Spreadsheet Two

Strategic Parenting the MBA Way
IT REQUIRES A JUST-IN-TIME lifestyle, but four couples, all working MBAs and all parents of preschool kids, believe maintaining a two-career family is well worth the effort. How to do it? As Sharon Ruwart, MBA '94, notes wryly, "It's something that's really hard to explain without Powerpoint."

Ruwart and her husband, Tom Melcher, joined Suzanne Willoughby Killea, MBA '91, and husband Jay; Laura Carney Paradis, MBA '94, husband Paul, and 7-month-old Margaux; and UCLA husband-wife team Avanish Sahai and Faye Karnavy at a panel discussion sponsored by Women in Management. All (except Margaux) have jobs in finance, consulting, or high tech, and all took as businesslike an approach to the problem as possible. Their solutions?

Be prepared. Suzanne Killea suggests couples begin preparing long before their baby arrives. "Think through your choices before you start out," she says. "Look for flexibility in a career."

Keep the lines open. "Communication is all important," says Karnavy, "even if you have to email each other."

Do what the big guys do--outsource. Whether it's hiring a live-in nanny or flying in the grandparents on your frequent flier miles, do it. And by all means, have the first grandchild if you can, advises Ruwart. "Everyone wants a piece of that baby!"

As for social lives, well, improvise. Sometimes that means making new friends, as the Paradises did when they were thrown out of their child-free ski hut after Margaux was born. Sometimes it means getting away from it all. Ruwart and Melcher, parents of a 3-year-old and a 4-year-old, carve out one week a year to be alone together.

Whatever the individual solution, Laura Paradis spoke for all the panelists when she said, "It's been the happiest time in my life, despite all the chaos. When you're ready for it, there's nothing like it." But, cautioned Jay Killea, "Don't wait till you're ready or you'll never do it."

Spotlight on ACT Volunteers
AT A RECEPTION IN MARCH, the Alumni Consulting Team (ACT) recognized five Bay Area alumni for their volunteer service. During their years of association with ACT, each of the five--Harry Andrews, MBA '63; Albert Davis, MBA '62; David Hoyt, MBA '79; Tim Kelly, MBA '85;and Rudy Reich, MBA '59--performed pro bono management consulting for at least five different organizations.

ACT was founded in 1987 by Debbie Cohen Pine, MBA '87, and Allison Elliot, MBA '84, to bring the expertise of GSB grads to nonprofits that could not otherwise afford them. ACT accepts about 20 projects a year and assigns them to teams of three to five alums who work with the organizations roughly 15 hours a week for about six months, collectively providing about $1 million worth of free consulting each year. For information about volunteering, email ACT executive director Erica Richter, MBA '79, at richter_erica@gsb.stanford.edu or call 650-725-3028.

Illustration by Peter Horjus

Power Breakfast
SPENDING $4,400 FOR TWO may seem a tad high for breakfast at a suburban shopping mall, but it sounded just swell to the folks over at the Emergency Housing Consortium in Silicon Valley. They're the ones who profit from the pricey repast at Buck's Cafe in Woodside, Calif. The breakfast, featuring one hour of quality face-time with venture capitalist Steve Jurvetson (tax, tip, and beverages included), was auctioned off online by Jurvetson, MBA '95, to benefit the charity.

A New York entrepreneur came in with the high bid. Another entrepreneur, this one from California, was too late to top that, so he bought a second breakfast with Jurvetson for a cool five grand. Others who are interested in dining at Buck's, sans Jurvetson, will find two orders of eggs over easy, bacon, and whole wheat toast a bargain at $17.

C'est Si Bon!
MORE THAN 200 ALUMNI/AE and guests gathered at Paris's Inter-Continental Hotel in March for the Stanford European Alumni Conference (see photos page 43). They renewed their connection to the GSB, attended lectures and case discussions featuring Business School faculty, and honored André Lévy-Lang, PhD '66, with the third European Business Leader Award.

The award is given by the SBSAA to recognize individuals who have shown exceptional achievement in managing inter national organizations and exhibited leadership within and outside their careers. Lévy-Lang,a one-time atomic research physicist and executive with Schlumberger in both France and the United States, is chairman of the French bank Paribas. He is also a member of the executive board of the French Bankers Association and sits on a number of other boards.

Accepting the award, Lévy-Lang explained that Paribas was in the middle of a sort of ménage à trois. In this case, Paribas had agreed to a love match with Société Général (SG), thus forming the largest bank in France. Lévy-Lang would head the new merger until his retirement in three years. But Banque National de Paris was trying to get in on the action and had quite recently mounted a hostile takeover of both banks--a merger that the boards of Paribas and SG rejected the following month.

The conference also provided the opportunity for a dozen European chapter officers to plan chapter events and discuss ways of improving communication with each other and with the Business School.

New Ventures
GSB ALUMS ARE FOUNDING businesses as fast as we can report them. Here is a sample:

• Artisangifts.com offers handcrafted wearable and decorative gifts online. Items include jewelry, ties and scarves, teapots, childrens' toys, and more--all are wrapped in satin bags or handwoven-fabric boxes and accompanied by a personal message from the giver. Cara Zanoff, MBA '95, is founder and president of the company, which takes gift orders at http://www.artisangifts.com.
• Daily Planet of Berkeley, Calif., is the latest startup newspaper by Dave Danforth, MBA '94. Danforth's successful community dailies include the Palo Alto Daily News in California and the Aspen Daily News in Colorado. Danforth is joined in this venture by cofounders Arnold Lee, MBA '93, Edward Carse, MBA '98, and two journalists from Turlock, Calif.
• PressPoint serves the international traveler by supplying on-demand, same-day, print copies of major U.S. newspapers in European and Asian cities. Lance Primus, SEP '83, a former president and chief operating officer of the New York Times, cofounded the company with another Times veteran. For more information, see http://www.presspoint.com.
• Topica Inc., is the product of Web business pioneers Ariel Poler, MBA '94, and Tina Lin, MBA '94. Topica hosts, manages, and maintains a directory of email lists. As Netscape is to Web sites, Topica aims to be to email lists. At Topica you can subscribe to any of 30,000 lists or set up your own. Learn more at http://www.topica.com.