Merage Alum Paves New Roads at Toyota, and More – Los Angeles News
We’ve rounded up the biggest stories coming out of business schools in the Los Angeles metro this week.
Zack Hicks: Toyota’s Leader for the Digital Future – UCI Paul Merage Newsroom
Zack Hicks, alumna of the Executive MBA program at the Paul Merage School of Business at University of California, Irvine, is leading the charge for digital intelligence at Toyota Motor North America. Using his experience from Merage’s EMBA program, Hicks charges forward as Toyota’s first-ever Chief Digital Officer, and CEO/president of Toyota Connected, a big data company that looks to use technology for improving the driving experience.
Zack Hicks, Merage EMBA alum and Toyota’s Chief Digital Officer, and CEO/president of Toyota Connected
In 22 years with the company, Hicks has served in a wide variety of departments, from financial services to IT. When deciding to go back for his MBA, he sought a program that would offer a new set of tools to draw from as he advanced in his career.
“I wasn’t interested in just checking the box, and I didn’t want to learn just theoretical aspects of business,” he commented. He also reflected on Merage’s diverse faculty and real-life business education: “I knew that made Merage a much richer learning environment,” he said in a recent interview with the UCI Paul Merage Newsroom.
Read more about Hicks’ work at Toyota and the EMBA program at Merage here.
Six Los Angeles Entrepreneurs Share Why Their City Is So Great For Starting a Business – Forbes
Though it may be better known as a city of dreams for Hollywood hopefuls, Los Angeles is also increasingly becoming a hub for business and entrepreneurship. Forbes recently compiled the insight of six members of the Forbes Los Angeles Business Council, sharing their thoughts on why Los Angeles is a top destination for entrepreneurs.
L.A. business leaders across a variety of industries shared their thoughts on the city as a perfect startup environment, including the city’s strong tech community, influx of startup talent, and its ‘second-mover’ advantage over Silicon Valley. “LA has the second-mover advantage when it comes to the startup scene,” commented Anna Nguyenova of TubeScience. “The office and living rent is significantly cheaper, there is more space to grow, more land to build on and it has one of the highest number of students graduating with a STEM degree.”
You can read more insights from L.A. entrepreneurs here.
G3X Conference Keynote Jan Masaoka to Examine the Challenges and Opportunities of the Nonprofit Sector – Mihaylo Newsroom
This August, the Mihaylo College of Business at California State University, Fullerton will host the weeklong G3X Conference to discuss issues in the social profit and social enterprise fields. The conference will be presented by the Mihaylo College Gianneschi Center.
Among the keynote speakers for the week will be Jan Masaoka, CEO of the California Association of Nonprofits. Masaoka has been in the social sector in California for many years, serving from 2007 to 2015 as editor-in-cheif for Blue Avocado, an e-magazine for philanthropic professionals. In 2003, the Nonprofit Times named her the Nonprofit Executive of the year. In advance of the conference in August, Masaoka shared her thoughts on philanthropy and success in the field with Mihaylo.
“Start and perhaps stay with work that is close to the action,” Mihaylo commented, offering advice to young people looking to join the social profit sector. “Instead of seeking to be an art grantmaker, put in the time as the office manager of a community theater.”
You can read more about Masaoka and the upcoming G3X conference here.
Temple Winners, Wharton Blockchain, and More – Philly News
Summer may be just beginning, but that doesn’t mean class is out for Philadelphia business school news. Here’s this week’s Philly news brief.
Fox School Announces Second Annual IMPACT Award Winners — Fox Newsroom
The Temple University Fox School of Business recognized outstanding staff members at the second-annual IMPACT Awards ceremony late last month, honoring staff who demonstrated the ability to collaborate effectively as groups to deliver impactful service, teaching, and research contributions. The awards are also held with Temple’s School of Sport, Tourism, and Hospitality Management.
This year, 16 groups representing the accomplishments of 70 faculty and 86 staff members earned nominations. The three winners were:
- The Fox Global Immersion program
- The Temple University Entrepreneurship Academy (TUEA)
- The Fox Center for Undergraduate Advising.
Winning groups took home glass trophies, customized merchandise to commemorate the achievement, a special group experience, and financial rewards.
To read more about the winners, click here.
Penn Launches Strategic Collaboration with Ripple — Wharton News
The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School and the School of Engineering and Applied Science recently announced the launch of The Ripple Project: a collaboration with blockchain-based global payments leader Ripple that aims to support academic research, technical development, and innovation in blockchain, cryptocurrency, and distributed ledger technology.
Geoffrey Garrett, Dean of the Wharton School, proclaimed during the announcement that:
“Blockchain represents the fusion of technology and finance spanning schools and disciplines well beyond Wharton. The Ripple Project will transform the way our students and faculty look at blockchain and its potential to change the world. We are thrilled to welcome Ripple’s collaboration as we prepare future leaders who will shape the future of how this dynamic technology is developed to transform fields as diverse as finance, logistics, and healthcare.”
Penn is one of only 17 universities around the world partnering with Ripple and its University Blockchain Research Initiative. Each university has the autonomy to determine its own research topics and areas of focus.
You can read more about this exciting news here.
EMBA vs MBA: Which Is Right for Me? — LeBow News
The LeBow College of Business recently published an article to help prospective MBAs choose between their EMBA and MBA programs. The piece compares and contrasts the Experience Level, Class Style, and Curriculum of both programs.
MetroMBA has ranked LeBow’s EMBA as one of the best in the Philadelphia metro area. Check out how the two degree programs match up here.
What are the Best MBA Programs by Specialty?
Each year, U.S. News and World Report looks at the top business schools around the country to decide which offer the best MBA programs. The goal is to help MBA candidates most effectively choose the best MBA degree to help them achieve their goals based on their interests and strengths. The problem is that there are hundreds of programs and it can be difficult to weed out all the noise to get to the information that you want most.
That’s why the U.S. News and World Report decided to break down all of their findings into a more easily consumable ranking. They outlined the top MBA programs by discipline to help you quickly and easily find the school you’re looking for. Each of the schools on the list was chosen based on alumni interviews, schools statistics, research data, and more.
We’ve broken down the results below along with crucial information about each school listed and where you can learn more information.
How To Create Your Own Internship, and More – Boston News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from Boston business schools this week.
How to Land an Internship That Doesn’t Exist Yet – D’Amore-McKim Blog
The D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University recently published an account of how Matheus Dos Santos, DMSB ’19 created his own internship at Brazilian bank branch Banco Bradesco.
Dos Santos, a Brazilian native, sought out an internship at Banco Bradesco as an opportunity to “learn more about the industry” while he spent his summer back home in between his first and second years at D’Amore-McKim.
Dos Santos reports, “When I was talking to them about a summer job, they didn’t have any process in place. They weren’t sure at first how to hire me formally, and since I’ve started, all sorts of people have come up to me to say that I’m the first one the bank has hired for this kind of position.”
AP Photo via Victor R. Caivano
Dos Santos helped Banco Bradesco “develop an online trading platform to reach millennials.” Edilson Fontenele, head of customer experience at Bradesco and Dos Santos’ supervisor, writes that Dos Santos’ appeal was his unique perspective as a “millennial who knows the Brazilian environment and also had exposure to international markets.”
You can read the full article here.
The Big Leap – Sawyer Business Blog
Sawyer Business School student Jennifer Wiens writes candidly about the precise moment she decided to transform her life and career. After being laid off from her job at a Seattle biotech company, Wiens chose to move cross-country to Boston in part to “go where the jobs were” but also because she thought Sawyer “could help me capture that sense of control in my career.”
Wiens simultaneously began her Sawyer EMBA and a stint as Charles River Labs’ global product manager where she coordinated “multiple teams and meeting with clients all around the world.” She writes about how the two fed into each other.
“Because of my Suffolk experience, I don’t feel like I’m out of my element. I’m explaining business concepts to people who’ve been in business for 20 years. I’m teaching them current approaches to certain things.”
Then Wiens pulled another 180 by leaving the Charles Rivers Lab gig. As part of her EMBA capstone course, she created a business strategy and marketing plan for Advanced Dental Sleep Medicine, which offers “alternative, non-surgical ways to reduce sleep apnea.” According to the article, both of which worked so well that the “owner convinced her to leave Charles River Labs and come work for him [as] full-time employee number three.”
Wiens writes, “The company’s gotten a lot of good buzz, so the business is poised to explode and franchise out. And that’s where I come in.”
You can check out the full article here.
3 Steps Toward Safer and Sounder Software – MIT Sloan Newsroom
Deutsche Bank CIO and head of safety and soundness Frédéric Véron recently gave a talk at the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium, where he shared 3 pieces of wisdom for making software “safe and sound.”
Véron said “safe and sound” software is about a “mix of hyper-awareness, good planning and foresight, and learning quickly from mistakes.”
According to the article, “hyper-awareness” involves knowing “how all your software is actually being used day-to-day, ensuring all stakeholders in development understand the full scope of the product, and continuously taking baseline metrics to understand what can be considered normal operating conditions for a system.”
Good planning and foresight entails that “all of the different procedures that will be necessary to maintain the system in production mode need to be thought through ahead of time. You can always bolt it all on later, but it will cost you more money and it won’t be native or work as well.”
Véron advocates “failing and adapting fast” by adopting agile and DevOps. “The whole point of agile is about adopting the philosophy where you break down major efforts into smaller efforts, allowing you to do incremental releases so that you can make a small change, and if it isn’t working you can pull it out of production quickly without impacting the whole thing.”
He elaborated, “Safety and soundness is about ‘How do we make the enterprise safer and more sound, right from the get-go?’ Not just when things happen, but before things happen.”
The full article can be found here.
NJ Monthly Mag Highlights Rutgers EMBA Doctors, and More – New York City News
Let’s explore some of the most interesting stories that have emerged from New York City business schools this week.
NJ Monthly Mag Highlights Rutgers EMBA Doctors – Rutgers Business Blog
According to stats released by Rutgers Business School, it’s not uncommon to find between 1-5 doctors in a typical EMBA class. This is largely due to the new reality of the medical profession, which has increasingly required that doctors “transition from medical practice to running hospitals, managing hospital finances, heading-up HMOs, working for pharmaceutical companies and becoming Chief Medical Officers.”
Three Rutgers EMBA Doctors made New Jersey Monthly Magazine’s annual “Top Doctors” list:
- Clifford Sales, a vascular surgery specialist at Overlook Medical Center
- Eric Seaman, a male infertility specialist at the Urology Group of New Jersey
- Jacqueline Williams-Phillips, the medical director of the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Bristol-Myers Squibb Children’s Hospital at Robert Wood Johnson University Hospital in New Brunswick and associate professor of Pediatrics at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.
Learn more about these EMBA Superstar Doctors here.
Patagonia Exec Talks ‘Fast Fashion,’ Fair Trade, and What It Means to Be A Responsible Company – Gabelli Connect
The Gabelli School of Business‘ Center for Humanistic Management recently hosted a guest lecture from Vincent Stanley, the Patagonia director of philosophy, in which he talked about how corporate responsibility has directly shaped the company’s business.
“One of our big concerns is how we look at the challenges of the planet and ensure that our company is not contributing to those challenges and instead contributing to the solutions. Nature is not just where we go to play. The health of our natural systems underlines all of our social and industrial systems, even in this tiny little town where we were based.”
Vincent Stanley, Patagonia director of philosophy / Photo via fordham.edu
You can read more about Stanley’s lecture here.
Can Stevens Students Create a Cryptocurrency Exchange? Bank on It – Stevens Institute of Technology SOB Blog
A team of Stevens Institute of Technology School of Business seniors recently announced its plans to unveil Coin Complex, a cryptocurrency exchange designed to address and improve upon the limitations of the current trading options, at the May 2 Innovation Expo. George Engroff, a senior finance major who recently completed a summer internship with Credit Suisse, elaborates: “The exchanges I was using were completely inadequate—none of them gave you a good understanding of the market and your portfolio. So I thought, here at Stevens, we have a lot of smart people and innovators—I’m sure we could make a better exchange than what’s out there.”
The Coin Complex login / Photo via Tom Braunck
You can find out more about Coin Complex here.
Inside the NYU EMBA Global Study Tour to Vietnam
Global study trips are one of the most valuable opportunities available to MBAs. It can provide students with the chance to experience different business practices, learn from companies across the world, and better understand the global marketplace. It’s a beneficial learning environment for students in any industry and job function.
At the NYU Stern School of Business, the most recent Global Study Tour took a group of Executive MBA students to Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. During the trip, students met with representatives from a wide range of companies including Vina Capital, Grab, AstraZeneca, Siemens, Esquel Group, and more. Don’t worry; they also had plenty of time to sightseeing and eat the local food.
To learn more about this most recent Global Study Tour to Vietnam, we spoke with Anjou Martinez, an ’18 EMBA student, who was on the trip.
MetroMBA: What was the highlight of the trip for you?
Vincom Center
Anjou Martinez: The best part of the trip for me was the Local Market Immersion, where each group was assigned a tour guide/interpreter and was given an itinerary to visit a variety of local places to observe the daily life in Ho Chi Minh. My group was tasked to visit Vincom Center, a high-end shopping mall equipped with residential and office space. At lunch, we sampled traditional Vietnamese cuisines such as Bun Bo Hue, a traditional Hue-style beef noodle soup, Xu Chicken Rice, a crispy chicken dish with ginger chili soy sauce and aromatic rice, and Sautéed Vermicelli Noodles with vegetables.
Ben Thanh Market
After lunch, we walked to the famous Ben Thanh Market, an indoor marketplace that sells local handicrafts, branded goods, and souvenirs at inexpensive prices. In this setting, prices are not fixed, so you have to haggle to find a bargain. We also visited Phuong Ha, a specialty grocery store for expats and more affluent locals. Most of the goods were manufactured from the U.S., Europe, and Australia.
On our way to our last stop, which was Maybank, we added a side trip to the Bitexco Financial Tower, which is the tallest skyscraper in Saigon. We ended our immersion at the bank, which was closed by the time we arrived—it closed at 3 p.m., which we thought was early compared to U.S. standards.
Metro: What company visit had the greatest impact on you and why?
AM: My favorite company visit was at Doan Potters, a private company in Binh Duong province which exports its pottery and home décor products to big companies such as Wal-Mart, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Crate & Barrel, and Pier 1 Imports. The management was very accommodating. They broke us into groups and assigned us an expert to tour their facilities and better understand their business from converting the raw materials into clay, designing, slip-casting, jiggering, hand-turning, glazing, carving, and firing. This experience showed me how small businesses in Vietnam can thrive, make an impact in their community, and profit globally.
Doan Potters
Metro: Can you share one of your funniest situations or experiences in Vietnam?
AM: The most unique experience I had in Vietnam was after class, when several of us rode on the back of a scooter driven by our personal driver/guide to explore the bustling streets of Saigon while making food stops at local eateries. It was exhilarating to go with the traffic flow with no clear driving lanes and directions. We ate like the locals on low tables and low stools in a crouch position. We were on the streets with Back of the Bike Tours for most of the evening, and we ventured from District 1 to District 3 and 10. I thought it was the best way to live like a local for one night. My driver Phuong was very helpful in answering questions about her country and what it was like for her—as a recent a college graduate—to live in Saigon.
Metro: What surprised you the most about your trip?
AM: Coming into Vietnam, I thought they were a strict Communist country like China. However, I was surprised to find out that the government has done a lot of things to improve capitalism by encouraging privatization. Small- and mid-size businesses are indeed thriving in Saigon.
Metro: Why did you decide to go on the Global Study Tour to Vietnam?
AM: As part of the NYU Executive MBA program, we had an option to go to a global study tour (GST) in Vietnam or Greece. I thought a GST in Vietnam is more of an educational experience for me since I had lived in Southeast Asia when I was younger. I think Vietnam has its own charm and interesting history—so much so that I was inclined to travel more than 20 hours one-way to experience what it had to offer.
Metro: How did the trip enhance or change your view of international business?
AM: Seeing is believing. Aside from Doan Potters, we also visited Esquel Group, a global textile and apparel manufacturing company that boasts clients such as Nike, Ralph Lauren, and Tommy Hilfiger. We witnessed how shirts and pants were made from scratch from cutting, sewing, embroidery, silkscreen, laundering, and packaging. Now, when I go for a run and put on Nike apparel, I think of Esquel’s manufacturing facility and how the world is a smaller place. The East has really met the West. International business can flourish by establishing global partnerships that create win-win situations for both companies.
Metro: Why would you recommend that an MBA student travel abroad during their program?
AM: My global study tour was an eye-opening, educational experience that cannot be matched by lectures, course readings, or videos. Students must immerse themselves in the culture, language, customs and thus, business opportunities. The academic structure of the global study tour optimized the learning.
