Darden Report Summer 2021

U N IVERS IT Y OF V I RGI N I A DA R D EN S C H OOL OF BU S I N ES S

SUM M E R 20 21

TH E DARDEN REPOR T

5 PAGE 1

HIGH-PERFORMING, DIVERSE TEAMS PAGE 20

THE FUTURE OF INVESTING (LOOKS DIFFERENT) PAGE 24

W H Y

DA R D E N

N OW ?

Transformational.

It takes all of us to ensure Darden delivers its mission to inspire responsible leaders through unparalleled transformational learning experiences.

Join the P OW E R E D B Y P U R P O S E campaign by supporting the Darden Annual Fund, through which gifts of any amount make immediate impact on the School's students and faculty.

Make your gift to the Darden Annual Fund for an immediate impact. giving.darden.virginia.edu POWERED

BY PURPOSE

DARDEN AN N U A L FUND

LETTER FROM THE DEAN

The World Is Transforming. Responsible Leaders Must Be the Transformational Force.

W

e thought the world was changing rapidly before the coronavirus pandemic.

As the world continues to grapple with the greatest health crisis in generations, we see that the pace of change driven by disruptive technologies is only beginning to gather speed.

As I told Darden alumni at my State of the School address (Page 6) in April, the COVID-19 crisis reminds us that there is an urgent need for responsible leadership.

This fact is highlighted in the cover story of this summer 2021 issue of The Darden Report (Page 14). Many of Darden's ethics experts look at how new technologies are giving rise to new ethical challenges. Despite promising benefits, technologies may have grave consequences and require leaders with a strong commitment to purpose and transparency to consider and solve the challenges. Perhaps there is no greater case in point than the world of investing, in which the technology-enabled rise of new asset classes and means to invest has left even the savviest investors unsure of what’s next (Page 24).

As part of Darden’s mission to improve the world by inspiring responsible leaders, we remain committed to our value to be an inclusive commu-

nity that enables its global and diverse members to collaborate and excel. Achieving that aspiration is not easy. Fortunately, we have experts like Professors Lynn Isabella and Laura Morgan Roberts, who provide a guide for how organizations can build diverse teams that perform at the highest level (Page 20).

As I stood at the podium on 23 May overlooking more than 450 Darden MBA graduates, all together for UVA Final Exercises in Scott Stadium for one of the first major in-person events at the University since the start of the pandemic, I took comfort in such a tangible sign of things returning to normal.

Yet, at the same time, we know the new world won’t be like the old. Change and uncertainty are the only certainties. I am relieved the world has our newest graduates and alumni like you to lead us through it.

SCOTT C. BEARDSLEY Dean and Charles C. Abbott Professor of Business Administration

SUMMER 2021

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The Darden Report is published with private donations to the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation. © 2021 Darden School Foundation Summer 2021, Volume 48, No. 2

The Darden Report is published twice a year by the University of Virginia Darden School of Business Office of Communication & Marketing P. O. Box 7225 Charlottesville, Virginia 22906-7225 USA communication@darden.virginia.edu Scott C. Beardsley Dean and Charles C. Abbott Professor of Business Administration Michael J. Woodfolk President, Darden School Foundation Juliet K. Daum Chief Marketing and Communications Officer

EDITOR Jay Hodgkins ART DIRECTION Tira Hightower FEATURES DESIGN Ross Bradley WRITERS Cameron Baumgartner Michael Blanding Simon Constable Dave Hendrick Jen A. Miller Seb Murray Sally Parker CLASS NOTES EDITORS Hillary Cocke Egidijus Paurys

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THE DARDEN REPORT

PHOTOGRAPHY Tom Cogill Avi Gerver Stephanie Gross Eli Meir Kaplan Sam Levitan Jason Osborne Michael Paras Andrew Shurtleff Susan Wormington ADDITIONAL PHOTOS Bigstock iStock COVER ILLUSTRATION Ross Bradley

TH E DA R D E N R EPOR T

/ Summer

2021

F E AT U R E S

14

A More Ethical Tech Landscape

14

From massive fraud charges at Theranos to growing control of personal data among a few tech giants, Darden professors explore how the power of revolutionary technology can overwhelm organizational purpose and create tricky ethical dilemmas.

20

How to Help a Diverse Team Be a High-Performing Team

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Many organizations try and fail to build high-functioning, diverse teams. Darden Professors Laura Morgan Roberts and Lynn Isabella offer insights to help leaders crack the code to build a best-in-class diverse team.

24

The Future of Investing (Looks Very Different)

24

The stock market surged during a major recession and pandemic. IPOs and cryptocurrencies caught fire. And what are nonfungible tokens and SPACs? Catch up on what’s happening in the investing world, why and what is driving the shift.

ALSO INSIDE

PROFILES

5 School News

28 Faculty Spotlight: Shane Dikolli

8 Construction Update

35 Cynthia Soledad (MBA ’02)

9 Graduation Highlights

37 Khurrum Malik (MBA ’07)

10 Faculty News

38 Lynnette Crowder (EMBA ’10)

44 20 Questions: ALUMNI NEWS 4 Letter From the Foundation President

Mark Mercurio (MBA ’04) CEO, The Gorilla Glue Co.

30 Abbott Award 40 Corporate Partners 41 In Memoriam 42 Darden Leadership Boards

Visit www.news.darden.virginia.edu for all the latest school news and updates.

SUMMER 2021

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FROM THE DARDEN SCHOOL F O U N DAT I O N

Michael J. Woodfolk (TEP ’05)

A

nyone who has spent time with a group of alumni from Darden’s early years will remember stories of Saturday classes, demanding case preparation and names of classmates who didn’t make it through the first quarter. Alumni likened it to “boot camp.” They share how they completed the program by leaning on each other and learning from each other, and now reflect on how a bond that was created and tested 50 or 60 years ago has stood the test of time.

Fast forward to 2021. There are no Saturday classes (or Friday classes!), and there are no suits and ties in the classroom (unless a student has an interview). But what you will continue to find is grit, resilience, loyalty and camaraderie. The months since early 2020 have challenged all of us — personally and professionally. When I or Darden faculty and staff have connected with many of you, we have heard the same comments repeatedly. Wow. Darden is resilient and responsive to these challenges.

You — the alumni network — exemplify the traits that define our response, and I would expect nothing less. Alumni of the 2008 and 2009 classes have met with the classes of 2020 and

2021 to provide insights and advice about entering the workforce in an economic crisis, and alumnae have participated in community-building Zoom chats with Graduate Women in Business students. International alumni have had career conversations with students returning to their home countries, and Black alumni and students have engaged in conversations about how to strengthen networking opportunities. You’ve hired students, referred prospective students, shared leads for Executive Education & Lifelong Learning, and you have generously supported the Darden Annual Fund, which enables us to deliver on Darden’s greatest needs. As Dean Scott Beardsley has said countless times, we must always work closely to help Darden reach its full potential.

Darden is not only strong, it is thriving, because of alumni, parents and friends like you.

Michael J. Woodfolk (TEP ’05) President, Darden School Foundation

W H AT CA N DA R D E N D O F O R YO U Darden powers your purpose for more than just two years on Grounds. Through Alumni Career Services, we support your career for life.

• • • • •

Career/Transition Coaching Executive/Leadership Coaching Darden Hiring Network Darden Career Link In-Person Office Hours

The Armstrong Center for Alumni Career Services

4

Visit Alumni Career Services at: darden.virginia.edu/alumni/career-services, or contact alumnicareerservices@darden.virginia.edu or +1-434-924-4876.

THE DARDEN REPORT

Today ?

SCHOOL NEWS

Second Year students celebrated their last day of class in May as they prepared to step forward into their post-MBA careers.

Rankings Reveal Top Career Results for Darden Class of 2020

R

ankings season returned this year, but like so many things during the pandemic, it was not like any other. Many top MBA programs chose not to participate in the rankings, and Darden declined to participate in fall rankings from The Economist, Bloomberg Businessweek and The Princeton Review (though they still ranked the School).

The School did, however, participate in rankings released this spring from Financial Times and U.S. News & World Report.

In the Financial Times’ annual global MBA ranking, Darden was ranked the No. 11 MBA program in the world and No. 6 in the United States. Both figures represent new highs in the ranking for the School’s MBA program. The publication noted that some schools opted to suspend participation in the rankings due to ongoing complications related to the coronavirus pandemic.

In U.S. News & World Report’s 2021 ranking of the best graduate business programs in the United States, Darden was ranked No. 13 overall and No. 2 among public schools.

Darden received a pair of Top 10 program rankings this spring.

No.2 No.6

2020–21

RANKINGS U P DAT E

MBA PROGRAM AMONG PUBLIC SCHOOLS (U.S. News & World Report)

MBA PROGRAM IN THE UNITED STATES (Financial Times)

Career outcomes once again drove Darden's rankings success.

No.4 No.5 No.5 No.7 No.9

ALUMNI AIMS ACHIEVED (Financial Times)

HIGHEST AVERAGE STARTING SALARY AND BONUS (Class of 2020) (U.S. News & World Report)

PERCENTAGE EMPLOYED AT GRADUATION

(U.S. News & World Report)

HIGHEST SALARY (ALUMNI) (Financial Times)

PERCENTAGE SALARY INCREASE (ALUMNI) (Financial Times)

SUMMER 2021

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SCHOOL NEWS

State of the School: Record Apps, Rankings and Alumni Reach Prove ‘Future Is Bright’ “The COVID crisis reminds us that the need for Darden is greater than ever. If anything, coming out of the pandemic, we see the urgent need for responsible leadership and the hunger that people have to seek education and ways to pursue their dreams.”

— Dean Scott Beardsley

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THE DARDEN REPORT

At his State of the School address during Darden Reunion Week, Dean Scott Beardsley said the “future is bright” for the Darden School thanks to the momentum it has built through alumni support and success navigating the COVID-19 pandemic.

“The COVID crisis reminds us that the need for Darden is greater than ever,” Beardsley said. “If anything, coming out of the pandemic, we see the urgent need for responsible leadership and the hunger that people have to seek education and ways to pursue their dreams.”

As evidence of Darden’s current strength, Beardsley said that applications to join the Darden Full-Time MBA and Executive MBA Class of 2023 set a new record, surpassing the previous record set the prior year to join the Class of 2022.

Darden has met the challenges of the current moment in many ways, Beardsley said. The School is recognized as a leader for its online and hybrid in-person and virtual delivery, has grown its overall scholarship program and launched the AccessDarden need-based scholarship program, and helped the Class of 2020 earn record average starting salaries, with a record number of graduates accepting jobs in the booming tech industry.

Beardsley also cited further tangible measures of strength, including Darden’s ranking by Bloomberg Businessweek as the No. 1 public MBA program — and No. 5 overall — in the United States, its No. 1 ranking by The Princeton Review for Best Professors and the School’s 17,000-plus alumni spread across 90 countries.

Incredible support for the School’s Powered by Purpose capital campaign undergirds much of the current momentum. The campaign launched publicly in October 2019, and the School had already raised $324.9 million toward the $400 million campaign goal as of 30 April 2021. Counting matching funds from UVA and gifts made to other foundations on behalf of Darden, the total impact of the campaign stood at more than $410 million.

Beardsley noted donors have helped fund the creation of 28 new endowed faculty chairs and 89 new student scholarships.

“We have incredible momentum, and I am so grateful to all of our donors,” Beardsley said. “To reach our goals, we’ll need to maintain it and secure transformational gifts. Excellence requires resources, and Darden aspires to be one of the preeminent business schools in the world.”

SCHOOL NEWS

Remembering Frank M. Sands Sr., Whose Philanthropy Transformed Darden Frank M. Sands Sr. (MBA ’63), the founder of Sands Capital who left an indelible mark on Darden, passed away at his home in March.

Sands and his family have helped transform the Darden School on a variety of fronts, including enabling the School’s expansion into the Washington, D.C., area and fortifying key areas of strength.

He gave selflessly of his time and served on the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees since 2011. Sands received the Charles C. Abbott Award — the highest honor the School bestows on alumni — in 2017.

In 2019, Sands made the largest gift in school history, $68 million, to benefit Darden’s professors, its students and lifelong learners, and facilities.

“I am a big believer in lifelong learning, and that learning is enabled by great faculty,” Sands said in 2019 at an event recognizing his philanthropy. “I hope this gift will inspire others to give and hope that the School will continue to be a true

force for good in the free markets and broader world.”

His giving has enabled: • The Marjorie R. and Frank M. Sands Sr. Institute for Lifelong Learning, which will grow Darden’s innovation in pedagogy and delivery of transformational lifelong learning experiences.

• 12 new faculty chairs, including four distinguished professorship chairs named in honor of Darden professors with a legacy of exceptional teaching and commitment to the School — John Forbes, Bob Landel, Yiorgos Allayannis and Bob Bruner — and an additional eight term chairs, called the Sands Professorships.

• Grounds Master Plan support in Charlottesville and in the Washington, D.C., area, including support to jumpstart construction of the new UVA Inn at Darden and Conference Center for Lifelong Learning (See update on Page 8). He also established a gift-matching

Frank M. Sands Sr. (MBA ’63)

fund to renovate C. Ray Smith Alumni Hall, named in honor of Dean Emeritus C. Ray Smith (MBA ’58), who mentored Sands. Thanks to the fund, any gift to the project is matched 1:1 up to $7.2 million, and about $3 million in new gifts is needed to complete the renovation.

Sands’ record-setting gift built on the joint donation that he and his son Frank Sands (MBA ’94) made to build Darden’s new campus in the Rosslyn district of Arlington, Virginia — UVA Darden DC Metro at the Sands Family Grounds —

which opened in March 2018.

Darden Executive Education Partners With 2 UVA Schools to Offer New Data Science for Business Strategy Certificate Darden Executive Education & Lifelong Learning, the University of Virginia School of Data Science and the UVA McIntire School of Commerce have partnered to launch the noncredit Certificate in Data Science for Business Strategy, a new program series that explores ways to capitalize on the explosion of data, analytics and technology to define and execute better strategies, transform businesses and develop datasavvy future leaders.

The programs required to complete the certificate are: • Strategic Use of Data • Data Science Methods and Applications • Managing Information for Analytics Learners who complete the certificate will be equipped to drive organizational strategy through a data-first approach, gaining valuable expertise to accelerate their career.

“The proliferation of data and analytics has created unprecedented opportunities and unimaginable risks for many industries and companies,” said Professor Yael Grushka-

Cockayne, who teaches multiple sessions in the program series. “These classes, which bring together top faculty from across UVA, will allow leaders with a variety of backgrounds to capitalize on the rapidly changing technical landscape and execute superior business strategies across teams and organizations.”

“The intersection of data science and business practice offers many opportunities for the innovative application of analytic methods and tools to real-world business challenges,” said Phil Bourne, dean of the UVA School of Data Science. “Our partnership with Darden and McIntire offers a powerful platform of unique expertise and resources to benefit leaders in business and society.” The noncredit Certificate in Data Science for Business Strategy program series is offered online this summer and in-person at the Darden Grounds in Charlottesville in the fall.

Darden alumni receive a 30 percent discount. Learn more at: DARDEN.EDU/DATA-SCIENCE. SUMMER 2021

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G RO U N D S M A S T E R P L A N U P DAT E

See the Latest Progress on Darden’s New LEED-Certified Inn and Conference Center Darden broke ground on a long-awaited construction project in early 2021, the beginning of a two-year process that will elevate facilities on Grounds, instructional resources and convening capabilities through the addition of a new inn and conference center, arboretum and botanical gardens.

After years of planning, construction on the project, which forms part of the Darden Grounds Master Plan, began with the razing of Sponsors Hall, better known to much of the UVA community as the former home of the W.L. Lyons Brown III Innovation Laboratory (i.Lab), and the former UVA Inn at Darden. The i.Lab transitioned to a new space in Darden’s Classroom Building.

Sponsors Hall and the old inn will be replaced by the new UVA Inn at Darden and Conference Center for Lifelong Learning, a modern inn and conference center featuring 199 hotel rooms, a conference center, flat and tiered classroom space, a restaurant, and a coffee shop, among other features. UVA has committed to making all new buildings and renovations compliant with the U.S. Green Building Council’s Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.

The project will replace the old inn with a facility that provides an essential hub and lodging location for Darden Executive Education & Lifelong Learning participants, prospective students visiting Grounds, Executive MBA and Master of Science in business analytics students completing Charlottesville residencies, and the broader UVA and Charlottesville communities.

The inn is scheduled to open early in 2023.

Arboretum and Botanical Gardens In addition to the new physical structure, the surrounding landscape is also in the process of being transformed into a new arboretum and botanical gardens. The new, sustainability-minded green spaces aim to both bolster health and wellness and enhance the connectivity between Darden, the UVA School of Law and all of North Grounds. The arboretum and botanical gardens will further feature a variety of thematic gardens, including a Japanese Garden, Chinese Garden, International Edibles Garden and a Prehistoric Plants Garden, among others. The arboretum will also connect to the Rivanna Trail, further connecting North Grounds to the broader community.

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THE DARDEN REPORT

Graduation 2021

Darden's MBA Class of 2021 walked the Lawn and graduated on 23 May at one of UVA's first major in-person events since the start of the pandemic. After a year wait, the Darden Class of 2020 also returned to walk the Lawn and attend a celebration in Scott Stadium on 16 May.

332 FULL-TIME MBA GRADUATES

16

134 30

E X ECUTI V E MBA

FACULTY MARSHALS

GRA DUATE S

LALIN ANIK, Full-Time MBA THOMAS J. STEENBURGH, Full-Time MBA SHANE DIKOLLI, Executive MBA

DUA L-DE GRE E

ELECTED STUDENT GRADUATION SPEAKERS

GRA DUATES

A w ar ds

STUDENTS RECEIVED THE C. STEWART SHEPPARD AWARD RECOGNIZING EXCEPTIONAL SERVICE TO THE SCHOOL OF A NONACADEMIC NATURE Caroline Kelly Clark Carrie Lynn Dajani Purvaj Ashok Dharia Margaret Hall Edmunds Samantha B. Firstenberg Henry Dykema Frost

Alexander Gregory Goot* Miranda A. Grueiro Ann Joseph* Anthony Derek LeCounte* Kathleen Brooke Llontop James Michael Long

Amanda Marie Michetti Rotimi Ogunbiyi Colby Crane Woeltz T. Colin Wright-Pruski *Received fall 2020

PAMELA FISCHER AND ALEXANDER MAY WERE THE RECIPIENTS OF THE FREDERICK S. MORTON AWARD, PRESENTED TO STUDENTS FOR EXCELLENCE IN LEADERSHIP.

MICHAEL LONG (EMBA ’21)

“Courageously empowering, connected, beautifully determined, resilient and beyond-smart leaders — we have blazed a trail that has lifted Darden to a higher standard. More importantly, we are all better."

JUSTIN HICKS WAS THE RECIPIENT OF THE EXECUTIVE MBA FACULTY AWARD, PRESENTED TO AN OUTSTANDING STUDENT IN THE EXECUTIVE MBA PROGRAM.

Fu l l - T i me MBA I n i t i a l Ca r e e r O u tco me s

90% RECEIVED A JOB OFFER BY GRADUATION 90% ACCEPTED A JOB OFFER BY GRADUATION $150,000 AVERAGE SALARY (A RECORD)

JAMES PETERSON (MBA ’21)

“The question becomes: What do we do?

Raise your hand, get in the mix, find something you can impact and engage."

SUMMER 2021

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Faculty Legends Retire

Darden Professors Bob Conroy, Ed Hess, Alec Horniman and Elliott Weiss retired from teaching full-time at the end of the 2020–21 academic year. These familiar faces helped shape the School, expanded its curriculum and reach, and made it more globally focused — all while carrying forward Darden’s tradition of teaching excellence and student centricity.

BOB CONROY

ELLIOTT WEISS

ALEC HORNIMAN

J. Harvey Wilkinson Jr. Professor of Business Administration Finance

Oliver Wight Professor of Business Administration Technology and Operations Management

Killgallon Ohio Art Professor of Business Administration Leadership and Organizational Behavior

When Professor Bob Conroy was weighing a job offer from Darden more than three decades ago, he was struck by the unity of purpose among the faculty and staff, the sense that everyone was on the same page.

“Everyone I talked to knew what the School was trying to do. There was a sense that this was a place where you could come and be involved in something bigger than you,” said Conroy. “Everyone wanted to create a transformational experience for the students.”

Conroy, who retired from full-time teaching at the end of the academic year, joined the Darden faculty as a professor in the Finance area in 1988. In addition to leading generations of students from all backgrounds through the finer points of valuation and capital management, he helped shape the direction of the School through multiple stints leading the Full-Time MBA program as associate dean.

His record of accomplishment in leadership roles included establishing exchange programs and global programs as international studies coordinator, bringing key elements of coursework and materials online for the first time, and helping to establish the Executive MBA program in the mid-2000s.

After news of Conroy’s final class was posted on social media, thanks and congratulations poured in from colleagues and former students. A general theme: Students remembered a professor who cared about their progress and met them where they were to help them get to where they needed to be.

Much of Darden Professor Elliott Weiss’ professional life has been devoted to process improvement — how to eliminate wasted effort and optimize processes.

After working with Darden students of all ages and stripes on Lean and related processimprovement topics for more than three decades, Weiss retired from full-time teaching at the end of the academic year.

After growing up in the Philadelphia area and teaching at Cornell, teaching the case method at Darden shifted how he viewed his role, realizing that he was “teaching people, not stuff.”

“The hardest part of the case method is figuring out the correct question to ask so that the students can develop the necessary skills for determining solutions and recommendations for themselves,” said Weiss.

Operations management and inventory control can be nebulous concepts for MBA students without backgrounds in the space.

Throughout his career, Weiss sought ways to drive home key operations strategies in relatable ways — the inventory of milk in a refrigerator or the optimal way to feed a baby at night, for instance.

Indeed, Weiss’ voluminous case output spans fields and topics, with examples including tying a problem-solving process to weight loss, using a comic about rabbits to teach service systems and the lessons a cult fast food chain could teach about lean transformation, among many others.

Few faculty members are as associated with the Darden School as Professor Alec Horniman.

Horniman came to Darden in 1967, part of a formidable class of new hires that included Professors John Colley and Bill Sihler.

Horniman came at the behest of Dean Charles Abbott, who asked if he could come down from Harvard and teach courses in the Learning and Organizational Behavior area. Horniman would stay for more than 50 years, becoming instrumental in elevating the Darden MBA, a leader in the Executive MBA and an architect of The Executive Program, among other indelible marks.

A master of multiple subjects, Horniman taught ethics, strategy, leadership, health care, psychology and various combinations thereof, and frequently carried a double-load of classes.

Horniman was the first director of the Olsson Center for Applied Ethics, helped introduce classes such as “Business Ethics and Managerial Decision-Making,” and introduced an ethics module into the First Year curriculum.

A giant among Darden professors, Horniman’s legacy lives on in the thousands of students he transformed into ethical, lifelong learners across the world.

As one high-profile Darden graduate wrote in a letter testifying to Horniman’s impact: “Alec highlighted, for those willing to hear the message, that our connection with humanity is what makes the difference.

“His wisdom is timeless and universal.”

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THE DARDEN REPORT

FA C U LT Y N E W S

Bloomberg Businessweek wrote about the incredible lengths the School's faculty and students went to last academic year to preserve the Darden experience.

Pictured left, as COVID-19 restrictions at UVA and in Virginia were eased in May, students were finally able to gather in person in larger numbers to celebrate the end of the academic year.

Darden in the Media

The Darden School, its faculty, students and alumni continue to be valued sources for the media, providing insights on breaking news and hot topics. From The Washington Post to Financial Times, leading global publications sought members of the Darden community this spring to discuss everything from life on campus in a pandemic to the shifting landscape of the video game business to the future of work.

MBAs Wander Minecraft-Like Campus for Covid-Era Networking

How Big Game Acquisitions Can Affect Players

Future-Ready Your Career (Written by Dean Scott Beardsley)

Bloomberg Businessweek

Lifewire

The Washington Post

A key selling point of business schools is their ability to bring together students of various nationalities and backgrounds, who forge friendships in the hallways and lounges that pay dividends decades later. But in an era of online learning, MBA students are struggling to make such connections — spurring schools around the world to develop new avenues to those crucial relationships via virtual campuses, Slack channels, and Zoom roadshows.

Students at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business have organized online games of Jeopardy! to create a sense of cohesion. And though annual fixtures such as the Darden Follies and Spring Soirees were canceled, the Darden Cup — a sporting competition among the school’s five sections — took place through the Strava fitness app.

Students and staff logged a combined 10,496 miles of biking, running, hiking, and even playing rounds of golf. The events “take your mind off the many stressors of the MBA program by giving you a chance to have fun with your classmates,” says Nick Talbott, a Darden student who set up the Jeopardy! games.

Video game companies are on a buying spree, and analysts warn that it could mean worse games at higher prices at this level of company consolidation.

The venture capital firm Pitchbook tracked over 1,500 transactions in the field over the course of 2020, with major companies like Nintendo, Electronic Arts and Tencent making significant buys.

That trend is likely to continue into the rest of 2021.

“It's an arms race, not for technology, but for intellectual property and developers,” Darden Professor Anthony Palomba said. “People who have experience developing games at a high level are at a premium. Now you're seeing a bidding war, similar to Ryan Murphy and Shonda Rhimes being snatched up by Netflix.”

After two decades of exponential technological growth, work as we know it is changing forever — yet key values endure.

Tomorrow’s workplace will see the proliferation of automation, robots, machine learning and artificial intelligence. Data will go from big to colossal, and video-enabled collaboration will push teams further, faster.

In the workplace of tomorrow, leaders will need to adapt to the speed of technological change. They will need to hone their digital and analytical capabilities and navigate the intersection of technology and ethics through responsible leadership. Caring for all stakeholders will deliver greater value to customers and communities, while achieving equitable, inclusive progress will yield innovation and better performance.

Above all, leaders will need to view learning as continuous. By weaving together online and in-person bursts of learning, they will provide competitive advantage for their companies and career relevance for themselves.

SUMMER 2021

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FA C U LT Y N E W S

Recently Released and Upcoming Books From Darden Professors Choosing Courage: The Everyday Guide to Being Brave at Work (Harvard Business Review Press) Professor Jim Detert Detert’s book offers readers a clear framework and tactics for standing up, speaking out and acting with courage in the workplace.

Emerging Domestic Markets: How Financial Entrepreneurs Reach Underserved Communities in the United States (Columbia Business School Publishing) Professor Greg Fairchild Fairchild shines a light on entrepreneurs and financial institutions harnessing the promise and power of underserved populations.

Experiencing Design: The Innovators Journey (Columbia Business School Publishing) Professor Jeanne Liedtka, Karen Hold and Jessica Eldridge

Liedtka and co-authors draw on decades of research to offer a guide for how to create the shifts in mindset and skillset that are required to achieve transformational impact.

Humanizing Business: What Humanities Can Say to Business (Springer) Professor Edward Freeman, Michel Dion and Sergiy Dmytiyev In this edited volume, Freeman and co-authors travel outside of the business world to explore what the humanities can offer to business.

Giving Voice to Values: An Innovation and Impact Agenda (Routledge) Professor Mary Gentile and Jerry Goodstein

This edited volume considers the future of Giving Voice to Values (GVV) and possibilities to sustain its success. Gentile served as the series editor for multiple GVV books in 2020, including Ethics Training for Managers: Best Practices and Techniques; Professionalism and Values in Law Practice; and Shaping the Future of Work: A Handbook for Action and a New Social Contract.

Marketing Analytics: Essential Tools For Data-Driven Decisions (UVA Darden Business Publishing) Professors Raj Venkatesan, Ron Wilcox and Paul Farris

The Darden professors provide a forward-looking, predictive perspective for making marketing decisions.

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THE DARDEN REPORT

Models of Leadership in Plato and Beyond (Oxford University Press) Professor Edward Freeman and Dominic Scott Freeman and Scott relate Plato’s work to contemporary leadership theory and practice.

The Tao of Strategy: How Seven Eastern Philosophies Help Solve 21st Century Business Challenges (University of Virginia Press) Professor L.J. Bourgeois III, Serge Eygenson (MBA ’17), Kanokrat Namasondhi (MBA ’15) Wisdom from Eastern world philosophers and lessons from modern-day business leaders combine to provide readers innovative approaches to unlock strategic breakthroughs.

Passing the Baton, Competitive Dynamics and Ambiculturalism (China Machine Press) Professor Ming-Jer Chen This three-volume series of the selected works of Chen offers insights on the differences between Eastern and Western management techniques.

The AI Marketing Canvas: A Five-Stage Road Map to Implementing Artificial Intelligence in Marketing (Stanford Business Books) Professor Raj Venkatesan and Jim Lecinski Venkatesan offers an actionable plan marketers can use to incorporate artificial intelligence into a marketing toolkit.

Research Handbook of Responsible Management (Edward Elgar) Professor Edward Freeman, Oliver Laasch, Roy Suddaby and Dima Jamali Freeman and his co-authors’ research handbook offers a cutting-edge take on the avenues to responsible management in the 21st century.

Positioning for Advantage: Techniques and Strategies to Grow Brand Value (Columbia University Press) Professor Kimberly Whitler Whitler offers a comprehensive how-to guide for creating, building and executing effective brand strategies, offering a road map to create brands that attain positional advantage in the marketplace.

UVA DARDEN IDEAS TO ACTION

The Future of Learning, Female Entrepreneurs and Our Planet’s Climate

U V A

The Darden Ideas to Action podcast celebrated its first birthday this winter the same way it launched: with key insights from Darden professors on the biggest hot topics impacting business and society today.

D A R D E N

This spring, the podcast — hosted by the Batten Institute’s Sean Carr (MBA '03, Ph.D. '13) — included episodes featuring Dean Scott Beardsley on the future of learning; Professor Mike Lenox and Senior Researcher Becky Duff on how innovation can create a path to stop catastrophic climate change; and Professor Gaurav Chiplunkar on how barriers faced by female entrepreneurs impact us all and stifle the global economy.

“I choose optimism because I think the alternative is quite scary. But it’s going to take more. I think we all have to be very clear, it’s going to take more from the policy arena, it’s going to take more from the public sector and the private sector, and it’s going to take more from us as individuals.”

"We looked at the data and one striking feature from the data was that only about less than a quarter of the businesses worldwide are owned by women…One direct way in which this matters is because women [-owned] firms are more likely to employ women as employees."

— Dean Scott Beardsley on the need for new means and providers of lifelong learning

— Professor Mike Lenox on what it will take for society to succeed in the fight against climate change

— Professor Gaurav Chiplunkar on policies to support female entrepreneurs around the world

Subscribe to the Darden Ideas to Action podcast on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or Podbean.

To read more expert insights on these topics and more, visit ideas.darden.virginia.edu.

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IDE AS TO ACTION

“I believe we’re seeing a proliferation of learning forms in degree and non-degree formats from many different providers because the need for learning is so high. We’ve never been on an exponential growth curve enabled by technology the way we have the last 20 years.

It’s unique in the history of humanity.”

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THE DARDEN REPORT

By Michael Blanding

AND HOW PURPOSE-DRIVEN LEADERS CAN GET US THERE he stock trading platform Robinhood launched in 2015 with a noble mission: to make stock trading more accessible to the average Joe. With no trading fees and a friendly user interface, it appealed to retail investors with modest portfolios, especially millennials, who flocked to the app with fierce loyalty. When a group of investors on Reddit, however, conspired to drive up the price on GameStop stock this past January — causing hedge funds that had shorted the stock to hemorrhage millions — Robinhood made the tricky decision to halt trading on the stock. A massive backlash by its users followed, including canceled accounts, lawsuits and congressional hearings.

“On the face of it, it feels like they reneged on their brand promise,” says Professor Bobby Parmar, who teaches business ethics at Darden.

“On the one hand, Robinhood wanted to support the idea that anybody can trade, but on the other hand, they don’t want to upset powerful investment companies — so they got stuck between a rock and a hard place.”

Robinhood’s crisis is only the latest example of a company dealing with a complicated ethical issue caused by the unintended consequences of technology.

“Managers are wrestling with all kinds of difficult moral issues that show up in the context of new technology and innovation,” says Parmar, who named a few scenarios that have appeared in newspaper headlines. Uber drivers can assault

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The Problem: Most Companies Are Not Set Up for Reflective Thought

“Silicon Valley for a long time had this motto, ‘move fast and break things,’” Freeman says. Industries such as pharma may undergo deliberate processes to ensure they do no harm, but tech companies are often in a race to produce a product as quickly as possible, consequences be damned. “Because the dominant story in business is about profit and money, a lot of startups get into trouble when they’re not really testing and understanding the larger impacts of their technology,” Parmar says.

That urge prevents companies from performing “pre-mortems” to think through potential problems that may occur weeks or months down the line.

Instead, they are often caught flat-footed when problems arise, leading to consumer backlash and 16

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opportunities for competitors to take advantage. “When women didn’t feel safe riding in Ubers, it opened up an opportunity for companies like See Jane Go, which was basically Uber for women by women,” says Parmar, “which is a brilliant business model that solved the moral problem.”

Parmar and Freeman suggest two steps for innovation companies to do a better job of thinking ahead: 1. Realize that every business model has moral principles baked into it, whether they recognize it or not.

2. Know that while it’s impossible to predict all outcomes for new technologies, it’s important to engage with all stakeholders — including customers, employees, investors, suppliers, and communities — in order to better predict what might go wrong.

— PROFESSOR ED FREEMAN

“Silicon Valley for a long time had this motto, ‘move fast and break things. Because the dominant story in business is about profit and money, a lot of startups get into trouble when they’re not really testing and understanding the larger impacts of their technology.”

their passengers, and vice versa. Airbnb hosts might discriminate by not renting to people of color.

Twitter can allow rampant misinformation to spread unchecked.

“Anyone with an internet connection can write whatever they want and send it to their 500,000 followers, and we haven’t figured a way to verify its accuracy,” says Professor Jared Harris. Add to that the technological advancements that facilitate deep fakes — doctored photos and videos that look real — and it creates a very difficult ethical landscape, as it becomes more and more difficult to verify what’s actually true.

“We’re headed rapidly to a world where bad actors can cook up fake videos that are nearly impossible to distinguish from real ones, and what does that world look like?” Harris asks.

Part of the way ethics always works, says University Professor Ed Freeman, is through constant reevaluation as circumstances change and new groups push for recognition. “We have some principles and rules, and we have a case, and we apply the principles to solve the case,” he says. “Now, what happens when we get some new cases?”

Technology is one way that new cases can arise, pitting two principles against each other — say, the idea that people have a right to own their own intellectual property and the ability of Google Books to democratize sharing of information. “That gives rise to the need to reengage the adjustment of principles and cases,” Freeman says.

Such a moment is called reflective equilibrium, in the words of philosopher John Rawls, giving rise to the need to create a new set of beliefs. “A new situation arises, and we have to create new values, because it turns out our forebears didn’t always think about equality of all groups, or what happens if technology allows us to spy on each other in new ways.”

“You have to be engaged, not just with people inside your company but people outside your company,” says Freeman. Leaving any of those constituents behind can be disastrous, he says.

Look no further than Amazon, which perfected the art of getting products to customers fast but is now having to send Tweets insisting its employees aren’t urinating in bottles because they don’t get bathroom breaks.

“Amazon is the most customerfriendly company in the galaxy,” says Freeman. “But they haven’t yet figured out how to take care of their own employees.”

Predicting the impact on all stakeholders requires a diversity of perspectives, Parmar adds. “If everybody who’s on the team is thinking the same or reflecting a certain customer demographic, that’s a problem,” says Parmar, citing Airbnb’s issues with racial discrimination by those listing rentals on its platform. “It makes

you wonder: If their teams were more diverse, would that have come up sooner?”

LEAD AT THE INTERSECTION OF TECH & ETHICS

Transparency Is Key to Stem Ethical Dilemmas When Introducing a New Technology

Another essential aspect of introducing new technology is transparency about the way it will be used, argues Professor Roshni Raveendhran. She studies “the future of work,” including examining companies’ use of technologies such as smart badges and computer-tracking software that closely monitors employee behavior and productivity.

“If deployed without understanding the psychology of how those technologies might affect people, they might actually lead to more problems than good,” she says. “It’s almost always the case that people don’t have a good idea about what data is being collected about them, how it’s being used or how it might be used against them.”

In research published earlier this year in the journal Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Raveendhran found that many people are open to being tracked by such technologies — just so long as the evaluation was being conducted by computer algorithms. “We love feedback about our behavior and knowing how we might actually manage our time differently,” she says.

That acceptance diminished, however, if they thought their data was being reviewed by human supervisors.

Raveendhran suggests a better use of such tracking technology is to provide it to the employees themselves, so they can use it to improve their own performance before reviews. “This can be one of the biggest ways in which employers can motivate employees and make them feel responsible for their own future in an

Darden Executive Education & Lifelong Learning offers programs to advance leaders with the core skills and competencies of the digital age, including how to navigate the tough ethical questions new technology can surface. Darden alumni also receive a 30 percent discount on open-enrollment programs.

U P C O M I N G P RO G R A MS LEADING WITH HUMANITY: NEW SKILLS FOR THE DIGITAL AGE This in-person program features diagnostic assessments, coaching sessions and leadership reflections to help you lead collaboratively with your team and foster a culture of transparency and trust. It counts toward the Certificate in Leadership.

Program faculty include Professors Andy Wicks, Greg Fairchild and Laura Morgan Roberts.

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LEARN MORE AND SIGN UP AT:

www.darden.virginia.edu/ee-fall21 SUMMER 2021

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COVID -19 VACCINES: A TECHNOLOGY BREAKTHROUGH, AN ETHICAL DISTRIBUTION CHALLENGE The world celebrated in late 2020 and early 2021 as one COVID-19 vaccine after the next successfully passed final testing milestones to earn approval and begin the process of ending the pandemic.

However, creating them was just the beginning. Distributing them globally — and ethically — to people from all walks of life has proven to be a massive hurdle, highlighting wellknown disparities between rich and poor nations and privileged and underserved communities.

Professor Vivian Riefberg, a board member of Johns Hopkins Medicine, has been a leading voice championing distribution and access to COVID-19 vaccines that will unlock their full value for society by ending the pandemic. USA Today named Riefberg to a panel of experts to provide ongoing updates and analysis on vaccine progress.

In January and February articles surveying the experts, Riefberg advised the Biden administration to enlist as many approaches to vaccination as possible: mass distribution centers, community health facilities, physicians' offices, pharmacies, schools.

She advocated for arranging for vaccinators and vaccination sites, providing reservation systems both by phone and online, and programs to help people overcome vaccine hesitancy.

In the March update, Riefberg focused on the need to vaccinate children, too, if vaccines are expected to help reach herd immunity in the United States. And as a successful early vaccine rollout began to slow in April, Riefberg addressed growing concerns about vaccine hesitancy.

“Ultimately, the real carrot is watching vaccinated people get back to their normal lives,” Riefberg said, “and the real stick might unfortunately be with continued sickness and unnecessary death.”

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“If deployed without understanding the psychology of how those technologies might affect people, they might actually lead to more problems than good.

It’s almost always the case that people don’t have a good idea about what data is being collected about them, how it’s being used or how it might be used against them.”

— PROFESSOR ROSHNI RAVEENDHRAN

organization,” she says. On a broader level, she sees a similar phenomenon in wearable devices such as Fitbit or smart home device Nest — both recently acquired by Google — which collect sensitive personal data of users.

“They tell Google how much we walk, how we sleep, how we eat — a lot of personal things companies never had access to before,” Raveendhran says. Privacy concerns spurred some consumers to stop using the devices after the Google acquisitions. “We are expecting companies to behave in a responsible manner, and many times they do, but many times they don’t.”

Much like being transparent with employees regarding work-tracking data, she recommends companies empower consumers by being clear with them about how their data will be used — and letting them make up their own minds about whether the trade-off is worth it. “Those five-page privacy notices nobody ever reads are almost a deterrent to know more. Give the power to people by explaining in plain language what will happen to their data,” she says. “Then at least you know you have their consent in an open and honest manner.”

Theranos: A Case Study at the Intersection of Tech, Ethics and Leadership

Transparency of a different sort was at issue in a recent case study Harris wrote about the company Theranos, a startup run by Silicon Valley wunderkind Elizabeth Holmes that promised to revolutionize blood testing, performing more than 200 different tests ranging from cholesterol level reports to complex genetic analysis on a single drop. The only problem was the technology didn’t work; Holmes faces trial for fraud.

“It’s an example of how the nature of technology itself can make it difficult for funders or board members to verify the science,” says Harris, author of the case Out for Blood: Tyler Shultz and Theranos, available from Darden Business Publishing. “But there was a lot of hoopla with Holmes on the cover of Fortune in a black turtleneck. Technology we don’t understand takes on a magical quality, and people simply want to believe in it.”

In the case of Theranos, the very complexity of the technology allowed Holmes to carry on the charade for years, as the company kept racking up funding. “If we can’t peek inside this black box, or if we don’t have the technical expertise to verify what’s really going on, people often simply assume that everything must be legitimate. In addition to all the other ethical

challenges introduced by technology, the complexity itself creates the opportunity to pull the wool over everybody’s eyes,” says Harris, who tells the story through Tyler Shultz, a scientist-turned-whistleblower who eventually exposed the company. The case explores the challenges Shultz, who worked with Harris and his collaborators on it, faced in getting out the word in a world in which many of the scientists knew the technology was bogus but feared speaking out due to reprisals, while many of the “suits” and investors were clueless.

“You see the challenge someone like Tyler has in getting the ethical issue exposed, given all the forces rallied against him,” Harris says. “It’s a cautionary tale of how much can go wrong if someone is willing to push the fraud forward.” Snake oil salesmen promising illusory benefits are nothing new, but in this case, he says, the “technology creates these ethical problems that allow the salesman to sell the snake oil

a little easier.”

Theranos represents an extreme side of Silicon Valley, but the competitive landscape can often push companies to cut ethical corners in their race to market. Such haste is short-sighted, however, says Freeman. “This story that it’s a dog-eat-dog competitive world and we’ve got to move fast is just BS,” says Freeman. “The world waits just fine for good stuff.”

Rather than rushing a product to market, Parmar stresses the importance of learning everything one can before launching. “You have to learn about the impacts on stakeholders, and empathize with them,” he says. “Only then can you have the confidence to take risks.”

That empathy, adds Freeman, develops the best product in the long run. “Stakeholders are human beings. They have children, they have pets, they hurt, they love,” he says. “We need to understand our full humanity here. And if we do, by the way, there are a lot more business opportunities to be had.

DARDEN NETWORK-LED TECH PLATFORMS POWER PURPOSE TO IMPROVE THE WORLD It’s often said that technology is not good or bad, it’s what people decide to do with technology. Sid Pailla (MBA ’15) and Whit Hunter (Class of 2022) are using technology in the form of online platforms to power laudable goals — promoting financial inclusivity for American workers and fundraising for nonprofits.

Sunny Day Fund

BetterWorld

While at Darden, Pailla founded Sunny Day Fund, a platform for emergency and personal savings to be provided to workers as an employment benefit. Employees receive an FDIC-insured account they can use to save for emergencies or planned expenses, while matched contributions from their employers provide a better return compared to a traditional savings account.

In the middle of his First Year at Darden, Hunter was trying to figure out whether to continue to invest the time and effort into making BetterWorld into a viable business. Instead of throwing in the towel, he and his co-founders decided to make a fundamental change in January 2020 that paved the way for a significant turnaround in fortunes: They made the site’s offering free.

The employee receives support to build up liquid assets and lessen financial stress, which in turn boosts productivity.

In contrast to a 401(k), there is no paperwork and no penalty to make withdrawals from a Sunny Day Fund account. Meanwhile, the employer can use this unconventional benefit to attract and keep talent during a time when voluntary turnover is on the rise in America.

Sunny Day Fund was accepted to Lighthouse Labs, a Richmondbased startup accelerator, providing momentum as Pailla attempts to disrupt the $28-trillion-dollar retirement savings industry, which has decades of marketing and cultural cachet in its favor. Referring to the insight he gained during his Ph.D. in systems engineering, Pailla emphasizes purpose-driven disruption: “When we think about disruption, we’re mostly focused on the ‘how’ — but the necessary aspect to how we do something is the goal we want to achieve.”

For Pailla, that goal is inclusivity.

The result? “We’ve seen over 100 percent monthly growth every month for the last year,” Hunter said a year after that crucial decision. “Since last spring, over 16,000 organizations and nearly 100,000 individuals have signed up to use BetterWorld’s free suite of fundraising tools.”

The existing charitable-giving market is filled with antiquated, expensive technology, Hunter said, particularly for smaller organizations. Furthermore, these software providers often take a significant cut of donations as their fee. BetterWorld offers individuals and nonprofits a full suite of fundraising tools, free of charge and easy to use, through which organizations can keep 100 percent of the funds raised.

The venture began as an auction platform to serve nonprofits holding fundraisers and eventually began adding capabilities such as ticketing, a donation portal and crowdfunding tools, among others, as the founders began to learn more about their audience and a potential path forward.

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Congratulations, You’ve Assembled a Diverse Team Now, How Do You Make It HighPerforming?

BY SEB MURRAY SUMMER 2021

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“I’m a Black woman, a business professor and a psychologist.

These overlapping factors shape my perspectives and how I contribute to my organization.” lobal protests after the killing of George Floyd in May 2020 sparked a surge in calls for racial justice and equity, led and intensified by the Black Lives Matter movement. Many businesses responded by making public commitments to numerous dimensions of diversity, including race and ethnicity, gender balance, all forms of sexual orientation, disability and age.

Many institutions view diversity as a moral imperative. As the evidence builds that diversity also boosts performance, managers face a paradox: While varied perspectives add value, they often cause friction. So it takes enlightened leadership — with high emotional intelligence, compassion and humility — to motivate, integrate and coordinate teams, according to a pair of Darden professors with expertise in building high-performing teams that maximize the benefits of diversity.

“Diversity enhances work output, but people often report having a less positive experience in diverse teams because of conflict,” says Professor Laura Morgan Roberts, noting this can lower motivation and productivity and increase employee turnover.

Her research focuses on the science of maximizing human potential in diverse organizations. She says it’s not as simple as recruiting at random as many people with different perspectives and backgrounds as possible. Building diverse teams requires more intentionality.

Identify Existing Inequalities and Address Them Teams need a critical mass of minority perspectives for mixed teams to outperform.

“Leaders need clarity over what dimensions of diversity are meaningful and significant for their organization,” Roberts says.

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— Professor Laura Morgan Roberts

Diversity Is More Nuanced Than Protected Characteristics Such as Gender or Race Managers often struggle to gauge diversity accurately, Roberts says, including how different aspects of difference combine to shape individual identity. “For example, I’m a Black woman, a business professor and a psychologist. These overlapping factors shape my perspectives and how I contribute to my organization.”

Companies That Select Teams Based on One Characteristic Risk Claims of Tokenism

Roberts

Professor Lynn Isabella urges companies to look beyond simplistic definitions of diversity to unearth hidden talents. “It’s often the person that you never expect who has something unique to offer the team,” she says, stressing the importance of looking for cognitive differences, not just tangible diversity.

When businesses hire based on a single, tangible element of diversity, Roberts says “people won’t feel they can bring their whole selves to work. They won’t feel welcome or that their contributions are valued.”

Conflict Is Inevitable but It Can Improve Performance “Many of us go into a team and do the same thing we’ve always done,” Isabella says.

“But a diverse team gives you the space and freedom to try something different, learn a new skill, take on a new challenge and grow.”

Isabella recommends looking for people who want to collaborate, even if it means sacrificing a strong performer for the good of the wider team. The tendency is for team leaders to choose proven performers because of time pressures, but that often rules out diverse talent because minorities may have less opportunity to showcase their talents, she adds. Instead, team leaders need to take chances on newcomers to achieve a broader representation and superior results.

Diverse Teams Outperform the Less Diverse in Many (Not All) Circumstances Indeed, Roberts says research has proven that mixed teams outperform in many circumstances, for example when they need to tap similarly diverse consumer markets, perform collective problem-solving or catalyze innovation.

That said, diverse teams do not always work better than homogenous groups. Studies show that teams from similar backgrounds outperform at executing existing solutions, Roberts says.

Managers Can Stifle the Benefits of Diverse Teams The innovative ideas of diverse teams can be stifled by decision-makers higher Isabella up the company, where diversity tends to taper off. Indeed, many companies focus too heavily on recruiting diverse talent and not enough on inclusion and leadership development, says Roberts. This often leads to minorities who do not speak out on teams.

“You need to create a context in which people from diverse backgrounds can grow, thrive and contribute,” she says, including by rooting out unconscious bias and championing mentorship.

Above All, Managers Must Look Within Roberts notes that managers often shy away from conflict and can become defensive. “They may recognize the value of diversity, but they also struggle with being in environments where people are questioning their decisions.”

Managing mixed teams therefore requires humility, she says. “We must acknowledge and admit our way is not the only or the best way. Even if something works really well for us, that doesn’t mean it’s going to work equally well for others,” Roberts says.

The best leaders are curious, too, and take a genuine interest in their employees. “It’s so important in diverse organizations that people keep learning.”

It may not be easy, but selfreflection, nurturing curiosity and humility, taking a broader view of diversity, aligning teams with the right tasks, and addressing wider inequalities are well worth doing, says Isabella.

“That doesn’t mean the team will be plain sailing. There will be bumps along the road, but the potential for an incredible result at the end is huge.”

BOOSTED BY AIRBNB, THOMAS-HUNT RETURNS TO DARDEN TO LEAD NEW RESEARCH INITIATIVE Darden welcomes a familiar face back to the faculty this summer as Melissa Thomas-Hunt, a professor, senior associate dean and global chief diversity officer at the School until 2017, returns for a joint appointment at Darden and UVA’s Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy.

Thomas-Hunt returns to Darden from Airbnb, where she served as global head of diversity and belonging and led strategy and execution of global internal diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging programs for the company’s 5,000 employees.

She’s not leaving Airbnb behind, though, and she’s bringing benefits from her experience there back to Darden. The company in May announced it will donate $1 million over the next five years to establish the Airbnb Melissa Christian Thomas Hunt Research Fund for Global Connection and Belonging at Darden.

“At a time of mass isolation, with physical communities eroding all around us, this work is more important than ever,” Airbnb Co-founder and CEO Brian Chesky said in a letter published by the company. “This commitment will ensure that our work together continues for many years to come.

So this isn’t goodbye, it’s thank you. Thank you, MTH, for all that you’ve given to Airbnb.”

The fund will support academic Melissa Thomas-Hunt research in the areas of diversity, equity, inclusion, connection and belonging. Thomas-Hunt will lead the research effort and continue to serve Airbnb as a senior adviser. In addition, she will serve as a special adviser to Darden Dean Scott Beardsley and Batten Dean Ian Solomon.

“We at Darden are incredibly grateful to Airbnb for its commitment to advance knowledge in this critical area and its strong support of Melissa as she transitions back to Darden,” said Beardsley. “Airbnb’s generous gift is a building block for Darden’s aspiration to create a new Initiative for Inclusive Leadership, Equity and Leveraging Difference that aims to serve as a hub for academic scholarship, pedagogical innovation and applied social action.”

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THE FUTURE OF INVESTING (LOOKS VERY DIFFERENT)

BY S I M O N C O N STA B L E

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THE DARDEN REPORT

W

hile unemployment ballooned and the global economy collapsed in the months following the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, an odd thing happened: Wall Street surged. The stock market rose to record levels, relatively new asset classes such as cryptocurrencies headed to the moon, and individual investors had hedge fund managers reeling.

There’s been a lot going on in the world of investing, and some of the change likely is here to stay.

FED FUELS WALL STREET RALLY A year after government lockdowns sent the U.S. into an economic tailspin, the economy still hadn’t fully recovered to its prepandemic level.

Contrast that with the stock market, which smashed record after record over the same period. That dichotomy will no doubt have some people puzzled, but it shouldn’t.

The economy and the stock market aren’t synonymous. They can, and frequently do, behave in different ways. “The stock market is not an indicator of the economy as a whole, but rather of the health of public companies,” says Professor Elena Loutskina. “The companies that were able to invest in tech won the market.” Small and medium-sized retailers, however, saw a lot of financial pain.

Another significant factor helping lift stocks was the ultra-low borrowing costs that came as a result of a sharp change in policy by the U.S. Federal Reserve. Not only did the Fed cut shortterm borrowing costs to near zero, it also pumped the banking system full of cash by purchasing hundreds of billions of dollars of bonds.

Ultimately, that helped big business.

THE CHEAP MONEY EFFECT AND THE GAMIFICATION OF INVESTING Cheap money rarely comes without some unexpected consequences. In this case, it seems to have given rise to what some people would call the “Robinhood-GameStop effect.”

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platforms like Reddit to buy stock in beleaguered video game retailer GameStop. When the stock price rallied, hedge funds, which had bet on the stock price falling, suffered severe losses.

Bizarrely, barely anyone thought GameStop had a viable future, yet the rally was real enough to wipe away billions of dollars in Wall Street profits. So how did it happen?

It comes down to the availability of cheap money, says Rodney Sullivan, executive director of the Richard A. Mayo Center for Asset Management.

“The low cost of capital is driving a technological boom,” he says. On Wall Street, a slew of capital investment is squeezing the cost of investing more each year. For a long time, there has been downward pressure on trading costs going back to the founding of investment company Vanguard, which introduced low-cost mutual fund investing in the 1970s. Now, many brokers offer zero or near-zero cost trading to their customers.

And in general, that phenomenon has been a good thing for investors, at least until the pandemic.

Zero-cost investing has led to what Sullivan calls the “gamification” of investing.

“Some people think of it as a game, and they are investing based on a hunch or what a friend says,” he says. That’s quite different from traditional investing, which involves the longterm process of extracting potential gains from the market.

Sullivan worries that low costs will lure individuals into frequent trading, and ultimately, some naïve investors will see some painful losses. “Gamification is changing investing. It is here to stay, and it’s dangerous,” he says.

BLOCKCHAIN GOES BEYOND BITCOIN, UNLEASHES NFTS Low capital costs have also helped usher in the rise of cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. Through mid-April, Bitcoin prices had grown to $60,000, up from less than $7,000 a year earlier. Low-interest rates drove at least part of that rally as investors sought alternative investments to cash. But the abundance of new technology in the form of electronic trading systems has also helped boost cryptocurrencies and similar assets.

“Would we have crypto if we didn’t have technology?

Probably not,” Sullivan says. All cryptos rely on technology for their existence, and they need it to be traded.

Likewise, nonfungible tokens (NFTs) use blockchain technology, just like Bitcoin and other emerging cryptocurrencies. The encryption provided by the blockchain means that people cannot replicate these discrete, individually identifiable electronic items: One NFT isn’t the same as another NFT. That makes them different from cryptocurrencies, which are interchangeable (fungible), one for another.

And they can get sold for large sums.

The New York Times columnist Kevin Roose turned an electronic copy of his column about the rise of NFTs (“Buy This Column on the Blockchain!”) into an NFT and sold it for $560,000. The proceeds later were donated to charity, according to the columnist.

Christie’s auctioned an NFT for the first time in March, a digital photo collage by the artist known as Beeple that sold

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to the tune of $69 million. NFT-focused startup Dapper Labs raised $305 million from a host of celebrities ranging from basketball great Michael Jordan to actor Will Smith, valuing the company at $2.6 billion, after Dapper’s NBA Top Shot platform made waves with $500 million in sales of collectible “moments” — short video clips of NBA player highlights.

Just as technology has upended the way we use banks, it appears that it may change the way we invest in unique items such as art and sports — Richard A. Mayo Center for Asset collectibles. In other Management Executive Director words, NFTs may be the Rodney Sullivan start of something big.

GAMIFICATION IS CHANGING INVESTING. IT IS HERE TO STAY, AND IT’S DANGEROUS.

SPACS ARE BACK Another phenomenon from the last year was the resurgence in the use of so-called special purpose acquisition companies (SPACs). These public companies raise money for unspecified future acquisitions of private companies.

It’s a form of regulatory arbitrage, as it helps companies that want to go public avoid bureaucracy.

“SPACs are easier to get ramped up than an IPO,” says Professor Rich Evans.

Again, the low costs of borrowing combined with huge corporate stashes are the driving force behind SPACs. Vast volumes of cash now languish in corporate bank accounts, and the people charged with looking after that money want to find a better return than the zero percent that most deposit accounts offer.

That situation makes SPACs attractive to investors.

It is also notable that the last time SPACs became investor darlings was in 2007, Evans says.

That was near the end of the housing bubble, close to the top of the market, and was followed by a bear market. “I see the SPACs spike here as something close to an indicator of a market top,” he says. “We know that excessive IPO activity is an indicator of poor future returns.” That thinking gets even more

Vanguard and State Street, have all committed to using their influence with corporations to get companies to disclose information and operate as a positive force for society.

In the future, investors will need to understand a new set of metrics that help gauge which companies are performing well in their ESG efforts and which are not. “There will be challenges about what these new data mean,” Matos says. In turn, that will require savvy investors to go well beyond reviewing balance sheets and income statements.

credence now that professional athletes have also started to get into the SPAC business, often a sign of bad things to come.

ESG INVESTING FINALLY TAKES CENTER STAGE For years, investors have paid lip service to the principles of improved company performance regarding environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters. Now, those matters are being brought to the forefront by investors and governments alike.

The Securities and Exchange Commission will now require detailed reporting on such matters, says Professor Pedro Matos.

“The onus is now on the companies to expand on what they report,” he says. The largest investment companies, BlackRock,

K

A ‘K-SHAPED’ ECONOMIC RECOVERY: WHAT IS IT AND WHY DOES IT MATTER?

By Simon Constable The COVID-19 pandemic has had such an extraordinary impact on the U.S. economy that it gave birth to a new phrase to describe what economists are seeing: the “K-shaped recovery.”

Even those who have detailed knowledge of the economy may have found this novel terminology confusing. Here’s what you need to know about the term and why it matters.

“The pandemic recession was quite different from a normal recession,” says Professor Dan Murphy. Following most recessions, the economy tracks a V-shaped pattern. Put another way, there is faster than average growth as the economy rebounds after a sharp slowdown. Federal Reserve data shows the economy followed that track after U.S. recessions in 1991, 2001 and 2009.

But that didn’t occur in the same way last year. “Some industries got hit harder than others,” Murphy says. Some even prospered.

Rather like the letter K, there was a downward-sloping part of the economy and an upward-sloping part. The opening line in Charles Dickens’ famous novel A Tale of Two Cities seems as appropriate currently as it did in the 19th century: “It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.”

The Best of Times, the Worst of Times Despite the pandemic, some parts of the economy boomed in 2020, in particular the technology sector. “Firms had to think about new ways to do things, and a lot of those things involved adapting new technologies,” Murphy says. Amazon saw its profits surge to record levels as consumers switched to buying more online rather than at physical retail outlets. Demand for video conferencing services such as Zoom skyrocketed as people were forced to work from home. Delivery service companies prospered as in-store shopping became challenging.

Parts of the housing market boomed as people fled densely populated urban areas in favor of smaller towns and suburban locales.

Meanwhile, some sectors of the economy were brought to a

standstill. During the depths of the slump, annualized production of U.S. cars and light trucks was barely above zero, according to data from Trading Economics. It still hasn’t bounced back to prepandemic levels. Similarly, U.S. oil consumption cratered to its lowest level since 1995, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration. Demand for oil remains lower than before the crisis began. Restaurant and food service businesses were more or less shut down and shed millions of workers, with many smaller establishments expected never to reopen, experts say.

This economic bifurcation led to distinctly different employment outcomes, says Professor Kinda Hachem, with those fortunate enough to work at home faring relatively well and workers who couldn't work away from designated workplaces such as factories or restaurants facing significant reduced work.

Did the Government Step Up? The tale of two economies has led some to wonder whether the government provided the right help to the economy during the crisis. Large-scale direct payments to individuals and help for companies were appropriate steps, according to Hachem.

“Fiscal policy is still the right tool because it’s more effective in redistributing resources,” she says.

For the Federal Reserve, fixing the lack of jobs for those on the struggling leg of the K-shaped recovery will take priority over inflation. “The Fed will be willing to tolerate higher inflation to allow employment to improve across the board,” Hachem says.

There’s another longer-term ethical worry related to this K-shaped recovery. The pandemic’s impact on the economy may have resulted in making some jobs obsolete, Murphy says.

That’s always how technology innovation works: Some jobs die but some new ones get created.

“To what extent the gains outstrip the losses remains to be seen,” he says.

SUMMER 2021

27

FA C U LT Y P R O F I L E

Professor Shane Dikolli

Accounting ‘Can Change People’s Lives.’

He’ll Convince You Why.

More and more companies are starting to care about things that are not financial, like employee welfare and taking a customer-centric focus, so if accounting can help inform decisions that benefit people other than shareholders, I think it’s far from boring.”

— Professor Shane Dikolli

By Jen A. Miller

O

n any given day, you can find Professor Shane Dikolli walking through Charlottesville, climbing up and down the city’s rolling hills. It’s a habit he picked up during the pandemic. “I set a goal of 30 minutes of walking, at least. Sometimes I walk five to six miles a day.”

He’s thinking about almost anything: his kids, his students, the weather, what he wants to eat that day. But sometimes while he’s out there on those famous hills, he’s thinking about accounting, which he insists is not a dull topic. In fact, it’s vital “because it can change people’s lives. It can change people’s decisions, and those different decisions can change the path of a company and change the path of the people affected by them.”

Crossing Continents to Darden Dikolli is originally from Perth, the largest city in Western Australia. He was an academic lecturer at the Curtin University in Australia when he had the opportunity to do a teaching exchange in Canada. He jumped at the chance, in part to spend time with cousins he hadn’t seen in 20 years. While there, he met the woman who would become his wife.

“We’re from opposite sides of the world. We settled in the U.S. because we felt like that was a compromise between the two,” he said.

His U.S. path took him through the University of Texas at Austin and Duke University before landing at Darden in 2018. He came here in part because he wanted to do less administrative work and more teaching and research, and because Darden’s philosophy matched his academic style.

For teaching, he likes the case method approach. In one case he uses in class, a hospital is buying supplies from both 28

THE DARDEN REPORT

distributors and manufacturers, which adds both cost and time to the supply chain. Students figure out how to make a more profitable and efficient buying process for all three groups and present their findings to their fellow students.

“When they get to class, they’re ready to discuss the issues in the case and what the company could do to address those issues,” he said. “I’m facilitating rather than me just telling them things. It’s a way to get students engaged and involved, and they feel it more than they would if I was just lecturing them.”

Studying CEOs: ‘We’re Not a Fly on Their Shoulders’ Dikolli’s research has focused on CEOs and CEO behavior because of the massive influence they have on not just their shareholders and employees but the fabric of American life.

“CEOs have a lot of power, but we can’t observe directly what they do. We’re not a fly on their shoulders,” he said, “but we can infer things from what we see in financial data and shareholder letters and what they do in terms of working with CFOs. We can observe from a distance because it’s really important to understand what CEOs do with the power they’re given.”

In a 2020 paper published in The Accounting Review, Dikolli and his fellow researchers created the Integrity Index, which used computational linguistics to measure the integrity of CEOs, then related what a lack of integrity costs a company.

The model looked at more than 30,000 CEO letters to shareholders, analyzing the number of causation-related words and other phrases associated with explanations — words like “because,” “hence” and “therefore.”

“We figured that any CEO who has to over-explain things is

being defensive, potentially because they are lacking credibility,” Dikolli said.

They found that CEOs who tend to overexplain also lead their companies to pay higher audit fees, thus costing tangible money. “Part of what auditors do is check to see what they think of the integrity of top management,” he said. “Auditors will do more work if they consider the CEO to have low integrity.”

Measuring CEO Influence on CFOs and American Life In a paper published in Management Science, Dikolli also looked at the relationship between CFOs and CEO compensation. Sixty percent of organizations hire a new CFO soon after hiring a CEO, which researchers found is a good deal for that CEO but expensive for the enterprise.

They found that when CFOs were hired after the CEO, CEO compensation was 10 percent higher.

“Our conjecture is that the CEO pressures the CFO to do what he or she wants them to do, and that might mean manage earnings in a way that the CEO personally benefits,” he said.

However, the team also found that the 10 percent effect goes away after three years. “The CFO pushes back against the CEO because once they’ve been there that long, they get some courage.”

This kind of research through an accounting lens can lead to real change, he said. “More and more companies are starting to care about things that are not financial, like employee welfare and taking a customer-centric focus, so if accounting can help inform decisions that benefit people other than shareholders, I think it’s far from boring,” he said.

SUMMER 2021

29

R E UNION WE E K 19 –24 A PRIL 2021 More than 1,200 alumni from 35 countries registered for the virtual Darden Reunion Week. Reunion giving from alumni in their official reunion years had topped $7.2 million by the start of the week.

CH A RL E S C. A BBO T T AWA RD Darden Bestows Highest Honor on 2 Alumni, Including First International Recipient Thomas J. Baltimore Jr. (MBA ’91) and George Tahija (MBA ’86) were recognized with the Charles C. Abbott Award 24 April at the conclusion of the virtual Darden Reunion Week.

The award is the highest honor the Darden School bestows upon alumni and is presented annually to recognize outstanding contributions of time, energy and talent.

Baltimore was lauded for his “extraordinary leadership” as a member of the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees and Darden Racial Equity Cabinet. The Thomas J. Baltimore (MBA '91) president, CEO and chairman of Park Hotels & Resorts frequently serves as a guest lecturer in Darden’s perennially popular “General Managers Taking Action” class. He is a member of Darden’s Principal Donors Society and created a named fellowship to provide scholarship support to Black students at Darden.

“I love Darden. Darden changed my life, it changed the growth path of my career and I’m eternally grateful,” Baltimore said.

“My parents stressed the ‘three Ts.’ Give your time, talent and treasures. I have tried to do that and support our beloved Darden in many ways.”

Tahija, who was Darden’s first student from Indonesia, became the first international recipient of the Abbott Award.

The commissioner of PT Austindo Nusantara Jaya Tbk has served on Darden’s Board of Trustees and Global Advisory Council, is honorary chair of the School’s Powered by Purpose capital campaign, and is a frequent guest lecturer and speaker in Darden classes and events.

He and his wife, Laurel, created a fellowship to provide scholarships to students from Indonesia. The Tahijas, members of the School’s Principal Donors Society, provided foundational support for the Darden Institute for Business in Society and a lead gift to support the creation of a new arboretum and botanical gardens on Darden George Tahija (MBA '86) Grounds.

“I’m honored to be the 2021 recipient of this most distinguished award and would like to express my heartfelt appreciation,” Tahija said. “In my personal transition from studying to embarking on my life mission in Indonesia, Darden provided me with the education and confidence I needed.”

30

THE DARDEN REPORT

To update your contact information, call +1-434-243-8977 or email alumni@darden.virginia.edu.

401 Park Street Charlottesville, VA 22902

434.977.4005 lwoodriff@loringwoodriff.com

MAGNIFICENT BUNDORAM FARM PARCEL

H14 HIGHTOP DRIVE $1,045,000 With incredible views as well as an expansive area of level ground overlooking those views, this parcel is without question one of Bundoran’s finest. The 22 acres encompasses elevated, level ground for the house site as well as mature woods that border the building site on 2 sides for privacy. Most of the parcel is open & dotted w/ large oaks & other hardwoods. Electric & fiber optic internet to the lot. Enjoy access to 14 miles of hiking trails across 2,300 acres of Bundoran Farm. 15 mins from C’ville & UVA. MLS# 616172

c . 1750

HISTORICAL RESIDENCE ON 25 ACRES

3410 RIDGE ROAD • $2,700,000 Brinnington Farm is a magical residence built c. 1750 & original homestead of the Henry family (Patrick Henry) w/ lots of history & expanded through the years. Magnificent Blue Ridge views, kitchen & open living area opens to beautiful covered patio & backyard. Multiple add’l buildings. Reidar Stiernstrand (434) 284-3005. MLS# 610715

120 ACRE ESTATE MOMENTS TO TOWN

PRISTINE 45 ACRE FARM 15 MINS TO TOWN

DISTINCTIVE MEDITERRANEAN STYLE

ROUND HILL FARM • $5,450,000 With staggering, panoramic Blue Ridge views on display through the entrance gates & beyond, Round Hill Farm is a manicured country estate fronting the Rivanna Reservoir & moments to town. The c. 1940 brick home offers ideal balance of entertaining & casual spaces open to large, modern kitchen. Pool’s setting is framed by the views. MLS# 572196

3612 ROLLING ROAD • $1,750,000 Immaculate 4 bedroom w/ open floor plan overlooks rolling fields.

Main house is enhanced by studio w/ kitchen & full bath + wellconstructed multi-use barn. House overlooks equestrian arena & acreage is fenced & cross-fenced. 6 division rights. Bunny Gibbons (434) 466-9940 or Loring Woodriff (434) 466-2992. MLS# 614606

395 CLAYMONT DRIVE • $1,095,000 Set on over 2 beautifully landscaped acres, this custom built home has been maintained to perfection. Blue Ridge views from living room bluestone patio, kitchen patio, & the main entrance opens to covered patio & private courtyard. 2nd floor offers grand owner suite, en-suite bedroom, access to horseshoe shaped balcony. Reidar Stiernstrand (434) 284-3005

DISTINGUISHED COLTHURST HOME

ULTR A PR EMIUM CONDO BY THE M A LL

COVETED CONDO NEXT TO BOAR’S HEAD

100 TALLY HO DRIVE • $1,520,000 Create your own masterpiece by completing this custom renovation.

The home offers beautiful clapboard siding, copper roof, new garage doors, new windows & French doors, 6 heat pumps, updated plumbing, electrical, insulation, & so much more! Stunning 1st floor master is finished w/ new bath suite. Lindsay Milby (434) 962-9148. MLS# 614133

550 WATER STREET #500FA • $1,489,000 The 550 is an ultra-premium, boutique-scale condo building located 1 block off the Downtown Mall. This 5th floor unit offers direct access from elevator into the unit, private covered terrace w/ views of the vibrant downtown scene & mountains beyond, large windows, open floor plan, 2 garage parking spaces & storage unit. MLS# 599057

625 WORTHINGTON DRIVE #103 • $750,000 This 2 bed, 2.5 bath offers 2 terraces incl’ 1 overlooking Farmington w/ the Blue Ridge as back drop & direct access to the lovely, shaded gathering area. This unit includes formal dining & living, den/sitting room, eatin kitchen, laundry room & office. Enjoy Boar’s Head Resort & Sports Club, and Farmington amenities across the street. MLS# 616385

OVER 5 ACRES 6 MINS TO WAHS/HENLEY/BROWNSVILLE

493 BURCHS CREEK ROAD • $1,219,000 Located 6 mins from Western/Henley/Brownsville, this all brick home features 1st floor master, 3 bedrooms up + bonus room, & expansive guest quarters over garages. Terrace level is a showstopper, as is the pool & play court. The 5+acre lot w/ field for horses & level & rolling play areas. Firefly High Speed Internet! MLS# 616261

690 IVY LANE $2,600,000

ON 5 ACR ES IN FAR MINGTON

This stately brick custom, built in 2001 on 5 parklike acres, & tucked away on a quiet cul-de-sac in Farmington, offers a modern floor plan incl’ 1st floor master, great flow & plenty of room for work/school needs. 5 spacious bedrooms, 5.5 baths, gourmet kitchen, soaring ceilings, floor-to-ceiling windows, & a walk-out lower level. Serene, private setting w/ charming garden spaces, rolling lawn, quaint pond, & plenty of level yard. Exceptional offering just mins to UVA & Downtown. Sally Neill (434) 531-9941. MLS# 614013

SUMMER 2021

WWW.LORINGWOODRIFF.COM

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THE DARDEN REPORT

SUMMER 2021

33

CLASS NOT E S

862 CLUB DRIVE

VIEWMONT FARM • 354 ACRES

K E S W I C K , VA | $ 1 , 9 5 0, 0 0 0

CHARLOTTESVILLE | $6,300,000

Exceptional home by premier builder, in gated community of Keswick Estates. The 4 bed and 5.5 bath Arts & Crafts style home has all the modern conveniences including a large family room off of the gourmet kitchen, office / library, formal living room, large master, his and hers baths, stunning wood work throughout, coffered ceilings, and elevator. Privately situated on 3 acres, within walking distance to

Private, peaceful, immaculate one level, architect designed 3 bed / 3.5 bath home. 10’ ceilings, oak flooring, coffered ceilings, 8’ doors, gourmet kitchen, covered terrace and great room with wood-burning fireplace.

Private wing suitable as office / guest suite with sepa-

Exquisite Carter’s Bridge estate on historically significant property. Stunning mountain and pastoral views, river frontage, 10 miles to town. Gorgeous architecture and craftsmanship, luxury finishes — 10’ ceilings, wide plank oak floors, custom millwork throughout, copper roof, Rumford fireplaces, guesthouse / garage, fabulous pool. Bright living spaces that flow seamlessly indoors to out, designed to

club, and Pete Dye designed golf course.

rate entrance. Nature trails, high speed internet.

take in the remarkable natural surroundings.

JUSTI N W I L EY | 4 34 981 5528

J UST IN W IL E Y | 434 9 81 5 5 2 8

P E T E R W IL E Y | 4 3 4 4 22 20 9 0

C H A RLOT TESVILLE VA

|

6255 INDIAN RIDGE ROAD E A R LY S V I L L E , V A | $ 9 9 5 , 0 0 0

434 2 93 3900

W I L E Y P RO P E RT Y. C O M

ORANGE VA

|

540 672 3 90 3

58 ACRES • MADISON RUN ROAD

250 W MAIN STREET PENTHOUSE

42 ACRES • WINSOME ORCHARD LN

O R A N G E , VA | $ 3 9 5 , 0 0 0

CHARLOTTESVILLE | $1,250,000

NORTH GARDEN | $615,000

Wonderful views of the Southwest Mountains.

Land is mostly open pasture with three excellent building sites, good road frontage, two entrances. Property is fenced and currently used for grazing. Other features include electricity on the property, well, and an automatic waterer

Luxury living in the heart of Charlottesville! Spacious, light-filled penthouse, 2600 sq ft and perfect for entertaining. Central access to world-class music, shopping, dining and arts. Outdoor terraces with panoramic mountain views including UVA Rotunda and charming downtown skyline. Quick walk through booming West

Spectacular views in Bundoran — over the protected Edge Valley to Israel Mountain Range and beyond. Easy access to the Tom Mountain trailhead. Miles of trails, fiber optic internet, complete serenity all within 15 minutes of Charlottesville. Parcel is an equestrian lot

for livestock. Great parcel, priced to sell.

Main district to UVA grounds. 2 parking spaces.

which would allow the owner to have horses.

JUSTI N W I L EY | 4 34 981 5528

P E T E R W IL E Y | 434 42 2 2 0 9 0

P E T E R W IL E Y | 4 3 4 4 22 20 9 0

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THE DARDEN REPORT

To update your contact information, call +1-434-243-8977 or email alumni@darden.virginia.edu.

ALUMNI PROFILE

CYNTHIA SOLEDAD (MBA ’02)

Providing Leverage for Leaders on Diversity and Inclusion

D

uring transformational moments of crisis or growth, Cynthia Soledad (MBA’02) helps organizations identify and address the cultural norms that have hindered them.

ican employees. After eight years, Soledad returned to her hometown in Michigan to join Whirpool, where her father had made his career. There, she oversaw a major redesign of the KitchenAid brand.

As co-lead of the Diversity and Inclusion Practice at Egon Zehnder, a leadership advisory firm, the daughter of Filipino parents says she developed values focused on diversity and inclusion from the time she moved from the small, majority-white town in Michigan where she was raised to the University of Chicago, where she studied anthropology.

However, it wasn’t an easy homecoming.

Having experienced what was possible when corporations invested resources into recruiting and retaining diverse talent, she tried to influence the culture at Whirlpool — but she lacked leverage.

Soledad does her job by drawing on the experiences of her early career — and wisdom gained at Darden. During one pivotal lecture, Professor Ed Freeman used the analogy of a black box to illustrate minority underrepresentation in corporate leadership. Green and blue balls were fed into a black box in equal numbers, but when the box was shaken, the balls that came out were skewed 80/20. “You would wonder to yourself,” Soledad says, “‘What’s happening inside that box?’ It says something about the way that we filter through who should rise to the top as leaders. We filter out the diversity of those who feed into the organization.”

At Procter & Gamble in her first position after Darden, Soledad participated in a management training program the company instituted to correct a disproportionate rate of attrition among its Asian and Asian-Amer-

When Egon Zehnder approached her about consulting, she jumped on the opportunity to have a larger impact. Now, Soledad provides the leverage for others that she once wished she had. She says that advising executives on matters of employee recruitment, integration and development is the most rewarding work she’s done yet.

She advises executives to “run toward difference.” Comfort with difference is not a moral binary, she says; it’s a skill that can be improved with practice. To avoid being that black box from Freeman’s lecture, organizations should continue to embrace the human side of work as they return to the workplace.

“Attitudinally, the way to think about diversity and inclusion work is to come with really open ears,” Soledad says. “Sometimes we don’t realize the impact we have on each other.”

— Cameron Baumgartner SUMMER 2021

35

503 Faulconer Drive Charlottesville, VA 22903 434.295.1131 homes@mcleanfaulconer.com

MCLEAN FAULCONER INC. Farm, Estate and Residential Brokers ◆ LEWIS MOUNTAIN ◆

This circa 1900 National Historic Register home is situated on the most visible and spectacular knoll in Central Virginia with a 360 degree view overlooking the UVA, City of Charlottesville, and Blue Ridge Mountains as far as the eye can see. The stone manor is in sight of the Rotunda at the University, and is surrounded by dry-laid stone retaining walls on its 42+ acre site. With grand rooms, 14’ ceilings, fireplaces in every room and superb quality moldings, this special and unique property is a must see! Steve McLean, 434.981.1863 www.LewisMountainVa.com

MEADOWBROOK HILLS ◆ $2,150,000

C. 1946 brick home with slate roof on 1+ acre in desirable city location. Features main-level MBR and BA, huge eat-in kitchen, & sunroom across the back. 3-BR & 2-BA on the second floor, including original MBR. Walk-out terrace level features large rec room, 5th BR, & 4th full BA. 1.04-acre lot may possibly be subdivided. MLS#615341

RIVANDALE FARM ◆ $3,795,000

An oasis of tranquility & fine country living 20 mi to Charlottesville, 14 mi to airport. 177 acres featuring c.1901 farmhouse, completely remodeled & updated. Covered & screened porches, open terraces, & gunite pool. 12-stall stable, 2 garages, all land fenced and 3 ponds. MLS#609244 www.RivandaleVa.com

MERIDIEN ◆ $3,685,000

Private, peaceful, and perfect—a sophisticated country estate offering stunning Blue Ridge views from just over 40 rolling acres, 9 miles NW of Charlottesville. Circa 1840, character-rich yet modernized home with 5 BR and 3.5 BA. Under conservation easement. MLS#613521 www.MeridienFarmVa.com

WOODLANDS ◆ $1,495,000

Beautifully restored 1780s Colonial on 293 acres in Northampton County. This historic home has 4 BR, 3 full & 2 half BA, chef ’s kitchen, and sunroom overlooking back patio gardens. Property has access to deep water on the Machipongo River which flows into the Atlantic. Rare offering. MLS#614051 WoodlandsFarmVa.com

◆ CASTLEBROOK ◆ $1,595,000

A rare opportunity to own a little slice of heaven 25 minutes west of Charlottesville! This stately 2-story brick home built circa 1890 with 4 bedrooms and 3 baths nestled on just over 19 tranquil acres is the quintessence of understated elegance! The home was constructed from bricks that were made on the property and features a metal pyramidal roof, handsome heartpine and oak flooring, stunning woodwork, numerous fireplaces, custom built-in bookcases, enclosed sun porch, and so much more! MLS#616392

WWW.MCLEANFAULCONER.COM 36

THE DARDEN REPORT

TOTIER HILLS FARM ◆ $2,700,000

Exquisite brick residence, privately situated on 98 gently rolling acres, 15 minutes to Charlottesville.

Built of the best quality materials, expert craftsmanship, and meticulously maintained. Improvements include swimming pool, terraces, pool pavilion, and detached garage/shop. MLS#600284 www.TotierHillsFarm.com

To update your contact information, call +1-434-243-8977 or email alumni@darden.virginia.edu.

ALUMNI PROFILE

KHURRUM MALIK (MBA ’07)

Curiosity Custom-Made for the Digital Age

H

is father’s dream to travel the world sparked the curiosity that Khurrum Malik (MBA ’07) has carried since he was a young boy.

Curiosity still motivates him as head of marketing for Spotify’s advertising business.

“Digital is exhausting and exhilarating at the same time,” he says. “It is driving so much change and evolution in media and business models. If you’re endlessly curious and have fun with change, digital is the place to be.”

Born in Pakistan, Malik lived with his family in the Middle East before immigrating to the United States when he was 14. After earning a bachelor’s degree and master’s in IT from the University of Virginia, the soon-to-be triple Hoo enrolled at Darden to earn an MBA. He wanted to know how the technology he loved so much powered a company’s revenues. In his first job after graduating, he found out. At Microsoft, Malik was asked to build a pricing model to grow the company’s Exchange software line — which already generated $1.4 billion in profit — by 15–20 percent. He quickly realized the direct effect that technology levers in marketing could have on the bottom line.

It was the beginning of a rich career in advertising technology, or ad tech, the software that brands use for highly targeted

digital advertising. After serving in leadership positions at both startups and massive corporations, Malik returned for a second stint at Spotify last August to become head of marketing of its growing advertising business. He leads a global team of 150 that helps companies of all sizes see how advertising on the platform can help them reach their current and potential customers.

Malik says his career is built on themes that emerged at Darden. He remembers Professor Paul Farris exhorting his class, “I expect marketers to be as financially astute as bankers, and then be marketers also.

Marketing is more math than you think.”

“He was right,” Malik says. “I purposely took a ton of finance classes and a lot of data analytics classes.”

He also recalls the words of Professor Ed Freeman: “I’m going to teach you how to enjoy the moments of life. You’ve been living in data and bullet points, and you’re going to accelerate and you’re going to forget to smell the roses.”

Freeman’s lesson “was about using the muscle of appreciating the moment and not turning everything into data,” Malik says.

“Darden is a purpose-driven school. That’s a big part of it. They don’t just do things to get an economic output. They do them with purpose. That makes it a special place.”

— Sally Parker SUMMER 2021

37

CLASS NOT E S

ALUMNI PROFILE

LYNNETTE CROWDER (EMBA ’10) Learning to Lead from ‘Crucible Moments’

L

ynnette Crowder (EMBA ’10) decided early in her career to follow her curiosity and run toward challenges.

A mechanical engineering graduate of Virginia Tech, she was recruited by General Motors and offered a choice of working in the design group or operations. Most of her peers picked design, the sought-after darling of automotive engineering. Crowder chose operations.

“I said, ‘Actually, I’d much rather get experience managing people, leading people,’” she recalls. “They said, ‘Really? Are you sure?’ That was the beginning of a path of taking that analytical piece of me and fusing it with how to motivate and engage people.”

Crowder later moved into GM’s sales side, bringing fresh perspectives from operations.

She was in sales and enrolled in Darden’s Executive MBA when, midway through the program, the global financial crisis hit and GM declared Chapter 11 bankruptcy. At Darden, she found a place to pause and assess her next step. After graduating, she joined the general manager development program at MeadWestvaco to gain a high-level view of the business before choosing a specific path.

38

ment. They figured out benefits, answered questions. It was very transactional,” she says. “But in the last decade or so, that’s really transformed. For a lot of business leaders, there has been this realization that achieving a business strategy is so dependent on the talent and organizational capability that you have.”

Within six months of starting the job, Crowder was overseeing layoffs forced by a downturn in the oil and gas sector, and then the pandemic hit. The experience proved to be one of her biggest tests yet.

“I call it one of those crucible moments that can really crystallize a team. Being in a new role in the C-suite, facing the challenges of the time, was one of those,” Crowder says.

“Though it’s been really tough, it’s also been really valuable.”

Crowder serves on Darden’s Corporate Advisory Board. She’s eager to help open doors for students, particularly women, who lack a built-in network to advance their careers.

She still pulls out her notes from Professor Paul Simko’s financial accounting class to help colleagues explain accounting impacts in a clear and simple way.

At a mentor’s urging, she moved into HR. She was leading HR for a large division in late 2019 when US Silica recruited her to be senior vice president and chief human resources officer.

“He had a way of doing that. The way that he taught accounting was so business relevant, rather than transactional or technical,” Crowder says. “I actually have my accounting notebook on my shelf right now.”

“Years ago, HR was the personnel depart-

— Sally Parker

THE DARDEN REPORT

To update your contact information, call +1-434-243-8977 or email alumni@darden.virginia.edu.

SUMMER 2021

39

Corporate Partners Program

2020-21

The Darden School of Business wishes to thank all of our corporate partners for their support.

Their annual, unrestricted gifts to Darden support academic, student life and recruiting activities.

BRONZE LEVEL ($25,000+)

ORANGE LEVEL ($10,000+)

NAVY LEVEL ($5,000+)

For more information about corporate partnerships, contact Jenna Worley at WorleyJ@darden.virginia.edu or +1-434-924-4090.

40

THE DARDEN REPORT

To update your contact information, call +1-434-243-8977 or email alumni@darden.virginia.edu.

REMEMBERING MARIAN MOORE Professor Emerita Marian Moore died 15 May at UVA Hospital.

She joined Darden’s Marketing faculty from Duke’s Fuqua School of Business in 2001 and retired in 2015, and she served as the founding dean of the Executive MBA program. In a remembrance of Moore, Professor Susan Chaplinsky wrote that Moore “was a close friend to a number of faculty and staff, especially women faculty.” Many female faculty and staff members who worked with Moore held an informal gathering in June to share memories. Chaplinksy wrote: "Members of the gathering remembered that, after Pat Werhane

retired, Marian took over hosting several welcoming or celebratory dinners for women faculty. No dinner was without party favors and all of the fixings, including her famous cosmos.

On the other hand, the founding of the EMBA program not only required great skill in designing the program but also in navigating the approval processes from the faculty, UVA and state to bring it to fruition. Those who worked with her closely in those days remember her leadership style as collaborative and creative. She had a way of staying in the background while at the same time persisting to achieve the larger goal.”

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.

Nina Abdun-Nabi (MBA ’82)

Joseph P. Hawranek (MBA ’62)

Brian James Pratt (MBA ’07)

Bruce Michael Becker (MBA ’76)

Charles L. Hite (TEP ’81)

Diggory D. Robertson (MBA ’61)

Samuel Ray Barrett III (MBA ’74) Frank R. Bloxom Jr. (TEP ’80) Elmer T. Brooks (TEP ’78)

John F. Davies II (MBA ’70)

Brigitte C. Donner (MBA ’09)

Thomas Johnson Druitt (MBA ’78) James C. Dunstan (DBA ’73)

H. Kimball Faulkner (MBA ’58) Earl Mark Ferguson (MBA ’72) Robert J. Flaherty (TEP ’72)

Frederick E. Gignoux III (MBA ’62) Michael Towers Gothie (MBA ’69) Warren Harris Grasty (MBA ’79)

Robert Mason Hereford (MBA ’84) Donald W. Hoskins (MBA ’87) John H. Hunt II (TEP ’88)

Robert Peter Lalor (MBA ’80)

Harry Nelson Lewis (MBA ’57) Samuel J. Martin Jr. (TEP ’78) Brendan T. Miles (MBA ’88)

James M.E. Mixter Jr. (MBA ’75) William C. Moore (MBA ’70)

Albert Joseph Perini (MBA ’63)

George Galbraith Petty (MBA ’67) Edmund H. Polonitza (MBA ’80) Wilfred O. Prados Jr. (TEP ’76)

G. Burton Queen Jr. (MBA ’76)

Garland R. Robinson (TEP ’84) Frank M. Sands Sr. (MBA ’63)

Theodore Bailey Seelye (MBA ’75)

Christine Victoria Shim (MBA ’04) Frederic S. Smith III (TEP ’85) Collins Snyder (MBA ’57)

Collett Munger Thach Jr. (MBA ’78) James W. Todd (MBA ’64)

Brian N. Vogel (GEMBA ’18)

Donald M. Wilkinson Jr. (MBA ’66) Leo Johannes Zoutewelle (MBA ’68)

SUMMER 2021

41

CLASS NOT E S

Darden Leadership Boards

DARDEN SCHOOL FOUNDATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES

Mark J. Kington (MBA ’88) Kington Management LLC

CHAIR Robert J. Hugin (MBA ’85) Retired, Celgene Corp.

Naresh Kumra (MBA ’99) JMATEK Ltd.

The five leadership boards

IMMEDIATE PAST CHAIR Elizabeth K. Weymouth (MBA ’94) Grafine Partners

of the Darden School of Business are composed of more than 150 distinguished leaders who collectively serve as an innovative force in the advancement of the Darden School throughout the world.

(Listing as of 30 June 2021)

VICE CHAIR Martina T. Hund-Mejean (MBA ’88) Retired, Mastercard Worldwide

Kirby C. Adams (MBA ’79) Retired, Tata Steel Europe Scott C. Beardsley University of Virginia Darden School of Business J. Andrew Bugas (MBA ’86) Radar Partners Wesley G. Bush Retired, Northrop Grumman Corp.

H. William Coogan Jr. (MBA ’82) Retired, Firstmark Corp.

James A. Cooper (MBA ’84) Thompson Street Capital Partners Charles R. Cory (MBA/JD ’82) Retired, Morgan Stanley & Co. Inc Robert G. Doumar Jr. (MBA/JD ’88) Park Square Capital LLP Frank S. Edmonds (MBA/JD ’95) Panning Capital Management LP Richard C. Edmunds (MBA ’92) Strategy & PwC Karen K. Edwards (MBA ’84) Boyden Global Executive Search Warren F. Estey (MBA ’98) Deutsche Bank Arnold B. Evans (MBA/JD ’97) Truist John D. Fowler Jr. (MBA/JD ’84) Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Nicole McKinney Lindsay (MBA ’99/JD ’00) Mastercard Worldwide Elizabeth H. Lynch (MBA ’84) Evercore Paul Mahoney University of Virginia School of Law Richard A. Mayo (MBA ’68) Game Creek Capital

Steven C. Voorhees (MBA ’80) Former President and CEO, WestRock

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS CHAIR Warren F. Estey (MBA ’98) Deutsche Bank PRESIDENT Patrick A. O’Shea (MBA ’86) ICmed LLC

Sachin J. Mehra (MBA ’96) Mastercard Worldwide

Kristina M. Alimard (MBA ’03) University of Virginia Investment Management Co.

Carolyn S. Miles (MBA ’88) University of Virginia Darden School of Business

Yiorgos Allayannis University of Virginia Darden School of Business

Donald E. Morel Jr. (TEP ’97) Progenitor Capital LLC

Keith F. Bachman (MBA ’89) Bank of Montreal

J. Byrne Murphy (MBA ’86) DigiPlex Group Cos.

Megan C. Bailey (Class of 2021) President, Darden Student Association

Adair B. Newhall (MBA ’09) Greenspring Associates

Christine P. Barth (MBA ’94)

Michael E. O’Neill (MBA ’74) Retired, Citigroup Inc.

Mary Buckle Searle (MBA ’86) Strategic Thought Partners

Patrick A. O’Shea (MBA ’86) ICmed LLC

Sandhya K. Chhabra (EMBA ’17) Albemarle Endocrinology PLC

G. Ruffner Page Jr. (MBA ’86) McWane Inc. Zhiyuan “Jerry” Peng (MBA ’03) Sands Capital Alex R. Picou (MBA ’89) J.P. Morgan

Jerome E. Connolly Jr. (MBA ’88) J. Connolly Financial Consulting LLC Andrew G. Crowley (MBA ’11) Markel Corp.

Richard P. Dahling (MBA ’87) Fidelity Investments Christian Duffus (MBA ’00) Fonbnk Inc.

James E. Ryan University of Virginia

Michael J. Ganey (MBA ’78) GaneyNPD

Frank M. Sands (MBA ’94) Sands Capital

Ira H. Green Jr. (MBA ’90) Simmons Energy

Henry F. Skelsey (MBA ’84) 3QU Media LLC

Owen D. Griffin Jr. (MBA ’99) OSHAKits.com

Erik A. Slingerland (MBA ’84) EAS International SA

Evan A. Inra (EMBA ’08) Amazon Web Services

Robert W. Smith (MBA ’87) T. Rowe Price Co.

Kendall Jennings (MBA ’12) Accenture

Michelle B. Horn (MBA ’95) Delta Air Lines

Shannon G. Smith (MBA ’90) PointGuard

Bruce D. Jolly (MBA ’67)

Robert L. Huffines (MBA ’92) J.P. Morgan

Mark J. Styslinger Altec Inc.

Harry N. Lewis (MBA ’57) Retired, Lewis Insurance Agency Inc.

David B. Kelso (MBA ’82) Retired, Aetna

Bruce R. Thompson (MBA ’90) Bank of America

Kristina F. Mangelsdorf (MBA ’94) Visa

Rosemary B. King (MBA ’91) Global Heritage Fund

Joaquin Rodriguez Torres (MBA ’01) Princeville Global

Taylor H. Meyer (MBA ’13) Goldman Sachs

John W. Glynn Jr. Glynn Capital Management Kirsti W. Goodwin (MBA ’02) Tower 3 Investments Peter M. Grant II (MBA ’86) Anchormarck Holdings LLC Yael Grushka-Cockayne University of Virginia Darden School of Business

THE DARDEN REPORT

Jeanne M. Liedtka University of Virginia Darden School of Business

William P. Utt (MBA ’84) Retired, KBR Inc.

C. Evans Poston Jr. (EMBA ’17) Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP

Catherine J. Friedman (MBA ’86) Independent Consultant

42

Lemuel E. Lewis (MBA ’72) IVMedia LLC

Lilo Simmons Ukrop (MBA ’89) University of Virginia Darden School of Business

To update your contact information, call +1-434-243-8977 or email alumni@darden.virginia.edu.

Douglas T. Moore (MBA ’80) Goedeker’s Betsy M. Moszeter (EMBA ’11) Green Alpha Advisors Richard J. Parsons (MBA ’80) Elvis Rodriguez (MBA ’10) Bank of America Nancy C. Schretter (MBA ’79) The Beacon Group David A. Simon (MBA ’03) SRS Capital Advisors Inc. Jason Sinnarajah (MBA ’07) Buffalo Bills Henry F. Skelsey Jr. (MBA ’15) Connected Travel LLC David L. Tayman (MBA/JD ’99) Tayman Lane Chaverri LLP Shaojian Zhang (MBA ’99) CITIC Capital

CORPORATE ADVISORY BOARD CHAIR Richard C. Edmunds (MBA ’92) Strategy & PwC VICE CHAIR Michelle B. Horn (MBA ’95) SoftBank Group Indy Adenaw (MBA ’08) Management Leadership for Tomorrow

LinkedIn Sunil K. Ghatnekar (MBA ’92) Adelink Ltd. Marcien B. Jenckes (MBA ’98) Comcast Cable John B. Jung Jr. (MBA ’84) Harry A. Lawton III (MBA ’00) Tractor Supply Company Marguerite M. Longo (MBA ’08) Johnson & Johnson H. Whit McGraw IV (MBA ’07) S&P Global Market Intelligence Fernando Z. Mercé (MBA ’98) Melissa & Doug LLC Diem H. D. Nguyen (MBA ’01) Xalud Therapeutics, Inc. Ann H. S. Nicholson (MBA ’01) Corning Daniel E. Polk Humana Abby A. Ruiz de Gamboa (MBA ’04) Deloitte Consulting LLP Joseph V. Schwan (EMBA ’13) Baxter International Inc. Colin P. Smyth (MBA ’04) Amazon Thomas J. Steenburgh University of Virginia Darden School of Business Scott A. Stemberger (MBA ’04) The Boston Consulting Group

Danielle Eesley Amfahr 3M Company

Eric M. Swanson (MBA ’08) Amazon

Stuart C. Bachelder (MBA ’06) DaVita Kidney Care

Edward W. Valentine (MBA ’93) Harris Williams & Co.

Mazen G. Baroudi EY

Gerrud Wallaert (TEP ’18) RWE Renewables Americas LLC

Kelly Becker (MBA ’08) Schneider Electric

Meghan A. Welch (MBA ’10) Capital One

Mark S. Bower (MBA ’02) Bain & Company

Steven D. Williams (MBA ’06) Delta Air Lines

Adam P. Carter (MBA ’02) WestRock

Gary R. Wolfe (MBA ’92) Wells Fargo Securities LLC

William S. Cohen (MBA ’07) Bank of America Private Bank Robert E. Collier (MBA ’10) ChemTreat Sean M. Corrigan (MBA ’05) The Walt Disney Company D. Lynnette Crowder (EMBA ’10) U.S. Silica Company Daniel A. Dougherty (MBA ’94) Wells Fargo Sarita T. Finnie (MBA ’01) Bayer Consumer Health Joseph B. Folds (MBA ’91) OFD Foods Theresa O. Frankiewicz (MBA ’87) Crown Community Development Ivy L. Ghatan (MBA ’09)

DEAN’S DIVERSITY ADVISORY COUNCIL CHAIR Alex R. Picou (MBA ’89) J.P. Morgan VICE CHAIR Nicole McKinney Lindsay (MBA ’99/JD ’00) Mastercard Worldwide Tawana Murphy Burnett (MBA ’04) Facebook William S. Chichester III Microsoft Paige T. Davis Jr. (MBA ’09) T. Rowe Price Co.

Jacqueline Grace (MBA ’10) Caesars Entertainment Corporation

Antonio U. Periquet Jr. (MBA ’90) Pacific Main Holdings, Campden Hill Group

Ray R. Hernandez (MBA ’08) Northrop Grumman

Hagen Radowski (MBA ’91) Porsche Consulting Inc.

Andrew C. Holzwarth (EMBA ’09) Piedmont Realty Holdings

Yudhono Rawis (GEMBA ’16) PT Ringan Teknologi Indonesia

Octavia G. Matthews (MBA ’89) Aramark Uniforms

Mayra A. Rocha (GEMBA ’16) Project M Media

Tiffani C. Moore (EMBA ’16) Federal Housing Finance Agency

Arpan R. Sheth (MBA ’96) Bain & Company

Reynaldo Roche (MBA ’07) Infinity Air Group

Nishal Sodha (GEMBA ’17) Global Hardware Ltd.

Caroline D. Schoenecker (MBA ’11) Deloitte

Alok Vaish (MBA ’97) Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd.

Rhonda M. Smith (MBA ’88) California Black Health Network

Jing Vivatrat Golden Gate Capital

Cynthia K. Soledad (MBA ’02) Egon Zehnder

Jeffrey J. Yao (MBA ’01) Profision Shipping Capital Management Ltd.

Deborah Thomas (MBA ’89) Somos Inc. Daniele M. Wilson (MBA ’11) Google

Hai Ye (MBA ’04) McKinsey & Company

GLOBAL ADVISORY COUNCIL CHAIR Naresh Kumra (MBA ’99) JMATEK Ltd. VICE CHAIR Joaquin Rodriguez Torres (MBA ’01) Princeville Global Marcos P. Arruda (MBA ’02) Zilor Jennifer E. Chick (MBA ’08) Hilton Worldwide Christine H. Davies (MBA ’09) Poligage David R. Frediani Cyber Special Ops, LLC Janeth Gomez Gualdron (GEMBA ’17) Capital One Financial Management Wei Jin (MBA ’99) Prudential Financial Corporation Shawn Liu (MBA ’05) DAO Investments Richard K. Loh (MBA ’96) Ploh Group Pte. Ltd. Todd R. Marin (MBA ’89) Blue Ox Ventures Lois M. McEntyre (MBA ’95) General Motors Corp.

Rajan J. Mehra (MBA ’93) March Capital Pascal Monteiro de Barros (MBA ’91) Stirling Square Capital Partners Nikhil Nath (MBA ’00) NSQ Advisory Agustín Otero Monsegur (MBA ’06) OM Invest

Thank you to our alumni and volunteer leaders for a record year of support for Darden.

SUMMER 2021

43

ALUMNI PROFILE

1. What was your first job?

I was a paper boy and a caddy. I think I started working when I was 10!

2. What’s the best advice you have ever received?

Be grateful for everything; feel entitled to nothing. I feel blessed to have had the opportunities given to me, but also know I worked hard to make the best of them all.

3. Whom do you most admire?

Questions Mark Mercurio (MBA '04)

I

CEO, The Gorilla Glue Co.

n a world where many jump from one company to the next to advance their careers, Mark Mercurio (MBA ’04) climbed the corporate ladder the old-fashioned way, spending more than 10 years at consumer packaged goods powerhouse Procter & Gamble before rising through the ranks at The Gorilla Glue Co. for five years to become the company’s president and CEO in 2019.

While his post-Darden career path could be characterized as traditional, he’s among a rare number of chief executives to reach their seat through a marketing career path. The former P&G brand manager, who was chief marketing officer at The Gorilla Glue Co. before becoming CEO, says marketers bring a valuable set of skills and mindset to the CEO’s office. Learn more about his interests, leadership style and why he’s not losing any sleep at night.

44

THE DARDEN REPORT

My parents. They sacrificed a lot for their children to succeed.

Thankfully, we have all made the most of it.

4. What motivates you?

My wife and kids. I always strive to have balance in my life. I work hard to achieve my personal and professional goals but will never do it at the expense of my relationships with my family.

5. When and where do you do your best thinking?

When I exercise. A good sweat helps to make something complex or stressful feel much more manageable.

6. What’s been on your mind lately?

Hoping our country and the world becomes far less divided than it is right now.

7. What are you reading these days?

I’m more of a podcast guy. I just listened to a fascinating podcast interview of Jack Clark, acclaimed head rugby coach at University of California-Berkeley, talking about the importance of values and culture in a winning team.

8. What technology can you not live without?

Spotify. I need my music! Of course, I prefer to listen on my iPhone so I guess I cannot live without that as well.

9. What’s your motto?

Be who you are and be that well (St. Francis de Sales). I was raised and taught to be confident in and comfortable with who I am.

10. How do you deal with conflict?

Conflict stems from differences in motivation. Taking the time to understand those differences in motivation, then dissecting them openly, takes the emotion out of conflict.

11. What characteristics do you look for in people?

Humility, empathy and high expectations. I believe you can be humble and relatable while also expecting the best from yourself and others. I have no patience for arrogance or hubris.

12. What is your “superpower”?

Being able to see and leverage other people’s “superpowers.”

13. What is your favorite cause?

Helping kids whose family situations are not as favorable as mine was.

14. If you could live anywhere, where would it be?

Telluride, Colorado, in the summer. Turks and Caicos in the winter.

15. What do you lose sleep over?

I don’t lose sleep. I have built a great team that I trust implicitly and stay true to myself. That is a good recipe for a full eight hours!

16. Which class at Darden impacted you the most?

All my finance classes. Having studied engineering, running a business looked complex to me. The finance classes made all concepts of business management much simpler to me than they seemed on the surface.

17. What’s your favorite Darden memory?

First Year study groups. Camaraderie is the reason I chose Darden, and those study groups built meaningful relationships on Day One. 18. What’s your No. 1 tip for current Darden students?

Do not get trapped into the self-imposed pressure of other people’s successes, and do not let other people’s constructs of success define your career choices.

19. You served as chief marketing officer at The Gorilla Glue Co. before becoming president and CEO. What advantage do you think marketers bring to the chief executive seat?

I think marketers who grew up in brand management bring a few advantages to the CEO seat. First, to build a brand you must think long-term. It requires strategic thinking, long-term investment and consistency in your messaging. This long-term thinking transfers well to overall corporate strategic thinking. Second, it requires an intense understanding of the markets you play in, brands you compete against and consumers you serve. A hyper-focus on your markets, competitors and end-users helps you avoid the pitfalls of focusing too much internally instead of externally. Third, marketers are focused on changing behaviors through communication. This skill of thinking in terms of behavior change — be it in consumers, employees, customers, suppliers — has served me well as CEO in driving positive change and growth.

20. In an era when many MBA grads change employers frequently, you worked your way up the ranks at Procter & Gamble for 10 years after Darden before spending the last seven years at The Gorilla Glue Co. Why was that career path right for you?

I’m a loyal guy. I get that from my parents, who both worked at the same place for decades. I have always been inclined to find a place where I can grow roots. Growing roots has allowed me to confidently invest in relationships across a large swath of the organization, which in the long run has served me well. Growing roots has also helped my family feel confident in building plans for our livelihood, like our house, kids’ schools, etc.

Staying in one place also allowed me to focus first on my personal growth. I never felt like I was chasing a title or a salary, which is a distraction, in my opinion. I was able to focus solely on growing as a leader. Admittedly, if I were not growing, I would have left, but I was lucky to find myself at two great companies where I could invest in relationships, grow as a leader and have stability for my family. At times, it required patience, especially early in my career. It was tempting to get distracted watching other people climb the ladder quicker by jumping around.

But I stayed true to myself and that worked out in the long run.

SUMMER 2021

45

PROGRAMS DESIGNED FOR

TODAY’S LEADERS.

Darden Executive Education & Lifelong Learning is excited to invite you back to Darden Grounds this Fall for in-person programs and to announce an expanded portfolio. In-person, online and live virtual programs led by Darden faculty provide the skills and insights that leaders need today to innovate and effectively lead data-savvy teams.

Registration for individuals and teams is open now.

NEW NONCREDIT CERTIFICATE PROGRAMS DATA SCIENCE FOR BUSINESS STRATEGY BUSINESS STRATEGY DESIGN THINKING

FEATURED PROGRAMS DIGITAL MARKETING INNOVATION FINANCIAL MANAGEMENT FOR NON-FINANCIAL EXECUTIVES LEADING TEAMS FOR GROWTH AND CHANGE View our full listing at darden.edu/ee-fall21.

Connect with a concierge at Darden_ExEd@darden.virginia.edu to find the right program to meet your career goals.

Provided by the UVA Darden School Foundation

Darden Executive Education offers comprehensive management DARDEN ALUMNI EXCLUSIVE development programs to help you advance and to prepare your senior leaders for succession.

Develop 30% Off All strategic-thinking capabilities and Executive Education enterprise perspectives to drive growth amid constant change and Programs disruption.

Register with promo code ALUMNI30

Modular programs take place in‑person in Charlottesville, the Washington, D.C., area and online.

Programs begin this fall.

Special program pricing available for Darden alumni.

Darden Executive Education & Lifelong Learning

FALL 2021 OPEN PROGRAMS NAME

Live Virtual

Online

DATES

FEE

9 Aug.–24 Sep.

$2,700

8–17 Sep.

$7,450

Live Virtual

Certificate in Design Thinking (3-program noncredit certificate)

13 Sep. 2021– 13 Mar. 2022

$1,500

Online

Innovation

Certificate in Business Strategy (3-program noncredit certificate)

13 Sep. 2021– 3 Apr. 2022

$2,400

Online

Strategy

Leading Mindfully: Preparing for the Next Normal

14 Sep.–6 Oct.

$3,450

Live Virtual

Strategic Execution: Achieving Breakthrough Performance

20–23 Sep.

$7,900

Washington, D.C., Area

Leading Teams for Growth and Change

20–24 Sep.

$9,450

Charlottesville, VA

Leadership

Managing Individual and Organizational Change

27–30 Sep.

$8,500

Charlottesville, VA

Leadership

3–8 Oct.

$9,450

Charlottesville, VA

Management

5 Oct.–14 Nov.

$2,700

18–22 Oct.

$9,450

Charlottesville, VA

Leadership

Data Science for Business Strategy: Strategic Use of Data

17–18 Oct.**

$3,550

Charlottesville, VA

Data Science/ Analytics

Data Science for Business Strategy: Data Science Methods and Applications

19–20 Oct.**

$3,550

Charlottesville, VA

Data Science/ Analytics

Data Science for Business Strategy: Managing Information for Analytics

21–22 Oct.**

$3,550

Charlottesville, VA

Data Science/ Analytics

24–29 Oct.

$9,450

Charlottesville, VA

Leadership

1–5 Nov.

$7,950

Charlottesville, VA

Data Science/ Analytics

16–19 Nov.

$7,450

Charlottesville, VA

Corporate Aviation

5 Dec. 2021– 17 Jun. 2022

$39,950

Digital Marketing Innovation Negotiating Success: A Learning Laboratory

Financial Management for Non-Financial Executives Introduction to Digital Transformation

Women in Leadership Program

Leading With Humanity: New Skills for the Digital Age Strategic Data Analytics for Competitive Advantage Leading Change in the Corporate Aviation Function The Executive Program: Strategic Leadership at the Top

DELIVERY/LOCATION

In-Person

Live Virtual Online

Live Virtual Online

Live Virtual Charlottesville, VA & Washington, D.C., Area

CATEGORY Digital Transformation Management

Leadership Strategy

Digital Transformation

Comprehensive Management

**Register for all three programs together for program bundle cost of $9,450.

For up-to-date information on upcoming programs, please visit darden.edu/ee-fall21 Darden Executive Education & Lifelong Learning is provided by the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation.

For more information, contact: WINTER 2021 SUMMER 2021 Darden_ExEd@darden.virginia.edu • +1-434-924-3000 • www.darden.virginia.edu/executive-education

47 47

NONPROFIT ORG. U.S. POSTAGE PAID PPCO University of Virginia Darden School Foundation P. O. Box 7726 Charlottesville, VA 22906-7726

Change Service Requested

The Darden School improves the world by inspiring responsible leaders through unparalleled transformational learning experiences.

48

THE DARDEN REPORT