Georgetown Business Magazine Spring 2022 by Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

GEORGETOWN

BUSINESS Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Making the DEI Journey Balance and discernment in leadership Engagement sets records during pandemic

Faculty and alumni take on diversity, equity, and inclusion SPRING 2022

Even in less-than-ordinary times, Georgetown students maintain traditions — like a photo at Healy Hall during new student orientation.

PHIL HUMNICKY

SPRING2022 F E A T U R E S

Taking the DEI Journey Georgetown McDonough faculty and alumni explore the business and ethical value of diversity, equity, and inclusion.

BY CHRIS BLOSE

Leadership That Empowers

Engagement Gets Personal

A partnership program between Georgetown McDonough and the Jesuit Curia focuses on balance, decision-making, and discernment in leadership.

Through the PILLARs program, alumni find volunteer opportunities tailored to their skills. BY MELANIE PADGETT POWERS

BY TERESA MANNIX ON THE COVER: Ella F. Washington, Professor of the Practice. Photography by Jimell Greene.

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

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D E P A R T M E N T S

3 From the Dean

Welcome back. Let your voice be heard.

4 Hilltop Highlights

New initiatives stress innovation for future fields, the Venture Lab reopens for business, faculty research tackles purpose in business, Georgetown McDonough earns high marks, and more.

31 Alumni News & Notes Perfecting Networking 32 Reilly Davis (B’12) makes a career out of linking students and alumni. Mission Critical 37 Cheryl Campbell (GEMBA’16) brings leadership and healthcare IT expertise to an appointment at HHS. Events 38 Award winners from Reunion 2021.

40 Take 5

Five things you may not know about the Jesuits.

GEORGETOWN McDONOUGH SOCIAL

GEORGETOWN

BUSINESS Dean Paul Almeida Associate Dean and Chief Marketing and Communications Officer Teresa Mannix Director of Marketing and Communications Samantha Krause

Director of Alumni Relations Lauren Apicella Editor Chris Blose Art Director John LaRue

Contributors Melanie Padgett Powers Joe Trotter Adam Wren Georgetown Business welcomes inquiries, opinions, and comments from its readers. Please send an email to GeorgetownBusiness@ georgetown.edu.

Alumni should send address changes to addup@georgetown.edu or contact alumni records at (202) 687-1994.

@msbgu @msbalumni

Georgetown McDonough School of Business Georgetown McDonough School of Business Alumni

@georgetownmcdonough

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business Alumni

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JAMES KEGLEY

FROM THE DEAN Welcome back to Georgetown Business It’s been a while since you heard from us in these pages, but even in the unpredictability and volatility of the past couple of years, the entire Georgetown McDonough community has stayed deeply involved in so many other ways. Back in 2020, our school renewed our commitment to developing a culture of diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and building a community of belonging at Georgetown McDonough. Through our Standing Committee on DEI, as well as many individual or group efforts, we have accomplished so much as a community, including developing a first of many reports to come on DEI at the school, available at msb.georgetown.edu/dei. As a companion to that work, this magazine’s cover story takes a deep dive into the DEI journey for businesses (see page 20). Our very own Ella F. Washington, professor of the practice and a leading expert in DEI, sets the stage, and alumni share their experiences making the personal and business cases for DEI. I’m proud to say alumni have risen to the occasion in important ways during the pandemic across the board, too. As you’ll read in “Engagement Gets Personal” (see page 26), total alumni volunteering went up by 253% from FY2020 to FY2021. Whether through virtual events or mentorship, alumni find a way to do their part to improve our school and share their particular expertise and voices. Ultimately, that’s what we want — to be a school where all of our stakeholders, from faculty to staff to students to parents to alumni, can share their voices and feel heard. I’m excited to see all we will accomplish together. Sincerely,

Paul Almeida Dean and William R. Berkley Chair

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SECOND CHANCE

ADVOCACY FOR ACCESS TO EMPLOYMENT

D.C. PERKS

INTERNSHIPS AND INITIATIVES TAKE ADVANTAGE OF LOCATION

Leaders for the Fields of the Future

HIGH MARKS

NO. 2 RANKING FOR UNDERGRADUATE PROGRAM

IPOPBA / GETTY IMAGES

Two new initiatives keep students ahead of the times

Business is by nature disruptive. Driven by innovation, markets, and changing consumer needs, organizations must continue to adapt to new ways of doing things. Georgetown McDonough works to ensure students embrace innovation and prepare for the future of business. In 2021, the school launched new initiatives and corresponding degree programs focused on two important emerging business themes: sustainability and the future of work. “As leaders in business education, it’s our responsibility to study and teach about emerging issues that affect every organization,” said Paul Almeida, dean and William R. Berkley Chair. “Our new initiatives and degree programs reflect the importance of making a business case for sustainability, as well as understanding the changing nature of work brought about by a tremendous rate of innovation and technological advancement.” “Our Jesuit heritage also ensures that we look at the world with an eye on the common good,” he added, “whether that’s exploring the broader implications of an organization’s activities on society and the planet or evaluating how the pace of change affects the most vulnerable members of our society and provides solutions that do not leave them behind.” Each new program will work alongside McDonough’s existing academic areas and faculty-led centers and initiatives to build and disseminate knowledge among students, faculty, alumni, and the global business community through learning, thought leadership and research, and convening and outreach. 4•

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Led by Vishal Agrawal, Henry J. Blommer Family Endowed Chair in Sustainable Business, the new Business of Sustainability Initiative will help faculty and students explore how companies can embrace ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and sustainability while managing economic, environmental, and social risks. “Organizations are increasingly focusing on how they can both achieve their mission and be good stewards of the world around them, making this the perfect time to launch this initiative,” Agrawal said. “We will be centered on developing a business approach that creates long-term shareholder value by embracing opportunities and managing risks deriving from economic, environmental, and social developments.” Agrawal also is the co-academic director of a new M.S. in Environment and Sustainability Management, which will enroll its first students in fall 2022. The interdisciplinary degree is a collaboration among the business school, the Earth Commons Institute, and the Graduate School of Arts & Sciences. Students will learn both scientific and business principles that are critical to achieving sustainability goals across the globe. The new initiative and degree add to McDonough’s existing commitment to sustainability through programs such as the MBA Certificate in Sustainable Business and the undergraduate Sustainable Business Fellows.

The Effects of Technological Change in the Workplace

The AI, Analytics, and the Future of Work Initiative addresses how the rapid pace of technological change is driving both economic and social transformation in the workplace, with a focus on devising solutions that help the most vulnerable members of society and foster the common good. The three focus areas of the initiative are: 1. Developing and studying AI algorithms that help individuals and organizations make decisions; 2. Assessing the workforce disruption of new technologies, the need for new skills and workplace roles, and the importance of equitable access to lifelong learning; and 3. How technology can be leveraged to promote equitable growth and reduce wealth inequality in society. The initiative is led by Alberto Rossi, Provost’s Distinguished Associate Professor of Finance. Rossi is working with an advisory group of executives steeped in how AI and analytics are transforming the workforce; they will connect their real-world experiences with the activities of the initiative. “We envision a world in which technological advances serve people, so we will explore how new technologies can be deployed to help individuals improve their everyday and professional lives,” Rossi said. “Through research and convening events with industry leaders, we also hope to bring this perspective to the business and policy community.” In January 2021, the school enrolled its first cohort of students in the new online M.S. in Business Analytics degree, which prepares students to drive value-based decisions by combining analytics and critical business skills. It is led by Sudipta Dasmohapatra, professor of the practice in data science and business analytics. The initiative and degree program are complemented by the MBA Certificate in Consumer Analytics and Insights.

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Customized and Localized EMBA adds more options and capitalizes on D.C. location

Executive MBA (EMBA) students now have greater flexibility in choosing electives and a sharper focus on what it means to learn in the heart of the nation’s capital. “Our two-century presence in Washington, D.C., combined with the widely acknowledged expertise in other Georgetown schools, makes McDonough uniquely poised to prepare our students as leaders who understand the existing complexities of commerce at the nexus of global business, government, and policy,” said Bardia Kamrad, senior associate dean for Executive Degree Programs. The number of electives in the program increased from five to seven, allowing for greater customization, agility, and adaptability for students. The increase in electives is made possible by transforming the program’s core curriculum: eliminating and combining some courses, while revamping other courses as potential electives. Additionally, all EMBA alumni have the opportunity to take the new electives as part of the program’s Lifelong Learning initiative. Adjustments to the core sharpen the school’s distinctive location. New to the revised core is the Structure of Global Industries Residency, where students study international trade and investment, trade policy, economic growth, and monetary and fiscal policy. In addition, a new course on Strategic Advocacy for Business explores the intricacies of how business intersects with the policy and government institutions and communities in the District of Columbia, both at the national level and global level, supplementing existing coursework in this sphere.

ARTIGA PHOTOGRAPHY

The Business Case for Sustainability

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PHIL HUMNICKY

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Pivot Program Joins Effort to Advance Second-Chance Employment Advocacy benefits both employees and employers looking for a new talent pool Georgetown University’s Pivot Program joined the Second Chance Business Coalition (SCBC), a cross-sector group of large employers committed to expanding hiring and advancement practices within their companies for people with criminal records. The coalition promotes the benefits of second-chance employment and provides major employers with a set of tools, relationships, and expertise to successfully hire and provide career advancement and greater economic opportunities to people with criminal records.

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The group is cochaired by Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and Craig Arnold of Eaton. Four other partner organizations will lead the coalition alongside Georgetown University’s Pivot Program, including the Business Roundtable, the Society for Human Resource Management, Dave’s Killer Bread Foundation, and Stand Together. The coalition will help employers tap into a talent pool that includes the nearly one in three U.S. adults who have a criminal record by developing and sharing best practices and launching pilot initiatives to test new approaches to second-chance hiring and advancement practices.

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Steers ESG Solutions Group Launches with $3.2 Million Gift

FACULTY BOOKSHELF

Ricardo Ernst

Baratta Chair in Global Business and Director of the Global Business Initiative

Group will focus on emerging environmental, social, and governance issues

Bill Novelli

Executive Director, Business for Impact

Christine Porath

Associate Professor of Management

Jeanine Turner

Professor of Communication, Culture, and Technology

JONATHAN KOZOWYK

The Steers Center for Global Real Estate is helping organizations explore the implications of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) issues on global business through the new Steers ESG Solutions Group, which was established by a $3.2 million gift from Robert (B’75, P’06, P’08, P’10) and Lauren Steers (P’06, P’08, P’10). “Issues of ESG are vitally important today and will only gain strength over time across the business landscape,” said Robert Steers, executive chairman of Cohen and Steers Inc. and chair of the McDonough Board of Advisors. “We believe that the ESG Solutions Group will bring an unbiased, research-first approach to developing knowledge for the commercial real estate industry.” The name of the Steers ESG Solutions Group was intentionally selected to suggest a private sector mindset that translates knowledge into practical solutions for the global commercial real estate industry. The group is led by Steers Center faculty and staff with support from Steers Advisory Services, a highly successful program that involves undergraduate and MBA real estate students in projects and research. “Unlike existing methodologies in the market, our focus will be on quantifying the financial impacts to key stakeholders of various ESG initiatives related to commercial real estate,” said Matthew Cypher, Atara Kaufman Professor of Real Estate and director, Steers Center for Global Real Estate. The Steers Center will drive ESG research conducted by the group into both curricular and cocurricular learning activities for its undergraduate and MBA students. This includes applying ESG criteria to the real-world investment activities of the Steers Real Estate Society, a student-led organization that includes analysis and investment in actual real estate investment trust (REIT) stocks and single-asset real estate projects.

Ella F. Washington

Professor of the Practice in Management

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

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CAPITAL CONNECTIONS

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Access to Opportunities Georgetown McDonough students gain valuable realworld experience in the nation’s capital

The job market is competitive. Navigating it can be a tough learning curve for recent graduates. However, experiential classroom learning and internships help create intuitive and conscientious future professionals. At Georgetown McDonough, located in the epicenter of global business, access to those opportunities are abundant.

The D.C. Internship Experience

When students embark on their search for an internship, a good place to begin is often right inside the classroom. Thomas Cooke, distinguished teaching professor of business law, says that many of his students hear about internships through guest speakers and projects in partnership with local D.C. businesses. “Washington, D.C., is a diverse city full of opportunities, and we encourage students to take full advantage of that during the fall and spring semesters while they’re on campus to foster those connections,” he said. For example, Molly Evers (B’22) relied on feedback from professors and peers when applying for her internship at the Securities and Exchange Commission’s (SEC) Office of Inspector General in the Office of Audits. Through her internship, she expanded upon the lessons from her audit class and gained a more nuanced understanding of different perspectives within accounting, from comparing financial and governmental auditing, to learning different sets of standards used in the government, to working on internal and external audits. “This internship allowed me to become more 8•

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familiar with what a career in accounting could possibly look like,” she said. “I was able to meet with and speak extensively with accountants at the SEC, both those who worked as auditors and those who worked on matters such as examining public company financial statements, working on controversial accounting issues, and enforcing accounting standards and related financial laws. Each person shared their journey to the SEC with me and their overall experience as an accountant.” Evers, who will be joining PwC after graduation in May 2022, says the true value of the internship was gaining hands-on experience alongside her undergraduate coursework at Georgetown. “Beyond the accounting classes that were directly applicable to the internship, my coursework in operations and information management allowed me to be more efficient in any data analysis that I had to do and my participation in Ethical Values of Business proved useful when I attended internal trainings regarding the importance of independence in government work,” she said.

Consulting for Good

Each year, undergraduates also gain real-world experience through the semester-long First Year Seminar Social Impact Consulting Project and Case Competition — a pivotal feature of the school’s selective First Year Seminar program. Each cohort works with a local or international nonprofit to address a business challenge facing the organization. This year the program partnered with So Others Might msb.georgetown.edu

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Eat (SOME), which provides material aid and comfort to vulnerable neighbors in Washington, D.C., with the goal of helping them break the cycle of poverty and homelessness through programs and services. The First Year Seminar students were split into teams and assigned a faculty member or advanced undergraduate coach to provide mentorship during the competition. The selected finalists then presented their strategic recommendations to executives from SOME. “This experience reiterated how a business education goes beyond the private sector and can equip you with the tools to seek solutions to problems surrounding our near communities,” said Ana Gomez Garces (B’25). “Having the opportunity to pitch our proposals to SOME allowed us to understand the impact our ideas can have beyond the classroom.”

Partnering with Local D.C. Businesses

When undergraduate Georgetown McDonough students were given the opportunity to partner with local D.C. business Chaia Tacos, they had one question to answer: “What operations changes could benefit us in the long-term?” Jasmina Chauvin, assistant professor of strategy, economics, ethics, and public policy, was always impressed by consulting projects of graduate students working with real companies. In collaboration with the Georgetown University Office of Engagement and the Georgetown Business Improvement District, undergraduate students were provided that same opportunity.

“

Every time we work with a group of students, there are always nuggets of insight that we get to learn from.” —Bettina Stern, Chaia Tacos founder

Each semester, students are presented with a series of strategic questions from their business partner, along with a series of strategic challenges to solve. “By setting up client meetings, having introductory calls on project scope, and presenting our findings to management at the end, we were able to gain client-facing skills that we will definitely use in our postgraduate work,” said Zachary Hankin (B’21). Bettina Stern and Suzanne Simon founded Chaia Tacos after a stand at a Washington, D.C., farmer’s market expanded to their first location in Georgetown. Students provided recommendations on better efficiencies in their kitchen, whether to consider adding meat alternatives to their menu, and which venture capital groups might be the best fit to partner with. “Every time we work with a group of students, there are always nuggets of insight that we get to learn from,” Stern said. “I really respected all of these students who engaged, asked pertinent questions, and who wanted to learn as much as possible about our business.”

George Comer Named Director of Underrepresented Minority Student Support Longtime faculty member’s new position offers mentorship and community George Comer has been appointed the school’s first director of underrepresented minority (URM) student support, where he will work toward building a more inclusive culture throughout the McDonough School of Business. Comer will help ensure McDonough fosters an environment in which URM students thrive academically and have a greater attachment to the Georgetown community. Most importantly, he will be available to support and mentor individual URM students throughout their time at Georgetown McDonough. In addition, he will complement other ongoing initiatives, such as the Business Scholars Program at the undergraduate level, and will support the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management MBA students. This appointment is a recommendation from the school’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Standing Committee and also supports the university’s efforts to build a comprehensive structure to help URM students navigate Georgetown.

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On Purpose

Professors develop a framework for one of the most talked about but ill-defined concepts in modern business: purpose As the “Great Resignation” continues — with some 38 million workers leaving their jobs behind in 2021 amid the pandemic — Gerard “Gerry” George thinks the concept of purpose might hold the key for employers to reverse the trend. That’s the topic of the Georgetown McDonough’s management professor’s latest paper, “Purpose in the For-Profit Firm: A Review and Framework for Management Research,” published in the Journal of Management alongside coauthors Martin R. Haas, Anita M. McGahan, Simon J.D. Schillebeeckx, and Paul Tracey. “There was a lot of anecdotal evidence that says, ‘If you have purpose, people find meaning,’” said George, who also is the Tamsen and Michael Brown Family Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation. The next step is looking for empirical evidence to answer specific questions. “‘How do I better frame purpose? How do I embed purpose within the culture? And then how do I get the benefits of that and share those benefits?’ What is important now from an academic perspective is to really create that framework for understanding how that evidence matters.” In the paper, George and his coauthors develop a six-point framework for future scholarship, including factors such as internal and external drivers; framing, in terms of mission and vision, values, and narratives; formalizing and realizing; and institutional context. Below, George talks about how the pandemic—and the whys underpinning his work—underscores the importance of firms’ focus on purpose.

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I come from the view that organizations leave imprints on people, rather than just people leaving imprints on organizations.” —Gerard George

PHIL HUMNICKY

Why this topic of research? Why now?

With the pandemic, people are now looking at, ‘What is meaning?’ and what they do, right? And we’ve realized that people are questioning, ‘Is there a better allocation of my time? Do I find meaning in what I do? Do I love my colleagues? And am I working for the right organization?’ That’s one element that’s really helping us rethink what it is that we do and how we find meaning in the work that we do. At the same time, organizations themselves are thinking about their role in society. The pandemic and climate change, and all of these issues have put a big mirror to them to sort of say, ‘What are you doing to make this world better?’ In some ways, it’s a perfect storm.

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You and your coauthors write that ‘Businesses not only produce goods and services, they produce people.’ What are the implications of that? And how can purpose play a role in creating better people?

I come from the view that organizations leave imprints on people, rather than just people leaving imprints on organizations. We sort of glorify one side of it as individuals within organizations, but we don’t look at organizations imprinting upon individuals as people. As individuals leave, they recreate their environment. You take your experience, whatever that experience is, and you go to a new place, and that leaves an imprint on the team around you. So that’s why I think that becomes more important.

When did it become not good enough to just be a good widget maker in the business world?

I don’t think there was an individual, specific moment of epiphany, but what we are seeing now is discussion of individuals and value creation and value capture. And now society is asking us, ‘Hey, you’ve captured all of this value in terms of profits, how about coming back and contributing to a better society?’ And the pandemic has focused a lot on this. It’s been a soul-searching moment for businesses.

You and your colleagues establish a framework and then outline further areas for research. What are you most interested in exploring next?

NEW FACES Since the fall of 2020, Georgetown McDonough has welcomed 16 new faculty members: Sudipta Dasmohapatra Professor of the Practice and Academic Director of the Master of Science in Business Analytics Quentin Dupont, S.J. Assistant Professor of Ethics and Financial Economics Scott Ganz Associate Teaching Professor Gerry George Professor of Management and Tamsen and Michael Brown Family Endowed Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation Rahul Gupta Assistant Professor of Strategy Dawson Kaaua Assistant Professor of Operations and Information Management Amrita Kundu Assistant Professor of Operations and Information Management Claire Y.C. Liang Associate Teaching Professor of Finance

Gregory Lyon Assistant Teaching Professor in Business Analytics, Assistant Director of the Master of Science in Business Analytics Emisa Nategh Assistant Teaching Professor of Operations and Information Management Charly Porcher Assistant Professor of Economics Robert Press Postdoctoral Fellow Mario R. Ramírez Basora Professor of the Practice in Strategy and Managing Director of the B.S. in Business and Global Affairs Ayung Tseng Visiting Assistant Professor of Accounting Suh Yeon Kim Assistant Professor of Marketing Viktoriya Zotova Visiting Assistant Professor of Accounting

My initial thinking is that there are three big areas organizations need to work on: How do you frame purpose? How do you formalize it, meaning how do you embed it within the organization? And then how do you realize it? The work that I’m doing now is on this idea of formalizing. But really, for a management professor, you have to think of, ‘How do I formalize? Where does structure fall in place? How do I embed it in our values? How do I put a governance system where my board is aligned with what the CEO is talking about, and also what my employees really want to do on the ground.’ That is really where I’m pushing. —Adam Wren

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Alumnus and Mentor Collaborate to Build Preeminent Center on Financial Markets and Policy Psaros Center to provide unbiased leadership for the future of finance More than a decade after providing seed capital to establish a financial markets and policy center at the McDonough School of Business, Michael G. (B’89) and Robin Psaros (P’21) committed $11 million to build the newly renamed Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy into the preeminent destination for unbiased expertise at the intersection of finance and policy. This gift builds upon years of collaboration between Michael Psaros and his mentor Reena Aggarwal, Robert E. McDonough Professor of Finance and director of the center. When Aggarwal wanted to create the center after the 2008 financial crisis to foster objective, research-driven dialogue on critical issues facing the financial markets, Psaros made a $500,000 gift to support her vision. Now, at a pivotal moment for financial market regulation and policymaking, this gift will allow the center to fulfill its ambition to be the undisputed leader in the field. This transformative gift broadens opportunities for research and outreach executed by the expanded center’s leaders in partnership with students. The Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy will host world-class convenings, bringing together market participants, policymakers, and leading academics to provide solutions for emerging challenges in global finance. The center will also benefit from the experiences of the most accomplished industry and policy leaders, supported by the gift’s funding for Visiting Distinguished Fellows and a Fellows Excellence Fund.

Bringing a 30-year Relationship Full Circle

Aggarwal and Psaros first met as professor and student in the 1980s. Psaros says that the ways in which Aggarwal taught complex concepts, rigorous analysis, and logic had a profound and lasting impact that opened up the interconnectivity of politics and policy on finance and business to him. “I am very grateful to my mentor, Dr. Reena Aggarwal—one of the great minds in finance globally—for providing me with encouragement and support for nearly 35 years, since I was one of her students,” Psaros says. “Dr. Aggarwal believed in me before I believed in myself.” After Psaros graduated and made a distinguished career in finance as co-founder and managing partner of KPS Capital Partners, LP, a leading global private equity firm, he became involved in Georgetown leadership. He joined the Georgetown Board of Directors and serves as co-vice chair of the McDonough Board of Advisors.

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LISA HELFERT

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Meeting the Challenges of a Globalized World Just as the center began at an inflection point caused by the 2008 financial crisis, now it will evolve at a time of disruption. “There’s a real transformation happening in the financial center and regulation plays a critical role,” Aggarwal says. “There is so much activity coming out of our regulatory agencies right now. I’ve never seen anything like that—even after the 2008 crisis.” Climate concerns, human capital issues, and rapid innovation in financial technology—including digital assets—all need to be considered and addressed by policy, Aggarwal notes, and the decisions made in the regulatory space matter for everyone. “The financial sector is extremely important for the global society,” she says. “The Psaros Center for Financial Markets and Policy will play a role in making sure that the financial sector is working effectively so that the global society can benefit from innovation, job creation, and economic growth.”

A Family Decision

Psaros feels deeply connected to the center, not just for his own sake, but also on behalf of his parents and his children. “I am deeply grateful to my wife, Robin. We’ve been married for almost 30 years, and we’ve been partners in all of our philanthropic endeavors,” Psaros says. “I’m grateful to my daughters and son for their enthusiastic support for our investment in the center. My mom, Mary Ann, was a proud public school teacher for 37 years, so you can imagine how she feels about us giving back to education.” Psaros’ son Leo (B’21) encouraged Psaros to tie the future of his family and Georgetown together with the named center. “This isn’t just about making a gift,” Psaros says. “We are making a lifelong commitment in the center, not only financially, but also of my time. And my son is excited to be involved as well. The only thing that you really have in life is your name and your reputation. We are putting our family’s name and reputation on the center. And therefore we now have an intergenerational obligation to help the center manifest and achieve its true potential.”

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Undergraduates Address Impact of Culture on International Markets

HIGH MARKS

Students work alongside Sweetgreen on global course The influence of cultural factors on business is extensive because it drives people’s behavior, innovation, and customer service. Students in the B.S. in Business and Global Affairs (BGA) program recently worked alongside Hoya-founded Sweetgreen, a national fast-casual salad chain, to address the cultural dimensions of entering a new market. The inaugural delivery of Global Organizations and Culture: Theory, Methods, and Practice, the program’s second signature course, is codesigned and co-taught by BGA faculty Michael O’Leary in the McDonough School of Business and Shareen Joshi in the Walsh School of Foriegn Service. The course features a semester-long project working with a real company to solve the exact issue many students will face in the business world: entering a new international market. Sweetgreen and students developed market entry plans for the company in seven countries: Argentina, Japan, Kenya, South Africa, United Kingdom, Qatar, and Turkey. Students examined how the firm’s

expansion would be affected by its home culture (organizational, regional, and national) and the cultures into which it expands. “Coming from the business school, I thought that international expansions were mostly a strategic move to increase revenues, believing most challenges would be on the costs and operational side,” said Anna Csigirinszkij (BGA’23). “Through the project, I realized that cultural challenges pose their own set of triumphs, tribulations, and great opportunities.” The BGA degree is a collaboration between the McDonough School of Business and Walsh School of Foreign Service to prepare students to lead in an increasingly complex world. It is a single, joint degree that features hands-on experience in Washington, D.C., and around the world; dedicated resources at both schools; and a diverse learning community. This interdisciplinary degree positions graduates to make meaningful contributions involving pressing global issues within business, government, and society.

JENNIFER HEFFNER

The Georgetown Venture Lab Is Open for [Your] Business Entrepreneurial initiative reopens with new location in downtown D.C. Georgetown Entrepreneurship recently reopened the Georgetown Venture Lab in a new location at a WeWork facility in downtown Washington, D.C., providing an updated home for Hoya alumni entrepreneurs based in the region. At the lab, founders come together to launch, build, and scale their companies alongside a community of fellow entrepreneurs. The Venture Lab originally launched as a concept unique to Georgetown Entrepreneurship in October 2018 with a generous gift from the Leonsis family. The goal was to coordinate programming that fosters the growth of new ventures and to connect Georgetown University entrepreneurs to the greater alumni and student networks. Over the years, the Venture Lab has hosted more than 60 companies, including Phil’s Finest, Palmetto Solar, and Two Birds, to name a few. The Venture Lab is now located in a new, more central location on Massachusetts Avenue near Georgetown Law. In addition to a subsidized desk rate and WeWork membership, members can work one-on-one with dedicated coaches and gain exposure to potential investors at private pitch events.

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Undergraduate Program (Poets&Quants)

Executive MBA: No. 9 in the United States (Financial Times)

#17 Part-time MBA: No. 17 (U.S. News)

MBA Program: No. 19 in the United States and 27th globally (Financial Times)

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STEFANO DENANNI

Leadership that

EMPOWERS A partnership program between Georgetown McDonough and the Jesuit Curia focuses on balance, decision-making, and discernment in leadership. By Teresa Mannix

Chiedza Chimhanda knows that, now more than ever, leaders need to take time for themselves — to rest, refresh, reconnect, and recharge. He now tries to incorporate self care into his demanding schedule, which currently requires managing a global restructuring plan for an organization that spans Zimbabwe, Mozambique, South Africa, Zambia, and Malawi.

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COURTESY OF CHIEDZA CHIMHANDA

Chiedza Chimhanda, the Jesuit community in Cape Town, and their partners in mission after a discernment exercise in Cape Town, South Africa.

Meanwhile, more than 7,000 miles away in Rome, Noelle Corscadden seeks to balance the rare time she has in the office with her never-ending travel, as she oversees more than 90 schools and institutes across 23 countries. After just two and a half weeks with her team in Rome, she will spend another four weeks on the road. Both Chimhanda and Corscadden hold executive-level positions in the Catholic Church. To strengthen their leadership skills, while learning to better balance their management acumen with their spirituality, they turned to an innovative program commissioned by the Jesuit Curia in Rome in partnership with Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. The Discerning Leadership Certificate offers an executive-level curriculum for senior leaders within the Catholic Church that focuses on discernment, adaptive leadership, strategy, and communication. For leaders who spend most of their time helping others, the program provides participants a critical opportunity to concentrate on their own development. “We are giving them the ability to keep renewing themselves over time — not just their organizations and other people,” says Paul Almeida, dean and William R. Berkley Chair of the McDonough School of Business. “It’s an important part of Ignatian spirituality. Otherwise, they can lose hope when they run out of tools or ideas. We give participants an approach to deal with the world, rather than solutions.” Almeida teaches in the program with McDonough management professors Robert Bies and Brooks Holtom, as well as Jeanine Turner, who has a joint appointment in Georgetown’s Communication, Culture & Technology program and the business school. Together, they teach strategy, organizational behavior, creativity and innovation, building coalitions and alliances, and courageous conversations in courses on Ignatian leadership. “This program empowers noble women and men with the skills required to lead the significant changes needed for their 16 •

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organizations to make a difference in the world,” Holtom says. “Leading change is hard — especially in an institution that is more than 2,000 years old. Learning together in this collaborative environment also builds a powerful network that will sustain these leaders through the challenging days ahead.” David McCallum, S.J., founding executive director of the program, worked with other members of the General Curia of the Society of Jesus to teach participants about making space for grace, leadership for change, the perils of leading, and reflective practices for leaders. “As leaders within the Church, we have to learn to provide conditions in groups and teams that build trust, make space for active participation, and invite people to share their gifts in creative and generous ways for the greater good,” says McCallum, who was vice president for mission integration and development at Le Moyne College when he first became involved in the program. “This collaborative, discerning approach to leadership is the way to cocreate the future together, rather than focusing on individual leaders alone.” The Discerning Leadership certificate was inspired by Pope Francis’ own reflections on leading a complex global organization. He has called for Church leaders to exercise discernment: gaining unbiased knowledge to develop insight, find guidance, and deepen understanding. Just recently, the Pope announced a two-year “Synod on Synodality,” which invites the whole church to engage in a process of listening and hearing one another as they journey into the future. “Pope Francis’s celebration of this synod focuses on a decentralized church where communication and leadership practices emphasize listening and collaborative decisionmaking,” Turner says. “The Discerning Leadership program contributes to leader formation to support this effort.” Investing in the development and growth of the Discerning Leadership Program three years ago positions the Jesuit Curia as servant leaders in this movement. Since the program’s inception, there have been 150 participants who are now putting the calling of the Pope into action. A fourth cohort will begin their journey in Rome in June 2022.

Understanding Discernment

Understanding the concept of discernment within the context of leadership and management became the mission of John Dardis, S.J., then general counsellor for discernment and apostolic planning for the General Curia of the Jesuits, who the Society msb.georgetown.edu

STEFANO DENANNI

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They realize this doesn’t have to be a divided life. These dimensions of spirituality and leadership are integral to one another.”

of Jesus tasked with educating leaders throughout the Church in this approach. After initial training with business consultants fell flat, Dardis realized he —David McCallum, S.J. needed to look within the Jesuit community Founding Executive Director, Discerning for expertise in leadership and business to Leadership Certificate Program ensure the nuances of leading within the spiritual community were not lost. With St. Peter’s “Our dream is that the Church needs to Basilica as change and renew itself and learn from the business world and at the same their backdrop, time, not lose its soul,” he says. Professors Robert Bies and Jeanine For Bies, the main benefits of the program are around building trust in a Turner with Dean VUCA (volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous) world. Paul Almeida at “Building trust may be the most important leadership skill for a VUCA the Jesuit Curia world — whether it is trust in their personal leadership or the courage in Rome, where to trust the process of collaboration and cocreation of change,” he said. they have been teaching Church “Building trust is a central theme woven throughout the program — and leadership about key to the long-term relevance and effectiveness of their organizations and discernment as the Church for the next 2,000 years.” a management Georgetown McDonough’s Custom Executive Education team and strategy. professors, in partnership with McCallum when he was still at Le Moyne, worked with the Jesuit Curia to launch the Discerning Leadership certificate program in Rome in May 2019 with 28 participants from 15 countries on six continents. These women and men represented a mixture of senior-level leaders, with one-third each coming from the Jesuit ranks, other Catholic religious congregations, and lay people working at the Vatican and elsewhere. They, too, were seeking combined insights from the secular and spiritual worlds to solve issues of great importance. Since that initial cohort, the program has grown, adding a Spanishspeaking track in partnership with Esade Business & Law School and Deusto in Spain and working to launch an Italian speakers program. They also have launched an international network of leadership coaches, spiritual directors, and organizational consultants to support participants and integrate their learning into their daily work, ranging from team development to strategic planning.

Defining Jesuit Terms Jesuit Curia

The headquarters of the Society of Jesus in Rome.

Ignatian leadership

Ignatian refers to the wider Jesuit family — lay collaborators, members of other orders, Jesuits, etc.

Synodality

A process of fraternal collaboration and discernment.

Jesuit Provincial

The Society of Jesus is organized into geographic provinces; each is headed by a provincial superior.

Father General

The head of the Society of Jesus.

Discernment in Action: Compromise in Africa

Chimhanda began his term as the Jesuit provincial in Zimbabwe in August 2014, and soon had Mozambique added to his purview. He has worked closely with the Zambia-Malawi Jesuit province and the Regional Superior of South Africa in managing transition toward one province for all the Jesuits in southern Africa. This new Jesuit Province of Southern Africa was inaugurated on March 25, 2021, with Fr. Leonard Chiti as the new provincial. Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

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The 5 Steps for Discernment During a classroom session with participants in the Discerning Leadership Certificate program, Arturo Sosa, S.J., general superior of the Society of Jesus, outlined his five steps for discernment in common. While he offered them in the context of Church leadership, they can be applied to any number of scenarios where a group seeks to solve a complicated issue.

Have a clear definition of the question at hand. When the issue is not clearly defined, people can become trapped, lost, or frustrated.

Ensure you have the right people in the room and that they are open to discernment.

Gather the data. Without good data, you will be discerning in the dark.

Have a willingness to pray or reflect, and then share the results with others. “People are sent off to pray for an hour or two, or even half a day, and when they come back to a group, we are now using a method of spiritual conversation which involves active listening; intentional speaking and then sharing in three rounds in a very ordered way,” he says. In this method, everyone is considered equal, and no one is allowed to dominate. When these thoughts are pieced together, he says the solution becomes apparent.

Prepare a final proposal about a way forward to a person or group clearly defined as the decision-makers from the start. Ensure your proposal outlines the reasons for and against the solution.

“There is a universality to this approach,” McCallum says. “It can be practiced by people whether they are Catholic or not, as long as they are open to inspiration and willing to explore together how to better serve their mission and a greater good.”

“My biggest challenge is planning because from the time I came into this job, I have been managing transition. I need to share the vision, manage the transition, and plan within this change,” he says. “My second challenge is that over the years, when we had the numbers, we set up a lot of institutions. Now our numbers have shrunk, and we are trying our best to keep everything going with less Jesuits available. I am learning more about collaboration and managing change with limited manpower and financial resources.” He was drawn to participate in the Discerning Leadership course to strengthen his own ability to manage change and lead across borders. “As a Jesuit, we talk about discernment. We speak a lot about discernment in prayer. I was fascinated about discerning leadership to discover it’s about listening to others, respecting others,” he says. “Leadership is about teamwork; you get together, you listen to each other, you listen to God because God is at the center. I found that very fascinating. I’m in the business of making decisions all the time; now I can make better decisions.” Not long after completing the course, Chimhanda found himself navigating a difficult situation. One of the Jesuit high schools in his region was seeking a loan from a bank to fund its expansion. Instead, the Jesuits offered to directly loan the money to save them the interest the bank would charge. However, a downturn in the economy soon complicated that relationship once the school asked to repay the loan in discounted local currency instead of the currency that was advanced to them. “We had to do a lot of listening and get beyond our emotions to say to this school, ‘We are one family. You are very privileged. You have benefited a lot, and the province has invested a lot,’” he said. Using the practice of discernment, Chimhanda was able to work with the school and the board over two months to arrive at a mutually beneficial solution where the school would instead utilize their cash to fund a new school in a poor area. “We were moving from strong emotions to a point where we felt in sync with one another,” he says. “Now that the school has benefitted, we have asked them to give back. That’s a big change for me, but that big change has only come because we’ve mended the bridges.”

Discernment in Action: Finding Clarity in Rome

Similarly, Corscadden is institute leader of the Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary, which manages more than 90 schools and over 700 members in 23 countries around the world. While each institution is managed locally, she has oversight of the network and is required to visit each one at least once in her term of office. Headquartered 18

• Spring 2022 PHOTO COURTESY NOELLE CORSCADDEN

Noelle Corscadden with a group of young sisters in India.

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in Rome, she has a team of five sisters from diverse backgrounds. Corscadden is from Ireland, and her coworkers are from the United States, India, Kenya, and Spain. Just like Chimhanda, her challenges are similar to those found in the corporate world. “Implementing change and finding a way to bring people along is huge in today’s world,” she says. “When you are dealing with people, you need to have difficult conversations, you have to challenge people or move people from one position or another.” She also cited navigating layers of governance issues as she and her team set up new global projects, as well as regional complications such as poverty, famine, and insecurity, among her concerns. Yet, the career path of Church leaders doesn’t necessarily prepare them to address these challenges, she says. “At a professional level, you are trained. You’ve studied and have qualifications,” she notes. “But in leadership in Church organizations, you don’t have any preparation — you’re plucked out of something and asked to do leadership.” The course offered Corscadden time to take a break from the office and the churn of her hectic travel schedule to focus on her own development. She finds herself frequently returning to her notes and reflecting on the modules on difficult conversations, spiritual conversations, and the opening remarks from Father General on discernment. Recently, she and her team were able to use some of these lessons on discernment when faced with a lack of clarity around an important decision. “Not long after the second part of the program, we were struggling with the appointment of a province leader,” she says. “We do a very

Members of the inaugural cohort of Discerning Leadership and faculty at the Jesuit Curia in Rome.

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

in-depth consultation with the members of the province and didn’t have clear indication of their choice. That lack of clarity came into our discernment. We engaged in two days of spiritual conversation, and at the end we came to a complete consensus about who to appoint. There was great clarity and unity about the decision.”

Looking to the Future

As the program continues to expand, McCallum reflected on the positive feedback he has received from participants, notably connecting them with a learning community of peers with diverse perspectives that can provide creative ways to help them approach their challenges; learning practical frameworks in the areas of leadership and organizational studies, communications, conflict management, and team building; and the deepening integration between their leadership and spiritual lives. “They realize this doesn’t have to be a divided life,” he added. “These dimensions of spirituality and leadership are integral to one another. That helps affirm and strengthen their understanding of themselves and their ability to support others.” He added that the benefit of connecting those who operate within the Vatican to other Church leaders from around the world and the lay people who work for the Church has created a sense of community across a global organization that has traditionally been very stratified. Almeida also hopes the connections forged in the program will continue to positively affect the Church. “The community we are creating will last for years,” Almeida says. “The world will continue to change long after our participants complete the program, yet we are teaching them to learn as a community. They will continue to work together, hire one another, and collaborate over time.” Chimhanda also hopes to share his newfound knowledge with others throughout his province. Over the last few months, he also has been part of a team of lay partners in mission and follow Jesuits undertaking a discernment exercise on the future of Jesuit apostolates in one of the big cities of the new province. The participation of the laity in this exercise and the presence of a non-Catholic on the team have been greatly appreciated by all, he says. “I hope we are able to give back in the institutions where we are working,” he says, adding that he already has changed local meetings to incorporate both talking and listening as he shares these skills with others. “Bob Bies challenged us to think, ‘As you leave, what are you taking away, what are you going to do?’” he says. “As a leader, it’s something one doesn’t need to think about. Sharing with others is something one needs to do.” GB Spring 2022 •

Ella F. Washington, Professor of the Practice

From paradigm-setting research to personal experience, Georgetown McDonough faculty and alumni explore the business and ethical value of diversity, equity, and inclusion. By Chris Blose

TAKING THE

DEI JIMELL GREENE

JOURNEY Ella F. Washington, professor of the practice at Georgetown McDonough and an organizational psychologist, has pondered and researched topics related to diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) throughout her career.

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diversity and inclusion, and that’s where they remained for many years,” Washington says.

JIMELL GREENE

Tactical

Her studies have taken her back to the early days of the field, when diversity and equity often came up only in the wake of lawsuits, up to our modern era, when approaches to DEI are at times more proactive and strategic. Regardless of the era, something has always felt missing to her: a framework. This framework would not only need to serve researchers like herself seeking to understand the benefits of and roadblocks to DEI for businesses, but also those businesses themselves. Washington developed her idea for that framework while speaking with leaders at companies from healthcare to tech to professional services. She interviewed them for her forthcoming book and the outcome of her latest research, The Necessary Journey: Making Real Progress on Equity and Inclusion. “The first question I got was always, ‘Where are we on the journey?,’” Washington says. “Then the second question was, ‘How do we compare to other people on the journey?’ Once I continued to get those questions for about four months back to back, I realized that there wasn’t enough information out there helping people understand what the DEI journey is, what it looks like. And having that information is key to helping people understand.” The concept of a “journey” reflects the practical examples of DEI that have emerged over the past threeplus decades. But even more important, it helps fit a topic that can feel daunting to leaders into a common business model. “My work codifies the DEI journey as a maturity model,” Washington says. That model’s phases look like this:

Awareness Companies in this phase have just begun thinking about DEI and what it means for their policies and practices.

Compliance These businesses have had DEI efforts in place, sometimes for years, driven by compliance with affirmative action, equal employment, or other legal or regulatory policies. Sometimes this is driven by lawsuits. “That’s how a lot of executives grew up thinking about 22 •

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Tactical organizations have been more ahead of the curve, even if their internal numbers don’t always show it. Different groups, divisions, or individuals have made grassroots DEI efforts. Yet while the tactics may be strong, seeing progress at the organizational level requires a certain level of intention. Many organizations at this phase get stuck on individual DEI tactics and do not have bigpicture goals.

Integrated At this point, a business is factoring DEI into its entire “sphere of influence.” DEI applies to hiring and retention, as well as public communication and products and services. “Employees feel like they belong,” Washington says, “The communities they serve feel like they belong. Customers feel like they belong.” DEI is considered a business imperative at this stage, not a nice-to-have element.

Sustainable Organizations in this phase have been in the integrated stage for quite some time and have figured out how to make these efforts sustainable and evolve over time, even with changes in business strategy, leadership, or other natural ebbs and flows of an organization. The value of using the journey as a framework is twofold, Washington notes. It helps businesses know where they’re starting, of course. But then it also provides destinations to aspire to, because, as she says, “There really is no final phase. The DEI journey is ongoing.”

Steps Along the Way

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Rafael Fantauzzi (EML’08) might be living proof that the DEI journey is ongoing. He has certainly seen its evolution during his career. His own foray into the field began in the 1990s, when he was a systems analyst in human resources for American Airlines. The airline faced controversies and backlash on a number of fronts. It had purchased another airline, whose flight manuals featured stereotypical information about Latin American people. And flight staff had both said and done disparaging things to LGBTQ travelers. “The CEO at the time decided we needed to get our act together,” Fantauzzi says. He was approached —Rafael Fantauzzi to be part of a company-wide

There are a lot of differences in how inequality manifests in different industries and even different countries. But at the core is people.”

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initiative offering both public outreach and ideas for new internal support. The latter would prove especially influential. “I was involved in the initial stages of building something that was not very common in corporate America, which was employee resource groups (ERG). We embraced a program that Lucent [Technologies] had around safe spaces in order to support our LGBT employees. We began to build a really robust diversity and inclusion initiative.” Fantauzzi also felt the effect himself. Serving as president of the Latin American ERG led him to realize not only his leadership skills, but also his keen interest in a growing movement toward DEI. “It resonated for me as someone who was born and raised in Puerto Rico, which, to this day, if you are still on the island or at least have experience living on the island, you are often considered a second-class citizen in the United States,” Fantauzzi says. Fantauzzi recognized the power of having a support system in place, not to mention the business value of inclusion — not just for avoiding PR backlash but also for boosting business. His work with American moved beyond responding to advocacy to efforts at increasing sales to new, more diverse markets. What started in compliance became tactical, and he had his eyes further down the journey. His work would take him to Coors, then several years as president and CEO of the National Puerto Rico Coalition, where he had the opportunity to see DEI through a nonprofit lens. More recently, he served as an equality, diversity, and inclusion officer for the Swedish company Ikea. Now he serves as vice president and chief diversity, equity, and inclusion officer for AccentCare, a leading provider of home-based care. “There are a lot of differences in how inequality manifests in different industries and even different countries,” he says. “But at the core is people. Whether you’re looking at your employees or how your business fits into your community, it’s about people.”

Numbers and the People Behind Them

Data undeniably plays a role in DEI. For instance, if an organization has as a goal to better represent the community or customers it serves, data is going to help provide benchmarks and accountability. The same goes for the desire to be more inclusive in reaching new markets or retaining new employees. But data must be part of a broader strategy, says Fantauzzi. “What I always look for is organizations that want to do diversity, equity, and inclusion as an organic part of their business operations,” he adds, and his description fits businesses in Washington’s integrated phase and beyond. “It can’t just be reactive. It can’t just be superficial improvements or optics. Through the years, a lot of companies have just focused on hiring the right numbers. Well, I can hire any organization into the right numbers, depending on whatever goals or benchmarks you want to use, but that doesn’t mean that those individuals are going to stay or feel like they fit in a community.” That’s a notion echoed by fellow McDonough graduate Esmé-Thea Sanders (MBA’19), a consultant in Advisory Services for the nonprofit Management Leadership for Tomorrow, which focuses on diversifying the talent pipeline. Sanders has long been rooted in data, and she knows its value. “They talk about poets and quants,” she says. “Well, I’m a quant.” Still, in her first data-centric role at Capital One after graduation, she started to see the importance of connecting with people behind the numbers and putting numbers into context — and helping others do the same. “I quickly realized, yes, my data skills are really important in this space, but Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

DEI at McDonough

Tactical, grassroots efforts related to DEI at McDonough have come in many forms in the past, from individual courses to speaker series to student organizations. But beginning in October 2020 with the convening of the Dean’s Office Standing Committee on Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, the school’s leadership, students, and faculty have pushed toward an integrated approach. The 2021 report, A Compass for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, provides baseline data and a roadmap for present and future DEI work at the school. “At the root of it, we’re trying to create an environment where all members of our McDonough community feel like they have not only a stake, but a place and a sense of belonging that allows them to have a voice that’s recognized and valued,” says Patricia Grant, senior associate dean for the Undergraduate Program and co-chair of the committee, in the report. “We’re using a ‘7 Cs’ framing that allows us to have a compass for the work that lies ahead,” she adds. “It’s an opportunity to recognize that curriculum and co-curriculum have a role to play in addition to our student, faculty, and staff composition. We’re looking at how we approach careers and how we communicate our values and our vision. We’re thinking about how all of those elements create community and culture.” Each of those 7 Cs comes with its own action items, as well as proposed follow-ups and measurements for accountability. It’s a systematic approach that fellow co-chair Michael O’Leary, teaching professor and senior associate dean for Custom Executive Education, hopes will help bring both the moral and business case for DEI to fruition. “Being at a Jesuit-based institution, a moral and ethical case is a natural one to make, but I think our faculty also are interested in helping people think about the business case — the reality that companies will be more successful when they focus on DEI issues too.”

ON THE WEB

 READ MORE AT msb.georgetown.edu/dei

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also my job is to help a leader to figure out how they approach a hard topic with their team. How do they plan their authentic conversations? I know that sounds wrong — planning for authenticity — but making a shift to be inclusive and authentic takes work and planning in a lot of cases.” An open person by nature, Sanders found herself doing a lot of coaching and facilitation, and she quickly became involved in creating ERGs at Capital One for groups that previously had not been represented. The latter felt appropriate, since her first exposure to the world of DEI came from leading an ERG at an insurance firm before earning her MBA at McDonough. Like Fantauzzi, Sanders’ personal experience proved the value integrated employee support systems provide. Put simply, if a person feels like they belong and is able to use their skills and perspectives, they’re more likely to stay. Data can’t always measure that. “If you’re a manager, I can give you raw attrition numbers,” she says. “But are those numbers alone going to help you? Or do you also need to look at what happened in the company over the course of the year, or in the community where that company does business, or in the larger economy, or with particular employees? Data rules, but the story behind that data really matters.” “If you have five people on your team, you don’t need me to give you data about them,” she adds. “What you should be focusing on is learning as much as possible about those five people that are sitting in front of you on a daily basis.” Beyond the idea that when people feel

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PHOTOGRAPHY BY ADAM JONES

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I quickly fell in love with this area because I felt like all of a sudden, I had a perspective that was actually really invaluable.”

—Laura Allen

included, they stay, Sanders offers another: When people feel included, they excel. Bringing more voices to the table, then letting them speak freely, means getting new perspectives and potentially reaching new markets. It’s the kind of benefit companies find when they move beyond tactical to integrated and sustainable phases. For instance, Sanders points to L’Oréal’s successful campaign extending their foundation colors to include darker hues, a decision that greatly grew their market share. And to MasterCard’s TrueName campaign, which allows trans people to use their chosen name on their card. Both offer social good. Both also reach previously untapped markets. “Diversity and inclusion should be as strategic as a marketing plan, and as strategic as a go-to-market strategy for new business or a new product. You get that when you have someone who’s on your boards, who’s in your conversations, in those strategy sessions, talking about, ‘Who are we not reaching?’ And let’s not just think about who’s in this room. Let’s think about those who are out there and what the diversity of the marketplace truly looks like.”

The Power of the Personal

When Laura Allen (B’10) was in high school, few were thinking of her small corner of the marketplace or the needs and opportunities that came with it. Because of a rare visual condition, by eighth grade, she had lost most central vision in both of her eyes. Her peripheral vision still works, but the middle of her vision is flashing lights that pulse and move. All that remains is one tiny field of vision where she can see and read two to three letters at a time. Allen has what’s considered an invisible disability. She is legally blind, but uses no cane or service animal. One would never know about her experiences just by looking at her. Her school hadn’t dealt with anything like her condition before, and at the time, the materials she needed weren’t available in accessible formats. So she and her family went the DIY route. They stripped the bindings off books, ran them through a high-speed scanner, and used software to convert images to text to be read aloud using text-to-speech software, all to give msb.georgetown.edu

Allen a shot at keeping up with assignments. A DIY attitude has served her well, as she has risen to become head of strategy for accessibility and disability inclusion at Google. She first connected with the company when a Google employee with a disability spoke at an event in Washington, D.C. — showing again how much representation matters. Her first job at the company was in sales, far removed from her future work. But she started to become involved at a grassroots, tactical level. Put simply, she spoke up. “I started to just reach out to different teams,” she says. “I’d find somebody who worked on the Google Docs team or the Gmail team and reach out with, ‘Hey, you know, I have low vision, and I have some feedback for how to make your product a little bit more accessible and inclusive. Would you be willing to grab coffee?” The response was overwhelmingly positive. “I quickly fell in love with this area because I felt like all of a sudden, I had a perspective that was actually really invaluable,” she says. “It wasn’t just that I was trying to compensate for my vision in my current job and be straining every single day. I was bringing something really interesting to the table that would benefit others, too.” Using Google’s 20% time — a policy that allows employees to spend one-fifth of their time on side projects they think will be valuable — she gradually took on more work consulting on accessibility and inclusivity in the company’s products and services. Eventually, she transitioned fully to such work. She has led a team that ensures key features such as screen readers, magnification, dictation, and other key assistive technology are baked into Google’s Chrome browser, Chromebooks, and other products, as well as making sure it works with other assistive technology. Now, she leads one that focuses on strategy for accessibility and disability across the organization and beyond. Even in a competitive corporate environment, she and colleagues at other companies such as Facebook, Apple, and Yahoo! share best practices regularly. “My whole goal at Google has been around leveraging the company’s scale. We’ve got products that are being used by billions of people in some cases. And if we can get those right, and really make them accessible and inclusive, it can really go a long way toward leveling the playing field for people with disabilities through technology.” Chromebooks are prevalent in K–12 classrooms. A high school student with Allen’s same visual condition today can benefit directly from her own experience and the work she has put in at Google. So the moral case for inclusivity for Allen is easy. Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

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But like many others with personal experience in the world of DEI, the business case is clear, too: “Over 1 billion people in the world have a disability — and then you factor in their family members. You know, there is potential upside in sales just from building for a population that’s so large.” On a more personal and internal level, she also serves as head of operations for a disabilities employee resource group, the Google Disability Alliance. Better than most, she knows the value of being able to authentically share one’s whole self. “It’s an awful feeling to feel like you have to hide,” she says. “And I mention that because I’ve come such a long way with it, where I —Esmé-Thea Sanders feel like at Google, I’ve been able to build my confidence and be able to just talk so freely about disability, about my experiences. That’s been one of the biggest things that has helped in the realm of invisible disabilities. If we can create a culture where we can have an open dialogue and people feel like they can openly disclose and share, that makes a world of difference.” GB

Diversity and inclusion should be as strategic as a marketing plan, and as strategic as a go-to-market strategy for new business or a new product.”

Defining DEI

Diversity: The composition of an organization in terms of key demographic and identity groups — often in terms of similarities to and differences from the composition of the larger population. Equity: The extent to which treatment of — and allocation of resources for — stakeholders of that organization is fair and transparent. Inclusion: The extent to which people in the organization feel heard, respected, and engaged regardless of their demographics, identities, or backgrounds. Modified from A Compass for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Georgetown McDonough 2021

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Engagement

Gets Personal By Melanie Padgett Powers

PHOTO TAKEN PRE-COVID-19.

Through the PILLARs program, alumni find volunteer opportunities tailored to their skills. And engagement is soaring — even during the pandemic. 26 •

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Tania Galarza (MBA’05) was feeling grateful for the McDonough School of Business — the school that had provided her a stellar education, opportunities, and career preparation. She wanted to give back. She just wasn’t sure how. That’s where the Partners in Leadership, Learning, and Research (PILLARs) program came into play. PILLARs is the umbrella organization for all McDonough alumni engagement. When alumni raise their hands, PILLARs helps them discover or create a volunteer opportunity tailored to their skills or expertise. And more alumni than ever have been raising their hands during the pandemic. Galarza, senior director of marketing integrated strategy at Marriott International, was connected directly to the MBA program, where she is a member of the MBA Alumni Advisory Council (MAAC). She spoke with Prashant Malaviya, senior associate dean for MBA programs, about his goals and plans for the program. Then Galarza was off and running. She first volunteered as a judge in the Executive Challenge case competition. Then she helped create an MBA mentoring program and became chair of the MAAC Mentorship Committee. To date, she has served as mentor for four mentees. She also has given six or so guest lectures to MBA marketing and leadership classes. “I was looking for the right opportunities to give back,” Galarza says. “Once I started to do one thing, I was really motivated because I could see, by bringing my professional experiences to the table, I could have an immediate and long-term impact.”

PHOTO COURTESY OF MICHAEL O'LEARY

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Once I started to do one thing, I was really motivated because I could see, by bringing my professional experiences to the table, I could have an immediate and long-term impact.”

—Tania Galarza

Guest speaker Wonya Lucas, president and CEO of Crown Media, addresses the New Media and Entertainment class. Steve Schiffman, adjunct professor at Georgetown McDonough, is also pictured.

A Positive During the Pandemic

PILLARs has grown substantially during the pandemic, with 117 alumni involved in 2021 compared to 73 in 2020. Lauren Apicella, director of alumni relations who oversees PILLARs, points to several reasons: Involvement in PILLARs is easier now that everyone is accustomed to using Zoom, which provides more flexibility and ultimately more opportunities compared to traveling to campus. On top of that, there has been a greater desire during the pandemic throughout society to give back and help others, she says. In addition, PILLARs received renewed attention when COVID-19 hit and McDonough launched the Hoyas Helping Hoyas campaign to assist students who had lost internships and jobs. McDonough Career Services and the Office of Alumni Relations reached out to McDonough alumni, who rallied to help provide new internships and positions to students in summer 2020. That strengthened the connection between alumni and McDonough, invigorating the PILLARs program, Apicella says. Volunteers don’t have to be McDonough alumni, either. They can be any Georgetown alumni, parents of students, or community members, Apicella says. Volunteer participation has been essential in helping students make the connection between classroom theory and concepts and real-world situations, says Charles Skuba, professor of the practice in marketing and international business. Several guest speakers have spoken via Zoom and in person to Skuba’s students. Pamela Cloud (C’92), a former marketing executive from Tiffany & Co., msb.georgetown.edu

LISA HELFERT

Eric Jordan (B’99), managing director at Goldman Sachs, speaks with students after a Stanton Distinguished Leaders Series lecture.

shared that company’s jewelry merchandising strategies to his luxury marketing class. Elizabeth Ross-Ronchi (MBA’99), vice president and general manager from American Express Global Commercial Services, spoke to Skuba’s Executive MBA class about how her company segments customers and their value propositions. She also spoke to Skuba’s international business and public policy class, where she shared how American Express creates a global marketing plan. Aleco Azqueta (C’98), vice president of marketing at Bacardi Grey Goose vodka, mesmerized students as he explained how he develops a global marketing strategy, Skuba says. “We teach theory and proven research behind the theory,” Skuba says. “But what students really find to be rewarding and educational is when they see the theory applied. The ability to have current executives speak to how theory is being applied in the marketplace really brings things to life. It makes words on a slide much more tangible and engaging.” As a guest speaker, since the pandemic started, Galarza has

Data shows just how much alumni engagement has increased during the past two years. In FY 2021, engagement increased

248 % 253

for event attendees, and

for alumni volunteers

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

participated in one in-person event and several by Zoom. In each case, she was intentional about being authentic and transparent. “I made sure to share the positives and upswings of my company — what it went through and I’d gone through — and also the down times and challenging times.” She also impressed upon students the importance of being flexible in their career as challenges arise. “It’s not just about applying the framework,” she says. “You take that framework, and you adjust and adapt and flex with the situation at hand.” From her perspective, the students were highly engaged and appreciative of her transparency. “I wanted them to feel like they could reach out to me after class and know they could ask any type of question or seek any kind of guidance.” Their enthusiasm has been the “fuel” for her to keep returning to the classroom, she says.

A Breadth of Opportunities Alumni engagement also exposes students to the breadth of opportunities they could seek out with a business degree, Apicella says. For example, undergraduates may think a finance career leads only to Wall Street, but guest speakers introduce them to alternative avenues. Spring 2022 •

“

The ability to have current executives speak to how theory is being applied in the marketplace really brings things to life. It makes words on a slide much more tangible and engaging.”

—Charles J. Skuba,

Professor of the Practice in Marketing and International Business

Providing students with a variety of guest speakers is even more important as everyone faces “Zoom fatigue,” Skuba says. “It adds more characters to the play. We try to create teaching environments and learning experiences that are engaging and entertaining, and the PILLARs program has incredible value in allowing us to bring in people and refresh our classes.” While guest speaking is valuable, it’s not the only way people can become involved. Volunteers can be mentors to individual students, work with student clubs, provide interview prep sessions for different industries, and work on special classroom projects, such as helping students develop business strategies or marketing plans based on the volunteer’s company. For an undergraduate strategy course, students were previously tasked with developing a business strategy for any public company of their choosing. However, through PILLARs, the professor

worked with the Georgetown Business Improvement District, which connected students to local businesses to create a realworld strategy. This was particularly valuable to D.C. small businesses and restaurants that had lost income during the pandemic (see page 9), Apicella says. Alumni also can help with the admissions process by reviewing applications and talking with prospective students. Alumni have offered their workplaces to faculty for research and have cowritten case studies with them. To become involved, interested alumni first connect with Apicella to discuss how they would like to help. Then, she begins her “matchmaking” with potential projects or classes, ultimately providing the alumnus with a few options to choose from. Sharing their expertise and getting to know students at their alma mater has been rewarding for alumni, as well — especially as the world passes the pandemic twoyear mark. “There is more appreciation than ever among our alumni about giving back to others and to their alma mater,” Skuba says. “They have these incredible, impressive careers, and they’ve amassed a lot of knowledge and experience, and our students really appreciate them sharing that with others. “I think it becomes very rewarding for very successful professionals to have an opportunity to share their experience and learning, particularly through an institution they love,” he adds. “There’s a strong emotional reward in working with PILLARs.” GB

Learn more about the PILLARs Program.

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Spring 2022

msb.georgetown.edu

ALUMNI

NEWS NOTES

alumni honored at the 2021 Graduate Alumni Reunion in October

RAFAEL SUANES

READ FULL STORY on page 38 Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

Spring 2022 •

ALUMNI NEWS NOTES PROFILE

ALUMNI RELATIONS

Dear Alumni, We are proud of how our alumni responded to the challenges of the pandemic. As the world seemed to come to a halt and we all had to adjust our personal and professional lives, your dedication to our students and university never waivered. The result? Record-setting engagement from alumni volunteers (see our PILLARs Program story on page 26). As the world emerges from the pandemic, your alumni relations team is committed to combining the best of what we learned in the virtual environment to our tried-and-true activities and volunteer opportunities. So please look for a return to in-person regional and on-campus alumni events while we continue our virtual alumni engagement, with Lifelong Learning Skills Days and Operation: Cura Personalis events. Attend a networking event with our students or serve as a virtual mentor from anywhere in the world. Connect with one another on Hoya Gateway to leverage the power of the Georgetown network in your life. Thank you for demonstrating how our Jesuit values continue into our lives well after graduation. We look forward to connecting with you and finding new and innovative ways to strengthen our alumni community. Hoya Saxa, Lauren

Lauren Apicella (MBA’22) Director of Alumni Relations

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Spring 2022

Perfecting Networking Inspired by the connections he made at Georgetown McDonough, Reilly Davis (B’12) is making a career out of linking students and alumni.

When fostering or honing ideas, identifying key talents, or simply learning more about people and institutions, Reilly Davis (B’12) knows that networks are essential catalysts for growth. After all, the connections he made at Georgetown helped shape his career. In turn, Davis launched PeopleGrove, a mentorship and advising platform dedicated to connecting students and alumni, which happens to be the software behind the Hoya Gateway networking platform. After graduating from McDonough with a degree in finance, Davis’ professional journey began at Credit Suisse, where he connected with his future business partner, Adam Saven. “I hadn’t explored other options,” says Davis. “There was a realization that there were so many things I didn’t do in undergrad that I should have done — like talking to more people. I just followed the standard path.” A year into the two-year program with Credit Suisse, Davis realized he was unhappy with his career trajectory and reached out to various contacts for advice and job opportunities. “I went through this process of trying to explore what else is out there, and a lot of it involved connecting with other alumni and setting up coffee meetings,” Davis says. “It was an alumnus that I met who made the referral that got me my next job (at Google).” Once at Google, Davis and Saven started thinking about how to help other students connect with the right people to get the right job — instead of just the next job. “We thought you just study, get great grades, and go on the defined path,” he says. “That’s what got us thinking about how we help people find jobs they love that aren’t msb.georgetown.edu

ALUMNI NEWS NOTES 1983 Steven Haedrich is

the president of New York Label & Box Works, a family-owned business founded in 1878. They recently launched a new division — STICKERBUZZ — to produce online fast digital stickers.

1985 UNDERGRADUATE

1974 Brian Peter Brinig

PHOTO COURTESY REILLY DAVIS

on the defined path.” Davis’ evolving career path, along with the help he received from his network of former professors and alumni, sparked the idea of PeopleGrove. The online networking platform grew quickly, expanding to more than 300 colleges and universities across the country, including Georgetown’s Hoya Gateway. “It’s imperative for universities today to expand their support networks,” Davis says. After achieving notable success at PeopleGrove, as well as being named to the Forbes “30 Under 30” list, Davis still enjoys helping and mentoring students and young alumni the same way others helped him. “I love having a Hoya Gateway profile and having Hoyas reach out to me for so many different reasons,” Davis says. “I also enjoy staying involved with alumni events and helping promote a larger vision on campus to make sure every single student has the kinds of experiences and access that will help them succeed.” —Joe Trotter

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

recently published his fourth book, Mastering Self-Discipline: A Thoughtful Approach. He is an adjunct professor at the University of San Diego School of Law and a managing director at the national financial services firm CBIZ. He is the father of Kevin Brinig (B’09) and Erin Brinig (B’13).

1981 Paula Schaefer was

named 2019 Woman of the Year by WX: New York Women Executives in Real Estate. She has more than 25 years of experience in commercial real estate and currently is senior vice president at Clarion Partners LLC.

2021, Hoya ^ In Classmates Ron Sinclair, Karen Scaduto (C’81), Jamie Daly (C’81), Terry Lynch (SFS’81), and Phil Geyer joined family

and friends in support of Valli Baldassano (C’82) to ride as the ‘Valli Boyz & Galz’ team in Bike MS events in both the Phiadelphia (11th time) and D.C. (2nd time) areas. Valli has been living with multiple sclerosis for 30+ years and is a past board member of the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. Jean (McNamara) Burke (C’81) and her husband

Jerry also joined them before the Philadelphia event. This year’s teams had 15 riders, who raised close to $17,000 to fund research to find a cure for MS. The Valli Boyz & Galz have collectively raised over $80,000 since forming in 2010.

Liz (Sheppard) Sweeney retired in 2018

as managing director at S&P Global Ratings in New York and served as an executive in residence and career advisor to Georgetown McDonough’s Master of Science in Finance program. Sweeney also is a board member of an academic health care system in Baltimore and has her own consulting practice, Nutshell Associates LLC.

1986 Norm Powell was

invited to become a member of the TriBar Opinion Committee of the American Bar Foundation in 2022. He also served a two-year term on their board of directors of the Working Group on Legal Opinions Foundation. Powell is a Spring 2022 •

ALUMNI NEWS NOTES

1988 Mark “Springer” Spring

has practiced labor and employment law at DCF Labor Law LLP in Northern California for 24 years. He continues to teach an undergraduate law class at Sacramento State University. After coaching high school basketball at Folsom High School from 2000 to 2019, Spring recently was named assistant varsity boys basketball coach at El Dorado High School in Placerville, California.

Georgetown University campus. By virtue of this position, he also is a member of the Steering Committee of the GU Community Partners. J.P.’s wife, Lauren, is a graphic designer with Abstract Orange Design who frequently volunteers in Lauinger Library’s Maker Hub to help students create artistic projects.

1992 Michele Di Pietro

authored her first cookbook, SOUPified: Soups Inspired by Your Favorite Dishes. It offers a whimsical and fun collection of soup recipes that were inspired by classic dishes.

1989

named a Tech Titan by Washingtonian magazine. She is managing partner of 1863 Ventures and an adjunct professor at Georgetown McDonough.

J.P. Szymkowicz was

reelected in November 2020 as the District of Columbia Advisory Neighborhood Commissioner for the area to the west of the

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Spring 2022

has joined the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) as vice president of member experience. In his new role, he will be responsible for all aspects of the NAB member experience, including content, programming, networking, and other engagement strategies. A third-generation broadcaster, Caldwell previously was the chief financial officer of East Arkansas Broadcasters.

Blood & Treasure, the TV series inspired by Mark Vlasic’s pro bono work on recovering blood antiquities and for which he serves as an executive producer, is now available on SyFy UK.

1997 Mya (Klauson) Hatchette

of the law firm of Winderweedle, Haines, Ward and Woodman, P.A., was recently selected by her peers for inclusion in The Best Lawyers in America (2021).

Molly Bruttomesso

has been named vice president of customer success for Wunderkind, a leading performance marketing engine that delivers tailored experiences at scale.

1999

Melissa Bradley was

1991

Bradford Caldwell

1996

Evangelyn “Angel” Dotomain was appointed

1995 Hayim Nommaz joined

Compass, a technologydriven real estate firm, as a licensed associate real estate broker in New York.

area director of the Alaska Area Native Health Services, an agency in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services that provides comprehensive health services for Alaska Natives. Dotomain is responsible for providing leadership in the administration of a comprehensive federal and tribal health care system.

2001

partner in the Delaware law firm of Young Conaway Stargatt & Taylor, LLP.

Chris Lucey (B’01, S’12)

recently joined the board of directors of The Father McKenna Center, an Ignatian nonprofit in Washington, D.C., that serves the homeless and those experiencing food insecurity.

2003 Irina Adler is managing

director of the leading financial advisory firm Solomon Partners.

2005 Brett Meich, a

partner at the law firm Downey Brand, was recognized as a 2021 Northern Nevada Legal Elite by Nevada Business Magazine for his work in complex business litigation, construction litigation, and employment litigation.

2007 Michael Addeo,

managing director and head of restructuring at Blackstone, was selected as one of ABI’s “40 Under 40,” which recognizes the top insolvency industry professionals under the age of 40. Michael Karamat has

been named general counsel of United

msb.georgetown.edu

ALUMNI NEWS NOTES Gaming, LLC, a privately owned coin-operated amusement machine operator in Georgia.

2009 Tommy Lee has been

promoted to chief investment officer at Trammell Crow Co., the largest commercial real estate developer in the United States. Matt Melymuka is a

cofounder and managing partner of PeakSpan Capital, a softwarefocused growth equity firm with over $1 billion under management today. He and his cofounders launched the firm with a core mantra of focus and specialization across sector (software only) and stage (growth stage only) leading to success, coupled with a “contra-Silicon Valley” approach to working with entrepreneurs. He has worked with 25-plus software businesses so far in his career pursuing the approach that underpins PeakSpan, and to date has never lost capital or returned less than double on any investment.

Change the Earth, a striking collection of satellite images documenting human impact on the Earth and how the Earth responds.

2017 Country-rap star Daniel Breland’s debut single, “My Truck” reached Number One on Spotify’s Viral 50 chart and eventually was certified platinum in January 2021. He has released two EPs on Bad Realm Records/Atlantic records. MBA

1985 Michael Gottlieb

celebrated the 25th anniversary of his nonprofit, Westcoast Sports Associates, which gives more than 10,000 economically disadvantaged children in Southern California the opportunity to play sports each year.

1986 In May 2021, Ivy Cohen’s

2015 Tim Dougherty is the

coauthor of Overview Timelapse: How We

company, Ivy Cohen Corporate Communications, celebrated its 20th anniversary. During

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

that time she has worked with clients among the Fortune 100 and many growing and pioneering companies. Cohen also was named to Crain’s New York’s 2021 “Notable Women Business Owners” list. She also addressed unexpected challenges during the pandemic by creating hybrid-living. com, an online portal with curated content about leadership, best practices, and resources. Several Georgetown McDonough students were interns on this project.

1987 Harvey Chimoff was

named head of global marketing for Alvinesa Natural Ingredients, where he leads all strategic, brand, and tactical marketing for the “circular economy” B2B manufacturing leader.

1993 Melissa d’Arabian wrote

the book Tasting Grace: Discovering the Power of Food to Connect Us to God, One Another, and Ourselves. A celebrity chef and television host, she also is the author of two cookbooks. Colin MacDougal’s MBA

internship was part of the ACORN program

in Central Europe. He moved to Czechoslovakia after graduating, incorporated Print Partners in 1993, and opened a B&B in 1994. His first child, Veronika, was born there in 1995. He moved to Austin, Texas, in 2000. The B&B was sold in 2005, and the other businesses were sold in 2019. He is a real estate investor and parent of two more children, ages 10 and 13. Their COVID projects were to transform an overgrown vacant lot into an attractive park for the middle school next door and learn Spanish as a family. Quite amazing what you can do with Duolingo and Spanish dubbed television!

1994 Christopher Hewitt (MBA/JD’94) was named

a 2020 Lawyer of the Year by Best Lawyers. He is a partner at Tucker Ellis LLP in Cleveland, specializing in mergers and acquisitions law. Frank J. Manzella (C’90, MBA/JD’94) has been

named senior vice president of corporate development and strategy for Availity, the nation’s largest realtime health information network.

1996 Richard “Rick” Vinci

received the degree of doctor of education in interdisciplinary leadership from Creighton University in 2020 with highest honors as a member of the Alpha Iota Sigma Honor Society. Vinci is managing director of Pickwick Capital Partners and is a faculty member of Midland University and at the University of Arizona Global Campus teaching MBA students investment management and leadership. He lives with his wife, Jackie, and son, Andrew, in Omaha, Nebraska.

1997 Todd Corley has been

appointed to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Equity Commission, an independent commission that will address historical discrimination at the USDA. Corley was chosen to fulfill the role of organizational development, design thinking, and change management expert.

Spring 2022 •

ALUMNI NEWS NOTES NorthStar Medical Radioisotopes LLC, a global innovator in the development, production, and commercialization of diagnostic and therapeutic radiopharmaceuticals, as chief operating officer.

2001 Brendan Pierce has

been named president, commercial at Crescent Communities, which he joined in 2020 as senior managing director of commercial development. He previously worked with The Keith Corporation, a full-service commercial real estate firm headquartered in Charlotte, for 16 years. Tiffany Wilson was

named president and CEO of the University City Science Center, an organization that helps commercialize technology, deploy capital to healthcare startups, cultivate STEM talent, and convene people to inspire action.

2002 Sarah Alexander has

joined Evolent Health, which partners with payers and providers to reduce the cost of care, improve clinical quality, and simplify 36 •

Spring 2022

administration, as market president. She most recently was the chief operating officer of RubiconMD.

2005 Ukraine’s national postal system, Ukrposhta, which is led by Igor Smelyansky, won two prestigious World Post & Parcel Awards in 2019 in the categories of corporate social responsibility and postal ecommerce.

2009 Ben Parry is CEO of

Compost Crew, which recently was named the Organics Diversion Program of the year by the U.S. Composting Council. Compost Crew is the leading food scrap recycling company in the DMV area, with a mission to recover compostable waste, reduce dependence on landfills and incinerators, and revitalize our soils.

2012 Josh Glade is co-CEO

of MST Services, an internationally recognized, scientifically proven behavioral therapy intervention for at-risk youth. The company recently acquired Orbis Partners, which provides a variety

of products and services to vulnerable populations including the YASI model, which is used by hundreds of juvenile justices authorities across North America to assess risk, needs, and protective factors in youth populations.

2013 Scott Brodbeck has

launched ALXNow. com, a local news site for Alexandria, Virginia, and the latest in his Local News Now portfolio that began in 2010 with the launch of ARLNow, covering Arlington, Virginia.

2014 Mark Braza, a director

for the Department of the Navy, was named a finalist in the Emerging Leaders category of the Partnership for Public Service Samuel J. Heyman Service to America Medals. He was recognized for his work in leading nearly 30 government organizations and contractors to plan and execute key elements of the $5 billion overhaul of the USS John C. Stennis, a Nimitz-class nuclear aircraft carrier that is pivotal to America’s national security.

2016 Andrew Elliott is

co-founder of RoundlyX, a software as a service (SaaS) toolset that allows users to manage their digital asset wealth via one dashboard with access to tools such as “Roundup Investing” (similar to the hit Acorns app for equity investing but for the digital asset class), curated content, and aggregated services.

2019 Melissa Antal’s company,

Foublie, was listed among Poets&Quants’ Most Disruptive MBA Startups of 2019. John Howard married

Grace Brier on June 22, 2019, in Scranton, Pennsylvania. He is a certified public accountant and vice president of financial

planning and analysis at NCI Inc. in Reston, Virginia. MASTER OF SCIENCE IN FINANCE

2018 Andrew Christopher has

joined Dowling & Yahnke Wealth Advisors in 2019 and is now a lead advisor. EXECUTIVE MBA

1996

Frank Scholz has joined

The Honorable Marie Royce was recognized as the winner of the 2021 Career Achievement Award at the 2021 Professional Fraternity Association Conference. She was selected for her career achievements in the private sector, her philanthropic work at the U.S. Department of State, where she is the former Assistant Secretary of

msb.georgetown.edu

ALUMNI NEWS NOTES

Mission Critical Cheryl Campbell (GEMBA’16) brings decades of leadership and healthcare IT expertise to an appointment at HHS. As Assistant Secretary for Administration for the Department of Health and Human Services, Cheryl R. Campbell (GEMBA’16) will tell you no two days on the job are the same. She doesn’t see that as a problem, but a privilege. One day she might be strategizing with HHS’s leadership on a way to prevent or respond to cyber attacks on sensitive data. The next she’ll be leading a meeting on labor relations. A day later, she’ll be crafting new work models for a massive organization. Since her appointment by President Biden, Campbell has been given critical leadership responsibilities: To ensure that the department’s people can meet any challenge they are given, its information technology is current and able to meet the department’s needs, and that all operations run smoothly and without interruption. On top of that, she’s tasked with ensuring that every aspect of HHS meets the Biden-Harris Administration’s and HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra’s strong commitment to diversity, equity, and inclusion. Her portfolio of responsibilities includes the provisioning and management of an 80,000-plus workforce, oversight of the information technology systems and cybersecurity activities, 70-plus facilities, $1.7T in annual acquisitions, Federal Occupation Health services, employee safety, security, labor relations, equal employment, and diversity, inclusion and equity. It helps that by the time Campbell was appointed to the role in 2021, she already had extensive experience working with HHS — on the other side of the table. “I’ve worked in almost every operating division within HHS as a contractor supporting them in their mission and critical engagements,” Campbell says. In fact, Campbell had led private sector teams responsible for the technical rollout and support of Medicare.gov, the Affordable Care Act, and other massive publicfacing efforts. “It’s an exciting scenario to be on one side of the perspective helping to build the systems that drive the mission of Health and Human Services. And then coming in on the other side as the political appointee and actually implementing it from a mission critical perspective,” Campbell says. In addition to private sector experience with HHS, she’s calling upon her 30-plus years of accumulated experience as an executive leader with particular expertise in healthcare information technology. During that career, she has earned numerous accolades, including being named a “Healthcare IT Game Changer” by ExecutiveBiz and one of the top 50 Global Executive MBAs by Poets&Quants. She also was the CEO of EagleForce Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

HHS PHOTO BY CHRIS SMITH

PROFILE

Warrior Foundation, Inc., and she has served on various board positions with Kaiser Permanente, Esade Business School, American Heart Association, American Red Cross, and Paralyzed Veterans of America. “Giving back to the communities we serve defines my core values as an American citizen,” Campbell says. Campbell came on board at HHS during the middle of the pandemic, when all employers and employees were experiencing rare challenges, not the least of which being in an unexpected telework environment. To help solve those challenges at HHS, she uses her organizational management expertise. “I think about my experiences in private industry. How do you implement transformation without breaking things at the same time?” she says. Doing so requires accepting that the traditional model of everyone in the office five days a week is not likely to return, she notes, then asking critical questions about new ways of operating. What new processes and technology are needed to support new ways of working? When is remote work most appropriate, and when is in-person interface needed? What do employees of different generations expect? Perhaps most important: What best practices will work across a large, varied organization? “We put forth some models that allowed us to take that across our enterprise,” Campbell says. Doing so was no easy feat considering HHS has multiple divisions across multiple geographies with different needs and different styles of operation, much like in a corporation. HHS and other federal organizations face similar shifting talent concerns as private industry, too. Therefore, Campbell spends a great deal of her time and energy developing strategies for the future of HR recruitment and retention. “The exciting part of this 21st-century workplace is this: What we’re talking about is not only how do we attract and retain talent from an HR recruitment perspective and talent management perspective, but then what do we change in the work environment?” Campbell says. To her, that means considering everything from employees’ paths to upward mobility to an expanded hiring pipeline, both in terms of geography and through the lens of diversity, equity, and inclusion. Campbell herself is the first female and person of color to serve as Assistant Secretary for Administration. “I live that every day. Most of my career I’ve usually been the first. In the technology fields, in the business arena, that’s sort of been my MO for a very long time. I think it’s not an issue of being the first — it’s making sure I’m not the last. The door is open. Let’s keep the door open.” Spring 2022 •

ALUMNI NEWS NOTES State, Educational and Cultural Affairs, and her continued involvement over the past 40 years with Pi Sigma Epsilon as an alumni advisor and a board member in its National Council.

1997 MIND Technology Inc. has appointed Dennis P. Morris to chief operating officer. MIND Technology provides critical mission technology to Marine Survey, Marine Exploration, and Maritime Defense markets.

2008

Deal, that teaches business owners and entrepreneurs how to build and sell a business for maximum value.

2017 Rico Macaraeg has

joined ThriveDX, the world’s premier EdTech provider, as vice president of marketing.

2019 Margarita Womack’s

company, M’Panadas, was listed among Poets&Quants’ Most Disruptive MBA Startups of 2019. GLOBAL EXECUTIVE MBA

Jim Dullinger has

been appointed chief accounting officer of BM Technologies, Inc., one of the largest digital banking platforms in the country.

2013 Jon Taylor has written

a book, Maximize Your Multiple: The Business Owner’s Guide to the Institutional Money

Morales was chosen for her work to provide access to global markets to nationwide minorityowned businesses that have been historically underserved and ensure they have the tools to be successful when doing business globally. EXECUTIVE MASTER’S IN LEADERSHIP

2008 Matthew Watley is

the senior pastor and founder of Kingdom Fellowship AME Church in Silver Spring, Maryland.

2013 Jennifer Middaugh has

2013 Gabriela Morales was

named a U.S. Department of Commerce Gold Medal recipient, the highest form of honorary recognition the department bestows among its workforce of more than 46,000 individuals. It is granted for distinguished performance, and

joined Capital Square, a leading sponsor of taxadvantaged real estate investments, as senior regional vice president, Mid-Atlantic sales.

Tell us about your job, family, or community involvement. Email georgetownbusiness@georgetown.edu, or visit alumni.georgetown.edu and click on Share/Life Updates.

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Spring 2022

Awards Honor Alumni at Graduate Alumni Reunion Eleven Georgetown McDonough alumni received awards for exemplary service to the school as part of the 2021 Graduate Alumni Reunion in October. The Dean’s Award honors alumni renowned in their field and who exemplify the characteristics of principled leadership and service to society. 2021’s recipients were: • Dewey Awad (MBA’96), a managing director at Bain Capital, who supports students and alumni through his service on the McDonough Board of Advisors, as well as his Dewey Awad Fund for Faculty Excellence, which assists faculty members and enables them to sustain excellence in research and teaching. • Karim El Solh (MBA’91), co-founder and CEO of Gulf Capital and a member of the McDonough Board of Advisors, has supported students, faculty, and alumni through mentorship, career development, curricula advising, and his Business Innovation and Technology fund, which helps move McDonough into the future. The MBA Alumni Advisory Council (MAAC) Award recipients included: • Alison Davis (SFS/MBA’00), (center right, with Prashant Malaviya) chief financial officer and chief operation officer at Alchemy Life Enterprises, Inc., who has served as chair of the MAAC for the past two years, advising on the strategy of the MBA program and curricula.

msb.georgetown.edu

ALUMNI NEWS NOTES

PHOTOS: RAFAEL SUANES

• Tania Galarza (MBA’05), senior director of marketing strategy and performance for Marriott International, who has led the MAAC’s MBA Mentorship Subcommittee, growing a pilot with just 40 mentors and students to 187 alumni mentors matched with students in its first year. The MSF Award is presented to a Master of Science in Finance graduate excelling in their field and demonstrating commitment to the university. It was presented to: • Christopher Avella (MSF’15) (bottom right, with Allan Eberhart), chief financial officer at Hermitage Offshore Services, who is a member of the program’s inaugural class. Avella is a sought-after resource for students and other alumni, serves on the MSF Council of Advisors, and has shared his experiences in financial leadership positions as a guest speaker, presenter, summer clinics project sponsor, and career advisor. • Casey Minnick (MSF’16), chief operating officer for foreign exchange rates and credit at UBS Investment Bank, is a member of the MSF Council of Advisors. She has been a regular guest speaker, mentor, and a champion for MSF students who seek to break into Wall Street. The CIRCLE Award is given to a Committee for Impactful Relationships for C-Level Executives (CIRCLE) member who has demonstrated dedication to the school’s executive degree programs and students. The award was presented to: • Gary Gadson (EMBA’05) (top), vice president of operations at American Virtual Cloud Technologies, has served as chair of the CIRCLE Mentoring Committee and as a mentor, has guest lectured in EMBA classes, and is dedicated to supporting the Executive Degree student and alumni community. • Tatiana Koleva (EMBA’01) (center left, with Bardia Kamrad), president of Exela Enterprise Solutions at Exela Technologies, is the chair of the CIRCLE Recruitment Committee, has served as a panel judge at EMBA opening residencies, and has supported students and alumni with mentorship and career advice. The Alumni Engagement award was presented to the most highly engaged alumnus over the course of the past year. 2021’s recipient was:

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

• Elizabeth Ross-Ronchi (MBA’99), vice president and general manager of supply chain solutions and international business financing at American Express, who leverages her role on the MAAC to advise upon and help improve the MBA student experience. The Magis Award is presented to a graduate who has gone above and beyond for McDonough students and the community. The inaugural recipients were: • Walter David (MBA’05), director of business development at City of Hope Comprehensive Cancer Center. David has been working with the MBA Career Center to connect alumni and current MBA students who are interested in the healthcare industry. He also helped to set up a mentorship program between alumni and first-year MBA students during their internship experience and has served as a mentor himself during the 2020 and 2021 summers. • Rusmir Musić (MBA’11) has built a post-MBA career at the World Bank and IFC, working on climate and green building programs around the world. Over the years, he has facilitated hundreds of students to work on dozens of projects at the bank, helping them gain the special brand of Georgetown’s global business education that serves both business and society.

Spring 2022 •

TAKE 5 5 Things You May Not Know about the Jesuits by Ronald Anton, S.J.

More than 230 years after its founding, Georgetown University continues to be a community rooted in a rich Jesuit tradition. But how well do you know the Jesuits? Ronald Anton, S.J., McDonough’s senior advisor for Jesuit identity, shares five facts you may not know about the history of the Jesuits or their relationship to Georgetown.

1. Jesuits were the first global networkers.

The Jesuits in the 16th and 17th century were among the first and most important global networkers. Missionaries sent back to Jesuit Headquarters prepared annual “intelligence” reports from the far corners of the world. They also sent European schools maps of unexplored places, as well as such unusual items as plants and trees. The missionaries earned good publicity for their work and sowed the seeds for others to follow in their footsteps.

2. Jesuits were pioneers in the pharmaceutical business.

Missionaries also sent back to Europe herbs and roots — unknown on the continent — that native peoples used to cure diseases. The best known is quinine, sometimes called “Jesuit bark,” to cure malaria. With these remedies, Jesuits actually opened pharmacies for the general public in most larger cities where they were established.

3. St. Ignatius worked as a fundraiser.

We think of saints as preachers, ascetics, and martyrs, but never as something as worldly as fundraisers. Yet that is precisely what Ignatius was. Once he decided that the Jesuits were going to run and staff schools, he discovered the problem every leader of a school faces: how to finance these institutions. Ignatius “cultivated” benefactors by letter and personal encounters, trying to entice them to help.

4. More than 800 Jesuits have served at Georgetown in the last 70 years.

We often think that Georgetown has only a handful of Jesuits. But from 1950 to 2020, 848 Jesuits have been part of the Georgetown Jesuit Community. In the 1960s, and again from 1983 to 1986, there were more than 100 Jesuits on campus. Now the number is around 50.

5. The U.S. Coast Guard’s largest ship is named for a relative of Patrick Healy, S.J.

“The USCG Cutter Healy is the United States’ largest and most technologically advanced icebreaker, as well as the Coast Guard’s largest vessel,” according to Wikipedia. It was named after Michael A. Healy, a career officer with the U.S. Revenue Cutter Service (predecessor for the U.S. Coast Guard), the first man of African-American descent to command a ship of the United States government. Michael was the brother of Patrick Healy, S.J., the Georgetown president after whom Healy Hall is named. 40 •

Spring 2022

msb.georgetown.edu

Preparing McDonough Students for

the

Fields of the Future

At Georgetown McDonough, we believe it’s our responsibility to build upon our rigorous business core in a way that enhances our capabilities in emerging fields, such as entrepreneurship and innovation, business and public policy, the business of sustainability, AI, analytics, and the future of work. A gift to the Dean’s Leadership Fund supports academic programs, cocurricular and extracurricular activities, and faculty hiring and thought leadership.

To help us in this work, please visit giving.georgetown.edu or contact Tim Fuderich from the Georgetown Development team at timothy.fuderich@georgetown.edu.

GEORGETOWN

BUSINESS

Georgetown University McDonough School of Business Office of Marketing and Communications 211 Rafik B. Hariri Building 37th and O Streets, NW Washington, DC 20057

Partners in Leadership, Learning, and Research Georgetown McDonough is seeking alumni volunteers to share their expertise with students and faculty through our PILLARs Program.

Connect with students: Guest lecture in a class, help students prepare for interviews, judge a student case competition, or serve as a mentor. Host an event: Hold a student “trek” to your organization or sponsor a class project to provide solutions to practical issues within your organization. Work with faculty: Explore research opportunities with faculty or help professors author case studies and simulations. Participate in a rewarding experience to engage with students and faculty while also re-engaging with McDonough and our courses and research.

Learn more by emailing PILLARs@georgetown.edu.

Georgetown Business Magazine Spring 2022

Articles inside

Perfecting Networking With Reilly Davis (B'12)

Leadership That Empowers

On Purpose With Gerry George

Taking the DEI Journey

Engagement Gets Personal

Mission Critical: Cheryl Campbell (GEMBA'16)