Harvard Alumnus Gives Gift for New Conference Center
Harvard Business School announced that Seth Klarman, M.B.A. ’82 and Beth Klarman have made the naming gift for Klarman Hall, a major new conference center, auditorium and performance space that will replace the existing Burden Hall. The new facility had been incorporated into the HBS elements of Harvard’s recent institutional master plan filings for Allston development. The project description, according to Harvard’s draft environmental impact report associated with the master plan filing outlines 140,000 square feet of new construction, to be built in two phases.
The first phase will consist of building a 110,000-square-foot, three-story complex just south of Burden with seating for approximately 1000. It will connect to the Spangler Center, the center of MBA student life and to academic buildings at the concourse level. The second phase will be building a 30,000-square-foot, two-story, below-grade facility for meeting and classroom space. Continue reading…
Harvard 1st Year MBA Students Present IPO Day
May 14 marked IPO Day at Harvard Business School, where students in the FIELD 3 course had the opportunity to present viable businesses to 900+ first year MBA students. The audience cheered as teams presented ideas ranging from making single origin chocolates fun and accessible (DelectareChocolates.com), a solution that ‘unshrinks’ woolen clothing (Unshrinkit.com) to an app (SpotRocket.co) that promised to help job seekers find the “hottest start-up to work for.”
This presentation capped the yearlong FIELD course. FIELD 3, the final module, thrust students into experiencing the real-world roles of entrepreneur, analyst, marketer, and investor. It challenged them to refine the leadership and teamwork skills they learned in FIELD 1 last fall, and the product or service development skills they practiced while working with global partner organizations during FIELD 2. The students had two months to refine their ideas and develop a customer sales pitch, all leading up to Launch Day in mid-April, and teams with a viable idea advanced to this month’s IPO Day.
“Our objective with FIELD 3 was to provide students with an opportunity to apply and integrate the knowledge, skills, and tools acquired in the first-year curriculum,” says Senior Associate Dean Youngme Moon, chair of the MBA Program. “It exposed the entire class to the challenge and excitement of being an entrepreneur, creating an idea, and making it a reality. “The focus was on taking action, learning from the response to that action, and making changes to improve your chances of success,” Moon continues. “Almost all successful ventures go through this ‘pivoting’ process multiple times as they probe and test their ideas. FIELD 3 uniquely challenged students to experience that process and learn from it.”
Harvard Business School To Construct New Executive Education Center
Harvard Business School broke ground on its campus for the construction of a new Executive Education facility—the Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center—on Thursday, April 24, 2014. The ceremony included remarks by Harvard University President Drew Gilpin Faust, HBS Dean Nitin Nohria, former U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine Chao (MBA 1979), Deputy Chairman of Foremost Group Angela Chao (AB 1994; MBA 2001), Former Prime Minister of Australia Kevin Rudd, U.S. Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA), and the Honorable Cui Tiankai, China’s ambassador to the United States.
The Ruth Mulan Chu Chao Center, a 90,000-square-foot, four-story structure that will contain meeting rooms, office and dining facilities as well as classrooms, is the result of a $40 million gift from a Dr. James Si-Cheng Chao and Family Foundation. This generous gift was given in tribute to the life and legacy of the late Ruth Mulan Chu Chao, beloved matriarch of this most prominent and accomplished Chinese-American family. Continue reading…
