UCLA Anderson School of Management Blog

UCLA Anderson Executive-in-Residence Charles Burdick Rode Technology Waves Across the Globe

 

By Elise Anderson

Charles Burdick (’77) is the first to admit that his career trajectory was not the result of some grand plan: rather, it was more defined by hard work, preparation and learning and understanding his specific “talent,” and then being ready to take advantage of opportunities as they presented themselves, as they ultimately did in a number of different fields and industries.

He shared some of the details that led to his current position as chairman of Virgin Connect Russia, a provider of broadband, telephony and cable TV in Russia, and as advisory board member for the UCLA Anderson Center for Management of Enterprise in Media, Entertainment & Sports.

Burdick began his career in finance as an M&A analyst at Getty Oil before joining Carnation to work in the international division in finance and treasury. When Time Warner’s assistant treasurer of international, whom he knew slightly, mentioned he was retiring, Burdick applied for the job and got it — just a few months before the stock market crash of 1987.

“I was thinking I was fortunate that I had made the job move (to Time Warner) when I did, but the timing, job and industry were really more by accident than design,” he says.

It was at Time Warner that he discovered his passion for the entertainment business, which he found “full of bright, interesting people from all disciplines, whether it was finance, the creative end or branding and marketing.”

FEMBA Students Take First Place in 4th Annual Game Day Sports Case Competition at Villanova

(L-R) Ilan Isaacs 3L UCLA Law School, host and professor Jeffrey Moorad, Keenan Long 19, Doug Paulus 19 and Thomas Crutchley 19.

A trio of FEMBA students -- Thomas Crutchley ('19), Keenan Long ('19) and Doug Paulus ('19) -- took first place at the 4th Annual Game Day Sports Case Competition at Villanova University. The competition has alternated sites since its inception, being held at UCLA Anderson in even numbered years and at Villanova in the odd years.

Assistant Dean & Director of Admissions Dylan Stafford interviewed Crutchley  for the My UCLA Anderson FEMBA Blog. 

Crutchley: 

I think for all of us, what was really exceptional was the interaction with the judges. I mean, these were some real big names in sports management, like Joe Banner, former president of the Phildelphia Eagles. He was a judge. People like that.

And we were hanging out with them, listening to them talk about their careers.

It was eye-opening. It’s not just an old boys network. The way they described their career paths, you can see it. You can see that you can take an MBA, or a law degree, and you can really make a career in sports management.

Read the entire interview here.

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How UCLA Anderson Alumnus Clayton Frech’s Highly “Adaptive” Angel City Sports Took Wing

During Impact Week (April 17–21, 2017), whose theme is Purpose + Profit, UCLA Anderson is highlighting stories of mission-driven careers, companies and projects that fulfill unmet needs in sectors from e-commerce to cleantech.

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By Yamini Mappat (’18)

Clayton Frech (’98) is the founder and CEO of Angel City Sports and the annual Angel City Games (June 22–25, 2017). He was formerly the regional VP of Safelite AutoGlass and VP of operations for Classic Party Rentals. Clayton also serves on the board of Adaptive Sports USA and the L.A. advisory board for the Challenged Athletes Foundation. He was the president of UCLA Anderson’s Los Angeles alumni chapter in the early 2000s and received the inaugural UCLA Anderson Alumni Service Award in 2004. He has also served on the boards of the Literacy Network of Los Angeles, Northeast Trees and Amigos de Los Rios.

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Q. Can you tell us about your organization?

I started Angel City Sports in 2015 to provide adaptive and Paralympic sports programs for children, veterans and adults with physical disabilities. We offer year-round instructional sport clinics in a wide variety of sports, we loan equipment to athletes who otherwise could not participate in sports, and we host one of the largest Paralympic sports competitions in the country, the annual Angel City Games, right here at UCLA!

Q. What was the inspiration behind Angel City Sports?

My now 11-year-old son, Ezra, was born with some physical differences. Despite his disability, has always loved sports.

Is Solar the Solution? Our Distributed Energy Future on the Line and on the Grid

Joseph Householder (CERT ’94), corporate group president of infrastructure businesses at Sempra Energy, delivered the keynote address

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By Margaret Bliss

Solar panels, EV charging stations and behind-the-meter systems are all innovative responses to global challenges plaguing the modern world. They were the topics addressed and explored at the annual Energy Innovation Conference: Our Distributed Energy Future, which kicked off UCLA Anderson’s fourth annual Impact Week. Anderson’s Energy Management Group hosted the in-depth conference, where industry experts and influential alumni provided insight into the world’s energy future.

The conference left attendees hopeful about the future of energy and eager to take personal steps to solve the challenge of harnessing and efficiently using renewable energy. The conference focused on the exploration and innovation of behind-the-meter (BTM) systems and the benefits that those systems could have on businesses and consumers.

Before the conference, I wanted to make sure I was current on the energy sector jargon and found I was unfamiliar with the term BTM. It refers to a renewable energy facility that produces power on site, commonly using solar panels for supplying electricity to commercial and residential properties. These systems are the future of renewable energy, as they will help meet the California energy mandate of acquiring 1.3 Gigawatts of energy storage statewide by 2020. The mandate calls for 50 percent of electricity to come from renewable energy sources, such as BTM systems. If large institutions such as UCLA, as well as individuals’ homes, implement BTM systems, hitting the mandate goals should be attainable and should also help reduce customers’ monthly utility bills.

Will Extracting Crab Meat in Ecuador also Extract a Price Premium? UCLA Anderson MBAs Propose a Sustainable Solution

With a local guide, Lizeth Chiprez interviewed restaurant proprietors at a fish market in Guayaquil, Ecuador, to gather data her team would use to understand the value chain around red crab and black clam processing and distribution

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UCLA Anderson MBA students conduct Applied Management Research projects in lieu of a thesis. The nation’s first business school field study program, AMR partners students with top organizations to solve a key strategic problem. During Impact Week (April 17–21, 2017), whose theme is Purpose + Profit, we’re highlighting stories of AMRs supported by the Center for Global Management that took UCLA Anderson Class of 2017 teams overseas to collaborate with NGOs whose mission-driven work includes such global challenges as health care delivery, international labor standards and environmental conservation.

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By Lizeth Chiprez (’17), Grace Luo (’17), Nishant Ranjan (’17), Makibi Takagi (’17), Randy Lee (’17)

Conservation International, the client for our Applied Management Research field study project, is an international nonprofit focused on efforts to promote environmentally sustainable development. CI has established 1,200 protected land, marine and coastal areas across 78 countries. In Ecuador, the location of our project, CI has been focused on conservation of mangrove habitats since 2001.

The fishermen who live in the areas near mangrove habitats are integral stakeholders in mangrove protection. However, many are struggling to make ends meets. Some of the fishermen have organized to create associations or formal cooperatives. To incentivize them to participate in conservation efforts, many of these associations have been granted a governmental concession that gives them exclusive rights to nearby mangrove resources, as long as they utilize them in a sustainable manner.

Black clams and red crabs at a fish market in Playas, Ecuador

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Our project’s goal was to find ways to improve profitability for members of associations that have been granted concessions, thereby creating an economic incentive for participation in conversation efforts. We are focused on associations in two fishing communities within the Gulf of Guayaquil, 6 de Julio and El Morro; and the value chains for two specific mangrove products, the red crab and black clam. Our team traveled to the Gulf of Guayaquil in Ecuador in December 2016 and January 2017 to conduct primary research.

Nopical: Not Your Typical News Source

Alex Gostomelsky pitches Nopical at Plug & Play Selection Day, a startup accelerator program in Los Angeles

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By Isha Patel

The entrepreneurial spirit is nothing new to UCLA Anderson. Among the many opportunities available to MBA students with innovative ideas is a chance to start or plan their own company through the Business Creation Option of the Applied Management Research field study project. However, Alex Gostomelsky’s (’17) entrepreneurial journey started long before he arrived at Anderson.

It was May 2, 2011, and Gostomelsky was scrolling through Twitter to find out why major news sources were halting their regular evening newscasts to announce a special message from the White House. After a long search, Gostomelsky finally happened upon a tweet from a mid-tier news source that claimed Osama bin Laden had been shot in a raid led by the United States. After hearing of the breaking news, Gostomelsky had another thought: Why did it take so long for him to find a tweet that had high engagement rates and should have been one of the first tweets he saw on his feed?

It was this question that led him to create Nopical, a news aggregation website that allows users to build custom news feeds based on their interests. Gostomelsky wanted to provide a platform for users that took all the legwork out; people could now follow top stories in different subjects without having to follow all news sources or scroll through thousands of tweets to get the most relevant information.

Disney CFO Christine McCarthy Proved a “Risk” that Paid Off

By Carolyn Gray Anderson

In the late 1970s, Christine McCarthy (’81) was preparing to leave a career in banking for a Ph.D. in biology. Or so she thought: Following the death of her father, someone planted the idea that she should pursue an MBA for greater earning power than she could expect in academe — particularly in the male-dominated sciences. Vacillating between living on the East Coast or the West Coast and on the basis that “sometimes you just have to make it up as you go along,” McCarthy enrolled at UCLA Anderson to earn her MBA.

Not that business was exactly welcoming to women executives: but if McCarthy has ever regretted her choice, she need only consult her own resume for proof that glass ceilings were no impediment. Once the youngest EVP at First Interstate Bank, the self-described “accidental MBA” is also the Walt Disney Company’s first female CFO, a role she assumed in 2015 after five years with the company, where she started as treasurer.

McCarthy, whose distinctions include the Los Angeles Business Journal’s 2016 Executive of the Year award, visited UCLA Anderson as the first spring 2017 guest in the Dean’s Distinguished Speaker Series. Her appearance coincided with Anderson’s annual Impact Week in part because Disney as a company has made a commitment to social and environmental responsibility, and McCarthy oversees its corporate citizenship — with positive results over the last six years that parallel Disney’s financial success. Among UCLA Anderson’s long-term strategic goals is to elevate the school’s social mission, and conscious, connected leaders set the standard for the MBAs who follow their examples.

McCarthy’s personal impact also resonates because UCLA Anderson is dedicated to greater inclusion and equity. She told the audience that Disney chair and CEO Bob Iger “took a risk” appointing her to the C-suite, suggesting that a high-profile enterprise is still likelier to be scrutinized more closely for breaking with a conventional organizational chart. “You have to have a rapport with the entire executive management team,” she said, “and a complete, consistent dialogue with the board,” all of whom will be expecting more from someone representing a “first” like McCarthy does.

MBA Consultants Research Southeast Asia “Fragile Zones” for Greater Foreign Investment

UCLA Anderson MBA students conduct Applied Management Research projects in lieu of a thesis. The nation’s first business school field study program, AMR partners students with top organizations to solve a key strategic problem. During Impact Week (April 17–21, 2017), whose theme is Purpose + Profit, we’re highlighting stories of AMRs supported by UCLA Anderson’s Center for Global Management that took UCLA Anderson Class of 2017 teams overseas to collaborate with NGOs whose mission-driven work includes such global challenges as health care delivery, international labor standards and environmental conservation.

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By Margaux LaPointe (’17)

From the start, our team — comprising Riccardo Cestarelli (’17), Margaux LaPointe (’17), Yoko Morishita (’17), Tyler Smith (’17), Adam Supernant (’17) — was thrilled to be matched with a prosocial international AMR project. Our client is the International Labour Organization (ILO), an agency of the UN that develops labor standards, policies and programs to promote access to decent work.

We are researching how to promote foreign investment in conflict-affected zones in Southeast Asia, focusing on Thailand, the Philippines and Myanmar. Over the winter break, we were lucky to visit all three countries and also attend the ILO’s annual conference in Bali to conduct primary research. On our trip, we interviewed business membership organizations (BMO) such as chambers of commerce and employers’ organizations, as well as multinational companies.

UCLA Anderson Honors Fellowship Donors and Recipients

Dean Judy Olian (second from left) with Professor Bill Cockrum, Caroline and Richard Nahas, Peter Mullin and Peter Liberti

UCLA Anderson Class of 2018 fellowship recipients Brandon Child, Gareth Stamp, Jenn Yoohanna, Alina Karimova, Jonathan Bryson, Judy Zhou

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Enjoy a gallery of photos from the event

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By Paul Feinberg

On April 12, UCLA Anderson hosted its fellowship reception at the Petersen Automotive Museum in Los Angeles. The event was co-hosted by Peter and Merle Mullin, whose collection of classic Bugatti automobiles is among those on display in The Art of Bugatti, and Anderson Dean Judy Olian.

About 100 guests of Anderson — fellowship donors and recipients as well as other friends of the school — were in attendance. Dean Olian spoke of the importance of giving fellowships, noting that the total estimated cost for UCLA Anderson full-time students is $90,000, and more for non-California residents. For the current academic year, Anderson has awarded 83 donor fellowships to MBA students, with some valued as high as $25,000. Included in that total are five new named fellowships:

• The Crowell Family Fellowship from long-time Board of Advisors member Richard Crowell (’80);

• The Charles E. Davidson Institute for Investment Management Fund, from long-time Fink Center board member Chuck Davidson (’77);

• The Anderson Fund FEMBA fellowship;

• The Shelby Notkin Fellowship Fund, from long-time BOA member Shelby Notkin;

• The Patrick Welsh Education Support Fund from the Class of 1969.

Los Angeles entrepreneur and philanthropist Peter Mullin expressed how much UCLA Anderson means to him, even though he did not attend the school. As a businessman, he appreciates the quality of students who graduate from the school. Mullin also spoke of his close friendship with John E. Anderson (’40), the school’s namesake. Current student Jennifer Yoohanna (’18), holder of the Mary Ellen and Chris M. Kanoff Fellowship, and alumnus Kit Swain (’15), who held the Steve O’Leary Fellowship as a student, told the attendees how their fellowships greatly enhanced their Anderson experience.

A Diverse Field Study Team Collaborates in South Africa to Improve Health Outcomes

Eric Flato at HSRC with client lead Dr. Alastair Van Heerden (right)

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UCLA Anderson MBA students conduct Applied Management Research projects in lieu of a thesis. The nation’s first business school field study program, AMR partners students with top organizations to solve a key strategic problem.During Impact Week (April 17–21, 2017), whose theme is Purpose + Profit, we’re highlighting stories of AMRs supported by UCLA Anderson’s Center for Global Management that took UCLA Anderson Class of 2017 teams overseas to collaborate with NGOs whose mission-driven work includes such global challenges as health care delivery, international labor standards and environmental conservation.

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By Joshua Bivins, Sarah Broadbent, Lynn Compton, Eric Flato and Denys Levin, MBA Class of 2017

Our Applied Management Research (AMR) field study project entailed working with the Human Sciences Research Council to develop a sustainable non-communicable disease (NCD) screening model in the South African community of Sweetwaters, located in Kwazula-Natal province. The goal of the service is to improve community health outcomes. Our team selected this project because it would give us the chance to benefit the wider global community and broaden our understanding of the impact space. Team members’ backgrounds ranged from registered nurse to renewable energy development, so each member was able to bring a unique perspective to this project.

Working with a client and community located halfway around the world from Los Angeles required our team to travel to South Africa through multiple, staggered trips to conduct primary research. The first trip kicked off with Denys and Sarah spending just over a week in the country in November. The second trip consisted of Lynn and Eric continuing primary research, with one week in the community. Finally, Joshua visited the community on a third and final week-long trip to wrap up any conversations and loose ends. The purpose of these trips was to get a sense of how the community operated, how health care was delivered and who the major stakeholders were in order to help us develop empathy for community members (who were our target customer base) and for their challenges accessing and prioritizing health care.