UCLA Anderson School of Management Blog

How Green Can You Go? Five Inspiring Sustainability Initiatives at UCLA

Left to right: Umbrellas with solar-powered charging stations at UCLA Anderson; UCLA’s co-generation power plant; Bruin Bike Share

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Along with the S.A.F.E. Collection Center for household hazardous waste, solar panels atop Ackerman Student Union, the UCLA Bike Shop and bike fix-it stands and air pumps stationed around campus, UCLA is dotted with numerous other green features. Anderson alumna Nurit Katz (’08), UCLA’s chief sustainability officer and executive officer of facilities management, shared these five cool campus interventions you might not know about:

1) The Marion Anderson Courtyard at UCLA Anderson is the perfect place to break for lunch and power down — and power up, as it happens. In 2015, Jason Hsu (Ph.D. ’04), assistant adjunct professor of finance and an Anderson alumnus, generously donated a ZON Powersol umbrella that provides shade as well as three weather-proofed solar-powered USB ports to charge up to three mobile devices at a time as quickly as a wall outlet, day or night. UCLA Anderson immediately purchased three more with help from donations to the Anderson Fund from students and alumni, and has added more since. UCLA was the first UC campus to use the ZON umbrellas. It’s just one of the ways Anderson is thinking in the Next.

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California Census Effort Counts on UCLA Anderson Alumna Adriana Martinez

By Paul Feinberg

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Adriana Martinez (’02) believes that every person counts.

And when it comes to the 2020 United States census, it’s her responsibility to make sure every Californian is counted.

In August, Governor Jerry Brown appointed Martinez deputy director of outreach for the state’s California Complete Count effort. The organization’s goal is the development of a strategy for a complete and accurate count of California’s population and the creation of a campaign to reach some of the state’s most difficult-to-reach communities, including residents of rural communities, people with disabilities, the elderly, the homeless and immigrants.

Previously, Martinez spent more than six years with AT&T, where she served as director of public affairs and, later, director of external affairs for California; she also ran an eponymous public affairs consulting group. “I’ve always been really interested in managing and leadership,” Martinez says. “Going back to why I earned an MBA, I really wanted to lead an organization. Sixteen years later, that’s what I was focused on: managing teams, managing budgets, being a convener among various sectors.”

Daniel Tsai’s Support for UCLA Anderson Is All About Family

By Paul Feinberg

For Daniel Tsai, it's all about family. And love.

Tsai and his brother Richard, together, lead the immensely successful financial services business their father founded and that has become the second largest in Taiwan. His professional achievements are many, but Daniel Tsai makes clear that his family — its strength, unity and closeness — is his most significant accomplishment.

“When I had my family,” he says, “I felt that the most important thing was to make my children feel loved.”

Indeed, the Tsai clan, even with grown children, remains remarkably tight-knit. It includes daughter Iris (’17), a UCLA Anderson alumna and the founder of Esteemed Tea Collective, an Oolong tea importer to the U.S., who splits her time between Taiwan and Los Angeles. Whenever possible, Daniel, his wife Irene, Iris and her siblings still make every effort to be together at meal time.

“We will wait for each other to arrive before we start dinner or lunch (and) I'm always the one who's being called and asked, ‘Where are you, Dad? Are you ready for the meal?” Tsai joked. “I will try to rush home. I ask them to hold on a bit so I can be there to be with them to start the meal together.”

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

 

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.

UCLA Anderson Eagerly Awaits Marion Anderson Hall

By Carolyn Gray Anderson

UCLA Anderson is on a growth trajectory — in excellence, reputation and numbers. Yet Anderson is one of only three leading U.S. business schools without a recent expansion to keep pace with enhanced programs, top faculty and students. As we prepare students for meaningful global careers amid growing competition, a new building to update and transform the Anderson educational experience is the highest fundraising priority of our $300 million Into the Next campaign.

The goal? Quite simply, to enable Anderson students and faculty to learn, work and think “in the next.”

In October, UCLA Anderson broke ground on a beautiful, modern structure that will be named for a member of our namesake family and one of the school’s most generous benefactors, the late Marion Anderson. The 64,000-square-foot building will occupy the space just east of our 1995 complex, creating a new “front door” for the school and an impressive entrance to north campus.

“Marion realized we were capped,” Dean Judy Olian said of the limits of a physical plant designed for far fewer students and dating to a time when business schools granted a single advanced degree. “We were capped in terms of the impact we could have and the opportunities we could provide.”

Marion Anderson, with her husband John E. Anderson (B.S. ’40), donated generously over many years to the school named in their honor — not least, Mrs. Anderson’s transformative $100 million gift in May 2015. That unprecedented gift is funding research and fellowships, with $40 million earmarked for the state-of-the-art building that bears her name.

The new space is greatly needed. When the current facility opened 23 years ago, UCLA Anderson had three degree-granting programs. Now there are eight, including two in-demand, data-focused master’s programs added in the past three years. The school’s academic centers have also multiplied, from three a dozen years ago to the current eight, with a ninth on the way. And it now boasts three career centers instead of one, to serve a student population that is 64 percent larger than it was in 1995.

The new building, with features and design carefully planned to foster community and collaboration, will play a crucial role in keeping UCLA Anderson student-centric, innovative and cutting-edge for years to come. Victoria Lew (FEMBA ’19) said of the new building, “It will allow us to succeed by having the creative space to work together.”