UCLA Anderson School of Management Blog

UCLA Anderson Alumnae Advise: Think Fearlessly about Building and Tapping the Network that Supports Your Next Transformation

Professor Sanjay Sood engaged Paramount Television and Digital Entertainment President Amy Powell in conversation and audience Q&A

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By Carolyn Gray Anderson

UCLA Anderson alumni from 44 class years ― ranging from 1962 to 2017― convened for the May 4–5 Alumni Weekend, starting with the annual conference and Dean Judy Olian’s final State of the School report. Addressing the crowd in Korn Convocation Hall, she acknowledged an extra element of emotion this year: “In another couple of months I’ll become an ‘alum’ in a sense, myself.”

Olian departs at the end of the academic year to become president of Quinnipiac University. “We all try to leave a mark at Anderson,” she said, “something that lifts this extraordinary school higher and leaves it better than when we arrived. Each class aims to do that.”

With the help of faculty, staff, students, donors, and alumni, Olian said she, too, has tried to raise the bar at Anderson since she arrived in 2006. The accomplishments she listed included the school’s increasingly global outlook and education, the growing strength of its academic centers and progress on diversity and inclusion.

For-Purpose Profits: UCLA Anderson Drives Change During Impact Week

Impact@Anderson and the UCLA Anderson Net Impact chapter present Anderson’s annual Impact Week, April 9–13, 2018. Under the theme Purpose + Profit, invited thought leaders and founders of mission-driven companies explain how they are shaping the future of business through the creation of a social, environmental and economic evolution. They share their insights in workshops, panels and a networking mixer open to the campus community and the wider public.

Jessica Lin (’18) and Karthik Patange (’18), both VPs of Impact Week and UCLA Anderson’s Net Impact chapter, which won NI Graduate Chapter of the Year in 2017, are spearheading Impact Week. As purpose-driven MBA candidates, they hope their peers will be inspired to build service and the greater good into their plans for profitable careers.

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Q: As Impact Week comes together, where do you anticipate MBA students and alumni will find particular value?

Karthik Patange: The technology theme will be prominent during Impact Week. We live in a world where tech governs everything, including our future careers. However, it’s hard for some to envision how tech and social purpose come together unless it’s through the traditional CSR “add-on.” This year, Impact Week delves into blockchain, social media and education through computer science. We hope to show MBA students that they can make an impact within their tech roles, and not as a peripheral initiative of their companies.

Jessica Lin: We wanted to highlight a variety of industries in which profitable companies also have meaningful impact. I expect that representatives from the big name companies, such as Patagonia, Google and BuzzFeed, will help expand people’s knowledge of and interest in having impactful careers.

KP: Definitely. I hope students understand that big companies with big business practices can also cater to big purposes, and that this mindset can shape their individual careers.

Q: What is the role of social media in realizing the “purpose + profit” goal?

KP: Social media directly influences social impact. Online social networks are outlets for individuals to be outspoken about their purposeful initiatives and generate awareness. How is the business side supporting this interest, especially in today’s always-online climate? From simple knowledge sharing to how to use data for social good to spreading the word on the human condition in other parts of the world, social media networks can support purpose in a sustainable and profitable way.

Let’s Get Real: UCLA Anderson Team Takes Top Honors Pitching AR Solution to Paramount

Left to right: Steven Liu, Naurine Shahzad, Jennifer Buzalewski, Candace Parker, Paul Chang

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By Naurine Shahzad (’19)

The Center for MEMES MBA Media and Entertainment Case Competition with Paramount Pictures, as one of few nationwide case competitions sponsored by an entertainment company, brings a great deal of excitement to any student interested in the business side of the industry. With top schools from all over the country competing, and because of the anticipation and demand at Anderson alone, our team had to prepare resumes and an essay that would qualify us as one of two Anderson teams to present to the Paramount judges.

Lucky Team 13, as we called ourselves, included Class of 2019’s Paul Chang, Jennifer Buzalewski, Candace Parker, double Bruin Steven Liu (B.A. ’13) and me. Our professional backgrounds are diverse, with some of us coming from marketing, finance or consulting, but our passion for entertainment united us. We are all student leaders in the Entertainment Management Association, and we felt prepared to take on this challenge.

Daniels a Boon to YouTube’s Original Programming

By Paul Feinberg

As global head of original programming at YouTube, Susanne Daniels is a powerful advocate for creative women in entertainment.

“It drives me crazy that there are not more female directors,” Daniels said in an on-stage conversation at Velocity, the annual UCLA Anderson Women’s Leadership Summit. “And it’s easy to fix. You have to mandate it. You have to tell producers they have to hire 50 percent female directors and when they push back, you say, ‘Too bad, find a way, give someone a chance.’

“My team has done an exceptional job of demanding more opportunity for women directors,” Daniels said in the conversation with Allie Brodsky (’18), president of UCLA Anderson’s Women’s Business Connection. The team is also working hard to hire more female show runners for YouTube shows.

Seen and Heard (and Felt) at LeVRage

UCLA Anderson’s Center for Management of Enterprise in Media, Entertainment & Sports (MEMES) recently convened LeVRage, an event exploring the most practical ways to monetize new virtual reality and augmented reality experiences that depart from the strictly visual. A lineup of experts in emerging technology, film, gaming, social innovation, marketing and storytelling shared their predictions for the next big trend in VR and AR. #UCLAleVRage

"Do you want to take flight?"
- @gopositron, location-based, narrative-driven #VR #UCLAleVRage #VirtualReality pic.twitter.com/rIxNETLDeO

— UCLA Anderson (@uclaanderson) October 6, 2017

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• Mariana Acuña, Co-Founder, Opaque Studios
How we consume will change dramatically as every industry is touched by AR and VR. Kids will learn to tell stories differently. If you’re an artist, you’re always going to have to be yearning to get ahead of the curve.

• John Canning, VP of Interactive Experiences, NBCUniversal
Building experiences complete with haptic and olfactory sensations is where investors are active.

• Emily Cooper, 360 Video and VR Producer
Tell stories that are a conduit to quieter voices, the unheard Americans. VR can’t literally transport us but it can extend an olive branch to understanding.

Tech Storytellers Explore the Business of VR and AR

Enjoy a full album of photos from UCLA Anderson's LeVRage conference

#UCLAleVRage

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By Carolyn Gray Anderson

We live in a future-oriented culture. But sometimes innovation is already right in front of you.

That was the message at LeVRage, which explored monetizing virtual reality and augmented reality from every angle — whether in a blockbuster movie or a scrappy marketing startup. Organized by UCLA Anderson’s Center for Management of Enterprise in Media, Entertainment & Sports (MEMES), the conference and expo convened panels of veterans and newcomers to make pronouncements on the most practical ways to scale new VR and AR experiences.

MEMES executive director Jay Tucker (’09) opened the day-long event by asking the question, “What if VR and AR tech grew the entertainment industry by $100 billion?” While experts were cautious about tying the profits from storytelling and technology innovations to a hard number within a specific industry, animated discussions ensued as they both agreed and disagreed about what’s going to make the next big difference in a vast number of consumers’ lives. Some observed that it makes more sense to market add-ons to existing products than to require consumers to buy a new gadget for every upgrade — though members of the audience gleefully waved their latest Apple mobile products in response.

UCLA Anderson Alumna Kristin Mirek Channels Nickelodeon Tweens by Mini-Networking for a Major Network

Olympic gold medalist Simone Biles won Favorite Female Athlete at the 2017 Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Sports Awards

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By Margaret Bliss

“Is our filter live on SnapChat?” Kristin Mirek (B.A. ’91, ’04) asked while running a pre-production meeting for the Nickelodeon Kids’ Choice Sports Awards, held July 13 in Pauley Pavilion on the UCLA campus. She was assured that it was. “And,” she was informed, “you can play a game on the world lens!”

As senior VP of Nickelodeon Social at Viacom, Mirek (née Rolla) successfully communicates with the tween world; but before achieving that status she earned her bachelor’s degree in history at UCLA and then became a “double Bruin” when she graduated from UCLA Anderson. She serves on the Department of History’s board of advisors.

In a world where “social” means so much, it is not surprising that “doing social well” is far more complicated than posting the coolest Boomerang on Instagram or creating the best stream on Facebook Live. “My role is truly multidisciplinary,” Mirek said. “I am essentially running my own mini network within Nickelodeon.” She describes herself and her team as writers, strategists, storytellers and production experts — all while being charged with creating the roadmap for content creation. “Sixty percent of Nickelodeon’s audience, tweens ages 11 to 13, are on social media, and it’s my job to make online social media a place of ‘heart share.’”

Sherry Lansing: Trailblazer for Women in Film and Philanthropy

By Isha Patel

As the first female studio head in the film industry, former CEO of Paramount Pictures turned philanthropist Sherry Lansing was the perfect guest in the most recent Center for Global Management Robertson Lecture Series, which features local and global business leaders. Dean Judy Olian led Lansing in a discussion about Lansing’s life and influences, and how her career choices have led to her tremendous success.

Lansing attributes some of her success to her upbringing. For part of her life, Lansing was raised solely by her mother, who learned how to run a real estate business and support her family after her husband’s tragic death. From her mother, Lansing learned to “never be a victim and believe that you can do anything.” It was with this tenacity and self-confidence that Lansing went on to become an outstanding leader in the film industry.

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.

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.