UPDATE WISCONSIN BUSINESS ALUMNI
Fall/Winter 2010-2011
Would you be ready?
Inside ➤D ean
Knetter bids farewell
➤ Making
mentoring work
Keep Us Great
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Contents 8
A NEW ERA
DEPARTMENTS
Dean Michael Knetter moves to a new post with the University of Wisconsin Foundation after leading the Wisconsin School of Business for eight years.
From the Dean
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On Campus
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Conversation with Michael Knetter
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Raise $5.6 Million
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Dean Joan T. Schmit
Faculty-Staff News
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Alumni News
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13 CRISIS MANAGEMENT The headlines have been filled with natural and man-made crises. We speak to experts on what to do if your organization is faced with a crisis—and how to avoid one in the first place.
18 MAKING MENTORING WORK We’d all love to have a Yoda-like mentor. But does mentoring benefit those involved and their organizations? A look at best practices.
UPDATE WISCONSIN BUSINESS ALUMNI
Fall/Winter 2010-2011
FALL 2010/WINTER 2011 VOLUME 28 NUMBER 2 EDITOR: Lari Fanlund ALUMNI NEWS EDITOR: Kaylene Reilly
Would you be ready?
ART DIRECTION: Camilla Klyve GRAPHIC DESIGN: Camilla Klyve, Bridget Prendergast CONTRIBUTORS: Jenn Kallias, Kora Plucinski, Tara Shannon, Jennifer Weld
InsIde ➤ Dean
Knetter bids farewell
➤ Making
mentoring work
COVER: Many organizations are unprepared when a crisis hits. Exploring the art and science of crisis management, p. 13. Cover illustration by Camilla Klyve.
ADVISORS: Melissa Anderson, Jim Kubek, Alisa Robertson, Sarah Wortham PRINTING: Suttle-Straus
UPDATE is published in print and online by Wisconsin Business Alumni to inform alumni and friends about programs and activities of the Wisconsin School of Business and its alumni. Printing is paid for with private contributions. This issue, and previous ones, are available online at bus.wisc.edu/UPDATE. Address comments or questions to the editor at lfanlund@bus.wisc.edu or write to: UPDATE 5151 Grainger Hall 975 University Ave. Madison, WI 53706-1323 Visit the Wisconsin School of Business website: bus.wisc.edu ©2010 Board of Regents of the University of Wisconsin System
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UPDATE ❖ From the Dean
Bruce Fritz
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Our students are fortunate to have so many highly engaged and successful alumni to serve as their role models.
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he Wisconsin School of Business has been a part of my life for almost 35 years, since I first entered the Commerce Building as a young undergraduate student. To be interim dean may well be a demonstration of the quality education I received here, and certainly is a tremendous honor and privilege. I am grateful for the opportunity to work with all of you in the coming months and for the strong position we hold due to the efforts of Mike Knetter. In this issue of UPDATE, Mike shares some final reflections on his time with the school, the issues he sees facing public higher education, and his goals in his new position leading the University of Wisconsin Foundation. As you read his thoughtful comments on the challenges and opportunities facing our business school and our university, I think you will agree that we were fortunate to have him at the helm of the business school for the past eight years. The cover story is a timely topic of crisis management. While we have observed several examples of just how catastrophic a crisis can be when not handled adequately, we need also to understand the underlying circumstances when crises are averted due to excellent planning and execution of strategy. The Wisconsin School of Business has been training leaders in my field–risk management–for more than 60 years, and today we see those skills being highly desired in all areas of our society. Our students are ready, with training in risk management, auditing and control, and strategic thinking, as you will understand as you read the article about what our experts have to say on the topic.
Elsewhere in this issue, we explore aspects of mentoring—why there is so much confusion over the topic and some useful guidelines for successful mentoring. Looking back, most of us can recall benefitting from a formal or informal mentor. It may have been a parent, a teacher, or a colleague. Whatever their role, they took the time and made the effort to listen and to share their experience in a meaningful way. Many of you have become a mentor in your communities, your work, and as an alum working with our students. You share your own experiences, offer nudging when needed, and provide guidance to reach one’s potential. Our students are fortunate to have so many highly engaged and successful alumni to serve as their role models. It is an important way in which alumni contribute to the school’s success. I very much look forward to working with you as dean at the Wisconsin School of Business. We will continue to use the traditional methods of communication, in addition to a new dean’s blog (bus.wisc. edu/dean/blog) where you can read about the latest of my adventures in this role. It is one more tool available to us in our efforts to keep our alumni closely involved in achieving the school’s mission.
Joan T. Schmit Interim Dean American Family Insurance Professor of Risk Management and Insurance
UPDATE ❖ On Campus
Investment icon Warren Buffett cheerfully took time to pose for photos with Wisconsin MBA students (above). At right, with MBA student Dan Walker.
Life Lessons from Warren Buffett Twenty students from the full-time Wisconsin MBA program had the chance to meet with one of the world’s most successful investors this fall. The students traveled to Omaha, Neb., in October to share a meal and life lessons with Warren Buffett, chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. Buffett, 80, is the third wealthiest man in the world, according to Forbes magazine. UW-Madison was one of eight colleges and universities around the country chosen for a chance to meet with Buffett and ask him questions. In his remarks, Buffett told the students that when he considers investing in a company, he interviews top managers to see “if they’re in love with the business or in love with money” then chooses those with a passion for business, according to second-year student Carlos Olivares. Olivares and several other Wisconsin students had the chance to sit near Buffett at lunch and chat with him casually following a question-and-answer session at Buffett’s office. Dan Walker, a second-year MBA student, was the lead organizer for the Wisconsin students. According to Walker, Buffett is known to auction off lunches to raise money for charities. Recently, a lunch with Buffett went for more than $2 million. The lunch with the business students, however, was free to all participants. “Here’s the world’s third-richest man, giving up the better part of his day just to talk to some MBA students,” Walker said. “He has all this knowledge, all of this experience, and he wants to be generous with it. And it’s not just about investing. It’s about how to treat others, how to communicate, how to get ahead in life.”
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UPDATE ❖ On Campus
Celebrating a Year of the Arts
Photo: Jeff Miller/ University Communications
UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin has designated the 2010-11 academic year as the “Year of the Arts.” The business school’s Bolz Center for Arts Administration is a partner in the year-long celebration. Andrew Taylor, director of the Bolz Center, is co-chairing the effort. Nearly 30 featured events, along with more than 300 performances, exhibits, symposia, public events, publications, guest speakers, and on-line resources, are planned. The goal is to spotlight and celebrate the many ways the arts inform, enhance, and extend the university and its community. The Wisconsin School of Business has a long connection with the arts on campus. Its arts administration program, launched in 1969, was the first graduate program of its kind in the nation, and remains an internationally renowned learning center today. According to Taylor, “We are very pleased to see the emphasis the university is placing on the arts and to play a role in putting them in the spotlight. If you’re near Madison between now and August 2011, check it out.”
Students Serve the Community From an arboretum to an adult day-care center, Wisconsin MBA students could be found lending a hand this fall. Nearly 120 students in the full-time MBA program took part in the “MBAs with a Heart” community outreach project organized by the Graduate Business Association. Students teamed up to perform community service at locations around Madison. The all-day event was an opportunity for MBA students to give back while building connections between students from the different MBA specializations. Community service was also a priority for undergraduates, with many student organizations tackling a variety of efforts. This fall, the business school launched Project Give Back to focus the many community service projects.
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Recruiters Rank Wisconsin Grads Among Best
The University of Wisconsin-Madison ranks 16th on a list of the top 25 U.S. colleges color pal 100-2 Ma for producing the best graduates, according to leading recruiters surveyed by the Wall3-7-yello Street Journal. 16-2 Brow Recruiters from the nation’s largest 175-2 Pu public and private companies, nonprofit organizations and federal agencies were asked to identify the schools on a list of 100 top colleges and universities whose bachelor degree graduates were the best-trained and educated, and best able to succeed once hired.
UPDATE ❖ On Campus
Entrepreneurship Shines Across Campus Business School Launches New Certificates This fall, the UW-Madison approved two new graduate certificates to be offered by the business school: one in entrepreneurship management and another in strategic innovation. The certificates will be offered to both business and non-business students from all areas of campus as part of an effort to develop entrepreneurial expertise among students from a variety of schools and colleges.
A new undergraduate certificate in entrepreneurship for non-business majors was also approved. UW-Madison is one of a handful of universities to have been awarded a prestigious $5 million Kauffman Foundation grant to expand entrepreneurship on campus.
Youngsters Learn Start-up Skills For one week this summer, 30 young entrepreneurs-to-be attended a special program at the Wisconsin School of Business. The youngsters were students in grades six through eight. Most hailed from Madison and surrounding areas, but others came from as far away as California and Canada.
This is the 11th year the Youth Entrepreneur Camp has been held by the business school’s Small Business Development Center. The students attended class each day to learn what it takes to be an entrepreneur. They learned real-world business skills such as team building, leadership
development, financial management, verbal communication, and business etiquette. They also had fun and made friends. In one of the most popular assignments, the students were placed into teams to compete for the most successful lemonade stands, working from the ground up. They chose a company name, developed a theme and marketing concept, and worked to make a profit. Along the way, they learned to negotiate for business materials, set goals, and recognize business opportunities. They also got to see firsthand what goes into running a successful business by visiting several local small businesses. Who knows how far these future entrepreneurs may go? In 2007, Ashutosh Gupta, who had attended the Youth Entrepreneur Camp as a middle schooler, was named among the “25 most promising young entrepreneurs in the U.S.” by BusinessWeek for his launch of a successful financial consulting firm while still an undergraduate.
This year’s Youth Entrepreneur Campers
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UPDATE ❖ On Campus
Accounting for Success The doctoral program of the Department of Accounting and Information Systems has garnered national recognition recently. The department recruited three individuals from the Accounting Doctoral Scholar Program, from a national pool of about 30 in a program sponsored by several public accounting firms and the American Institute of CPAs (AICPA). The program provides support for students leaving public accounting to pursue careers as auditing or tax professors. Wisconsin’s doctoral program in accounting was ranked 11th in terms of scholarly productivity of its graduates six years post-graduation (tying it with Stanford and Cornell), according to a research paper by faculty at Brigham Young University.
Vietnam Field Study Twenty undergraduate UW-Madison students had the opportunity to combine classroom study of the business, culture, and society of Vietnam with a 12-day field study in that country last spring. The Vietnam Seminar and Field Study was an addition to integrated study tours offered by the Wisconsin School of Business. Others focus on China and India. Integrated study tours provide students who don’t have the flexibility to spend a semester abroad the chance to gain a short-term, intensive international experience. Prior to visiting Vietnam, students from a variety of majors learned about the country’s history, culture, economics, business practices, stock markets, environmental issues, and more, through readings, lectures, and classroom activities. Their field study, held over spring break, took the students to Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi, allowing them to supplement their classroom learning with first-hand experience. The study tour was organized and led by the business school’s Center for Business Education and Research (CIBER), with additional support provided by UW-Madison’s Division of International Studies, Center for Southeast Asian Studies, Bennett Scholars fund, and Library System.
Technology-enhanced Learning This fall, the Society of Actuaries (SOA) awarded the Department of Actuarial Science, Risk Management, and Insurance a three-year grant of more than $300,000 to support efforts to develop technology-enhanced learning in actuarial science classes. New web-based modules will help students learn software, theory, and application. Earlier this year, the department was among the first cohort of universities to be awarded the prestigious Center of Actuarial Excellence designation by the society.
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UPDATE ❖ On Campus
Navigating the Credit Crunch Nonprofit Org. U.S. Postage PAID Madison, WI. Permit No. 658
For the past 13 years, the Graaskamp Center for Real Estate has coordinated The Wisconsin Real Estate and Economicof Outlook Conference an annual housing conference to explore important aspects housing in Navigating the Credit Crunch: Wisconsin. The conference brings together real estate professionals, policy What’s Ahead for Wisconsin? makers, and academics, along with faculty and students from the Wisconsin Navigating the Credit Crunch: What’s Ahead for Wisconsin? School of Business. s we enter a new decade, Wisconsin finds itself winding through an increasingly complex finanWho Should Attend cial landscape. Add an uncertain job market, Housing and real estate The theme of this year’s housing housing fluctuations, and the first gubernatorial race professionals without an incumbent running since 1982, and we are Government and conference, held in June, was left with a complex puzzle: 5.6 million people looking non-profit professionals for direction and ideas on how best to move forward. Builders and developers “Navigating the Credit Crunch: What’s How has Wisconsin fared in the country’s nascent Housing finance economic to recovery? This year’s conference examines professionals the state’s financial, credit, and housing markets, as well Ahead for Wisconsin?” David Altig, Anyone interested as the opportunities that may come with the mid-term in community elections in November. The morning session will review development senior vice president and director of the overall state of the U.S. economy and how politics and political reform will affect the housing and real Why Should You Attend? research at the Federal Reserve Bank estate industries. • Learn about the current state of U.S. financial The afternoon session will focus on the state of the and credit markets and of Atlanta, was the keynote speaker. credit markets, including the availability of credit, reguimplications for real latory reform, affordability issues and policy responses. estate and housing, Keynote presenter david Altig, Senior Vice President and for the economy in He offered a positive view of the and Director of Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of general. Atlanta, will share his unique insights on the day’s most • Hear from experts about country’s future, predicting small but pressing economic and monetary issues. Wisconsin’s political outlook and the potenThis conference will include experts from the public tial economic impact of steady growth in 2012. and private sectors, from government and business and the mid-term elections. from academia, who are on the front lines of housing • Explore the challenges 4, 2010 market research, policy, and practice. Join this imporMatt Feldman, president of the Federal Home Loan Friday, Bank June of Chicago, created by the rapidly tant conversation about the fundamentals of the current changing economic and state and national housing market and the evolving SponSored by political landscape It and Can explored the big picture of housing affordability. Feldman challenged lenders Be Easy Being political landscape, and its impact on the financialGreen and potential opportunities University of Wisconsin-Madison James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate real estate markets. in housing and finance. The Wisconsin Real Estate and Economic Outlook Conference Housing and Development Authority and real estate professionals to redefine the “AmericanWisconsin dream” ofEconomic home • Meet and exchangeA new Panel program developed by Tom Topics State of Wisconsin Department of Commerce ideas and insights with Navigating the Credit Crunch: The Wisconsin Political and Economic Outlook Wisconsinand Realtors Association faculty, policy experts, He called for a middle ground between renter owner—to allow What’sownership. Ahead for Wisconsin? from the Experts: “Rapidat Fire”the Q&A and leaders in governEggert, aPerspectives senior lecturer Wisconsin Bankers Association ment and housing The 2010 Political Landscape and Its Impact people to build equity in their residence without having to acquire such large sectors. Friday, June 4, 2010 on Housing and the Economy Wisconsin School of Business, and • Network, make new Credit Availability: From Bust to Rebound? contacts, and share amounts Why Should You Attend? of debt to achieve it. Housing Affordability: The PictureBusiness, ideas with your industry graduate students inBighis colleagues. • Learn about the current state of U.S. financial and credit markets and Local Government and Economic Recovery: The conference co-sponsored by the Wisconsin Realtors Association, implications for real estate and housing, andwas for the economy in general. What Works? Environment, and Social Responsibility • Hear from experts about Wisconsin’s political outlook and the potential the Wisconsin Department of Commerce, the Wisconsin Bankers Association, economic impact of the mid-term elections. program, is helping Wisconsin • Explore the challenges created by the rapidlyHousing changing economic andEconomic Development Authority. and the Wisconsin and political landscape and potential opportunities in housing and finance. companies more effectively measure View video of the conference at bus.wisc.edu/realestate/conferences/ and gain recognition for their housing2010. sustainability efforts. The “Green Masters” program seeks to evaluate and promote sustainable Focus on Brazil business practices among Wisconsin U.S. business opportunities in Brazil companies and help them get were discussed this fall by Brazilian recognized for their work to cut waste Foreign Trade Secretary Welber Barral and be socially responsible. and Ambassador João Almino as part By visiting the Green Masters of UW-Madison’s Brazil Initiative. website, greenmastersprogram.com, The Brazil events were part of a series of emergingcompanies share their sustainable powers symposia launched by the business school’s actions and receive one of three Center for International Business Education and Research scores: green apprentice, green in partnership with other units around campus. professional, or green master.
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REFLECTIONS A Conversation with Michael Knetter
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n October, Michael Knetter left the Wisconsin School of Business after eight years as dean. Major accomplishments on his watch
included creation of the Wisconsin Naming Partnership, which has raised more than $95 million to name the Wisconsin School of Business (see related story, page 11); creation of a highly regarded specialized MBA program; and the opening of a $40.5-million addition to Grainger Hall. Knetter’s new post is president and chief executive officer of the University of Wisconsin Foundation, the official fundraising and gift-receiving agency for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. UPDATE spoke with Knetter about his time at the helm of the business school, his view of its future, and what he hopes to accomplish in his new role.
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Wabout hat did you love most your time at the
launched successful student-run commencement campaigns as a way to give back to their school.
Wisconsin School of Business?
The greatest asset on the business school’s balance sheet is its people. Our faculty, staff, alumni, and students have all really stepped up and played a vital role in the school’s progress.
Bob Rashid
I most enjoyed working with people within the school and especially connecting alumni to the life and mission of the school. Focused, productive engagement of alumni can drive enormous progress for a business school. Alumni can mentor, teach, recruit, and support students, faculty, and programs in so many ways.
The support alumni and friends provided for our programs: MBA centers, faculty chairs, the new wing of Grainger Hall, unrestricted annual gifts and, ultimately, the Wisconsin Naming Gift, have been vital to our progress and fulfilling to all involved. Mobilizing their involvement was a real joy for me.
What do you feel was your biggest accomplishment at the Wisconsin School of Business? I’m proud we were able to create a sustainable cycle of investment that resulted in major progress for the business school. With generous investments from a few key alumni, we were able to restructure our full-time MBA program around highly focused career specializations and see the program make significant gains in quality. Next, alumni and friends invested in our physical space, allowing us to build a new addition to Grainger Hall. As our resource base expanded through increased annual giving, and amazing resources were made possible by the Naming Gift, we were able to turn to our undergraduate program and offer new initiatives to better serve our students. The students, in turn, supported differential tuition for business students and
Private giving significantly increased during your time with the Wisconsin School of Business. What do you think motivates donors to provide financial support? It’s very similar to why people invest in other projects where they hope to earn a financial return, it’s just that the payout in these investments comes in a different form. In giving, it’s the satisfaction of having made a difference. So, it’s about understanding a potential donor’s perspectives, sharing the vision for what the university aspires to be, and then finding an intersection of their interests and our strategic objectives.
Beyond fundraising, alumni have played a big role in other areas of the Wisconsin School of Business. Why is their involvement so important? We have a great business school. I thought we could add even more value by bringing alumni into the life of the school more, not just through their financial gifts. The ways the alumni engage with the business school have a big impact on outcomes for students. At the business school, alumni comprise the boards of centers that support MBA specializations and serve as guest lecturers. For example, the Weikel Speaker Series is a once-amonth venue where influential alumni come back and share their experiences with students. At the undergraduate level, UpdaTE Fall 2010/Winter 2011
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donors came together to found the Accenture Leadership Center, which provides a forum for critical communications and team building. And the list goes on. It’s all part of creating the culture of giving necessary to sustain a world-class business school and university. These kinds of connections must continue to keep the momentum going.
What do you hope to continue with your transition to the UW Foundation? My new role with the UW Foundation enables me to focus on facilitating support for the entire university and build on the success that the foundation has enjoyed throughout its history. I was very happy in my work at the business school and feel fortunate for all of the progress that we made. I have a lot of great colleagues there. Now I’m finding it fulfilling to build substantive connections and relationships between alumni who care about the university’s mission and the university itself. That’s really the secret sauce, if you will, that differentiates the great universities—it’s their ability to engage alumni in a productive and meaningful way to support the institution. I feel fortunate to be taking a job where I’m still going to be useful to the business school; I’ll just be working on behalf of many more units on the campus.
What intrigues you most about the new job? The UW Foundation job was appealing to me because it’s been really important to the university historically and will only become more important over time. I like development. I like engaging people. I like being a spokesperson for what we do and a representative for what we do, because I’m proud of it, and it’s energizing to talk with external stakeholders and try to get them excited about our mission. I’m looking forward to concentrating even more on the sorts of things I have enjoyed at the business school, recognizing of course, that the role alumni play will vary across our schools and colleges.
How do you plan on helping UW-Madison in new and different ways? If you look around the country, public higher education institutions are under a lot of stress because of the fiscal dynamics of their state, and we’re no exception to that. It’s a really big strategic challenge and one that is very important to the future of the university. I’m very motivated by that. The work that the UW Foundation does on behalf of the university has really become incredibly important. It’s flourished under Sandy Wilcox’s tenure, and the work that the UW Foundation does over the next decade or two will be even more important. It’s becoming a bigger and bigger part of the equation for the funding of a public university.
What are some of the biggest challenges facing the campus? Almost every institution in the country has felt a set back in terms of the resources available to them for their programs, so that’s the challenge everybody’s facing. No one feels like they have enough operating resources, whether it’s the music department, the business school, the life sciences, the cancer center, etc. Everyone feels as if they have an important mission and that’s really the challenge of the job—trying to partner with the other resources that are available and help people achieve their goals.
How do you think the current financial crisis will affect UW-Madison? When you look at the landscape of higher education in Wisconsin, it’s been a constantly moving target in terms of the financial blend of tax money, tuition, and private gifts funding the core operations of the university. That’s only going to accelerate with the financial crisis. People are concerned about state budgets. It’s likely that the way UW-Madison gets funded will shift more and more to tuition dollars and gift money.
Is there anything you’d like to say to the people who make up the Wisconsin School of Business? I would like to thank faculty, staff, students, and alumni of the business school, as well as my campus colleagues, for making my time with the business school a very productive and enjoyable period.
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Michael Knetter learned from Ted Kellner (center) and John Oros (right) of a fundraising effort in his honor.
Donors Raise $5.6 Million in Honor of Outgoing Dean The Wisconsin Naming Partnership spearheaded the effort that raised $5.6 million from more than 200 donors to honor Michael Knetter for his eight years as dean of the Wisconsin School of Business. John Oros, BBA ’71, and Ted Kellner, BBA ’69—two of the 13 original naming partners—announced the gift at the Wisconsin School of Business Homecoming Gala on Oct. 8. Knetter becomes the 15th partner of the Wisconsin Naming Partnership. In 2007, 13 alumni joined together to form the Wisconsin Naming Partnership and provide the firstof-its-kind alumni gift of $85 million to preserve the Wisconsin name for at least 20 years. In 2009, an anonymous donor joined the partnership, bringing the total Wisconsin Naming Gift donation to $90 million. With the honorary gift for the outgoing dean, the Wisconsin Naming Gift now totals $95.6 million. During the presentation, Oros called Knetter “the brains and the heart” behind the naming of the Wisconsin School of Business.
Responding to the surprise announcement, an emotional Knetter told those gathered: “Thank you all for all you’ve done to help with the progress at the business school. The naming gift is the most thrilling thing you could do as a partnership.” In reflecting on his new role as president and chief executive officer of the University of Wisconsin Foundation, Knetter said, “We have made great progress as a school these past eight years and that will have a lasting impact on future generations of business and community leaders. In the process, I feel very fortunate to have made many new friends and colleagues, and am pleased that I will continue to work with them in my new role at the UW Foundation.” To view an interactive timeline detailing many of the school’s achievements during Knetter’s tenure as dean, go to: bus.wisc.edu/knetterfarewell.
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A familiar face in a new role Joan T. Schmit was named interim dean of the Wisconsin School of Business in October, following the departure of Dean Michael Knetter, who left to lead the University of Wisconsin Foundation. Being named interim dean is only the latest leadership role that Schmit has played within the business school during her more than 20 years as a faculty member and administrator. Before being named interim dean, Schmit was vice dean and senior associate dean, serving as the school’s chief academic and operations officer. Other prior leadership roles include chairing the Department of Actuarial Science, Risk Management, and Insurance and serving as associate dean of the fulltime MBA program during the switch from general management to career-focused specializations. In addition to her administrative roles, Schmit is an internationally known academician, who has published extensively in insurance and legal journals. She is most recognized for her work on the behavioral effects of tort law. Recently, she has expanded her research into the enterprise risk management field, including projects sponsored by the Casualty Actuarial Society and Society of Actuaries. She serves as associate editor for the Journal of Risk and Insurance and is active in the International Insurance Society. She holds the American Family Chair of Risk Management and Insurance at the Wisconsin School of Business, and also serves as an affiliate faculty member in UW-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies and in the insurance program
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of the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland. She holds the designation of Research Fellow with Peking University’s China Center for Insurance and Social Security Research. Schmit says the school is poised to continue the strong momentum begun under Knetter’s leadership: “We have attracted outstanding new faculty and staff to the school, are able to undertake new initiatives because of the naming gift, and have implemented a unique specialization strategy.” In the coming year, Schmit says the business school will continue to build on existing strategic objectives, including supporting its research mission, reaching out to alumni, leveraging the specialization model in other programs, expanding business offerings for students across campus, coordinating programs for working professionals, and continuously enhancing the experience of students, staff, and faculty. In Knetter’s view, the school is on track to advance in important areas under Schmit’s “principled and dedicated leadership.” He adds, “She has played such a prominent leadership role in all aspects of the school it would be inaccurate to view this year as a transition; it will most definitely be a year of continued progress.” Schmit has said she will not apply for the vacant deanship. She will be on hand to ensure a smooth transition and will work with UW-Madison Chancellor Biddy Martin, at the chancellor’s request, to help the search committee identify the most desirable qualities in the next dean.
Crisis Management Would you be ready? By Jennifer Weld Crises. Disasters. Catastrophes. Recent headlines have been filled with examples of man-made and natural calamities. Still, by their very nature, crises are rare. This can lead organizations to discount their risk and be less likely to plan for them—with harmful results. Imagine how different things might have been in New Orleans if the levees had been reinforced prior to Hurricane Katrina. Or think how the financial crisis might have been lessened if banks hadn’t offered mortgages to those with bad or no credit, creating a tidal wave of toxic assets. In hindsight, most of us can see what should have been done differently. It’s the
organizations with the foresight to plan for a crisis—and develop the ability to respond quickly and correctly when one occurs—that can come through a crisis even stronger than before.
Case studies: success and failure The hallmark success story related to crisis management, of course, is that of Tylenol. In October 1982, Johnson & Johnson took immediate action to remove all Tylenol capsules from shelves nationwide in response to bottles being tampered with in the Chicago area. Cyanide placed in Tylenol capsules killed seven people. It could have been a catastrophe from which the
health-based consumer product firm never recovered. The company removed approximately 31 million bottles of product from shelves with a retail value of over $100 million and offered to replace the recalled product with tablets. Less than two months later, Tylenol was back on shelves with triple-seal, tamper-resistant packaging. The company also used aggressive couponing and discounted pricing to help draw the public back to the brand. Throughout the crisis, J&J executives were upfront and clearly showed they were not willing to risk public safety. They could have chosen a less dramatic response, such as just removing product in Chicago,
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“Risk management needs to be at the core of strategic and business planning.”
but by making a nationwide recall the company was able to convince the public that consumers’ safety was its foremost concern. While Tylenol’s market share temporarily dropped dramatically, within one year it had recovered, due in no small part to the actions the company took to inform and console the public during the crisis. On the flip side, we’ve seen only too clearly that knee-jerk reactions by organizations lacking a crisis management plan can worsen a disaster, as in the massive BP oil spill of April 2010. Prior to the spill, the company had positioned itself as a “green” company and steward of the environment. Its marketing even used its BP initials to stand for “Beyond Petroleum” to drive home the message. Unfortunately, the company’s choices when preparing to get its Deepwater Horizon oil rig up and running do not seem to have aligned with that positioning. Dan Anderson, emeritus professor of risk management, says the company “tried to save on costs and were rushing because they were behind schedule. They skipped steps in the testing and operations. They were getting unusual pressure readings, but rather than stopping to address them, they moved forward because they wanted to get the rig online. Ironically, if they had taken that extra time and followed proper steps, they would have spent maybe a few extra million dollars as opposed to the $40 billion they now face.”
An ounce of prevention, a pound of cure The best crisis strategy is to avoid one in the first place. It is essential to ensure quality control is top notch and that cost-cutting measures do not negatively affect the safety of a product or service. The different types of risks to your firm need to be analyzed early on, according 14
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to Professor Mark Browne, who chairs the school’s Actuarial Science, Risk Management, and Insurance Department. “Identifying and analyzing risks, particularly to the degree you can anticipate what might happen, and plan, will make you a whole lot better off in the event of a crisis,” he says. Companies need to go through a careful process of considering different crises that might hit, and develop written plans for how people should act if a crisis becomes reality. An important thing to consider during this process, says Browne, is to understand what the company can handle in the event of a crisis. “Certain businesses consider it a very important risk management objective to continue operating even after a major crisis,” he says. “For example, the Wall Street Journal had alternate offices set up in New Jersey that were utilized after 9/11. Essentially, they flipped the switch and were ready to go—they published on Sept. 12. For other businesses it is OK, and perhaps even preferred, to shut down for a period of time. Understanding this will help shape the development of a crisis management plan.” Defining the company’s objectives and strategy is the first thing to consider in developing a crisis management plan. In terms of objectives, one needs to ask how and if they can be achieved in the event of various types of catastrophes. As for strategy, Management Professor Mason Carpenter says research shows that “in tough situations, firms perform best when they follow their strategy. Strategy is like a company’s personality, and psychology tells us that under stress who you are comes to the surface.” Lowell Robinson has more than 20 years of experience in global strategic, financial, operational, and governance issues. Robinson, who earned his B.S. in
economics from UW-Madison, has served on the Dean’s Advisory Board of the Wisconsin School of Business and helped develop the school’s prestigious corporate governance conference, Directors’ Summit™ (see sidebar on page 16). Robinson says there are knowable and unknowable risks and that crises fall into three broad categories: 1. Risks that should automatically be on the dashboard, identified through a robust enterprise risk management process. Examples include potential leaks at BP well heads, Toyota’s safety issues, and failures in CEO succession planning at a wide range of leading companies. 2. “Black Swan events”—high-impact but hard-to-predict occurrences that few people see as likely, such as the financial crisis. 3. Convergence risk—markets going away or business models failing. A prime example is the decline of newspapers due to the growth of digital media. No matter what the category, Robinson says it pays to take the time to identify the types of risks that exist for an organization and to address them in advance through systematic planning. Bruce Lisman, who participated in the Directors’ Summit this year, agrees on the importance of enterprise risk analysis. “There can be an infinite number of things to worry about,” he says. “The trick is to worry about issues that—even with a modest probability of occurring—could have devastating outcomes if they do happen.” Lisman, former co-head of the Global Equity Division of Bear Stearns Companies, concedes that “not all risks can be predicted, and not all risks can be managed.” In most cases, however, he feels that “awareness of potential threats is an essential guide to management. Risk management needs to be at the core of strategic and business planning.”
RISKY BUSINESS Patrick Thiele, BBA ’72, MS ’75, has a unique window into international crises as president and CEO of PartnerRe Ltd., a global reinsurance company with total assets of more than $24 billion.
What does your company do? We insure insurance companies. We take on the risks other people don’t want. Disasters increase demand for our product. We’ve seen an awful lot of natural disasters and social disasters such as liability crises and product crises. We’re a big reinsurer of the PG&E natural gas explosion out in California…of the Deepwater Horizon [oil rig] in the Gulf…of the earthquake in Chile…some big-ticket items. From what you’ve seen, what’s key to successfully handling a crisis? In my mind there are three parts to preparing for a crisis. The first part is general principles. Organizations need to have policies and codes that define behavior before something happens. Two, they need a governance structure so there’s a clear set of rules about who takes the decision, how decisions are made, and in what sequence decisions are made. Crises by their nature are unpredictable. Each one is going to be unique. You can’t have a generic plan. The third part is communication—prior communication of the plan, governance structure, and principles and policies—but also communication to all the audiences after the crisis has occurred. Every crisis is unique. People try to develop a plan that takes into consideration all the potential crises, and I think that’s impossible. Can you share a personal experience with handling a crisis? The most profound experience for us was the World Trade Center disaster. I was in Europe, my company is headquartered in Bermuda, but our employees were in the New York area. It was especially stressful trying to handle something from 3,000 miles away. I think the thing that was most important was the assembly of an executive team in Bermuda very quickly, which began to pull in all the aspects of the crisis. Obviously our executive on the ground in
the New York area was key. The first thing is always to make sure your employees are fine, to make sure they are being taken care of and then start the communication process. You need to deal with it in steps. How is handling a major crisis different now from 10 years ago? The attention paid by the media, the constant, 24-hour news. It very quickly becomes not just a local problem; it explodes. You probably need more advice today, more public relations and communications advisors, or legal advisors in many cases. Ten to 15 years ago, you could worry more about the impact on your employees and clients rather than all these external audiences. Last thoughts? Maintaining trust, especially in large organizations going through a crisis, I think is really, really important. If employees or clients lose trust in the senior executives, the management of a company, the damage can be incalculable. Maintenance of trust through a crisis must be the primary objective of crisis management.
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Attempting to cover up a crisis is the worst thing a company can do.
From a branding and communications point of view, when a crisis hits there are three simple steps a company needs to follow, according to Deborah Mitchell, executive director of the Center for Brand and Product Management. The steps are simple, but companies often find them impossible to follow. “The first step is to find a way, authentically, to admit something bad happened, particularly if it’s your fault,” Mitchell says. “It’s important to say ‘this happened, it is affecting you and us— consumers, constituents, and stakeholders.’ Second, you need to be contrite. It’s important to apologize in a way that doesn’t cause legal trouble—yet shows empathy— that lets consumers feel you understand how bad the situation is or how much it may be hurting people. The final step is to have a credible, authentic action plan for how you’re going to make it right, and act on it.” According to Mitchell, it’s also important to understand the culture of the people most affected by the crisis and respond accordingly. “Americans respond to strong emotion, as it has a resonance that says ‘you get me’ and you really feel awful about the situation.” An example is the reaction to headlines about sudden acceleration in Toyota cars. Toyota’s reputation may have suffered because the chairman of Toyota did not apologize quickly or show enough emotion once the situation came to light, Mitchell says. Japanese culture tends to be more subdued and therefore responses are restrained rather than overtly emotional. When Toyota’s senior management exhibited more observable emotional cues in managing the crisis, American consumers responded more positively, she says. Organizations need to make sure they have a strong spokesperson to respond to
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WHAT BOARDS SHOULD KNOW When major companies are caught in the spotlight due to bad luck, incompetence, or misbehavior, boards of directors must share the responsibility to make things right. For the past 10 years, the Wisconsin School of Business has held a national conference on corporate governance issues known as the Directors’ Summit™. One of this year’s panel discussions, “Facing a Crisis: What Your Board Should Know,” focused on the growing need for boards to get complete and accurate information, particularly in times of crisis. One panelist, Donna L. Weaver, is chairman of MxSecure, Inc. and a board member for E*Trade Financial Corporation. During the discussion, Weaver outlined four steps that board members should take in times of crisis: 1. D etermine if the crisis requires extraordinary board action or can be left to management. (Individual board members should do check-ins with management and report back to the board. If management is not capable of handling the crisis, the board needs to know immediately, to take appropriate action.) 2. C onsider hiring an outside expert to represent the board in the crisis-management process if top management seems to be struggling with the situation. (Weaver suggests selecting someone experienced enough to step in as interim CEO if needed.) 3. B e prepared for a search for a new CEO (a common outcome for companies in crisis). 4. U se the crisis as an opportunity to separate the role of chairman and CEO to avoid conflict of interest (if the positions are currently combined).
Camilla Klyve
Protecting the brand
Other takeaways from the panel’s discussion: • Most boards are finding they need to invest more time than before in order to stay on top of critical issues. •M any boards are asking to be briefed by the CEO on changing conditions several times a year—and not just during board meetings—to avoid unpleasant surprises. •B oards are taking a closer look at CEO performance—either to head off mismanagement or devise ways to keep star performers from leaving. •W ith increasing turnover by CEOs, many boards are making formal succession planning a much higher priority. For information on next year’s Directors’ Summit, scheduled for Sept. 22-23, 2011, go to exed.wisc.edu/ directorssummit.
the media in a crisis, Mitchell adds. In most cases, the CEO is capable of doing this, but in any case it needs to be an individual with the authority to answer tough questions from the media and the public honestly and convincingly. Attempting to cover up a crisis is the worst thing a company can do, according to Mitchell. It may delay the inevitable, but it always ends up hurting the reputation of the company. In the case of BP, the company’s initial estimates grossly underestimated the amount of oil being spilled. That created a credibility problem that turned a bad situation even worse. Carpenter agrees transparency is key. He also thinks it’s important to develop in advance a network of people one can tap into when a problem hits. “During crises we tend to retrench and focus on the people closest to us for information and action,” Carpenter says. “But doing so can shut down pipelines of information needed to take the best action.”
Practice makes perfect? When it comes to actually preparing a crisis management plan, companies often make the mistake of writing long and elaborate documents, only to file them away. It is important for plans to be detailed but not overly complicated. It also is important to practice the plan, and this is where things can get tricky. Employees busy doing their everyday jobs may be skeptical about taking time out of their day to “practice” for something that most likely will never happen. Anderson says that to get beyond that way of thinking, it is essential for the company’s senior management to very visibly support the crisis management plan. This doesn’t mean the CEO needs to be out using the bullhorn in the event of a fire drill, but it does mean that he or she must convey
how important a crisis management plan is to the overall stability of the company. According to Anderson, “It is vital top management communicate to its employees the message that ‘while this is a highly unlikely event, in the case of its occurrence it is important we all know our role and can act upon it. Making the practice as real as possible is the best way to do it, for example, in simulating a plane crash—have a drill where people actually look injured. This helps prepare people as much as possible for how they will react to an actual crisis, as well as know what to do to successfully manage through it.” Often there is the potential to “underestimate the probability for a catastrophic loss. As Browne puts it, “What might happen can’t be fully appreciated.” Being prepared for a crisis can make a life-or-death difference. A famous example is the sinking of the ocean liner, the Titanic. The ship’s builders were so sure the great ship was unsinkable they did not provide enough lifeboats for all passengers. Once the ship struck an iceberg, many passengers did not bother to enter lifeboats that were available, convinced the ship was completely safe from the icy waters.
Building beyond a crisis Thankfully, most business crises don’t involve life-or-death situations and some can prove beneficial—if handled correctly. “Many crises can actually be an opportunity to make the organization better,” says Carpenter. For example, in the spring of 2009, Domino’s Pizza was hit with a new-media crisis. Two employees at a store in North Carolina posted a video of themselves on YouTube, doing unsanitary things during food prep. Within a matter of days, the video had become a viral sensation. Rather than assuming the situation would go away
on its own (the video quickly had over a million hits), Domino’s management addressed it head on. The CEO of Domino’s Pizza posted his own video on YouTube that said the employees involved had been found, fired, and were facing felony charges. Additionally, the store in question had been closed and was being sanitized. He also indicated the company was reviewing its hiring practices to prevent a reoccurrence. The incident started as a PR nightmare for the brand, but by being upfront about the issue and addressing it immediately and in a very public way, long-term damage was avoided. By assuring that this was an isolated incident and rightfully saying “shame on you” to those involved for hurting the thousands of other Domino’s employees, the CEO gave consumers confidence that things were being made right. In recent months, he has turned the episode to the company’s benefit, appearing in TV ads that ask Domino’s customers to send in photos and “let us know” of any product that does not meet quality standards. It would seem Domino’s is following the type of crisis management approach recommended by Rahm Emanuel, President Obama’s former chief of staff: “You never want a serious crisis go to waste…Crisis provides the opportunity for us to do things that you could not do before.” Jennifer Weld is manager of special projects for the Wisconsin School of Business.
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Making the Most of
Mentoring By Lari Fanlund
T
here is very little agreement about what mentoring is—and what it can offer.
You can see the ambivalence in
the way mentorships are portrayed in popular culture. Take movies, for example. For every mentor placed on a pedestal (think Yoda from “Star Wars”), there are evil mentors (Gordon Gekko from the original “Wall Street” comes to mind, enticing his protégé into illegal stock manipulations). Or, if you want to see a malevolent example of a person being mentored, watch the 1950s classic, “All About Eve.” In the film, a would-be starlet systematically goes about stealing an aging theater
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star’s career. Away from the movie set and in the workplace, the ambivalence toward mentoring continues.
Some organizations view mentoring as an important tool to develop and retain valuable employees. Others see it as a good idea, but so cumbersome and time consuming that it’s not worth pursuing. And others, frankly, view it as little more than lip service for a worthy goal, but not worth the headaches involved. Part of the problem stems from confusion over what mentoring is, and the many interchangeable terms used to describe it. What is a mentor anyway? The term comes from Homer’s epic, the “Odyssey.” When the hero, Odysseus, went off to fight in the Trojan War, he entrusted the care and education of his son to his wise old friend, Mentor. The generic meaning of mentor has come to mean someone who instructs and guides a less experienced, usually younger, individual. When it comes to the common terms for those being mentored, things get a little messy. Terms like protégé or apprentice have largely fallen out of favor. Protégé has come to seem a bit precious, and as for the medieval craft guild term, “apprentice,” watching people desperately try to curry favor from Donald Trump on “The Apprentice” TV show put the final nail in its coffin. So, for lack of better words, in the corporate world, the increasingly accepted terminology is “mentor” and “mentee.”
What mentoring is and isn’t The next stumbling block is confusion over what is and isn’t mentoring. How does it differ from coaching? Does it have to be one on one? Is a formal mentor program a necessity for a mentoring relationship? Mentoring is typically a one-on-one relationship. It involves real commitment on both sides. “Mentors, by design, must have experience—knowledge, skills, and wisdom—that the people being mentored perceive as helping them enhance their professional and personal growth,” says David Antonioni, a program director with Wisconsin School of Business Executive Education who heads the five-day leadership development course, Leadership: Beyond Management. He says the mentoring relationship
“At different career stages, mentors can provide different kinds of support, including access to information about networks or skills needed to progress.” is based on “trust, respect, competence, and open communication in a safe environment.” Mentoring is not the same as coaching, Antonioni says. Mentoring’s focus is on developing the whole person and helping him or her advance along a career path. Coaching is job focused and performance oriented. “Mentoring usually occurs outside the manager-employee relationship,” he says. “While a mentor may do some coaching, a coach does not mentor. Coaching is just one of the roles that a mentor plays.” A true mentorship will be one on one, but people can have more than one mentor, especially over time, as their careers develop, says Associate Professor Larry Hunter, who leads the school’s strategic human resource management MBA career specialization. “At different career stages, mentors can provide different kinds of support, including access to information about networks or skills needed to progress.” A mentoring relationship does not have to be a formal program to provide value. Jim Wierzba, MBA ’79, is a retired partner at Accenture. When he joined the firm in 1979, there was an emphasis on developing people’s skills, but most mentoring was done informally. “Everybody understood the benefits of having someone look out for you,” he says, “but it tended to be a more ‘bottom-up’ process.” By the time he retired in 2003, the company had established a formal mentoring program. Wierzba attributes the change to the growing company’s need to retain and develop its employees. “We wanted to do everything we possibly could to make people feel wanted and to give them the help that they needed to be successful,” he recalls.
Benefits…and obstacles What can everyone involved get out of mentoring when it’s done right? Mary Triana is an assistant professor in the Management and Human Resources Department of the Wisconsin School of Business. Triana says UpdaTE Fall 2010/Winter 2011
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“One of the biggest issues is that mentors and mentees often don’t know what’s expected of them.”
extensive research has been done on the impact of mentoring in the workplace. “Most of these studies have explored job-related outcomes of mentoring for mentees,” she says. “Research findings generally show that mentoring can have positive effects on mentees’ work attitudes, such as job satisfaction. Findings also show positive (albeit smaller) effects of mentoring on career outcomes such as compensation and upward mobility in the organization.” For mentees, benefits can include career advancement, personal support, and feedback— along with valuable insights on the unwritten rules of the organization. For mentors, benefits often include personal fulfillment from sharing their expertise, which can revitalize their interest in their own work. In some organizations, mentors receive financial rewards for their mentoring efforts. For organizations, mentorship programs—when done right—are an effective way to “grow their own” managers, and gain increased commitment from highly valued employees. But mentorship programs can go awry. “One of the biggest issues is that mentors and mentees often don’t know what’s expected of them,” says Steve Schroeder, who directs undergraduate career services at the Wisconsin School of Business. “There can be a disconnect between expectations.” Blair Sanford, who directs career services for the full-time MBA program, agrees: “The mentee may expect frequent meetings, or that their mentor will be thinking about them all the time; it just doesn’t tend to happen that way. Oftentimes there’s disappointment.” Institutional support is key, both agree, because most mentors will not make the time commitment involved unless they feel their efforts to develop talent are valued by their organization. “When mentoring doesn’t work, I think it’s because the company is just giving lip service,” says Wierzba. “Mentoring almost becomes the buzzword of choice. It takes a lot more than just saying you’re doing it to really pull it off.”
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Sophomore Shadow Program a “Win-Win” The Wisconsin School of Business began admitting sophomores in fall 2009. The Sophomore Shadow program soon followed. Run by the school’s Business Career Center, the program allows a student to investigate industries and employers by “shadowing” a professional for a day on the job. The process encourages students to network with professionals and witness firsthand how skills learned in the classroom relate to the workplace. Among last year’s players were well-known organizations such as General Mills, Kohl’s Department Stores, M&I Bank, and PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP—many with a substantial number of Wisconsin alumni as employees. Carly Miller, who is majoring in marketing and in management and human resources, found that the program “gave me a preview of a company that I recently interviewed with for an internship. It let me see the culture firsthand and find out that I would be interested in working for them.” Employers benefit by identifying potential candidates for future recruiting. They also build brand awareness, share their professional knowledge, and make a positive impact on the lives of students. Tanja Lazarevic, senior human resources representative at CUNA Mutual Group, a participating company last year, says the program was “a great way to get sophomores thinking about their future opportunities. We would definitely participate again.” The inaugural Sophomore Shadow session held in January 2010 involved 33 companies and about one quarter of the sophomores enrolled in the business school. Diane Upton, assistant director of employee relations with the Business Career Center, says the program has generated positive feedback from both students and employers. “It’s a win-win situation,” she says. “The students are given the chance to build their career experience and alumni step up to the plate to give back to the school.”
—Jenn Kallias The next round of one-day job shadows will take place during winter break, Jan. 3-14, 2011. To find out how employers can get involved, visit bus.wisc. edu/career/employer/visibility/jobshadow.
Developing Tomorrow’s Leaders Freshmen gain exposure to mentors even before their first day of class as UW-Madison students. During Welcome Week orientation activities, those registered as pre-business students are put into small groups with a student leader who is a business major to get an early view of being a business Badger. Once they enter the business school as sophomores, a whole range of mentoring options comes into play. The goal is to “personalize the experience so the new students can ask their mentor for advice” says Assistant Dean for Undergraduate Programs Steve Schroeder. One example: a student organization, Badger Business Buddies, is devoted to matching up new business majors with juniors and seniors. Business undergrads also have the benefit of a unique resource—the Accenture Leadership Center (ALC). The center opened in 2006 with funding from active and retired senior executives and other employees at Accenture. The center offers students hands-on opportunities to develop leadership skills. Accenture executives remain very involved in the ALC, helping to develop curriculum and serving as role models and instructors. In Schroeder’s view, mentoring at the business school is a boon to undergraduates in three ways. First, student-to-student mentoring helps them learn how to succeed in the business school. Second is a career component: several programs help build connections between students and industry professionals who can help students find internships and full-time positions. The third thing students can gain from mentors, according to Schroeder, is a higher degree of professionalism. “Our students are great academically, but we are dealing with 18to 22-year-olds who may not have a lot of professional experience,” he says. “A mentor can tell them to avoid being too informal when emailing a recruiter, or explain the importance of maintaining eye contact during
Lois Flad
Mentoring, both formal and informal, is woven throughout students’ experience at the Wisconsin School of Business
Jim Wierzba, MBA ’79, travels from Milwaukee to campus every other week to mentor undergraduates in the Accenture Leadership Center. “The success of students who spend time and energy with the center is making a difference,” he says, “and we feel good about that.”
interviews. When someone from the real world—from General Electric, or Accenture, or Goldman Sachs—tells them something, it carries more weight.” At the MBA level, enhanced mentoring is one of the benefits of the move in 2004 to a specialized MBA model. Students benefit from deep industry connections in their chosen fields. “Absolutely, the specialization model is very useful,” says Assistant Dean Blair Sanford. There are lots of ways for students to interact with alums and employers in their specializations. Students can figure out where they really connect with people and then pursue that at a deeper level,” she says. The school offers MBA programs for working professionals. Students in the Evening MBA and Executive MBA programs may find their most invaluable mentors among the
experienced professionals who are their classmates. “The mentoring relationship between faculty and doctoral students is of great significance,” says Associate Dean for Research and Ph.D. Programs Hollis Skaife. “It’s particularly important in terms of identifying a compelling research problem and in acquiring and applying critical research skills.” Wisconsin students at all levels have extensive mentoring opportunities because business school alumni are so generous with their time. “We have a network of more than 37,000 alumni living and working around the world,” says Alisa Robertson, associate dean for external relations. “We’ve found that many of our most successful graduates are the ones most willing to share their expertise.”
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Real Estate Alums Mentor Students Real estate students benefit from a mentor program that connects them with leading professionals across the country. Students are matched with mentors drawn from a pool of real estate alumni and members of the Board of Advisors for the Graaskamp Center for Real Estate. Since the program began three years ago, more than 155 real estate students, both MBAs and undergraduates, have been matched with mentors who range from recent graduates to industry veterans. What they have in common is a desire to give back to the school by sharing their knowledge and experience. Dan Soyka, MBA ’10, said he found his mentor, Eric Newberg, MS ’92, senior acquisition officer for the State Teachers Retirement Systems of Ohio, to be “a great person to talk to and learn from. Mentorship pairs teamed up at an He basically made it his personal mission to help event in 2009. Pictured (l. to r.) me build skills to get an internship and full-time are: Jim Alban, MS ’64, with his mentee, Tony McGibbon. position. We built a tremendous relationship, and I know we’re going to keep in touch after graduation. It’s just another example of our great alumni and how they really care.” Gary Dreher, MS ’94, a principal at TOLD Development Company in Plymouth, Minn., helped develop the mentor program when he was president of the Wisconsin Real Estate Alumni Association. Dreher calls the program “a huge benefit” for students. “I recall from being a student that you may love a certain aspect academically, but you don’t know what it’s really like,” Dreher said. “With the program, we can help students have a full appreciation of what something looks like once you’re in an industry.” Sharon McCabe, who coordinates the mentor program, says students have found the program to be “extremely valuable, especially in these turbulent times.” According to McCabe, “The mentees have often said their mentorship experience is one of the best parts of our program. But it is also a way for the mentors to give back and get involved with the students. I think the mentors get as much out of it as the mentees.”
Mentoring and diversity Much of Professor Triana’s research focuses on human resources selection and diversity issues. Mentoring has sometimes been viewed as a way to perpetuate the “old-boy network” and Triana feels that can be a legitimate concern—especially when people choose their own mentors/mentees. “There is a very robust phenomenon in the diversity/discrimination literature called similarityattraction, which means that humans have a tendency to be attracted to others who are like them,” she says. “If these attractions result in people developing an affinity toward others who are of the same race or sex as them, then this can make it more difficult for minority employees to find well-connected mentors in the workplace.” According to Triana, current research and labor statistics show that top-level positions in many organizations still tend to be held predominantly by whites and by men. “If mentors and mentees select each other, they may gravitate toward similar others, which could make it difficult for minority employees to obtain high-status mentors who can best promote their careers and help them in terms of upward mobility,” she says. On the other hand, Triana believes there are ways in which companies can use mentoring programs to enhance their diversity efforts. “Research has shown that many companies are making an effort to pair promising junior women and minority employees with senior-level managers who can give them good career advice, help them navigate office politics, and promote their career,” she says. “For such a match to be most effective, it is important that the mentor be someone who is willing to be a mentor and who personally values diversity. My own research shows that a personal value for diversity in the workplace is an important factor which motivates people to value all types of individuals and to make time to support women and minorities at work.”
Trends There have always been informal mentorships; it’s the way expertise has been handed down for generations. But since roughly World War II, there’s been a proliferation of formal mentorship programs 22
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“Mentoring almost becomes the buzzword of choice. It takes a lot more than just saying you’re doing it to really pull it off.” sponsored by corporations and other organizations. Do companies still find mentoring programs worth funding, even in these challenging economic times? Schroeder says yes. “We see mentoring continuing to be a priority for companies, and I think it will only grow,” he says. “We are not going to produce enough college graduates to replace all the baby boomers who will be retiring. There’s simply not going to be enough talent in this country to fill all their positions. So mentoring is even more important for companies. Antonioni agrees: “The best companies are investing to develop new leaders.” Sanford sees corporations trying new things in addition to the traditional mentorship programs. One is having executive sponsors for people expected to reach the C-suite. “The sponsor’s job is essentially to help that person navigate through the system and get promotions,” she says. “Companies may also hire outside coaching from executive recruiting firms. When companies believe you have true management material, they are not willing to let you get away, and they’ll do a lot of things to hold on to you.”
In terms of formal mentoring of rank-and-file employees, Sanford doesn’t see it as a priority for many firms. “A lot of corporations are saying they don’t see the ROI in terms of mentoring,” she says. “The companies that believe training and development are really important tend to be the ones to have formal mentoring programs. To that end, individuals are going to have to take responsibility themselves to figure out ways to get inside advice. Many human resources departments just don’t have the staffing to ensure that formal mentoring programs succeed.” Wierzba is more certain of the future continuation of mentor programs. In his view, “If you lose three to four key people on a project because you haven’t created the right work environment, or haven’t shown people you appreciate them, the cost to replace their skills can be tremendous. So, if a CEO asks whether the company can afford to offer a mentor program, I’d probably tell them, ‘You can’t afford not to.’” Lari Fanlund is the editor of UPDATE.
5 Steps
for Successful Mentoring
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Encourage people to develop their own informal mentors. One person can’t do it all. In most cases, the more people who are willing to share their experience, the better. By developing a cadre of people to call on in times of need, mentees can expand their circle of expertise.
Make expectations clear up front. How often and in what ways the mentoring will occur needs to be clear from the beginning. It’s equally important to have similar expectations about probable outcomes. If a mentee expects a promotion, while the mentor views the goal as a simple transfer of knowledge, the chances for disappointment on both sides are great.
Provide institutional support of mentors. Mentors need to know that the time they spend on mentoring is valued by their organization. A good way to make sure is to have their success as mentors be part of their performance evaluations.
Put effort into making good matches. The better the fit at the beginning, the better the chances the relationship will succeed. That does not mean the mentor and mentee need to be the same gender, race, or even work in the same functional areas. Diversity is an opportunity to learn. Having similar values and willingness to commit to the process, however, is crucial.
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Be realistic. Having the right mentor is seldom the path to fame and fortune. Companies that offer mentoring programs need to make clear to mentees that mentoring only gives them a road map. It will take their own hard work and talent to put them in the driver’s seat.
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UPDATE ❖ Faculty and Staff News
The Importance of Financial Reporting Hollis Skaife is helping to shape understanding of the role of
employees,” Skaife explains. “Earnings are a key measure used in
financial information in global equity markets.
investors’ valuation models. If earnings are measured differently
Skaife is the David J. Lesar
across countries, the earnings
Professor in Business and associate
don’t reflect the same information.
dean for research and Ph.D.
Earnings measured in accordance
programs at the Wisconsin School
with IFRS are intended to enhance
of Business. Her own research
the comparability of financial
addresses international financial
information across borders.”
reporting issues and corporate
In addition to her research
governance.
in IFRS, Skaife is known for her
It was her early research in
research on the causes and
international financial reporting that
consequences of ineffective internal
contributed to her appointment in
control in financial reporting—a
2009 to the International Financial
timely topic.
Reporting Standards Council of the
Her research—documenting a link
International Accounting Standards
between effective internal control
Board—the organization responsible
and firms’ cost of capital—was cited
for promulgating International
in Congressional hearings on the
Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS).
costs and benefits of the Sarbanes-
Currently, more than 115 countries
Oxley (SOX) Act.
use IFRS as the basis for companies’
Skaife wishes there were greater
financial reporting.
recognition of accounting’s role
Skaife, who represents the
as a decision science. “It’s more
International Association for
than debits and credits,” she says.
Accounting Education and Research
“There’s judgment involved. It is
company. Other representatives include the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, Basel Committee, and other global leaders. The group meets in London three times a year. Why do IFRS matter for the global economy? “Financial
Bruce Fritz
on the council, is in impressive
important to understand accounting judgments—the estimates and method choices—because they affect assets, liabilities, and
subsequent earnings measures.” Skaife’s goal is to conduct research that has a significant impact
statements are one of the more important mechanisms by
on both the academic literature and on public policy. “It’s important
which companies communicate the nature and success of their
to communicate research findings to policy makers so that they can
operations to interested stakeholders—investors, suppliers, even
make informed decisions,” she says.
24
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UPDATE Fall 2010/Winter 2011
UPDATE ❖ Faculty and Staff News
Examining the Roots of Materialism To what degree does family life influence an individual’s sway toward materialism? And, do more things result in increased
According to Rindfleisch and Burroughs, the unhappiest people were those with the most conflict—those who reported high pro-social and high materialistic
happiness?
values. The other three groups—
These questions were examined in an article on consumerism
those low in materialism and high
published earlier this year by the
in pro-social values, those low
American Psychological Association.
in pro-social values and high in
In the article, the organization dug
materialism, and those lukewarm in
deep through the research to find
both arenas—reported similar, but lower levels of life stress.
the reasons why some individuals
Rindfleisch is also interested
develop strong materialistic values
in how television viewing
and others do not, and which
cultivates material values and the
individuals are happier as a result.
consequences in terms of life
As a launching point, APA
satisfaction. He authored a paper
referenced a groundbreaking 1997
on that topic in the Journal of
Journal of Consumer Research study
Consumer Research in 2005 and
conducted by Marketing Professor
co-authored a related paper to
Aric Rindfleisch, which found that
be published next year in Human
young people whose parents were
Communication Research.
undergoing or had undergone
“My research efforts are
divorce or separation were more
concentrated on two core issues,”
prone to developing materialistic
Rindfleisch says. “The first is
values later in life than those from
material values among individuals;
intact homes. and James E. Burroughs, assistant professor of commerce at the University of Virginia, showed that
the second is cooperative Bob Rashid
Another article by Rindfleisch
innovation among firms. The areas share a common focus on the relationship between marketing and society, which has been the subject
the “unhappiest materialists” are those whose materialistic and
of considerable intellectual debate for more than 60 years.
higher-order values are most conflicted. In 2002, Rindfleisch and
On one hand, marketing is often viewed as harmful to society
Burroughs gauged people’s levels of stress, materialistic values,
because it promotes values (such as greed, envy, selfishness)
and pro-social values in the domains of family, religion, and
that reduce both individual and collective well-being. On the
community—in keeping with the theory of psychologist Shalom
other hand, marketing is often regarded as beneficial to society
Schwartz, that some values unavoidably conflict with one another.
because it helps create innovative new products and processes
The pair also ascertained the degree of conflict people felt when
that enhance individual and collective well-being. My research
making a decision between the two value domains.
explores both sides of this long-standing debate.”
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UPDATE ❖ Faculty and Staff News
Exceptional Contributions The faculty and staff of the Wisconsin School of Business continue to earn national recognition for their accomplishments. Edward W. (Jed) Frees, Assurant Health Professor of Actuarial Science, was awarded the 2010 Hachemeister Prize given by the Casualty Actuarial Society for best paper published by the International Actuarial Association. Larry Rittenberg, Ernst & Young Professor of Accounting, was named to the International Accounting Professional Practices Framework Council, which provides oversight of the international standards-setting process relating to internal auditing. Urban Wemmerlöv, Kress Family Professor of Productivity and Quality, co-authored a healthcare operations paper selected as the 2009 winner of the Journal of Operations Management’s Best Paper Award. Loren Kuzuhara, senior lecturer in Management and Human Resources, was appointed to the 2010 Board of Examiners for the Malcolm Baldrige National Quality Award. Andrew Taylor, director of the Bolz Center for Arts Administration, was named one of the “Nonprofit Arts Sector’s 25 Most Powerful and Influential Leaders” for the third consecutive year by author Barry Hessenius. Ella Mae Matsumura, associate professor in Accounting and Information Systems, and Jae Yong Shin, a Ph.D. graduate in accounting, received the American Accounting Association’s 2010 Notable Contributions to Accounting Literature Award for their 2006 Accounting Review paper, “An Empirical Analysis of an Incentive Plan with Relative Performance Measures.” Jon Davis, Arthur Andersen Professor of Accounting and chair of Accounting and Information Systems, and doctoral student Heather Pesch received a $22,000 research grant from the Center for Audit Quality for a research project investigating the effectiveness of various fraud deterrence and detection interventions in organizations. Qing Liu, assistant professor of Marketing, won the best presentation award at the American Marketing Association Advanced Research Techniques Forum.
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UPDATE Fall 2010/Winter 2011
new faculty Management and Human Resources Russell Coff came to the Wisconsin School of Business from Goizueta Business School at Emory University. His research explores the role of knowledge-based assets in creating and maintaining a sustainable competitive advantage. He has done extensive work involving management dilemmas associated with human assets. Coff is widely published in leading journals, including the Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, and Strategic Management Journal. An article he co-authored for the Academy of Management Review won the journal’s 2009 best-published article award. A chapter he authored on maximizing value from human capital, written for “The Oxford Handbook of Human Capital,” will be published in early 2011. Coff earned his Ph.D. from the Anderson School of Management at the University of California, Los Angeles.
Marketing Noah Lim joined the Wisconsin School of Business from the C.T. Bauer College of Business at the University of Houston. His research interests include behavioral economics, experimental economics, sales management, and pricing channels. He was named a Marketing Science Institute Young Scholar in 2009. His work has appeared in the Journal of Marketing Research, Management Science, and Marketing Science. He earned both his M.S. and Ph.D. in marketing from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.
Actuarial Science, Risk Management, and Insurance Justin Sydnor previously was on the faculty of Case Western Reserve University’s Weatherhead School of Management. His research interests are in psychology and economics, applied microeconomics, industrial organization, insurance markets, and risk and decision making. He earned his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California, Berkeley.
UPDATE ❖ Alumni News
Class Notes Stay Connected with the Wisconsin School of Business! Use your favorite social media tool to receive the latest news about the business school, fellow alumni, faculty activity, special events, career resources, and more. Wisconsin Business Alumni
Follow us @WiscBusAlumni Join the Wisconsin Business Alumni ® (Official) group
Kenneth Wright (BBA ‘51) was awarded the “Gran Oficial” Order of Merit medal for distinguished service to the republic by the president of Peru. He was honored for his research and publications on ancient Inca native technology. Jerald Hage (BBA ‘55) will publish a book entitled “Restoring the Innovative Edge: Driving the Evolution of Science and Technology” in May 2011.
Kenneth Towers (BBA ‘71) left a 28-year career with Merrill Lynch in Berkeley, Calif., to join UBS Financial Services in November 2008, and is now in Walnut Creek, Calif., helping families and small businesses with their investment needs. He and his wife Barbara spent 2.5 weeks this summer touring in Turkey and visiting their son Dave who was teaching there for one year.
Howard Golden (BA ‘68, JD ‘72, MBA ‘72) is chairman of the Board of Reconstruction Capital II and Speymill Macau funds, both listed on the London Stock Exchange. He lives in Prague in the Czech Republic. He has three children and is expecting his first grandchild in November.
Franz Stadtmueller (BBA ‘56) had his two youngest children graduate from UW-Madison this past May, Franz Karl Stadtmueller with a BS, and Jana Stadtmueller with a BBA.
Barry Shore (PhD ‘68) is a professor at the University of New Hampshire and a project management consultant to companies in the United States, European Union, and Asia.
Douglas Lindquist (BBA ‘72, MBA ‘73) was recently elected to the board of directors at Hacienda Golf Club in La Habra Heights, Calif. He is chairman of the social and member communications committee.
1960-1969
Ken Sack (BBA ‘69) retired from CNH in August 2009. He now volunteers with Habitat for Humanity, building homes in Racine, Wis. He received a Lifetime Achievement Award as an Air Force admissions officer from the Air Force Academy after 32 years of service, and continues to volunteer in a retired status.
Richard Punko (MBA ‘75) was hired as a senior consultant with Olmstead Associates in Needham, Mass. He is also working at Ameriprise in Boston as a senior business analyst, helping migrate performance measurement reporting from Bank of America’s computer systems to those of Columbia Management.
Wisconsin Business Alumni 608/265-0575 alumni@bus.wisc.edu bus.wisc.edu/alumni
Philip Wanzek (MBA ‘48) is interested in hearing from classmates from his MBA graduation class.
David Fearheller (MBA ‘68) and his wife reside in Marin County, Calif., north of San Francisco. He has a parttime accounting services and investment management business.
1970-1979
Jim Walmann (BBA ‘71) retired in 2009. He credits UW-Madison with preparing him for a great career. He joined Met Life (research and development) in New York City right after graduation, and has held consulting jobs in San Francisco since (Johnson & Higgins, Reed Stenhouse, Aon, March, and, finally, Safeway).
bus.wisc.edu/dean/blog
1940-1959
raising venture capital for start-up companies and brokering commercial mortgage loans for difficult credits. Alumni looking for assistance in those areas can contact him at stevecain@ optonline.net.
Jared Lobdell (MBA ‘66) has taught in a university setting since 1970. He has authored eight books—three on J.R.R. Tolkien and two on C.S. Lewis—and has contributed to journals in economics, history, and literary criticism. He currently lives in Pennsylvania. Stephen Cain (BS ‘68) has spent the past four years
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UPDATE ❖ Alumni News
More than 200 alumni and friends gathered in Grainger Hall in October to recognize the achievements of three business alumni being honored for exemplary career achievements and generous contributions to their community and the University of Wisconsin-Madison. The honorees were presented with their awards at the annual Wisconsin School of Business Homecoming Gala. The most-recent Distinguished Business Alumni Award recipients join an elite group of approximately 100 alumni who have received the honor since the school’s founding. Peter Leidel, BBA ‘78, is a founder and partner at Yorktown Partners, LLC, a principal investment firm managing elite private equity partnerships that invests more than $3 billion in the energy industry, focusing on companies based in North America. Leidel has been a director of non-public companies in the energy industry in which the Yorktown partnerships hold equity interests, including Ellora Energy Inc., since June 2002. Leidel is an active member of the Big Apple Badgers Alumni Chapter and is on the board for the Wisconsin Eastern Alumni Scholarship Fund. He was named the Big Apple Badger Person of the Year in 2007. He currently serves on the Dean’s Advisory Board of the Wisconsin School of Business and the board of directors of the University of Wisconsin Foundation. He and his wife Pam live in Pound Ridge, N.Y., and have three children.
28
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UPDATE Fall 2010/Winter 2011
Sharon Vanorny
Homecoming Gala Celebrates Distinguished Business Alumni
Michael Shannon, Stephen Petersen, and Peter A. Leidel (l. to r.) received the Distinguished Business Alumnus Award at this year’s Homecoming Gala.
Stephen Petersen, BBA ‘79, MS ‘80, is senior vice president and portfolio manager of the VIP Equity-Income Portfolio as well as the Fidelity Puritan Fund, among others, at Fidelity Investments, an international provider of financial services and investment resources. He joined the firm in 1980 and has worked as a research analyst and portfolio manager. Peterson is a Chartered Financial Analyst designation holder. A graduate of the Applied Security Analysis Program, he has been actively involved with the Hawk Center for Applied Security Analysis, serving as a board member and guest speaker, and generously funding the program. He has also provided strategic direction for the Wisconsin School of Business as a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board.
Michael Shannon, BBA ‘80, founded KSL Capital Partners in 2004 and founded its predecessor, KSL Recreation Corporation, in 1992, serving as its president and chief executive officer. KSL Capital Partners is a $1.6 billion private equity firm that invests in the hospitality, real estate, and leisure industries. Shannon founded and became CEO of KSL Resorts in 2004, following the sale of KSL Recreation. Prior to establishing KSL Recreation, he served as president and CEO of Vail Associates, Inc. (owner of Vail and Beaver Creek Resorts) in Vail, Colo. He currently serves as a director on several boards, including ING Direct; Safeway, Inc.; and the United States Ski and Snowboard Association. Shannon serves on the Wisconsin School of Business Dean’s Advisory Board and has provided generous financial and strategic support of the business school.
UPDATE ❖ Alumni News
Class Notes
Ray Vander Weele (PhD ‘72) left UW-Madison in 1985 to manage a pension fund in Grand Rapids. Ten years later, he became a VP-financial consultant for Merrill Lynch. He is now retired, healthy, consulting, and doing lots of volunteer work. He has a wife of 53 years, two children, and eight grandchildren. Paul M. Johnson (MS ‘74) recently retired from National Guardian Life in Madison, Wis., where he served as the director of systems development for the past 15 years. He closes out a 36-year career in information systems. Jim Mottern (MBA ‘74) credits his experience at UW-Madison and his ability to earn his Wisconsin MBA for his successful progress through a career in international manufacturing and systems. His career included 15 years as a partner with Ernst & Young management consulting, leading the west region SAP practice. He now specializes in enterprise cost reduction and solving complex global CEO and CFO problems.
Dick Fields (MBA ‘75) sold radio advertising for WTSO/ WZEE for five years after graduating. For the next 10 years, he owned and operated radio stations in Texas, then spent 17 years selling advertising in Sacramento, Calif. For the last four years, he has been doing fundraising work for Pacific Legal Foundation, a libertarian/ conservative-oriented public interest law firm. He is married and has three children. Warren Liu (MS ‘75) has lived and worked in Asia since 1993, mostly in Hong Kong and Shanghai. He published two books on KFC ‘s success in China in 2006 and 2007— one each in Chinese and English—and taught MBA/ EMBA classes at Tsinghua, INSEAD (Singapore), Tongji, and other graduate business schools during 2005-2009. His next book, “China Key Success Factors: Past and Future,” will be available on Amazon.com later this year. He is currently in the middle of two China-based start-ups. Patrick Thiele (BBA ‘72, MS ‘75) was named Reinsurance CEO of the Year for the second year in a row in 2010. Thiele was a keynote speaker at this year’s Directors’ Summit.™. A member of the Dean’s Advisory Board of the Wisconsin School of Business, he will chair the board starting this spring.
World War II Veteran Gets His Degree…69 Years Later In June of 1941, Lyle Francis Robert Knudson, a University of Wisconsin senior from Racine, was called to active duty in the U.S. Navy. He was told to report to the Great Lakes Naval Training Center in Illinois on June 13, the same day on which his last two final exams were scheduled. Knudson sent a telegram to the Navy indicating that it would be impossible for him to get there because he had to take his finals that day. The Navy responded with one word: “Imperative.” So Knudson left the university early and never got the chance to pass those two final exams and receive his commerce degree. (There was no business school at the university in 1941, but commerce degrees were offered through the College of Letters and Science.) Sixty-nine years later, the degree is finally in Knudson’s hands, thanks to a very determined friend and fellow Badger alumnus, Joseph Battenburg, and the Wisconsin School of Business, which granted Knudson a bachelor’s degree in business administration majoring in finance, investment, and banking. The registrar’s office sent the office diploma to Knudson this fall. “Mr. Knudson received a Wisconsin BBA degree because he had earned it, and we are proud to have him as an alumnus,” says Ken Kavajecz, associate dean of full-time MBA and undergraduate programs at the Wisconsin School of Business. At 94, Knudson is believed to be the UW-Madison’s eldest degree recipient. —Liz Beyler, University Communications Dean L. Sanders
William Rauwerdink (BBA ‘72) has enjoyed several recent appointments, including the Investment Review Board for Oakland University in Michigan and other non-profit boards. His investing focus remains on early stage, nontechnology based companies.
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UPDATE ❖ Alumni News
Class Notes Philip Berg (BBA ‘76) was presented the Meritorious Service Award by the Tenth Mountain Division Association (the Ski Troops) while serving as president of its Rocky Mountain Chapter. He recently developed and kicked off the “VIPs of Skiing” fall speaker series with guest Tim White, executive director of the National Ski Patrol.
John and Tashia Morgridge
Jan Gunnar Breivik (MS ‘76, MBA ‘77) is working in real estate following a career as president for different banks and corporations. He and his family visit the United States at least once a year, visiting a Denver-based resort club to which they belong.
Morgridge Institute for Research Opens
1980-1989
The Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, a new home for scientists, faculty, students, and learner of all ages, opened its doors on the UW-Madison campus in December. The facility includes two world-class research institutes and a public space for science. One of the twin interdisciplinary research institutes is the Morgridge Institute for Research, a private, not-for-profit research institute dedicated to improving human health by accelerating scientific discovery. The institute is named for John and Tashia Morgridge, who provided $50 million in 2006 to pave the way for the pioneering public/private scientific collaboration. Both are UW-Madison graduates. John earned his BBA from the business school, and Tashia earned her B.S. in education. John Morgridge is chairman emeritus of Cisco Systems, Inc. and a member of the Wisconsin Naming Partnership of the Wisconsin School of Business.
Nicholas Clementi (MS ‘80) recently married and moved to Minnesota. He serves as CEO and president of InnoWare Paper, Inc.
30
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UPDATE Fall 2010/Winter 2011
Alan Ferguson (BBA ‘80) has written a new novel, “Junkyard Garden: The Summer of Amanda’s Spiritual Awakening.” The book tells a metaphysical story about a recent high school graduate who has the ability to reach the afterlife and deliver important messages from those who left the physical world. Dennis Jones (BBA ‘80) is widowed, has two children, and has lived and worked in Madison, Wisconsin Rapids, and Milwaukee, Wis.
Mark Yde (BBA ‘80) was added to the 2010 Simona Americas Board of Directors for German-based Simona AG. Jim Pionkoski (BBA ‘81, MBA ‘82) started WisconsinCheeseMasters.com, an online retailer of the best Wisconsin cheese. In the last two years, the business has expanded into the wholesale arena. He is looking to grow that business outside Wisconsin in 2011. Stuart Manewith (MA ‘82) works in business development and consulting for Blackbaud, the world’s leader in technology solutions exclusively for non-profit organizations. He continues to live with his family in St. Louis, Mo. Andrew King (BBA ‘84) opened King Financial Group, LLC, a financial planning and wealth management firm, after 15 years at American Family Insurance. He specializes in retirement, estate, and educational planning strategies for families and small business owners. He was married on the beaches of Costa Rica in December 2008. His daughter Krista graduated from UW-Milwaukee in May 2010, and his son Gary is a senior at Edgewood High School in Madison. David Rosen (BBA ‘84) is continuing to rapidly expand the FLEXcon business outside of North America. His eldest daughter is a freshman at UW-Madison.
UPDATE ❖ Alumni News
Class Notes Clarke Caywood (BBA ‘68, PhD ‘85) is on sabbatical from Northwestern University during 2010-2011 to produce the new edition of “The Handbook of Strategic Public Relations and Integrated Communications” for professional book and textbook sales with McGrawHill. He is also conducting research on humanitarian logistics and communications with aidmatrix.org in China and the United States.
David Jewell (kneeling at right) helped drum up interest in a Lexus ad.
Drumming Up Interest A Wisconsin School of Business alumnus had a hand in supporting a recent Lexus IS commercial that brings new meaning to the term drumline. David Jewell, BBA ’80, is the marketing manager for Yamaha drums in the U.S. market. The nationally aired commercial, “Music Track, ” was filmed in an old Boeing aircraft hangar in Long Beach, Calif. In the ad, a car rolls over a series of customdesigned, pressure-activated pedals that trigger drumsticks and bass drum pedals to strike more than 20 pieces of various Yamaha drums and cymbals—each precisely placed to play in time to the pounding background music of the commercial. According to Jewell, a drum technician mapped out a drum chart for the car to “play” and a Lexus precision driver pulled off the feat. (To watch Jewell be interviewed in a behindthe-scenes look at making the commercial, go to: 4wrd.it/ lexusbts2. The commercial is posted at 4wrd.it/lexusdrum.) Jewell has had a long-time interest in drums. Originally from Green Bay, Wis., he started playing drums when he was 12. He went on to become a member of the UW Marching Band, Jazz Ensemble, and Concert Band while attending UW-Madison. Getting to see his company’s drums featured so prominently was a thrill, he says, “The end result looks amazing and sounds incredible.”
Anne Hoff (MS ‘85) joined a colleague and opened a new CPA practice in October. When she’s not spending time with her kids or at work, she trains for triathlons, and so far this year has completed four sprint distance events, several swimand-run races, and her first open-water Olympic distance triathlon. Matt Hughey (BBA ‘85) completed his term as president of the SIFMA Financial Management Society (previously The Financial Management Division) on Oct. 31. He is an executive director with UBS Financial Services, Inc., a UBS Wealth Management Company, as head of its retail brokerage regulatory accounting and finance function. Laura Kasemodel (BBA ‘85, MBA ‘87) has formed a risk management consulting firm in the Twin Cities—Risk & Insurance Consultants, LLC (risk-ins.com)—after 22 years of working for other companies. She still lives in
Wayzata, Minn., with husband Tim and her two boys. Linda Carlson (BBA ‘87) has a business, Sport Clips Haircuts in Germantown, Wis., that is doing well. Michael Mistele (BBA ‘87, MS ‘89) was recently named director of research for the customer intelligence group at Draftfcb Advertising in Chicago. John Peirson (BBA ‘88) was recently named the U.S. managing partner of Deloitte’s Internal Audit Transformation Market Offering. Kevin Zlevor (MBA ‘88) has worked with SC Johnson and Son, Inc.: A Family Company, headquartered in Racine, Wis., since graduating in 1988. He has enjoyed various roles in finance, sales, marketing, and business development while working both domestically and internationally. His most recent assignment is based in Dubai, United Arab Emirates, managing the family‘s fastmoving consumer goods business throughout the Middle East and North Africa.
1990-1999 Gavin Cobb (BBA ‘90) is the president and CEO of Heritage Property Management Services, Inc., in Atlanta, Ga. He is married and has two children. Brad Horner (MBA ‘90) was appointed project management office lead for the business
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UPDATE ❖ Alumni News
Class Notes and enterprise consulting unit at Dell when the integration of Perot Systems acquisition was completed in spring 2010. He previously spent seven years at Accenture as a senior manager and five years with IBM as an associate partner specializing in managing consulting programs and projects. Maitri (Rowlands) Meyer (BBA ‘90) accepted a sales/strategic human resources position as director of recruitment for Mass Mutual Financial Group in November 2010. Norina Mohamad (BBA ‘93) credits UW-Madison in preparing her for jobs other than those falling under her degree. She started with a supervisory role, moved into inventory planning, then supply chain, and ended up in a project management role. She is married with two boys and looks forward to a future visit to UW-Madison with her family. Kirsten Charlton (BBA ‘93) works for a non-standard auto carrier in Burr Ridge, Ill. She has moved to La Grange, Ill., with her husband and their two daughters. Peter Csapo (BBA ‘93) has seen his career take him from the Midwest to the San Francisco Bay area and now to the Rockies in Colorado. He got married, has three kids, adopted a wonderful dog, and was recently named in a finance/treasury journal among the top finance executives under the age of 40. 32
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David Kranz (BBA ‘93) is executive vice president of One World Apparel based in Los Angeles, Calif., along with East Coast offices in New York City. His wife Sara and three sons (Jacob 19, Carson 9, and Christian 3) live in Hermosa Beach, Calif., and love the West Coast beach culture and lifestyle. Kirk Larsen (BBA ‘93) is senior vice president and treasurer of Fidelity National Information Services (NYSE: FIS), based in Jacksonville, Fla. Brian J. Mullen (BBA ‘93), FCAS, MAAA, ASA, was recently promoted to director, payment protection pricing at CUNA Mutual Group in Madison. Eduardo Chvaicer (MBA ‘96) opened the initial Right at Home, Inc. office location in Sao Paulo, Brazil. The organization is a leading provider of in-home companion and personal care assistance with more than 175 local independent franchisees in 41 states. Robert Alden Mac Intyre (MBA ‘96) is loving the laidback lifestyle in Key West and is very proud of how great the Wisconsin Badger football team is doing this year! He says his memberships in Wisconsin Business Alumni and the American Marketing Association have always proven valuable during his career—he highly recommends participation by current MBA
UPDATE Fall 2010/Winter 2011
David Flatley received the 2010 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award from First Lady Michelle Obama, alongside 13-year-old Illinois student Jessica Pillot.
Arts Administration Grad Accepts Award at White House Ceremony An organization headed by David A. Flatley, a 1987 graduate of the arts administration program of the Wisconsin School of Business, was one of 15 in the nation to receive the 2010 National Arts and Humanities Youth Program Award. First Lady Michelle Obama presented the award at a ceremony held in the White House in October. The award is given to recognize excellence in after-school arts and humanities programs serving children and youth. Flatley is executive director of the Center for Community Arts Partnerships (CCAP) at Columbia College Chicago. CCAP’s Community Schools Initiative was honored for effectiveness in developing creativity and fostering academic success by engaging young people in the arts. The business school’s program in arts administration, launched in 1969, was the first such graduate program in the nation, and remains internationally known as a learning center on the business of art. The full-time Wisconsin MBA program offers an MBA in arts administration through the Bolz Center for Arts Administration.
UPDATE ❖ Alumni News
Class Notes
Jaime (Smith) Mautz (BBA ‘97) married her college sweetheart, Alex Mautz, in 1998, and they have a nineyear-old son and a six-yearold daughter. She started pacificink.com in 2000 after receiving her MBA from San Diego State University. The business is almost 11 years old. It sells and ships printer cartridges all over the world. Kerry Powers (BBA ‘99) has worked at AMN Healthcare since March 2002, and was promoted to senior director in October 2010.
2000-2009 Robert Hurda (BBA ‘00) spent eight years with Target Corporation, growing his retail skills as an analyst and an analyst trainer. Recently, he made the move to the vendor side of retail with Electronic Arts, the world‘s largest publisher of video games. He is married and has a four-yearold daughter and a one-yearold son. Jason Fenske (BBA ‘01) and his wife Carly welcomed their first child, Caiden Glenn, into the world on Sept. 22, 2010. All are doing well at their home just outside of Philadelphia. Lucas Heart (BBA ‘01) was appointed chapter president of the Wisconsin Alumni Association in Wausau, Wis.
Jennifer Ciulla (MA ‘02) married Daniel Van Ort on November 12, 2010, in Clifton Park, NY. Gina Clausen Goldberg (BBA ‘02) works full time in human resources, and a year ago took on an additional parttime role in a direct-selling venture called Dove Chocolate Discoveries. Last month, she was promoted to team lead with four chocolatiers directly on her team. Kimberly Lauer (BBA ‘03) has worked in brand management at Kraft Foods since graduation from UW-Madison. She received her MBA from Harvard Business School, got married, and moved to Manhattan. She continues to work for Kraft Foods in New Jersey, but gets back to Madison every year for a Badger game. Lance Mikus (MBA ‘04) married Karen Hinkel on August 7, 2010, at Ventura Beach, Calif., and they honeymooned in Bora Bora. Since graduating, he has worked in the biotechnology industry as a product manager and senior product manager for immunology and stem cell products, and is currently a director of global marketing for Life Technologies, based in Carlsbad, Calif. In October, he won a global marketing award for his work on Life Technologies’ global brand architecture.
Sharon Vahorny
students in organizations that they can follow and participate in throughout their careers.
Ray Zemon (center)
Distinguished Business Alumnus Honored at ASAP Conference In November, the Wisconsin School of Business welcomed more than 150 alumni and friends of the Applied Security Analysis Program (ASAP) back to campus. The ASAP Fall Investment Conference featured an update on the Hawk Center for Applied Security Analysis and presentations from the CFA Institute, Bernstein Research, and UW-Madison’s Office of Corporate Relations. At the conference, Ray Zemon, MBA ’73, was presented with the Wisconsin School of Business Distinguished Business Alumnus Award. Zemon was honored for demonstrating analytical expertise throughout an investment career which culminated in his work as chief fixed income investment officer at Lincoln Capital Management. After retiring from Lincoln Capital, he demonstrated his entrepreneurial instincts by founding Bop LLC, an on-line clothing retailer. During the presentation, Zemon was hailed as a quiet but powerful force within ASAP. Zemon has mentored students, conducted guest lectures, advocated for the center’s applied learning model, and provided financial support for the Hawk Center and the business school.
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UPDATE ❖ Alumni News
Class Notes Chase Schmitt (BBA ‘03, MAcc ‘04) was promoted to audit manager at Anton Collins Mitchell, LLP, in January 2010, and was elected vice president of Denver Active 20-30 Children’s Foundation in September 2010. He was recently engaged to Jessica Jurgens. Corey Wise (BBA ‘04, MAcc ‘05) became a CPA, and practiced tax at BDO Seidman in Chicago for two years. He graduated from Northwestern Law School in May 2010, was married in June 2009, and now works as a tax attorney at McDermott Will & Emery in Chicago. Steven Hueffner (BBA ‘04, MAcc ‘05) was recently promoted to tax manager at Deloitte Tax LLP in Chicago, where he specializes in the high net-worth individuals and estate-planning sector. Scott Kohl (MBA ‘05) was recently promoted to production director at Raven Software. Danchen (Daisy) Zhang (BBA ‘05, MAcc ‘06) is “in good hands,” working for Allstate‘s internal audit group. She was married in July and had two wedding receptions, one in Chicago and one in Shanghai. Mary Brannen (BBA ‘07) was promoted to advertising operations manager for websites owned by MerriamWebster, Inc. and Encyclopedia Britannica.
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Jennifer Post Tyler (MBA ‘07) was appointed by the county executive to the Dane County Cultural Affairs Commission in 2009, where she serves on the executive committee. She was recently recruited into economic development for Thrive, the Madison Region Economic Development Enterprise, created to grow the economy in an eightcounty region while enhancing quality of life. She works with project director Brad Elmer (MBA ‘07), who manages the organization‘s Capital Growth Initiative, increasing access to capital for businesses and organizations in the region. The organization just hired another Wisconsin business grad, Betsy Johnson Lundgren (MA ‘05), as its communications manager. Erik Warshauer (BBA ‘07) has re-joined the Carlson Real Estate Company‘s Phoenix, Ariz., office as an analyst a year and a half after leaving the company as a result of economic conditions. He is set to marry his college sweetheart, Heidi Eckert, on June 25, 2011, in Madison. Heather Doeren (BBA ‘08) was recently promoted to assistant vice president, working as a property facultative underwriter for Swiss Re Reinsurance. Krystle Felcaro (BBA ‘08) is working as a bilingual public relations intern at Marketing Werks in Chicago. She enjoys
UPDATE Fall 2010/Winter 2011
being able to use her Spanish both at work and at home. Jinwon Lee (BBA ‘08) went back to Korea after graduation and got a job with IBM GBS, where he has been working as a business consultant. Michael Scotti (MBA ‘08) and his family now live in Columbus, Ohio, where he works as a real estate manager at Abercrombie & Fitch, supporting the firm‘s international expansion efforts. He and his wife welcomed their second child, Maximilian Kade, on Oct. 8, 2010. Sarah Vosters (BBA ‘08) was promoted to creative services manager, a new position for the company, at Great Wolf Resorts in spring of this year. She and her husband also welcomed their first child, a baby boy, William Michael, on Sept. 30 of this year. Susan Gotrik (BBA ‘09) is happily working for 3M in Cambridge, Mass., where she moved after marrying UW engineering alum Kevin Gotrik this past summer. The two met on the Badger drumline. Andrew Pulvermacher (MBA ‘09) and his wife, Heather, welcomed their second child, Wyatt Rex, into the family on March 18, 2010. Wyatt is a younger brother to Warren Dane, age three. Derek Swoboda (MBA ‘09) is the franchise owner of Links Golf Café, the world‘s first golf
cafe franchise. His first location will open in Madison‘s East Towne Mall in June 2011. It will feature coffee, beer, wine, an executive boardroom, golf retail, and four state-of-the-art golf simulators. Katie Daggett (MBA ‘10) traveled to several different countries over the summer, including Iceland, South Africa, and India, then started at General Mills as an associate marketing manager working on salty snack innovation. Varun Jain (MBA ‘10) recently moved back to New Delhi to join an investment bank called Langham Capital and is working on cross-border M&A deals, including the United States.
UPDATE ❖ Alumni News
Class Notes
Alum Named to Top NBC Post
Wisconsin business alumni and friends celebrate this year’s Homecoming Gala in style.
Sharon Vahorny
Robert Greenblatt, who earned his M.A. in arts administration in 1984, will become chairman of NBC Entertainment when Comcast Corp. assumes control of the TV, film, and themepark company. He was named to the post in November. In his new role, Goldblatt will oversee NBC’s prime-time and late-night programming, business affairs, marketing, public relations, scheduling, and NBC Universal Media Studios. Greenblatt has compiled an enviable track record in the entertainment business. A former programming chief at CBS Corp.’s Showtime network, he helped develop several hit series, including “Weeds,” “Dexter,” “Nurse Jackie,” and others that won numerous Golden Globe, Emmy, and Peabody Awards. Prior to Showtime, Greenblatt was an award-winning producer of more than a dozen series on various networks, including Six Feet Under, for which he was awarded a Golden Globe award in 2002 for Best Television Drama Series. Prior to producing, Greenblatt was executive vice president of prime time programming for Fox Broadcasting Company. He’s also been a theatrical producer on Broadway, for the musical adaptation of the film “9 to 5,” which received four Tony award nominations. In addition to his M.A. from the Wisconsin School of Business, Goldblatt studied theatre management at the University of Illinois and is an MFA graduate of the Peter Stark Producing Program at USC’s School of Cinema-Television.
UpdaTE Fall 2010/Winter 2011
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UPDATE ❖ Alumni News
Teesha Hernandez
5
Questions Teesha Hernandez, MBA ’87, is director of organization development for Emerson Electric Company, a diversified global manufacturing and technology company headquartered in Ferguson, Mo. UPDATE’s Kora Plucinski talked with Hernandez on her company’s emphasis on promoting from within—and why it plays an important role in its organizational development strategy.
Tell us about your current role at Emerson. I was recruited to join the company as an internal manager for their corporate insurance program as a result of my consulting work with them. (Hernandez earned her MBA in risk management and insurance and initially worked in that field before switching to human resources.) Today, my job is to identify the strengths and traits of our employees and see how they can most effectively live out their potential. We have a strong culture of promoting from within at Emerson. It allows us to identify and develop leaders throughout their time here, building on their natural strengths to develop their skill set and prepare them to bring the most possible value to the company.
With a culture of promoting from within, is there some danger of employees developing a sense of entitlement, of assuming they’ll be “next in line” for jobs? To some people’s surprise, promoting from within is not a sequential process. If I am the assistant marketing manager, I am not automatically next in line to be the marketing manager. Instead, we evaluate our business units on four dimensions: strategy, profitability, organizational review, and finance. At Emerson, we focus on matching the criteria needed to be effective in a position with the right individual who either has the skills necessary or could develop those skills in a training program. It’s simple; if you don’t perform well, your career will not progress.
How does your company perpetuate this approach? It comes from the top down and is customized to fit each business unit. It is crucial that lead management believes in fostering talent and makes it part of their mission to enhance talent and encourage employee growth.
Are there significant challenges to implementing this philosophy? There are no real challenges with this philosophy because it really is not a program—it’s a culture. The company has an extremely high retention rate because people are here to be successful, have an impact, and know the company is a way of life, not just a job.
Many companies have cut leadership development and training programs. What is your company’s take? Skimping on leadership development and training options to cut costs may have short-term benefits, but eliminating human resources or reducing development programs is a risky decision that has the potential to backfire. When the economy turns around, that company will be playing catch up and struggling to find valuable individuals. The biggest asset a company has is its people, and without developing successful individuals, a company will not reach its potential. Overall, it’s a strategy that is ingrained in our culture. Instead of being viewed as an expense, employee development is a core competency in the way we do business.
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UPDATE Fall 2010/Winter 2011
UPDATE � Dean’s Advisory Board Stephen M. Bennett (Board Chair) Former CEO Intuit, Inc.
John Mulligan Senior Vice President, Treasury and Accounting Target Corporation
Andy Albert Managing Director and Operating Partner Svoboda Collins LLC
John Neis Managing Director Venture Investors Management LLC
Michael Casey Senior Managing Director Blackstone Group
Mark Nerenhausen Former President and CEO Broward Center for the Performing Arts
Sean Cleary President & CEO Cleary Building Corp.
Dale Nitschke Managing Director The Ovative/Group
John Davis CEO Great Northern Corporation
Bill Nygren Portfolio Manager Harris Associates, Oakmark Fund
Tom Formolo Partner Member of Management Committee Code Hennesy & Simmons LLC
Debra Perry Managing Member Perry Consulting
Laura Francis CFO Promega Jeffrey Hammes Chairman Kirkland & Ellis Julie Howard President, Chief Operating Officer Navigant Consulting, Inc. Peter Leidel Founder & Member Yorktown Partners
E.J. Plesko President EJ Plesko & Associates, Inc. Robert Pollock President & CEO Assurant, Inc. Todd Pulvino Principal CNH Partners, AQR Capital Mgmt. Gary Rappeport President & CEO Donlen Corporation Ann Schwister CFO Global Oral Care Procter & Gamble
Richard Searer Former Executive Vice President Kraft Mike Shannon Managing Director KSL Capital Partners Sandra Sponem Senior VP & CFO Mortenson Construction Stew Stender Partner Stewart Lawrence Group Bradley Tank Chief Investment Officer-Fixed Neuberger Berman Asset Mgmt. Pat Thiele President & CEO PartnerRe Ltd. Scott VanderSanden President AT&T Wisconsin John Ver Bockel Senior VP Merrill Lynch & Co. Don Walkovik Partner Sullivan & Cromwell Jeff Yabuki CEO Fiserv
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