Stanford Business magazine

Alumni in the News

Producer of Disaster Flick 2012 Aims to Save the Planet
Environmentalist and Hollywood film producer Michael Wimer, MBA '86, wants to save the planet even as his latest movie seeks to destroy it. Hisblockbuster disaster film 2012 used renewable wood, recycled sets, and biofueled power generators, and involved doing "whatever we can do to reduce our carbon footprint," Wimer told the Palisadian-Post. He was honored by the Environmental Media Association for keeping his film productionsgreen.

Northern Sierra Partnership Makes First Purchase
In 2007, Jim and Becky Morgan, MBA '78, founded the nonprofit Northern Sierra Partnership to purchase and protect up to 100,000 acres of mountain land between South Lake Tahoe and Lassen Volcanic National Park. Funded in part by a $10 million donation from the Morgan Family Foundation, NSP is trying to raise $100 million for the project. In December, the partnership will close the deal on its first purchase, a 1,174-acre property adjacent to the Tahoe National Forest, the San Jose Mercury News reported.

• More: Morgan won the Arbuckle Award in 1999. A few years later she discussed her family's views of wealth and philanthropy in Stanford Business magazine.

Jaffee Receives Cable Technology Award
Barbara Jaffee, MBA '80, is HBO's senior vice president for advanced technology and operations. She was profiled by Cable360Net after she was selected for the 2009 Women in Technology Award, which is jointly sponsored by Women in Cable Technology, the Society of Cable Telecommunications Engineers, and Communications Technology magazine. "Armed with an MBA from Stanford and an innate sense of strategy, Jaffe's decision to attend a campus job fair would lead her to Home Box Office in 1980," said the web publication. Jaffe parlayed that 1980 flyback to HBO into 12 years in sales before she took a sharp turn toward technology.

New Bank Targets Latinos
The son of Mexican immigrants, James Gutierrez, MBA '05, founded Progreso Financiero to make small loans to working Latinos who lack a credit rating. As customers repay their loans, Progreso reports them to credit bureaus, which builds their credit score. "We're providing economic citizenship," he told San Mateo County's Daily Journal. Progreso, which operates in Northern California, has made $20 million in loans to 25,000 families since 2005, he said.

Oliver Williamson, MBA '60, Shares Nobel Economics Prize
Oliver Williamson, MBA '60, a professor emeritus of business, economics, and law at UC-Berkeley's Haas School of Business, is one of two recipients of the 2009 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences. "The award recognized, in particular, [Williamson's] studies of corporate organization, and his finding that large corporations exist because, under the right conditions, they are an efficient way to do business," said the New York Times.

No Career-Life Balance
"There's nothing balanced about my life. When you sign up for a job that is so encompassing, you have to know this and love it, or else don't do it."
 – Ann Livermore, MBA '82, in an interview in Forbes. Livermore joined HP straight out of business school and is currently executive vice president of the company's Technology Solutions Group.

Britain's Mr. Fix-It to the Rescue
After Ron Sandler investigated the UK's pensions and savings crisis, he was tapped to chair Northern Rock bank as it went under government ownership. While he intends to remain at Northern Rock "as long as it takes," Sandler, MBA '76, recently was named chair of Pearl, the debt-laden insurance group. "Sandler, with his Treasury-backed pedigree and his safe pair of hands, becomes Pearl's new confidence-inspiring face," said the Scotsman. "I enjoy the complexities and the adrenaline rush of these sorts of emergencies," Sandler told the publication. [9/30]

• More at Stanford Business magazine

Time Warner Chief Profiled by Hollywood Reporter
Since becoming chairman of Time Warner last January, Jeffrey Bewkes, MBA '77, has argued that he must spin off large chunks of his vast company in order to save it. His mantra: Content is king. "By evolving into a content company, we are in a position where we can take advantage of all the distribution platforms," Bewkes told the Hollywood Reporter. It was precisely for "this singularity of vision" that the paper named him recipient of its annual leadership award, noting, "It's ironic that, in positioning Time Warner for the future, Bewkes is digging deep into the traditions of the past."

• More at Stanford GSB News
• Bewkes Receives Leadership Award

Hot Stuff List
Their decidedly low-tech letterpress stationery business Hello!Lucky put founders Sabrina Moyle, MBA '02, and her sister Eunice on the "hot 20 under 40" list of a magazine called 7x7, which claims to have its finger on the pulse of "what's new and innovative in San Francisco." The magazine also chose Gina Bianchini, MBA '00, cofounder of the decidedly high-tech social networking company Ning.

Icon Airplane Is Off the Ground
Aero-TV Network calls Kirk Hawkins' Icon A5 airplane "the sports car of aviation." The light sport aircraft is currently in the testing phase, and some 400 potential purchasers have made deposits. The network interviewed Icon's CEO, Hawkins, Sloan '05, to find out what goes into bringing an airplane from concept to market.

• More at Stanford Business magazine
  

Media Moguls Make Magic, Not Management
In a new book, The Curse of the Mogul: What's Wrong with the World's Leading Media Companies, Jonathan Knee, MBA '87, charges that large media companies have written down $200 billion in value since 2000. Media moguls "convince people that there is something magical and special about managing the creative process," Knee told the New York Times. "Moguls are fun – they do mogul-y things like big deals and make grand pronouncements, but they are not usually a good thing when you stand back and look from a value perspective."

 

 

 

Bucha Continues Fight for Veterans
Paul Bucha, MBA '67,who received the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroic service in Vietnam, is a tireless advocate for veterans, said the Ridgefield Press. Named grand marshal of the 2009 Connecticut Veterans Day parade, Bucha called the occasion "a chance to ask people to come out, knock on the door of their neighbor who's serving in the guard or reserves, and say 'How are you doing? Can I help with kids? Can I do anything?' It's a chance to … say thank you."

Business Schools See Increase in Military Applicants
Two commentators in Forbes say more American military officers are applying to graduate business programs, and they cite Brian Tice, Sloan '08, as one who went to "extraordinary lengths" to apply. Tice was a Marine infantry officer on his sixth deployment when he wrote his Stanford application essays on a laptop from a burnt-out Iraqi building. He did his admissions interview by phone "between sniper operations and raids, while standing in an open expanse of desert."

Stock Fund Manager Rides Out the Recession
Unlike many stock fund managers, John Osterweis, MBA '69, shifted part of his mid-cap stock fund into money market securities and short-term corporate bonds as the 2008 bear market descended. Osterweis rode out the recession in better shape than the S&P 500 and makes no apologies for his defensive behavior. “If you’re walking along the railroad tracks and a freight train is bearing down on you, it doesn’t make sense to just keep on walking on the same path,” he told Financial Advisor. “But it does make sense to get out of the way.”

• More: He rides horses, too.

KaChing Go the Strings of My Heart
"You have no idea what you're buying when you buy mutual funds," Andy Rachleff, MBA '84, told Forbes. Rachleff is CEO of kaChing, an internet startup that hopes to change all that by allowing investors to follow and mirror so-called "genius" money managers.

• More: Rachleff led a 2006 panel discussion about "The Top Ten Mistakes Entrepreneurs Make."
  

Direct-Sales Partners
One of the first things an entrepreneur should do is buddy up with "the right partners to grow with," wrote Stella & Dot founder Jessica DiLullo Herrin, MBA Class of 1999, in Working Mother's "Mom" blog. Herrin took her own advice and teamed up with Mike Lohner, MBA '92, now CEO and chairman of the direct sales jewelry company.

Cancer Screening Not Always Beneficial
A recent study coauthored by Laura Esserman, MD '83, MBA '93, argues that screening for breast and prostate cancers in low-risk populations may cause more harm than good. When screening picks up harmless or slow-growing cancers, as it often does, the diagnosis may lead to unnecessary aggressive treatment. "The most important thing to ask your physician is: Will this cancer kill me?" Esserman told Time's"Wellness" blog. "If the answer is probably not, weigh the treatment pros and cons carefully before taking the next step."

• More in Stanford Business magazine
  

Hope for Credit Industry
Capital One CEO Richard Fairbank, MBA '81, believes the credit card industry will stay flat or even shrink as consumers pay off their debts. But this is not such a bad thing, Fairbank told the Wall Street Journal. He reasons that consumers who reduce debt now will make better customers in the future, and companies will go back to differentiating themselves through underwriting skills, rather than by "throwing spaghetti against a wall and seeing what happens."

• More: Credit Card Pioneer Fairbank Recalls the Early Days

Grassroots Support for Soldiers in Iraq, Afghanistan
Spirit of America, a grassroots project founded by Jim Hake, MBA '83, "has raised more than $12 million in the past five years and sent tons of supplies – from solar-powered radios to saffron bulbs – to Afghanistan and Iraq," the Los Angeles Times reported. "Sometimes you really have to do what you think is important to do, even though it's not clear at all how it's going to turn out," Hake said. "You just do what's in front of you."

• More from the August 2007 Stanford Business magazine

Numbers Game
There's more to running a baseball team than just reading scouting reports. The front office needs medical data and statistical analysis on prospective players, contracts, and payroll figures. "It's all about looking at all the information you can find and putting it together in a way that makes sense," said the St. Louis Cardinals' assistant general manager, John Abbamondi, MBA '04, in Technology Review. He added,"I'm fortunate to work in a game where I can still touch on the memories from my childhood."

Time Magazine Cites Work of Three Stanford GSB Alums
Three of Time magazine’s Responsibility Pioneers are organizations founded by GSB alumni, two of them former students of Entrepreneurial Design for Extreme Affordability taught by Jim Patell. See Embrace(#11), Acumen Fund (17), and D.Light Design (18)

• The full September 10, 2009, Doing Well by Doing Good story package