Beginning with the new year, two Berkeley MBA alumnae and senior Haas leaders are moving into new leadership posts.

Haas Chief Strategy & Operating Officer Jo Mackness, MBA 04, will take the top human resources role on the UC Berkeley campus, serving as Interim Assistant Vice Chancellor for Human Resources. Taking her place on an interim basis at Haas is Courtney Chandler, MBA 96 and Assistant Dean for the Evening & Weekend MBA Program.

Mackness and Chandler took a few moments to answer some questions on their new roles.

Jo Mackness, MBA 04

Why were you interested in taking on the role of Assistant Vice Chancellor for Human Resources?

I'm a product of the UC system (my undergrad degree is from UCLA, my MBA is from Berkeley-Haas), and I’m both passionate about and dedicated to supporting the institution that has given me and so many others a rich springboard for professional and personal growth. I’ve always been committed to using my career to create positive social change, and because UC Berkeley is such a powerful social mobility engine, moving into a role that more directly supports the entire university was an opportunity I couldn't pass up.  

What will be your top priorities in your new role?

My first priority will be to lean on the Haas Defining Principles and do a great deal of listening (Students Always) and gathering of data (Confidence Without Attitude). While I have a bias toward action, and I plan to move forward on time-sensitive/urgent issues, I’ll be setting strategic priorities only after I get a better sense for the unique assets, areas of opportunity, and any gaps that may exist within the HR organization—and in the places where HR touches other parts of the university.

You’re a full-time Berkeley MBA alumna. How did Haas prepare you for this leadership role? What are some of the skills you gained from the program that you bring to the job?

The most important thing I learned at Haas is that culture matters, and working with people who share your values is the most important thing to look for in a company or organization. Even way back when I was admitted to Berkeley-Haas, before our Defining Principles were codified, Pete Johnson and his admissions team were looking for people who exhibited confidence, without any attitude, and they welcomed my unique voice (I wrote about my electric-blue wig—a “most prized possession”—in one of my essays!). I, and many of my classmates, sought and landed a Beyond-Yourself, social-impact role upon graduation. Haas, back then and today, reinforces that while we are all different, it’s that diversity of thought, cultural context, and experience that brings a richness to our community. It’s our shared values that create a safe place for people to show up as themselves—as Berkeley Leaders—to thrive as individuals, collaborate within and across teams, and contribute their very best to our organization. This is what I learned at Haas, and it underpins how I approach leadership and the type of organizational climate I try to create.

Courtney Chandler, MBA 96

Why were you interested in taking the Interim Chief Strategy & Operating Officer/Senior Assistant Dean role?

I am deeply connected to this school and believe wholeheartedly in what we do here. So, when (Dean Rich Lyons) presented the opportunity to me, I jumped at the chance to touch areas of the school in new and different ways. I am particularly interested in being part of the decision-making process school-wide, as well as problem-solving and generating big ideas for areas that need it. Finally, I am looking forward to working closely with our campus partners as UC Berkeley goes through this transitional period.

What will be your top priorities?

I am sure my priorities will change as I get further into my role, but a top priority now is to continue the momentum around our Strategic Business Plan. Jo has done amazing work on this and my goal is to continue to execute on our strategies. We still have many great things to accomplish as a school and I am excited to help make them happen.

Beyond that, I plan to be a student first and learn as much as possible. One thing that energizes me is bringing people together, whether in groups or across organizations. Having worked at all levels of the school in staff roles and having worked closely with faculty while running the EWMBA program, and having experienced Haas as student and an alum, I hope to bring a unique perspective to the dean's office.

What are some of the skills you gained from the Berkeley MBA program that you bring to the job?

As an MBA student at Haas, I was incredibly fortunate to have amazing professors (Rich Lyons, Andy Rose, Jenny Chatman, Ben Hermalin, Richard Stanton, and David Vogel, to name a few), and extraordinary classmates (go Class of 1996!). So, my time as a student had a profound impact on me. I think most importantly it provided me the opportunity to gain new perspectives. My classmates and I were some of the first students to inhabit what we now know as our Berkeley-Haas campus, and having this wonderful space contributed to our strong community and culture. I know our new building will do something similar for our students today. While our Defining Principles hadn't yet been articulated when I was a student, they were still very much a part of my experience and would absolutely describe the culture we had back then. This culture prepared me to take on new challenges confidently and tackle difficult situations by learning and listening.  Additionally, it helped me hone my creativity and fascination with new ideas while being able to create connections between seemingly disparate circumstances. My hope is to bring all of what I learned as a student and since graduating to my new role as Chief Strategy & Operating Officer.

The University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business honored US President Barack Obama with the Award for Outstanding Global Leadership in Open Innovation at the World Open Innovation Conference held at ESADE Business School, Ramon Llull University, Barcelona, Spain, today (Dec. 16, 2016).

Marcos C. Mandojana, Consul General of the United States of America in Barcelona, accepted the award on the President’s behalf.

Every year at its World Open Innovation Conference, the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at Berkeley-Haas recognizes a global leader who applies the concept of open innovation to create significant change. Pranab Mukherjee, the President of India, received the inaugural award in 2015.

Open innovation asserts that an organization should make greater use of external ideas in its business and allow its own ideas to be used by others outside of the organization in order to accelerate innovation.

The Garwood Center presented the award to President Obama for his achievements in championing open innovation through government initiatives and programs for youth, researchers, academics, and entrepreneurs. These initiatives include, among others:

• The Open Government Initiative, which focuses on transparency, participation, and collaboration, and has brought forth successful crowdsourcing and peer-production initiatives at the local, state, and federal levels.

• The Educate to Innovate Program, launched in 2009 to raise American students’ achievements in science and math over the next decade—with the help of leading companies, foundations, non-profits, and science and engineering societies.

• The Next-generation Hubs Program, which provides online tools to entrepreneurs to start a business in a single day.

• The New Strategy for American Innovation to improve performance and create a better environment for innovation in federal government by offering areas of opportunity from self-driving cars to smart cities.

• The Smart Cities initiative, which invested more than $160 million in federal research and leveraged more than 20 cities participating in new multi-city collaboration, to help local communities tackle key challenges from reducing traffic congestion to fighting crime and fostering economic growth.

• The Nation of Makers initiative to give more students, entrepreneurs, and citizens access to a new class of technologies,such as 3D printers, laser cutters, and desktop machine tools. Federal agencies, companies, non-profits, cities, and schools are collectively making commitments to create more than 1,000 maker-oriented spaces in the United States.

About the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation:

The Garwood Center at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business promotes academic research and the practice of open innovation and entrepreneurship across the globe through executive programs, student curricula, academic research, and collaborative international open innovation conferences. The center seeks to promote open innovation as a means to benefit the global economy by improving businesses’ profitability, competitive advantage, stability, and adaptability.

For more information, contact:

Solomon Darwin, Executive Director of Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation, at darwin@haas.berkeley.edu or

Henry Chesbrough, Faculty Director of Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation, at chesbrou@haas.berkeley.edu

Photo: Pete Souza, the Obama-Biden Transition Project.

With the new year just around the corner, we're celebrating the highlights 2016—from the launch of an exciting new undergraduate program, to the alumni-backed Pokémon Go craze, to undergrad Ryan Murphy's astounding triple Olympic gold medal wins.

Top of the Class: All Haas programs made the Top 10 in all the major rankings. The Evening & Weekend MBA Program was ranked #1 among part-time programs for the fourth straight year by U.S. News, which also ranked the Undergraduate Program #2; the Master of Financial Engineering ranked #1 in two major rankings.

Students and staff wrote messages on the I-beam that topped off our new building.

Topping Off: The final I-beam was raised atop our new North Academic Building in June. The six-story building is 100% funded with private donations from alumni and friends of the school, and features state-of-the-art classrooms, spaces for students to meet and work in small groups, a new café, and a top-floor event space with sweeping views of the Bay. It's expected to open in early 2017.

Alumni Go! One of the year’s top crazes originated with John Hanke, MBA 96, CEO of Niantic Labs. Hanke was the driving force behind Pokémon Go, the hottest game to hit smartphones—ever. It was one of those moments, The New York Times declared, “when a new technology—in this case, augmented reality or A.R., which fuses digital technology with the physical world—breaks through from a niche toy for early adopters to something much bigger.” (Berkeley-Haas also published a case study that delved into Hanke's decision to sping Niantic Labs off from Google.)

Double Degree: In August, Berkeley-Haas launched a pioneering new degree program, the Management, Entrepreneurship, & Technology (M.E.T.) Program. The highly competitive program, which allows undergraduates to earn concurrent degrees at Berkeley-Haas and Berkeley Engineering, received thousands of applications for 30 slots. About 50 students are expected to be accepted for the fall.

Ryan Murphy after winning the gold medal in the 200-meter backstroke.
Credit: USA Today/UC Berkeley

Olympic Gold x 3: Inspiring backstroker Ryan Murphy, BS 17, returned from the Rio Olympics with three gold medals. Murphy, BS 17, won both the 200m and 100m backstroke. He also swam to victory in the 400m relay medley with Olympic legend Michael Phelps, Cal alum Nathan Adrian, and Cody Miller.

Clockwise, from top left: Williamson, the ladder faculty, Morse, Jaffee, Levine, Malmendier

Fabulous Faculty: This year we mourned the passing of a much-beloved professor, real estate and finance expert Dwight Jaffee. We celebrated a Global Economy Prize for Nobel Laureate Prof. Emeritus Oliver Williamson; the American Accounting Association’s Seminal Contribution to Accounting award for Prof. Richard Sloan; and the 2016 Moskowitz Prize for Assoc. Prof. Adair Morse. Profs. David Teece & Ross Levine achieved an extraordinary 100K citations on Google Scholar, and Prof Ulrike Malmendier was elected to the American Academy of Arts & Sciences. Berkeley-Haas also welcomed three new professors: Asst. Prof. Drew Jacoby-Senghor, Asst. Prof. Hoai-Luu Nguyen and Asst. Prof. Abhishek Nagaraj.

Bigger Give: The Big Give online fundraiser raised twice the amount for Haas as last year, tallying almost $1.3 million from more than 600 alumni, students, faculty, staff, and friends. Berkeley-Haas undergraduates exceeded their participation goal by 250 percent. Many thanks to all our generous donors!

Top Leaders: We welcomed a dozen industry leaders to share insights with the Haas community in the Dean’s Speaker Series, including (clockwise from top left) Deborah Hopkins, Chief Innovation Officer, Citigroup (with Dean Rich Lyons); Christie Smith, Managing Principal, Deloitte University Leadership Center for Inclusion; Bob Shanks, EVP and CFO, Ford Motor Company; and Rosalind Brewer, President and CEO, Sam's Club. The series also included an expert panel on Brexit.

Honoring Obama: President Barack Obama was honored at the World Open Innovation conference for “Outstanding Global Leadership in Open Innovation” (Obama is expected to visit the Berkeley campus early next year.)

Business Leaders of the Year: For their efforts to improve local schools, Susan, MBA 07, and Steve Chamberlin, were named Berkeley-Haas’ 2016 Business Leaders of the Year—the highest honor the school bestows.

Thought leadership: Our faculty research was covered by top media worldwide in 2016, including studies by Prof. Cameron Anderson, who found an unexpected payoff to being buff; Prof. Jennifer Chatman, who studied the downside of groupthink by analyzing Himalayan trekking accidents; and Prof. Laura Kray, who found that while women women tend to be more ethical than men when acting on their own behalf, they are more likely to lie to help others.

Dauntless Students: Our students continue to inspire us. Alvaro Silberstein, MBA 17, who was left partially paralyzed by a drunk driver at age 19, is wrapping up the year on a quest to make Patagonia's Paine del Torre National Park more accessible. He's trekking the park's most iconic route in a specialized wheelchair, with a support team that includes a Berkeley MBA classmate.

We look forward to great things to come in 2017!

Eleven early-stage student startups—including a proposal to fight obesity with a new kind of nutrition bar and a forest products company that reduces wildfire hazards by culling wood from the millions of "beetle kill" trees in California's mountains—have been selected from a record 40 applicants to receive Dean's Seed Fund grants this spring.

“This year’s competition among applicants was intense,” said Rhonda Shrader, executive director of the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program (BHEP). "There were so many qualified teams we awarded 11 grants rather than the usual ten."

Team InnoWaste

This year's teams include students in the Full-time MBA and Evening & Weekend MBA programs, and also involve a high level of collaboration across campus, Shrader noted. Berkeley-Haas students partnered with students from nine other UC Berkeley schools and programs: the School of Information, the Goldman School of Public Policy, the School of Public Health, the Fung Institute (Engineering), the School of Forestry and Natural Resources, the Graduate School of Education, and Berkeley Law, along with the interdisciplinary Masters Development Practice and undergraduate Cognitive Science.

Dean Rich Lyons initiated the $100,000 Dean’s Seed Fund in Oct. 2015, aiming to enhance entrepreneurship support for current Berkeley-Haas students. All grantees receive $5,000 as well as work space in the Berkeley-Haas incubator in downtown Berkeley. The grant money can be used for prototype development and customer discovery activities. This year’s award judges included members of the venture capital community and faculty.

The 2017 Berkeley-Haas student grantees are:

AndaBar: Alex Levy, FTMBA 17, Cecilia Toscana Rodrigues, FTMBA 17, Elizabeth Faust, MBA/MPH 18, Chloe McConnell, FTMBA 17. The AndaBar team will work to validate a market for the AndaBar nutrition bar formulated by researchers at Children's Hospital of Oakland Research Institute to combat obesity.        

Liverty: Alvaro Silberstein and Thato Keineetse, both FTMBA 17, with Cristian Garay, a Master of Information Management & Systems (MIMS) candidate and undergraduate Francisco Peralta, BA 18 (cognitive science). Liverty is focused on enabling people with disabilities to find and manage assistance anywhere and at any time so that they can live independently.

Sierra BlueFlame Woodworks: Adam Pugh, FTMBA 18; Sam Schabacker and Sandra Lupien, both Master of Public Policy (MPP) candidates at the Goldman School of Public Policy; and Carlin Starrs, a Master of Forestry candidate at the College of Natural Resources. Sierra BlueFlame is a forest products company addressing fire, safety, and climate emissions hazards by harvesting wood from some of the 100 million trees killed by bark beetles. The wood, which has a blue stain from fungus associated with the beetles, will be turned into beautiful furniture.

HomeSlice: (Above, left to right) P.J. O’Neill, Anna Roumiantseva, and Anne Ready, all FTMBA 17. HomeSlice is working to make it simple for groups of people to come together to jointly purchase real estate.

InnoWaste: Yi Lin Pei and Thulasi Narayan, both EWMBA 17, along with Maria Oldiges, MDP 17 (Master of Development Practice), and Bhuvana Bellala, MIMS 17. InnoWaste is a digital platform aimed at improving efficiency in recycling while generating social value.

OmSchool: Emily Tsay and Stan Hou, both FTMBA 17, with Zehra Ali, a Fulbright scholar in the MPP program at the Goldman School, and Lakshmi Balasubramanian, a PhD candidate at the Graduate School of Education. OmSchool is an edtech company with a mobile app focused on interweaving social emotional learning in the classroom through mindfulness and positive psychology.   

Oishii Farm: Hiroki Koga, FTMBA 17, with Brendan Somerville, an MBA candidate at UCLA, Ryoichi Kaneko, a Master of Laws (LL.M) candidate at Berkeley Law, and Yash Kankaria, Master of Engineering 17. Oishii Farm aims to develop distribution channels for a sustainable and efficient indoor farm for strawberry production.

Ikanos: Luigi Rodrigues (above, left) and George Panagiotakopoulos (right), both FTMBA 18. Ikanos is an online network that will connect the world’s top executives with the most renowned and credible educators from top-ranked global academic institutions.

Lyme.Dot: Shannon Herline and Faith Kirkpatrick, both EWMBA 18, with
Jose Luis Pacheco, a programmer at San Jose State. Lyme.Dot is a secure digital platform that Lyme disease patients can use to track and store health data, match with patients experiencing similar symptoms, and share the data with their healthcare practitioners.   

Flouri$h: Pedro Moura, Bill Collins, and Jessica Eting, all EWMBA 18. Flouri$h will provide a mobile platform that empowers and motivates young Latinos to save more money by tapping into their need for accomplishment, recognition, and information.

Markt, formerly EveryFarm: Lizz Niemeyer, FTMBA 17, Adam Pugh, FTMBA 18. Markt aims to expand consumption of locally grown produce by directly connecting consumers and farmers through a transparent, online farmers market.

Technology, consulting, and finance remained the top three career fields for the Full-time Berkeley MBA Class of 2016, with a notable tripling of positions in CPG and retail.

The 245 graduates launched new careers in a robust hiring market fueled by strong salaries. About 90 percent reported that they had accepted job offers within three months of graduation. Pay is strong this year, too, with an average salary of $122,488, a median salary of $125,000, topped off by an average sign-on bonus of $24,777.

Technology was again the most popular field, pulling in 39 percent of those who accepted offers, and with Google, Adobe, Facebook and Amazon among the top employers. Nineteen percent took jobs in consulting, with McKinsey & Co., Bain & Co., Boston Consulting Group (BCG), and Deloitte Consulting representing the top hiring firms. Twelve percent of grads took positions in finance.

Jenn Bridge, senior director of employer engagement & operations Berkeley-Haas Career Management Group (CMG), noted a surge of interest among the graduates in jobs in CPG and retail, which increased from about 4 percent to 11.5 percent of those who accepted offers.

“Every year the students’ interests change,” says Bridge “This year there was excitement around retail, and we were able to respond to that and hire an industry specialist to help students find those kinds of jobs. We develop workshops and hire industry specialists when it makes sense to help them find the best possible fit.”

The CPG/retail trend is continuing among this year’s class, which also shows a big interest in food, Bridge says.

Some students say they held out for dream jobs this year.

Jake Qian, MBA 16, turned down a lucrative offer from Google to take a position at baby food company Plum Organics for about half the pay. It was a difficult choice, and could have gone either way, he says.

“It was close, but this was the job I was more drawn to based on company culture,” says Qian, a product innovation manager. “It was a tough decision but I didn’t feel right taking a post-MBA job that I was less drawn to based on money.”

Though Plum is owned by Campbell’s Soup, it has the feel of a small, mission-driven startup, he says. As a former Target buyer with a quantitative bent, Qian says that working at a small-scale, mission-driven CPG was just one of several possibilities on his radar when he arrived at Haas. “I liked the multiple-bottom-line, B-corp concept,” he says.

But when he found out that internships in the sector were in short supply, he followed his budding passion for design into an internship at IDEO. It was in his second year, in Lecturer William Rosenzweig’s Food Venture Lab course, that he got excited about the high level of innovation driving the food industry. He could see himself as part of it.

“This feels like the right industry for me. It’s really interesting, there is lots of positive change in how people eat and how food is delivered, and there are many environmental ramifications,” he says. “My longer-term plan is to go even deeper into the industry, and set myself up as a thought leader.”

Caitlin Fitzpatrick, a retail marketing manager at Lucy Activewear, interned at Apple after her first year at Haas, analyzing education customer engagement with Apple devices and content. While working for Apple was a great experience, Fitzpatrick—who grew up swimming and skiing and now runs, rock climbs, and does yoga—was determined to work in sports retail.

Fitzpatrick began her job search in March 2016, working closely with Wendy Pratt, a CPG industry specialist with CMG. Pratt introduced her to Patrice Christensen, a former marketing manager at both Lucy and The North Face (both are owned by Alameda, Ca.-based parent company VF Corp.). 

“Wendy had us practice our pitch before we interviewed every time,” she said. “I had my stories memorized for my first coffee with Patrice. All of that practice and having someone who really takes what you want to do seriously and helps you follow your dream has really helped,” she says.

At Lucy, where she has worked since last July, Fitzpatrick is responsible for the marketing strategy in all brick and mortar stores. She sees it as “an opportunity to create things,” and to market the brand to women of all shapes and sizes.

“I love this job,” she says. “It’s strategic and creative and we’re a women-focused brand. It’s a very interesting time to be working on that.”

Read the full hiring report for the Full-time Berkeley MBA Class of 2016.

A new study-abroad program will bring hundreds of students from around the globe to Berkeley-Haas each year to study business and entrepreneurship, connect with Bay Area companies, and experience life in the Bay Area.

The Berkeley-Haas Global Access Program (BHGAP), a non-degree program launching this fall in partnership with UC Berkeley Extension and universities worldwide, will provide a one- or two-semester immersive experience for both undergraduate- and graduate-level international students.

“We want to provide students from around the world with the opportunity to come to Berkeley-Haas, study with our leading faculty, and experience our network within the entrepreneurial, innovative Bay Area,” says Adam Berman, BS 85, executive director of emerging initiatives at Berkeley-Haas and head of the new program. “The Bay Area economy is ranked among the Top 15 economies in the world, and there are companies from virtually every industry within 50 miles of our campus.”

BHGAP students will be able to experience Sara Beckman's unique Problem Finding, Problem Solving course

Students accepted into the program will join a cohort in one of three tracks: non-business undergraduates, business undergraduates, or graduate students. All BHGAP students take a minimum of 12 units, including three business courses held separately for the cohort students at the Berkeley-Haas campus, as well as an elective from the UC Berkeley course catalog.

In addition to coursework, BHGAP students are offered visits to Silicon Valley companies, career coaching, cohort lunches, and professional development workshops. They will also have opportunities to meet Berkeley-Haas students through numerous student clubs.

“We want to provide these students a transformational experience both inside and outside of the classroom,” Berkeley-Haas Dean Rich Lyons said. “This unique program is a deep dive into Berkeley, Silicon Valley, Bay Area entrepreneurship, and California.”

Students who complete the program will receive a transcript from UC Berkeley Extension and a co-branded Certificate of Completion from Berkeley-Haas and UC Berkeley Extension.

The curriculum includes some of the most popular business courses at Haas. Non-business undergraduates will be taught business and entrepreneurship through classes such as Leading People, Marketing, and Introduction to Entrepreneurship.

Business undergraduate and graduate students will focus more intensely on entrepreneurship, leadership, innovation, and technology through courses such as Problem Finding, Problem Solving; Digital Marketing; and Entrepreneurship Workshop for Startups.

Throughout the program, students receive the same benefits provided to degree students at UC Berkeley, including access to campus libraries and recreation facilities. Students in the program arrange their own housing, but receive assistance through UC Berkeley Extension International Student Services.

Students who complete the program will become part of an organized BHGAP alumni group and will have access to select benefits within the vast UC Berkeley alumni network.

The deadline for applying to the fall 2017 BHGAP session is June 17, 2017. Spring and summer sessions will be offered as well.

Words of wisdom, honors, heartfelt stories, and a musical performance by Haas Dean Rich Lyons marked the Berkeley MBA for Executives (EMBA) commencement last Saturday.

About 400 people attended the ceremony for the 69 Class of 2016 graduates at UC Berkeley’s Hertz Hall. Many of the commencement speeches focused on the power of relationships forged among the class members.

Students walking to the ceremony

"This was a special class for many reasons," said Jamie Breen, assistant dean and executive director of the EMBA program. "As a group, they were all so close-knit, supportive, and truly connected—helping each other navigate the program and succeed in so many ways, both inside and outside of the classroom."

During the 19-month program, students dove into five week-long immersion programs, which comprise 25 percent of the curriculum. The immersion courses are led by Haas faculty on location: leadership communications in Napa Valley with Mark Rittenberg, entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley with Toby Stuart, applied innovation in San Francisco with Sara Beckman, pricing in Singapore with Teck Ho, and business and policy in Washington DC with Maura O’Neill.

Dean Rich Lyons said that UC Berkeley and Haas transformed the students by enabling them to do things they didn’t realize were possible, creating a shift from thinking “They do that” to “I do that.”

“These transformations are possible because of how and what you’ve learned here about leadership. In short, you have become Berkeley Leaders,” he said.

Dean Rich Lyons addresses the class

Commencement speaker Tim Campos, BCEMBA 11, and the former CIO of Facebook, told students that they were graduating with far more than a degree. “An MBA is not about achieving a degree, a title, a credential, it’s about what you’ve learned,” he said. “It’s about the relationships you’ve built, and most of all, it’s about how it changes who you are. This program has given you a tremendous set of gifts. The gifts you’ve received have only just begun to pay dividends.”

Student Speaker Matt Kleinman recounted the exact point when he felt the class come together: Midway through the Leadership Communications Immersion, class members were asked to get up and dance, imitating the moves of the person who came before them. “One by one, with the people who you might characterize as quieter members of the class, you could see the insecurities melt away as they were received with love and support. What I saw was a desire to show each and every classmate that they belonged that they were accepted and they were loved. That love, belonging, and acceptance has grown stronger each day.”

Class valedictorian Chris Sampson, who earned a 3.957 GPA, highlighted how the class shared deep stories, shed tears, and learned about how strong relationships led to success in business. “I would not be standing here today if it weren’t for my teammates. WE did this. Just as we stood together throughout this program, it only feels right to me that we stand together as we formally end it.” Sampson then called his teammates’ names and asked each person to stand.

Chris Sampson (left) with Torsor Kotee and Josh Goldsmith

Awards then went to faculty and students. Maura O’Neill, a distinguished teaching fellow and Haas entrepreneurship lecturer who organized this year’s immersion trip to Washington D.C., received the Earl F. Cheit Award for the second time. The award, named for the late Dean Emeritus Earl Cheit, was established in 1975 and is granted by the students for excellence in teaching.

 “Maura is inspiring, transparent and selfless in all things—sharing herself so that we can all learn through her experiences and extended network of really exceptionally smart people,” Jay Stowsky, senior assistant dean for instruction said, reading a comment shared by an EMBA student about O’Neill.

Cheit Award winner Maura O'Neill  (right) with Jay Stowsky sitting next to her

O’Neill started four companies and worked as former President Barack Obama’s USAID chief innovation officer before teaching at Haas. She was heading to the Sundance Film Festival after the ceremony, where a documentary about a charter school for girls she founded in Baltimore was premiering.

Auyon Siddiqq received the Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor award for his work in Greg LaBlanc’s Data & Decisions Course.

The Defining Principles Awards, presented by Breen and former EMBA executive director Mike Rielly, CEO of the Berkeley Executive Education, went to:

·      Confidence without Attitude: Harold Allen

·      Question the Status Quo: Mercedes Broening

·      Beyond Yourself: Cristy Johnston-Limon

·      Students Always: Mark Gorenflo

By Maya Mirsky

Born in Afghanistan and raised during Taliban rule to a family without much education, Sal Parsa didn’t have many options: by age 12, he was going to school half the day and working the other half sewing clothes.

“My destiny was to become a tailor, or a mechanic,” he says.

But in 2001, something happened: American soldiers showed up in his hometown of Herat, seizing control from the Taliban regime. Sal was fascinated by the men, as they walked through the city with their guns handing out candy to children, and he wanted to find out more about them.

“I was a kid, so I wasn’t seen as a threat and I could approach them and try to talk to them,” says Parsa, MBA 18. “They looked scary at first but they were friendly and kind. Those first encounters were what began to change my life.”

His outgoing curiosity, along with his drive to get an education beyond the severe limitations he had faced, soon sent him down a winding path that ultimately led him to Berkeley-Haas—where he is now an aspiring entrepreneur.

Books, not bombs

Growing up under the Taliban, Parsa's access to education was mostly limited to religious books. All he had ever known was poverty and war: his young life had spanned the Soviet occupation and withdrawal, the civil war that raged in its wake, and the Taliban’s rigid control. But with the arrival of the Americans, things opened up. Now, there were new books in the library and classes to take. So he took full advantage, going to study English after he was done with work at night.

Parsa remembers when a group of American men visited his high school looking for top students to apply for an exchange program.

“I thought it was a hoax,” he says. “My parents weren’t wealthy and we had no power; usually this kind of opportunity was given to the sons of the warlords, ministers, or top top people.”

But it all became real when—after an exhaustive series of exams and interviews—he and three others were selected from more than 1,000 students vetted by the State Department. They were invited to spend their junior year at American high schools through the Youth Exchange and Study (YES) program in Afghanistan, offered for the first time in Afghanistan.

Cultural Immersion

And so, in 2004, Parsa found himself living with a host family in Plattsburgh, a small college town in Upstate New York. It was a different world, but Parsa—already a bit of an overachiever—was undaunted.

“I brought these huge dictionaries from Afghanistan—English to Farsi, Farsi to English,” says Parsa, a native Persian speaker who was learning English as a 3rd language. “Those dictionaries were my buddies. I used to record my classes, then go home and listen to them, and use the books to translate.”

Parsa immersed himself in American culture. His host mother was an Air Force Veteran who treated him like one of her own and his host brother was in the Navy—a great excuse for the family to travel around and watch Navy football games. His soccer prowess was an easy entree to the high school sports and social scenes.

As part of the exchange program, he served as a youth cultural ambassador, visiting and talking to high schools, colleges, and churches, and even traveling to the White House to meet high-level officials.

Tense times

That helped when, at age 17, he returned to Afghanistan and worked as a translator and cultural liaison for the US military—a period that Parsa describes tersely as “very intense times.” By then, the war was in its 4^th year, and the Taliban was attempting to regain control.

As a translator, Parsa risked his life. “There was a $5000 prize for the head of a translator or anyone working or helping the Americans. I couldn't trust anyone,” he says.

Parsa recently opened up about those years for the first time at a Haas Story Salon—an event where MBA students share personal stories with classmates, with the understanding that everything said stays in the room.

“Sal connected with every person in the room that night by sharing his narrative,” says classmate Greg Keiser, MBA 18.

It was hard to talk about some things, says Parsa, who is still careful about what he’ll say publicly about the experience. But his trust in his Haas cohort made him willing to do it. “This would not have ever happened without these people,” he says.

Return to the US

Parsa considers himself incredibly lucky. After two years working for the military in Afghanistan, he was invited to attend Walsh University in Ohio, where he was a new quantity for the small, Catholic school.

“I was the only Muslim student living on campus,” he says. “During Ramadan, the cafeteria closed before I could break my fast, so I ate Ramen noodles or fast food. But by the second year, they made me a boxed dinner.”

Parsa was chosen to give a speech at his 2014 naturalization ceremony.

After graduation, he worked for large manufacturing company in Canton, Ohio, and was considering a career in US intelligence when a mentor suggested he look into an MBA. While he got offers from several top schools, he says Haas offered a combination of first-rate faculty, connections to an entrepreneurial ecosystem, and a great location.

And when he got a call from Full-time MBA Admissions Director Morgan Bernstein, he hung up feeling like Haas really “got” him.

Bernstein recalls what stood out about Parsa: “It was clear that not only is Sal someone who embodies our four Haas Defining Principles, but that his life experience allows him to bring a truly unique, and valuable, perspective to our community.”

Parsa’s background and struggles have shaped his attitude and approach to life; he puts “problems” like a heavy course of study into perspective.  “Why should I worry? Why should I complain?” he asks.

After a just a few months at Haas, Parsa says he knows he’s in the right place: there’s nothing about his life right now that stressed him out, even though he’s combining the full-time MBA program with a leadership role as the president of the data science club, a deep-dive into data science, and a hard push with classmate Greg Keiser on a startup idea for a career guidance platform. That’s on top of the fact he got married last summer.

But Parsa is ready for every opportunity he can find—at Haas, at UC Berkeley, or anywhere else.

“Sometimes I think, ‘I shouldn’t sleep,’” he says.

Haas undergraduate and MBA students will gain expanded entrepreneurship offerings as part of a new $2.2 million grant from the State of California.

The grant, aimed at supporting innovation and entrepreneurship, was awarded last month and will be administered through UC Berkeley’s Office of the President. The funds are earmarked for six Berkeley centers and programs, including about $200,000 for the NSF I-Corps Bay Area Node, located at Haas and managed by the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program (BHEP).

As one of seven Innovation Corps "nodes" across the US, the NSF-I-Corps Bay Area Node teaches the Lean LaunchPad entrepreneurship method to support commercializing science and technology.

The state grant money will be distributed over three years to the NSF I-Corps program and includes:

• $15,000 per year ($45,000 over three years) to create a LAUNCH cohort specifically for undergraduate students. LAUNCH is a four-month accelerator designed to transform early-stage startups into fundable ventures.

• $50,000 per year ($150,000 over three years) to hire a Startup Marketplace coordinator. Startup Marketplace matches MBA students with top faculty/researchers at UCB, UCSF/QB3, Lawrence Berkeley National Lab& government agencies for short consulting projects. These projects have led to continued paid or advisory work, and entry into the Immersive Short course as well as the national eight-week Lean Startup course.

Read more about the grant.

This article is part of an occasional series spotlighting students and recent alumni who are working with Berkeley-Haas to start a new business or social enterprise.

IDbyDNA
Co-founders:
Guochun Liao, EMBA 14, MS 01 Computer Science/Artificial Intelligence, PhD 01 Genetics/Bioinformatics, President and CEO
Martin Reese, PhD 00, Computational Biology, Chairman

Let's say you’re sick and you go to your doctor, who makes an educated guess about what’s wrong, ordering a test that may or may not provide accurate or timely answers. 

Guochun Liao, EMBA 14, believes there is a better way.

Liao, the co-founder of IDbyDNA, is using big data analytics based on Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) to dramatically improve the speed and accuracy of pathogen detection for infectious diseases.

The core of IDbyDNA’s technology, called Taxonomer, improves universal microorganism detection through a "metagenomic analysis" platform. Simply put, the company is using search algorithms to compare short DNA sequences from patient samples to millions of reference sequences. The software quickly identifies all known viruses, bacteria, or fungi in the sample.

Just a few years ago, that type of detection required large amounts of input and hours or days of time. Taxonomer, however, can complete the process over the web in minutes.

“It’s like Google for the DNA space,” Liao says.  “We can detect many different pathogens at the same time—it’s a much more comprehensive approach.” The technology promises to not only improve individual patient diagnostics, but could also lead to faster public health responses during infectious disease outbreaks.

The company attracted $9 million in Series A financing last fall, led by ARTIS Ventures, with additional support from ARUP Laboratories and other private investors. It hopes to launch a sequencing-based test for infectious diseases this year.

Liao co-founded IDbyDNA in 2014 while enrolled in the Berkeley MBA for Executives Program. He met his co-founder, Martin Reese, while conducting pioneering human genome research at UC Berkeley in the late 1990s. They joined with two colleagues from the University of Utah to form the company.  

Liao says he drew on his Berkeley-Haas experience in several ways. Lecturer Maura O’Neill’s New Venture Finance course and Silicon Valley Immersion Week with Professor Toby Stuart were key influences. “During our week in Silicon Valley, I saw different companies at different stages and gained a much better understanding of how startups work,” Liao says.

Fellow Haas students also helped him with the company launch: More than ten percent of Liao’s classmates participated in the company’s seed round.

Improved patient diagnostics may be just the beginning for IDbyDNA. Other potential Taxonomer applications Liao envisions include the analysis of microbes in the soil to help improve crop resistance to disease; fast, accurate responses to food contamination outbreaks; and new and expanding fields involving the human gut microbiome.

SapphirePine
Co-founders:
Adam Pugh, FTMBA 18
Sandra Lupien & Sam Schabacker, both MPP 18
Carlin Starrs, MS Forestry 17, BS Forestry 11

Photo: Left to Right: Adam Pugh, Sandra Lupien & Sam Schabacker

Sam Schabacker, a graduate student at the UC Berkeley Goldman School of Public Policy, was on a backpacking trip in California’s Sierra Nevada Mountains when he noticed the thousands of dead trees that have been killed by bark beetles.

Schabacker knew the damaged wood, which has a unique blue- and green-streaked grain, could be made into beautiful furniture. He also knew a market for it already existed in Colorado, where he once lived and made the furniture for himself. Bingo: the idea for a startup was born.

Together with full-time MBA Student Adam Pugh and MPP candidate Sandra Lupien, with the advice of MS Forestry candidate, Carlin Starrs, they founded SapphirePine (formerly called Sierra BlueFlame Woodworks.)

“The combination of drought and beetle-kill has resulted in a mass die-off of pine trees in California’s mountains,” says Pugh. “Our company is dedicated to addressing wildfire, safety, and climate emissions hazards by giving new life to some of the 100 million dead trees as handcrafted furniture and other wood products.”

The company was recently selected to receive a Dean’s Seed Fund grant, which provides $5,000 and office space to early stage Berkeley-Haas startups. SapphirePine is also currently competing in this year’s Global Social Venture Competition, and recently advanced to the second-round regional semifinals.

Pugh says he’s already applying his business school course experiences to the startup.

An entrepreneurship course with Lecturer Kurt Beyer last semester taught him the value of getting frequent customer input for their product and business at many stages, he said.

The Global Social Venture Competition has also been helpful in forming the team’s ideas, and for pairing them with Steve Payne, a partner at Architect Partners, who serves as a mentor, he said.

Lendsnap
Co-founders:
Orion Parrott, EMBA 14, CEO
Mike Romano, EWMBA 12, BA 03, mass communications, vice president of business development

By the time he was in high school, Orion Parrott was mowing lawns to invest in mobile homes.

But both Parrott, EMBA 14, and his dad, a long-time real estate investor who guided him, were frustrated by the complexity of mortgages: the mountain of bank statements, tax returns, W-2s and pay stubs required to get one.

Years later, it’s no surprise to find Parrott working to solve the mortgage problem through his online startup, Lendsnap.

Lendsnap, which launched in July and has more than $500,000 in funding, streamlines document collection and updating for lenders, boosting the productivity of loan officers by up to 50 percent and shortening the time required to approve a loan, Parrott says.

“Loan officers spend a third of their time chasing borrowers to turn in documents,” he says. “We link to people’s financial accounts and get the original documents from banks, brokerages, and places like H&R Block and Turbotax with the permission of borrower. All the data you would have been sending anyway.”

Parrott said participation in the EMBA program’s Silicon Valley Immersion Week, led by Prof. Toby Stuart, gave him inspiration for his startup. “Seeing what people go through and accomplish to get a business off the ground was fantastic exposure and really thrilling,” he said.

Lendsnap, which now has nearly 100 loan officer users, recently received funding and support from the Y Combinator accelerator.

Parrott said that Y Combinator helped him to build a strong network of investors and got him focused. “They have a relentless program focused on weekly progress,’ he said. “As a startup, your six-month plan doesn’t matter if you’re not going to be around in six months.”

Labor economist and industrial relations expert Joseph William Garbarino will be remembered on February 20 at at St. Jerome’s Catholic Church in El Cerrito, CA. He passed away on October 18, 2016, at the age of 96.

Garbarino joined the faculty of the University of California, Berkeley, in 1949 as an assistant professor at the School of Business Administration and as a research associate in the Institute of Industrial Relations.

He served 27 years as the director of the Institute of Business and Economic Research, retiring in 1988. Upon retirement, the university honored Garbarino with the Berkeley Citation for Distinguished Achievement and Notable Service.

Garbarino was an early leader in the field of industrial relations, studying wage and income policy, health economics, and faculty and professional unionism. His research found that industries with high wage growth also had high productivity growth, but that this relationship was stronger in heavily unionized industries.

Garbarino’s work also revealed that wage gains were greater in industries with more market power. These insights revealed how labor markets impact product markets.

Garbarino was best known among his peers for his work on faculty unionism, according to former colleagues.

“Joe appreciated the complex internal politics of employee representation,” says Prof. Jonathan Leonard, the George Quist Chair in Business Ethics at Berkeley-Haas. “He found that when faculty unionized, it was often as part of a wider bargaining unit which included a larger number of professional and administrative staff whose interests came to dominate the resulting bargaining.”

Leonard noted the “vision and prescience” that Garbarino showcased in his influential paper “Unionism Without Unions: The New Industrial Relations?”.

“This paper correctly predicted the continued decline of unions, both as a result of direct employer opposition but also because employees could increasingly enjoy many of the benefits of unionism without being represented by unions themselves,” Leonard said.

A San Francisco Chronicle obituary further details Garbarino’s lifetime and accomplishments.

Matthew Stepka, a former vice president at Google whose work ranged from shepherding the company’s mapping business in Sub-Saharan Africa to launching a grant to fight Ebola, has joined Berkeley-Haas as an executive-in-residence.

During his nine years at Google, most recently as VP of special projects, Stepka worked on worldwide social impact efforts to expand Internet access, develop clean energy, strengthen freedom of expression and democracy, reduce the company’s environmental footprint, and extend Google’s reach in emerging markets.

Among Stepka’s projects:

• Leading Google Green, which made more than $1.5 billion in investments in renewable energy projects capable of generating 2 gigawatts of power
• Launching Google Ideas, a think/do tank that addresses key global challenges, including holding summits on violent extremism and illicit networks with thought leaders and key stakeholders
• Opening five Google offices in Sub-Saharan Africa and piloting satellite-based, solar-powered internet access for remote villages
• Investing in a constellation of satellites to provide internet access to remote and underserved regions in the developing world
• Leading Google.org, the philanthropic arm of Google, which makes grants to social entrepreneurs who use technology and strengthen our communities to address human challenges

Robert Strand, executive director of the Center for Responsible Business (CRB) at Berkeley-Haas, said Stepka’s work "fits perfectly with our work at the CRB in the Human Rights & Business Initiative.”

The Berkeley-Haas executive-in-residence (EIR) position is similar to that of an executive fellow, but with even more campus presence. EIRs holds office hours at Haas, allowing for one-on-one contact with students. Typical duties include meeting with students, giving talks/workshops, guest lecturing in courses, and participating in academic programs and conferences.

Stepka plans to teach a workshop to the Full-time MBA students on big data and artificial intelligence with Lecturer Ori Brafman this spring.

He will hold office hours on Wednesdays.

Previous Executives in Residence include Scott Kupor, managing partner and chief operating officer at Andreessen Horowitz, and David Riemer, former vice president of marketing at Yahoo!.

By Kim Girard

UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business announced today a gift of up to $25 million from alumnus Kevin Chou, founding CEO of mobile gaming firm Kabam, and his wife, Dr. Connie Chen.

It is the largest personal gift to UC Berkeley by an alumnus under the age of 40. In recognition of the gift, the school will name its new state-of-the-art academic building Connie & Kevin Chou Hall. The building will open later this year.

Photo: Kevin Chou, BS 02, and his wife, Connie

Chou, 36, received his bachelor’s degree from Berkeley-Haas in 2002. After graduation, he co-founded San Francisco-based mobile game company Kabam along with two fellow Berkeley alumni. Late last year, he sold the majority of Kabam’s assets to South Korea’s Netmarble Games Corp. in an $800 million deal, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Chou says it is important to him to give back to the school early in his career to inspire current and future Haas students to become entrepreneurs.

“Beyond Yourself is a principle that really resonates with me today,” says Chou, referring to one of the four Haas Defining Principles. “I’m excited to be able to do this at this point in my career because I get to spend time with students and with Haas professors and other administrators, collaborating and helping them think about the new student space and the program.”

The couple says their gift is also a testament to their support for UC Berkeley’s role in providing world-class public education to students of all backgrounds.

“We believe that diversity is so important in terms of shaping future leaders. We’re excited about bringing together students of all backgrounds—not just business students—to formulate ideas that will improve the world,” says Chen, 29, a practicing physician and co-founder of Vida Health, a venture-backed startup providing health coaching and programming.

The Chou and Chen gift will be transformative for Berkeley-Haas, Dean Rich Lyons says. “What makes this gift so special is that these are two people in their 30s—an extraordinary time in life to be making a commitment to an institution that Kevin says has had so much of an impact on his life. Their donation is going to have a catalytic effect on generations of donors to come."

The couple pledged $15 million, with two potential step-ups of $5 million or $10 million at the end of 5 years.

The new $60 million building, funded entirely by private donations from alumni and friends, comes at a critical time. Over the past 20 years, enrollment at Berkeley-Haas has nearly doubled to more than 2,200 undergraduate and graduate students in six degree programs.

Connie & Kevin Chou Hall will increase the school’s space by a third. The 80,000-square-foot space will be devoted entirely to student learning and interaction, featuring cutting-edge technology in classrooms and study spaces. It will not contain any offices for faculty or staff.

Chou said Berkeley made a deep impression on him when he arrived from his hometown of Moorpark, Calif., a Ventura County city of 35,000. “The diversity and academic challenges at Berkeley instilled in me the tenacity that has sustained me through the highs and lows of my entrepreneurial career,” he says.

Chou co-founded Kabam in 2006 with fellow Berkeley alumni Mike Li, a 2001 electrical engineering and computer science graduate, and Holly Liu, who earned a master's in information management & systems in 2003.

The three founders have been strong supporters of their alma mater. In 2013, Kabam signed an $18 million contract with UC Berkeley which included the naming rights to Kabam Field at California Memorial Stadium.

Chou is one of 176 Berkeley entrepreneurs who have signed the Berkeley Founders’ Pledge, a personal, non-binding pledge to give a portion of the value of their venture to support the university’s schools and programs, if and when they have a liquidity event.

By Sam Zuckerman

If you’ve ever paid for a latte using your phone or taken out a mortgage from an online provider, then you’ve experienced fintech, a smoking-hot sector that attracted $13.6 billion in investment last year.

That trend hasn’t gone unnoticed at Berkeley-Haas, which launched its first fintech course in 2015 and is home to a fast-growing FinTech Club, one of a handful of such clubs at top US business schools.

The club, which invites industry speakers, organizes panels, and plans treks to fintech companies,  has attracted about 145 members since MBA students started it last August.

“About a fifth of the first-year Full-time MBA class joined the Fintech Club within six months of its founding, putting it among our most popular new clubs in recent Haas history," said Bill Rindfuss, executive director for strategic programs in the Haas Finance Group. “There’s a growing career interest in fintech among our students and we’re fortunate that the Bay Area is a hotbed for these jobs.”

Ashley Lannquist (left) & Caitlyn Driehorst, co-presidents of the FinTech Club. Both women are Haas Finance Fellows.

The term fintech is loosely defined, but generally describes cutting-edge digital and other technologies used to do financial analysis and deliver services over the Internet and mobile networks. Banks and other institutions are embracing fintech, but the field is typically identified with startup companies using disruptive technology to grab market share in financial services.

For Haas students with an interest in finance, fintech offers the allure of working for a start-up.

A growing interest in fintech led MBA students Scarlett Li, Matt Meuller, Leah Staub-DeLong, and Ricky Tan to ask Rindfuss about starting a club last year. Ashley Lannquist, MBA 18,  got in touch with the group last summer and they launched the club together.  

Lannquist,  who worked in investment management at one of the nation’s oldest banks, serves as club co-president with Caitlyn Driehorst, MBA 18,  a former Russian literature major who switched gears to work for a major consulting firm and later joined the strategy group of the largest Las Vegas resort chain.  

“We’re both perfectionists and we were incredibly motivated to make this club work for students who are enthusiastic about fintech,” said Lannquist, a former Florida state and Junior Olympics taekwondo champion who dances tango as a hobby.

The FinTech Club’s four vice presidents are also women, which makes the group stand out in the male-dominated fields of finance and technology.

“The club’s mission is to promote and support the next generation of fintech leaders in the Bay Area and to promote the Haas brand,” Lannquist said.

Haas students going into fintech are generally not programmers, but rather business experts who oversee product management, marketing, business development, and similar functions. The club sponsors treks to meet senior managers at Bay Area fintech companies, often arranged with the help of Haas alumni.

In February, Spring Trek Day included visits to three San Francisco companies: Earnest, which uses advanced algorithms to underwrite student loans; Square, whose mobile readers let vendors take payments at farmers markets and similar venues; and NerdWallet, the personal finance website that helps consumers compare financial products and services. Club members also recently lunched with Chris Larsen, chairman, former CEO & co-founder of payment system company Ripple, before he gave a Dean’s Speaker Series talk on the industry’s future.

The obvious question is whether fintech is just the latest tech trend.  But Lannquist believes that emerging technologies are making financial services better and cheaper, and are gaining market acceptance. “We think fintech is here to stay,” she said.

By Kim Girard

Photos: Bruce Cook

After an intense program of research projects, global internships, and competitions, 69 students in the Berkeley Master of Financial Engineering (MFE) Program graduated last Friday.

Graduation speaker Howard Morgan, a renowned venture capitalist, philanthropist, and angel investor, said he was honored to be speaking to such a distinguished and lucky group of graduates.

“Distinguished in that I think this is best financial engineering program in the nation,” he said during the ceremony at Andersen Auditorium.“And lucky in that you are just at the start of an exciting career at a time when big data, deep learning, and changes in financial regulation that are going to affect the financial world in the next decades.”

Linda Kreitzman, executive director of the MFE Program, honored many of the students in the Class of 2017 during the ceremony, with both lighthearted recognitions (“Most Innovative Eating” went to Jae Sang Shim, for eating bread with a fork, and “Best Dressed” went to Maite Soubeyran), and more serious awards to three students whom Kreitzman said did not let tremendous personal sorrow impact their success in the program.

Kreitzman praised the students for “doing all that we asked and beyond,” and noted that the group raised the bar for the incoming class.

All of the students held internships, from New York to Hong Kong to London during the program, working in hedge funds, investment and commercial banking, asset management, and financial services. The majority will go on to work in the U.S. or London at such firms as Citadel, PIMCO, BlackRock, Squarepoint Capital, and Morgan Stanley.

Commencement speaker Howard Morgan called the grads "distinguished and lucky."

“It’s an emotional time for us,” Kreitzman said before the ceremony. “We do bond with our students. It’s a class of 69 and there’s a feeling that they are part of a family. I am always sad to see them leave but at the same time I am excited by what’s awaiting them.”

Dean Rich Lyons noted how transformative the MFE Program is, building the resilience required to move into an exciting industry that’s continuously changing.

“You’ve been transformed in many ways,” he said. “People come up to me from this program and say when they got here they were thinking, ‘other people do that’ and now they're saying ‘I do that, I could do that, I could choose to do that, it is available to me.’ That is an identity change. That is not just more information or knowledge. Those are the things that are so valuable in life.”

Student speaker Arsh Sood described the phases of the MFE: the first term, where the group bonded; followed by the second “killer term,” where they pushed themselves to the limit.  “The challenges we overcame in that term gave us the confidence and the strength to tackle anything we might face in the future,” he said. During the third term, everyone had the opportunity to prepare to step into the world; in the final term, where they finally relaxed and had a little fun.

Sood expressed the class’s gratitude to Kreitzman.

“You left no stone unturned in making us what we are today, and you have always treated us like your children and guided us in the right direction,” he said.

The graduation ceremony included many honors. Ming Li Chew, Sahil Puri, Arsh Sood, and Adam Wearne won the $5,000 Morgan Stanley Applied Finance project award for “Using Natural Language Processing Techniques for Stock Return Predictions.” This capstone project requires all students to work in groups, and present to the faculty and the MFE steering committee.

Other awards presented were:

Cheit Award for Excellence in Teaching: Prof. Martin Lettau, Kruttschnitt Family Chair in Financial Institutions in the Haas Finance Group

Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor (GSI): Paulo Manoel

Defining Principles awards: 

·         Students Always: Yihui Victoria Li

·         Question the Status Quo: Tianyi Frank Xia

·         Confidence without Attitude: Krishanu Nandy

·         Beyond Yourself: Alexander Olson

Award for the Embodiment of all Four Defining Principles: Robin Ferret, Adam Plantinga, Sahil Puri

The MFE Heart Award (for exceptional kindness in interactions with staff, students, and faculty): Kai Liu

Berkeley-Haas Leadership Award (new award in collaboration with the Office of the Chief Investment Officer at the University of California Office of the President, UCOP): Juan Rassa

Alumni awards (for outstanding teaching and service to the MFE Program): Craig Dana, MFE 2016 and Emmanuel Vallod, MFE 2011

The incoming MFE class, which arrived today, includes students from 16 countries, including Italy, Argentina, Colombia, Morocco, the UK, Singapore, India, China, and Mexico. The new group has three years of average work experience, the most (45 percent) in finance, followed by research & development, engineering, and consulting.

By Maya Mirsky

A new certificate program launched this month provides undergraduates with a chance to learn how design and innovation are taught across the UC Berkeley campus.

The Berkeley Certificate in Design Innovation (BCDI) program is a first-ever collaboration between Berkeley-Haas, the College of Engineering, the College of Environmental Design, and the College of Letters and Science's Arts & Humanities Division.

An open house for students to learn more about the program is planned for April 21 at noon at the Jacobs Institute for Design Innovation.

Lecturer Clark Kellogg with students

With its focus on problem-solving, dialogue, and "non-linear creativity," the new certificate will connect design approaches to the disciplines within each school.

“The problems that need to be solved in the world are more complex than they used to be,” said Senior Lecturer Sara Beckman, the Berkeley-Haas academic advisor for the program and co-instructor of the Collaborative Innovation course. “Design offers a toolkit for framing and solving those bigger kinds of problems.”

Students who enroll in the BCDI program are required to take a total of four courses: one chosen from a set of foundation courses such as Needfinding in the Wild, taught by Michael Barry of Berkeley-Haas; two courses selected from a wide variety of designated design and innovation skills courses at the different schools—from theater design to solar power use in vehicles; and one course that requires applying design and innovation skills to a project, ideally in a cross-disciplinary setting. Beckman's Collaborative Innovation course, which is jointly taught across Business, Art Practice, and Theater and Dance Performance Studies, is an example of an applied project course.

The program will encourage students from different schools to work with and learn from one another about how design is applied within their own fields, said Berkeley-Haas lecturer Clark Kellogg, whose Innovation and Design Thinking in Business course is part of the certificate curriculum.

Joe Wilson, BS 17, who has taken design courses, said he regrets that he's graduating too soon to complete the new certificate. “The skills I’ve learned through design have really helped me to be a more big picture thinker,” he said.

Students may apply to the program on the BCDI website by submitting an Intent to Completethe Certificate form. A certificate from all four BCDI sponsors will be issued to students who complete the requirements. The certificate will not appear on students' academic transcripts.

Sangeeta Desai, BS 98, a top executive at FremantleMedia—producer of the long-running hit vocal show “American Idol”—has been chosen as the 2017 undergraduate commencement speaker.

Commencement will be held May 15 at the Greek Theatre.

Desai, a London native, is group COO/CEO for emerging markets at FremantleMedia, a creative powerhouse that produces over 10,000 hours of programming every year. In her role, she is responsible for the group’s global operations, expanding its growth in Latin America, Central & Eastern Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. 

FremantleMedia, a division of RTL Group, Europe’s biggest entertainment company, produces and distributes “America’s Got Talent,” “Idols,” “X-Factor,” and “Family Feud.”

Sangeeta spent her childhood in Dubai, Sri Lanka, and Oman before she arrived at UC Berkeley as an undergraduate. In an interview last fall, she told BerkeleyHaas magazine that “coming from a small place like Oman, which was very sheltered, to a place like Berkeley was mind-blowing.”

After graduating in 1998, Sangeeta earned an MBA at Wharton in 2004 and began a career as an investment banker at J.P. Morgan in New York before moving to London with Goldman Sachs. There, she was introduced to the media and entertainment business.

Read more about Desai's journey from investment banking to private equity to entertainment in BerkeleyHaasmagazine.

Joseph Jimenez, CEO of global healthcare giant Novartis, will give the commencement address at the combined Full-time and Evening & Weekend MBA graduation.

Commencement will take place on Friday, May 19, at the Greek Theatre.

After earning his MBA from Berkeley-Haas in 1984, Jimenez rose through the ranks of corporate marketing and consumer goods to become president and CEO of H.J. Heinz’s North American and European businesses.

In 2007, he joined Novartis as head of the consumer health division, then head of pharmaceuticals, before being named CEO in 2010.

As CEO, Jimenez has streamlined Switzerland-based Novartis to focus on pharmaceuticals and has invested billions in cancer research, building an international reputation as the man who wants to eradicate cancer.  In 2014, Jimenez was featured on the cover of Forbes with the headline: “Will this man cure cancer?"

Berkeley-Haas named Jimenez Business Leader of the Year in 2015. The award recognizes members of the Berkeley-Haas community who have achieved prominence in their fields.

“Though not a scientist, Joe was an inspired choice to run a pharmaceutical giant,” Dean Rich Lyons said, commenting on the award. “It’s his analytical skill at balancing short- and long-term goals, his quiet drive, and his outstanding ability to nurture the right talent that have allowed him to Question the Status Quo and re-envision the industry. He has the confidence and expertise to lead Novartis to deliver where society needs it most, and is an example for us all of our Defining Principles.

Read more about Jimenez in BerkeleyHaas Magazine.

By Krysten Crawford

Sixteen teams of young entrepreneurs from around the world gathered at Berkeley-Haas Friday for the Global Social Venture Competition (GSVC)—launched by MBA students in 1999 and now one of the world’s leading contests for advances in social impact innovation.

Nearly 600 entries from 64 countries had been whittled down to the 16 finalist teams who spent two days showcasing their ideas for changing the world. Haas student Hiroki Koga, MBA 17, and his startup, an indoor vertical farming operation called Oishii Farm, was one of six that made it to the final round Friday afternoon. Other top finalists hailed from Pakistan, Italy, France and elsewhere in the United States.

Photo by Bruce Cook

In the end, Kheyti, a nonprofit that aims to lift rural farmers in India and beyond out of poverty via a low-cost “greenhouse-in-a-box” and related support services, took top honors. The team includes Kaushik K, an MBA student at Columbia Business School; Saumya, an MBA student at Kellogg School of Management; and Sathya Raghu V Mokkapati, Ayush Sharma, and Srikar Mokkapati, Sr., professionals based in Hyderabad, India.

The first runner-up was MindRight, a Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit that leverages text messages to help at-risk youth develop coping skills following a trauma. Third place went to Atlas, an Italian company that has developed a toxin-free biocide to combat the Zika virus and other mosquito-borne illnesses.

Photo by Bruce Cook

This year’s competition awarded $80,000 in cash prizes. Most remarkable of all, says GSVC Program Director Jill Erbland, was the reaction from the judges—all social impact experts for at least a decade.

“They felt that every one of the top finalist teams was very strong and had the capability to succeed as a viable company,” says Erbland, of the Center for Social Sector Leadership.

Giving entrepreneurs a leg up

The contest took place concurrently with the first annual Future of Social Ventures Conference, a one-day gathering whose featured speakers included Prof. Laura Tyson, director of the Berkeley-Haas Institute for Business & Social Impact, and His Excellency Amr Al Dabbagh, chairman and CEO of the Al-Dabbagh Group and founding chairman of the Stars Foundation and Philanthropy University.

Laura Tyson interviews His Excellency Amr Al Dabbagh. Photo by Bruce Cook

The event also included a design workshop with Alisa Ahmadian and Elana Gurney of OpenIDEO, as well as a lunchtime talk by Kim Wright-Volich, managing partner at impact investing consulting firm Tideline.

“The prize money is great, but ultimately the GSVC is an opportunity for social impact entrepreneurs to hone their pitches and network with potential investors and advisers,” says Erbland, who adds that past teams have secured funding from investors who attended the competition.

Entry rules require that at least one member of each team be a student or recent graduate of either an undergraduate or graduate academic program.

Adding new meaning to farm-to-table

Among the many discoveries Koga made after moving across the Pacific: fruits and vegetables in the U.S. are tasteless compared to those in Japan. “There’s just no comparison,” says Koga (right), who described the core problem as one of distribution. Most fruit and vegetables can’t get from farms to grocery stores when they are at their peak freshness—many crops are designed specifically to be transported long distances, and this has a negative impact on taste. “The global food supply chain is a mess,” says Koga.

Indoor vertical farming solves the distribution problem by using technology to grow food year-round in stacked layers located in urban warehouses or city highrises, providing consumers with access to high quality, locally grown fresh produce. The social impact component: vertical farming uses significantly less land and water than traditional agriculture, eliminates food waste, and promises safer working conditions for laborers.

Oishii Farm is unique among indoor vertical farming operations, Koga and his co-founders told a panel of six judges during their final ten-minute pitch. Other vertical farming companies, they said, grow only leafy greens because the high risk of disease and the challenges of pollination in enclosed spaces have so far ruled out fruit crops.

The company has found a solution to the fruit cultivation problem, which requires more complex processes and technologies than leafy greens. “We are the first company to overcome the technological barriers to growing fruit at commercial scale using vertical indoor techniques,” said Koga in an interview before the GSVC’s final round. (He declined to elaborate on the company’s proprietary technology.)

Earlier this year, Oishii Farm was one of 11 Haas startups to receive $5,000 each from the Dean’s Seed Fund.

Reaching the GSVC finals, says Koga, gave Oishii Farm instant credibility. “Receiving tremendously positive feedback from judges and social entrepreneurs validated our social mission and long-term vision to revolutionize agriculture,” says Koga, who will continue to build the for-profit company after graduation.

Koga was also impressed with his competitors’ commitment to social causes. “The people I met aren’t looking to create the next unicorn and become billionaires,” he says. “They are all so passionate about solving a social issue and changing the world in some way regardless of the impact they ultimately have. I really respect that.”

Competition organizers celebrate after the final round. Photo by Bruce Cook