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The Stanford Black Business Students Association
Celebrates 25 Years of Growth
Since the mid-1980s, the Black Business Students Association has provided a network for personal and professional growth at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. As it celebrates its 25th year, the BBSA continues to deal with the realities of today’s business world.
Understanding Investing is Key to Personal Success
The saving and investing disparity could be leading to “a crisis” in the black community in the future, Mellody Hobson, president of Ariel Investments, told members of the Black Business Students Association. Among workers with similar education, income and age, white workers have nearly twice the savings of their black counterparts, she said.
India’s Economic Growth is Missing the Poor
India’s economy has doubled in the past decade, but Nobel-winning economist Amartya Sen told a Business School audience the benefits are not being shared equally by all levels of Indian society.
Fill Classrooms With Experienced Teachers
In creating Teach For America, Wendy Kopp wanted to get the brightest young college graduates into the classroom to raise the bar for low-income students. Today, there are 5,000 corps members at work.
Reliance Industries to Offer Fellowship For Indian MBA Students
Reliance Industries Limited and the Stanford Graduate School of Business have announced the creation of the Reliance Dhirubhai India Education Fund to support promising Indian students with financial need while pursuing an MBA degree at Stanford.
With 75 Years of Experience, Jackson Library Looks Ahead
Seventy-five years after its founding, the Business School’s J. Hugh Jackson Library has moved from shelves of books to becoming a center for digital information. When the School moves to its new campus now being planned, the Jackson Library will be the centerpiece of the Knight Management Center.
Hau Lee: Benefits of Social Responsibility
Businesses can make money while operating in socially responsible and environmentally friendly ways. It just takes what Stanford business school supply chain expert Hau Lee calls the Triple-A approach—having agility, adaptability, and alignment.
Clayman Receives Excellence in Leadership Award
Michelle Clayman, the first woman to receive the Business School’s Excellence in Leadership Award, recalled founding New Amsterdam Partners LLC, an institutional money management firm in 1986. She had been talking to bankers around the globe, telling them about how to use quantitative methods to design investment processes, when she decided to take on the task herself.
No Near-Term Alternatives to Oil, Says Chevron’s O’Reilly
“Energy is not a God-given right,” Chevron Chairman David O’Reilly cautioned a Business School audience. Coming up quickly with alternatives to oil will be nearly impossible, because the amount of energy required globally is so huge.
Criticism May Produce Innovation, Wal-Mart CEO Scott Says
Wal-Mart’s innovative approach to environmental sustainability and its addition of health care services to stores were partly triggered by critics of the company in other areas.
Miriam Rivera, MBA '95, New Stanford Trustee,
Porras Award Recipient
Miriam Rivera, JD/MBA ’95, a new member of the Stanford Board of Trustees, is the 2008 recipient of the Porras Award given by the Business School’s Hispanic Business Student Association. Most recently vice president and deputy general counsel at Google, she advocates humility and teamwork on the way to the top.
Changing Recruitment Opens More Boards To Women
Just 15 percent of board seats for Fortune 500 companies are women, but women who have managed profit-and-loss units are more likely to be recruited for positions. A sold-out event in New York for Business School alumnae discussed “How and Why to Join a Board.”
New Executive Program for Women Leaders Offered
Executive Program for Women Leaders, a five-day executive education leadership program will be offered for the first time May 12 to 16. It will cover the strategies and skills women need to manage their careers and maximize their professional and personal goals. The application deadline is March 31.
Roberts Sees Light Even in a Down Market
George Roberts, who 30 years ago founded Kohlberg Kravis Roberts and Co. with two partners and $120,000, told a student audience he took the chance on the new company because “if I didn’t do it, I would always look back and say I missed an opportunity”.
GSB Joins 10,000 Women Campaign with Goldman Sachs
The Stanford Graduate School of Business will be an initial partner with The Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., of 10,000 Women, a global initiative to provide underserved women, predominantly in developing and emerging markets, with business and management education.
Former Mexican President Fox Optimistic About the Future
Mexico, the United States’ largest trading partner with Latin America’s highest per capita income, is expected to become the world’s fifth largest economy by the year 2040 former Mexican President Vicente Fox told a Business School audience.
Newsom: Politics Needs More Risk-Taking
San Francisco’s Charismatic mayor Gavin Newsom, who four years ago ordered San Francisco to provide marriage licenses to same-sex couples, talked to a Business School audience about the need for politicians to take risks and described the personal and professional price he has paid for taking bold positions on controversial issues.
Henry Segerstrom Honored with 2008 Arbuckle Award
The United States needs to prepare for the challenges of powerful emerging world economies, 2008 Arbuckle Award winner Henry Segerstrom, MBA ’48, told attendees at a dinner in his honor.
International Markets are Growing for FedEx Express
By keeping its eye on technology, International FedEx Express avoids going the way of the Pony Express, the firm’s president, Michael Ducker, told a Business School audience.
Startups Learn to Roll With the Punches
Penchina Tells Entrepreneurs
Making mistakes doesn’t scare Gil Penchina, chief executive officer of Wikia. His company, which develops ‘wikis,’ has made plenty of missteps and is prepared to make more he told the 2008 Conference on Entrepreneurship.
InBev Practices No-Frills Approach to Corporate Leadership
Developing a cohesive corporate culture that trains leaders from the ground up and rewards strong performers based on merit is an important ingredient in financial success said Carlos Brito, chief executive officer of the Belgium-based company InBev, the world’s second-largest brewer.
Video: Carlos Brito
Global Firms Must Understand Local Practices
Establishing Eli Lilly’s operations in China in the mid 1990s was complicated because the firm didn’t understand local dynamics, including how top employees would react to peers being promoted, the firm’s Chief Marketing Officer Robert Brown told a Business School audience.
Harrison Elected to National Academy of Engineering
Professor J. Michael Harrison has been elected to the National Academy of Engineering, the third member of the Business School faculty named to the prestigious organization.
Pondering the Ethics of Global Business
Ethical dilemmas such as selling other nations scanners that can tell the sex of an unborn child or kerosene heaters without safety features available in the United States were debated during a discussion on “Academic vs. Real World Ethics” led by Professor David Brady.
The Dean's Hit Parade List
The Platters, Puccini, and Banjo Patterson were some of the names on the music playlist for Dean Robert L. Joss when campus radio station KZSU hosted him on the air.
Fasten Your Financial Seatbelt, Barrack Says; The Volatility Will Continue
The financial churning of the past several months will continue unabated predicts Thomas Barrack Jr., the founder, chairman, and chief executive office of the private equity firm Colony Capital. He was a keynote speaker at the 2008 Principal Investment Conference at the Graduate School of Business.
Video Channel: 2008 Principal Investment Conference
The Effect of Ghana’s Gold
A student study trip to Ghana touched both sides of a community where a gold mining operation by Newmont Mining had changed the social structure and living patterns of villagers.
Who Should Tell the Global Warming Story?
Global warming and environmental deterioration has not played a major role in the 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign. Journalists and environmentalists at a Business School panel discussion debated just why this issue isn’t higher on the national agenda.
India Trip Studies Health Service Providers
MBA students on a service learning trip to India visited several sustainable/profitable health organizations such as a pharmacy, a eye glasses distributor, and the Aravind Eye Hospital, all sponsored by Acumen Fund, founded by Jacqueline Novogratz, MBA ‘91.
The Barefoot MBA Teaches Lessons Worldwide
Teaching basic business skills to villagers in the developing world so they can run their micro-companies more efficiently is the goal behind the Barefoot MBA, a program developed by two Stanford Graduate School of Business students.
Good Scolding Can Save Natural Resources
An experiment showed that a stern scolding was effective in getting homeowners to curb energy use. It was one of the examples cited during a three-day conference on reducing the ecological footprint, sponsored by the Stanford Business School Alumni Association and the University’s Woods Institute for the Environment. View conference online
Accounting Leader Robert Sprouse Dies at 85
Robert T. Sprouse, a Business School accounting faculty member from 1962-1973, and a member of the Accounting Hall of Fame, died on December 23.
Wozniak Reflects on Founding Apple Computer
"You are not going to be too successful unless it’s in your heart and is your passion," Apple Computer cofounder Steve Wozniak told a Stanford Graduate School of Business
Harold Leavitt, Pioneer in Organizational Behavior, Dies at 85
Harold J. Leavitt, a management professor who believed organizational success should be judged in human, not numerical terms, died Dec.8. The Walter Kenneth Kilpatrick Professor of Organizational Behavior and Psychology, emeritus, was a creator of the academic field of organizational behavior.