Stanford Business magazine

Alumni in the News

CFO's Risky Choice
Whatever possessed Susan McFarland, SEP '07, to move to "one of the toughest finance jobs on the planet," asked CFO magazine. McFarland, former EVP of finance at Capital One, became chief financial officer of troubled home-mortgage lender Fannie Mae in July 2011. "Sometimes we don't take on risky situations that have wonderful possibilities because we're afraid of the downside," she said. But having some superb mentors made her see the possibilities, and taking part in the Stanford Executive Program and the International Women's Forum Fellows Program encouraged her to go for the top. Now, she says, she is "determined to make sure the risks pay off."

More: McFarland described her experience at the Stanford Executive Program.

GSB Alumni Create Jobs in Ohio
Valued Relationships Inc., an Ohio medical technology company purchased by MBA '06 classmates Andy Schoonover and Chris Hendriksen, has grown from 20,000 to 70,000 customers and is about to fill 125 new jobs. The firm provides home health monitoring technology, such as blood pressure and blood sugar monitors, that makes it easier for the elderly to stay in their homes. The state provided $367,000 in job creation tax credits, and Gov. John Kasich estimates the investment will be returned in a year. "I am not into corporate welfare, but where we get the job growth, it's appropriate," Kasich told WCPO.com.

Pitch Perfect
When the CEO of Mexico's movie exhibition company Cineopolis addressed their GSB class, Deepak Marda, pictured left, Milan Saini, and Miguel Mier, pictured right, all Sloan '07, were prepared to pitch him the idea of taking Cineopolis into India. That evening over dinner, "he instantly saw the opportunity," Marda told Forbes India. Today Marda and Saini are managing directors at Cineopolis India, and Mier is in Mexico, where he is now the company's COO supervising the international rollout.

Hudnut Eyes the Prize
Olympic silver medal winner Peter Hudnut, MBA '11, will be back with a splash this summer at London 2012, and this time he plans to bring home the gold. Hudnut was a defender on the Team USA 2008 Olympic water polo team that lost to the Hungarian team in the final. After taking time out to earn an MBA, Hudnut returned to the water to prepare for London. "I didn't come back for a silver medal," he told espnW. "This is about our team's final stand together. This is our last chance." After London, Hudnut will join Goldman Sachs.

Builder Finds Reward in Habitat for Humanity
Ken Sletten's former construction company, Rudolph & Sletten, is known for the Monterey Bay Aquarium, the Lucile Packard Children's Hospital, and other impressive projects in Northern California. But the retired executive was honored by Habitat for Humanity–San Francisco for his work on the unassuming buildings that are Habitat's trademark. "The most gratifying thing is on dedication day, when we open up the homes and present the key," Sletten, MBA '56, told the Palo Alto Weekly. "It's hard to find a dry eye in the house." Sletten was a board member of the Bay Area Habitat chapter for more than 10 years.

 

Merger Requires Time and Trust
Peter Beck, MBA '81, turned his family's Dallas-based construction business into one of the first in the industry to successfully integrate construction and design. But it took time and a new business model. After merging with an architectural firm, the Beck Group's success relied on building trust between disparate individuals and departments and getting them to focus on a common goal. "You can't look across the table and say, 'This is the other guy's problem.' You become more responsible in a deep and visceral way," Beck told Smart Business. A decade later, Beck finds that the company's integrated projects are delivered 18-25% faster than conventional fast-tracked projects.

Foundation Advocates for Rape Victims
Laura Neuman, SEP '00, is an executive with a full calendar, but the CEO of the Howard County (Maryland) Economic Development Authority still finds time to talk about rape — her own — through the nonprofit Laura Neuman Foundation, which advocates criminal justice rights for rape victims. Nineteen years after Neuman was raped at gunpoint by a home invader, she finally got her case reopened and the rapist located and convicted. He has since been indicted for eight other attacks. Neuman has the same message for crime victims she has for aspiring managers. "You don't have to accept what was given," she told Howard Magazine. "You can choose your own path."

On the Side of the Angels
Two-year-old Identified, a career networking site aimed at the under-35 crowd, raised its first $5.5 million from angel investors, rather than venture capital firms, and hopes to go the same route with its next $20 million. "You can replicate a lot of the services VCs provide by having high-caliber angel investors," cofounder Brendan Wallace, left, MBA '10, told peHub, an online publication for private equity news. He added that he and his cofounder and classmate Adeyemi Ajao, right, believe angels are more likely to allow them to retain control of the board. Identified claimed 4 million users at the end of March.

Design Means Business
Eleven years ago, Jason Mayden, Sloan '11, was an undergraduate design intern at Nike. Today, as director of innovation at Nike Digital Sports, he manages 15 designers and projects with budgets up to $2 million. "Designers of today are moving away from just drawing pretty pictures," Mayden told Black Enterprise. "We're being asked to create products, lead business, set vision, deploy strategies, and drive tactical executions companywide. We are radically changing the scope of what a designer can become."

More: As a Sloan student studying entrepreneurship, Mayden was one of the first to benefit from the collaborative spaces in the new Knight Management Center. "Somehow, people disrupt you at the right moment," he told Stanford Business. "You embrace the disruption."

Alumni in the News Archive

Kailas Bets on Wind Power
A founder of telecom, software, and real estate companies, serial entrepreneur Ravi Kailas, Sloan '06, has turned his attention to wind energy and plans to make his latest startup, Mytrah Energy, the largest independent power producer in India by 2017. According to Forbes India, Kailas began his quest by raising a mix of low-cost equity and long-term debt, then started buying land and raising talent. "We believe that if we tie up the other finite resources, like land and a good execution team, these resources will feed on each other," Kailas said. "We are getting to size and scale while people are still trying to enter the business."

Personal Branding Works Two Ways
China's top cosmetics e-tailer, Jumei.com, owes much of its success to the personal branding of the company's founder, Leo Chen, MBA '09, through public appearances, on billboards, and in a viral commercial that was forwarded 5,000 times in one day. "I endorse my own brand because I think a company's reputation and value is indelibly linked to that of its leader," Chen told Xinhua News Agency. But, he warned, "In China, we have a saying about 'shooting the bird that takes the lead.' Nowadays my words, appearances, and even my private life may affect the reputation of my company."

East Africa a New Frontier for Private Equity
The growing, relatively oil-independent countries of East Africa — Kenya, Tanzania, Uganda, Burundi, and Rwanda — are increasingly seen as an investment opportunity for private equity. "We see Kenya leading the path into the rest of East Africa," said Alex-Handrah Aimé, a Johannesburg-based PE executive whose company plans to set up shop in Kenya this year. African private equity investments usually were backed by development funding a decade ago, Aimé, MBA/JD '05, told Reuters. Now, "the key is going to be to convince the insurance companies and pension funds in Africa to get involved in alternative investments and private equity."

Advice for a Successful M&A
In 2005, when NeoPhotonics, a San Jose, Calif.-based optical components supplier, merged with a Chinese company, CEO Tim Jenks, MBA '85, learned steps to follow in any M&A, anywhere. Get to know each other face-to-face, identify your shared goals, and encourage employees to buy into those goals or opt out. Bottom line: "If you're going to try and merge two companies and you're in a leadership role, the best thing you can do is move there," Jenks told Smart Business. The rule held last year when NeoPhotonics acquired a small Bay Area company a few miles from San Jose. "The first thing I did is take an office there," he said.

GSB Student-Loan Startup Ready to Expand
In its first year, the student-loan fund Social Financial raised $2 million from GSB alumni to loan to Stanford business students. SoFi's fixed interest rate is lower than that of government and private loans, "but it was the opportunity to interact and be paired with investors in SoFi who were also Stanford alumni that was really appealing," Benjamin Kessler, MBA Class of 2012, told Inside Higher Ed. Cofounders of SoFi include Michael Cagney, Ian Brady, and Daniel Macklin, all Sloan '11; James Finnigan, MBA '11; and Pete Hartigan, MBA '99. The company, which was founded in 2011, announced in April 2012 that it is expanding to 35 other major universities.