Eccles Experience Summer 2019

RAISING UNICORNS

HOW THE ECCLES SCHOOL IS LEVERAGING UTAH'S UNICORN BOOM

FINTECH PIONEER | ACCOUNTING ICONS | OPIOID CRISIS

CONTENTS

Summer 2019

departments

@eccles

4 LETTER FROM THE DEAN 5 CONTRIBUTORS 46 DEAN’S LIST 52 ALUMNI EVENT NEWS 55 CLASS NOTES

30 32 35 40 44 62

ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: GAIL MILLER ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: STEVE SMITH ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT: ACCOUNTING CAMPUS NEWS CLASS OF 2019 PROFILE FINAL WORD

business insights “GOOD ” DO WELL WHILE DOING –Benjamin Franklin

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HUNTING UNICORNS

TROY D’AMBROSIO Q&A

Five student startups to watch.

One could become the next great startup or even a Utah unicorn

The Lassonde Institute Executive Director discusses trends in entrepreneurship and why unicorn companies matter

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GEN-Z IMPACT How Gen-Z students at the Sorenson Impact Center are making a social impact

OVERCONFIDENCE GAME How confidence leads to both risk and reward

DAVID ECCLES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS DEAN

ASSISTANT DEAN FOR STRATEGIC INITIATIVES

CO-EDITOR IN CHIEF

DESIGN FIRM

Taylor Randall

Ruchi Watson

Sheena McFarland

Think Tank Creative

EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR OF DEVELOPMENT Katie Amundsen

CO-EDITOR IN CHIEF

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR

Kris Bosman

Katie Drake

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MODERNIZING THE MARKET

PREPARING TO CARE

High frequency trading’s impact on investing

Having a plan helps caregivers in their new role

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COST OF A CRISIS How opioid abuse is affecting the credit industry

SELLING BY STEREOTYPE The impact of gender bias in algorithmic insights

COMPELLING STORIES THAT SPEAK DIRECTLY TO U.

TALK BACK! WE’RE LISTENING.

Articles in the Eccles Experience Magazine have been spotlighted with icons representing the voice and participation of the David Eccles School of Business alumni, faculty and students.

Give us your thoughts, feedback and suggestions about Eccles Experience.

EMAIL: Kris.Bosman@Eccles.Utah.edu

© 2019 The David Eccles School of Business. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or use of any information-storage or retrieval system, for any purpose without the express written permission of the David Eccles School of Business.

ECCLES EXPERIENCE

LETTER FROM THE DEAN

Summer 2019

It’s no secret that Utah is known for its incredible natural beauty. Hit one of our national parks and stumble upon a herd of bighorn sheep, or visit our pristine forests and move quietly and you might be lucky enough to spot a moose or even a bear.

But one creature is becoming decreasingly enigmatic and more frequently spotted along the Silicon Slopes — the unicorn. Utah is becoming a hotbed for these companies — valued at $1 billion or more — due to our perfect business climate and innovative population. In fact, Utah now “raises” more unicorns than any state besides California, New York or Massachusetts, a remarkable feat considering the relative size of our population and economy.

Here at the David Eccles School of Business, we groom young entrepreneurs, giving them the support, education, and sometimes even funding that allow them to achieve full-blown unicorn status a few years down the line.

There are a few reasons why I believe students find the Eccles School such a fertile breeding ground for their business ideas. Of course huge credit goes to the entrepreneurial spirit that our state — and more specifically our school and namesake David Eccles — are known for. But it is also our willingness to embrace the old alongside the new, with students creating companies based on principles they learned in classes in fields like Information Systems, Business Analytics, or Operations Management.

I can’t wait to see which of our students has the next $1 billion company, and I’m not above inspiring some friendly competition. In this edition of the Eccles Experience, you’ll get to learn more about some of our future unicorns, as well as some of those who have already made it big. I’m so proud of all of them for harnessing their creativity and turning it into something that provides jobs to the Utah economy and true impact in the business world.

Best,

Taylor Randall Dean, David Eccles School of Business Dean@Eccles.Utah.edu

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ECCLES EXPERIENCE | Summer 2019 |

CONTRIBUTORS

Lisa Carricaburu

Stephen Dark

Katie Drake

Lisa Carricaburu is managing editor of Informatics Decision Support at ARUP Laboratories. Before joining ARUP, she spent more than 25 years as a newspaper reporter and editor, most recently in the role of managing editor of The Salt Lake Tribune. Lisa earned an MBA from the David Eccles School of Business.

Stephen Dark is a freelance writer who has worked in London, Buenos Aires, and Salt Lake City, where he currently resides. From London he brought a love of rainy days and pubs and from Buenos Aires a passion for grilling meat, drinking red wine, and the tango.

What he’s found to treasure in Utah are the joys of hiking and the bold colors of the quakies’ autumnal leaves.

Katie Drake is the Communications Manager for the Eccles School Marketing + Communications team.

When she’s not doing Facebook Live or arranging faculty interviews, she can be found cheering for the Utes and the Oilers, on stage at one of Salt Lake’s community theaters, or planning her next trip with her husband and two daughters.

Sarah Estes

Thad Kelling

Heather May

Sarah Estes is a science writer, essayist, and poet. Her work has appeared in The Atlantic, Foreign Affairs, Psychology Today, Scientific American, and others.

She has degrees in creative writing and religion from the University of Virginia and Harvard. Her first book, Field Work, won the Cider Press Review Editor’s Prize.

Thad Kelling is the director of marketing and public relations at the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. He has a master’s degree in communication from the University of Utah and diverse experience in fields including advertising, design, journalism, digital media, and project management.

Connect with him on LinkedIn or Twitter @thadkelling.

Heather May is an award-winning freelance writer based in Salt Lake City with 20 years of experience, including 15 years covering education, politics, health, and food at The Salt Lake Tribune. She is a graduate of the University of Utah in mass communication. Contact her on Linkedin @HeatherMaySLC.

Sheena McFarland

Eric Peterson

Josh Petersen

Sheena McFarland is the Director of Marketing + Communications at the David Eccles School of Business.

Before joining the M+C team in 2015, she was a reporter and editor at The Salt Lake Tribune for more than a decade.

She is an avid traveler and a rabid Real Salt Lake fan. Connect with her on LinkedIn or on Twitter @sheena5427

Eric S. Peterson has been a journalist in Utah for over a decade. He worked for eight years at the Salt Lake City Weekly where he won numerous state prizes for reporting. In 2014, he took home a national honor from the Association for Alternative Newsweeklies for reporting on homeless issues in Salt Lake City.

He also is the director of the nonprofit watchdog organization, The Utah Investigative Journalism Project.

Josh Petersen is an English and psychology student at the University of Utah. He is a writer for the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, a writer and editor at The Daily Utah Chronicle, and has contributed to Draper Lifestyle magazine. You can follow him on Twitter @JoshPetersen7, where he yells about politics and pop culture.

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RAISING UNICORNS

WILL THE NEWEST TECH UNICORN BE BORN AT THE LASSONDE ENTREPRENEURSHIP INSTITUTE?

BY ERIC S. PETERSON

ad scientists at local university attempt to clone unicorn”—would be a terrifically sensational story.

One could almost picture the arcs of electricity illuminating a lab of bubbling beakers and vials while a demented figure in a lab coat frets over some monstrous horse with a horn on a stretcher.

M

ideas. The “lab” may not have raised up its first unicorn, but it has seen several companies make it big, some earning hundreds of thousands if not millions in funding.

Perhaps less sensational but no less amazing is the work actually being done at the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute at the University of Utah’s David Eccles School of Business, where the “unicorns” being bred are those very rare and uber-successful billion-dollar startup companies.

“We wanted to give people a place where they can try and fail and try again until they find out what works,” D’Ambrosio says. What was missing before Lassonde Studios was a space that made it easy for students to test out their ideas and find constructive feedback to correct the inevitable missteps that come with starting a business.

For D’Ambrosio, Lassonde Studios isn’t supposed to be a success factory, just the opposite in fact — a safe space for failure.

“People used to fly over Utah on their way to California For institute executive director Troy D’Ambrosio, creating such remarkable companies is a very real and exciting endeavor.

“This isn’t a science fair experiment,” D’Ambrosio says. “We really are in the business of starting businesses.”

The “lab,” as it were, is the Lassonde Studios on campus, where aspiring entrepreneurs have everything they need at their fingertips. Lawyers, accountants and designers make the rounds, and students can use 3-D printers to roll out product prototypes. There’s even funding available for certain business

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“Nobody rides the bicycle the first time,” D’Ambrosio says.

That being said, Lassonde Studios does have some very prominent success stories. Blyncsy is a company that started there with a product that monitors the movement of people through traffic based on signals from their smart phones. That company, D’Ambrosio says, is now in 20 states and recently signed a deal with Panasonic and Dish TV. Another company, Boundary Supply, makes urban backpacks that went from a few thousand dollars in Kickstarter funding to become a multimillion-dollar company.

“They’re manufacturing in Indonesia, they’re doing global supply chain management and international e-commerce — and they’re undergraduates!” D’Ambrosio says.

Lassonde Studios is further proof of Utah’s burgeoning support of innovative startups.

The Silicon Slopes, as Utah’s tech center has been dubbed, recently has churned out a few prominent unicorns including tech companies such as Qualtrics, which sold for $8 billion in 2018, or Domo and Health Catalyst, both now valued at over $1 billion.

“People used to fly over Utah on their way to California to invest in businesses,” says Val Hale, executive director of The Governor’s Office of Economic Development. “But now we’ve had venture capitalists turning over every stone in Utah to see if there’s a hidden gem underneath it.”

to invest in businesses” Hale says GOED works hard to make Utah attractive to out-of-state business, but they work just as hard and are much prouder of homegrown success stories.

"Better than that is when we can help companies here, that start in somebody's basement and 16 years later sell for $8 billion and employ thousands of people," Hale says. "That's a great return on investment for the state."

Marc Chenn, CEO, co-founder, and board member of SaltStack, an IT automation software company in the Silicon Slopes, remembers when the first unicorns appeared in Utah, well before the term Silicon Slopes or unicorn even had been imagined.

DAVID ECCLES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

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ECCLES SCHOOL LAUNCHES MASTER’S DEGREE SPECIFICALLY FOR ENTREPRENEURS New Master of Business Creation degree inspired by accelerators like Y Combinator to help founders launch a company and create their own job in nine months

BY THAD KELLING

The David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah is taking its top 10 ranked program for entrepreneurship to new heights with a master’s degree designed for serious entrepreneurs.

The degree is called the Master of Business Creation (MBC), and it’s the first of its kind.

Applicants must be full-time entrepreneurs who want to create, launch and scale a new business, who want more than the 9-to-5 job, who have the drive to overcome the impossible, who want to build their knowledge while doing, and who are willing to put in the hours to make it happen.

Founders can apply to join the program and learn more online (at Eccles.Utah.edu/MBC).

Provided in partnership with the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, the MBC combines the best of a graduate business-degree program taught by leading scholars with a rigorous startup accelerator. It provides founders with the know-how, mentoring and support they need to launch a company and create their own job.

“The Master of Business Creation is unlike any other business master’s degree,” said Taylor Randall, dean of the David Eccles School of Business. “It will teach founders what they need to know to start and grow a successful company, and they will learn these lessons while applying them in real time to their companies. MBC students can customize the program to meet their needs. No two companies are alike; we created a program that accommodates this diversity.”

MBC students complete the program in just nine months, while getting access to extensive resources, including significant scholarships, more than $500,000 in grants, mentors, prototyping tools, office space and more. Company founders graduate with the skill and knowledge to create and scale a new business, which is fundamentally different from managing an existing business.

How many jobs in Utah come from startups?

Number of Employees

Qualtrics

2,100

Pluralsight

1,100 + Domo

803 Health Catalyst

750 +

Inside Sales

457

To develop the MBC, the Eccles School talked with entrepreneurs hard at work in its existing programs. Students requested a degree focused on their idea that allows them to focus on making it successful. They already know where they are going; this program will help them get there.

“The Master of Business Creation is not for people who want to just think about entrepreneurship,” D’Ambrosio said. “At the Eccles School, entrepreneurship is a verb. The best way to learn is by doing it. If you have a great idea and are willing to do what it takes to develop it, this is for you. Come and entrepreneur with us.”

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Total Jobs

5,210 +

Utah is currently home to five unicorns, an impressive number as CBInsights registers just more than 300 unicorns worldwide. Aileen Lee, seed investor and founder of Cowboy Ventures, coined the term unicorn in 2013 because of the rarity of startups with a $1 billion valuation. In addition to Qualtrics, Domo, and Health Catalyst, Pluralsight and Insidesales.com round out the Utah list.

Those five companies employ more than 5,200 people in Utah, making a large economic impact.

Lassonde is one component, but Hale also points to 16 small business resource centers spread across the state that fill a similar role. These “one-stop-shops” allow aspiring entrepreneurs to walk in with just their pluck, ambition, and an idea, and find help for all the business particulars they don't have, from accounting to writing a business plan.

"These centers have people that will hold their hand and walk them through the process," Hale says.

Utah is starting to be known for its venture capital, with about $353 in venture funding per person between 2016 and mid-2018, as shown by Crunchbase News research. According to MountainWest Capital Network’s 2018 Deal Flow analysis report, $14 billion in investments flowed into the Beehive State last year, mostly into tech companies.

D’Ambrosio is excited that students from the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute will continue to contribute to Utah’s startup community, which currently boasts about 4,000 companies across the state.

“We have a really robust and dynamic startup community in Utah and especially coming out of the University of Utah,” he says, “and I think there’s going to be a lot more successful companies as the momentum continues to build.”

“ This isn’t a science fair experiment”

“These companies are a big part of the reason the world has been watching the Utah tech scene for decades and why all eyes remain on Utah’s Silicon Slopes today,” Chenn said.

“We really are in the business of starting businesses.”– Troy D’Ambrosio

The initial billion-dollar companies in the Beehive State included Novell, Altiris, LANDESK, WordPerfect, and Omniture.

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5

HUNTING UNICORNS

STUDENT STARTUPS TO TRACK

1.

BY JOSH PETERSEN

In early 2019, the tech startup Health Catalyst became the latest in a string of Utah unicorns, reaching a value of $1 billion. By taking advantage of Utah’s uniquely pro-business environment — Forbes ranked Utah as the second best state for business in the U.S. — an increasing number of local startups are reaching this elusive milestone. At the U, students have combined their own creative ideas with the resources at the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, a top 10 ranked division of the David Eccles School of Business, to launch their own startup ideas. The Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute helps thousands of students from across the U launch hundreds of startup teams every year. During the 2017-2018 school year alone, Lassonde worked with 504 student startup teams. With the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute as their launchpad, one of these companies could become the next great startup and or even a Utah unicorn. Below we feature five student startups from the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. These are just a few of the many to watch. As they continue to develop and expand, they get closer to reaching new levels of success. If you’re hunting for the next possible Utah unicorn, these innovative, exciting companies are a great place to start.

NEIGHBOR.COM THE AIRBNB OF STORAGE

Colton Gardner, who has a bachelor’s in finance from the U, co-founded Neighbor.com in 2016 to address the need of finding local storage that is both practical and affordable. He founded the company with Brigham Young University students Preston Alder and Joseph Woodbury.

Neighbor is a platform that allows people to sell access to their own storage space. Using a similar idea to sharing economy sensations like Uber and Airbnb, Neighbor users can both buy and sell storage at a reduced cost. Gardner said the company hopes to “strengthen communities and families by helping them make money or save money by monetizing spaces.”

Gardner credits the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute for helping Neighbor grow from a small idea to a successful company. At the earliest stages, Alder, Woodbury and Gardner used Lassonde to meet with lawyers and receive free consultation from experts. They also participated in the Get Seeded grant program, where they pitched their idea to judges and an audience for funding opportunities. The trio ultimately raised tens of thousands of dollars in grants from both the U and BYU.

Photo Courtesy: Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute

Alder, Woodbury and Gardner participated in many competitions through Lassonde. At times, these competitions were not obviously success for Neighbor. At the first Get Seeded event, Neighbor received last place. However, Gardner emphasizes the less tangible benefits of the experience. He received “early validation and experience pitching an idea,” and he says competitions “helped us smooth out and validate our business model” and “allowed us to hone in on the most important things.”

Using the valuable experience and funding from Lassonde, Neighbor developed and improved its online platform. Neighbor has since raised millions in venture capital and is expanding its business nationwide.

Neighbor recently competed in the American Dream Ideas Challenge. It placed in the top three from the U, and went on to compete nationally. The competition’s mission to “strengthen communities and families” fit perfectly with Neighbor’s ethos. “Relationships are being formed through our platform,” Gardner said.

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2.

NOISY NICU CAP PROTECTING BABIES FROM NOISE

At just 14 years old, Olivia Washburn, a ninth grader at the American Heritage School, already has a head start on solving an important problem. Her invention, the Noisy NICU Cap, protects premature newborn babies from auditory damage.

When Washburn learned that more than 70 percent of babies in the newborn intensive care unit (NICU) are exposed to unsafe noise effects, she wanted to create a solution. After intensive testing, Washburn created a hat that combined silicone, cardstock, a wool-cotton blend and foam to facilitate acoustic attenuation. Washburn, who was born prematurely herself, utilized her love of engineering to design this simple but elegant product.

Her removable, washable and adjustable design keeps infants warm while also protecting their underdeveloped auditory systems, preventing future problems like hearing loss and learning disabilities. Washburn says people contacted her about the product before she even started marketing.

In March, Washburn competed in the High School Utah Entrepreneur Challenge, hosted by the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute and sponsored by Zions Bank. This challenge gives young students the opportunity to win prize money, connect with fellow students and present their ideas to a panel of distinguished judges.

Washburn won the $7,000 grand prize after competing against 20 finalists .

Washburn said the HSUEC was a valuable experience as she was “able to start her business plan and further this project, make many connections and learn how to present.” The cash prize will help Washburn to further grow her startup. She wants to send the Noisy NICU cap to 100 mothers of premature babies for feedback and is currently applying for two patents for her design ideas. She also hopes to raise money for further development and marketing, and plans on using Kickstarter to raise money for operating capital. While it is not on the market yet, Washburn is confident her Noisy NICU Cap will soon be available in every hospital in America.

3.

Photo by: Joey Jonaitis

SHERO BIODEGRADABLE FEMININE PADS

Amber Barron, a student at the U studying material sciences and engineering, has created the first completely biodegradable menstrual pad. She worked on this project with current team members Amelia Heiner and Aruna Dhungel and former team members Alicia Dibble, Sarai Patterson, Ashlea Patterson and Ben Bradford. Working with Professor Jeff Bates, the team first responded to the needs of women in Guatemala who had no waste management system and problems with pollution. Barron developed SHERO (Sustainable Hygiene Engineering Research and Operations) and created a groundbreaking, one-of-a-kind product with materials that will turn into biomass within 45 days to six months after use.

The pad includes a super-absorbent polymer that is both comfortable for women to wear and environmentally friendly. Barron formulated a hot-melt adhesive that enables high-speed manufacturing. Currently, no hot-melt adhesive on the market is biodegradable, and Barron’s design is a major leap forward in the field.

After the University of Utah announced the news, SHERO earned widespread attention. The SHERO team received positive responses — and requests for the product —across the world, from South Africa to Singapore. Henkel, a major corporation specializing in adhesive technologies, reached to out to Barron and wanted to work together. SHERO is now about to run their adhesive on Henkel manufacturing equipment.

Photo Courtesy: Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute

SHERO competed in competitions hosted by the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, including Get Seeded, Opportunity Quest and the Utah Entrepreneur Challenge, where SHERO received second place overall.

“Lassonde was valuable because it gave us the resources to work independently,” Barron says. She also took advantage of mentoring opportunities and legal assistance from Lassonde.

In the future, Barron predicts that SHERO will appeal to women willing to pay more for sustainable products.

She also hopes to collaborate with non-governmental organizations and multinational companies to bring the product to impoverished areas of developing countries. In the near future, Barron is transitioning the company to manufacturing. She will run exploratory tests with the hot melt adhesive. By September 2019, she wants to manufacture the full pad. And by January 2020, she targets that SHERO will be available to purchase. With SHERO, Barron invented entirely new solutions all while making the world a better place.

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4.

REXCHANGER THE AIRBNB OF OUTDOOR RECREATION

For outdoor enthusiasts, it can be difficult to access necessary equipment.

Gear can be prohibitively expensive, and people who do own equipment might not use it enough to make the cost worth it.

Photo by: Joey Jonaitis

Tyler Sanford, Sam Tyler and Cara MacDonald created Rexchanger to address this issue. MacDonald, who is studying communications with an emphasis in journalism at the U, described Rexchanger as “a peer-to-peer outdoor recreation marketplace.” The students developed an app and web platform where users can rent non-motorized boats, camping equipment and mountain bikes to other users. Rexchanger allows owners to make extra money and “afford more expensive equipment than they otherwise would” and borrowers to “rent out equipment for 40 percent less cost than other rental services.”

All three students have been involved with the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute from the beginning of their business.

“Lassonde helped us find both of our developers, both our original developer and current developer,” MacDonald said. Rexchanger won a $1,830 grant in the monthly Get Seeded program. They used the money to develop a new blocking feature on the app and to participate in Questival. At Questival, an event hosted by Cotopaxi, Rexchanger advertised their newly released app and encouraged users to sign up.

Lassonde has been an important part of Rexchanger’s development. At competitions, the team decided to narrow down their options for equipment selection. After consistent feedback from judges, they learned that offering a few specific products could streamline marketing, avoid liability lawsuits and help the company “narrow in on a target market, age groups and finance groups.”

Rexchanger launched on the Android app store in early 2019, and the team is close to releasing it on Apple. In the future, they hope to offer rentals for a wider range of products, fine-tune their app and website and expand services to other states. “We want this to be the premier outdoor recreation service in all of the United States,” MacDonald said.

Learn more about Rexchanger at Rexchanger2019.com.

5.

BLYNCSY TRACKING THE MOVEMENT OF PEOPLE

For most of us, getting stuck at a stoplight is a mild annoyance. For Mark Pittman, a JD/MBA graduate from the U, it was the start of a business opportunity.

While sitting at a stoplight in 2014, Pittman thought of ways to improve traffic patterns.

While an associate in the Pierre and Claudette Lassonde New Venture Development Center, part of the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, he began to develop “a big data network that could optimize traffic networks.” He called his company Blyncsy, and after nine months of development sold this technology to his first customer: the University of Utah. Pittman “helped them understand the movement of people from traffic stations and built a sensor technology that helps the U understand how people move on campus.”

Pittman participated in Get Seeded competitions and won money from the Utah Entrepreneur Challenge.

Both are provided by the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, which was a “critical” part of developing Blyncsy. “Without Lassonde I wouldn’t have actually known how to do this,” he said. “I actually got to put my hands on things, learn how to give pitches and presentations. I had access to a mentor network, to a resource network and capital. All the essential pieces you need to start a company are provided by Lassonde.”

Pittman has ambitious goals for the future of Blyncsy: “In five years we expect to be an international presence. We expect to be managing and controlling traffic lights throughout the U.S.” Now, Blyncsy uses tracking technology to measure “how people move generally.” Pittman wants to optimize all modes of travel and “help traffic engineers do their job better.” He hopes Blyncsy can cut wait times on roads by 20 percent while also saving lives. As more car companies integrated connected vehicle technologies, Blyncsy could warn drivers of possible dangers and use traffic data to make the roads safer for everyone. Through innovative technology and creative problem solving, the sky is the limit for this startup.

Learn more about Blyncsy at blyncsy.com.

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Photo Courtesy: Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute

Chris Holt is the founder of Campman, an online purveyor of high-quality outdoor gear, and an Eccles School alum.

ENTREPRENEUR YOUR STARTUP. GET A MASTER’S. 9-MONTH PROGRAM TO LAUNCH YOUR COMPANY

ENTREPRENEUR IS A VERB. START DOING.

ECCLES.UTAH.EDU/MBC

Q A

With Troy D’Ambrosio

By Thad Kelling

Troy D’Ambrosio is a serial entrepreneur, assistant dean at the David Eccles School of Business, and executive director of the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute, which have a top 10 ranked program for entrepreneurship. He has been deeply engaged with countless startup companies as a founder, investor, and mentor. D’Ambrosio knows what it takes to go from idea to a profitable company. We caught up with him to discuss current trends in entrepreneurship, why unicorn companies matter, and the definition of an “entrepreneur.� D’Ambrosio also explains how the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute is helping foster tomorrow’s great companies with innovative new programs like Lassonde+X, an intro program for all undergrads to learn about the entrepreneurial mindset, and the Master of Business Creation degree, a nine-month program for students to study entrepreneurship while launching a company.

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ECCLES EXPERIENCE | Summer 2019 |

EE: Tell us the story of how you became executive director of the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute.

I think the rise of unicorns is important recognition of how many other companies are out there.

D’Ambrosio: My brother and I won the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award, and one of the judges was Jack Brittain, who had just come on as dean of the David Eccles School of Business. He said, “I'm looking to start an entrepreneur program at the University of Utah. Would you be willing to sit on an advisory board?” I said, “Absolutely.” After sitting on an advisory board for a couple of years, I was in the process of selling my company, and Dean Brittain said, “I want you to come and meet this guy by the name of Pierre Lassonde.”

EE: Entrepreneurship seems to be something that flows through your veins. What does the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute focus on to inspire students to become entrepreneurs?

D’Ambrosio: The Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute is a collection of student-focused programs on the University of Utah campus to help transform students and enhance their experience, wrapped in the

process of an entrepreneurial activity. We've always been focused on three things from the first time I met with Pierre Lassonde [the founder of the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute]: something that was student-focused, something that was interdisciplinary, and then something that was entrepreneurial. It was about the student experience and enhancing that.

EE: Pierre Lassonde has had a lot of amazing impact on the University of Utah campus and its students. Can you tell us more about who Pierre Lassonde is?

D’Ambrosio: Pierre Lassonde is one of the most interesting, gracious, enjoyable people that I've ever met in my entire life. He has an engineering degree from Polytechnic University of Montreal, Canada. He and his late his wife, Claudette MacKay Lassonde, came to the University of Utah and got their master's degrees. He and his wife went on to be very successful entrepreneurs. When Mr. Lassonde reached back to the U. in 2001, when I met him, he really wanted to do something that recognized how impactful the University of Utah was for he and his wife.

DAVID ECCLES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

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He wanted to focus on funding the student experience and giving them scholarships to let them have that unique experience, like he did at the University of Utah. He was ahead of his time in thinking about how do we make a program that's more interdisciplinary, that's more applied in its learning, that is more about the student experience outside of the classroom.

EE: Why is entrepreneurship important?

Why should students think about becoming entrepreneurs?

D’Ambrosio: First of all, it's important because that's what a lot of students want to do. We don't have any shortage of students that want to be creative, that want to go and change the world, that want to create their own future. We are responding to the need of students.

We're bridging the gap between students asking why am I taking this class to what does it mean to me as a person and what does it mean in the economy? How does it impact people? How do I change people's lives with it? We’re focused on translating that knowledge into an application and, more importantly, an application that you're passionate about.

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EE: How has entrepreneurship changed in Utah? What’s different now?

D’Ambrosio: I think we've got almost a fully baked ecosystem for entrepreneurship. I compare it to automobiles. When they first came around there were no roads. Cars were using the same paths that wagons and horses used. There were no gas stations, there were no mechanics, there were no auto repair shops, there were no car dealerships. But they invented the car and then all of those things came after that. Then the ecosystem was built around that.

The first cars were Novell and Word Perfect, and then medical products, and we saw that the ecosystem starts building. Now there's a whole bunch of investment capital here, both early-stage seed funds and bigger funds connected. There's accountants, there's lawyers, but more importantly, there's a core group of entrepreneurs and serial entrepreneurs who know how to start companies.

EE: What do you make of all the talk around the tech unicorns in Utah?

D’Ambrosio: I think the rise of unicorns is important recognition of how many other companies are out there. If you think about really

what a unicorn means, that's probably one out of every 1,000 or 10,000 startups. That means you have to have a lot of those startups to get there.

A unicorn is defined as a company that's $1 billion plus in valuation.

So for every unicorn out there, with a $1 billion plus evaluation, how many companies are there out there that are $100 million companies?

How many companies are out there that are $25 million companies that are in that process? So, I think that is more important story about the unicorns is not that we have that unicorn as much as the underlying base to get there.

EE: What do you think it takes to be a successful entrepreneur? What qualities do you need?

D’Ambrosio: The biggest thing I see in good entrepreneurs are good team organizers and good team members because you're not going to be able to do it yourself. Sometimes in an entrepreneurial team you're the lead, and sometimes you're the second-incommand and sometimes you're a cheerleader on the sideline. I think understanding your role is really important. You've got to be very flexible. You’ve got to be pretty self-aware of what you're good at and what you're not good at. You have to be very persistent because it is not an easy endeavor. You can't give up easily. It's an emotional rollercoaster.

The University of Utah is one of the top entrepreneurial universities in the country.

EE: So, should we be investing in people, instead of companies?

D’Ambrosio: The investment in people has been always the philosophy of Mr. Lassonde and the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute. Let's not take any ownership in their ideas. Let's support them. Let’s invest in them as individuals because they might not start their own company, they may be in a bigger company that then creates an incredible product or go to work for a pharmaceutical company, creates the next cure, because they're thinking about how to create things and how to impact people. They know that creative process and to use to impact the world.

Let's invest in people because we're not sure where you're going to go, but we we're sure that if we let you try and let you be creative and learn that process, you can go have an impact on the world.

EE: How would you define an entrepreneur?

D’Ambrosio: We have a different, expansive view of an entrepreneur.

An entrepreneur is somebody who's creative, somebody who's having impact, somebody who's working on a team. We really think of that more as a verb, that entrepreneur is a verb. It means you're actively doing something. Entrepreneurs don't study. They're not sitting on

the sideline watching. They're not spectators. They're engaged.

Entrepreneurs are people who do things and have impact and go change the world.

EE: What are you doing to get more people to think about entrepreneurship as a verb?

D’Ambrosio: With our new Lassonde+X undergraduate program and then our new Master of Business Creation degree, we're launching a nationwide marketing campaign around “entrepreneur is a verb” and entrepreneuring at a top 10 university for entrepreneurship. We are challenging students to entrepreneur their fine arts or humanities degree with us. It's about entrepreneur as value creator for other people. That might be impacting your community or it might be in making a payroll. An entrepreneur is somebody who creates and has a positive impact on the world. You'll see digital ads with this message. You'll see billboards. You'll see posters around campus.

We want to attract the best students and get the message out that the University of Utah is one of the top entrepreneurial universities in the country, that the David Eccles School of Business is one of the top entrepreneurial schools in the country, that Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute is one of the top entrepreneur programs in the country, and that we're located in one of the top entrepreneurial communities in the country. You can go ski and have a really great time here and live a great lifestyle and do all of those things and go create something that you value.

“GOOD ” DO WELL WHILE DOING –Benjamin Franklin

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ECCLES EXPERIENCE | Summer 2019 |

A NEW GENERATION How Gen Z is Making Social Impact Their Own

By Stephen Dark

When Calvin Pape interned at the Sorenson Impact Center in Salt Lake City in May 2018, his capitalist mindset was hard-earned. Between having to work part-time jobs from when he was 14 and being raised by divorced parents busy with their own lives, “It wasn’t all flowers and unicorns growing up,” he says.

It taught the 20-year-old David Eccles School of Business student that “Monetary incentive is the only way to get people to do anything.”

But after just a month interning at the Sorenson Impact Center, an elegant house of white-walled offices formerly home to local military families, his view that self-interest was society’s only motivator softened.

At the center, which is dedicated to bringing about social change through innovative financing, policy work, and data science, Pape worked on a housing-price database for Sorenson Impact Center client Salt Lake City. At a time of overwhelming need in Utah for homes for low-income families, working on a social-issue project for a paying client restored his faith in the idea that you could benefit others for reasons that weren’t only about money.

On the wall of Sorenson Impact’s communications office, Benjamin Franklin’s much-quoted maxim, “Do well while doing good,” is hand-written on a plastic board. “We’ve adapted that quote and given it more meaning,” said Sorenson Impact communications intern Gabe Moreno, although he might also be speaking about his own generation.

Talk to the center’s Gen Z interns and it’s clear they have found in social impact — the fledgling movement of investing in businesses that catalyze social change first, generate profits second — a call to arms that perfectly mirrors their value system.

This is a generation comfortable with living their life on social media. At the same time, Sorenson Impact interns credit smartphones and the internet as rendering Generation Z more empathetic than past generations. While baby boomers cared about financial stability and security, Moreno sees Gen Z as valuing “knowing our money is going into places that are actually making a tangible and measurable difference.”

DAVID ECCLES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

19

Most of the seven Gen Z interns interviewed for this story were aware of the idea of social impact long before they first heard the term. As a high school student at Bingham High School, Nikita Siddamsettiwar had helped raise funds for a low-income mother and her three small children living on food stamps and facing eviction. The now 20-year-old finance major and Sorenson Impact intern realized that while just a few people can make change, the kind of impact she sought required a much larger business canvas. “I wanted to be part of a bigger organization where you can affect a larger demographic,” she said.

One way that can be achieved, said medical Ph.D. student and Sorenson Impact intern Elena Ma, is a “catalytic” business plan, where a company is “not just giving money to the poor but trying to use this money to start this machine to keep benefiting more people.”

If the social-impact element of the business is not integrated into the business model, then it’s typically not a good candidate for investment by the Sorenson Foundation, for whom the center provides diligence on companies seeking investments and guidance on those businesses’ potential social impact.

Social impact is not only about injecting much-needed cash into businesses seeking to bring social change to under-resourced communities. It’s also developing sophisticated data programs for municipal, state, and federal governments.

Intern Luke Tuttle manages a data-gathering project for Sorenson Impact client Salt Lake County, quantifying the need for preschool education on the west side of the Salt Lake Valley, home to many of Utah’s minority populations. “What I’ve learned from it is that there are far more people who want to have access to preschool but don’t, than have it and just don’t use it,” he said.

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ECCLES EXPERIENCE | Summer 2019 |

Working on Sorenson Impact projects has left an indelible stamp on most of the interns’ future plans.

Siddamsettiwar has amped up her volunteering since interning, including going on a humanitarian trip to Las Vegas to hand out safe-sex kits, help with needle exchanges for addicts, and talk to homeless youth.

“I’ve realized life is very short,” she said. “I’m going to tailor helping another individual into every aspect of my life going forward.”

What surprised Ma was how emotionally rewarding social impact could be. She worked on a Sorenson Impact Center education project involving a company that reaches 3 million rurally isolated children in several African countries through SMS and text messaging to help them prepare for exams.

As a scientist, while “the central idea of working on curing disease has a specific humanitarian goal along with a profit motive,” it’s difficult to visualize the impact, she said. Impact investing can create the vision of a simple act, “such as helping a kid with studying,” she says. “It changes lives.”

It’s that life-changing potential that continues to draw Gen Z into impact investing and the work done at the Sorenson Impact Center. As students, they are taught that empathy is a guiding principle throughout their personal and professional lives. As they enter the workforce, that empathy hopefully will lead them to continue to do well financially while also doing good in the world.

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OVERCONFIDENCE GAME How confidence leads to both risk and reward

By Sarah Estes

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ECCLES EXPERIENCE | Summer 2019 |

E

nron, Subprime Mortgages, Facebook, and Cambridge Analytica are just a few of the ‘overconfidence’ scandals now woven into the cultural fabric. Confidence is a good thing, but overconfidence in an organizational setting also can do great harm. It was partly the power of research to inform and enhance organizational accountability in the midst of political upheaval that drew Eccles School Assistant Professor Elizabeth Tenney to organizational psychology.

“After 9/11, there was a lot of concern about how we could have gotten the intelligence on weapons of mass destruction so wrong,” Tenney says of her work with advisor Barbara Spellman on a NSFbacked CIA grant on intelligence analysis. “Overconfidence plays a role in diverse organizational settings. A military leader may overestimate their side’s ability to win. An eyewitness may be overly certain that a defendant committed a crime. An overly confident CEO may be more likely to engage in risky behavior and sell risky ideas to their organizations.”

“It’s not one monolithic construct that applies evenly across situations,” she said. There are actually three kinds of operational overconfidence that Tenney researches: 1. Overestimation, which involves overestimating one’s abilities, performance, chance of success, or level of control; 2. Overprecision, which deals with excessive precision or certainty in one’s beliefs with important implications for how questions are asked; and 3. Overplacement, which is the belief that one is better than others -- commonly referred to as the ‘better-than-average’ effect.

And it is rampant. In fact, one of the most robust findings in psychology is that people are overconfident and tend to overestimate their performance and chance of success in all sorts of areas. Students overestimate their performance on exams, how easy it will be to find a job, or how many job offers they will receive, for instance. But the degree of overconfidence depends on the situation, how hard the task is, and other factors.

So if overconfidence is so widespread, is it really that harmful?

And does it incur social cost if the individual proves not to be as competent as promised? As it turns out, that depends. We are drawn to confident leaders, but we want them to be well-calibrated.

In the event that they are not, Tenney’s research finds that how they express themselves makes a difference.

If one makes specific verbal predictions that turn out to be false, then they will take a hit in terms of credibility and confidence.

However, if the posturing or predictions were more vague and

LIZ TENNEY

largely non-verbal, that person may enjoy the benefits conferred by overconfidence without really paying the price if things head south. Many grumble when presidential hopefuls don’t provide concrete answers, but in many ways the political system is set up to incentivize broad, non-committal answers and swagger. Along those lines runs the fascinating question of whether people really want the truth. “What is optimism but a form of overconfidence?”

Tenney laughs. She finds it intriguing that people prefer optimism to accuracy. “Why isn’t accuracy the best?”

It’s not one monolithic construct that applies evenly across situations.

— Liz Tenney In the midst of all the bluster and braggadocio, it can be hard to determine whether someone is really delivering for an organization. Companies should be on the lookout for impulsive decisionmakers whose track records may indicate more luck than skill, who aren’t the real deal, who’ve always moved on to the next thing by the time the chips fall. But they also can protect themselves by mitigating risk in other ways.

Considering the robust data on overconfidence, organizations can factor in a buffer zone. Organizations make use of diverse risk temperaments across departments. Having an overly confident accountant is likely more dangerous than having an overly confident salesperson.

The good news is that while after-the-fact mitigation of a risky decision at the highest levels can be challenging, companies can come up with tangible in-house metrics and reward structures to incentivize tangible successes and keep track of outcomes. In addition, the researchers think that while overconfidence does impact organizations, it may not be as prevalent as the literature initially would suggest. Research and findings are likely skewed toward examples of poor calibration and overconfidence, since good calibration is less likely to create waves.

Surprisingly, there are no concrete findings on overconfidence and gender, though Tenney mentions a recent training she developed using amplification and endorsement of others to help people who lack influence. It might be as simple as saying, “Building on Liz’s idea...” so that the original author of an idea is rewarded and doesn’t get ignored. Looking to future research, Tenney also wonders whether overconfidence and bluster might be viewed differently internationally in places like China.

“There’s so much room for more research. It’s exciting!” she says.

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MANAGEMENT

Elizabeth R. Tenney is an Assistant Professor in the Management Department. Tenney studies overconfidence and other biases that influence people’s social interactions and decisions. She is interested in the factors that affect individual and organizational performance. Prior to joining the University of Utah, Tenney was a Postdoctoral Scholar at UC Berkeley-Haas School of Business. She received a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Virginia.

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MODERNIZING THE MARKET

High Frequency Trading’s Impact on Investing

By Katie Drake

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T

he phrase “stock exchange” tends to conjure up a specific set of images in the mind.

Wall Street. Shanghai. London. Tokyo … and a server warehouse in New Jersey?

As it turns out, changes to markets in the last few decades mean that fewer and fewer trades occur by stockbrokers on a physical trading floor, and more and more occur by lightningfast computers — many of them “co-located,” that is, housed in that server warehouse in New Jersey.

The process — known as High Frequency Trading, or HFT — is what Jonathan Brogaard, associate professor of Finance at the David Eccles School of Business, has spent the last several years studying.

First, a bit of background. HFTs aim to either exploit inefficiencies in the market or to act as liquidity providers, or to do both. They are constantly buying and selling via autonomous algorithms, and hold very little inventory at any given time. In fact, they almost always hold zero positions at the end of the trading day. It’s a volume business, picking up fractions of a cent over and over, leading to profits — sometimes extravagant ones.

Perhaps the largest change this has created for the average investor has been the decreasing cost of trading.

The implicit price a retail investor will pay for a transaction is significantly lower now, but it is also likely to be more accurate as well, Brogaard added, because it can reflect up-to-the-second prices calculated by computers at rates that are unattainable by humans.

This can actually be beneficial to small investors, Brogaard said, because, for example, hedge funds try to find patterns in the data and exploit mispricings, which may be at the expense of average investors. With prices better reflecting all public information, average investors can be more comfortable knowing the market price is the right price.

“If you can’t predict where markets are going, that means the markets are more efficient,” said Brogaard.

“The right benchmark probably isn’t zero, but lower is better,” he said. “And trading costs are significantly lower than they have been at any time in the past.”

All this makes it a great time to hop in and begin investing.

Besides the rise of HFT in the stock market, the stock market generally has become much more automated, driving broker costs down dramatically.

“It used to cost $50 to call your broker and have them buy and sell your stock,” Brogaard said. “Now you can use an app where the explicit cost is zero.”

Brogaard recommends starting with small amounts (many apps will let you round up to the dollar on any purchase you make, investing the remaining pennies) that you can leave invested for the long-term, and to pick a diverse portfolio to minimize risk.

That’s not to say HFTs are entirely without controversy. They are obtuse and relatively unregulated, and very little is known

If you can’t predict where markets are going, that means the markets are more efficient.

— Jonathan Brogaard about their algorithms. It remains an open question whether the new market structure presented by HFTs make trading easier or harder for large institutions. They also have been linked to flash crashes, where the stock indices collapse and rebound very rapidly.

Brogaard hopes to continue studying the latest financial market developments, including those about HFTs. While the trading floor is still a great place for media interviews, Brogaard sees HFTs and algorithmic trading becoming an increasingly large part of the market. Computerized trading is here to stay, and Brogaard hopes that he and other researchers can help understand and explain the realities of these new markets.

While Brogaard admits it would be nice to see no-cost trading so it would be even cheaper to participate in the stock market, liquidity provision in markets – someone who is willing to buy when you want to sell – is a service that demands compensation.

JONATHAN BROGAARD

ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR OF FINANCE

Jonathan Brogaard is an Associate Professor of Finance. His research interests include high frequency trading, empirical asset pricing, and law and finance. He has recently published in the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics and the Review of Financial Studies. He has worked with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the U.K. Financial Services Authority, and the Investment Industry Regulatory Organization of Canada.

He earned his undergraduate degree in Economics and Politics at Occidental College in 2006. He completed a J.D. with an emphasis in tax law and a Ph.D. in Finance at Northwestern University.

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PREPARING TO CARE

Having a plan helps caregivers in their new role

By Katie Drake

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R

unning mom to the grocery store. Taking dad to his doctor’s appointment. Mowing the lawn for an elderly neighbor.

Most of us don’t think of ourselves as caregivers when we do this type of activity. But small acts like these make up the more than 300 million hours of unpaid work — valued at $4.1 billion annually — that more than 330,000 Utahns provide as family caregivers.

“There are only four kinds of people in the world: those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers,” Roslynn Carter famously said. It’s a quote that Debra Scammon, Emma Eccles Jones Professor of Marketing, has taken to heart.

Scammon and her colleague Christie North have been working to find ways to support family caregivers so this important work can be sustainable. Caregivers take on a huge variety of crucial roles and responsibilities, often with little or no prior training.

Taking on these roles allows their loved ones to retain autonomy and their social support networks while ensuring that they can remain safe at home. It also helps to delay moves to assisted living facilities, which can be extremely expensive and disruptive.

But while this provides huge benefits to those being cared for, it carries major risks to the physical, financial and emotional wellbeing of the care provider. With that in mind, Scammon shared some strategies to help family members prepare.

Advanced planning is key, she said, and will prove beneficial both in planned circumstances like elective surgeries, as well as unplanned accidents or illnesses.

Be sure that all advanced directives

family

members

have

It relieves a huge burden from the caregiver if it is clear what the patient’s wishes are. An advanced directive can help minimize disagreements between family members, as well as note who the patient wants to have access to their medical records.

Identify who will help with the transition from hospital to home, and who can provide home care for those with chronic health conditions Take some time to plan out who can help with various tasks such as meal preparation, medication management, transportation and errand running.

Make sure the person or persons providing care are identified in medical records so that members of the professional care team know who will have what role in home care

Care providers might need extra training in wound care, how to operate a piece of medical equipment, or how to give injections

DEBRA SCAMMON

if they are to provide care at home. Medical staff need to be aware of who will be providing that care in order to provide proper training. It is also important to identify how long the caregiver can play that role, and a backup plan for then they need a respite from caring.

Caregivers can also utilize strategies to help care for themselves as they are providing care. Scammon shared some tips to help caregivers avoid burnout and set themselves up for success.

Participate in patient care early and often

Early participation from the caregiver in decision making will improve the caregiver’s outlook and experience. Being involved in decisions helps ensure that the care plan is feasible for the patient and the informal care team. Caregivers may also be more willing and able to perform medical tasks if they receive training early on in the process, and can also be helpful in spotting warning signs that the patient may need further medical care after receiving some basic coaching.

There are only four kinds of people in the world: those who have been caregivers, those who are currently caregivers, those who will be caregivers, and those who will need caregivers.

— Roslynn Carter

Ask to be identified in the patient’s electronic medical record

When you are identified in the medical record, all members of the professional care team will know who to contact if needed.

You may also be able to be designated a proxy, so you can receive information about the patient’s status and care plan. This can even include access to the patient’s electronic portal, which can help you understand the care plan and be made aware of changes to therapies or medications, as well as appointment updates.

Accompany the patient to medical appointments

Prepare a list of questions before each appointment, and discuss the role that each of your will take during the visit. Ask the patient questions to be sure they are understanding throughout the appointment.

It’s increasingly likely that all of us will end up providing care to a loved one, if not multiple loved ones, in our lifetime, Scammon said. Taking the time to make a plan and utilize these strategies will lead to increased likelihood of success for both the caregiver and the patient.

EMMA ECCLES JONES PROFESSOR OF MARKETING

Debra Scammon is the Emma Eccles Jones Professor of Marketing. She served as the director of the Master of Healthcare Administration program until 2018. She received her Ph.D. from University of California, Los Angeles.

She recently received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Marketing Association’s Marketing and Society Special Interest Group. Her primary research interest is in consumers’ ability to navigate the marketplace while making complex decisions. In the context of healthcare redesign, she studies patient-centered medical home practice models, methods for acquiring and using patient reported outcomes, the impacts of practice change on provider satisfaction, and issues faced by family caregivers.

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COSTS OF A CRISIS

How Opioid Abuse is Affecting the Credit Industry

By Katie Drake

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O

n the surface, the opioid crisis and your car loan interest rate may not seem to have much in common.

But Mark Jansen sees a definite connection between the two. New research from Jansen, assistant professor of Finance at the David Eccles School of Business, indicates that everyday household finances are impacted in communities most affected by the crisis. For example, how much people have to pay for a car loan.

The crisis has killed an estimated 400,000 people over the past 15 years. More than 3 million Americans are currently addicted to opioids. In addition to the human tragedy, the crisis exacts a fearsome financial toll. Several years ago, the cost of substance abuse treatment, health care and criminal justice stemming from the epidemic was calculated to be nearly $79 billion.

But there are hidden costs that impact these communities, many of which are already reeling from high unemployment rates.

Borrowers in areas where the opioid crisis has a strong hold in the community pay 4.4 percent more for auto loans than do similar borrowers in areas less affected by the catastrophe.

Jansen’s research examined nationwide data and further connected county-level opioid prescription and opioid death rates to available information on the terms and performance of sub-prime auto loans. Even after accounting statistically for borrowers’ creditworthiness and local economic conditions, it was clear that loan default rates were much higher in areas where opioid problems were the worst. Around 20 million Americans live in those communities.

When default rates rise, the cost of borrowing money goes up. It’s simply because lenders can’t actually determine if a borrower will suffer from opioid abuse. However, the lenders see higher loan default rates in communities that are most afflicted by the opioid crisis. And they price their loan terms accordingly.

And that’s no small thing. Auto loan balances in the United States exceed $1.14 trillion. And 40 percent of car and small truck loans are non-prime or lower credit loans. If the relation of opioid abuse and loan defaults is representative of all subprime borrowers, then the opioid epidemic may be responsible for an additional 80,000 auto loan defaults per year representing $1.2 billion of outstanding debt.

So, what’s the answer? Obviously lowering the level of opioid misuse would be a good start. Jansen’s research shows that there are some places it is already happening.

In states that have legalized recreational marijuana — Colorado, Washington and Oregon — we have seen a decline in the rate of opioid deaths and in auto loan default rates. Specifically, the states that legalized marijuana experienced a 2.8 percent drop in their opioid abuse rate after legalization and a 3.3 percent decrease in auto loan default rates relative to other states.

So, what’s the answer? Obviously lowering the level of opioid misuse would be a good start.

— Mark Jansen The medical literature indicates that marijuana provides respite from chronic pain similar to the relief that opioids deliver. When states make it easier to access marijuana, its use appears to crowd out opioid abuse and its negative effects on household finances.

Jansen has presented his research to the Utah Opioid Task Force, and he hopes to share the research with other policymakers as they contend with the crisis in their communities. Jansen believes the research could benefit states or municipalities suing opioid makers, like the recent Purdue Pharma settlement in Oklahoma.

A 10 percent increase in county-level opioid abuse predicts a 2.9 percent rise in loan defaults. As a result, all borrowers in opioidaffected communities face the consequences: credit rationing, higher cost of credit, or both.

MARK JANSEN

ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF FINANCE

Mark Jansen is an Assistant Professor of Finance. His primary research interests are in private equity and entrepreneurial and corporate finance. Prior to joining the Eccles School, he worked in the private equity industry as managing director at Holland Park Capital and was responsible for finance, strategy, and investor relations. He received a Ph.D. in finance from the University of Texas at Austin, an MBA from London Business School, and a dual B.S. in management science and mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is a member of the Young President’s Organization.

DAVID ECCLES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

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alumni spotlight

putting education center court

GAIL MILLER a Q&A with

ECCLES EXPERIENCE: You support so many initiatives,

EE: One of the initiatives that the Larry and Gail Miller Family

programs and positions at the David Eccles School of Business and the University of Utah. So can you tell me why education is such a priority for your philanthropy?

Foundation is currently funding at the Eccles School is the Women’s Initiative. That has included everything from scholarships, to helping women who are coming back to school, to helping recruit younger women to make sure that they’re on track to go to college. Can you tell me more about your passion for seeing women succeed in business?

GAIL MILLER:

When we created our family foundation, one of the things that we found important was to promote education because it was difficult for young people to get an education. We felt like we could start with providing scholarships for the dependent children of our employees, and it evolved into the enrichment scholarship at the University of Utah for minority students. We could see that education is really the foundation of everything we do. Without education, there really wouldn’t be a future.

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ECCLES EXPERIENCE | Summer 2019 |

GM: It’s a good time to support women’s leadership to help them gain skills that are not as easily recognized in the business world for women as they are for men — how to communicate, develop negotiation strategies and confidence, and how to lead courageously. Women are stepping up to the plate, developing those kinds of skills and becoming equal partners in the business world with men.

EE: Can you tell me about your education story, and why you

EE: You have recently received quite a bit of praise in how

think that education is so important?

you handled the controversy with a “Jazz fan” and Russell Westbrook. Can you tell us more about why you chose to speak up?

GM: My education story is very flimsy. I went to one quarter of college at the University of Utah. But my father had a stroke, and I needed to drop out of school to support my family. I didn’t ever go back, but I made a point of learning everywhere I could and everything I could.

In our company, we have a saying that says “Be a student, be a teacher, be a leader.” We ask our people to learn everything they can and teach it to each other and then become a leader by doing that. So education is really important. It’s the foundation of everything we do.

EE: You talked about being a student of the world and working to comprehend the world around you. Can you tell us a little about how you built the business you have today? Because the success that you’ve had [since husband Larry H. Miller’s death in 2009], your business has been doing amazingly well under your leadership.

GM: Well, I continued the leadership that Larry built, and we’ve always hired good people and developed loyal relationships. That goes a long way. That’s what causes me to have success — the people. I can’t do everything. But I can identify good people and put them in positions of authority, where they can lead the company and we support them well and they’re loyal to us.

EE: As a business leader here in Utah for so long, you’ve seen changes over the years. Where do you see the state heading right now?

GM:

I think there’s going to be some interesting changes in transportation. There’s probably going to be big changes in types of jobs that people have, and I think we’re going to see a lot of diversity. And hopefully a lot of inclusion. We have to learn to work in a community where there are different kinds of people and get along. So I think that would be a major initiative.

GM: I chose to do that because I did not want things to escalate, and I wanted to make sure that people who came into our arena understood that — that was our home, and they were guests there. Some people feel like if they buy a ticket, it gives them the opportunity to say and do whatever they want.

But it doesn’t.

What was pleasantly surprising to me was how well it was received. People were hoping someone would do that. I felt like I was the logical person, since I own the building and I own the team. You cannot attract players when you need them if you don’t have a good organization and a place they want to come to. I think it goes a long way toward the understanding that this is a good place to live.

EE: You have championed many great causes not only in education, but also ending homelessness. Can you tell me a little more about why that is so close to your heart?

GM: I was never homeless, but I was very poor growing up and knowing that we were just maybe one event away from being homeless. Having empathy for people who are having a hard time getting a job, keeping a job, overcoming drugs, having a place to live — my heart goes out to those people.

We needed to build some resource centers other than just shelters to help them move through the steps that it takes to get out of homelessness. So, these are going to be buildings to shelter them, but while they’re in the resource center they will learn the skills they need to get a job, be directed to resources and eventually be moved into a home. I think it’s important that we see them as people, and advocate for them. I’m in a position that I can do that, and I think it’s really my obligation to do that. I want to be able to do the work.

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alumni spotlight

f you want to disrupt an entire industry and achieve wild success in the process, here is what you do: You identify a consumer need before most consumers even realize they need it, then you meet it, and everyone is in awe, wondering why they didn’t think of something so obvious and act on it themselves.

Steve Smith is one such disruptor, and even though his Murray, Utah-based company Finicity may not be as well known to consumers as Amazon or Lyft, its disruption of the financial services industry through technological innovation is in many ways as profound as Amazon’s disruption of retail, or Lyft’s disruption of taxi services.

Since its founding in 1999, Finicity has made it quicker and easier for consumers to gain secure digital access to their financial data so they can use it to make smarter financial decisions. A provider of real-time financial data aggregation solutions, Finicity supplies the technology at the core of a range of applications and solutions that provide financial insights.

The company’s platform, provided as an application programming interface (API), aggregates data from more than 15,000 financial institutions in North America so customers’ applications can make it readily available. Finicity also extends its platform through key credit-decisioning partnerships that perhaps most plainly explain its reach.

Its platform, for example, integrates with Freddie Mac Loan Advisor and Fannie Mae’s Desktop Underwriter to enable mortgage lenders such as Rocket Mortgage to quickly verify loan application data for faster lending decisions. The comprehensive asset and income verification reports Finicity’s

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technology generates benefit both lenders and borrowers, Smith said in announcing the Freddie Mac partnership in October 2018.

“Lenders need digital services to compete and meet customer expectations,” he said.

“They [government-sponsored enterprises] are pushing hard to help lenders remove hassles for borrowers while reducing complexity, cost, and risk in loan originations.”

Soon, Finicity’s platform also will drive more equitable and inclusive credit decisioning through its partnerships with Fair Isaac Corp. (FICO) and the credit-reporting bureau Experian.

The trio in late 2018 announced UltraFICO™, a new credit-scoring model being piloted this year.

Currently, credit scores are based solely on credit reports, which means that consumers must already have and use credit to create their scores. UltraFICO™, though, factors checking, savings, money market account balances and other financial account-based insights into scoring, potentially significantly boosting credit scores for those who are financially responsible and don’t have access to or don’t use much credit.

The new Experian Boost™ solution powered by Finicity offers a similar benefit and is already available to borrowers. With

Experian Boost™, borrowers can have utility, telephone, and mobile phone payments added to their credit files in an effort to build or boost their credit scores.

“For us, it’s all about financial inclusion,” Smith said. Many people are what he calls “credit invisible,” meaning they have no credit history that credit-reporting bureaus can use to sufficiently score them. Without an acceptable credit score, they have no access to low-interest loans, so they must pay higher interest on car loans, for example. “Providing inclusion is something that can significantly lift economies,” he said.

A self-described “gadget guy,” Smith said he always knew he wanted to be in technology, even as a youth whose first job was on a ranch milking cows. A Kamas, Utah, native, he remembers when South Summit High School got its first computer — an early Apple — and he was entranced. A computer was one of the first things he bought after he turned 18 at a time when it wasn’t a necessity as it is today.

That passion led to a job at Megahertz, where Chief Executive Spencer Kirk, a David Eccles School of Business finance graduate, inspired Smith to study finance, too, which he did at night while continuing to work full-time and advance up the Megahertz ranks. Smith graduated in 1993.

In the early 1990s Megahertz was one of three companies, along with WordPerfect and Novell, that formed Utah’s high-tech core, Smith said. They are the reason Utah now is known as one the nation’s established high-tech corridors.

“You see the DNA of those three companies all over,” said Smith, who is widely regarded as a pioneer of the Utah and financial

technology (fintech) industry. “I’m not as much of a pioneer as [longtime Novell Chairman] Ray Noorda, but I hope I’m not too far behind,” he said. “I’m passionate about building technology in this state — every bit as passionate as I was when I started 30 years ago.”

Smith spent nine years at Megahertz. He was its executive vice president of operations when U.S. Robotics (USR) acquired it in 1995 and he became senior vice president of marketing, a role in which he helped the new owner transition Megahertz into its USR’s Mobile Communications Division.

He later led the acquisition of Delta Valve, an industrial engineering and manufacturing company of which he was a part-owner and chief executive before partnering with engineer Nick Thomas, an alumnus of the University of Utah College of Engineering, to found Finicity.

The pair was smart enough to see an opportunity, then pivot along the way as the technology continued to develop and innovative solutions became clearer, Smith said. The company they formed remains private with some strategic investors. It employs 120 in Utah and 280 more through a wholly owned subsidiary in Mumbai, India.

As it grows, Finicity continues to gather accolades. Source Media (American Banker) included Finicity on its 2019 Best Fintechs to Work For list. In December, HousingWire selected Smith as a 2018 Vanguard Award winner for his contributions to the growth of the housing-finance industry. The list goes on.

Smith is proud of what he has accomplished, and he’s not finished yet. He’s a digital disruptor who has found his purpose.

“I see financial inclusion for a larger number of people as my personal challenge,” he said. “It’s an absolute blast. I can’t imagine ever doing anything else.”

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Shaykayla Smith is a student leader at the Lassonde Entrepreneur Institute and an entrepreneurship major at the Eccles School.

ENTREPRENEUR AT A TOP 10 PROGRAM ENTREPRENEUR IS A VERB. START DOING. ECCLES.UTAH.EDU/ENTREPRENEUR

eye on accounting

alumni spotlight

Speaking the

LANGUAGE OF BUSINESS 5 Accounting Alumni Share Their Stories

MARY KAY GRIFFIN

Degree: Bachelor of Arts in Accounting, 1970 Current Position: Shareholder, Mayer Hoffman McCann P.C & Managing Director of CBIZ MHM, LLC in Utah

Accounting may be a profession that women dominate now, but when Mary Kay Griffin began her career in 1970, she was one of few women in the field.

answer a question she didn’t know. He joked with her that she was the first woman student he ever taught who didn’t do her homework.

Early on in her career, she became the first woman CPA hired by the Salt Lake office of Main LaFrentz / Main Hurdman. She was able to achieve a work-life balance by creating a flexible work schedule after the births of her two daughters. In 1986, Chuck Foote and EJ Passey asked Mary Kay (a Senior Manager at the time) if she would join them in forming a local CPA Firm, Foote, Passey, Griffin and Company. The firm began with eight employees and grew to over 30 when it was acquired by CBIZ in 1999.

“He was a great teacher,” she said. “I learned a lot from him and the importance of being prepared.”

Her determination and hard work got her to where she is today, and the foundation for her career was laid at the David Eccles School of Business.

She still remembers the lessons she learned in Professor Kenneth J. Hanni’s class. She came to class one day unprepared, and Hanni called on her to

As Griffin has forged her path in accounting, she has seen how technology has fundamentally changed the practice. “Technology advances have catapulted us into a different level in accounting careers than our predecessors could have imagined,” she said.

Mary Kay is a past president of both the Utah Association of Certified Public Accountants (UACPA) and the American Woman’s Society of Certified Public Accountants (AWSCPA), Utah Chapter.

“Accounting has many dimensions. We work with numerous and interesting issues,” Griffin said. “We have opportunities to build lasting client relationships and help clients achieve their goals.” ‒SM

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JEHOVANA PIERRE Growing up in one of the more rural parts of Miami, Jehovana Pierre never thought she would one day end up working for one of the Big Four accounting firms.

Her parents emigrated from Haiti. Her father worked as a taxi driver and her mother as a certified nursing assistant to pay the bills. While her family never had much money, they always emphasized the importance of an education.

Degree: Bachelor’s of Accounting, 2015 Master’s of Accounting, 2016 Current Position: Senior Tax Accountant at EY Boca Raton, FL

Pierre attended a high school that received a failing grade from the federal government, and she knows she didn’t graduate on reading level. But she didn’t let those challenges stop her from pursuing her education.

“Everything I did, it was to make sure I could immerse myself in my studies,” she said. “I spent time in every professor’s office, asking questions and getting the help I needed to make sure I understood all of the material.”

Scott Pickett, a professor who has nearly 30 years of experience at Big Four firms,

instilled a passion about accounting in Pierre. It’s something that has translated to her work at EY. “I can see my demeanor and my willingness to put energy into a project change when my senior manager is passionate about the work,” she said.

Pierre is grateful for the academic rigor she found at the Eccles School and how prepared she felt for the competitive world of accounting.

“Any accounting school that is not challenging isn’t helping anyone become a professional,” she said.

Outside of work, Pierre enjoys a challenge, too. She recently took up long-distance running, which she now looks at as a metaphor for getting her degree.

“If you have a goal of going to school, you will finish it if you keep that goal in sight,” she said. “It’s just important to remember that it’s not a sprint, it’s a marathon.” ‒SM

TIM KENNY One in six homebuyers in America to United States have been able to buy their home because of Freddie Mac. Eccles Alum Tim Kenny’s job is to make sure the company’s governance, risk management, and control processes are in the best shape to make that happen.

Degree: Bachelor’s of Science in Accounting, 1985 Current Position: Senior Vice President and General Auditor at Freddie Mac in Virginia

As Senior Vice President and General Auditor for Freddie Mac, he reports directly to the Audit Committee of the Board of Directors and administratively to CEO Donald Layton. That responsibility is one of the reasons he says communication skills are critical for accountants.

“Communication is fundamentally important. Communicating in the board room and articulating your thoughts in a clear, understandable way is critical,” he said.

In his more than 30 years in the profession, Kenny has held several different roles, including a long stint in consulting. He enjoyed auditing, but his time at KPMG and BearingPoint gave him a different perspective on his work – how to be part of the solution.

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“When you’re an auditor, you’re doing work with a client because they have to have an audit,” he said. “When you’re consulting, your client wants to work with you because they believe you can help them solve a problem.”

He knows his time at the Eccles School helped lay the foundation for his success.

One factor for choosing accounting was the exceptionally high job-placement rates of accounting graduates. “I knew if I was going to spend the time and energy on a degree, I wanted to be employable afterward,” he said.

One of the biggest lessons he learned as a student was a sense of humility. “A lot of smart people get into the workforce, but then they form the thought that they shouldn’t be doing some of the entry-level things we were required to do. But if you work hard and do it with a positive attitude, that can contribute to success.” ‒SM

JEFF PICKETT Getting sworn in to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth may sound more like an episode of “Law And Order” than the life of an accountant.

But for Jeff Pickett, testifying as an expert witness in court is often just another day at the office.

Degree: Bachelor’s of Accounting, 2005 Master’s of Accounting, 2006 Current Position: Principal at Lone Peak Valuation Group

“That’s the sexy part of my job,” Pickett joked. “These are fun projects. They are challenging because there is another expert on the other side telling the judge and jury that I’m an idiot and I don’t know what I’m talking about.”

Companies hire Pickett and his team to calculate value or damages in legal disputes, often when a company’s owners are splitting up. His job as a principal at Lone Peak Valuation Group also has him doing a hefty amount of valuation work. That can be complex, Pickett says, because different stakeholders may want the valuation to be higher or lower depending on the circumstances. A company that is looking to sell will want a high valuation, for example, but come tax

time, they may be hoping to show that the company is worth much less. It’s the job of Pickett and his team to sift through the paper trail and give an accurate assessment of the true value.

Pickett credits the Eccles School with the perfect set up for his career. He landed an internship with PwC as a junior, which allowed him to finish school and eventually join the forensic services department full-time after earning his MAcc. He also credits his education with transforming what could have been just a job into a passionate career. He recalls the enthusiasm with which Taylor Randall – now dean of the Eccles School – taught his master’s-level class.

“He made accounting exciting,” Pickett said. “He stepped out of debits and credits and related everything to understanding and analyzing the business and how you could make that work.” ‒KD

DUSTIN JENSEN Dustin Jensen has long had a knack for business.

the stereotype I thought of, and I knew I could be an accountant.”

Growing up in Ferron, Utah, population 1,200, he purchased a snow cone shack for $800 when he was 14 years old.

His education at the Eccles School gave him a broad understanding of accounting in different fields, and the soft skills of working in teams and meeting tight deadlines have stayed with him.

He paid it off in less than a summer, made even more money the next season and then sold it for almost twice what he paid for it.

Degree: Bachelor’s of Science in Accounting, 1985 Current Position: Audit Associate at Eide Bailly LLP in Salt Lake City

“I really enjoyed coming up with ideas to make it more profitable, and I really liked the accounting side of it,” Jensen said. “I liked seeing how a business runs, and how one small change can have a big effect.”

As an undergrad, he enjoyed his accounting electives courses but wasn’t quite ready to think of himself as an accountant. That changed when he met Associate Professor (Lecturer) Michael Lewis.

“He does not look like an accountant.

He looks like he could be a member of a motorcycle gang,” Jensen joked. “I realized there was so much more than

Jensen spends much of his time traveling throughout Utah and the country as an audit associate for the firm Eide Bailly LLP. He has had the opportunity to conduct a wide range of audits, from 401(k) plans to nonprofit organizations to apartment complexes.

He has come a long way from his days slinging snow cones in Ferron, and he knows he couldn’t have done it without the Eccles School.

“Between the name recognition and the history the school has of producing great students and alumni, it’s totally been worth it,” Jensen said. “Plus we get the added bonus of getting to beat BYU in football!” ‒SM

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eye on research

By Heather May

Algorithms that mine customer reviews are used in countless ways. Customers rely on them to decide which brands to buy, hotels to book, books to read, restaurants to visit and even which jobs to seek and people to date.

And businesses rely on algorithmic insights to design products, target advertising, provide recommendations and segmentation.

But what if the reviews contain gender biases — not overt sexism that would be flagged and likely removed by online moderators, but hidden biases that are nevertheless harmful?

That’s the question Arul Mishra, Himanshu Mishra, and Shelly Rathee set out to explore in their working paper “Examining the Presence of Gender Bias in Customer Reviews Using Word Embedding” that is under review for publication. The Mishras are David Eccles Professors of Marketing at the David Eccles School of Business.

Consumers believe that because algorithms are machines, they must be objective and trustworthy. But algorithms detect the human tendency for gender bias and convert it into a human preference, according to the authors.

Their study shows that “the algorithms are picking up the fact that women are considered more impulsive and men are considered more innovative,” Arul Misha says. That could lead to “a time when women may be shown more expensive products or more hedonistic products and men are shown more sensible product options.”

Think selfie-sticks for female shoppers and language courses for men.

The authors first analyzed more than 11 million movie and restaurant reviews from Amazon and Yelp using the word-embedding algorithm GloVe to determine the relationship between female-representing words (e.g. she, her) versus male-representing words (e.g. he, him) to positive or negative attributes. They found the algorithm “learned” that female-representing word are more closely associated with words like fickle, impulsive, lazy, and homebound while male-representing are more associated with loyal, sensible, industrious, and career-oriented.

To the human eye, the reviews would not be so biased, says Himanshu Mishra. “With algorithms, their greatest ability is

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able to see signals in lots of noise,” he said.

But do the algorithms make a difference? Do the stereotypes show up in other online settings and do biased recommendations influence consumers?

Yes, according to the study.

After searching Google for images associated with impulsive/conformist or sensible/innovative, they found more female images appear when searching for negative attributes and more male images for those positive attributes.

The authors then crowd-sourced a list of products associated with negative or positive attributes — impulsive/vain (Godiva chocolate, for example) versus sensible/determined (discount store brand chocolate) — and used those products in a study of 341 participants to determine if product recommendations influenced consumers. They told some participants that they were recommending certain products based on their gender.

The study recommended to both men and women the two types of chocolate (along with other products).

The authors found that men and women, on average, do accept the recommendations.

The implications are potentially troubling. If firms use reviews containing gender bias to design and recommend products and advertising campaigns, it could lead to biased recommendations or insensitive portrayals. And if the reviews are used to provide recommendations in the marketplace, women would be recommended less career-oriented products like online courses, job advertisements, and even lower-paying jobs, according to the study.

“If we keep recommending things consistent with gender stereotypes, and people follow them, then it becomes a self-perpetuating system,” says Himanshu Mishra.

The first step to solving gender bias is to acknowledge it exists so that it can be corrected, they said. The authors believe theirs is the first study to document the presence of bias in customer reviews.

eye on research

Reducing the Risk in

FOREIGN

INVESTMENT T

heoretically, investors would be wise to diversify their portfolio by investing in foreign companies. It promises higher returns to the investor and can spur growth in developing markets. But while foreign investment has jumped to $46.7 trillion in about a decade, the foreign investment market remains underutilized relative to what theory predicts. Roger Silvers, an assistant professor of Accounting, wanted to find out why.

As a specialist in international securities regulations, Silvers says investors rightly fear they won’t have the same protections as they do with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, which can freeze assets, prohibit the destruction of documents, and force the identification of accounts. Plus, U.S. investors lack the same information local investors have through being on the ground.

“When you’re buying and selling these [foreign] assets with locals, those locals have a better idea of what that asset is actually worth,” he said. “They may know the share of the company you purchased just had a warehouse fire and you don’t know that because you’re 3,000 miles away, trading in New York.”

There are tools in place to reduce these risks — called the Multilateral Memorandum of Understanding Concerning Consultation and Cooperation and the Exchange of Information (MMoU), which standardizes the protocol for information sharing among participating securities regulators from more than 100 countries, and similar individual country-to-country agreements — but they’ve faced skepticism.

They aren’t treaties, and disputes can’t be arbitrated by international courts.

But in a pair of studies, Silvers, who worked in a risk assessment role at the Securities and Exchange Commission, shows that those agreements have made foreign investing safer by increasing

By Heather May

investor protections and have increased the amount of money flowing between countries. The studies shed light on an opaque and unexplored topic for the first time.

The terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, forced securities regulators to cooperate to eliminate terrorism-related financing and money laundering and resulted in the MMoU. Silvers’ first study shows the agreement spurred enforcement: The SEC was three times as likely to take action against U.S.-listed foreign firms when the firms’ home country regulators participated in the MMoU. “They’re putting the screws down and tightening things up,” Silvers explained.

His study also found the MMoU reduced the risk in the market: The bid-ask spread (which reflects the difference between the buy and sell price of an asset, with a higher spread reflecting more risk) dropped between 18 percent and 30 percent.

In a separate study of bilateral agreements among 124 countries, Silvers found they resulted in a two-fold increase in equity issuance and a five-fold increase in debt issuance, showing that the agreements make cross-border investment more attractive and feasible.

But are foreign investments now as safe as investing the United States?

“I would say no,” Silvers said. “I’m not sure they’re ever going to get to the point where you have the exact same level of protection … it’s pretty close, though, and it’s a lot better than it was.”

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Campus News

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Campus News

Professor Elizabeth Tashjian Named American College of Bankruptcy Fellow The American College of Bankruptcy inducted Elizabeth Tashjian, professor of Finance and Garn Faculty Fellow at the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah, as a Fellow of the College on March 15, 2019. There were 36 nominees honored and recognized for their professional excellence and exceptional contributions to the fields of bankruptcy and insolvency. The nominees resided in 18 states and five countries. Tashjian is one of only two professors being inducted this year, and she is the firstever true finance professor to be inducted into the College.

“It comes as no surprise to me that the American College of Bankruptcy has recognized Liz’s excellent research on bankruptcy and insolvency,” said Taylor Randall, dean of the David Eccles School of Business. “The College nominating her as the first finance professor to be inducted is a testament to her impact in furthering understanding of that world.”

The American College of Bankruptcy is an honorary professional and educational association of bankruptcy and insolvency professionals. The College plays an important role in sustaining professional excellence and supports educational and pro bono efforts in local communities around the country.

The Board of Directors of the George S. and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation, from left: Lisa Eccles, Spencer F. Eccles, and Robert Graham.

George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation Celebrates 60 Years Six decades of philanthropy from the George S. and Dolores Doré Eccles Foundation includes 35 years of active charitable grant-making that has benefited nonprofit organizations, and the individuals and families they serve, in communities throughout Utah. Since 1982, the Foundation has contributed more than $600 million statewide to meet needs and enrich opportunities in areas including the arts and culture, community/social services, education, health and wellness, and historic preservation/environmental conservation.

George and Dolores “Lolie” Eccles established the foundation in 1958 to ensure that their desire to “enrich the quality of life for their fellow Utahns” would continue to serve the state for generations to come.

“Beginning with my grandfather, David Eccles, our family has always believed in the importance of giving back,” said Eccles Foundation Chairman & CEO Spencer F. Eccles. “With foresight and generosity, my Uncle George and Aunt Lolie created a foundation to continue to help others, and then entrusted us to build on their legacy of generosity. It has been rewarding to be part of projects that we believe strengthen our communities and touch lives of individuals and families in every corner of our state.”

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Campus News

Students Win in Several National Case Competitions Spring saw success for several David Eccles School of Business student teams as they competed in case competitions in various fields across the country.

MBA students Bowen Humphrey, Hugh Spackman, Taylor Halversen, and Vanesa Villanes took first place in the Net Impact Case Competition in Denver, Colorado, taking home a $10,000 prize.

In the Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative’s Consortium Case Competition, undergraduate students Benjamin Battistone, Mitchell Kenny, Merry Joseph, Ladan Mohamed, Sheva Mozafari, and Mathew Winterholler took first place; this is the third year in a row that Eccles School students have placed first. In the first-ever graduate school competition, graduate students Kristin Dahlin, Emily Eresuma, Rossetti Farrell, Ben Lehnardt, and Alexander Rose took second place.

The Eccles School student team of Joana Acevedo, Oriana Canchumani, Veronica Aponte Conley, Andrea Cazares Rosas, and team captain Lirio Sanchez took first place in the University of Colorado Boulder Leeds School of Business Diversity & Business Ethics Case Competition. They won the first-place prize of $5,000.

Spencer Fox Eccles Honored with National Junior Achievement Leadership Award Spencer Fox Eccles, philanthropist, business leader and Utah banker, received the National Centennial Leadership Award from Junior Achievement USA. The award was bestowed on six people across the country and recognized exceptional service and support for Junior Achievement.

“Spence Eccles has been a true leader and champion of Junior Achievement in our state for more than 30 years, and we are incredibly pleased that he is being recognized nationally for his positive impact on J.A. and the youth we serve in Utah,” Christy Tribe, president of Junior Achievement of Utah, said in a statement. “His remarkable generosity and involvement have been key to the success of our financial literacy programs, educating and inspiring nearly 400,000 Utah schoolchildren statewide since 1985.”

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Campus News

Eccles School Week Celebrates Inclusivity This February, the Eccles School Week Symposium: Creating Our Inclusive Future focused on the importance of empathy and diversity in our students’ daily lives and future work lives. The week was filled with panels, discussions, and hands-on activities for everyone in the Eccles School community, from students, faculty, and staff to alumni and employers. The variety allowed participants to focus on issues of interest to them, and allowed for several different perspectives to be shared.

The week’s keynote speaker William “T” Thompson, attorney and past president and CEO of the Association of Graduates at the U.S. Air Force Academy, addressed his career path during his speech, “The Flight to Excellence.” Students also participated in a service project by making blankets for animals at the Best Friends Animal Society. The week culminated in student teams participating in the Dominion Energy Case Competition, where they grappled with issues surrounding inclusive policies in a real-world working environment.

Katie Amundsen Named New Executive Director of Alumni Relations & Development Katie Amundsen was named the Executive Director of Alumni Relations & Development at the David Eccles School of Business in April 2019.

Since joining the Alumni Relations & Development team in 2006, Katie has played an integral role in the growth of the Eccles School.

Katie earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of WisconsinMadison and a Master of Journalism from Columbia College Chicago.

Katie started her career at the Eccles School managing the annual fund and student giving board, and grew to manage a portfolio of donors to the David Eccles School of Business as well as the Eccles School’s rapidly growing scholarship goal. In her role as Executive Director, Katie is leading a team of professionals who raise more than $20 million annually for scholarships, centers and institutes, faculty support and other initiatives, and are growing the Eccles Alumni Network worldwide.

Katie replaces outgoing director Heidi Woodbury, who was named Vice President for Institutional Advancement for the University of Utah beginning Feb. 1, 2019.

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2019 GRADUATION PROFILE UNDERGRADUATE DEGREES ACCOUNTING .................................... 167 BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION ............ 136

T

EN UD

TS

17

FINANCE .......................................... 107

762

INFORMATION SYSTEMS .................. 114 MANAGEMENT.................................. 82 MARKETING .................................... 119 OPERATIONS & SUPPLY CHAIN .......... 32 QUANTITATIVE ANALYSIS OF MARKETS & ORGANIZATIONS ............ 9

AT

DE UN

ES TUDENTS

R G R A D UA TE

S

ENTREPRENEURSHIP........................

796

G

D RA

U

“I’M GRADUATING WITH MY MACC AND I HOPE TO PASS THE CPA EXAM SOON.” -STACEY BOMAN MACC’19

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ECCLES EXPERIENCE | Summer 2019 |

YOUNGEST

20

AVERAGE AGE

28

“I GRADUATED WITH MY MASTER’S FROM THE BUSINESS SCHOOL AND AFTER GRADUATION, I WILL BE STARTING AS A FULL-TIME AUDITOR FOR ERNST AND YOUNG.” -LATOYA SHORT MACC’19

OLDEST

58

GRADUATE DEGREES FULL-TIME MBA

60

PROFESSIONAL MBA

143

MBA ONLINE

47

EXECUTIVE MBA

49

MASTER OF ACCOUNTING

148

MS BUSINESS ANALYTICS

38

MS FINANCE

115

MASTER OF HEALTHCARE ADMINISTRATION

35

MS INFORMATION SYSTEMS

141

MASTER OF REAL ESTATE DEVELOPMENT

40

Ph.D.

9

INTERNATIONAL

14%

RESIDENT

72%

NONRESIDENT

28%

“I WILL BE GOING TO BERKELEY LAW IN THE FALL (AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA) AND HOPEFULLY GETTING INVOLVED IN POLITICS AFTER.” -ARIEL FLORES MENA HBS’19, MANAGEMENT

FEMALE

28%

MALE

72%

“I’M GRADUATING WITH A BACHELOR OF SCIENCE IN ACCOUNTING, AND I’M MOVING TO DALLAS TO WORK FOR KPMG. THEN I AM GOING TO DO MY MASTER’S IN ACCOUNTING.” -ASHLYN AARDEMA BS’19

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DEAN’S LIST Alumni Making Their Mark

Mat McBride

General Manager, Microsoft Cloud Finance Microsoft Seattle, WA

Favorite student experience

Being inspired by Abe Bakhsheshy every day!

What do you wish you’d known when you were a student?

I wish I would have paid more attention to the indirect learning the school was providing that would prove to be a big differentiator later in my career, such as having the ability to influence someone to your perspective and incorporating others’ perspectives to find additional value in your work. This is huge in business and one’s ability to grow and make an impact.

What is the most important thing you learned during your time at Eccles?

I had an amazing finance professor. He was super hard and my GPA actually suffered by taking his classes, but I learned more through the process of falling short and working with him to understand than I would have otherwise. I took every class he offered because I understood that process of learning would benefit me in the long run. I apply that to everything I do now. I take more risks, I am not afraid to fail, and I bring a growth mindset to every situation I am in.

What is the biggest challenge you face in your current role?

I manage the finances for the Microsoft cloud. It is an extraordinary opportunity to be in a role that is part of one of the biggest tectonic shifts in business. Everything we do we do for the first time, so you can’t just ask someone how to do it. We have to balance the need to grow and the expectations from Wall Street to do so efficiently. Influencing the Microsoft Senior Leadership Team to effectively manage the unknowns and balance that tradeoff is an opportunity I could have only dreamed of when I was a student at the U.

What do you think will be the most pressing business need in the next 10 years?

Artificial intelligence, personal information protection, and digital security all come to mind. Like it or not, there are bad actors out there. I see this when I work with security experts at Microsoft, and the stuff I have seen is chilling. The more digitized our lives and businesses become, the more the intersections of these three factors will impact governments, societies, our families, and our professional lives. There are many great possibilities, but we need to be more proactive on privacy, legislation, and security innovations.

Take a lot of math, statistics, and understand AI!

Who or what has been most inspirational to you in your life?

I am blessed to have many positive influences and calling out just one is difficult. My parents have been the driving force in my life. They struggled in life to give me a better chance than they had. They put us first. They showed me what it means to work two jobs, do everything right, and still have to deal with bad breaks. The resiliency and hard work they demonstrated has served me well in my life and in my career.

Hard work, passion, and drive are still at the top of the traits I look for when I make hiring decisions. They are the foundation for me as a professional and as a father, husband, and son.

DEAN’S LIST Alumni Making Their Mark

Selicia Reyes

Process Technician IM Flash Technologies Salt Lake City, Utah

Favorite student experience

Opportunity Scholars, Business Scholars, ASUU

What do you wish you’d known when you were a student?

When I first started college I wish I had known about career services immediately after enrolling.

I was able to get internship opportunities later on my junior and senior year but I wish I had known about freshman and sophomore opportunities to build more experience when it comes to job exploration.

What is the most important thing you learned during your time at Eccles?

While attending the David Eccles School of Business, I learned the value of networking. As a first-generation student striving for success, I had to be capable of finding team members that would inspire and push me in projects and team assignments. Outside of class, I found faculty and staff that would motivate me to find internship opportunities.

What is the biggest challenge you face in your current role?

The biggest challenge in my current role is to apply engineering and business strategies in my everyday work performance. After graduating from business school and entering the technology industry, I have learned how to adapt and push myself to learn strategies when it comes to solving problems. Fortunately, my company values integrity, execution, commitment, and teamwork. The company culture helps overcome the challenges.

What do you think will be the most pressing business need in the next 10 years?

Now and in the future, the highest business need will likely be technology intervention in everything we see, do, and need. Today, we see how useful technology helps us stay connected through social media or even in medical devices in hospitals. Technology gives us data from social to environmental trends. In the next decade, we will rely on data extraction and interpretation methods to solve issues.

Who or what has been most inspirational to you in your life?

My parents have always told me to work hard for what I want — to set high goals, reach for the stars, and to know that anything is possible. Coming from immigrant parents, they had high expectations in my success as a daughter, sister, and student. Once I got my diploma in the mail, I looked at the faces of my parents. I knew that their hard work to put me through college was not done in vain. My parents inspire me to this day by offering advice, encouragement, and setting an example of hard work.

DAVID ECCLES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

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DEAN’S LIST Alumni Making Their Mark

Sloan Russell

Senior Business Development Manager Adobe Bluffdale, Utah

Favorite student experience The Opportunity the Muss!

Scholars

Program,

and

What do you wish you’d known when you were a student?

I wish I had known about how important networking was a freshman. I would have gotten as involved as much as possible earlier into my college career. Look for scholarships, there is something out there for you. Got involved in clubs and put yourself out there. Love you and enjoy your undergraduate experience because it only comes around once. Remember to embrace what makes you different and study hard.

What is the most important thing you learned during your time at Eccles?

The most important thing I learned while I was at the U. was that life won’t always go your way. But don’t ever give up — leverage the Business Career Services Center and the fantastic staff within the Eccles School. Enjoy the ups and downs!

What is the biggest challenge you face in your current role?

The biggest challenge I face in my current role is just focusing on one thing at a time so I don’t get overwhelmed.

What do you think will be the most pressing business need in the next 10 years?

I think the most pressing need in the next year will be set around creating experiences for your customer base. How can you engage them? Why should they spend the time to think about what you have to offer?

Who or what has been most inspirational to you in your life?

I think my parents have been the biggest inspiration in my life. Needless to say, I want to make them and my family proud.

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ECCLES EXPERIENCE | Summer 2019 |

DEAN’S LIST Alumni Making Their Mark

Kimberly Maez Johnston National Tax Partner EY Houston, Texas

Favorite student experience

The most impactful of my University of Utah college experience was earning the Ruth Eleanor and John Ernest Bamberger Memorial Scholarship. Pursuing a college degree as a first-generation student was only possible with the Bamberger Foundation. The Opportunity Scholars student events are among my most cherished memories.

What do you wish you’d known when you were a student?

To gain awareness of the vast array of career opportunities across sectors and regions, and aspirational executive roles.

What is the most important thing you learned during your time at Eccles?

The value of higher education and embracing growth opportunities. Partaking in the study abroad to Boston, faculty assistance program, and tutoring others certainly broadened my skills and knowledge.

What is the biggest challenge you face in your current role?

As a National Tax Partner of Ernst & Young and leader in our America’s Power & Utilities Practice, I strive to positively influence the future of energy through smart tax policy and effective regulatory strategies. Over the last decade, there has been significant technological breakthroughs shifting us from fossil fuels to renewables, in part, due to state clean energy standards and tax incentives. It is imperative that we continue to find common ground across stakeholders in shaping laws that enable America to lead the future of energy and improve the sustainability of our planet.

What do you think will be the most pressing business need in the next 10 years?

From my perspective, the most pressing business need facing America is the rapid transformation to clean energy. Today, companies are investing billions of dollars in grid scale batteries combined with solar or wind generation, electric vehicle infrastructure, micro grid communities, and smart cities. The transition from carbon-based energy to renewables will have significant impacts to our economy and quality of life.

Who or what has been most inspirational to you in your life?

My grandmother, Mildred, a first-generation American who worked on her family’s Minnesota dairy farm during the Depression Era, is my greatest inspiration in life. She started her first compensated job at age 40 as a bookkeeper in Salt Lake City after my grandfather, a WWII veteran, suffered a stroke.

Mildred supported her husband, four children, and my brother and me. She also volunteered weekly at the Soup Kitchen serving homeless veterans. It was my grandmother who inspired me to live a whole life striving to do my best each and every day as a mother, leader, and community giver, regardless of the hardships that come your way.

DAVID ECCLES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

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DEAN’S LIST Alumni Making Their Mark

Praveen Velath

Group General Manager Velath Group of Companies Dubai, United Arab Emirates

Favorite student experience

The Strategy course by Professor Bill Hesterly.

This was probably the first course that our class had taken in the MBA program, and, in hindsight, rightly so. The importance of teamwork and collaborative engagement in real-world settings was underscored by this course, and as MBA students, it was imperative that this approach was promoted from the very beginning.

What do you wish you’d known when you were a student?

I wish we had core courses on Organizational Behavior and Psychology. Not much of these aspects were covered, while, in the corporate world, both these elements strongly impact individual and group decision making.

What is the most important thing you learned during your time at Eccles?

How teams matter more than individuals. There’s no questioning the fact that, in both in the personal and the professional domains, accommodation, adjustment, and empathy are more enduring, and create a better atmosphere for success than idiosyncratic and blinkered mindsets.

What is the biggest challenge you face in your current role?

Managing (or even understanding) the soft-skills that play a very significant role in the efficacy of strategic decisions that impact the organization.

What do you think will be the most pressing business need in the next 10 years?

Since I come from an engineering-manufacturing background, I believe the most pressing need will be the challenges that arise in the integration of Artificial Intelligence and Internet of Things (IoT) within the traditional manufacturing space. Many traditional jobs will be made obsolete with the growing demand for automation in the overarching aim of enhancing operational efficiency, and in this context, the seamless induction of AI and IoT will throw up far more challenges than we can conceive at the moment.

Who or what has been most inspirational to you in your life?

The teaching of the Buddha that “attachment is the root cause of misery.” We are attached to material things and Western education doesn’t make is easier — sadly so. The fact that happiness and success are inextricably linked to money is, in itself, a happiness-killer. And this truth works in all aspects of life.

Life works to a plan, and in many cases, not of ours. How we handle these vicissitudes requires wisdom that is centered on detachment from the idea of materialism as the means to every end and the solution to all problems.

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ECCLES EXPERIENCE | Summer 2019 |

DEAN’S LIST Alumni Making Their Mark

Renee Rump

CEO Circuitronics, LLC Dallas, Texas

Favorite student experience Football games!

What do you wish you’d known when you were a student?

I wish I would have understood the importance of networking and used the Alumni network.

People love to give advice and mentor students especially those from their school. It is a time when you should use your student status from their alumni.

Reach out to them, offer to buy a cup of coffee, listen to their advice and then stay connected to them as you grow in your career.

What is the most important thing you learned during your time at Eccles?

I learned that there are a lot of people much smarter than me. I learned that if I wanted to be successful, I needed to surround myself with people who fill my weaknesses and push me into becoming a better leader and a person.

What is the biggest challenge you face in your current role?

My biggest challenge as a CEO has been switching my mindset to working “on the business” instead of “in the business.” We have had tremendous growth and the best thing I can do for the company is to step out of the day-to-day activities and spend time on the strategic direction of the company. It is easy to get caught up in the smaller issues, but that is why surrounding yourself with a good team you trust is so important.

I had to learn to allow them to take care of the day-to-day so I can work “on the business.”

What do you think will be the most pressing business need in the next 10 years?

I think digital transformation will be essential for any organization to maintain its existence. Digital technology will be in all areas of a business. It is going to fundamentally change how we operate and how we create and deliver value to customers. It is a huge culture change that an organization must undergo, and getting uncomfortable and being OK with failure will be necessary in order to succeed.

Who or what has been most inspirational to you in your life?

My grandmother has been one of the most inspirational persons in my life. She taught me to love unconditionally, always look for the good in everyone, laugh at yourself and have fun.

DAVID ECCLES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

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ALUMNI EVENT NEWS

The David Eccles Alumni Network is going strong! Eccles School alums are growing their network of U. alums across the world, from lunches in Atlanta to socials in Seattle. Networking events are a great way to get engaged with the Eccles School! Attend one and you’ll have a chance to meet other alums in your area and give back to the school by participating as a mentor, recruiter, corporate connector, and investor in our students.

For more information about upcoming events in your area or other ways to get connected, visit alumni.eccles.utah.edu

Scholarship Luncheon Atlanta Alumni Network Event Brian Sohek and other Atlanta Utes enjoyed lunch and networking in February at our Atlanta Alumni Network Event!

ConnectU Spring Social Taylor Vowles and Tania Bashford enjoy an icebreaker game with current MBA students at Kiln in Salt Lake City.

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ECCLES EXPERIENCE | Summer 2019 |

The 67th Annual Scholarship Luncheon broke a record with more than 1,250 students and donors in attendance.

Through the generous support of these donors, the Eccles School has been able to provide millions of dollars in scholarships and an improved quality of education.

Dallas Alumni Network Event Undergraduate Accounting juniors and seniors joined 22 Dallas alumni for an evening of powerful networking and updates on the Eccles School.

Family Business Roundtable - Bill Child

Community members and business leaders joined together for networking, business inspiration, and a few laughs as they heard from Bill Child of RC Willey about his secrets to business success.

Eccles Alumni Forum Next Strategic Move

Students and alumni alike enjoyed hearing from panelists Josh Young, Boyd Kezerian, and Todd Zenger with moderator Brooke Karrington on the Next Strategic Move.

Smart Start Spring Social

Nearly 30 alumni joined undergraduate students participating in the Smart Start program to network and explore career opportunities.

Opportunity Scholars Alumni Event MSF Alumni Networking Event

MSF alumni, faculty, staff and students enjoyed a great evening catching up with each other and hearing some updates within the program at the Thomas S. Monson Center downtown.

In March, current members of the Opportunity Scholars program met with program alums for the chance to network with others who bennefited from the program. Keynote speaker Anfissa Silva spoke about the struggles she faced in financing her education, and how a scholarship from the program was able to help her graduate.

Seattle Alumni Network Event

University of Utah alumni in Seattle gathered to hear from President Ruth Watkins and her vision of "One U" on March 27th.

Tek Club and Information Systems Event Information Systems Alumni and Tek Club Students joined faculty and staff for a fun evening in April at Wasatch Brew Pub in Sugarhouse.

Women in Business Spring Luncheon

Moderator Ruchi Watson joined panelists Nicole Torres and Lianna Kinard alongside WIB student Lynde Barton for another fantastic Women in Business Luncheon.

DAVID ECCLES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

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MOST FINANCIAL COMPANIES FOCUS ON YOUR INCOME. WE FOCUS ON YOUR OUTCOME. Jeffrey Lewis, CLU®, ChFC® Financial Advisor (801) 533-8444 jeffrey-lewis.com 05-4009-1 © 2019 Northwestern Mutual is the marketing name for The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company (NM), Milwaukee, WI (life and disability insurance, annuities, and life insurance with long-term care benefits) and its subsidiaries. Northwestern Mutual Investment Services, LLC (NMIS) (securities), a subsidiary of NM, broker-dealer, registered investment adviser and member FINRA (www.finra.org) and SIPC (www.sipc.org). Jeffrey Gelder Lewis is an Insurance Agent(s) of NM. Jeffrey Gelder Lewis, is a Registered Representative(s) of NMIS. Jeffrey Gelder Lewis, is a Representative of Northwestern Mutual Wealth Management Company®, (NMWMC) Milwaukee, WI (fiduciary and fee-based financial planning services), a subsidiary of NM and federal savings bank.

All NMWMC products and services are offered only by properly credentialed Representatives who operate from agency offices of NMWMC.

50s

Dr. Rohit Verma (Ph. D 1996)

Is the Founding Provost at Vin University, Hanoi, Vietnam

Lynn Scott (BS 1956) Is retired Awarded two U.S. patents for high-pressure hydraulic sealing systems. Drew interest from Parker Hannifin Corporation, a Fortune 500 company, who purchased the manufacturing systems and built a factory in Salt Lake and made him manager

80s

Ryan Udy (BS 1997)

Is the Senior Director of Finance at Nissan Motor Company Recently accepted a position at Global Headquarters in Yokohama, Japan as General Manager/Regional Controller for the AMI region (Africa, Middle East, and India)

David Schaff (BS 1998)

Mori Paulsen (BS 1982)

Is a Market President at Bank of America

Kim Cruz (BS 1986)

Is the CEO & Founder at Center for Integrative Leading Achieved an international best-selling book for women in business in both the women in business category, and personal development category. 8 year anniversary of venturing into entrepreneurship with her own company

90s

Jon Beckstrand (BA 1992)

Is the CEO at MasterControl Utah Business 2019 CEO of the Year award

Monica Collard (BS 1993)

Is the President and CEO at Allied Electric Sign and Awning Utah Business 2019 CEO of the Year award

Georgia Baddley (MBA 1993) Is retired Received a grand prize award and publication in an anthology titled “Stories That Need to Be Told” of a poem submitted to Tulip Tree Publishing. The poem is titled “Mary’s Story” or “The Day Kony Came.”

John Sperry (MBA 1994) Is on the Board of Trustees at Sutherland Institute

Tyler Livingston (BS 1998)

Is a Director, Financial Risk & Controls at MUFG

Keith Titus (BS 1999, MBA 2012) Is the President and CEO at MarketStar Lewis Christian (BS 1999) Is a Director, Contracts Consulting at Elevate Legal Services

00s

Heather Thuet (BS 2001) Is a Partner at Christensen & Jensen Elected to serve as Commissioner of the Utah State Bar for a second term in 2019 Eric Gorgueiro (BS 2003) Is the Senior Vice President at NetJets Jared Starling (BS 2003)

Is the CEO at Visible Supply Chain Management Earned Utah Business magazine’s CEO of the Year Award in 2019

C AT C H I N G U P W I T H C L A S S M AT E S

Anne Mooney (BA 1987) Is a Professor of Architecture and Principal Architect/President at University of Utah and Sparano + Mooney Architecture Recent design work recognized by World Architecture as one of the best buildings of 2018 (the Nora Eccles Harrison Museum of Art)

Is the VP, Research & Insights at Ibotta

Kameron Kieffer (MBA 2003)

Is the System Executive Director, Rehabilitation Services at Intermountain Healthcare Earned Board certification in Health Care Management with the American College of Healthcare Executives

Blake Van Roosendaal (BS 1995, MBA 1997) Is the Chief Financial Officer at Big-D Construction

DAVID ECCLES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

55

Randy Olsen (HBS 2004)

Is a Director, Sales Operations at Rakuten

Angela Hansen (BS 2005, MBA 2009)

Is a Contracts and Pricing Manager at Moog, Inc.

Joe Martin (BS 2006, MBA 2011) Is a GM, VP of Marketing and Strategy at CloudApp

Fiona Lin (MBA 2011) Is the Vice President, Project Management Office at Snap Finance Speaking at the Project Management Institute NUC Conference Sufhan Majid (BS 2011, MAcc 2013)

Is an Accounting and Finance Project Manager at Zions Bancorporation Recognized on 20 in their 20s list in Utah Business

Scott Sloan (BS 2006)

Is the CEO at BaseCamp Franchising, LLC Co-founded Uptown Cheapskate, LLC in 2008. The following year, started franchising the concept and now has more than 70 stores across the US. Entrepreneur Magazine awarded Uptown Cheapskate #205 in their annual Franchise 500.

Nathan Hanamaikai (MBA 2008)

Is the VP of Strategic Partnerships, Client Success at Milestone Management Partners, Inc.

Lisa Fowler (BS 2012) Is a Marketing Director at Clearlink Recognized on 20 in their 20s list in Utah Business Nicholas Marsh (BS 2013)

Is a Financial Advisor at Merrill Lynch Recognized on 20 in their 20s list in Utah Business

Kalyani Yerra

(MHA 2008, MBA 2009) Is a Sr. Software Architect at Premier Inc Received a HIMSS Fellow recognition and is serving as an Advancement and Outreach Director for UHIMSS. Served as a panel speaker at EPIC App Orchard Conference and recently spoke on healthcare interoperability at the University of Utah Department of BioMedical Informatics

Rob Davis (BS 2009) Is the Chief Client Officer at Diakon Logistics

Crystal Low (MBA 2013)

Is the Executive Vice President at Zions Bancorporation Recognized as Utah Business 40 under 40

Drew Smith (MHA 2013,MBA 2013) Is the Manager of Digital Analytics and Reporting at Kaiser Permanente

Christopher Gallegos (BS 2014)

Is a Sr. Delivery Experience Specialist at Tesla Motors

Lianna Kinard (BS 2009)

Is the Vice President of Marketing at Buckner Utah Business 2019 Sales Professional of the Year Honoree

Ashley McCrillis (MBA 2014) Is a Product Manager: Teavana, Nestle Coffee at Nestle

10s

Yolanda Arrey (BS 2010)

Is a Senior Technical Recruiter, Infrastructure Engineering at Facebook

Jaunice Minor (BS 2010)

Is a Senior Staff Accountant at Cure 4 the Kids

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ECCLES EXPERIENCE | Summer 2019 |

Chris Shipley (MBA 2014)

Is the Chief Revenue Officer at Canvass

Evan Day (MHA 2014, MBA 2014)

Is a Project Manager at Vidant Health Received an Alumni Distinguished Service Award in recognition of leadership and service to the MHA program

JD Thornock (MBA 2016)

Is a Lead Account Manager at USAA

Kelsey Hunt (MBA 2016, MHA 2016)

Is a Manager, Outpatient Specialty Services at University of Utah Health

TJ Hendriksen (MHA 2016, MBA 2016) Is a Regional Sales Manager of US Sales at USANA Health Sciences, Inc.

Reece Rovig (MBA 2015)

Jason Quinn (MHA 2016,

Is the Vice President of Commercial Sales at Pluralsight Utah Business 2019 40 under 40 Honoree

MBA 2016) Is a Director, Finance and Research at University of Utah Health - Department of Surgery

Jacob Steenblik (MHA 2015) Is a Research Manager at University of Utah Division of Emergency Medicine

Audrey Huo (BS 2017) Is a Email Marketing Specialist at Instructure

Is a Controller at FirstMile

Coni Westmoreland (MHA 2015)

Is a Population Health Senior Consultant at Intermountain Healthcare

Lucas Wale (BS 2017)

Is an Associate Product Marketing Manager at Optum

Lance Bradshaw (MHA 2015, MBA 2015) Is a Client Service Executive at Empiric Health

Leo Alicastro (BS 2016) Is a HR Generalist at Overstock.com Kim Compagni (MBA 2016)

Is the Executive Director of Pain Management Services at Intermountain Healthcare

Ryan Meader (MBA 2016)

Is a Sr. Program Manager at Amazon

Landon Ainge (MBA 2017) Is an Associate at Kickstart Seed Fund Recognized on 20 in their 20’s list in Utah Business Jordan Baker (MBA 2017) Is an Administrator in Training at Cornerstone Healthcare, Inc.

C AT C H I N G U P W I T H C L A S S M AT E S

Kimberly Davis (BS 2015)

Ryan Critchfield (MBA 2017) Is an Operational Risk Consultant, Enterprise Information Security at Wells Fargo Josh Erramouspe (MBA 2017) Is a Senior Consultant at Navigant

DAVID ECCLES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

57

Spencer Richards (MBA 2017, MHA 2017)

Is an Internal Consulting Fellow at Mayo Clinic

Karina Rivera (MBA 2018) Is a CDP, Strategy and Marketing at USAA

Phillip Waite (MBA 2017, MHA 2017) Is a Sr. Project Manager at IHC

Puneet Mulay (MSF 2018) Is an Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Eric Connell (MHA 2017, MBA 2017)

Is the CEO at Daniels Memorial Healthcare

Ashlyn Aardema (BS 2019) Is an International Tax Associate at KPMG

Chad Anderson (BS 2019) Is a Managing Director at OC Tanner

Caroline Attwood (BS 2019) Michelle Bui (BS 2018)

Is a Brand Manager at Self Made

Is an Air Export Agent at Expeditors

Parker Bengtzen (BS 2019) Is a Data Analyst at Les Olson Company Anh Cao (BS 2019) Is a QA Analyst at Epic

Robb Lapp (BS 2018) Is a Marketing Manager at Celtic Bank

Jordan Clark (BS 2019) Is a Financial Analyst at CHG Healthcare

Fallon Clayton (BS 2019) Is a Junior Marketing Associate at L’Oreal

Kira Wachter (BS 2018)

Is a Customer Marketing Specialist at Lucid

Garrett Holm (BS 2018) Is a Investment Analyst at Terra Nova Capital Advisors

Sam Schwab (BS 2018) Is a Financial Systems Analyst at Jetblue Paxton Klein (HBS 2018)

Alisa Cloward (BS 2019) Is a Support Engineer at Microsoft Cayla Findlay (BS 2019) Is a Digital Marketer at 97th Floor

Luke Klingensmith (BS 2019) Is a Market Support Manager at Infinite Digital

Is an Audit and Assurance Assistant at Deloitte

Aleatha Leader (BS 2019) Emily Hase (MBA 2018)

Is an Associate at Goldman Sachs Elected to serve as the next Chair of the Salt Lake County Democratic Party

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ECCLES EXPERIENCE | Summer 2019 |

Is an ITIL Process Analyst II at University of Utah Health

Justin Lee (BS 2019) Is a Solution Specialist at Microsoft

We Create Leaders.

25+ Multi-Day Classes Custom Opportunities Award-Winning Faculty

Executive Education

CHART YOUR JOURNEY TO THE C-SUITE University of Utah’s Executive Education offers experiential-based, impact-driven classes for all career stages. Gain the leadership and strategy skills necessary to reach the next level. Join David Eccles School of Business Faculty for a class this year.

Visit www.UtahExecEd.com or call (801) 587 - 7273 to enroll today.

Devin Lowe (BS 2019) Is a Events Coordinator at Epic Games

Makenah Lund (BS 2019) Is a CSM at Reading Horizons Robert Lusk (BS 2019) Is a Senior Drafter at Curtis Miner Architecture Austin Lybbert (BS 2019)

Is a SBA Underwriter at Celtic Bank

Aubrey Matthias (BS 2019)

Is an Analyst at Cicero Group

Eggy Weverink (BS 2019) Is a Content Analyst at Vaco - Google Ben Caine (HBS 2019) Is an Associate Consultant at Bain & Company

Madalin Rooker (HBS 2019) Is a Tax Associate at Canopy Tax

Cole Stevenson (HBS 2019) Is a Mergers and Acquisitions Consultant at West Monroe Partners

Josh McCree (BS 2019)

Is an Integration and Technical Specialist at HireVue

Dallas Miller (BS 2019) Is a SEO Specialist at FireToss Alyssa Moore (BS 2019)

Ryan Gruber (MAcc 2019)

Is a member of the Tax Staff at Ernst & Young

Is an Operations Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Megan Richardson (BS 2019) Is a Marketing Analyst at PepsiCo

Jordan Rosser (BS 2019)

Is a Publisher at Best Version Media

Ashley Russell (BS 2019)

Is a Customer Relationship Advocate at Fidelity Investments

Karly Strahl (BS 2019)

Is an Accountant at Maverik Center

Nataliya Gulla (MAcc 2019)

Is an Accountant at Myriad Genetics

Joe Hack (MAcc 2019)

Is a Tax Associate at KPMG

Joe Denker (MRED 2019) Is a Structured Finance Associate at Bridge Investment Group Jessica Gonzalez (MSF 2019)

Janet Tran (BS 2019)

Is an Operations Junior Analyst at Goldman Sachs

Is a Process Technician at IM Flash

Parker Jolley (MSF 2019)

Is a Financial Analyst II FP&A at Maverik

Wenfang Tao (MSF 2019) Julie Trujillo (BS 2019) Is a Subject Matter Expert at JCPenney Olivia Weltsch (BS 2019)

Is a Marketing Executive at Alpha 3 Marketing Group

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ECCLES EXPERIENCE | Summer 2019 |

Is an AVP Quantitative Analyst II at TD Bank Group

Elizabeth Bandy (MSIS 2019)

Is a Marketing Data Analyst at Backcountry.com

Jenessa Fenochietti (MSIS 2019) Is an Information Security Project Manager at Progressive Leasing Preethi Prasobh (MSIS 2019)

Is a Software QA Engineer at Plansource

Stacy Vincent (MSIS 2019) Is a Data Security Analyst at University of Utah Ethan Webster (MSIS 2019) Is an Integration Consultant at Workday Ryan Herman (MAcc 2019)

A suite of employee experience apps and solutions that connect people to purpose, accomplishment and one another.

Is an Associate at PWC

Caroline Li (MAcc 2019)

Is a Risk Assurance Associate at PwC

Jordan Teerlink (MAcc 2019) Is a Tax Consultant at Deloitte

Xin Thayne (MAcc 2019)

Is a Tax Associate at Grant Thornton

Dan Noble (MBA 2019) Is the CEO at NorthStar Home

Mckell Dalton (MRED 2019)

Is an Associate at Woodbury Corporation

C AT C H I N G U P W I T H C L A S S M AT E S

Spencer Shuppy (MAcc 2019) Is a Tax Associate at PwC

DAVID ECCLES SCHOOL OF BUSINESS

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QAMO PIONEER John Cook was one of the first students to declare his major in Quantitative Analysis of Markets and Organizations, or QAMO, soon after the degree was announced. He was able to quickly finish the required courses, becoming the very first QAMO graduate in December 2018. This spring, nine more students followed in his footsteps, and the major is expected to continue growing year after year. Cook credits the unique combination of skills he learned as a QAMO major with his success in his current position as a Business Data Analyst at FirstMile.

"After spending many years jumping from degree to degree including accounting, finance, and information systems, the development of the new Quantitative Analysis of Markets and Organizations degree was a timely adjustment for my schooling. I’m fascinated by data and decision making but couldn’t previously find a major that fit my career goals,” John explained. “I’m grateful for the gifted professors and their enthusiasm for the QAMO degree because it has provided me with a real-world business perspective that has helped me to develop a framework for solving complex business problems on day one. I attribute my highly competitive internship with Under Armour and my current role as a Business Data Analyst to the great leadership of this program. I’d love to thank all the professors who’ve helped me through this journey. I’m confident there will be many great things that come from this program."

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ECCLES EXPERIENCE | Summer 2019 |

VISIT ECCLES.LINK/INVEST TO LEARN MORE AND MAKE YOUR GIFT.

IMAGINE MORE SCHOLARSHIPS Be a champion for the next generation of David Eccles School of Business graduates and contribute to a scholarship today. Scholarships help the Eccles School recruit and retain the best and brightest students and allow them to make strides toward their own future success without financial burden. Contribute today!

QUESTIONS ABOUT CONTRIBUTING TO A SCHOLARSHIP? Contact Lindsay Nelson at Lindsay.Nelson@Eccles.Utah.edu

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