UCLA Anderson School of Management Blog

A UCLA Anderson Global Immersion in South Africa Adds “Sustainable Positive Change” to the MBA Experience

Nelson Mandela House, Soweto. Photo by Lisa Tang

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By Lisa Tang (FEMBA ’18), Forté Fellow

My career path started in ethnic-specific nonprofit theater, where I had the privilege of working in diversity and cultural advocacy with activist-artists (the very heroes I had learned about as an undergraduate). Now I work in international film translation, connecting films and stories with people around the world.

So it may be no surprise that I was drawn to the Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation immersion course in South Africa because of its global perspective on social justice and human rights. What I got out of it was the embodiment of what I hoped my MBA experience would be. The course empowered me with frameworks in social enterprise, then boldly challenged me with them in the immersion experience. It was nothing short of a profound de-layering of preconceptions of and possibilities for social enterprise and the South African context.

South Africa Global Immersion Makes Social Entrepreneurship Standard Curriculum

In South Africa, UCLA Anderson students toured the entrepreneurial development Philippi Village, where repurposed shipping containers provide space for shopkeepers’ stores, from hair salons to appliance sales. Back row, left to right: Lisa Tang (FEMBA ’18), Mark Reidy (FEMBA ’17), Milan Karunarante (FEMBA ’18), Bradley McGough (FEMBA ’18), Justin Vu (FEMBA ’18), Alex Lieu (FEMBA ’17), a local entrepreneur, Adrian Colesberry (EMBA ’17), Frank Mikel (EMBA ’17), Mike Levine (EMBA ’17). Front row, left to right: Graham Pulliam (FEMBA ’17), Jonathan Chow (FEMBA ’17), Rachel Luskin (FEMBA ’18), Nikki Strenk (FEMBA ’18), Stephanie Celotto (FEMBA ’18), Tae Macias (EMBA ’18).

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By Carolyn Gray Anderson

In September 2016, 40 UCLA Anderson students traveled to South Africa for a global immersion course titled Social Entrepreneurship and Innovation. Led by UCLA Anderson lecturer Gayle Northrop (’96), president of Northrop Nonprofit Consulting, the course focused on how “pro-social” businesses succeed in an age of waning corporate philanthropy. Northrop, who also serves as an adjunct faculty member at the University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business and co-founded Cape Town’s Spark Health, says students may gravitate to immersion courses because of the international destinations, but her hope is that global examples of social and corporate responsibility will infuse b-school curriculum generally.

UCLA Anderson’s global immersion courses originated in 2008 within the Fully Employed MBA program. Since then, they have expanded to include students in the full-time, executive and UCLA-NUS Global Executive MBA programs. In 2014, the global immersion courses transitioned to the Center for Global Management to enhance the portfolio of global offerings to students across all MBA programs.

“This experience opened my eyes to the amazing work being done by social impact organizations around the world and inspired me to get involved in the field,” said Milan Karunaratne (FEMBA ’18), who joined the South Africa immersion. “I would never have had such an authentic and enriched experience if I had visited South Africa as a tourist.”

In South Africa, a Veteran of Nonprofits Changes His Mind about Social Entrepreneurship

 

Cape Town, South Africa, offices of social innovator RLabs, which trains local at-risk youth in technology and entrepreneurship and whose motto is "Making hope contagious" 

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By Robert Young (FEMBA ’17)
Photos by Mark E. Lee (FEMBA ’17)

Coming from a background in service-based nonprofit fundraising, I was skeptical of social entrepreneurship as a way to effect change. Since serving in the Peace Corps for three years, I’ve had an additional nine years’ experience working in nonprofit organizations as a fundraiser, including in my current job handling fundraising logistics at an independent school in Culver City. Until recently, it had always seemed to me that the most efficient way of ensuring that positive change reached those who needed it was via an organization that didn’t care about financial returns and used traditional, proven remedies.

Last summer, I was lucky enough to be a part of a UCLA Anderson Global Immersion course in South Africa, led by Gayle Northrop. After the first couple of days visiting companies and organizations in Johannesburg and Capetown, my thoughts on efficient organizations changed entirely. I now understand the significant advantages that social innovation and entrepreneurship can bring to places where traditional philanthropy just can’t do enough.

The first breakthrough came in a visit to AllLife Insurance, a firm in a suburb of Johannesburg that specializes in delivering life insurance to HIV-positive South Africans. Ross Beerman, the CEO and founder, told our group he had never thought of himself as a social innovator or entrepreneur. Instead, he saw a life insurance market gap (nearly 20 percent of South Africans are HIV positive) and simply wanted to run a successful business in which the positive externalities dramatically outweighed the negative.

A CEO’s Journey from “Gut Feeling” to Global Strategy

Robert Luna, CIMA, founded Surevest Wealth Management in 2002 and serves as the firm’s CEO and CIO, overseeing the investments process for all of the firm’s clients. He’s a Wharton Fellow with more than 16 years of experience in managing assets for institutions, professional athletes, small business owners and high-net-worth investors. His latest distinction is the Global Executive MBA he’ll leave UCLA Anderson with on Saturday.

A lifelong businessman who began amassing his baseball card collection with the money he earned selling candy, Luna appears regularly on CNBC and other financial networks and has been featured in numerous publications, including the Wall Street Journal. He wouldn’t mind being stranded on a desert island as long as he had a steady supply of red wine, cheese and salame. He’s inspired by Disney and the Dodgers, and his daughter’s name means Beautiful Moon in Italian.

As he gears up to graduate, Luna agreed to share a bit more about himself and why he pursued the GEMBA for Asia Pacific that will equip him with dual degrees from UCLA Anderson and National University of Singapore.

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By Robert Luna (GEMBA ’16)

Remember the book Everything I Know I Learned in Kindergarten? Well, most everything I know I learned from trading baseball cards. I parlayed my meager earnings selling candy bars door-to-door into promising rookie cards. I would study the stats of the top prospects in the farm leagues to gain insights into who would flourish in the big leagues. My “go to” category was rookie prospect cards. These were the guys who had not yet been called up to the majors. This was the baseball card equivalent of an IPO. Once they became “hot rookies,” I would hit the sell button. This strategy panned out reasonably well: By the age of 14, I had my own incorporated business, Sport Card City. I switched my inventory from hot prospects to blue chip hall of famers.

Suffice it to say, I took my baseball cards seriously.

Chris Tang Predicted the Uber Exodus from China

By Elise Anderson

He said it could happen, and it did.

Christopher Tang, UCLA Distinguished Professor of Decisions, Operations and Technology Management and the Edward W. Carter Chair in Business Administration, questioned early whether Uber could compete successfully in China with Didi-Kuaidi (now Didi Chuxing), the country’s dominant ride-sharing company, valued at $15 billion with one million drivers in 360 cities.

In his piece published in the September 2015 issue of Fortune, “Will China Be Uber’s Waterloo?” Tang pointed to a number of business model adaptations that Uber faced in its efforts to “dominate the mobilized sharing economy worldwide.” After losing $1 billion annually while operating in China, Uber is calling it quits and selling its stake in the ride-sharing business to its rival, Didi Chuxing.

Tang recaps some of the reasons he thought Uber never had a chance in China and what led to its not-so-surprising departure from this market:

• Uber is a U.S.-based company; Didi is a home-grown Chinese company with strong backing from Alibaba, Apple and others.
• Uber wanted to displace the taxi business in China, while Didi was more inclusive of that industry, encouraging cooperation with drivers in its business model.
• Uber’s U.S. model works well domestically, but Didi leverages its deep understanding of Chinese consumer needs, providing access to a pool of vehicles and options that include: SUVs (Chinese typically travel in larger groups); tour buses (for even larger groups); hitch (for ride sharing); concierge (hiring drivers to drive an individual’s care home, avoiding possible drunk driving charges).
• Uber was the new kid on the block; Didi merged with Kaudi to ensure more than 80 percent market share.
• Uber was late to adopt Alipay (mobile payment system in China with 85 percent market share), while Didi and Alipay had embedded service within WeChat, a social media platform with more than 700 million users in China. Most consumers in China find it easier to use one mobile app, WeChat, to use Didi and Alipay to hail and pay for the taxi service in a seamless manner.

And there you have it.

UCLA Anderson Field Study Team Aims for Lines of Tourists at the Carmen Lines in Peru

Members of AMR Team 10 learn about Peru's Carmen Lines from UCLA Professor of Anthropology Charles Stanish

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By Samuel Archer (’16), Erin Dea (’16), Kristan Griffith (’16), Hans Mantor (’16), Jonathan Wu (’16)

The Cotsen Institute of Archaeology at UCLA, along with Dr. Charles Stanish (Cotsen's director for 15 years, now on sabbatical), tasked UCLA Anderson Applied Management Research Team 10 with creating a sustainable preservation strategy for a recently discovered mound and geoglyph complex known as the “Carmen Lines.” The Peruvian Carmen Lines are situated in the heart of the Chincha Valley, about 200 kilometers south of Lima. Our team traveled to Peru primarily to visit a variety of archaeological sites throughout the country.

The Carmen Lines were created roughly 2,300 years ago by the Paracas people. Consisting of 71 lines and 353 non-geoglyph features (e.g., circular rock features, ceremonial mounds, settlements) across a 40-square-kilometer area, this complex is meaningful because it refines our understanding of human social evolution before the development of archaic states. We can learn how people in stateless societies went about the economic, political and social aspects of their lives. Unfortunately, the Carmen Lines have been damaged over time, so we set out to formulate a preservation strategy to save them.

With Passions for Theater, Crowdfunding, Tech and VC, Two UCLA Anderson Students Are Switching Gears in B-School

Yen-An Cho (left), Daniel Yang

During Asian-Pacific American Heritage Month, we reached out to UCLA Anderson students and alumni who have made an impact. They include Daniel Yang (’16) and Yen-An Cho (’16), who both grew up in East Asia and later came to the U.S. in pursuit of higher education. Yang grew up in China, Cho in Taiwan. Yang is an engineer turned consultant, and Cho is a lawyer turned tech VC.

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By Cheechee Lin

Q: Why did you come to UCLA Anderson?

Daniel Yang: I was an engineer before business school and was looking to make a transition. I previously interacted with former Anderson students, and got to know the resources available to help us (engineers) transition in our career paths, and this school seemed like a good choice. Community-wise, I grew up in China, and diversity was a huge factor in my decision-making process. Los Angeles is the center of everything, and the diversity of the community definitely appealed to me. My wife was pregnant at the time, and she moved to Irvine. By attending Anderson, I was able to spend more time with my family. My daughter was actually born on my first day of school at Anderson — we named her Ming Ya, which means bright and graceful

Yen-An Cho: I did a lot of merger and acquisition deals during my law career, but I chose to pursue an MBA for two reasons: I needed to learn how to manage my wealth, and I found myself interested in technology. My career in law was case-by-case, often lasting only a couple months, and I was shuffled onto the next project. I wanted to work in high tech, where innovation is a continuous process that creates impact on the mass population. I chose Anderson because tech and the West Coast are synonymous, and Los Angeles provides the breeding ground for a lot of startups to establish their base. Having spent two years here, I can say that my initial assumption was right: There is a wealth of tech opportunities here, and I made the right choice!

UCLA Anderson Field Study Team Gets Buzzed with Guatemalan Coffee Project

Jaime with sacks of coffee in Guatemala; "coffee cupping"; coffee shop of the Federación de Café Especial de Guatemala (FECCEG), a federation of smallholder farmer cooperatives

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By Felicity Aldridge (’16), Jacqulyn Barbieri (’16), Piyush Jain (’16), Meredith Roman (’16), Jaime Sanchez (’16)

UCLA Anderson’s Applied Management Research (AMR) field study program presents an opportunity for companies and organizations to work with MBA students for six months to solve strategic or important organizational issues. Domestic and international projects range from launching a new product, entering a new market, solving operational problems or evaluating potential acquisitions. It’s an opportunity for students to put management tools into practice and make a direct impact.

Our team of five (each of us have diverse backgrounds, with careers in real estate, technology or entertainment) is working with a coffee cooperative, representing more than 100 farmers from Guatemala. AMR has been a great learning experience and our key takeaways are:

Industry knowledge: Prior to our project, the only knowledge we had about coffee was that it helped us get through late nights and early mornings. In the span of just four months, we learned how coffee is grown and how specialty coffee commands a price tag of $4 per cup compared to the export price of $0.4 per pound. During winter break, members of our team visited the Guatemala coffee growing regions as well as coffee hotspots in Los Angeles, interviewing over 50 stakeholders. Starting from the ground up in Guatemala, we visited farmers to learn about their challenges in producing coffee. We met with national coffee associations, coffee consultants and export houses to understand the Guatemala coffee landscape before diving deep into our project. Our favorite part was coffee cupping, which is the practice of observing the tastes and aromas of brewed coffee.

UCLA Anderson Field Study Project Drives Research and Innovation for Auto Industry in Southeast Asia

Matt and Andy at the Bangkok International Auto Show

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By Yen-An Cho (’16), Matt Inouye (’16), Ta Kongthaisereekul (’16), Sam Lin (’16), Andy Wang (’16)

For our Applied Management Research field study project, we’ve had the privilege of working with the International Labour Organization, an agency under the United Nations tasked with improving working conditions throughout the world. Our specific project is to conduct a detailed examination of the automotive industry in ASEAN (Association of Southeast Asian Nations) and research how technology innovation over the next decade will shape the quantity and quality of labor in the region.

Ultimately, we’ll be assisting the ILO in providing recommendations as to how businesses and governments can best prepare for labor shifts in the auto industry.

Getting up to speed on the project has been fascinating thus far: No one on our team had any previous automotive industry experience, so we’ve been working to quickly learn about the market structure and the technology shaping both what goes into a car and the process of manufacturing a car. We’ve taken two trips so far to conduct primary research. These trips have allowed us to speak with industry experts, visit factory sites and participate in conferences and roundtables.

UCLA Anderson Field Study Team Helps Global NGO Solve Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Problems in India

Daniel Brugger and Mick Pathompakawant (first and second from left), together with representatives from ActionIndia (fourth from left) and WaterAid India (fifth from left), interviewed local community members in Delhi about sanitation problems in their neighborhood 

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By Catherine Chen (’16), Daniel Bruggers (’16), Lindsee Redmond (’16), Mick Pathompakawant (’16), Yusuke Matsuoka (’16)

WaterAid India (WAI), our client for our Applied Management Research field study project, is a nonprofit organization operating since 1986. WAI is recognized as a key player in the WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) sector. It offers three main services beyond overall water safety and hygiene awareness:

• Create greater infrastructure for potable water access;
• Reduce open-air defecation by increasing toilet availability;
• Provide feminine hygiene products to India’s women and girls.

WAI has finalized its strategic plan for the period 2016–2021. The organization is currently interested in customizing its strategic and operational plans to penetrate into Rajasthan state, but a scoping study is needed to review WAI’s entry and engagement there. The goal of our project is to determine the most effective approach for WAI to initiate its presence in Rajasthan and operate within the terms of improving the WASH situation there.