Wharton Club of New York Magazine - Spring 2010 by Wharton Alumni Club Magazine of New York

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Spring 2010 Newsletter

Club ActivitieS LINKS

Alumni SpotlighT Links

Letter from the President �� 2

Thanks for Making the Call �� 8

Executive Committee �� 2

Using Social Media to Sell �� 10

2009 Joseph Wharton Awards Dinner �� 3

A “Personal” Approach … �� 16

Wharton Alumni Business Plan Competition 2.0 �� 6 Take the Call Forum �� 7 WCNY has a New Office �� 7 Jack Huang Migrates Mountains �� 18 Who do I introduce first �� 20

2009 Joseph Wharton

Awards Dinner Alumni Working in Energy

Board of Directors �� 21 Penny for Your Thoughts �� 21

Wharton Alumni Electrify the Northeast �� 12

Join Today! �� 23 WCNY Calendar �� 24

The Breakthrough Strategy �� 13 Success Will Find You �� 14 Energizing Wharton Alumni �� 15

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As you will read in this newsletter, the WCNY enables you to find anything you need from capital for your business to investment opportunities; from career opportunities to growing your skills; from business leads to connections with fellow alumni in your field; and from intellectual stimulation to interaction with other leaders who are sharing their thoughts. You can learn more about each of these areas in the pages of this newsletter and on our web site www.whartonny.com. This issue begins with highlights from the Joseph Wharton Awards Dinner in October 2009, honoring four fellow Wharton alumni who significantly impacted their industries. The entire evening was superb, thanks to the attendees, our diligent volunteers and the fine team from Global Events. I cannot tell you (well, actually, I can and am telling you) how excited I am to have offices for our club. Everything in one place, including your addresses! Rabbi Eric Lankin, W’78, is a good example of someone who connected to alumni through the WCNY in a way that made sense to him. Read this article to understand his motives and moves! Our Chairman, Nigel Edelshain, WG’93, is also giving back, sharing his secrets with you on how to move

your personal brand or company. Wharton alumni have blazed paths everywhere, including in an industry that is getting increasing attention and excitement these days. These four interviews of high-powered leaders in the energy field share their career paths and insights into their work. Look to future issues for interviews of executives in your industry! We always like to highlight the volunteers among us and to share how they are facing the successes and challenges in their careers. Jennifer Gregoriou, W’78, has been a great friend to the Wharton Club, and this interview shows how she is a friend to others as well. Jack Huang, MSE’03 did migrate mountains … of data! It is good to see the work of this unsung hero heralded, because it directly helps you in your daily life. Find out how! It’s never too late to learn. If you missed our latest Speaker Series event, on how to behave in business, you can read about it here. Lastly, please check out a few examples of our TAKE THE CALL (http://www.whartonny.com/forum. html) forum on the page seven. The secret to our continued collective success is: Wharton Alumni should buy from Wharton Alumni, Wharton Alumni should hire Wharton Alumni, Wharton Alumni should help Wharton Alumni and if a fellow alumnus calls… you take the call! It is this enlightened self-interest that is the ultimate power of the Wharton community. The Wharton Alumni Network continues to be your most powerful tool for business, social, career, and intellectual growth. Use it! Take the Call!

2009 Joseph Wharton Awards Dinner

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President Kenneth Beck—WG’87 Beck Enterprises kbeck@beckenterprisesllc.com

“When you spend time with bright, talented, accomplished people in this community, amazing things happen. So, get involved, stay involved, make a difference.”

Executive Vice President George Bradt—WG’85 PrimeGenesis Executive Onboarding gbradt@primegenesis.com

ou are going to hear four special stories from four amazing alumni. When you hear those stories, those amazing things that Jeff, George, Robert and Ralph have done, just remember you are all Wharton alumni! We have a responsibility, and it’s in our enlightened self-interest to keep our alumni community strong. When you spend time with bright, talented, accomplished people in this community, amazing things happen. So, get involved, stay involved, make a difference.” With these words, Kenneth Beck, WG’87, the President of the Wharton Club of New York, commenced the 2009 Joseph Wharton Awards Dinner, held on October 1, 2009 at the handsome Jumeirah Essex House on 59th Street.

Vice President, Finance Rosemarie Bonelli—WG’99 Chartis International Surety and ecoPractice Rabonelli@aol.com Vice President, Marketing & Communications Peter Hildick-Smith—WG’81 Codex-Group LLC hildick-smith@codexgroup.net Vice President, Business Development Robert Boyd—WAM’06 Boston Street Advisors rboyd@bostonstreetadvisors.com

The cast of luminaries was indeed as bright and accomplished as one could find anywhere, and attracted the very leaders of the Wharton and Penn community, including Wharton Dean Tom Robertson, University of Pennsylvania President Amy Guttman, and Event Chair Jon M. Huntsman, W’59, as well as our debonair host, CNBC’s Bill Griffeth. Encouragingly, the honorees were all accessible. For example Jon Huntsman, our Event Chair, past honoree and recent chairman of the Wharton School, began his career upon graduation selling eggs to grocery stores. Reflecting on the current economic hardship of many, Huntsman shared a success secret, found in his book Winners Never Cheat (Wharton School Publishing), that it is “the valleys of life that shape our adversity; adversity of life that shapes our integrity; and the integrity of life that makes us the people we are.”

Vice President, Career Development Alan Riffkin—WG `94 Lazard Frères & Company LLC Alan.Riffkin@Lazard.com Vice President, Programming Regina Jaslow—W’97 The Penn Club of NY rjaslow@pennclubny.org Vice President, Volunteer Services Diana Davenport—WG’87 The Commonwealth Fund dd@cmwf.org WCNY Manager Stephanie Shaw sshaw@whartonny.com Newsletter Editor Kent Trabing—WG’01 USP Development LLC editor@whartonny.com

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Wharton Club of New York 1560 Broadway, Suite #1011 New York, NY 10036 • USA Phone: 1 (212) 463-5559 Fax: 1 (917) 464-5977 Email: sshaw@whartonny.com Web: www.WhartonNY.com

Joseph Wharton Award for Young Leadership — Jeff Fluhr, W’96, EN’96 Jeff Fluhr, the cofounder of StubHub, began his talk thanking his mom and dad. “StubHub’s success would not have been possible without your positive reinforce-

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ment. You taught me the values that I still believe in today.” Fluhr received the 2009 Joseph Wharton Award for Young Leadership, which honors Wharton alumni who, early in their careers, demonstrate the greatest potential for leadership and lasting impact. Jeff credits Wharton for giving him not only a sound business education, but also in-class entrepreneurial experiences, two of which were precursor online businesses: one in the greeting cards domain and the other an online restaurant ordering service. Fluhr attested, “Penn gave me my first two key employees, and Wharton gave me the building blocks to be successful with StubHub.” Jeff led StubHub until selling it to eBay in 2007 for $300 million. Joseph Wharton Award for Social Impact — George A. Weiss, W’65 George Weiss received the Joseph Wharton Award for Social Impact, which is bestowed on Wharton alumni who have made the greatest impact in public service, social enterprise or philanthropy. Weiss shared that, “When I was age 12, waiting tables at Boston’s Kenmore Hotel, a professor of business from Boston University asked me what I wanted to do later in life. I told him I wanted to go into business. He looked at me and said, “You have to go to the Waton [sic] School of Business.” Weiss did so, and while at school, he made a pact with God. “If You ever give me the financial wherewithal to make a difference, I will do what I can to help the poor through education, I will help my university, and I will help my religion.” Many make such a pledge, Weiss kept his, largely through his organization, Say Yes to Education. Since its founding in 1987, Weiss has helped over 740 students complete their high school and college education. In addition to providing financial support, he is accessible to the students as they take up the challenge to achieve. Showing

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s you know, you are automatically a member of the Wharton Club of New York by virtue of the fact that you graduated from Wharton and live in this area. It is up to you whether you take advantage of this significant asset that you have earned with your degree.

Executive Comittee

A w a r d s

LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT

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A Surprise Award! Arthur Bass, W’73, the chairman of the awards committee, announced an unscheduled award to the person who conceived of reinstituting the awards dinner, Ken Beck. He explained that Ken wanted the event to be the Academy Awards of business dinners, and it has largely achieved that level and recognition. Bass presented to Ken a plaque inscribed, “In recognition of outstanding contribution, presented to Ken Beck, for your vision and dedication in resurrecting the Joseph Wharton Awards Dinner, with sincere gratitude from the Wharton alumni community, October 2009.” Joseph Wharton Award for Leadership — Robert S. Kapito, W’79 Robert Kapito is the President and a director of BlackRock, the world’s largest and fastest-growing asset management firm. The Joseph Wharton Award for Leadership is presented to Wharton alumni who embody t h e highest standards of leadership in both business and society. The award seems tailor-made for Kapito, yet he emphasized that his colleagues at BlackRock were more deserving. Kapito shared that his team was, at that moment, “undertaking the largest acquisition in the history of the money management business.” Kapito said that he told his team, “If we are successful in the integration of Barclays and BlackRock, which would put $3 trillion under management, we will be a Wharton Business School case study. And if we fail, we will be a Wharton Business School case study.” It looks like it will be a favorable case study! Then, Kapito implored those gathered at the event to lead. “We need to do more. We need to have more business leaders like Jon Huntsman and Ralph Roberts who built companies that meet the test of economic, legal and ethical performance. We need more role models like George Weiss who do so much for the community. And like Jeff Fluhr who take and create ideas and create value from these ideas.”

“Dean Robertson, I’m going to cold-call on you, because we need Wharton to speak up more externally. Deans, professors and alumni should write up pieces in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal. I want to challenge you and the rest of the alumni here … to put out more public learning pieces on business, on leadership and on the future of the world economy. We really have to help each other.”

I think it helped me with the entrepreneurial aspects. They were very encouraging.”

“As Wharton graduates, we learn the values that will shape the culture of our firms, and will impact the leadership models that will enable us to manage our business, our people and ourselves. So, I think the best award that we all can bestow upon each other tonight is to really reaffirm our commitment to foster responsible leadership in a global business community.”

Regarding his thoughts on Wharton: “I think This one of the things that was mentioned It’s interesting that the trait Roberts annual event is tonight was integrity. It stood recalls from 1941 still rings true our company in very good of Wharton today — that stuexpected to be the Academy stead. And Wharton is a place dents, staff and alumni “are Awards dinner for business founders where we can look for integvery positive and encouragand those who provide the capital rity. This is a place where we ing.” That sense of excitecan find support for all of our ment and possibility was evito make entrepreneurial families, our businesses and our dent at every table of the awards achievements possible. lives. And I think this should be in dinner. Truly, as our club president the little speech we give to people about said when he began the evening, “When the school.” you spend time with bright, talented, accomplished peoOn the personal level, Roberts confessed that he did have ple in this community, amazing things happen.” ❘❙❚ a lifetime achievement: “I married my wife Suzanne, 67

Regarding the growth of his cable empire, he explained, “We weren’t so brilliant! When I saw people running down the street after our trucks shouting, ‘Come to my house next!’ … well, I knew this was a great business. We just found something that worked and banged away at it.”

Joseph Wharton Award for Lifetime Achievement — Ralph J. Roberts, W’41, Hon’05

University of Pennsylvania President Amy Guttman (center) with Steering Committee members Arthur Bass, W’73, Kenneth Beck, WG’87, Regina Jaslow, W’97, Udayan Chattopadhyay, WG’01

It is almost impossible to grasp, let alone, articulate, the breadth and depth of the life of Ralph J. Roberts, the founder and chairman of Comcast. To a standing ovation from attendees, Roberts received the Joseph Wharton Award for Lifetime Achievement. This award is presented to Wharton alumni who have had a tremendous positive and sustained impact on business and society over the course of their careers.

Awards 2009 Continued:

Amy Guttman touched on the highlights of his life: “Ralph Roberts brought power, speed, variety and choice to mass communication. With unsurpassed business acumen, he used his Wharton-honed understanding to seize opportunities that nobody else saw. Today, Comcast serves 28 million cable TV customers and 11.5 million high-speed Internet customers, generating $32 billion in annual sales. Roberts serves on multiple boards of nonprofits, including the University of Pennsylvania Health System, and recently founded the Roberts Proton Therapy Center, a marvel in itself.” Roberts, 89 years of age, with his charming, slow cadence, was humorously self-effacing about the whole affair. “I was quite surprised you could find my name in the archives, but I’m glad you did. As the years go by, I do appreciate the education I got at the Wharton School.

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years ago. She taught me the two most important words, “Yes, dear.” Roberts expressed being proud of his son, who is CEO of Comcast today, and who worked his way up from pole climber. “Brian, W’81 is the perfect product of the Wharton School education. They not only gave him creative ideas; they gave him discipline. Today, he’s targeting his objectives, and building a management team that is second to none, and they all love him. He’s a hard, hard worker; he’s creative; and he’s my son. Thank you.”

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A w a r d s

his confidence in his alma mater, Weiss has given over $80 million to Wharton, including $20 million this year. Weiss believes that amazing things can happen when you bring bright Wharton people together. Out of the 208 employees at his Hartford, Connecticut, firm, George Weiss Associates, 40 are Wharton alumni.

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A c t i v i t i e s

Take the Call Forum

Wharton Alumni Business Plan Competition 2.0

s a budding entrepreneur, isn’t it tough enough to get funds in the door, ship products out the door, maintain your daily chores and bring your toddlers to violin lessons next door? So why subject yourself to the effort and anxiety of competing against other really, really smart Wharton alumni in the second annual Wharton Alumni Business Plan Competition? The chairs of the b-plan competition, Kofi Kankam and Jay Bakhru, both WG’04 Cohort C, evince the goodhumored confidence to answer that question. Kofi has already set up a cell phone services company in India and an educational software firm. He now assists candidates to enter the business schools of their choice through his new company (www. admitadvantage.com). Jay, after a stint at Citibank, set up a user-friendly service to help medical professionals learn exactly the Spanish they need (www.languagetailor.com). Now, that’s Wharton global confidence! So, what are the benefits to competitors? •

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Early-stage companies get to showcase themselves to venture capitalists, successful entrepreneurs and established angel investors. Competitors receive feedback on their plans’ concept, financial model, business model, market place, management team, etc. Non-winners get meaningful feedback and specific advice on what their companies need to do to ultimately receive funding.

Who else is on your team? Mark Chou, WG’09, a recent alumni working at Blackstone Group, has been vital in establishing our Facebook page and Web presence. We are also working closely with Jack Huang, MSE’03, who is our “glue guy.” Jack has been really terrific helping us iron out any integration issues between the Wharton Alumni Business Plan Competition website and the Wharton Club of New York website. The competition is housed in the club’s Business Development Division, led by Bob Boyd, WG’06, Founder and President of Boston Street Advisors. Bob has been involved in 25 start-ups and serves on the National Advisory Council of the U.S. Small Business Administration. Are you working in concert with the Wharton School? Emily Gohn Cieri, Managing Director, and Clare Leinweber and Megan Mitchell, Senior Associate Directors, of the Wharton Entrepreneurial Programs (WEP), have been terrific in helping us to solicit business plans and market the competition to other clubs on the East Coast! Working with WEP gives us a lot of hope that this will only grow every year. This must be a huge undertaking. Why did your team take it on?

ind opportunities offered by your fellow Wharton Alumni. Help an alumnus find answers; Get ideas and useful information. Use the “Take the Call” Forum- you never know what you will find there.

What have been your key challenges? Not as many as we expected! There are the typical startup glitches. The integration with the club’s website was a challenge at first, but as a team, we made it work.

By the way, your message can be promoted to the 18,000 alumni in the NY Metro area. Just post it on the “Take The Call Forum” our message board for Wharton Alumni to reach the Wharton Alumni Community directly... See below for highlights.

What’s new in the second year of the competition? • • • • •

“Take the Call” Forum Highlight 1 Established boutique FOF firm with ties to a prominent American family office and a premier HF group and are looking to hire a due diligence analyst with 1-3 years experience. If you can “take this call” or if you know someone who can, go to http://www.whartonny.com/forum.html

We expanded the competition to welcome alumni from other clubs. We have a much more visible web presence. We built on last year’s relationship with WEP. More companies have applied. The event has more varied judges.

“Take the Call” Forum Highlight 2 Anyone with a connection to either Ken Gosnell or Stanley Fleishman, and willing to provide an intro? If you can “take this call” or if you know someone who can, go to http://www.whartonny.com/forum.html

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“Take the Call” Forum Highlight 3 I’m trying to reach James Ross and/or Alan Feldstein at the Human Rights Watch. If anyone knows either person, I would very much appreciate hearing from you. If you can “take this call” or if you know someone who can, go to http://www.whartonny.com/forum.html “Take the Call” Forum Highlight 4 I’m a 2006 Wharton graduate who now works at a private equity media company and attends Columbia Journalism School. I am looking to get more freelance business writing experience. If you can “take this call” or if you know someone who can, go to http://www.whartonny.com/forum.html “Take the Call” Forum Highlight 5 Boutique investment banking firm seeks financial communications consultant to assist in preparing marketing materials for private equity funds, corporate equity placements, hedge funds, and other investment offerings. Looking for an experienced consultant who can work on a project basis. If you can “take this call” or if you know someone who can, go to http://www.whartonny.com/forum.html ❘❙❚

Can you describe some of the contenders? The contenders are quite a varied bunch. We have a wide range of industries represented including mobile, retail, online ticketing, software productivity, beverages and online dating. This list represents a smattering of what we have received – the diversity of creativity within business is a hallmark of Wharton and this contest is certainly adhering to that notion. ❘❙❚

WCNY has a New Office

jay bakhru and kofi kankam

ivilization begins with order, grows with liberty and dies with chaos. The biographer of civilization, Will Durant, who wrote his 11 weighty tomes over four decades, no doubt came to that conclusion after finally relocating his typewriters, notes, research and library from his home, into a decent organized office.

within easy reach of the adept Ms. Shaw. Stephanie is a great support to both club volunteers and alumni.

Stephanie Shaw, Manager for the Wharton Club of New York since 2005, concurs. She recently oversaw the transfer and consolidation of all things WCNY to the club’s new Midtown offices at 1560 Broadway! We won’t delve into where such records, important papers and computers were kept before. We will celebrate that they are now all

It’s a sensible setup — a 10 x 10 suite on the 10th floor, with a time-shared conference room available for official club matters. It should be noted that there are no comfy old world couches, no bar and no gym. That would be the Penn Club on 30 West 44th Street. ❘❙❚

Stephanie Shaw

We wanted to make a contribution to the school, meet other key people in the entrepreneurial space, as well as investors, and just get more immersed in that community. These people are fun to be around and share lots of creative ideas!

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A c t i v i t i e s

You’ll see her at almost all club events, doing all she can to make it easy and pleasant and worthwhile for you to be there. “Now, the club will have just one address for all correspondence,” Stephanie attests. “All the club records can be kept in one place. Questions can be more easily answered, and work more effectively done.” Will Durant would approve.

Wharton Quartely | Spring Wharton Club of New York | Spring2010 2010 | | whartonny.com www.whartonny.com

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S p o t l i g h t

Thanks for Making the call ou often hear about ‘taking the Y call’. Rabbi Dr. Eric Lankin, W’78, made the call! He founded the

Wharton Non-Profit and Social Impact Affinity Group (WNP-SIA), a unique organization within the Wharton Club of New York (WCNY). The group brings together Wharton alumni currently working in the non-profit arena in order to network, increase their business knowledge, be informed about community needs, and actively support one another’s business and personal career goals. Membership is free of charge and open to Wharton alumni who are professionals in non-profit organizations, volunteer board members of a nonprofit organization, and professionals of a for-profit company addressing areas of social impact. WNP-SIA members represent a broad swath of service, religious, educational and cultural institutions; foundations; membership associations; Members who The WCNY and Wharton community thanks Rabbi Lankin for being curious and intrepid enough to make something out of an unmet need, and wishes him every success in his valuable work!

are employed in for-profit companies are working in areas such as microfinance, healthcare and housing for the poor. Visit the WNP-SIA page on the club’s website for information on how to join. Rabbi Lankin is passing on the leadership torch so he can focus on his new critical role and concomitant travel schedule as the Chief of Institutional Advancement and Education of the Jewish National Fund. He took time

to answer a few questions. Why did you start the WNPSIA? In 2007, I posted a message on the “Take the Call” bulletin board (on the WCNY website) because I felt existentially alone, in that I didn’t know any alumni who worked in a non-profit. Since graduation, I’ve only worked in the non-profit sector, and the skills I learned at Wharton were salient to my work. I was thrilled to receive a strong response. Wharton’s tradition is business, but today, the school includes a solid social impact group. The nonprofit sector is significant in American society, so why shouldn’t we be involved in that sector? Most importantly, Wharton can make non-profits more effective and their work more significant. Can you describe some of the events held to date and your members? In one program, members would present case studies from their work to ask advice from others, including those working at the Guggenheim Museum, Carnegie Hall and other key institutions. We’ve also invited speakers who are doing interesting things such as Emily Tabin, (W’78), who formed a jazz group in Westchester County, and John Bernstein, (C’82, WG’87), president of the Leon Levy Foundation, which supports diverse themes such as studies of the ancient world and other important projects in New York. Of course, there was a good amount of networking going on, and friendships made. Events are limited to WNP-SIA members. Check out the Events Page of the club website for upcoming meetings!

Rabbi Eric Lankin, W’78

What is an ideal intersection of Wharton with the non-profit community? That’s a complicated question, because the Wharton experience has to do with commerce. The non-profit world doesn’t always work on that model. But Wharton can offer the non-profit world so much, improving the skill sets for volunteers and professionals and helping them be more effective in what they do. In Managing the NonProfit Organization, Peter Drucker stated: “The ‘nonprofit’ institution neither supplies goods or services or controls. Its ‘product’ is a changed human being.” Can you comment? This is a very insightful comment. Those working in education do want to transform their students. Those working to help the poor want to change their situation and their future. But this kind of transformation is hard to measure. Quality of life is hard to measure. So one has to work hard to demonstrate with metrics the positive changes occurring. Continued on Page 21

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T o o l s

Using Social Media to Sell

t says something about the diverse interests of Wharton alumni, that the Chairman and past President of the Wharton Club of New York, is not an attorney, investment banker or consultant, but a fluent and attentive teacher. It says something about the practical nature of Wharton alumni, that what he teaches is sales. Nigel Edelshain, WG’93, wasn’t always a teacher, or a salesman. His Wharton MBA nudged him out of engineering solutions into selling them. Throughout the late 1990s, big-ticket technology sales were strong. Despite success, Nigel perceived that he and other salespeople had a growing and fundamental problem. What was implicit in all the best sales trainings and practices of the day was that the salesperson was standing in front of the client, chatting away, product in hand, inside the door. Salespeople’s dilemma was that, more often than they liked, they were outside the door, looking in. The advent of the Internet was a huge milestone, changing everything, for the worse. Before the Internet, a salesperson had an excuse for getting into the buyer’s office in order to bestow “product updates.” Nigel explains, “Today, buyers can find whatever detailed information they need early in the buying process simply by typing into Google and pulling up dozens of white papers or webinars.” Fast forward to 2006. After much thinking and writing, Nigel coined the (now popular) term “Sales 2.0,” created his company Sales 2.0 LLC (www.sales2.com), and began teach-

ing salespeople to more effectively connect to customers. Following is our interview with Nigel. What’s different about sales today? Sales is about people. In the end, it’s people who buy things. The larger the item, and the amount of money involved, the more trust we need before we buy. Trust is based on relationships. If there’s one single factor that determines whether you will get in to meet a prospect, it’s relationship. In “old school selling,” salespeople used to spend time developing relationships with buyers at dinners, lunches and on the golf course to develop that relationship. But buyers are simply under too much pressure to deliver results, to spend much time with any one salesperson. But there is hope. There are new ways to build more relationships and far faster than you could before. These new ways are about using social networks to start relationships with people in your target market — often without even leaving your office. You can build initial relationships through the Web, but you need to get offline at some point and make these relationships “real.” We humans still need voice and in-person interactions to build more than surface-level relationships — not much has changed about that so far. Can you give an example of how to use a social media tool? One popular social network for salespeople is LinkedIn. Everybody knows about this website, but it’s not

always obvious how to use it to actually sell something. Let’s assume that you’ve figured out your “ideal client” profile and hence a target list of companies. And let’s assume you’ve built up a reasonable number of connections on LinkedIn while you’ve been using it (if not, check out a book like I’m on LinkedIn, Now What???).

attended; his or her interests (scuba diver, sky diver, etc.); and the groups he or she belongs to in LinkedIn.

Are some social media better than others for different industries?

For Wharton alumni who don’t currently use LinkedIn, Facebook and Twitter, how can they overcome the intimidation of using these new tools?

The platform you use needs to match your goal, and match the people you need to sell to, connect to and learn from. Facebook may be great for selling Rubbermaid’s consumer products, because it has 400 million users, compared to LinkedIn’s 20 million users, but LinkedIn is the king for selling high-ticket businessto-business products and services.

Personally, I like to dabble when trying something new. Others like to read books. If you need to get training, get training! Whichever way, you do need to make the effort to keep up, in order to be valued in your workforce.

Let’s briefly walk through one way you can use LinkedIn to sell. Type in the name of Target Company A into the main search box in LinkedIn (keep the search pull-down menu set on its default of “People”). LinkedIn will then list the names of people in your target company, how many “degrees of separation” they are away from you, and which of your direct (first degree) contacts connects you to that company’s staff. Let’s say that LinkedIn shows that I know a “Person 1” in the target company through someone I know in real life, called “Person 2.” Great! Now, I can ask Person 2 for an introduction to Person 1. I can ask for this introduction either within the LinkedIn system or outside of LinkedIn using good old-fashioned e-mail — or even the downright archaic telephone.

Often, you are invited to connect, even by people you don’t actually know. Should you be selective?

LinkedIn is working as a networking tool for me here. It is telling me who the people I know in turn know. It’s the equivalent of my meeting with all my connections and asking them to bring their rolodexes to the meeting. One other feature of LinkedIn that’s pretty interesting is that people tend to put more personal information on their LinkedIn profile than they do on a corporate website. So, looking at someone’s LinkedIn profile will usually show the schools someone has

Are there any websites that you visit on a daily basis?

Having lots of links is not in itself a great strategy, because the person who you don’t know, doesn’t necessarily trust you. If, however, someone invites you to link with him, and he fits the profile that you want, then ask to have a quick phone call to get acquainted. If he refuses, you can remove him. If you were to write a book, what would the title be? I did. It’s an e-book, accessible on my website, called Don’t Cold Call. Social Call™.

HubSpot, Twitter. Twitter is used a lot by marketing people — so it’s good for getting information. Most of my peers use it — a kind of “coopetition” — and it’s a great source of articles — like an instant library. Like inbound research? Exactly!

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What kind of customers use your service? We work with technology companies, financial services companies, media companies and a range of businessto-business services companies. The typical goal is to get sales numbers on plan (big surprise!). Our “secret sauce” is that we have found ways to get salespeople in the buyer’s doorway more often than traditional sales methods do. Getting in front of the right buyer is the No. 1 bottleneck for many companies and causes their sales pipelines to crater. The revenue problem starts right at the beginning of their sales pipelines, as they are not meeting enough of the right buyers to ever hit their sales goal. Can you talk about some other user-friendly and effective tools? There are both well-established tools and there are newer “Sales 2.0” tools that help you build prospect lists. Whichever tools you use, you are going to have to first figure out your ideal client profile (the type of company and the type of people within that company). Some of the well-established tools that help you build prospect lists include Hoover’s, Dun & Bradstreet, OneSource and SalesGenie. On these databases, you can download lists of your target companies, some basic demographic data on them and the

senior executives of those companies. So that’s a good start. These are great tools to build a foundation for your prospecting efforts. But there are now Sales 2.0-type tools for getting even more information on your prospects. Jigsaw, NetProspex and Spoke are built on social communities of salespeople. In these systems, it is salespeople who are members of each community who put contacts into the database for other salespeople to use. In my prospecting efforts, I find Jigsaw and NetProspex extremely useful for finding middle managers in large companies who are not typically listed in Hoover’s or Dun & Bradstreet. Another interesting tool is ZoomInfo. This tool takes an approach different from Jigsaw, NetProspex and Spoke. Rather than a community of salespeople putting in contact data to share with one another, ZoomInfo gathers data using “Web spiders” that look at billions of Web pages and suck down executives’ bios and company data into one consolidated database. What are the essentials to getting your own LinkedIn page up to snuff? We all get it that a good corporate home page is important, but the game has changed now. As I said earlier, you are a brand now. Even inside a corporation, you are selling yourself, advancing your career, getting your budget approved. So, your LinkedIn page has become your personal Web home page. When people Google you, there’s a very high probability that your LinkedIn page will come up near the top. If they click on that page, what will they see? Who will they think you are? Is that who you want them to think you are? You are your search results now. Make sure your Google results and the pages that come up when you click on them are what you want. ❘❙❚

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The Breakthrough Strategy

Wharton Alumni Electrify the Northeast

ou know that Wharton alumni stride up Wall Street, but did you know they also light up the smart grid? The four key executives interviewed here work smart to create, distribute, store and finance the energy that keeps the East Coast running. What do you do? I lead all of our strategic planning and business development efforts. I am responsible for helping NU think through the changes occurring in the industry, especially in terms of clean technology and energy independence, which are forcing us to rethink how we generate and consume electric power. How has the Wharton experience helped you? I graduated in 1988 with a natural curiosity about business and economic systems. I did not set out to work in the energy industry, but was drawn into that at McKinsey. Wharton helped me to redefine who I was and how I saw myself in the world. Beyond the technical, accounting and marketing skills I gained, Wharton was a confidence builder. What is driving this trend toward renewable energy? The trend is set primarily by mandates established on the federal and state level and, secondarily, by substantial consumer-driven demand for lowering the environmental impact. The rapid increase in fossil fuel costs during the past decade, the rising concern over climate change, and our energy security interests all feed this trend. Are customer’s rates a driver of renewable energy? Yes. However, not everyone realizes the total cost impact of renewable energy. While

in many cases, the fuel is free (sunlight and wind) or very low cost (wood chip biomass), there is an enormous amount of capital tied up in both the production and delivery systems for renewables. Since you can rarely move the fuel, you have to move the power, and if it’s a large transmission line connected to a wind farm that generates power only 30% of the time, the cost of transmission can be three times higher than it is for a conventional resource. So, the real economic benefit of renewable power is not its cost level (even with subsidies, solar and wind are more expensive than relatively clean natural gas), but rather, its cost stability. Peak demand requirements also drive up the cost of power. Customers pay for the distribution company’s capacity to deliver on peak; since currently we can’t store power cost-effectively, we must deliver exactly on demand. Compounding this issue, peak load has grown faster than the average load — home electronics, big-screen TVs and other power-consuming gadgets get used during the day, and that has driven rates up. Why? Because utility companies need to invest to meet the peak, but the invested capital is only used for a few hours per day. What are other ways of dealing with peak demand? ‘Real-time pricing’ would allow utilities to price electricity higher during peak use and lower for off-peak usage, instead of being monitored monthly. This will incentivize customers to monitor their usage and better anticipate their energy costs and manage budgets more effectively. Also, in the future, batteries and plug-in vehicles will store power in the off-peak period to be used during peak times. What is the smart grid? Utility assets last a long time, and to be fair, we are currently using electric distribution

BioGRAPHY:

James B. Robb, (WG’88) is Senior Vice President of Enterprise and Planning for the Northeast Utilities (NU) system, the largest electric and gas utility system in New England.

Kevin Walker, WG’02, is Chief Operating Officer of Iberdrola USA (www. iberdrola.es.) Kevin’s prior company was American Electric Power in Ohio where his roles included President, COO, SVP and CIO. Before joining AEP in 2004, Kevin held a variety of leadership positions at ConEdison in New York. As Vice President of maintenance and construction, he was instrumental in directing the recovery of energy service following the collapse of the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001, and he was ConEdison’s primary interface with the New York City mayor’s office during the administration of former Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

After graduating from Wharton with a concentration in marketing, Robb joined McKinsey & Company, serving clients in the energy and natural resource sectors for 14 years. He was elected a partner of the firm in 1994 and led the energy and resources practice in western North America. In 2002 he joined the leadership team of Reliant Energy as SVP where he ran the company’s successful competitive retail energy business. Today he is back doing what he loves best.

Before coming to Wharton, Kevin graduated from West Point in 1985 and served in support of Operation Desert Storm in Iraq. Kevin is on the board of advisors for Comprehensive Development, Inc., a nonprofit organization that supports mentoring and development programs for the Manhattan Comprehensive Night & Day High School. In March 2009, Kevin was awarded the Robert S. Crane, Jr. Young Philanthropist Award by United Way of Central Ohio. In 2005, Kevin was recognized by Black Enterprise Magazine as one of corporate America’s top 75 black business leaders.

Robb has served on the board of directors of the Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle, served on the San Francisco Bay Area Economic Forum, and was VP of Marketing for the Houston Symphony. Recently, he was asked to join the board of the Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art. Robb lives in Farmington, Connecticut, with his wife, Janice, and three children, as well as two dogs, two rats and a rabbit.

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decade could pass, and you would still recall Kevin Walker’s inescapable iron handshake, and his innate ability to put you at ease. Graduating from West Point and Wharton, he could have challenged and succeeded in any industry he chose. He chose energy.

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What do you do? I’m responsible for safe, reliable and efficient gas and electric operations delivered to nearly 3 million customers throughout Iberdrola USA’s territory in Maine, Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and New York. What is Iberdrola? It’s the third largest energy company in the world, with corporate headquarters in Madrid. Iberdrola is also the largest provider of wind energy worldwide. What are the economics of renewable energy? Even with the offsets and subsidies, renewable sources of energy are more expensive. Their installations, transmission lines and intermittency drive up the total cost of ownership in the short run. That being said, the total cost of ownership for wind energy is much lower than for solar. Costs for renewables will come down, and there will, at some point, be economies of scale. The economy is not driving renewables; it’s more of a political and moral push. The mandates force you to figure out how to best implement it. And technology is improving. How has the Wharton experience helped you? Wharton gave me a better understanding of microeconomics and macroeconomics. My favorite class was negotiations, which I use every day. It gives you confidence to work in the top tiers of corporate lead-

ership. There are many challenges in our industry, such as union negotiation and resource-based best practices, so one needs the higher perspective to be able to leverage what you’ve learned on the job. What book has impacted you recently? I work as a change agent in my current job, which has been a typical role for me. I try to speed th things up, from molasses to syrup[laughing]. So I need a framework and process to drive change. Robert H. Shaffer’s Breakthrough Strategy has helped me to lead change. It involves pulling folks together from different departments. You ask them, “If you could change three things, what would you do?” Vet them, and find out which ones rise to the top and are commonly important. It’s a one- or two-day activity to discover what the solutions are. We facilitate the implementation of those solutions. It’s the veritable opposite of red tape. I’ve been a student of this process for a long time. It’s not only interesting, but practical. The breakthrough strategy itself is short-term, about 90 days, and is results-driven. Rather than approach a problem by vertical silos, we work on it horizontally. If you started your career over again, postgraduation, what would you do differently? I wish I learned Spanish [joking]. Seriously, I wish I’d slowed down a bit. What has been a challenging lesson in business? Self-discipline. I got to an inflection point in my career where I realized I was not in a place I wanted to be, and yet, stayed two years longer. I continued to earn bonuses for high performance, but realized this wasn’t where I wanted to stay. What I learned was that, if the job is not really killing you, it doesn’t make sense to jump out and do nothing. We think we don’t need to put up Continued on Page 22

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Energizing Wharton Alumni

Success Will Find You

oyal (Roy) Daniel, has a knack for making others feel intelligent and understood. Perhaps it comes from raising four boys. Or perhaps it comes from working globally to develop, construct and operate energy projects and power plants. Today, as founder and Chief Operating Officer of Energy Storage and Power (ES&P), he’s focusing his personal skills, business acumen and education to make the energy industry more intelligent and productive.

available resources. CAES does this by storing energy generated off-peak; (imagine a big balloon being inflated) then during peak hours, the stored air is extracted and preheated which amplifies its power threefold through air expanders. This preheating can exploit inefficient combustion turbines in old power plants, which throw off heat. The byproduct of CAES is cold air, which may be used by merchant users such as data centers.

How did you come to start ES&P?

Is the energy sector an exciting field for Wharton graduates to enter?

I was working with PSEG in M&A business development. My job was to find the next big thing, something that could move the needle of a Fortune 200 company. We believed renewables were the dynamic part of the industry, but soon recognized that wind and solar were already crowded. I searched for something that was almost commercialized, that could grow and that we could lead in. I found an inventor who had patented and worked with compressed air energy storage (CAES) since 1985, with studies supporting his work, but still, it was considered an unconventional technology. PSEG’s decision to partner with the inventor was impressive because utilities don’t normally invest in new technology. What do you do? I am responsible for the day-to-day operations of ES&P, which includes the conceptual engineering, marketing and delivery of the 3 MW to 430 MW proprietary advanced second-generation CAES units. What are the benefits of compressed air energy storage? Our second-generation CAES optimizes the huge capital investments in intermittent energy resources like wind and solar. Instead of importing fossil fuels to meet peak demand, we can utilize domestically

Yes! The electric energy sector is a very challenging one and is in an unprecedented transformation mode. The technology to manage load and the development of the smart grid will dwarf the Internet, and some believe the Internet will ultimately be a subset of the smart grid information and control environment. How does public policy affect your industry’s transformation? Renewable portfolio standards and energy credits introduced in about 30 states enlarge the market for renewable-energy projects. The U.S. Department of Energy, through the Smart Grid Investment Grant Program in 2009, made $3.4 billion available in matching grants for modernizing the electric grid. As part of the program, ES&P’s CAES was recognized as a project funding category. Only two utility-scaled CAES projects received funding, and both are ES&P clients: New York State Electric & Gas’s 180 MW CAES unit and Pacific Gas & Electric’s 300 MW CAES unit.

BioGRAPHY:

Roy Daniel, WAM’05, is the Chief Operating Officer of Energy Storage and Power (ES&P) www.energystorageandpower.com, a joint venture between Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) and the inventor of an advanced electric storage technology. Previously Daniel led business development for PSEG Global and later oversaw operations of generating plants in both the U.S. and Asia Pacific. He held numerous executive and board positions at energy companies in Hong Kong and Thailand, built 3 electric generating plants in California during their 2001 energy crisis, and held management positions in generation outage management for Boston Edison.

Tim Howell, WG’88, is the Managing Director and Commercial Leader of the Power and Renewable Energy business for GE Energy Financial Services. Howell began his career with undergraduate degrees in industrial economics and mechanical engineering from Union College in Schenectady, NY, after which he worked at GE as a sales engineer. During his work he graduated from GE Energy’s Technical Marketing Program and thereafter entered Wharton. After receiving his MBA he returned to GE Energy to take on sales and marketing roles until 1994, working in Indonesia, Thailand and Hong Kong before their changeover. When he moved to GE Capital in 1994, he led cross functional teams in the energy sector, holding positions in Project Development, Product Development, and Origination, both in the U.S. and in six Latin American countries. In 2000, Howell was made a Managing Director. In 2005, Howell became the Commercial Leader of a new renewable energy initiative. Since 2006, their renewable investments have grown from a base of $500 million in 2006 to an expected $6 billion in 2010.

Besides attending Wharton, Roy holds a B.S. degree in Nuclear and M.S. degree in Industrial Engineering from North Carolina State University, and a Juris Doctorate from Suffolk University. Roy is an active speaker at renewableenergy national and international industry conferences. He lives with his wife, Holly, and their family, in Mountain Lakes, New Jersey.

What are your firm’s challenges? The initial challenge was to build the supply Continued on Page 17

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hen Tim Howell, WG’88, returned to speak at the Wharton Technology Conference last month, he met many students who were actively engaged in the energy industry. The topic was venture investing in the energy technology industry, a subject in which Tim is a walking smart grid. Tim is the Managing Director and Commercial Leader of the Power and Renewable Energy business for GE Energy Financial Services which allows him to leverage his experience at GE over the past 26 years. GE Energy Financial Services invests globally with a $23 billion investment portfolio and a long-term view, across the capital spectrum of all all the energy industries, to help its customers and GE grow. “In project finance, you create a company in every deal,” Howell explained to students, professors and industry participants at the conference, explaining how his company approaches financing a project. “Let’s say it’s a wind turbine project [GE has equity investments in 47 wind farms for a total capacity of 6 gigawatts!]. The first step is site selection, including wind verification, proximity to power demand, electrical transmission studies and environmental permitting. You then need to select the wind turbine technology itself to project energy production and long-term operating costs. The next and most challenging step in today’s market environment is to win an economic power purchase agreement that will be the source of revenue for the life of the project. Finally, you need to negotiate a construction contract, an operation and maintenance contract, and an asset management agreement to run the business. On the capital side, projects are typically financed with a combination of equity and debt. Many renewable projects also include tax equity investors to enable the project developer to efficiently utilize the tax-driven incentives that the U.S., state and local governments currently use to stimulate the renewable industry.”

Is your renewable energy portfolio only invested in large projects? Recently, we merged our renewable and fossil fuel power businesses, so today, my team of 10 originators throughout the U.S. and Canada leads our investment efforts for both debt and equity in renewable energy, fossilfueled power and electrical transmission projects. Most of this is project financing. In addition to the project financing side, we also invest about $50 million annually on the technology side, typically in $1 to $5 million venture capital equity investments. Over the last few years we have invested in 21 technology companies through 34 rounds; in areas like batteries for electric vehicles, energy efficiency and smart grid, wind and wave power How has Wharton influenced your career? At Wharton my concentration was marketing and finance. Today, my world is a composite of marketing, product management, operations, technology and financing, through investing in and owning power plants. Of course, Wharton as a name has great marquee value, for anyone’s career. And then there are the relationships made. What are the major challenges in your business? Knowing how to take advantage of all the resources and domain expertise available at GE, to embrace change and continually innovate, to see around corners, to satisfy customer needs and drive their success. The needs of the energy industry are constantly evolving, as is the technology and the competitive environment. And, more recently, government policy to address cliContinued on Page 19

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A l u m n i

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S p o t l i g h t

A l u m n i is critical to understand their needs and fears. I get a lot of satisfaction from knowing I made a difference. If I end up getting paid, then it’s a winwin situation. On one occasion, I was going through a client’s bills because she couldn’t do it. Her cell phone bill was skyrocketing each month, and she didn’t know why she was paying so much. She was paying $250 per month in text messaging. I asked her why she didn’t have a text messaging plan. By making some phone calls to the carrier, with a lot of wait time, I was able to put her on a $9.99 per month texting plan. I also pushed for a retroactive credit, and she ended up getting a credit for the previous eight months — about $1,800. I like that scenario — when my work pays for itself. People think that they don’t have money for help, but there are many situations where a second set of eyes can save you money, catch the missing money or allow you the time to make more money.

A “Personal” Approach to Reducing and Managing Stress

f you enter the word “personal” in the job title box of the Wharton alumni directory, how many alumni does it return? Digital motors whir through 85,000 alumni, in 148 countries, from Angola, Antarctica, Argentina … beyond MDs, VPs, SVPs, EVPs, COOs, CFOs and CEOs, to at last return the answer: One. “Mostly, I listen,” admits Jennifer Gregoriou, W’78 owner of Jennifer Gregoriou Consulting (www. jennifergregoriou.com). “Listening! Sounds great,” I say into my clenched cell phone, as I watch a BMW try to pull in front of me on the Cross Bronx Expressway and think about offspring getting into college, paying for college, three different negotiations and my taxes! “Yes,” Jennifer explains. “Business owners and executives face a lot of stress today.” “Is that so?” I ask, my teeth slightly ungritting, conceding to the BMW squeezing past me. “Do you happen to mean stress induced from unclear communication, business deals gone awry, regulators and driving?” “Actually, the stress I help people with is created when they can’t accomplish what they set out to do,” Jennifer continues. “It tends to stay on their minds. It’s more of a ‘if I could only get these 10 things done’ kind of stress.” “I help people manage those stacks of things — to either drop something, delegate it correctly, actually do the many small projects that they don’t want to deal with, and figure out a plan on how to accomplish their larger projects. By getting all of the

small projects off their minds, they feel freer to think creatively and just perform better.” How did your background at Wharton help to prepare you for this career? Wharton provided me with the toolkit to do the marketing plan, analyze the financial statements, evaluate the risks and measure the ROI, but it’s those innate qualities of resilience, integrity, discretion and empathy that allow me to do my work better. When I am called in to do a project, it can involve a sensitive negotiation, an investment portfolio analysis or a confidential medical history report. It is a given in my business to maintain complete discretion and confidentiality. How did you start this work? I had been an entrepreneur for many years as the owner and manager of a restaurant group. To stay at home with my three daughters, I sold the restaurants. With my daughters grown, I had to, at some point, re-enter the work force. I originally started looking on job boards and sending resumes and received minimal replies. I applied to Wharton’s Career Connect program, but not having come from the corporate world and not possessing an MBA, I was not the candidate they had in mind, so I had to reinvent myself. How did you get your first customer? My attorney, who knew my character well, told me he had a referral for me: A woman who was overcommitted, both personally and professionally, and looking for assistance.

Jennifer Gregoriou, W’78

What are the salient skills in serving your clients? Listening is primary. People tend to feel better when they articulate their worries and fears to someone. Being a positive and proactive person, I seek to find solutions and/or opportunities for my clients. In some instances, it is very straightforward — they need something done, and I can do it. In other instances, they may be anxious about tomorrow, next week or the distant future. I had one client who had thought by this time in her career, she would be set, but with the economic downturn, she worries for the future. My response was, “Let’s look carefully at your business and see where we can do add-ons so you are better prepared for the future.”

From cataloguing an art collection for insurance purposes to standing

Do you have a lesson for fellow alumni? People today definitely struggle to meet all the demands on their time, with not enough hours in the day. Although we have learned to be experts at multi-tasking, our lifestyles lead to stress, anxiety, altered moods, poor outlook and deteriorating health. The truth is, people are trying to do it all, but does that result in having it all?

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chain for delivery and to find parties interested to invest in CAES units, ranging from $150 million to $500 million each. Utilities are inherently conservative, as long-term reliability is a paramount driver to their decisions. Thus, proving a technology may take decades. Electric storage is recognized as an attractive attribute of the electric grid, but who should own it and how it should be paid for are still open questions. With the 2009 Platts Global Energy Award for Sustainable Technology Innovation of the Year, and growing acceptance, ES&P is expanding its capabilities to increase its market position. However, the weak capital markets are delaying large infrastructure projects, including CAES. The U.S. needs 35,000 MW in the next 10 years to prevent transmission congestion and another 35,000 MW for load shifting. Yet our two current projects total to only 480 MW.

How are you involved with the Wharton School? I currently chair the Speaker Series Committee for the Wharton Club of New York. Also, I have been active with Penn’s Secondary School Committee for the past six years, which allows me to interview high school seniors seeking admission to Penn and represent Penn at local college fairs. What do you like about your work?

How did your Wharton experience help you?

I place a high priority on the human side of business. We all have to work with and through people, so it

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in as a proxy for a divorce settlement or reading over a proposal at the eleventh hour, I am available for my clients 24/7, with or without pay, and strive to be an agent of positive change. People have emotional roadblocks that can paralyze their ability to get something done. I can step in as an outsider and independent trusted party and allow them to unleash, vent and free their minds. I can then assist them to start to make plans, put proposals together, meet their deadlines, and continue with a creative and productive life.

Success Will Find You

The Advanced Management Program was an excellent

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S p o t l i g h t I do believe in people’s resilience and ability to rise to the occasion. Seeking external support can help people bounce back and overcome setbacks. Given the hard times one can find today — joblessness, bankruptcies, foreclosures — things often seem out of control. It is important to reach out for help when our own plate is overwhelmingly full. What’s your advice for alumni who are trying to find work? Wharton has given us all a solid foundation to build from. Beyond that, we have to take stock of our lives and evaluate what we do every day. If you are searching for work or questioning the line of work you are in, try to reinvent yourself, and either create the job you’ve always talked about or look for the job that leverages your assets. Many capable women who possess across-the-board skills in IT, management, HR and marketing are ideal candidates for turning their passions into opportunities. I

mid-career revitalization opportunity, providing a break from the daily goal-driven work tasks to refresh one’s management skills, while sharing experience and aspirations with others from around the world. The Advanced Management Program challenged me to look at problems in multiple dimensions and from different perspectives to craft the best value proposition. What book has impacted you recently? Five Deadly Sins CEOs Make in Sales by Jim Lewis is an easy read, designed to help one recognize the five common sales management mistakes that negatively impact financial results. For ES&P’s engineering-based organization, the book was required reading for all professionals to sensitize the organization to the fundamentals of a successful sales process. Is there some advice you would give to newly graduating alumni? You have all the basic skills required by Wharton. Be passionate about what you do, and success will find you. ❘❙❚

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once we were able to scrub the data clean and improve the data quality, the rest was easy — well, relatively speaking.

Jack Huang Migrates Mountains!

hether you’ve stood above the Porcupine River to observe thousands of caribous thrust their way across the current, or seen 10,000 monarch butterflies alight on a stand of eucalyptus trees, you can appreciate that migrating from one environment to another is a tumultuous endeavor, requiring power, perseverance and not a little instinct. And you would, perhaps, value a bit more, the labor of love by Jack Huang, MSE’03, to migrate the website and member database of the Wharton Club of New York from its legacy system to join The Wharton School’s new, enterprise, alumni database and website management platform. Jack, with roots at Goldman Sachs and Deutsche Bank, works as senior front office technologist for Aberdeen Asset Management, by day. By sparemoments, he is the club’s Chief Technology Officer, and, thus, creates, repairs and daydreams about the club’s website. The migration was a landmark accomplishment for the club in 2009, and as a result, we wanted to ask Jack a few questions about it!

In a few words, what was the big move? Our WCNY website integrated with the Wharton Global Alumni Network, giving all WCNY members one-stop access to the school’s 85,000 alumni around the world. One user name, one password, one user profile. What was the club’s motive to migrate? Over six years ago, our club, with the Wharton Club of Southern Cali-

fornia, and the Wharton School began a project to integrate the alumni networks technologically. The concept was we should have one central site that connected all alumni and provided benefits that were valuable enough to make it in everyone’s interest to use the site. We also wanted to simplify users’ experience and create the technological foundation and tools on which to expand our already powerful alumni community. What are the benefits for alumni? Being a WCNY member, you become a member of one of the most exclusive and powerful networks in the world. Our website fundamentally changes the way alumni interact with one another and with the school. It is your most powerful tool for business, social, career and intellectual growth. Now, alumni have access to opportunities and people — access to business leads, friendships, intellectual stimulation, investment capital, government and career opportunities! Can you describe a few user-friendly examples of the “one-stop access”? Before migration, alumni needed to maintain multiple accounts on multiple school and alumni sites. They had to keep track of their different user names, passwords and user profiles. With one-stop access, now they only need a single sign-on and user profile maintained in the school’s alumni database. Once they click the big blue Wharton Alumni button at the WCNY website and sign in, they’re set. They can then go to

Of course, a large-scale project like this required a lot of meetings and discussions and coordination efforts, but fortunately, all the parties involved in this project were very professional, and we all worked efficiently and effectively.

any other Wharton-Penn alumni sites that have migrated (Wharton Paris, Wharton SoCal, etc. — all listed at the bottom of our home page). If you want to visit the Career Path website, choose the Job Board option under Job. Want to look up a former classmate? Go to the Useful Links page, under the About Us tab, then choose the Wharton Alumni Directory. Basically, once alumni sign onto our new WCNY site, they are signed on to the Wharton alumni network across the globe.

This must have been a colossal task — did you have any help? Oh, yes. I’ve had lots of help throughout the process. Kenny Beck and Peter Hildick-Smith have both been instrumental in every part of the project. At the school, Kalyan Anumula (IT director of Wharton External Affairs) and Rose Laden (Associate Director of Virtual Services at the Wharton School) spent many hours working with us and were both great to collaborate with. As usual, our club’s manager, Stephanie Shaw, graciously handled most of the foundation work.

What were your challenges in migrating the site? Our biggest challenges were data, data and data. It was a classic case of the Pareto principle, where we spent 80% of our efforts cleaning up 20% of the questionable data. Data verification, data cleansing and data integration were all essential when we tried to consolidate information from two systems, each with over 20,000 records.

It was truly a great team effort, from planning to execution. All the premigration work we did upfront really paid off. The migration itself was al-

Our database does not store any standardized member identification numbers. So in order to uniquely identify a person between the two systems, we needed to find some common data. E-mail address is a good one because it’s unique. However, many people have multiple e-mail addresses. Then, there are a couple of cases where a married couple, both Wharton alumni, decided to use the same e-mail address to register. The next piece of data we used was the first and last names. In one case, we found out that John A. Smith is the same person as J. Adam Smith. And then there are female alumni who married and changed their last names. But

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What are the coolest, most functional features of the website? One of my favorite places to visit is the Take the Call Forum (under the Forum tab of the www.whartonny. com home page). There, you can always find business opportunities, new ideas and alumni who try to reacquaint with old friends. Are there parallels between your professional work and your contributions to the WCNY? For the past 20 years, I have been working in financial firms but always in a technology role. I’m always interested in exploring and leveraging technology to enable more business opportunities. Similarly, as the Chief Technology Officer of WCNY, I enjoy helping the community by seeking and providing technology solutions for the social and business needs of the club. What’s your next objective for the WCNY Web

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mate change and energy security has led to an increasingly dynamic set of business challenges and uncertainty. Is the energy sector an exciting field for Wharton graduates to enter? At that Wharton Technology Conference, I was impressed by the adeptness and passion of the attendees. Students in the Wharton Energy Club are actively involved in biomass and offshore wind project development and studies. In fact, partially as a result of what I saw at that conference, I am looking forward to having an ongoing dialogue with the students and hope to see many more Wharton

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most a seamless event, with no interruption to our operations. And we had only a handful of small issues to fix post-migration, which is remarkable, considering the scale of the task.

community? One of my topmost priorities is the Web 2.0 initiative. A Web 2.0 platform will facilitate interactive information sharing and collaboration. It will allow people to easily make connections they would not otherwise have been able to make. We don’t want our website to be a place where we simply dump information on our alumni, but a social web where alumni can reach out to connect with one another directly. Think about LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Flickr, etc. It is about people connecting with other people. What advice do you have for graduates with an affinity for technology? Technology also plays a vital role in business. Advances in the field of technology from the past two decades have created a vast number of business opportunities. Be observant, and pounce just when the opportunity comes your way. Accept technology, use it and gain from it. ❘❙❚

alumni in the energy industry, if not in my business, in the near future. Financing energy projects will increasingly follow the project finance model. The energy industry is full of opportunities for MBA graduates in private equity, project development, utilities, manufacturing, construction, technology companies, consulting, financial advising, investment banks and commercial banks. There are also opportunities in the government and regulatory agencies in setting energy policy. Not only are engineering and finance required, but also accounting, statistics, marketing, forecasting, operations and all other business skills. For example, if you want to understand the forward view of the value of an energy-producing asset, it is a complex system of technical, financial, operational and regulatory

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Sharon Lowenheim, WG’81, a professional organizer and owner of Organizing Goddess (www.organizinggoddess.net), found most useful the discussion of business dress, elegant business casual and business casual. “Appropriate dress is so different from industry to industry. We tend to get comfortable with what we are used to. As a service provider who works across industries, it’s so valuable for me to be reminded that I need to tailor my outfit to the client’s firm.”

Alan Rackson, W’83, owner of Rackson Technology Solutions, found some concepts that he thought he understood to be less straightforward than he realized, based on the number of questions asked by fellow alumni and the discussions that ensued. “It was obvious that Sharon has studied business etiquette in detail and is a subject matter expert! While some of her presentation was common sense and behaviors I had known about, it was nice to hear them again in a concise presentation as a healthy reminder of social and business do’s and don’ts. I also came home with several new helpful tips, such as the concept of mirroring someone’s posturing in situations where you are unfamiliar with cultural customs. This was an excellent event, with a great topic, discerning audience and a knowledgeable speaker, that will propel my social networking and career forward. Thank you, Wharton Club of New York.” ❘❙❚

• Dress: Business dress is a continuum, with business casual at the top end of midlevel dressing. For men, always wear a collared shirt (a jacket is optional). Keep accessories at the same level as your clothing. Consider your industry, corporate culture and activities for the day when deciding on the level of dress. • Introductions: Introduce the more important person first and then the other person to him or her. The client is more important than the boss; the elected official is more important than your friend. • Dining: Use silverware from the outside in; your napkin doesn’t go back on the table until you’re through eating. Glasses are on the right, bread plate on the left. • Meeting: Eye contact, smile, firm handshake and strong posture are key. Practice the nonverbal technique of mirroring: Get in sync with your conversational partner’s nonverbal communication by using the same body language — drink when the person takes a sip, cross or uncross your legs, and lean forward or back when the person does. Keep communication open by holding your hands at your side, not across your body.

Ruth Colp-Haber, WG` 85 Partner Wharton Property Advisors

Regina Jaslow, W`97 Director of Member Marketing The Penn Club of New York

Kenny Beck, WG`87 President Beck Enterprises LLC

Nigel Edelshain, WG`93 President Sales 2.0

Allen Levinson, W`77 WG`78 Principal Credit Risk Advisors

Roe Bonelli, WG`99 Senior Vice President American International Group

Bill Haddad, W`89 Partner DLA Piper US LLP

Dana Michael, W`82 Senior VP of Risk Management Swiss Re

Pe n n y

Dear Reader:

send them to editor@whartonny.com.

Enjoy,

Thank You for the Call continued from page 8

Drucker also said: “Nonprofits are the American community.” Does that still ring true today? Yes, it does. Americans feel some compunction to help, to join in, to give. Especially compared to those who live in socialist countries, where they are so used to having all their needs met by the government, Americans like to roll up their sleeves and solve a problem themselves. The Franklin Roosevelt era changed things a lot. Before that period, people took care of their own parents, the elderly, in general, and often the homeless. Roosevelt started many social welfare programs in re-

Contributed by Jennifer R. Gregoriou, W’78 Chair, WCNY Speaker Series Eg1120@aol.com

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well as your ideas for stories you would like to see featured. Please

Sandra James, W’78, of Deloitte remarked, “The information Sharon shared with us on etiquette is helpful not only in our business relationships but can be applied to our interactions outside of work as well. With the many opportunities there are to network in this day and age, it is always good to know how to approach a group of people at an event and when not to approach a group. Sharon was able to get everyone involved in the discussion, and hearing about lunch etiquette in different cultures from other attendees, for me, was very educational. This was a very good topic, and Sharon did an excellent job presenting the information. Thank you for reaching out to Sharon to speak to us.”

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Sharon Kornstein’s discussion was organized by Jennifer Gregoriou (W’78), as part of the WCNY Speaker Series. For those who missed the event, Kornstein can be reached at: www.imagedesignconsulting. com.

speaker, Seth Kaplan (left) Nadia Gil (center) Alan Rackson, (right)

Johannes Albeck, WG`74 Senior Advisor Prescott Capital Advisors, LLC

Kent Trabing, WG’01 (Editor)

•

n the evening of January 28, 17 men and women from diverse professions gathered at the offices of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher Flom LLP, to learn from Sharon Kornstein, W’80, founder and president of ImageDesign LLC, (www.imagedesignconsulting.com), an image consulting company. Kornstein began the evening asking participants to shake hands with their neighbors and then supply feedback. Luckily, we all had good handshakes. Kornstein described the handshake as the only appropriate physical contact in business, which, if properly done, conveys self-esteem and authority. The evening touched on the do’s and don’ts of introducing clients, business dress vs. casual dress, and the nonverbal-communication messages that we send. After about 45 minutes of discussions on individual situations and scenarios, the evening ended with dining etiquette and an explanation of the American and continental styles.

Board of Directors

Kornstein’s tips:

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Who do I introduce first, the client or my boss?

•

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sponse to the terrible suffering during the Depression. Today, people expect the government to solve many of our social problems. However, the reality is that non-profit organizations, often on their own and sometimes in partnership with the government, can respond to many societal needs. What would you say to Wharton alumni who are seeking to be involved in the non-profit sector? Welcome! This is a difficult environment to work in today, because charitable giving traditionally lags behind job growth.. The funding for many non-profits declined 30% to 50% last year (after hard work, JNF’s giving declined only 1%!), so the sector needs creative and energetic professionals.

We especially need them to create new ways of merging Wharton’s skill sets with the business of helping others. What is critically important are the benchmarks to measure success — it isn’t good enough to only want to help people, but such activities must be measured by rigorous metrics and accompanied by financial transparency. To whom are you passing the torch for the WNP-SIA? Dorothy Leas, (WG’77), a financial consultant, and Caroline Strzalka, (C’00, WG’05), Director of Business Development for Sesame Workshop. I have every confidence that they will take this group and grow it wonderfully. ❘❙❚

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Join or Renew Your Dues Paying Membership Today!

E n e r g y Wharton Alumni Electrify The North East — continued from page 12

technology largely conceived in the 1960s and 1970s. In the meantime, technology has improved significantly, providing us the opportunity to automate and embed more intelligence in the grid itself, as well as to using “smart meters” to better link customers and loads with the dynamics of the electricity grid. The technology is very exciting, but very new, with a substantial amount of effort required to develop standards for interoperability and reliability. Is the current economic downturn affecting your industry? Profoundly. The energy sector lost three to five years of growth. Further, we are seeing a substantial increase in our accounts receivables and uncollectables, presumably as a result of declining income and unemployment.. Will the smart grid be collaborative or proprietary? Utility companies tend to be conservative and collaborative — to prefer open access. No utility company wants to be stuck with the betamax format. I talk at clean-tech conferences regarding the smart grid frequently, and many in the clean-tech sector resist this — they obviously prefer proprietary standards and want to become the next Microsoft. In fact, the venture [capital] and utility models need to be reconciled. What is the most influential book you have read? One favorite book, Golf Is Not a Game of Perfect by Dr. Bob Rotella, is all about the mind of a world-class athlete.

You are automatically a member of the WCNY because you graduated from Wharton and you live in the greater New York area

You can drop the golf stuff. What does it take to go out and do your best, and to deal with obstacles and put them behind you? I bought copies for my entire team at McKinsey. You can easily read it on a plane ride.

Becoming a Dues Paying Member brings you these additional club services: • The Business Development Program — Designed to help Wharton alumni grow their business

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The biggest challenge I face is in firing people. It is hard to make a life-altering decision. The mistake I always made was to delay the decision, hoping that I could rehabilitate them. But, in truth, as soon as you come to the conclusion that someone will not work out, you are doing them and your firm a favor to let them move on graciously. You need to trust your instincts and have the confidence that this is so.

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For newly minted alumni, keep your eye on the end game. It has to be tough coming out in this economy, but, listen, when you have a pedigree like a Wharton MBA, your life is going to be great. It’s a little predetermined. So be patient about your success. Looking back on my 23 years, I wished I’d stopped and smelled the roses. Everything will work out — approach life with that confidence.

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Spectacular. Energy security and the environment will be at the front and center of public and economic policy for the foreseeable future. ❘❙❚

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Just fill out the form below and mail it to the WCNY office address. First Name: ____________________________________________ Last Name: _____________________________________________________ Company: _____________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Billing Address 1: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ Billing Address 2: _______________________________________________________________________________________________________ City: ________________________________________________ State: ___________________________________ Zip: ____________________ Billing Telephone: ______________________________________ E-mail (optional): ________________________________________________

The Breakthrough Strategy continued from page 13

with it, but we can. I disciplined myself to not react emotionally, but to patiently think it through. I even turned down executive recruiters offering better opportunities, because my discipline kept me focused. Through this, I came upon an opportunity that I’m really happy with.

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What advice would you give to newly graduating alumni? Flexibility. Let your career be driven by the opportunities. Let you be your best, rather than take a programmatic approach. Regardless of the title, follow what will allow you to be motivated and inspired. If you find that this is not that motivating anymore, say, because of the business model or the direction of the firm, then think, “Okay, I need to go somewhere else.” That’s what’s drawn me to four different utilities over the years. ❘❙❚

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The Wharton Business School Club of New York 1560 Broadway, Suite #1011 New York, NY 10036 • USA

W C NY — C a l e n da r

April 2010

Tuesday, April 27

The 2nd Annual Wharton Alumni Business Plan Competition Final Round Presentations and Judging

Wednesday, April 28 Monday, April 30 Monday, April 30

Wharton Hedge Fund Network: A Variant View on China Mark Hart, CIO of Corriente Advisors, gives his outlook on China

Wharton Future of Publishing Conference Leads Luncheon...

May 2010

Tuesday, May 4 Adapting Your Job Search to the New Economic Environment Wednesday, May 5 A Single Malt Tasting Thursday, May 13 Unleashing Your Inner Entrepreneur Tuesday, May 18 Wharton Marketing Leaders Forum: Brian Perkins, WG’80, the Head of Global Marketing, Johnson & Johnson Thursday, May 20 The Art and Science of the Informational Interview -- Interactive Workshop

Wednesday, Sep. 29

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September 2010 2010 Joseph Wharton Awards Dinner

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