THE MAGAZINE OF THE McCOMBS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
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COUPLES AND FINANCIAL LITERACY
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ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE: MYTHS AND REALITIES
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BITCOIN PRICE MANIPULATION
enters the CBA building during Gone to Texas celebrations welcoming new students on August 28, 2018. THE CLASS OF 2022
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2. LETTER FROM THE DEAN
13. RESEARCH
Leigh McAlister: Award-winning marketing professor. 14. Financial Literacy: Differences in financial responsibility at home can send partners on different paths. 16. Empathetic Cops: Research shows conservative officers may perform better in the face of public scrutiny.
3. NEWS
Short Takes: Student balances professional barrel-racing with school, new travel study program in New York, BHP appoints new director, and more. 6. Into the Conversation: New associate dean for diversity and inclusion aims to foster a multicultural, welcoming environment for everyone at McCombs. 8. Bitcoin Untethered: John Griffin’s bitcoin research suggests market manipulation in the cryptocurrency’s bull run last year. 10. Global Reach: Dean Jay Hartzell extends McCombs’ reach to Asia, and finds UT pride outside of Texas. 11. Fresh Focus: Stacey Rudnick leads the school’s new Center for Leadership and Ethics. 12. Hall of Fame: Rex Tillerson, Ted Wang, and Richard Folger are the newest additions to McCombs’ Hall of Fame.
39. COMMUNITY
48. BOTTOM LINE
y F E AT U R E S
BY J U D I E K I N O N E N
BLOCKCHAIN INNOVATION
With a new initiative, Texas McCombs takes a leading role in research and development of the cryptotechnology. BY ST E V E B R O O KS
DEMYSTIFYING AI
James Scott’s new book AIQ debunks the myths and explores the history behind artificial intelligence. BY J E R E M Y M . S I M O N
SERVING THE CITY
MBA students are volunteering their skills on the boards of local nonprofits as part of student organization Board Fellows. BY J E R E M Y M . S I M O N
CHIEF MARKETING OFFICER
Emily Reagan
David Wenger MANAGER, CONTENT STRATEGY
Todd Savage EDITOR
Molly Dannenmaier ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Jeremy M. Simon ART DIRECTION/DESIGN
Native Pride: Pinnacle moment for emeritus professor.
Carla Vernón’s youthful dream of working to save the planet comes true at General Mills.
McCombs is published in the fall and spring for alumni and friends of the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin.
DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS
40. Up Close: Prolific inventor earns hundreds of patents for IBM, former finance director promotes entrepreneurialism in Guatemala, and more. 43. Gatherings: Alumni events and celebrations. 44. Remembrance: Professor Jim Fredrickson 45. Alumni Notes
ORGANIC ASCENT
FALL 2018
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C O V E R P H OTO G R A P H E D B Y A C K E R M A N + G R U B E R ; I N S I D E A N D B A C K C O V E R S P H O T O G R A P H E D B Y L A U R E N G E R S O N
Tucker Creative Co. CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Maureen Balleza, Steve Brooks, Patricio CantÚ, London Gibson, Judie Kinonen, Jenna Sharp, Lee Simmons, Jeremy M. Simon CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Dennis Burnett, Ackerman + Gruber, Lauren Gerson, Matthew Mahon CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS
Matthew Billington, Chad Hagen, Dale Edwin Murray, Harrison Schell ONLINE
http://issuu.com/mccombs schoolofbusiness CHANGE OF ADDRESS
512-232-2441 alumni@mccombs.utexas.edu FOLLOW US
facebook.com/utmccombsschool twitter.com/utexasmccombs Linkedin: http://bit.ly/UTexasMcCombs
McCOMBS.UTEXAS.EDU 1
McCOMBS: FROM THE DEAN
Business, Human-to-Human we teach people. We engage minds, and we seek to inspire heartfelt imaginations. In our classrooms and in the field, we nurture the joy and discipline of discovery and exploration. We often say that we believe business gives people the power and the responsibility to make a positive impact on society. In our global economy, that mission enables us to engage collaboratively across disciplines, industries, and cultures. In June I traveled to five Asian cities with President Greg Fenves, Provost Maurie McInnis, Dean Clay Johnston of UT's Dell Medical School, and other university leaders. I expected to strengthen our close relationship with Asia-based alumni and to build new ties with potential partners. That hope was met and exceeded. DON’T TEACH BUSINESS AT TEXAS McCOMBS;
I wish you could experience the enthusiasm and creative spirit I saw among our alumni in the cities we visited, from Singapore to Tokyo to Seoul. They are strengthening every aspect of the region, from financial oversight to business creation and social innovation. I met with Texas Ph.D. graduates in Hong Kong who are now teaching in top universities there. In Beijing, it was a thrill to reconnect with Changneng Xuan, Ph.D. ’97, a classmate of mine, who was in a position similar to our SEC commissioner. All of them remain emotionally and intellectually connected to the school, and I am intent on reinvigorating our ties to them as a community and a resource. This issue of McCombs magazine highlights our impact on the full human experience: research that directly influences our social discourse and public policies; business builders who are leading their teams with emotional intelligence and awareness of the impact of their actions; voices that are finding a platform at the center of influence and authority. As alumni, your connection to the Texas McCombs network around the world will continue to sharpen you, challenge you, and connect you to a lifelong community. That’s a benefit for every human who has passed through our doors.
JAY HARTZELL Dean and Centennial Chair in Business Education Leadership
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P H OTO G R A P H BY D E N N I S B U R N E T T
NEWS
READY TO RIDE McCOMBS STUDENT BALANCES WORLD-CLASS RODEO COMPETITION WITH DOUBLE HONORS MAJORS is getting back in the saddle for the new rodeo season this fall. A Business Honors, finance, and Plan II student, Murray is also an award-winning barrel racer who ranked sixth in last year’s rodeo world standings, and pulled in earnings of more than $200,000. She was on track to make it to the finals again last season until both of her horses were injured. While they were recovering, she took a step back from competition — but rider and horses are now ready to race. As the season began, Murray ranked third in Texas, and in December she will take on the Texas Professional Rodeo Finals in Waco. Also working on earning her pilot’s license, Murray says balancing life as both a professional barrel racer and a McCombs student requires creative time management. “I have learned to watch lectures while warming up my horse, read finance while I set the plane on autopilot … and enjoy the red-eye flights, where I can catch up on sleep,” she says. “I’ve always believed that with enough persistence and tenacity, the possibilities are endless.” ILLAR MURRAY, BBA ’20,
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N E W S : S H O R T TA K E S
Excellent Selections
EXECUTIVETHEOLOGIAN TO TEACH AT TEXAS McCOMBS Jim Hackett, executive chairman of Alta Mesa Resources and former CEO of Anadarko Petroleum Corp., has joined the Management Department where he’ll teach an MBA course on moral leadership this spring. The course draws from the wisdom of spiritual traditions and moral reasoning to build virtuous leaders. Hackett has an intriguing background for the classroom: He’s led three Fortune 500 energy firms and served as chairman of the board at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, as well as earning both an MBA and a master’s of theological studies from Harvard University. “Whether it’s Hindus, Muslims, Jews, Christians, or Buddhists, there are certain common views about the role of economics in a society,” he says. Hackett’s students will draw from the traditions of their families and society, so they can apply the rules across the board, particularly in entrepreneurship. It’s an approach he believes in deeply. “Integrity is the most powerful form of leadership,” he says.
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A team of McCombs students won Stanford University’s inaugural stock pitch competition, placing ahead of 17 other teams. Business Honors Program students Angela Yang, BBA ’21, Catherine Cheng, BBA ’20, Eric Sun, BBA ’20, and Alexander van Geenen, BBA ’21, successfully pitched Coherent Inc., a diversified industrial laser manufacturer, at the competition hosted in May by the Stanford student finance organization. “The judges were incredibly impressed by the quality of the pitch and happy to hear we were representing The University of Texas at Austin,” says Cheng. To prepare for the competition, the team spent time in the McCombs School’s Financial Education and Research Center gathering information using Capital IQ, Bloomberg, and FactSet. “One of our judges was incredibly impressed by the amount of data we had access to as undergraduates,” says Cheng.
UTNY PROGRAM PLACES STUDENTS IN THE BIG APPLE The University of Texas in New York’s academic center is set to open in 2019, enabling UT business, communications, and fine arts students to spend a summer or semester learning and interning in New York City. Students who participate in the UTNY travel study program will extend their opportunities for degrees and careers in fields that have a substantial professional presence in the city, including finance, marketing, music, and advertising. McCombs students can intern for investment and commercial banking, real estate, and accounting firms, but also have the flexibility to intern outside their normal course of study. Courses will be taught by experienced local instructors, and scheduled at days and times to facilitate internship work. UTNY facilities can also serve as a location for visiting UT leaders and faculty to conduct outreach, work, and research.
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McCOMBS BY THE NUMBERS ENTREPRENEURIAL RISE IN RANKING McCombs rose to No. 6 in the latest Princeton Review/ Entrepreneur Magazine rankings for graduate entrepreneurship, up from No. 16 last year. Over the last 10 years, graduate students of entrepreneurship, including from the MBA and MSTC programs, started almost 200 companies. The total funding these businesses raised over that decade was just over $2 billion. McCombs-founded firms include BeatBox Beverages, Spredfast, Datameer, AirStrip Technologies, and Xenex Disinfection Services.
MPA ALUMS AMONG TOP EXAM PERFORMERS Two accounting alumni were recognized in June by the American Institute of CPAs as winners of the Elijah Watt Sells Award, which recognizes outstanding performance on the CPA Examination. Hyungmin Kim and Maureen Patricia Sweet, both MPA ’16, were among only 58 CPA candidates (out of 95,858 individuals who sat for the exam last year) who obtained a cumulative average score above 95.50 across all four sections of the CPA examination, passed all four sections of the examination on their first attempt, and completed testing in 2017.
BHP’S NEW DIRECTOR
Finance Professor Andres Almazan was named as the new faculty director of the BBA Business Honors Program. The new appointment began in August. Almazan, who joined the McCombs faculty in 1998, is the Bank of America Centennial Fellow and has won more than 20 teaching awards, including being named seven times to the MBA Faculty Honor Roll and earning the Joe D. Beasley Award for MBA Teaching. Under Almazan’s direction, BHP is working to establish joint degree programs with Plan II Honors, Engineering, and Computer Science. He also hopes to continue expanding BHP’s reputation beyond Texas. “This is one of those cases in which you work to make something very good even better,” says Almazan.
Distinguished Marketing Educator Award Professor Linda Golden was recognized with the AMS Cutco/Vector Distinguished Marketing Educator Award from the Academy of Marketing Science. The annual award honors long-term achievement in the teaching, research, mentorship, and service of marketing. Golden, who holds appointments in the Marketing and Business, Government, and Society Departments, accepted the award in May at the AMS Annual Conference in New Orleans. Golden was also named to the AMS board of governors, for a six-year term effective June 1, joining a list of diverse members from high-ranking universities.
284
Number of MBAs in this year’s class, the largest since 2004.
109
Number of women in this year’s MBA class, the most ever
53
Number of underrepresented minorities (black, Hispanic, and Native American students) in this year’s MBA class, the most ever
No. 6
The BBA program’s ranking in latest U.S. News & World Report survey
20
The number of years in a row the BBA program has made the top 10 in the rankings from U.S. News
9
Consecutive years McCombs has made a clean sweep at No. 1 across all three levels (undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral) in the Public Accounting Report’s ranking
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N E W S : I D E A S AT WO R K
BRINGING EVERYONE INTO THE CONVERSATION AN INTERVIEW WITH RAJI SRINIVASAN, McCOMBS’ FIRST ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR DIVERSITY AND INCLUSION
his summer, Dean Jay Hartzell created a new leadership role at Texas McCombs to better nurture a culture of diversity and inclusion within the community of students, faculty, and staff. The mandate for this new position of Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion is to create a community within the business school that reflects the diversity of the state of Texas it serves, as well as the national and international community that seeks it out. After an exhaustive search, Marketing Professor Raji Srinivasan, a popular teacher and a respected scholar, was appointed to serve in this role and began her work on July 1. “Raji has been an outspoken advocate for the rights of many underrepresented groups around campus, and she will guide our diversity and inclusion efforts with the focus and resolve that they deserve,” Hartzell says. We talked with her about the job, her goals, and the challenges ahead. Q: Why did you accept the appointment, and why do you think you are uniquely qualified to play a leadership role in this area? A: I joined Texas McCombs as an assistant professor in 2000 and have spent the last 18 years as a research professor, moving through the ranks of assistant professor, associate professor, and full professor. This institution has been wonderful to me, enabling me to pursue my professional research and teaching career goals. So, when Dean Hartzell asked me if I
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would be willing to take on this new — and what I considered to be an important — responsibility, I was delighted to be able to give back to the institution that has given so much to me. I think I bring some unique skills to this position. I am a South Asian woman who came to the United States as a graduate student with two young children. It would be fair to say that as an immigrant student, I had a range of experiences, some negative, but most largely positive, that have allowed me to both appreciate and celebrate different perspectives. In addition, I grew up in a family where two of my immediate family members suffered from a debilitating mental disability, which provided me a deep appreciation of being differently abled, and has allowed me to understand the importance of inclusion for all members of the community. I think having close family members who were excluded from many social events in public spaces has made me very receptive to the idea of including everyone in conversations. Q: Whose interests do you serve in this role?
Q: How do you see McCombs’ diversity and inclusion initiatives fitting into the McCombs Strategic Plan? A: Dean Hartzell’s strategic plan for Texas
McCombs builds on the theme of Human Centered, Future Focused. Today’s corporations are increasingly serving complex, diverse markets all around the world. Consider that of the more than seven billion people in the world, only 325 million or so live in the United States. Large companies look to grow in the diverse markets outside this country. They seek employees, customers, and business partners in a multicultural, global marketplace. Given this background, a key skill for senior leadership to manage these complex markets is global acumen, the skill to effectively manage within a diverse, multicultural world, whether by serving customers in these markets or seeking to hire from a diverse, multicultural talent pool. I believe that as a premier business school preparing the leaders of the future, McCombs has an obligation to help them develop the global acumen to manage in a complex and diverse world, including customers, channel partners, and employees.
A: I believe I serve the interests of multiple
constituencies, including students, faculty, staff, alumni, the dean, and The University of Texas at Austin. In addition, I believe that working at a leading business school in the state of Texas, I also serve the interests of the local community in Texas, and in Austin, in particular.
Q: Since accepting this role, what have you learned about the culture of inclusion at Texas McCombs? A: We already have a strong culture of inclusion
across the different programs — BBA, MBA, MPA, MS, and Ph.D. We have committed and
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McCombs' new Associate Dean for Diversity and Inclusion Raji Srinivasan sees a business case for diversity and inclusion: “I believe that as a premier business school preparing the leaders of the future, McCombs has an obligation to help them develop the global acumen to manage in a complex and diverse world.”
dedicated colleagues in the various program offices who work with our students, staff, and faculty colleagues to enhance the culture of inclusion for our community. Q: What are your goals?
D&I webpage, which serves as a resource for prospective, incoming, and current students, staff, and faculty — and an intranet page for faculty and staff, which includes resources on D&I-related issues for recruiting, teaching, and leading in the McCombs community. So far, we have received an excellent reception.
A: My goal is to create a community whose
diversity profile reflects the community at large that we serve both in the state of Texas and nationally. In addition, we want to create a culture of inclusion so that all our community members can bring their full selves to work, to be more effective, fulfilled, and happy. Q: What have you accomplished so far? A: Since I started this summer, we have under-
taken diversity-based workshops for staff, faculty, and students. We have set up a McCombs
Q: Our students are bright and intuitive. How are they helping you understand where progress needs to be made? A: Yes, McCombs students are among the
brightest and the best. They are also committed to our mission of diversity and inclusion in the McCombs community. Whether BBA, MBA, MPA, MS, or Ph.D., they have very cogently articulated their demanding needs for this. Indeed, they have identified specific areas, including the classroom environment, where
they feel that McCombs can make substantive progress in the coming years. And I agree that we can do better and we will, in the coming months and years. Q: What have you learned that you believe applies to workplaces where many of our alumni are working as well? A: A key skill for senior leadership to man-
age these complex, multicultural, global markets is global acumen, the skill to manage in a diverse, multicultural world. This is a skill that all our alumni need in order to lead organizations with the future in mind.
For more information, see www.mccombs. utexas.edu/diversity-and-inclusion.
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N E W S: C S I - B L O C KC H A I N
?
FI
NANCE
Investigators: John Griffin, Amin Shams
John Griffin calls his specialty “forensic finance.” Tracing economic tracks, the McCombs finance professor has uncovered shady practices everywhere from mortgage-backed securities to a stock options index. “If you look at things closely enough, the data speaks,” he says. Last December, the interests of Griffin and Amin Shams, a Ph.D. candidate in finance, were piqued by the bursting of the bitcoin bubble. The value of the crypto-coin soared close to $20,000, then collapsed below $7,000. “When you see price changes like that, there is a chance there is something unnatural going on,” says Shams.
INVESTIGATION: BLOCKCHAIN
Were Bitcoin Prices Rigged?
FORENSIC
Suspect #1
Tether, a cryptocurrency whose price tracks closely with the U.S. dollar. Traders often use tethers rather than dollars to buy and sell bitcoins.
In a working paper published online in June, the pair scoured the scene for signs of price manipulation. Here’s how they dusted for
Suspect #2
digital fingerprints, and the evidence they uncovered:
ry o e h T th e
Tether’s owners pumped up bitcoin values by issuing tethers and using them to buy bitcoin — much as printing dollars can inflate consumer prices.
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value
Bitfinex, the largest bitcoin exchange. It’s registered in the British Virgin Islands, headquartered in Hong Kong, and shares several owners with Tether.
The Evidence Every time someone trades bitcoins for tethers, the transaction is publicly recorded on blockchains.
The Challenge
The Forensics
A blockchain disguises buyers and sellers behind long digital IDs. A single trader can spread their holdings across many different “wallets.”
Out of 360 million bitcoin wallets, millions were linked in clusters. They were used together in multiple trades, indicating common owners.
The Findings When bitcoin prices sagged, tether holders bought up bitcoins, and prices suddenly recovered.
[ Bitcoin Price ]
Used for illustrative purposes only, not representative of actual data being observed
KEY PATTERNS
A Buying Sprees For every 1 percent that bitcoin prices dropped, purchases with tethers jumped 72 bitcoins an hour.
200 C Inflating the Bubble 200 Half of bitcoin’s rise could be associated 200 to just 87 hours when tethers were 200 buying more than 200 bitcoins an hour. 200
B Bitcoin Boosts 100
%
For every 100 bitcoins bought with newly issued tethers, prices rose 4.4 basis points in the next three hours.
D Protecting Price Floors +80
When prices fell below certain levels — multiples of $500 — Bitfinex bumped up its buying of bitcoins from 60 an hour to as much as 140. Such floors can be psychologically important to investors.
The Response Since June, Griffin’s and Shams’ research has garnered more than 600 media mentions worldwide, appearing in nearly every major news outlet. Bitfinex and Tether have denied financial foul play. But markets drew their own conclusions. The day the paper appeared, bitcoin fell 4 percent. Investigators John Griffin, Amin Shams
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N E W S: L E A D E R S H I P
GLOBAL REACH DEAN JAY HARTZELL ESTABLISHES NEW BONDS WITH ALUMNI AND FRIENDS IN ASIA
to Asia as dean of Texas McCombs, Jay Hartzell met with more than 350 UT alumni, parents, students, and friends in five cities and four countries this summer. A delegation of university leaders, led by President Greg Fenves and Provost Maurie McInnis, convened some of the largest alumni gatherings ever held outside of the United States. “If you think burnt-orange pride is thriving in Texas, you should experience the enthusiasm I saw among our alumni in Asia,” reports Hartzell. After covering 20,000 miles, the delegation left Asia feeling energized about the global reach of Texas McCombs and the many opportunities for future partnership. Jennifer Wang, UT’s director of development for international advancement, kept a diary of the trip’s highlights. N HIS INAUGURAL TRIP
SATURDAY, JUNE 16, 2018 – TOKYO
To kick off the week in Asia, we had a wonderful Tokyo welcome from Dave and Lisa Dickson, both BBA ’83, who hosted the UT Alumni Reception at the Tokyo American Club. More than 45 alumni joined for the first-ever alumni gathering with UT leadership in Japan. SUNDAY, JUNE 17, 2018 – SEOUL
You wouldn’t expect to find Tex-Mex in Korea, but we had the opportunity to try Seoul’s first Korean-Mexican fusion restaurant, Vatos Urban Tacos, co-founded by Korean-American and San Antonio native Jonathan Kim, BA ’06. MONDAY, JUNE 18, 2018 – SEOUL
Ja-Kyun Koo, Ph.D. finance ’90, hosted us for lunch on the top floor of Lotte World Tower, South Korea’s tallest building and the fifth-highest in the world. Afterward, the UT Korean Alumni
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Association and its president Sam Chi, BBA ’92, MPA ’93, hosted a Texas Edge event featuring Hartzell and Clay Johnston, dean of Dell Medical School, who spoke about health care and business innovation.
THURSDAY, JUNE 21, 2018 – HONG KONG
Hartzell had numerous meetings with McCombs alumni and partners. Highlights included visiting the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology campus, and meeting nearly 90 alumni and friends during the evening reception.
TUESDAY, JUNE 19, 2018 – BEIJING
After a day of meetings with alumni and the American Chamber of Commerce China, Hartzell reunited with his former Ph.D. classmate Dr. Changneng Xuan, Ph.D. ’97, who recently was appointed deputy director of China’s Foreign Exchange Bureau. The evening concluded with an event at Tsinghua University and dinner at the Summer Palace with distinguished alumni and friends in the energy sector.
FRIDAY, JUNE 22, 2018 – SINGAPORE
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 20, 2018 – BEIJING
SATURDAY, JUNE 23, 2018 – SINGAPORE
Before heading to Hong Kong, Hartzell caught up with investor and entrepreneur Jin Huang, MBA ’00.
We wrapped up our time in Asia with the third meeting of the International Board of Advisors — and its first meeting abroad.
We visited the National University of Singapore Enterprise and rendezvoused with Houston-based Andrew Vo, BBA ’95, Accenture’s recently appointed HR managing director lead for AAAPAC. Our final event, Texas Edge Singapore, was sponsored by Jumbo Group and featured former UT swimmer and Singapore’s sole Olympic gold medalist, Joseph Schooling.
The delegation, including Dean Jay Hartzell (third from left), Provost Maurie McInnis (fifth from left), and President Gregory Fenves (center), showed their pride with jackets given as gifts from the UT Korean Alumni Association during the visit to Seoul.
FAL L 2018
FRESH FOCUS STACEY RUDNICK TAKES THE HELM OF McCOMBS’ CENTER FOR LEADERSHIP AND ETHICS
TACE Y RU D N I CK , LO N GTI M E
director of McCombs MBA Career Management, has taken on a new role at the school. This spring, she was appointed director of the Center for Leadership and Ethics, a merger of the existing Leadership Center and the Ethics Unwrapped program. “We have these incredible assets,” Rudnick says, “and putting them together gives us a stronger platform and brand message.” Assets that are rolling out under Rudnick’s direction include a new leadership core for MBA candidates that will be incorporated into the curriculum beginning in fall 2019, as well as a new MBA fellows program that offers a select group of second-year students the opportunity to coach first-year teams in leadership. The center’s new space at Rowling Hall is equipped with the latest technologies for students to interact with outside individuals and groups via videoconferencing, and offers students the resources to tape and critique their own presentation and interviewing skills. The new leadership curriculum requires students to have two hours of leadership coaching each semester. “This is about making our students better future leaders. How can we help this person grow professionally and personally?” Rudnick says. “We give them an opportunity to be assessed in communications skills and emotional intelligence and we do both with assessment tools that are scientifically valid. Companies are looking for skills in judgment, flexibility, and problem-solving.” The new center’s research arm is working with companies that include Samsung, Microsoft, Walmart, and Whole Foods, helping them use their own data in better ways to improve the leadership capacity of their employees.
Stacey Rudnick: “Companies are looking for skills in judgment, flexibility, and problem-solving.”
Before taking on her new role, Rudnick expanded the MBA career team fourfold during the 14 years she led McCombs MBA Career Services. This expansion helped educate, prepare, support, and connect more than 1,200 MBA students in their career search process across six McCombs MBA programs each year. Her success as director grew MBA Career Management resources and budget, built an employer relations team, and added career services for the working professional and executive MBA programs, as well as for Texas MBA alumni. Rudnick has taught in both the MBA degree programs and executive education seminars at UT, approaching varied topics spanning career direction and choice, negotiations, executive presence, and personal brand. Her deep understanding of McCombs’ programs and people, and her strong relationships with corporate
recruiters made her a natural choice for the position, says Ethan Burris, faculty director of the center. Increasing partnerships with outside companies is important to the center’s mission. “Our leadership program is analytics-driven,” says Burris. “And our corporate partners help us use data to pinpoint leadership characteristics over time. In turn, we help them learn how to maximize their data to its fullest.” Rudnick says that the idea behind all of this is to enhance everyone’s understanding of what leadership really means. “Our cutting-edge research and innovative content improves our students’ and our corporate partners’ capacity to lead and craft their own unique voices,” Rudnick says. “This in turn creates happier, healthier, and more productive work environments.”
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N E W S: M c C O M B S H O N O R S Ballroom in the school’s new graduate programs building, Robert B. Rowling Hall.
HALL OF FAMERS DISTINGUISHED ALUMNI ARE HONORED WITH PRESTIGIOUS McCOMBS DESIGNATION
HAT DO A FORMER U.S. SECRETARY
of state, a founding partner of a global asset management company, and a managing partner of a private investment firm have in common? Before they became players on the world stage, they were students at The University of Texas at Austin. And now, they are the newest members of the Business Hall of Fame at Texas McCombs. This year’s honorees are Rex Tillerson, Ted Wang, and Richard Folger. The McCombs Hall of Fame was established in 1983, in recognition of UT’s centennial celebration, to honor former students, faculty, and other dedicated supporters who have made outstanding professional contributions to the business community and demonstrated exemplary civic, philanthropic, and educational commitment. The 2018 honorees were recognized at a dinner and program Nov. 1 in the Zlotnik Family
REX TILLERSON attained global prominence as
the 69th U.S. secretary of state (February 2017 to March 2018) but was already known for his 41-year career at ExxonMobil Corp., where he retired as chairman and CEO in 2016. He joined the energy company after graduating from UT with a B.S. in civil engineering in 1975, attaining the title of CEO in 2006. Tillerson has held civic roles with the American Petroleum Institute, the National Petroleum Council, the Center for Strategic and International Studies, the Business Roundtable, the Business Council, the United Negro College Fund, and Ford's Theatre Society. He was elected to the National Academy of Engineering and named a distinguished alumnus by the Texas Exes in 2007. Committed to the Boy Scouts of America throughout his life, Tillerson achieved the Eagle Scout rank as a young man and served as national president from 2010 to 2012. TED WANG is the founding managing partner of
Puissance Capital Management, a global asset management firm. He received his MBA from McCombs in 1996, and upon graduation joined Goldman Sachs. During his 18-year tenure at the company, he held several leadership positions, including company partner, and was a key figure in the firm’s expansion into China. Before seeking his MBA, Wang was a co-founder of Xeotron Corp., a company specializing in
DNA biochips in Texas. He holds a Ph.D. in physics from the University of Minnesota and a B.S. from Fudan University in China. Wang serves on four public corporate boards, is a member of the Committee of 100, and is a trustee of the Museum of Chinese in America, the Dunhuang Foundation, and the Spence School. RICHARD FOLGER is managing general partner
of Colbridge Partners Ltd. In 2015, he retired as CEO and president of Warren Equipment Co., recognized as one of America’s largest private companies by Forbes. He holds a BBA in finance and petroleum land management and a B.S. in petroleum engineering from UT, and an M.S. in finance from the University of Notre Dame. Over 30 years, Folger has served on distinguished university boards and committees and has established four endowments. His community work includes service to the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, Midland Memorial Hospital, Helen Greathouse Charitable Trust, and the Rea Charitable Trust. Each year, McCombs also recognizes exemplary early-to-mid-career alumni as rising stars. This year’s honorees are Lisa Seacat DeLuca, MSTC ’10, director of offering management for IoT Building Insights at IBM (see profile of her on page 41); David Druley, MBA ’03, chairman and CEO of Cambridge Associates; and Jeff Duchin, BBA ’98, senior vice president of the institutional banking division and institutional sales manager at UMB Bank.
McCombs 2018 Hall of Fame inductees: Former Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, B.S. Engineering, ’75; Founding Managing Partner of Puissance Capital Management Ted Wang, MBA ’96; and Managing General Partner of Colbridge Partners Ltd. Richard Folger, BBA ’81.
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RESEARCH
FALL 2018
MARKETING MASTER LEIGH McALISTER EARNS AWARD FOR SIGNIFICANT CONTRIBUTIONS TO HER FIELD PON JOINING THE McCOMBS
faculty in fall 1986, Professor Leigh McAlister leveraged her research on packaged goods to help MBA students bring marketing recruiters to campus. Because of her efforts, in eight years, UT went from placing two MBA grads in marketing jobs to becoming the global leader in MBA marketing placements. “Many of those MBA students are now in significant marketing positions at leading marketing companies,” she says. In June, McAlister earned the INFORMS Society for Marketing Science Fellow Award from the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. The award recognizes McAlister’s significant contributions in research, education, and service to the organization’s efforts to improve the understanding and practice of marketing. “I found it deeply gratifying to be named an ISMS Fellow,” McAlister says. “Receiving the award was particularly meaningful because the presiding officer at ISMS for that occasion and two of the major research award winners are my protégés.” In 2003, her research “Consumers’ Perceptions of Category Assortment: The Impact of Number of Items and Heuristics” with Professors Susan Broniarczyk and Wayne Hoyer won the prestigious William F. O’Dell Award for its significant longterm contribution to marketing theory, methodology, and practice.
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RESEARCH: BIG IDEAS
IS YOUR PARTNER WRECKING YOUR FINANCIAL LITERACY? HOW RELATIONSHIP ROLES SHAPE A LIFETIME OF MONEY KNOW-HOW FOR BETTER OR FOR WORSE by Judie Kinonen
W
H E N T W O P E O P L E S TA R T A
household together, there may not be a lot of deliberation the day one of them takes the initiative to pay that first utility bill, hunt for a lower-interest credit card, or study up on investment options. But maybe there should be, say researchers at The University of Texas at Austin and the University of Colorado-Boulder. A paper recently published in the Journal of Consumer Research showed that, by quietly shouldering financial responsibility — or by quietly delegating it — partners unwittingly set themselves on divergent paths: one partner embracing and growing in financial knowledge over time, while the other partner’s financial ability and interest stagnates. ON A NEED-TO-KNOW BASIS
“We argue that people pay attention to what they think they need to know, when they think they need to know it,” says lead researcher Adrian F. Ward, assistant professor of marketing at Texas McCombs, who launched the study to help explain why so many adults lack money know-how. Indeed, people are often ignorant about the most basic money facts, such as the effects of compound interest and inflation or how long it will take to pay off a debt. Worse, studies show that financial education interventions do not work. Ward and his colleague wanted to know why. “We were thinking about this problem, and it just dawned on us that no one wants to know about money,” Ward says. “It’s difficult, there’s a high learning curve, and the stakes are high when
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you’re making these decisions. So we thought, people aren’t going to learn about money unless they think they need to know about money.” For couples, this critical need to know hinges on how partners lean on each other, Ward says. “One of the things that shapes our need to know is whether or not we can rely on other people around us to make those decisions for us.” But surely, that partner who started paying the bills was the one most capable or qualified to bear the financial load, right? Think again. FINANCIAL APTITUDE NO PREDICTOR
When the researchers surveyed dating and married couples who had been together between one month and 49 years, they learned that couples often start the relationship path on equal footing, and that differences in experience, expertise, or aptitude for the task do not predict who takes on financial responsibility and becomes the “household chief financial officer.” Says Ward: “We find that relationship partners start in the same space, but over time their trajectories diverge.” If prior knowledge didn’t predict who got the job of household CFO, Ward and his colleague wanted to know what did. So in a survey focused on new-relationship couples, they learned that the role is bestowed upon the one “who hated it the least, and who was doing less other stuff for the relationship,” Ward says. “So if one partner is already spending more time on laundry or yardwork or other shared tasks, the other is more likely to get responsibility for money.”
To delve deeper, the researchers presented new couples with false feedback about their partner’s knowledge in two domains: finance and health. Those who believed their partner was savvy on health but bad with money were much more likely to learn and retain new information about money — even if they felt insecure about it themselves. “No one person can know everything — and no one person needs to, if they can rely on a relationship partner to fill in the gaps in their knowledge,” Ward says. “We see people relying on each other because that’s the really efficient, smart way to get through life.” He illustrates the point with a hypothetical couple, several years into the relationship: reading the morning paper together, one flips to the sports page, the other to the business section. Shopping for a new car together, one haggles for a better interest rate, while the other drills the salesperson about safety ratings. As this tendency to take up each other’s slack persists over time, it causes changes in the individuals in a relationship. “When relationship partners come to rely on each other in this way, they adopt specialized areas of responsibility that shape what each person knows, learns, and even notices,” Ward says. The impact of such specialization increases the longer a couple stays together, the study found. A partner who completes financial tasks gets better and better at handling money over time, while partners with very low financial responsibility do not — and some may actually decline in financial literacy over the years. Not a problem, as long as the relationship stays intact. But Ward and his colleague wondered what would happen in the event of a breakup or widowhood. What if the partner who had ridden shotgun for years suddenly had to take the driver’s seat? NON-CFO ENDS UP VULNERABLE
In their final study, the researchers asked partners individually to complete financial decision-making tasks like choosing an auto loan or a medium-term investment fund. Not surprisingly, the more financially responsible partner made better choices. However, there was a startling nuance: The less responsible partner fared poorly even when given the chance to read expert information before making the decisions.
FA L L 201 8
When it comes to skill in handling finances, each member of a couple evolves — or stagnates — on a "need-to-know" basis, driven in large part by relationship roles.
“In fact, we found that those who had offloaded more responsibility for more time — those who likely needed additional information the most — were the least likely to read it,” Ward says. The findings suggest that even if these partners hire expert help after a split, they may lack the know-how to discern good financial advice from bad. So what does this research mean for that partner who has been delegating financial responsibility for years?
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y C H A D H A G E N
“One of the hard things here is getting people to acknowledge that maybe they won’t be able to rely on someone forever,” Ward says. “But forcing people to come to grips with that reality may change the way they interact with financial information.” As for the new couple starting out, Ward advises against the default route of quietly assigning financial responsibility. “I think it’s important just to sit down and actually think
about who should get the job and, for the person who doesn’t get the job, how involved they should be,” Ward said. “Based on this research, it’s important to consider how what we do for our partner shapes who our partner becomes.” “On a Need-to-Know Basis: How the Distribution of Responsibility Between Couples Shapes Financial Literacy and Financial Outcomes” was published in the Journal of Consumer Research.
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RESEARCH: BIG IDEAS
EMPATHETIC COPS ARE LESS HAPPY AND STRUGGLE MORE ON THE BEAT POLICE OFFICERS WITH A STRICT LAW-AND-ORDER IDEOLOGY HOLD UP BETTER UNDER PUBLIC ANIMOSITY THAN THEIR MORE EMPATHETIC PEERS. by Lee Simmons
IN
a New York City police officer was shot and killed as she sat in her vehicle. Miosotis Familia, an African-American mother of three, was part of a community policing unit in a tough section of the Bronx. Her assassin was an ex-con who had posted a vitriolic rant against the police online. Later, another cop got on his dashboard cam and let loose, asking why there was no public outcry: “Where the hell are all the celebrities now? Where are all the sports teams wearing NYPD stuff? Why is it that every thug, every career criminal gets the attention when they’re shot and killed… for victimizing people? When they’re killed by the police, they become heroes.” His words rang with bitterness — and the sentiment is often shared by others in law enforcement. Relations between police and communities today are fraught with suspicion on both sides. Horrific cases captured on video in which police have shot unarmed black men have sparked riots and protests. Black Lives Matter became a meme; Blue Lives Matter became a meme. All of which raises an urgent question: If police believe that the communities they serve and protect view them less than sympathetically, does that affect how well they perform their duties? “That has to be a vital concern in this environment,” says Shefali Patil, an assistant professor of magagement at Texas McCombs. “Studies in other fields have shown that this kind of ‘image discrepancy’ — a mismatch between how people JULY 2017,
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see themselves and how they think others see them — can hurt job performance,” she says. “It’s hard to interact constructively with someone who has false assumptions about you.” AN IMAGE PROBLEM
While most people have faced unrealistic expectations or a lack of appreciation in the workplace at one time or another, the stakes are much higher for cops. “I wanted to see if this disconnect affects how police behave on the street,” Patil says. To do that, she first had officers in two cities answer questions that gauged how much of an image discrepancy each individual perceived — specifically, to what extent did they feel the public underestimates the demands of their job? She also asked how they thought the criminal justice system should operate. For instance, is the goal to rehabilitate or punish offenders? Should cops engage with the community or take more of a “get tough” attitude? The officers who completed the surveys also agreed to let Patil view their body camera footage. She then asked two experts (both retired division commanders) to rate 794 body camera videos to assess how well the officers handled their everyday duties — jail transports, traffic and DUI stops, transient arrests, car crashes, building searches, and house alarm calls. They considered not just how properly or lawfully the officers responded to situations but also how professional and courteous they were. In other words, did they keep the peace?
Surprisingly, when she compared the performance ratings with the survey answers for each officer, image discrepancy seemed to have no effect. Across the group as a whole, those who felt strongly that cops are misunderstood and underappreciated performed no differently than those who did not perceive a public perception problem. VICIOUS CYCLE
However, when Patil took into account the officers’ ideological views, a different — and startling — picture emerged: More conservative officers, those with a strict law-and-order outlook or who equated justice with punishment, were more likely to think the public misunderstood them, but that didn’t faze them. “The conservative officers were completely fine,” Patil says. But cops who thought about the social causes of crime and favored a more compassionate, rehabilitative brand of justice — in short, those with traditionally liberal ideals — were another matter: When they felt the public viewed them unfairly, these officers often struggled. Why the difference? “Conservative cops believe there should be a divide between themselves and the community,” Patil explains. “They’re not looking to start a dialogue. They see their position as one of authority, and that means keeping a certain distance. They expect conflicts and complaints and just discount them. It fits their worldview.” Liberal officers, on the other hand, are more inclined to listen, but what they hear may rattle
FA L L 201 8 them. If their efforts to connect with the community are rebuffed, these cops may find themselves without a compass. For them, misaligned expectations can lead to debilitating stress, Patil says. “It creates uncertainty about how to respond in tense situations, to protect themselves, and to present an image of legitimacy.” In other words, she says, having an adversarial attitude may help officers cope with public animosity. “The irony is that this antagonistic approach to policing is what causes the animosity in the first place. The result is a self-reinforcing cycle that’s very hard to break.” WHAT CAN BE DONE
Patil says these findings have implications for urban police departments. “The reality is that the public just doesn’t get cops,” says Patil. So how do you
deal with that? “What I found in a related study is that when officers face these misperceptions, they actually perform better if they have standard protocols that they have to follow in specific situations.” But doesn’t giving workers more autonomy usually improve job performance? “Not in this case,” Patil insists. “Police officers with high autonomy often do worse.” She adds that using body cameras is an overlooked resource. Studies have shown that cameras reduce complaints of police abuse, and Patil finds that they also reduce officers’ perceptions of conflict. “The cameras also watch the public,” she says. “It puts both sides on their better behavior. If everyone knows the facts are being recorded, that can reduce tension and distrust during an encounter.”
FINDING COMMON GROUND REGARDLESS OF IDEOLOGY
Patil’s findings illuminate the complexity of improving relationships between police and a community. Over time, officers who desire the most communal, rehabilitative relationships with the public may be the ones most likely to exit their agencies because they are less able to cope with public misunderstandings. That’s a loss agencies can ill afford. For conservative officers, it is important to acknowledge that public misunderstandings are a reality, paying attention to finding ways for agencies to maintain (or even enhance) officer effectiveness under such conditions. “‘The Public Doesn’t Understand’: The Self-reinforcing Interplay of Image Discrepancies and Political Ideologies in Law Enforcement” was published in Administrative Science Quarterly.
Assistant Professor of Management Shefali Patil surveyed 164 officers about how they view the criminal justice system and how well the public understands the challenge of the job.
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CARLA VERNÓN TAKES CHARGE OF GENERAL MILLS’ NATURAL FOODS PORTFOLIO AND BOOSTS THE COMPANY’S EFFORTS TO MOVE BEYOND SUSTAINABILITY
O R G A N I C A S C E N T
by Judie Kinonen photograph by Ackerman + Gruber
isn’t a topic that generally incites much passion — unless you’re talking to Carla Vernón, MBA ’98, president of the natural and organic business at General Mills. “I just can’t stop talking about it,” Vernón says. “We’re setting the standard for how big food companies can actually leave the land better than we found it.” It’s a lofty goal, growing more attainable all the time for Vernón, who manages the second-largest branded portfolio of organic food in the country. Her business includes such household names as Cascadian Farm, Immaculate Baking, Muir Glen, Austin-based EPIC, and General Mills’ largest natural and organic food brand, Annie’s Homegrown. Retail sales for Annie’s increased 40 percent in 2017. Vernón, who received a bachelor’s degree in ecology and evolutionary biology from Princeton before she came to McCombs, is still pinching herself at the way education, career, and lifelong passion have finally coalesced into what she calls “hashtag dream job.” PERSISTENCE AND HUMILITY
her story is not one of overnight success. She started at General Mills in 1998 as an associate marketing manager in its snacks division and, most recently, served as vice president of natural and organic growth acceleration. “It was not quick,” she says. “I am so proud that it looks like it was all a smooth path and success was inevitable, but that is not really how it goes BUT VERNÓN INSISTS
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in careers. I had a lot of stumbles and missteps along the way.” Yet now, after 20 years with General Mills, Vernón believes she can truly make the kind of difference in the world that she dreamed of when she was a student. “A brand is not a logo; a brand is a promise,” Vernón says. “We have a stated relationship with the people who buy our food. They expect us to be good stewards of the ingredients. They also expect us to use practices that aren’t simply neutral or non-detrimental — but that are proactively positive for the planet.” At the heart of Vernón’s mission as president of General Mills’ and natural and organic business is an emerging conversation about a form of agriculture that moves beyond sustainable agricultural practices that protect the environment to regenerative ones that actually
reverse atmospheric carbon accumulation. “The regenerative agriculture movement addresses the fact that these soils have become such monocultures that they are practically deserts,” she says. The standard practice is to apply chemical fertilizers to the soil before crops can be planted, but, says Vernón, “it doesn’t have to be that way.” This form of agriculture that is gaining adoption, Vernón explains, focuses on practices including cover crops and establishing pollinator habitats, with a goal “to foster a diverse macro and micro ecosystem, so that the soil restores itself back to earth.” Vernón says soil is only part of the story. “Agriculture is one of the most important drivers of climate and climate change. The ability to improve the amount of carbon that is sequestered in the soil is one of the most direct and large-scale actions that can be taken by any industry to help reduce global greenhouse gas emissions.” As a Fortune 500 company with billion dollar brands, a global supply chain, and millions of acres of land, General Mills has committed to reducing these emissions by 28 percent within their chain by the year 2025. U N FA M I L I A R TE R R ITO RY
a goal will be no small feat, but Vernón says she is humbled at the opportunity. “I have never been ashamed of the fact that I don’t know certain topics, but I am willing to study and learn and find mentors,” she says. “If I know there’s a particular aspect of running a business that I’m not too good at, then I will assign myself the task of improving.” Vernón recalls a daunting situation years ago. She was running General Mills’ snack bars business, and she had identified the need for a category analysis and leadership strategy for the company’s sales teams. “Even though I had no experience pulling this sort of material together from a sales and retailer perspective, the project was my responsibility,” she says. She set to work finding sales people who could coach, collaborate, and help her push forward on the project. “In the beginning it was uncomfortable,” Vernón says. “But, today, it is an experience that allows me to coach others to find their courage and tenacity for unfamiliar areas.” “I call it the process of eating my vegetables,” she says, laughing. “I think one of the things that enabled me to be successful in the long run was a tenacity to improve myself.” ACCOMPLISHING SUCH
P H OTO G R A P H BY AC K E R M A N + G RU B E R
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A H E R I TA G E O F AC H I E V E M E N T VERN Ó N CO M E S BY this kind of resolve honestly.
professor and administrator for the State University of New York system. Vernón says her parents imparted an important lesson to their children: “We were taught, ‘Hey, the world is not always going to treat you kindly — whether you are a black person, an immigrant, a woman — and we have to do different than that. We have to make sure we do treat others with kindness and respect and dignity,’” she says. “That was always one of my family’s key values.”
From left, counterclockwise: Vernón, president of natural and organics at General Mills, gets down in the dirt on a visit to the Chico State University farm in California; talks with her team at a gathering outside of Austin, at the EPIC co-founders’ ranch, an event with hands-on workshops (beekeeping, soil health, and working with bison, among others), as well as dialogue about actions the company’s brands can take to help restore the planet; and standing in front of a wall of products within her portfolio.
C O U RT E SY G E N E R A L M I L LS
Her father emigrated from Panama to segregated New Orleans in 1958, a bleak era for civil rights in the United States. He met Vernón’s mother, a New Orleans native, while they were both students at Xavier University. “They really believed in education, like so many immigrants and people coming from communities that are disadvantaged or socially oppressed,” she says. “They believed that education was an important tool in moving up.” Vernón’s mother earned undergraduate degrees in math, education, and — as Vernón only recently learned — physics. She went on to work for NASA, in a segregated workplace much like the one portrayed in the 2016 film “Hidden Figures.” The pursuit of master’s degrees finally landed her and her husband in Buffalo, New York, where they both earned doctoral degrees while working and raising Vernón and her brother. Their achievements make sense, given their
background, Vernón says. “Opportunities were still not made fully available to African Americans and Latinos in the United States,” Vernón says. “And as we as a people have often been taught, we need to be more than qualified and demonstrate above and beyond measure that we’re capable of opportunity when opportunity comes our way.” Her mother went on to become a high school math and science teacher and her father a math
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S OA K I N G I T I N
“I CALL IT THE PROCESS OF EATING MY VEGETABLES,” VERNÓN SAYS. “I THINK ONE OF THE THINGS THAT ENABLED ME TO BE SUCCESSFUL IN THE LONG RUN WAS A TENACITY TO IMPROVE MYSELF.”
DIVIDED ENERGIES
prominently in Vernón’s own educational path as an undergraduate at Princeton. In the ’70s and ’80s, the media focus on pollution and the general message that the planet was in trouble made a lasting impression on Vernón. “Even as a teenager, I had this thought in the back of my head, ‘Is it even ethical for me to have children? Is it ethical to bring another generation that would then beget more generations onto a planet that seemed to be in a state of decline?’ That’s something that weighed on my mind.” With that acute social consciousness — and her parents’ urging toward some kind of science degree — Vernón threw herself into the study of ecology, not knowing then what career path the degree might lead to. “I can’t say that I was the college student with much of a plan,” she says. Her first job out of college was a one-year fellowship sponsored by Princeton alumni at The Nature Conservancy, a global nonprofit organization promoting stewardship of land and native species. Then came a historic opportunity to work for Carol Moseley Braun, the first African-American woman elected to the U.S. Senate. “That job opened my eyes,” Vernón says. “I saw a bigger world just by seeing how policy and politics work.” That job led to another nonprofit in Chicago, and over time Vernón’s perception of what it means “to be of service” began to shift. “I thought that the best place to do service work would be in the service sector — nonprofit, or government,” she says, but she became acutely aware of some real obstacles there. “I learned that they very much have to divide their energy and time between doing their mission and raising enough money to deliver their mission,” Vernón says. T H O S E VA L U E S F I G U R E D
At the same time, she was meeting with a mentorship group of prominent Princeton alumni from the class of 1955 who taught her that the nonprofit sector was not the only way to have the kind of impact she hoped to have. “They taught me that, in fact, there are places — like business — where you might have more resources and maybe more position power to do good with the tools at your disposal,” she says. LEAN TIMES
on Vernón that service might be better accomplished through business, a more practical consideration also loomed on the horizon: “My student loans came due,” she says. “The nonprofit sector was not a very profitable sector for me personally, and I was really, really struggling to repay my student loans.” When she learned how an MBA could redirect a career path “from something that wasn’t business toward business,” she applied for a fellowship program — the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management — designed to help companies find a more diverse pool of candidates for their employee base. On her fellowship application, Vernón listed UT as one of her top choices, having fallen in love with Austin years before while visiting a friend who was doing post-graduate work at the university. “Keep in mind, I was living in Chicago at the time, so it didn’t hurt that Austin was very warm,” she says. “The month before I left Chicago, I had a massive garage sale and sold almost all of my worldly possessions in order to make a little bit of pocket change so that I had enough to go to Texas and get started,” she recalls. “They were lean times, but even in lean times, Austin is an amazing place to be.” J U S T A S I T DAW N E D
herself in business school as “an absolute sponge.” The coursework itself — specifically her classes on negotiation and operations — provided “a new frame of thinking,” and supplied “tools that, to this day, still help me understand concepts and circumstances in business.” Even beyond the coursework, “the learning is equally with the people you meet and the teams you work on,” Vernón says. “That was rich.” By her second semester at McCombs, she understood that her talents and interests were in marrying strategic thinking with creative problem solving, and that marketing — a field she had scarcely heard of before — might be her life’s calling. She recalls marching wide-eyed and eager into her first career fair during business school, clutching a resume printed on extra thick paper, exploring the booths with a palpable curiosity. “I was like a country bumpkin,” she says. When the chance came to interview with General Mills, she sensed the fit right away. “They were authentic people with unique personalities, and with energy that just came at you in the room. I felt it was the kind of company that wanted you to be your unique self,” she says. “And I knew that I could pretty much only be my unique self.” VERNÓN DESCRIBES
#DREAMJOB
two decades with General Mills, it’s clear how being her unique self has brought Vernón to her current position, where her lifelong mission to help the planet is actually within reach. “What is it that Arthur Ashe said? ‘Start where you are, use what you have, do what you can,’” she quotes. “I’m just trying to put myself in a position to really put the things at my fingertips to good use.” Vernón splits her time between her Berkeley office and her home in Minneapolis, where she lives with her husband, Jason Bowles, MBA ’98, whom she met at UT, their two children — 12-year-old Jay and 10-year-old Charley — and her mother. She says when she announced her promotion to president of the division that oversees Annie’s Organics last year, her children screamed with excitement. “It’s exciting for anybody, especially children, to know that maybe we’re not leaving them a planet that’s worse than we found it,” Vernón says. “I owe it to my children, I owe it to yours, and I want to do what I can.” N O W, A F T E R
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McCOMBS TAKES GLOBAL ROLE IN RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT OF GROUNDBREAKING NEW CRYPTOTECHNOLOGY by Steve Brooks | illustration by Dale Edwin Murray M c C O M B S . U T E X A S . E D U 25
hen the doors to the conference hall swung open, it was the culmination of months of preparation by Meeta Kothare. “I was worried at the beginning that we wouldn’t be able to fill the hall,” says the McCombs adjunct finace professor. “Then the registrations started pouring in.” ¶ McCombs’ April 13 conference on blockchain, the database engine that runs cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin, had sold out. At least 50 of the 300 seats were occupied by C-level executives. ¶ It was all that Prabhudev Konana had hoped for. “We wanted to show that McCombs is on the leading edge of an emerging technology,” says the Information Management professor, who organized the event with Kothare and Associate Professor of Finance Cesare Fracassi. “The conference helped bring visibility to McCombs and to Austin.” ¶ Within two months, it also brought something more tangible: a $2 million grant for an academic center, the Blockchain Initiative at Texas McCombs. Ripple, a San Francisco-based firm that uses the technology for international money transfers, picked the school as one of 17 worldwide to receive such funding. Blockchain developers speak of it as an ecosystem, a web of players who collaborate to move the technology ahead. Over the past year, just such an ecosystem has emerged at McCombs. It’s been expanding with remarkable speed. But then, few new technologies have ever raised so many hopes and questions so quickly. Blockchain’s applications, boosters say, could transform large sectors of the business world, including financial transactions, supply chains, medical records and social improvement. Sensing opportunity, information technology giants like Microsoft and IBM have jumped into blockchain services. But it’s also an immature field, full of potential landmines: • Digital currencies have been dens for speculators and black marketeers. • Agencies like the Securities and Exchange Commission threaten to regulate freewheeling cryptocurrency markets. • Non-financial applications of blockchain have only worked at small scales. They might
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turn out to be costly and inefficient for Fortune 500 firms. All of which makes this a perfect time for McCombs to get involved, says Fracassi, director of the Blockchain Initiative. “We’re in a unique position to help sort out what is real and what is hype.” THE FIRST LINKS
itself, the blockchain community at McCombs has grown in a decentralized fashion. Faculty, students, and alumni have come together gradually, as they’ve discovered common interests. Each of the professors who spearheaded the April conference came to the topic from a different angle. Fracassi first researched it for a graduate class on financial technology, but he’s also intrigued by its uses for medical records. “I come from Italy, I went to graduate school in Los Angeles, and now I’m in Austin,” Fracassi says. “My medical records are scatL I K E T H E T E C H N O L O GY
tered among many different doctors’ offices and hospitals. If they were on a blockchain, I could have access to them all.” Konana saw the technology as a way to streamline information management. “For a large global company, information systems are so fragmented,” he says. “Their systems don’t talk to each other. A blockchain has the potential to create one gigantic network that everyone can tap into.” Helping the world’s poor was on the mind of Kothare, as director of the Social Innovation Initiative. From small farmers to refugees, more than a billion of the world’s people in poverty have no official ID. Putting their personal data on blockchains could help them get access to credit and to aid. “McCombs’ new brand message is ‘Human Centered, Future Focused,’” Kothare says. “What could fulfill that more than helping vast numbers of people struggling to be in the mainstream economy?” S T U D E N T S G E T AT TA C H E D MEANWHILE, STUDENTs
were staking their own claims on blockchain. Anthony Santaga, MBA ’19, had family members abroad. He envisioned transferring cash back and forth without going through a bank. In fall 2017, he and a few other MBA students created the McCombs Graduate Blockchain Society. “It was perfect timing,” Santaga says, “because the prices of cryptocurrencies soon shot up a ridiculous amount.” It helped that recruiters from J.P. Morgan and Goldman Sachs were asking students about their blockchain knowledge. By the end of the year, the MBA group counted 60 members. Aside from putting out a weekly newsletter, the group brings in speakers. One presenter led Santaga to a part-time job with Unchained Capital, an Austin firm that takes cryptocurrencies as collateral for loans. He says he notices many blockchain firms were founded by engineers and coders and need students with business savvy. Says Santaga, “It’s a great fit for McCombs, being a school that’s into technology entrepreneurship.” V E N T U R I N G I N TO B LO C KC H A I N
wa sn’t teach i ng blockchain when he was a student, Randall Crowder, MBA ’10, credits the school with preparing him for his latest job: launching a cryptocurrency for Phunware, an Austin mobile app developer. A LT H O U G H M C C O M B S
“MY MEDICAL RECORDS ARE SCATTERED AMONG MANY DIFFERENT DOCTORS’ OFFICES AND HOSPITALS. IF THEY WERE ON A BLOCKCHAIN, I COULD HAVE ACCESS TO THEM ALL.”
its advisory board. Right now, investors are pouring money into startups. Many of them will fail. “But the more entrepreneurs get involved in resolving blockchain’s problems, the faster they will get resolved,” he says. That’s precisely why a school like McCombs is needed, Konana adds. “The industry has taken off far faster than the academic work,” he says. “There are a lot of research issues we need to be worried about. I’m glad there’s so much excitement about them. I’m glad that McCombs can play a part.”
— C E S A R E F R ACA S S I , D I R E C T O R O F M c C O M B S B L O C KC H A I N I N I T I AT I V E
BLOCKCHAIN EXPLAINED: CAN A LEDGER CHANGE THE WORLD? While in school, Crowder ran the Central Texas Angel Network and started his own venture capital fund. He has since invested in 54 companies, and one of the first was Phunware. It was several years later when Crowder heard a rideshare driver talking about Bitcoin that he had an “aha” moment. “When I see mainstream America talking about it, I know it’s reaching a tipping point,” he says. Crowder opened an online community called Crypto Watch and later joined Phunware as chief operations officer. He calls himself the “chief crypto zealot.” His PhunCoin will challenge Facebook and Google by giving companies a way to pay consumers for their personal data. Once someone’s information is on a blockchain, they can choose who is allowed to see it. “We’re using your data, but we want to compensate you for using it and give you control over what you share and when you share it,” Crowder says.
global operations, who was overseeing $50 million in research grants to universities. “Fernandez said we needed to talk to McCombs,” van Miltenburg says. “They were doing interesting things around blockchain.” By June, McCombs and 16 other institutions, including Wharton, Berkeley, and MIT, were named as recipients. The $2 million grant has no strings attached, but the school will host a computer server for XRP, a cryptocurrency Ripple uses to speed payments across borders. Other servers in XRP’s network will help to validate transactions before adding them to the blockchain. More broadly, says van Miltenburg, “We’d like to form a lasting relationship with McCombs and UT Austin. We hope to develop a positive reputation on campus that could lead to a recruiting pipeline.” NEXT BLOCKS IN THE CHAIN
MAKING A RIPPLE
in place, Fracassi’s next step is to develop a three-part mission for the Blockchain Initiative: research, developing curriculum, and networking. This fall, he began soliciting research proposals — not just from McCombs, but from other schools on the Forty Acres and local businesses as well. “We hope to be a hub to connect people doing blockchain work across the UT Austin campus and the greater Austin community,” Fracassi says. One thing the Initiative will not be is an uncritical booster, says Konana, who is on WITH THE GRANT
alumnus linked McCombs with Ripple, a company that uses blockchain technology to provide real-time international currency transfers. Marcos Fernandez, MBA ’16, met several blockchain startup leaders while co-founding a speaker series called TEX Talks. After graduation, as a product marketing manager at Ripple, he stayed in touch. When he heard his alma mater was planning a blockchain conference, he made sure the company had someone there. He also introduced Fracassi to Eric van Miltenburg, Ripple’s senior vice president of A MORE RECENT
Behind the hoopla, a blockchain is simply a ledger for recording transactions. One block of data is linked to the block that came before it and the one that comes after, forming a chronological chain. But it differs from traditional ledgers in several ways: It’s decentralized. Instead of one central organization, it’s maintained by a network of individual computers. Bitcoin, for example, is verified and added to the blockchain ledger by more than 5,000 contributors, known as miners. It’s hard to hack. Each contributor keeps their own copy of the entire chain and verifies new blocks of data. Altering any information would require hacking more than half the contributors. It’s historical. It displays every transaction since Day One and the time at which it occurred. That feature makes it especially appealing for non-financial uses, like supply chains. When Walmart put all of its mango suppliers on a blockchain, it cut the time for tracing a slice back to the farm from six days to two seconds. Instant traceability could also make food safer, says Cesare Fracassi, director of McCombs’ Blockchain Initiative. “If you find a banned pesticide on a head of lettuce, you can look at where it came from and check records of what was applied. When people are held accountable for what they do, they’re much more likely to play honestly.”
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The Origins of AI Demystifying AI
THE HIDDEN FIGURES BEHIND ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE, AS EXPLAINED BY ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR JAMES SCOTT, CO-AUTHOR OF A NEW BOOK TRACING THE HISTORY OF THE IDEAS THAT POWER AI
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by Jeremy M. Simon | illustration by Matthew Billington
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artificial intelligence have been around for a long time, according to James Scott, associate professor of Information, Risk, and Operations Management at McCombs, and the co-author of AIQ: How People and Machines are Smarter Together. People like Sir Isaac Newton, Florence Nightingale, and Admiral Grace Hopper are just a few of those whose breakthroughs paved the way for the AI systems that power so many of the products and services we enjoy today, from Alexa and Siri to Netflix. Yet prominent naysayers — Tesla’s Elon Musk, for example — warn that artificial intelligence is bound to bring about a Terminator-like dystopian end of the world as we know it. Scott says such fears are unwarranted, and that he doesn’t know a single reputable AI scientist who thinks that kind of thing is a realistic possibility on any timeline for the foreseeable future. ¶ Scott recently discussed these and many other issues surrounding today’s AI explosion. HE IDEAS BEHIND
Q: Why is AI taking off now? A: The answer is technology, the speed of computers. It’s impossible to convey intuitively how fast computers have gotten at computing numbers. We like to use a car analogy. If we go back to 1951, the fastest computer around was called the UNIVAC. It was the size of a room, based on vacuum tubes, and could do 2,000 calculations per second, which is radically faster than any human being. The fastest car was the Alfa Romeo 6C, which can travel about 110 miles per hour. Today, both cars and computers have gotten faster. Formula One cars travel over 200 miles an hour and computers are radically faster than the UNIVAC. But if cars’ speeds had increased as much as computers, the modern Alfa Romeo would travel at 8 million times the speed of light. If you do a Google image search for a picture of an African elephant, the mathematical models at the heart of that require 1.5 billion little operations of additions, multiplications, and subtractions of pixel values in order to classify one image. That was the model maybe four or five years ago, so it’s probably even more today. When you think about the complexity of that set of mathematical operations, it’s a good thing the modern graphics card in a decent gaming laptop can do 1.5 billion calculations in about .00001 seconds. That’s why it’s important to have fast computers.
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Q: Aside from computing speed, what else explains AI’s sudden rise? A: The scale of data sets. If you digitized the Library of Congress, you’d get about 10 terabytes worth of data. That is 120,000 times less data than was collected by the big four tech firms — Apple, Google, Amazon, and Facebook — in 2013 alone. That’s a lifetime ago in internet use, and the pace of data accumulation is just accelerating at incredible speed. Today, if you want to classify an image, think about one megapixel image. One megapixel is one million pixels. Each pixel has a red, green, and blue value; that’s three million numbers. If you want to fit equations where every single example in your dataset has three million numbers, these are going to be really, really, really complicated equations. The basic rule in statistics is that the more complicated an equation you want to fit to your data, the more data you need. So it’s a good thing we have 120,000 times as much data as the Library of Congress rolling onto our servers every year to be capable of making really accurate predictions about the world. Q: How old are the ideas behind AI? A: In the 17th century, Isaac Newton used fundamentally the same mathematical tools that our computers have today, as did Florence Nightingale in the 19th century. It’s the same set of ideas, with the modern addition of the incredible computing power at our disposal. Q: Your book tells the stories of AI dis-
coveries made centuries ago. Are there any historical heroes who never got the recognition they deserved? A: Henrietta Leavitt made an absolutely fundamental discovery in astronomy: She fit an equation to data she compiled from the old great telescopes back in the 1900s and 1910s. The equation allowed astronomers to measure distance. That’s a surprisingly hard problem in astronomy. You look up in the sky and see a flickering light. You don’t know whether that star is bright and far away — and only seems dim because of how far away it is — or if it’s really close and dim, like Venus. The equation she gave us in a really beautiful three-page paper published in an astronomy journal set the stage for an incredible revolution in human understanding. It wasn’t until about 10 years later that we started to see the fruits of that in astronomy. The person who made the most spectacular use of Leavitt’s discovery was Edwin Hubble, the first person to discover that ours is not the only galaxy in the universe. He got all of the applause, with politicians knocking on his door and Einstein coming to have a glass of wine at his house in California. Henrietta Leavitt was forgotten for a couple of reasons. One, she was a woman, and at that time the chauvinism of astronomy meant she couldn’t even publish a paper alone. She had to have a male sponsor. Second, unfortunately, she died of cancer several years before
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HISTORIC INNOVATORS PAVING THE WAY FOR AI Rear Admiral GRACE HOPPER, a computer science pioneer, invented a methodology that revolutionized computing. Her “compiler” idea in the 1950s led to the widespread use of computer programming languages. Hopper’s innovation enabled the spread of digital technology into every part of life, and eventually enabled us to speak our commands to Alexa. Astronomer HENRIETTA LEAVITT published findings in 1912 that were used to measure the distance of pulsating stars over millions of lightyears. Her prediction rule is now used in AI-based pattern recognition systems, including Facebook image recognition and Google Translate. SIR ISAAC NEWTON, the greatest mathema-
tician of his time, became warden of England’s Royal Mint in 1696 and was tasked with increasing production and reducing the variability in weights of silver coins. Yet, he failed to detect a simple error in the averaging system the mint used to detect weight anomalies. Figuring out how to average lots of measurements properly is one of data science’s most important ideas. It shows up today in a huge range of AI applications from fraud prevention to smart policing. FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE became a living
symbol of compassion for treating injured British soldiers in the Crimean War in the 1850s. It’s less well-known that she was also a skilled data scientist who convinced hospitals to improve care through use of statistics, setting the precedent for today’s international system of disease classification. Today, Nightingale’s legacy is seen in promising AI health care applications on the horizon, from laser-guided robotic surgery to algorithmic vital sign monitoring to personalized cancer therapies. Hungarian-American statistician ABRAHAM WALD fled the Nazis in 1938, and joined Columbia University’s Statistical Research Group, where he created a “survivability recommender system” for aircraft during WWII. His algorithm discovered areas of aircraft vulnerability based on analysis of only those planes that were recovered after attack. Netflix uses a similar approach in its recommendation system (but for unwatched films rather than shot-down planes) when likewise faced with missing data.
THERE ARE THE MORAL ISSUES OF FACEBOOK ABUSING YOUR DATA AND HEALTH CARE DATA NEEDING TO BE MADE PRIVATE. BUT IF OUR DATA CAN HELP MAKE PEOPLE’S LIVES BETTER, LONGER, HEALTHIER, AND HAPPIER, WE SHOULD BE SHARING IT.
Hubble made his discovery. For me that’s a bittersweet story, the notion that this very unheralded woman who made a fundamental discovery in astronomy never got to see the fruits of her labor and the recognition that she deserved in her lifetime — or even today. Q: How is Leavitt’s work being applied to AI? A: She was using the fundamental principle that the big tech firms use to fit equations to their data and build the kinds of systems that allow Facebook to identify friends in photos, Google to make accurate predictions about what ads you’re going to click, or Amazon to decide what goods they should ship to which warehouses to anticipate demand. It’s that fundamental idea of fitting an equation to data that she took off the shelf and applied. That’s the key thing that drives the modern digital economy. I don’t know a better story than Henrietta Leavitt’s to explain how fundamental that is to the process of discovery. Q: Why did you decide to write the book? A: Nick Polson, my co-author, and I are both teachers. This book is primarily a way to answer all of the great questions our students had about AI. They would learn about probability in class and recognize the applicability of some ideas to the modern AI space and want to know things like how self-driving cars work or Netflix makes better predictions about what movies we’re going to watch. From there it really bloomed into something more than we ever expected. In writing and researching the book, we realized there was a fundamental breakdown in the narratives about AI that you encounter in the media or talk about at the lunch table among colleagues. On the one hand, you have this huge amount of hype coming from the business world. Companies are making it seem AI is going to fix every problem for humanity. But then
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on the other side, you have the Elon Musks of the world, AI doomsayers who say AI is going to kill everything that we care about: jobs, privacy, or something we haven’t even thought of yet. As educators, we believe that to participate in these important debates, you really have to understand what AI is, where it came from, and how it works. Q: Are there legitimate AI worries? A: There are judges who do criminal sentencing in Broward County, Florida, using machine learning algorithms to help guide their decisions: Somebody’s been convicted of a crime, and the judge decides how long a sentence they should receive. You input a set of features about that defendant. Maybe it’s their criminal history or the severity of the crime. On the basis of those features, the algorithm makes a prediction about how likely that person is to commit a crime in the future. It classifies defendants as either high-risk or low-risk for recidivism, and using that risk prediction the judges informed their sentencing decisions appropriately. Q: When does it become problematic? A: What if that algorithm uses features that predict the probability somebody’s going to be incarcerated for a crime, but are totally unfair? The obvious example would be the race of the defendant: If you look at U.S. incarceration rates stratified by race, it’s about half a percent for people of white descent, and it’s about 2.5 percent for people of African descent. That reflects centuries of racial discrimination and brutality in this country. Now, if being black predicts higher rates of incarceration, any machine learning algorithm worth its salt will find proxies for dark skin. And that is totally wrong. There’s no way we would allow that in a human who was explicit about it, and we absolutely shouldn’t allow it
Opening spread: Pantheon of AI innovators (clockwise, from left): Grace Hopper, Sir Isaac Newton, Henrietta Levitt, Florence Nightingale, and Elon Musk. Read more on page 32. Above: Associate Professor James Scott says that today’s artificial intelligence applications are based on mathematical ideas first conceived of decades and sometimes even centuries ago.
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when a machine does it. These algorithms are not allowed to know explicitly, for example, what race somebody is, but they are all allowed access to things that are very strong proxies for those. For example, your family’s history of incarceration is a very strong proxy for race in the criminal justice system in America. There’s a worry that these algorithms are simply reinventing proxies for race. Q: So what’s the result? A: In Broward County, if you look at the algorithms’ track record, it’s much more likely to predict that a white person is at a low-risk of recidivism, when in reality that person commits a crime again. For black defendants, it’s much more likely to wrongly classify somebody as high-risk when in reality they don’t go on to commit another crime. There’s no other word for that than racism. It’s really important that we don’t treat these algorithms like a microwave oven, where you just punch in set of numbers and walk away. You really have to have humans who know what they’re doing — who understand the algorithms, their potential downsides, and legal standards of fairness — using these to maybe supplement a decision, not make them. Q: What else should we be concerned about? A: As a consumer, I want all digital firms to respect that my data should never be used against me, in ways that I didn’t consent to. That has to be a bedrock principle of the digital age. At the same time, you also have to recognize the positive externality associated with pooling and sharing data. Health care is an example. I personally view organ donation as a moral issue. We shouldn’t compel people to donate their kidneys, but it’s an issue of personal morality. I’m on the organ donor registry so somebody else’s life can go on after mine is over. To me, data is the same. We don’t let hospitals hoard your kidneys when you die. Why should we let them hoard the data about your kidneys? If the data about my kidneys can be used to save someone else’s life, I should share that, too, in a way that privacy can be respected and individual medical information can’t be traced back or used against me. But there are technological solutions to that. There are the moral issues of Facebook abusing your data and health care data needing to be made private. But if our data can help make people’s lives better, longer, healthier, and happier, we should be sharing. We can better humanity.
AI RESEARCH AT McCOMBS McCombs researchers are using artificial intelligence and machine learning to address a wide variety of challenges, from predicting the movement of stock prices to improving health care. Here’s a sample of what they’re working on. Professors ASHISH AGARWAL and PRABHUDEV KONANA are automatically classifying information in financial news stories and predicting stock market returns. Assistant Professor DEEPAYAN CHAKRABARTI is improving recommendations in social networks by, for example, automatically understanding the interests of people and finding relevant experts. Assistant Professor NAVEED CHEHRAZI’S recent research dynamically models the behavior of delinquent credit-card account holders and recommends personalized account treatment to maximize recovery for creditors. Assistant Professor RUI GAO develops robust models and fast algorithms for data-driven decision making and deep learning, with applications in demand forecasting and pricing for revenue management. Associate Professor MAYTAL SAAR-TSECHANSKY'S research develops methods to improve decision making and operations that benefit people, organizations, and society, with a focus on applications in business, health care, and energy. Professor ANDREW WHINSTON studies evasiveness and incoherence by CEOs following their company’s earnings reports to predict future earnings. Whinston is also working on research analyzing ads containing both pictures and associated text from Tumblr to make accurate predictions about the future popularity of new ads. Assistant Professor MINGYUAN ZHOU is building deep generative models and developing learning algorithms for them. Applications include data synthesis, compression, data reconstruction from noisy and incomplete measurements, image and speech recognition, reinforcement learning, robotics, and more.
SE RV I NG THECITY
ANGELA YEN, MBA ’19
Placement: VSA Texas, which promotes art among people with differing abilities, including a special program for veterans. Project: Coming up with a new name for the organization (its acronym used to stand for “very special arts”) by conducting interviews with current and former board members, as well as participants, artists, staff,
by Jeremy M. Simon | photographs by Matthew Mahon
and other constituents. Business education in action: “In my spring practicum class Innovation Through Design Thinking, taught by Management Lecturer Bonnie Reese, we served as consultants and learned about human-centered design — what it means, how to conduct user interviews, and drawing insights. When speaking to board members about their experiences, by asking open-ended questions and being a great listener, I was able to draw out more responses. Listening with empathy was a useful skill that we practiced in class, and it was nice to do it in real life with an organization that really could use that insight.”
NGEL A YEN, MBA ’19, is one of 44 MBA students volunteering their skills and insights on behalf of nonprofit organizations in Austin. Over the course of a year, she and other students serve as non-voting board members and develop projects at the organization’s direction. They are matched with these organizations by Board Fellows, a student-run McCombs
group that has placed MBAs on local nonprofit boards since 2010. “Our mission is to provide MBA students with leadership opportunities and support local nonprofits with our business expertise,” says president Jaclyn Le, MBA ’19. “Our goals are to create opportunities for MBA students to become community leaders by helping nonprofits, and to build strong ties between McCombs and the Austin nonprofit sector.” The students work in a variety of areas, including conservation, the arts, and youth mentoring, tackling projects that involve organizational marketing, funding, and strategic planning. Here are a few of the nonprofits where Board Fellows — a pair of MBAs at each organization — are lending their efforts.
MING LIU, MBA ’19
Placement: Westcave Outdoor Discovery Center, which collaborates with other nonprofits on nature conservation and youth education. Project: Measuring and communicating the organization’s programming impact, such as health outcomes for kids playing outside, and considering what public data can support that narrative. Business education in action: “The overall focus on how you derive meaning and insight from numbers and then what tools — whether it’s statistics or finance — you use to better understand an organization.”
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JACLYN LE, MBA ’19
Placement: The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit digital news organization covering Lone Star State politics. Project: Looking for ways to diversify funding for the Tribune beyond philanthropic donations. Business education in action: “We’re trying to be creative about bringing in income while also making sure that they’re still delivering on their mission of quality news and open access for readers. The Tribune said, ‘We now have this new events space. Maybe it’s a way for us to also make money?’ We looked at the event space market in Austin: What types of events come to town? What is the Texas Tribune’s competitive advantage? We developed a more concrete marketing plan including potential pricing, the benefits of the space, and advertising and promotion.”
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KELSEY LEE, MBA ’19
Placement: The African Leadership Bridge, which builds leaders for the continent by sponsoring and supporting entrepreneurial students who are studying in the U.S. and Africa. Project: Collecting information on different options for a new business model, putting it in digestible form, and then presenting it to the board. Business education in action: “The organization has these big goals which are really incredible. They are more entrepreneurial right now — like a startup, even though they are 10 years old — since they’re still growing and moving into their next phase. We are helping them figure out how they’re going to attack that. That mimics everything in my Intro to Entrepreneurship class with Associate Professor of Management Melissa Graebner.”
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STEPHANIE GARAU BOLIVAR, MBA ’19
Placement: The Hispanic Alliance supports Latino entrepreneurs through business education and mentorship, brings music education to underserved youth, and provides personal and entrepreneurial development for Latinas. Project: Identifying different funding options, building an alumni database for programs, and creating a survey to measure the organization’s impact on entrepreneurs. Business education in action: “The MBA program makes you think differently. You’re able to take a step back and say, ‘This is what we want to accomplish. What strategy do we want to implement in order to achieve our end goal?’ That’s a valuable learning experience we’ve applied to the board.”
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COMMUNIT Y
MIXING BUSINESS AND FILM y MARK STOLAROFF, BBA ’87,
INDEPENDENT FILM PRODUCER
classes, Mark Stolaroff used to run over to the UT communications building to spend hours shooting and cutting 16mm film (with a razor blade, no less). Now an independent film producer, Stolaroff says the discipline he learned at McCombs helped him find success in the difficult filmmaking industry. “My career has been this zig-zaggy thing that I didn’t plan from the beginning,” Stolaroff says. “When I got to college, I was too chicken to major in film. So I just thought, ‘This may be kind of a fun hobby thing, but I’ll go and get a real degree.’” Stolaroff says the Business Honors Program allowed him the flexibility to take both MBA-level business classes and the intensive film production classes he loved. Now in Los Angeles, Stolaroff says his unconventional career has earned him many titles: investment banker, theater producer, playwright, > F TE R H IS BUSI N E S S H O N O RS
SHARON KIM
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C O M M U N I T Y: U P C L O S E film finishing funds executive, and, for the past 15 years, award-winning feature film producer. Despite his brief stint in banking at the beginning of his career, Stolaroff says filmmaking was always his passion. His newest film, DriverX, about a middle-aged, stayat-home dad who begins driving for an Uber-like rideshare company, has garnered critical acclaim and numerous film festival awards. It features many familiar faces, such as Patrick Fabian (Better Call Saul), Oscar Nunez (The Office), and Melissa Fumero (Brooklyn Nine Nine), and will be released in theaters by IFC Films/ Su nd a nc e S el e c t s o n Nov. 30. “The idea that we’re with IFC Films [distributors of Boyhood, The Death of Stalin, and The Babadook] is a real feather in the cap of the film,” Stolaroff says. “Getting a theatrical release these days is really difficult for a small independent film like this one.” Stolaroff credits the business skills he learned at McCombs with his success and ability to maintain his independence as a filmmaker. “I never really had any interest in working for a studio. I wanted to make my own films,” Stolaroff says. “So, to work for myself and have the ability to do that successfully, I think that really does come from the business degree.”
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— London Gibson
DUAL DEGREES y KORY DAVISON, BBA ’18, ANALYST, CRUDE ACCOUNTING, PHILLIPS 66 y K YLE DAVISON, BBA ’18, ANALYST, COMMERCIAL SUPPLY AND TRADING, PHILLIPS 66 shared everything growing up — and that didn’t stop when they got older. Both McCombs finance majors and accounting minors, they shared side-by-side paths to success right up to the simultaneous start of their careers in their hometown of Houston at the energy company Phillips 66. “We didn’t really tell each other that Phillips 66 was our favorite among all the recruiters that came to campus,” Kyle says. “It wasn’t a group decision — we both kind of thought for ourselves — but we each realized separately that Phillips 66 was the best option.” As boys, Kyle and Kory were inseparable. They fished, camped, and played football, basketball, and baseball together. They were both offered college athletic scholarships to smaller schools for basketball, but decided to turn them down to focus on academics. “Once we got accepted to UT, it was like the education couldn't be matched,” Kyle says. As freshmen, they started out as economics majors in T W I N B R O T H E R S KO R Y A N D K Y L E D AV I S O N
the College of Liberal Arts, but it didn’t take long for them to decide that business was a better fit. “We had to work really hard our freshman year to make sure that our GPAs were high enough to transfer into McCombs,” Kyle says. Together they applied for admission into the business school and were accepted. Majors and minors weren’t all the Davison twins shared on campus. They joined the fraternity Alpha Phi Alpha and participated in the organization’s strolling showcases — modernized routines of traditional African dance. They even performed a hammed-up stroll on stage when they accepted their UT diplomas last spring, a video of which went viral on Twitter. Because Kyle works in commercial supply and trading and his brother works in accounting, the twins don’t often see each other at work. They try to grab lunch together whenever they can though, and they occasionally pass each other in the halls. “There’s something cool about knowing Kory’s just around the corner,” Kyle says. — Jenna Sharp
FAL L 2018
DIFFERENT DREAM y ANISH MALPANI, BBA ’12, SENIOR CULTIVATION
COORDINATOR, ALTERNA IMPACT
he thought he was supposed to follow: After growing up in India, he attended college in the United States, studied business and made good grades, landed a corporate job and was promoted, and moved to New York City. “The experience I had was amazing,” Malpani says. “I did everything from big transactions to corporate finance to internal operational finance, restructuring, and launching verticals. And I really lived the New York life. I enjoyed the fruits of my labors.” But as time went by, the satisfactions of “conventional success,” seemed less and less important. “I was starting to feel that my life didn’t have a purpose,” Malpani says. So, after five years in the corporate world, he decided to pursue a different path. With minimal knowledge of the language or the people, Malpani moved to Quetzaltenango, Guatemala, to work for the nonprofit Alterna Impact. “I plan to spend the rest of my life fighting poverty and working on poverty alleviation through economic empowerment and the power of social enterprise,” Malpani says. “At Alterna, I’m leveraging the experience that I had in corporate America to make a difference in the world.” Since beginning his new job last year, Malpani has helped local entrepreneurs find their financial footing, including the initiators of a telemedicine enterprise connecting doctors to rural Guatemalan towns lacking access to health care using a version of Skype. And he’s doing it all in Spanish, a language he studied only briefly in college. But he’s not stopping there: Malpani plans to spend time in Africa next, with hopes to eventually end up back home in India. “In the end, if the company is small or big, a social enterprise or nonsocial enterprise, everybody needs finance, right? I have that skill to offer,” says Malpani. “Making this life change is the best decision I’ve ever made and I’ve never been happier, never been more content.” — Jenna Sharp A N I S H M A L PA N I F O L L O W E D T H E PAT H
FEARLESS INNOVATOR y LISA SEACAT DeLUCA, MSTC ’10, DIRECTOR OF
OFFERING MANAGEMENT FOR IOT BUILDING INSIGHTS, IBM registered worldwide, more than 600 of them bear the name of Lisa Seacat DeLuca. In 13 years working for IBM, DeLuca has become the most prolific female inventor in the company’s history, an achievement that contributed to her induction into the Women in Technology Hall of Fame last year and to the McCombs Hall of Fame Rising Stars this year. One of DeLuca’s hundreds of inventions is a conference call alert system programmed to signal when a specific topic comes up or a specific person begins talking. Another is a locator that recommends points of interest within your GPS software based on the items in your car. “As an inventor, problems are exciting,” says DeLuca. “When I run into a problem, I think of it as an opportunity for innovation.” DeLuca has been following this fearless approach for many years. When she was a high school student with no coding experience, she applied to Carnegie Mellon University. After graduating with a degree in computer science, she went to work for IBM. Four years later, she entered the McCombs one-year Masters in Technology Commercialization Program. “As a computer science undergraduate working in the industry, there was never a requirement for a master’s to get to the next level,” says DeLuca. “But I wanted the MSTC for my own personal growth. It allowed me to stretch the business side of my way of thinking to help me understand how to bring to market the technologies I was busy developing.” She is now a master inventor, a distinguished engineer, and the director of offering management for Internet of Things Building Insights at IBM. In addition, she has been recognized as one of MIT’s 35 Innovators Under 35, one of Fast Company’s 100 Most Creative People in Business, and IBM’s Working Mother of the Year by Working Mother magazine. “I love my job. I am passionate about it,” says DeLuca. “And I credit the McCombs MSTC program for expanding my thinking about entrepreneurialism. I’ve applied that mindset to my work at IBM and I couldn’t be happier with how it’s turned out.” — Patricio Cantú O F T H E M I L L I O N S O F PAT E N T A P P L I CAT I O N S
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C O M M U N I T Y: U P C L O S E
ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN EAST AFRICA y LAURA RICHARDS, MBA ’18, FOUNDER AND EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, BUSINESS INNOVATIONS FOR GOOD from college with an undergraduate degree in psychology in 2012, she was idealistic and eager to begin her career. But after several years as a counselor and program supervisor for social service agencies, Richards was disillusioned. She applied to UT for graduate school because she felt that nonprofit organizations often used inadequate business models. She wanted to learn how to do the work she loved in a smarter way. “Many nonprofits are not really well run,” Richards says. “They don’t market themselves well and they don’t budget to scale, and there’s not a lot of financial literacy that goes through the management teams. At McCombs, I was able to learn the skills that I saw lacking in the social sector.” While she was an MBA/Global Public Policy student at UT, Richards founded Business Innovations for Good, a multidisciplinary entrepreneurship program for women in East Africa. The program includes training in W H E N L A U R A R I C H A R D S G R A D U AT E D
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financial management, design thinking, digital marketing, ecosystems, and sustainability, and also provides tailored mentor sessions. An international internship at an NGO called the Women of Uganda Network while she was a graduate student sparked the idea. She was determined to return to the East African nation. Richards started “bootstrapping” her African entrepreneurship initiative while completing her studies at the McCombs and LBJ schools, tailoring her degree programs to focus on social entrepreneurship. Her aim for the organization is to expand the job market for the region in an ecologically sustainable manner. Her goal is to create 5,000 new jobs in the agriculture business sector by 2028. “We want to help people not just to develop the capacity of their businesses to create jobs in their communities, but to do it in an environmentally conscious way, so that they're having a net positive impact on their surrounding environment,” Richards says. — Patricio Cantú
C O M M U N I T Y: G AT H E R I N G S
FA L L 201 8
A REVIEW OF McCOMBS CELEBRATIONS, HONORS, AND ALUMNI EVENTS
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MBA REUNION IN HOUSTON JUNE 8-9, 2018 1
EXECUTIVE MENTORSHIP DINNER FEBRUARY 14, 2018 Twelve prominent McCombs alumni and friends hosted the sixth annual Executive Mentorship Dinner with high-achieving BBA students for a casual conversation about career planning. Students were teamed with alumni mentors and other students interested in learning about the mentor’s field. The mentorship program, created by the McCombs BBA Advisory Board, has been popular from the first dinner in 2013. Pictured (left to right) are BBA Advisory Board Members Mandy Price, BHP ’03, JD ’06, partner, Barnes & Thornburg LLP; and Cameron Chandler, BBA ’83, president, Chandler Energy Resources LLC. 2
TEXAS SPIRIT CONFERENCE APRIL 13, 2018 The Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship hosted the Texas Spirit Conference at Rowling Hall, showcasing the spirit and craft beverage industries in Texas. Keynote panelists included McCombs alumni Chad Auler, BA ’92, MBA ’03, co-founder of Deep Eddy Vodka, president and co-founder of Milestone Brands; David Jabour, BBA ’85, president of Twin Liquors; and Rad Weaver, BBA ’98, CEO of McCombs Partners. Homegrown Austin brands included Austin Beerworks, Austin Cocktails, BeatBox Beverages, Deep Eddy Vodka, Desert Door Sotol, Double Horn Brewing Company, Fall Creek Vineyards, Garrison Brothers Distillery, Live Oak Brewing Company, Mesa Vineyards/St. Genevieve Wines, Mighty Swell, Nine Banded Whiskey, and Tito’s Handmade Vodka. Pictured: Justin Fenchel, MBA ’13, co-founder of Beat Box Beverages, (second from right) with Tina Mabley, assistant dean, Full-Time MBA Program Center.
The McCombs Alumni Houston Chapter hosted the first MBA Reunion in Houston at the Houston Club. Special class recognition went to the first graduating class of 2007 from the Texas MBA at Houston program, including five-year and 10-year reunion groups (Classes of 2008, 2012, 2013). Alumni heard from Texas McCombs professors Christopher Meakin and Maytal Saar-Tsechansky about the business and ethics implications of emerging technologies like blockchain, machine learning, and artificial intelligence. Pictured: Bhoom Korpol, MBA ’18; Ben Plouvier, MBA ’13; Gina Whitfield, MBA ’13; Stephane Dissake, MBA ’13; and Kori Biller and Cody Biller, MBA ’13. 4
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ENTREPRENEURSHIP MINOR KICKOFF SEPTEMBER 13, 2018 Texas McCombs celebrated UT’s first entrepreneurship minor at a launch event. The students heard from Bill Gurley, Benchmark Capital partner, MBA ’93; Jon Brumley, BBA ’61; Eric Hirst, Texas McCombs senior associate dean; Luis Martins, director of the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship; and Katie May, CEO of ShippingEasy, BBA '89, MBA '94. Pictured (left to right): Gurley and Hirst. 3
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C O M M U N I T Y: I N M E M O R I A M
HONORING THE LIFE OF PROFESSOR JIM FREDRICKSON renowned researcher and management professor at the McCombs School of Business, died July 23 at the age of 71. Fredrickson was on track to retire in August after 28 years with McCombs. He is remembered for his commitment to research and education and was honored with more than 20 teaching awards in his lifetime. “I understand the shock and sense of loss this news will bring to everyone within the McCombs community and beyond. Jim represents the best of who we are as educators, mentors, and contributors to society and will be sorely missed,” Dean Jay Hartzell wrote in a school-wide email in July. A Minnesota native, Fredrickson received his bachelor’s and master’s degrees in business from Wake Forest University and went on to earn a doctorate from the University of Washington. He has served on the faculty of multiple universities, including Columbia University and the University of Pittsburgh. His commitment to business education was acknowledged both by the students he affected and the university personnel he worked with. He was presented with the Graduate Business Council Excellence Award, the Jack G. Taylor Award for Excellence in Teaching, three Outstanding Professor Awards, and many more. He was also listed in BusinessWeek as one of the best graduate business professors in the nation. At McCombs, he served as chair of the Management Department for six years and held a position on the department’s executive committee. Fredrickson said the moments he most enjoyed during his time at McCombs were centered around his students. Shortly before his death this summer, Fredrickson spoke about his J I M F R E D R I C KS O N ,
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career, the school, and the lessons he learned while working there. “I’ve enjoyed a lot of things — one highlight involves seeing a doctoral students go out and have real success and impact in their careers,” Fredrickson said. “It’s always rewarding to see students have career success, but particularly so with doctoral students because of the unique relationship that can develop during an intense, many-years-long process.” In addition to altering students’ careers and lives, Fredrickson worked in consulting and ed-
ucation for major companies around the world. An avid skier, hiker, and fisher, Fredrickson loved to spend his free time in Steamboat Springs, Colorado, and watching Longhorn football. “Time and again, Jim stepped forward when duty called in service of the school, and the university and McCombs will be forever grateful for it,” Hartzell said. Frederickson, an admired teacher and researcher who spent 28 years at McCombs, passed away on July 23.
C O M M U N I T Y: A LU M N I N O T E S Please send your updates to alumni@mccombs.utexas.edu for publication in the spring issue of McCombs magazine and online in the alumni news section of the McCombs website. Feel free to share news on behalf of a fellow graduate.
Saad Shamsi, MBA ’14, was
2010s
Tyler Dial, BBA ’18, released
Mihir Kumar, MBA ’11, was
named senior vice president of Sasken Technologies, a product engineering solutions provider. With more than 20 years of experience in product engineering and IT services, Kumar will also lead Sasken’s industrial business unit. Earlier, Kumar worked at Larsen & Toubro Infotech and Infosys. Adam Bridgman, BBA ’12,
MPA ’12, was named partner at Holt Ventures, an investment branch of equipment rental company Holt Cat. Bridgman is tasked with overseeing the company’s investment portfolio and managing the investment process.
FA L L 201 8
hired as director of engineering, procurement, and construction projects of solar energy company Silicon Ranch, one of the largest producers of independent solar power in the country.
a five-track country EP titled Repaint, which was produced by Nashville’s Neon Cross Music. After graduating, Dial moved to Nashville and gained a sponsorship gig with bank BBVA Compass and has toured across the United States.
2000s Scott Delaney, MBA ‘00,
was named president and chief executive officer of Unichem Pharmaceuticals North America and has also been appointed to the company’s board of directors. Delaney has more than 24 years of experience in generic and brand pharmaceutical management.
Maxwell Blumenthal, BBA ’16, co-founded and serves as chief executive officer at Fincura, a software company aimed at assisting businesses to make smarter and quicker lending decisions. The aim of the company is to improve artificial intelligence and machine learning technology to automate the corporate lending processes.
Kim Keating, MBA ’00, has Nicki Patel, BBA ’13, was
selected to join the influencer marketing panel at Rocks Digital, the largest digital marketing conference in Texas. Patel was selected based on her work overseeing client work for SMPR, a national marketing and public relations firm. Lisa Corless, MBA ’14, was
promoted to president and chief executive officer of Michigan’s AF Group, owned by Blue Cross Blue Shield. Corless was honored with the Woman of Influence award from the Austin Business Journal as well as Business Insurance’s 2017 Women to Watch award.
joined AT&T’s new chief data office as vice president of artificial intelligence, data science, and machine learning. Keating is tackling issues regarding consumer fraud, retail distribution, and network threats. Polly Schott, MBA ’00,
was named chief administrative officer of Amplify Energy Corp., a company focused on the production and development of gas and oil properties. Schott has 23 years of commercial banking experience and was senior vice president of finance for EnerVest, where she led treasury activities and
handled investor relations and operational accounting. Ryan Stash, BBA ’00, MPA ’00, MBA ’07, has been appointed
managing director of the energy and natural resources group within Regions Bank, a financial corporation that offers a full spectrum of banking services headquartered in Alabama. Stash’s new role will emphasize gaining support from corporate clients within the energy industry to support the bank’s capital markets expansion. Jason Burkey-Skye, MBA ’01,
was named regional managing
director of Denver’s Ascent Private Capital Management. Ascent offers investment and wealth management to high networth families. In this new role, Burkey-Skye will manage a team of professionals who are working with 26 families within the Rocky Mountain region. Edward “Chip” Earle, MBA ’01,
was appointed as vice president of general counsel, chief administrative officer, chief compliance officer, and secretary at Newpark Resources, Inc., a global commercial company dealing with drilling fluid systems.
M c C O M B S . U T E X A S . E D U 45
C O M M U N I T Y: A LU M N I N O T E S Roger Huang, BBA ’04, was
named chief development officer and executive vice president of Crestone Peak Resources, a natural gas and oil producer based in the Denver Basin area.
investment platform across the infrastructure, energy, and industrial value chain. Prior to this new role, Wang served as vice president for the energy-focused private equity firm First Reserve.
for Gulf Island Fabrication Inc. Stockton has served as senior vice president and chief accounting officer for Chicago Bridge & Iron Company, where he worked for more than 15 years.
Matt Brogdon, MBA ’06, has
Jim Page, MBA ’07, was named
Rick Pal, BBA ’95, was a speaker
joined Guggenheim Securities, a division of Guggenheim Partners, as senior managing director for the oil and gas investment banking group based in Houston.
chief diversity officer and vice chancellor for equity, diversity, and inclusion at Vanderbilt University. Page previously served as vice president and chief diversity officer for Johns Hopkins Medicine for approximately four years.
at the 2018 Young Leaders Institute, a week-long program that teaches Houston high school students leadership skills and the importance of cultural awareness. Pal is the founder of Innokul, an incubator for start-ups located in eastern India, and sustainability nonprofit Ek Disha, centered on South Asia. He is the managing partner of Zuhnë, a brand of bath and kitchen fixtures.
Angela Lee, BBA ’06, MPA ’06,
has joined Promapp, a business process management firm, as sales director in the new office located in Austin. Promapp’s cloud-based software facilitates the ability to navigate, share, and customize business processes to implement a reliable management culture within firms.
Jared Grabow, MBA ’08, was
named managing director of originations at Great Rock Capital, a finance company focused on middle market lending. Located in Dallas, Grabow will be responsible for building relationships and scouting opportunities for new investment for the company.
Micah Mitchell, MBA ’06, was
named chief commercial officer of Myomo Inc., a wearable robotics company. Mitchell has many years of experience in the medical equipment industry, including corporations that customize mobility solutions to those with neurological conditions. Rajib Sarkar, MBA ’06, has
joined Keefe, Bruyette & Woods Inc., as the managing director within the insurance investment banking group. KBW is a full-service broker-dealer and investment bank specializing in financial services. Based in New York, Sarkar will be responsible for counseling clients regarding benefits administration, software, and distribution claims. James Wang, BBA ’06, MPA ’06, was named principal for Ara
Partners Group, a private equity
46 M c C O M B S .U T E X A S . E D U
Lucas Walters, MBA ’08,
has been promoted to director at Bridgepoint Consulting, a management consulting firm expanding its efforts in the Houston area. Walters will attempt to grow the firm’s service capabilities supporting middle market companies as well as its network of consultants.
1990s Kyle Volluz, BBA ’90, is general
counsel and founding partner at Paceline Equity Partners, a Dallas-based private equity fund. He serves on the boards of directors of Forterra Inc. and Foundation Building Materials Inc. Westley Stockton, BBA '94, MPA ’94, was appointed execu-
tive vice president, chief financial officer, treasurer, and secretary
Alicia J. Jackson, PhD ’97,
was named interim dean of the college of professional studies at Albany State University. Jackson has served as dean of the ASU’s College of Business and was an associate professor of management in the Sigmund Weis School of Business at Susquehanna University. Juan Moreyra, MBA ’98,
was named chief financial officer of Alicorp, one of Peru’s largest consumer goods companies. Located in Bolivia, Alicorp manages Industrias del Aceite S.A. and Sociedad Aceitera del Oriente S.R.L. Grant Haddix, MBA ’99,
Greg Salcido, BBA ’95, MPA ’95, was named executive
vice president and chief financial officer of Sapience Analytics, a people analytics solution that studies work patterns within a workplace. Within his new role, Salcido will be responsible for handling the company’s budgeting and planning, human resources, accounting, and financial and capital management strategies. Steven P. Harris, BBA ‘96,
has been hired as director of capital markets and finance for Abraxas Petroleum Corp., based in San Antonio. J McLane, BBA ’96,
was promoted to chief investment officer of Lime Rock Partners, a private equity investment partnership focused on oilfield services. In his new role as CIO, McLane will oversee the overall investment strategy, monitor the portfolio, and focus on risk management.
was named operating partner for Ara Partners Group, a private equity investment platform across the energy and industrial value chain. Prior to this new role, Haddix led development of Shell Chemicals’ enhanced oil recovery surfactants business. Paul Teich, MSTC ’99,
was hired as a principal analyst for DoubleHorn, a cloud services brokerage and cloud solutions provider. Teich will also oversee news subscriber content and work with project management on market strategy. He has written for the Next Platform and Forbes Tech and has six years of experience as a leading data analyst for Moor Insights & Strategy and TIRIAS Research. Lane Walker, BBA ’99,
was named president of Houston-based CIRCOR’s energy group. CIRCOR designs and manufactures engineered products used in the industrial, aerospace and energy markets.
FA L L 201 8 Gibson served as deputy chief management officer until he was nominated for this position in January by President Donald J. Trump and later confirmed by the Senate.
director in its technology consulting branch. She works with clients in Dallas on their business objectives regarding technology operations, strategy, and enterprise applications.
Louise Epstein, MBA ’85,
was hired as director of university partnerships at the Walton Family Foundation. Epstein is tasked with managing grant-making and overseeing the design of programs at higher education establishments that align with the Walton Family Foundation’s vision. Prior to this new position, Epstein served as managing director of the Innovation Center in the Cockrell School of Engineering at UT. Jerry Kreitman, BBA ’86, has
Lynn Fox Utter, BBA ’84, was appointed chief talent officer, a newly created role at Atlas Holdings, an equity and private investment firm. Utter brings more than 30 years of management experience to the new role. Some of Utter’s past experiences include serving as chief executive officer of First Source LLC, president and chief operating officer of Knoll Office, and chief strategy officer of Coors Brewing Company.
1980s
nology with business processes to expand value.
Cynthia Comparin, BBA ’80,
John H. Gibson II, BBA ’81, was
was elected to the board of directors’ technology committee and audit committee of Cullen/ Frost Bankers Inc. She is the founder and retired chief executive officer of Animato Technologies, a consulting solutions provider aimed at aligning tech-
sworn in by Secretary of Defense James N. Mattis as chief management officer for the Defense Department. The position was created in 2017 by the National Defense Authorization Act and is the third in command for authoritative power at the department.
joined C2 Systems as senior vice president of sales. Kreitman is in charge of the marketing and sales teams while also developing partnership opportunities at the company, which designs and installs internal wireless networks for government centers, office buildings, convention centers, arenas, and other large structures.
Kim Goodwin, MBA ’87, has
joined the advisory board of Equality Asset Management, a private equity firm located in Boston. Clay B. Steadman, BBA ’89,
was named chairman of the Texas Criminal Defense Lawyers Educational Institute, as well as chairman of the criminal defense lawyers project.
1970s William L. “Bill” Transier, BBA ’76, was named chief exec-
utive officer of Transier Advisors LLC, an advisory firm providing services to energy companies dealing with turnaround, operational situations, need of executive leadership, or restructuring. Biggs Porter, MPA ’78,
John M. Prewitt, MBA ’86,
was appointed by Texas Governor Greg Abbott to the board of the Texas Department of Motor Vehicles. Prewitt will work with the board to provide quality motor vehicle services to all industries and citizens within the state. Prewitt is president of Tideport Distributing Inc., and also is a member of the board of directors at the Texas Trucking Association. Sharon Stufflebeme, MBA ’86, has joined Protiviti, a global
consulting firm, as a managing
was appointed executive vice president and chief financial officer at Maxar Technologies, a technology company headquartered in Colorado supporting the new space economy. Mark A. Edmunds, BBA ’79, was appointed to the
board of directors of Chesapeake Energy Corporation, a natural gas and petroleum production company headquartered in Oklahoma City. He is a senior partner and vice chairman at Deloitte.
M c C O M B S . U T E X A S . E D U 47
M c C O M B S: B O T T O M L I N E
NATIVE PRIDE EMERITUS ACCOUNTING PROFESSOR INDUCTED INTO CHICKASAW NATION HALL OF FAME by David Canright
HEN EMERITUS PROFESSOR OF ACCOUNTING
Bill Kinney was inducted into the Chickasaw Nation Hall of Fame in May, it was a pinnacle moment in a lifetime filled with service and professional distinction. Kinney retired from McCombs in 2016, after a 50-year academic career during which he distinguished himself as both a prolific researcher and committed teacher. He was also deeply involved in promoting diversity in the field of accounting throughout his career, serving as a mentor to many minority students over the years, especially those who aspired to careers in academia. Yet he says there’s still a long way to go for Native Americans. Very few Native Americans choose to pursue Ph.D.s in business," he says. “We still have much work to do.” Kinney’s commitment to that kind of work is a large part of why the Chickasaw Nation selected him for its Hall of Fame. His achievements as a teacher and mentor, the writing of nine books and more than 100 scholarly articles that substantially influenced national and international accounting policy and practice, and his co-founding and directing The University of Texas’s Center for Business Measurements and Assurance Services — all these were taken into consideration as well. Growing up in Stillwater, Oklahoma, Kinney says his identification as a Chickasaw was always core to his sense of self. What he drew from this heritage might be summed up in a precept his Chickasaw father instilled in him: “My daddy said we should always treat people right and he did so himself,” Kinney says. “We didn’t necessarily have to do the right thing, but we had to treat people right.” Kinney says a lifetime of experience now leads him to believe this is a shared Chickasaw value. And it may have something to do with the fact that he has built his most lasting legacy as a mentor. Receiving the Chickasaw honor this year strengthened his sense of connection to his ancestors, Kinney says. His great-great grandfather had been a governor of the Chickasaw Nation. His family entered what’s now the state of Oklahoma during the infamous Trail of Tears. “In 1831, Andrew Jackson uprooted the Chickasaw, Choctaw, Cherokee, Creek, and Seminole peoples from their traditional homes in the Southeast and marched them all off to Indian Territory,” Kinney says.
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Chickasaws established farms, ranches, and businesses on what seemed to be unpromising land in the West while maintaining their identity as a nation. The land turned out to have more resources than Andrew Jackson realized. Chickasaws did well as ranchers and cotton farmers, and in the 1890s, the region became one of the world’s most productive areas for cotton. In the 1920s, oil was discovered in the ground beneath their feet, offering new vistas of prosperity for the Chickasaw people. “At the turn of the 21st century, the Chickasaw Nation established the casinos that they are probably best known for now,” Kinney says. The Winstar World Casino and Resort near the Oklahoma-Texas state line, for example, is the largest casino in the United States and the second largest in the world. “Chickasaws have been like a modern day phoenix,” Kinney says. “You take what you have, you think and work hard, and you rise.” This year’s Chickasaw honor was Kinney’s second hall of fame induction. In 2014 he was awarded a place in the Accounting Hall of Fame for mentoring generations of accounting students and faculty while influencing national and international auditing policy and practices through his service on numerous standards and advisory boards and councils. “Originally, I wanted to be an architect,” Kinney says, “but discovered I was color blind. It turns out that not seeing color has been a good thing for me — and a modest limitation for an accounting professor.” Bill Kinney says his identification as a member of the Chickasaw Nation has always given him a strong sense of heritage and purpose.
P H OTO G R A P H BY L AU R E N G E R S O N
PAYA L E L E T E , B B A ’ 2 2 , exhibits Longhorn pride during Gone to Texas celebrations.
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