Alumni Profiles

22 & a half minutes with newsnotes THE WEBB SCHOOLS

Eugene Whitlock ’88

Assistant vice chancellor-hr/chief people & culture officer, UC Berkeley

According to the Business Roundtable, a group of nearly 200 CEOs from the world’s biggest brands including Apple, Pepsi and CVS, shareholders are “no longer the chief concern of today’s companies.” The new mission statement of the group states that “employees are the focus of the modern corporation.” The same can be said of the world of higher education, where Eugene Whitlock ’88 has worked tirelessly to encourage institutions to focus as much on the people carrying out the mission as the mission itself by creating welcoming, equitable workplaces where people feel like they belong. Whitlock’s work in human resources, first as the vice chancellor and general counsel at the San Mateo County Community College District and now at UC Berkeley where he is assistant vice chancellor-HR/chief people & culture officer, has included a special focus on infusing equity and diversity into the hiring process to make sure the workforce reflects the community it serves. Whitlock attended Stanford University, graduating with a Bachelor of Science in biological sciences, and then received his Juris Doctorate cum laude from the University of Michigan Law School. Following graduation, he clerked on the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals for Judge Alfred T. Goodwin and on the U.S. District Court in Miami for Chief Judge Edward B. Davis. He was admitted to the bar in California and New York. He has many years of experience living and working abroad. Along the way he studied a few languages and now speaks Spanish, French, and German fluently and a little bit of Dutch. His wife is from Argentina and their children are 5, 3, and 1. With a commitment to global society in mind Whitlock speaks to them in German and his wife speaks to them in Spanish.

q&a

You’ve had an interesting career path, from lawyer working on agreements, regulatory filings, mergers, etc. to your current job at UC Berkeley. What led you down this path? I’ve always been pursuing opportunities. At Stanford, I earned a Bachelor of Science in biological sciences, but I realized I didn’t want to go to medical school. I decided to give law a try. After law school, I thought, it’s more exciting to be a banker so I did that. A friend of mine was working in Berlin, organizing a NATO conference, and invited me to work with him. I worked at Stiftung Wissenschaft und Politik, the German Institute for International and Security Affairs for three years.

,Êve been at Berkeley for five months now, it’s quite a step-up in the size of the job — on any given day there are 75,000 people on campus, there is a $3 billion budget, I have meetings all day long.

Some people would look at all these changes and say, “Well, you weren’t afraid to take risks!” Maybe I didn’t know enough to be afraid? Fortunately, it has all worked out pretty well for me. How successful have your efforts been to improve diversity and equity in the workforce? What are some of the methods you’ve employed? I oversee compensation, learning and development, employee and labor relations, and talent acquisition. We are now creating a new department entitled: Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Belonging.

At San Mateo, I introduced a 2-hour training session about diversity and unconscious bias that we expanded to include every new employee who was hired.

The goal is to have a diverse work force where people feel included. I’ve taken that training to 20 colleges throughout the state, and to conferences and private companies.

What is the importance of continuing education for employees? One of the main focuses now is teaching managers to create a “coaching culture.” Sometimes managers have no idea how to lead people or how to develop them. I explain to them that one of their primary jobs is to help the people you oversee to develop their careers, so they are more valuable to the institution.

What we do w ith the coaching philosophy is tell managers to have one-on-one frequent conversations, to think about, for example, “how is the person doing, how can you support them in their job?” It’s changed the dynamic for managers from thinking about what their employees do for the organization. We want them to think about what the organization can do for their employees.

We also conduct a lot of surveys that enable us to improve employee engagement. We just completed a survey at Berkeley where we learned that people wanted more access to leaders, so we increased those opportunities. At the end of the day, when employees are happy and have a purpose and feel committed, they are going to stay with the organization. What are important qualities to look for in a new employee? When I’m talking to a potential employee, I want to make sure that that person has read the website and learns about the organization, I ask myself: does this person understand our organization’s values, do the person’s values align with ours? If you don’t have that common understanding about the work and the kind of attitudes we value, you’re not going to be happy.

How does your Webb experience inform your decision-making practices in your work and in your everyday life? I attribute my ability to write to Webb — writing and re-writing essays for Larry McMillan and Janet Macaulay — that’s where I learned to appreciate writing and how important it was. In terms of my skill set, that ability set me off in the right direction. The honor code and the values of the school continue to be important to me, especially working in the public sector. They are priorities I share with my kids. You have been a steady supporter of Webb and your classmate Lionel Yang ’88 was a groomsman at your wedding. Can you describe your experience at Webb, why you chose Webb, and why it is still important to you today? My mom chose Webb! My mom was a teacher and school principal and she knew that Webb as the best school in the area. I’ve always been extremely c ompetitive, so when she said it was the best, I knew that’s where I wanted to go. I have extremely good memories of being at Webb. I played sports, hung out on campus all the time, and the academics set me up to go to Stanford.

I was recently home and my mom pulled out some of my old report cards—a slip of paper with grades and comments—one was from my senior year and I remember I was kind of ‘checked-out.’ The teacher’s remarks were “I expect much more from you. This is not what I’m used to…” For me, this demonstrates how well teachers got to know and care about you.

They weren’t going to let me stop caring. That level of compassionate motivation is why I would happily send my kids to Webb!

Read the full version of Whitlock’s interview on the alumni news website at webb.org/alumni

Priya Verma ‘02 thought she would pursue a career in sports law before she set her sights on the entertainment industry. “I wanted to be the general counsel of an NFL or NBA team until I realized their jobs are quite boring,” she toldThe Hollywood Reporter in November 2019. “My desire to do sports just fell away because I fell in love with television,” she told Webb months later. ALUMNI SPOTLIGHT Priya Verma ’02

PAfter just eight years in the entertainment industry, Verma was named one of “Hollywood’s 35 rising executives 35 and under” by Jessica Rice ’12

byThe Hollywood Reporter last fall.

After just eight years in the entertainment industry, Verma was named one of “Hollywood’s 35 rising executives 35 and under” byThe Hollywood Reporter last fall.

newsnotes THE WEBB SCHOOLS Verma is “the youngest partner at one of Hollywood’s top talent boutiques,” law firm 0orris <orn, the publication notes in the feature. She practices transactional talent law — primarily working in TV and film Æ representing writers, producers, actors and directors, including Nisha Ganatra, who recently directed the movie Late Night. +er firmÊs clients include the likes of Jordan Peele, Scarlett Johannson and Matthew McConaughey.

She serves as a jack-of-all-trades for her clients, she says, handling everything from negotiating the financial terms of clients’ deals with studios and production companies to forecasting clients’ careers and guiding their trajectories.

“It’s a great feeling to see one of your clients get a TV show on the air or see their movie in theaters,” she says.

When Verma graduated from Southwestern University School of Law, she had no connections in the entertainment industry. She started out as an assistant at 0orris <orn and advanced ahead of the typical pace for her career track. Verma learned about the business by working for the firmÊs partner and was promoted to associate a year later. That’s when she began to build her own client base, focusing on writers, producers, directors and some comedians. She was promoted to partner four years later.

“I absolutely love what I do,” she says. “I mean, you have to for the amount of hours you spend doing this.”

Verma’s success did not come easily. When asked what advice she would have for those interested in pursuing a career in the industry, she revealed, “there’s really no substitute for hard work in entertainment.”

“It’s a job and yes, there are great perks to it when you’re meeting extremely creative people and going to premieres, but at the end of the day, you need to come in with no ego and really need to be willing to start from the bottom and work your way up,” she says. “This industry is extremely competitive.”

Verma has witnessed the shift in the entertainment industry, as viewers increasingly turn to streaming platforms like 1etflix, Amazon 3rime Video and Hulu.

“The new frontier is the digital streaming world,È she added. Ç,t is definitely changing the way we do business.”

Discussions about the representation of women and people of color in Hollywood have prompted calls for other changes within the industry. Verma says she feels a “much larger responsibility being female and being diverse.”

“I’ve been told that I’m the only South Asian talent attorney and partner in the business,” she says. “I do carry that with me and, in general, I know there are things that are moving, but it needs to move a lot further.”

Verma — who mentors a young woman from Guatemala who is now a freshman at UCLA — believes mentoring young women can make a difference.

“We all need to get to a point where we’re helping the women around us, and not seeing them as competition or a threat, because that is still very prominent,” she says. “I think change can start with high-powered women mentoring young women and bringing them up with them. :e all have to find a way to give back to

the younger generation and help guide them in that way.”

She recalls a mentor she had at The Webb Schools, English teacher Edwina Foster, who helped her whenever challenges arose.

“Ms. Foster was there by my side, really guiding me through things,” she says. “She always believed in me.”

Verma credits Foster and other teachers for helping her build habits and values while she studied at Webb.

“It gives you a foundation that you might not see in the moment, but you realize it later on,È she says. ÇThe principles and the values that are instilled in you as students — you’ve definitely learned something that is not related to the curriculum.”