University of Virginia Darden School of Business
T H E
D A R D E N
FALL/ WINTER 2013
R E P O R T
What Kind of Influence Do You Want to Have? A Catalyst for Change in Colombia Teaching Financial Literacy Through Basketball Building Business From the Ground Up Logging Miles to Save Children Focused on the Market and the Customer Skating to Where the Puck Will Be Building Business From the Ground Up A Force in the Field of Energy No Stranger to Risk What Kind of Influence Do You Want to Have? Logging Miles to Save Children A Catalyst for Change in Colombia Building Business From the Ground Up Teaching Financial Literacy Through Basketball No Stranger to Risk Logging Miles to Save Children What Kind of Influence Do You Want to Have? Focused on the Market and the Customer A Catalyst for Change in Colombia Teaching Financial Literacy Through Basketball What Kind of Influence Do You Want to Have? An Influential Force in the Field of Energy Skating to Where the Puck Will Be What Kind of Influence Do You Want to Have? A Catalyst for Change in Colombia Building Business From the Ground Up
WE HAVE A STORY TO TELL.
Darden: Developing and Inspiring Responsible Leaders & Advancing Knowledge
GREAT LEADERS NEVER STOP LEARNING.
UPCOMING PROGRAMS IN 2014
Executive Education
3–6 FEBRUARY Strategic Sales Management (Washington, D.C. )
FOR EXECUTIVES OF ALL LEVELS
OPEN-ENROLLMENT PROGRAMS
17–21 FEBRUARY Leading Teams for Growth and Change (Tampa, FL)
FOR SENIOR EXECUTIVES
9–14 March Managing the Corporate Aviation Function
Darden’s programs challenge you to explore the latest practices across business disciplines.
THE EXECUTIVE PROGRAM: STRATEGIC LEADERSHIP AT THE TOP
The Executive Program is Darden’s flagship advanced management residency program for senior-level executives.
FOR ADVANCED MANAGERS
16–21 March Financial Management for Non-Financial Managers 24–28 March Strategic Thinking and Action 6–11 April Power and Leadership: Getting Below the Surface
MANAGEMENT DEVELOPMENT PROGRAM: HIGH-PERFORMANCE LEADERSHIP
Darden’s two-week residency program for high-potential executives provides a strategic organizational view and integrates functional areas and mind/body wellness.
22–25 April Strategic Decision-Making
FOR ORGANIZATIONS
27 April–2 May The Women’s Leadership Program
Darden is your strategic partner to prepare your leaders to shape your organization’s future and outperform the competition.
5–9 May True Leadership: Leading With Meaning
CUSTOM PROGRAMS
12–23 May Management Development Program: High-Performance Leadership 13–16 May Managing Individual and Organizational Change 13–16 May Leading Innovation: Thinking Creatively for Positive Change 1–20 June The Executive Program: Strategic Leadership at the Top 2–6 June Leading Teams for Growth and Change 17–20 June Design Thinking 22–27 June Growing Great Managers: The Core Essentials
www.darden.virginia.edu/exed Darden_Exed@darden.virginia.edu l
+1-877-833-3974 U.S./Canada l +1-434-924-3000 Worldwide
From the Dean
Robert F. Bruner Dean, Charles C. Abbott Professor of Business Administration and Distinguished Professor of Business Administration
TOM COGILL
What’s Your Darden Story?
O
ne of the greatest joys of my role as dean of the University of Virginia Darden School of Business for the past eight years and as professor for the past 31 years is to listen to the stories of alumni and friends, who tell me how Darden has shaped them — and how they, in turn, are shaping the world. One only needs to thumb through the growing Class Notes section of The Darden Report to see our vibrant, tight-knit community in action. The experiences of our 14,000 graduates, from the Classes of 1957 to 2013, collectively tell the story of the School. This issue of The Darden Report is dedicated to showing you some of the many ways we, as a community, are meeting the School’s mission: to improve the world by inspiring and developing responsible leaders and by advancing knowledge. In the first feature section of the magazine, you will meet four graduates of the Darden School who are making a positive impact from Brooklyn to Bogotá. As my colleague Professor Alec Horniman writes, “Responsible leaders lead by choice, not chance.” The second feature section offers ideas for the practicing manager from members of Darden’s top-ranked faculty, who are changing the way the world does business by advancing knowledge. We hope these stories of our bold pursuit of knowledge and the power of people to make a difference will inspire you to continue to share your Darden story.
@Bob_Bruner blogs.darden.virginia.edu/deansblog Please send us your pictures, memories and thoughts at #urdarden. Or e-mail us at urdarden@darden.virginia.edu. Mail us a letter or give us a call.
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Dean Robert F. Bruner Charles C. Abbott Professor of Business Administration and Distinguished Professor of Business Administration The Darden Report is published twice a year by University of Virginia Darden School of Business Office of Communication & Marketing P. O. Box 7225 Charlottesville, Virginia 22906-7225 USA communication@darden.virginia.edu Executive Director of Communication & Marketing Juliet Daum Editor Jacquelyn Lazo Design and Art Direction Susan Wormington Cover Design Ross Bradley Copy Editors Catherine Burton, Seamane Flanagan Photography: Dan Addison, Ian Bradshaw, Tom Cogill, Jaime Kay, Jack Looney, Andrew Shurtleff Advertising Inquiries: Carter Hoerr, Executive Director for Advancement HoerrC@darden.virginia.edu Phone: +1-434-924-6576 The Darden Report is published with private donations to the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation. Š 2013 Darden School Foundation Fall/Winter 2013 Volume 40, No.2
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darden.virginia.edu/socialmedia
CONTENTS
Fall/Winter 2013
MEETING THE MISSION Developing and Inspiring Responsible Leaders
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20 A CATALYST FOR CHANGE IN COLOMBIA
FROM THE GROUND UP
BASKETBALL MEETS BUSINESS IN BROOKLYN
Save the Children CEO Carolyn Miles (MBA ’88) travels around the world to help children in need and to provide them with hope for a better life.
Pedro Medina (CLAS ’82, MBA ’86) revolutionizes Colombians’ perceptions of their homeland through his nonprofit, Yo Creo en Colombia.
Kim Morrish (CLAS ’88, MBA ’93) describes her journey from the U.S. Foreign Service to international development to entrepreneurship in the U.K.
Ralph Baker (MBA ’93) teaches kids in Brooklyn about business and basketball through his financial literacy nonprofit, New York Shock Exchange.
31 SIX MANAGEMENT MYTHS TO AVOID (AND SIX ALTERNATE MAXIMS TO CONSIDER) By Professor Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie 32 THREE CRITICAL FACTORS OF BUSINESS STRATEGY By Professors Jared Harris and Michael Lenox
33 11 KEY CHARACTERISTICS OF A GLOBAL BUSINESS LEADER
By Professor James G. Clawson
35 THE GLOBAL MARKETING OF AN AGE-OLD FRENCH GEM: The Washington Post “Case in Point”
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LOGGING MILES TO SAVE CHILDREN
Advancing Knowledge
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By Darden Senior Researcher Gerry Yemen, with Thierry Delecolle, Ronald Kamin (MBA ’75) and Beatrice Parguel
IN EVERY ISSUE 1
From the Dean
4
News Briefs
10
Quote UnQuote/Darden in the Media
12 Faculty Spotlight: Susan Chaplinsky What Kind of Influence Do You Want to Have? 37
Alumni Services Update, In Memoriam
38 Alumni Profile: Bob Smith (MBA ’87) “No Stranger to Risk” 39 Alumni Profile: Elizabeth Weymouth (MBA ’94) “An Influential Force in the Field of Energy” 40
Alumni Leadership Boards
42
20 Questions: Ned Hooper (MBA ’94)
Ned Hooper (MBA ’94) FALL/WINTER 2013
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News Briefs
Pictured above is the leadership of the student club Graduate Women in Business. Seated from left: Katrina Bergh, Alison Stewart, Ashley Oost-Lievense, Michelle Callen, Colleen Arthur. Standing from left: Stacey Cruz, Margot Sakoian, Christine Lewis. Not pictured: Emily Yee. (All are Second Year students.)
IAN BRADSHAW
Darden Women Take Care of Business
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n Wednesday evenings throughout the fall, a group of female Darden students, faculty and staff members got together in Darden’s South Lounge to discuss issues ranging from where women stand in the workplace to whether or not they are called to perfection. These intimate discussions, called Wednesday 10 events, are organized by the School’s Graduate Women in Business Club (GWIB), and they serve as a forum for Darden women to engage with one another about meaningful topics that affect women in business. “We have real conversations about what it means to be a woman in the business world,” said organizer Alison Stewart, Class of 2014. “This year, men have also been invited to take part in the discussions, as the conversations aren’t one-
sided, and men and women need to be aware of the challenges women face in order to create a more balanced workforce.” The Class of 2014 has the highest number of female students in Darden’s history. Out of 112 women, or 35 percent of the class, there are 17 female presidents and more than 40 female vice presidents spanning Darden’s 45 students clubs. Some hold vice president positions in more than one club. Female presidents run some of the School’s largest clubs, including the Consulting Club, Marketing Club, Finance Club, and General Management and Operations Club. Darden alumnae have also shown an interest in discussing topics pertaining to women in the working world. In Washington, D.C., a group
ON WEDNESDAY 10 EVENTS:
“We have real conversations about what it means to be a woman in the business world,” said Alison Stewart, Class of 2014 (left). “This year, men have also been invited to take part in the discussions, as the conversations aren’t one-sided, and men and women need to be aware of the challenges women face in order to create a more balanced workforce.” 4
THE DARDEN REPORT
The Class of 2014 has the highest
Stay Connected With the New Darden Community
number of female students in Darden’s history.
In Darden’s 45 student clubs
17 40
female presidents
more than female vice presidents
of female Darden graduates convene on the fourth Friday of the month for breakfast and to listen to guest speakers, such as Natalie Foley (MBA ’11), who delivered an interactive presentation on design thinking and innovation to the members. The women’s alumnae group in the capital city along with the New York City Alumnae Group are among the School’s first alumni affinity groups. Their members enjoy getting together for networking, educational and social events. To meet the needs of executive women who aspire to the C-suite, Darden Executive Education offers the popular The Women’s Leadership Program, a semiannual program led by Senior Associate Dean for Executive Education Erika James. The course, which will be offered again 27 April–2 May 2014, helps women assess and address their strengths and challenges, navigate the frequently complex dynamics of strategic business leadership, and hone their skills as effective, visionary leaders.
As a valuable member of Darden’s tight-knit alumni community, you can reconnect with classmates, register for events, update your profile and network with fellow alumni in our updated online community. EASIER SIGN IN
ALUMNI SEARCH
Log in using your e-mail address or connect your account to Facebook, Google, Twitter, LinkedIn, Yahoo or OpenID for convenient, one-click social sign-in.
Use the alumni search tools to locate alumni by class, location, company or program.
EVENT CALENDAR
GROUP MEMBERSHIPS
View and register for upcoming Darden alumni events.
Join an online networking group of alumni specific to your class, chapter, career or personal interests.
You must complete first-time registration to access the resources available on the website, including event registration, group participation and alumni search functionality. Contact Darden Alumni Services to obtain your access code to complete first-time registration.
CONTACT US: alumni.darden.virginia.edu +1-434-243-8977 DardenAlum@darden.virginia.edu FALL/WINTER 2013
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News Briefs CONFERENCES
Upbeat Outlook at the 6th Annual University of Virginia Investing Conference After five years of intense volatility — including a global recession, the nearcollapse of the financial system and a debt crisis in the euro zone — investors at the sixth annual University of Virginia Investing Conference (UVIC), sponsored by the Darden Center for Asset Management, predicted a steady upswing in 2014, and reported that retail investors seeking positive, real returns are gaining confidence in public equities. More than 600 attendees at the soldout conference in November heard from a string of experts on the U.S. energy renaissance, the technology boom, investment strategies of endowments and emerging markets. The experts offered investing ideas and strategies for mitigating risk. “Buy when there is little confidence, and sell when there is too much
SAVE TH E DAT E 9 –1 0 MAY 2 0 14
Howard Marks spoke on the subject of “Managing Money in Uncertain Times.”
confidence,” said Howard Marks, chair of Oaktree Capital. “Risk is when there’s too much confidence in the price of an asset.” At the conference, Darden MBA students also hosted the second annual Darden @ Virginia Investing Conference. Students from 15 top business schools participated in the stock pitch competition. The team from Columbia Business School took home the $3,000 cash prize. To view video interviews from the conference, visit youtube.com/user/ DardenMBA.
FOR DARDEN’S THIRD ANNUAL GLOBAL LEADERSHIP FORUM IN SHANGHAI, CHINA INCLUDING THE INAUGURAL
Shanghai Investing Summit “Global Growth and the Next Breakthrough Economy”
‘Start Up Now’ Conference Inspires Entrepreneurs “Is the entrepreneur crazy enough to be an entrepreneur, but not dysfunctional?” asked venture capitalist Jonathan Aberman (pictured above), founder and managing director of Amplifier Ventures, at the fifth annual Darden Entrepreneurship Conference organized by Darden’s Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation and the School’s student-run Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital Club. Aberman’s comment shed light on his process to evaluate early-stage deals, as he looks for evidence of patterns of behavior that are known to lead to success. Darden’s ‘Start Up Now’ conference convened more than 400 aspiring and experienced entrepreneurs in November to learn about topics such as crowdfunding, the role of ethics in new ventures and change management. The conference concluded with the announcement of the winner of the annual Darden Concept Competition: Lamarca, which uses crowdfunding to support handbag designers. Second Year student founders Sarah Sanchez and Anika Brown won a spot in the university-wide concept competition, the U.Va. Entrepreneurship Cup. 6
THE DARDEN REPORT
Shanghai Marriott Hotel City Centre Shanghai, China Sponsored by: Darden Center for Asset Management Darden Center for Global Initiatives darden.virginia.edu/shanghaisummit
Darden’s Class of 2015:
By the Numbers
Darden’s incoming class is the largest in the history of the School, with 414 students across the three formats of the MBA program. The full-time MBA boasts the School’s highest-ever average GMAT score and grade point average. When it comes to career aspirations, this remarkable class reflects a growing trend: interest in mission-driven careers in fields such as health care, energy, education, government and the nonprofit sector.
MBA
MBA for Executives
Global MBA for Executives
316
68
30
706 Average GMAT 3.5 Average GPA 16% Minority 30% Women 11% Increase in Applications
32% With Advanced Degree 25% With Military Experience 10 Average Years Work
40% With Advanced Degree 33% With Military Experience 13 Average Years Work
Enrolled
Enrolled
Over Previous Year
37% Born Outside U.S.
First Graduating Class: 1957
Experience Bloomberg Businessweek’s 2013 ranking of Executive MBA programs No. 11 Darden’s debut U.S. ranking A+ in Teaching A+ in Support A in Curriculum, Entrepreneurship and Finance First Graduating Class: 2008
A Look at Recent MBA Rankings Deciphering business school rankings can be tricky, as each ranking publication uses a different methodology to measure different factors. Here’s a look at Darden’s rank in the most recent MBA polls. DARDEN’S RANK 4
PUBLICATION
MEASURES
The Economist, 2013 (Global Ranking)
Student and alumni experience, including career services, job placement, faculty and student quality and diversity, recruiter diversity, salary changes from before to after degree
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U.S. News & World Report, 2014
Ratings from deans and recruiters; quantitative analysis of career and admissions data
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Forbes, 2013
Return on investment using total salaries of alumni who are five years out minus salaries lost while in school and cost of education
Enrolled
Experience
27% Born Outside U.S. Countries represented in the Class of 2015 include: Brazil, France, Germany, Iran, Kenya, Russia, Serbia and the United States.
First Graduating Class: 2013
Darden in the Top Tier of the MBA Specialty Rankings No. 1 Education Experience (The Economist 2011–13) No. 1 General Management (Financial Times 2013) No. 1 Facilities (The Princeton Review 2014) No. 4 Management (U.S. News & World Report 2014) No. 5 Entrepreneurship (The Princeton Review for Entrepreneur magazine 2013) No. 5 MBA Program (Hispanic Business magazine 2013) No. 5 Faculty (The Princeton Review 2014)
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News Briefs FACULTY
New Faculty Finance
Elizabeth A. Demers, Associate Professor of Business Administration
Professor Ed Freeman Earns Coveted Academy of Management Award In August 2013, Professor Edward Freeman was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a rare honor bestowed only once a year on one of the organization’s members. With only about 180 fellows, or less than 1 percent of the academy’s 19,000 members, the Fellows Group is composed of scholars who have made a significant contribution to the science and practice of management. Best known for his groundbreaking work on stakeholder management and business ethics, Freeman joins Darden Professor Ming-Jer Chen as an Academy Fellow. Freeman also received the Academy of Management’s Distinguished Educator Award, which recognizes long-term excellence in outstanding teaching in the classroom, fostering pedagogical innovation and mentoring of students.
A Professor’s Olympic Dreams PROFESSOR PAUL SIMKO hatched his
“Dream Idea” last year while planning his courses for the annual Global MBA for Executives second residency in Brazil. He envisioned holding several experiential learning activities related to the 2016 Summer Olympic Games, to be held in Rio de Janeiro. Thanks to his Mead Endowment Award, which he earned for his innovative “Dream Idea” in December, Simko will integrate visits to various sites where the Olympics will take place to teach a GEMBA cohort about the planning process and the societal and economic impacts on the city. The PAUL SIMKO
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THE DARDEN REPORT
endowment, named for Darden Professor John Colley, sponsors a Darden faculty member to participate in the Mead Endowment Program every year.
Yang and Warnock Appointed Chairs PROFESSOR DENNIS YANG was appointed
the Dale S. Coenen Professorship of Free Enterprise Research Chair, an appointment that has a three-year term. Yang joined the Darden community in 2012, and he teaches First Year MBA classes on global economies and markets. He is also developing an elective course on China and Asia.
DENNIS YANG
Global Economies and Markets
Daniel Murphy, Assistant Professor of Business Administration
PROFESSOR FRANK WARNOCK was appointed to the James C. Wheat Jr. Professorship in Business Administration, a professorship for which there is no term length. Warnock, a member of the Global Economies and Markets (GEM) area, is an expert on international capital flows, international portfolio allocation and financial sector development. He developed and delivers GEM’s First Year core elective “Global Financial Markets” and the Second Year elective “Advanced Global Financial Markets.” He also co-created and co-teaches the yearlong practicum “Markets in Human Hope.” Warnock joined the Darden faculty in 2004.
FRANK WARNOCK
STUDENTS
Class of 2014 First Year Awards At First Coffee in September, student awards were presented to members of the Class of 2014.
Left: G. Robert Strauss Marketing Award recipient Jonathan O’Connor with Professor Tom Steenburgh. Right: C. Stewart Sheppard Distinguished Service Award recipient Patrice Yao with Dean Bob Bruner.
Class of 2014 Student Awards Samuel Forrest Hyde Memorial Fellowship Brandon Guichard William Michael Shermet Award Jason Anderson Matthew Attanucci Matthew Attaway William Besash David Cockerill Bryan Furman Brandon Guichard Chiraj Jain Amanda Miller Martha Page Brandon Prather Matthew Priest Andrew Robertson Kyle Simmons Yue Zhu C. Stewart Sheppard Distinguished Service Award Chiraj Jain Patrice Yao G. Robert Strauss Marketing Award Jonathan O’Connor
From left, Kent Guichard (MBA ’83), Brandon Guichard (Class of 2014), recipient of the Samuel Forrest Hyde Memorial Fellowship and a William Michael Shermet Award, and Dean Bob Bruner.
FROM ONE GENERATION TO THE NEXT “The Shermet Award and the Hyde Memorial Fellowship are great honors, and I couldn’t be more proud of what Brandon has accomplished during his First Year. While accolades are rewarding, particularly as a parent and alumnus, I am most proud of the character and qualities that he continually demonstrates. Brandon, like his fellow students, embodies the best traditions and values of the University and practices servant leadership, placing the interests of his classmates and the School ahead of his own.” —KENT GUICHARD (MBA ’83), BRANDON’S FATHER AND CHAIR AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF AMERICAN WOODMARK CORPORATION
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QuoteUnQuote
Darden in the Media
The Washington Post/Darden “Case in Point”
BBC Capital | 6 NOVEMBER 2013
ONGOING SERIES
15 NOVEMBER 2013
“ Whenever communication crosses cultural boundaries, even small gestures of respect to norms can be important. The do’s and don’ts we rely on here [in the U.S.] don’t always apply.”
1. The Washington Post/Darden “Case in Point” Darden has published 70 cases biweekly in the paper’s Sunday Business section since 2011.
“ Unlike with stock picking, when it comes to forecasting, averaging does not yield average performance. Averaging can do no worse than the average expert, and often does better than the best expert. By relying on the average forecast, one can also avoid the large forecasting errors that even the best expert occasionally makes.” YAEL GRUSHKA-COCKAYNE, assistant professor of business administration, and KENNETH C. LICHTENDAHL JR. (MBA ’98), associate professor of business administration, on whether it is better to trust the best expert or the average of a group of experts
ELIZABETH POWELL, assistant professor of business administration, on mastering the art of global e-mail etiquette
The Washington Times | 28 OCTOBER 2013
“ If you extend the selling day by one day, do you get more sales than you would had you not been open that day?” GREG FAIRCHILD (MBA ’92), E. Thayer Bigelow Associate Professor of Business Administration, on Macy’s decision to remain open on Thanksgiving day
Forbes | 7 NOVEMBER 2013
“ Promotions remain a durable feature of consumer marketing because manufacturers, retailers and especially consumers all love a deal — and with good reason.” PAUL FARRIS, Landmark Communications Professor of Business Administration, and KUSUM AILAWADI (Ph.D. ’91) on why retailers should not skimp on promotions
The Washington Post Capital Business 20 SEPTEMBER 2013
“ A forward-looking customer targeting strategy that is enabled by the knowledge of customer attitudes is 11 percent more profitable than an alternative that ignored customer attitudes. … The bottom line — pay attention to customer attitude as well as behavior.” RAJKUMAR VENKATESAN, Bank of America Research Professor of Business Administration, on the importance of knowing what your customers think of you
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THE DARDEN REPORT
The Economic Times Corporate Dossier | 25 OCTOBER 2013
“ I would like you to consider how we could go about creating complex enterprises even if we aren’t heroic leaders imbued with special traits like vision. In other words, how can ordinary people demonstrate extraordinary leadership?” SARAS SARASVATHY, Isidore Horween Research Associate Professor of Business Administration, on ordinary people demonstrating extraordinary leadership
The Wall Street Journal | 5 NOVEMBER 2013
“ More than 220 students attended an Amazon.com Inc. briefing this fall at Darden, the highest attendance figure for any single company briefing in the School’s history.” JACK OAKES (MBA ’88), assistant dean for career development, on the growing number of Darden students accepting jobs in the technology sector
The Darden School of Business has ongoing series in the following media outlets:
2. The Washington Post Capital Business Darden’s faculty has published 14 articles in 2013, most with an Executive Education focus. 3. Forbes/Darden’s Batten Institute Darden faculty members frequently write blogs about entrepreneurship and innovation. 4. CNBC Professor Ed Freeman appears frequently on CNBC’s “Squawk on the Street.” 5. The Economic Times Corporate Dossier Professor Saras Sarasvathy writes a monthly column on entrepreneurship for the Indian business newspaper.
DARDEN BUSINESS PUBLISHING: THE LATEST CASES Darden Business Publishing, founded in 2003 to provide content for the Darden classroom, now distributes knowledge and ideas from the Darden School across the globe. Today, its catalog contains more than 3,000 cases — plus technical notes, exercises, books and simulations used in more than 130 countries around the world. 1. “HemoShear, LLC: Series C Round Financing” by Susan Chaplinsky and Anne Erdman 2. “Life in the Fast Lane: Stacy Hollins and the Hollywood Headache” by Jenny Mead, Aaron Peters and Andrew C. Wicks 3. “Pitching J. Crew Maternity Apparel to Mickey Drexler” by Paul W. Farris, Randle D. Raggio, Patrick DesMarteau, Alex Mazakov and Lindsay Murphy 4. “Segmenting Clinton and Obama Voters” by Kenneth C. Lichtendahl Jr. (MBA ’98) and Rohit Gupta 5. “ZYRTEC: Responding to Allegra” by Karin Bergqvist (MBA ’08), Angela Li (MBA ’03) and Marian C. Moore Darden alumni enjoy free access to the Darden Case Collection. For more details, e-mail dardenalum@darden.virginia.edu.
PILLARS THE POWER OF PHILANTHROPY AT THE DARDEN SCHOOL OF BUSINESS
GIFT PLANNING
YOUR PLANNED GIFTS LAY THE FOUNDATION FOR DARDEN’S FUTURE
Did you know that you can support Darden through your estate planning? Planned gifts from alumni, faculty and friends make it possible for Darden to deliver on its bold mission of improving the world by developing and inspiring responsible leaders and by advancing knowledge. The variety of available planned giving options gives you the ability to satisfy your financial goals while helping Darden prepare a new generation of leaders.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
To learn more about how a planned gift might fit into your overall giving plan, please visit www.dardenplannedgiving.org or contact Carter Hoerr, Executive Director for Advancement at the Darden School of Business, at +1-434-924-6576 or HoerrC@darden.virginia.edu. The Darden Office of Advancement mailing address is P.O. Box 7726, Charlottesville, Virginia 22906 USA.
www.dardenplannedgiving.org
Faculty Spotlight
Susan Chaplinsky Tipton R. Snavely Professor of Business Administration
What Kind of Influence Do You Want to Have? “Charlottesville? Where’s that?” Susan Chaplinsky asked when she was recruited to join the Darden School of Business’ faculty in 1994. Professor Kenneth Eades, whom Chaplinsky met at the University of Michigan when they were both “rookie” faculty members, urged her to get to know Thomas Jefferson’s university. “Don’t say no, just come,” Eades said. So Chaplinsky agreed to meet with Darden Dean Lee Higdon, and she told him why she wasn’t sure she’d be a good fit for the School. She taught using the case method at Northwestern University, but she’d never written a case. As a University of Chicago–trained economist, she had a strong research background. Higdon told her that she could continue to pursue her research while becoming a world-class teacher. “I see you as the prototype of what the new Darden faculty members could be like,” he
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THE DARDEN REPORT
told her. “You have strengths as a teacher, and you will be able to carry and continue your research at Darden.” As a former investment banker, Dean Higdon was “a super salesman,” according to Chaplinsky. “Otherwise, I don’t think I’d be here.” He believed the School needed to diversify its faculty with respect to gender, geography and academic training. “A lot of the previous faculty had — not unexpectedly — come out of the Harvard mold. Today our faculty come from institutions around the world,” Chaplinsky said. And then he said something that made up her mind. “You could be one of a big department somewhere else, but at Darden, we’re small. You can have much more influence on your colleagues, on the School and in your field here,” he asserted. “The question is what kind of influence do you want to have?”
3RD ANNUAL PRIVATE EQUITY CONFERENCE On 21 March 2014, Darden’s student-run Private Equity club will hold its third Private Equity Conference. As the club’s faculty advisor, Chaplinsky has been impressed by the initiative alumni such as John Loverro (MBA ’00) have taken to support the endeavor.
The Next Generation of Faculty Chaplinsky, the Tipton R. Snavely Professor of Business Administration, did not imagine that she would still be in Charlottesville 20 years later. But she quickly adapted to Darden’s applied teaching method, because it was directly in line with her corporate empirical research style. Pretty soon, she couldn’t imagine herself anywhere else. Today, Chaplinsky is pleased to see that many of Darden’s faculty members exemplify the traits Hidgon believed were essential for the School’s next generation of professors. “We hire people because they have a body of thought leadership that we think will be important to people in practice and policymakers, and they also bring those skills into the classroom,” Chaplinsky said. “I can only imagine what some of our younger faculty members will be like with years of experience. They are already strong teachers and have a great inclination of how to carry themselves in front of their students,” she remarked.
Confronting Complex Cases in the Classroom For her part, Chaplinsky has mastered the classroom setting. She steers her students through complicated cases, which she simplifies by asking provocative questions. “Transactions these days are complex,” she explained. “I try to teach Second Years how to use the building blocks they learned in their First Year to confront complexity and to realize they have the skills to break down the situation into solvable problems.” Her approach has made her a perennial favorite among students, who scramble to sign up for the two classes she teaches each fall, “Corporate Financing” and “Entrepreneurial Finance and Private Equity (EFPE),” the latter of which was created in response to students’ interest in the field. “Students had organized their own course and were more or less teaching themselves a version of ‘Entrepreneurial Finance.’ That prompted the area and me to offer a new course on the topic,” she said of the situation at the School in 2001. The first
This year, the conference will welcome members of Charlottesville’s community and cover topical issues, including energy and coinvestment. “PE firms tend to be small, so they don’t recruit heavily. A small number of students a year will get jobs in the industry directly out of Darden, so they find these networking and learning opportunities extremely important,” Chaplinsky noted. She encourages interested alumni to contact her or the club to get involved.
course consisted entirely of Harvard case studies; since then, Chaplinsky has written all but one of the cases for the class — penning many of them in conjunction with students and alumni.
Writing in Concert With the Darden Community Early on, developing materials for EFPE was challenging because private equity is riddled with confidentiality concerns, and it takes a special relationship with a firm to gain access to the necessary information. Chaplinsky was aided by students and alumni who had contacts or experience in the industry that helped create materials to benefit the students. One former student, Julie Engell (MBA ’07), approached Chaplinsky before winter break of her Second Year with a challenge. Engell’s father, who was a board member of a Danish private equity firm, Polaris, wanted to co-write a case with his daughter about one of its portfolio companies. Eager to acquire an international case, Chaplinsky encouraged Engell to work on it with her father. “She took the initiative as a student, which is always welcome,” said Chaplinsky, who has used the Engell case numerous times in her class since then. Even alumni who weren’t Chaplinsky’s students have reached out with ideas for materials. In 2004, John Fruehwirth (MBA ’96) — who had never taken a class with her, though his wife, Christine Arnold Fruehwirth (MBA ’96), had — contacted Chaplinsky because he had done a mezzanine financing deal that he thought would be of interest to students. “John owns his own fund now, Rotunda Capital, and he still comes back to the classroom to teach and meet with private equity
Did you know? Professor Chaplinsky, an avid sports fan, has season tickets to U.Va.’s basketball games. You can find her in section 110, cheering on the ’Hoos.
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Chaplinsky’s research interests are primarily in corporate finance, and she has specialized interests in capital raising, private equity and capital structure. She is working on a project to identify the outcomes of the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act, which was passed in April 2012.
students,” she said. Engell and Fruehwirth are two of the many students and alumni who have helped Chaplinsky develop new cases during her time at Darden.
A Fascination With Finance Chaplinsky majored in economics — not finance — as an undergraduate at the University of Illinois. She had initially dismissed finance as a subject area of interest when she enrolled in a graduate-level portfolio theory course at the University of Chicago. Her perspective shifted radically while she was in Nobel Prize-winning Professor Eugene Fama’s class. “For a lot of us, it wasn’t a class, it was a life-altering experience,” she recalled. “Some of us even describe it as a religious experience.” Now a renowned expert in corporate finance and private equity, Chaplinsky is just as curious and dedicated to finance as she was in Fama’s course. “There is some orthodoxy to the way markets function,” Chaplinsky said. “I like that some elements are rational; it gives you a framework for how to solve problems and narrows the elements that are unexplained.” The blend of principles and the ever-changing dynamic that affects them is what motivates her research. Chaplinsky’s research interests are primarily in corporate finance, and she has specialized interests in capital raising, private equity and capital structure. She is working on a project to identify the outcomes of the JOBS (Jumpstart Our Business Startups) Act, which was passed in April 2012. “The law attempts to reduce the cost burden of going public, but at the expense of transparency
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and disclosure,” Chaplinsky remarked. “We’re going to look at how the act affects the pricing of these companies. It’s an option for the issuer — they don’t have to reduce their disclosure [burden of going public], but they can choose to in an effort to save money.” Although the SEC is still collecting data, she believes the act will increase the availability of capital for smaller firms. Chaplinky is also examining the “exit” stage of the venture capital life cycle, particularly as it pertains to public offerings. “Part of what motivated the JOBS Act was the precipitous drop in IPOs since 2000. Venture capitalists traditionally generate returns from IPOs, and as that avenue has diminished, they’ve had to exit by selling their companies privately,” she explained. Chaplinsky reflected that IPOs typically offer higher returns than private sales, and her research attempts to measure how pronounced this effect has been. An active faculty member in the life of the School, Chaplinsky serves as the faculty representative for the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees and was the associate dean for faculty scholarship from 2008 to 2011. She has received numerous teaching accolades. In April 2013, she earned the University’s highest teaching award, an honor that recognizes teaching excellence, research and service achievements of an outstanding caliber. In 2012, she received the Wachovia Award for Excellence in Teaching Materials — Innovative Case, and in 2007, she won Darden’s Outstanding Faculty Award. by Jacquelyn Lazo
DEVELOPING AND INSPIRING
RESPONSIBLE LEADERS Responsible leaders are individuals with a strong sense of self and others, and the situations they influence. These are people that invite, include and inspire others. Being responsible implies intentional choice, which creates opportunities for exceptional performance from an organization’s members. Responsible leaders lead by choice, not chance. Alexander B. Horniman, Killgallon Ohio Art Professor of Business Administration, Senior Fellow, Olsson Center for Applied Ethics
FALL/WINTER 2013 
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PHOTO: SAVE THE CHILDREN
Logging Miles to Save Children Save the Children CEO Carolyn Miles (MBA ’88) travels around the world to help children in need and to provide them with hope for a better life. 16
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CAROLYN MILES (MBA ’88)
W
hen Carolyn Miles, president and chief executive officer of Save the Children, joined the nonprofit in 1998, she never thought she’d stay for 15 years. “But there is absolutely nothing I would rather be doing than running this organization,” said Miles, who became Save the Children’s first female CEO in 2011. After graduating from Darden in 1988, Miles worked for American Express, first in New York City and then in Hong Kong. She then teamed up with Darden classmate Tom Neir (MBA ’88) to help develop a successful chain of coffee shops across Asia called the Pacific Coffee Company, which they later sold to a Chinese investor.
The Catalyst: A Mother and Child During her travels in Asia, Miles was routinely confronted by the endemic deprivation faced by millions of children. She describes a life-changing experience in the Philippines: “My family and I were at a stoplight, and a poor woman came up to the car to beg. She had a baby boy in her arms, and I was sitting with my son Patrick in my arms,” Miles recalled. “Patrick was about six or seven months old. The woman’s baby didn’t look nearly as healthy as mine did, but he was about the same age, and we looked at each other through the window. She never did knock, but at that moment, I had the
realization that there are millions of children who are growing up in the world that have absolutely no opportunity for a better life, for no other reason than that they are born into poverty.” At that moment, Miles knew she wanted to dedicate her life to helping the world’s children and to providing them with hope for a better life. “Although I knew nothing about nonprofits, I had the sense that, with the training I had, there had to be something I could do for a nonprofit organization,” said Miles, who has three children with her husband and fellow Darden graduate Brendan Miles (MBA ’88). When the family moved back to the United States, to Connecticut, in 1998, a Darden alumnus introduced Miles to a staff member at Save the Children. She took a marketing position with the organization, applying the experience she had gained at American Express and through her Asian startup to help the nonprofit with its directresponse television and direct mail campaigns, bringing in new donors. In 2004, Miles became Save the Children’s chief operations officer and executive vice president, and in September 2011, she moved into her current role as president and CEO. During her tenure, the organization has more than doubled the number of children it reaches with nutrition, health, education and other
As the leading independent organization inspiring breakthroughs in how the world treats children, Save the Children serves more than 125 million children in 120 countries, including the United States.
what the challenges are and work at the highest level possible to make those challenges easier for your team.
Leadership Lessons From the Syrian Conflict This fall, Carolyn Miles addressed students, faculty, staff and visitors at Darden as part of the School’s Leadership Speaker Series. She explained that Save the Children is working to provide humanitarian aid to the two million Syrian refugees, one million of whom are children. She shared the lessons she has learned while leading her team through this conflict. LESSON ONE: Leaders need to understand the challenges their teams face on the front lines. Nothing can take the place of you being on the ground with the people you’re trying to help. You must know
LESSON TWO: Leaders need a flexible strategy. In Syria, our strategy has changed quite a bit. We have to supply immediate support, but we also have to make sure people know what’s going on to try and influence the longer-term political solution. There’s a lot more awareness in the United States now about what’s going on, sadly because of the chemical weapons attack on Syrian citizens. This has given us an important opportunity to talk about the humanitarian situation. In addition to the 400+ children who were gassed during the recent chemical attacks, 10,000 Syrian children have been killed in the past two years during this conflict. Our role is not to say what we want to do politically or militarily. It is to be a witness to what is happening to children and making sure people know the facts. LESSON THREE: Leaders need to forge partnerships. When you are in a crisis, it is incredibly important to reach out to others who can help you. Who do you work with or know that you could get to support the work you do? For us, it could be the United Nations Human Rights Council, the UN agency that works with refugees and is on the ground with us in the camps; or it could be our board members, many of whom are corporate leaders. Partnerships are the only way you’re going to move your strategy ahead. FALL/WINTER 2013
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programs. She has helped grow its budget from $250 million to more than $650 million today.
Making Sure the Story Is Told “Increasing awareness about children in need is a crucial part of my job,” said Miles. “In addition to the support we provide every single day, we are documenting what is happening to kids. For example, 6.6 million kids still die every year of things we can prevent, such as pneumonia, malaria and diarrhea. Part of our work is to make sure people know what the facts are.” As she travels to refugee camps and impoverished areas in some of the 120 countries where Save the Children works, Miles chronicles her interactions with children in her blog, Logging Miles. As CEO, she has emphasized the need to use social media and new technology to extend the organization’s reach and fully engage with Save the Children’s employees, volunteers, beneficiaries, donors and partners, as well as others around the world. She has also built partnerships with other organizations — public, private, nonprofit and for-profit — to cooperate and share resources and expertise for the benefit of the world’s children. For example, in October, Save the Children and Calvin Klein Inc. hosted an inaugural benefit gala to increase awareness of the nonprofit’s national early childhood education programs and to honor its supporters. Miles presented the National Child Advocate Award to actress Jennifer Garner, one of the organization’s most devoted advocates. Garner serves as an Artist Ambassador — along with such other celebrities as Julianne Moore, Rachel Zoe and Jennifer Connelly. In addition to working with Save the Children, Miles serves on numerous boards for nongovernmental organizations and entities that support nonprofits. An active and devoted Darden alumni volunteer, she serves on the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees and is chair of the Branding, Marketing and Communication Committee. —By Jacquelyn Lazo and Julie Daum
Excerpts from Miles’ Blog, Logging Miles Syrian Refugees in Iraq Live in Limbo The boy standing in the cement block doorway called to us to take his picture. We couldn’t resist his bright smile in the bleak dust of the refugee camp. We went over and snapped a few shots, and he looked at them proudly on our cell phones. His uncle, who was hovering close by, came to talk with us, and soon we were sitting in their one-room cinderblock home, sipping warm Coca-Cola in tiny glasses. Nawzad’s father, uncle and mother told us how the two families had ended up here in Domiz, a refugee camp near the border with Syria. For children like Nawzad, who is 9, and Chiman, who is only 3, the days are filled with small chores, sitting inside their one-room house — an accommodation they’re lucky to have, since many families are living in tattered tents. … They have been there for nine months, and no one is sure when they might be able to go back to Syria. As we said goodbye to Nawzad and his little sister, we asked him if he wanted to go back to his village. He looked down shyly and said of course, it was home. His father said the same, that as soon as Assad fell and things were safe, he would go back and find work as a house painter again. But Nawzad and Chiman’s mother’s eyes were fearful. … This family had been through so much already, and I’m sure the thought of reliving the fear and destruction she had seen was too much to think about as we sat chatting on the floor of a place that feels nothing like home.
Can a Literacy Pilot Program Help Pakistan’s Children Learn to Read? Except for the fact that the counting aids were rocks and polished peach pits, and the space was tiny, we could have been at any preschool anywhere in the world. All the colorful elements of the classroom had been produced by the enthusiastic woman who was the teacher — a local woman who provided a room in her house for the school and underwent regular training with Save the Children. …This school was also part of a new model in Pakistan that focuses on children ages 2–8. It works to ensure that these children get the most they can get from school, with a particular focus on literacy. Save the Children has launched similar Literacy Boost programs in Bangladesh, Ethiopia, Malawi, Mozambique, Nepal, Pakistan and Zimbabwe. The programs focus on preparing children to learn to read — starting as early as preschool. Pakistan has policies at the national and provincial level to make sure every child who has the right to go to school actually has a school to go to and a trained teacher. But in many rural areas, this universal access is not happening — and while primary school enrollment is 81 percent for boys, it is only 67 percent for girls. Programs like Literacy Boost are targeted for both boys and girls and are run by teachers in local rural communities, and early pilots have shown remarkable progress in learning outcomes for children enrolled in the program. To read all of her blog posts, visit loggingcarolynmiles.savethechildren.org.
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RE S P O N S I B L E L EA D ERS
A Catalyst for Change in Colombia Social entrepreneur Pedro Medina (CLAS ’82, MBA ’86) believes in his native country and has convinced hundreds of thousands of Colombians they should, too. PHOTOS: RICARDO PINZÓN HIDALGO
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PEDRO MEDINA (MBA ’86)
I
n 1999, the nation of Colombia was the site of 80 percent of the world’s kidnappings and 55 percent of the world’s terrorist acts. Sixty percent of the country’s population was living in poverty, and 400,000 Colombians emigrated that year. Colombia was conspicuously absent from most travel guides at the time, though Frommer’s South America made a point of mentioning it — in the chapter titled “Nations You Should Avoid.” In many people’s eyes, Colombia was a nearly failed nation. The state of his home country troubled Pedro Medina (CLAS ’82, MBA ’86), who at the time was a professor of business strategy and entrepreneurial development at Los Andes University in Bogotá, Colombia. One afternoon during class, he asked his 39 engineering students how many of them saw themselves in Colombia in five years. Only 12 of them raised their hands. The rest turned the question back on him: “Why should we stay?” “The coffee, the emeralds, the two oceans, the flowers,” Medina replied. But his answer was not compelling enough. “I couldn’t sell my country to my students,” he recalled. He wrote, researched and created a talk, “Why One Should Believe in Colombia,” and then he presented it to hundreds of audiences over a period of eight months, earning rave reviews. Everyone from community members to the police got behind the idea, which invigorated Medina and compelled him to start a foundation dedicated to building trust in his country. He named it Yo Creo en Colombia (I Believe in Colombia).
A Powerful Influence for Positive Change Yo Creo en Colombia, a grassroots initiative, empowers Colombians to understand their country’s achievements, potential and resources and to leverage those to build a fair, competitive and inclusive nation. From 1999 to 2004, Medina and his team — three full-time employees and 1,900 volunteers — traveled around the world to deliver more than 5,150 programs to Colombians living in Colombia and abroad in 157 cities and 26 countries. As a result of their efforts, more than 680,000 Colombians have benefited from the organization’s programs. “We’re a lean, mean fighting machine,” Medina said of his nonprofit. “We add value by building collective self-esteem and social capital.” He has received hundreds of testimonials from
Colombians who have been positively influenced by the organization. “They tell us that our message changed their lives, that because of our stories, they decided to return to Colombia, or not to leave, or to invest, or to change their attitudes,” Medina said. “Our scope is broad … [we have had an effect on everyone] from high school students to presidential candidates to business leaders to beauty queens.” Medina’s initiative has transformed both individual Colombians and the nation as a whole. At a time when his country was on the brink of disaster, Medina worked closely with a group of other business leaders in Bogotá to generate hope and trust among Colombians. As a fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University in 2002–03, he researched methodologies to build social capital, confidence and reciprocity among the citizens of his native country. From 2004 to 2005, he was a Batten Fellow at Darden; he investigated the connection between individuals and entrepreneurial opportunities in emerging economies and how entrepreneurship education can facilitate that connection. His foundation continues to conduct asset-based development research of what works in Colombia, in the hopes of creating a model to empower other nations.
A Background in Business Medina did not begin his career as a social entrepreneur. After earning a bachelor’s degree in economics, history and international relations from the University of Virginia, he spent two years working for the Southwestern Company of Nashville, Tennessee, before returning to Charlottesville to earn his MBA at Darden. When he graduated in 1986, he was hired to open the Colombia operation of Mobil Polymers International, a division of Mobil Chemical. From there, he went on to create an international market for Propilco, the largest petrochemical firm in Colombia. When he later accepted the role of president of McDonald’s in Colombia, the company insisted he earn another degree — a bachelor’s in hamburgerology from Hamburger University in Chicago. For seven years, Medina used the knowledge he acquired from the Golden Arches’ academy to expand the corporation’s international reach. He brought the McDonald’s brand to his country and developed 350 local suppliers, six of which are now regional suppliers. Under his leadership, McDonald’s Colombia opened 10 FALL/WINTER 2013
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R E S P O N S I B L E L EA D ERS Plan Colombia [an initiative created to end Colombian armed conflict and develop an anti-cocaine strategy] and a more engaged civil society.” Yo Creo en Colombia has significantly helped Colombians develop agency in a civil society by teaching them to believe in their country and its inherent value.
A Profound Impact on Colombia
Advice From Pedro Medina
Medina’s ferocious tenacity and his unwavering dedication to his homeland have not gone unnoticed. In 2004, Colombian President Alvaro Uribe and restaurants in the first 12 months and 33 El Colombiano recognized him as an Exrestaurants in his seven years, and became emplary Colombian. He was celebrated the top employer of college students in the by the business magazine Dinero as one country. of the 20 top businessmen of the year in 2001, and in 2006, he was a finalist for Colombia 2013: the Schwab Foundation Social Entrepreneurship Award and was chosen by A Changed Nation Today, Colombia is a completely different Cambio magazine as one of the top 50 nation from what it was in 1999. Foreign leaders under 50 in Colombia. Medina, whom many consider a rare investments in the country have invisionary who has made a significant creased from $1.8 billion in 2000 to $15.8 impact on his country, avoids the billion in 2012. The number of limelight when he can and prefers violent deaths per 100,000 inhabitants spending time at La Minga, a Colombian has decreased from 67 to 32 since 1999. environmental reserve that he owns. “To “We received 5,000 visitors from the relax, I go to the waterfalls in La Minga United States in 1999, compared to and balance the positive ions of the city 500,000 in 2012,” Medina said. “There are now four international tourism guides with the negative ions,” he said of his that tout Colombia as the place favorite weekend ritual. to visit.” Medina also dreams of exploring South According to Medina, Colombia’s America, and he plans to embark on a sixdramatic improvements can be attributed month sabbatical there in 2020 in honor to three main factors: “better leadership, of his 60th birthday. — By Jacquelyn Lazo
1. Expand your threshold of risk each day by doing something you have never done on a daily basis. Start with small changes and build up. 2. Expand your heart — engage regularly with strangers and do unsolicited acts of kindness. 3. Look for hidden assets — the world is full of tangible and intangible assets that are underutilized.
PEDRO MEDINA
I love and apply Professor Sankaran Venkataraman’s bootstrapping technology for entrepreneurs: • Don’t buy anything new that you can buy used. • Don’t buy anything used that you can rent. • Don’t rent anything that you can lease. • Don’t lease anything that you can borrow. • Don’t borrow anything that you can beg for. • Don’t beg for anything you can get for free. • Don’t take anything for free that you can get others to pay you for. • Don’t take something you can get others to pay you for that you can get others to bid for and create an auction.
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The main house at La Minga, a Colombian environmental reserve Medina owns. The house is made of mud, grass and rocks.
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R E S P O N S I B L E L EA D ERS
From the Ground Up After a career in the U.S. Foreign Service, Kim Brown Morrish (CLAS ’88, MBA ’93) grows a company that counts the Tower of London among its clients.
F
rom her base outside London, Kim Brown Morrish focuses on growth. In 2004, Kim and her British husband, Simon Morrish, purchased a well-established grounds maintenance company called Ground Control Ltd. They partnered with four of the company’s existing directors, who took a risk to invest in the business alongside the Morrishes. The company provides landscape maintenance, construction and design, fencing and other services for national or large regional clients in the retail, utilities and public sectors. Its customer list includes more than 31,000 commercial sites of organizations like Tesco, Anglian Water, Network Rail and even the Royal Mail. Over the past nine years, Ground Control has grown from $15 million to $100 million in revenue and from 60 to 500 employees. As the company has grown, so too has Kim’s family — she is the proud mother of four children, ranging in age from 5 to 14. Morrish, who began her career in the U.S. Foreign Service, discusses entrepreneurship, social mission-driven careers, women in leadership and the oh-so-delicate work/life balance.
When you graduated from Darden 20 years ago, what were your aspirations? I wanted to make a positive difference in the world. This ambition began while attending U.Va., where my studies in international relations drove my aspiration to join the U.S. Foreign Service. After working in international development, I 24
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realized what an exceptional gift an education is in this world. I took two years of leave without pay from the Foreign Service to gain formal, commercial management training at Darden.
What was your next career move? After Darden, I returned to my career with the U.S. Foreign Service to run development projects in Bolivia, which at the time was the second poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere. I extended my time there for a third year to work primarily in microfinance, which provided sustainable, affordable access to financial services to small and micro businesses. I then spent two years working and living in emerging markets in Central Europe and Central Asia. I then moved back to Washington, D.C., and was recruited by the German firm IPC GmbH, which specialized in setting up microcredit banks around the world. It was my dream job — a leadership role in a global, commercial enterprise that made a positive impact on people with limited opportunities or access. I set up IPC’s Washington subsidiary, handling operations, branding and marketing, staffing international projects and establishing financial controls to qualify the company to work as a U.S. government contractor. After working on projects in Haiti and Bosnia, I was running a project in Jamaica, during the 1998 banking crisis where all of the indigenous banks had failed. We were trying to preserve a small business loan program. It was in Jamaica that I met my husband, Simon.
KIM BR OWN MOR R ISH (MB A ’ 93)
PHOTOS: CHRIS SATTLBERGER
When did you launch your first entrepreneurial venture? While in Jamaica, Simon and I identified what we believed was a great business opportunity to create a real estate portal online in the U.K., which did not exist at that time in any form, either online or offline. After a few months of research and the development of a business plan, we both quit our jobs to start How-Smart.com, which was similar to Trulia or Realtor.com, but 14 years earlier and in the U.K.
What was the most important lesson you learned from that first venture? Surround yourself with the very best people you can.
What circumstances led you to buy Ground Control? We moved to Boston for 18 months while Simon completed his MBA at Harvard Business School.
On a whitewater rafting trip, we learned about the concept of setting up a search fund to purchase an existing business — a management buy-in. Having gone through the blood, sweat and tears of a startup, this sounded like a much better approach to owning and running your own business. So, we returned to London and spent the next year looking for the business. We also had our second child. I told everyone — and I mean everyone — about our aspiration to buy a business. I met with business brokers and accountants, reviewed all of the businesses on the market and attended seminars. Ground Control actually came to us through Jeff Bocan (MBA ’00), a friend and Darden alumnus who was working in private equity in London and mentioned the opportunity to me one night over dinner. The next step was to secure financing. As a buy-in team without industry experience, we needed a compelling and comprehensive plan to convince the seller to sell to us and to raise financing to pull the deal together. FALL/WINTER 2013
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How has your role at Ground Control evolved? I focused my first years on business development and hiring the very best people we could to support our growth. Both responsibilities depended on my ability to sell. I was selling our business to clients and ensuring that we were growing with them, and I was selling our business to potential employees and allowing them to grow with us. My role has evolved from selling and recruiting to a focus on creating and driving a culture which recognizes that people are the single most important contributor to our success. So many of the people who have joined us, especially our senior team, are truly exceptional, and the most rewarding aspect of my involvement in Ground Control has been working with them over the past nine years.
What makes entrepreneurship a great career path? There are few career paths that allow you to achieve your dreams, write your own rule book and put you squarely in charge of your success or failure. I’ve worked in many cultures and countries where my gender, age and skin color mattered. I know the challenges of trying to balance a family with career aspirations and the sacrifices and compromises required. I love that as an entrepreneur I can wake up every day and focus on making a positive impact on the people in our business.
Can you have it all? You can, but not necessarily at the same time. I was lucky to start my career in the U.S. Foreign Service where I could work to create opportunities for the disadvantaged. At Ground Control, it’s been rewarding to run a business committed to
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caring for our environment, supporting hundreds of small businesses that employ several thousand people who carry out work on our behalf. We also fund a wide range of charities through matching grants for our 500 employees in their fundraising activities. Of all of the challenges, heartbreaks, successes and joys of the past 20 years, by far the greatest achievements have been my partnership with my husband and being a mother to my four wonderful children. Thanks to the remarkable team we’ve built at Ground Control, I’ve been able to step away from the business at times and focus on my kids and shaping the way they view the world — whether during maternity leave or school holidays, or when the kids simply need and deserve more time from me. Likewise, all four children are supportive and understanding when the business demands my time and attention. It’s worked. Not without a lot of bumps and sleepless nights. I’ve evolved as the business and my children have grown — to better respond to their needs and also to grow myself. Just when I think I am on top of my game, the business experiences a whole new set of challenges due to growth. It’s the exact same with the children. Needless to say, there’s never a dull moment and no chance of feeling overly confident that I am getting it right. — By Julie Daum and Jacquelyn Lazo
Onward
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OTIS PRATT & WHITNEY SIKORSKY UTC AEROSPACE SYSTEMS UTC CLIMATE, CONTROLS & SECURITY FALL/WINTER 2013 
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Basketball Meets Business in Brooklyn Ralph W. Baker Jr. (MBA ’93) teaches kids how to dribble and how to double their money through his nonprofit, New York Shock Exchange.
W
hen Ralph W. Baker Jr. (MBA ’93) started coaching his 11-year-old son’s basketball team in the summer of 2006, he came up with the idea of also teaching the players about the merits of business. However, his idea was not immediately well-received by the other parents, who wondered why financial literacy was relevant to the young Brooklyn basketball players. Some went so far as to call him “crazy.” Baker’s son even threatened to quit the team when his father proposed a new name — the New York Shock Exchange. “[My son] thought we would be the laughingstock of the neighborhood,” Baker said. But Baker persisted. What began as informal investment meetings with the middle schoolers after basketball practice evolved into more formal gatherings in the summer. Guest speakers — including bankers, private equity investors, bond traders and asset managers — attended the group’s meetings and
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R ALPH W . BAKER JR . ( MB A ’ 93)
discussed their trades with the team. After teaching the middle school kids how to think logically about investments, Baker put up $900 of his own money so the boys could track two stocks they thought would be successful. They observed the people around them, most of whom were using iPods, and decided to invest in Apple Inc. and GameStop. A year later, in 2007, both stocks posted very impressive returns. By 2008, in the aftermath of the financial crisis, Baker had more advocates than skeptics. “Financial literacy and the tools needed to teach it became all the rage,” Baker recalled. He felt his background was suited for teaching kids competitive basketball skills and investing skills. The former small college All-American basketball player received his B.A. in economics from Hampden-Sydney College. After college, he worked at NationsBank in the Washington, D.C., area. When he graduated from Darden, Baker got his first taste of high finance working in insurance M&A and leveraged lending for GE Capital, and subsequently spent more than 15 years in the deal business. Baker’s debut book, Shock Exchange: How Inner-City Kids From Brooklyn Predicted the Great Recession and the Pain Ahead, recounts his experiences of starting his nonprofit, the New York Shock Exchange, and received honorable mention for general nonfiction at the 2013 New York Book Festival.
graduated from Darden, and Hugo Rodriguez (MBA ’92) was already there when I was applying. They spoke highly of the School, and that was the best endorsement for me. The fact that it was the toughest business school in the country was another attraction. I had my heart set on attending Darden.
When did you first get interested in basketball?
What were some of the top observations the kids had about the Great Recession?
As soon as I could walk. In Farmville, Virginia, sports were our entertainment. I tried to do everything my older cousins did. We played basketball, football and softball. You name it, we played it. Over time, basketball became my favorite.
When did you first get interested in business? I always wanted to make money. My father introduced me to the stock market in fifth grade. I have been infatuated with it ever since. Investing is competitive, and there are clear winners and losers — similar to basketball. I went into retail banking directly after college — “’cause that’s where the money is.” I had no intention of going to business school; that was my mother’s idea. A few guys from Hampden-Sydney College — Warren Thompson (MBA ’83) and Robert Citrone (MBA ’90) — had
Did your Darden experience help you create the New York Shock Exchange? Definitely. Without my Darden experience, I would not have had the confidence or technical expertise to create the New York Shock Exchange. To teach kids about investing means you have to learn it twice. It also requires you to take complex ideas and explain them in layman’s terms.
How has the Darden network influenced you and your career? I have relied on the Darden network to help me transition between jobs and also for deal flow. My classmates have been involved in some of my personal projects. Jandie Smith-Turner (MBA ’93) of Acuity Sports designed some of the apparel for the New York Shock Exchange. Joe Heastie (MBA ’93) proofread my manuscript for the book and gave me feedback as to how to make it more marketable.
When going over investment fundamentals, we looked at the price-to-earnings ratios and earnings growth rates of the kids’ stock picks. Then we did a “top down” analysis by looking at trends of those big ticket items — housing starts and auto sales — that drive the economy and could potentially affect the overall market. During each investment meeting, we began to notice that those economic trends were getting worse. They eventually began to fall off a cliff, and the alarming part was that no one was talking about it [at the time].
Investing is competitive, and there are clear winners and losers — similar to basketball. —RALPH BAKER
PHOTOS: SAMUEL STUART
Do you still play basketball with the kids on the New York Shock Exchange? I still play with them. However, while I was writing my book, I sort of fell off the wagon and got out of shape. I am now trying to get back in shape.
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ADVANCING KNOWLEDGE Advancing knowledge at Darden is centered on creating insights and ideas that improve both managerial practice and academic understanding. Curiosity and a desire to understand why things happen and how markets, organizations and people come together to create value in society inspire our faculty to explore business problems and possibilities. S. Venkataraman, MasterCard Professor of Business Administration, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research
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INNOVATION & GROWTH
Six Management Myths to Avoid (and Six Alternate Maxims to Consider) By Jeanne Liedtka and Tim Ogilvie
Sayings like “Keep your boss in the loop” and “It’s sometimes better to beg forgiveness than ask permission” are classic management adages. Many such sayings are great advice, but some of the old tenets just don’t work anymore. As a manager, you might believe in common management myths because you think they will simplify your life. Perhaps now is the time to re-examine those myths and replace them with maxims grounded in reality.
MYTH 1: Think big. Pressure will always exist to be sure an opportunity is big enough, but most really big solutions began small and built momentum. When the Internet was still new, how seriously would you have taken eBay (online auctions?) or PayPal (online escrow?)? In an earlier era, FedEx seemed tailored for a niche market. To seize growth opportunities, starting small and finding a deep, underlying human need with which to connect is best. BETTER MAXIM 1: Be willing to start small — but with a focus on meeting genuine human needs.
MYTH 3: Don’t ask a question to which you don’t know the answer. This one is borrowed from trial lawyers, and it entered the mainstream because looking smart always seems career enhancing. Unfortunately, growth opportunities do not yield easily to leading questions and preconceived solutions. BETTER MAXIM 3: Be willing to start in the unknown and learn.
MYTH 4: Measure twice, cut once. This one works fine in an operations setting, but when the goal is creating an as-yet-unseen future, there isn’t much to measure. And spending time trying to measure the unmeasureable offers temporary comfort but does little to reduce risk. BETTER MAXIM 4: Place small bets fast.
MYTH 5: Sell your solution. If you don’t believe in it, no one will. When you are trying to create the future, knowing when you have it right is difficult. We think being skeptical of your solution is fine — what you should be certain of is that you’ve focused on a worthy problem. You’ll iterate your way to a workable solution in due time. BETTER MAXIM 5: Choose a worthwhile customer problem, and consider it a hypothesis to be tested.
MYTH 6: If the idea is good, the money will follow. Managers often look at unfunded ideas with disdain, confident that if the idea were good, it would have attracted money on its own merits. The truth about ideas is that we don’t know if they are good; only customers know that. Gmail sounds absurd: free e-mail in exchange for letting a software bot read your personal messages and serve ads tailored to your apparent interests. Who would have put money behind that? The answer, of course, is Google. BETTER MAXIM 6: Provide seed funding to the right people and problems, and the growth will follow.* The challenge for managers is to find a balance between the myths and the realities of business. In this age of uncertainty, an unavoidable but healthy tension exists between creating the new and preserving the best of the present, between innovating new businesses and maintaining healthy existing ones. As a manager, you need to learn how to manage that tension, not adopt a wholly new set of techniques and abandon all the old. The future will require multiple tools in the managerial tool kit — a design suite especially tailored to starting and growing businesses to add to our current set of analytically oriented approaches to managing today’s businesses well.
MYTH 2: Be bold and decisive. In the past, business cultures were dominated by competition metaphors (those related to sports and war being the most popular). During the 1980s and 1990s, mergers and acquisitions lent themselves to conquest language. Organic growth, by contrast, requires a lot of nurturing, intuition and a tolerance for uncertainty. BETTER MAXIM 2: Don’t put all your eggs in one basket — always explore multiple options.
*This material is excerpted from Designing for Growth: A Design Thinking Tool Kit for Managers, by Jeanne Liedtka, United Technologies Corporation Professor of Business Administration, and Tim Ogilvie.
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3 ADVA N C I N G K NOWLE DG E
STRATEGY
Three Critical Factors of Business Strategy By Jared Harris and Michael Lenox
The strategist’s challenge is to simultaneously manage three critical factors: values, opportunities and capabilities. In order to devise and execute a successful strategy, you need to analyze each of these factors to understand how your organization can create and sustain value. The various tools summarized in The Strategist’s Toolkit can help to paint a complete picture of your organization’s competitive landscape.
will and will not do to achieve your mission. To better define your organization’s values, you might consider and answer these questions: ● Define your mission. What is the organization’s purpose, its reason
for existing? ● Establish your scope. In which markets do you operate — in terms
of product and geography? ● Identify your aspirations. What does success look like now and in
the future? ● Know others’ expectations. Who are the organization’s
stakeholders, and what do they expect of the organization? ● Declare your values. What do you expect of the organization? What
values and beliefs do you want the organization to hold? Considering these questions will help you begin to identify competitive positions that create value for stakeholders. After all, strategy formulation is not done on a blank slate. Your mission and values define your opportunity set and help you understand how to leverage and build your capabilities. Bill Gates of Microsoft set out to create the world’s greatest software company. That simple statement defined Microsoft’s aspirations and the scope in which it operates. Google says it will “do no evil,” declaring a value set that constrains and enables specific strategic actions. Conducting a Stakeholder Analysis can be very useful in understanding what others expect of you and may be influential in helping to define your own values for the organization. Ultimately, your values serve as boundary conditions for your strategy.
STEP 2. Explore Competitive Opportunities OPPORTUNITIES refers to the possible competitive positions in the market to create value for stakeholders. To define them, you could take the following steps: ● Define your industry. What is the arena in which you are competing
with others? Who are your competitors? What customer needs do they satisfy? ● Analyze the market structure. What competitive approaches prove
superior? How does the structure of the market in which you are operating affect that competitive dynamic?
VALUES What is our mission? What is our scope? What do we value?
OPPORTUNITIES What does the market demand? Who else, if anyone, offers this value proposition?
VALUABLE COMPETITIVE POSITION How do we create and sustain value?
● Identify market trends. How is the industry evolving? What are
customers demanding now and in the future?
CAPABILITIES What are our strengths? Where might we have a competitive advantage?
STEP 1. Define Your Values VALUES refers to the mission of the organization. Understanding and establishing your organizational values is a critical first step in devising a successful business strategy and understanding how you can create value for others. Your values define your ambitions and the competitive space in which you operate. Your values help delineate what you
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You need to think clearly about the economic, technological and societal environment in which the organization operates and to acutely consider the activities and capabilities of one’s competitors. Each of these three tasks requires attention and analysis. Defining your industry and competitors is deceptively simple, but it can be greatly informed by a full Competitor Analysis, Environmental Analysis, Five Forces Analysis and Competitive Life Cycle Analysis.
STEP 3. Identify Your Capabilities CAPABILITIES refers to the organization’s existing and potential strengths. These ideally fuel the organization’s strategic efforts. To evaluate an organization’s strategy, you need both a clear picture of what makes the organization distinctive and a sense of the organization’s ability to marshal resources and leverage capabilities toward desired organizational objectives. This requires, of course, clarity about those capabilities: ● Define your value chain. How do you deliver value? What
capabilities do you (or your organization) currently possess? What makes them distinctive?
● Assess alignment. Do your capabilities complement one another?
Are your capabilities aligned with your external value proposition? ● Identify competitive advantage. Are these capabilities unique, and
do they provide the basis for a competitive advantage? Are they easily imitated by others? ● Analyze sustainability. Are your capabilities durable over time? What
capabilities does the organization need to possess in the future? How can it develop them?
LEADERSHIP
Tackling these questions can be informed by an extensive Capability Analysis. A Capability Analysis can help you identify sources of competitive advantage and highlight critical gaps in your current capabilities. Other tools such as Strategy Maps can be useful in highlighting your position versus rivals and to answer whether your capabilities are unique.
Integrate Your Insights These three factors converge into the organization’s competitive position, where value for an organization’s stakeholders is created and sustained. Ultimately, developing effective business strategy is an integrative exercise. It involves looking through a wide lens at the organization. Whereas the functional areas of an organization — finance, marketing, accounting, operations, human resources — often bring specific paradigmatic views to bear on organizational problems and considerations, business strategy is about how all the underlying insights of these disciplines are brought together. Managers do not typically encounter challenges as isolated, atomistic problems with narrow disciplinary implications; rather, they must navigate issues that encompass a whole range of complex, cross-disciplinary considerations. Business strategy is also integrative because its success involves value creation for its investors, employees, customers, suppliers and support communities. Commonly invoked business axioms like “maximize shareholder returns” can be useful to the extent that such shorthand phrases imply value creation for investors by way of creating value for all key stakeholders — creating goods customers want, work environments that energize employee contributions and so forth. Maximizing shareholder value is not a strategic direction, nor is it exogenous to creating value for customers, employees or communities. Strategy involves putting these considerations together to align stakeholder interests and create value in an integrative and sustainable way. Use an integrative, enterprise perspective to think clearly and to exercise sound judgment that creates long-lasting value. When successfully implemented, an effective business strategy can help an organization fully realize its potential.
11 Key Characteristics of a Global Business Leader By James G. Clawson If you want to succeed in today’s volatile global economy, you will most likely end up doing business all around the world. International businesses have operations, partners, alliances and senior managers representing virtually every global region. Many have more than one “headquarters,” signaling the diversity of their thinking and perspective. So, how do you learn to conduct international business effectively? You acquire a set of skills that help you work across regional, national and subnational boundaries to propel your business forward. Those skills include the following: • Overseas experience • Deep self-awareness • Sensitivity to cultural diversity • Humility • Lifelong curiosity • Cautious honesty • Global strategic thinking • Patiently impatient • Well-spoken • Good negotiator • Presence The following checklist will help you determine if you have the key characteristics of a global business leader:
❑ Overseas experience Jared Harris (left), associate professor of business administration and Michael Lenox (right), Samuel L. Slover Research Professor of Business Administration, academic director of the Batten Institute and associate dean of innovation programs, are authors of the new book The Strategist’s Toolkit (Darden Business Publishing, 2013).
Many global executives understand what doing business in a flat world is like because they’ve lived overseas, sometimes for decades at a time. If you want to become a successful international business leader, transcending your own cultural perspective and learning how business is done in different contexts is essential.
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ADVA N C I N G K NOWLE DG E
❑ Deep self-awareness Understanding your beliefs and knowing where they might differ from others’ is critical to global executive success. Without this key characteristic, you will not be able to adapt to and tolerate the deep-seated beliefs of others — and business opportunities will evaporate. Beware of the “I’m right; you’re wrong” assumption.
❑ Sensitivity to cultural diversity Are you willing to eat raw fish? Snake? Raw monkey brains? Can you adjust your eating and sleeping habits to match the local executives’ routines and patterns? In other countries, seemingly minor things can be off-putting, such as sticking your chopsticks in your rice or touching someone with your left hand. Much of this insight comes from experience. You must have an intense interest in the lives and cultures of others, recognizing that your culture and background are not inherently superior, to master the global business arena.
❑ Humility Being interested in other cultures and how people in those cultures do things, especially with regard to business, implies a certain humility. Humility here means a belief that other lands and cultures have figured out very interesting answers to life’s problems. As a good international business person, you must be open to and fascinated by those answers. This trait requires a willingness and ability to listen well and with real intention.
❑ Lifelong curiosity The world is constantly evolving. Without an intense curiosity and a desire to learn, you will be left behind and increasingly unable to converse, much less keep up, with your peers. Staying abreast of new learning opportunities requires a humble awareness that what you know is not enough and that you always have more to learn.
❑ Cautious honesty Surprisingly, the definitions of “honesty” and “truth” vary widely in the business arena. People sometimes omit information or only tell the truth they think other people need to know. However you design your ethics and morality in your personal life, in global business settings, executives need to know they can count on you. If you don’t deliver on your business promises, your reputation will suffer. Effective global leaders can balance the need to be cautious in different contexts while demonstrating they can follow through.
❑ Global strategic thinking When you have a global perspective, you think strategically about managing business using the best people from around the planet. Much of your ability to do this comes from a lifetime of networking at the highest levels in global boardrooms and your aptitude for seeing how various
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pieces of global industries play out internationally. To make strategic decisions for your company, you need to understand how the business world works on a global scale.
❑ Patiently impatient How do you become patiently impatient? You must be in a hurry and yet be patient enough to allow the local and regional processes to unfold as they are meant to. Time and pace are not the same in every country. Balancing the demands of hot competitive and technological trends with the pace of local cultures can be frustrating to the uninitiated.
❑ Well-spoken Given the challenges of working via interpreters or fumbling through conversations in more than one language, the ability to say clearly what you mean is a key global business skill. If you converse with others in their native language, you usually earn brownie points — however, if what you have to say is obscure or unintelligible, you’ll quickly be in a deficit balance. Clear communication is a powerful leadership trait to have on the global stage.
❑ Good negotiator Doing business across ethnic, national and regional boundaries requires strong negotiating skills. If you can add these skills to an innate enjoyment of the gamesmanship involved in negotiating, you will become a highly effective negotiator.
❑ Presence A certain charisma surrounds you if you are an influential global leader. Part of it — but only part — is position or title. The bigger portion is dress, self-confidence, energy level, interest in other people and comfort with the challenges at hand. You may not want to believe these things matter, but they do. As a global business leader, you must respect the identities and affiliations of others. Some people can do that; many or most cannot. Do you have what it takes to become a global business leader? *This piece is adapted from Level Three Leadership: Getting Below the Surface, by Professor James G. Clawson, Johnson & Higgins Professor of Business Administration.
case in point: A WASHINGTON POST/DARDEN SERIES
THE GLOBAL MARKETING OF AN AGE-OLD FRENCH GEM by Thierry Delecolle, Ronald Kamin (MBA ’75), Beatrice Parguel and Gerry Yemen then revolutionized the House and revamped its marketing strategy away from a select number of exceptional clients and targeted a new segment of consumers — working women who bought jewelry for pleasure. The adopted positioning became “jeweler artist.” ALAIN NÉMARQ Next, Némarq focused on the dismal financial results in Asia/Asia Pacific. The distributor with exclusive rights to the Mauboussin brand in Japan wanted to close its business in three months. What now?
THE BIG IDEA: As marketers love to teach students, differentiation must be the focal point of marketing strategy. But what happens when a firm’s competitive set is shared by similar customers, perceived differentiation is weak among rivals and loyalty is a thing of the past? This was the dilemma the French high-end jeweler Mauboussin faced: how to leverage its iconic brand to access new customers, domestically and abroad, while preserving the image of luxury goods founded on the myth of exclusivity?
THE SCENARIO: At its flagship store in Place Vendôme, adjacent to the world’s most prestigious luxury brands, the house of Mauboussin prospered under the guidance of six generations of watchmakers and jewelers. The business, launched in the early 1800s, was long controlled by the Mauboussin family. In 2001, Dominique Frémont acquired an 87.5 percent equity stake in “the House.” By then, its privileged status with rich clients had diminished, and sales at the luxury jeweler dropped. While Frémont may have been a stranger to the world of luxury jewelry, he knew how to run a business. He allocated millions of his own money to the firm and appointed another industry outsider, Alain Némarq, to run it. Némarq put in place a cost-reduction plan that included closing all points of sale in France and the rest the world (except for the boutique at Place Vendôme), selling all remaining inventory at a cost, terminating its perfume licensing agreement and reducing staff. Némarq and Frémont
THE RESOLUTION: The House had maintained a long-
standing presence in Asia/Asia Pacific, and growth opportunities existed there. Némarq bought back the distribution agreement and deployed a strategy similar to the one applied in France: close the points of sale showing a deficit. Mauboussin chose a “wait-and-see” strategy, limiting itself to two corners in Takashimaya stores. Finally, an Adidas shop decamped in the heart of the Ginza luxury area and Mauboussin opened its flagship store in Japan. To publicize its new shop, the brand launched an original campaign — 5,000 diamonds offered to the first 5,000 visitors. It bought advertising in the leading newspapers, and with the buzz created, the brand ended up in the headlines, too. A few months later, the store was featured in a Black Eyed Peas music video.
THE LESSONS: Strategy is often based on what the firm
must do to develop a competitive advantage or what it can do with its resource allocation; it is also about fragmented, intuitive but unique personal traits that characterize it as a leader. Whereas domestic marketing is aimed at a single country — with one group of customers and one set of economic, legal, competitive and environmental issues — global marketing requires the creation of a single strategy for a large number of countries with distinct operating environments and markets with unique customer groups and cultures. Every other Sunday in The Washington Post’s Business section, members of Darden’s academic community share lessons from recent cases. Gerry Yemen (left) is a senior researcher at the Darden School of Business; Delecolle and Kamin are professors at the ISC Paris School of Management; Parguel is researcher at the Université Paris-Dauphine.
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Meet at Boars’ Head
CHARLOTTESVILLE’S ONLY FOUR DIAMOND RESORT Boar’s Head is the perfect destination for groups wanting to hold an event or meeting in the South, mid-Atlantic states or on a historic property. Just minutes from Darden and two hours from Washington, D.C., this 573-acre, Four Diamond resort offers 175 newly-renovated guest rooms and suites, Four Diamond dining in the Old Mill Room, a wide variety of world class recreational activities, spa, and a 22,000 square foot meeting facility for groups of 20 to 630. Recent Boar’s Head accolades include Meetings Focus’ Best of the South Award, 2012, Successful Meetings’ Pinnacle Award, 2012, and Convention South’s 2012 New or Renovated Meeting Site Award. Boar’s Head would be honored to host your next meeting, retreat or special event. For more information or to book your next meeting, please call 855.477.9348 or e-mail meet@boarsheadinn.com.
WWW.BOARSHEADINN.COM Owned and Operated by the University of Virginia Foundation
Alumni Services Update
Charles C. Abbott Award Call for Nominations THE CHARLES C. ABBOTT AWARD is presented to a Darden MBA or Executive Program alumnus or alumna whose contributions of time, energy and talent to the Darden School merit recognition as outstanding by the Alumni Association and who: · Demonstrates a strong level of interest in and concern for the Darden School’s mission · Commits a generous amount of personal resources — time, energy, funds — to Darden projects, goals and needs · Brings initiative and persistence to projects and his or her given responsibilities · Is regarded by other Darden stakeholders as an outstanding contributor
OUR ALUMNI BOARD: DYNAMIC, NOT DYSFUNCTIONAL
A
lumni boards at higher educational institutions are known for being dysfunctional. Power, personalities and misaligned priorities often impede the best-intended efforts to develop and implement a strategic plan. Lack of vision and low engagement by members can also contribute to a dysfunctional board. When the Darden School of Business Alumni Board of Directors convened in October, I was reminded of what makes our board extraordinary and effective. During our meeting, the level of engagement could not have been higher. Veteran and newly minted members eagerly raised their hands – sometimes in unison – to contribute to a dynamic conversation about the board’s role in advancing the School’s mission and vision. Active membership is not the same as active, aligned membership under a visionary leader. The alumni board has had a long history of strong board chairs who have contributed to the success of the board by leveraging the committed, impassioned alumni board members to further engage the network of Darden alumni. Our current alumni board president, Karen Edwards (MBA ’84), president and CEO of Kosiba Edwards Associates, is already making a significant difference through her dedicated leadership. In partnership with the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees Alumni Engagement Committee, led by W.L. Lyons Brown III (MBA ’87), we are aligned at the most crucial levels. Darden’s alumni board is also goal-oriented. Spanning class years, industries, gender and life experiences, alumni worked together to identify strategies to address the address the dean’s and board’s three most pressing priorities in a session led by Professor Yiorgos Allayannis. A successful board of any nonprofit understands and addresses the needs of its constituents. In the coming months, our board members will ask you to share your Darden experience. Your insights into how the Darden network has made a difference in your life and how it remains relevant to you today will help the board align its mission with your vision of the School. While the alumni board works to identify new ways to engage you and the Darden community, I will remain thankful that our board is not just like every other board.
Nominate a Darden graduate before 28 February 2014, by contacting Michael Woodfolk at woodfolkm@darden.virginia. edu with an explanation of why you feel your nominee is a strong candidate for the award.
In Memoriam The Darden School offers its condolences to the families of the following individuals whose deaths have been reported to us in the past six months. Mr. Robert V. Hatcher (CLAS ’53) emeritus trustee
Mr. N. Richard Hueber Jr. (MBA ’59) Mr. John E. Kennedy Jr. (MBA ’62) Mr. William B. Willsey (TEP ’68) Mr. Paul Flint (MBA ’69) Mr. Richard E. Nelson (TEP ’69) Mr. Paul H. Pieri (TEP ’77) Mr. Newton O. Fowler Jr. (TEP ’80) Captain David M. Smith (TEP ’09)
Michael J. Woodfolk (TEP ’05) Senior Executive Director, Engagement Strategies FALL/WINTER 2013
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Alumni Profile
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BOB SMITH (MBA ’87) “No Stranger to Risk”
lthough Bob Smith has managed billions of dollars over the years, he still doesn’t take money for granted. Raised with his three siblings by a single mother, he explains that his family did not have much money. However, the future investment executive discovered an early love for games, puzzles and statistics — especially baseball statistics. “My advice to students considering their career paths is ‘Ask yourself where your mind likes to go. What type of task do you gravitate toward?’” Smith said. “Then, be willing to take risks to fail.” Smith, who has spent nearly 26 years in the investment industry — primarily as a vice president for money management firm T. Rowe Price Group Inc. — is certainly no stranger to risk. Having joined the company in 1992 as an analyst, he has spent the past 17 years as a portfolio manager, currently in the area of international stock and growth strategy. The best part of his work? “It’s great intellectual exercise — a combination of analyzing businesses and where they’re headed, overlaid with handicapping quantitative analysis,” he explained. The latter involves plenty of probability and statistics — a nightmare for some people, but Smith loves the challenge. Smith credits Darden with having provided the broad-based knowledge and real-world applications necessary to succeed in his field. He prizes case-method teaching because it most closely simulates real-life decision-making: “It doesn’t assume there’s an answer,” he said. Deep gratitude toward and belief in Darden have led Smith and his wife, Terri, to give back generously. They are both Sponsors’ Circle members and founding supporters of the Darden Center for Asset Management; in addition, he is active on two of Darden’s advisory boards. “One of my clearest Darden memories is missing my first exam due to my first son’s birth — and then fainting during the delivery,” Smith recalled. The Smiths have three children, two of whom are U.Va. graduates. The couple resides in Baltimore, Maryland.
—Jenny Abel
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Alumni Profile
ELIZABETH WEYMOUTH (MBA ’94) An Influential Force in the Field of Energy
“I
have the privilege of working with some of the most sophisticated energy investors and leaders in the world,” said Elizabeth Weymouth (CLAS ’89, MBA ’94), partner at Riverstone Holdings LLC, one of the world’s most influential energyfocused private equity firms. Weymouth, who is responsible for capital raising and limited partner relations, has raised $20 billion in capital for Riverstone in the last six years alone, a period marked by the most challenging private equity fundraising market in recent history. Growing up in New Orleans, Weymouth developed a passion for finance at an early age while watching her father run his shipping business. After graduating from the University of Virginia, she worked at Willis Corroon, PLC on behalf of Fortune 50 energy companies, honing her negotiating skills opposite insurance underwriters in Lloyd’s of London. At 24, she enrolled at the Darden School of Business, where her mentor, Professor Robert F. Bruner, who is now dean, saw a way for her to combine her love of finance with her talent for working with people. “Bob is the one who initially steered me towards a career in private banking, which was then a burgeoning field within asset management,” said Weymouth. Following business school, Weymouth was an early hire in J.P. Morgan Private Bank’s investment business. She skyrocketed through the ranks. At 33, she became Managing Director, and shortly thereafter, Head of Investments for the bank’s largest group, an 80-person sales team that managed $100 billion in client assets and generated more than $350 million in revenue. Today, from her Fifth Avenue office in Manhattan, Weymouth is instrumental in forming partnerships between Riverstone and investors from sovereign wealth funds, pension funds and high net-worth family offices. The firm is renowned for building highly successful businesses in the complex, $8 trillion energy industry. At the nexus of capital formation and energy investment, she has carved a distinctive path, adding tremendous value for her firm and its investors while achieving high, measurable results. “I believe that there are two equally critical components of private equity: profitable deals and the capital required to fund them,” said Weymouth. “Without capital, there are no deals, and without great investment performance, capital is scarce.” Weymouth’s drive and commitment to excellence have made her a natural leader in both finance and energy, enabling her to make a lasting impact in two of the world’s most important industries. Since 2007, Weymouth has been a Darden School Foundation Trustee, and she became chair of the School’s Investment Committee in 2013. From 2001 to 2007, she served on the Darden Corporate Advisory Board.
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DARDEN SCHOOL FOUNDATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES CHAIR Philip W. Knisely (MBA ’78) Clayton, Dubilier & Rice VICE CHAIR James A. Cooper (MBA ’84) Thompson Street Capital Partners
Alumni Leadership The five Leadership Boards of the Darden School of Business are composed of more than 130 distinguished leaders who collectively serve as an innovative force in the advancement of the Darden School throughout the world. (Listing as of 1 November 2013)
New Members Elected to the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees
Arnold B. Evans (MBA/JD ’97) of Atlanta, Georgia, Managing Director, SunTrust Robinson Humphrey
Douglas T. Moore (MBA ’80) of Richmond, Virginia, Principal, First Street Consulting, LLC
Bruce Thompson (MBA ’90) of Charlotte, North Carolina, Chief Financial Officer, Bank of America 40
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W.L. Lyons Brown III (MBA ’87) Altamar Brands, LLC Robert F. Bruner Dean, University of Virginia Darden School of Business Susan J. Chaplinsky (Faculty) Darden School of Business G. David Cheek (MBA ’79) The Meridian Group James Su-Ting Cheng (MBA ’87) Commonwealth of Virginia VN Dalmia (MBA ’84) Dalmia Continental Pvt. Ltd. Michael A. DeCola (MBA ’77) Mississippi Lime Company Karen K. Edwards (MBA ’84) Kosiba Edwards Associates Louis G. Elson (MBA ’90) Palamon Capital Partners, LLP Arnold B. Evans (MBA/JD ’97) SunTrust Robinson Humphrey John Fowler Jr. (MBA/JD ’84) Wells Fargo Securities, LLC Catherine J. Friedman (MBA ’86) Independent Consultant Donald W. Goodman (MBA ’84) Retired, The Walt Disney Company Kirsti Goodwin (MBA ’02) Gordon Grand III (MBA ’75) Russell Reynolds Associates Inc. Edwin B. Hooper (MBA ’94) Centerview Capital Robert J. Hugin (MBA ’85) Celgene Corporation Martina Hund-Mejean (MBA ’88) MasterCard Worldwide William I. Huyett (MBA ’82) McKinsey & Company Lemuel E. Lewis (MBA ’72) Local/Weather.com Luann J. Lynch (Faculty) Darden School of Business John G. Macfarlane III (MBA ’79) Zafferano Capital Holdings and Zaff LLC Carolyn S. Miles (MBA ’88) Save the Children Douglas T. Moore (MBA ’80) First Street Consulting
Marshall N. Morton (MBA ’72) Media General Inc. Michael O’Neill (MBA ’74) Citigroup Richard M. Paschal (MBA ’89) Coach, Inc. Honorable Lewis F. Payne (MBA ’73) McGuireWoods Consulting, LLC Zhiyuan (Jerry) Peng (MBA ’03) Four Seas Capital Management Scott A. Price (MBA/MA ’90) Walmart Asia Admiral Gary Roughead Retired U.S. Navy Frank M. Sands Sr. (MBA ’63) Sands Capital Management Frank M. Sands Jr. (MBA ’94) Sands Capital Management John Simon Executive Vice President and Provost, University of Virginia Henry F. Skelsey (MBA ’84) PRC Venture Partners, LLC Susan Sobbott (MBA ’90) American Express OPEN John R. Strangfeld Jr. (MBA ’77) Prudential Financial, Inc. Teresa A. Sullivan President, University of Virginia George S. Tahija (MBA ’86) PT Austindo Nusantara Jaya (ANJ) Bruce Thompson (MBA ’90) Bank of America William P. Utt (MBA ’84) KBR, Inc. Thomas R. Watjen (MBA ’81) Unum Group Roger L. Werner Jr. (MBA ’77) Outdoor Channel Holdings, Inc. Elizabeth K. Weymouth (MBA ’94) Riverstone Holdings, LLC
ALUMNI ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS CHAIR Karen K. Edwards (MBA ’84) Kosiba Edwards Associates PRESIDENT Douglas T. Moore (MBA ’80) First Street Consulting, LLC George (Yiorgos) Allayannis Faculty Adviser Keith Bachman, CFA (MBA ’89) Bank of Montreal Katherine Baronowski (Class of 2014) Student Representative Christine Piorkowski Barth (MBA ’94) Snowbird Capital Jerry Connolly (MBA ’88) Nomura Securities International Richard P. Dahling (MBA ’87) Fidelity Investments Christian Duffus (MBA ’00) LEAF College Savings, LLC Warren F. Estey (MBA ’98) Deutsche Bank Securities Jennifer McEnery Finn (MBA ’00) Capital One Michael Ganey (MBA ’78) Marketing Consultant Owen D. Griffin Jr. (MBA ’99) Dominion Enterprises Kendall Jennings (MBA ’12) IBM Bruce Jolly (MBA ’67) Tatum CFO Partners, LLP Harry N. Lewis (MBA ’57) Lewis Insurance Agency, Inc. Nicole McKinney Lindsay (MBA/JD ’00) Strong Seed Professional Development, LLC Dar Maanavi (MBA/JD ’94) Merrill Lynch & Co., Inc. Matthew Markee (MBA ’01) Recast Energy, LLC Betsy Markus (EMBA ’11) First Affirmative Financial Network Jay McDonald (MBA ’71) Middleton McDonald Group, Inc. Jeanne L. Mockard (MBA ’90) JLM Capital and Consulting Melissa Monk (EMBA ’08) Equifax, Inc. Kari E. Pitkin (MBA ’97) Bank of America Merrill Lynch Shelley Reese (MBA ’08) Booz Allen Hamilton Elvis Rodriguez (MBA ’10) Goldman Sachs Group, Inc. Abby A. Ruiz de Gamboa (MBA ’04) Deloitte Consulting, LLP
Nancy Schretter (MBA ’79) The Beacon Group Shaojian Zhang (MBA ’99) Rockwell Automation
DEAN’S DIVERSITY ADVISORY COUNCIL Nicola Allen (MBA ’10) Pelton & Crane Paige Davis (MBA ’09) MTB Investment Advisors Jonathan Englert (MBA ’10) Deloitte, LLP Teresa Epperson (MBA ’95) AlixPartners Marguerite Furlong Longo (MBA ’08) Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products Ray Hernandez (MBA ’08) NewComLink Drew Holzwarth (EMBA ’09) Stanley Martin Companies Allison Linney (MBA ’01) Allison Partners, LLC Octavia Matthews (MBA ’89) Willard McCloud (MBA ’04) Cargill, Inc. Tawana Murphy Burnett (MBA ’04) Pfizer Consumer Healthcare Michael Peters (MBA ’09) COMCAST Corporation Reynaldo Roche (MBA ’07) Delta Air Lines, Inc. William Sanders (MBA ’06) Korn/Ferry Rhonda Smith (MBA ’88) Breast Cancer Partner Jeffrey Toromoreno (MBA ’06) Citigroup, Inc. Daniele Wilson (MBA ’11) Johnson & Johnson
GLOBAL ADVISORY COUNCIL Andrew Bubala (MBA ’01) Google Jim Chapman (MBA ’00) Halsey Cook, Jr. (MBA ’91) Legrand North America VN Dalmia (MBA ’84) Dalmia Continental Pvt. Ltd. Louis G. Elson (MBA ’90) Palamon Capital Partners, LLP Silvia Ethel (MBA ’99) Gabriela Gold (MBA ’95) World Bank
Leslie Grayson Isidore Horween Emeritus Research Professor of International Management Clelland Peabody Hutton (MBA/JD ’75) Orion Partners Gene Kim (MBA ’96) Nexolon Rosemary King (MBA ’91) Quaero Takahisa Koitabashi (MBA ’93) iSigma Capital Corporation Richard K. Loh (MBA ’96) Ploh Group Pte. Ltd. Elie Maalouf (MBA ’89) Zhiyuan (Jerry) Peng (MBA ’03) Four Seas Capital Management Anton Periquet (MBA ’90) Pacific Main Holdings, Camden Hill Group Kari E. Pitkin (MBA ’97) Bank of America Merrill Lynch Scott A. Price (MBA/MA ’90) Walmart Asia Vincent Rague (MBA ’84) Catalyst Principal Partners Fiona Roche (MBA ’84) Estates Development Co. Pty. Ltd. Walter Shill (MBA ’86) Accenture Henry F. Skelsey (MBA ’84) PRC Venture Partners, LLC Erik Slingerland (MBA ’84) Egon Zehnder International Gmbb. Ichiro Suzuki (MBA ’84) Nomura Asset Management George S. Tahija (MBA ’86) PT Austindo Nusantara Jaya (ANJ) Sergio Waisser (MBA ’98) McKinsey & Company Jimmy Wei (MBA ’02) KPCB China Baocheng Yang (MBA ’04) Huanghe Science and Technical University
CORPORATE ADVISORY BOARD CHAIR John Fowler Jr. (MBA/JD ’84) Wells Fargo Securities, LLC VICE-CHAIR Richard M. Paschal (MBA ’89) Coach, Inc. Michael Balay (MBA ’89) Cargill, Inc. Helen Boudreau (MBA ’93) Novartis Corporation
Mark Bower (MBA ’02) Bain & Company Ray Butler Kollmorgen Kevin Clark (MBA ’01) Amazon David Couture (MBA ’95) Deloitte Consulting, LLP R. Scott Creighton (MBA ’82) Johnson & Johnson Consumer Products Murray Deal Eastman Chemical Company Richard Edmunds (MBA ’92) Booz & Co. Pierre Jacquet (MBA ’98) L.E.K. Consulting Thomas Johnstone (MBA ’88) GE Capital Corporation John Bernard Jung (MBA ’84) BB&T Capital Markets Matthew Kaness (MBA ’02) Urban Outfitters, Inc. Mary Lou Kelley (MBA ’91) Chico’s FAS, Inc. Michele Kessler (MBA ’89) David Kostel (MBA/JD ’97) Credit Suisse Harry Lawton (MBA ’00) The Home Depot Charles Leddy (MBA ’03) Octavia Matthews (MBA ’89) Daniel McKeon (MBA ’08) Marriott International, Inc. Fernando Mercé (MBA ’98) Nestle Purina William J. O’Shea Jr. (MBA ’84) Campbell Soup Company Thomas Poole (MBA ’99) Capital One Thomas W. Reedy Jr. (MBA ’91) Carmax, Inc. James Schinella (MBA ’93) Manilla Steve Sonnenberg (MBA ’79) Emerson Elizabeth Thibodeau (MBA ’07) Target Mark Watkins (TEP ’94) MeadWestvaco M. Reaves Wimbish (MBA ’97) Accenture
FALL/WINTER 2013
41
20
Questions With
Ned Hooper
(MBA ’94)
N
ed Hooper (MBA ’94) has been at the forefront of the intersection between technology and business for more than 15 years. In his current position as a partner at Centerview Capital, Hooper leads the firm’s technology growth and private equity investment practice. In his former role as senior vice president and chief strategy officer at Cisco, Hooper developed the business vision and methodology to identify market transitions across customer segments and created integrated strategies that leveraged all Cisco’s assets. His innovative approach and expertise in business development, coupled with his understanding of early-stage technology, enabled Hooper to drive Cisco’s growth strategy, and the company’s revenue increased from $18 billion to more than $46 billion over a 10-year period. Before joining Cisco, Hooper was responsible for building and implementing a global distribution plan for Lightspeed International, a startup Cisco had acquired. He began his career in technology with MCI in product management. As a member of the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees, Hooper has been instrumental in helping the School establish and enhance relationships on the West Coast. He hosts an annual Tech Trek dinner with Dean Bob Bruner, Darden leaders and alumni to discuss the School’s West Coast initiatives and to create new cases and research based on pressing technological issues. Hooper resides in the San Francisco Bay area with his wife, Freya (MBA ’94), and their three children. 42
THE DARDEN REPORT
1. What was your first job? That depends on your definition of a job, I suppose. I started mowing lawns and pulling weeds for neighbors when I was 11 or 12. My first formal job was as a gopher at an Ace Hardware store. 2. What’s the best advice you have ever received? After I graduated from college, I met a leading economist. He taught me that you could only be an expert in a focused area. You need to find other people with different experiences and expertise to build a successful business. 3. Do you prefer numbers or words? Facts; they can come either way. 4. What motivates you? I have a classic type A personality. I need to be in constant motion. I have been trying to focus more on having fun! 5. When and where do you do your best thinking? After a run or a workout. Strenuous exercise relaxes me and clears my head. 6. What are you reading these days? Right now I am reading Predictive Analytics The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die by Eric Siegel, which is about the use of data and analytics to transform business, and I’m also reading La Roja How Soccer Conquered Spain and How Spanish Soccer Conquered the World, by Jimmy Burns, which is a great modern history of Spain and of Spanish soccer. 7. What technology can you not live without? I go crazy if I am not connected, so ubiquitous wireless networking is a must. 8. What companies do you admire? Of course Cisco, where I was privileged to be a part of a team that drove market leadership through three business cycles. At Centerview Capital, we just made an investment in an amazing company: Rich Relevance. They are transforming e-commerce by leveraging new analytical models and machine learning.
9. How do you stay ahead of the competition? By focusing on the market and the customer. Skating to where the puck will be before your competitor can get there, to use a hockey metaphor. 10. What characteristics do you look for in people? I look for smart people who love to look at problems from all sides and who drive action. 11. What’s the best thing that has happened to you in the last year? A year and a half ago, I took two months off between Cisco and Centerview. It was the first time I had spent time with my family without a mobile phone glued to my ear. It was hugely refreshing mentally, and we had a great time. 12. How do you measure success? I will let you know when I get there. 13. Which natural talent would you most like to have? I wish I could pitch in the major leagues. 14. What is your most treasured possession? My family. 15. What have you recently uploaded onto your iPad? Evernote. Best productivity app in a decade. 16. How do you unwind? I love to ski. Our whole family loves it in the mountains. 17. What’s your favorite cause? My wife, Freya created onegreatbook.com to help parents find books their children will love. Teaching kids to love to read and learn is the best opportunity to help them succeed over their entire lives. 18. What’s your favorite food and beverage? My vices are red wine and dark chocolate. 19. Which Darden professor influenced you the most? Bob Bruner, whose leadership and commitment to the Darden institution is a great example for all of us. 20. If you could go back and take a class now, what would it be? Is there still a class in sales? We are all in sales, but most of us don’t realize it.
There are more than 14,000 alumni stories at Darden. What is YOUR STORY? Everyone has a unique perspective and reason as to why they give back — whether it’s to nurture a community of learners-turned-leaders or continue our bold pursuit of knowledge. Your gift supports all three formats of the MBA — MBA, MBA for
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EXPERIENCE
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Executives and Global MBA for Executives — and fuels curricular innovation so that we can continue to deliver the most dynamic academic experience on the planet. Darden has never been more powerful than it is today, thanks to alumni support.
You are our next legacy. This is YOUR DARDEN. Share your Darden story with us at #URDarden or urdarden@darden.virginia.edu.
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THE NO. 1 EDUCATION EXPERIENCE IN THE WORLD. — THE ECONOMIST, 2011-13
University of Virginia Darden School Foundation P.O. Box 7726 Charlottesville, VA 22906-7726
www.darden.virginia.edu/reunion
Reunion
2014
25–27 APR IL
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