Spreadsheet Two
Easing into the Euro
IF YOU THINK A "EURO" IS bratwurst and Gorgonzola on a croissant, it may be
time to read first-year MBA student Christian Chabot's Understanding the Euro (McGraw-Hill).
The book is exactly what its subtitle suggests, a
"clear and concise guide to the new trans-European currency" that is directed
toward the business traveler rather than the finance specialist. In it, Chabot answers 39
questions about the euro and its expected effects on individuals, firms, and financial
markets, and about the European Currency Bank that issues it. Chabot, who holds a master's
degree from England's University of Sussex, learned about the new currency firsthand: He
worked in the economics and economic monetary unit of the Deutsche Bundesbank before
entering the Business School.
Advisory Council Taps New
Members
NOW IN ITS FORTIETH YEAR, the Business School's advisory council welcomed
15 new members in 1999--all of them GSB alumni/ae. They are Stephen Adams, MBA '62; James
Barber, MBA '75; James Coulter, MBA '86; James Crownover, MBA '68; J. Stuart Francis, MBA
'77; Joel Friedman, MBA '71; Patrick Gross, MBA '68; David Kemper, MBA '76; John Kissick,
MBA '70; Michael McCaffery, MBA '82; F. Gibson Myers, MBA '66; Carl Pascarella, SLOAN '80;
Penny Pritzker, JD/MBA '85; Jon Tompkins, MBA '64; and Bolko von Oetinger, MBA '74.
Council members, appointed by the president of
Stanford University, are selected for their distinction as professional managers. The
entire council of some 70 members is invited to meet informally twice a year to review the
progress and the needs of the School and to offer constructive criticism and advice. This
year's meetings are scheduled for Paris in March and Stanford in November.
All Dressed Up and Somewhere To Go
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| Illustration by
Michael Klein |
A CONFUSED PARTY-GOER might have thought he'd stumbled on the reception for one of
those mass stadium weddings that make the news every few years. Or maybe it was the movie
set for Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. Squared.
Wrong on both counts. The 49 couples, give or take a
few, who were all gussied up in full bridal attire were actually relatively long-wed folk
celebrating New Year's Eve at a benefit ball invented and organized by three MBA '93
classmates.
Kathy Criste Koo, Tamara Horne, and Alison Napoli
Leupold had been lamenting the few opportunities one has, or hopes to have, to wear one's
wedding dress when they hit upon the idea: How about a full-dress, post-nuptial party--way
post-nup--that would usher in 1999, give everybody a second chance to eat wedding cake if
they'd been too excited to eat the first time around, and raise money for a worthy cause,
too?
It sounded so good to the 100 invited guests, who
included more than 20 Business School alums, that the New Year's revelers ponied up almost
$2,000 extra for the Evelyn Lauder Breast Cancer Foundation. "Kathy and I were
definitely inspired by a GSB class we took called Topics in Philanthropy,"
says Leupold, referring to a course developed and taught by the late organizational
behavior professor Eugene Webb.
Perhaps the biggest question of the night was would
those wedding gowns still fit? Most did, says Leupold. A few pregnant guests couldn't
quite make the cut, although one literally cut the zipper out of the back of her gown and
laced it up instead. "Actually very attractive," Leupold reports.
Coach Gives Pep Talk
TARA VANDERVEER, who coached the gold medal 1996 Olympic women's
basketball team, played keynote at the fifth annual GSB Women's Conference in October,
encouraging women to think positively and stick to their goals. More than 200 alumnae
attended.
VanDerveer, coach of the Stanford women's basketball
team since 1985, has repeatedly turned weak teams into powerhouses. But there is one
weakness she has observed among more than a few of the athletically and intellectually
gifted women she has coached. "What holds a lot of women back is lack of
confidence," said VanDerveer. "It is a really scary thing when you don't believe
in yourself. In sports you're really exposed."
VanDerveer urged women to take good care of
themselves and stay in shape. "When you are physically strong, you don't break down
mentally," she said.
Among the conference's dozen workshops, the most
popular sessions centered on Internet-related businesses and entrepreneurship. That's not
surprising, since the number of female-owned businesses has ballooned from 700,000 in 1972
to 8 million firms today, according to Associate Dean Karen Nierenberg, who also addressed
the group.
New Face in the Alumni Office
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| Monica Seghers |
MONICA SEGHERS PLUNGED right into her new job as assistant director of alumni relations
by overseeing the European conference in Paris this spring. Seghers is responsible for all
alumni office special events (of which the Paris conference certainly ranks among the more
special), SBSAA membership, and alumni/ae chapters worldwide. She also acts as a faculty
liaison, keeping abreast of the latest GSB research in order to identify faculty speakers
for chapter and other alum events.
Seghers comes to the Business School after 10 years
at the Stanford Alumni Association, where she worked in continuing education for alums on
and off campus and in the SAA's executive program. She began her career at the Council for
the Advancement and Support of Education in Washington, D.C., and also worked as assistant
to the president of the Institute for the Future, a nonprofit research foundation in Menlo
Park, Calif.
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