a lot about ways of thinking in the private sector. “A couple of people in the class had a military background, but most were civilians. It was interesting to hear the questions they asked.” Today, ­Castillon is back in Washington, D.C., working as a congressional liaison, another role she says

is not typically associated with military life, but speaks to the variety of experiences her career path has provided.

Although she is still on active duty and has not yet decided whether she will eventually retire from the military, she says the aspect of business that most appeals to her is entrepreneurship, which would give her an opportunity to tap into all of the diverse experiences she’s had in the military and in life.

“I could get a job on Capitol Hill, or I could go to work for a lobbying company,” Castillon says. “But I think that if I did retire, I would probably start my own business, take all of the leadership lessons I’ve acquired [in the military and in business school], and put it together to build something new.” w Andrea Orr is an author, blogger, and freelance writer who frequently reports on high-tech startups. She is based in Washington, D.C. 19

By Melanie D.G. Kaplan

Going Clean David Leeds (BSBA ’99) had worked in real estate finance and was living abroad. Marty Griffith (MBA ’11) was running a catering business.

Brenda Quiroz Maday (IEMBA ’05) was a business counselor. >> 20

Andrew Kist

Alumni and students explore the emerging industry of cleantech.

David Leeds (BSBA ’99), shown in Times Square in New York City, focuses on the “smart grid” that ties clean technology together.

I

n the time it takes to charge your electric vehicle, you could miss some cleantech news — that’s how quickly the

business and the technology are changing. How to keep up? “You have to follow blogs,” says Marty Griffith (MBA ’11). “If you’re following a couple good blogs and going to conferences, you have a chance of staying current.”

Thanks to students and alumni working in the field, here is a recommended reading list (in alphabetical order): 11. Clean Techies: cleantechies.com 12. earth2tech: earth2tech.com 13. Energy Central: energycentral.com 14. GreenBiz: greenbiz.com 15. GreenTechMedia: greentechmedia.com 16. The New York Times’ Green blog: green.blogs.nytimes.com 17. Plug In America: pluginamerica.org 18. PV-Tech: pv-tech.org 19. RedHerring’s cleantech coverage: redherring.com 10. RenewableEnergyWorld: renewable energyworld.com/rea/blog 11. Seeking Alpha: seekingalpha.com/ tag/alternative-energy 12. SmartGridNews: smartgridnews.com 13. SmartPlanet’s Intelligent Energy blog: smartplanet.com 14. Technology Review’s energy coverage: technologyreview.com/energy

While their careers varied, for these three Georgetown University McDonough School of Business students and graduates, passion drove them back to school and into the business of clean technology. For years, each has cared deeply for the environment or, at the very least, understood that we live on a planet with limited resources.

There came a point, however, at which enthusiasm was not enough; they wanted to get down to business.

For Quiroz Maday, who founded BDMllc 22

Whoever can “figure out how

to capture energy and redeploy it into the grid when you need it will come out on top.

”

msb.georgetown.edu

Quantrell Colbert

Intel for the Cleantech Set

in Alexandria, Va., to provide environmental digitally monitor and control energy usage, and energy consulting, the cue came when while also facilitating the integration of she realized many environmental prob- renewable energy. lems — and their solutions — had someMany of the technologies playing key thing to do with chemistry. She first studied roles in the cleantech revolution have been chemical engineering and then business. “I around for decades, but evaluating, scalunderstood that in order to effectively imple- ing, and deploying them for a mass market ment long-lasting technical solutions,” she is one of today’s challenges. Keeping up says, “you need to effectively manage your with constant changes is another hurdle (see sidebar, “Intel for the Cleantech Set”). resources.”

Leeds, who spent several years living And while Leeds says the performance and abroad after working in real estate, con- growth of certain clean technologies seems sidered which global problems he could to reflect Moore’s Law, becoming twice as help solve, and he chose energy. “It seemed powerful every two years, regulatory chalto be the right time,” he says, “and I came lenges remain, and keeping the U.S. in the to believe it was going to be critically race is not easy when research and development budgets here pale in comparison important.”

Griffith, who interned this summer at a with those in some other countries.

But mystifying and muddled as it may natural gas company, notes, “I’m seeing a paradigm shift where [cleantech] is moving seem to a cleantech novice, the sector is in the direction of harnessing the power of poised to take on the world. According to Leeds, the $4.5 billion in federal stimulus business in a way that it didn’t before.”

This shift — and the commitment from funding dedicated to smart grid efforts government and corporations to support a will enable 18 million smart meters, which new way of doing business — has been a call allow two-way communication between to action for those who care about our world the end users and the utility company, to be installed over the next and understand caring five years. Installations only goes so far. Quiroz of global solar energy Maday, Leeds, Griffith, have jumped from 170 and their peers heeded megawatts in 2000 to the call and acquired 10 gigawatts today — the business tools they an astronomical leap. So knew they would need in there is little question what is being called the that cleantech will connext industrial revolutinue its growth over the tion. There is no question next few decades. What about clean technology, is still up in the air is they say: The time is now. which countries and — David Leeds (BSBA ’99) Smarter, Cleaner, Greener providers will make it Clean technology, comhappen the fastest. monly called cleantech, greentech, or even “There’s this big race going on,” Leeds envirotech, represents the convergence says. “In my eyes, it’s a green arms race of information technology, green trans- between the U.S. and China.” He says the portation, and renewable energy (such as holy grail of the race is energy storage. wind, solar or hydropower, biomass, and “Whoever can figure out how to capture biofuels). energy and redeploy it into the grid when “The big picture is that we’re trying to you need it will come out on top.” get off oil and coal,” says Leeds, an analyst for New York-based Greentech Media, Inc., The Other Green who writes and speaks about the smart grid Capturing energy is impressive, but in this and last year wrote The Smart Grid in 2010, climate, capturing capital is the real coup. which he says has been downloaded more Public and private investment in cleantech than 10,000 times. The smart grid — a is soaring, but it is tricky for startups to broad and somewhat elusive concept — is hack through the varying subsidies offered what holds all the cleantech pieces together. in each state and to stand out among all the The idea is that it will deliver power to cus- other startups fighting for venture capital tomers more efficiently, with the ability to (VC).

“Venture capital and private equity are hovering around this space,” says Brian Perusse (MBA ’09), who works for Arlington, Va.-based AES Corporation, managing large-scale energy-storage projects from conception through operation. While at Georgetown, he interned for the company and worked for them as an external consultant before being hired after graduation.

Two major IPOs, Perusse says, have created a lot of buzz: Tesla Motors in June (raising $226 million) and A123 Systems, the lithium ion battery supplier partly owned by AES, last September (raising $380 million).

“The biggest hurdle for VC is the amount of capital required to scale a business,” says Perusse. “Some will require hundreds of millions to scale up to a point where they

Maury Zimring (MBA ’09) works on cleantech projects for Coca-Cola, a company that uses solar panels to power plants when possible.

are profitable, and VC doesn’t usually have the appetite for that. The IPOs help validate [that] there’s a potential exit strategy for VC and private equity.”

Many experts in this sector like to say that in the VC arena, cleantech is the new dot-com. Some firms, such as Kleiner Perkins, have transitioned in a big way from the Internet to cleantech, which is encouraging for U.S. companies that may not have the government support that their counterparts have in countries like China or Germany.

But Perusse argues that supporting cleantech is riskier than funding Internet companies. “The Internet was a new platform and could be developed from scratch,” he says. “Cleantech is operating in an existing space — the energy sector. And that comes

with existing, entrenched incumbents, which can make it more complicated when you’re trying to get rules changed to incorporate a new technology.”

Randy Roy (IEMBA ’00), who founded Severna Park, Md.-based Lars Energy, LLC, in 2001, shortly after he graduated, says federal and state subsidies help promote technologies that would otherwise be costprohibitive­, such as biodiesel and solar projects.

“I like to call it the gap between ­economic returns and environmental returns,” says Roy. His business, which develops green projects and looks at a wide assortment of technologies, says understanding the state and regional incentive structure allows him to focus on those technologies that support

McDonough School of Business students Nick Chaset (MBA ’11) and Rusmir Music ´ (MBA ’11) are active in clean technology clubs, projects, and summits on campus.

a local bias. For instance, Lars helps companies participate in demand-response programs that manage customer consumption of electricity. States that are worried about an electricity shortage support such programs, but others do not. So if Roy is working with a company that has operations in multiple states, he researches which state will yield the best economic returns.

Andrey Shlyakhtenko (MBA ’10), who co-founded Rosslyn, Va.-based Sol-R Energy last December while he was a student, says the investment climate in the U.S. is starkly different from that in France, where his company assembles panels in solar power plants.

“In France, once the system is built and commissioned, the government signs a contract to agree to buy everything at a fixed and very favorable rate for 20 years,” he says. “In 24

the U.S. there are subsidies, but short-term, so the level of risk is much higher.”

Shlyakhtenko, who earned a Ph.D. in physics in Russia before coming to Georgetown, is approaching potential American and European investors. He says raising capital is a tremendous challenge due to the current economy and the perception of cleantech as a high-risk venture.

The capital outlook is vastly different on the corporate side, where federal and state grants are important drivers of clean technology. Coca-Cola Enterprises (CCE), for example, will receive more than $9 million in grants to double the size of its hybrid electric vehicle fleet in 2010, says Maury Zimring (MBA ’09), manager of corporate responsibility and sustainability for CCE in Atlanta.

“You see a ripple effect,” says Zimring, whose job it is to figure out, through pilot

programs, which capital projects help the company reduce its energy and water use and increase recycling. “Despite the economic situation we’re all in, the more businesses get involved, the more investment there is, and the more small companies grow.” She says by piloting fully electric trucks partially funded by federal stimulus money, CCE helped to enable Smith Electric Vehicles — which previously manufactured only overseas — to build a facility in Kansas City, Mo. Zimring says although the push toward clean technology comes from corporate leadership combined with stimulus funds and nonprofit organizations, there also is a growing trend toward investors making cleantech a priority. “The Dow Jones Sustainability Index looks at everything from water and energy usage to the number msb.georgetown.edu

of miles our trucks drive and how much money we invest in reducing these issues,” she says. “[The Index] comes to us every year, and you have to show progress. Investors are paying attention to that.”

Welton Doby lll

Students Put Georgetown on the Cleantech Map

Increasingly, business school students are paying attention, as well. Two years ago, some Georgetown McDonough School of Business students founded the Energy Club.

Last fall, finding that the club did not focus enough on renewable energy, Nick Chaset (MBA ’11), then in his first year, founded the Cleantech Club.

“I thought it would be a good way to meet classmates who were interested in the topic and to network with potential employers,” says Chaset. He arrived at Georgetown with five years of experience working in renewable energy at an international energy consulting firm, a solar developer, and the California Public Utilities Commission, where he worked on the California Solar Initiative. Chaset used the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business’ cleantech club as a model for the McDonough School of Business’ club and says it will be an important part of building Georgetown’s brand.

The university has already taken a lead in its facilities with the new Rafik B. Hariri Building, which houses the Georgetown McDonough School of Business, and which was recently awarded LEED Silver Certification from the U.S. Green Building Council. Thanks to its innovative design features, the building is expected to save 15 percent in energy costs and 41 percent in water use.

“Renewable energy and cleantech is still very much an emerging sector of the economy,” Chaset says. “Georgetown, in a city where so many critical decisions are made in the cleantech sector, has a unique opportunity to take a leadership position.”

The club, which has since merged with the Energy Club, hosts monthly events that educate the Georgetown community, including campus presentations on wind and solar energy. Last year, the club partnered with Carbon War Room, an initiative

by Sir Richard Branson that — partly as a result of the Cleantech Club’s efforts — held its Creating Climate Wealth summit at Georgetown last fall. Club members also have completed mini-consulting projects Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

with Azure Power and Washington Metro- of the complex technical side. She says politan Area Transit Authority, and helped people tend to have either the financial the American Council on Renewable and marketing skills or the background in Energy run a social media and marketing environmental conservation, but it is campaign for its 2009 conference. In the important to enter this industry with all of spring, the club helped host Green to Gold: it. “I don’t think I would have this job if I Growing the Clean Energy Economy, with hadn’t done both,” she says.

The EDF Climate Corps is a partnera keynote speech by James Woolsey, former director of the CIA and a partner at Vantage ship between the Environmental Defense Fund and Net Impact, Point Venture Partners. a national organization At all these events, of graduate students Chaset says, students and alumni that focuses have the opportunity to on using business skills network, and the club to improve society. The has developed career group matches busiopportunities for memness school students bers. Out of 25 active with companies seeking members, about oneenergy efficiency plans. third worked in cleanThis is how Griffith tech internships this — Nick Chaset (MBA ’11) ended up spending his summer. Chaset is one summer at New Jersey of them. He works as Resources, exploring the company’s faciligovernment affairs manager for Oakland, ties and suggesting ways it could undertake Calif.-based Renewable Funding (a job he efficiency investments that would both be holds part-time during the school year), profitable and reduce its carbon footprint. where he oversees development of regulaHe says he learned a lot about how utilitory and public policy strategy ties are regulated and how the companies are changing their models to profit from Be the Next Mr. (or Ms.) Clean The good news for cleantech job-seekers encouraging reduced energy usage. is that there are significantly more career He also learned that energy companies paths today than there were even three or are a good place for alumni to find work four years ago, when many in the field were and the types of salaries they seek. “If you engineers building the technology or were want to bring new technology to society working at advocacy organizations. on a massive scale, the utilities are a good “We’re talking about launching a whole way to go,” he says. new industry,” Leeds says. “You’re going Griffith, who is still nourishing his to need everything from financial analysts entrepreneurial spirit with the occasional who help invest in these young green- catering gig, says at first, he will likely work tech companies on the venture capital and for a startup. He enjoys the fresh thinking investment banking side to programmers, involved, and he does not think he has engineers, and sales and marketing folks at enough experience to work at a traditional the utilities. You have the utility companies energy company right away. He compares that have never had to market to the cus- the cleantech startup landscape to that of tomer before — they just send the bill and dot-coms, noting that few of the existing get paid — now seeing their entire busi- startups are currently profitable, and few ness reinvented.” will succeed.

But alumni warn that it is not an indusBut he says those that do survive could try for novices. “There’s a lot of growth in end up being the next Googles. So for Grifthis industry, and people think they can just fith and others who seek a chance to work jump into it,” Perusse says. “It takes some in a burgeoning industry — and do some understanding of engineering, the regula- good for the planet along the way — the tory environment, and technology.” rewards may be worth the risks. w Zimring, who managed retail LEED certifications at the U.S. Green Building Washington, D.C., freelance writer Council before earning her MBA, agrees Melanie D.G. Kaplan has written for The that having the right background is key, Washington Post, USA Weekend,The Christian ­Science particularly in this industry, because Monitor, and Georgetown Law Magazine.

Renewable “energy and

cleantech is still very much an emerging sector of the economy.

”

25

the

Understanding

racle

By Chris Blose

Michael Morganstern

Professor Prem Jain’s book on Warren Buffett compiles 20-plus years of study into a practical guide for investors, big and small.

Although you will never hear him say it, plenty of other people are willing to call Warren Buffett a genius. Authors write breathless biographies about the CEO and chairman of Berkshire Hathaway, and his investment prowess has earned him the moniker “Oracle of Omaha.”

Fair enough. Buffett’s company consistently beats the market and has grown at an annual rate of around 20 percent for more than 40 years, so when it comes to investing and business sense, calling him a genius seems about right. >> Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

27

The Bottom Line

P

rem Jain’s years of studying Warren Buffett have yielded Buffett Beyond Value, a book

filled with practical investment advice, including the following: • Develop a mindset to win in the stock market game — but stay within your “circle of competence.”

• Combine value investing (based on historical records and financial measures) with growth investing (based on assessing a company’s management and potential growth).

• Learn accounting principles to help you look for hidden risks.

• Act rationally, and think about the long term.

• Estimate a company’s intrinsic value, and invest when the price is low compared with that estimate.

However, when it came time for Prem Jain, Elsa C. McDonough Professor of Accounting and Finance at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, to write a new book about Buffett, he was less concerned with painting yet another biographical portrait of Buffett the genius and more concerned with answering a question: What can we learn from him?

Jain has spent more than 20 years studying and teaching Buffett’s investment philosophies. His book, Buffett Beyond Value: Why Warren Buffett Looks to Growth and Management When Investing (2010, John Wiley & Sons), reads as a culmination of those efforts and as a guide to investors, big or small, who want to apply Buffett principles to their own investments. Of course, learning from a genius is easier said than done.

28

and sell high, when a stock reaches or exceeds market value, independent of time, Buffett holds onto stocks for long periods of time to let them grow — 10 years on average.

Jain also turns to numbers for evidence.

“An average return on investment in the market is about 9 percent over the last several decades,” he says. “Buffett’s returns are in the neighborhood of 20 percent. Value investing might produce about 11 or 12 percent, and if you can beat the market by that 2 or 3 percent, you’re doing well as an investor. But there’s a huge gap between what value investing produces and what Buffett has produced.”

So what accounts for Buffett’s success?

To Jain, the answer lies in part in Buffett’s combination of low-risk value investing and carefully calculated growth investing.

In traditional growth investing, returns are very high — but so are risks. Buffett is well known as an investor who limits his risk. For example, he typically does not invest in technology because he admits to not understanding that market and not being able to predict the future of technology companies, so he avoids such disasters as the dot-com bubble bursting. However, like growth investors, he does look for companies likely to grow consistently over time. As examples, Jain offers Wal-Mart, Home Depot, StarValue and Growth bucks, and other companies Buffett often has been cast — Buffett often as modern growth stocks that in popular media, books, and has been lack the risk of something like even on Wikipedia — as a value cast — in a tech stock. Jain recommends investor. Jain believes that is popular examining a company’s earnonly part of the story, though. media, books, ings over several years, because In the book, Jain defines and even on companies that have strong a value investor as “someone Wikipedia — earnings and growth over sevwho invests in stocks that have as a value eral past years are likely to yield such characteristics as low investor.

Jain growth in the future, too. price-to-earnings (P/E) or believes that A long-term view also market-to-book (M/B) ratios. is only part comes with some simple manIt also refers to those people of the story, tras: Act rationally. Be patient. who buy stocks after the market though.

Don’t panic.

Buffett’s coolprices have fallen substantially.” headed attitude may account On the whole, value investment for why he did not unload represents a conservative, lowmassive amounts of stock during the ongorisk approach to the market. ing recession as many others did; in fact, To combat the idea that Buffett is he wrote an op-ed piece in 2008 in The New simply a value investor, Jain turns to the York Times saying it was a good time to buy, facts. Under Buffett, Berkshire Hathaway has acquired shares of stocks at or above not sell.

In short, Buffett combines the best the market’s P/E ratio: Coca-Cola, Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway, Ameri- principles from value investing and growth can Express, and others. Additionally, investing into his own philosophy that while traditional value investors buy low defies the dichotomy between the two.

“If it were easy to copy Picasso and Mozart, then there would be thousands of Picassos and Mozarts,” Jain says. Picasso could teach you how he paints, and Mozart could teach you how he plays and composes, but in the end, something would still be missing: the thought process and the creative spark behind their work.

Buffett’s medium may be money, but the idea remains the same. By poring over Berkshire Hathaway’s books and annual reports, Buffett’s letters to shareholders, and many other types of sources, including Buffett’s own substantial writing, Jain attempts to look into Buffett’s thought process.

“I cannot claim that I have figured out exactly what goes on in his head,” Jain says. “That is impossible.

But by looking at the available information, including information about how he has made investment decisions, one can come up with one’s own arguments, which is what I have done.”

Mind-reading is, as it turns out, unnecessary. “The idea is that even if you don’t do as well as Buffett has, which is unlikely, even if you have a fraction of his success, you’re going to be well above average,” Jain says.

msb.georgetown.edu

Phil Humnicky

Warren Buffett spoke to a Georgetown audience at the Capital Markets Competitiveness Conference in Gaston Hall in 2007.

The People Matter

As Jain illustrates through several case studies, Buffett does not assess a company’s growth potential based solely on ratios and other financial analysis. He looks at those numbers, of course, but he also looks at what he considers an even more important resource: people.

In his analysis, Buffett places a premium on the quality of a company’s management and corporate culture. His qualitative approach complements the quantitative approach of crunching a company’s financial numbers. It also speaks to his belief that consistently well-run companies will yield growth over long periods of time.

Jain offers an analogy: You walk down a city street that features multiple coffee shops. One has a line out the door, but the other is basically deserted. You may wonder about the difference.

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

“They’re selling such traditional products that there must be something other than the products alone,” Jain says. “In that case, I would say that the successful coffee shop probably has strong management and employees behind the counter.”

The quality of a company’s products is important, but often its management is what helps it stand out in a crowded marketplace. Buffett has a knack for finding good managers, Jain says. And when he finds them, he keeps them.

The book offers the example of three jewelers owned by Berkshire Hathaway: Borsheim’s, Helzberg Diamonds, and Ben Bridge Jeweler. In each case, Buffett got to know the owners and managers personally and became impressed enough with them to want to purchase their businesses, once he had reached the right price.

“While they are all retail jewelry stores, Borsheim’s, Helzberg Diamonds, and Ben Bridge Jeweler are run as separate businesses under the Berkshire umbrella,” Jain writes. “The principal reason is managers who made those businesses successful in the first place by keeping costs low and customers satisfied.”

The jewelry example illustrates several of Buffett’s attributes: a long-term approach to investment, faith in strong management, and the belief that if something is already working well, there’s no need to change it. These are principles even smaller investors — who are unlikely to buy entire companies — can adhere to in purchasing their own stocks.

Put simply, do your research, but make sure your research goes beyond the numbers.

29

Competence and Confidence

Another of Buffett’s core concepts rings true for ordinary investors, too: Stay within your circle of competence.

To illustrate, Jain offers another analogy.

“When you take a sick child to the doctor’s office, the doctor will not get nervous because the doctor thinks, ‘OK, I can fix this child,’” he says. “The mother might be throwing fits because she doesn’t understand what is happening. You need to be in the same situation as the doctor, not the mother.”

Buffett was in the doctor’s position back in 1967 when he acquired two insurance companies, National Indemnity Company and National Fire and Marine Insurance Company, for $9 million. Buffett knew the insurance business well, and his understanding of that business has grown over time with big-time acquisitions such as

P

rem Jain, Elsa C. McDonough Professor of Accounting and

Finance, came to Georgetown’s

McDonough School of Business in 2000 as a visiting professor, then joined the faculty in 2002. Not long after, he hosted Warren Buffett as a guest speaker on campus in Gaston Hall.

Jain previously held faculty positions at the Freeman School of Business at Tulane University, the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and INSEAD in France. He earned a Ph.D. in business administration from the University of Florida in 1984, as well as an M.S. in applied economics from the University of Rochester in 1980. He also is a CPA and holds previous degrees in his home country of India.

Jain’s research has been published in the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics, Journal of Accounting Research, and the Accounting Review, among many other academic journals.

30

Phil Humnicky

About the Researcher

Prem Jain (left) has spent more than 20 years studying and teaching Warren Buffett’s investment philosophies.

GEICO, which became a wholly owned investing, Jain says. Can you be patient subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway in 1995. when the market hits trouble, or will In fact, insurance remains the company’s you follow the herd and sell, sell, sell? main business. Buffett and Berkshire have Are you flexible enough to change your succeeded in insurance because thinking when you must? Do of a thorough understanding you think rationally or act on Put simply, of the industry. impulse? Can you learn from do your The lesson for everyday your mistakes? research, investors is to pick your areas In the end, Jain hopes his of focus carefully. If you already but make sure book will not only delve into your research Buffett’s mentality, but also into understand a particular indusgoes try well, search for and invest in the reader’s and potential invesbeyond the the best of the best within that tor’s. He writes with a general numbers. industry. And if you want to audience in mind, but he backs branch out beyond your current up his assumptions and recomcircle of competence, gather mendations with a wealth of expert opinion and learn as much as pos- data, both quantitative and qualitative. The sible about the new field you wish to enter. book has been well received critically, and Buffett did not know much about jewelry Jain already has sold rights to translations when he purchased Berkshire’s first jeweler, including Chinese (both Cantonese and but he turned to the expertise of the manag- Mandarin) and Thai. ers who had impressed him so much.

Praise and sales are nice, but Jain insists With competence comes confidence, his intent in writing Buffett Beyond Value was and confident investors tend to succeed much more intellectual than commercial. more than those who scare easily, Jain “Warren Buffett has written so much, points out. Perhaps that is why he devotes and he claims that most of the things he two chapters of the book to the psychology does can be copied,” Jain says. “This was my of investment. You must ask yourself challenge. I took upon myself a challenge to important questions before diving into understand Buffett, with academic rigor.” w msb.georgetown.edu

ALUMNINotes

BSBA Class of 1969 Christian Hoffmann is a corporate mergers and acquisitions attorney with Quarles & Brady and was ranked in the 2010 edition of the Chambers USA directory.

BSBA Class of 1981 Eileen O’Connor moved to McDer-

mott Will and Emery as counsel and co-head of the Legal Crisis Management Practice Group in October 2009. Before becoming a double Hoya, graduating from Georgetown Law in 2005, O’Connor spent 24 years as a journalist for ABC News and CNN, based in London, Moscow, and Tokyo, as well as the U.S. She is chair of the board of the Center for Justice and Accountability and co-editor of the Legal Crisis Management blog.

Geof Rochester is chief marketing officer at the Nature Conservancy, where he is responsible for the organization’s marketing, membership, and visibility strategies. After graduating from Georgetown, he received an MBA from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Since then, his career has spanned the entertainment, Internet, consumer products, and hospitality industries. Most recently, Rochester was executive vice president for marketing at World Wrestling Entertainment. Prior to that, he was senior vice president for marketing at Showtime Networks and held senior marketing positions at Comcast Communications, Radisson Hotels Interna-

tional, and Procter and Gamble.

He also consults with several nonprofit organizations.

BSBA Class of 1986 Angela Venza worked at JP Mor-

gan in New York and Madrid, Spain, for four years after graduation and then switched to an international development career via a master’s in public policy degree from the Woodrow Wilson School at Princeton University.

After that, she worked for the nonprofit organization Synergos in New York, focusing on strengthening Latin American NGOs. She married AJ Alper and they moved to Quito, Ecuador, where she ran a program to promote corporate social responsibility for the nonprofit Fundacion Esquel. In 1999, they settled in Baltimore, Md., where Venza continues to work as an international development consultant and raise two boys.

Eugene Ubalijoro was recruited

by Heineken International in his native Rwanda, but his career also took him to Atlanta, Amsterdam, and la Réunion (a French island in the Indian Ocean, east of Madagascar), where he currently heads a large soft-drink distribution company. He is married to Pascale Gamard and they have three children: Alexandra, 11; Jonathan, 9; and Ashley, 6. They live in la Réunion, enjoying visits to South Africa, Namibia, Kenya, Mauritius, and Seychelles. The family spends holidays between Rwanda and the south of France.

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Ismael González de Diego worked for the Federal Reserve before earning an MBA at Thunderbird.

He has worked as a financial analyst in the automotive, telecommunications, and IT sectors. He gained international experience from working in Spain, Switzerland, France, and Germany for General Motors Corp. He is president of the Georgetown Club of Spain and became a governor of the University’s Alumni Association in September. His daughter Alejandra, 9, is set to be a Hoya ’22.

Norman Powell received a JD/

MBA from basketball rival Villanova University. He has practiced business and corporate law in Delaware for 21 years; since 2006 at Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP, with fellow Hoya Craig D. Grear (BSBA ’86, JD ’89). In 1993, he married Jacqueline Loughman, a nonHoya lawyer. They settled in Unionville, Pa., where they live with their two sons.

Richard Battista has been in Los

Angeles for almost 20 years, where he lives with his wife, Brenda, and 5-year-old twin sons, Gio and Dante. Battista has enjoyed a long career working in media, primarily at Fox. Currently, he is president of Fox’s National Cable Networks, overseeing a portfolio of nine entertainment and sports cable networks. The family recently spent their third consecutive summer vacationing in Nantucket.

Tanya Cook was recently sworn into the Nebraska Unicameral legislature.

Timothy Scanlan and Karen (Dietrich) Scanlan (C ’86, M ’90) live in a suburb of Boston, Mass., with their two daughters, Caroline and Tory, and practice law and medicine, respectively. Tim stays in touch with fellow Boston alums Tom Cahill and Bill McMahon and enjoys an annual boys’ weekend with Guillaume Ackerman, Bo Stenson, Ed DiGeronimo, Mike Woodrow, and Claud Modesti.

MBA Class of 1990 Mary Colman St. John was appointed to the newly expanded position of chief financial and administrative officer at Aperture Foundation. She is a publishing industry veteran who held the position of finance director at the nonprofit book publisher the New Press for 10 years. Her prior work experience includes seven years at Berlitz International, Inc., where she held managerial positions in the areas of corporate planning and financial planning and analysis.

BSBA Class of 1991 Karen Phillips Broussard launched

GlutenFreeTravelSite.com last year to help people following glutenfree diets (due to celiac disease) find suitable places to safely dine in their area or while traveling.

Visitors to the site can search and submit reviews of restaurants, grocery stores, hotels, and resorts anywhere in the world that accommodate gluten-free diets. She launched the site after her youngest son was diagnosed with celiac. She and her husband, Chris, live in South Riding, Va., with their two boys, ages 8 and 6.

alumniclassnotes@georgetown.edu

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

31

ALUMNINotes

Lisa Hodge Duval and her hus-

band, Alf, are happy to announce the birth of their second daughter, Olivia, on Sept. 14, 2009.

Hodge Duval was promoted in the past year to director of fuel and operations support at Delta Air Lines.

Tiffany Faircloth Kosch lives in

Coconut Grove, Fla., with her husband, Scott, and two children, ages 6 and 3. She is a managing director at Bayside Capital, a $3 billion distressed fund.

BSBA Class of 1992 Lilian Moy relocated to Wash-

ington, D.C., after completing a graduate program at Fordham University. She works for the U.S. Department of Commerce in marketing, advertising, and research.

Sarbjit Singh recently joined the

School of Business at Farmingdale State College in New York as an assistant professor with an emphasis on sports management.

BSBA Class of 1993 Nathan Bartholomew, along with

Thuy Tien and Alex, has relocated to Paris for a great job opportunity with Legrand.

BSBA Class of 1994 Jennifer Rebecca Aurilio married

Christopher Raymond Benoit on Sept. 6, 2009, in North Palm Beach, Fla. The couple honeymooned in Hawaii and now resides in Boca Raton, where Jennifer is a medical device sales representative for Smith & Nephew. Christopher is the chief engineer on the U.S. Navy highspeed prototype FSF Seafighter.

32

Jennifer competes at the Grand Prix level in the equestrian sport of dressage and also is a judge in that discipline.

Russ Matthews recently became

president of First Western Capital Management, an investment management firm located in Los Angeles.

BSBA Class of 1995 Chad Faber was recalled by the Navy to support Operation Iraqi Freedom in late 2008. He was expecting to fly in the skies over Iraq in a P-3 Orion, but ended up serving as a civil affairs officer in Baghdad. After the Iraqi election, he returned to his position in the admissions and financial aid office at Harvard University.

Gabriel Rabinovici lived in New

York for four years after graduation, working in private wealth management. He then moved to Geneva in 2000, where he worked at UBP-Union Bancaire Privee for six years. At the end of 2006, Rabinovici moved back to New York, where he co-founded Concurrent Capital, LLC, an investment advisory firm.

He married his wife, Pamela, in 2002. They have two children, Henry, 4, and Annabelle, 2.

Saif Chapra is the director of information services at Plains Midstream Canada in Calgary, Alberta. Since graduating from Georgetown, Chapra has earned an MBA from McGill University in Montreal, where he met and married a fellow grad student, Adriana Stoica. This past summer they welcomed their first child, a baby girl named Alina Aziza.

BSBA Class of 1996 Alanna (O’Neill) Weifenbach lives in Switzerland with her husband, Simon, and two boys, Alessandro and Luciano. She works at Credit Suisse.

Bryan Eleazar spent two years in

New York City after graduation and then moved around Southern California, receiving an MBA at UCLA in 2002. He married Ann Stark in Dana Point, Calif., over Thanksgiving weekend in 2006.

Elezar works in the financial due diligence practice at DLC (a company founded by an ’81 Hoya) and resides in Culver City, Calif., with his wife and daughters Tristan Rose, 2, and Audrey Elizabeth, 3 months, and beagle Huey. He remains active with his men’s ministry, Georgetown alumni interviewing, and beach volleyball.

scholarship. He worked at the U.N. War Crimes Tribunal helping prosecute Slobodan Milosevic before returning to Washington, D.C., to work at a big law firm.

After that, he left to do a White House Fellowship and served as a special assistant to the secretary of defense. He now works at the World Bank, where he helps developing countries track down and recover stolen assets from past dictators.

Sylvia (Solarewicz) Arostegui

Heather Lauer’s book, Bacon: A

Love Story, was published in May 2009 by Harper Collins. The book is based on her blog BaconUnwrapped.com. She also recently launched a social media consultancy, Villageous LLC, and is based in Phoenix.

Kristi (Fuerherm) Tange (MSFS ’97) and her husband, Ichiro, live in New Jersey and enjoy their 22-month-old son, Owen Kenichi. Tange has worked for Goldman, Sachs & Co. since 1997, currently as vice president in derivative operations.

Mark Vlasic (JD ’00) spent a year

received a law degree at Georgetown before beginning her 10-year law career at Latham & Watkins in Los Angeles. Now she practices at Trainor Fairbrook, a boutique firm in Sacramento, Calif., specializing in commercial real estate development and loan transactions.

MBA Class of 1996 Durga Bobba has moved from

Philadelphia, where he had worked for Merck since graduation, to San Francisco to join Genentech. He is married to ­Geetika, and their children, Anjali, 9, and Vikas, 6, were excited to move to San Francisco and live closer to their grandparents.

backpacking around the world after graduation. He then went to Georgetown Law, and then to Holland on a Fulbright

msb.georgetown.edu

PROFILE

Hope for Haiti

A

PHOTOGRAPHY BY CAMERON DAVIDSON

s a child, Stephen Davenport’s summer vacations differed from the average trip to camp.

From age 8 through high school graduation, he spent his months off school with his dad, a minister, in Haiti.

When a tragic 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck Haiti’s capital in January 2010, it hit close to home — or home away from home — for Davenport (IEMBA ’06).

Davenport has worked in the development field for more than a decade. He has put technology systems in place from Ethiopia to Malawi to help struggling nations monitor foreign aid. Short-term recovery efforts in Haiti fell outside the scope of his nonprofit, Development Gateway, and his usual focus on later-stage rebuilding efforts.

Nonetheless, Davenport, senior director of business development, was motivated to lead a team that would measure and monitor the impact of humanitarian aid in a country he knew as a young boy. “It has been difficult to see what I knew as a child completely destroyed,” he says, “but it does give me some satisfaction to know I can help.”

Development Gateway was created in 2001 by former World Bank President James D. Wolfensohn to provide technical tools for recipient countries to make their donated dollars more effective. The company piloted an innovative new aid-management system that has since spread to 15 countries. The new goal is sustainability, going beyond just installing the software and instead expanding the capacity of governments in these countries to collect data, make reports, and use this information to make tangible strides forward.

In the case of Haiti, now-Prime Minister Jean-Max Bellerive had two years ago contracted with Development Gateway to take on a multiyear project monitoring donor aid to Haiti.

The earthquake turned the plan on its head.

Davenport and his colleagues dove into humanitarian assistance instead, even committing to an unlikely partnership with Synergy Systems LLC, a private-sector company that had helped with recovery efforts following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 230,000 people. The thinking was that both groups could bring unique expertise to the table. Similarly, current relief work is a a joint effort between the government of Haiti, the United Nations

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

For Steve Davenport (IEMBA ’06), below, the devastation in Haiti hit home.

Development Programme, and the Office of the Special Envoy (Bill Clinton) to support the Interim Haitian Reconstruction Commission.

Davenport’s first trip to Haiti right after the deadly quake was remarkably intense, he recalls.

“There was still the smell of death; the rains hadn’t come yet,” he says, explaining that aid workers and members of the government stayed in primitive tents and worked out of the airport because it was one of the few structures not leveled. “A lot of people were living illegally or in homes they had made themselves on other people’s property. The power was turned off at night so no one would step on live wires. It really did hit the city center and destroyed everything.”

In the months since, there has been progress, he says. Food, electricity, and water are flowing, and there’s a call for skilled expats to return to their homeland. In March a major international conference in New York City resulted in dozens of foreign governments pledging billions toward Haiti’s recovery.

“The challenge is making those pledges into actual programmable aid. And then how do you have that project make an impact?” Davenport says. “And how do you make sure that impact is what the government wants?”

Beyond basic humanitarian needs, Davenport and his nonprofit also return to the technological approaches they set out with.

“Right now the government is weak, and there’s not a lot of trust,” he says, “but our goal is to get the government to use our tool to be transparent.”

— Dena Levitz

33

ALUMNINotes

in federal government transformation and information technology. Williams and his wife, Tanya, live in Arlington, Va., with their three children, Alec, 16, Elena, 13, and Elise, 8.

BSBA Class of 2002 Patrick Donegan and his wife,

Kate, welcomed their daughter, Rory Ivison Donegan, on Nov. 6, 2009, in Boston.

MBA Class of 2000 Alisa Robinson Salibra married

Carole Banks Russo and her husband, Anthony, welcomed twins, Gus and Eva, into the world on Nov. 7, 2009. They join their sister Isabella, 6, who is in first grade. The family can see Georgetown University from their new house in Arlington, Va.

BSBA Class of 1997 Kelley Sullivan Bolten recently

accepted a job with Merrill Lynch in New York City. She and her husband, Brian, live in Chatham, N.J., with their son, Aidan, 3, and daughter, Caitlin, 1. They have enjoyed running into many Hoyas since relocating back to the Northeast from Charlotte, N.C. Jennifer Millman and Robert MacDonald were married on Feb. 6, 2010, at The Ompoy Ocean Resort in Palm Beach, Fla. They are both from Baltimore and went to college in Washington, D.C. They took a two-week trip throughout the Mediterranean in June for their honeymoon.

They now reside in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla.

34

MBA Class of 1997 Michael Blake was awarded the Accredited Senior Appraiser (ASA) designation in business valuation from the American Society of Appraisers. Currently, he is director of valuation services for Habif, Arogeti & Wynne in Atlanta, the largest independent accounting firm in the southeastern United States.

He also is co-founder of StartupLounge, an online entrepreneur support and advocacy community that supports the development of innovationdriven emerging ventures.

Joseph Salibra on Aug. 31, 2009.

They enjoyed a honeymoon in Italy visiting Rome, the Amalfi Coast, Tuscany, Florence, and Venice. They welcomed a son, Eric, on Sept. 14, 2009. Big brother Benjamin is excited about the new addition to the family. They reside in Fayetteville, N.Y. IEMBA Class of 2001

Laura Wilkicki Bruckmann and her husband, Christopher Bruckmann (C ’00), are proud to announce the birth of their daughter, ­Carolyn Amaral, in August 2009.

Carly wore a Georgetown onesie home from the hospital.

BSBA Class of 2004 Jessica Marshall has been

BSBA Class of 1999 Bradford Caldwell was appointed board member of the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority

by Arkansas Gov. Mike Bebee.

His term expires in January 2012.

IEMBA Class of 2000 Gregory Williams was named prin-

cipal and vice president of sales for Kore Federal of Falls Church, Va. Kore Federal is a womanowned small business and leader

BSBA Class of 2003

Tatiana Koleva, area director

for the legal solutions group of Pitney Bowes Management Services, Inc., was named to Diversity MBA Magazine’s “2010 Top 100 Under 50 Diverse Executive & Emerging Leaders.” Diversity MBA Magazine is an internationally distributed publication targeting women and multicultural professionals in corporate America, government, entrepreneurs, and business students.

appointed vice president of programs at Junior Achievement of New York, a nonprofit that delivers free K–12 economic education and empowerment programs to New York City and Long Island students. Marshall was a candidate in the United Way Junior Fellows Program and completed a business education course called “Developing Managerial Effectiveness for JA Worldwide” from Penn State’s Smeal College of Business. She resides in Cobble Hill, Brooklyn.

John Antonelli and his wife, Kendall­(F ’04), opened their new store, Antonelli’s Cheese Shop, in Austin, Texas.

msb.georgetown.edu

ALUMNINotes

PROFILE

Game Time

F

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

deals, that was riskier,” Mech says. “But for every person who has told me I can’t do it, I know there are two who believe I can.”

Although law school might be in the future — Mech quips, “maybe a Georgetown triple-crown?” — for now, the entrepreneur is content in her McLean, Va., office tracking down leads to land her next big client.

And although Mech is still a sports lover at heart, she insists there are no stars in her eyes when it comes to her business.

Smiling, she says, “I’m fine turning off SportsCenter to watch the stocks.”

— Chloe Thompson

PHOTOGRAPHY BY DARKO ZAGAR

ormer Georgetown lacrosse captain Rachel Mech had one goal as a student, but it had nothing to do with her time on the field.

Mech (BSBA ’07, MPS ’09) wanted to start her own business. That is just what the co-founder of ProVentures did shortly after graduating in 2007.

Her D.C.-based startup company develops sports and entertainment strategies for its clients, which have included Gillette, Red Bull, and Kentucky Fried Chicken. ProVentures develops entertainment and hospitality events that promote brands through a celebrity representative, whom it carefully selects to match each brand.

Even though Mech, 25, admits that “playing with the boys” in the sports world is fun, she is unfazed by the glitz and glamour of collaborating with big names such as New Orleans Saints player Reggie Bush and Boston Celtics star Rajon Rondo.

“I knew I wanted to work with people, and sports had always been a part of my life,” she says.

“But more than just being a fan, I really was intrigued by the business side of sports and the way that it worked.”

Mech developed her own track to success with a double major in management and marketing and a minor in government — “for fun,” she says, smiling.

Her undergrad years led her to a sports management class in its inaugural year at Georgetown, where she met the other half of ProVentures, guest speaker Patrick McGee. After an internship at McGee’s former company, Octagon, the two began their startup company. Meanwhile, Mech completed her master’s in corporate communications and public relations at Georgetown in 2009.

Although McGee, who took Mech on in a “ ‘Jerry Maguire’ sort of way,” shares Mech’s vision to expand ProVentures beyond sports and entertainment, the go-getter Mech credits her drive to a more familiar source.

“I am bred from two of the hardest-working human beings in the country,” Mech says. Her mother owns a small travel agency, and her father took a risk leaving the family company in construction to eventually become president of a software development company, which he later sold to a larger firm.

“Leaving school to do something entrepreneurial is something a lot of people would say is really risky, but for me, I felt like going to a large company and waiting to work my way up to the bigger

Rachel Mech’s (BSBA ’07, MPS ’09) business combines sports and marketing savvy.

35

ALUMNINotes

within a nation’s economy or by an organization and the current competencies of the workforce) on national growth, competitiveness, and company performance.

IEMBA Class of 2007 Christiana Paul recently founded Capital Financial Planners, LLC, a financial planning and asset management firm based in Washington, D.C., providing objective, integrated planning and investment services.

EML Class of 2007 Joseph Garcia published a leader-

MBA Class of 2005 Suzanne Stumpp and Ryan Ona

were married on May 8, 2010, at the Dahlgren Chapel of the Sacred Heart at Georgetown University.

Stumpp is a manager of market research and consumer insights at Campbell Soup Company.

Ona is a financial analyst at Northrop Grumman. They live in Philadelphia.

a Ph.D. at the London School of Economics and Political Science. His research focuses on the impact of skills gaps (the difference between the skills required

ship book titled The Leader’s Pyramid.

The book promotes being the best possible leader under any situation, putting the mission first, people’s concerns second, and ego last. Garcia was CFO for Gulf Coast Recovery operations in New Orleans. His U.S. Air Force career included a Pentagon tour, Middle East deployment, squad-

ron commander duty, and teaching a Leadership Course at the Air Force Academy. He has been awarded the Federal Woman’s Program Male Boss of the Year.

EML Class of 2010 Recent graduates (left to right) Robert Wray, Dino Hernandez, Chris Nordeen, and Reginald Jones showed their Hoya spirit by “running with the bulls” at the Festival of San Fermin in Pamplona, Spain, on July 11.

BSBA Class of 2006 Christopher Satti has been living and working in Boston for the past four years and will go back to school this fall at Harvard Business School.

MBA Class of 2007 Wesley Schwalje has worked for

three years in Dubai, UAE, for the $10 billion Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, named after the UAE prime minister, vice president, and ruler of Dubai. Schwalje is pursuing

36

msb.georgetown.edu

PROFILE

ALUMNINotes

The Turnaround

A

sk Mariano Sebastian de Beer (MBA ’96), recently named CEO of Telefonica do Brasil, if it had always been his ambition to head a large corporation, and he responds with a laugh.

“Not really,” de Beer says. “I just worked hard. I found myself an executive of a major multinational corporation by exceeding expectations.”

Although he did not leave Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business 14 years ago with his eye on a CEO’s office, de Beer spent years acquiring the skills that made him an effective leader in the most challenging circumstances. As Telefonica’s chief operating officer in 2009, he restored credibility to a company whose service had become so unreliable that regulators had banned it from selling broadband. After overseeing a swift and successful turnaround, de Beer was named CEO in late 2009 at the age of 39.

Although he says his success is partly the result of being in the right place at the right time, he was prepared and willing to take risks to get the job done.

In the summer of 2009, when de Beer was promoted to the newly created position of COO, Telefonica was in crisis. It was generating more customer complaints than every other company in the state of São Paulo combined. At first, the bulk of those complaints concerned its unreliable broadband service. Then Telefonica’s phone service also began to deteriorate.

“It was a very, very tough situation,” recalls de Beer, who took the bold move of signing a commitment to lower customer complaints by 80 percent in 18 months. “Did I think we could do it? Yes. Did I know how? No.” Identifying core issues and setting clear goals, he says, helped the company hit that mark in six months. When de Beer determined that many of the company’s problems stemmed from divisions working at crosspurposes, he set out to improve transparency and simplify the corporate structure. All of the company’s directors were placed together in one room, working at a single, long table. “By tearing down walls, these directors started talking to each other. They began working in teams, rather than silos,” de Beer says.

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

A native of Argentina, de Beer had taken risks earlier in his career, too. After graduating with an MBA, he decided against remaining in the U.S. or returning to Argentina in favor of going to work for McKinsey & Co. in Brazil, even though he did not speak Portuguese.

The payoff for working in a developing country was significant. “In younger countries, there is much more to do. At the time in Brazil, McKinsey’s telecommunications group was working on privatization,” de Beer recalls. “In the States, the same people were working on projects to improve the methods for collecting coins from pay phones.”

His philosophy for effective leadership is rooted in a few core principles, including identifying priorities, giving attention to detail and execution, and building a great team — particularly when faced with a challenge like turning a company around. “When you have the right people, everything else falls into place,” he says.

Today, de Beer credits his team for building a company that is selling three times as much broadband as its closest competitor.

Personally, he takes pride in taking the first step and agreeing to fix a seemingly unfixable business. “I’m not a gambler,” he says, “but I know that the only way to grow personally is to try to do things that you don’t think you can do.”

— Andrea Orr

Mariano Sebastian de Beer (MBA ’96) led a major telecom turnaround in Brazil.

37

Reliving the Spirit of Georgetown

ALUMNIEvents Board Member Recognized at John Carroll Weekend

E

llen M. Morrell (BSBA ’66), a member of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business Board of Advisors, received the John Carroll Award at the 2010 John Carroll Weekend this past spring.

Established by the Georgetown University Alumni Association in 1951, the award honors alumni whose achievements exemplify the ideals and traditions of Georgetown University and its founder, Archbishop John Carroll.

Ever since she was among the first women to graduate from Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, Morrell has been a leader in her professional, volunteer, and charitable pursuits.

Early in her career, she cofounded the business program

at Marymount College in Virginia and at Mount Vernon College, where she also chaired its business faculty. During this time, she completed her master’s in education at Virginia Tech.

Morrell subsequently returned to Georgetown, where she served as assistant to the dean of the business school and taught marketing until 1981. During her tenure, she helped establish Georgetown’s MBA program. Today, Morrell is vice president and associate broker with Washington Fine Properties. For the past four years, The Wall Street Journal has named Morrell and her partner one of the top 50 U.S. residential brokerage teams.

Crediting the university for her success, she says, “Georgetown gave me the tools and

T Ellen M. Morrell

desire to reach higher. And, like a supportive family, it’s always there.”

For more than 45 years, Morrell has stayed close to Georgetown students, alumni, and friends. She has long mentored undergraduates and served on the board of governors. Morrell and her husband, Michael (C ’65, L ’68, L ’85), established a John Carroll Scholarship in memory of Michael’s father. Their sons, Geoffrey (C ’91), Jarrett (BSBA ’95), and Jordan (C ’01), share the Georgetown bond.

Building the Alumni Experience

A

s students, alumni, faculty, and staff continue to advance the position of Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, one of the administration’s near-term goals is to thoughtfully and strategically engage its graduates and create a strong alumni program that is expected from a world-class business school.

A new alumni affairs director will be named to spearhead the initiative.

Throughout the year, new and exciting programs will begin to increase the connectivity among alumni and among their classes, as well

38

as strengthen alumni connections to the life of the school and the university.

In collaboration with stakeholders, the alumni affairs director will focus on building a foundation on which the school can launch a series of events and activities — both in the United States and around the world — that are of the biggest interest to alumni. “To build a great alumni program, we need to know who you are, where you are, and what service offerings are important to you,” says Dean George Daly. “As a student at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, you helped build

our reputation as a community of achievement. While your day-to-day relationship to the school has changed, we want to ensure the strong bond remains.”

Through the alumni program, graduates can get involved in current students’ Georgetown experience to help uphold and improve the value of the Georgetown degree.

“Wherever you are and wherever you will go,” Daly says, “we hope you will remain a champion of Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, and we appreciate your continued engagement with the school.”

housands of Georgetown alumni returned to the Hilltop to reconnect with fellow alumni and take part in the 2010 Reunion weekend, June 3–6.

On Friday, June 4, graduates gathered at the school’s Rafik B. Hariri Building for the second annual Georgetown University McDonough School of Business Open House. President John J. DeGioia and Deputy Dean Ricardo Ernst spoke to a crowd of more than 500 alumni, who spent the evening enjoying food and drinks, live music, lectures, and catching up with former classmates.

The Reunion Class Celebration Dinner was held on Saturday, June 5, honoring MBA, IEMBA, and EML graduates from the classes of 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2005. Nearly 200 alumni took in stunning views of campus while dining on Moroccan-themed food in Fisher Colloquium on the top floor of the school’s Rafik B. Hariri Building.

Upcoming Alumni Networking Events

K

eep an eye out for upcoming Georgetown McDonough School of Business alumni events around the country. At press time, two networking events are planned for New York City and Boston in November 2010.

For updated information on alumni activities visit: msb.georgetown. edu/alumni

msb.georgetown.edu

The Rafik B. Hariri Building was bustling with alumni during the second annual Georgetown McDonough School of Business Open House on June 4, 2010.

The MBA Class of 2000 relived their days as students and posed for a picture in the school’s Rafik B. Hariri Building.

Hundreds of graduates enjoyed cocktails and hors d’oeuvres while reconnecting with friends.

Graduates from the MBA Class of 1995, including Adrian Aguilera; Gustavo Darquea (top row); Javier Guzman and his wife, Claudia Kern; Manuel Romero; and Manuel Gonzalez (front row) and friends, rediscovered the spirit of Georgetown.

Mahua Guha Thakurta (MBA ’05) and friends captured a special moment at the Class Celebration Dinner.

The school’s Fisher Colloquium was decorated beautifully for the Reunion Class Celebration Dinner on June 5, 2010.

The MBA Class of 2005 had the biggest representation at the 2010 Reunion Weekend.

39

BUSINESSSense

Accounting’s Next Challenge

T

DAVID LESH

he accounting profession has survived many crises during the past decade, from numerous accounting scandals that led to the demise of one of the largest and most prestigious accounting firms to major overhauls following passage of the Sarbanes-Oxley Act. I believe the profession is about to face an even bigger challenge: an attempt to integrate U.S. financial reporting standards with international standards.

Current U.S. financial reporting is governed by Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP), which are set by the private Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB).

The Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) oversees U.S. GAAP and delegates the responsibility of creating and modifying the standards to the FASB. Elsewhere, more than 100 countries, including all of the European Union, subscribe to International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), which are set by the United Kingdom-based International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).

The SEC appears keen for the U.S. to jump on the IFRS bandwagon and is set to make a final decision in 2012.

In the meantime, the FASB and IASB are attempting to reconcile differences and create a unified set of standards.

Differences between the two sets of standards are nontrivial in areas such as pensions, taxes, financial instruments, and business combinations.

Unifying specific practices will ease the transition, but substantial ‘GAAPs’ will remain.

For one example, the international system relies more substantially on judgment and estimation than U.S. standards and provides less guidance regarding implementation. This lessrigid structure encourages differences between firms in practice; those firms often cluster around remnants of their country’s prior practices. With so much variance, can the ultimate benefit of unification be achieved?

Even if we agree that unification is a good idea, unresolved issues remain. For example, how will a shift to principles-based rules affect U.S. practice and disclosure policies? How will the shift affect enforcement, since there is no international regulatory

40

By Preeti Choudhary, Assistant Professor

body comparable to the SEC to enforce IFRS globally?

Retraining investors presents yet another challenge. The SEC estimates that if IFRS standards are adopted, U.S. companies will spend about 0.13 percent of their revenue during the conversion year to prepare financial statements that comply with IFRS. This is only part of the total transition cost to society, however. In the bigger picture, transition cost also will affect educational institutions, accounting firms, and investment firms, at the very least.

Take universities, for example, that face an aging population of accounting faculty with a median age near 60. Some faculty may decide to retire rather than face the substantial modifications necessary in our educational approach. In turn, this could lead to a shortage of trained professionals.

More subtle costs will arise in altering existing arrangements among and within U.S. firms. Accounting information is used to establish terms in contractual arrangements with lenders, suppliers, and other stakeholders. Accounting performance measures also help to establish financial rewards and pay for employees. Will these contracts need to be revised to accommodate new standards?

Challenges aside, a unified system does offer potential benefits. Conversion could make reporting more efficient for U.S. companies with foreign subsidiaries that now must prepare statements under two regimes.

Moreover, if unified standards make international firms more comparable, analysts and investors will benefit. As a result, U.S. companies will be able to compete more easily for global capital. In the end, discussion and review of practices between the FASB and IASB may yield financial reporting standards that are superior to those in place currently.

One thing is certain, change lies ahead for the accounting profession. Practitioners who adapt and embrace the new rules quickly will enjoy a distinct advantage over those who do not.

Learn more at msb.georgetown.edu/faculty msb.georgetown.edu

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Board of Advisors Zubaid Ahmad

Vice Chairman, Head of Corporate Finance, Americas Americas Standard Chartered Bank

Joseph Amato

President NeubergerBermanLLC

William D. Anderson Jr.

Managing Director Goldman Sachs & Co.

Dewey John Awad

Managing Director Brookside Capital LLC

Joseph P. Baratta

SeniorManagingDirector Blackstone Group International LTD

W. Robert Berkley Jr.

Peter N. Crnkovich Managing Director Morgan Stanley

Alberto de La Cruz President Coca-Cola PR Bottlers

William H. Diamond Jr.

President Comet North America

Paul Donlin

General Partner Keltic Financial

John J. (Hap) Fauth IV

Founder,President,and CEO Churchill Companies

Michael R. Fisher

President/CEO Fisher Dynamics Corp

President and COO W. R. Berkley Corporation

Robert J. Flanagan

Alison BloodLohrfink

Christopher P. Franco

Lawrence R. Botel Managing Partner Joss Realty Partners

Mark J. Casella Partner PwC LLP

ExecutiveVicePresident Clark Enterprises Inc.

President Rock Point Investment

The Hon. Richard Fredericks

Paul J. Hill

Chairman, President, and CEO HarvardDevelopmentsInc.

William H. Hoefling

Chairman and CFO McBrideEnterprises(N.J.)

Ellen M. Morrell

Michael G. Psaros

Managing Partner KPS Special Situations Fund

CEO Financial Resources Elite Agents

Vice President and Associate Broker Washington Fine Properties LLC

Ann Misiaszek Sarnoff

Arlen H. Kantarian

Paul Murphy

Robert Steers

Marketing and Sales Professional Colgate-Palmolive Company

Kenneth J. Kencel

CEO ChurchillFinancialCorp.

LLC

Gerard M. Kenny

President/COO and Partner The Kenny Partners

Jonathan R. Lynch

Managing Director CCMPCapitalAdvisors LLC

Herbert MacArthur Vice President Booz Allen Hamilton

Daniel McNamara

Managing Director Dionise Capital Inc.

Head of Financial Institutions Group and Head of Real Estate Nomura

Saad R. Hariri

David F. McBride

Prime Minister of Lebanon

Timothy B. McBride

CEO McBride Enterprises

Partner SentinelCapitalPartners

Robert B. Nolan Jr. Managing Partner Halyard Capital Fund

Geoffrey A. Oliver CEO and Managing Partner Hilltop Advisors LLC

Warren J. Olsen

Co-Founder, Vice Chairman, and CIO FirstWesternTrustBank

Patricia Mulvaney Pignataro Attorney PwC LLP

Wayne C. Plewniak

Managing Director GAMCO Investors Inc.

Elaine Pochtar Principal Morgan Stanley

Peter Pritchard

President and CEO PritchardIndustriesInc.

COO BBCWorldwideAmerica Co-Chairman and CoCEO Cohen & Steers Capital Management Inc.

Timothy P. Tassopoulos

Senior Vice President, Operations Chick Fil-A

Gil Tenzer

Partner Contrarian Captital Management LLC

John F. Vitalo

Managing Director Absa Capital

Ming Yang

CEO and Director BJB Career Education Company Ltd

Carlos Zalles

CEO LW Securities LTD

Georgetown

Business Georgetown University McDonough School of Business Office of Marketing and Communications 37th and O Streets, NW 211 Rafik B. Hariri Building Washington, DC 20057

Cert no. SCS-COC-000648

2011 Reunion

Weekend June 2–5

Calling all MBA, IEMBA, EML alumni from 1986, 1991, 1996, 2001, and 2006 Planning is under way for a memorable weekend of events to honor our graduates. Alumni and guests can look forward to receptions, family activities, programs, and parties to help connect classmates, faculty, fellow Hoyas, and the McDonough School of Business.

To make sure we have your current contact information, please send any updates to alumni@msb.edu.

Keep checking the McDonough School of Business Reunion Weekend 2011 website at msb.georgetown.edu/alumni for more information.