MIT Sloan Prof. Unpacks Past, Present, and Future Bitcoin Bubbles
The MIT Sloan School of Management, along with apparently every other major publication, recently published an article about the staggering rise of bitcoin, which has risen in value from $1,000 to $19,000 in just a single year. The cryptocurrency’s rapid ascent has prompted a great deal of industry chatter about the potential for a bitcoin bubble.
Rice Business Plan Winner Heads to Nasdaq
The winner of the 2017 Rice University Business Plan Competition (RBPC) at the Rice University Jones Graduate School of Business celebrated their victory by ranging the Nasdaq stock market closing bell.
The RBPC is the “world’s richest and largest student startup competition,” helping more than 1,700 early-stage companies to get off the ground since it began in 2000. More than 200 former competitors have since gone on to successfully launch their ventures and have created over 2,000 new jobs. Twenty-four of the 200 businesses have exited with a market value of over $458 million.
The RBPC has been described by Forbes magazine as “the Super Bowl and World Series of business plan competitions, bringing together 42 university teams from around the world to pitch their ideas.”
Forest Devices, the 2017 competition winners, were given the opportunity to ring the closing bell of the Nasdaq stock market at 3 p.m. on October 10. The company’s CEO, Matt Kesinger, rang the bell alongside Brad Burke, Managing Director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship, and Peter Rodriguez, Dean of the Jones Graduate School of Business.
Beginning in Pittsburgh, Forest Devices is a medical device startup that is working on a stroke screening device that could be used by all medical personnel in any environment. Forest Devices walked away with almost $700,000 of the $1.9 million awarded during the competition.
“We are honored to win the Rice Business Plan Competition,” Kesinger said of the event. “It has opened doors to new resources and relationships that have accelerated our progress, and ringing the Nasdaq bell is an example of that.”
MBA Alumni Spotlight: Urban One CEO Alfred C. Liggins III
Alfred C. Liggins III, the CEO of Urban One (previously Radio One), is a shining example of what you can accomplish with an MBA from The Wharton School. Not only is he considered a trailblazer of urban radio, but he has also paved the way for Black ownership in media.
It was just two years after earning his Wharton MBA in 1995, that Liggins was promoted to CEO of Radio One. He took over from his mother Cathy Hughes, who founded the company in 1980 with limited funds—selling her home and car to finance the venture. Hughes built the company station by station, but it truly didn’t begin to take off until Liggins got involved, long before his MBA and becoming CEO. Continue reading…
CEOs of Lucky Brand, Warby Parker, Alice + Olivia and Triumph Motorcycles Are Among Speakers at Knowledge@Wharton’s Retail and Consumer Goods Summit
The Wharton School – University of Pennsylvania announced that Knowledge@Wharton’s Retail and Consumer Goods Summit will feature Wharton faculty and retail and consumer goods practitioners discussing growth strategies at established, emerging and start-up companies. Topics that will be addressed include innovation-fueled growth, digital strategy, assortment variety, disruptive business models, growth-oriented store associate planning, strategic brand extensions, collaborating with finance to achieve high performance, and effective talent management strategies. The conference will feature presentations, fireside chats, panels, and other interactive formats.
The summit is hosted by Knowledge@Wharton, the Wharton School’s online business research and analysis journal, in partnership with Wharton’s Jay H. Baker Retailing Center and Momentum. The NASDAQ and EY are the summit’s founding sponsors.The conference program will be held on April 28-29 at NASDAQ MarketSite and will feature Wharton faculty and retail and consumer goods leaders, including Carlos Alberini, Chief Executive Officer, Lucky Brand, Barry Calpino, Vice President, Breakthrough Innovation, Kraft Foods Group, George Calvert, Chief Supply Chain & R&D Officer, Amway, Vicki Cantrell, Senior Vice President, Communities, and Executive Director of Shop.org, National Retail Federation (NRF), Mukul Pandya, Editor-in-Chief, Knowledge@Wharton,
Mieke van der Loo, Chief Sales Officer, Bugaboo and Patti Williams, Wharton Associate Professor of Marketing
The conference is designed to be a unique learning and networking forum and may be of interest to people in senior-/mid-level positions at retail and consumer goods companies and related industries in a range of functions, including marketing, strategy, merchandising, customer service, sales, digital, IT, and finance. For more information, including details on how to register, please visit http://knowledge.whartonevents.com/growth.
