The Darden Report Winter 2023

THE D ARDEN RE P OR T

SUSTAINABILITY SUSTAINING

WILL MARKET PRESSURES SLOW EFFORTS TO ADDRESS ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL CONCERNS? 16

MADE POSSIBLE BY YOU

FUNDING FLEXIBLE MERIT-BASED SCHOLARSHIPS

TRAINING THE WORLD’S BEST TEACHING FACULTY

ENHANCING THE VALUE OF YOUR DEGREE

Springing Forward

What does not move forward, this French saying reminds us, moves backwards. Surely this is as true in business school as anywhere in life, and here at Darden, we are always seeking to understand, innovate and grow. But as you will see in this issue of The Darden Report, we do so from a set of human-focused values that connect our future to our past.

One example came this fall with the 550 new MBA students who arrived for their “first day of school” (Page 7), something every one of our alumni has experienced. Yet this year, it was also a sign of innovation, as we welcomed students from all MBA formats to Grounds on the same day for the first time, including those from our new Part-Time MBA program.

Darden continues to adapt to the rapidly changing business of business school while maintaining our focus on faculty excellence, a high-touch education experience and a tightknit community. On Page 12, we examine the shifting landscape of business education and explore how Darden’s signature approach can thrive by meeting today’s students where they are and finding talent everywhere.

When you read the profile of Professor Roshni Raveendhran (Page 30), you’ll see that her cuttingedge work on artificial intelligence is grounded in a deep understanding of human psychology. Leaders who remember that people use this rapidly changing technology will be better positioned to succeed no matter where it goes.

This spring, we’ll celebrate another new beginning with the opening of The Forum Hotel here on our

Grounds (Page 6). This amazing venue will create more learning opportunities and deeper connections for everyone at Darden — and across UVA and Charlottesville. We will also open the new C. Ray Smith Alumni Hall, which will house the Darden School Foundation and the Sands Institute. None of it could have happened without one of Darden’s most powerful traditions: giving back.

The Forum will be a LEED-certified facility surrounded by a verdant arboretum and botanical gardens — part of our sustainability strategy — and it reflects our conviction that business, and business school, can be a force for good. In the world of practice, this idea has taken shape in corporate sustainability efforts. But with fears of a recession looming, our cover story asks if sustainable actions can be sustained (Page 16).

As ever, Darden’s top-ranked faculty will be central to the solution for any challenge we face, and we were delighted to welcome 12 talented new professors to the School this fall (Page 10). Our faculty members win awards (Page 11) and advance critical new ideas (Page 26). If you are thinking about ways to help Darden, support for our faculty is one way to ensure we maintain excellence in all we do.

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

Qui n’avance pas, recule.

The Darden Report is published twice a year with private donations to the University of Virginia Darden School Foundation.

© 2023 Darden School Foundation

Winter 2023, Volume 50, No. 1

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

Carolyn Miles (MBA ’88) President, Darden School Foundation

Juliet K. Daum

Chief Marketing and Communications Officer

EDITOR

Jay Hodgkins

ART DIRECTION & DESIGN

Tira Hightower

FEATURES AND COVER DESIGN

Ross Bradley

WRITERS

Dave Hendrick

Molly Mitchell

Tom van der Voort

CLASS NOTES EDITOR

Egidijus Paurys

PHOTOGRAPHY

Ali Johnson

Sam Levitan

Stephanie Gross

Andrew Shurtleff

Susan Wormington

22

VC Has a Gender Equity Problem

Sustaining Sustainability

PROFILES

30

70

75

90

98 20 Questions: Cathy Friedman (MBA

New Faculty, New Ideas

From

Darden School Foundation Names Alumna Miles Interim President

The Darden School Foundation in January announced that Michael Woodfolk resigned as president of the Foundation. Professor Carolyn Miles (MBA ’88) is serving as interim president.

Miles’ current role at Darden, which she will maintain while serving in the interim leadership role, is John Alden Purinton Jr. Professor of Practice and senior adviser to the dean. Previously, she served as CEO of Save the Children for eight years, where she led a staff of more than 1,700, completed a successful capital campaign, and drove work and resources to positively affect children in 120 countries.

Woodfolk worked for 22 years at the Darden School Foundation, which includes advancement, engagement, executive education and hospitality operations. He began at the Foundation as director of alumni affairs in 2000, became the first vice president for

alumni affairs and then senior executive director of engagement. In 2017, he was named president. He is a 2005 graduate of Darden’s The Executive Program.

“Michael has contributed to building one of the most engaged global alumni bases in graduate business education, as well as record fundraising for the School’s Powered by Purpose campaign,” said Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees Chair Martina Hund-Mejean (MBA ’88).

“We appreciate his two decades of service to Darden and wish him well in his future endeavors,” said Dean Scott Beardsley.

“It has been an honor to serve Darden and its Foundation,” said Woodfolk. “The Foundation and School have strong momentum, and as I focus my energies on a new chapter, I would like to thank the people who have helped me throughout my tenure and made my 22-year journey so meaningful.”

POWERED BY PURPOSE CAMPAIGN PREPARES TO ENTER NEW PHASE

Progress in Darden’s Powered by Purpose campaign stands at $382 million (excluding matching funds and gifts made to other foundations on behalf of Darden), just shy of the initial milestone of $400 million that will mark completion of the campaign’s first phase. The latest campaign progress was driven by strong fiscal year 2022 fundraising, which totaled $40.5 million in new commitments and a record number of major gifts.

Fiscal year 2022 fundraising highlights included:

• $11.6 million from alumni who celebrated a Darden reunion, up 19 percent over the five-year average

• $5.7 million raised for the Darden Annual Fund

• $5 million in new Planned Giving commitments

• 13 new members of the Principal Donors Society, which recognizes donors at the $1 million and above level

• 50 major gifts of more than $100,000, a Darden record

Thanks to our generous campaign donors, the School can now pursue additional funding priorities that help Darden do even more to improve the world by inspiring responsible leaders.

The campaign runs through 30 June 2025. In its next phase, Powered by Purpose will seek to fund new initiatives and emerging opportunities to support faculty excellence, scholarships and the student experience, Grounds, and the Darden Annual Fund.

Carolyn Miles (MBA ’88)

Third-Largest Gift in Darden History to Advance Faculty, Research, Grounds

Darden announced the third-largest gift in its 67-year history in October: $44 million from Risk Management Technology

Founder David M. LaCross (MBA ’78) and his wife, Kathleen O. LaCross. With $6 million in matching funds from the University of Virginia, the total impact of the gift to Darden is $50 million. The impacts include:

■ A $6.5 million bequest toward a future Darden research center or initiative on artificial intelligence

■ $18 million in current funding to endow and name the dean’s chair at Darden, composed of a $12 million gift from the LaCross family and $6 million in matching funds from the UVA Bicentennial Professors Fund

■ A $20.5 million lead gift and seed funding to catalyze the construction of on-Grounds residential housing at Darden in support of the Darden Master Plan

■ $5 million to name the botanical gardens at Darden, now under construction

“I RECOGNIZED WELL BEFORE GRADUATING THAT I OWED A TREMENDOUS DEBT TO DARDEN FOR ITS EFFECTIVE USE OF THE CASE METHOD, AN EXTRAORDINARY FACULTY THAT KNEW HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF A CLASS AND MY CLASSMATES. I HOPED FROM THE OUTSET THAT I WOULD BE IN A POSITION TO GIVE SOMETHING BACK SOMEDAY.”

— David M. LaCross (MBA ’78)

From left to right: David LaCross, Kathy LaCross and University of Virginia President Jim Ryan

Open This Spring: The Forum Hotel

As construction of the new hotel on Darden’s Charlottesville Grounds nears completion this winter, the School is preparing for the grand opening this spring by announcing the property’s name.

Introducing The Forum Hotel at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business in Charlottesville, now accepting reservations for stays beginning in July.

Kimpton Hotels & Restaurants will manage the hotel, which is Kimpton’s first location on a college campus. The hotel, owned by the Darden School Foundation, will support Darden’s academic mission as a setting for degree-program activities and faculty conferences and symposia. It will also serve as a site for meetings and events, such as corporate conferences and weddings. Profits will help fund academic priorities, such as scholarships and faculty excellence.

The hotel will house approximately 11,500 square feet of meeting space, classrooms for educational gatherings and a ballroom with capacity to seat 425 guests. Five acres of botanical gardens and an arboretum on the hotel grounds include a stream, pond and trails connecting to the Rivanna Trail and other parts of North Grounds.

The five-story building will feature 198 guest rooms, including 12 suites, private dining, a wine cellar, a taproom and a ground-level restaurant with an outdoor terrace.

Amenities for guests include morning coffee and tea service, an evening social hour, in-room yoga mats, complimentary bicycles and pet-friendly policies.

Designed by Cooper Carry architects, the hotel will meet specifications for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) certification.

“The hotel and its arboretum and botanical gardens won’t just be beautiful; they will support Darden’s academic mission,” Dean Scott Beardsley said. “Not only will they serve as the center of our lifelong learning programs, they will offer the entire University of Virginia and Charlottesville communities a place for social, spiritual and educational growth, and wellness.”

To reserve a room or plan an event at the The Forum Hotel, visit forumhotelcharlottesville.com

Rendering of the interior entry vestibule of The Forum Hotel, opening spring 2023

First Part-Time MBA Cohort Highlights New Student Arrivals

Darden welcomed more than 550 First Year MBA students to Grounds in Charlottesville in mid-August, an annual event made even more significant due to the arrival of the inaugural class of Part-Time MBA students. Members of the Part-Time MBA, who will earn their degrees at different paces, start their journey with the Full-Time MBA and Executive MBA classes of 2024 and Master of Science in business analytics (MSBA) Class of 2023.

New Batten Institute Executive Director Returns to UVA for ‘Massive Opportunity’

Omar Garriott joined Darden as executive director of the Batten Institute on 1 September.

“I’m deeply honored to be selected as the fifth executive director of the Batten Institute,” said Garriott, who holds an undergraduate degree from the UVA McIntire School of Commerce. “I’m thrilled to return to the university I love in this capacity after many years in tech. It’s a massive opportunity at a critical time.”

A successful corporate intrapreneur, venture founder and author with leadership experience in a variety of technology firms, Garriott leads the institute in supporting Darden’s mission to improve the world by developing responsible leaders through unparalleled transformational learning experiences.

Founded in 1999 thanks to a transformative $60 million endowment gift from entrepreneur and philanthropist Frank Batten Sr., the Batten Institute

plays an integral role positioning Darden as a global leader in the entrepreneurial economy and in technology, innovation and venture capital. The institute has been at the heart of many innovations at Darden, leading the i.Lab Incubator, the Venture Capital Initiative and Collaboratory for Data Science in Business with the UVA School of Data Science, among other efforts.

After McIntire, Garriott took a position in Washington, D.C., with Teach for America. The experience helped inform his outlook and career, which has included leadership roles with the education divisions at companies such as Adobe, Apple, LinkedIn and Salesforce. Most recently, Garriott served as global head of education at Qualtrics.

“As we searched for a new leader, Omar stood out for his passion for UVA, Darden, education and successful track record across Batten’s key focus areas,” said Dean Scott Beardsley.

Batten Institute Executive Director Omar Garriott

Another Year of Record-Breaking Career Results

The Full-Time and Executive MBA Class of 2022, along with the Master of Science in business analytics (MSBA) Class of 2021, entered a strong job market offering record salaries.

From the Metaverse to Global Markets: New Courses at Darden

Darden professors launched several new courses for the 2022–23 academic year, considering topics from the European Union in a global economic context to doing business in the metaverse and more.

» “Women, Gender, and Work: Leadership Stories and Career Narratives” Taught by Professor Allison Elias, this Communication course explores how gender norms influence the trajectory of one’s career as well as the pursuit and attainment of leadership positions.

» “Creating Value in the Metaverse” The new Global Economies and Markets (GEM) course taught by Professor Anton Korinek and Batten Institute Senior Director David Touve exposes students to the developing technologies, strategic dynamics and economic underpinnings of virtual worlds and economies.

» “Humanitarianism and International NGOs: Is the Model Fit for Purpose or Obsolete?” Students examine the global humanitarian system in this Strategy course taught by Professor Carolyn Miles, with a focus on the system’s growth in the past 50 years and the primary actors involved.

» “Games, Competition, and Cooperation” Quantitative Analysis Professor Sasa Zorc teaches this businessworld course on game theory, covering issues including competition between firms, trading in financial markets, auctions, international politics, warfare and artificial intelligence.

» “GEMstone” Taught by Professors Frank Warnock and Kinda Hachem, this GEM course takes a deep dive into international finance, money and banking issues, such as the international payments system, the role of the U.S. dollar in global finance, interest rates, and crypto and digital currencies.

» “EU and the World Economy” Professor Stefan Ruediger’s new GEM course helps students learn about the fundamental differences and similarities between the EU and U.S., examining the history of the EU and its unique market, policy and regulatory features.

Meet Darden’s Newest Faculty Members

Darden welcomed 12 new faculty members ahead of the 2022–23 academic year, including the first Bodily Bicentennial Professor in Analytics.

Les Alexander will work in the Finance and Strategy, Ethics & Entrepreneurship areas as a professor of practice and the John Glynn Professor in Venture Capital. Previously a professor at Tulane’s Freeman School of Business, Alexander has extensive professional experience in investment banking, venture capital and private equity.

Ian Appel joins the Finance area as an associate professor. His main area of interest is empirical corporate finance. Prior to Darden, Appel held positions at Georgetown University and Boston College. He earned a Ph.D. in finance from the Wharton School.

BO SUN

LAUREN KAUFMANN

ANTHONY PALOMBA

MELANIE PRENGLER

AYANA YOUNGE

ZHIHAO ZHANG

LILLIEN ELLIS SERENA HAGERTY

ERIC SIEGEL

MATT MCBRADY

LES ALEXANDER IAN APPEL

Lillien Ellis joins the Leadership and Organizational Behavior area as an assistant professor after earning her Ph.D. at Cornell University. Her research interests are idea theft, creativity and innovation, entrepreneurship, and social dynamics in corporate knowledge work.

Serena Hagerty, assistant professor in the Marketing area, focuses on the social consequences of economic inequality. Hagerty was a Stone Ph.D. Scholar at the Harvard Kennedy School and earned her Ph.D. in marketing from Harvard Business School.

Lauren Kaufmann joins the Strategy, Ethics and Entrepreneurship area as an assistant professor with a focus on behavioral ethics, social impact and impact investing. Kaufmann received her Ph.D. in business ethics from the Wharton School.

Matt McBrady is now full time in the Finance area as a professor of practice. McBrady returns to academia following a career as an investor and entrepreneur. He earned his Ph.D. in business economics from Harvard University.

Anthony Palomba joins the Communication area as an assistant professor. Palomba focuses on how professionals can present data and insights through storytelling and why audiences consume entertainment. He received his Ph.D. in mass communications from the University of Florida.

Melanie Prengler, assistant professor in the Leadership and Organizational Behavior area, focuses on diversity, work arrangements and allyship. She earned her Ph.D. from the Mays Business School at Texas A&M University.

Eric Siegel is the inaugural Bodily Bicentennial Professor in Analytics, joining Darden as a visiting scholar. He will share his expertise in machine learning as a consultant and professor. Siegel earned his Ph.D. in computer science from Columbia University.

Bo Sun joins the Global Economies and Markets area as an associate professor after working at the Federal Reserve as a principal economist. She earned her Ph.D. in economics from the University of Virginia.

Ayana Younge, assistant professor in the Leadership and Organizational Behavior area, was a postdoctoral researcher and the behavioral lab manager at the Kenan-Flagler Business School, where she also earned her Ph.D. in organizational behavior.

Zhihao Zhang joins the Marketing area as an assistant professor. Formerly a postdoctoral scholar at the Haas School of Business, he studies consumer behavior. Zhang earned his Ph.D. from Yale University.

FACULTY AWARDS & ACCOLADES

Professor Luca Cian and co-author won the American Marketing Association Research in Practice Award for the article “Artificial Intelligence in Utilitarian vs. Hedonic Contexts: The ‘Word-of-Machine’ Effect.”

Professor Peter Debaere was awarded a National Science Foundation grant to work on “Coordinating Water Markets and Critical Infrastructure Management to Build Community Resilience to Extreme Drought.”

Professor Shane Dikolli received the Excellence in Reviewing Reward from the Financial Accounting and Reporting Section.

Professor Ed Freeman won UVA’s Thomas Jefferson Award for Scholarship, considered the highest honor awarded to University faculty.

Professor Dennie Kim received an Early Career Investigator Award from the American Heart Association’s Council on Quality of Care and Outcomes Research.

Professor Tami Kim won the American Marketing Association’s Best in Track Paper Award for “Women-Owned Businesses: Owner Attribute Label Increases Perceived Competence for Marginalized Populations.”

Professor Marc Lipson won UVA’s All-University teaching award.

Professor Dwai Roy’s paper “Taxing the Taxpayers: An Empirical Investigation of the Drivers of Baseline Changes in U.S. Federal Government Technology Programs” was named the INFORMS Technology, Innovation, Management and Entrepreneurship Studies Paper of the Month.

Professor Saras Sarasvathy won the 2022 Swedish Entrepreneurship Forum Global Award for Entrepreneurship Research. She was also awarded an honorary doctorate by Sweden’s Chalmers University of Technology.

Professor Emeritus Elliott Weiss’ case “Beau Ties Ltd of Vermont” was recognized by the Case Centre as one of the 15 bestselling cases in production and operations management.

Professor Andy Wicks and co-authors were recognized for best paper at the International Association of Business & Society Conference for “The Fork in the Road for Social Enterprises: Leveraging Moral Imagination for Long-Term Stakeholder Support.”

Professor Ting Xu received the Best Paper Award at the 2022 Utah Winter Finance Conference for his paper “Regulatory Costs of Being Public: Evidence from Bunching Estimation.”

The world has come to expect great teaching and learning experiences from Darden. The task now is to enable the future of our young scholars to scale the heights of a storied past and even exceed them.

— Professor S. “Venkat” Venkataraman, Senior Associate Dean for Faculty and Research

THE BUSINESS OF B-SCHOOL

How will Darden’s signature approach to education adapt as industry shifts?

BY DAVE HENDRICK

Since immigrating to the United States during the Guatemalan Civil War, Marleny De León (Class of 2024) has never stopped studying and learning. After an undergraduate career in Arizona that sparked her interest in ethnographic studies, she moved on to graduate at the top of her class at Stanford with a master’s degree in Latin American studies, then completed a Fulbright-funded research project exploring deaf communities in Italy.

Interested in growing her quantitative skills, De León followed Stanford with a master’s of public policy in education with an emphasis in quantitative research methods at Vanderbilt, from which she graduated in three semesters. A network of entrepreneurs and business leaders in Europe helped put an MBA on her radar, and De León realized a solid foundation in finance and capital markets would best help her accomplish her future goals.

Spurning offers of entrepreneurial-focused, one-year master’s degrees at Harvard and Wharton, De León accepted a Darden Breakthrough Scholarship, awarded by the Darden School Foundation to elite women and underrepresented minority students interested in a career in asset management. By fall, she was settling into the pace and workload of a 21-month Full-Time MBA and already looking ahead to a summer internship in a field she had not previously considered: investment banking.

“It was a hard decision to make,” said De León of opting for a traditional MBA over the many alternatives in the marketplace. “Ultimately, it was the knowledge that I was going to leave this two-year period with the confidence to walk the walk — it’s more than just a degree.”

The business of the MBA is cyclical like any other, but Darden depends on a critical mass of top talent with De León’s mindset to attract future leaders to its bread-and-butter offering.

SURVEYING THE LANDSCAPE

Right now, the footing at Darden and its elite peers remains strong, even as the ground beneath the broader industry continues to shift. The return on investment of the Darden MBA remains rock-solid, with the most recent Darden graduating class earning a record-setting base mean salary of $157,090 (excluding bonuses) and 96 percent employed within three months of graduation. The upward momentum comes as Darden students benefit from a growing pool of scholarship support and financial aid. Scholarship and support programs such as Future Year Scholars, AccessDarden, Impact Fellows and Breakthrough Scholars are helping widen the pool of prospective applicants.

Despite the clear ROI, after two years of doubledigit application growth to the Full-Time MBA, applications for the Darden Class of 2024 were essentially flat year over year, with roughly 3,000 applicants leading to 348 enrolled students. Even so, Darden beat the trend among top MBA programs, many of which reported steep application declines from the boom years at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic. An October The Wall Street Journal headline summed up the dive in applications: “The Hot Job Market Is a Problem for Harvard, Wharton, Other Top MBA Programs.”

A 2022 student survey from the

Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC) offers a window into applicant interest. Full-time, in-person MBA programs remain the most popular program format, drawing the interest of 40 percent of prospective students. While interest in strictly online programs remains flat, interest in in-person and online hybrid approaches has increased significantly. Darden’s growth in the Executive MBA, Part-Time MBA

rising sticker price of an MBA. While students with international backgrounds have helped fill classes to traditional levels at many top schools, including Darden, Byrne said it was too early to declare a permanent demographic shift or a general softening of interest in an MBA.

The landscape could look dramatically different in as few as six months, particularly in the case of a recession,

and Master of Science in business analytics (MSBA) in the Washington, D.C., area serves as a testament.

Roughly one-fifth of GMAC survey respondents now express a preference for hybrid program delivery, up from 14 percent in the previous survey.

There are also proliferating options for graduate business degrees available to today’s students, from online and one-year MBAs to corporate programs to a mushrooming group of specialized master’s degrees.

Long-time business education chronicler John Byrne, publisher of the MBA news website Poets & Quants, recently described the market as “uncertain,” given lingering impacts from the pandemic and a broader economy impacted by the cross-currents of a hot job market but a growing threat of recession.

Speaking shortly after the start of the academic year, Byrne said top trends included a continued decline in domestic applicants (a phenomenon he linked in part to a strong U.S. jobs market), the explosion in online degrees and the

when applications generally rise, he said. Noting the double-digit drops in application volume at some top schools, Byrne said industry alarmists would do well to remember MBA programs are coming off two years of record volume, and the candidates in the pipeline tend to be as strong as ever.

“The pool is still deep, it’s still high-quality and the people who really want to get an MBA want one for the right reasons,” said Byrne. “They see the value in the degree. They see the network they will graduate into, the friendships they will make. And for the people who have made this decision, it is pretty much a no-brainer.”

NEW PATHS, SAME HIGH-TOUCH EXPERIENCE

In 2022, prospective learners have multiple paths to the top-notch business education taught by Darden professors. Students interested in an MBA can pursue a full-time experience in Charlottesville, or the Executive MBA and new Part-Time MBA taught in a hybrid format and based at UVA Darden DC Metro in the Rosslyn district of Arlington, Virginia.

With the addition of the MSBA,

“[Applicants] see the value in the degree. They see the network they will graduate into, the friendships they will make. And for the people who have made this decision, it is pretty much a no-brainer.”

Grushka-

Cockayne

— John Byrne, Poets & Quants

which the school presents jointly with the UVA McIntire School of Commerce, Darden now has more than 400 students learning in the Washington, D.C., area.

The formats offer options that fit the lives of a wide swath of learners while keeping the emphasis on the quintessential high-touch Darden experience.

“We’re interested in the quality of the program and the quality of the students and the experience they are having,” said Darden Dean Scott Beardsley. “We’re not interested in scaling something that’s not high quality.”

After examining the market and seeing an opportunity for professional students who wanted to continue to work but needed a more flexible timeline to complete their studies, Darden launched the new Part-Time MBA in August with nearly 70 students.

“We started planning this pre-pandemic, but especially in the world we find ourselves in today, many students want flexibility,” said Darden Senior Associate Dean of Professional Degree Programs Yael Grushka-Cockayne. “As the School considered potential avenues to expand the reach of the Darden MBA, the Part-Time format was the one that maintained the hallmarks of the Darden experience while potentially tapping into a new audience.”

WHAT’S NEXT?

Darden continues to prepare students with the core competencies needed for a future-ready career, including problem-solving, decision-making, effective communication, creativity, empathy and relationship-building — all of which are honed in the case method classroom.

Yet, Darden leaders know there is no room for complacency. The School has steadily innovated in recent years in response to student and employer

demand, with increased experiential learning opportunities, additional Batten Institute-powered courses in technology-related fields and dual-degree offerings such as the MBA/master’s in data science.

The School is also advancing new capabilities brought about by the Sands Institute for Lifelong Learning, which aims to establish Darden at the forefront of innovation in instruction and delivery of transformational learning experiences, in both degree programs and Darden Executive Education & Lifelong Learning.

Anne Trumbore, chief digital learning officer at the Sands Institute, is among those helping position the School’s offerings and leads the new Darden Digital Hub.

For Executive Education & Lifelong Learning, that may mean innovations

such as alternative qualifications and microcredentials that demonstrate new skills learned. These credentials could be earned via short executive education courses, for instance.

“Flexibility is really the name of the game, and designing programs such that they meet a really diverse set of students’ needs,” said Trumbore.

Today, elite institutions offer a premium high-touch experience while providing multiple convenient ways to access knowledge and develop skills. That’s the promise that attracts hundreds of driven individuals like De León each year, and it’s what the Darden community intends to fortify amid a rapidly changing landscape.

“We have two main challenges,” said Trumbore. “Pushing awareness of our excellence delivering in-person education and building more sophisticated digital products and partnerships to move the forefront of digital education.”

Trumbore

SUSTAINING SUSTAINABILTY

WILL MARKET PRESSURES SLOW EFFORTS TO ADDRESS ENVIRONMENTAL AND SOCIAL CONCERNS?

By Tom van der Voort

Once upon a time, businesses interpreted profit and value to mean the same thing, and both were measured in dollars. Today’s leaders are much more likely to look beyond the direct economic benefits their businesses create to consider social and environmental impacts as well. This broad concept of “sustainability” is now firmly rooted in business thought and increasingly a part of business practice.

But with global economic and market turmoil brewing, advocates could be forgiven for wondering if a recession, or even fears of one, will drive leaders to focus more acutely on financial performance and less on sustainability.

Experts from the Darden community don’t dismiss the concern, but to assess it, they draw a critical distinction between older efforts at “corporate social responsibility” (CSR) and sustainability management. Whereas the former treats investment in positive social goals as something that’s “nice to have,” says Katherine Neebe (MBA ’04), the chief sustainability officer at Duke Energy, the latter takes a broader view, looking to total value. “There is a business case for doing good, and you need to build that into your value proposition or else you are missing some real risk and some real upside.”

START AT THE TOP, TAKE THE LONG VIEW

Professor Mike Lenox, Darden’s chief strategy officer, has been studying sustainability for 30 years. He notes that interest in the environment, in particular, can wax and wane in response to the economy, but over time has taken root. “It’s part of C-suite discussions at this point. You’d be hard pressed to find a company that isn’t thinking seriously about its footprint, what they can do about it, the risks that are inherent and the opportunities it creates.” The more sustainability is part of the core business strategy, he says, the less it fades in moments of business pressure.

Neebe says a recessionary cycle could be a moment to invest more in sustainability as opposed to pulling back. Economic pressures can prompt innovation in operational efficiency, waste reduction, effective communica-

tion with stakeholders, risk identification, supply chain management and long-term strategy. All are pillars of sustainability.

“One way to think about sustainability is that it requires transition,” says Lenox. “Take the automobile industry, which is closely tied to the business cycle. If you are cutting production and dealing with excess inventory because demand is down, it could be a time to re-tool factories and accelerate the transition to electric vehicles.”

“A company like Duke Energy,” Lenox adds, “is looking 20 years ahead right now, trying to plan for a clean energy transition that it knows is occurring. In that timeframe, a recession can be a blip on the radar.”

Neebe provides a first-hand view. “Duke’s biggest risk is climate change. Our biggest opportunity is climate change. So when you look at our capital plan, 85 percent of it is toward the clean energy transition, roughly $145 billion. But when you look at the value side of it — job creation, economics and several other benefits — we are around $250 billion. And that doesn’t happen if we don’t move forward.”

Neebe says Duke will retire 16 gigawatts of coal in the next decade and replace it with existing cleaner energy sources like natural gas, solar and batteries. However, the company is planning for much deeper in the future.

“When you look out to the mid-2030s, you’re talking about promising new technologies such as advanced nuclear, small modular reactors, hydrogen long-duration storage. And some scientist somewhere is cooking up something we don’t even know about yet. We’ve got to make sure we’re making the right investments and building an energy system that can accommodate all the above.”

COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE, NOT COST

Grace Hucek (MBA ’22) came to Darden with sustainability already part of her worldview. “I worked in the ski industry, and there was a big difference in years where there wasn’t as much snowfall. You could see how closely financial success was tied to environmental factors.”

Lenox

Hucek

Now a senior business analyst with Yellowstone Forever, a nonprofit that supports Yellowstone National Park, Hucek also sees sustainability as a route to value creation. “Businesses are finding ways to take on some of these externalities so that they become, not a cost to the company, but a competitive advantage.”

Businesses might predict, for instance, that carbon pollution, a classic example of a negative externality, will increasingly be included in the price of their goods — through regulation, market forces or both. Success reducing carbon emissions would then provide a cost advantage in the marketplace. But Hucek points out that, particularly for her generation, consumers increasingly decide to price sustainability. “You see it when a company like Patagonia factors sustainability into their supply chain and their employee practices and is able to charge a premium price because of it.”

The labor market can also respond, she says, as talented employees consider sustainability in their job decisions. “Companies need to adjust their practices to attract millennials and Gen Z. Taking on these ESG [environmental, social and governance] factors may have a price, but it ultimately lowers the total cost of finding and keeping good candidates. And it will continue to move in that direction.”

RIGOROUS MEASUREMENT

Lauren Kaufmann, who joined Darden this year as an assistant professor, looks at sustainability from the investment side, specifically “how investors conceptualize and measure impact.” Measurement, she says, is one of the key challenges sustainability efforts face.

“Over time, investors have accumulated rigorous and meaningful ways of measuring financial performance. We can assess risk. We can assess return. But the same is not true for the social impact side. As investors

increasingly value the social and environmental performance of their investments, assessing social impact becomes a key issue for asset managers and other financial institutions.”

Indeed, impact investing has grown by roughly 15 times in the last two decades, with assets managed to generate positive social or environmental value in addition to financial returns surpassing $1 trillion for the first time in 2021, according to Barron’s.

As investments rise, investors become increasingly sophisticated in how they measure impact, says Kaufmann, but to date, there is not consensus. “To speak with one impact investor is to understand just one way of measuring performance. When it comes to assessing the impact of different investments, we are in a fascinating moment of change and innovation. I think we should expect refinement over the coming years.”

VALUE FOR INVESTORS

When Sam Selig (MBA ’22) attended Darden, he was drawn to impact venture capital (VC). He found work with Oslo, Norway-based Katapult Ocean, which funds projects “that have a positive impact on the ocean or on climate that are sourced from the ocean.”

From his perspective, there is tremendous opportunity in the natural capital available from a resource that covers 70 percent of the world’s surface area and is a critical factor in both climate regulation and the food supply. “The understanding of natural capital on land is progressing quickly. For example, there’s an appreciation that returning unproductive farmland to its natural habitat can create financial value. If we get the same understanding of the natural capital in the ocean, you’ll see new ways to extract value there that improves the health of the ocean, rather than degrades it.”

Selig sees VCs continuing to invest in sustainability-focused opportunities because funds are equipped with a “significant amount of public and private capital” that has come to them with sustainability and impact mandates.

Kaufmann

Over time, investors have accumulated rigorous and meaningful ways of measuring financial performance. We can assess risk. We can assess return. But the same is not true for the social impact side. As investors increasingly value the social and environmental performance of their investments, this becomes a key issue for asset managers and other financial institutions.”

— Professor Lauren Kaufmann

“In addition to altruists, these ideas are funded by people who want to make money, which is great and necessary. It’s not just viewed as a good thing to do. And corporations are looking to ensure their business models will work in 10, 15, 20 years as these climate impacts keep coming,” Selig says. “With recessionary concerns, I do think it will slow down capital being deployed, but in the VC space, climate has proven to be relatively resilient in the last two-and-a-half years because the demand case is pretty clear at this point.”

Still, Selig isn’t sanguine about what a global downturn could do to sustainability efforts. “It will be interesting to see what the next recession will do.” Even with a long-term dynamic that favors sustainability, “it could all go out the window. That’s totally plausible.”

BUSINESS CYCLE REALITIES

The integration of sustainability into an organization’s calculation of value cannot insulate it entirely from the business cycle. Just as financial performance can suffer in downturns, so, too, can sustainability efforts.

“Right now, we have inflation, fears of a recession and what rising interest rates might do to capital projects,” says Hucek. “Uncertainties can scare companies and investors and push sustainability into the background.” Banks that had made commitments to net-zero carbon emissions at the 2021 United Nations Climate Change Conference are now backing away, in part due to war in Ukraine. Bloomberg

reports that global bank lending to fossil fuel companies is up 15 percent, to more than $300 billion, in the first nine months of 2022, compared to 2021.

However, to say sustainability responds to market forces and short-term events isn’t the same as saying it’s the first thing to go when times get tough. Organizations that have put in the time to include this broader view of value in their outlook will make a wide variety of decisions. For some, that could be speeding up the path to sustainability. For others, it may include slowing down. Investors, consumers and employees will weigh the costs and benefits of sustainability commitments, too. But that process itself may be a sign that sustainability isn’t going away. It’s just what happens in the normal course of business.

Selig

In addition to altruists, these ideas are funded by people who want to make money, which is great and necessary. It’s not just viewed as a good thing to do. And corporations are looking to ensure their business models will work in 10, 15, 20 years as these climate impacts keep coming.”

— Sam Selig (MBA ’22)

PLANT A TREE AT DARDEN

We invite you to support a new fundraising initiative.

Darden is planting 1,300 trees ranging from dogwoods to Eastern redbuds in the five-acre arboretum and botanical gardens surrounding The Forum Hotel. Name a tree — or trees — with a gift of $10,000 per tree to support the new Arboretum Establishment and Sustainability Fund. This fund will be used for the creation and maintenance of the arboretum and gardens, which will provide an unparalleled destination on Grounds and capture over 30 metric tons of carbon dioxide annually. Naming a tree is a meaningful way to honor your class or individual classmates, a faculty member, a family member or loved one, or a club or organization.

The trees will include a combination of local and global varieties, consistent with Darden as a school in the Commonwealth and of the world. Support the School through a sustainable gift that will create a healthy Virginia forest and a greener Darden for years to come.

For more information, contact Director of Annual Giving Brad Neathery at NeatheryB@darden.virginia.edu or +1-434-243-5220.

GENDEREQ U I TYINVENTURECAP I T A L PROGRESSS I GNALSNEWMOMENTUM, ANDDARDENLOOKSTOCONTR I

By Molly Mitchell

If admitting the problem is the first step toward recovery, it’s fair to say that the venture capital (VC) industry has taken a step forward.

It is known — and widely discussed — that women are significantly underrepresented in decision-making roles at venture capital firms. According to a report from the National Venture Capital Association, 16 percent of decision-makers at U.S. venture capital firms were women as of 2020. This ratio represents an incremental improvement over the past few years, but that is cold comfort for those working toward gender equity. The numbers are even grimmer for women of color.

And yet, one would be hard-pressed to find an investment firm that doesn’t profess a desire to bring more women partners to the table — for the sake of equity and for the sake of profit. Venture capital firms perform better financially with more diverse teams of decision-makers, according to a report from West River Group.

“If anything, firms would really like to broaden their pool, so I think there’s a tremendous amount of receptivity [to hiring women partners],” said Michele Rankin, career coach at Darden’s Career Center.

With the problem acknowledged, what’s the holdup with step two?

Beware Potential Bias

The hunger among female MBAs and other women to break into the VC world is strong. At Darden’s Women in Leadership Summit this fall, the panel on venture capital was packed, and the questions that poured in were often variations on the theme of “How do I get in?”

According to Rankin, venture capital is particularly challenging to gain entry in part because there isn’t a straightforward path or standardized qualifications for the job. Instead, most hiring tends to happen through long-term relationship-building within trusted circles.

It involves “a lot of hustle,” said Rankin. “It takes an incredible network.” Studies show that human beings tend to unconsciously trust and favor those who seem most similar to themselves. The world of startups and the money behind them seems to move quickly from the outside, but the people at the top are few and turnover is far-between. Though diverse representation is improving, there’s not a critical mass of women and minority venture capitalists to course correct without more conscious action.

A Very Particular Set of Skills

Another reason it can be so difficult to break in to venture capital and private equity is that there aren’t that many firms, and the firms themselves are small — perhaps three or four partners with a few junior associates (mostly without MBA degrees). It is not an industry designed to raise and cultivate raw talent at scale. Their hiring needs are partners and employees ready to go straight out of the box, according to Professor Elena Loutskina.

“These are smaller enterprises with a very specific need, at a very specific point of time, and they want that specific need to be filled by someone who is qualified, has

experience and can add something to the development,” said Loutskina, academic director of Darden’s Venture Capital Initiative.

What a venture capital firm may need includes a wide range of skills and experiences and depends so much upon the unique situation of each firm.

“Finding a job in VC is like finding a spouse,” she said. “There are a lot of people walking around who have potential, but there is something in that match that has to work and gel exceptionally well to form a good family.”

Check Writers and Check Cashers

More equitable representation of women in decision-making roles at investment firms is half of an equation set to grow the footprint of women in the startup ecosystem as a whole, according to MJ Toms, director of education and experiential learning at Darden’s Batten Institute.

“From my point of view,” says Toms, who counsels students with entrepreneurial aspirations, “the lack of women in VC matters because female founders don’t get funded.” In 2021, startups founded by women only received 2.4 percent of the total capital invested in venture-backed startups in the U.S., according to a 2022 report from Pitchbook.

The elements contributing to the disparity of funding could ease with more women involved in writing the checks, however. According to a study by Kauffman Fellows, women venture capitalists invest in twice as many female-founded startups as their male counterparts.

In addition to bias, whether conscious or unconscious, a limited

Loutskina

“Finding a job in VC is like finding a spouse. There are a lot of people walking around that have potential, but there is something in that match that has to work and gel exceptionally well to form a good family.”

— Professor Elena Loutskina

ability to understand the kinds of problems some women founders are seeking to solve leaves men with blind spots when it comes to how valuable a product or service could be for its intended audience. “I do think most of the investors are consciously trying to invest in women,” said Toms. “But I think it really is hard when they haven’t experienced the problem the founder is trying to solve.”

Seeing Is Believing

While the data doesn’t look great now, trends in the right direction have those in the space feeling optimistic.

“I think we’re on a good upward trajectory,” said Rankin. “We do see more women going into venture capital and private equity firms. That’s exciting because then they’re visible to those that follow. If you see people like yourself who are successful in VC, you’re more likely to think you can be successful in that field, too.”

Darden has launched several initiatives to increase the visibility of careers in VC, private equity and asset management; uplift diverse professionals in those fields; and create the networks and relationships necessary to break in. The Darden Venture Capital Initiative, launched in 2021, supports education, experiential learning and professional development in the venture capital industry for Darden students. The initiative includes the Darden Venture Fellows Program, which offers internship experiences at top venture capital firms, and the Darden Breakthrough Scholars Program, a scholarship initiative designed to foster diverse leadership in asset management. These programs, taken hand-in-hand with the Women@Darden initiative, provide promising starting points for these notoriously unclear career paths.

Never Tell Me the Odds

For women who have set their cap on venture capital, the scant numbers of women in the field can be discouraging, and next steps might seem murky.

If the questions that came up at the venture capital panel at the Women in Leadership Summit are representative, there is a strong desire tinged with apprehension among women thinking about breaking into the space. Loutskina says that putting doubt aside is the first step on the road to becoming a venture capitalist.

Darden Venture Capital Initiative Leadership Team

The Venture Capital Initiative at Darden provides students with a suite of world-class curricular, experiential and professional offerings to support their educational interests and long-term career pursuits in venture capital.

• Les Alexander III

John Glynn Endowed Professor and Professor of Practice in Business Administration

• Caitlin Boyer

Associate Director of Private Capital Strategic Initiatives

• Elena Loutskina

Peter M. Grant II Bicentennial Foundation Chair in Business Administration and Professor of Business Administration

• Paul Reeder

Senior Director, Careers in Finance, Darden Career Center

• Rodney Sullivan

Executive Director, Richard A. Mayo Center for Asset Management

• Robert Creeden

Managing Director, UVA LVG Seed Fund

Those looking into it “need to figure out if it’s worth fighting for and look at it rationally rather than through rose-colored glasses,” she said. “In the classroom, I’ve seen an amazing number of highly qualified women who are smart, thoughtful and lead with warmth. I know they can move mountains, if they put their minds to it.”

Loutskina sees women at Darden doing just that. “Over the last five years, our female students went to work for the growth equity industry or private equity industry in the same numbers as their male counterparts.”

Next, she advises anyone looking at a career in VC to think of a Venn diagram with three circles: one is the technical skill set you need, one is career experience and the third is what the employer is looking for. For venture capital, the technical skill set is relatively fixed, but the variables of your personal experiences and what each VC firm is looking for both vary widely. That’s why it’s so hard to delineate specific steps to become a venture capitalist.

“Every single fund needs a unique puzzle piece,” Loutskina said. With that variability in mind, she recommends focusing on the subject matter you’re interested in, pursuing excellence and experience in a field and staying on the lookout for your moment in VC.

“Figure out what puzzle piece you are.”

Things are moving at such a fast clip, the data might show something quite different even in the space of a couple years, Loutskina predicted.

“Over the last two years, I’ve heard about so many different funds that are run by women, that invest in women founders and that invest in minority founders. It’s happening in the VC space because investors realize that, by ignoring women and minority managers and founders, they are ignoring a tremendous number of business opportunities serving the constituencies that these founders understand the best.”

By Molly Mitchell

What’s Trending?

NEW PROFESSORS SPOTLIGHT WHAT'S NEXT FOR TRENDING TOPICS

One of the perks of boasting the best B-school faculty in the world is access to those on the forefront of emerging business frontiers or industries undergoing massive change. The influx of new faculty members at Darden in recent years, including 12 new professors who joined for the 2022–23 academic year, helps the Darden community stay on the leading edge of all things new and next, from machine learning to allyship in the workplace.

Some of Darden’s newest professors offer their insights on the biggest and most exciting developments in their respective fields, and what discerning observers should keep an eye on in the near future.

Les Alexander , John Glynn

DRY POWDER ON DECK IN VENTURE CAPITAL

Les Alexander focuses on the Finance and Strategy, Ethics & Entrepreneurship areas at Darden. He is an experienced professor, venture capital and private equity investor, corporate executive, and investment banker. The venture capital industry grows and evolves much like the entrepreneurial companies it supports. Limited partners continue to inject billions of dollars into funds seeking above-market returns, and the industry delivered a more than 50 percent rate of return in 2021. With strong returns comes more capital. VCs are now sitting on $290 billion in dry powder to invest in disruptive and growing businesses. Although the record highs from prior periods were not likely repeated in 2022, the overall VC industry generally remains active in terms of fundraising and deployment. Challenges exist in the venture capital space, too. Declining public market valuations, particularly in the technology industry, have reduced valuations for VC portfolio companies. Dealmakers are more disciplined in the current recessionary environment and are more reluctant to assign sky-high valuations.

Endowed Professor in Venture Capital

While the traditional regions of San Francisco, Boston and New York remain active hubs for venture capital, other cities such as Seattle, Austin, Denver, Miami and Washington, D.C., are seeing meaningful investment into early and later-stage private companies in their respective communities. Increases in deal activity in these markets improves access to capital for many businesses across the country.

HOW SHIFTING WORKPLACE NORMS IMPACT WOMEN AND LEADERSHIP

Allison Elias teaches courses about communication and negotiation in Darden’s MBA and Executive MBA programs. Her research investigates historical and contemporary issues of gender and diversity in organizations.

Women in leadership potentially stand to benefit from some of the lasting effects of COVID-19 on the workplace. There is greater attention to recruiting, developing and retaining talented employees, which means that the pendulum has shifted toward the worker, so to speak, as firms fiercely compete for talent. Concerns that used to be labeled “women’s issues” — flexible working arrangements and integrating family life with professional life — now imbue C-suite discussions about the employee experience.

Darden students and alumni of all genders can avail themselves of this moment to find the job, company and industry that best align with their own values and strengths so that they can thrive personally and professionally. While overwork norms and tournament-like atmospheres still define the highest-paid industries (industries that have historically been dominated by men), Darden students have an unprecedented opportunity to ask themselves, “What does a good life mean to me?” Perhaps the pursuit of a traditional promotional track in an established industry is what is right; others may forge their own path instead or even use experience in an established industry to pivot in the future. The possibilities are both a blessing and a curse as many try to clarify their priorities and make choices that align with their values.

THE POLITICIZATION OF ‘RESPONSIBLE’ INVESTING

Lauren Kaufmann teaches First Year Ethics in Darden’s MBA program. She uses normative and empirical methods in her research on business ethics, social impact and impact investing. Responsible investing is big business. In both public and private markets, considering environmental and social outcomes and risks has become one of the latest hot-button issues in the financial sector. The traditional narrative of business as amoral and politically neutral is being tested, and appropriately so. Nothing about how we conduct business, invest our money or transact in markets can be explained without values. It’s ethics all the way down.

Practitioners in the rapidly growing environmental, social and governance (ESG) and impact investing movements, which now capture over one-third of global assets under management, are seeing their attempts at making the world more sustainable debated as partisan politics and as competition for rival investment vehicles that claim to “counter the liberal agenda.”

As a business ethicist, I am fascinated to see how values drive the public debate about the role of business in society. In my research on gender in labor markets and on impact investing, I show how values fundamentally influence business activity. I expect the public and political conversation around ESG and impact investing to continue, and I will be watching closely to see how values play a role in what we consider what is — and is not — sustainable in the world of business.

Lauren Kaufmann , Assistant Professor of Business Administration

Allison Elias , Assistant Professor of Business Administration

EFFECTIVE ALLYSHIP

Melanie Prengler’s research focuses on employees at the leading edge of two trends in organizations: how employees can reduce systemic discrimination in their organizations via allyship and antiracism and how employees in remote work arrangements create a sense of workplace out of nonwork space.

What does it take to be a good ally in the workplace? Until recently, scholars and managers assumed that one simply had to try. Consequently, most allyship research has been centered around motivating managers to engage in allyship and identifying the repertoire of allyship behaviors available to them.

I believe the most exciting trend in allyship research is the shift toward unpacking complex answers to more targeted questions. When are certain allyship behaviors helpful versus harmful? What are the consequences of failed allyship on marginalized employees? How can would-be allies recover well from a failure?

In essence, we are beginning to understand that to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, it is not enough to try. We must understand how to engage in allyship effectively.

FULFILLING THE PROMISE OF MACHINE LEARNING

Visiting Professor Eric Siegel is a leading consultant and former Columbia University professor who focuses on machine learning. He is the founder of the Predictive Analytics World and Deep Learning World conference series, executive editor of The Machine Learning Times and author of the bestselling book Predictive Analytics: The Power to Predict Who Will Click, Buy, Lie, or Die.

When it comes to machine learning projects, there’s a great opportunity to improve. Currently, the overall track record of this highly visible technology is compromised: the realized value doesn’t match the excitement ... yet. And that misalignment spells opportunity.

Machine learning’s popularity exploded because of its great potential business value and sheer scientific clout — learning from data to predict impresses the best of us. The praise is not all empty hype, but surveys show a stark reality: most machine learning projects fail to deploy. The number-crunching part is solid, but using it to improve operations turns out to be a greater change-management challenge than most foresee.

Those who proactively address this dilemma by adopting a collaborative, end-toend management practice will be ahead of the curve. They will empower their organizations to overcome impediments so that the fruits of their data scientists’ labor come to fruition. As Darden’s inaugural Bodily Bicentennial Professor in Analytics, I am spending this one-year appointment developing guidance and curricula to help future graduates run machine learning projects that successfully deploy.

Eric Siegel Bodily Bicentennial Professor in Analytics

Melanie Prengler , Assistant Professor of Business Administration

We are beginning to understand that to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, it is not enough to try. We must understand how to engage in allyship effectively.”

“

— Professor Melanie Prengler

The Psychology Technology of

FACULTY PROFILE PROFESSOR ROSHNI RAVEENDHRAN

by Tom van der Voort

One might assume Darden’s resident faculty expert on artificial intelligence is fascinated by technology. It turns out that what Professor Roshni Raveendhran really wants to understand is people.

As a psychology major at the University of Texas at Arlington, Raveendhran found herself exploring “how people interact with their environment — and what the implications are for their relationships with other people,” she says.

A natural next step was to explore one specific environment: the workplace, where so many spend most of their waking hours and develop many critical relationships. As Raveendhran pursued her Ph.D. in business administration at the University of Southern California, revolutionary advances in technology and artificial intelligence put devices at the center of human culture. But she didn’t ask the usual question: how do people use their smart phone or smart watch? Instead, she looked at the relationship.

“We take our technologies seriously because we want to learn about ourselves and understand how we behave. But what if a human being told you that you’d been sitting for four hours and needed to move around? The experience would be different. People experience feedback from technology as informational rather than evaluative, and I wanted to understand the specific psychological dimensions to the human-technology relationship. What made the technology appealing to you and what kinds of interactions do you have with it?”

Raveendhran brings more than a human-centric view of technology to Darden. She describes herself as sitting at the “confluence of two countries and two cultures.”

Born in India, where most of her family still lives, she cherishes her Tamil roots and speaks the language, one of the world’s oldest and an important unifying force for the Tamil people, at home. “I see language as a channel for holding on to culture,” she says. And she’s a massive cricket fan.

But her U.S. roots are equally deep. “I went to school here, I grew up here and my whole adult life has been spent here. I am deeply intertwined in this culture.” For Raveendhran, her husband and her two-year-old son, home is where all these strands are woven together. “We try to have a little bit of both.”

The human dimension also played a critical role in bringing her to Charlottesville.

“When I was on the job market after getting my Ph.D., my first ever job talk was actually at Darden. And I was blown away by the community, the culture and just how welcoming everybody was. So when I started considering offers, I couldn’t stop thinking about how incredible this place was. It became the obvious choice. I never thought I’d end up on the East Coast, in someplace that wasn’t warm year-round, but the student-centric nature of Darden was something I couldn’t say ‘no’ to.”

people,” a topic that could scarcely be more relevant since the massive upheaval of the COVID-19 pandemic, which dramatically expanded technology’s role in nearly every aspect of work.

“It’s important for us as a society to think about how to leverage all these technological tools to empower our people to provide their best work and bring their full self to work — whatever that looks like.”

Working from home, instead of the office, for instance, has brought Zoom and other technological tools to the forefront of organizational culture. But oftentimes there are not established norms for their use, and technologies can have costs that organizations do not recognize. To understand these, “you have to look at the psychology of the people using the tool,” Raveendhran says.

DURING THE PANDEMIC, WE DISCOVERED THAT PEOPLE ACTUALLY WORKED A LOT MORE HOURS, AND COMPANIES WERE VERY PRODUCTIVE. PEOPLE REALIZED THAT THEY WANTED TO WORK ON THEIR TERMS, AND THAT THEY COULD BE VERY PRODUCTIVE ON THEIR TERMS. EXPLORING THAT IN A MEANINGFUL WAY INSTEAD OF PUSHING THE ISSUE ASIDE IS GOING TO BE CRITICAL FOR ORGANIZATIONS.”

With instant message options, such as chats in Microsoft Teams or Slack, Raveendhran and Kim found several benefits: speed and an informality that was efficient and built trust, for instance. But there was a cost, too: Psychologically, most people feel obliged to respond in real time, a far different burden than people experience with email. “That puts a lot of pressure on people; they feel like they’re on all the time.”

“We found that when organizations say, ‘If you get a chat after hours, you are not obliged to respond,’ it helps set a new norm” that reduces the cost of using the tool.

Looked at through this lens, debates about whether it’s “better” to work from the office or home are misleading; a bit like asking whether a saw or a hammer is a “better” tool. Naturally, the answer would depend on what you are trying to accomplish, and the costs and benefits of each choice. Nonetheless, Raveendhran sees discussions about whether to go back to old ways of working as little more than tilting at windmills. “It’s not really up for debate. The world has changed, whether we admit it or not.”

Collaboration with fellow members of the faculty, particularly Professor Tami Kim, led Raveendhran to advance her research into another area: “I still focus on humans and technology, particularly artificial intelligence, but I’m also looking at AI as an intermediary in relationships between

“During the pandemic, we discovered that people actually worked a lot more hours, and companies were very productive. People realized that they wanted to work on their terms, and that they could be very productive on their terms. Exploring that in a meaningful way instead of pushing the issue aside is going to be critical for organizations.” Those that think carefully and purposefully about technologies are poised to raise the benefits and lower the costs of using them. Norms are powerful tools, says Raveendhran, but only if they account for how human beings really think and act.

– PROFESSOR ROSHNI RAVEENDHRAN

IS

THAN ONE WAY TO SUPPORT

Call for Abbott Award Nominations

The Charles C. Abbott Award is named in honor of the first dean of the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. The award is presented annually to a graduate of the Darden School or The Executive Program whose contributions of time, energy and talent are outstanding. The Alumni Association recognizes the recipient as an individual who:

• Demonstrates a strong level of interest in and concern for Darden’s mission

• Commits a generous amount of time, energy and funds to Darden

• Brings initiative and persistence to projects and responsibilities

• Is regarded by other stakeholders as an outstanding contributor

Please nominate a fellow alumna or alumnus at alumni.darden.edu/ abbottnomination. You will be asked to provide the nominee’s name and an explanation of why you identify this person as a strong candidate for the award. The Abbott Award will be presented to the recipient during Darden Reunion Weekend. Please direct questions to the Office of Engagement at +1-434-243-8977 or alumni@darden.virginia.edu.

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SHRISTI KAUFFMAN (EMBA ’19)

Inventing a New HR Playbook

If talent is destiny these days, Shristi Kauffman (EMBA ’19) has her hand on the scales as the senior director of compensation at CoStar Group. Leading compensation for more than 5,000 global employees comes on the heels of her time at Darden as a student in the Global Executive MBA and more than a decade taking a startup from pre-seed to acquisition by a Fortune 5 company.

Kauffman ran the gamut of HR roles during her time in startup life. “The startup mentality is that you roll up your sleeves and do what needs to get done,” she said. Ultimately, she found that focusing on employee compensation satisfied her desire to have a meaningful impact on people’s lives while flexing her own talent with data.

Kauffman’s perspective also aligns with recent pushes for using transparency to improve equity in compensation. “We are headed in the right direction, but there is a lot more work to be done,” she said.

Kauffman described her time at Darden as transformative. “Having grown up in Nepal, my parents always ingrained in me the importance of education. And yet, I kept finding reasons why the time wasn’t right to pull myself out of the workforce to get an MBA that I always knew I wanted. Pulling the trigger and going to Darden is one of the best decisions I made in my life.”

She observed that what many students carry forward is more profound than the

hard skills they’re initially seeking: things like an open mind, the ability to tackle tough problems, comfort with not knowing all the answers and self-confidence. “I think you come out a better person at the end of the program. Maybe you had it in you all along, and Darden simply gave you the tools to dig a little deeper and bring out the best version of yourself,” she said.

On the heels of the birth of her second daughter last year and returning from maternity leave, Kauffman is more determined than ever to achieve her career aspirations. “I have a very strong motivation with my girls to give them a strong female presence to be proud of; to show them that you don’t have to choose between being a mother and being a business leader.”

At CoStar Group, being an HR leader amid the Great Resignation has been challenging but also a moment of great opportunity. “Who would have imagined HR leaders having to navigate COVID and the return-tothe-office initiative? It’s a concept that didn’t even exist before.” Things are changing wildly in compensation, too, as hiring and retaining talent has become an urgent priority.

“It’s been a really fulfilling time to be an HR leader, to get to work on some really nuanced, never-before-seen issues and to get creative in terms of handling it, because there is no playbook.”

— Molly Mitchell

Word has it that Charlottesville has another lawn (& vineyard) 15 minutes south of grounds. Pippin Hill Farm offers unforgettable Blue Ridge views with award-winning Virginia estate wines and cuisine.

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Red Pump Kitchen is top of the class for exclusive private events. Located on the historic downtown mall, our artisan menus features dishes that are designed to reflect our garden-to-table philosophy. Locally-sourced seasonal ingredients star in our menus.

Offering seated dinners for 70 or receptions for up to 95.

Red Pump Kitchen—where Wahoos wine and dine.

503 Faulconer Drive

Charlottesville, VA 22903

434.295.1131

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MCLEAN FAULCONER INC.

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Stunning 317 acre estate that has it all: location, views, water, stunning main residence, and more! The 15+ acre lake is centered among lush rolling fields of rich grass and a spectacular 5-bedroom home with heart pine floors, 4 fireplaces, study, garages, and unparalleled views exists. Includes a large metal barn, log cabin with fireplace, stunning party barn and a 2-bedroom cottage. Located 25 minutes west of Charlottesville in Greenwood, this exceptional property is a oneof-a-kind, not to be replicated, gem. Additional acreage available.

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HUGE BLUE RIDGE VIEW from superbly constructed 3-4-BR home with open floor plan on private 33 acres at 1,000 ft. elevation, just 12 miles from town. Dramatic great room features 23 ft. tall window wall, views across Albemarle County to Blue Ridge. 2 stone FPs, spacious main level master suite. Fantastic & unique offering! MLS#635341

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A most tranquil and private 278+ acres with approximately twothirds mile of James River frontage. The centerpiece of Hatton Ridge Farm is an impressive brick Georgian home, built circa 2000. The residence is constructed with expert craftsmanship, and many significant architectural details. It is in like-new condition - a testament to the architects, Stoneking/ VonStorch. A spectacular offering: pastures and hay fields surrounded by deep hardwood forest, along with fertile James River bottomland for gardens.

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RIVER LAWN FARM ◆ $4,865,000

A Southern Albemarle estate with 1.5 miles of frontage on the James River with 540± acres of highly fertile, gently rolling landscape. Historic farmhouse dating to the late 1700s offers extensive views of the river. The land is open and wooded with a barn and equipment building. Under conservation easement with the VOF. MLS#630470

CONNIE HALLQUIST (MBA ’91)

Reinvention from QVC to Garnet Hill

Currently serving as the president of direct-to-consumer retailer Garnet Hill, Connie Hallquist (MBA ’91) has experienced a broad range of roles and a number of reinventions during her career.

Hallquist came to Darden as a career switcher. After working in banking trading currencies (putting an undergrad French degree to unorthodox use), she was searching for a long-term career and a transition into marketing. Imposter syndrome reared its head at first. “I had so many doubts,” she recalled, but ultimately, her learning team eased the stress when she realized, “We’re all here to help each other.”

Hallquist’s career-switch gambit worked, as she landed a brand management job at Kraft Foods after Darden. When the dotcom boom reached a fever pitch in 1999, Hallquist took a leap. She founded Gold Violin, which sold products for senior citizens. When the NASDAQ crashed in 2000, one week after the company shipped its first product, Hallquist had to think outside the box — and she found an unlikely lifeline in TV shopping network QVC. Hallquist found herself in the unenviable position of needing to go live on-air at the last minute.

“This was about company survival,” she said. “I either did this, or we would go down in flames. So I dug deep, I pushed outside

my comfort zone, and I walked onto that stage set and spent the next four years on live television saving our company.”

But another inflection point came through the sudden loss of her husband, Brian Cowan (MBA ’91), to brain cancer in 2019. “Everything happened so fast,” she said. “He was 61 when he passed away, the picture of health. I never even conceived of something like that happening.” Navigating grief took time. “There are things in life — it could be divorce, loss of a spouse, loss of a parent or child — that you’ll deal with during your career. How you handle that if you have a busy career or you’re in a leadership role, how you come out the other side, nobody talks about that. We have a long way to go.”

After taking a year to process the loss, help manage the sale of Cowan’s company and spend time with their children, Hallquist wondered what she would do next. She knew she had plenty of options in theory, but “it was really hard at that point. I had always been recruited. I had never been unemployed. I was a little lost.” But her powerful network worked its magic, and today Hallquist is leading as president of Garnet Hill through the shocks of COVID, remote work and beyond.

— Molly Mitchell

ALUMNI PROFILE

CARL PEOPLES (MBA ’94)

One Starfish at a Time

As a first-generation college student, Carl Peoples (MBA ’94) didn’t have a blueprint for building a career through higher ed. Rather, Peoples says he was “feeling my way along.” Toting an economics degree from William & Mary and a handful of years in retail banking, he found his way to Darden in search of something new. Now he’s sporting an 18year career in investment management in Atlanta, Georgia, at Goldman Sachs, “the best firm to do private wealth management in the world.”

His hunger for challenge made Darden his business school of choice, with its reputation as a rigorous program that facilitated “testing yourself against some of the brightest people you’ll ever meet.” After Darden, corporate and investment banking took Peoples to Atlanta. He resisted suggestions to consider private wealth management. As a “hardcore finance guy,” it didn’t seem serious enough, but he finally agreed to give it a shot and ended up loving it.

Peoples says finding balance is one of the biggest challenges of his career. “Wall Street will take everything you have and still demand more,” he said. “If you allow yourself to work as much as you possibly can for too long, you will have bad outcomes emotionally, physically and professionally.”

Nowadays, Peoples finds satisfaction and pride in moments like his kids heading to college or getting involved philanthropically to help disenfranchised students and entrepreneurs access opportunities, and also

in milestones like the ability to retire and provide for his mother’s care.

Peoples connects many of the essential pillars of his life, career and relationships back to Darden and the doors his experience opened. “You would be hard pressed to ever talk to someone who got more out of Darden than I did, and still do,” he said. “As a Black kid from a single parent home, whose mom raised four of us on a teacher’s aid salary, I didn’t know these opportunities existed.”

Peoples is most excited lately about helping others get similar opportunities. “All the board work I do is focused around helping Black and brown kids and white kids who come from disadvantaged backgrounds get to and through college.” He is also taking an interest in helping entrepreneurs historically excluded from systems of funding.

He cites the parable of the starfish to describe how he feels about these endeavors: A skeptic questions a child who is throwing beached starfish back into the ocean one at a time, but there are thousands more languishing in the heat. The skeptic suggests that the child’s efforts won’t make a difference to the starfish population. The child throws one starfish back in the ocean and replies, “It made a difference to that one.”

“That story is how I feel about the scholarship work we do. We can’t reach everybody, but the people you can reach, it will absolutely change their world.”

— Molly Mitchell

K A T I E W E T H M A N

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.

Remembering Professor Susan Chaplinsky

Professor Susan Chaplinsky, a widely cited scholar and much-admired teacher in the classroom, passed away on 28 November.

A professor in the Finance area, Chaplinsky came to Darden in 1994 following successful stints at Northwestern University and the University of Michigan. At the School, she embraced the studentcentered approach to learning and fortified a connection to the world of practice — both Darden hallmarks.

The MBA Class of 1996 elected Chaplinsky as a faculty marshal, and in 2007 and 2016 she received the Outstanding Teacher Award at the School, an honor voted on by students. In 2013, she received the All-University Teaching Award from UVA for excellence in the classroom.

Chaplinsky was a widely recognized scholar in financing and financial structure, with papers appearing in top journals on topics such as IPOs from emerging market issuers, what drives delistings from U.S. exchanges and the borrowing costs for international issuers.

Professor Bob Conroy said Chaplinsky was deeply devoted to the classroom, with an overriding commitment to the development of her students. Although she lived with lifelong physical limitations stemming from juvenile rheumatoid arthritis, and teaching could be physically taxing, the classroom was where she was determined to be and where she found great joy. Even during a recent period of poor health, she was committed to returning to the Darden classroom this spring, he said.

“She cared about people and she cared about her students and she never wanted to be defined by any limitations,” said Conroy. “She was a wonderful person.”

Kelly I. Beeman (MBA ’72)

William Daniel Cannon Jr. (MBA ’68)

Kevin M. Cox (MBA ’79)

Ronald Dean Depew (MBA ’66)

Thomas Michael Eckis (MBA ’73)

David H. Fenton (TEP ’80)

James Holbrook Fields (MBA ’57)

George L. Fullerton (TEP ’69)

Dale D. Gilliam (TEP ’78)

William L. G. Lester Jr. (MBA ’71)

Thomas T. Moore Jr. (MBA ’65)

Betty Sue Peabody (MBA ’65)

Stuart M. Pearman (TEP ’60)

William L. Pfost (TEP ’77)

Arthur L. Pleasants (MBA ’57)

Thomas A. Saunders III (MBA ’67)

Professor Robert Smelick

Robert Alan Sommers (MBA ’61)

Carl D. Soresi (MBA ’71)

Stephen Nicholas Switchenko (MBA ’78)

Richard H. Tatlow IV (MBA ’64)

Ronald C. Whigham (TEP ’76)

Samuel Landis White (MBA ’66)

Darden Student Club Corporate Partners

3M Accenture

Airbnb

AlixPartners

Alvarez & Marsal

American Express

Axon Enterprise

Bain & Company

Bank of America

Barry-Wehmiller

Boston Consulting Group

Brown Advisory

Cigna

Clark Construction Group

Danaher

DaVita

Dell Technologies

Deloitte

DICK’S Sporting Goods

DuPont

E. & J. Gallo Winery

Emerson Envista

Evergreen Services Group

EY Consulting

EY-Parthenon

Fortive

General Motors

Greystar

Harris Williams

Hershey

Houlihan Lokey

IBM

inCode Consulting

Ivy Garden Apartments

Johnson & Johnson

JP Morgan Chase & Co.

L.E.K. Consulting

Lexington Partners

Liberty Mutual

Marsh McLennan

McKinsey & Company

Medtronic

Morgan Stanley

PwC

Raymond James

Rotunda Capital Partners

Simon-Kucher

T. Rowe Price

Teamshares

Teneo

The Arnold Group

The London Company

The Riverside Company

Triangle Insights Group

Vanguard

Walmart

Wells Fargo

Wells Fargo Securities

Zillow

ZS Associates

YOUR CAREER CONSULTANTS FOR LIFE

CAREER AND EXECUTIVE COACHING

EXCLUSIVE NETWORKING EVENTS

PERSONALIZED JOB SEARCH ASSISTANCE

CAREER-RELATED WORKSHOPS AND WEBINARS

darden.virginia.edu/alumni/career-services

2022-23 Corporate Partners

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.

EXECUTIVE LEVEL ($25,000+)

DIRECTOR LEVEL ($15,000+)

MANAGER LEVEL ($10,000+)

ASSOCIATE LEVEL ($5,000+)

For more information about corporate partnerships, contact Kevin Kennedy at KennedyK@darden.virginia.edu or +1-434-243-4400.

Darden Leadership Boards

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

(Listing as of 31 December 2022)

DARDEN SCHOOL FOUNDATION BOARD OF TRUSTEES

CHAIR

Martina Hund-Mejean (MBA ’88) Retired, Mastercard Worldwide

VICE CHAIR

Frank M. Sands (MBA ’94) Sands Capital

IMMEDIATE PAST CHAIR

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

Scott C. Beardsley University of Virginia Darden School of Business

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

Guillaume M. Cuvelier (MBA ’91) Davos Brands LLC

Robert G. Doumar Jr. (MBA/JD ’88) Park Square Capital LLP

Debra Draughan (MBA ’84) The Process Management Group, LLC

Frank S. Edmonds (MBA/JD ’95) Panning Capital Management LP

Arnold B. Evans (MBA/JD ’97) Truist

Richard B. Evans Darden School of Business

John D. Fowler Jr. (MBA/JD ’84) Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Catherine J. Friedman (MBA ’86) Independent Consultant

John W. Glynn Jr. Glynn Capital Management

Kirsti W. Goodwin (MBA ’02) Tower 3 Investments

Peter M. Grant II (MBA ’86) Anchormarck Holdings LLC

Owen D. Griffin Jr. (MBA ’99) Northfield Medical Manufacturing LLC

Yael Grushka-Cockayne University of Virginia Darden School of Business

Elizabeth Hagood (MBA ’89) Retired

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

Robert L. Huffines (MBA ’92)

J.P. Morgan

Rosemary B. King (MBA ’91)

Global Heritage Fund

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

Naresh Kumra (MBA ’99) JMATEK Ltd.

David M. LaCross (MBA ’78) Risk Management Technologies

Douglas R. Lebda (EMBA ’14) LendingTree

Lemuel E. Lewis (MBA ’72) IVMedia LLC

Nicole McKinney Lindsay (MBA ’99/JD ’00)

Mastercard Worldwide

Amanda Lozano (MBA ’09) Spoke Sciences Inc.

Paul Mahoney University of Virginia School of Law

Richard A. Mayo (MBA ’68) Game Creek Capital

Sachin J. Mehra (MBA ’96) Mastercard Worldwide

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

Kim B. Morrish (MBA ’93) Ground Control Ltd.

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

Adair B. Newhall (MBA ’09) Greenspring Associates

Patrick A. O’Shea (MBA ’86) ICmed LLC

G. Ruffner Page Jr. (MBA ’86) McWane Inc.

William H. Payne II (GEMBA ’22) Coalfield Strategies

C. Evans Poston Jr. (EMBA ’17)

Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP

James E. Ryan University of Virginia

William Q.O. Shelton Jr. (MBA ’93) Group 1001

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

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

Shannon G. Smith (MBA ’90) PointGuard

Susan Sobbott (MBA ’90) American Express Mark J. Styslinger Altec Inc.

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

Joaquin Rodriguez Torres (MBA ’01) Princeville Global

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

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

Jimmy Jianzhong Wei (MBA ’02)

ImaGene Pharmaceuticals

ALUMNI ASSOCIATION BOARD OF DIRECTORS

CHAIR

Warren F. Estey (MBA ’98)

Deutsche Bank

PRESIDENT

Patrick A. O’Shea (MBA ’86) ICmed LLC

Kristina M. Alimard (MBA ’03)

University of Virginia Investment Management Co.

Yiorgos Allayannis University of Virginia Darden School of Business

Christine P. Barth (MBA ’94)

Mary Buckle Searle (MBA ’86)

Strategic Thought Partners

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

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.

Michael J. Ganey (MBA ’78) GaneyNPD

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

Evan A. Inra (EMBA ’08)

Amazon Web Services

Kendall Jennings (MBA ’12) Accenture

Kristina F. Mangelsdorf (MBA ’94) Visa

Taylor H. Meyer (MBA ’13)

Goldman Sachs

DeMario Moore (Class of 2022) President, Darden Student Association

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

Michelle B. Horn (MBA ’95) Delta

Indy Adenaw (MBA ’08)

Management Leadership for Tomorrow

Danielle Eesley Amfahr 3M Company

Stuart C. Bachelder (MBA ’06)

DaVita Kidney Care

Mazen G. Baroudi

EY

Kelly Becker (MBA ’08)

Schneider Electric

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

Adam P. Carter (MBA ’02) WestRock

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

Richard C. Edmunds (MBA ’92)

Strategy & PwC

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)

LinkedIn

Sunil K. Ghatnekar (MBA ’92)

Prescient

Marcien B. Jenckes (MBA ’98)

Comcast Cable

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.

Thomas J. Steenburgh University of Virginia Darden School of Business

Scott A. Stemberger (MBA ’04)

The Boston Consulting Group

Eric M. Swanson (MBA ’08) Amazon

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

Gerrud Wallaert (TEP ’18)

RWE Renewables Americas LLC

Meghan A. Welch (MBA ’10) Capital One

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

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

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

William S. Chichester III Microsoft

Paige T. Davis Jr. (MBA ’09) T. Rowe Price Co.

Jacqueline Grace (MBA ’10) Caesars Entertainment Corporation

Ray R. Hernandez (MBA ’08) Northrop Grumman

Octavia G. Matthews (MBA ’89)

Aramark Uniforms

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

Caroline D. Schoenecker (MBA ’11) Deloitte

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

Cynthia K. Soledad (MBA ’02)

Egon Zehnder

Deborah Thomas (MBA ’89) Somos Inc.

Daniele M. Wilson (MBA ’11) Google

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 Ironshore Inc.

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

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

Hagen Radowski (MBA ’91)

Porsche Consulting Inc.

Yudhono Rawis (GEMBA ’16) PT Ringan Teknologi Indonesia

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

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

Nishal Sodha (GEMBA ’17) Global Hardware Ltd.

Alok Vaish (MBA ’97)

Jubilant Life Sciences Ltd.

Jing Vivatrat Golden Gate Capital

Jeffrey J. Yao (MBA ’01)

Profision Shipping Capital Management Ltd.

Hai Ye (MBA ’04) McKinsey & Company

Questions

CATHY FRIEDMAN (MBA

’86)

Executive Venture Partner, GV

From 24 years at Morgan Stanley, where she rose through the ranks to open and serve as co-head of the firm’s biotech practice, to her newest role as executive venture partner at GV (formerly Google Ventures), two things have remained consistent in Cathy Friedman’s (MBA ’86) career. First, a lifelong interest in health care, and the power of technology to improve it. Second, the willingness to take a nonlinear career path that follows interesting challenges.

Friedman spent the 15 years before joining GV as a board member on leading public and private life sciences and tech companies, including at Grail as chair, Vividion Therapeutics, Lyell Immunopharma, Seer, Altaba, Radius Health and Revolution Healthcare Acquisition Corp. She’s also a member of the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees and the University of California-San Francisco Foundation Board of Directors.

Friedman shares insights on her interests and motivations, as well as why she’s excited to be on the frontline of health care innovation.

1. What was your first job? My first job out of college ended up being my first career of 24 years at Morgan Stanley. My first job ever was helping my mom price items at a resale shop for a local charity.

2. What’s the best advice you have ever received? There are many ways to be a leader, find out what works and is authentic to you.

3. Whom do you most admire? Hero = Mom

4. What motivates you?

I am motivated and energized by working with teams on worthwhile problems.

5. What is your “superpower”? Helping others find their superpowers.

6. When and where do you do your best thinking? Early a.m., preferably on Cape Cod.

7. What’s been on your mind lately? The health and well-being of family and friends

8. What are you reading these days? Catching The Wind by Neal Gabler

9. How do you recharge?

I recharge by being with my friends and family and by walking with my husband.

10. What’s your motto? Chance favors only the prepared mind. — Louis Pasteur

11. How do you deal with conflict? Head on

12. What characteristics do you look for in people? The Four H’s: honesty, humility, humor, humanity

13. What makes you feel hopeful?

The young people in my life give me hope. They are kind and want to find solutions to big problems.

14. What is your favorite cause? The Boys and Girls Club of The Peninsula

15. If you could live anywhere, where would it be? Right where I do now: California and Cape Cod.

16. Which class at Darden impacted you the most?

It’s too hard to list one: Bob Bruner’s finance course and independent study (amazing teacher and mentor), John Colley’s reading class (we were the first one), Mr. [Richard] Brownlee’s accounting class (who else could make accounting make sense and fun), Les Grayson’s class (the first to teach us that the world is flat).

17. What’s your favorite Darden memory?

Hanging out with my incredible friends, hiking Humpback Mountain, my EPIC study group, Road Rally, Pig Roast and Les Grayson explaining the only way to lose tenure!

18. What’s your No. 1 tip for current Darden students?

Keep an open mind and do not shy away from a nonlinear path that presents interesting challenges. And, anyone who thinks of the Darden MBA as just a stepping stone is missing the point of this incredible place. Engage!

19. In your role as executive venture partner at GV, what idea, technology or company are you most excited about improving the world?

There are so many incredible entrepreneurs in the world. I am currently excited about investing in women’s health, as it is a sector that is underinvested and incredibly important. I am also focused on health care accessibility and using health tech to solve heretofore unsolvable problems.

20. Why are you drawn to the health care and biotech sectors? What is your vision for how business and private investment can improve health care?

Now more than any time in history, technology and biology are so sophisticated that we can realistically solve incredible health care issues. The combination of computing power, AI and machine learning have made this area so exciting. We need to invest in early stage technology to help it flourish and become usable to help us solve worldwide health care problems.

Bonus: You’ve served on a number of boards, including the Darden School Foundation Board of Trustees. Do you have any advice for Darden alumni who are considering board service? Serving on boards public or private, for profit or not, is an incredible experience and you can really make a difference, if you choose wisely. I believe you should serve on boards where you:

• Align with the mission.

• Think you can add value with your skills and talents.

• Believe you can learn new and interesting things from the entity and other board members.

• Confirm the ethics and motivations of the other board members are of the highest standard.

• You can have some fun.

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