THE MAGAZINE OF THE McCOMBS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN
spring 2022
SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR BRETT HURT, BBA ‘94, EMBRACES A CHANGING CULTURE— PLUS 7 THINGS TO KNOW ABOUT THE FUTURE OF WORK
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SPORTS + BUSINESS = ONE WINNING COMBINATION
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MAKING NEW ALUMNI CONNECTIONS
TEXAS EXECUTIVE EDUCATION What you learn here today, you’ll use tomorrow. FOR INDIVIDUALS Two- to five-day classes in leadership, strategic decision-making, risk management, finance, and negotiation.
FOR ORGANIZATIONS Private classes customized to the specific challenges your team is facing.
www.mccombs.utexas.edu/execed
y D E PA RT M E N T S
2. LETTER FROM THE DEAN
13. RESEARCH
Global Marketer: Helping entrepreneurs worldwide. 14. VR Lifts Sales: When consumers try out products using virtual reality, executives can predict better sales. 16. Multitasking: Revelations that conclude why you shouldn’t multitask.
3. NEWS
Finding inspiration in an unlikely spot and creating a company. 4. Short Takes: McCombs turns 100, an alum wins a second Olympic gold medal, student innovators win cash, and more. 6. Introducing New Faculty Members: These researchers are bringing diverse ideas to McCombs. 8. A Passion for Music: What it takes to succeed in the business of music and where the industry is headed. 9. UTNY: Students gain the tools to succeed at careers in New York. 12. Dual Degree: Electrical engineering and business teaming up to groom tomorrow’s tech leaders.
37. COMMUNITY
Chapter Boom: How alumni chapters got creative during the pandemic. 39. Gatherings: Alumni events and speakers. 42. Up Close: Alumni stories.
45. ALUMNI NOTES 48. BOTTOM LINE
Investments: UT System Regent Steve Hicks on radio, social work and student health.
y F E AT U R E S
SERIAL ENTREPRENEUR
Brett Hurt, co-founder and leader of data. world, Bazaarvoice, and other companies, sees how the pandemic has changed our lives and workplaces. BY S H A R O N J AYS O N
FUTURE OF WORK
7 things to know about your evolving workplace and office culture. BY S H A R O N J AYS O N
SPORTS LEADERSHIP
New McCombs program takes the mystery out of landing a career in the business of sports. BY A L B E RTA P H I L L I P S
C O V E R P H OTO G R A P H E D B Y D R E W A N T H O N Y S M I T H
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WINTER 2022 McCombs is published twice a year for alumni and friends of the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. DEAN
Lillian F. Mills CHIEF MARKETING AND COMMUNICATIONS OFFICER
Ivy Oliver MANAGER, CONTENT STRATEGY
Todd Savage ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Mary Ann Roser ART DIRECTION/DESIGN
Tucker Creative Co. CONTRIBUTING WRITERS
Mark Barron, Deborah Lynn Blumberg, Steve Brooks, Adam Deutsch, Matthew Higginbotham, Sharon Jayson, Judie Kinonen, Alberta Phillips, Alice Popovici, Gretchen M. Sanders, Jeremy Simon CONTRIBUTING PHOTOGRAPHERS
Lauren Gerson, Drew Anthony Smith CONTRIBUTING ILLUSTRATORS
Tim Bower, Jack Hudson, Hurca!, The Sporting Press, Mario Wagner ONLINE
issuu.com/mccombs schoolofbusiness CHANGE OF ADDRESS
512-232-2441 alumni@mccombs.utexas.edu FOLLOW US
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McCOMBS.UTEXAS.EDU 1
McCOMBS: FROM THE DEAN
The Power of Connection
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RESIDENT JAY HARTZELL DECLARED AT HIS RECENT INAUGURATION THAT HE WANTS THE
University of Texas at Austin to become the world’s highest-impact public research university, and I ardently join him in the pursuit of that ambition. Texas McCombs, along with each of the colleges, is on the same aspirational mission to build an exceptional, diverse community of learners and scholars, future leaders, and trailblazers, many of whom you’ll read about in this new issue. As we seek to expand our impact on the global stage, we must consider what it will take to be the best performer. For McCombs, it starts with strengthening our connections with students, faculty, staff, and of course, you, our alumni. In this issue, we draw inspiration from alumnus and serial entrepreneur Brett Hurt, BBA ’94. He shares his insights on building a number of highly profitable companies, including Bazaarvoice and Coremetrics. But as the pandemic disrupted the realities of work, Brett has had to remain connected to his past successes to confidently navigate
change, the future, and the new world of work as he grows his new venture, data.world. We know that the future of work requires us to make bold and brave decisions as well, which is why we are investing in digital transformation in our marketing, support, and remote learning strategies. This digital dexterity will allow us to scale our connections to current and broader audiences. You will read about ways that many of our corporate partners, professors, and alumni are making a more concerted effort to stay connected with their audiences — and colleagues — in light of how the pandemic has changed the traditional office and classroom environment. David Harrison, a McCombs professor of management who researches remote work, says it best: “Before the pandemic, folks who worked virtually were allowed to (work remotely) because they were top performers or it was a way to attract and pay them. COVID pushed that over the edge where enough folks did it so that we’re not going back. It’s going to change the workplace fundamentally, if it hasn’t already.” Texas McCombs is already expanding its national cachet through our alumni groups, several of which are featured in this issue. You will read that even during the pandemic, alumni group leaders in Chicago, Philadelphia, and elsewhere seized the opportunity to reach out and include more alumni in social activities and learning experiences. They are giving a broader voice to our research and programs, helping us influence businesses, scholars, and individuals around the world. The future is bright, and we want to make sure we are activating our connection with you. Now more than ever, connection is crucial. Join us and be the catalyst that helps turn our aspirations into reality. With my warmest Hook ’em,
LILLIAN F. MILLS, Dean Lois and Richard Folger Dean's Leadership Chair
The Beverly H. and William P. O’Hara Endowed Chair in Business
2 M c C O M B S .U T E X A S . E D U
P H OTO G R A P H BY SAS H A H A AG E N S E N
NEWS
SPLIT DECISION SISTERS LAUNCH SUSTAINABLE FASHION VENTURE
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O M E T I M E S , S TA R T U P I D E A S
come from the strangest places. For Gisele Sampayo, a marketing junior, it was her closet. There, she found a shirt her sister, Helena Sampayo, BBA ’21, made by taking two thrift store shirts, cutting them in half vertically, and sewing them together, with one buttoning to the other. Gisele wore it out to dinner, scoring a shower of compliments. “I told Helena, ‘You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I want to start a company selling these shirts. They’re sustainable and unique,’” Gisele recalled. Helena was dubious, but after they posted photos on Instagram, the shirts sold out in minutes. Split Shirt was born in October 2020 and now sells 40 a month. All are made from used men’s button-downs, which reduces clothing waste in landfills, Gisele says. “What’s really cool is boys and girls were asking for them,” she adds. Helena says the sisters love to promote thrifting. “We like to think of ourselves as a stepping stone to more second-hand shopping.” —Mary Ann Roser Helena Sampayo, left, a financial analyst at Walmart who lives in Dallas, models a split shirt with her sister, Gisele, a McCombs student. They were chosen as the Kendra Scott Women's Entrepreneurial Leadership Institute Female Founders of July.
P H OT O G R A P H B Y N ATA L I E L O N G , E D I T E D B Y M I A G R I M E S
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A Knack for Winning Gold Ryan Crouser, MSF '16, took home an Olympic gold medal in August 2021 at the postponed 2020 Tokyo Olympics, making him a two-time Olympic gold medalist for the shot put, a track and field event in which a person pushes (instead of throws) a heavy ball — the shot — through the air as far as possible. His first Olympic gold win was in Rio de Janeiro in 2016. In Toyko, Crouser shattered all Olympic records for the shot put three times out of six throws. Crouser’s epic push was 23.30 meters, almost as good as the world record he set during an Olympic trial in June in his home state of Oregon. There, he pushed a shot 23.37 meters (76 feet, 8.08 inches).
REACHING THE CENTURY MARK
Texas McCombs celebrates its 100th birthday this year. Although business classes were first offered on the Forty Acres in 1912, enrollments burgeoned during the next decade. In early April 1922, business department chair Spurgeon Bell learned that UT President Robert Vinson planned to create a separate School of Business Administration. Bell shared the news with students, who immediately planned a celebratory banquet, held May 8, 1922, at the Stephen F. Austin Hotel. The UT System Board of Regents voted that summer to make the new business school official, and Bell was named the first dean. Hermes, the Greek god of commerce, was named the school’s “patron saint.”
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Student Innovators Shine The McCombs Texas Social Innovation Challenge, sponsored by Bumble, a free dating app, culminated in a live pitch series in April in which the two top teams from UT won seed funding from a $10,000 pool and advanced to a global competition. The top two teams, Big & Mini and Throw-A-Weigh, moved on to the Fowler Global Social Innovation Challenge in June with more than 40 other teams from across the world. Big & Mini placed second, securing an additional $10,000. A free video conferencing service, Big & Mini connects older adults (big) and college students (mini) in conversation as a way to combat social isolation and bridge the generation gap. It was developed by Aditi Merchant, a UT biomedical engineering student; Allen Zhou, an electrical and computer engineering student at UT; and Anthony Zhou, a Columbia University student.
H E R M E S P H O T O G R A P H B Y B R I A N G O L D M A N C R O U S E R P H O T O G R A P H B Y F E L I X S A N C H E Z A R R A Z O L A /A L A M Y
S P R I N G 2022
McCOMBS BY THE NUMBERS
ACCOUNTING CHAIR HONORED
Michael B. Clement, the KPMG Centennial Professor of Accounting and department chair at McCombs, was honored as the co-author of an influential paper, “Inside the ‘Black Box’ of Sell-Side Financial Analysts,” published in the March 2015 issue of the Journal of Accounting Research. The American Accounting Association made the Distinguished Contributions to Accounting Literature Award at its annual meeting in August. Clement’s co-authors are Lawrence D. Brown of Temple University, Andrew C. Call of Arizona State University, and Nathan Y. Sharp of Texas A&M University.
No.1
Only Only school school in in the the top top 10 10 in in all all 13 13 underundergraduate graduate business business specialties specialties nationwide, nationwide, U.S. U.S. News News & & World World Report Report (2022). (2022).
No. 1
National National rank rank of of the the M.S. M.S. in in Finance, Finance, Financial Financial Times Times (2021). (2021).
2 FOUNDERS GET $10K EACH The second Forty Acres Founders Pre-Accelerator Program pitch competition April 29, hosted by the McCombs School’s Herb Kelleher Entrepreneurship Center, gave 20 UT undergraduate students a chance to compete for a prize pool of $20,000. Conducted in partnership with Bank of America, the pitch competition came after students spent 14 weeks establishing product-market fit for their startups. The two winners receiving $10,000 each were Diego Balderas Allison from the College of Fine Arts for his Re:sole sustainable shoe concept, and Sydney Fischer from the College of Natural Sciences for ModernTrial, a clinical trial platform.
3 STUDENTS WIN SCHOLARSHIPS Three McCombs students were awarded scholarships in the UCREW Women's Real Estate Challenge 2021, held during the spring semester of 2021. First-place winner was Genevieve Miller, a BBA graduate who is completing an MPA this spring. Two students tied for second-place scholarships of $1,500 each, Jennifer MarieCalvo, now a fourth-year student pursuing a BBA in marketing and a Real Estate Certificate; and Swastika Sah, now a fourthyear student pursuing a bachelor’s in finance and a Real Estate Certificate.
C L E M E N T P H OTO G R A P H BY L E A H OV E R ST R E E T
No. 2
National National rank rank ofof M.S. M.S. in in Marketing, Marketing, QS QS World World University University (2022). (2022).
No. 4&5 Fourth Fourth best best undergraduate undergraduate program program
for for entrepreneurs, entrepreneurs, fifth fifth for for graduate graduate programs, programs, Princeton Princeton Review/Entrepreneur Review/ Entrepreneur Magazine Magazine (2022).(2022).
29%
Percentage Percentage of of underrepresented underrepresented minorities minorities among BBA freshmen, 2021 2021-22. –22.
708
Average Average GMAT GMAT score score for for Full-Time Full-Time MBA MBA entering entering class class of of 2021, 2021, highest highest in in the the program’s program’s history. history.
McCOMBS.UTEXAS.EDU
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MEET McCOMBS’ NEW RESEARCH FACULTY DIVERSE GROUP WILL EXPLORE THE FRONTIERS OF FINANCE, ACCOUNTING, MARKETING, AND MANAGEMENT
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IX NEW RESEARCH FACULTY MEMBERS AT TEXAS McCOMBS REPRESENT INTERESTS AS DIVERSE
as using online searches to gauge consumer behavior and assessing the impact of published findings on inventors. These new researchers will build on their previous work as they explore ways to meet evolving industry demands. Here’s a closer look at the six:
y REX DU, PROFESSOR OF MARKETING DURING THE PAST DECADE, Professor of Marketing
Rex Du has worked on leveraging online search trend data as a source of market intelligence. One project uses Google searches as a proxy for consumer interest and pairs it with sales data to deconstruct the impact of marketing. Du comes to McCombs from the University of Houston. With a doctorate from Duke University, he also served on the faculty at the University of Georgia. In his research, he has looked at how online searches can clue marketers in to how much consumers value various product attributes and how these evaluations evolve over time. Another stream of Du’s research measures the effect of television advertising, using data from smart TVs to help advertisers better target their ads. In his most recent study, Du assesses how consistency in work schedules affects productivity for shift workers. With data from a grocery retailer, he linked the speed with which checkers process grocery items at the register with the checkers’ schedule consistency (e.g., whether they work the same hours of the day or the same days of the week). “I like to find a firm that has interesting data and interesting problems — ‘pain points’ — that may generalize across industries. Then I come up with a method to leverage this data and address the pain points that I think would make a difference in the world of practice,” Du says.
y U ROOJ KHAN, ASSOCIATE
PROFESSOR OF ACCOUNTING
COMING TO MCCOMBS after an appointment at Co-
lumbia Business School, Associate Professor of
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Accounting Urooj Khan has published work on the economic consequences of banks’ financial reporting, how banks use information to make lending decisions, and the costs and benefits of financial regulations. “Banks are unique in the kind of information they collect — both soft information and hard information — a lot of which is private. But the financial reports that banks file actually give you insight into some of this information,” Khan says. He found ways to leverage that insight to predict changes in local economic activity and to build a better metric of banks’ expected credit losses. Much of his other work has centered on the controversial fair value accounting, which he discovered does lead to timelier write-downs. Fair value accounting can also be used to predict future performance, even though it can increase the systemic risk of the banking sector. Khan’s work on lending decisions found that personal relationships between company managers and lenders are crucial for debt contracting. In addition, he found that tightening lending standards improves borrowers’ financial reporting. His current research seeks an improved metric for earnings quality, bridging the gap between academics and practitioners in the field.
y A NDREY ORDIN, ASSISTANT
PROFESSOR OF FINANCE
economist with an interest in energy, Assistant Professor of Finance Andrey Ordin earned a doctorate from Duke University and recently completed postdoctoral research at the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy. AN INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION
His research in the oil and gas industry concerns finding equitable leasing contracts for all drilling stakeholders — the landowners, the companies that drill, and the government. Other studies look to optimize oil tax policies. “If tax rates are designed to change depending on oil prices, they can reduce the uncertainty faced by the firms, simplify investment, and reallocate it in time,” Ordin says. In other work, he has looked at municipal bonds and learned that state taxes are a highly efficient tool for lowering the cost of borrowing for municipalities. The study is especially timely in light of the uptick in state and local borrowing during the pandemic.
y C HA LI, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
OF MANAGEMENT
Curious about how innovation is influenced by behavioral constraints, Assistant Professor of Management Cha Li used data from GitHub to observe the process of evaluating proposals in the context of an organization’s interdependent structure. One study looks at the search stage of innovation, where people try to find promising opportunities. “People can be irrational and get stuck on the local peak instead of looking for higher peaks,” says Li, who has a doctorate in strategy from the University of Michigan. “This paper suggests government policies can help firms dislodge from those local peaks.” Her current research looks at open-source production communities such as Linux, Wikipedia, and GitHub, aiming to understand how paid participants differ from hobbyists in how they explore innovation.
y S UBRINA SHEN, ASSISTANT
PROFESSOR OF MANAGEMENT
Subrina Shen looks at innovation and entrepreneurship in the context of new technology. Her previous work assessed the social and social-psychological processes in how potential investors evaluate high-tech startups. Shen’s current research draws on patent and publication data to examine why companies publish research papers disclosing the knowledge behind their inventions, knowing their competitors may use the information to imitate or replace them.
ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF MANAGEMENT
S P R I N G 2022
“We found that publications help an invention attract external follow-up inventions from a diverse set of technology fields, and that those follow-up inventions inspire the focal firm to create better subsequent inventions,” Shen says. She found knowledge-sharing especially beneficial in fields such as artificial intelligence, because companies can generate external variations without bearing the cost of exploration. Shen has a doctorate from Cornell University, with training in organizational theory and strategy.
y M ARIUS RING, ASSISTANT PROFESSOR
OF FINANCE
Marius Ring conducts research that is largely empirical and focused on further understanding how individuals and companies are affected by financing frictions and taxes. ASSISTANT PROFESSOR OF FINANCE
TOP ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT: Rex Du, Urooj Khan Andrey Ordin BOTTOM ROW, LEFT TO RIGHT: Cha Li, Subrina Shen, Marius Ring
“My main goal is really to provide the types of empirical evidence that we need to inform economic modeling, particularly the kinds of models that are used to determine tax policy. There’s a lot of room for new evidence here,” says Ring, who has a doctorate from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. Through a study conducted in Norway, Ring researched how an annual net-wealth tax affected households’ decision-making across time. This is an interesting question, because economic theory is ambiguous on how wealth taxes would affect saving behavior. Although it is common to assume that wealth taxes discourage saving, there’s little empirical evidence
to support this. In his study, which puts issues such as evasion and tax avoidance aside to look at actual saving responses, he finds that wealth taxes actually cause households to save more, not less. Ring has also studied the effects of delayed taxation, finding that young workers were essentially nonresponsive to a 50% marginal income tax that did not have to be paid for 10 years. The theoretical explanation is that credit-constrained individuals care much more about current rather than future cash flows. Therefore, the strategy of adding a long gap between the timing of accrual and the timing of payments may inform models of taxation, he says. —Judie Kinonen
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A PASSION FOR THE BUSINESS OF MUSIC AT McCOMBS CONFERENCE, STUDENTS ARE URGED TO HARNESS THEIR ENTHUSIASM AND LEARN FROM SETBACKS
IN
I TS D R I V E TO B R I D G E T H E GA P
between the classroom and the real world, the McCombs School of Business gave students a look at the many paths into the music industry on Oct. 15. At the Texas Business of Music Symposium — designed to help novices discover the best use for their skills and to find career entry points — nine industry professionals talked about their past and present jobs, their successes and failures, and the future of the business. The panelists came from the areas of representation, distribution, publishing, and data and finance. The symposium was sponsored by the Cain Foundation and Los Angeles-based entertainment lawyer Wofford Denius, BBA '74, and his family. Denius, who acted as the event's moderator, asked the group to examine their career choices and the trajectory of the industry. He encouraged the panelists to explore several questions: What skills might help students trying to break into the business? What would the panelists have done differently in their careers? What is the future of the industry? Besides having business acumen and an entrepreneurial spirit, students need to be curious, be willing to work hard, and be able to pivot, several panelists said. The business needs well-rounded individuals who can read, write, and communicate clearly, said Vincent Leoni, a partner with the Miller Kaplan accounting firm. “It’s getting harder and harder to find those folks,” he said. Kevin Shivers, B.S. Moody Radio-Television-Film ’08, a partner in WME’s music division who represents Tyler, the Creator; Kid Cudi; and Nicki Minaj, said that knowing a foreign language is becoming more important because the entertainment industry is becoming more global, as shown by Netflix’s acquisition of shows from other countries.
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But two characteristics were particularly emphasized: passion and excellence. Rob Gordon, president of management company United Interests, said, “Doing what you love while pursuing excellence and mastery will lead to happiness and success — and probably monetary success too.” Shivers said he worked hard, returned phone calls, and remained humble and grateful. He urged students to not be afraid of failure. “If you’re not failing, you’re not trying,” he said. Denius added: “You can’t let failure deter you. This is a competitive business. You have to have a thick skin.” Let rejection drive you, he said. While the panelists noted that a business or law degree or the ability to analyze contracts would be helpful, none said that they regretted
their career paths. Amy Lombardi, the director of artist and partner relations with digital music distributor TuneCore, started as a record company receptionist, and Shivers started in the mailroom. Those positions allowed them to explore and learn about other areas of the music industry. Sascha Stone Guttfreund, B.S. Moody Communication Studies ’14, a partner in concert promoter ScoreMore Shows, said: “I wouldn’t do anything differently. If I hadn’t gone to UT, none of this would have been possible.” Guttfreund, who once sold advertising for The Daily Texan, now owns a business and is a guest lecturer at UT. When they were students, he and Shivers were selected for a music industry internship through the UTLA program started by Denius. The panelists noted that technology is forcing the music industry to evolve. Mitch Ballard, BMI senior director for creative, said that his company has tried to stay close to the “change curve” during the past 20 years. Scott Robinson, CEO of Dualtone Music Group, said that during his lifetime the industry has gone from vinyl records to eight-track tapes to cassette tapes to compact discs to downloads to streaming to TikTok snippets.
Wofford Denius, BBA ’74, served as moderator for the Texas Business of Music Symposium on Oct. 15. The event was designed to help novices discover the best use for their skills and to find career entry points.
P H O TO G R A P H B Y L A U R E N G E R S O N
If you want to learn more about supporting programs you read about in this issue, contact Wendy Anderson, Development and External Relations, at wendy.anderson@mccombs.utexas.edu.
WHEN NYC IS THE CLASSROOM UTNY PROGRAM PREPARES McCOMBS STUDENTS TO COMPETE FOR JOBS IN THE BIG APPLE
U T N Y P H OTO : U T N Y
C
EINNA LITTLE KNEW THAT AN INTERNSHIP
at The Fortune Society — a New York City nonprofit that helps formerly incarcerated people rebuild their lives — would give her valuable hands-on experience researching housing policy. But when her supervisor connected her with community activists organizing rallies at City Hall, she gained an even deeper understanding of the challenges facing economically disadvantaged people in the city. Little, a senior studying management at Texas McCombs, says she is now more committed than ever to pursuing a master’s degree in urban planning in New York City in the fall, and she plans to focus on affordable housing. “It’s definitely perception-changing,” she says of her time in New York. Little is one of 19 UT Austin students who participated in the school’s UTNY program during the fall semester, juggling a jam-packed schedule that included her internship, coursework, and visits to famous landmarks such as the Statue of Liberty. The experiential learning program, meant to help students launch their careers and discover New York through the lens of a local, began in the fall of 2019 but was interrupted by the coronavirus pandemic. After restarting in 2021, it picked up momentum and has already enrolled 82 students for the upcoming summer semester. The main objective of the program is to help UT Austin students gain a foothold in the competitive New York job market, explains Michael Wilson, executive director of UTNY and UTLA — the university’s Los Angeles-based experiential learning program established in 2005. He helped design the program — along with former McCombs Dean and now UT President Jay Hartzell, Dean Jay Bernhardt of Moody College of Communication, and former College of Fine Arts Dean Doug Dempster, now a professor at
P H OTO G R A P H BY U T N Y
Students with UT alum and “Today” co-host Jenna Bush Hager (right), who recently served as a lecturer in a panel discussion, and Hilary Smith, SVP Corporate Communications (pictured next to Jenna) of NBC Universal.
the college. Through its internship program, UTNY — which receives financial support from McCombs, Moody, Fine Arts, the College of Liberal Arts, and philanthropic support from alumni, parents, and friends of UT—grooms students to compete for jobs with candidates who attended college in New York City. But it also helps them discover their strengths. “The students learn a lot about their own ability to live in a market like New York,” Wilson says. “It’s self-evaluation and assessment.” For Kaelan Replogle, a junior studying finance at McCombs, this meant working a 9-5 job as a forensics accounting intern at the firm Weaver, networking through the Texas Exes alumni group, and learning to navigate the city’s public transportation system — even if it meant getting lost sometimes. “It is kind of true — if you can make it in New York, you can make it anywhere,” Replogle says, referencing the famous song lyric. Decorated in the familiar burnt-orangeand-white colors, the UTNY Center in Times
Square serves as a headquarters for students. It is a classroom, a study lounge, and sometimes, a remote office. Laura Brown, UTNY program director, says watching students conquer challenges, gain confidence, and build friendships is inspiring. Although the students in the fall cohort came from various schools across the UT Austin campus and did not know one another previously, they were practically family by semester’s end, Brown says. “Those will be friendships and professional networks they’ll have for decades to come,” Brown says. Planning ahead is key, whether it means preparing for the internship or finding a place to live, says Sophie Jacquet, a sophomore studying business administration at McCombs. Looking back on her experience last summer as a marketing strategy and sales intern at the real estate startup Rent Ready, Jacquet adds, “I grew a lot in terms of how I prioritize my goals.” —Alice Popovici
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EXPLAINABLE AI GLOBAL ANALYTICS SUMMIT EXAMINES EFFORTS TO UNDERSTAND HOW ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE SYSTEMS WORK AND WHY THAT’S ESSENTIAL
M
ORE THAN TWO DOZEN ARTIFICIAL
intelligence experts from business and academia, including Texas McCombs, explored the importance of understanding how machine learning systems arrive at their conclusions so humans can trust those results. This relatively new frontier of explainable AI, or XAI, was scrutinized for two half-day sessions in November during the online Global Analytics Summit held by the McCombs Center for Analytics and Transformative Technologies (CATT). More than 3,500 people registered for the conference, another step in the university’s drive to be a thought leader in the field. Experts say that as AI systems become more sophisticated, they become increasingly difficult for humans to interpret. The calculation process turns into what is called a “black box" that
even data scientists who create the algorithms can’t understand, according to IBM Corp. XAI methods, however, provide transparency so humans can understand the results and assess their accuracy and fairness. “XAI is an important tool for business organizations and has a wide-ranging impact on major activities including risk management, compliance, ethics, reliability, and customer relationship management,” said Michael Sury, managing director of CATT. Although AI is more than 50 years old, “deep learning has been a mini-scientific revolution” since the 2010s, said one keynote speaker, Charles Elkan, a professor of computer science at the University of California, San Diego. It has “enabled tasks that really look like they require remarkable intelligence because they require the combination of language and vision.” Elkan is
The Global Analytics Summit included (top row, from left) Charles Elkan of the University of California, San Diego; Hima Lakkaraju of Harvard University; Michael Sury of UT Austin; (bottom row, from left) Nazneen Rajani of Salesforce Research; Kumar Muthuraman of UT Austin; and Cynthia Rudin of Duke University.
also a former managing director for Goldman Sachs Group. BLACK BOXES
A panel discussion called “Explainable vs. Ethical AI: Just Semantics?” followed Elkan’s presentation. The panelists sought to define some of the terms, themes, and paradigms of XAI, as well as examine the role of black boxes. Alex London, a professor of ethics and philosophy at Carnegie Mellon University, said that explainability and interpretability “express a relationship between the humans and the model that’s used in an AI system.” Alice Xiang, a lawyer and a senior research scientist for Sony Group, said, “I see explainability as an important part of providing transparency and, in turn, enabling accountability.” She noted the challenge of black boxes, citing as examples drug-sniffing dogs, whose abilities are mysterious but highly accurate, and the horse Clever Hans, who appeared to understand math but was really following cues from its owner. Polo Chau, an associate professor of computer science at Georgia Tech, pointed to the use of counterfactual tests — the turning on and off of parts of a model — as a way to test it. “It can be quite usable to a lot of users, including consumers,” he said.
After that discussion, Krishnaram Kenthapadi, a principal scientist for Amazon Web Services AI, spoke on a panel called “Responsible AI in Industry” about how human bias can be reflected and amplified in the data. “There’s a risk we may be living in our own bubble and implementing some approaches where we may not be even aware of what may be the issues with these approaches,” he said
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P H OTO S BY L AU R E N G E RSO N
BIAS, PSYCHOLOGY, AND ETHICS
S P R I N G 2022
it is a valuable resource but comes in different grades, as do coal and crude, and needs to be processed and refined. DIFFERENT APPROACHES TO XAI
Understanding how machine learning systems arrive at their conclusions was the subject of the online Global Analytics Summit held by the McCombs Center for Analytics and Transformative Technologies in November. More than 3,500 people registered for the conference.
In a panel discussion called “Adopting AI,” James Guszcza, a behavioral research affiliate at Stanford University and chief data scientist on leave from Deloitte LLP, said: “I think one of the previous speakers said we need to be interdisciplinary; I take it a little bit further and say we need to be transdisciplinary.” The work needs to involve machine learning and human psychology and ethics, he said. Without taking those into account, “You're going to get artificial stupidity.”
I L L U S T R AT I O N B Y T I M B O W E R
Fellow panelist Anand Rao, the global AI lead for PwC (PricewaterhouseCoopers), noted that the human-computer interface is evolving and that society needs to be given time to adapt to new technology. “You need to be patient,” he said, referring especially to businesses. And during his talk, Mark Johnson, chief AI scientist with Oracle Corp, said that humans are “at the very beginning” of learning how to use XAI to build better machine-learning models. He also said, “Data is the new oil,” noting that
McCombs assistant professor Maria De-Arteaga, who researches societal biases and machine learning, moderated a panel focused on XAI solutions. Jette Henderson, a senior machine learning scientist with CognitiveScale Inc., said she works to help other companies understand their models. “So, I very much approach explainability from helping out customers.” Zachary Lipton, an assistant professor of machine learning at Carnegie Mellon University, noted the disconnect between problems and solutions. Explainability is like chronic fatigue syndrome, he said. It’s an “all-encompassing bag … for a whole set of problems that don’t have a common solution.” In talking about the mismatch between problems and solutions, panelist Scott Lundberg, a senior researcher at Microsoft Corp., said that the explanation could be actually hiding something about your model and its behavior. One of the key risks of AI is a lack of transparency for clients, said Daniele Magazzeni, the AI research director with JPMorgan. Magazzeni said that his company has 80 research projects involving economic systems, data, ethics, crime, and more. The final panel of the conference, moderated by Raymond Mooney, director of the UT AI Lab, took on the subject of “Explanations, But for Whom?” Panelist Nazneen Rajani, a Salesforce research scientist, discussed how to evaluate explanations by giving them a score. Fellow panelist Christoforos Anagnostopoulos, senior data scientist at McKinsey & Co., pointed out the five principles of artificial intelligence in society, which were written about by Luciano Floridi and Josh Cowls, and which draw on the four principles of bioethics. The fifth AI principle is explainability, he said, and it is “probably the one thing that we should add … to have a complete framework of ethics.” —Mark Barron
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NEWS
NEW DUAL DEGREE BUSINESS AND ENGINEERING LAUNCH THE NEXT GENERATION OF TECH LEADERS
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ITH A PLAN TO GROOM FUTURE TECH
c o m p a ny l e a d e r s , Te x a s Mc C omb s i s l a unch i ng a uniquely competitive dual honors degree in engineering and business. The Texas Honors Electrical and Computer Engineering and Business degree (Texas ECB) joins two flagship programs to offer talented students a chance to earn both degrees in four years. Texas McCombs’ Canfield Business Honors Program and the Cockrell School of Engineering Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering consistently rank among the five best, nationally and internationally. Last year, the selective business honors program admitted just 239 students of 2,208 applicants. The dual program, the brainchild of former Texas McCombs dean and now UT President Jay Hartzell, meets a pressing need, says Andres Almazan, faculty director of the business honors degree. “After listening to feedback from our alumni, it seemed natural for us to have an association with students who are attractive to certain types of companies important to McCombs—the Googles, Facebooks, and Amazons of the world,” he says. “The degree will also attract students with an entrepreneurial bent.” In a 2018 report by Harvard Business Review, nearly one-third of Fortune 500 CEOs held undergraduate engineering degrees. That’s no surprise to Almazan. “Business students and engineering students alike enjoy solving important problems,” he says. “By achieving a high level of excellence in both skill sets, these students are bound for industry leadership.”
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Among the Canfield BHP students who graduated in May 2021 are (from left) Jessie Meek, Samantha Bryant, and Henry Howard.
Diana Marculescu, chair of electrical and computer engineering, agrees. “What we’re hearing from our alumni is, ‘How I wish this were available when I was in Texas ECE!’” she says. “Many of them have transitioned into a business management role, overseeing not just the technical development of a product but also their company’s road map for expanding market presence. “This degree will speed that transition and enable our alumni to have a wider impact on the industry.” Admission hinges on acceptance to both programs, with a three-phase process of screenings and alumni interviews. “These students must demonstrate outstanding leadership qualities—whether that’s leading a nonprofit organization or serving as captain of the football team,” Almazan says. “The two main conditions for admission are leadership and intelligence, manifested in many different ways.” Students must take all 14 classes required by business and engineering. Each class of about 40 students will generally track together, with a goal to integrate them into the two larger programs. “The curriculum of both of our programs is so demanding in terms of what they have to take when, that without a lot of coordination
from the beginning, it would be unworkable,” Almazan says. This isn’t the first joint venture for business honors. The program gained experience coordinating two rigorous majors in 2018 when it joined the College of Natural Sciences’ Department of Computer Science to launch the dual Computer Science and Business Honors degree. That program graduates its first class in spring 2023 to overwhelming employer demand, Almazan says. He anticipates the same demand for the new program graduates. “Recruiters know that students in these honors programs gain both a deep academic understanding and actual experience.”A capstone senior-year project allows students to flex their business and tech muscles by consulting with a company to solve a real problem. The program also takes advantage of Austin’s entrepreneurial engine. “We know it’s very common for electrical and computer engineers to operate side businesses,” Almazan says. “If these students end up having an entrepreneurial desire, we love that as well.” In researching possible competitors, the planning team didn’t find anything as robust, Almazan says. “We aspire to attract the best students in the world, so we’re offering a product that is exceptional in the world.” —Judie Kinonen
RESEARCH
SPRING 2022
GLOBAL MARKETER STEPHEN ANDERSON’S WINNING LOOK AT SUPPORTING ENTREPRENEURSHIP A R K E T I N G A S S I S TA N T
Professor Stephen Anderson is helping entrepreneurs worldwide. Anderson was honored by the American Marketing Association with its 2021 Robert J. Lavidge Global Marketing Research Award, given to a practitioner or educator “who has devised and successfully implemented a research or insight procedure that has practical implications for use by others.” Anderson’s groundbreaking work uses multiyear field experiments—akin to randomized control and treatment groups in pharmaceutical trials—to study what works for growing companies. “I design and test interventions from marketing skills to virtual coaching to fin tech solutions,” Anderson explains. He tracks hundreds of businesses, measuring improvement in such metrics as sales and profits. He travels across Africa and Latin America, immersing himself to better understand the local context and dayto-day challenges of entrepreneurs. It’s a passion that began during his doctoral studies at London Business School after his mother’s unexpected death. “I started taking development economics courses and thought, ‘Maybe I can combine my own experiences growing up in poverty and my research to have a bigger impact in the world.’” —Jeremy M. Simon
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VIRTUAL REALITY PROVIDES REAL-LIFE SALES FORECASTS HAVING SHOPPERS TEST IN-THE-PIPELINE PRODUCTS MEANS COMPANIES CAN DEVELOP MORE USER-FRIENDLY DURABLE GOODS by Deborah Lynn Blumberg
EVELOPING DURABLE GOODS SUCH AS A
new washing machine or lawn mower is highly inefficient. Companies expend time and money on items that often fail or miss profit targets. And innovative products do even worse. That’s where virtual reality can help. Letting consumers try products in VR enables accurate predictions about how these goods will be received, according to new research, the first-ever virtual reality study in marketing research. “Companies need these predicted sales numbers to design their commercialization and production plans,” says Sebastian Hohenberg, assistant professor of marketing at Texas McCombs. “If you’re deviating from the forecast amount of units sold, you have too many items in stock or you run out of stock. Both of these are bad situations.” Along with Nathalie Harz and Christian Homburg of the University of Mannheim in Germany, Hohenberg set out to solve this problem. The researchers partnered with Europe’s leading market research institute to develop and test a tool that uses virtual reality to help durable goods manufacturers accurately predict longer-term sales forecasts during development. PREDICTING SALES WITH VIRTUAL ENVIRONMENTS
Hohenberg and his colleagues spent a year creating a mathematical model that uses customer data gathered through virtual reality
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simulations to accurately forecast sales. Next, they reached out to companies that had a new durable product in the pipeline they had yet to announce. Two agreed to participate in the study. The researchers set up two field studies. One tested their model on a new kitchen appliance, the other on an innovative garden tool. Researchers partnered with market research institute GfK to recruit study participants interested in buying similar products. In each study, about half participated in a virtual reality simulation in the lab using a head-mounted display with VR controllers and motion-tracking sensors. The rest experienced an online virtual reality, using a computer screen, mouse, and keyboard. Hohenberg and his colleagues created five virtual environments in which participants could interact with the appliance and garden tool: a local retail store created with 360-degree photos, an online shop, producers’ webpages, an online magazine, and the “use environment” — an area where consumers would typically use the product. Those were a simulated garden and kitchen. The researchers started by making all participants aware of the new products by showing them a brief video or article. Then, participants were free to navigate the five environments. They could pick up products, test, and “purchase” them. The VR equipment and computer logged the time participants spent interacting with
products and recorded their reactions, such as how long they held the product or whether they decided to purchase it in VR. Then data were plugged into the new forecasting tool. Researchers waited a year, then compared their sales forecasts with actual monthly sales of the new products. Across both studies, the model had only a 1% error rate in predicting sales during the first year. For the kitchen appliance study, monthly sales predictions deviated from actual sales on average by 18.6%. For the garden tool study, this deviation was slightly higher at 26.5%, a difference the researchers tied to unusual weather conditions — an extremely hot summer delayed the gardening season by a few months. What’s more, in line with researchers’ expectations, the forecasting accuracy was higher for the lab versus the online virtual reality, by 6%. “Using actual behavior in a simulated reality, we can make very accurate sales predictions,” says Hohenberg. “With our tool, you can integrate user behavior early on in the innovation process. This is a huge help.” CREATING IMMERSIVE SHOPPING EXPERIENCES
To be sure of their findings, the researchers wanted to compare these virtual reality experiences with a traditional test where people interacted with real products in a lab. They recruited 210 participants to evaluate the same 10 gardening tools (the new tool alongside nine competitors’ products) in their field study, but only in the local retail store environment. The subjects were split into three groups. One group used VR glasses to assess products, another used VR on a computer, and a third interacted with the actual products. In line with market research best practice, participants interacting with products in person saw only a shelf of the 10 products rather than an entire store. Results confirmed researchers’ earlier findings about the benefits of VR in forecasting sales. Virtual reality participants’ behavior during the simulation was more realistic and closer to actual consumer behavior than the behavior of studio test participants. That’s because VR equipment fully immerses people in the product testing experience. They’re more present in the simulated envi-
For more stories based on faculty research and insights from Texas McCombs, visit Big Ideas at https://medium.com/texas-mccombs
VR can really help to make the new product development process more agile,” says Sebastian Hohenberg of Texas McCombs, who took part in the first virtual reality study in marketing research.
ronment, and their experience is more vivid as they tap into more of their senses. “They’re transported into that reality way more intensely, and they behave more consistently,” says Hohenberg. THE BUSINESS CASE FOR VR
For durable goods manufacturers, the takeaway is clear. Using the researchers’ model during initial stages of new product development — when
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there’s just a virtual blueprint — could save valuable time and money. “Getting early-on knowledge into how successful products will be over time can improve inefficiencies,” Hohenberg says. “VR can really help to make the new product development process more agile.” The company can smooth out potential usability problems — such as some product features being difficult to use — earlier in the process. Even if the company takes its
S P R I N G 2022 product to market, it can make changes to production plans (amounts of products and variants, for example) and commercialization processes (amount and type of promotion material, for example) early on. Virtual reality, however, can be expensive and complicated and isn’t for everyone. The researchers suggest managers create a clear and comprehensive plan to focus their project and avoid all-in-one VR solutions, instead using one tool for one purpose. Hohenberg says companies should use virtual reality simulations to improve new product decisions that call for early, detailed, and precise consumer information, such as user experience testing. The business case for using VR is also especially strong if a new durable is expensive, innovative, and requires considerable explanation. Companies that need highly accurate consumer insights should use lab virtual reality, while those with cost constraints, large samples of consumers, or those in need of a quick turnaround should consider online virtual realities instead. Companies could also use the forecasting tool in later development stages to fine-tune new products. Although not part of this study, Hohenberg predicts what is probably possible: point of sales optimization (where exactly on the shelf the new product should be placed), purchase journey analysis (how different customer types search for information and switch between information channels), and user experience fine-tuning (where button “X” needs to go or product colors). Consumers, too, could benefit from the resulting improved products. The user experience through the entire consumer journey can be improved, products will be easier to use and more useful (when early user feedback is integrated), and companies will be more efficient in their innovation processes and can offer their products faster and at lower prices. Still, manufacturers need to have realistic expectations. “VR can surely facilitate new product development processes,” Hohenberg says, “but it’s not a panacea that will solve every problem you have.” “Virtual Reality in New Product Development: Insights from Pre-Launch Sales Forecasting for Durables” is forthcoming, online in advance in the Journal of Marketing.
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RESEARCH: BIG IDEAS worse results. One possible reason? When we multitask to restore control, we may also be working harder. “If you put in more effort, you might not see as big of a decrease in performance,” Broniarczyk says.
9 RESEARCH-BASED REVELATIONS ABOUT MULTITASKING THINK YOU’RE GREAT AT COMPLETING MULTIPLE TASKS AT THE SAME TIME? A NEW STUDY SHOWS WHY YOU’RE PROBABLY WRONG by Jeremy M. Simon
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USAN BRONIARCZYK, ASSOCIATE DEAN FOR
research and a marketing professor at Texas McCombs, doesn’t listen to podcasts while she’s driving. She prefers to focus on one task at a time. “I am the world’s worst multitasker,” Broniarczyk says. But with many people claiming to finish more tasks in less time by tackling them simultaneously, Broniarczyk wanted to find out what she was missing. “I was always enamored by all these people who seem to be multitasking, and I wondered: Why can’t I do that?” she says. So, she and co-author Jerry Han, Ph.D. ’18, of the University of Technology Sydney studied when and why consumers multitask, especially important as many online purchases are made while consumers are multitasking. In new research, she asked participants to complete tasks simultaneously, including going back and forth from reading product text to watching a product review video, versus doing them consecutively. The findings? She’s not alone in her struggles with multitasking. “In some ways, the research was reassuring that, in fact, they’re not being as successful as they think. Multitasking involves rapid switching between tasks, because we can’t actually do two things at the same time.” From her research, Broniarczyk offers nine practical takeaways on how to think about multitasking:
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WE MULTITASK TO REGAIN CONTROL.
In her research, Broniarczyk found that people choose to multitask due to their feelings of lacking control. “When we are feeling low control, we are motivated to want to restore control,” she says. A belief we’ll be more efficient — and exert greater mastery over our environment — causes us to attempt to focus on more than one task at a time. “We definitely find that a low sense of control leads to increased multitasking,” she says, typically in an effort to make better use of our time. In fact, some preliminary evidence shows that multitasking actually does help us restore a sense of control. BUT WE FEEL MORE STRESSED AFTERWARD.
Participants reported constant task switching led to greater stress and negative feelings. “They were fully motivated to do well on the tasks” — and believed they performed well once they were done — “but it was more stressful than they anticipated,” she says. WE MAY PERFORM WORSE.
Multitaskers do not seem to be aware of the potential negative impact on their performance, Broniarczyk says. Consumers who were multitasking were more likely to make poor product choices and have lower recall of product information. That doesn’t mean, however, that multitasking always produces
“LOW CONTROL” FEELINGS CAN RESULT FROM THE ENVIRONMENT OR OUR THOUGHTS.
Large-scale events such as the COVID-19 pandemic that began its global spread during Broniarczyk’s research can lead to feelings of low control. Daily experiences or even recalling past times when people might not have felt in control can also lead to temporary feelings of low control. “Feeling of control wasn’t only a manipulation in the lab, but also environmental factors,” she says. “I also found myself multitasking more during the pandemic, and feelings of low control were likely a contributing factor.” CONTROL-FOCUSED PEOPLE LIKE TO MULTITASK.
It’s not just those of us feeling low control who multitask more often. Broniarczyk also studied people who typically have a high need for control, commonly described as Type A personalities. Type A’s “always want control and also fall victim to wanting to multitask more, and we show that as well,” she says. ONLINE SHOPPERS NEED GREATER CONTROL.
In her research, “we’re looking at things like: Are consumers getting exactly the best product? Are they recalling all the information that, for instance, might have been in product ads?” Broniarczyk says. To improve consumers’ results, she suggests retailers and marketers design websites to give consumers a greater feeling of control. “The majority of consumers are multitasking when they’re making online purchases. So, those websites can do something to help restore control,” she says, such as empowering shoppers to customize a website’s appearance to compare product features that matter most to them. “Perhaps that would lead consumers to engage and focus more on the task at hand rather than task switching.” BOREDOM ISN’T TO BLAME.
This research isn’t the first attempt to understand multitasking. Prior explanations for why
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Multitasking is about the need to feel in control, says Susan Broniarczyk of Texas McCombs. But it often comes at a price. Her advice? “If control is mastery of your environment, focus your attention on your primary task.”
we multitask include a need for more sensory stimulation, having lower motivation, or feeling a higher sense of boredom with the task at hand. But Broniarczyk was able to show that motivation to regain control was an independent reason for why people multitask, and she ruled out those alternatives in her research. WE CAN LEARN TO STOP MULTITASKING.
When study participants read an article about how multitasking leads to inefficiency, people feeling low control were less likely to then choose to perform tasks simultaneously. “So,
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there is an effective intervention,” Broniarczyk says. To spread the word, she suggests experts can warn people about the downsides of multitasking. SET UP YOUR ENVIRONMENT TO PREVENT DISTRACTION.
For those of us looking to improve concentration and perform better at everyday tasks, Broniarczyk has some advice. “If control is mastery of your environment, focus your attention on your primary task. Check your email only periodically rather than having it
constantly present as a distraction,” she says. That’s because when we switch our attention, it takes time to refocus on the primary task we were initially working on. Improving our performance begins with adopting a new mindset. “I recognize that I’m not very good at multitasking, and so I need to focus on one task at a time in order to do it well,” Broniarczyk says. “Multitasking as Consumer Compensatory Control” is forthcoming, online in advance in the Journal of Consumer Research.
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9 CREATING 4 5 1 8 2 5742782097THE3 32709503208601 2 WORKPLACE0465 14309638428613 21407354OF6079 97484967297356 7602TOMORROW02 10963726508498 BRETT HURT, BBA ’94, SEES FLEXIBLE WORK ENVIRONMENTS AND INCLUSIVITY AS KEYS TO SUCCESS by Sharon Jayson | photographs by Drew Anthony Smith 18 M c C O M B S .U T E X A S . E D U
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AUSTIN NATIVE BRETT HURT, BBA ’94, deployed his
natural positivity when COVID-19 upended life as we know it. “There was just a lot of fear going into it, because I thought I’d become a successful entrepreneur by us being in person, motivating teams in person and having that high-fidelity camaraderie and interactions — and now, all of a sudden, we’re all going to do this from home,” says Hurt, co-founder and CEO of data. world, a cloud-based data catalog company that in 2015 was his most recent in a string of entrepreneurial ventures. Confronted by the unknown, Hurt says he could never have imagined how much would change so quickly. But he took to heart his wife Debra’s belief that “everything’s going to be fine with your company.” And it was. “In hindsight, the pandemic turned out to be the greatest accelerant in the history of technology,” he says, noting that his startup was trying to raise $10 million just as the pandemic hit. Instead, it attracted big investors so that by fall 2020, it had actually raised $26 million, including from customer Prologis, the world leader in logistics real estate. The company raised another $11 million in May, led by Vopak, one of its customers and the world leader in energy storage. Hurt has had a hand in creating companies that have become top-rated global leaders, including co-founding Bazaarvoice, a marketing technology company that became the largest public SaaS (Software as a Service) business in social commerce. When it went public in 2012, Bazaarvoice was valued at over $1 billion, and The Wall Street Journal named it one of the top five IPOs of that year. He earlier founded Coremetrics, a pioneer in marketing analytics that was acquired by IBM in 2010.
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Austin-based data.world calls itself “home to the world’s largest collaborative data community.” The additional funding was to expand its team and products. Data.world offers open data sets free to the public, while companies buy packages to help them manage and organize their private data to enhance efficiency, meet governance and compliance requirements, and provide valuable business insights. Hurt says he made sure data. world became a Certified B Corporation, a voluntary designation that says a company meets “the highest standards of verified, overall social and environmental performance, public transparency and legal accountability.” Data.world has repeatedly been cited as one of Austin’s best places to work by the Austin Business Journal and for its commitment to diversity and inclusion. Hurt says he’s proud that 55% of his employees are women or minorities. His fascination with technology is almost lifelong. His mother and paternal grandfather joined forces and bought him his first computer when he was just 7. His mother, Brenda, learned to program with him and drove him to programmer user group meetings, where, despite being the youngest person there, Hurt was unafraid to interact with game designers and other enthusiasts. She also fended off those who discouraged this techie-in-the-making for his singular focus. With Hurt's local roots and ties to The University of Texas — his grandfather James Mann Hurt had taught mathematics here — he earned his first degree at the Forty Acres and then headed to the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania for an MBA in high-tech entrepreneurship. Since then, he's not only practiced what he learned; he's paying it forward with a host of volunteer activities, including a yearlong stint as a Texas McCombs entrepreneur-in-residence, offering his expertise for the next generation. He and Debra co-own Hurt Family Investments, which is involved in a variety of startups, VC funds, and philanthropic pursuits to benefit the local community. Among 119 startups that they invest in directly, 73 are in Austin. The couple received the LBJ Humanitarian Award in 2014 for their dedication to public service and philanthropy. Hurt was also named a Henry Crown fellow and Braddock scholar by the Aspen Institute. He serves on a variety of nonprofit boards and helped establish the Bazaarvoice Foundation. He says he believes business leaders have a responsibility to better the world, not just make profits. Hurt is an idea guy and a prolific writer. He blogs on several platforms, including Lucky7.io, so named because, as he says, “How lucky am I that I found my passion at age 7, encouraged
by my mom.” His blogging covers an array of subjects from business and entrepreneurship to exercise and health, technology, vegetarianism, and occasionally his family. He shares his thinking on entrepreneurial success in a free e-book, The Entrepreneur’s Essentials, which he completed in 2019, on Medium.com. Now, the serial entrepreneur who has founded six startups and is sought after as a thought leader offers his take on the future of work and entrepreneurship. McCombs magazine spoke to him about inspiring workers, adapting to change, and the pandemic’s long-term effect. His responses have been condensed and edited for clarity.
Brett Hurt is co-founder and CEO of data.world, an Austin-based cloud-based data catalog company. Hurt says his company decided to keep its office after polling team members. “I really think Mondays and Fridays in the office and Tuesdays through Thursdays wherever you want to work is going to hit the sweet spot. You're leveraging the best of in-person-ness with the best of remoteness,” he says. Hurt also had a hand in founding Bazaarvoice, a marketing technology company, and Coremetrics, a pioneer in marketing analytics.
Q: What does it take to be an entrepreneur and get ideas funded these days? A: There's a plethora of capital and it isn’t so location-bound, thanks to the pandemic (one of the few silver linings). It is easier to get great companies and ideas funded no matter where they are. That used to not be the case, and many felt the gravitational pull toward Silicon Valley. Of course, grit and resilience are more important than ever as entrepreneurial traits, but that has always been the case. Q: You're known as an innovator. What do you envision for the future of work that you'd like to try at data.world?
A: I really think Mondays and Fridays in the office and Tuesdays through Thursdays wherever you want to work is going to hit the sweet spot. You're leveraging the best of in-personness with the best of remoteness. Q: Has the pandemic forced you as a CEO and co-founder to rethink your workplace? A: We decided after lots of polling of our team members to keep the office. We want a hub where we can meet with customers and prospects and have in-person gatherings, parties, the rest. We've kind of accepted that we're going to be in a hybrid world from now on. We’re just saying that, if you make the commute, the maM c C O M B S . U T E X A S . E D U 21
jority of the people will be there. Mondays are a very meeting-heavy day. We’re in the office for that so they have that high-fidelity interaction. Friday tends to be a more celebratory day. That’s a great day to be in person together, to feel the camaraderie, to close out the week. Q: Surveys suggest millennials and Gen Z like working remotely but are concerned about missing opportunities to collaborate with colleagues. What are you hearing from your younger workers, and how do they differ from other employees? A: The youngest people are the ones going in the office the most. Actually, I think almost all of them don't have kids. We do have some going into the office who do have kids, but those are the ones like myself whose kids are fully vaccinated. Another thing that we've done during the pandemic is that 15 of the people that we hired during the pandemic don't live in Austin. You know, it really has allowed us to pick up people who live elsewhere. Q: How has the pandemic changed work at data.world? A: We had to get creative and intentional about checking in on people's mental health. We spent
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a lot of time reminding people that our benefits include mental health coverage. There were a lot of things that we did during the pandemic to try to bring the best of what we enjoyed in the office (to employees at home). We would have different snacks delivered; we would do things like get together on Zoom and play different games together; we had a magician, which sounds like it'd be lame over Zoom, but he was absolutely amazing — like one of the best magicians I've ever seen online or offline. Q: What are the biggest challenges you've faced as a company leader during this time? A: The most difficult thing is connecting with the people you’ve hired during the pandemic. You've never gotten a chance to be in person with them because you prioritize safety. There is a bonding that occurs when we get together in person. It's going to be a very difficult thing for large companies in terms of retention and everything else. You've heard of this thing called “the great resignation.” I think part of what can cause this is people taking on jobs where they’ve actually never met in person. It's almost like they could look at it as if they're playing a video game or something.
Q: How do you decide what organizations — profit and nonprofit — to invest in? A: On the nonprofit side, our philanthropy has grown organically. And it's been focused around education, Israel, primarily Jewish causes. On the for-profit side, the primary businesses that we've invested in are Software as a Service companies, and we primarily focus on Austin. When my wife and I lived in Silicon Valley, I learned the entrepreneurs out there that started the original venture capital firms really gave back in the form of knowhow and capital to the next generation. That's what created Silicon Valley. And when we became wealthy after Coremetrics sold and Bazaarvoice went public, we felt this duty to give back locally. And we've got one of the best portfolios to show for it. If we were a venture fund, we'd be in the top 10% or so. But the primary reason we went into it was to help. It's been a real joy to do that. Q: Last year, you wrote an open letter to the tech community about diversity and inclusion. Why did you do that, and how was it received? A: It was the most popular thing I wrote in 2020. It was a long journey to get there. The Henry Crown Fellowship got me toward that. “Courageous Conversations Beyond Diversity”
T H E M OS T D I F FI C U LT T H I N G IS C O N N EC TI N G WIT H T H E PEO PL E YO U ’ V E H I RE D D U RI N G T H E PA N D E M I C . YO U ' V E N E V E R G OT T E N A C H A N C E TO B E I N PE RS O N WIT H T H E M B ECAU S E YO U PRI O RITIZ E SA F E T Y. T H E RE IS A BO N D I N G T H AT O C C U RS W H E N W E G E T TO G E T H E R I N PE RS O N .
is a training course that had a big impact on me. Another big impact, which I would have never probably thought to get involved in had it not been for the pandemic, is that after the murder of George Floyd, a very good friend recruited me into a group of leaders who are very committed called White Men for Racial Justice. And we go through a lot of learning together and have guests and people who are experts on race. It's kind of like when I became a vegetarian. The more I learned about factory farming and what the truth was about my plate, the more I realized I can make choices. And I can lead by example. The more I learned, the more I was like, “Hey, how can I best effect change in the country?” Well, I can effect change by stepping up and writing this letter and us being one of the most diverse companies in the history of tech in America. Q: How can companies cultivate a more diverse and equitable workforce? A: I hear all the time from people, “I just can't find a candidate.” One of the big points I make in the letter is, if you want to build a diverse team, you better start showing up at diverse places. Q: What industries will lead in innovating for the future of work?
A: If we’ve learned nothing else during this pandemic, our digital future is here to stay, and it’s just been accelerated by 10 years. A lot of industries are definitely trying new things. WeWork is a good example. Maybe that model is going to work really well coming out of this because people aren't going to need as much physical office space, and we're going to like collaborative hubs like that. Movie theaters are redesigning themselves around full experiences, not just watching the movie but having dinner and a night out, like our local Alamo Drafthouse. I’m biased being an Austin native, but I think they have the best model, and that'll become more the norm for movie theaters. And it's smart because it's a better business model. There's a lot more upsells of customers if you have food and drink. So, I think that's going to be a big, big thing. There's also this redesign of conferences. We always went in person. If you could sell the same amount of tickets — let’s even say you sell
Brett Hurt leads his company’s quarterly meeting in which all team members participate, either in person or remotely. “We've kind of accepted that we're going to be in a hybrid world from now on,” he says.
fewer tickets for people attending in person — there are all these additional tickets you can sell for people who want to tune in virtually. I think that's here to stay. Q: With the anticipated return to work, are you concerned about business travel being a big loser since we’re used to meeting virtually? A: We haven’t even needed to worry about that because there’s just so little of it. We’re only a hundred people. I do think that we'll have a long-term suppression of business travel and business hotels. I do think that's going to take a long time to come back. Conferences are going to become much more important. They’ll be the hub where you'll meet with a prospect or partner in person. And then you can get the rest of the interactions done over Zoom. A lot of business travel permanently fades away. Q: There's hope we'll be returning to a more normal life in 2022. How do you think the overall workplace will change as a result of the pandemic? A: The tech companies will be remote-first and hybrid. The bigger tech companies will pull people together like we do for our quarterly all-hands meeting to really build up the camaraderie, but it will be more remote than a small company like data.world. The reason I believe that is, it’s just been so long. People’s behaviors have adapted to this flexibility. I think that the world, for the most part, is better off from a work perspective because of the pandemic. I know it's a weird thing to say, but I really believe that. It's forced us to adapt to how to communicate and how to get work done remotely, while increasing the time that we have with our family and at home. It's very, very different now, and every industry is also so different. You can't just make a lot of blanket statements.
C O U RT E SY B R E T T H U RT
Q: How has the tech ecosystem in Austin changed? What do new companies here need to succeed? A: There are more VCs and incubators in Austin than ever combined with a thriving angel investor ecosystem. New companies need to have even more sources of capital, and that will come quickly as we have more and more examples of great investment returns. It has always been the case that you need great capital and people to have your company succeed, and with how much capital and talent has moved here, accelerated by the pandemic, we are well on our way. M c C O M B S . U T E X A S . E D U 23
DISRUPTED NEW WORLD
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HOW THE PANDEMIC IS ALTERING THE WAY WE DO BUSINESS, THE OFFICE CULTURE, AND OUR WORK LIVES by Sharon Jayson | illustrations by Mario Wagner
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THE BUSINESS WORLD WAS PRIMED FOR DISRUPTION. AFTER ALL, EVERYONE FROM THE C-SUITE to the
rank-and-file worker has long experienced technological changes in the workplace. It’s been clear that would only accelerate. But no one was prepared for the sweeping disruptions brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic and how fast our lives and livelihoods would change. As WFH (work from home) became a well-worn abbreviation, the spread of what was once called “telecommuting” gave way to virtual everything. While COVID-19 vaccination spurred backto-office plans, the rise of a new disease variant, omicron, caused many businesses to take a step back, highlighting just how remote work continues to be an issue companies must navigate. Experts agree the pandemic has expedited acceptance of working from home and answered lingering questions about productivity. But as the end of Pandemic Year Two approaches in March, companies must decide: Who returns to the office, and when? What does the office environment look like? How do we balance the face-to-face return with remote employees and keep everyone engaged? Rapid transformation is also underway in workplace culture, with evolving demands from younger workers and women who bore much of the burden of child-rearing and schooling during pandemic closures. Although many lost jobs during the pandemic, others are quitting, leaving companies scrambling to attract and retain talent. “It’s all about competition, both internally and externally,” says Mark Gibson, BBA ’81, CEO at JLL Capital Markets in Dallas. “For example, if JP Morgan states we are a work-from-work culture, what will Bank of America, Wells Fargo and others do? It is not practical to believe a company will create a desirable culture, mentor, and train their people, thereby increasing productivity,
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form important networks of contacts, and create new products and thought leadership in a workfrom-home environment. The U.S. business community has done a great job of treading water during the pandemic but has found it very difficult to grow or advance a business in a work-from-home construct.” Texas McCombs faculty members and alumni who ponder these questions offer their insights into the future of work. As we move forward into this uncharted territory, here are seven things to know:
1. REMOTE WORK IS HERE TO STAY. WHETHER IT’S CALLED TELECOMMUTING, telework,
remote work, or simply WFH, the concept has evolved from its start in the 1970s as a perk for a seemingly lucky few. The pandemic made remote work the standard for everyone who could. Because it has been widely adopted and is lasting longer than expected, McCombs experts expect it to continue but not without presenting a few wrinkles. “Before the pandemic, folks who worked virtually were allowed to because they were top performers, or it was a way to attract and pay them,” says David Harrison, a McCombs professor of management who researches virtual work. “COVID pushed that over the edge where enough folks did it so that we’re not going back. It’s going to change the workplace fundamentally if it hasn’t already.” WFH benefits have been studied in recent decades, including a 2007 research paper published in the Journal of Applied Psychology that Harrison co-authored. “Telecommuting has a clear upside: small but favorable effects on perceived autonomy,
work-family conflict, job satisfaction, performance, turnover intent, and stress. Contrary to expectations in both academic and practitioner literatures, telecommuting also has no straightforward, damaging effects on the quality of workplace relationships or perceived career prospects,” says the study. Research on remote work published in 2020 in the Harvard Business Review underscores those benefits, but the authors, including Andrew Brodsky, a McCombs assistant professor of management, warn it could undermine efforts to help new employees adapt to the office culture. The article also suggests the positive results that accrued when everyone was working remotely could evaporate if some workers are allowed to remain remote full time while others are subjected to pandemic protocols in the office. Mark Gibson, BBA ’81, CEO at JLL Capital Markets in Dallas, says he favors offering workers flexibility but believes in-person work has strong staying power. “We’re in the middle of space planning for the largest corporations in America,” Gibson says of JLL, a Fortune 500 global commercial real estate services company that employs more than 92,000 workers in over 80 countries. Before the pandemic, offices were getting “too dense and productivity was going down. Individuals didn’t like it. Fewer people per square foot was already occurring, but the pandemic accelerated it across the board.” So, as offices figure out their space needs, WFH opportunities will depend to some extent on geography, with workplaces that have long commutes more likely to have more hybrid work than those where commuting is less of an issue, Gibson says. “We already had a hybrid model pre-COVID,” he says. “It will vary by sector. It can be efficiently done in a remote environment for a period of time on certain days of the week. But the vast majority of industries in America are going to need collaboration for a host of reasons.” As he sees it, in-person work fosters deeper collaboration, which is essential not only to promote camaraderie but company loyalty. He adds that people in their mid-30s who want a career, not just a job, will have to come back to the office to get promoted.
2. COMMERCIAL REAL ESTATE IS COMING BACK. THE PANDEMIC WREAKED HAVOC on the country’s
office space and is still affecting the rental market. From small businesses to large corporations, many executives are creating return-to-the-of-
E L I Z A B E T H CAT H CA RT C R E D I T: A N G I E Z H A N G ; DA N I E L L E A K L C R E D I T: L AU R E N G E R S O N
fice policies that include WFH days, how many employees to allow on site at a time, and how to reconfigure space. In fall 2021, McCombs experts recognized signs the commercial real estate market was coming back, with some sectors faring better than others. Gibson, a fall 2021 McCombs Hall of Fame inductee, says apartments and industrial space, such as self-storage, warehouses, and science and data centers, did well during the pandemic, with retail, hospitality, and office sectors suffering. But now, he says, capital is starting to “rotate into office, hospitality, and retail.” Greg Hallman, senior managing director and lecturer in the Real Estate Finance and Investment Center at McCombs, says because he expects most companies to opt for a hybrid model of remote and in-office work, companies won’t be able to reduce office space. “Hybrid models that include any day in which everyone is in the office don’t allow firms to cut space like they would be able to if they had no days in which everyone was there.” In fact, Mark Roberts, former executive director of the Texas Real Estate Center, suggests that the calculation for office square footage per person may actually increase. “Whereas right now the average is somewhere around 150 to 170 square feet per employee, I could see tenants planning for 20% more square feet per employee to spread out for health and wellness reasons,” he says. A McCombs survey in 2020 found that although just 21% of employees worked from home one to three days per week before COVID-19, that is expected to rise to 75% after the pandemic. Roberts says increasing employee workspace is a reversal of the open office trend of the past few decades that often was “done to pack more people into square feet of space as a cost reduction.” The pandemic is shifting that priority.
with photos and what nots,” says Bukky Akinsanmi, an assistant professor of management at McCombs who has master’s degrees in architecture and environmental design. “A portion of the office is set up for the time you’re in the office, and a good proportion of workers will not be required to come in every day. Workers will more or less play musical chairs at work.” That comes with a cost, Akinsanmi says, because “the ability to personalize space or claim it with territoriality is critical to humans. When you have employees not able to claim a particular spot as theirs, it can have implications on their ability to identify with the organization. It’s very critical to organizational commitment and job satisfaction and helps you retain valuable employees.” At the same time, younger workers are demanding more home-like office spaces with couches, tables, and chairs, adding to spacing demands. She also recommends design strategies to help air quality in the kitchens and reduce odors, in addition to noise-masking technology in ceilings. “Where deep thinking and problem solving need to occur, firms should have private carrels: single-user spaces with computers and docking stations where they can focus for a few hours,” Akinsanmi says. “Analyzing the value creation process, as well as identifying what is critical to success and the characteristics of its work, helps companies to create or modify physical workspaces to suit those processes.” Roberts says policies that determine how individuals use office space could inadvertently affect relationships and collaboration.
“The jury is still out on whether those strategies are going to help the productivity of a company,” he says. “You think about a company that’s got different divisions — marketing, production divisions. Those teams typically work together in those disciplines. The hoteling concepts can be beneficial for cross-departmental interaction, but will those people lose connection with their own internal teams?”
4. REMOTE WORK IS RESHAPING OFFICE CULTURE. WHILE WORKING FROM HOME ENABLED continued
employment during the pandemic, the fact that remote work is just that — remote — creates new challenges for employee relations and office culture. “When we all initially went home in the spring of 2020, we were getting onto Zoom calls with people we had established relationships with. We have burned through that time now,” says Hallman, the lecturer in real estate finance at McCombs. “Firms are going to start to notice that doesn’t work as well to put people on Zoom calls that never had that personal relationship.” A new study of the pandemic’s strain on social ties co-authored by Harrison, the McCombs professor of management, published in Sep-
To make employees feel safe returning to the office, companies are improving air circulation, increasing space between desks, and adding areas to collaborate. They are also asking employees to reserve desk space instead of having a dedicated spot.
3. OFFICE SPACE IS BEING TRANSFORMED. environment, adjusting our homes to accommodate the needs of our office. Offices that sat mostly vacant are being transformed as companies want employees to feel safe returning. They’re improving air circulation, increasing space between desks, adding areas to collaborate, and adopting “hot seats” or “hoteling,” in which employees reserve office desk space instead of having a dedicated spot. For some, “there will not be a desk where you own the desk and your personal life is displayed COVID-19 ALTERED OUR PHYSICAL WORK
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5. MILLIONS ARE CALLING IT QUITS. STAYING EMPLOYED WAS AN IMMEDIATE OBJECTIVE
for workers when the pandemic hit, but the drawn-out WFH period has spurred a change of heart for some. Reflecting on everything from work-life balance to whether the job is
the right fit, some have concluded it’s time for a change. On January 4, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that a record 4.5 million people quit jobs in November — the highest monthly ratio of people quitting their jobs relative to total employment since the bureau started collecting the data in 2000. Those in lower-paying jobs have more opportunities now to seek higher wages, while others seek more flexibility with a new company. An August Bankrate survey shows that 55% of American workers say they’re somewhat or very likely to seek a new job in the next year. An American Psychological Association survey released in October reflects the trend, with 44% of 1,500 workers saying they intend to look for a new job in the next year, up from 32% in 2019. To improve employee well-being and possibly reduce turnover, 87% thought their employer could help by offering flexible hours (34%), granting paid time off (30%), and encouraging breaks during the workday (30%). S. Craig Watkins, named the new director of the IC2 Institute in January, said at the Texas McCombs “The Future of Work: It's a Brave New World” virtual event in September that his research on millennials and Gen Z suggests they’re “much more likely than prior generations to engage in what we might call ‘occupational switching,’ to switch careers or experiment with new careers.”
Facing pressure to hold and attract employees, some companies are expanding benefits and offering sign-on bonuses.
6. COMPANIES SEEK TO CURB AN EXODUS OF WOMEN. THE STATISTICS ARE STRIKING: Almost 2 million
fewer women are in the labor force than before the pandemic. According to a 2020 McKinsey report, 1 in 3 working mothers were considering leaving the workforce or reducing work time, citing child care as the major reason. Women with children younger than 18 also are having a slower return to the workforce, having dropped out as they juggled parenting and supervising Zoom schooling. Additionally, data reflects that up to 40% of U.S. day cares closed amid COVID-19 protocols. Gay Gaddis, BFA ’77, who founded Austin advertising and digital marketing agency T3, says companies need to address these challenges. More than 25 years ago, the private spaces she provided allowed her new-parent employees to bring newborns to the office and directly care for them. Gaddis, a McCombs Hall of Fame inductee in fall 2021, says the same type of innovation is needed now. “If people go back to the office, they’ve got to find creative ways — especially for women — to deal with their families and their lives,” she says. Gaddis was already thinking about ways to encourage executive leadership development for women before the pandemic. She proposed along with Lynn Utter, BBA '84, a new, sixmonth program offered through Texas Executive Education that she’s co-teaching called Women Who Mean Business. Another executive thinking about ways to help female leaders is Ayse McCracken, MBA ’12 and president of Ennovate Health Ventures, which consults with health systems and digital health startups. In 2017, she founded the nonprofit Ignite Healthcare Network to help female executives shape the future of an industry where women comprise 75% of the workforce yet are only 13% of the CEOs, according to its website. Working with female entrepreneurs across the country for her company’s steering committee during the pandemic, McCracken says, “You could hear the stress. It was very real for the young women leaders of our team.” Millennials and Gen Z are “much more likely than prior generations to engage in what we might call ‘occupational switching,’ to switch careers or experiment with new careers,” says S. Craig Watkins, director of the IC2 Institute.
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J A D E D E K I N D E R C R E D I T: L AU R E N G E R S O N
tember in the Journal of Applied Psychology. The research finds that people reduced their workplace social circles and scaled back close friendships. He says social support that people usually seek when stressed was not there because everyone had the same pandemic threat. “That is, we tended to withdraw from many of our relationships, even when they were about emotional backup,” he says. Experts say companies must carefully approach remote work during the coming year to prevent fraying relationships and maintain an office culture that attracts workers. Brodsky warns organizations to “avoid unintentionally creating two tiers of employees.” “If a manager can only truly observe those in-person employees working hard, then the virtual employees may be evaluated less favorably,” he says. Further, many workplace relationships, on which promotions are based, are built around spontaneous interactions that occur in the workplace. As a result, virtual employees may miss out on relational opportunities that lead to career advancement.”
BOOM TOWN
PANDEMIC CHANGES IN AUSTIN BODE WELL FOR STUDENTS AND FACULTY
Austin was already a hot spot for business, but during the past two years — even amid a pandemic — it further enhanced its boomtown bona fides. That bodes well for McCombs’ students, alumni, and faculty members eager to partner with local businesses. Janet Huang, senior assistant dean for career management and corporate relations, sees opportunities in the numbers. “The Bay Area had plateaued as a talent pool, and they needed new hot spots for talent,” Huang says. “The talent here is attractive for many companies.” Data from the Austin Chamber of Commerce show that between January and September 2021, 72 new companies set up shop in the Austin area, including headquarters for Super Coffee (a health-conscious bottled coffee) and F45 Training (a fitness training studio franchise). That compared with 49 in all of 2016. During the past five years, 314 companies called the Austin metro area their new home. And, 473 companies expanded in the area since 2016, with the largest yearly number – 93 – doing so in 2020.
Fewer business trips may be among the most lasting of the pandemic’s consequences, says Greg Hallman of the Real Estate Finance and Investment Center at McCombs. But he is more optimistic that some sectors, particularly banking and finance, will welcome traveling again.
7. BUSINESS TRAVEL REMAINS DEPRESSED. THE PANDEMIC EFFECTIVELY HALTED BUSINESS
Although leisure travel is returning, business travel remains slow. Hallman says that of the pandemic’s consequences, fewer business trips may be the most lasting. “I’m more worried about investments we might have in hotels that cater to a lot of business travel. From looking at the change in value of business travel hotels — which are still down 10% to 15% from pre-Covid levels — it makes me worry about business travel coming back.” A Deloitte survey released in August found that one-third of companies expected to end 2021 using less than one-quarter of 2019 travel spending. Gibson says technology “has allowed us to eliminate wear and tear on your body through travel either internationally or domestically for largely unnecessary reasons.” He expects his commercial real estate services company to rethink the need for such non-client-oriented business travel. TRAVEL.
“If it’s necessary to be in person, then go do it,” he says. “I’ve traveled a lot internationally, but it’s a real beating to travel to Asia or Europe. Does technology ever replace in person? No. But does it replace the frequency? And the answer is yes.” Hallman is more optimistic that some sectors, particularly banking and finance, will welcome traveling again. “I’ve heard from bankers that they don’t feel like they can rely on remote contact, including remote sales calls and pitches for new business, to effectively compete with banks making in-person sales calls and pitches,” he says. “Getting new business in the banking and financial sector involves developing a level of trust between the banks and the clients. It’s hard to establish trust over remote connections.” Sharon Jayson is an Austin-based journalist who was a staff reporter for USA Today and the Austin American-Statesman. Her work has also appeared in The Washington Post, Time magazine, U.S. News & World Report, Kaiser Health News, and AARP.
Chamber records show that job postings for the Austin MSA reached record highs during summer 2021, peaking at 90,500 openings in September. Laura Huffman, chamber president and CEO, says 2020 was the area’s “best year when looking at job creation.” “We were eighth best in the country despite the pandemic, and 2021 hasn’t seen any indications of a slowdown,” she says. The area has proved its resilience, says Huang, as major companies such as Tesla and Oracle moved their California headquarters to Austin. “You’ve got every industry represented in the heart of Texas,” she says. She aims to keeps the McCombs School well connected to small businesses, large companies, and major corporations. “The benefits for students will be more opportunities for them to network with and learn from companies coming here and more diversification of the opportunities that are here.” While other regions focus on a specific industry, such as tech in the Bay Area, Huang says the Texas economy is diverse and includes the traditional oil and gas industries as well as renewable energy, tech, health care, and financial services. That means more companies view Austin as the right place to grow their businesses and the right place for investors to support startups. Students need to be “market ready,” she says. But she also encourages alumni to seek help from the McCombs Alumni Career Management program, which launched in June. It provides resources for new and seasoned alumni, from webinars to one-on-one career coaching opportunities. “We provide career support for life,” Huang says. If you want to learn more about supporting programs like this, contact Adam Loew, Development and External Relations, at adam.loew@mccombs. utexas.edu.
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GAME CHANGER PASSION
PURPOSE
McCOMBS LAUNCHES BUSINESS OF SPORTS MINOR TO PREPARE NEW INDUSTRY LEADERS by Alberta Phillips | illustrations by The Sporting Press
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A L A M I N M O M I N , A N E N G I N E E R I N G M A J O R AT T H E U N I V E R S I T Y O F T E X A S AT A U S T I N ,
enjoys pla n n ing a nd developing produc t s to solve problems, but t hat ’s not h is on ly a mbit ion. He ha s long a spired to a job in t he professiona l spor ts world, if only he k new how to get in. ¶ A lt hough t he pat h from elec t r ica l eng ineer ing to produc t ma nagement is st ra ight for wa rd, t he ro ad le ad i ng to a c a re er i n t he bu si ne s s of s p or t s i s of ten v a g ue, c i rc u it o u s , or my s t e r io u s . Eve n s o, Mom i n h a s he ld on t o h i s de s i r e t o someday work for a n N BA tea m or a professiona l spor t s org a n iz at ion. ¶ Luck — and a bit of online sleuthing — kicked in to open a door to Momin’s aspiration. “Sports is something that we all want to work in, but it’s notorious for being an industry where you have to know people and make connections,” says Momin, 21, who plans to graduate in December 2022. “Compared to investment banking or software engineering, you have to work through a lot of bureaucracy and back-end stuff.” During his sophomore year, Momin went online to find people who were working in professional sports. A cold email connected him to Kirk Goldsberry, a member of McCombs’ management faculty and associate director of
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the business school’s Center for Leadership and Ethics. Goldsberry, who works for ESPN as an NBA analyst and formerly as vice president of strategic research for the San Antonio Spurs, is a pioneer in the world of basketball analytics. He made space for Momin on sports analytics projects he had in the works with other students. Now, a new sports institute at McCombs is giving students aspiring to careers in the sports entertainment industry a new opportunity to learn about and break into the field. Goldsberry has been tapped to lead McCombs’ new Business of Sports Institute.
Starting in fall 2022, UT students who want to pursue careers in sports won’t have to journey a roundabout route, guess about how to break into the industry, or depend so heavily on luck. Instead, students will be able to follow a clearly paved road, obtaining a minor in analytics and the business of sports through the new institute. The institute stands out among its peers nationwide because it is the first among sports-powerhouse universities to bring together under one roof key components of the sports entertainment industry: research analytics, a curriculum for undergraduate students, and signature events showcasing leaders and influencers in the sports entertainment world. “It aims to prepare a new generation of students for careers in the elite ranks of the sports industry, from analysts and agents to those who market or produce sports products and occupy front office or other management jobs,” explains Ethan Burris, McCombs' senior associate dean for academic affairs. The academic minor will be open to UT students from across disciplines. The growth in the global sports market is accelerating a trend in higher education: In recent years, colleges have been creating courses and degrees to help prepare students for careers in the sports and recreation fields. The rise of big data and predictive analytics has added technological tools, which McCombs is emphasizing via a partnership with global professional services firm Accenture in its sports institute. The McCombs institute has two key features that set it apart from other universities engaged in a similar enterprise: a research arm that yields new products that help sports organizations improve their teams, brands, and customer experience; and events that bring boldface names in sports to campus, such as a first-ever Texas Business of Sports Summit hosted by McCombs in September (see sidebar).
NATUR AL FIT McCombs is uniquely situated for an institute that blends the business side of sports, ground-breaking research in performance analytics, and a sports-focused curriculum, Burris says. As a founder of the institute, he notes that it has three huge built-in assets: a world-class business school, a nationally ranked and profitable NCAA sports program, and the resources of a top-tier research institution. “If you look around the country, there are certainly institutions that focus on sports analytics, but they don’t have the curricular degree programs attached to them and help students navigate those pathways and place them,” Burris
P H OTO G R A P H S B Y J E F F W I L S O N
says. “There are other places that have curricular degree programs, but they don’t have the sports pedigree that UT does.” The Business of Sports Institute, which is being rolled out in phases during the next year, launched in fall 2021 after Accenture provided a founding gift of $1.4 million. The money is financing the research venture, the first arm of the institute to be up and running.
INSPIRED BY MONEYBALL Though the institute’s origins started with conversations Burris had with Goldsberry about three years ago, Burris says its roots stretch back to 2003, when the book Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game was published. Written by Michael Lewis, the book chronicles how then-Oakland A’s General Manager Billy Beane used sabermetrics, or statistical analyses, to assemble a competitive team, despite Oakland’s having the smallest budget in the league. The nonfiction book was the basis of the critically acclaimed 2011 film Moneyball starring Brad Pitt. Goldsberry says that while analytics have become a big part of the sports world, much more could be done to push the field forward, given evolving technological tools and trends.
“If Moneyball taught us anything, it’s that lessons from the business world, particularly finance and financial reasoning, are important for the sports world to understand and adopt,” says Goldsberry, author of The New York Times sports and fitness bestseller Sprawlball. Since 2019, Goldsberry has been teaching a sports analytics class at McCombs. The class uses data to assess and predict an athlete’s or team’s performance or prospects and uses storytelling to communicate what the numbers show. The aspiration for the institute’s research is to build a program that solves emerging problems or challenges in professional sports — and in some cases, college sports — just as Beane did in major league baseball, but on a much larger and broader scale. For example, sports analytics could be used to figure out which players or coaches to recruit and acquire, how much to pay them, where a new three-point line might be drawn, and how to manage a team’s performance, Burris says. But it also could be used to determine merchandising or marketing for a sports organization.
ACCENTURE’S VISION Burris credits Jon Berger, managing director and U.S. sports analytics lead at Accenture, for
providing a key piece of the puzzle that established the partnership between Accenture and McCombs. When Moneyball came out, Berger was working as an NFL and college football analyst for Fox Sports before joining ESPN and CBS as an analyst. Berger has brought that knowledge, experience, and passion to McCombs. “This partnership hinges on the power of Accenture’s capabilities and proven track record of turning insights into revenue-generating businesses,” Berger says. “That coupled with UT’s dedication to athletic excellence and McCombs’ position as a leading business program, creates an unbeatable formula for pushing the envelope in sports analytics, sports science, and sports business.” Burris says Berger “gave the spark and insight to partner more deeply with Accenture.” With the company’s commitment to expanding the field of sports analytics, Accenture was a natural fit for the venture, says Tamara Fields, BBA ’96, managing director of Accenture’s Austin office. “Accenture is deeply committed to analytics and always seeks to add and expand in areas where certain technology or capabilities are still in their infancy,” Fields says. “Sports analytics in certain rounds is still in its infancy, so there’s a lot to be leveraged in terms of
A new Business of Sports Institute at McCombs will give students such as Alamin Momin (above, left) a chance to learn about the field. The institute is the idea of Ethan Burris (left) and Kirk Goldsberry (right), who will lead it.
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NEW BUSINESS OF SPORTS INSTITUTE BRINGS BIG IDEAS TO SUMMIT In making decisions about where to focus his energy, Silver said he would ask himself, “Does it have potential as a business opportunity?” That question, along with his “obsession for baseball statistics, playing fantasy baseball games, and various types of video games” as a kid led him to create PECOTA. The enterprise wasn’t as profitable as he had hoped, but he used those skills to create FiveThirtyEight. Other big names at the summit included Scott Bonneau, vice president of global talent attraction for Indeed; R.C. Buford, CEO of the San Antonio Spurs and president of sports franchises for Spurs Sports and Entertainment; Becky Hammon, assistant coach of the San Antonio Spurs; Arin Dunn, director of student-athlete development for UT; Adan Hernandez, management consulting executive for Accenture; and Chris Plonsky, chief of staff and executive senior associate director of UT Athletics. Sponsored by the San Antonio Spurs, Houston Texans, and other sports organizations, the symposium represented one of the three legs that make up McCombs’ new institute: holding events that expose students to industry leaders and influencers. The two others are a curriculum in which students from across disciplines can earn a minor in the Analytics and Business of Sports; and a research enterprise that incorporates statistics,
utilizing sports analytics in the creation of high-performing teams.” Globally, the sports analytics market is expected to reach $4.6 billion by 2025, according to an April 2020 report in Forbes. That presents big opportunities for McCombs and Accenture. “I think the university will gain an elite analytics sports program. As for Accenture, it gives us insights on how to look at talent management and performance metrics, how you think about branding and customer experience, and expands our ability to innovate and create new solutions,” says Fields. In addition to financial resources, Fields says, Accenture is directing significant human resources
to the venture from its huge talent pool of data analysts, scientists, and product management experts.
34 M c C O M B S .U T E X A S . E D U
BUILDING AN ELITE PATH TO THE SPORTS INDUSTRY Aside from research and events, the institute will offer a specialized curriculum in which UT students complete 18 semester hours to fulfill the Analytics and Business of Sports minor. “You know if you want to be the best lawyer or a lawyer at a truly elite law firm in the U.S., you go to Harvard Law School,” Goldsberry says. “We’re trying to demystify the pathways into elite sports occupations, because as it stands now, there is no equivalent for Harvard Law in the
David Mulugheta (left), a football agent with Athletes First, bumps fists with UT’s Chris Plonsky.
analytics, modeling, and data to generate new products aimed at helping professional sports organizations improve their talent, merchandising, marketing, and entertainment enterprises. Globally, the sports analytics market size is expected to reach $4.6 billion by 2025, expanding at a compound annual growth rate of more than 30%, according to Forbes. Its reach, however, transcends the sports and entertainment industries, said Ethan Burris, director of McCombs’ Center for Leadership and Ethics. “Sports analytics and sports business have many parallels with other disciplines in other realms,” Burris said at the summit, noting how Silver started with baseball statistics and segued into politics. — Alberta Phillips
sports industry, and that’s what we’re trying to build at The University of Texas and McCombs.” The overall goal, as stated by the course description, is “to equip students with the perspectives, knowledge, and lessons about leadership, ethics, and analytics that transcend beyond any one industry.” So, while the emphasis is on sports, Goldsberry and Burris expect the subject matter to have broader appeal and application. Katherine Rowe, MBA ’20, says the training she received from working with Goldsberry on sports analytics projects as a graduate student helped her pair her background in the U.S. Army with the skills needed to secure her job with Tableau Software as a strategic planner. ART BY FIRST LASTNAME
CREDIT TK
TEXAS McCOMBS BUSINESS OF SPORTS INSTITUTE launched in September with a bold-names symposium that spotlighted luminaries from the sports and business worlds. They gave UT students a rare, inside look at careers and opportunities in the booming sports industry. The Texas Business of Sports Summit, held on campus Sept. 23-24, kicked off with celebrated statistician Nate Silver. Silver founded and built FiveThirtyEight, a company that uses statistical analysis to provide insights and predictions into politics, elections, science, and sports. Workshops included “Building Championship-Level Teams,” “Roundtables for Student Networking,” “Name, Image and Likeness (NIL) In-Progress,” and “Leadership Revolution.” In introducing Silver, who joined the conference virtually, Kirk Goldsberry, executive director of the Business of Sports Institute, said: “What a lot of people in the audience might not know, Nate, is that you actually got your start as a sports analyst nerd, and your first real contribution to internet discourse was baseball predictions and baseball modeling and the PECOTA system.” Silver created PECOTA — the Player Empirical Comparison and Optimization Test Algorithm system — to predict player performance, winners, and losers. Silver said the reason for “a lot of things I’ve tried to create is because there aren’t the alternatives in the market, and I’m kind of curious, more for myself.”
“I learned data visualization and analytics through sports data,” she says. “That is what drew me into that space, and now I’m at a company that has a much bigger purview than just sports.” Areas of study will be in business and analytics fundamentals, using analytics to manage people and performance. The curriculum, which will be fully operational in 2022, is broken out by area of study to help guide students to courses relevant to their undergraduate majors. For example, a student majoring in kinesiology can choose courses such as The Business of Sports Media, Sports Economics, General Management and Strategy, and Innovation and Entrepreneurship. The same goes for UT’s Moody College of Communication sports media minors, who can select from courses that include Sport Industry in America, Sport Law, Sport and Event Marketing, and Race and Sport in African American Life. There also are courses that will be designated for McCombs students, including Strategic Management of Sport Organizations; and Gender, Race, and Sexuality in Sports Media.
A STR AIGHTER PASSAGE CREDIT TK
Burris says the curriculum, combined with events that put students in direct contact with people working in the sports industry, will go ART BY FIRST LASTNAME
Katherine Rowe, MBA ’20, says working on sports analytics prepared her for a job with a software company. Tamara Fields, BBA ’96, works for Accenture, which is partnering with McCombs on the institute.
a long way in helping them navigate the murky path into the sports world. “Talk to folks who occupy prestigious jobs in sports and sports business — they have pretty strange stories about how they got there,” Goldsberry says. “We’d like to provide a straighter passage from higher education to the sports business world. That’s our goal.” Bringing in sports luminaries to share their insights was the purpose behind the Texas Business of Sports Summit, co-sponsored by the San Antonio Spurs, in September. It was the first of several events McCombs plans to stage annually to connect noted sports executives with students and researchers. Across campus at the Moody College, Kevin Robbins likes what he is hearing about the Business of Sports Institute. “I’m glad they aren’t limiting this opportunity to just McCombs students because we have a lot of students who are interested in a career in sports management and sports event planning, and sports media,” says Robbins, associate professor of practice and associate director of the Moody College’s Center for Sports Communication and Media. “This really rounds out UT Austin as a destination institution for students interested in a career in the sports industry,” Robbins says. “Yeah, this is going to be a game changer.”
He says he hopes “a lot of UT athletes dabble in courses offered by this institute because it will help them for their careers post playing sports.” Momin, who is enrolled in UT’s Cockrell School of Engineering, hopes one day to be a sports or data analyst for an NBA team or another sports-related organization. But he is likely to work in a more traditional tech field first. He is counting on the experience he has gained working on projects with Goldsberry along with his business and computer engineering education to open those doors. He says luck in finding the right person to help him along the way got him to this point, but many students did not have that chance. “I stumbled upon (Goldsberry),” he says. “A lot of friends I talk to haven’t found that same type of luck. It’s not like there’s a portal. Sports is very nontraditional.” With McCombs’ Business of Sports Institute soon to be fully operational, students no longer will have to get lucky to pursue careers in the sports entertainment industry. They need only look nearby to the sports institute to show them the way.
Alberta Phillips is an award-winning independent journalist whose career includes 32 years as a reporter, columnist, and editorial writer at the Austin American-Statesman.
M c C O M B S . U T E X A S . E D U 35
Bring Your Dreams To Market MASTER OF SCIENCE IN TECHNOLOGY COMMERCIALIZATION The Texas McCombs MS in Technology Commercialization (MSTC), launched in 1995, was the first go-to-market graduate program in the U.S. The vision of former dean and legendary entrepreneur George Kozmetsky, MSTC is a STEM-designated, top-ranked, one-year graduate program designed for working professionals and entrepreneurs, with classes on alternating weekends, either on-campus or online. Through high-quality instruction, experiential learning, and the pursuit of relevant, groundbreaking research, MSTC is in the business of helping students bring their dreams to market.
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COMMUNIT Y
ALUMNI BOOM NEW AND REVIVED ALUMNI CHAPTERS IGNITED DURING PANDEMIC
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cCombs grads demonstrate that when the world shuts down, they don’t. In Chicago, alumni chapter President Anjana Dalal, MBA ’99, has turned a near-dormant group into a driver of networking and learning opportunities. The business management consultant took command in December 2020 after mentioning to colleagues at her 20-year McCombs reunion in Austin that she craved more involvement with the chapter. “I had alumni chapter envy,” says Dalal, noting that other business schools had robust alumni representation in the Windy City. “My goal was to boost the McCombs brand.” Holding four alumni events in nine months has accomplished that mission. Dalal and her leadership team have engaged the chapter’s 1,100 members, including downtown dwellers and suburbanites, by hosting trendy virtual speaker and social events. Zoom has allowed commuters to attend meetings easily and has enabled collaboration with far-flung chapters and business schools. In June, chapters in Chicago, New York, Philadelphia, Washington, and Atlanta co-sponsored a virtual conversation with renowned cryptocurrency experts Jon Najarian and Steve Ehrlich. The discussion attracted nearly 500 registrants and was one of the best-attended alumni events in McCombs history. Energizing the Chicago chapter is Dalal’s push for joint events with other distinguished business schools — Harvard, Kellogg School of Management, Michigan Ross, Chicago Booth, and Stanford — for richer networking experiences and idea exchanges. Coffee and Conversations McCombs' Philadelphia alumni chapter met in September. Those on hand included (from left): Zubin Teherani, who co-founder a company with McCombs alum Evan Brandoff (not pictured); McCombs lecturer Sandy Leeds; and Guilherme Junqueira, MBA ’20.
Mc COMBS.UTEXAS.EDU 37
C O M M U N I T Y: A L U M N I C O N N E C T I O N S
happens once a quarter and allows graduates from these schools to chat for an hour online before work. “It’s like speed dating,” Dalal jokes, “but for networking.” Alums from broad backgrounds get to talk business when COVID-19 might otherwise prevent it. Chicagoans have noticed the chapter reboot. They want more, Dalal says. She expects in-person charity events, cocktail hours, and crossschool mixers to debut during the spring. In other states, ambitious alums founded new chapters despite the world crisis. Guilherme Junqueira, MBA ’20, launched the Philadelphia chapter in July 2020 after he moved there for work. He thought the city should have a branch, and it has hosted eight events so far. “It’s been fulfilling to create and grow this group,” says Junqueira, corporate strategy manager at Bimbo Bakeries USA. About 500 McCombs grads live in Philly, and 15 attended the chapter’s inaugural Careers in Tech virtual panel event in October 2020. Since then, dozens more have joined virtual talks by McCombs faculty members, alumni, and prominent CEOs. Some events are co-sponsored by other chapters or business schools and are open to the global McCombs community. In January, 120 McCombs grads from around the world watched online as McCombs finance professor Julia Coronado discussed 2021’s economic outlook. “I think people are accustomed to meeting virtually because of the pandemic,
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Guilherme Junqueira (left), MBA ’20, started the Philadelphia alumni chapter in July 2020 after he moved there for work; Chicago chapter President Anjana Dalal, MBA ’99, has turned a nearly dormant group into a driver of networking opportunities; in the Rio Grande Valley, Arturo Olivarez, MPA ’20, is developing a local chapter to help the next generation of McCombs graduates in South Texas.
so it works,” Junqueira says. It also helps that he surveyed Philadelphia-area alums to learn what topics interested them. The answers resulted in seminars on happiness, finance, and technology innovation, and a well-received talk on entrepreneurship by Kettle & Fire co-founder Nick Mares. In September, McCombs lecturer Sandy Leeds flew to Philly for the chapter’s first in-person gathering at a restaurant. A handful of enthusiastic attendees gathered for the informal dinner. Junqueira says members need time to adjust to meeting in person and to watch for more of those opportunities in 2022. Texas McComb has more than 30 alumni chapters worldwide, with nearly 104,000 living members. Austin, Houston, and Dallas have the largest groups, though all grads get free, automatic entry into the chapter nearest their address. Chapters are volunteer-led and receive $500 to $2,000 in funding per year from McCombs. Presidents usually serve two-year terms. “It’s unusual to see a group form or grow during the pandemic,” says Christine Burdell, director of alumni relations at McCombs. “I thought Zoom fatigue would deter more people.” She credits the initiative and creativity of chapter leaders Dalal and Junqueira for the surprise success in Chicago and Philadelphia.
“Joint and virtual events allowed these smaller groups to thrive,” she says. Blame COVID-19 or tough luck on a different story in South Texas. In the Rio Grande Valley, Arturo Olivarez, MPA ’20, has worked to launch a chapter for the 1,000 McCombs graduates living there. The Harlingen, Texas, native wanted to form a local chapter so he could help the next generation of South Texas McCombs grads by linking them to resources he could not find as he began his career in the valley. In July, Olivarez contacted the valley’s UT admissions office so he could proselytize to incoming McCombs students. Five soon-tobe first-year students met him at a Harlingen coffee shop. “I gave them an overview about who I am, why I was starting an alumni group, what to expect at McCombs, and I offered my support going forward,” says Olivarez, who works for U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar of Laredo. That meeting marked the Rio Grande Valley’s first official McCombs alumni event. Now Olivarez has allies in the school’s first-year class who one day may compose a lively alumni chapter near the border. Olivarez is playing the long game. With time and perseverance, he knows the chapter will bloom. —Gretchen M. Sanders
A N J A N A P H OTO G R A P H BY AC ST U D I O S ; A RT U R O P H OTO G R A P H BY F O R SY T H I A C L AU D I O
REMOVING OBSTACLES For Luis Pablo Rhi, earning a BBA at the McCombs School of Business did more than provide a top-tier education — it opened doors to the world. To help future Longhorns have similar opportunities, especially first-generation students, he and his family created two endowments. And Luis Pablo made UT the beneficiary of a retirement account to amplify the impact of these gifts. By making a gift to Texas McCombs through your will, trust, estate plan — or a beneficiary designation — you too can shape the future of business education and help talented students reach their full potential. Every gift counts, so make your plans to change the world today.
SUMMER 2021
If students earn a place at McCombs, I don’t want financial concerns to be an obstacle. By further supporting our scholarship endowments with a planned gift, I know the impact is forever.”
LUIS PABLO RHI BBA ’98
Luis Pablo Rhi, BBA ’98, (second from right) with his brother Rene Rhi, B.A. ’00 and M.A. ’06 (far right), President Jay Hartzell (center), and parents Dr. Pablo Rhi-Perez, Ph.D. ’89 and Teresa Rhi-Perez.
To learn more, visit mylegacy.utexas.edu/mccombs or email giftplan@austin.utexas.edu.
McCOMBS.UTEXAS.EDU 39
C O M M U N I T Y: G AT H E R I N G S
HOMECOMING 2021: A RETURN TO COMMUNITY After a year and a half of on-and-off pandemic lockdowns, fall 2021 marked a hopeful return to many in-person gatherings on campus. McCombs alumni celebrated this spirit of optimism on the Forty Acres with a Homecoming pregame Barbecue on Sept 18.
Michelle Cavazos, MBA ’96; and Paul Cavazos, MBA ’96
McCombs MBA Evening Class of 2021
McKenzie Powell, BBA ’20; and Ariel Benson, BBA ’20
40 McCOMBS.UTEXAS.EDU
Leeor Mushin, MBA ’20; Paige Dangerfield, MBA ’20; Perri Cooper, MBA ’20; and Alexa Grabell
McCombs Executive MBA Class of 2020
C O M M U N I T Y: U P C L O S E Polka-dotted bodysuits with slits in the midriff allow easy access to catheters and feeding tubes, while two-tone shoulder-snap tees give way to central lines and chemo ports. Pink tracheostomy pads protect skin from irritation and absorb leakage around surgical sites. Camouflage ostomy-bag covers easily hide stains. Indigo armbands secure IVs. Kamaras and Spoonie Threads co-founder Julie Sanchez, a pediatric surgeon, rebranded the Austin business in January 2021 as an offshoot of Sanchez’s former company, Abilitee Adaptive Wear. By targeting kids younger than 18, Spoonie Threads captures an often-overlooked market. The company’s name comes from a popular analogy used in the chronic illness community to help healthy people understand what it’s like to live with limitations. A handful of spoons represents the amount of energy a person has in a single day. Tasks such as showering, dressing, and eating cost a spoon. A chronically ill individual may run out of spoons before lunchtime, while a healthy person may have spoons leftover at bedtime. “Spoonie is a unifying term among the chronically ill,” Kamaras says. “It identifies one ‘spoonie’ to another and encapsulates experiences.” —Gretchen M. Sanders
Saba Kamaras combined her business acumen and love of fashion to co-found an adapative clothing company for kids.
DESIGNING FOR JOY AND CONFIDENCE y S ABA K AMARAS, MBA ’18,
CO-FOUNDER, SPOONIE THREADS
aba Kamaras knew in business school that she wanted to design clothes for sick children. Her niece was born in 2016 with Walker-Warburg syndrome, a genetic and terminal form of muscular dystrophy that made a feeding tube necessary. “I saw how difficult it was for my brother and sister-in-law to deal with clothing to access her tube,” says Kamaras, a 2008 graduate of the
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Parsons School of Design in New York City and an eight-year veteran of the fashion industry. Kamaras wanted to combine her business acumen and fashion sense to help other struggling parents. Today, she is the president and co-founder of Spoonie Threads, an online adaptive clothing company that makes modified garments and accessories for children who have chronic illnesses or disabilities that require medical devices. Spoonie Threads apparel comes in bold colors and accommodates feeding tubes, ports, ostomies, and insulin pumps, among other devices. “Beyond basic functionality of the garments, we promote fashion and a sense of fun,” Kamaras says. “We push prints and graphic designs that might make you laugh or smile.”
SCOUTING EUROPE'S SCENE FOR STARTUPS y A LEX VON FRANKENBERG, MBA
’92, HIGH-TECH GRÜNDERFONDS
Alex von Frankenberg turns bright ideas into big bucks. As managing director of German-based venture capital firm High-Tech Gründerfonds, he steers money to young companies in the industrial and digital tech, life sciences, and chemical sectors. He also oversees marketing, fundraising, and investor relationships as the leader of a 75-employee team at the firm’s Bonn, Germany, headquarters. “We have a broad technology focus that includes machinery, robotics, quantum technologies, energy, bio and med tech, and software,” says von Frankenberg, who was born in Stutt-
P H O TO G R A P H B Y E L I A S K A M A R A S
gart, Germany, and attended business school on a Fulbright scholarship. He chose McCombs for its concentration on entrepreneurship and finance. After he graduated in 1992, von Frankenberg returned to Germany, earned a Ph.D. in business from the University of Mannheim and worked as a venture manager at Siemens Technology Accelerator in Munich. In 2005, his interest in technology innovation led him to High-Tech Gründerfonds (HTGF). He likes nurturing seed-stage startup companies and watching them grow. Mister Spex, a Berlin-based online eyeglasses and contacts retailer, was backed by HTGF in 2008 and has achieved global success. Some HTGF investments get bought by major players such as Johnson & Johnson. German pharmaceutical company MYR, which developed an antiviral drug to treat hepatitis D, received capital from HTGF in 2011 and 2014 and was acquired last year by American drugmaker Gilead Sciences for $1.39 billion. “Innovation that’s successful can improve lives, and that’s exciting,” von Frankenberg says.
The McCombs grad also scouts for new blockchain and cryptocurrency ventures, developing technologies he compares with the internet 30 years ago. “It would be wonderful to fund the next Amazon, Google, or Facebook in the cryptocurrency space.” Von Frankenberg, a distance runner who’s clocking miles until he’s run the length of Earth’s 24,901-mile circumference, thanks Texas for his enterprise. He says the American mentality to get things done and take chances seeped into him at UT. “I saw people in Austin approaching new things and just going for it,” he says. Early in his career at HTGF, the internet bubble had burst, and funding for German startups was scarce. Von Frankenberg tapped that Texas can-do spirit and his ability to write business plans, generate revenue, recruit competent managers, and sprout startups to help turn the tide. “Today, we look at Austin and Silicon Valley, very effective startup ecosystems, and we think Germany is catching up.” —Gretchen M. Sanders
Rebecca Otis Leder wrote a book on the art of pitching ideas to customers.
REFINING THE PERFECT PITCH y R EBECCA OTIS LEDER, BBA ’07,
AUTHOR OF KNOCK AND CREATOR OF THE KNOCK METHOD
Alex von Frankenberg funds innovative startups at a German venture capital firm. “Innovation that’s successful can improve lives, and that’s exciting,” he says.
A L E X P H OTO G R A P H C O U R T E S Y O F H T G F
Impersonal sales pitches are missed opportunities, says author and career development trainer Rebecca Otis Leder. Whether the Texas native was managing social media for Texas.gov, building the lifestyle blog TheRebeccammendations, honing her digital marketing skills in Chicago, or leading a customer success team at Salesforce, thoughtful queries got her attention. She wanted her own communication style to yield more yeses, so she refined her approach to business. “I could see the value in deepening connections with potential clients, colleagues, and career contacts by learning about them, their
McCOMBS.UTEXAS.EDU 43
C O M M U N I T Y: U P C L O S E companies, and what mattered to them,” Leder says. She worked hard to uncover commonalities with customers and highlight the impact they could have by working together. Her efforts transformed her business relationships. Soon, Leder wanted to help other professionals pitch ideas more thoughtfully and develop high-quality career networks. Her five-step strategy to building personal, mutually beneficial business relationships, which she calls The Knock Method, is explained in her new book, Knock: How to Open Doors and Build Career Relationships That Matter. It’s been featured by national and local media outlets. “‘Knock is not about pounding the pavement to make a good sale,” says Leder, who lives in Denver and runs Opportunities Knock LLC, a consulting business she started in 2021 to help students, professionals, and innovators employ her method to boost their careers. “It’s about intention and preparation before we ‘knock.’ It’s about generosity.” Her method, Leder says, is rooted in social and organizational psychology research and interviews she conducted with a dozen entrepreneurs, startup founders, and community leaders. Among them are bestselling author and Wharton School psychology professor Adam Grant and Austin’s Peached Tortilla owner Eric Silverstein. Recent graduates, budding entrepreneurs, and seasoned business executives can use the method to apply for jobs, pitch startups, sell products, and find a mentor. Leder teaches The Knock Method at workshops and virtual events nationwide. —Gretchen M. Sanders
RECYLING FOR CHANGE y H ALEY LOWRY, MBA ’13,
DIRECTOR OF GLOBAL SUSTAINABILIT Y, DOW
Haley Lowry has a mission to turn trash into cash. As the director of global sustainability at Dow, Lowry leads initiatives to remove plastic waste from the environment at one of the world’s largest producers of plastics and hydrocarbons.
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Haley Lowry's focus at Dow is to help create a more sustainable future, turning trash into treasure.
From her Houston base, she helps businesses and communities transform their economies from linear take, make, and dispose models to circular models, where waste gets remade. “In the circular economy we believe trash is not waste, it’s a resource,” Lowry says. “It becomes a part of products that are made and sold in the future.” Reducing packaging waste is one of Lowry’s priorities. “If you recycle plastic packaging, then it can be remade into the same material and reused,” she says. Lowry has also spearheaded efforts to help retailers repackage fresh produce to extend shelf life. Her work shaping Dow’s sustainability strategy takes her around the world, managing teams in Latin America, Africa, and Asia—places that produce most of the world’s plastic refuse. Mississippi raised, Lowery has a bachelor’s degree in marketing from Clemson University. She started working at Dow in 2005 and has steered her career to make a global impact. After taking a leadership course at Harvard University in 2017, she told her boss she wanted to use her
business influence at Dow to solve social and environmental problems. Lowry’s passion project, Recycling for Change, is one way she’s doing that. The Dow-funded initiative helps waste pickers in São Paulo, Brazil, earn money by collecting and sorting plastic from landfills. “We take the material they gather, improve it through technology, and sell it back into the marketplace as recycled plastic,” Lowry explains. The partnership creates local jobs, livable wages, and infrastructure for efficient waste management in underdeveloped Brazil. Lowry calls it a triple bottom line. “It’s good for Dow’s business, good for society, and good for the environment.” In March 2021, Lowry was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum, one of 112 people selected worldwide. She earned the honor for her big-picture thinking. “It’s not just about businesses making money anymore,” she says. “Businesses will also be judged on their social and environmental impact.” Companies do have a fiduciary responsibility to investors and shareholders, she acknowledges, “but stakeholders, the communities where companies operate, matter.” —Gretchen M. Sanders
P H OTO G R A P H B Y A B I E L I V E S AY
C O M M U N I T Y: A L U M N I N O T E S Please send your updates to alumni@mccombs.utexas.edu for publication in the next issue of McCombs magazine and online in the alumni news section of the McCombs website. Feel free to share news on behalf of a fellow graduate.
1980s Antonio Garza, BBA ’80, was
appointed to the board of The Greenbrier Companies Inc. He was the U.S. ambassador to Mexico from 2002 to 2009 and has been inducted into the McCombs School of Business Hall of Fame. Bianca Martinez Rhodes, BBA ’81, was elected to the
board of directors of Lawson Products Inc. She has served as the president and CEO of Knight Aerospace Medical Systems since 2014. Howard Cure, MBA ’85,
was promoted to partner and director of municipal bond research at Evercore Wealth Management. Before joining Evercore in 2009, he was a director at Financial Guaranty Insurance Co. Susan Conner, BBA ’86, was
appointed to the board of directors of nDivision Inc., an IT service management company. Since 2015, she has served on the board of Pariveda Solutions Inc., an IT consulting company. Luis Garcia, BBA ’89, was
named interim deputy general
counsel for CPS Energy in San Antonio. He previously worked for USAA as the executive director, managing counsel technology and transactions.
1990s Steven Cowan, BBA ’90, was hired as the CIO of the Maryland Clean Energy Center. He had served as the CFO of Global Energy Solutions Inc. and Global Environmental Solutions Inc.
SPRING 202 2
specializing in the Internet of Things during an “IoT For All” podcast. Bahl is the CEO of KORE Wireless.
and associate general counsel for corporate law by Cox Enterprises. She previously worked at News Distribution Network Inc.
Erin Nealy Cox, BBA ’92, joined the law firm Kirkland & Ellis LLP as a partner in the Dallas office. She had been an attorney for the U.S. Justice Department in the Northern District of Texas.
Bill Gurley, MBA ’93, was featured on the “Masters in Business” podcast discussing the IPO system with host Barry Ritholtz. Gurley is a venture capitalist at Benchmark.
Deborah Lucy, BBA ’93, MBA ’98, was named vice president
Peggy Han, MBA ’95, was named the executive vice president and CFO for Oregon's
Monica Pool Knox, MBA ’90, was hired by LivePerson Inc. as its senior vice president, chief people officer. She has held executive human resources positions at Twitter, Sony, CBS Interactive, PepsiCo, The Walt Disney Co., and Verizon. Campbell Metcalfe, BBA ’90, was promoted to chairman of Triangle Tire USA Inc. He had been Triangle's vice president of finance and operations since joining the company in 2018. Kah Lee Wong, BBA ’90, joined Strategic Benefits Advisors Inc. as a senior benefits consultant. Wong previously was a managing consultant for Cambridge Advisory Group. Michelle McKinney Frymire, MBA ’91, was appointed CEO of CWT, a travel management platform. She joined the company in 2019 and had been its president for strategy and transformation and its CFO. Romil Bahl, MBA ’92, discussed the implications of going public for businesses
Neha Parikh, BBA ’00, was appointed CEO of the crowdsourced traffic and navigation app Waze, a subsidiary of Google. She is the former president of Hotwire.
M c C O M B S . U T E X A S . E D U 45
C O M M U N I T Y: A L U M N I N O T E S tion on the GuruFocus website. He is a portfolio manager with BP Capital Fund Advisors LLC.
Lesley Hensell, MBA ’96, was interviewed by the Thrive Global website about selling on Amazon. She is a co-founder of Riverbend Consulting.
Tim Dwight, MBA ’98, was selected for the Plano Symphony Orchestra board of directors for 2021-22.
Lindy Fishburne, MBA ’97, was featured in a Money Inc article about her career. She is the founder and executive director of Breakout Labs, which provides grants for early-stage scientific research. Christoph Schweizer, MBA ’97, was elected CEO of Boston Consulting Group by the firm’s nearly 1,500 managing directors and partners. Schweizer, a 23-year veteran of the firm, will be its seventh CEO since its 1963 founding. Ben Cook, MBA ’98, spoke about the global energy transi-
Ron Stoupa, MBA ’98, was featured in an article on the Thrive Global website. He is the chief marketing officer for The Michaels Cos.
2000s Travis Thomas, BBA ’00, was promoted from vice president of finance to CFO by Ring Energy Inc. Before joining Ring, he was the chief accounting officer at Paradox Resources LLC. Kasey Burleson, MPA ’01, was appointed CFO of E.A. Renfroe & Co., a nation-
al claims-handling firm. Burleson was previously CFO for McLeod Software, which served the trucking industry. Diego Cavero Belaunde, MBA ’03, was named the CEO of BCP, the main subsidiary company of Credicorp Ltd. He is the former deputy general manager of Empresas del BCP. James Eng, BBA ’05, was featured on a “Multifamily Live” podcast by the Jason and Pili Project, talking about the acquisition of multifamily properties. Kellen Stailey Martin, BBA ’05, joined Hazel Technologies Inc., a fresh-produce technology company, as vice president of marketing. She previously was vice president of marketing for Grimmway Farms. Partha Pramanik, MBA ’05, joined SmartFinancial as senior vice president of insurance. He has more than 20 years of insurance experience, including 12 years at Answer Financial. Stephen Alarcon, BBA ’05, was appointed to the board of directors for Concrete Pumping Holdings Inc. and to the company’s corporate governance and nominating committee. He is a vice president at Peninsula Pacific, a private investment fund.
Sam Acho, BBA ’10, joined ESPN2 as its lead college football analyst. The former Longhorn and NFL linebacker is also expected to make regular appearances on “SportsCenter” and to contribute as an NFL analyst.
46 M c C O M B S .U T E X A S . E D U
Blake Rowling, BBA ’06, was appointed to a six-year term on the Texas Parks and Wildlife Commission by Gov. Greg Abbott. Rowling is the president of TRT Holdings in Dallas.
Robin Gordon, MBA ’06, was named the chief data and analytics officer for MetLife Inc. She previously worked at Blackstone, where she was the chief information officer for seven companies in its real estate portfolio. Colin Anawaty, BBA ’06, was interviewed by Authority Magazine about the lessons he has learned as a C-suite executive. He is the chief product officer of First Dollar, a health savings startup, and a UT guest lecturer. Hunter Follett, BBA ’09, was featured in a business profile in the Victoria Advocate newspaper. He is the CEO of Tejas Production Services. Michael Nichley, BBA ’09, was named a senior vice president when his firm, The Fortney Group, joined the UBS private wealth management division.
2010s Matt Miller, MBA ’10, was hired by Versant Capital Management in Phoenix as a senior client associate. He had previously been vice president at Austin-based Dimensional Fund Advisors. Adrian Saide, MBA ’11, was appointed CFO for Dallas-based Zalat Pizza. He previously worked as CFO at EYM Group, a franchise operation. Brian Arevalo, MSTC ’12, wrote an opinion piece for Hospitality Net on the reper-
K AU F F M A N , CA M P B E L L A N D LO O BY I M AG E C R E D I T: J O H N DAV I D S O N
Tillamook County Creamery Association. She is the former CEO of Vitamin World USA.
SPRING 202 2 cussions of the COVID-19 pandemic on the Cincinnati regional economy. He is a director with HVS, which serves the hospitality industry. Scott Haywood, MBA ’12, has been named HNTB Corp.’s office leader for the firm’s Central and South Texas offices. He most recently served as the firm’s client service leader for the Texas Department of Transportation. Deepika Gajaria, MSTC ’13, wrote an opinion piece for Cyber Defense Magazine. She is the vice president of products at Tala Security.
Michael Saclarides, MBA ’13, joined Cushman & Wakefield, a commercial real estate services firm, as a director. He previously worked with Eastdil Secured in New York City and JLL in Hong Kong. Jeff Butler, BBA ’14, was interviewed by the Poets & Quants website about his plans with the U.S. wheelchair rugby team and for the Paralympic Games. He also plans to attend the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Geoff Crisanti, BBA ’15, joined Council Capital, a health care-focused private equity firm, as a value creation senior
Kevin Matthews II, MSTC ’20, wrote an article for the Yes! website about how Black people rebuilt “Black Wall Street” after the 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre.
associate. He was with Aspire Health. Dr. Michael Bogdan, MBA ’16, was named president-elect of the executive committee of the Aesthetic Surgery Education and Research Foundation. He earned his medical degree from Stanford University School of Medicine.
Yoon Lee, BBA ’20, was featured in a story in The Alcalde magazine about the app Lee created, Pop, that helps students and faculty members stay connected to one another.
Kipp Cummins, MBA ’16, was appointed to be the head of EMEA Fixed Income for Dimensional UK. He had been a senior portfolio manager and vice president for the business.
Anchor Ebanks, BBA ’16, MPA ’16, was interviewed by Poets & Quants about his decision to choose Harvard Business School over the Stanford Graduate School of Business and the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. As a UT undergrad, he founded Consult Your Community, a nonprofit. Ivy Le, MBA ’16, launched her “Fear of Going Outside” podcast on Spotify detailing her comedic adventures as she tries to learn about camping.
M c C O M B S . U T E X A S . E D U 47
M c C O M B S: B O T T O M L I N E
INVESTING IN STUDENTS UT SYSTEM REGENT AND McCOMBS HALL OF FAMER STEVE HICKS SEES RADIO’S FUTURE – AND SOCIAL WORK’S POWER by Steve Brooks
S
TEVE HICKS, B. A . '72, MADE HIS REPUTATION IN RADIO STATIONS
and business startups. But the COVID-19 pandemic has turned a spotlight on another of his investments: University of Texas students. As a member of the UT System Board of Regents, he has worked to expand mental health services to help students deal with the stresses of college life. He sees his 2017 gift of $25 million to the UT School of Social Work, which bears his name, as an investment. It included $15 million for scholarships and $5 million for addiction and recovery education, a cause with personal resonance. The gift also was about giving back to the institution that helped launch his career, Hicks says. At age 29, armed with a bachelor’s degree in government and business, he bought his first radio station. In the 1990s, after creating the industry’s first local marketing agreement (LMA) — which allowed one station to operate another — he amassed an empire of 350 stations. In 2000, he left radio for private equity after seeing his own children get their music from other sources. Now executive chairman of Austin-based Capstar Partners, he oversees investments as diverse as luxury travel agency Andrew Harper, jewelry design company Kendra Scott (she’s also a UT professor of practice), and cookie vendor Tiff’s Treats, founded by Leon Chen, BBA '01, and his wife, Tiffany Taylor Chen, B.S. '01. By the end of his term on the Board of Regents in 2023, Hicks’ 14 years will make him the longest-serving regent since 1920 – even longer than fellow regent and alumnus, his brother Tom Hicks, BBA '69. During 10 of those years, he doubled as a board member of The University of Texas/ Texas A&M Investment Management Company, which oversees $66 billion in investments. A 2011 McCombs Hall of Fame inductee, Hicks recently spoke with McCombs magazine. His responses have been edited and condensed. HIS PROUDEST ACHIE VEMENT AS A REGENT
We took some money out of the Permanent University Fund to create free tuition for all UT Austin students with family incomes under $65,000. We can continue doing things to make college more affordable and accessible.
Steve Hicks, executive chairman, Capstar Partners
comprehensive mental health service group. The experience of the past year and a half, with the stresses of the pandemic, have helped to prove the wisdom of that investment. We owe a responsibility to our students to give them the best mental health care, as well as physical health care. INVENTING THE FIRST LMA
In 1990, well over half of the country’s radio stations were losing money. I had seen satellite companies providing programming for different stations, and I was able to use that same legal model. It cut costs. Instead of having four or five different operations in a market, each with its own building, receptionist, and bookkeeper, you were able to consolidate some operations. I wish it was something I could have patented. I think within a year there were a thousand such agreements. THE FUTURE OF RADIO
If you can make it local and relevant to people, it still has a place. It's just not a pure music medium like it was. I expect it's going to be even more oriented towards talk, news, and sports. SOCIAL WORK AS AN INVESTMENT
It’s an investment in the social fabric of our community. To me, social workers are kind of the unsung heroes of life. They’re at the hospital when babies are born. A social worker in hospice was holding my mother’s hand when she passed away, and I wasn’t able to get there quickly enough. T H E PAYO F F S O F S O C I A L W O R K S C H O L A R S H I P S
Students who are attracted to that work come from lower socioeconomic backgrounds. They were graduating with an average of $45,000 in student debt and would take a social work job that would pay $30,000. They were being forced out after a few years so that they could actually make some money and pay off their debts. The majority of my gift goes towards paying scholarships so they can stay in the field longer.
U N I V E R S I T Y O F T E XAS
S U P P O R T I N G S T U D E N T M E N TA L H E A LT H
I'm in recovery myself, so when I came on the board, I got familiar with UT Students in Recovery. I got a couple more regents to come see, and we ended up extending it with some money from the system to create chapters at all the other campuses. We later extended that to a more
48 M c C O M B S .U T E X A S . E D U
A D V I C E T O A L U M N I G R A P P L I N G W I T H U N C E R TA I N T Y
I worry a little bit that there's so much isolation now in business. I've loved being part of a team, whether that’s inside a radio station or small company. I would advise people to look for being part of a team they can grow with.
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