UCLA Anderson School of Management Blog

Globe-Trotting Avatars Just Got This UCLA Anderson XPRIZE Visioneer a Step Closer to $20 Million in Funding

Illustration: PC

By Ioan Istrate (’17)

I had the opportunity to work with the XPRIZE Foundation, laying groundwork for a new technological concept involving avatars. The project demanded the networking skills I gained at UCLA Anderson, my pre-MBA business acumen and a wealth of entrepreneurial skills gained during my six months with XPRIZE, the nonprofit that makes radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity by encouraging technological and social development through a high-profile, public competition model.

How I got there

Since I was in high school I’d been following the world-changing impact of XPRIZE. I was fascinated by their ecosystem that connects science, entrepreneurial vision and financial capital to develop new industries and social change.

Once I moved from Bucharest, Romania, to L.A., I tried to connect with several organizations I admired, including XPRIZE, reaching out to team members through LinkedIn and social media and attending as many events as I could. My network, as well as the efforts of UCLA Anderson’s Price Center to connect Anderson to XPRIZE, helped me secure an invitation to participate in the inaugural Visioneers program.

UCLA Anderson Defends the ACG Cup Title in an Unprecedented Consecutive Win

By Ole Bjoernstad (’17)

Expectations were high when Jeremy Mau (’17) and I decided to enter the 2017 ACG Cup to defend the title for UCLA Anderson: In 2016 Jeremy and UCLA Anderson classmates David Shin (’17) and Kyle Patterson (’17) claimed the hard-won prize. With my teammate determined to win the cup back-to-back — which has never been done before — and having interned with the competition’s main sponsor, Houlihan Lokey, I knew there could be no slip-ups or hesitation if we wanted to bring the cup back home.

The Association for Corporate Growth’s Los Angeles, Orange County and San Diego chapters hosted the best teams from 12 schools in this annual investment banking and private equity competition. After two weeks of thorough analysis, heated discussions and multiple all-nighters, Jeremy and I went into the final rounds prepared and confident. Our training at top-tier investment banks over the summer (Jeremy’s at Lincoln International and mine at Houlihan Lokey) gave us the confidence and stamina to keep going into the wee hours of the morning. Our hard work paid off, and we took home the grand prize of $8,000 and the right to retain the coveted ACG Cup trophy for another year.

ACG is the global community for middle market M&A dealmakers and business leaders focused on driving growth. The ACG Cup is a case study competition designed to give students from leading MBA programs across the country real-world experience and insights into mergers and acquisitions, investment banking, financial advisory and private equity. The intra-school competition at Anderson this year was tough, to say the least: The teams consisted of veteran and future investment banking professionals, all eager and able to represent UCLA Anderson in the highest capacity. In the end, we won the round and were selected to represent our school at the regional championship at Chapman University. Our crosstown rivals at USC were gunning to reclaim the trophy, which kept our competitive spirits going.

A Stellar Lineup Will Ask — and Answer — Questions about the Future of Health Care in California

All students registered for the third annual UCLA Anderson Healthcare Conference on Saturday, March 11, will be invited to a pre-conference networking night on campus on Friday, March 10, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. The evening will feature a senior executive keynote speaker from conference sponsor Blue Shield of California. Cocktails and snacks will be served.

REGISTER NOW

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By Harshita Mishra (’18)

The “health care industry” impacts us all. It is an industry that intersects with technology, law, economics, government and countless other sectors. In the United States alone, the health care industry is worth more than $3 trillion.

How can California, the most populous and diverse state in the U.S., serve as the model for value, innovation and collaboration in health care? How will the changing political climate impact the Affordable Care Act? What are California’s strengths to face the upcoming challenges? What should you as a future global leader know, and why?

These questions intrigue and excite me. That’s why I’m attending the third annual UCLA Anderson Healthcare Conference, whose theme this year is Caring for California: Visions of Value, Innovation and Collaboration.

UCLA Anderson Forecast’s Second Look at Economic Policy Changes under the New U.S. Presidential Administration

Stocks, the dollar and interest rates soared after the surprising election of Donald Trump on the assumption of a major shift in fiscal policy. Now that immigration and trade issues have moved to the fore, the markets are less certain as to the magnitude and timing of the fiscal changes. In its first quarterly report for 2017, the UCLA Anderson Forecast will discuss the implication of these cross currents and present a second pass at Trumponomics.

Key questions addressed at this quarter’s conference include:

• Can Trump deliver on his proposed tax cuts?
• How much will immigration and trade restrictions weigh on the economy?
• How many times will the Fed raise interest rates this year?

The national forecast

In his outlook for the national economy, UCLA Anderson Forecast Senior Economist David Shulman wrote that some of his current expectations are similar to those of last quarter, including the approximately $500 billion a year in personal and business tax reductions, a repatriation holiday for accumulated foreign earnings, increased defense and infrastructure spending, Medicaid cuts, relaxed regulations, modest changes to trade and immigration policies, and reductions in food and aircraft exports, as several trading partners react to the policy changes. The impact of a large tax cut on an economy at or very close to full employment will likely result in a short-term growth spike, but will quickly fade. The forecast calls for real GDP growth of 2.4 percent, 3 percent and 2.2 percent in 2017, 2018 and 2019, respectively, noting that real growth trails off on a quarterly basis in 2019, as higher interest rates weigh on the economy.

Though job growth appears robust with 170,000 jobs a month expected in 2017 and 2018, the figures will trail off to about 110,000 a month in 2019 and become even slower if the administration embarks on a large-scale deportation program of unauthorized immigrants. Concurrently, the unemployment rate could bottom out at 4.1 percent in late 2018, before gradually rising.

UCLA Anderson Alumna Kate Cochran Recognizes the Entrepreneurial Spirit that Creates Jobs for the Poorest of the Poor

By Isha Patel

For six years, Upaya Social Ventures has helped 12 companies create over 4,100 new jobs for people living in impoverished areas in India. Upaya CEO Kate Cochran (’97) joined [email protected]’s High Impact Tea series to share her experience and future goals for the nonprofit.

Cochran started out in management consulting and realized her passion for international development later in her career at an event for Unitus Labs. For several years, she served as VP of finance and operations, and later as VP of external relations for the organization, which makes seed-stage equity investments in social enterprises to benefit people living at the base of the economic pyramid. She went on to become COO and board member at Vittana Foundation, with whom a UCLA Anderson Applied Management Research field study team collaborated in 2014 on a microfinance-driven student loan project. Eventually, Cochran's long tenure in the nonprofit sector would lead her to Upaya.

An advocate of advancing entrepreneurship, and passionate about international development, Cochran has taken time to fine-tune strategies that allow Upaya to invest in viable companies capable of employing people in impoverished areas. When asked about Upaya’s impact in Indian communities, Cochran simply stated, “We create jobs for the poorest of the poor.”

UCLA Anderson Taught this Alumnus You Can’t Be a Wallflower in B-School or Business

Jeffery Keys (’96) is president of Diversity Food Brands LLC, a consolidator, operator and licensor of food service brands with a primary focus on concessions common to airports, motorways, college campuses and hospitals. DFB is minority-owned and ACDBE-certified in multiple states. Keys was a founding partner of United Enterprise Fund LP, a private equity fund that promoted and financed minority business ownership of franchise restaurant companies. Keys led and managed a number of investments and provided both financial and operational expertise to UEF’s portfolio companies and other businesses. Prior to UEF, he was a vice president of credit at FMAC, a specialty franchise lender, where he participated in over $2 billion in franchise transactions.

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Read what other African-American alumni and students have to say about career and education in [email protected]'s 5 Questions

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Interview by Diamon Lockett (FEMBA ’18)

Q: How did you get started in your industry and why are you passionate about what you do?

I started in restaurant operations when I was very young, working in fast food places like Pizza Hut before getting my undergraduate degree in economics. It was when I was taking economics courses that I developed an affinity for finance. I became a commercial banker for Wells Fargo after leaving Berkeley and I worked my way through until I came across a company that did specialized lending for franchising, which gave me the opportunity to continue to do finance but also revisit some of my experiences in restaurant operations. I worked with this specialty company that gave me tremendous exposure to a number of different brands and operating systems and to being a lender. It gave me access to detailed financial information, so I was able to understand at a very, very detailed level what the opportunities were, the different brands and franchises.

I stayed in the Los Angeles area for several years after my MBA. Then I was lured out to New York to begin a career in private equity, putting together a first-of-its-kind private equity fund that was going to focus on increasing minority participation in some of the major franchise chains and brands. That was definitely something I wanted to do; it was finance, operations, and it gave me the opportunity to increase visibility within minority ownership. I had learned, at the time, that it was going to be a great wealth-generating system in franchising. It combined a lot of things that I believed in and was very passionate about. So, I packed up and left for New York, and we invested almost $50 million in these franchise concepts. I was one of the founding partners of this private equity fund, called United Enterprise Funds. It’s small in comparison to the billion-dollar funds that you have today but, at the time, it was considered a medium-sized fund, and it was the first to specialize in that space, with or without the minority component. We just didn’t have a lot of private equity in the franchise restaurant space.

Team Building and Investing Acumen Won UCLA Anderson Students First Place in the 2017 Fink Stock Pitch

UCLA Anderson’s Justin Phillips (’18) (left) and Jarrid Johnston (FEMBA ’19) of team J^2 Capital won the 2017 Fink Stock Pitch Competition, with teams from UVA Darden School of Business and Stanford Graduate School of Business placing second and third, respectively. Phillips, an equity research analyst, described the rush of competing — and prevailing — in the seventh annual stock pitch.

Watch the day unfold in photos!

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By Justin Phillips (’18)

After answering the Fink Center’s annual call for resumes and statements of purpose, I was proud to learn that I had been selected to represent UCLA in the 2017 Fink Center Stock Pitch Competition. I soon learned that I would be partnered with Jarrid Johnston, a first-year FEMBA student, whom I’d never even met. And after a few brief calls, I could tell that Jarrid really knew his stuff. He is an investment professional with expertise in financial modeling and experience in public and private equities analysis. We called our team J^2 Capital because both our names start with the 10th letter of the alphabet.

We would have a week to prepare our first-round pitch options. On a Friday morning, we received our investment universe, scrutinizing the securities list of popular equities like Tesla, NVIDIA and Amazon. Given the one-year investment horizon, we decided to pitch Health Equity (HQY) as a long because of its sustainable, scalable business model and an accommodative regulatory environment. We each conducted our own investigations on the name by vetting the recent quarterly and annual reports, conference calls, investor days and sell-side research. After a few days, we came together and built out our investment thesis and valuation. Balancing the stock pitch with the rigors of first-year MBA coursework proved to be a challenging but rewarding experience.

UCLA Anderson MBA Students Win Seventh Annual Stock Pitch Competition

Fink Center executive director Jose Plehn-Dujowich (left) congratulates Justin Phillips (center) and Jarrid Johnston of UCLA Anderson team J^2 Capital on taking first place in the seventh annual Fink Center Stock Pitch Competition

Watch the day unfold in photos!

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By Isha Patel

On Friday, February 10, MBA students from 12 invited institutions gathered at the UCLA Anderson School of Management to compete in the seventh annual Fink Center Stock Pitch Competition. The event, hosted by the Laurence and Lori Fink Center for Finance & Investments, included teams from business schools across the nation:

• Columbia Business School
• Cornell University Johnson Graduate School of Management
• Ivey Business School, Western University
• NYU Stern School of Business
• Northwestern University Kellogg School of Management
• Stanford Graduate School of Business
• Tepper School of Business, Carnegie Mellon University
• Tuck School of Business, Dartmouth
• UCLA Anderson School of Management
• University of Chicago Booth School of Business
• USC Marshall School of Business
• UVA Darden School of Business

All teams participated in the first round, when they pitched real stocks to a panel of experienced judges. After the first round, the judges deliberated and chose the top three finalists to move onto the final round of pitches. Throughout the entire competition, judges were unaware of the teams’ school affiliations.