UCLA Anderson School of Management Blog

Big Data Takes Over UCLA Anderson

By Nathan Moorman

On Friday, November 20, UCLA Anderson hosted Big Data: Big Impact with executives and thought leaders from all over the world coming together to discuss big data.

The conference is part of Big Data Week, one of the most unique global platforms of interconnected community events focusing on the social, political and technological impacts of big data. The conversations on Friday covered a variety of topics, ranging from a general discussion about why big data matters in the 21st century to a more focused conversation on using big data to improve marketing strategies.

Dominique Hanssens, Bud Knapp Distinguished Professor of Marketing and faculty director of the new Morrison Family Center for Marketing Studies and Data Analytic sat UCLA Anderson, moderated the first discussion among panelists, who talked about the impact on consumers as well as the effect of big data socially and globally.

AOL’s Bob Lord Wants Facebook and Google to Open Their Data Mines — Now

By Andy Tillman

UCLA Anderson’s Big Data: Big Impact conference was held Friday, November 20, and sponsored by UCLA Anderson’s Center for Management of Enterprise in Media, Entertainment & Sports (MEMES). Speakers included a who’s who of big data players, including the event’s keynote Bob Lord, president of AOL overseeing the company’s unified global advertising operations. Sanjay Sood, MEMES faculty director and professor of marketing, sat down with Lord to discuss the ongoing tug-of-war between advertisers and companies unwilling to share their consumer data.

The keynote focused on a discussion of the collection, access and usage of open data — information to which ad agencies have access — versus so-called “walled gardens,” an industry term applied to companies like Google and Facebook, who use closed systems to keep their user information private, limiting the consumer data advertising agencies are able to access. Agencies would like more specific information in order to build a profile of their clients’ consumers that goes deeper than simply market-segmented psychographics and demographics.

“Currently companies like Facebook and Google, who have huge audiences, offer only segmented reports, limiting knowledge and information about your consumers, so you don’t know your consumer. Agencies need to demand data so they can become a value added service,” said Lord.

Students Drawn to Impact Investing Will Compete in MIINT Condition

By Carolyn Gray Anderson

Brian Wasige (’17) arrived at UCLA Anderson from the UK offices of PwC with a keen interest in impact investing. Almost immediately after getting to campus, he established Impact Investing @ Anderson (II@A), recruiting a team that includes students, an alumnus, Anderson staff and faculty advisor Professor Bhagwan Chowdry — whose credibility Wasige won in part because he also convinced the Price Center of the group’s momentum and garnered his team some funding.

“I’m drawn to impact investing in the area of sustainability and agriculture technology because of the challenges that I have seen small-holder farmers — like my uncle in Kenya — face in developing countries,” says Wasige, who graduated from the University of Glasgow with an engineering degree, receiving first class honors.

Among II@A’s activities is the MIINT (MBA Impact Investing Network & Training) case competition. MIINT is an experiential venture lab designed to give students the experience of being an early-stage impact investor. The program provides learning modules to guide students through the investment process and culminates in a global case competition. Winners of the competition could secure as much as $50,000 in angel investment in their selected company.

Banking on Days on the Job, from New York to San Francisco

By Nitesh Mehta (’17)

 

UCLA Anderson students storm New York's Times Square

Anderson has been keeping us busy: between on-campus company presentations, homework assignments, midterms and our upcoming finals we had to squeeze in a week for days on the job (DOJ). For the uninitiated, DOJ week is when all first-years take a week off school to visit various companies we are interested in working for. A lot of folks travel all across the country to visit potential employers, and some even travel to international locations such as Hong Kong, Singapore and London.

My trip began in New York on Monday when I flew in with six other Anderson students. We had a few hours to get settled in before our early start the next day so we made sure to visit the very famous Halal Guys food truck for a late-night dinner.

During the trip we were graciously hosted by several New York banks, the likes of which included Morgan Stanley, Goldman Sachs, Bank of America Merill Lynch, Citigroup and many more. We spent our days shuttling on the subway between one bank to the next while sneaking in lunches and taking in all that New York had to offer. In two days, we covered 15 banks and we were tired and exhausted — but that didn't stop any of us from sending out our thank you notes to everyone we met. On the final leg of our New York trip, we got a special invite for an alumni mixer at the Yale Club, where we reconnected with some of the alumni who took the time to meet with us.

Eduardo Schwartz Selected as the 2015 IAQF/SunGard Financial Engineer of the Year

The International Association for Quantitative Finance and SunGard have named UCLA Anderson’s Eduardo Schwartz, Distinguished Professor of Finance, California Chair in Real Estate and Land Economics, and Finance Area Chair, the 2015 IAQF/SunGard Financial Engineer of the Year (FEOY). The award will be presented to Schwartz on February 4, 2016, at the Museum of American Finance in New York City during the IAQF/SunGard FEOY Award Gala Dinner.

“I am greatly honored to receive this prestigious award,” said Schwartz. “Looking at the list of past recipients makes me feel humble — not only because it includes such brilliant minds in finance research and practice, but also because I am fortunate to count among them many of my own colleagues, friends, role models and, perhaps best of all, one of my students. I thank the IAQF for this inspiring recognition.”

Steven Silberstein, chief technology officer of financial software company SunGard and an IAQF board member, said: “As a provider of technology to many of the world’s leading financial services businesses, SunGard takes pride in partnering with the IAQF to select Dr. Schwartz as the 2015 Financial Engineer of the Year. Eduardo is an extraordinary talent. His pioneering work in modeling the uncertainty in pricing and rates is a hallmark of financial engineering. SunGard is privileged to deliver financial technology tools that assist in implementing the creativity of FEOY honorees such as Dr. Schwartz.”

7 Things We Learned from the CEO of Global Philanthropy Group

By Nathan Moorman

Maggie Neilson is a co-founder and CEO at Global Philanthropy Group (GPG), where she leads efforts on issues including the status of Latinas in the U.S., education reform, global poverty alleviation, the use of technology and its social impact, women’s mental health, conflict resolution, cause marketing, and kids with serious illnesses or disabilities. On Monday, November 16, she sat down with professors and students at Anderson for a High Impact Tea to chat about nonprofits and social change.

New Endowment from Entrepreneur Steven C. Gordon Will Fund Real Estate Education

Left to right: Richard Ziman, Stuart Gabriel, Steven Gordon

The UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate has received a major gift from Los Angeles Real Estate Entrepreneur Steven C. Gordon to establish the Steven C. Gordon Real Estate Student Endowment. The student endowment is the result of a $1 million gift from Gordon.

The Steven C. Gordon Student Endowment will significantly enhance the opportunities available to students at UCLA in the field of real estate. Funds from the endowment will be directed annually to support such activities as curriculum development, real estate case competitions, distinguished speakers series, professional mentoring, career services and related pedagogical activities.

“Steve’s gift is a real game-changer for the Ziman Center,” said Stuart Gabriel, director of the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate. “It will provide innovative learning opportunities for some of the nation’s brightest and most promising UCLA students, and it will help to solidify UCLA’s place among the very best university-based real estate programs in the world.”

A Family of Global Souls Reaches Outside the Self to Comfort the Other

Left to right: Janice Kamenir-Reznik, JWW president and co-founder; Oren Gabriel, honoree; Rachel Rosner (wife of Jesse Gabriel), honoree; Jesse Gabriel (holding son Ethan), honoree; Richard Ziman, JWW honorary chair and UCLA Ziman Center benefactor; Judith Katzburg, honoree; Stuart Gabriel, honoree; Kevin Ratner, JWW honorary chair and Ziman Center advisory board member; Alisa Ratner, JWW honorary chair; Ada Horwich, JWW honorary chair; Jim Horwich, JWW honorary chair

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Enjoy the full album of photos from the Global Soul award celebration

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By Carolyn Gray Anderson

The UCLA Anderson community knows Professor Stuart Gabriel as a real estate finance and economics expert. We know him as the director of the UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate and the Arden Realty Chair whose research focuses on the causes and consequences of the recent financial crisis. But we also know him as a global citizen committed to tikkun olam, the Jewish obligation to repair the world.

Gabriel and his family — wife Judith Katzburg and sons Jesse Gabriel and Oren Gabriel — were honored this week with Jewish World Watch’s annual Global Soul award in recognition of their service and allegiance to the organization and its mission to curb, heal and intercept genocide worldwide. As a family, they have worked locally and internationally to safeguard marginalized, oppressed communities, standing witness to injustice. As the Rabbi Edward Feinstein remarked in tribute to the Katzburg Gabriels, “Tonight, it’s our turn to witness back.”

Stuart Gabriel has served on the volunteer board of JWW for more than 10 years. He and Katzburg and their children hosted in-home parlor meetings to raise awareness and funds for the organization soon after its co-founding by Janice Kamenir-Reznik and the late Rabbi Harold Schulweis — who envisioned JWW as a means of breaking silence. “There’s an imperative to react and to prevent genocide and events associated with mass atrocities and to heal survivors,” said Gabriel, humbled by the distinction bestowed on his family. “We view our honorific simply as a commitment to help this organization make a difference in situations where civilian populations are mortally threatened.”

Private Equity Pioneer George Roberts Shares Tips on How to Make an Impact

Enjoy Anderson’s album of the event

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By Golie Alemi

UCLA Anderson’s Center for Global Management hosted George R. Roberts, co-chairman and co-CEO of KKR, as part of CGM’s Robertson Lecture Series on Global Business Leadership. Roberts joined Dean Judy Olian for a conversation in which he reflected on his four decades of experience in financing, analyzing and investing in public and private companies, and how lessons from private equity translate to social enterprise.

KKR (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. LP) is a global investment firm that manages investments across multiple asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, capital markets, credit strategies and hedge funds. KKR pioneered the strategy originally known as the leveraged buyout, but now commonly called private equity, the practice of buying undervalued companies, improving and reselling them, usually at a profit.

Roberts, who co-founded KKR with his cousin Henry Kravis, stressed the importance of fostering relationships when forming partnerships. “The essence of life is having personal relationships. They have to be built on total respect and total trust. The relationship you have with someone is far more important; all that other stuff doesn’t matter, but it doesn’t mean you can’t disagree,” he shared.

UCLA Anderson International Field Study Projects Engage Partners for Innovation Worldwide

By Elise Anderson

Professor Carla Hayn recently returned to serving as dean of the EMBA and GEMBA for Asia Pacific programs. She continues to serve as director of the Global Immersion courses offered through UCLA Anderson’s Center for Global Management (CGM). These intensive and rigorous courses that focus primarily on doing business in other countries are being expanded as the interest and demand for international immersion opportunities increase across all MBA programs. Since their inception in 2008, more than 2,000 students have participated in these courses and gained extensive knowledge about how best to conduct business in various countries, given the particular mix of economic, political and cultural influences.

One aim of the CGM is to support international student projects. The center does this primarily through the Applied Management Research program, a required six-month field study project in the full-time MBA curriculum. The CGM supports projects that focus on improving the local community and encourage entrepreneurial development in emerging markets. Professor Hayn provides some insight into UCLA Anderson’s engagement with international nonprofit projects.

Q: What role does the Center for Global Management play in these field study projects?

The CGM supports international projects that focus on social enterprise and community impact and that broaden awareness among students regarding issues facing entrepreneurial development within emerging markets. The CGM provides research funding to enable students to conduct a primary research field visit on which teams travel in-country to conduct market surveys, interview key stakeholders and conduct focus groups to understand the needs and demographics of customers, competitors and suppliers, as well as comprehend governmental policies.

During the 2014–15 academic year, the CGM supplemented research funding provided by the AMR office that allowed 10 AMR teams and one Anderson Strategy Group team to carry out primary research for projects in Australia, Brazil, Ethiopia, Fiji and Samoa, India, Kenya, Morocco, Peru, Uganda, the U.K. and Vietnam. A number of the projects focused on health care, education and conservation, and one project centered on microfinance.

Q: How many of these projects have been completed?

Since 2006, approximately 70 global pro-social projects across Latin America, Asia, Africa and Oceania have been supported with more than $325,000 of funding benefiting more than 330 students. During the past academic year, three of the teams that the CGM supported were working with international small- and medium-sized enterprises (SME).