UCLA Anderson School of Management Blog

Alumna Bhavna Sivanand on UCLA Anderson's Social Innovation Programs

Bhavna Sivanand (’14) is the director of social innovation initiatives at the Price Center. With a background in public health, Bhavna is now merging her passion for making impact on a large scale with her business degree from Anderson. She has spoken about her passions in public health and the impact of projects she’s contributed to in various conferences, including TEDx Anderson. For more information on social impact at UCLA Anderson, visit the new website.   

Tell us about your background and what inspires you about social innovation? 

My background prior to business school was in public health. Coming out of undergrad, I was a biology and psychology double major, but instead of going the Medical route I started working locally and globally in public health. I was interested in having a population and policy level impact, and spent a lot of time figuring out how to distribute the burden of improving health across multiple sectors, including public, non-profit/non-governmental and private.

My work on various public-private partnerships led me to see the type of impact the corporate sector has on people and I started to explore how this impact could be used to improve social outcomes. I came to Anderson to learn how social innovation could benefit businesses, and so working at Anderson as the social innovation director seemed like a natural joining of my previous experience with my current interests.

I chose LA because there’s a lot of innovation happening in California. I wanted to merge my passion in global health with business principles. I was inspired by the rigor of the curriculum here at Anderson, and the ability to collaborate with like-minded professionals to create a better world to live in. 

How would you describe your responsibilities as director of social innovation initiatives? 

I manage social innovation programs for the Price Center at Anderson. What that means is essentially any program that enables the business world to create a social impact. Social innovation refers to any innovation (process, product, or program) that addresses and attempts to solve the most complex problems of our society in an effort to create positive social, environmental and economic change. You’ve probably heard of things like triple bottom lines, benefit corporations, mission-driven businesses, one-for-one, corporate citizenship, impact investing, social enterprises – these are all part of the solution. There’s a trend towards shifting corporations to think about more than just an economic impact, and my role is to promote thought leadership, partnerships and experiential opportunities for students at Anderson.

I’d like to put Anderson at the forefront of the discussion. We have the opportunity to shape the future generation of leaders, and stay ahead of the curve in the shifting role of business.

What are some of your goals to make an impact at Anderson?

I believe Anderson can help expose students to the ideologies of other graduate programs here. This helps break down silos. Sharing mindsets across disciplines makes it easier to work across different sectors!  The more we learn to think in different ways, the more we can innovate and solve crucial problems.

UCLA Anderson FEMBA Sheeva Sairafi on Social Impact and Enterprise

Through triumphs and uncertainty, bootstrapping a startup and launching a formal first round of funding, entrepreneur and Wolfen Spirit Award winner Sheeva Sairafi (FEMBA ’15) finds that none of it feels like work if she makes her passion a priority. UCLA Anderson’s Entrepreneur Association spoke with Sairafi about her socially conscious home décor company, Local + Lejos.

---

The EA’s CREATE Conference takes place on April 29, 2016.

Social Innovation Week returns to UCLA Anderson April 18–21 under the theme Ignite Impact.

---

Q: Tell us about your business and the inspiration behind it.

Local + Lejos creates contemporary product in collaboration with artisan women abroad. Traditional fair-trade products do not take changing market trends into consideration, and we provide our artisans with the tools they need to create products for a younger consumer. I had been working for the TJX Companies for seven years in merchandising and buying, and was seeing shifts in consumer demand for products with a social impact. After spending time abroad in countries like Peru and Argentina, I knew there was product out there to fill that demand, but it needed an update to fit modern taste. And thus, Local + Lejos was born.

Q: How has the Silicon Beach startup community in L.A. impacted your business?

Silicon Beach has impacted our business mainly because of the number of founders/advisors/collaboration opportunities that exist in such a small radius. I’ve become close with a few e-commerce founders that are further along in their businesses, and it’s been extremely helpful to hear their insight on what has worked for them, and their advice on the most important places to spend (and not spend) precious capital. At the end, you still need to make the decision about what is right for your business on your own, but it is helpful to have some guidance.

Q: How did you receive funding?

I haven’t! We bootstrapped our first year and are raising our first round now.

AMR Team Helps Bali Take Out the Trash

By Daniel Abbott (’16), Akinori Matsuda (’16), Lucy Prom (’16), Britney Sussman (’16), Richard Wang (’16)

Currently, 7.9 million people (locals & visitors) reside in Bali, Indonesia. This population generates 3,452 cubic meters of waste each day, 75% of which ends up burned or in illegal dumping sites. The Indonesian government provides limited waste collection services to a small number of high-density, urban areas in Bali. Therefore, if a household, hotel, or restaurant (i.e., waste generator) wants its trash collected, it usually has to find and pay a private party for that service.

Since there is little incentive or regulation encouraging citizens to dispose of trash properly, 50% of households don’t utilize any type of waste management service. This is particularly harmful in Bali where improperly disposed-of trash can negatively impact the beauty of the island and therefore its tourism industry, which accounts for 60-70% of the island’s economy. Trash management and disposal in Bali is an extremely complex problem, but the good news is nearly everything being thrown away has value. It must be sorted and disposed of properly, but Bali’s trash is actually treasure.

A small subset of the population is already making a living from Bali’s trash. In the “formal” waste management economy, waste collection companies have emerged with a pay-for-pick-up model offered to waste generators. On the “informal” side, scavengers on motorbikes scramble to collect anything they think has value from wherever in the waste lifecycle they can find it (local trash depots, outside of households, landfills, etc.). They aggregate all of the waste that has value and pass it along to their scavenger bosses, who then sell the bulk waste to a materials recovery facility. Bali’s relatively low current recycling rate (far more recyclables are consumed than are recycled) indicates significant potential to give people the opportunity to earn a livable wage while also addressing the tremendous waste problem.

Enter our AMR project clients, Kopernik and Olivier Pouillon of Bali Recycling. Kopernik, a Bali-based non-profit, was founded in 2010 to fight poverty by helping to connect last mile, most marginalized populations with simple, life-changing technology globally. Past technologies delivered included solar lamps, water filters, clean cookstoves, and educational toys. The waste issue in Bali is a passion project for Kopernik because of its location.

UCLA Launches Anderson Venture Accelerator: The Next Big Idea in Big Ideas

Enjoy photos of the Anderson Venture Accelerator launch

#AndersonAccelerator

---

By Andy Tillman

Imagine crossing the bridge of time and bringing together Henry Ford’s efficiency, Thomas Edison’s brilliance, Benjamin Franklin’s practicality and Steve Jobs’ imagination into one room, putting all of the necessary accoutrements within arm’s reach … Oh, what might have been.

The launch of UCLA’s Anderson Venture Accelerator doesn’t get us any closer to time travel — yet — but it does, most profoundly, make it a place where future Franklins, Jobses, Fords and Edisons can think and talk and grow ideas that just might change the world.

The Anderson Venture Accelerator is a 10,000-square-foot, state-of-the-art facility designed in association with the UCLA Library, for collaboration among aspiring Anderson entrepreneurs, students in the undergraduate minor in entrepreneurship and campus researchers, with mentoring from alumni, entrepreneurs and the business community. Part living room, part laboratory, part conference center, the accelerator is a center where the various disciplines that make up the UCLA community can come together to bring new ideas and opportunities to life.

The accelerator’s launch was celebrated on UCLA Anderson’s Alumni Plaza, where an impressive roster of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, faculty, students and alumni gathered for an official opening. Dean Judy Olian led the inauguration, referring to the accelerator as a “living lab offering students and researchers an environment that triggers innovation and breakthrough ventures. It brings together students and faculty from across UCLA, including health and computer sciences, engineering and humanities, to develop new ventures, share success, think fearlessly and drive change.”

UCLA Anderson Launches Campuswide Venture Accelerator, Cadillac Rewards UCLA Entrepreneurs

#AndersonAccelerator

---

Today UCLA Anderson is launching the new Anderson Venture Accelerator, a state-of-the-art facility that encourages students, faculty and alumni to develop new business concepts together. Anderson, in association with the UCLA Library, designed the accelerator for multidisciplinary collaboration among aspiring Anderson entrepreneurs, students in the undergraduate minor in entrepreneurship and campus researchers, with mentoring from alumni, entrepreneurs and the business community.

“UCLA Anderson is delighted to see the realization of this exciting living lab to further enhance the UCLA entrepreneurial ecosystem,” says UCLA Anderson Dean Judy Olian. “The UCLA Anderson Venture Accelerator offers students and researchers an environment that triggers innovation and breakthrough ventures. It brings together students and faculty from across UCLA, including the health and computer sciences, engineering and the humanities to develop new ventures.”

Think Globally, Impact Locally

Marta Gazzera Ferro (’99) is the president of Starfish Impact Inc., a philanthropic consulting company founded in 2005. Starfish Impact makes a difference in the greater community by providing strategic investment consulting services to grant-making private and corporate foundations, strategic planning and development consulting services to operating nonprofits, and social impact advisory services to corporations and individuals who strive to achieve a stronger triple-bottom-line vision.

---

Q: Why did you create Starfish Impact?

I started the company after decades of leveraging my business and leadership skills as a volunteer in the nonprofit sector. I realized I had a passion for the work and a results- and growth-oriented focus that could be translated into a career and generate greater impact in the community. I was also approached by multiple organizations to help them, and I realized that with a best-in-class team that includes Anderson alumnae Faye Walsh Drouillard (FEMBA ’08), Tina Gentile (’96) and Julie Lacouture (’06) — who are all graduates from different years and whom I met through business and the nonprofit community — I could create a business model that would make a more profound difference than I could as a solo volunteer.

Q: What are some examples of the impact that your company has had on the world?

I think it would be stretching it to say we have impacted the world but we have been a part of impacting the greater Los Angeles community and the country. A few highlights from 2015 include: working with Robert Egger, the founder and CEO of L.A. Kitchen and DC Central Kitchen, to scale and fund his visionary model in Southern California; creating a technology solution for Social Enterprise Alliance that supports its membership across the country; and creating an Impact Strategy for LIFT-LA that is poised to exponentially grow the number of families with children that are lifted out of poverty.

Q: What’s the greatest value of social enterprises in urban communities?

Social enterprises, especially in underserved neighborhoods, are crucial and on the rise. By applying commercial strategies and generating earned income from multiple revenue streams, and not just relying on charitable donations, organizations that would otherwise be classified as only public charities can often sustain and grow faster. The competition for charitable donations can be stressful and many nonprofits often struggle to raise funds. Burgeoning nonprofit entrepreneurs and existing nonprofit leaders and boards should definitely consider and analyze potential earned income streams as part of their business model. I recommend studying for-profit “giving” companies such as TOMS to learn from other socially conscious models. You can often make an even bigger social impact as a for-profit social enterprise.

A Nonprofit Passion Project Enhances the Value of Clinical Care

After pursuing his medical degree Tony Hung (M.D., MBA ’13) decided to add an MBA to his repertoire. Upon graduating, he began his internal medicine residency at the Olive View-UCLA Medical Center, where he has continued to pursue his interest in oncology, as well as health care innovation and integrative east-west medicine. In the fall of 2015 he launched a nonprofit passion project, iCareX. Its first innovative program, Project Health Coach, is aimed to train student members as health coaches to enhance the value and improve the efficiency of clinical care for underserved populations by helping to coordinate their care. We spoke with Tony about the project and his pursuit of giving back.

---

Q: You were trained as a physician, but decided to also pursue an MBA. What made you choose this path?

It was curiosity. With the transforming landscape of the U.S. health system, I knew I had to think differently to excel as a physician. So I took the leap to pursue an MBA like a curious traveler to a new country, looking for new insights. Little did I realize, I was immersed in an unfamiliar yet refreshing world of knowledge and expertise, and a network of talented mentors and colleagues. The business school experience has transformed who I was as a learner and has continued to shape who I am now as a physician. It has taught me to see and think in a different perspective, and as a leader. I hope to integrate the best of medicine and business to advance health care. I am proud to say that UCLA Anderson has supported me through this worthwhile journey.

Students Drawn to Impact Investing Will Compete in MIINT Condition

By Carolyn Gray Anderson

Brian Wasige (’17) arrived at UCLA Anderson from the UK offices of PwC with a keen interest in impact investing. Almost immediately after getting to campus, he established Impact Investing @ Anderson ([email protected]), recruiting a team that includes students, an alumnus, Anderson staff and faculty advisor Professor Bhagwan Chowdry — whose credibility Wasige won in part because he also convinced the Price Center of the group’s momentum and garnered his team some funding.

“I’m drawn to impact investing in the area of sustainability and agriculture technology because of the challenges that I have seen small-holder farmers — like my uncle in Kenya — face in developing countries,” says Wasige, who graduated from the University of Glasgow with an engineering degree, receiving first class honors.

Among [email protected]’s activities is the MIINT (MBA Impact Investing Network & Training) case competition. MIINT is an experiential venture lab designed to give students the experience of being an early-stage impact investor. The program provides learning modules to guide students through the investment process and culminates in a global case competition. Winners of the competition could secure as much as $50,000 in angel investment in their selected company.

Private Equity Pioneer George Roberts Shares Tips on How to Make an Impact

Enjoy Anderson’s album of the event

---

By Golie Alemi

UCLA Anderson’s Center for Global Management hosted George R. Roberts, co-chairman and co-CEO of KKR, as part of CGM’s Robertson Lecture Series on Global Business Leadership. Roberts joined Dean Judy Olian for a conversation in which he reflected on his four decades of experience in financing, analyzing and investing in public and private companies, and how lessons from private equity translate to social enterprise.

KKR (Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. LP) is a global investment firm that manages investments across multiple asset classes, including private equity, energy, infrastructure, real estate, capital markets, credit strategies and hedge funds. KKR pioneered the strategy originally known as the leveraged buyout, but now commonly called private equity, the practice of buying undervalued companies, improving and reselling them, usually at a profit.

Roberts, who co-founded KKR with his cousin Henry Kravis, stressed the importance of fostering relationships when forming partnerships. “The essence of life is having personal relationships. They have to be built on total respect and total trust. The relationship you have with someone is far more important; all that other stuff doesn’t matter, but it doesn’t mean you can’t disagree,” he shared.