Georgetown Business Fall 2009

Georgetown

Business FALL 2009

Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business

Changing how we look at

change

Students gain worldly views

Stars

of service Alumni in government shape policy for the public good

Behind These GreaT Walls

You’ll Join the Company of Great Minds GeorGetown’s MCDonouGh sChool of Business offers three globally focused executive degree programs that provide an unparalleled opportunity for working professionals to benefit from the excellence of Georgetown’s acclaimed faculty.

Visit our Web site for upcoming information session dates.

Georgetown University

Executive Master’s in Leadership the only master ’s degree in leadership offered by a major business school.

McDonough School of Business

Georgetown Campus Global Executive MBA

Rafik B. Hariri Building

one of the top 12 executive MBA programs; designed to give

37th and O Streets, NW, Washington, D.C.

professionals the tools to compete in today’s global economy.

For more information or to rsVP,

Georgetown-ESADE Global Executive MBA

please call 202.687.2704 or visit

takes the study of global management beyond the classroom through

georgetownmeansbusiness.com/executive

a series of intensive modules around the world.

FA L L 2 0 0 9

Georgetown

Business Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business

The Business of Change

by Chris Blose

Contents

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Managing change is like conducting an orchestra: You have to know how all the parts fit together.

A new program formed through a novel partnership — the first of its kind — gives change management the serious attention it deserves.

Taking Flight

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by Andrea Orr Travel means more than vacations and tourism.

In preparing to work in a global society, students travel the world for new perspectives on both business and life.

The Rewards of Service

by John Greenya The upside of working for Uncle Sam goes beyond benefits and job security. For these four McDonough School of Business alumni, nothing beats the chance to shape policy and help fix the country’s problems.

14 Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

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24 20 COVER: VEER Jim Barber/Getty Images

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Georgetown

Business Dean

George Daly Associate Dean Marketing and Communications

Chris M. Kormis Editor and Director of Editorial Services

Jill Lindstrom

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From the Dean Dean George Daly talks about world-class plans for the new world-class Rafik B. Hariri Building.

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News Keep up to date on life at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business with stories about new facilities, a Q&A about undergraduate programs, the first-ever Global Executive MBA graduates, events, new professorships, and more.

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12

Faculty Spotlight 12 Whistle-blowers at Work Professor Marcia Miceli addresses the practice of corporate whistle-blowing, with research results that may surprise you.

Managing Editor

Chris Blose Art Director

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13 Books Georgetown McDonough School of Business professors cover new industries, business forecasting, and marketing ethics.

Jeffrey Kibler Photo Editor

Sara Elder Copy Editor

Allison Leopold Project Manager

Connie Otto Production Artist

Brenda Waugh Contributors

John Greenya Thomas Halligan Kara Landsman Michael McCarthy Corey Murray Andrea Orr

Georgetown Business welcomes inquiries, opinions, and comments from its readers.

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

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

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

33 Wild by Design The urban apparel company Wildchild Nation has grown from a box of T-shirts to boutique shops and big business plans.

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35 Uncharted Waters Former Navy man William Porter knows the value of clear communication, both above ground and underwater.

37 Cast of Millions From Halal foods to political discussion, Shahed Amanullah and Halalfire Media have Muslim issues in mind.

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Business Sense 40 Social Value: Doing Good to Do Well Professor Bill Novelli offers an experienced perspective on applying business skills to nonprofit and socially responsible work.

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40 msb.georgetown.edu

From the Dean Building on Our Potential

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hen I look around the Rafik B. Hariri Building, the new home for Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, one word comes to mind: potential.

Now that our bright students and enthusiastic faculty and staff fill the building, it is time for us to reach our full potential.

For the first time in our history, all of our people are under one roof, in a facility replete with features and technology that place us among the best of the best. We have always had the talented people to stand among the world’s elite business schools.

Now those people have a facility to match.

In Lohrfink Auditorium, we also now have a stage to match the status of the leaders and luminaries who come to our school to share their knowledge, from the dignitaries and friends who helped us celebrate the building’s dedication on Sept. 16 to the financial heavyweights who presented at our Future of Global Finance conference just two days later. As Washington, D.C., becomes a world center for finance, McDonough increasingly functions as a center for debate and discussion about the field.

Leaders such as Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.; Mary L. Schapiro, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission; and Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council for the Obama administration, have lent their expertise and prestige to those discussions.

You will read about such events and many more in these pages. You will find stories about alumni who are shaping policy and making their country and their alma mater proud through government service. You will learn about students taking steps toward becoming global leaders through their studies abroad.

You will read about a pioneering program and partnership that helps train students to shepherd organizations through times of change.

These stories and others highlight the work we do, both in our new home, the Rafik B. Hariri Building, and beyond. As Georgetown’s business school, we have always had potential to stand out among the world’s best. Now we have an opportunity and an obligation to realize that potential.

George Daly Dean

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

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News

Home at Last and 221 faculty and staff.

In the end, the $82.5 million building was funded entirely through philanthropic support, primarily from alumni. The project took time and patience, said J. Hap Fauth (BSBA ’67), a member of the Board of Advisors, in an earlier interview.

“Like any elongated projects, there were many highs and lows, many starts and many stops,” Fauth said. “When I started this, I had black hair. My hair is closer to white today.”

Undeterred, the staff and volunteers pushed ahead. Professor John Mayo, former interim dean, and Mike Boyd, former development director, managed to more than double the amount of pledged donations to reach the funding threshold required by the Georgetown University Trustees for committing to a new ­building. Alumni

Peter Forman

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Auditorium, honored guests, students, faculty, and alumni filled the stairways and walkways throughout the atrium.

Some headed to the McBride Executive Education Center while others met friends in the Connelly Commons, both of which are part of the Lauren and Robert H. Steers Wing.

Guests also attended a reception in the Fisher Colloquium, which has extraordinary views of Georgetown’s campus, the Rosslyn skyline, and even the Washington Monument.

Many of the people lending their names to these spaces attended the dedication, and

Dean George Daly extended his gratitude for their work on a project that was years in the making.

“Those of us who have the privilege of working, teaching, and learning in this spectacular building will always owe a debt of gratitude to you for making what for many years was a dream into a reality,” Daly said.

For years, administrators, faculty, fundraisers, and alumni worked tirelessly on this cause, knowing that the McDonough School of Business needed a home for its 1,400 undergraduates, 1,000 MBA students, 500 executive education students,

Phil Humnicky

he Rafik B. Hariri Building, the new home for Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, opened in summer 2009. By Sept. 16, the day of the building’s blessing and dedication, the five-story facility was filled with people, each taking advantage of all it has to offer.

At the start of the day, members of the university’s board of directors gathered on the first floor in the J. Hap Fauth Wing for the unveiling of the portrait of Robert E. McDonough, for whom the McDonough School of Business is named. The portrait appears in the transition space between the rotunda and the four-story Dr. Simone ­Ballandras McDonough Atrium, an open gathering place filled with natural light.

Prior to and after the 5:30 p.m. blessing and dedication ceremony in the Lohrfink

Ribbon-cutting for the Rafik B. Hariri Building

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msb.georgetown.edu

Dave Scavone

Peter Forman

News

Lon Grohs

Peter Forman

Fisher Colloquium

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Dave Scavone

Simone McDonough Atrium

leaders such as Fauth, board chair ­Robert Steers (BSBA ’75), Phil Vasta (C ’65), and countless others poured their time, energy, and money into seeing the building become a reality.

At the dedication, Steers pointed out the uniqueness of the process. “It stands alone as the first major building on Georgetown’s campus that was entirely funded through private

High-tech breakout rooms

Inside a breakout room

Connelly Commons

donations,” he said to the audience, many of whom supplied the funding. “This speaks volumes about what most of us understand and believe, which is that Georgetown’s greatest resource is its people.”

Steers’ last point matches the philosophy of the man whose name graces the new building, Rafik B. Hariri. Two-time prime minister of Lebanon,

Read more at msb.georgetown.edu/newsroom

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of peaceful demonstrations that led to the withdrawal of Syrian troops from Lebanon after 30 years of control.

Hariri was more to his people than a political symbol. In 1979, he established the Hariri Foundation, which has since sponsored more than 34,000 Lebanese students at home and abroad, established schools, and made numerous contributions to higher education. Hariri’s son, Saad Hariri, followed him into the family business, politics, and the foundation’s support of education. The 1992 alumnus of Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business gave a $20 million gift to honor both his father and alma mater and to help complete the new building.

Fahad Hariri, Rafik Hariri’s youngest son, attended the

Fahad Hariri and Dean George Daly

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Phil Humnicky

Saad Hariri and portrait of Rafik B. Hariri

Simone McDonough, Phil Vasta, and a newly unveiled portrait of Robert E. McDonough

Phil Humnicky

Hariri believed in the power of education as a resource to improve the lives of people in his homeland.

Born in 1944 to a family of modest means, Hariri built his fortune as a contractor and entrepreneur. He turned his attention to helping his country during the 15-year civil war in Lebanon, and he helped lay the groundwork for the Taif Accord that began the peace process in 1989. He also is credited with helping rebuild Beirut after the war.

Hariri served as prime minister of Lebanon from 1992 to 1998, and again from 2000 to 2004. When he was assassinated by an explosion in his motorcade on Feb. 14, 2005, the Lebanese people were outraged. Hariri’s death sparked the Cedar Revolution, a series

dedication. “[My father] believed that education would help unlock the talents and abilities of his countrymen, and that this outpouring of positive energy would help to repair the damage that years of war and violence inflicted on his beloved Lebanon,” he said.

“Rafik Hariri’s belief in education was an act of faith in all that is good and constructive in mankind.”

Hariri took a global perspective on education, and Georgetown University President John J. DeGioia hopes the building that bears Hariri’s name will inspire a similar perspective in students. “This building will provide a world-class home for our school of business,” DeGioia said. “It will help us continue our transition into a truly global university, and it will help ensure that our students are fully prepared to become capable and compassionate citizens and leaders.”

ARNO BURGI/Newscom

News

The building itself is as impressive as the efforts that made it possible, Steers said.

“It’s the exterior that to me makes a strong and clear statement about the McDonough School of Business. The Healyesque stone on the south wing speaks to Georgetown’s historic traditions and values. The brick on the north wing is the connection to Leavey [Center], which is where our students hang out today. And the glass core challenges us to be leading edge, outward looking, and global in our perspectives.”

Alumni and other advisers worked closely with architect Goody Clancy and contractor Whiting-Turner to achieve those results, and the function was just as important as the form. The building features: n 179,000 square feet, with five stories and a two-level parking garage; n 15 conference rooms; n 11 interview rooms and space msb.georgetown.edu

News The Future of Global Finance

M

Phil Humnicky

Phil Humnicky

Phil Humnicky

ore than 500 guests gathered in the Rafik B. Hariri Building on Sept. 18 for a conference hosted by Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and the Financial Times on the Future of Global Finance. Organized by Reena Aggarwal, McDonough Professor of Business Administration and professor of finance, the event was part of the celebration to launch the Rafik B. Hariri Building, the new home Sheila Bair of the school. The conference was broadcast live on CNBC and C-SPAN and covered by more than 20 media outlets, including the Associated Press, Bloomberg, Dow Jones, the Financial Times, Reuters, and The Wall Street Journal.

News media across the country and around the globe also carried the story.

Dean George Daly opened the conference, which was held in the school’s Lohrfink Auditorium. After the introductory welcome, Sheila C. Bair, chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., gave a keynote speech focused on issues related to regulatory gaps in the financial system, financial institutions that are “too big to fail,” and systemic risk.

A panel discussion on “Emerging Powers in Global Finance” examined the role of emerging markets and sovereign wealth funds in the changMary Schapiro ing landscape of global finance. The second panel, “Regulation of Financial Markets,” explored proposals to correct the weaknesses in the regulatory structure of financial markets.

Mary L. Schapiro, chairman of the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, gave the second keynote address, in which she discussed the need for better information and more disclosure in all finance-related areas, including corporate boards, credit-rating agencies, municipal securities, short sales, and hedge funds, in order to allow investors to make better decisions.

Following Schapiro’s address, the final panel, “Restructuring of Financial Larry Markets,” discussed the changing role of market participants in the restrucSummers turing of global financial markets.

Larry Summers, director of the National Economic Council at the White House, gave the closing keynote address. His speech outlined what he called the five common-sense principles of regulatory reform: capital adequacy, need for resolution authority, elimination of regulatory arbitrage, regulation Panel session in based on a systemwide view, Lohrfink Auditorium and consumer protection.

The event was the first in a series of partnership programs to be co-sponsored by Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business and the Financial Times.

The series will focus on the future of the global financial system and associated public policy issues.

Phil Humnicky

for the MBA Career Management Office, which attracts a full range of employers; n 34 breakout rooms complete with data ports, Bloomberg terminals, flat-screen monitors, and video-conferencing capabilities; n 15 classrooms, with a mix of case style, tiered, lecture, and seminar rooms; n 120 faculty offices; n The 400-seat Lohrfink Auditorium; and n Separate spaces for undergraduates on the first floor, MBA students on the second and third, and executive education on the fourth.

The Rafik B. Hariri Building also is the first Georgetown building to seek LEED certification. It features waterefficient landscaping and plumbing, expected energy savings of 15 percent through lighting design and the use of dimmable high-efficiency fluorescent fixtures, and building materials that were manufactured locally using recycled content. About 800 tons of construction waste was recycled and reused.

As a facility, the Hariri Building places the McDonough School of Business among the world’s finest.

“We have a real opportunity to go with the other top business schools,” Fauth said.

“We’ve got location, location, location. We have a platform on which to extend and to bring in great faculty, to run summer programs, to run night programs, to run full-time MBA programs. We already had the template; we just didn’t have a home.”

For a full list of participants and to view video, visit msb.georgetown.edu/ globalfinance

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News A New Vision for Undergraduates

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What attracted you to Georgetown?

I was excited to work with the talented and motivated faculty and students here. The academic qualifications of Georgetown business students are impressive, and they deserve a curriculum that meets their needs and challenges them at the same time.

We are examining the current curriculum, and I am working with the Undergraduate Curriculum Committee to develop new and innovative programs for our undergraduates.

One idea is instilling a sense of social responsibility and community outreach in students. The timing is right, with the growth of interest in social entrepreneurship. I know that Dean Daly is interested in building and growing a program in entrepreneurship, so it was a good fit.

Norean R. Sharpe

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Phil Humnicky

orean R. Sharpe, new undergraduate dean, has a passion for undergraduate education — and the credentials to match. She has been a professor and scholar for more than 20 years, teaching and conducting research at Bowdoin College, Yale University, and, most recently, Babson College, where she served as director of institutional assessment and as chair of the Division of Mathematics and Science.

Now Sharpe brings her education (PhD from University of Virginia), experience, and energy to Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. She recently spoke with Georgetown Business magazine about her vision for the undergraduate program.

Why are social responsibility and social entrepreneurship important?

I taught in a liberal arts environment for several years, so I have a broad view of what a business education is all about. We should be teaching students how to be leaders in a global environment, a global economy.

To become leaders who make a difference, our students should have an appreciation of how to combine “doing good and doing well.” The nonprofit industry has grown by leaps and bounds in the last decade, and this represents a real alternative career path for many of our undergraduates.

Georgetown already hosts a nonprofit case competition for juniors and seniors — called the Business Strategy

­ hallenge — and I am workC ing with faculty members to create a first-year-experience program that would involve a case competition with a social responsibility focus.

What about your quantitative focus?

I’m interested in providing more opportunities and electives for students who are quantitatively skilled and motivated.

Here, again, the McDonough faculty seem open to new ideas.

I’ve been brainstorming with current faculty members on ways to add new courses in decision analytics, time series analysis, or financial forecasting.

We also are looking at ways to partner with other faculty outside the business school at Georgetown, including those in liberal arts disciplines, such as mathematics. Georgetown is such a diverse and dynamic institution that, in general, I’m interested in developing collaborations with a wide range of faculty and administrators, with the ultimate goal of increasing opportunities for our undergraduates.

Are any other areas particularly important to you?

I have a great interest in assessment, which is all about evaluating and improving student learning. The need to develop and implement consistent frameworks to evaluate what students learn is growing nationally, driven by both the political and the academic organizations that accredit institutions.

Part of Georgetown’s philosophy and mission is cura personalis

[care for the whole person], which asks us to view education as being holistic, and to help each student achieve his or her full potential as an individual.

Our students should get a wellrounded education and leave Georgetown with the applied skills of how to assess risk, develop alternative solutions, and make intelligent decisions.

We should be equipping our undergraduates to enter a global economy and become effective leaders and change agents — whether they choose to impact political, social, academic, or financial institutions.

Are You Receiving Our E-news?

Don’t miss the McDonough School of Business’s newly launched e-newsletter, full of information on faculty and student activities, special events, and other updates and videos from the Rafik B. Hariri Building. If you are an alumnus, you should already be receiving the e-news. If not, we may not have your current e-mail address. Go to msb. georgetown.edu to sign up!

msb.georgetown.edu

News Aggarwal and Baber Named to New Robert E. McDonough Professorships

Phil Humnicky

A

s part of an initiative to increase the number of professorships at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, Reena Aggarwal and William Baber have been named the school’s first Robert E. McDonough Professors. The professorships are funded by a gift from the McDonough estate.

“The McDonough Professorships recognize faculty for their contributions to research and extraordinary teaching in the classroom,” says Dean George Daly. “This is just one of the many ways our school can honor the memory of Bob McDonough, a devoted alumnus who strongly supported the education of future generations of business leaders at Georgetown University.”

Aggarwal has been a faculty member for more than 20 years and previously

Reena Aggarwal

William Baber

served as the Stallkamp Fellow in Finance at the school. Her research focuses on emerging financial markets and institutions, initial public offerings, and corporate governance. She has been listed among “Outstanding Faculty” in the Business Week Guide to the Best Business Schools. Her work has been published widely in academic journals, and in 2000 and in 1999, she was awarded Georgetown’s

McDonough School of Business Faculty Research Award.

In addition to teaching, Aggarwal has served as interim dean and deputy dean of the school. She also has been a visiting professor of finance at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, a FINRA Academic Fellow, an Academic Fellow at the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, a visiting research scholar at the

International Monetary Fund, and a Fulbright Scholar to Brazil and Chile.

Baber, who also is area coordinator for accounting, is returning to teach at the school after serving as the Benjamin­Franklin Professor of Accountancy at The George Washington University since 1991. He has more than 25 years of experience teaching both financial and managerial accounting; his current research focuses on the determinants of executive compensation in both for-profit and not-for-profit contexts, and on issues surrounding the quality and announcement of earnings.

Before entering academics, Baber worked as an auditor and consultant with Arthur Young and Co. (now Ernst and Young) in Washington, D.C. His research has been published in a number of academic journals.

You Have a “Friend” Request Connect with Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business community and keep up with the latest updates on student and faculty activities, special events, and breaking news by joining the school’s social media networks. n Become a Facebook fan of Georgetown McDonough School of Business or a member of the Georgetown McDonough School of Business Alumni group. n Watch our videos on the school’s YouTube channel.

Subscribe to www.youtube.com/McDonoughSB n Follow us on Twitter. www.twitter.com/msbgu and www.twitter.com/McDonoughAlumni n Connect with our network on LinkedIn. Join the Georgetown McDonough Alumni group and take part in our LinkedIn challenge: Help us reach 1,957 members by Thanksgiving (1957 — the year the McDonough School of Business was founded) and 2,000 members by January 2010!

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

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News GEMBA Students Open NASDAQ and Become Program’s First Graduates

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© 2006, The Nasdaq Stock Market, Inc.

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ach morning at the ­NASDAQ MarketSite in New York City’s Times Square, the exchange invites some of the world’s most prestigious business leaders to preside over the Market Open. On Aug. 19, students enrolled in the Georgetown University-ESADE Global Executive MBA program and one of their professors had the opportunity to “ring” ­NASDAQ’s opening bell. It was a fitting finish for the students, who also became the first graduates of the program on Aug. 29.

Reena Aggarwal, Robert E. McDonough Professor of Business Administration and professor of finance, and 32 Global Executive MBA students took the stage before the 9:30 a.m. stock exchange opening. The ceremony was broadcast by CNBC, Bloomberg TV, and Reuters, among others. In addition, live footage was shown on the NASDAQ MarketSite Tower’s seven-story cylindrical LED screen in Times Square, as was a video featuring a day in the life of students and faculty in the school’s new Rafik B. Hariri Building.

“The goal of the ­Georgetown-ESADE Global Executive MBA Program is to enhance learning opportunities through real-life immersion into business situations around the globe,” says Aggarwal. “This was a fitting end to that journey for our first graduates of the Georgetown-ESADE program.”

Ten days later, on Aug. 29, the Georgetown-ESADE Global Executive MBA Program held its first commencement ceremony

in Gaston Hall on the Georgetown University campus.

“We are extremely proud of this first class to graduate from the ambitious GeorgetownESADE Global Executive MBA Program,” said Gordon Swartz, associate dean for executive education at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. “To earn this degree, these students have spent the last 16 months engaged in their studies around the world, balancing demanding careers and personal lives. Now, they graduate from the program as highly mobile executives with business knowledge and leadership skills that will serve them well in the global business environment.”

H.S.H. Prince Philipp of Liechtenstein, an international business leader who has served as chairman of the Liechtenstein Global Trust Group Foundation since 2001, addressed the graduates. In his speech, Prince Philipp talked about the lessons his organization has learned from the

financial crisis and stressed the importance of freedom and disciplined leadership in the financial services industry.

“Bubbles are part of our economic discovery and the innovation process,” Prince Philipp said. “Overregulation will not prevent them, only stifle innovation and further endanger our individual freedom. Freedom isn’t free, as somebody said. It will stay with us if we have learned to lead and discipline ourselves — nowhere truer than in the financial service industry.”

Among the members of the class of 2009, more than 60 percent are foreign-born, and 90 percent have worked internationally. The group has an average of 15 years of work experience in a variety of fields, including technology, financial services, manufacturing, energy, health care,

government, consulting, real estate, and the nonprofit sector. More than 30 percent of the graduates had earned an advanced degree before enrolling in the program.

The program is a partnership among Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and Walsh School of Foreign Service and the ESADE Business School in Spain. The 16-month program, which is taught through six residency modules spanning four continents, gives students access to the worlds of international business, politics, leadership, and management in eight major global business and policymaking centers: Washington, D.C.; Barcelona, Spain; Buenos Aires, Argentina; São Paulo, Brazil; Bangalore, India; Madrid, Spain; Moscow; and New York City.

View a video from the NASDAQ event at msb.georgetown.edu/newsroom

or on the school’s YouTube channel at youtube.com/user/McDonoughSB

msb.georgetown.edu

News Business Leaders Talk to Students and Alumni

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his fall, Georgetown MBA students will learn from successful business leaders through a multitude of events — including the Distinguished Leaders Series, the Leaders Breakfast series, and the new Georgetown Business Conversations — that bring students and professionals together to connect academics with current, real-world business issues.

founder and CEO of Seventh Generation, the nation’s largest supplier of sustainable, organic cleaning supplies; Patrick McCloskey, CEO of Evolution Markets; Stephen Spinelli, co-founder of Jiffy Lube and president of Philadelphia University; Robert Egger, founder and president of D.C. Central Kitchen; and Bill Marriott, chairman and CEO of ­Marriott International.

Alumni, students, and faculty interested in engaging­ in point-counterpoint­ ­discussions on current business topics should visit our new Georgetown Business Conversations Web site at msbmedia.georgetown.edu.

The discussions between leading scholars, practitioners, and policymakers are taped and posted to the site, where viewers have the opportunity to join and extend the

2009–2010 Distinguished Leaders Series Lohrfink Auditorium, Rafik B. Hariri Building All events are open to alumni.

November 2009 November 4, 4:30 p.m.

Sanjay Khosla, executive vice president and president, international, Kraft Foods November 10, 4:30 p.m.

Patrick McCloskey, CEO of Evolution Markets

Jill Lindstrom

November 16, 4:30 p.m.

Stephen Spinelli Jr., president of Philadelphia University and co-founder of Jiffy Lube November 18, 4:30 p.m.

Wyatt Andrews, CBS correspondent on “The Decline of Big Media” The Distinguished Leaders Series kicked off on Sept. 17 with David Allen, leadership and organizational expert and best-selling author of Getting Things Done. Allen talked to students in the school’s Lohrfink Auditorium about organization and productivity.

On Sept. 29, Steven Cooper, president of Fortified Holdings Corp. and former CIO for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the American Red Cross, led a discussion titled “So You Want to Be a CIO.” Upcoming speakers in the Distinguished Leaders Series include Jeffrey Hollender,

­conversation by The Leaders Breakfast posting questions and comseries allows MBA students ments. The speakers will be to meet with business leadavailable at future dates to ers in an intimate setting. In groups of 25, students will sit respond to the postings online.

The launch of Georgetown down with prominent profesBusiness Conversations took sionals such as Carl Grant place on Sept. 22 and featured (pictured above with stua point-counterpoint discusdents), senior vice president sion on health care reform by of business development at Cooley Godward Kronish LLP; Jack Burkman, founder and president of Burkman AssociStephen Hills, president and ates LLC and Republican politigeneral manager of Washingcal analyst, and Julian Epstein, ton Post Media; Jim Dinegar, principal of LawMedia Group president and CEO of Greater and a Democratic strategist.

Washington Board of Trade; and Dr. M. Joy Read about events at Drass, president of msb.georgetown.edu/newsroom Georgetown UniJoin the conversation at versity Hospital.

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

December 2009 December 3, 4:30 p.m.

Dr. Cheryl Healton, CEO of American Legacy Foundation December 7, 4:30 p.m.

Robert Egger, founder and president of D.C. Central Kitchen January 2010 January 26, 4:30 p.m.

J. Willard “Bill” Marriott, Jr., chairman and chief ­executive officer of Marriott International

msbmedia.georgetown.edu

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The

a

Business of

Ch nge

By Chris Blose

For a change management consultant dealing with government agencies, the ideal situation is this: You walk in on day one, and everyone welcomes you with open arms. The leaders are gung-ho about the task at hand — whether it be installing a new technology system, merging two disparate cultures, or completely overhauling the organizational structure.

The employees are equally enthusiastic. They chat over coffee and donuts about just how excited they are by the change, which is laid out in clear and understandable terms for all. You, the consultant, are given complete access to all the resources, space, and people you need to get the job done.

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msb.georgetown.edu

Randy Lyhus

A new executive education program — the first of its kind — puts the pieces of change management together.

e Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

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Jim Milne, Nicole Vichi, and Kristopher Campbell of Booz Allen Hamilton were among the first graduates of the new change management program.

Contrast that with a more typical scenario: You come into an organization and have to execute damage control on day one. You are offered a spot in a basement office — out of sight, out of mind. The leader is a political appointee whose days are numbered. The employees have not heard anything about the realities of the change or what it means to their careers, so they gossip around the water cooler and imagine the worst. And to top it all off, Congress is publicly thrashing your client.

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Where does that leave you? If you have participated in the new Change ­ManagementAdvanced Practitioner (CMAP) ­program, offered by Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business and consulting firm Booz Allen Hamilton, you are in good shape. You will be prepared to apply the various tools of change management to the case in front of you, whether it falls in the realm of the ideal, the chaotic, or anywhere in between.

Kristopher Campbell, a Booz Allen

­ amilton associate and one of the CMAP H program’s first graduates, says change can come from a number of drivers, but the goal of change management is always the same.

“It could be an organizationwide transformation or one subset,” Campbell says.

“It can be driven by legislation, new technology, or new leadership. It’s really the practice of creating an organized and logical way to bring an organization from point A to point B.” Broadly defined, change management is msb.georgetown.edu

­ anagement — to create a desired effect. It m takes the right blend to make change really stick, to make it real.”

Theory Meets Practice

Cameron Davidson

“There is no Change Management for Dummies,” says Brooks Holtom, an associate professor and academic director for the CMAP program.

Holtom notes that change management is a complex process that requires a solid grasp of both theory and practice. Although many academics and practi­tioners have written about change management, few have attempted to bring all the literature and practical lessons together in one place.

That was Booz Allen Hamilton’s goal when it first developed the idea for CMAP. After a competitive process, the firm chose to partner with Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business Executive Education program because of the school’s reputation and relationships in Washington, D.C., and assets in the realm of change management.

“We were able to apply and integrate our faculty’s expertise in the areas of leadership, culture, human capital management, strategy, and operations management into a comprehensive, graduate-level change management program,” says Gordon Swartz, associate dean for executive education.

Working together, Georgetown faculty and Booz Allen Hamilton practitioners performed an extensive review of the available literature, delving into standards such as John P. Kotter’s Leading Change and popular fare such as Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink. They also called on internal expertise and lessons

just that: broadly defined. Consultants have been involved in change work for years, though often with a narrower focus on individual areas such as communications, project management, IT consulting, training and development, business restructuring, or workforce planning. The CMAP program was born in part out of the recognition that the best practitioners understand how all of these pieces fit together as a whole.

“To me, change management is like Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

conducting an orchestra,” says Maria Darby, a vice president at Booz Allen Hamilton who has led large-scale transformations for high-profile clients such as the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the IRS. “The conductor draws upon the various instrumental sections to create a certain musical effect. Similarly, the change management practitioner draws upon a diverse set of disciplines — business process, human capital strategy, strategic communications, learning, performance

“

It can be driven by legislation, new technology, or new leadership. It’s really the practice of creating an organized and logical way to bring an organization from point A to point B.

”

— Kristopher Campbell 17

is constantly in flux with changing political priorities, appointed officials, and policies.

Humenansky describes change management as both a science and an art. It’s more than following a checklist, as would a systems engineer; you must be able to read the people and culture around you and figure out which combination of techniques will work there.

Providing a broad range of techniques has another benefit, too, Humenansky says.

If one idea does not work, a skilled practitioner can move on to another.

“One of the critical success factors for a change program is active leadership engagement, support of the top dog,” Humenansky gives as an example. “Well, what do you do if it’s not there? Give up? What are the techniques you bring to bear? That’s what this course is about.”

Constants of Change

learned from past change management projects, and then put together a curriculum for the CMAP program. The first cohort of 25 Booz Allen Hamilton employees ­finished in August, and the program will educate 100 by the end of the year. The goal is to triple that number in 2010.

Increasing credibility for the field is one of CMAP’s priorities. “I think there are a lot of people selling snake oil,” Holtom says.

“They say they do change management, and maybe they do a piece of change management, like human capital consulting or change communications, but they don’t do all that is involved in large-scale transformation. It is important to recognize that there are some people doing comprehensive change management well.”

Official recognition is only one goal of the program, however. Research shows that 70 to 80 percent of major change efforts fail. CMAP looks at why they fail — and how to help clients fall among the 20 to 30 percent that succeed — by taking a comprehensive look at transformation.

To reach that goal, the CMAP program examines the top thinkers and models in the field using an academic approach, and then marries theory to practice. Georgetown faculty and Booz Allen Hamilton leaders such as Darby and fellow vice president David Humenansky draw on their years of 18

experience helping high-profile government clients navigate drastic transformations. For example, Dave Mader, now a vice president, was a key executive during the IRS transformation and brings his realworld experience to the classroom.

Bringing theory and practice together is crucial, Campbell says: “Theory is just theory if clients don’t buy into it. I can sit in front of a client all day long and tell them that this is what a bunch of Harvard and MIT experts say you should do, but that doesn’t mean anything unless there’s a practice approach to back it up.”

And when it comes to both practical approaches and theoretical models, one size does not fit all. When Nicole Vichi, a Booz Allen Hamilton associate and graduate of CMAP, first heard about the program, its comprehensive nature appealed to her.

“What works will vary so much from client to client,” Vichi says. “It’s great to be able to hold these models and approaches up side by side to compare and contrast them, and to see the thought processes involved.”

The primary goal is to give practitioners an expansive set of tools so they can assess and apply the ones they need to work in any given situation. Such flexibility is crucial to Booz Allen Hamilton employees, whose clients exist in the government realm, which

Regardless of the model or approach, a few constants exist in change management.

Humenansky alluded to one of the most crucial: leadership.

Jim Milne, another Booz Allen Hamilton senior associate and CMAP graduate, has seen both the worst kind of leadership — dictatorial, isolated, not seeking or accepting employee input — and, in a current project, the best kind. He is working with an intelligence organization fusing two missions and cultures into one. The task is tricky, but the leadership factor is working in the group’s favor.

“It’s ideal because we have tremendous leadership support and advocacy, first and foremost,” Milne says. “No strategy effort can be effective without it. We have clear, documented mandates, so there’s absolute urgency for them to figure this out.”

The fact that Milne’s client has clear mandates leads to another pillar of change management: communication. In the ideal setting, every person affected by change has a thorough understanding of that change, understanding that can be gained only through effective, strategic communication.

But many cases are not as ideal as Milne’s, says Campbell. “What ends up happening, if you fail to communicate, is you get the water cooler talk of what’s going on here and what’s going on there,” he says. “If you don’t do good corporatewide communications, it negatively impacts morale. People start getting the wrong information, if they get any information at all.” msb.georgetown.edu

restructuring, and other important aspects of the field.

Therein lies the strength of the CMAP approach, Milne says. He entered the program with strengths already well developed in strategic planning and communication, plus performance management. “Coming out of this course, I built greater depth in those areas and learned more about all of the other facets of change management,” he says, “how interdisciplinary it is, and how all the moving parts work together.”

Vichi and Campbell both echo Milne’s assessment. In the past, Campbell focused mostly on performance management, but now he thinks about other pieces of the puzzle, such as human capital.

“We all manage change,”Vichi says, “but there is something to be said for someone who has really studied all the different tools and theories, really understands the different nuances and differences between them, and is able to work with other experts to cover all the different implications. This program provides practitioners with a really well-rounded toolkit.”

A good communications plan is often the first step in a transformation, especially given how crucial it is to create employee buy-in. For change to work, you have to persuade as many employees as possible to believe in its benefits, both for the company and for them on an individual “What’s in it for me?” level.

As pervasive and important as strong leadership and effective communication are, change encompasses much more. A change management practitioner needs to understand human capital, particularly as it relates to the flow of talent and skills in and out of an organization. Who stays?

Who goes? Who has the skills to work in the organization as envisioned after the change? The latter question then leads to training and development needs, business Brooks Holtom

“

Phil Humnicky

Learning While Doing, Doing While Learning

There is a simultaneous challenge of flying an airplane while rebuilding it.

That’s exactly what is happening when you’re a government agency providing services, and you are asked to transform.

”

— Brooks Holtom

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

The CMAP program also provides students with a room full of other experts — fellow students — from whom and with whom to learn.

The course takes advantage of this group’s knowledge through an “action-learning project,” a centerpiece problem based in reality and practicality. Holtom describes it as a “Skunk Works” project.

Students divide into five teams of five — named Booz, Allen, Hamilton, Hoya, and Saxa, affectionately. Each person in each group brings a proposal from a real-life ­client problem, and the team decides together which problem to tackle.

“We ask, ‘What is the biggest, hairiest, most challenging aspect of this engagement, and what could we gain by examining theory and best practices in this project?’” Holtom says.

Vichi’s group chose her proposal for its action-learning project. It deals with the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) implementation of a system safety approach to regulatory oversight, which is spurred by a number of drivers, including new international regulations and safety requirements, recent concerns over airline safety, and an increasing number of travelers flying in a fixed amount of airspace.

Holtom uses a particularly apt metaphor for this project: “There is a simultaneous challenge of flying an airplane while rebuilding it,” he says. “That’s exactly what is happening when you’re a government agency providing services, and you are asked to transform.” With the FAA, there will be zero tolerance from the government or the public when it comes to making mistakes while the change is in process. Even as the agency overhauls itself, every plane still has to get where it is going safely.

With that in mind, Vichi and her teammates applied freshly learned or honed skills to a real-time problem. “We sat down, looked at the problem statement, and used tools from the class to prioritize focus areas that needed to be addressed for transformation to be seamless and effective. Knowing where they needed to go, we said, ‘In order to get them there, we must address these things first.’”

Communication became a top priority.

The FAA’s change is almost a paradigm shift for much of the workforce doing safety oversight, Vichi says, so communication is essential to creating buy-in.

To begin to do that, Vichi and her teammates examined tools from the CMAP course, including the Patterson-Connor Commitment Curve, which tracks where people are in terms of commitment to the new way of doing business. Vichi and her teammates learned from a real example during the project, and, in turn, Vichi has made viable communication recommendations to the client.

Likewise, Milne says he has taken lessons learned directly from the program into his day-to-day work with his client, the intelligence organization that is trying to merge two cultures. “The course has really informed my thinking about how to do the heavy lifting around the cultural change, which is a deal breaker for this particular organization,” he says.

The biggest value of the program to Campbell is the all-encompassing and flexible set of tools it provides.

“Prior to this class,” he says, “I never thought about change management the way I’ll think about it now. It was always some specific aspect. We were going to be technology consultants, or human capital consultants, or strategy consultants. Now I see the holistic approach to change management. That’s where we can now add a lot of value for our clients.” w 19

Before she ever studied business, Winnie Lee (BSBA 2010) displayed the instincts of an entrepreneur and the drive and determination of a future CEO. As a student at Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan, she helped turn around the debt-strapped school news­paper with an aggressive ad sales campaign. Shortly afterward, Lee entered Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business with the very practical goal of becoming an investment banker and earning a high salary, in part so that she could help get her parents out of the New York City projects where she grew up.

Taking

Flight

By Andrea Orr

Nick Gunderson/Getty Images

In preparing to work students travel the world for on business and life.

20

msb.georgetown.edu

in a global society, new perspectives

In addition to her focused career goal, Lee also came to college with a few broader dreams. Even though she did not speak a foreign language, she wanted to study abroad. “My family is from Hong Kong, and I really wanted to understand more about different cultures,” she explains. Tapping into the same drive she had used to turn The Stuyvesant Standard student newspaper into a profitable business, Lee tenaciously researched and applied for overseas study programs.

In the space of a year, she completed three: a summer program at Oxford ­University, a fall semester at the Chinese ­University of Hong Kong, and a spring semester at ­the University of Melbourne in Australia. All are universities approved by Georgetown for students to attend and earn credit toward their degrees.

Lee returned with a profound sense that broadening one’s horizons means a lot more than just traveling to a distant shore.

Along with gaining confidence in her ability to work in international business and thrive in a fast-paced city like Hong Kong, Lee says that today she has a less rigid sense of ­success.

The experience of seeing so much diversity — from people willing to buy $1,500 designer T-shirts to those who would rather travel on a shoestring budget — led her to reflect on the different aspects of creating a high quality of life.

Where she once listed making money as her top goal, she says she now values happiness and the ability to give something back. She secured an internship the summer before her senior year working as a business analyst at Allianz Global Investors in New York City, her fourth summer there, and continues to contemplate a career in banking, but she also is thinking of pursuing a graduate degree in teaching or social work. “If there is a nice job opportunity, I’ll take it, but I’m more willing than I used to be to just see where life takes me,” she explains.

A Place in the World

and that the challenge of living and studying in a foreign culture is rich with lessons about global business operations and navigating unfamiliar settings.

“To just wander around a different country and soak it all up, even if you never do business internationally, gives you a comfort level and a confidence,” says Lisa Scheeler, an academic counselor who advises all McDonough students who study abroad.

She strongly encourages incoming students to take part in one of the 30 approved programs in universities from London to Hong Kong, Morocco to South Africa. “We start talking about it the day they get accepted,” Scheeler says. About one-third of the class of 2010 has studied abroad for a summer, a semester, or a year.

Scheeler recommends that students make the most of their time overseas by selecting courses not offered in the United States, such as a cultural overview of the host country. She also urges these undergraduates to immerse themselves in life outside of the classroom. “The value of these programs over time becomes cultural as well as academic,” she explains. “A student will often return from an overseas study program and remark, ‘I was able to get more of a grasp of my place in the world.’”

That new enlightenment left the once hard-driving Lee considerably more flexible, but other students report that overseas study had the opposite effect, helping solidify the goals they started out with, while fleshing them out in greater relief.

Dave El Helou, also in the class of 2010, is a finance major who spent the

Tivoli Gar dens,

Most McDonough School of Business students say the overseas study experience is transformative,

Denmark

Find out about study abroad at overseasstudies.georgetown.edu Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

21

Buenos Aires, Argentina

River C herwell , Oxford

Copenha

gen, Den mark

Danish

ge” “Hoya Hen

spring semester of his junior year at the Danish Institute for Study Abroad in Copenhagen. The program offered multiple visits to companies in Berlin and in Prague in the Czech Republic, including the local offices of Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft Corp., and even a Czech toilet seat maker. El Helou says he gleaned a lot of practical insights observing the different ways U.S. and local businesses operate. He was intrigued and a little surprised to discover that businesses in the former Soviet Eastern Europe are highly entrepreneurial and less encumbered by red tape than many in the United States.

The process of interacting with corporate executives in so many different settings also underscored for him how much business — even a data-heavy business like investment banking — is built on interpersonal relations. The truly skilled business person, he came to understand, can appreciate the ways different cultures approach business, which he found varies greatly even within Europe.

A stereotypical “strictly business” approach in Germany, for example, contrasts with a more relaxed and informal atmosphere in 22

Denmark and other countries, where light conversation and socializing serves as a lengthy prelude to the actual “business” at hand. However, despite those differences, he found Europe as a whole to be a considerably more relaxed place to do business than the United States, and said Americans would be well served to keep that in mind. “Even doing business in the U.S., you are usually not working just with Americans. Learning the mindset of people from other countries helps you communicate,” El Helou says.

El Helou’s comfort with the predictability of formulas and spreadsheets first attracted him to math and quantitative analysis. But even in these disciplines, there can be a lot of gray areas, and studying abroad taught him how to interpret and respond to unfamiliar cultural signals. “Even in finance, where everything is based on concrete analysis, there are assumptions you have to make.You have to be able to read people.”

Another class of 2010 student, Sarah Yoo, spent her junior year studying at the London School of Economics and Political Science, where she encountered an extremely rigorous academic program but still managed — when not logging marathon library study

Cafe

sessions — to travel to 17 countries, including Scotland, Italy, Turkey, and Morocco.

Yoo, a marketing and management major, says that the school’s demanding curriculum and its hands-off method of teaching gave her a crash course in time management and organization, while the extensive travel let her see effective advertising in a host of different societies.

“To me, what was interesting was to go to countries and observe their marketing techniques on billboards and radio ads,” Yoo explains. “Some things that wouldn’t work well in the U.S. work well in Spain. In Germany, ads were clear-cut and straight to the point. In Italy, they used more colorful, romantic descriptions.”

Value Beyond Academics

Advisers at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business tell students to immerse themselves in the culture of the country where they study. Several students interviewed for this article said they studied hard, got good grades, and appreciated learning about business from a perspective that was not U.S.-centric. Many also placed the most emphasis on experiences that took place outside of the classroom. msb.georgetown.edu

“

It can be very challenging to be in a different culture. I think employers look for people who have demonstrated that they can do well in that setting.

Such experiences have been of great value to many McDonough graduates. Joe Mazias (MSB ’02), an associate with the law firm Davis Polk & Wardwell in Madrid, Spain, says, “Many of the qualities that I developed studying overseas — the self-confidence and ability to adapt and the willingness to try something new — are required in my work every day.”

As an undergraduate at Georgetown, Mazias participated in two overseas programs. He studied at a university in Quito, Ecuador, the summer after his freshman year, and spent his entire junior year at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid. Both experiences contributed to his decision to minor in Spanish, which was instrumental in his being able to work as a lawyer in Spain.

Mazias adds that the value of the time abroad went far beyond the technical language skills he acquired. The summer he spent in Quito, he notes, “stands out for being so unlike anything I had ever lived before and for starting a passion for Spanish and travel that I carry with me to this day.”

Similarly, Mazias says he remembers his year in Madrid as a time when he formed close friendships with many people, including other Georgetown students in the same program. “I stay in contact with many of them to this day,” he says.

Although students who complete an overseas study program usually say the experience is priceless, the tough economy has left others wondering if they can afford to go. The issue usually is not money: Georgetown strives to make study abroad accessible to as many students as possible, in part by allowing them to apply any financial aid they receive to sponsored programs in different countries. But Scheeler said some students have been tempted to forgo the rewarding overseas experience, particularly during their junior year, in favor of remaining in the United States to improve their chances of securing a summer internship that could lead to a full-time job.

El Helou lined up an internship as an analyst at Bank of America Merrill Lynch before he went away for the spring semester,

but he says the fear of not recalls. “What I noticed is that employers are having a summer intern- afraid to take a chance on people who think ship almost led him to skip they might be interested in living abroad, the semester abroad. “I but who have never actually done it. It can counsel them that there are be very challenging to be in a different culways to do both,” Scheeler ture. I think employers look for people who says. “They can line up have demonstrated that they can do well in an internship before they that setting.” w leave the country, or they can interview by phone or Andrea Orr is an author, blogger, and when they are home dur- freelance writer who writes frequently ing a break.” She says she about high-tech startups. She recently has not seen participation relocated to Washington, D.C., from San in study abroad programs Francisco. decline, although more students do seem to — Joe Mazias go away during the fall semester so they can be back in the enge Stoneh spring, when interviewing for internships usually occurs.

Whether a student’s immediate priority is securing a good job or, like Winnie Lee, exploring multiple possibilities, history shows that studying abroad pays dividends. Elias Lindenberg graduated from Georgetown’s Fuller, Smith & Turner, Lond McDonough School of Business on in 2004 with a degree in finance and international business, a junior year in Madrid under his belt, and plans to join the Peace Corps. As he waited for a Peace Corps assignment, he decided on a lark one day to apply for a single job at the commercial real estate firm Jones Lang LaSalle. He was called for an interview almost immediately and hired shortly thereafter. Lindenberg had never seriously plotted a career working overseas, but when there was an opening in the firm’s Buenos Aires ge, Oxford Trinity Colle office, his year abroad in Spain gave him the confidence to apply.

Mazias, who works for a U.S. law firm in Madrid, says he ultimately was hired because he had a demonstrated ability to live and work in a differHong ent culture. In addition Kong to studying abroad, Mazias had held two overseas internships during law school, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, and in London.

“The hiring managers basically said that my experience abroad gave me credibility when I applied for an ntains, Blue Mou international position,” he lia ra st u A

”

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

23

Tamara Fucile

Christine Schwaninger

John Abood Leif Fonnesbeck

For these four McDonough graduates, there’s nothing better

The Rewards of To everything there is a season, the saying goes, so guess what is back in season: government service. According to a recent Gallup Poll, Uncle Sam is increasingly the employer of first — not last — resort. In May, GovExec.com reported that “between 2006 and 2009, the number of respondents who told Gallup they were considering federal employment rose from 24 percent to 40 percent.”

The biggest draws listed were the benefits, job security, and work/life balance. The report also noted that “71 percent said they were seeking a job that would enable them to make a difference, and 65 percent of respondents reported an interest in helping to fix the country’s problems.”

None of this would come as news to the four graduates profiled in these pages. With lengths of service ranging from a couple of years to several decades, these alumni all strongly feel they are making a difference and helping to fix the country’s problems. And all firmly believe that by working for the federal government, they are “giving back,” a concept that has always been a main tenet of education at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

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msb.georgetown.edu

VEER Jim Barber/Getty Images

By John Greenya

than government work.

Service

I

A Busy Time at the Fed

’m brand new,” says Christine Schwaninger, MBA ’08, referring to the fact that her class was the first to graduate from Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business’ MBA Evening Program, where she focused on finance.

The young Federal Reserve Board employee, who started work there in 2005 and sought her MBA as a way to advance her career and knowledge, may not have been a government employee for as long as other alumni in this story, but she is equally enthusiastic about public service.

One reason may be that these days the Federal Reserve is definitely hot — as in cool — and another may be that she’s the daughter of not one but two career federal employees, a mother at the Environmental Protection Agency and a father at the State Department.

Then again, it could simply be because she loves what she does.

Asked to describe an average day at the Federal Reserve, Schwaninger says with a laugh, “As you’d expect, now it’s just crazy; there’s no regular day. I think my job will be very busy for a number of years.”

She says that four years ago when people outside the government asked where she worked, her answer usually resulted in eyes glazing over. Today, people actually know about the Fed and say, “Wow, you must be smart.” Working for the Fed clearly is much more high-profile than it was before the economic meltdown.

One need only to talk with Schwaninger for a few minutes to realize that service is a meaningful concept to her. “What I like about working for the government is that I feel that even in my small way I’m working toward the public good,” she says. “If I do my job right and process the information correctly, then I’m giving the Board [of Governors] better information to help them make their decisions.” Those ­decisions affect every aspect of this country’s economy.

Even though she has been at the Fed for fewer than five years, having tran­ sitioned from the Greenspan Era to the Age of ­Bernanke, Schwaninger has seen numerous changes because of the economy. At the same time, she feels that, compared with a number of other government ­agencies, the Fed is more shielded from political changes.

26

At the Fed, a collegial atmosphere abounds, and she gets to work with “a lot of really smart people,” including the chairman, first Greenspan, and now Bernanke.

“People work very hard around here, often late into the night,” she says. “You know that stereotype of the lazy federal employee? Forget it.” msb.georgetown.edu

I

“What I like about working for the government is that I feel that even in my small way I’m working toward the public good.”

— Christine Schwaninger, MBA ’09 Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Gary Landsman

No Better Job

n length of service, John Abood (BSBA ’78) is the elder statesman of this group. Abood — whose official title is team leader/contracting officer, Transportation Division, Office of Acquisition and Assistance, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) — has been with USAID longer than the cumulative tenures of Fonnesbeck, Schwaninger, and Fucile. Yet his enthusiasm for national and international public service is no less evident. Indeed, in his case it is almost palpable.

Abood started with USAID in 1976, as an intern between his junior and senior years at Georgetown. He thought it would be an interesting place to work after graduation, and the nature of his foreign assistance work over the past three and a half decades has more than lived up to those expectations.

“USAID provided me with the opportunity to do all of the things I was interested in doing when I got out of business school, including international programs for health care, supporting families, building homes, providing water, growing food, providing education, and rebuilding ports and airports.”

Currently, Abood works in three specific areas: food aid, disaster relief, and, along with the team he leads, aid for Afghanistan and Pakistan (in addition to Iraq).

“We send 2.6 million metric tons of food around the world each year,” he says with great pride. “I’m feeding people, USAID is feeding people, the people of the United States are feeding people! It doesn’t get any more rewarding than that. There is nothing like standing on the back of a truck and providing people food and other disaster relief. You never forget their faces.”

Abood says that his natural “philosophical bent” toward helping was enhanced, and perhaps even created, by Georgetown in general and the McDonough School of Business in particular. “Georgetown presented the Catholic Church’s philosophy, and I could see how it would, if properly implemented, provide the broadest opportunities and foster the human dignity of others. The university informed me of my obligation to myself, and then of my obligation to others, which eventually included the much broader community. My Georgetown education brought that to the fore and really led me to a life of public service.”

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“I’m feeding people, USAID is feeding people, the people of the United States are feeding people! It doesn’t get any more rewarding than that.”

— John Abood, BSBA ’78

T

The Center of a Big Moment

Asked to comment on the shifts in policies and goals he has seen over his 30-plus years with USAID — which have encompassed three Republican and, now, also three Democratic administrations — Abood pauses, then answers carefully.

“Early in my career, USAID was involved in a lot of capital-intensive ­projects — dams and roads and buildings — and then during some of those years that changed to a real solid emphasis on human rights. Currently, it’s evolved into a policy of deeper coordination between development efforts, diplomacy efforts, and defense efforts globally, 28

bringing USAID into the forefront of a three-pronged approach to our national foreign policy.”

Like the other alumni featured here, government service gives Abood a sense of having an impact on the life of the nation and, in his case, also the world. “There’s an immediacy to my work each and every day that allows me to fulfill my passion for enhancing the national security of the United States and bringing some relief to people who face a fragile existence.”

He sums up simply: “That’s why I go to work every day. I don’t think there’s a better job out there.”

amara Fucile (MBA ’01) worked at the Government Accountability Office (GAO) for about five years, but then went back to school at McDonough with every intention of making the transition to the private sector. “Then I got lured back,” she says.

When the Democrats took control of Congress in 2006, she got excited, but she did not see herself going back to the Hill, where she had worked before going to GAO. Then she bumped into an old colleague who twisted her arm ever so gently. “It’s a great time to be here,” the colleague told her. msb.georgetown.edu

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Joshua Roberts

Gary Landsman

“Come on back; don’t miss the party.”

Fucile first worked for Sen. Amy ­Klobuchar (D-Minn.) for a year, and then spent some time on the Joint Economic Committee. Through networking, she moved up to her current job as legislative director for Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.).

What does the job of legislative director entail? “I run the senator’s whole policy shop,” she says, “which is about 15 people, and everybody has his or her own specialty.

I make sure that my staff executes Sen. Merkley’s legislative vision. I help them take an idea and run with it in a way that can affect legislation or can put my boss in a good position. I touch every piece of legislation that he touches. Whether it’s banking or health care, energy or environment, I get to touch all of it, which is just great.”

Even though Fucile has been with Sen. Merkley for only a relatively short time, she feels she already has made a positive impact.

“I am particularly proud of the work we have done this year to advance health care reform,” Fucile says. “As a member of one of the two Senate committees responsible for drafting health care legislation, my boss did a lot of work to help make reform more effective for small businesses, and he inserted some preventive health care provisions in the bill that would specifically help female workers and young mothers going back to work.”

Fucile has seen her share of changes, too. In her case, they have been almost sea changes. After all, she first came to ­Capitol Hill in 1995, a few months after Newt ­Gingrich became speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives. The atmosphere has shifted a number of times since then.

“I think there’s a feeling that right now in these early days of the Obama administration that we’re at a point in history where a number of pieces of landmark legislation could be enacted. And when you look back at American politics there are probably only a few periods where that happened — the New Deal, the Great Society — and people feel that right now is potentially one of those moments. It’s truly exciting to be right at the center of one of those moments.”

The reward is clear to Fucile: “At this point in my life I believe there are a lot of things I could do and be very successful at, but I don’t think that if I did any of them I would feel as accomplished as I do.”

“At this point in my life I believe there are a lot of things I could do and be very successful at, but I don’t think that if I did any of them I would feel as accomplished as I do.”

— Tamara Fucile, MBA ’01 29

— Leif Fonnesbeck, BSBA ’89

30

Joshua Roberts

“You don’t do policy without the dollars to run the programs, and we, as staff, through our recommendations to the senators, can have a huge impact.”

L

From Law to Land Use

eif Fonnesbeck, an Alaska native who received his BSBA from McDonough in 1989 and his law degree from the University of Arizona four years later, reached a point in his career when he had to decide if he was going to go down the typical path — become a partner and practice law — or do ­something else entirely.

“I’d always been interested in politics and government, and while I was at Georgetown I got exposed to that,” says Fonnesbeck. When he heard, through his firm’s Washington office, that there was a position open on the Senate Appropriations Committee, it was goodbye law firm, hello Capitol Hill.

“The job was of particular interest to me because I got to work on a lot of Alaska-

related public lands issues,” says Fonnesbeck, now the minority clerk of the influential committee. He spends most of his time on what is called, in “AppropComSpeak,” the interior and related ­agencies bill.

The committee funds all of the nation’s large land management agencies: the National Park Service, the Fish and Wildlife Service, the Bureau of Land Management, and the Forest Service, plus the Environmental Protection Agency, and arts and cultural institutions such as the Smithsonian Institution, the National Endowment for the Arts, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. The work on land issues appeals to Fonnesbeck in particular. “For someone from Alaska, where two-thirds of the land is public land, and who goes back there every summer to fish, it’s a fascinating area in which to work,” he says.

Fonnesbeck describes his job as a good mix of both budget analysis and policy, particularly as it relates to the environmental bill, which, he says, deals with so many controversial issues it is difficult for the authorizing committees to get the bill all the way through the process. For example, last year one of the big issues was offshore drilling, which stimulated a great deal of debate when the price of oil escalated to $150 a barrel.

Fonnesbeck says he enjoys government service much more than being employed at a law firm. Perhaps the best part of the job, explains the lawyer-turned-top-Hill-aide, is that his work has meaning. Asked if he feels what he does has an impact on “the big picture,” he answers without hesitation. “Oh, absolutely. On our bill, we have the four major land management agencies that cover probably a quarter of the United States. You don’t do policy without the dollars to run the programs, and we, as staff, through our recommendations to the senators, can have a huge impact on the agencies’ ability to carry out their missions, whether it’s for clean air, clean water, how our forests are managed, how our parks are maintained or to provide for safe visits by the public.

“What I do definitely has an impact on the big picture.” w John Greenya, a Washington, D.C.-based writer, has written for The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The New Republic, among other publications. msb.georgetown.edu

ALUMNINotes

BSBA Class of 1966 Jim McMonagle has been re-elected as chairman of the board of the Selected Family of Funds, one of the oldest fund families in the United States. He is a board member of the Owens Corning Corp., a global building products corporation and Fortune 500 member.

McMonagle is of counsel to the law firm Vorys, Sater, Seymour and Pease LLP, and resides in Chagrin Falls, Ohio, with his wife, Toddy.

MBA Class of 1983 John Mueller is a partner in

Cleveland-based private equity firm CapitalWorks LLC. The firm does middle-market buyout transactions and has invested in media, industrial manufacturing, food, business services, and packaging.

It was founded in 1999 and is now on its third fund. Mueller has three children: Jack, 23; Wells, 21; and Felice, 19.

MBA Class of 1985 Amy Schoen is a certified profes-

sional life coach and has expertise in many areas of life and business coaching, including dating and relationships for singles, couples coaching, new moms coaching, working moms coaching, family creation coaching, 20-something coaching, and new business and established business owners coaching and consulting.

BSBA Class of 1986 Tanya D. Cook was recently sworn

in to the Nebraska Unicameral Legislature.

MBA Class of 1986 Ivy Cohen was recognized by the New York City educational nonprofit organization PENCIL with its 2009 Innovative Partnership Award for her work to create the groundbreaking College Partner-

Giving Back, Moving Forward With an established and diverse group of professionals such as Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business alumni network, the Alumni Mentor Program has become a winner among current and past students.

Now in its third year, the Alumni Mentor Program (previously the Young Alumni Mentor Program) engages 80 mentors and 130 students. Building on experiences from the program’s first few years, the mentor program now has structured processes in place to create introductions, prepare students for internships and jobs, and increase their chances of reaching their professional goals.

“What I have gained from the Alumni Mentor Program is the rewarding feeling of helping others succeed,” says second-year mentor Elaine Maslamani (BSBA ’99), a manager at KPMG LLP and co-chair of the Washington, D.C., program. “Mentors are an essential part of anyone’s success.”

Mentors also say they receive tangible benefits by participating in the program. Megan Weber, a strategy and change consultant with IBM, says, “Mentoring the McDonough School of Business students helps me stay close to the challenges and ambitions of those entering the workforce, so I can better coach and manage our new hires.”

Others point to the importance of staying connected to the growing alumni network. “The Alumni Mentor Program provides me with an opportunity to remain involved in the Georgetown community, despite having relocated to New York City, build new relationships, and rekindle old friendships with people who, I am confident, represent the future of business leadership,” says Stephen ­McMullin (BSBA ’07), a financial analyst at Goldman Sachs & Co. and mentor chair of the newly launched New York City chapter.

The program’s low student-mentor ratio, 2:1 for new mentors and 3:1 for returning mentors, allows participants to form close

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

relationships. “By virtue of the informal nature of the program, I am more comfortable asking my mentors questions, and, similarly, I feel my mentors are more honest in their replies,” says Andrew Madorsky, BSBA Class of 2010.

During the annual mentor dinner on July 30, alumni discussed new ideas, including plans to increase student and mentor attendance at events; recruit more mentors who will invest time in the program to further reduce the student-mentor ratio; and bolster communication between students, mentors, and the steering committee, with help from a student leader. With the successful launch of its New York City chapter, the group is looking at opportunities to expand to other cities, as well.

Jenny Heflin (BSBA ’03), MBA class of 2010, says, “I have come full circle with the program. As an undergraduate, I was partnered with a great mentor who used to share investment banking war stories with me over dinners at The Tombs. Today, as a mentor, I enjoy coaching my mentees and strongly hope that through my example they will one day return as mentors.”

Are you interested in becoming a mentor or joining the program as a student? Contact Matthew Drake, program director, at 202-687-7814 or mjd96@georgetown.edu for more information.

31

ALUMNINotes

ship Program™ for a low-income Bensonhurst elementary school in Brooklyn. The program encourages families to set their sights on a college education for their children. Ivy and her husband are loving New York City. Two of their three adult children live nearby.

MBA Class of 1987

the past several months in Afghanistan putting together a mobile banking program for Afghan microfinance institutions.

BSBA Class of 1991 Karen Phillips Broussard launched

GlutenFreeTravel Site.com last year to help people who follow gluten-free diets (because of Celiac Disease) find suitable places to safely dine in their area or while traveling. She launched the site after her youngest son was diagnosed with Celiac. Broussard and her husband, Chris, live in South Riding, Va., with their two boys, ages 8 and 6.

MBA Class of 1992 Roberta Feldman Brzezinski and

Nancy Krawczyk-Priory has switched careers after 20 years in the consumer packaged goods industry, primarily as a marketing and sales executive at Campbell Soup Co. She now works for the nonprofit Network of Executive Women. Its mission is to attract, advance, and retain women leaders in the consumer packaged goods and retail industry through educational and business development programs.

BSBA Class of 1989

her family have been based in Warsaw, Poland, since 2008. She is a partner with Abris Capital, a CEE-focused private equity fund manager with a U.S. institutional investor base. Another McDonough School of Business alum, Pawel Boksa (MBA ’06), is also with Abris.

Niels Nielsen is co-managing the Washington, D.C., office of Avalon Consulting LLC. The company architects and implements Enterprise Web Presence solutions for Global 2000 and other large organizations. Nielsen still lives in D.C. and would like to hear from classmates near and far.

Richard Martorella and Rebecca

Schmalzried Martorella are thrilled to announce the birth of their second child, Sophia Rose Martorella, on Dec. 30, 2008. Sophia joins big brother Daniel, 6.

MBA Class of 1990 Jonathan Madnick joined VeriSolv

Technologies, a federal government consulting firm, in May 2009. He works in the business development group.

Loretta Michaels now lives in

Washington, D.C., but has spent

32

BSBA Class of 1993 Brian Leaf has written six books

coming out in 2009, including Defining Twilight:Vocabulary Workbook for Unlocking the SAT, ACT, GED and SSAT, and the four-book SAT and ACT test-prep series, McGraw-Hill’s Top 50 Skills.

BSBA Class of 1996 Meghan (Butler) Roman returned

to Washington, D.C., from San Diego in September 2009 with her husband, Ricardo, and

1-year-old son, Marcelo Francis.

Earlier this year, she launched Stonerose Advisors LLC, a public relations consultancy for technology companies and venture capital firms.

MBA Class of 1996 Stephen Gaull is married to Karina

Gaull and has two sons: Eli, 4, and Matthew, 16 months. Since graduating, he has worked on private and public investment programs from a wide variety of vantage points, including that of project sponsor, lender, financier, and adviser. Currently, he is a senior director for the Millennium Challenge Corp., a U.S. government entity involved in international development.

Michele Joseph and her family

moved from Silver Spring, Md., to Randolph, N.J., in 2008. She takes business Chinese classes and hopes to return to China to do brand consulting. Currently, she develops rebranding workshops for businesses committed to becoming environmentally sustainable, or “green.” She also launched a charity in the name of her late father, Kelvin A. Joseph, to raise money for Catholic school–based primary and secondary students residing in the Caribbean.

for Weyerhaeuser in Washington, D.C., and her husband, Charles, is the assistant rector at St. Barnabas Episcopal Church in Annandale, Va. Ben Cass works at Garage Equip-

ment Supply as general manager.

He is enjoying time with Bethanne as they get ready to celebrate their 20th anniversary in September.

His son, Andy, just started college at the University of Oklahoma.

Chip Christian is vice president

for N.B. Handy Co., a distributor of heating and air conditioning equipment and commercial roofing with branches in the Southeast. Christian is based at the corporate offices in Lynchburg, Va. Don Fairbairn works at Verizon as director of network engineering implementation. He and his wife, Traci, still live in Montgomery County, Md. Traci teaches science in a middle school magnet program. Fairbairn’s son, Rob, designs and installs digital media systems for conference and network operations centers, and his daughter, Catherine, works in business development for a Swiss biotechnology firm.

IEMBA 1 Class of 1996

Gloria M. Garcia was named vice president at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute, focusing on strategic communications and events.

J.C. Boggs received a presidential

Skip Gridley is retired and enjoy-

appointment earlier this year as one of the U.S. representatives to the International Centre for Settlement of Investment Disputes.

ICSID is an agency of the World Bank that serves as an impartial forum that attempts to broker international finance disagreements between nation-states and private corporations.

ing all that leisure time brings.

Current activities include reading, writing, golf, and sailing, and he enjoys spending time with his wife, Carol. The Gridleys have two daughters and five grandchildren living in Richmond, Va. Bill Harrison works at BBVA Securities Inc., as director of project finance. Responsibilities include

Heidi (Biggs) Brock and her

husband, the Rev. Charles Brock, had a great summer chasing after their toddler Sam, 19 months.

Heidi is the vice president of federal and international affairs

Share your news! Send an e-mail to alumniclass notes@georgetown.edu

msb.georgetown.edu

PROFILE

Wild by Design

T

he apparel company Wildchild Nation was born in a two-bedroom apartment in New York City. For friends and business partners Traci Copeland, Marc Rosenkoetter, and Luam Keflezgy, the business began with a box of T-shirts and a passion for fashion.

They have come a long way from that box of T-shirts. Wildchild Nation’s clothing is now sold in boutiques from New York to Paris, and the company continues to grow.

Copeland (BSBA ’01) majored in marketing at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

Rosenkoetter studied psychology at Georgetown, and Keflezgy studied pre-med at the University of Pennsylvania. Because none of them had design backgrounds, Copeland was concerned about their chances early in the company’s development. But she had experience in fashion, especially in the dance world. After working in marketing for a few years upon graduating, Copeland pursued her creative dreams as a dancer. She started working with famous artists such as Jay-Z and Beyonce, and she met Keflezgy, a fellow dancer and choreographer.

“We became recognizable dancers within the industry: two girls with big, curly hair,” Copeland says. “We thought we should probably do something together, but didn’t know what.”

Given their love of the urban and hip-hop styles from their dance careers, they chose fashion and adopted the name Wildchild Nation based on their hair, their creative spirits, and a film, L’Enfant Sauvage, that Copeland saw in one of her favorite classes at Georgetown. The “Nation” was the community they hoped to build around their clothing.

The two started small in 2003 by cutting the necks out of T-shirts and adding their own design elements. They sold some to a boutique in Manhattan but did not get serious about the business until 2006, when, after selling his most recent company, Rosenkoetter approached Copeland and Keflezgy about formalizing the business. After her 9-to-5 job at Clear Channel, Copeland would go to company headquarters (Rosenkoetter’s apartment), where the three would work

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Traci Copeland, Marc Rosenkoetter, and Luam Keflezgy design Wildchild Nation clothing with an urban style.

into the night sewing labels onto shirts and creating patterns.

“It just grew and grew,” Copeland says. “We took over the apartment. We had pushed the couch up to the TV, and you couldn’t even see out of the kitchen. It was covered in boxes.”

Wildchild Nation is quickly becoming what they hoped for years ago. Keflezgy still travels the world as a choreographer, but she always brings samples with her. MTV ran a micro-series chronicling Wildchild Nation’s trip to Magic, a biannual wholesale convention in Las Vegas. The series aired during commercial breaks of MTV’s highest-rated show at the time, The Hills. Wildchild Nation is working toward having department stores such as Macy’s carry their Wildchild line in the near future.

Wildchild Nation’s most recent endeavor, Threader (www.threaderstyle.com), launched in June 2009 and is the first online urban clothing marketplace for the dance and entertainment industries. It is a cross-promotional one-stop shop.

Wildchild Nation earns a percentage of the brands sold on the site in addition to sales of its own Wildchild line.

“Each partner on Threader steers their audience to the site, increasing awareness of everyone’s brands,” Rosenkoetter says. “Someone might come to buy a partner’s sweatpants and additionally purchase one of our T-shirts. The site has been growing quickly in terms of both revenue and the number of partners on the site. It’s been really exciting.”

Rosenkoetter also has his apartment back. In November of 2008, Wildchild Nation moved into a warehouse in South Bronx, their new company headquarters.

— Kara Landsman

33

ALUMNINotes

Michelle Honey works at HESS

Construction + Engineering Services as vice president of development of educational and institutional services. She serves as a trustee of Gonzaga College High School’s Board of Directors.

She enjoys spending time with her husband of 35 years, her children, Kristian (C ’98) and Meridith (C ’01), and grandchildren, Billy, 10, Diana, 8, and Timothy, 4, who dream of becoming future Hoyas. Honey also graduated from Georgetown’s School of Nursing & Health Studies in 1998.

Terrell Mellen McDermid sells

real estate in the Washington, D.C., metro area for Washington Fine Properties. She is actively involved with several local charities and is the current president of the Founders Board of St. Johns C ­ ommunity Services. She and her husband, John, live in ­Georgetown, Washington, D.C., with their beloved beagle, Birdie.

Carl Rickenbaugh heads New ­ usiness Development (M&A) B at Bard Vascular, a division of CB Bard, a medical device company.

He and his wife, Diana, recently celebrated their 25th anniversary and reside in McDowell Mountains in Fountain Hills, Ariz. Diana is a realtor with Coldwell Banker in Scottsdale and Fountain Hills.

Marie Royce was named a member

of the Board of Trustees for Meridian International, and with her husband, Ed Royce, served as a ball co-chair for the 41st annual Meridian Ball in October. She also joined the board of Alliance Française. In addition to Royce’s employment at Alcatel-Lucent, she recently launched her LLC, Genderstrategy.com, with her two partners.

34

Greg Spierkel works as CEO at

Ingram Micro, a Fortune 100 company with subsidiaries in 35 countries. He also is active with the Dean’s Advisory Board of the University of California, Irvine’s school of business and the Dean’s Advisory Board of Chapman University’s school of business. He is also director at PACCAR Inc., and an executive board member of the Global Technology Distribution Council. He is enjoying time with his wife, Rhiannon, and his two boys, Kyle and Rhys.

Felecia Wilson is director of technology solutions at L-3 Communications. In addition to maintaining existing Department of Defense markets, she expands technology and management integration, services, solutions, and teaming in new government and commercial markets. Wilson volunteers with nonprofit organizations The First Tee (board member since 2005) and Habitat for Humanity.

BSBA Class of 1998 Jorge Castilla and Claudy wel-

comed their first child, Quinn Joris Castilla, into the world on the Fourth of July, 2009. Quinn is very happy that his birthday will be celebrated with firework shows every year!

N. Rocky Cho has joined the Board

of Directors of The Study Hall, a nonprofit, after-school program serving the Peoplestown Community of South Atlanta.

BSBA Class of 1999 Evangelyn “Angel” Dotomain is president and chief executive officer of the Alaska Native Health Board, a tribal health advocacy group representing organizations from throughout Alaska.

Liz Stapleton Zerella and her

husband, Mark, welcomed their second daughter, Caroline Olivia, on April 1, 2009. The family, including 2-year-old daughter

Lauren, resides in Menlo Park, Calif. Zerella continues to work part time as a finance manager for the Clorox Co. MBA Class of 1999 Trey Harvin is the CEO of dotMobi, a mobile Internet company based in Dublin, Ireland, and backed by industry heavyweights such as Google, Microsoft, Nokia, and Vodafone. Thus far in 2009, dotMobi has garnered a Top 100 Innovative Companies designation from Entrepreneur magazine, Mobile Web Innovator of the Year by the Irish Internet Association, and Top 10 Trends to Watch by Small Business Magazine, while launching products in more than 100 countries around the world.

IEMBA 4 Class of 1999 Neil Gregory published New Industries from New Places:The Emergence of the Software and Hardware Industries in China and India in May, co-authored with Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business Professor Stanley Nollen and Stoyan Tenev. Gregory is an adviser to the World Bank Group vice president for financial and private sector development in Washington, D.C.

MBA Class of 2000 Christopher Comella is still living in Gothenburg, Sweden, after taking the red pill and quitting his associate vice president job in 2006. In September 2009, he formed a new venture and recruited his first teammate, Swedish programmer and skate/ snowboard shop owner Janne Kemi. The new venture’s projects are called BuzzPal and BuzzLove.

Comella is the founder and initial angel investor.

Stephanie Paul Lynch was pro-

moted to senior vice president at Jones Lang LaSalle Real Estate Investment Banking group in July.

Based in Washington, D.C., Lynch raises debt and equity capital for real estate development and works on loan sales and workouts.

Christina Nystrom Mantha and her husband, Srikant Mantha, had their second child, a son, on March 11, 2009. Thomas August Mantha joins big sister Ashley, 2.

The family lives in Pleasanton, Calif.

MBA Class of 2001

BSBA Class of 2000 Matthew Cochard and Megan McCarthy were married by Father

Dennis McManus on April 18, 2009, at Dahlgren Chapel with a reception at the Washington Golf and Country Club in Arlington, Va. More than 20 Hoyas were in attendance, including best man Juan Linares (BSBA ’00), groomsmen Chris Marchal (BSBA ’00) and Chris Johanson (BSBA ’00), and bridesmaid Danielle Caro (BSBA ’00). The couple currently resides in Atlanta, Ga., where Cochard is a sales trader with SunTrust Robinson Humphrey and McCarthy is in investor relations with The Home Depot.

David Rudolph and his wife, ­ hitomi Kato Rudolph, are C experiencing the joys of parenthood, having welcomed their son Nathan Yuma Rudolph, who was born on Feb. 5, 2009, in Tokyo. In April of this year, the family relocated to Greenwich, Conn.

msb.georgetown.edu

Cameron Davidson

energy project finance in the United States and Canada. He also spends his time fixing up a new apartment he bought in the West Village in New York City.

PROFILE

William Porter’s work combines his naval know-how and business education.

Uncharted Waters

W

illiam Porter knows the value of clear communication. A former naval officer and submarine commander, Porter spent months in deep underwater places where sending the simplest of communiqués topside sometimes proved daunting.

“There were several times I wished I didn’t have to connect myself to wires and cables,” he recalls. “I remember thinking that if I could only do what I’m doing wirelessly, I would be a whole lot happier, a whole lot safer, and probably be able to operate more freely and with less restrictions.”

As the president and CEO of WFS Defense Inc., a subsidiary of British communications firm WFS Ltd., based in Alexandria, Va., the recent Georgetown University McDonough School of Business graduate (IEMBA ’08) now is dedicated to improving the very kinds of two-way communications the Navy and others who work offshore wrestle with every day.

“Though the technology is not new, there are advances in the technology that are making it better,” Porter says. “Think of it as Bluetooth underwater.”

That does not mean naval officers soon will be climbing through submarines with flashing contraptions clipped to their ears. It does mean the once-cumbersome task of sending messages across the

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

“air-water boundary” — the natural barrier that often interferes with transmissions sent from underwater to surface vessels — is getting easier, Porter says.

Current so-called acoustic versions of the technology, which use sound as opposed to electromagnetic waves, tend to falter in shallow waters, surf zones, rivers, and busy harbors, Porter explains. The latest wireless incarnation of these underwater transmissions handles all those conditions and can even penetrate through ground and ice.

Porter envisions new applications for the technology in the military, as well as in the oil and gas fields. Rather than rely on “tethered” craft to transmit information via long cables from the depths of the ocean to the water’s surface, low-frequency radio transmissions make it possible to cut the cord, giving remote unmanned vessels the capability to go further, deeper.

A career Navy man, Porter, 52, spent the better part of three decades cultivating the skills that now serve him well in the private sector. Now, less than a year after graduation, Porter is putting those skills into practice, working in a rapidly growing industry and helping to employ Americans through his innovations.

“We see it as a part of the everyday wireless underwater network that is growing,” Porter says of his firm’s work. “If this can work — and work well and reliably — this is a huge game-changer for all kinds of operations underwater.”

— Corey Murray

35

ALUMNINotes

Karen Sell Sheley and her husband,

Joel Sheley, welcomed their daughter Malina Elizabeth Sheley on July 6, 2009.

BSBA Class of 2002

Radhika Murari, founder of Sup-

ply Our Schools, celebrated the company’s one-year anniversary in August 2009. In its first year, the company helped 4,000 students across the United States. Supply Our Schools works as a gift registry for teachers in U.S. public schools: Teachers specify what classroom supplies they need, and donors purchase supplies, which are sent straight to the teacher.

Based in Reston, Va., Supply Our Schools matches all donations made to teachers.

Lindsay Bello and Tim Martin (C ’02, L ’07) were married at Rockywold Deephaven Camps in Holderness, N.H., on June 14, 2008. They were married by their friend, Tom Melvin (C ’02) and celebrated with lots of Hoyas. They live in New York, where Martin practices law at Torys LLP and Bello works in global brand management/marketing for Hawaiian Tropic.

Michael Nadali recently was promoted to vice president of sales at Empire Today LLC.

William Jarvis co-authored an

John Polevoy is executive vice

online and print article series for Harvard Business Review called “Consumer Credit: The Next Crisis,” in which the authors warn of the implications of record levels of consumer debt. Jarvis’ work on consumer credit is featured in HBR’s October issue.

MBA Class of 2002 Jamie Baker lives in Annapolis,

Md., with his wife, Tricia, and their two children, Lilly, 4, and Alexander, 1. Baker works for Deloitte Consulting in the firm’s Strategy & Operations practice.

Ginny Hallum resides in Louisville,

Ky., and is a senior associate with Mercer, a human resources consulting firm.

Patricia Koopersmith has recently

co-launched a strategy consulting business, The Clearing Inc., serving both private- and publicsector customers. She continues to work for the Department of Defense and Intelligence Community, but has recently branched out to support commercial and civilian government customers as well. Koopersmith resides in Washington, D.C., with her husband, Ted, and two sons, Will, 4, and Stephen, 2.

36

the Year” in May 2009. She raised more than $35,000 to help fight blood cancers and improve the lives of patients and their families.

Cinocco is pictured with Hayden De Puy, an 11-year-old acute lymphoblastic leukemia survivor.

Jason Yauney and Nardos Abebe Gebremariam were married in Washington, D.C., on June 27, 2009.

president at Iconik Enterprises in New York, a full-service real estate capital markets firm that assists clients in the acquisition and disposition of investment property in New York and throughout the United States. Polevoy heads the commercial, medical, and retail leasing division in Manhattan.

Previously, he was at Cushman & Wakefield in its New York Capital Markets Group.

in their international expansion, and to inform young people about international trade careers.

John Whyte married Stacy Holz-

bauer in Marty, S.D., on Sept.

5, 2009. They met in Atlanta in 2005 and have since relocated to the Twin Cities. After graduating, Whyte spent six years at UPS. He now is a product manager with GE Capital Fleet Services. Holzbauer is a veterinary epidemiologist with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

IEMBA Class of 2003 Stephanie Cinocco

was named the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society New Mexico/El Paso chapters “2009 Woman of

Mark Damato and his wife, Kristin

Julason Damato, welcomed Sophia Kathelene, who was born on July 16, 2009, at Georgetown University Hospital. Their son, Collin, will be 2 in November and is a wonderful big brother to his “baby Sia.” Sophia had her first six minutes of beach time, just long enough to get a picture, when she was three weeks old.

Philippe de Dreuzy has been appointed French Foreign Trade Advisor (CCE) by the French government. He is part of the Washington, D.C., committee and represents the insurance sector through Rutherfoord.

This network of private business people shares the experience of its members to provide the French government with recommendations, to sponsor small companies

Tony Davis and his wife, Shannon,

are the proud parents of Colvin Francis Davis, born on March 18, 2009. They are learning that having a baby is like having another full-time job with no pay, but think the experience is priceless and a blessing.

Bob Pertierra and his wife, Ericka,

welcomed Eva Sophia Pertierra on Sept. 1, 2009. Mother and baby are doing well.

MBA Class of 2003 Peter Gasca’s company, Wild

Creations, recently inked a deal with Brookstone to feature its ecosystem habitats, “Frog-O-

msb.georgetown.edu

PROFILE

Cast of Millions

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

David Gottlieb

S

omeone forgot to tell Shahed Amanullah that specialinterest media companies are difficult to launch, maintain, and monetize. Someone also forgot to tell him that it is incredibly challenging to reel in millions of followers who have felt marginalized by the media for decades.

No matter. Since his 2000 launch of Halalfire­ Media, which targets the Muslim community, 41-year-old ­Amanullah (MBA ’06) has succeeded where many online startups have become monumental botches. His company, based in Austin, Texas, and London, has drawn impressive Web traffic and global influence. The sites he oversees, including altmuslim.com and zabihah.com, attract up to 7 million visitors worldwide each year.

“We designed our sites on a ‘by us, for all’ model, meaning that while the sites come from within the Muslim community, the discourse is designed to be applicable to all,” says Amanullah.

Before Halalfire, there was no informational base for Muslims in the United States and Europe seeking services, news, or media — or even restaurants. The latter prompted the company’s first creation: zabihah.com, which currently is the largest guide to Halal restaurants (serving food designated permissible by Islamic law) in the world. The site has listings for 7,000 restaurants and markets, and is available on GPS units and mobile devices such as the iPhone.

Perhaps Halalfire’s most influential creation has been altmuslim.com, launched in 2001. “After 9/11, I found our community at the focal point of media discussion, but what was usually discussed had little to do with our lives as Muslim-Americans,” says Amanullah, who was raised in Southern California. “The subjects — Muslims themselves — were not participating in the discussion and became subject to the whims of the masses.”

Amanullah says that one of the most impressive trophies altmuslim.com has on its media shelf is its audience: split evenly between Muslims and others who are interested in the site’s content. The site has a disproportionately high readership among think tanks, academics, and U.S. government officials.

Shahed Amanullah’s Web sites provide a wealth of information and discussion for Muslims, on topics ranging from Halal food to politics.

During Amanullah’s time at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, he was routinely summoned to meetings at the departments of State and Homeland Security. Officials sought his advice on appealing to Muslims to be more active in fighting extremism, on reframing the “war on terror” so it did not unwittingly suggest that all Muslims were by default on the “wrong side,” and on training European Muslims to get moderate voices on the Web, Amanullah says.

The visibility of altmuslim.com has introduced new MuslimAmerican journalists to the world, and zabihah.com has doubled its revenues in each of the past four years, although Amanullah admits that monetizing online content is challenging. “For altmuslim.com, we decided that we were more concerned about influence than profit,” he says. “But the food site is a different story, because it drives nearly $100 million of commerce a year, and we are determined to get our fair share through marketing partnerships with restaurants and major producers of Halal goods.”

Amanullah thinks new-media outlets such as his will not eliminate traditional communicators. “We actually see ourselves as partners with the mainstream media, helping them do their job better by consulting on story ideas, contributing content, and sharing resources,” says Amanullah. “We are helping c ­ reate new partnerships that will answer lots of questions about the future of media.”

And because the future includes millions of Muslim-American voices, it is a good bet that Amanullah will be helping to drive the dialogue.

— Michael McCarthy

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ALUMNINotes

Sphere,” in every Brookstone store nationwide, as well as in their catalog and on their Web site. Wild Creations also has signed deals with nationwide chains Learning Express and Hallmark to feature its EcoAquarium habitat.

BSBA Class of 2004 Kirk and Ashley (Bangart) Syme

welcomed their son, Kirk Charles III (“Charlie”), on June 17, 2009.

The family lives in San Francisco, where Ashley works for the Clorox Co. and Kirk works for Weston Presidio. He will attend the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, in the fall.

MBA Class of 2004 Eric Pratt and his wife, Tiffany,

recently celebrated the birth of their second child, Evan Howard Pratt, born on July 21, 2009.

MBA Class of 2005 Luis Canepari and his wife, Diana,

had their second baby on Aug. 12.

Her name is Gabriella Canepari and she weighed 7 lbs., 10 oz.

Mother and daughter are doing great!

Alexa Fernandez heads the George-

IEMBA 11 Class of 2006 Jen McDonald moved from Wash-

MacKenzie Frady Arbogust is the

ington, D.C., in fall 2008 across the country to Kansas City, Mo., to be closer to her roots. She currently works as a group account director at VML, an interactive marketing agency that is part of WPP, the world’s largest advertising conglomerate.

associate executive director for finance and administration of ForKids, an organization based in Norfolk, Va., working to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty for families and children.

Calluna Euving still enjoys the

chief of staff job at the Mathematical Association of America.

She gave birth to her third son, Samuel, on May 19, 2009. In between working, raising three boys, her husband Udo’s travels, and renovations of the house, she is always eager to catch up with other IEMBA 11s. software federal division in Bethesda, Md. In his spare time, he enjoys working on the house he just bought in Gaithersburg, Md. Brian Saal is an associate with

the investment sales group at Jones Lang LaSalle in Washington, D.C. He has been in his current position since August 2007, after transitioning out of the Navy. He is an avid Cubs fan and lives with his wife, Laura, in Fairfax, Va. Dan Shoemaker and Jennifer Shoe-

Tatiana Jeromskaia won one of

venture in the children’s products industry. Her Chicago-based firm, CuteyBaby LLC, designs and manufactures removable wall decals and wash-at-home modern cloth diapers for babies. Her husband, Tom, and daughter, Zola, 2, are happy and healthy.

maker are proud to announce the birth of their daughter, Katherine Campbell Shoemaker, on June 8, 2009, in Hinsdale, Ill. Dan is a business unit director for USIS in Oak Brook, Ill. Ada Vaughan launched a new

MBA Class of 2007

Brown Blake, had twin girls, Delilah and Charlotte, on April 2, 2009. Both parents and daughters are doing fine.

Luis Canepari welcomed his 7

lb., 10 oz. daughter, Gabriella Canepari, on August 12, 2009.

Mother and baby are in great shape.

Gallery in San Francisco in 2002 and continues to expand globally by exhibiting at art fairs in Dubai, New York, Hong Kong, and Miami, and by producing exhibitions for artists from Iraq, Pakistan, India, Korea, Japan, and, of course, San Francisco.

Athena Hill celebrated a milestone

birthday by hiking Kilimanjaro in March 2009.

MBA Class of 2008 Jonathan Spielman and his wife,

Shira, announce the birth of their daughter, Yakira Sarah Chana, on July 27, 2009, who joins sister Leora, 5, and brother Shlomo, 2.

IEMBA Class of 2008

John Seeley started Acrius Capital

in February 2009 with Paul DeLuca, CEO of Meritus Capital, and Peter Muwonge, a fellow MBA 2006 graduate. Acrius Capital is a corporate finance company that specializes in helping companies that are struggling with cash flow constraints, providing asset-based financing and debt negotiation.

MBA Class of 2006 Katie Mierau and Andrew Creedon

were married in August 2009.

They live in Boston, where Mierau is a private equity attorney with

38

Proskauer Rose LLP and Creedon is an investment analyst with Sun Life Financial.

Matthew Blake and his wife, Sarah

Wendi Norris started Frey Norris Scott Frohman runs IBM’s Rational

town Alumni Club of the U.K.— the U.K. Hoyas. The club organizes a variety of events in London, including monthly happy hours as well as cultural, educational, and social events. Please get in touch by sending an email to georgetownlondon@yahoo.com. the five coveted VIP awards for Booz Allen Hamilton, the Values in Practice award. She received a silver-plated frame, a camera, a choice between a land-based or cruise vacation, as well as two extra vacation days.

MBA Class of 2006

Quintin V. Pastrana manages government affairs and policy advocacy for Chevron’s geothermal and power division. He is pursuing a master’s degree in international relations at Cambridge University and recently founded the Library Renewal Partnership, building community educational centers in the Philippines.

BSBA Class of 2009 Doug Goff moved to Houston and joined Hines REIT in August. He works as assistant project manager on the Core Fund, which targets trophy, Class A commercial real estate office assets. He will focus on properties on the east coast, the southeast United States, and select international markets. Drop him a line if you are in town at douglasgoff@gmail.com.

msb.georgetown.edu

ALUMNINotes

MBA Class of 2009 Martin Franklin and his wife, Heidi Franklin, are proud to announce

the birth of their son, Marius Matthew Franklin, on July 23, 2009.

AttendeeAttendeess

health care practice at Edelman, and Justin works in the capital markets group at Citi.

Justin McMahan and Andrea

McMahan were on the ground during the June 7 Lebanon and June 12 Iran elections this past summer and shared their story on Good Morning America, MSNBC, and other media outlets. You can read more on their blog fromtheregion.blogspot.com.

They have since moved to New York, where Andrea has joined the

IEMBA Class of 2009 Patrick Sheridan sold his company,

Cloverleaf Consulting, to Three Pillar Software in August 2009.

Sheridan will continue on with Three Pillar to build the user experience practice and focus on strategic partnerships and business development.

Fabio Padilla’s (Leadership for Global Competitiveness 2009) project initiative was nominated as a finalist by the InterAmerican Development Bank in their “World of Solutions, Innovations for People with Disabilities” competition. His project aims to break barriers of accessibility to beaches in his country, Brazil. 152 proposals from 23 countries were submitted.

Upcoming Alumni Events Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business has more alumni events than ever before. Join the McDonough alumni LinkedIn and Facebook groups to receive invitations and get the most up-to-date information.

E v ent

D ate

November 3

McDonough Alumni Networking Event

April 29–May 2 John Carroll Weekend

New York, Cornell Club, 6–8 p.m.

Washington, D.C., Georgetown Campus

April 3

Sixth Annual Run for Rigby

Washington, D.C., Georgetown Campus

Early June

New Executive Alumni Happy Hour

Washington, D.C.

Professor Ron Goodstein: “Where Did They Go? Keeping Customers in a Downturn Economy”

June 3–6

Reunion Weekend 2010

Washington, D.C., Georgetown Campus

June 4

Open House for all McDonough Alumni

D ate

Professor Brooks Holtom: “Keeping Your Best and Brightest: Award-winning Research on Employee Retention”

Hosted by Dean George Daly November 4

McDonough Alumni Networking Event

Boston, Hampshire House, 6–8 p.m.

Hosted by Dean George Daly

November 11 Georgetown University and McDonough School of Business Alumni Networking Event

New York, Cornell Club, 7–9 p.m.

E v ent

Washington, D.C., Georgetown Campus, Rafik B. Hariri Building June 5

McDonough Gala Celebration

“ One Year Later: Senior Executives Revisit the Road Ahead” Hosted by Georgetown University and the McDonough School of Business

MBA, IEMBA, and EML Reunion

February

Georgetown Men’s Basketball Game

Please also join us during the year for the Distinguished ­Leaders Series (see page 11 for details).

February

Alumni Networking Event

Washington, D.C., Verizon Center

Miami

Classes 1985, 1990, 2000, and 2005

Washington, D.C., Georgetown Campus, Rafik B. Hariri Building

Would you like to have an event in your city?

For more information, e-mail alumni@msb.edu

or visit

msb.georgetown.edu/alumni

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

39

BusinessSense

Social Value: Doing Good to Do Well

40

­ onsumers have long claimed they would prefer to buy from C socially responsible companies. Corporations increasingly view socially responsible strategies as a way to inspire and attract employees, enhance their brand, expand value propositions, open new markets, and increase trust and loyalty. In other words, they see it as part of their core enterprise.

Although corporate philanthropy is a useful strategy, this is no longer about just writing a check. It also is about employing social marketing, engaging company employees as volunteers, and using strategic business practices such as reducing supplier costs in an environmentally friendly way. It is about building profit centers around water preservation in an era of climate change, and pursuing wellness and disease prevention as a business play. In short, it is about the bottom line, and it is about social change.

Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business is an ideal place to develop student, alumni, community, and international strategies to enhance these concepts. We are in Washington, where social issues predominate, and we have a global orientation, which is where social enterprise is headed. Moreover, we focus on leadership, which is critical to tackling our nation’s and our planet’s huge social and economic problems — and capitalizing on the opportunities they create.

We already have a solid base from which to grow. Alan Andreasen is a leader in the field. Associate Professor Edward Soule teaches corporate social responsibility. This fall I am teaching courses in leadership and management of nonprofit organizations and social responsibility. Dean George Daly is committed to making McDonough a hub for social enterprise research, teaching, and outreach. And our students are on board. If you are interested, we would like to hear from you, too.

David Lesh

L

ast spring, I co-taught a course about social enterprise at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business with Professor Alan Andreasen.

We talked with our students about creating social value in and across the corporate, nonprofit, and government sectors.

By the end of the semester, I discovered just what I had hoped.

Many of our MBA students, most of whom were headed for business careers, were vitally interested in social responsibility and in making a positive social and economic difference. It is not so much about doing good beyond the bottom line, but as part of the bottom line.

This is happening outside of Georgetown, too. According to a recent article in The New York Times, many business schools, including Columbia, Harvard, and Wharton, have seen an explosion of interest in ethics courses and in student activities — clubs, lectures, and conferences — about personal and corporate responsibility and how to view business as part of a larger social community. It is about doing well (enhancing financial performance and building wealth for shareholders) and doing good (improving­society and creating value for m ­ ultiple stakeholders).

This trend is not confined to the halls of business schools, either. The idea of doing well while doing good, or doing good in order to do well, is growing rapidly among U.S. and transnational corporations. They see it as a way to create sustainable value for their companies.

Business leaders increasingly recognize that fulfilling their responsibilities in public life will ­determine how well we do as a society and how well they do as corporations. This is not a new idea. Companies have long been involved in social initiatives. For instance, the National High Blood Pressure Education Program in the United States, which began in the early 1970s, had corporate involvement from the very beginning. Pharmaceutical companies were engaged in the program because they anticipated market growth for their antihypertension medications as physicians, patients, and the public became better educated and were persuaded to control the disease.

But what is new is how much more integral and strategic these social initiatives have become, and how they are more and more related to corporate success.

Bill Gates talks about making market forces work better for the world’s poor through what he calls “creative capitalism.”

By Bill Novelli, distinguished professor of the practice

Write to us at GeorgetownBusiness@msb.edu

Bill Novelli, named one of the 100 most influential public relations professionals of the 20th century by the industry’s leading publication, has served as CEO of AARP, president of the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and executive vice president of CARE, the world’s largest private relief and development organization. msb.georgetown.edu

2010 Reunion Weekend June 3–6

June 4 Open House for all McDonough Alumni Join us for an evening of cocktails and conversations with your classmates in the Rafik B. Hariri Building.

June 5 McDonough Gala Celebration MBA, IEMBA, and EML alumni from the classes of 1985, 1990, 2000, and 2005 are invited to a celebration in the Rafik B. Hariri Building.

To sign up for the 2010 Reunion Weekend, go to reunion.georgetown.edu.

For more information, go to msb.georgetown.edu/alumni.

John Carroll Weekend April 29–May 2, 2010 | Washington, D.C. Don't miss this one-of-a-kind educational and networking opportunity. Gain exclusive access to leading international, business and political leaders at special power breakfasts and lunches held throughout this dynamic weekend. Alumni from all schools and programs are invited to enjoy a host of educational panels, cultural tours and social events in the company of Georgetown University

Georgetown University Alumni Association

alumni, students, faculty and friends.

To learn more, visit http://jcw.georgetown.edu.

A weekend of social, cultural and intellectual engagemen t C

Georgetown

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

Cert no. SCS-COC-000648

Join the Conversation!

Launched this fall, the Georgetown Business C ­ onversations series seeks to illuminate complex issues facing today’s business world through the sharing of information from leading scholars, practitioners, and policymakers.

Share your opinion A key component of the series will be interaction from individuals who view the discussions online at msbmedia.georgetown.edu. Viewers are encouraged to join the conversations by posting questions, comments, and observations to the site.

The speakers will be available at future dates to respond to the postings online.

Join the conversation at msbmedia.georgetown.edu.