Georgetown Business Spring 2010

Georgetown

BUSINESS SPRING 2010

Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business Training Latin America’s next leaders Doing good meets doing well

Feature Fatigue When does utility become futility?

SPRING 2010

Georgetown

Business Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business

The Social Bottom Line

by Melanie D.G. Kaplan

Contents

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Social enterprise and corporate America used to be as different as Birkenstocks and wingtips. Now the two stride side by side as businesses realize they can make a difference while making a profit.

Round-trip Leadership

by Andrea Orr

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Proven young leaders from Latin America come to Georgetown for the Global Competitiveness Leadership Program with enthusiasm and drive.

They leave with skills and focus to raise the economic prospects of their home countries.

*Satisfaction Not Guaranteed

by Chris Blose When it comes to product features — when more means better in the eyes of buyers — how much is too much? Researcher Debora Thompson’s work has implications for businesses and consumers alike.

14 Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

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20 26 COVER: Illustration by David Plunkert

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Georgetown

Business Dean

George Daly Associate Dean Marketing and Communications

Chris M. Kormis Editor and Director of Editorial Services

Jill Lindstrom Staff Writer

Teresa Mannix

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From the Dean Dean George Daly writes about the many ways the school has become a center of scholarship.

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News Keep up to date on life at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business with stories about the future of finance, a new center for financial markets, a visit from Arnold Schwarzenegger, a hat trick for student teams, boosts for the school’s rankings, entrepreneurial endeavors, and more.

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Faculty Spotlight 12 Research With Relevance From his White House advisement to his scholarly research, Assistant Professor Korok Ray wants his work to matter.

Managing Editor

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Chris Blose

13 Books Georgetown McDonough School of Business professors cover international marketing, business ethics, and the Oracle of Omaha.

Art Director

Jeffrey Kibler Photo Editor

Sara Elder Tara Kawar Project Manager

Connie Otto

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

Production Artist

Brenda Waugh Contributors

Coeli Carr Melanie D.G. Kaplan Michael McCarthy Andrea Orr Chloe Thompson

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.

33 An Evolving Career After selling a successful company, Patrick Sheridan (IEMBA ’09) adds another entry to a résumé that includes “mural painter” and “usability expert.”

35 Kitchen Confidence Melissa d’Arabian (MBA ’93), host of the Food Network’s Ten Dollar Dinners, experiments in efficient and affordable food — on set and at home.

37 Get Social Tim O’Shaughnessy’s (BSBA ’04) online brainchild, LivingSocial.com, lets users share their personal top 5 lists on Facebook.

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Courtesy Food Network

Copy Editor

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Business Sense Financial Regulation: One Year Later Visiting Professor Phillip Swagel tackles what has and has not been done in the wake of an economic meltdown and previews what may be on the way.

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From the Dean A Center for Scholarship

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n my Spring 2009 column, I wrote about my hopes for a new future for Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, a future in which our talent — faculty, students, and staff — would be collected under one roof in the new Rafik B. Hariri Building. We would be a center of scholarship at the heart of the nation’s political and, increasingly, financial capital.

In this issue, you will read news of our entrepreneurship initiatives, which inspire students by encouraging entrepreneurial thinking. Our students take part in competitions, and some even start their own businesses. They also are just as concerned with the social bottom line as they are with profits, which is why, under the leadership of William Novelli, we are moving forward with the Social Enterprise Initiative and programs in nonprofit management.

Our Center for Financial Institutions, Policy, and Governance recognizes Washington’s expanding role in the financial world.

Under the guidance of Phillip Swagel, who also provides this issue’s Business Sense column, this center sponsors research and public discussions, including “The Future of Investing” conference held earlier this semester. Furthermore, in recognition of the growing importance of real estate as an asset class, our Real Estate Initiative, led by Jeff Reid, fills the need for high-quality education in real estate finance.

Our new facilities and focus also prove attractive to highly motivated young researchers and professors, two of whom are highlighted in this issue. Korok Ray brings his White House experience and drive to create policy-relevant economic research to our school. Likewise, Debora Thompson’s research on “feature fatigue” has attracted awards and attention, in part because of its implications for product manufacturers, marketers, and con­ sumers alike.

We cannot forget our students, either. Their excellence is evident once again in a strong showing in case competitions this semester, including one triumphant weekend when three different MBA teams won three different competitions. Our undergraduate students also recently demonstrated their strengths by placing second in the inaugural Battle of the Beltway Case Competition. With results such as these, I expect that a year from now, I will have even more impressive news to share with you in these pages.

George Daly Dean

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

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News Experts Outline the Future of Investing crossroads of that activity.”

Robert Reynolds, president and CEO of Putnam Invest­ ments, served as keynote speaker. “Given the rollercoaster ride that we have had, it is a pleasure to step back and gain some perspective and draw some lessons for the future of investing,” he said.

Reynolds talked about the linkage between investing and the retirement savings chal­ lenge that America faces. “Both of these systems need vibrant capital markets and a strong financial system to fuel the economic growth that pro­ vides their funding,” he said.

He explained how the issues are very closely linked as the retirement savings system is based on Social Security taxes and individual savings invested in 401(k) plans. “Both Social Security and workplace savings also need strengthening at this time if we want to avoid future hardships for future retirees.”

Reynolds offered three important actions: to make

Social Security solvent for the long term, to extend coverage for retirement systems for all employees, and to implement autopilot plans as cited in the Pension Protection Act of 2006.

Peter J. Clare, managing director of The Carlyle Group, spoke about the activities of large private equity firms and summarized the four major changes he has seen come out of the economic downturn.

First and foremost, he men­ tioned a “return to basics” where equity firms are again pursuing businesses with pru­ dent leverage levels and stable earnings and cash flows.

Clare talked about charac­ teristics of a successful private equity manager. “We can’t be pure financial people,” he said.

“We have to be one-half of a finance person, one-half of an operating expert. We need to

Larry Kochard, Chrystia Freeland, and Peter J. Clare

Phil Humnicky

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eorgetown Univer­ sity’s McDonough School of Business, in partnership with the Financial Times, hosted “The Future of Investing” on Jan. 13.

Sponsored by the school’s Cen­ ter for Financial Institutions, Policy, and Governance and organized by Phillip Swagel, director of the center, the event featured experts on finance and investing. Chrystia Freeland, U.S. managing editor for the Financial Times, served as moderator.

George Daly, dean of Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, welcomed the 250 guests gathered in the Hariri Building’s Lohrfink Auditorium, noting George­ town’s strategic location. “It is clear that the center of the financial world is moving closer to Washington, D.C. And for that reason, we believe that we can and should serve a particular role as genera­ tor, disseminator, and hon­ est broker of ideas about the financial future here at the

New Center Creates Connections to Financial Markets

L Phillip Swagel

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aunched this spring, Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business Center for Financial Institutions, Policy, and Gov­ ernance helps connect the school with the world of financial markets and related policy issues.

By sponsoring research, holding conferences, and hosting a Web site, the center provides thoughtful policy commentaries by faculty, scholars, practi­ tioners, and other center affiliates. In addition to “The Future of Investing,” spring events include a discussion with financial journalist Roger Low­ enstein, author of The End of Wall Street, and New York Times reporter Andrew Ross Sorkin, author of the bestselling book Too Big to Fail.

Led by Professor Phillip Swagel, former assistant secretary for economic policy at the U.S. Depart­ ment of the Treasury, the center enriches the intellec­tual life of the school and contributes to an informed public discussion regarding critical pol­ icy issues relating to financial markets. It succeeds the Capital Markets Research Center founded by Professor David Walker in 1988 and most recently directed by Professor Lynn Doran.

“With Washington, D.C., now a global financial capital — for better or for worse — Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business is ideally situated to contribute to the policy debate on key financial market issues,” says Swagel.

msb.georgetown.edu

News Schwarzenegger Addresses D.C. Business Community at Gala

Phil humnicky

I Robert Reynolds

know how to increase revenue, penetrate new markets, and have a global reach and perspective.”

He also emphasized the impor­ tance of developing a deep ver­ tical expertise in the industries private equity firms invest in.

The fundraising environment will be “brutally difficult” in the near term, Clare noted, but he assured the audience that the rumors of demise in private equity are exaggerated, and that the industry will survive and thrive in the future.

Larry Kochard, chief invest­ ment officer at Georgetown University, discussed lessons learned from the last couple of years and also talked about the so­called endowment approach to investing. “It became con­ ventional wisdom that high allocation to alternative assets was the secret sauce,” Kochard said. “But it’s just not as simple as that.

“It’s ultimately about execu­ tion,” he continued. “The value of the private investments is that [the managers] can be

hands­on with their companies, energy­producing properties, and real estate properties and add real value, which a public company may be incapable of doing because of various prin­ cipal agent problems.”

With too much money allocated to alternative assets, such as hedge funds, private buyout firms, real estate, energy, and timber, investors substituted fairly well under­ stood return­risk characteristics for additional liquidity risk and complexity risk, and the investments became harder to execute. The major les­ son learned, Kochard told the audience, is to better manage liquidity risk, perform thor­ ough asset liability analysis, and ensure that you have sufficient liquidity to capitalize on good investment opportunities.

— Jill Lindstrom

n a gala event to mark the opening of the new Rafik B. Hariri Building at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger addressed the Washington, D.C., business community.

Schwarzenegger, who holds a business degree from the University of Wisconsin, said he learned the value of business when he realized the people running bodybuilding competitions were the ones making all the money. “While I was pumping my muscles, they were pumping their wal­ lets,” he said.

Using his business skills, he began promoting bodybuild­ ing competitions in America, which have become the Arnold’s Classic. He also started a mail­order business to sell bodybuilding products and, eventually, books and films.

Since then, he has woven a business mindset through all of his ventures. Schwarzeneg­ ger said he actively built his

success as an actor by becom­ ing one of the first to promote his films internationally. He also has invested his money wisely, he said. Schwarzeneg­ ger said he has applied the same business models to his role as governor of California.

“One thing I have been try­ ing to do ever since I’ve gotten into government is the same thing businesses do, which corporate CEOs must address all the time, and that is to create a vision — a vision for where you want to take your organization. And it’s the same when you run a state,” he said.

Part of his vision is to move California forward in eco­ nomic growth and environ­ mentalism. During his tenure, California has become a leader in the number of clean­energy businesses in the United States, with more than 10,000.

After the address, Dean George Daly presented the governor with the school’s Dean’s Medal, the highest honor bestowed by the dean.

View a webcast of this event at msb.georgetown.edu

Check out the new Web site for Georgetown Business magazine, featuring blogging capabilities, social networking integration, and an advanced search function. Visit msb.georgetown.edu/newsroom/magazine

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Phil humnicky

Web Site Launches for Georgetown Business Magazine

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger

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News MBA Students Score Case Competition Hat Trick

MBA Students Host Strategy World Cup Case Competition

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tudents from George­ town’s McDonough School of Business MBA Full­Time Program placed first in three separate case com­ petitions Feb. 17–19.

“From mergers and acqui­ sitions to venture capital to sports management, students at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business have proved their ability to provide leader­ ship in a variety of business disciplines,” said Jett Pihakis, associate dean of the MBA Full­ Time Program.

At the ACG Cup case compe­ tition on Feb. 17, Georgetown’s team defeated other regional teams, including American University, Howard University, and the University of Mary­ land, to earn the top prize and $1,750. This is the first year the school has entered the competi­ tion, in which teams provide analysis and recommendations to a company considering an acquisition offer and defend their decisions to a panel of investment professionals. Team members included second­year MBA students Jessica Garvey, Amit Padhiar, Jason Sain, and

Above: Rob Johnson, Pierce Reeves, Hale Simon, James Ou; Below: Joshua Knight, Jay Rosenthal, Jeff Reid, Jorge Bayona, Lucas Loureiro, Jonathan Buser

Ben Welch and first­year student Erica Koszalka.

On Feb. 19, another George­ town McDonough School of Business team won first place and $1,500 at the Mid­Atlantic Regional Venture Capital Invest­ ment Competition at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, where it defeated teams from Indiana University, the Univer­ sity of Maryland, the University of Rochester, the University of Virginia, and Vanderbilt Uni­ versity. The team of second­year MBA students Jorge Bayona, Jonathan Buser, Joshua Knight, and Lucas Loureiro and first­year student Jay Rosenthal

will advance to the International VCIC Finals in April at the Uni­ versity of North Carolina. The VCIC places MBA students from top business schools in the role of venture capital firms deciding among investment opportunities from real companies.

Also on Feb. 19, students from the Georgetown Entertain­ ment and Media Alliance earned first place in the San Diego Padres/San Diego State Univer­ sity International Sports MBA Case Competition, defeating teams from Columbia Univer­ sity, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, New York University, San Diego State University, the University of California at Los Angeles, the University of Michigan, the University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Southern California. First­year MBA stu­ dents Rob Johnson, James Ou, Pierce Reeves, and Hale Simon analyzed the development of new revenue streams for the San Diego Padres after ownership changes and efforts to rebuild the franchise.

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eorgetown’s McDonough School of Business Graduate Student Consulting Group is hosting its first Strat­ egy World Cup case com­ petition April 8 and 9. The invitation­only competition challenges graduate students from around the world to tackle tough global chal­ lenges at the intersection of business strategy and public policy. Based on a preliminary mini­case in early March, five teams advanced to the finals.

These students received a new case involving the European Union’s policies on geneti­ cally modified organisms and had four weeks to prepare.

“This case competi­ tion asks students to view a complex issue from a variety of perspectives and provide a solution using research, insight, and creativity,” says second­year MBA student and organizer Michael Welch.

In the final, teams will present their recommenda­ tions to a panel of senior leaders in business, govern­ ment, and consulting. The winning team will receive a cash prize. — Teresa Mannix

For more information, visit www.strategyworldcup.com

msb.georgetown.edu

Fortune 50 Companies Seek Help From MBA Students

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ractical learning is a long­ established and successful part of the Georgetown MBA program. The Global Residency, for example, requires all MBA students to obtain real­ world international business consulting experience. Starting this fall, the MBA Consulting Corps will offer an alternative for consulting projects without the need to cross national borders.

“We wanted to connect the MBA program with the local community and offer students opportunities to work for clients drawn from the business and not­for­profit community in the United States, as well,” says Eric Whittenberg (MBA ’10), who initiated the program in sum­ mer 2009. “Just as important, we wanted to give alumni an opportunity to get to know current students and to support their alma mater by sponsoring consulting projects.”

Scheduled to launch in fall 2010, the Consulting Corps will offer MBA students oppor­ tunities to gain professional experience while providing outstanding value for compa­ nies and nonprofit organiza­ tions, mainly in the Washington metropolitan area.

“Even though the Consulting Corps has not yet opened the

application process, more than a dozen organizations, ranging from Fortune 50 companies to NGOs, have already expressed an interest,” says Raja Das (MBA ’10), who works on marketing and program design for the Consulting Corps.

Organizations whose proj­ ects are approved and selected will hand­pick a team of five MBA students to work on a project for 10 weeks. A faculty member will mentor the team, and each organization will be assigned an MBA Consult­ ing Corps managing partner to assist with any questions or concerns.

Dick Fredericks (BSBA ’68), a member of the school’s board, calls the program a “win­win­ win situation” for the students, the school, and the company involved. Fredericks, who serves as a board member of a leading wine wholesaler in California and Hawaii, is excited about the opportunity the program offers.

“Georgetown MBA students are impressive, which, when cou­ pled with their teacher/mentor, ensures that we’ll receive great advice,” he says. “It could be a game changer for our firm, and it’s available at a price point that is attractive to a mid­sized company.”

If you are interested in receiving first­rate consulting services from Georgetown MBA students at a fraction of the cost of a large consulting firm, contact MBAconsultingcorps@msb.edu or visit msb.georgetown.edu/ConsultingCorps Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Undergrads Place Second at First-Ever Battle of the Beltway

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team of undergraduate students placed second at the inaugural Battle of the Beltway Federal Consulting Case Competition, sponsored by Deloitte Consulting’s Federal Practice. The team, consisting of juniors David Alvarado and Meghan McCormick from Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business and Peter Nesbitt and Kate Taylor from the Walsh School of Foreign Service, competed against students from American University, The George Washington University, and Howard University.

The competition featured a current Deloitte Consulting Federal Practice engagement related to the Federal Railroad Administration’s high­speed rail grant program. During the finals, held Jan. 21–22, teams had 15 minutes to present their cases to a panel of three Deloitte representatives.

“We all brought unique knowledge and experiences to the table that really helped us prepare for the case,” says McCormick, a finance major.

Twelve teams participated in the competition, with three from Georgetown coached and mentored by Professor Jeffrey Macher and sponsored by the Georgetown McDonough School of Business Undergraduate Program Office.

“In this competition, we learned what it takes to do well in the ‘real world’ as well as against our peers at other schools,” McCormick says. “I think most of all, we learned how much we love doing this kind of work.”

JuliE ann WooDForD

Raja Das and Eric Whittenberg

Jill linDSTrom

News

Meghan McCormick, David Alvarado, and Peter Nesbitt with Jen Chaggaris and Ed Van Buren from Deloitte Consulting

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News Training a New Kind of Entrepreneur

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to support incoming students who build startups that are socially conscious and econom­ ically sustainable.

In 2009, the student-built bike rental service BorrowBike won the Georgetown Univer­ sity Social Entrepreneurship Competition, in part with per­ suasive marketing illustrating that its $69-per-semester rental fee made a bicycle more afford­ able than an occasional latte.

One year later, the business is modestly profitable and has an inventory of 15 bicycles, with plans to expand to keep up with demand on Georgetown’s campus.

Boris Nanazashvili (BSBA ’11), who launched the rental service with Danielle Calleja (C ’11), Emily Notaro (C ’11), and Arthur Woods (BSBA ’10), says that although profits will help sustain and grow the business, his real motivation was to offer a service that was affordable enough to benefit the campus community. Nanazashvili says he learned a lot about writing

contracts and negotiating with suppliers, which he believes will give him confidence with future entrepreneurial pursuits.

Scott Taylor Howard (MBA ’11), president of the Georgetown MBA Entrepreneur­ ship Club, says that while not everyone will go on to be a full-fledged entrepreneur after graduation, there is a new class of businesspeople — which he calls “intropreneurs” — work­ ing as innovators within larger companies.

Reid hopes the new Cen­ ter for Entrepreneurship will serve students on both paths.

“We should not be encourag­ ing every student to go out on their own and start a company,” he says. “But by exposing all students to entrepreneurial thinking, we will help them feel confident in their ability to own their own future.”

The school exposes students to entrepreneurial thinking in other ways, too, includ­ ing the Jan. 29 Georgetown Entrepreneurship Summit. The

Nico Durand

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onventional wisdom holds that there are two types of businesspeople: those who spend their careers working for established organizations and those who build businesses from scratch.

As faculty and staff at George­ town’s McDonough School of Business prepare to launch the new Center for Entrepreneur­ ship, they say the lines that once differentiated “employee” and “entrepreneur” have blurred significantly. They believe all students can benefit from studying entrepreneurship, even if they have no plans to launch a startup after graduation.

“I want Georgetown to be known as a place that celebrates entrepreneurship and exposes all students to it,” says Jeff Reid, director of the Center for Entrepreneurship, which is assembling an undergradu­ ate curriculum set to officially launch in the fall of 2011.

“Entrepreneurship is incredibly important, because the world is changing so rapidly and there are so many big problems to be solved.”

The forthcoming center will help formalize the McDonough School of Business’ commit­ ment to equipping students with the skills to launch new companies, create nonprofit organizations, and be original thinkers within large organi­ zations. It will build upon a thriving network of entrepre­ neurial initiatives on campus that includes an Entrepreneurs Club, a Social Entrepreneurship Competition, and the intense two-year Compass Fellows (see “Fellows With a Cause”) pro­ gram that two seniors created

David McCourt, chairman and CEO of Granahan McCourt Capital, at the Jan. 29 Entrepreneurship Summit

event featured lectures on “The Meaning of Entrepreneurship” and “The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly about Entrepreneur­ ship” as well as panel discus­ sions on “Opportunities in Clean Technologies: Minority Entrepreneurs” and “Investors’ View: How to Get Funding.”

Attendees also participated in an elevator pitch competition highlighting their own new business ideas. — Andrea Orr

Boris Nanazashvili with BorrowBike

msb.georgetown.edu

News Entrepreneurial Energy

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f you’ve never tried an energy drink, chances are you are a woman, or you are a man put off by the image of skull­ and­crossbones, extreme sports, and the like. That’s why Dan Stanton (BSBA ’11) teamed up with three friends and business partners to exploit these holes in the growing energy drink market.

After raising more than $100,000 in funding, conducting market research, hiring chemists to formulate the product, and lining up a manufacturer, bottler, and distributor, the team launched the two­ounce Kudu “energy shot” in Georgetown campus stores in December 2009. Packaged in a blue bottle that looks more like Evian than Red Bull, Kudu combines caffeine and vitamin B in a sugar­free, berry­flavored drink marketed more like premium coffee than an “extreme” drink.

Kudu sold more than 1,000 bottles on campus in the first few weeks. Stanton and his friends are planning a test launch in a 400­store chain of convenience stores in Pennsylvania and also marketing the drink to other stores in and around Washington, D.C. “We hope to parlay that into broader regional distribution throughout the mid­Atlantic region,” says Stanton, now the company’s chief operating officer, who would like to see Kudu sold nationwide.

Fellows With a Cause

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wo Georgetown McDonough School of Business seniors have designed an intensive two­year program they believe can be instrumental in creating a new generation of socially conscious people who con­ sider the social impact of their projects from the start, rather than as an afterthought.

The Compass Fellows program, founded by Arthur Woods and Neil Shah (both BSBA ’10), combines a speaker series with trips, team build­ ing, mentoring, and intern­ ships designed to build a sense of community among students interested in using business to make a positive difference in the world. Funded by the Pru­ dential Foundation, the pro­ gram emphasizes developing plans that are both socially and financially sustainable. It cul­ minates with fellows designing their own business plans and then using seed money from a corporate sponsor to make that plan a reality.

Woods and Shah say they carefully planned the program

to help students gain experi­ ence conceptualizing, imple­ menting, managing, and sustaining a business. “We believe we are at the onset of a new age of business,” says Woods, whose personal inter­ est in social entrepreneurship previously led him to launch Mission Three, an on­campus farmers’ market, as well as an ethical consulting service.

This year, 80 students applied and 14 freshmen fellows were selected from Georgetown’s undergradu­ ate schools, including the McDonough School of Busi­ ness, the Walsh School of Foreign Service, the School of Nursing and Health Studies, and Georgetown College.

Woods and Shah say they are pleased with the diverse group of applicants, which underscores their belief that people from all walks of life can be entrepreneurs as long as they can see a new solution to an existing problem. “You can be an entrepreneur as a busi­ ness person, or as a farmer,” says Woods. — Andrea Orr

Compass Fellows with Michael Chasen (MBA ’95) (center), CEO of Backboard

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

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In the fall, founder of Pandora Internet Radio Tim Westergren spoke to a filled auditorium as part of the Distinguished Leaders Series. Westergren advised students who are interested in music to consider using their business skills to become a digital music manager. “It’s about strategy and marketing. The opportunity is there to become a one-man or one-woman label,” he said.

News

Phil humnicky

Phil humnicky

with a larger audience of undergraduate and graduate business students, faculty, staff, and alumni.

Upcoming events in the Distinguished Leaders Series include J. Willard Marriott Jr., chairman and CEO of Marriott International, Inc. (April 12); Dr. Abdul Kalam, former presi­ dent of India (April 19); Sir Richard Branson, founder of Virgin Group Ltd. (April 20); and Stefan Jacoby, president and CEO of the Volkswagen Group of America (April 22).

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eorgetown’s McDonough School of Business’ location in Washington, D.C., provides endless opportunities for students to interact with top­tier professionals from all sectors of the economy.

The MBA Leaders Breakfast series continues to present an intimate venue for students to learn from businesspeople, while the Distinguished Leaders Series welcomes accomplished leaders to share their unique expertise

Phil humnicky

Leadership Up Close and Personal

Ted Leonsis (C ’77), former AOL vice chairman and author of The Business of Happiness, led a panel discussion with other D.C. business leaders about creating double bottomline business and answered questions from students and guests on March 15.

In fall 2009, as part of the MBA Leaders Breakfast Series, Geeta Rao Gupta, president of the International Center for Research on Women, discussed disparities in gender equality around the world. She told students to “identify your passion, but don’t be rigid about which path to take for that passion.”

Watch videos from events at msbmedia.org

Jill linDSTrom

Jill linDSTrom

Gen. Peter Pace (Ret.), former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, spoke to students as part of the Distinguished Leaders Series in December 2009.

Sanjay Khosla, executive vice president and president, international for Kraft Foods, spoke at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business in November 2009.

Robert M. Kimmitt, former deputy secretary of the treasury under President George W. Bush, founding chairman of the Deloitte Center for Cross-Border Investment, and senior international counsel at the law firm of WilmerHale, spoke about “Operating at the Intersection of Business, Finance, and Government” on Feb. 2.

msb.georgetown.edu

News McDonough Executive MBA Ranked No. 1 for Women

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n the 2009 Financial Times Executive MBA Rankings, Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business is ranked No. 1 for women students. The survey also lists Georgetown’s Global Executive MBA as No. 5 in the world — and No. 1 in the United States — for both career prog­ ress and international resident students. Overall, the program ranked 37th in the world and 14th in the United States.

“Georgetown is an incred­ ibly diverse and inclusive com­ munity, reflective of its position in a global center of business and policy: Washington, D.C.,” says Gordon Swartz, associate dean for executive education

at the school. “Through Georgetown’s commitment to diversity, many success­ ful businesswomen, as well as professional women from non­business backgrounds, including the arts, the military services, the public sector and nonprofits, have been able to strengthen their business skills and advance their professional development.”

Swartz also highlighted the strong and active Execu­ tive MBA alumni group. With more than 700 graduates, the network is a powerful asset for all current Executive MBA stu­ dents, women and men alike.

“The education, network­ ing opportunities, international residencies, and relationships developed within the cohort are

Undergraduate Program Moves Up in Rankings BusinessWeek’s 2010 “Best Undergraduate B­Schools” lists Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business as the 23rd best program in the country, up from 24th last year. The school’s greatest advancement came in the Student Survey Rank, moving from 72nd last year to 29th this year. It also improved to an A+ in teaching quality and A+ in job place­ ment. Overall, the school also is tied for having the second­ highest median starting salary for its graduating class. absolutely invaluable and trans­ formational,” says Heidi Noble, a Global Executive MBA student and practice director at Tech­ nisource/Spherion. “The strong representation of women in the cohort and in the faculty and administration provides a rich

environment of learning and development.”

In 2009, Georgetown’s Global Executive MBA Program, formerly the International Execu­ tive MBA program, was ranked No. 12 by BusinessWeek and as a top­tier program by CEO Magazine.

McDonough School Climbs 38 Places in Socially Conscious Program Ranking

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he MBA Full­Time Pro­ gram at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business has advanced to No. 35 in the Aspen Institute’s 2009 “Beyond Grey Pinstripes” ranking, up from 73rd in 2007. The publication evaluates how well MBA programs dem­ onstrate significant leadership in integrating social, environ­ mental, and ethical issues.

“The ranking reflects the emphasis that Georgetown’s McDonough School of Busi­ ness places on leadership, ethics, and service,” said Jett Pihakis, associate dean of the MBA Full­Time Program. “We believe in educating our stu­ dents to become responsible

business leaders who are com­ mitted to improving the world for themselves and others.”

The school has a long tradi­ tion of socially conscious pro­ gramming that continues to be improved through curriculum enhancements, student activ­ ism, and speaker series events.

Lecturers have included Jeffrey Hollender, founder and CEO of Seventh Generation, the leading brand of green home products, and Silvio Gabriel, executive vice president of Novartis, a global leader in pharmaceuticals, vaccines, and diagnostics that places empha­ sis on corporate citizenship.

There are several new initiatives at the McDonough

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

School Advances in Full-Time MBA Ranking The Financial Times 2010 ranking of MBA programs through­ out the world lists Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business MBA Full­Time Program 38th in the world, up from No. 40 last year. The school also was named the third best for international busi­ ness, up from No. 4 in 2009.

Georgetown’s ranking includes increases in alumni placement success, the number of female students attending the school, and the number of faculty articles published in academic research journals.

School of Business that seek to further develop the school’s focus on social responsibility.

To learn more, read “The Social Bottom Line” on page 14.

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Fa c u lt y

SpotLight

Research With Relevance

J

ust three years after getting his doctorate in economics from Stanford University, Assistant Professor Korok Ray was analyzing data and making economic policy recommendations that would reach the ear of President George W. Bush.

In 2007, Ray joined the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) as a senior economist, serving under his former thesis adviser, Edward P. Lazear, then CEA chair. Since its establishment in 1946, the council has offered independent policy analysis to the White House. Ray covered financial markets — normally a quiet area, because the White House traditionally does not intervene in the financial markets.

The financial markets were not so quiet during Ray’s year at CEA. “What I saw was essentially a recession happening in slow motion,” Ray says. At its beginning, the recession was invisible to the general public, but the distress calls — from lobbyists and industry groups in real estate, bond markets, and finance, among others — began to add up to something bigger.

Ray and colleagues analyzed proposed solutions and crafted policy recommendations, from programs designed to help troubled homeowners to Bush’s January 2008 tax cut, a precursor to other stimulus initiatives.

Ray’s time in the White House, which ended in 2008, left him with more than just great stories to tell students in class. It left him with the desire to craft research that would directly influence policy. In deciding his next step, he opted not to return to the University of Chicago, where he had taught 12

from 2004 to 2007. Instead, he moved to where policy is born and joined the faculty at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

“I wanted to do research on financial regulation,” Ray says, “and I wanted my research to be more policy relevant.

Georgetown is the best place for that.”

In the wake of the recession, Ray’s research has focused on regulation and standards.

“I came to this in the White House,” he says of this timely focus. “People were saying, ‘We have a huge regulatory collapse.

The system has failed, so let’s create a universal regulator.’ That was the knee-jerk response. So I am asking, does that actually make sense?”

Ray has tackled the regulatory question by focusing on accounting standards. In a working paper, “One Size Fits All? Costs and Benefits of Uniform Accounting Standards,” he examines the two

Korok Ray

msb.georgetown.edu

major accounting standards: U.S. GAAP, the dominant system in the United States, and IFRS, the international standard.

As national and international discussions take place regarding whether the world needs one uniform standard — and which one it should be — Ray has analyzed the practical implications for different types of firms and investors. For example, he examines the cost of compliance for firms and the cost for potential investors to learn multiple standards.

“The top-line answer is that we should be skeptical of a single uniform standard worldwide,” Ray says of his preliminary results. “The reason is that we want different strokes for different folks. We want different standards because firms are very different. A manufacturing firm is different from a services firm, which is different from a bank.”

“We want different standards because firms are very different.”

—Korok Ray

Ray hopes to present his work in progress to the Securities and Exchange Commission this year, a move perfectly aligned with his goal of producing research with practical applications. He would like to pursue similar questions in other fields, too, including bank regulations — all within the framework of his dual experience in academia and the political world.

“I am more aware of political constraints now,” Ray says.

“Too often, academic research ignores feasibility and practicality and the reality of political constraints that are always impinging on economic policy.

I have a little knowledge of that now, so I hope it will guide my research.”

— Chris Blose

Books Emerging Trends, Threats, and Opportunities in International Marketing:

What Executives Need to Know Michael R. Czinkota, Georgetown University; Ilkka A. Ronkainen, Georgetown University; Masaaki Kotabe,Temple University

T

hrough a series of articles, the authors address three major changes within the context of international business that have taken place in the last decade.

First, the landscape of the global economy has changed drastically with the Asian and Latin American financial crises, the further expansion of the European Union, the emergence of the BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) as economic powerhouses, and, most recently, the global financial and economic crisis. Second, the explosive growth of information technology has had a significant effect on the way we do business internationally. Third, the book discusses how globalization has eased doing business across borders and how attention to local market demands remains a global business imperative.

Emerging Trends, Threats, and Opportunities in International Marketing constitutes a timely compilation of work addressing marketing in an uncertain world, competition from emerging and re-emerging markets, global sourcing, and the meeting of old and new global challenges.

Facu lty

SpotLight The Oxford Handbook of Business Ethics

Edited by George G. Brenkert, Georgetown University;Tom L. Beauchamp, Georgetown University

T

he Oxford Handbook of Business Ethics is a comprehensive philosophical treatment of the field of business ethics. The book’s 24 essays cover the field in a broad and accessible manner, addressing all major topics about the relationship between ethical theory and business ethics. Accomplished philosophers offer a systematic interpretation of chapter topics and discuss moral controversies and dilemmas that plague business relationships and government–business relationships today. Readers are thus presented with the major views that define the essay topic and critical discussions of those views, as well as topical bibliographies that identify key works in the field.

The book will be of interest to those in business and society seeking an up-to-date resource on this vital field.

Buffett Beyond Value Prem C. Jain, Georgetown University

B

uffett Beyond Value provides a detailed look at Warren Buffett’s true investment strategies. Professor Prem C. Jain extracts Buffett’s wisdom from his voluminous writings over the past 50 years and from Berkshire Hathaway financial reports. Jain uncovers the key elements of Buffett’s approach beyond what is taught in contemporary college courses.

Buffett Beyond Value argues, contrary to popular belief, that Buffett is not a pure value investor, but a unique thinker who combines the principles of both value and growth investing strategies.

The book also explains how to compute intrinsic value of a company stock, why an appropriate psychological temperament is crucial to successful investing, and why understanding company CEOs is more important than analyzing financials.

The book reveals Buffett’s multifaceted investment principles and discusses how he thinks differently from academics about portfolio diversification, market efficiency, and corporate governance. The book is designed to complement other sources on investing.

13

Business and social enterprises

PHOTOS BY TED MORRISON

The Social

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msb.georgetown.edu

stride side by side to make a difference while making a profit.

Bottom Line

By Melanie D.G. Kaplan

In MBA programs, there are career switchers and there are career enhancers. Sandeep Shamasunder (MBA ’11) is a switcher. After working at IBM Global Business Services for five years, he arrived at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business last fall eager to reorient his work around economic development in Africa and Asia.>> Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Overtime Endeavor

R

enee Baiorunos (MBA ’07) was a model social enterprise devotee during her two years at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. She was president of Net Impact (’06–’07), her summer internship was at the organization’s headquarters, and she took classes in nonprofit consulting, social marketing, and social responsibility.

Then she found herself working at a proxy advisory and solicitation firm in New York where social issues come into play but are not a top priority.

Thinking beyond her job, she cofounded the service corps component of the Net Impact NYC Professional Chapter, which has provided pro bono consulting services to more than 20 nonprofits since last spring.

There are about 35 volunteers per three-month term, and they have worked with nonprofits including the United Way of Hudson County, the Committee Encouraging Corporate Philanthropy, Givology, and Trickle Up, a microfinance organization that works in Africa, Asia, and Central America to provide the poorest people with resources to start small businesses.

Until Baiorunos and her co-founder started the program, the New York chapter focused largely on education and outreach through panels, lectures, and networking events. She says the consulting program is popular with members because it allows them to put the ideals they’ve embodied with Net Impact into action. The nonprofits are equally thrilled with the service because many cannot afford to hire a team of consultants.

“I’m very pleased with how the program has quickly developed,” Baiorunos says.

“I feel like I have more to offer now, and I’m able to remain engaged longer than if I were a student. Plus, I have a different perspective and I appreciate it more, since I don’t have it in my daily work.”

16

>> One of the first lessons Shamasunder

top business schools — is in an excellent learned is that today’s international devel- position to lead the way in social enteropment is about more than seeking gov- prise. This trend is undeniably studenternment handouts or foundation funding. driven, with support from the faculty and “I was a little surprised by the increased administration. business focus,” he says. “It’s not just about “It’s a generational trait,” Dean George helping people; it’s about creating a public- Daly says. “There really is something about private model and a sustainable situation students today who are very, very interested where, eventually, no outside money will in issues of ethics and social responsibility be required.” in business.”

Shamasunder says he has been excited Whether in class or in the community, to learn about these new economic mod- students and alumni realize the days of els, such as Coca-Cola Enterprises’ clean separating business and social responsibilwater initiatives in Africa, which has long- ity are gone forever — a paradigm shift term benefits for the water-dependent bot- that can be good for investors, good for tling business as well as the environment. consumers, good for the environment, and “I thought international development good for the soul. would be more like the Peace Corps,” he says, “but I can see this approach is much On Campus: A Social Sea Change more successful.”

Even for those studying, teaching, and Not so long ago, social enterprise was practicing social enterprise, the concept is relatively unheard of in corporate America so broad that it is difficult to define. But or in business school. The two were as dif- one thing is clear: It is beginning to infilferent as Birkenstocks and wingtips, and if trate all areas of business, from marketing they mingled at all, it was perto microfinance. haps a goodwill gesture from the “Ninety percent of students “The corporate side with a few zeroes who come out of Georgeimportant at the end. But today, the two town’s McDonough School of thing is cultures are coming together in Business will go into busithat they a union that has proved advantaness,” says Distinguished Procare about geous for both. fessor of the Practice Bill social value Social enterprise — which Novelli, who co-founded puband make lic relations agency Porter encompasses social entrepreresponsible and served as CEO of neurship, international develmanagement Novelli AARP. “They’ll be a CFO, CEO, opment, and corporate social decisions that COO — not necessarily direcresponsibility (CSR) — uses trabenefit their tors of corporate responsibilditional business tools to solve companies ity. But the important thing is social problems and promote and society.” that they care about social change. It can take many forms, — Bill Novelli value and make responsible from reducing industrial waste management decisions that to decreasing sodium intake to benefit their companies and promoting urban agriculture. society as a whole.”

Although doing good in order Novelli, who joined the to do well is not a new concept, faculty full time in August, also recent trends show a deliberate has been president of the Camfocus on creating social value paign for Tobacco-Free Kids, across corporate, government, where he helped change public and nonprofit sectors. Idea sharpolicies and limit tobacco coming and innovation among the panies’ marketing to children, sectors creates better-run nonprofits and more socially responsible and executive vice president of CARE, the world’s largest private relief and developcorporations.

Georgetown’s McDonough School of ment organization.

Students have always tended toward Business — with its proximity to federal agencies, lobbyists, nonprofits, and altruism and idealism, he says, but their an increasing number of corporate head- commitment to making change has quarters; its Jesuit heritage and tradition of increased tremendously in the past decade. service; and its status among the country’s One example at Georgetown is Net Impact, msb.georgetown.edu

a national organization of graduate students and alumni that focuses on using business skills to improve society. The Georgetown chapter, a charter member in 1993, is now one of the largest in the country and one of the largest student groups on campus.

“I think my generation as a whole is more aware of these issues because we’ve grown up with them,” says Net Impact chapter leader Katie Heffner (MBA ’11).

The organization, which has 140 members, offers pro bono consulting to local nonprofits and has a board fellows program in which students act as nonvoting members of local nonprofit boards. Heffner serves as a fellow on the board of Kid Power, which works with underserved youth in Washington. Among her projects, she is writing the business plan for Veggie Time, a Kid Power program in which children grow their own vegetables, learn about nutrition, test recipes, and sell part of their harvest to local businesses.

Annual events include Net Impact Day, which features speakers and panels, and Net Impact Trek, during which students visit local companies that are active in social change. The organization also co-sponsored a Hoops for Haiti basketball tournament among MBA students in January. The event was planned in less than a week and raised more than $1,000.

Hilltop Consultants, the undergraduate counterpart to Net Impact, also provides consulting services to nonprofits. Every February, Hilltop hosts the Business Strategy Challenge, an intercollegiate undergraduate case competition founded at Georgetown.

It is the only such competition with a nonprofit focus that deals with a current issue for the organization. Teams from across the country receive written cases and have 36 hours to prepare their solutions. Past clients have included the United Way Worldwide, the Academy for Learning Through the Arts (a charter school), and Keys, Inc., a liaison between hotels and homeless shelters.

Hilltop also has a couple mandatory hands-on events per semester. In the fall, members prepared food at D.C. Central Kitchen and assembled holiday literacy kits at early-childhood education nonprofit Jumpstart. “We already do the high-level, intellectual consulting work, so our members enjoy the hands-on work and enjoy seeing our impact,” says Hilltop President Renee Goldman (BSBA ’10), who founded her own nonprofit while she was in high Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

2011 MBA students Mary Campanella, Justin Brown, and Radhika Krishnaswamy (below) help clean up Rock Creek Park as part of Service Day.

school to promote music education in public schools.

Such hands-on service extends to other programs, as well. The Nonprofit Internship Fund provides financial support to MBA students who take unpaid or lowpaying internships between their first and second years. One student worked last summer at the Smithsonian Institution, where he surveyed employees at all Smithsonian museums about ways to raise money without charging admission. He analyzed the feedback, calculated the estimated financial return for various options, and created a presentation to the board of regents. In the end, one of his original suggestions was implemented.

Shamasunder, vice president of outreach for the fund, says there are typically 10 scholarships awarded, but last year the number rose to 17.

It was the first time the money raised ($55,000, including a grant from the s c h o o l ) could not cover all the students drawn to these socially minded internships, he says.

Service-minded students also participated in the new MBA Service Day. In fall 2009, 250 first-year students spent a day of their orientation volunteering at five sites,

including the Duke Ellington School of the Arts, Operation USO, and Rock Creek Park.

Another new program, Community Fellows, recognizes graduating MBA students who have dedicated 100 or more hours to community service between orientation and April 1 of their second year. Thirteen 2009 graduates were recognized at graduation last year, and that number is expected to rise for 2010 based on hours already logged.

17

Business Skills for Social Ills

Alan Andreasen arrived at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business in 1992, back when he was one of the few experts talking about social enterprise. The professor launched a social marketing class in 2003 and struggled to fill it with MBAs, finally getting about 20 students.

“Now I have 48,” says Andreasen, who has worked with the World Bank, USAID, the American Red Cross, and Habitat for Humanity International. “That’s really an indicator of interest.” He says students today, especially MBAs, are cognizant of an employer’s work ethic and social responsibility. “There’s a movement in this direction of wanting to work at a corporation that does more than make an awful lot of money for stockholders.”

Before coming to Georgetown, Heffner worked for The Cadmus Group, a company that consults with the Environmental Protection Agency. She worked on an asthma and secondhand smoke campaign and learned about the Energy Star environmental program. After that experience, she was drawn to the Georgetown McDonough School of Business’ focus on social responsibility. She says other schools offer social 18

good these days, it is a good business decision. Although some previous social acts might have been motivated by public relations, today companies see a clear connection between the bottom line and sustainability. Wal-Mart, for instance, has switched to energy-efficient lighting and more sustainable packaging. Both are good for the environment, but both also save the company millions each year.

As Novelli wrote in a column in the fall 2009 issue of Georgetown Business, “It is not so much about doing good beyond the bottom line, but as part of the bottom line.”

“When you’re dealing with a business school audience, it doesn’t come from a naïve place,” says Leslie Payne (MBA ’06), who works for Arabella Advisors, a firm that helps families, indiHilltop Consultants’ Brad Anderson (past president) and Yale viduals, institutions, and corCong (past director of events and recruiting) participate in a porations evaluate social impact beautification day, one of the group’s hands-on outings. and develop effective philanthropic strategies. “Especially marketing through their public health pro- with issues like the climate, there’s a huge grams, but she liked the idea of studying business opportunity there, and there’s it in the context of business school. She is going to be a huge market for solving it. taking Andreasen’s social marketing course Earlier, we were relegated to charity or dogooder-ism, but we now know it can also this spring.

“We talk about how you really can make you money.” Payne takes pride in makinfluence behavior change,” Heffner says. ing a difference, even in a for-profit field, “What’s fascinating is that there’s no value by using her business skills to make nonprofits more efficient. proposition in it, and you have Shamasunder echoes her to create one.” She uses recy- “Earlier, we sentiment. “MBA education cling as an example to which were relegated gives you the skills to people can relate. “You’re not to charity or going to get any money for do-gooder-ism, approach management and finances and to really see how it. You don’t have anyone in but we now an organization is run,” he your kitchen giving you a pat know it can says. Whether the newest MBA on the back when you recycle, also make you graduates work at a nonprofit so it’s creating this internal money.”

— Leslie Payne or for-profit organization, feeling: ‘I did a good thing.’”

(MBA ’06) he believes they will bring a Whether it targets recycling, socially responsible attitude smoking, obesity, littering, or to their jobs. “A lot of people public transportation, social are interested in changing the marketing uses conventional way business is being done,” marketing tools to promote he says. “They want social behavioral change, but Heffchange to be part of their job, ner knows it often takes a long wherever they end up.” time for people to embrace a In Associate Professor Ed new mindset.

Soule’s Leadership and BusiHeffner has learned that ness Ethics class, students can when a company is doing msb.georgetown.edu

influence corporate America’s social impact even before they graduate. Through a program Soule developed over the course of the past five years, students critically analyze the CSR strategies and public disclosures of leading corporations. Senior managers from the companies work with students at the launch of a project, and at the end, students present their findings. Most recently, students had the opportunity to work with executives from Coca-Cola Enterprises.

“It’s a very valuable experience,” says Soule, who would like to create an elective that focuses solely on this work. “Some students have absolutely no interest in this subject, but after they do this, they see it’s not just a bunch of save-the-whales stuff — it’s serious business.” It is also a valuable experience for the companies. Students are a source of unbiased input and, as Soule explains, “Companies benefit from our diverse student body.”

A similar partnership came about with Cisco Systems after Jenny Bradley Heflin (BSBA ’03, MBA ’10) interned there last summer and talked about Soule’s course.

Last fall, she led a tutorial team to evaluate Cisco’s CSR strategy, including a very lengthy CSR report. In the end, the team suggested Cisco weave CSR into its annual report — a growing trend — and also mocked up a shorter CSR communication device.

“The Cisco executives were elated with the results,” Soule says. “I’m confident that many of our recommendations will be implemented. There’s no better way for students to learn about managing the social and environmental impacts of a global company.”

2011 MBA students Zaid Arafat, Jeremy Pomp, Michael Friedman, Haley Champion-Carter, and Maria Windrem pack boxes for soldiers as part of Operation Support Our Troops.

MBA students Dan Schlesinger and Reza Kashani battle for the ball during the Hoops for Haiti game, a fundraiser sponsored by Net Impact.

The Seeds of Social Enterprise

Last spring, before Rahul Pasarnikar (MBA ’11) decided to enroll at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, he talked to Novelli on the phone about the future of social enterprise at Georgetown.

“I was on the fence about coming to school,” says Pasarnikar, who had worked as a consultant for the previous 13 years.

“Initially, I was disappointed that Georgetown did not have a formal social enterprise initiative that could potentially cross multiple disciplines. I felt that to truly resolve social issues in a systemic way, solutions needed to cross sectors.” When he heard Novelli envisioned just such an initiative at the school, disappointment gave way to opportunity.

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Today, Pasarnikar is president of Net Impact and leads a five-student team exploring opportunities for a social enterprise initiative. An increasing number of top universities recognize the need for similar initiatives to remain competitive in the face of growing student demand.

“It’s still very early, but we want to put together a strategic plan of what an initiative might involve,” Pasarnikar says. “The goal is to figure out what kind of role business plays in social enterprise.”

Novelli, the faculty sponsor for this largely student-driven effort, says it will incorporate other areas of the university, such as foreign service, social justice, and public policy. He envisions three

components: teaching, research, and service. The research area proves the most challenging for many working in this field: How do you measure behavioral change?

When are people most receptive to suggestions of change? What is the social return on investment? Is there a way to measure quality-of-life improvements arising from social enterprise?

“It’s very hard to measure,” Novelli says.

“But it’s important to do so, and it’s much more than measuring profit and loss. Having this initiative housed at the university, with all its qualitative and quantitative skills, will help us understand these questions.”

Novelli would like to see a two-way bridge in business leadership, too. “We’ve always had people going from the forprofit world to the nonprofit world,” he says. “When we also have people going from nonprofit to for-profit and they’re accepted for their strategies, we’ll have a strong cadre of people who are out there making change.” ◗ Washington, D.C., freelance writer Melanie D.G. Kaplan has written for The Washington Post, USA Weekend,The Christian Science Monitor, and Georgetown Law Magazine.

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Leadership ROUND-TRIP

By andrea Orr

Proven young leaders from Latin America come to Georgetown with enthusiasm and drive.

They leave with skills and focus to raise the economic prospects of their home countries.

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Gary Landsman

WhenWorld Bank Managing Director Juan José Daboub spoke at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business earlier this year about Latin America’s future prospects, he outlined a long list of daunting challenges, including a growing gang presence in some countries and diminishing tax bases in others, as well as civil unrest and unacceptably high poverty throughout the region.

Daboub also left students with encouraging, practical advice about how they could help. “Grassroots support,” he said, “is very important.”

The message resonated with the audience, which included several young Latin American students who had recently arrived at the school for intensive study in the Global Competitiveness Leadership Program. Hailing from Brazil, Peru, Chile, and other Latin American countries, many of these young leaders had already worked in grassroots organizations aimed at improving political, educational, or other social systems in their countries. They understood they could be far more effective if they collaborated with other countries in the region.

“The concept of global competitiveness is a real challenge,” Emygdio Carvalho of Brazil explains. “Years ago, we thought in terms of winners and losers. But we need to think about how we can compete to better serve the people and the planet.”

Judging success by the number of people who benefit is a popular idea among the new generation of leaders studying at Right and below, volunteers with José Miguel Ossa’s Crea Mas program work with students.

The program provides lesson plans and other materials to boost education.

“The

are common themes that Georgetown. The students say philosophical have made it difficult for the it applies both to their own approach area to compete in a global countries and the region as a economy. “Latin America whole. Many identify a persis- behind the is falling way behind,” tent gap between the haves and program he says. In an effort to foster the have-nots in their home is that a regional network addresscountries and say this inequal- globalization ing these long-­standing ity has held Latin America back is here to challenges, the Georgetown in terms of economic health stay.”

University Latin Ameriand competitiveness.

— Ricardo Ernst can Board launched the It may sound simplisDeputy Dean Global Competitiveness Leadtic to discuss a region as vast ership Program in 2007 for and diverse as Latin America in such terms. But Ricardo Ernst, dep- some of the most promising young leaders uty dean of Georgetown’s McDonough from Latin America, as well as Spain and School of Business and coordinator of the Portugal.

Each winter, about 30 of these young Global Competitiveness Leadership Program, argues that political unrest, a lack leaders spend 12 weeks at Georgetown, of accountability, inefficient government, where they collaborate on solutions to and a regionally focused view of the world challenges in their own countries while pursuing a program of academic courses and field trips tailor-made to address the challenges Latin America faces today. Visits to Congress, foreign embassies, influential think tanks, and many of the other political and thought centers of Washington, D.C., are designed to give students a broader perspective on effective leadership. At the same time, the bonds they form with young leaders from neighboring countries help them adopt a more integrated view of the region and consider strategies that could put it on a more competitive path.

Think Regionally, Act Locally

For José Miguel Ossa of Santiago, Chile, the leadership program in 2009 was an appropriate next step in a short career that had taken him from a master’s program in economics to a job in an investment bank, and then through a period of soul-searching that led him to work on education policy in local government. Eventually, Ossa launched the nongovernmental organization (NGO) Crea Mas (Create More) in Chile to build a volunteer network supporting teachers and parents in educating their children.

Ossa had ideas about how to resolve the shortcomings of Chile’s educational system, which he tried to address through Crea Mas. Recognizing that overworked teachers had little time to prepare lessons, he designed a system of “unpack and implement” lesson plans that let teachers make the most of their time in the classroom and parents easily follow along at home.

Before attending Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, Ossa had built Crea 22

msb.georgetown.edu

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

“We cannot be a strong country if we don’t act as a region.”

Gary Landsman

Mas into a network of 250 volunteers who interacted with about 2,000 students, providing tutoring and organizing extracurricular activities. He says the 12 weeks he spent at Georgetown helped convince him that expansion across borders was possible.

Working with two classmates from the leadership program, he has helped expand the NGO into Brazil and Peru.

“It’s not easy to do in another country something you are currently doing in yours,” Ossa says. “But with Roberta [Machado, from Brazil] and Luis Miguel [Starke, from Peru], this has been so easy.

We understand one another and most of all, we trust in one another.” Together, the three have organized an additional 50 volunteers throughout Chile, Peru, and Brazil.

“We hope we are going to change the lives of thousands and then millions of people, letting them develop according to their will and not their reality.”

From Ossa’s perspective, education is at the core of so many of the region’s struggles, particularly as the world’s more developed countries start producing more highquality, complex products. He also believes a grassroots volunteer effort can have a big impact. “There is a noticeable inequality in Latin American societies between socioeconomic levels,” he says, adding that his time at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business helped him understand this vast inequality as a broad regional problem.

“We cannot be a strong country if we don’t act as a region,” explains current program participant Tamara Lopez, echoing this common sentiment. Lopez had been working on a political campaign in her native Chile when she learned of the McDonough School of Business program and was invited to apply. Although Chile is one of the wealthier countries in Latin America, Lopez says she is nonetheless dismayed by the great disparities between rich and poor.

Lopez expresses a strong interest in improving individual lives, and her coursework at Georgetown focuses on practical solutions that will advance the region’s global competitiveness even as they address individual poverty. The syllabus for the Global Competitiveness Leadership Program reads a lot like that of an MBA program, with courses including Globalization and Challenges for Emerging Economies, International Marketing Management, and Corporate Social Responsibility. However, as other class

— Tamara Lopez titles, such as Corruption in Developing Countries, indicate, the program was designed with the challenges of Latin America in mind.

Georgetown McDonough School of Business Professor Paul Almeida teaches the group a class on global strategy, where he says he tries to emphasize acting strategically to make whatever is happening in the world work for an individual country or region. Rather than seeing China’s success as Brazil’s loss, for example, it is possible to see other countries’ successes as potentially

helpful because they expand major world markets. “We shouldn’t view everything as a zero-sum game,” he explains.

Coursework also includes a strong focus on developing personal, business, and political leadership skills to prepare students to create and lead initiatives that will overcome long-standing economic barriers and promote democratic rule of law, civic responsibility, and global competitiveness.

“The philosophical approach behind the program is that globalization is here to stay,” 23

Georgetown will give their work a “multiplying effect,” as it clearly did for Ossa.

Highly Motivated Individuals

young professors in Latin America and Spain.

explains Ernst. “We want to move beyond saying that globalization is good, or that it is bad. That is completely irrelevant.”

The Global Competitiveness Leadership Program was designed to do more than pay lip service to the needs of the region.

It has the ambitious goal of training leaders who will understand the political challenges that have long stood in the way of economic growth and be able to deliver the tough medicine needed.

Program participants are between 24 and 32 years old, have a college degree, and speak fluent English. They have demonstrated strong abilities as leaders as well 24

as network builders, because a major goal of the program is to train leaders who can effect change throughout the region.

Students receive a $25,000 scholarship, which covers tuition, room and board, and incidentals, including travel. But when planning their trip, participants must book a round-trip ticket home; the scholarship requires that students agree to go back to their country for at least two years to work on a social, political, or entrepreneurial project that will boost the region’s competitiveness. Sometimes, students have conceived of these projects before they arrive on campus. Ernst hopes the network they build at

Gary Landsman

Ana Collado hopes to establish a network for

Students who participate in the Global Competitiveness Leadership Program each year are highly motivated. “They are not just eager; they are thoughtful, well-informed, and intellectually astute,” observes Almeida.

“This idea that they are going to be leaders — I think they totally embrace it.”

Other members of the 2010 program include Ana Collado of Spain, an attorney who is pursuing a Ph.D. in economics while working for the FAES Foundation for Analysis and Social Studies, a prominent Spanish think tank. Collado hopes to establish a network for young professors in Latin America and Spain.

Fellow 2010 participant Carvalho is a political consultant who led a massive social networking movement, Oasis Santa Catarina, which organized a rapid response to what he describes as “Brazil’s version of Hurricane Katrina.” When extreme flooding in 2008 killed more than 100 residents and forced tens of thousands from their homes, Oasis Santa Catarina organized 30,000 workers to help rebuild 12 communities in a matter of days, Carvalho says.

How do you top that? As Carvalho sees it, the humanitarian effort that brought desperately needed relief to a community in crisis is the same sort of focused energy that will ultimately help make Latin America competitive with world economies.

“Brazil today is doing great in so many ways. We are raising almost every social and economic indicator. But we have a huge disconnect between today’s politics and what we are really capable of doing,” he says, citing the widespread poverty that persists even as official economic indicators improve.

When Carvalho returns to Brazil, he hopes to work on a project that will broaden the level of political participation. As he sees it, the more people are engaged in the government, the more they understand how it can affect their own lives.

These commonly cited aspirations to build consensus and establish political systems where all people have a voice fit well within the structure of the Global Competitiveness Leadership Program. Outside the classroom, students share meals and housing and spend an intense 12 weeks living and breathing the problems of and potential solutions for Latin America. msb.georgetown.edu

share a strong ambition to build projects that have a broad impact, some confess to being daunted by the magnitude of the problems facing Latin America, sometimes even more so after they dive into their intensive studies.

“It’s helping me to change my way of thinking about everything,” says Lopez.

Although she came to Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business with a sense of a project she’d design to take back to Chile, after just a few weeks into the program, Lopez said, she was forced to think in broader terms and was reconsidering the direction of her work.

Many graduates return to the work they were doing before their studies at Georgetown, but they bring to it a new and much broader perspective of what they might accomplish. Madelene Lopez Ford attended the Global Competitiveness Leadership Program in 2009 and then returned to her former job as exhibitions and events director for the Chamber of Commerce of Panama. But she also worked with four other students from the program to launch a sort of alumni association — the Iberoamerican Competitiveness Leadership Association (iClass) — to ensure that the bonds created at Georgetown­

are sustained and nourished long after. About 40 program graduates traveled to Panama last November for the first iClass annual meeting, where they discussed topics ranging from education to infrastructure.

Lopez and her colleagues agree on the power of individuals and countries to work together in an interconnected system for the greater good. She points to the earthquake that struck her home country of Chile on Feb. 27, and the responses that came after, as an example.

“Today, I see my country in ruins, still in fear that I felt that dreadful day when I almost lost my family, and I feel great sadness,” Lopez said not long after the earthquake. “But I also feel a lot of hope because of what I see through instances like this program — it raises a generation of solidarity, generosity, and understanding that the differences do not separate us, but enrich us. And we can build bridges, to reach out in difficult times.” w Andrea Orr is an author, blogger, and freelance writer who frequently reports on high-tech startups. She is based in Washington, D.C.

Gary Landsman

“The lessons were just for our group,” Ossa recalls of the tailor-made syllabus.

Although he was initially concerned that such a structure would limit the connections he made on campus, he says he “realized it would be better that way. We would be focused just on our group, and the relationships we formed would be forever.”

Clearly, such an ambitious program will face its own learning curve as it develops the best practices for training leaders to elevate Latin America on the world economic scale.

One challenge is participation. Although students from 13 countries — including Argentina, Colombia, Peru, and Bolivia — have already participated in the program, other countries such as Paraguay and Uruguay have not yet been represented. To date, Nicaragua is the only Central American participant.

Recruiting is done largely by Georgetown’s Latin American Board members, who reach out to their networks in the region and tend to be more established in more economically developed countries. Ernst says he hopes to broaden recruitment while expanding the program to include Guatemala.

Another challenge students face is identifying the best solutions. While all participants

“Years ago, we thought in terms of winners and losers.

But we need to think about how we can compete to better serve the people and the planet.”

— Emygdio Carvalho

Not

Satisfaction *

By Chris Blose

Guaranteed Debora Thompson’s consumer behavior research began with a casual question: Should something as simple as a mouse pad need an instruction manual?

In 2005, when Thompson was a doctoral student at the University of Maryland, someone gave the mouse pad in question as a gift to her adviser and professor, Roland Rust. This was no ordinary mouse pad, though; it also included a calculator and other electronic features.

Rust could not make it work.

26

msb.georgetown.edu

David Plunkert

When it comes to product features — when more means better in the eyes of buyers — how much is too much?

Shop Smart

D

ebora Thompson’s consumer behavior research has many

lessons for manufacturers and marketers, but consumers can learn from it, too. The next time you shop, remember these tips:

l

If the store (or Web site) offers a product trial, take it. There really is no substitute for direct experience.

l

If you cannot spend hands-on time with the product, try to adopt a concrete mindset anyway. Think about how you would use the product in everyday life. Mentally simulate the process of using a product’s features step by step.

l

Do not just compare the boxes of different products. Thinking about each product on its own merits is more likely to lead to a satisfying purchase than comparing marketing bullet points.

l

Remember that more is not always better. People too often make the mistake of choosing the option with the most features, leading to frustration once they open the box and realize it comes with a 100-page user’s manual.

Joking about this confounding, unnecessary device turned into a discussion of other hard-to-use, feature-filled items.

“Here you have this super-smart person, a world-renowned scholar, and he cannot use his washing machine,” says Thompson, now an assistant professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. “So we started talking about this and wondering, is this just our own anecdotal evidence, or is this a general tendency that consumers are overwhelmed with a lot of the products they buy?”

Thus began their research on what they would come to call “feature fatigue.”

A modern consumer would be hard28

pressed to find a plain cell phone; most also are audio players/cameras/minicomputers/gaming platforms. Manufacturers are locked in an apparent arms race to see who can put more bullet points on their boxes. “More” often seems synonymous with “better.”

With that in mind, Thompson and her colleagues set out to discover just how much is enough. The answers have practical implications for manufacturers, marketers, and consumers alike.

Now With 75 Percent More Bells and Whistles!

Evidence of feature fatigue — or feature creep, a similar concept — is abundant.

It shows up in consumer blogs where authors rant about the complexity of a new appliance. It appears in online reviews written in colorful language by unsatisfied customers.

Nearly everyone has a tale of a frustrating product they simply could not figure out. Thompson mentions a friend’s father who went so far as to place tape over the extraneous buttons on his remote control so he would not press them by mistake.

Anecdotes are helpful, but given her background in social psychology, Thompson wanted data to explain the disconnect between what consumers want when they shop and what they get when they open the box and start using a product.

“People are complaining about complex products,” Thompson says, “but they bought them in the first place. We are trying to understand this paradox.”

In research first published in 2005 in the Journal of Marketing Research, then further highlighted in Harvard Business Review, Thompson, Rust, and Rebecca Hamilton (now an associate professor at the University of Maryland) designed a set of experiments comparing perceptions of a product’s capability with its actual usability.

In one experiment, the researchers simulated an in-store experience by presenting study participants with interfaces for digital audio and video players that had either seven, 14, or 21 features. They asked participants to rate each model’s perceived capability and usability. Although participants were aware that feature overload might decrease a player’s ease of use, 62 percent still chose the most feature-rich options.

A second experiment backed up those results by instructing participants to cus-

tomize their own product by choosing from a list of 25 features. Again, these would-be consumers stuck with a “more is better” mentality; they chose an average of 19.6 features for their customized players.

A third experiment tested how much hands-on use changed consumers’ choices.

Study participants were split into two groups. A “before use” group could pick between two virtual products, one with seven features and one with 21, but they could not actually try these products. An “after use” group chose between the same products after testing them.

Hands-on experience played a crucial role: 66 percent of the “before use” group chose the option with 21 features, compared with just 44 percent of the “after use” group.

These results create a conundrum for marketers and manufacturers. Past consumer behavior research has shown that if companies add features to a product — even trivial, unnecessary features — consumers are likely to view that product as newer or more desirable than other models. Because of that, Thompson says, “Marketers and engineers really have this ‘Why not?’ mindset. Adding features is an easy and often inexpensive way to create differentiation.”

On the flipside, usability research has shown that performing simple functions becomes more difficult for users as features are added to a product. Poor usability creates frustrated consumers, and frustrated consumers are less likely to buy a company’s products in the future — and more likely to spread negative word of mouth.

On the surface, “less is better” might seem like the ultimate message, but the message is not that simple. Some companies, including electronics maker Philips and camera maker Flip Video, have had success marketing the simplicity and ease of use of their products, but that approach will not work for everyone.

“Simplicity and usability can be effective points of differentiation,” Thompson says, “but it’s more difficult. It’s certainly easier to add more stuff and say, ‘We have more.’”

Often, if a company moves entirely toward feature-poor products, they will lose sales to their feature-touting competitors, regardless of relative quality, Thompson says. Managers need to assess the proper number of features that will msb.georgetown.edu

be both attractive and functional for consumers on a product-by-product basis.

Thompson and her colleagues provide a mathematical model in their research for balancing feature optimization with customer satisfaction.

“Our argument was not that features are necessarily bad,” Thompson says, “but that companies need to calibrate, to find the optimal level of features, one that doesn’t hurt your usability and still makes you attractive to consumers in the beginning.”

Limited Trial Offer — Act Now!

With that initial research as a foundation, Thompson and Hamilton dove deeper into the consumer’s mindset in their next paper, “Is There a Substitute for Direct Experience?,” published in December 2007 in the Journal of Consumer Research.

This research deals with two very different types of consumer experience: direct and indirect. Direct experience comes in the form of a product trial or any other practical, hands-on time with a product. Indirect experience could mean reading a simple description of the product or product reviews, for example.

Thompson’s basic theory, rooted in a concept called construal level theory, is that the further away from direct experience a consumer sits, the more likely he or she is to think about a product in abstract terms rather than concrete, practical terms.

Abstract thinking leads people to pay more attention to desirability (comparable to capability) than feasibility (comparable to usability).

The researchers tested this theory in another set of experiments. The results, simplified: • One group of participants had a direct experience with a product, but when tested two weeks later, they reverted to an abstract mindset and trended toward desirability over feasibility.

• In another study, participants exposed to communications encouraging them to think concretely — to imagine using a

product in practical terms — were more drawn to feasibility than desirability. In this case, encouragement to think in concrete terms served as a substitute for direct experience.

• When asked to shop for someone else instead of themselves, participants were much more likely to think abstractly and favor desirability over feasibility.

“The bottom line is that the higher the direct experiential contact, the more effective you are going to be at shifting consumers’ mindset from abstract to concrete,” Thompson says. Likewise, the further away from direct experience a buyer gets — in time, proximity, or any other form of

“If we try to mimic or approximate this concrete mindset that consumers have after purchase, we can improve the quality of their decisions,” Thompson says.

As such, the best option for companies to create satisfied customers often is a product trial. However, product trials are not always practical or even possible. Consider online shopping, for example. Online shoppers cannot physically touch or use a product, so companies might try to provide as concrete a mental picture as possible by encouraging people to think about how they would use a product once it arrives. Thompson mentions a successful Web campaign by Kodak in which consumers could rotate digital

Nearly everyone has a tale of a frustrating product they simply could not figure out.

Thompson mentions a friend’s father who went so far as to place tape over the extraneous buttons on his remote control so he would not press them by mistake.

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

­ sychological distance — the more they p return to abstract thinking.

The paper points to several companies that have successfully integrated direct experience into their sales and marketing.

Maytag, for example, has allowed customers to test washing machines by bringing their dirty laundry to the store. Outdoor retailer REI encourages people shopping for a tent to try setting it up in the store (or the parking lot, depending on space). The simpler the tent is to use, the more likely the customer will buy it. Bullet points on a box are mostly moot in the face of direct experience.

images of the company’s cameras on screen and simulate using their buttons with mouse clicks.

Such an approach will not appeal to all companies, though. Some companies, particularly those with products that have long intervals between purchases, may be more concerned with the initial sale than with creating customer loyalty for future purchases, because customers are unlikely to come back for a repeat purchase anytime soon.

“The less important repurchase is, usually the higher the optimal number of features will be,” Thompson says. For some companies, appealing to the abstract mindset by 29

”

— Debora Thompson

offering feature-rich products remains the best plan for maximizing profits.

Be the First on Your Block to Own One!

Sometimes consumers also reap a different kind of reward from feature-rich products: the adulation of their peers. Think of the release of Apple’s iPhone, for example, when lines stretched around blocks; in certain circles, people who braved those lines to get an iPhone became the envy of their friends.

In a current working paper with colleague Michael Norton from Harvard Business School, Thompson explores “The Social Utility of Feature Creep.” This topic arose when Norton challenged Thompson with a provocative thought: Maybe people purchase feature-rich products because of their social value. This thought has roots in the long-established concept of conspicuous consumption.

Thompson and Norton tested how people make purchase decisions in a variety of circumstances. Study participants were asked to evaluate real mp3 players (direct experience) with a varied number 30

of features. In one case, they were told their survey answers would be confidential; in another, they were told their choices would be revealed to others.

In the confidential case, more users chose the mp3 player with fewer features; they cited its ease of use as the deciding factor. However, when those same participants thought other people would be evaluating them, they chose the more featurerich players.

“What is interesting is it reveals that people are willing to make a trade-off — the potential disutility of a complex product for the social benefits that features can bring,” Thompson says.

Additionally, in another experiment, participants observed others as they made their purchase choices. The observers rated those who chose feature-rich players more highly in categories such as wealth, tech savvy, and openness to new experiences.

“We have found that observers systematically evaluate users of feature-rich products more positively than users of featurepoor products,” Thompson says.

“Wealth was expected [as a category].

We’re not surprised by that, but these results go beyond wealth inferences. They communicate something more nuanced about your personality.”

The lessons for marketers shine through in these results. If you want to sell a featurerich product, your message should highlight public use or public display of that product. Create advertisements that show people using a cell phone/music player/ camera out in the world, for example. If you want to sell a feature-poor product, shy away from social messages that imply public use.

No single approach will work for any given company, which is why Thompson stresses the need for calibration. Finding the ideal through careful analysis comes across as a clear message in all of her research, whether the issue is balancing consumer perceptions with practical usability, juggling the realities of marketing and sales with the desire for informed consumer decisions, or deciding just how much “more” is right for your product.

“This varies a lot from product category to product category,” Thompson says. “You have to find the happy medium.”

You also have to ask if maybe, sometimes, a mouse pad should just be a mouse pad. w

About the Researcher A

ssistant Professor Debora Thompson joined the faculty at

Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business in 2006 after earning a Ph.D. in marketing from the University of Maryland in 2006; an M.S. in marketing from the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul in Porto Alegre, Brazil, in 1999; and a B.A. in communication from the Federal University of Santa Maria in Santa Maria, Brazil, in 1995.

Thompson’s research on judgment and decision-making, information processing, persuasion, and context effects has garnered 11 awards in her young career, including, among others: l

The Emerging Marketing Scholar Award (2009, Emerald Publishing), which recognizes assistant professors who have made significant scholarly contributions early in their careers.

l

The Dean’s Distinguished Faculty Research Award (2008, McDonough School of Business) for her work at Georgetown.

l

The Donald Lehmann Award (2007, American Marketing Association) for best dissertation-based paper published in the Journal of Marketing Research.

Phil humnicky

“

What is interesting is it reveals that people are willing to make a trade-off — the potential disutility of a complex product for the social benefits that features can bring.

Debora Thompson

msb.georgetown.edu

ALUMNINotes

BSBA Class of 1962 Kenneth Walsh and his wife, Eileen Elizabeth Federline, recently celebrated their 45th anniversary.

They were married at Holy Trinity in Washington, D.C. They have four children and 12 grandchildren.

Walsh received an MBA in finance from Texas A&M in 1973. He has been teaching Latin in Texas, Virginia, Maryland, and West Virginia public high schools since 1989.

He and Eileen have been living in Conroe, Texas, since June 1995, and have a cottage in Terra Alta, W.Va. Walsh is retired, but substitutes at high schools in the Conroe independent school district.

town College in 2002. Adams enjoys golfing, flying, hunting, and spending time at the family’s condo in Destin, Fla. BSBA Class of 1980 William Feeley is developing “net-

zero” or “green” building systems for builders and developers. He recently joined New Energy Homes by Borkholder as director of strategy and business development. Feeley, his wife, Susan, and their seven children live in the South Bend area in Indiana.

John Long was appointed director of the Southeast District (SED) Office of the Florida Department of Environmental Protection in May 2007. The SED is responsible for environmental regulatory matters in Miami-Dade, Broward, Palm Beach, Martin, St. Lucie, and Okeechobee counties. In the 1980s, Long served as Vermont’s chief environmental enforcement attorney and later as Vermont’s environmental commissioner.

BSBA Class of 1971 Charles Adams is practicing law

in Jackson, Miss. He is beginning his 10th year as managing partner at Adams and Reese LLP (no relation). He and his wife, Becky, are approaching their 39th anniversary this year. Their daughter, Kate, graduated from Georgetown Nursing in 2000, and their son, Chad, graduated from George-

(SFS ’78) were appointed cochairs of Willkie Farr & Gallagher.

Willkie Farr is an international law firm based in New York City with more than 700 lawyers in six countries. Gartner and Cerabino also are co-heads of the corporate department, where they have spent their entire careers.

BSBA Class of 1985 Joan Bukowski has been named president of the Buffalo and Erie County Historical Society board of managers. Bukowski, an educator and longtime cultural advocate, is the first woman to hold the position in the organization’s 147-year history.

Beth Fournier-Foch and her

husband recently celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary. They live in southern Brittany and Fournier-Foch works at Crédit Agricole, where she is responsible for Internet development. Their oldest son, Benjamin, just received

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

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

MBA Class of 1987 Harvey Chimoff is the former direc-

MBA Class of 1985 Roland Clavien is enjoying the

peaceful serenity of Mississippi.

He is CFO for the Army Corps of Engineers research labs, but in his spare time he has been working for change in the state. He and his wife have devoted their personal time to getting Mississippi to pass a felony law protecting cats and dogs from torture.

David Dunahay recently completed

BSBA Class of 1981 Steven Gartner and Tom Cerabino

BSBA Class of 1966

his B.A., Mats is a senior, and Julie is in eighth grade.

negotiations for a commercial truck joint venture in China and has been appointed president of the FAW-GM Light Duty Commercial Vehicle Company. He and his wife, Maryam, will be located in Changchun, China.

Laura Mariano and her husband,

John, celebrated their 20th wedding anniversary in July 2009.

They have three kids: Francesca, 15, J.B., 12, and Gia, 10. After 22-plus years at Lehman Brothers and eight months at Barclays Capital post-bankruptcy, Mariano now works at a small but growing institutional hedge fund consultant called Aksia.

tor of marketing, Americas, and head of global marketing at Tate & Lyle, a world-leading manufacturer of food, beverage, and industrial ingredients. He lives in Springfield, Ill. MBA Class of 1990 Jonathan Madnick joined VeriSolv Technologies, Inc., an information technology services company, as business development manager in 2009. His wife, Shulie, has started a food blog at www.foodwander ings.blogspot.com and appeared in an article in the Washington Jewish Week on Jan. 13.

BSBA Class of 1991 Christopher Brown lives in Atlanta with his wife, Susan, and kids Alex, 6, and Kate, 3. He has been CFO of the Carter Center, an international NGO, since 2001.

Megan Bruce is the proud mom of twin baby girls, who are 2 years old.

Robert Livingston, his wife, and

Lynne Butz is opening a Monkee’s

their two children, Madeline, 4, and Will, 2, recently moved from Seattle to Singapore with his company, Grand Banks Yachts. On Feb. 10, 2009, the family welcomed a new member, Jack Woods. In April 2009, Livingston was promoted to president and CEO of Grand Banks Yachts. The family has enjoyed several exciting trips to Vietnam, Cambodia, Australia, Bali, and China.

store in Richmond, Va., located in the Short Pump area. Monkee’s is the largest privately owned chain of boutiques in the Southeast and a leader in providing the finest designs in footwear, apparel, and accessories.

Randall Russell was elected chairman of Pittsburgh’s chapter of the Young Presidents Organization. He lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, Lori, and two children, ages 10 and 5.

William McMahon lives in

Wellesley, Mass., and runs a $200 million private equity fund. He always is looking for a good company to buy, especially one run by a Hoya!

MBA Class of 1986

31

ALUMNINotes

A. Thiessen and his wife, Maria,

recently moved to Miami with their two daughters, Lucy, 3.5, and Natalie, 2. They celebrated their 15th anniversary last summer, and he also celebrated 10 years at Razorfish as VP of strategy.

MBA Class of 1991 Marty Beard is president of Sybase

365, the global leader in mobile messaging and mobile commerce.

Previously, he led Sybase’s corporate development and marketing functions. He lives in Orinda, Calif., with his wife of 14 years, Lara Saft, two daughters, and a couple of cats.

Beard remains an avid Cal Bears fan and believes he can still compete on the tennis court.

BSBA Class of 1993 Francisco Aguilar and his wife,

Mai, welcomed Javier Yen on May 5, 2009.

MBA Class of 1994 Shubber and Rebecca Ali were

joined by their new twins, Zan and Zahra, on Sept. 11, 2009. They say they are already busy working on their applications for admission to the Class of 2035.

BSBA Class of 1996 Hillary (Seegul) Chassin lives in

New York with her husband, Andy.

They welcomed their first child, Avery Madeleine, on July 17, 2008.

Ronald Jaiven and Rachel Wall

were married on May 29, 2009.

They met while pursuing their MBAs at UCLA Anderson. They now live and work in Los Angeles.

Darby Woods lives in Santa

Monica, Calif., with his 5-year-old son and works as a residential real estate broker at Coldwell Banker on the Westside of Los Angeles.

Woods is active with the Georgetown Club of Los Angeles and with the interviewing committees there.

MBA Class of 1996 Stephen Gaull is working on

public-private partnerships at the Millennium Challenge Corporation, combining transaction origination and execution with public policy reforms and bilateral diplomacy. He has two sons: Eli is 5 and Matthew is approaching 2.

Wendy Moe (MBA ’96) received the second annual Erin Anderson Award at American Marketing Association’s Marketing Winter Educators’ Conference awards luncheon in New Orleans on Feb. 20. The Erin Anderson Award is given by the AMA Foundation to an “emerging female marketing scholar and mentor.”

BSBA Class of 1997 Marta Rubio Hernandez performed

a self-produced one-woman show at the Avignon Theatre Festival. She acted and wrote one of the three monologues and performed in English and French.

After four years with AXA IM in Paris, Bill Holmberg accepted a position in investor relations with Comgest, an independent asset management company with offices throughout Europe and Asia. January marked six years as an expat living in France with his wife, Sybille, and two daughters, Olivia, 4, and Eléonore, 1.5.

The family is active in American expat life through the American Cathedral of Paris, as well as by supporting the Georgetown Club of France.

Hilary Gately Santini received

an MBA from the University of Manchester in December 2009.

She and her husband, Louis, live in Luxembourg with their sons, Oliver, 2, and Matthew, 7 months.

Santini is looking for work in the Benelux region.

IEMBA Class of 1997 Mark Herbert has joined Alpha Corp., a world-class engineering design, construction management, and program management enterprise, as director of corporate real

32

estate services. Herbert will lead Alpha’s CRE division, delivering management consulting services to a wide array of private and public clientele.

BSBA Class of 1998 Kathleen Daly married Bill Sayles

on Martha’s Vineyard Sept. 27, 2008. Several 1998 classmates attended the wedding, including bridesmaids Amy (Calhoun) Robb and Lauren (Werner) Meurlin, and friends Meghan Welch, Rachel Wolf, Megan Gaul, Kate (Eberle) Walker, Chris (Zaloum) Ungaro, and Patty Ornst.

Carl Mazzanti and his wife, Jennifer, welcomed their son, Enzo Carl, in December. Mazzanti’s firm, eMazzanti Technologies, recently was featured in the Wall Street Journal and is one of seven firms that presented at Microsoft’s launch of Windows 7 in New York City with Steve Ballmer.

BSBA Class of 1999 Evangelyn (Angel) Dotomain is president and CEO of the Alaska Native Health Board and recently was awarded “Alaska’s Top Forty Under 40” award, announced by the Anchorage Chamber of Commerce and Alaska Journal of Commerce.

Charlotte Rose Glinski and Scott

Christopher Philips are getting married on April 17, 2010, in Baltimore. The couple lives and works in the Washington, D.C., area.

MBA Class of 1999 Bradford Caldwell has been appointed by Arkansas Gov. Mike Beebe as a board member of the Arkansas Science and Technology Authority. His term runs until January 2012.

msb.georgetown.edu

ALUMNINotes

PROFILE

An Evolving Career

M

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

immersed in a heady, fast-moving entrepreneurial atmosphere for 14 years, was faced with “giving up [his] baby.” By the time he had his MBA in hand, he had said yes to the sale. The acquisition became official in fall 2009.

In making his decision, Sheridan reached back to his hungry years, when he saw startups’ growing pains firsthand. And he was certain, given Three Pillar’s expansion plans and its impressive management team and board of advisers, that he could achieve greater personal and professional gain by joining the company.

Sheridan now serves as Three Pillar’s director of user experience.

In his new, but familiar, entrepreneurial environment, he develops business, builds customer relationships, and assembles productand application-design teams.

Sheridan may once again start another company in the future, which would add another zig-zag pattern to his career evolution. “In retrospect, the events I saw as failures, like dropping out of engineering school, actually liberated me to think bigger,” he says.

— Coeli Carr

Darko Zagar

any MBA graduates immediately don entrepreneurial hats and start companies.

Patrick Sheridan (IEMBA ’09) did the opposite: He sold CloverLeaf Consulting, the Internet-based software design and strategy business he created in 2005.

Sheridan, 36, says it was arguably the most counterintuitive decision in his career, but he is used to taking circuitous paths that ultimately have served him well.

Transplanted as a teenager to Northern Virginia, Sheridan, who now lives in Reston, Va., enrolled in an aerospace engineering program at Virginia Tech in 1991, but dropped out after a year. Two years later, after having worked as a mural painter’s assistant while taking courses at a community college, he began studies at the Corcoran School of Art in Washington, D.C. Forced to leave for financial reasons, Sheridan began a successful commercial design business, which included high-end mural design work. When he returned to Corcoran a year later, he continued to work full time managing a design team at an architectural firm, where he made the leap into interactive design. “I realized new media was where I wanted to focus my career,” he says. In 1999 — after receiving his BFA in painting, and with a burgeoning interest in new media — he began working as a Web site and Web applications designer for a series of startup companies. His career was evolving with the industry.

After the dot-com bust in 2001, Sheridan worked for four years as a user-interface architect at a small consulting firm and continued to freelance his own projects. In 2005, he founded CloverLeaf to design Web sites and Web-based applications, both with the goal of being as user-friendly as possible. Directly involved in both project delivery and business development, Sheridan quickly grew his home-based business, which mainly served the greater Washington, D.C., area. He suspected, however, that a formal business education might help him more effectively fund and scale the company, so he enrolled in Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business Executive MBA program in 2007.

Not even Sheridan was prepared for what happened a month shy of graduation. The CEO of Three Pillar Software — a local software development company, now known as Three Pillar Global, with which Sheridan’s company had collaborated on past projects — offered to acquire CloverLeaf. Suddenly Sheridan, who had been

Patrick Sheridan’s background in the arts is evident at his home, including his self-portrait (inset).

33

ALUMNINotes

Kit Cooper started a new cus-

Dan Trosch and his wife, Sarah,

tomer support business, Granada Corporation, in January. He got some startup support from Patrick McKenna (MBA ’98), who cofounded LiveOps, a leading “work from home” customer support outsourcer. Cooper and his wife, Misha, have two children, Levi, 4, and Gemma, 2, and are expecting their third child in April.

had a baby girl named Tessa in October 2009. Trosch is director of equity investments at Fortigent, an investment consulting and wealth management outsourcing firm in Rockville, Md.

BSBA Class of 2000 Bindu Vaswani and Michael Bac-

arella are getting married on May 29, 2010, in Lyon, France.

MBA Class of 2000

BSBA Class of 2001 Elizabeth Hatfield is studying at Texas A&M University toward a Ph.D. in communication and media studies. She has spent the past two years taking classes and teaching at the undergraduate level at Texas A&M. She lives in Houston with her husband, Mike, and dog, Lily.

Alisa Robinson and Joseph Salibra

Emily Kiely joined PepsiCo in Pur-

were married on Aug. 31, 2009.

They enjoyed a honeymoon in Italy visiting Rome, the Amalfi Coast, Tuscany, Florence, and Venice. The couple resides in Fayetteville, N.Y. On Sept. 14, 2009, they welcomed a son, Eric. Big brother Benjamin is excited about the new addition to the family.

chase, N.Y., as a finance manager in summer 2009. She and her husband, Daniel (BSBA ’99), and their daughter, Sydney, 21 months, now reside in New Rochelle, N.Y. Mary Ann Licamele graduated from

Georgetown’s MBA program in 2008 and recently started working at Booz Allen Hamilton with the human capital team.

MBA Class of 2002 Randall Davis is area vice president

at Risk International Services, Inc., and services clients’ risk management needs around the world. He has worked there since graduating from Georgetown. Risk International is the second-largest independent risk management consultancy in the United States.

Kristina Fausti, director of legal

and regulatory affairs for fiduciary360, an organization that provides education, analysis, support, and industry insights for fiduciary professionals, will join the board of the Financial Planning Association of Pittsburgh in 2010 as director of government affairs.

leaders. Storlie is a sales director at Union Pacific Railroad in Omaha, Neb. BSBA Class of 2003 Laura Wilkicki Bruckmann and her

husband, Christopher (C ’00), are proud to announce the birth of their daughter, Carolyn Amaral, in August 2009. Carly arrived at nearly 9 pounds and wore a Georgetown onesie home from the hospital. The family is looking forward to their first season at the Verizon Center together!

MBA Class of 2003 Mito and Nexhmedin Tsukamoto welcomed their second son and Adrian’s little brother, Sadri Morina, on Nov. 23, 2009.

Julie Karickhoff has been in Los

Angeles since 2002, playing lots of beach volleyball. She recently was a senior brand manager at 20th Century Fox, where she marketed TV shows on DVD, such as 24 and Family Guy. She now teaches entertainment marketing at Emerson College’s LA campus on a part-time basis while she is seeking other marketing opportunities.

IEMBA Class of 2003

Peter Lambert (based in China)

and Andrew Rosenblatt (based in New York) recently launched consulting firm Zero Degrees to help Western companies enter the Chinese market and Chinese companies expand in the United States.

Chad Storlie, an Iraq combat veteran, will publish Combat Leader to Corporate Leader (Praeger) in April. Combat Leader is designed for military veterans and nonveterans who wish to use military skills to become more effective business

Rob Burger and his wife, Deb, wel-

comed baby Emily on Jan. 3.

Daniel Doyon and Valentina Collins

(SFS ’07) married on Feb. 6 in Dallas. Several Georgetown alumni were in attendance, including best man Douglas Neumann (IEMBA ’03) and bridesmaids Sarah Masare (SFS ’07) and Silvella Smith (BSBA ’07).

Daniel Doyon and Valentina Collins

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ALUMNINotes

PROFILE

Kitchen Confidence

M

CoUrTESY FooD NETWork

Ten Dollar Dinners, now in its second season, began filming last elissa d’Arabian’s husband, Philippe, year. For two and a half weeks, d’Arabian stays in New York City has a standing joke: She gets every job to film the entire season of her show — typically a show and a she seeks. half per day, she says. She spends the rest of her time at her new It is one of those jokes that happens home in Kirkland, Wash., where she develops tips and tricks for to be true. Her last job application led her viewers. her to The Next Food Network Star, a “If you ran into me at the reality television program in which 10 grocery store, I could walk competitors tackle culinary challenges in the hopes of landing the you through and help you ultimate prize: their own Food Network show. Even as an undersave money on your bill like dog with no professional culinary experience, d’Arabian (MBA ’93) you wouldn’t believe,” she walked away a winner. says. “That’s what I do. I Now, the host of Ten Dollar Dinners — a show that promises “four people, 10 bucks, infinite possibilities” — chalks up her viclove it. It’s who I am.” tory to one lifelong lesson.

D’Arabian says she finds inspiration for new recipes and tips from past experiences, such as living in Paris, “I play a game I can win,” she says. “I’m not a ‘live where she met her husband, or new ones, like raison accident’ kind of person who throws my hat in the ing a picky 4-year-old. ring and sees what sticks. I live on purpose, and I’m “I keep a notebook now whenever I make very clear on why it makes sense.” dinner for my family,” d’Arabian says. Her D’Arabian used this strategy long before kitchen — which she jokingly calls her “lab” — competing on The Next Food Network Star. Her plays host to her experiments. business sense grew out of years working as “Every tip you hear on Ten Dollar Dinners, I a consultant, in corporate finance at Disney in have used in my own home. According to my California, and later in merchandise financing at kids,” she says, laughing, “it’s just me making Euro Disney in Paris. Only bed rest during her dinner.”

— Chloe Thompson twin pregnancy in 2007 led this mother of four daughters (ages 2, 4, and 5) to slow down after previously working 80-hour weeks.

Though winning was not official until Food Network chef Bobby Flay declared d’Arabian the champion, the former businesswoman knew that what she brought to the table set her apart from other contestants.

“I’ve been a working career mom, and I have been a stay-at-home mom to four kids, so I know how to get food on the table no matter what stage you are in. I also grew up with no money, so I know how to save and make Melissa d’Arabian’s Ten Dollar the best use of every dollar.”

Dinners often come from her own Life has changed again since experiments feeding her family.

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ALUMNINotes

BSBA Class of 2004 Carlos Luis Gazitua has partnered with his mother to run their three-generation family restaurant business. Sergio’s Family Restaurant, the family’s fifth Cuban restaurant in the Miami area, opened at the Wal-Mart Supercenter in Hialeah Gardens in July 2009.

Lizette Jenness Olmos (EML ’05),

Ronaldo Ferreira and his wife,

Maria Leopoldina, welcomed their first baby, Carolina Machado Ferreira, who was born on Nov. 10, 2009.

Sudhakar Garlanka’s company won a five-year project with Amtrak to provide IT services, especially for amtrak.com. His son, Sujay, is 13.

national communications director of the League of United Latin American Citizens, was named 2009 MillerCoors’ Líder of the Year. The award recognizes leaders in the Hispanic community. As the Líder of the Year, Olmos will be featured in print advertising recognizing her achievement, and LULAC will receive a $25,000 grant to develop and implement a leadership program in partnership with MillerCoors.

Oscar Ovalle is still in Bolivia

in charge of the World Bank operations in the country. His son, Mateo, is 16 months old. Ovalle also teaches energy and development at Vermont Law School.

Ryan Smalley is living outside

Pittsburgh with his wife, Shannon, and their three boys: Jake, Raef, and Sam. He is a principal at Zenetex, a medium-sized company that offers IT consulting to the intelligence community and the U.S. Department of Defense.

Shahed Amanullah was named one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world in a December 2009 study commissioned by Georgetown’s Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding and The Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Amman, Jordan.

The report cited Amanullah’s work in creating media services for the global Muslim community.

Richard Ambrose works for EMP

Summer Amin recently left her

Global in Washington, D.C., developing a European real estate fund and an infrastructure fund targeting the Middle East in collaboration with the Islamic Development Bank. He celebrated New Year’s Eve in the outskirts of Kampala dining on barbecued mystery meat and shortly thereafter spent a weekend in GW Hospital battling malaria. This year’s projects include setting up a consulting project for current Georgetown MBAs, renovating his apartment, and possibly planning for more travels during the World Cup.

position as director of marketing/ communications at Chief Executives Organization to start her own company, NiMA. An integrated marketing boutique headquartered in Washington, D.C., NiMA provides integrated marketing and communications services, from strategic planning to creative execution, to small businesses, nonprofit organizations, and trade associations.

Worth Dixon is working as a product specialist for W.L. Gore and Associates and recently has relocated to Hong Kong after living in Shenzhen, China, for two years.

He hikes in the New Territories and plays the banjo in his free time.

McDonough alumni are welcome to contact him on Facebook if they have plans to travel through Hong Kong or Mainland China.

Mark Gray’s eldest child, Lauren,

is a freshman business major at Georgetown and also is on the women’s lacrosse team.

MBA Class of 2006

MBA Class of 2004

Peter Gasca and Flyura Gimatova

were married Oct. 2, 2009, in Myrtle Beach, S.C. Their company, Wild Creations, was a finalist in the 2010 Toy of the Year Award at the Toy Industry Association’s Toy Convention in New York City with its EcoAquarium.

Julie Kang recently founded barkle.com, a social resource Web site created by dog lovers for dog owners for the purpose of knowledge-sharing through userdriven content. It will have the capabilities of sharing information through social media tools.

Victor Palmeiro started a bankruptcy attorney firm, Maryland Bankruptcy Pros, and practices Chapter 7 bankruptcy and Chapter 13 bankruptcy.

Andy Rah got engaged in Decem-

ber 2009 and will start a new job in August as brand manager at TIGI Linea, managing the S-factor professional hair care line.

IEMBA Class of 2006 Ada Vaughan’s new venture,

Amy Sweet, her husband, Andy,

and son, Tyler, 3, relocated to Michigan in June 2009. Sweet is a senior analyst for the U.S. Government Accountability Office in Chicago and is conducting oversight of the American Reinvestment and Recovery Act spending in Michigan.

CuteyBaby, LLC, is thriving. In the first quarter of 2010, the company will test its Modern Cloth Diaper product line in Costco and Meijer stores in the Midwest.

MBA Class of 2008 Mary Ann Licamele recently started

working at Booz Allen Hamilton with the human capital team.

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PROFILE

ALUMNINotes

Get Social

W

e have become a nation of chronic list-makers, forever categorizing our favorites into convenient top 5 lists.

Naturally, we now want to share those lists with friends and likeminded strangers online — all the time.

Enter Tim O’Shaughnessy (BSBA ’04) and LivingSocial.com.

O’Shaughnessy’s online brainchild has set itself apart from the Web 2.0 pack by allowing users to cobble together their lists and integrate them with Facebook.

Top 5 lists — about movies, books, albums, and even beer — eliminate gray areas of commentary and cut to the proverbial chase. These lists tell us what you think and what you represent, and they let us scan your worldview in short order.

“Our founding team believed in the Facebook application platform, and because of its inherently viral nature — along with its ability to aggregate users at a staggering pace — it seemed natural to build products that were tailored to what people would want to share with their friends,” says O’Shaughnessy, 28.

The founding team’s instincts were right: More than 80 million users have added one of LivingSocial’s Facebook products, and tens of thousands of others have taken advantage of discounts at local merchants via the site’s so-called LivingSocial Deals.

O’Shaughnessy and his team launched the D.C.-based site in 2007 and later received investments from venture capitalists Grotech Ventures and from AOL co-founder and tech heavyweight Steve Case and wife Jean ($5 million in June 2008 and $5 million in late 2009, respectively).

O’Shaughnessy, a Minnesota native, says his 40-employee company’s products are rooted in social commerce and advertising-based business.

“Major advertisers will use our scale to reach audiences on our products, such as Pick Your 5, through Web advertising and sponsorships,” he says. “Our users purchase vouchers to local merchants through LivingSocial Deals, and we take a commission on those purchases.” O’Shaughnessy says LivingSocial’s growth has exceeded his expectations.

So who is the typical user? O’Shaughnessy says as Facebook’s demographics have shifted, so too have LivingSocial’s. The aver-

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Tim O’Shaughnessy has made it easier for people to share their local favorites with LivingSocial.com.

age users tend to be 30 years old and skew slightly female.

“But age is entirely topic dependent,” he says. “People who talk about video games are still predominantly male and under the age of 28.”

LivingSocial’s strategy for growth is multitiered, but everything comes down to maintaining and clawing for new online turf. The company also will continue to enhance its group-buying service (deals.livingsocial.com), where users receive deals on the local interests they enjoy.

“We negotiate deals with local merchants on behalf of our users,” O’Shaughnessy says. “And then we offer discounts to a cool restaurant, spa, or theater, for example — such as $50 worth of food and drink at a restaurant for $25. Because we’re so hooked into social media, users frequently share the deal with their friends and generate new customers for merchants. We’ve sold thousands of vouchers in one day for restaurants and theaters.”

All these deals give users even more new favorites, from food to films, to add to their lists.

— Michael McCarthy

37

ALUMNIConnect Across the Country

H

FraNk CUrraN

undreds of Georgetown McDonough School of Business alumni have reconnected with their fellow graduates and built new professional relationships by attending social, business, and networking events held in cities across the country during the past few months.

From the East Coast to Florida to the West Coast, alumni gathered to catch up with old friends and enjoy lectures and presentations by Georgetown McDonough School of Business professors.

Join us on Facebook and LinkedIn and follow us on Twitter to learn about news, events, and opportunities at your alma mater.

CHrIS korMIS

DaVE SCaVoNE

On Nov. 4, Associate Professor of Marketing Ron Goodstein discussed “Where Did They Go? Keeping Customers in a Downturn Economy” with alumni and guests at the Hampshire House in Boston. His lecture detailed the good and poor marketing decisions made by Coke, Jack-in-the-Box, and Sprint.

aNNEMarIE PoYo FUrLoNg

Jeneanne Rae, a thought leader on innovation management and design strategy who has taught at the McDonough School of Business for almost 10 years, discussed “Innovation in the Workplace: The Implications for Change” at an alumni networking event on Feb. 18 at the Hyatt Regency in Bethesda, Md. Many alumni in attendance expressed excitement over how they would immediately put to use the lessons learned at the event.

On Jan. 28, alumni in the Miami area gathered at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables, Fla. Deputy Dean Ricardo Ernst talked about “Globalization, Competitiveness, and Governability: What Do They Mean for Latin America?” The Q-and-A session featured a high-level discussion about current challenges in Latin America.

Dean George Daly (below left) drew a large group to the alumni networking event at the Ritz-Carlton, Tysons Corner in McLean, Va., on Jan. 21. Over breakfast, alumni enjoyed a lecture by Professor of the Practice Betsy Sigman on “Work and Play: How the Future of Technology Will Change Your Life,” which was followed by a Q-and-A session.

Associate Professor of Management Brooks Holtom (above left) talked about “Keeping Your Best and Brightest: Award-winning Research on Employee Retention” with alumni and guests at the Cornell Club in New York on Nov. 3. His presentation included inspiring video of stunt cyclist Danny MacAskill and his “cold calling” style, followed by a discussion and networking.

msb.georgetown.edu/alumni

38

DaVE SCaVoNE

Would you like to have an event in your city? E-mail us at alumni@msb.edu or visit

msb.georgetown.edu

ALUMNINotes

rEED HUTCHINSoN

On March 4, alumni gathered at the Peninsula Hotel in Los Angeles for a networking event with Professor Bill Novelli.

BrUCE Cook

Braving “Snowmageddon,” the snowstorm of the decade, a crowd of Hoyas showed up for the sold-out Georgetown vs. Villanova basketball game on Feb. 6.

While catching up and enjoying good food and drinks, alumni cheered on the Georgetown team to a 103–90 victory.

On March 3, alumni gathered at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel in San Francisco for networking and a presentation by Distinguished Professor of the Practice Bill Novelli on “Tackling Social Problems — A Global Leadership Opportunity.”

Upcoming Alumni Events Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business is having 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.

D AT E

EVENT

D AT E

April 10

Sixth Annual Run for Rigby 5K Race, 3K Walk

Washington, D.C., Georgetown Campus Daniel Rigby was a McDonough School of Business student who passed away in a tragic house fire in October 2004.The Run for Rigby is a 5-kilometer race and alternate 1-mile walk held annually on Georgetown’s campus. Each year, Rigby Weekend raises money to support fire safety awareness in the Georgetown community and a scholarship fund in Dan’s name.

EVENT

Please also join us for the upcoming events in the Distinguished Leaders Series: RSVP at msb.georgetown.edu April 12

J. Willard Marriott Jr., chairman and CEO of Marriott International, Inc.

April 19

Dr. Abdul Kalam, former president of India

April 22

Stefan Jacoby, president and CEO of the Volkswagen Group of America

April 26

Roger Lowenstein, author of The End of Wall Street

Reunion Weekend 2010 Washington, D.C., Georgetown Campus

June 4

McDonough School of Business Open House

Washington, D.C., Georgetown Campus, Rafik B. Hariri Building The second annual open house for all McDonough School of Business alumni kicks off the Reunion Weekend. Come back to meet up with friends and experience the school’s new building.

June 5

Reunion Class Celebration Dinner

MBA, IEMBA, and EML Reunion Classes 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2005 Washington, D.C., Georgetown Campus, Rafik B. Hariri Building This celebration is the marquee event for our MBA, IEMBA, and EML alumni. It is not to be missed!

For more information, visit msb.georgetown.edu/alumni

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

39

BUSINESSSense

Financial Regulation: One Year Later

M

By Phillip Swagel, Visiting Professor

DAVID LESH

ore than a year after the worst of the financial crisis in fall 2008, legislation to reform the regulation of U.S. financial markets remains in limbo.

This is surprising, given that the fragmented regulatory system is widely thought to have played a role in the crisis by allowing some institutions — AIG, nonbank originators of subprime loans, and mortgage brokers, among others — to escape effective scrutiny.

The lack of action reflects not just the inevitable difficulty any legislation faces in a divided Congress, but also divergent views about fundamental issues. Proposals that would let executive branch officials intervene in the event of a threatened insolvency at a non-bank financial institution represent a key point of contention.

Current law allows the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC) to take over or “resolve” a failing bank; the FDIC has done so for 180 banks from January 2008 to the end of January 2010. But the FDIC authority does not extend to insurance companies such as AIG or to the holding companies that are the parents of many banks (for example, Citigroup is the parent of Citibank). This particular constraint was clear in September 2008, when neither the FDIC nor the Treasury Department, at which I served as assistant secretary for economic policy from December 2006 to January 2009, had the legal authority to prevent the collapse of Lehman Brothers.

Legislation passed by the House of Representatives in December 2009 would allow the Treasury, in concert with the FDIC and the Federal Reserve, to intervene if a financial firm’s failure poses a risk to the broad economy.

The legislation intends to bring about an orderly winding down of the firm while minimizing the adverse spillover on other firms and the economy.

In practice, however, the proposed non-bank resolution authority provides wide-ranging powers for the executive branch to put public money into a firm, replace the management, or abrogate contracts. Critics of the proposed legislation worry that the executive branch would be allowed to commit public resources without a further congressional vote and with few constraints on its uses. An alternative approach would be to reform the bankruptcy code to reduce the strains caused by the failure of a large, interconnected financial firm. The aim would be to allow firms to fail, which, if credible, would be expected to affect risktaking behavior and make crises less likely going forward. Future bailouts would require a vote of Congress — a difficult hurdle in the wake of the intensely unpopular TARP. 40

Neither approach is perfect: Non-bank resolution authority might leave too much flexibility in the hands of the executive branch, but relying on the bankruptcy process might lead to the dissipation of enterprise value that could be saved with a well-timed government intervention.

Other regulatory reform issues are just as knotty, including: ■ How best to close gaps in the supervisory system. A leading proposal would provide authority to a council of federal regulators including the Federal Reserve, Treasury, and the FDIC to gather information from all financial firms.

■ Whether to add a new agency focused on consumer protection. A potential compromise could be to provide more resources to a newly empowered consumer protection arm in an existing federal agency.

■ Whether to limit bank activities or act in advance to break up large firms even when they do not appear to pose a specific risk to the financial system or the broad economy.

The so-called Volcker proposals from the Obama administration that would crack down on activities such as proprietary trading do not appear to have legislative traction, in part because it is difficult to distinguish between proprietary trading and the normal activities of firms acting as broker-dealers.

There is widespread agreement that more derivatives transactions will go through centralized clearinghouses, and more derivatives trading will move onto exchanges. Customized derivatives still will be allowed, but firms using such products will be required to hold additional capital.

The complexity of these issues illustrates why financial regulatory reform remains an unfinished story. At Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business, several classes tackle financial sector regulation and performance. This includes a new elective I am teaching, Financial Markets and Public Policy in a Time of Crisis, which examines the workings of bond markets, the banking system, and monetary policy, all viewed through the lens of the financial crisis. While the policy debate proceeds, our students are learning the skills they need to contribute to the future of American finance.

Learn more at finpolicy.georgetown.edu

Visiting Professor Phillip Swagel teaches courses on the relationship between financial markets and the macroeconomy and directs the McDonough School of Business’ Center for Financial Institutions, Policy, and Governance. msb.georgetown.edu

The Dean’s Leadership Fund Gifts to the McDonough School of Business Dean’s Leadership Fund are the most direct way of investing in the school’s mission and success. The gifts have enriched the student experience through: • The Distinguished Leaders Speaker Series, the MBA Leaders Breakfasts, and panel discussions such as The Future of Global Finance, held in September 2009 • Scholarships • Student Leadership Experiences

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

Your gift increases the McDonough School of Business’ academic strength and reputation by supporting high standards for teaching and academic excellence, and makes new and innovative programs possible.

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

2010

Reunion Weekend June 3–6

Come home to the Hilltop, rediscover the spirit of Georgetown, and see friends and fellow alumni. Reunion Weekend is a wonderful opportunity for MBA/IEMBA/EML alumni to introduce their families to their classmates and to the Georgetown community.

This year we will celebrate reunions for the classes of 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2005.

JUNE 4

McDonough School of Business Open House

5–8 p.m.

Simone McDonough Atrium, Rafik B. Hariri Building Join us for an open house in the new Rafik B. Hariri Building.

Reconnect with classmates and tour the new facility while learning about recent changes to the school and its programs. This event is open to all McDonough School of Business alumni from all years.

JUNE 5

Reunion Class Celebration Dinner

7–11 p.m. Fisher Colloquium, Rafik B. Hariri Building Join your classmates for a very special evening while taking in outstanding campus views from the top floor of the new Rafik B. Hariri Building. This event is the highlight of the weekend for MBA, IEMBA, and EML Reunion Classes of 1985, 1990, 1995, 2000, and 2005 and is not to be missed! Cocktail attire. $65/person.

For questions regarding 2010 Reunion Weekend, please e-mail alumni@msb.edu or call 202-687-4983. Find reunion updates at msb.georgetown.edu/alumni.