UCLA Anderson School of Management Blog

Lending a Hand to Teenage Entrepreneurs

Left to right: Aadhar Jain (’19), Founders Bootcamp founder Richard Dahan, Emily Kosko (FEMBA ’19,) Connor Doyle (’19), Andrew Grone (’18)

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By Elise Anderson

Ever meet teenage disruptors? They are aspiring entrepreneurs under the age of 19 with plans to change the world.

Twenty of these budding business leaders came to UCLA Anderson School of Management this summer to participate in Founders Bootcamp, a partnership with the business school that offers the world’s first startup accelerator and venture capital funds for teenage entrepreneurs. The program was started in 2017.

Of 1,100 applicants representing 26 countries, five teams were selected to take part in the 12-week intensive summer program, which provides teens with access to starting budgets, essential resources and experienced Anderson student mentors who work to empower teams to bring their ideas to fruition. Already, one team, the Trill Project, has received a substantial investment commitment for its anti-bullying idea and has been showcased on TechCrunch. Two other teams are being considered for inclusion on ABC’s Shark Tank reality series.

Among other ideas from this 2018’s bootcamp participants: ending thirst worldwide with a machine that creates potable water from humid air; using smart, stylish jewelry to help deter assault and make safety fashionable; and reforming corrupt agricultural trade systems with an accessible, online marketplace called Agronet.

UCLA Anderson’s “Pay It Forward” Culture Steers Students to Meaningful Internships

By Brett Sanchez (’19)

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Pay it forward: I’m sure most have heard the expression. Thanks to Wikipedia (my undergraduate professors would shudder to know I’m citing a wiki), I found out we may be able to trace the concept back to Ben Franklin, at least:

I do not pretend to give such a deed; I only lend it to you. When you ... meet with another honest Man in similar Distress, you must pay me by lending this Sum to him.

There are many reasons why I chose to come to Anderson; but while I was working on my application, I don’t think that I fully grasped the importance of the pay it forward attitude here. Throughout the last year, I have been paid immeasurable “Sums” from my fellow Andersonians in the form of help and guidance. This tendency is seen in the admissions process and from Bridge Week to learning teams to the sheer number of Anderson alumni who have returned to take jobs in the UCLA Anderson administration.

However, the pay it forward vibe resonated strongest for me during my internship search. Three things greatly surpassed my expectations: the Parker Career Management Center’s Anderson Career Teams (ACT), how helpful my classmates were and the Anderson network.

UCLA Anderson’s Magali Delmas Sheds Light on the New Climate for Corporate Environmental Responsibility

By Carolyn Gray Anderson

UCLA Anderson Professor Magali Delmas asserts the most important component to slowing climate change is information. “In 20 years we will all have a lot of information about everything we consume,” she says. “We’ll know the impact of the meat we eat … we’ll know the impact of our electricity usage in real time. Once we have this information, what will we do with it? We can’t change our behavior if we don’t know our impact.”

Delmas, who holds a joint appointment at the UCLA Institute of the Environment and Sustainability and is also director of the UCLA Center for Corporate Environmental Performance and president of the Alliance for Research in Corporate Sustainability, has studied — and encouraged — conservationist consumer behavior for the last 20 years. She recently spoke to a public audience about her research trajectory and her new book The Green Bundle: Pairing the Market with the Planet (co-authored with David Colgan). Host Zocalo Public Square framed the question as “Does environmentalism need to make peace with capitalism?” and put veteran broadcast journalist Warren Olney in the moderator’s seat to hear Delmas’ answer. But the more-to-the-point question the book poses is whether capitalism can, for its own good, make peace with environmentalism.

Field Study Team Assessing Feasibility of Blockchain Technology as Key to Sustaining Guyana’s Indigenous Communities Earns Inaugural Impact Award

A quintet of UCLA Anderson students was commissioned by Conservation International Guyana to assess the feasibility of blockchain technology to solve a major challenge in the implementation and scaling of the Community Development Plan (CDP) in Guyana. The work was conducted in the group’s Applied Management Research (AMR) project, the field study assignment that serves as the capstone of Anderson’s full-time MBA experience. The team, comprising Class of 2018’s Miriam Leah Feygenson, Yuhei Iwasaki, Vasiya Krishnan, Anubhav Mishra and Harshita Mishra, was awarded the inaugural Impact Alumni AMR Award and received a $5,000 prize.

The Impact Alumni AMR Award recognizes the MBA student team that has excelled at making the greatest impact on their mission-driven client’s project through the course of the AMR program.

Earlier this year, the team published a story about their experience on the UCLA Anderson blog.

Alumni judges selected the winning team for the inaugural Impact Alumni AMR Award. Pictured left to right: Dave Gallon (’03), Nurit Katz (’08), Laura Ferretti (’95), faculty moderator Gayle Northrop (’96), Wendy Spinner (’89), Harshita Mishra (’18), Vasiya Krishnan (’18), Anubhav Mishra (’18), Miriam Feygenson (’18), Yuhei Iwasaki (’18)

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“This award was established to highlight and appreciate the specialized skills and abilities needed to work with a mission-driven organization’s unique need to balance financial and social impact returns,” says Bhavna Sivanand (’14), executive director of the school’s Impact@Anderson initiative. “An important objective for Impact@Anderson is to integrate impact into the core competency of the MBA program, so that all MBA graduates seek out opportunities such as social impact AMRs to be able to positively contribute to society during their time here and beyond.”

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Congratulations to UCLA Anderson’s Class of 2018 Academic Awards Recipients

UCLA Anderson Academic Awards Dinner, June 7, 2018

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Congratulations, UCLA Anderson Class of 2018!

The Anderson community acknowledges your dedication and academic achievements:

 

GLORIA APPEL PRIZE

The Gloria Appel Prize is given annually to graduating MBA students who have demonstrated outstanding achievement in entrepreneurial studies and student leadership. The full-time MBA students who received this award excelled in three or more entrepreneurial electives, while also taking on leadership roles at Anderson.

Lior Bartov, Steven Coen, Victor Gebhardt, Alison McCarty, Jared Riemer

 

OUTSTANDING STUDENT IN STRATEGY

Candidates with superior academic achievement in strategy and policy are recommended and chosen by UCLA Anderson policy and strategy faculty. Factors entering into the selection decision include the students’ revealed preference for strategy and consulting as well their excellence as a TA and their potential academic research contributions.

James Gische, Christopher O’Connor

 

UCLA Anderson Forecast Partners with Cathay Bank on New Series of Reports Detailing U.S.-China Economic Relations

“China presents to the world an economic model that’s been fairly successful and has lifted millions and millions of people out of poverty. It’s a very different economic model than the U.S. economic model,” says UCLA Anderson Forecast Director Jerry Nickelsburg. “People are looking at both economic models and trying to understand what might be a good model for their country. Economists focus on two things: the role of economic incentives in human behavior and the allocation of scarce resources and these two models have different ways of doing that. It’s really interesting to see how these will play out and what the implications of these are.”

Going forward, Nickelsburg and his fellow economists with the UCLA Anderson Forecast will continue to explore these implications in depth, the result of a new partnership with Cathay Bank. With support from Cathay, the Forecast intends to produce an annual report on the economic relationships between the U.S. and China in addition to three quarterly updates.

The Entrepreneur’s Origin Story – Fritz Demopoulos (’97)

 

China is where Fritz Demopoulos (’97) decided to launch his career and make his life after b-school. Turning down a lucrative ― and stable ― offer in Europe, Demopoulos trusted his instinct for opportunity and headed for Asia.

The decision paid off.

Fritz Demopoulos and UCLA Anderson Interim Dean Al Osborne

Demopoulos founded Qunar, China’s biggest online travel company, and Shawei, its largest web-based sports portal. He’s held senior positions at Net Ease and The News Corporation and worked as an executive in the Chinese media, internet and wireless industries. An entrepreneur and investor, he is a founding partner of venture capital firm Queen’s Road Capital, which focuses on entrepreneurial investments across Asia.

Demopoulos launched his first business as a youngster — partnering with a cousin to pass out advertisments for a nickel per flier — and the feeling of freedom and independence still thrills him, he says. Before earning his MBA, he worked in aerospace but didn’t take to the institutional vibe. “At Anderson, it was the first time I was genuinely exhilarated,” Demopoulos says, crediting the school with helping him make a profound decision: “To take control of what I’m doing in life.”

That process was energizing. Anderson’s location proved crucial as well. “You need to be in a major economic center to get an amazing education,” he says. “If you’re in Manhattan, L.A. or the Bay Area you’re just in the middle of all sorts of cool stuff.”

Then there are the connections he formed. Demopoulos says he built “amazing relationships” while in business school, including the lifelong friendships he forged with Professors Bill Cockrum and Al Osborne (now Anderson’s interim dean). Demopoulos found Osborne especially inspiring, often asking himself “What would Al be doing?”

UCLA Anderson Celebrates Commencement with the Class of 2018

UCLA Anderson’s 2018 commencement ceremony, like others before it, celebrated the degrees and accomplishments of the newest graduates of its three MBA programs, along with a scattering of brand new Ph.D.s.

But unlike any such event at Anderson in more than a dozen years, Friday’s celebration also marked the end of an era. On July 1, Dean Judy Olian will become president of Quinnipiac University in Connecticut, making this year’s graduation the last time she will confer Anderson degrees and preside over its commencement.

“These last 12-plus years at UCLA have been the best years of my life” Olian told the crowd of several thousand, including some 800 graduating students, gathered before her on sun-swept Wilson Plaza. “What a privilege and joy it’s been.”

Before delivering personal remarks, Olian introduced the afternoon’s keynote speaker, William S. (Bill) Anderson (J.D. ’88), son of the school’s namesake,Topa Equities founder John E. Anderson (’40). The late John Anderson and his wife Marion, who passed away in 2017, are the institution’s most generous benefactors, together with Bill Anderson and his siblings.

In his address, Anderson spoke movingly about the concept of change and his admiration for those in the business world who find the courage to take a risk. Anderson then told of his own long-debated decision to leave the family business where he had worked alongside his father, to strike out on his own.

“So, there I was for almost a year, thinking about leaving a very safe family business position,” Anderson said, noting that such a leap might feel less intimidating for many younger people in his audience. “You change jobs more frequently and you do a better job of seeking out new experiences than many prior generations. You have all had the courage to pause and step out of your work lives to attend business school. But, my guess is that some of you still fear change as much as the rest of us.”

Anderson referenced his experience in the beverage industry, saying a few risk-taking craft beer brewers had challenged and changed an industry once dominated by a handful of established major brewers.

“To lead change, you’ll need to step out of your cozy worlds and model the change you want to be known for in your life,” Anderson said. “That will take grit and courage. You won’t be able to ask others to grab and embrace change before you do.”

Returning to the podium after the keynote, Olian characterized her long, successful tenure as Anderson’s dean as “a lot of learning.” She shared with the graduates five lessons she said she would carry with her.

“I’ve learned that you can continue to learn forever,” Olian said. “I’ve realized how much I have yet to learn, and how much better I am when I open myself up to others. I wish the same for you — always to be curious, to seek out the unfamiliar and to keep learning.”

Her second lesson spoke to the capriciousness of fate and fortune. “It is a matter of luck that certain gifts are handed only to some,” she said. “There’s nothing that’s ‘deserved’ about being lucky, or unlucky, (and) it’s our duty — those of us who were born lucky — to give opportunity to others, to those who are less lucky.”

Next, she referenced the Anderson quality of sharing success. “I’ve learned that if you’re surrounded by a great team, a lot can happen,” she said, “way more than you could ever achieve by yourself.

Gates Foundation’s Hugh Chang Put Technology to Work for Social Change

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By Julie Ortega (’19)

I’m always amazed by how many pathways can lead into social impact careers. As a first-year MBA student specializing in social impact, I find it heartening that: a) people from so many industries have found ways to fold impact into their disparate interests; and b) I don’t have to follow a single, rigid plan to attain a career in the impact space.

Hugh Chang (’90) is a great example of someone who didn’t initially plan to pursue a career underpinned by social impact but found his way there somewhat serendipitously (and is thriving ― most recently as director of strategy planning and management for global development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation). Chang started his career in technology after obtaining an undergraduate degree in electrical and electronics engineering. His time in tech was nothing if not exciting: Chang worked at Microsoft when it was an organization of fewer than 5,000 people and experiencing massive growth. In fact, the whole country was undergoing momentous technological change at the time. “I got to help [Microsoft] make personal computers pervasive in people’s everyday lives,” he told a crowd at a recent UCLA Anderson School of Management High Impact Tea event organized by Impact@Anderson.

Entrepreneurship Lives at UCLA Anderson as U-Defi Wins Top Knapp Venture Competition Prize

U-Defi, the 2018 Knapp Venture Competition first place winners and recipients of a Pritzker Group Fellows Program investment, left to right: Aditya Marathe, Van Nguyen, Thanh Thuy Dan Pham, Cynthia McKee

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By Carolyn Gray Anderson

It was an evening of surprises as the 2018 Knapp Venture Competition distributed more than $100,000 in prize money, the most at any single competition in its 36-year history.

Not surprising at all was the high caliber of new business ideas. From a field of more than 40 submissions, five teams advanced to the final round of the competition to present the extensive primary research, financial projections and growth models behind their ventures.

Claiming first place was U-Defi, a scientifically formulated skin care product tailor-made for an individual’s skin “biomarker.” Anderson students Aditya Marathe (’18) and Van Nguyen (FEMBA ’19), along with Cynthia McKee (Ph.D. ’20) of UCLA College of Life Sciences and Thanh Thuy Dan Pham (Ph.D. ’20) of the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine, were relieved and gratified to know their sleepless nights had paid off to the tune of $15,000.