Friday News – Sweetgreen Comes to Georgetown, Merage Honors Digital Transformation, and More
Let’s take a look at some of the biggest stories from this week, including the Sweetgreen founders returning to their alma mater, Georgetown McDonough.
Center for Digital Transformation Selects Top Companies for Digital Innovators Award – Merage School of Business News
The Center for Digital Transformation at UC Irvine’s Merage School of Business named three companies that exemplify the center’s mission: “Advancing the competitiveness and productivity of business in the digital economy.”
Using responses from its annual survey, the Center selected Target, Aetna/CVS Health, and Quad/Graphics for work in reinventing themselves to compete in the digital economy. The six elements of each business that the Center observed were the companies’ culture of innovation; the level of technical ability of the workforce; how well the companies apply digital technologies; strategic vision; and the investments the companies made in new technology.
Vijay Gurbaxani, the Director of the Center for Digital Transformation, says “Our survey examined 150 companies, but among them, these three companies stood out. Transformation is especially challenging for legacy companies—[those] incorporated before 1990—because they have to change in fundamental ways that younger, natively digital companies don’t.”
The winners were honored at this year’s annual Road to Reinvention Conference, along with a dinner on March 20, 2019. For more on the Center and the conference, click here.
Sweetgreen Founders Reflect on Success – McDonough School of Business News
The founders of fast casual salad chain Sweetgreen visited their alma mater, McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University, to discuss the evolution of their company. The event, which took place on April 16, 2019, was part of McDonough’s Stanton Distinguished Leaders Series.
Georgetown McDonough School of Business alumni Jonathan Neman (B’07), Nicolas Jammet (B’07), and Nathaniel Ru (B’07), seen above, speaking at their alma mater on April 16 / Photo via msb.georgetown.edu
Jonathan Neman (B,07) says, “We found this niche in the market where there was an opportunity to have something that was fresh and healthy, but also affordable and fast.” Noting that he and his partners were challenged to find any healthy food choices on campus, Neman continues, “We wanted to figure out how we could create something essentially for ourselves in the beginning.”
Neman’s classmates, Nicolas Jammet and Nathaniel Ru came up with the idea during their senior year at Georgetown. After being turned down for funding, they decided to crowdsource from a reliable audience: friends and family. The team gathered $300,000 in funding and the company took off. Initially called ‘Greens’ the original location of the restaurant was on campus
With social impact at the heart of Sweetgreen’s business model, the founders have begun several initiatives involving sustainable farming and access to healthy foods for underserved communities. The company also seeks to reduce waste at every level of production.
New Study On Ways to Inoculate Teens Against Junk Food Marketing – Chicago Booth Newsroom
A professor at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business recently published research on the affects of junk food marketing on adolescents.
Professor Christopher Bryan, along with the other members of his research team, discovered a method to protect teenagers, (especially boys, who are most susceptible), against the harmful effects of food marketing. The study, which took place in a Texas middle school, presented students with an exposé-style piece on corporations that manipulate consumers to make unhealthy choices. The stories revealed facts to the students about how addictive junk foods are marketed to poor and vulnerable populations.
Another group of students were given more traditional marketing materials about the benefits of healthy eating. The first group made, on average, more healthy decisions at the cafeteria on subsequent days. Professor Bryan says, “What we’ve done is turn that around on the food marketers by exposing this manipulation to teenagers, triggering their natural strong aversion to being controlled by adults. If we could make more kids aware of that, it might make a real difference.”
The study, “A Values-Alignment Intervention Protects Adolescents from the Effects of Food Marketing,” was published in mid-April.
The Fox School is Hitting the Road – Fox School News
Temple University’s Fox School of Business is launching a new alumni event called “Fox on the Road,” with the goal of providing professional development and networking opportunities in New York, New Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland.
The events will feature keynote speakers on trends and topics in their industries. More details are coming soon, and Fox is seeking input on how the series can be most useful to alumni.
Upcoming events this spring include a joint effort with Wharton Alumni of Philadelphia at WeWork on 5/1, an Alumni Association Cheer Station at the Broad Street Run on 5/5, and a TedX Philadelphia talk on 5/15. The TedX Event’s theme will be “Unintended Consequences.”
Penn State Smeal College of Business names two new members to Board of Visitors – Penn State Smeal News
Penn State Smeal’s College of Business has announced two new members to its Board of Visitors, which advises faculty and administrators on strategic decisions and trends in each member’s industries.
Smeal alum Farid Alias is President and CEO of Maybank in Malaysia. He received the Penn State Alumni Association’s Alumni Fellow Award, the organization’s highest honor, in 2017. Jerome Griffith, who earned his bachelor’s degree from Smeal in 1979, is the CEO of Land’s End.
Smeal Dean Charles Whitema says of the appointments:
“Both Farid and Jerome have significant C-suite experience that I expect will enhance the programs and services we provide for Smeal students…I look forward to the contributions they will make in the years to come.”
Farid Alias was named CEO of the Year at the ASEAN Business Awards Malaysia in 2015 and was awarded the CNBC Asia Business Leader Award for Corporate Social Responsibility, also in 2015. He is Vice Chairman of Asian Institute of Chartered Bankers, and is also a member of the ASEAN Banking Council, the Asian Banker Association, and the Visa Senior Client Council Program. Griffith formerly served in executive positions at Esprit, Tumi, Tommy Hilfiger, and the J. Peterman Company.
Click here for more on other members of the Board of Visitors.
3 Washington DC Nonprofit MBA Programs You Need To Know
It’s fair to say that the finance and consulting industries are the most popular for business school grads. But what about non-profits and social enterprises—where do they rank? While some assume that an MBA and working for a nonprofit do not go hand-in-hand, that’s not the case.
According to Fast Company, the nonprofit sector is the third-largest segment of the U.S. workforce, employing more than 13.7 million people at 1.8 million organizations, accounting for 10 percent of the country’s total workforce. The sector is the seventh-largest economy in the world—with combined assets of nearly $3 trillion, the U.S. nonprofit sector is larger than the economies of Brazil and Russia, and its neighbor to the north is taking notice. According to Nonprofit HR, in 2015, 50 percent of nonprofits were hiring compared to just 34 percent of for-profits. Nonprofit wages have also increased by 29 percent between 2000-10 and continue to rise, and exciting jobs in the sector are perfect for MBAs.
Some schools run entire centers and initiatives dedicated to the idea of social change. Other schools offer social entrepreneurship coursework, concentrations and graduate certificates with their MBA program. Here’s our rundown of three nonprofit MBAs in the Washington DC metro.
George Washington University School of Business
Students enrolled in the GWSB MBA program may combine their advanced business degree with a graduate-level certificate. One certificate program offered by the school is the Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management. This program is intended for students hoping to advance their careers in the nonprofit sector, as well as students who want to expand their knowledge but who do not want to commit to a master’s degree program.
The certificate requires that students complete 12 credit hours and maintain at least a 3.0 grade point average in order to be awarded the Graduate Certificate. Sample coursework includes:
- PPPA 6031 – Governing and Managing Nonprofit Organizations
- PPPA 6032 – Managing Fund Raising and Philanthropy
- PPPA 6016 – Public and Nonprofit Program Evaluation
- PPPA 6033 – Nonprofit Enterprise
- PPPA 6034 – Managing Nonprofit Boards
- PPPA 6053 – Financial Management for Public, Nonprofit, and Health Organizations
- PPPA 6058 – International Development NGO Management
The Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management program is available at the George Washington University’s main campus in downtown Washington DC.. Certificate students enroll in regular courses of the Trachtenberg School and earn graduate credit. Regular graduate tuition and fees apply.
Kogod School of Business – American University
The Kogod School of Business at American University also offers a Graduate Certificate in Nonprofit Management. According to the school, the certificate provides those currently working in the nonprofit sector a program combining both academic rigor and skill set training to enhance their performance in this growing work sector, as well as a foundation for master’s degree students about to enter the field.
The certificate program requires 18 credit hours of approved coursework with at least 9 credit hours at or above the 600-level and encompasses course offerings from the School of Public Affairs, the Kogod School of Business, and the School of Communication, as well as select coursework from the School of International Service and the College of Arts and Sciences.
Sample coursework includes:
- ACCT-607 – Financial Accounting
- FIN-630 – Financial Analysis of the Firm: Concepts and Applications
- COMM-642 – Strategic Communication Management
- MGMT-609 – Management of Organizations and Human Capital
- MGMT-633 – Leading People and Organizations
- PUAD-681 – Managing Nonprofit Organizations
University of Maryland R.H. Smith School of Business
The UMD Smith Dingman Center of Entrepreneurship and Center for Social Value Creation offer several different venues and opportunities for students to explore social entrepreneurship. According to the school, the Center for Social Value Creation was founded in 2009 and aims to educate, engage and empower Smith students to employ business principles that help not just the bottom line, but also the world. You can learn more about the UMD Smith Center for Social Value Creation here.
Students can pitch business ideas with a social mission through the Center’s Pitch Dingman program, or receive support and resources for their own social enterprises. The Center for Social Value Creation offers graduate coursework in social entrepreneurship at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and leads Social Innovation Fellows, a one-year program that gives Smith School undergraduate students hands-on opportunities to seek innovative solutions for social and environmental challenges through the application of business principles.
To learn more about using your MBA for a nonprofit career, take a look at our “Should MBAs Work in the Nonprofit Sector” post. Check out our list of the top 10 nonprofit MBA programs in the country for even more options and information.
Social Impact MBAs: Programs That Help Students Make a Difference in the World
For years, social impact has been a growing area of emphasis at business schools. Increasingly, MBA students are stating that a well-paying career isn’t enough: They also want to make a difference.
As Sherryl Kuhlman, the managing director of the Social Impact Initiative at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, told U.S. News & World Report: “Our students want to make the world go round in a different way. [They are no longer willing to] take a job they don’t like so they can give their money away later. They want to merge the money and the purpose.”
MBA programs incorporate social impact into their programs in various ways, through global experiences, coursework, clubs, competitions, and more. MBA students may also have opportunities to team up with corporations, government agencies, and nonprofit organizations to get hands-on experience during their graduate studies.
So if you’re interested in social impact, what opportunities should you look for within an MBA program?
Centers and Initiatives
Some schools run entire centers and initiatives dedicated to the idea of social change. Typically, these centers provide the foundation around which a variety of social impact opportunities are built, including research, career help, events, and course development.
For example, the McCombs School of Business at UT Austin recently launched its Social Innovation Initiative, which provides students, faculty, and the community with preparation to promote social change. The initiative offers graduate-level curricular offerings, with courses such as “Energy Technology and Policy” and “Invisible Global Marketing.” There are also many extracurricular activities such as the Social Impact Investment Fund, a peer-created fund that provides financial support for MBA students pursuing internships in the social impact space.
“The creation of the Social Innovation Initiative is a crucial step in bringing UT’s overlapping communities together to collectively address the world’s most pressing challenges,” Dr. Meeta Kothare, managing director of the initiative, said in a press release. “The interdisciplinary nature of the initiative is key because the most impactful social innovations often result from collaborations among private, public, and social sectors.”
At Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), the Center for Social Innovation aims to bring about social and environmental change through research, education, and experiential learning opportunities. For MBA students, the center offers social innovation courses, study trips, the potential to participate in an investment committee, and fellowships to provide leadership opportunities. The school even hosts an annual ceremony each spring drawing together a tight-knit core of students, faculty, and alumni who share a commitment to social innovation. Three classes of awards are handed out to a dozen students at the event, and Dean Emeritus Arjay Miller, 101, attends to encourage the continuation of a community of social innovation he helped found at the GSB while dean from 1969 to 1976.
Then, there’s the Yale School of Management Program on Social Enterprise. This initiative supports faculty, students, alumni, and practitioners in their pursuit of using business skills to achieve social objectives. It does this by offering a span of programs including courses such as “Global Social Enterprise” and “Managing Sustainable Operations,” as well as research, conferences, and publications. For extracurricular activities, students can participate in the Social Impact Lab, a weekly forum with opportunities to engage with industry leaders and each other, as well as the Economic Development Symposium, an annual conference that brings together eminent scholars, action agents, and key opinion leaders to work on solutions to pressing economic development issues.
Programs
For many business schools, social entrepreneurship is offered part and parcel with their MBA degrees. These programs can range from a one-week social enterprise trip overseas to a formal concentration within the MBA program.
At Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, MBA students can elect a Social Impact pathway concentration. This pathway is designed for students who want to create positive social change and includes required courses on a variety of topics from “Leadership and Crisis Management” to “Public Economics for Business Leaders” and “Health and Human Rights.” Within the pathway, there are three tracks: policy, nonprofit, and social innovation, each offering in-depth coursework to position students for their desired careers.
Meanwhile, MBA students at Emory’s Goizueta Business School can explore social impact through an annual seven- to 10-day Social Enterprise @ Goizueta Trip. These trips take students to countries around the world to observe the challenges that local economies face and develop market-based solutions. Alumni and evening MBA students can also travel to Nicaragua to visit coffee farms and meet growers. Full-time MBA students can visit Nicaragua or El Salvador to explore social enterprises on the ground and work on community health projects.
Competitions
Some schools offer hands-on experience in social impact to their students in the form of social venture competitions.
Through Harvard Business School (HBS)’s Social Enterprise Initiative, which aims to educate, inspire, and support leaders across all sectors to create social change, MBA students can participate in the New Venture Competition (NVC). The competition offers participants a grand prize of $50,000 as well as workshop opportunities, feedback, and business plan development advice.
Designed for students and alumni interested in using their business skills to create innovative approaches to tackling social problems, the Social Venture Competition at NYU Stern School of Business is similar to that of HBS’s NVC. Over the last 11 years it has awarded more than $900,000 to startup social ventures developed by students.
Clubs
Net Impact is one of the most popular social impact clubs, with chapters across the globe. More than 100,000 individuals have joined more than 300 chapters across the world to take on social challenges, protect the environment, and orient business toward social impact. The Net Impact chapter at UCLA Anderson School of Management, for example, has been awarded Gold Status, which recognizes it as a high-performing chapter and qualifies it to serve on the national Net Impact advisory board.
One of highlights of Net Impact is the annual Net Impact Conference, which welcomes attendees from across the globe to hear from keynote speakers, such as Clif Bar CEO Kevin Clearly and Derreck Kayongo, the CEO of the Center for Civil and Human Rights. Attendees at the Net Impact Conference can also take part in a variety of workshops, panels, and boot camps on topics ranging from civic engagement to equity.
In addition to Net Impact chapters, many MBA programs also offer their own social enterprise-focused student organizations. For example, the Social Enterprise Club at Columbia Business School connects students with faculty, alumni, professionals, and organizations to develop business skills and create social, environmental, and economic value.
Scholarships
At Oxford Saïd Business School, MBA students have the opportunity to apply for the Skoll Scholarship, a competitive award for students pursuing entrepreneurial solutions to urgent social and environmental challenges. The scholarship provides funding as well as opportunities for the award winners to meet and interact with world-renowned entrepreneurs, thought leaders, and investors. To qualify, an applicant must have three years of experience in social enterprise and be an incoming MBA student.
At Duke’s Fuqua Business School, there’s the CASE Social Sector Scholarship for incoming daytime MBA students. Scholarship recipients receive at least 25 percent tuition support as well as funding from the CASE Summer Internship Fund. Incoming MBA students who can demonstrate their commitment to applying their business skills in the pursuit of social impact are eligible to apply.
This is far from an exhaustive list—rather it’s a sampling of the wide-ranging opportunities to study social impact across MBA programs around the world. We hope it can provide a jumping off point as you begin to investigate social impact opportunities at your target schools.
This article has been edited and republished with permissions from Clear Admit.
Berkeley Haas Student App Helps Empower Syrian Asylum-Seekers
Students at the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley have found a unique and important way to potentially help the ongoing Syrian refugee crisis through a new student-built crowd-source platform.
Founded by Sarrah Nomanbhoy, MBA ’18, who’d previously launched a seed accelerator for new Sri Lankan startups, MarHub came to life with the help of a $5,000 Dean’s Seed Fund grant, a $5,000 Hansoo Lee Fellowship, and a $12,500 Jack Larson Scholarship. Nomanbhoy’s idea emerged from last year’s Hult Prize Challenge on Refugees.
Along with significant contributions from co-founders Jerry Philip, EWMBA ’19; Peter Wasserman, MBA/MPH 18; and Srinivas Vaidyanathan, EWMBA 18, MarHub addresses a common concern among refugees who struggle to navigate confusing and often conflicting sources of information once they reach a border.
Nomanbhoy explained in a recent interview, “Information from humanitarian agencies [was] too general, and social media was filled with unverified rumors. About 70 percent of asylum seekers receive negative decisions after this first set of interviews, and many are now in limbo pending the outcome of the appeal process.”
“The hard part psychologically is not knowing how long the wait is going to be. Time moves very slowly when you’re waiting in a queue, but imagine not knowing whether you’ll be stuck for two months or two years,” Philip added
Based on interviews at the Ritsona and Chios refugee camps in Athens, Greece, the MarHub platform evolved into a Facebook messenger-enabled chatbot that allows refugees to “view, evaluate, and comment on information from humanitarian agencies, volunteers on the ground, and other asylum seekers.” As MarHub accumulates users, “the data collected will enable more accurate, timely responses.”
But Chatbots are merely the beginning of Nomanbhoy’s plans for MarHub. Her long-term goal is to use data to “improve migration management” full stop. The product is expected to begin its initial pilot service with Greece’s RefuComm this fall, followed by more rounds of seed funding.
Where To Find New York City Nonprofit MBAs
Seemingly overnight, terms like “social entrepreneurship” and “ethical responsibility” have become buzzwords within corporate America. It’s hard to say if the suits have suddenly sprouted hearts or if they’re just convenient terms to push product. Green or Pinkwashing aside, the fact that social action has become a topic of conversation is proof that consumption has become a more informed pastime in America.
The Future of Business: Goizueta Social Enterprise
Over the past few decades, social enterprise—the idea that business can be used to identify and bring about transformative societal change—has emerged as a new way of doing business. As Sally Osberg and Roger Martin explained in the Harvard Business Review, “typically, the aim is to benefit a specific group of people, permanently transforming their lives by altering a prevailing socioeconomic equilibrium that works to their disadvantage.” This hybrid approach blurs the lines between traditional business, government and non-profit sectors, and it’s attracting attention more than ever before.
In recent years, social enterprise has grown into a prominent area of interest for MBA students. In fact, some programs, including the MBA at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, offer social enterprise as an MBA curriculum concentration as well as programs such as Social Enterprise @ Goizueta, which is open to all students interested in the business of social impact. Continue reading…
