UCLA Anderson School of Management Blog

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.

A Data-Driven Road to Better Public Health

By Elise Anderson

It was a far cry from what Arash Nasibi (’14) had envisioned as an MBA student. A former computer scientist with a focus on management consulting, Nasibi took a sharp left turn shortly after enrolling in a core strategy class with professor Phillip Leslie, and just kept driving.

Nasibi became interested in Leslie’s perspective on business strategy, which suggests that MBAs seek opportunities that exist in often overlooked “sleepy niche markets.” When he learned that Leslie was recruiting research assistants for work he was doing on restaurant inspection data, Nasibi was intrigued. “It struck me as one of those peculiar markets that he had discussed in class — enough to pique my curiosity and learn more,” Nasibi says.

Dr. Susan Love Hurdled Sexism to Make Greater Strides toward a Cure for Cancer

UCLA Professor of Surgery, breast cancer activist and Anderson alumna Susan Love delivers the morning keynote address at Velocity, UCLA Anderson's women's leadership summit, on Friday, February 9. Register now!

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Dr. Susan Love (’98) has been battling cancer for most of her life.

She’s battled it as a surgeon, as the founder of both the Faulkner Breast Center in Boston and the Revlon UCLA Breast Center here in Westwood. As the author of the definitive book on the subject, Dr. Susan Love’s Breast Book, she’s helped millions of readers to battle it themselves. Today, she continues to take the fight to the disease as chief visionary officer of the Dr. Susan Love Research Foundation.

Love has also battled the disease in her personal life. Now cancer free, she is a survivor of leukemia. As she prepared her keynote remarks for UCLA Anderson’s 6th annual Velocity Women’s Leadership Summit, she took time out to speak with the UCLA Anderson Blog.

Q: What did your own experience with cancer teach you about fighting the disease?

It taught me (about) the collateral damage, the long-term consequences of treatments — what we euphemistically in the medical profession call “side effects.” But really, they’re not side effects, they last forever. They’re more like having your car in a crash. You can get it fixed, but the passenger door never quite opens the same way again.

After cancer, there are certain things that just don’t get better. We’ve made a lot of progress in treating metastatic breast cancer. We still can’t cure it, but we can certainly keep people alive a lot longer than we could in the past. The problem is that it’s not without a cost of collateral damage. And if you only have a limited amount of time, we certainly would like your quality of life to be as good as possible.

UCLA Awards Dr. Martine Rothblatt Its Highest Honor: The UCLA Medal

By Paul Feinberg and Carolyn Gray Anderson

In a popular series of television advertisements, a narrator describes the accomplishments of a charismatic swashbuckler, ultimately concluding that the fictional figure is, in fact, “the most interesting man in the world.”

Allow UCLA Anderson’s Dean Judy Olian to set the record straight: “Martine Rothblatt is the most interesting person you will ever meet,” the dean said in welcoming Rothblatt back to Anderson this week.

Rothblatt (B.A. ’77, MBA/J.D. ’81), whose company United Therapeutics is based in Silver Spring, Maryland, returned to UCLA to be honored with the UCLA Medal in a ceremony at the home of UCLA Chancellor Gene Block. Before the medal ceremony, Rothblatt participated in a lively question and answer chat with Olian as part of UCLA Anderson’s Dean’s Distinguished Speaker Series.

In the conversation, Rothblatt credited the interdisciplinary education UCLA afforded her as an undergraduate and graduate student for much of her remarkable success. Named by Forbes as one of the World’s 100 Greatest Living Business Minds, Rothblatt leads a multibillion-dollar pharmaceutical company that has brought life-saving treatments to market. Proudly transgendered, a medical ethicist, recognized as a technology and artificial intelligence pioneer, and now advancing the science of organ and consciousness transplantation, Rothblatt told the UCLA audience — which included UCLA Law School Dean Jennifer Mnookin and Department of Communications Chair Kerri Johnson — “This is what it looks like to ‘program’ someone with a UCLA curriculum.”

UCLA Anderson Launches New Online Journal Spotlighting Current Research

Across disciplines, UCLA Anderson’s faculty enhance the school’s relevance through cutting-edge research that is highly applicable to the economy, business and the wider world. The weekly UCLA Anderson Review chronicles for a broader audience the research our faculty publish in leading academic journals.

UCLA Anderson Review launched with articles examining retirement savings, including Americans’ aversion to annuities and the hot topic of decumulation — illustrating how, under a single roof at Anderson, faculty members are individually and collectively expanding understanding of how to solve one of the country’s biggest financial and societal problems.

The Review joins other leading graduate business school publications in making available to a global audience of business leaders, fellow academic researchers, policymakers and others the substantial intellectual capital UCLA Anderson possesses and adds to each day.

Global Field Study Students Apply Social Impact Focus to After-School Programs in South Africa

GAP Team 33 met with staff and students outside of Johannesburg at the Boys & Girls Club of Pimville, which is run by UCLA Anderson alumna Laura Parker (’13). Top row: Jamie Nichols, Sne Vilakazi, Courtney Reed, Kitty Moepang, Christina Lebo Tlhabanyane, Dominque Akens. Bottom row: Laura Parker, Chloe Vieira, Diamon Lockett, Tumi Ramasodi.

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By Dominique Akens, Diamon Lockett, Shaurya Nanavati, Jamie Nichols, Courtney Reed, Chloe Vieira (FEMBA Class of 2018)

Our Global Access Program field study focused on increasing support for after-school programs in South Africa. We addressed some of the country’s problems stemming from its broken education system, gang violence, teenage pregnancy, HIV/AIDS prevalence and unemployment.

Supported by UCLA Anderson’s Center for Global Management, we partnered with two clients — Boys & Girls Clubs of South Africa and The Learning Trust ― who believe after-school programming can fill gaps in the education system and help lift South African children out of poverty. We operated on the assumption that involving more youth in after-school programs (“ASPs”) would make them safer, strengthen their educational performance and broaden their post-educational opportunities.

We embarked on a thesis project that was markedly different from those of our Fully Employed MBA GAP peers, whose projects traditionally entail finding new growth opportunities for corporate clients, typically technology companies. Our team has over 20 collective years of experience in the nonprofit and education sectors, and we felt strongly that our thesis project should reflect our interest in social impact. We developed a map of after-school programs in the Gauteng province of South Africa, researched effective after-school programming methods and recommended strategies to build the sector and reach more youth in the country.

UCLA Anderson Forecast: Could Dysfunction in Washington Spill Over to the U.S. Economy?

UCLA Anderson Forecast’s third quarterly report in 2017 anticipates modest growth in real GDP with gains in employment. On a national level, a number of pro-growth economic policies involving proposed tax cuts, investment in infrastructure and regulatory relief were expected to be initiated this year by the new administration in Washington, D.C., but few have transpired. Although there has been some progress on the regulatory front, challenges remain on a host of issues, including immigration, health care and trade policies. In California, the forecast is slightly lower, reflecting the administration’s difficulties in getting proposals passed.

On Wednesday, September 27, the UCLA Anderson Forecast examines the Death and Life of Retail in America, with a keynote by Gary Schoenfeld, former CEO of Pacific Sunwear and Vans Inc., and a panel of e-commerce experts. UCLA Anderson Forecast Economist William Yu examined the decline in employment in the retail industry across the country and found that despite continued economic expansion, employment in this sector declined by 29,000 in one year. What has been the second largest private-sector employer in the U.S. has now dropped to the fourth largest.

With an increase in online shopping and more stores using automated checkout in place of cashiers, Yu predicts retail might “become the next shrinking sector in terms of jobs over the next few decades.”

UCLA Anderson Faculty Recognized for Excellence in Research and Teaching

The UCLA Anderson community warmly congratulates our 2017 faculty award winners:

Hal Hershfield – Dean George W. Robbins Assistant Professor Teaching Award
This award recognizes teaching excellence within the ranks of the school’s assistant professors.

Lori Santikian – Citibank Teaching Award
This annual award is given to the school’s most outstanding MBA teacher, based on criteria outlined by Citibank.

Guillaume Roels and Margaret Shih – Neidorf “Decade” Teaching Award
This award recognizes faculty members’ exemplary teaching contributions, as demonstrated over a period of seven to 10 years.

Hal Hershfield – Eric and “E” Juline Faculty Excellence in Research Award
This award is given annually to recognize excellence in research among the school’s assistant professors.

Margaret Shih – La Force Award
The La Force Award for Leadership is intended to recognize and honor an individual Anderson faculty member who has demonstrated his or her leadership in making UCLA Anderson a better place.

Miguel Unzueta – Faculty Community Engagement Award
This award is intended to honor a UCLA Anderson faculty member who exemplifies service to the school through his or her engagement and support of students, alumni and/or prospective students outside of the classroom.

Suzanne Shu – Dean’s Prize
The Dean’s Prize is given for outstanding faculty mentorship of Ph.D. students.

Marissa Sharif – Xavier Drèze Prize
The Xavier Drèze Prize is given for the best Ph.D. student research paper.

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Moving Forward: Can We Solve L.A.’s Housing Affordability Problem?

Photo: Owen CL, Unsplash.com

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By Carolyn Gray Anderson

Last March, Los Angeles voters rejected proposed limits on the construction of large-scale buildings, limits that included a two-year moratorium on development of dense, high-rise residential properties. In a city where working-class and middle-income households are increasingly forced to prioritize housing costs over medical care, food and even transportation, it was a decisive defeat for ballot Measure S. But will augmenting the pace and quantity of available dwellings really make living here more affordable for anyone but the super rich?

The UCLA Ziman Center for Real Estate studies the problem of housing affordability as it reaches crisis levels in California. The constraints are especially acute locally because although there is an immense amount of wealth concentrated in L.A. and land values are extremely high, ours is a very expensive city with no real wage growth within the working class.

Ziman partners regularly with the nonprofit Mercy Housing to organize symposia on topics germane to professionals in real estate, government and industry — but with a crucial public education component consistent with the mission of Ziman’s Howard and Irene Levine Program in Housing and Social Responsibility to promote the kind of dialogue that improves society in all economic sectors. Mercy Housing is a national nonprofit organization that provides affordable housing and supportive programs in 41 states to improve the economic status of residents, revitalize neighborhoods and stabilize lives.

Left to right: Paul Ong, Ann Sewill, Doug Shoemaker, Ben Metcalf, Ben Besley, Kevin Ratner

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.