UCLA Anderson School of Management Blog

To the Class of 2016: “Remember Your Steps”

“My hope for commencement is to demonstrate how our MBA experience bridged the gap between who we were and who we are today. And while the enduring program at UCLA Anderson shaped our lives, it is the people who surrounded us that made our Anderson experience one to remember.”
— Kelcey Cheung (’16), Class of 2016 MBA Commencement Speaker (watch Kelcey's speech here.) 

---

Dean Olian, Dean Weiler, Dean Fraser, Dean Shih, family, friends, faculty, graduates, lost undergraduates looking for Parking Lot 4, ladies and gentlemen:

It is my great honor to present to you the UCLA Anderson Class of 2016. Before we begin, I have a few brief announcements to make:

To KC, Nancy, and all our parents as well as Kelly, and to all of our significant others: your two-year break without seeing us ends today, so be prepared.

To Tracie, Marcie, and all of our siblings: honestly, we can’t believe we made it this far, either.

To former employers at such illustrious companies as Google, Bain and Bank of America: we are grateful for the chance to attend Anderson in order to pursue opportunities at illustrious companies like Google, Bain and Bank of America.

And to everyone in attendance today, who in some way, large or small, helped us navigate the last two years of constant stress and zero income; to the family and friends who traveled from 40 different countries around the world to be here today; and to the professors and staff who tolerated our questions and reimbursed our AMR expenses, there is no way to express our gratitude and indebtedness, except to say thank you.

So, Class of 2016, we did it. We’re done. We survived a kilt-wearing Fuqua Statistics professor, not one but two Tours de Strand, and endless nights of “getting turnt up Mike Fisher-style.” In the coming months, we will begin the next chapter of our lives at pioneering firms in their respective industries, upstart startups throughout the U.S., or the next big entrepreneurial venture. Yet as we face an unknown future and prepare for moments of adversity, I only ask that you remember your steps.

Mitch Kupchak ('87), Los Angeles Lakers GM, Delivers Heartfelt Keynote at 2016 UCLA Anderson Commencement

More than 700 new graduates walked across the stage on Wilson Plaza last Friday as UCLA Anderson celebrated its 2016 commencement ceremony. The celebration included students from the Fully Employed and Full Time MBA programs and Ph.D. program.

After a rousing rendition of the national anthem of the United States performed by Margaret Plouffe (’16), a member of the Full Time program’s graduating class, Anderson Dean Judy Olian addressed graduates, reminding them that for the past few years, UCLA Anderson had been their home. “I hope it will always be your home,” said Olian, who told the graduates that they had left an imprint on the school, “through your accomplishments, your spirit, your sense of humor, your optimism.”

Olian reminded the graduates of their good fortune and to be eternally grateful for that fortune and to share it with others. Quoting Coach John Wooden, UCLA’s legendary basketball coach and leadership sage, she said “You can’t live a perfect day without doing something for someone who will never be able to repay you” and that “Talent is God-given; be humble. Fame is man-given; be grateful. Conceit is self-given; be careful.

“These are the qualities familiar to many of you that you live by,” Olian said. “They make for great leaders” and then she exhorted the assembly to continue to live by such values for the rest of their lives. The dean then introduced Los Angeles Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak (’87), who delivered the commencement keynote address.

Kupchak spoke of his own MBA experience which began while he was still an active player with the Lakers and rehabbing an injury. He said he would not have had the opportunity to move into the Lakers’ front office without earning a UCLA MBA. Kupchak’s remarks referenced three men who’d influenced him greatly in his life: his high school basketball coach “Mr. Kellner,” his college coach UNC’s Dean Smith and his mentor Hall of Famer Jerry West.

The lesson from his high school coach was to make the most of opportunities when they are presented. Here, Kupchak quoted one of his heroes, New York Yankees great Yogi Berra, who said “When you come to the fork in the road, take it.” Quoting Smith, Kupchak said “Be prepared, stay calm and believe in the unbelievable.” He illustrated the advice with a story about a monumental comeback North Carolina staged in a game against Duke during Kupchak’s playing days. West taught Kupchak the importance of taking a risk if one feels the risk is worth the reward. Quoting West Kupchak said, “If you are afraid to be wrong then you will always end up in the middle of the pack.”

Also speaking at commencement were Cara Bibbiani (FEMBA ’16) and Kelcey Cheung (MBA ’16). Their speeches will be featured on the blog later in the week.

9 Tips for Aspiring MBA Entrepreneurs

By Jeff Chang (FEMBA ’12)

1. When you find the right opportunity or the right founding team, be ready to jump.

2. Try to avoid building a founding team larger than three unless you’ve known everyone on the team for a decade or more. Starting with five founders is really pushing it.

3. More often than not, you’ll be making at least a few small pivots, and there are times you’ll need to rethink your entire startup. Never get stuck on your original idea, market, customer, revenue model or technology. Move things around and experiment endlessly. Through it all, just focus on product-market fit and sustainable growth.

4. Get to break-even and profitability. Even if you’re growing at 2x/week, proving that your product-market fit is good enough to generate revenue is rarely a bad thing. As many startup founders have noted, fundraising is easiest when you don’t need the money.

Inaugural Technology Leadership Summer Institute Equips Students for Careers in High Tech

This Summer UCLA Anderson’s Easton Technology Management Center presents the inaugural Technology Leadership Summer Institute, a program open to undergraduate students from all universities and majors. Here are just a few reasons why you should enroll.

For more information, visit the program homepage.

---

1. Los Angeles is Silicon Beach and so much more.

These days, entrepreneurs and engineers are flocking to a place better known for wave surfing than Web surfing. Amid the palm trees and purple sunsets of the Southern California coastline, techies have built “Silicon Beach.” In the past few years Google, Microsoft, Facebook and YouTube have opened offices on the west side of Los Angeles, from Santa Monica south to Venice and Playa del Rey. They are joined by hundreds of startups, including Hulu, Demand Media and Snapchat.

L.A. County is the creative, design, manufacturing and international trade capital of America. With its $664 billion gross product, Los Angeles County is larger than the economies of Sweden, Norway, Poland or Belgium. With 88 cities, 5 million workers, unrivaled cultural diversity and 4,500+ foreign-owned establishments, L.A. County is the best place to invest, with billions of dollars of current foreign direct investment underway. A summer spent in this creative tech hub is undoubtedly worthwhile for your academics and future career.

2. Site visits to local companies like the Google office in Venice.

Site visits are a great way to learn about company culture and interact with current employees. We’ll take you to Google’s Venice offices for a unique experience that will inspire your career in technology. UCLA Law graduate Robert Kang will lead a tour of Southern California Edison where participants will learn about the business of utilities and clean tech/renewable energy. The visit will also include a career panel consisting of SCE managers who work on projects in advanced technologies that include cyber security. The visit also entails a short tour of SCE’s Smart Home exhibit.

Commercial Real Estate Insights from Westfield Corp.’s Peter Lowy

By Carolyn Gray Anderson

The June 2016 second-quarter economic forecast asked hard questions about the overall outlook for the U.S. and California, particularly the future of commercial real estate. In his keynote address, Peter Lowy made the answers sound easy.

Lowy is co-CEO of Westfield Corporation, one of the world’s leading shopping center companies, with retail destinations in London, New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles among its portfolio of 34 malls and 6,480 retail outlets in the U.S., UK and Europe. He is also a chairman of the company. Last year, Westfield Corporation’s approximately 400 million customer visits to Westfield shopping centers generated over $16 billion in retail sales. With new investments underway, Westfield’s value is expected to exceed $50 billion by 2020.

Lowy has 30 years’ experience in the shopping center and real estate investment trust industry and has been with Westfield Group since 1983. So when he told the Forecast audience that his company is thriving, he didn’t have to talk long to convince them — and he may have provided the “sliver of optimism” Dean Judy Olian hoped for when she introduced him.

He identified the three areas where the most significant shifts have occurred and how Westfield is approaching them profitably: technology, consumer behavior and the retail business model.

1. Technology is an opportunity for traditional retail to build stronger connections with its customers.

Lowy evangelized at length on the power of mobile and other technologies to draw consumers to physical locations and to streamline their experience with retailers both in person and remotely.

Westfield’s multivalent app purports to guide shoppers to the nearest mall via the quickest route, advise on the closest parking, enable retailers to download every SKU available to individuals’ phones, and steer the shopper not just to stores but products and services. Naturally, the app facilitates ticket purchases, restaurant reservations and food orders that can be picked up or delivered. “We have already created the technology backbone to connect our customers to these services,” Lowy said. The product was developed by the company’s Westfield Labs, where it focuses on “removing the friction from physical commerce.” The goal is seamless customer experiences whether at a local mall, an airport or in transit.

Congratulations to UCLA Anderson Class of 2016: Words to the Wise from Your Biggest Fans

Congratulations to the UCLA Anderson Class of 2016 on all of your accomplishments! We curated a selection of tributes by faculty, staff, alumni and fellow students. As we send off the Class of 2016 with our best wishes, we hope these words of wisdom will help guide you on your future path!

---

 

“Everything is relative: You’ll have incredible highs and some lows. When in a low, ask: compared to what? The school will never turn you away if/when you come back. Even more, your former professors will never turn you away if/when you come back. Take advantage of the implicit lifetime warranty that this statement entails.”

— Romain Wacziarg, Hans Hufschmid Chair in Management and Professor of Economics

 

“If you’re switching industries or functions, it can be scary, frustrating, or even intimidating getting ramped up in your new career. Keep your head down and hustle in the beginning, but remember your leadership abilities and share those with your organizations as you become comfortable. It’s all about the journey, not the starting point!”

— Zubin Davar (’15)

 

“Nurture your Anderson friendships. After graduation, I organized monthly Friday happy hours. I would regularly have drinks with my three closest Anderson girlfriends. During the first glass of wine, we discussed work and during the second, we covered our personal lives. Eight years later, we are still incredibly close.”

— Emily Taylor (’08), Director, MBA Career Education

 

“Never put oatmeal in chocolate chip cookies ... NOT ACCEPTABLE! (The students from my class will know what that means.)”

— Danny Oppenheimer, Professor of Marketing and Psychology

UCLA Anderson Economic Forecast: Slowly, Steady Growth Continues

 

The UCLA Anderson quarterly economic forecast conference takes place on June 8 at UCLA. Peter Lowy, co-CEO of Westfield Corp., will deliver the keynote address.

Will the Commercial Real Estate Boom Continue?

Commercial real estate prices have more than doubled since the financial crisis lows of 2009, and in many cities the skyline is dotted with construction cranes. Similarly, multi-family housing has been on a tear with rent growth outstripping income growth for most of the current decade, making affordability a political issue. The critical questions professionals will be asking at this quarter’s UCLA Anderson Forecast conference concern whether or not these trends will continue — or if the bull market is over.

All the Anderson economists’ reports will be presented at UCLA Anderson Forecast’s quarterly conference, which features a number of panels focused on commercial real estate and Peter Lowy's keynote address.

The National Forecast

In his Forecast essay for the nation, UCLA Anderson Forecast Director Ed Leamer takes a deep dive into the factors driving the current U.S. economy, one that has been growing steadily at 2% following quarterly growth rates of 3% for the 40 years between 1965 and 2005. Leamer writes that growth since 2010 has been so eerily steady that it is defining an entirely new corridor at 2% instead of 3%. “Something is different, terribly different. What should forecasters be thinking?” Leamer asks. “We are thinking 1.7% real GDP growth in 2016, 2.8% in 2017 and 2.1% in 2018, averaging 2.2, with a strong labor market averaging about 200,000 increases in payrolls per month and a steady unemployment rate around 5%. More of the same, in other words. We are starting to see more evidence of inflation ahead, and are forecasting interest rate increases to keep real rates of interest pretty constant.”

Julia Ritchie: Making the Most of Her Time at UCLA Anderson

Julia Ritchie (FEMBA ’17) defines busy. Somehow she finds the time to manage the sales operations department for McMaster Carr and devotes time to Snowriders International, all while fulfilling the responsibilities of UCLA Anderson’s FEMBA program. If that’s not enough, she’s now FEMBA Council President. The UCLA Anderson blog recently asked her to talk about her career, her passion for snow sports and — most important — time management.

---

Q: For those who don’t quite understand what McMaster Carr does, could you explain it to us and also describe your role and responsibility?

McMaster Carr is a private, family-owned supplier to industrial and commercial facilities worldwide, specializing in next-day delivery of maintenance, repair and operations (MRO) materials and supplies. In my current role, managing the sales operations department, we complete order follow-up such as expediting requests, backorders and replacements in under an hour. When something goes wrong on an order, our team is responsible for recovering gracefully to provide an excellent customer experience.

Q: You’ve been with the company for a while. How has your job evolved and changed? What’s different about your current work compared to prior positions with the company?

I began my McMaster career only three months prior to starting FEMBA as an order fulfillment supervisor responsible for capacity planning and daily operations. After a year I moved into a three-month project lead role designing how we could safely and efficiently operate our warehouse with 25 percent less drivable floor space due to renovations. Shortly after completing my first year of FEMBA, I was promoted to manager of our expansion department where I led a team of 130+ employees to execute thousands of material moves that would ultimately improve productivity and ensure inventory capacity for the next 10 years. The catch was that this was a six-month project that required working nights so that the daily operation could continue to run. For better or for worse, working nights as a FEMBA — attending class from 6:30 to 10:00 p.m. and then working 10:00 p.m. to 8:00 a.m. — pushed my limits but gave me confidence that I could handle adding FEMBA Council President to my plate, now that I am no longer nocturnal.

UCLA Anderson Professor is on the Pursuit of Helping Others Find Happiness

Variety may be the spice of life, but does it also increase happiness? That’s the proverbial question that drove Cassie Mogilner Holmes, associate professor of marketing, to find an answer. Holmes, who recently joined UCLA Anderson from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, has focused on this and other inquiries into happiness for the better part of her academic career.

Her research, published in many top-tier publications, examines a variety of questions, such as how focusing on time (rather than money) increases happiness, how the meaning of happiness changes over the course of one’s lifetime, how giving time to others can alleviate the stress of feeling time constrained, and how much happiness people enjoy from spending their time on extraordinary and ordinary experiences.

Her latest endeavor, “Does Variety among Activities Increase Happiness?” to be published in the Journal of Consumer Research, explores how the variety among the activities that fill people’s day-to-day lives affects their happiness. The findings may seem almost counterintuitive: Spending time on more varied activities often leads to greater happiness — but not always. For longer time periods (like a day or a week), more varied activities increase subsequent happiness by making that time feel more stimulating. However, for shorter time periods (like 30 minutes or an hour), more varied activities instead decrease subsequent happiness by undermining people’s sense of productivity. Sharing her empirical findings in classes that include Advertising and Marketing Communications as well as Strategic Brand Management, Holmes will provide students with a better understanding of the emotional experience that drives consumers’ decision-making and day-to-day living.

Los Angeles Lakers General Manager Mitch Kupchak to Deliver Commencement Address at UCLA Anderson

Learn four things you didn’t know about UCLA Anderson alumnus Mitch Kupchak (’87), general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers and 2016 UCLA Anderson commencement speaker.

---

Did you know that Anderson Inspirational 100 alumnus Mitch Kupchak called business school here at UCLA “a life-changing, confidence-building experience”? The general manager of the Los Angeles Lakers returns to campus on June 10 to address this year’s MBA, Fully Employed MBA (FEMBA), and Ph.D. graduates.

Kupchak has been at the helm of one of the most internationally celebrated franchises since 2000. A former player with the Lakers between 1981 and 1986, he retired to serve as the assistant general manager of the team under Jerry West, whom he later succeeded in that position. Under his leadership, the Lakers have won five national championships and also made numerous playoff appearances.

“Mitch is one of the most successful leaders of one of the most recognized and respected global brands,” says Judy Olian, dean of UCLA Anderson School of Management. “Widely admired for his steady and principled leadership of the Lakers, and engaged in many community projects, Mitch embodies the Anderson values of sharing success, thinking fearlessly and driving change. We’re thrilled that Mitch will address our graduates with a story of leadership tenacity and commitment to team success.”

A committed basketball player throughout his youth, Kupchak was an All American at the University of North Carolina, was named Atlantic Coast Conference Player of the Year and was on the team that won the gold medal in the 1976 Summer Olympics in Montreal.

The graduation ceremony takes place on Friday, June 10, 2016, at 4:00 p.m. on Wilson Plaza at the UCLA campus. Watch it live! bit.ly/1Usv5YC

Read the full press release