Smith School Named in Net Impact Rankings
Net Impact named the Robert H. Smith School of Business as 20th in Social Impact and 30th in Sustainability among MBA programs in the 2014 “Business as UNusual” rankings. Continue reading…
Smith Adds Staff Member Dedicated to Military Students
For the first time, active-duty soldiers and veterans taking classes at the Robert H. Smith School of Business have a dedicated staff member to help make their transition from duty to the classroom easy and help them reached their career goals— The school has appointed Richard Campbell as director of military and veteran affairs. 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.”
Smeal College of Business Mourns Passing of Founder of the School’s Venture Capital Center
John D. Garber ’40 passed away last month in Palm Desert, Calif. He and his wife, Bette, were significant contributors to the Penn State Smeal College of Business, establishing the John and Bette Garber Venture Capital Center for Penn State Smeal MBA students in 1999.
The Garber Venture Capital Center—part of the college’s Farrell Center for Corporate Innovation and Entrepreneurship—is a $5 million venture fund that supports student-managed private equity investing in early stage technology-based companies.
“The generous contributions to our college from the Garber family have provided our MBA students with an unmatched opportunity, through the Garber Venture Capital Center, that prepares them to think critically about business, investment, and risk,” said Charles H. Whiteman, John and Becky Surma Dean of Smeal.
John and Bette’s $5 million commitment to Smeal in 1999 to establish the Garber Venture Capital Center was at that time the largest gift across the country to a program of this nature. Over the course of his career, John invested in numerous start-up companies and wanted to provide Penn State Smeal MBA students the opportunity to gain experience doing so as well.
Students engage in the venture capital process by enrolling in the Garber Practicum seminar. Entrepreneurs from several prospective investment properties present their business concepts, then students perform due diligence on these firms. Toward the end of the seminar, the student teams present their findings to their peers and vote on which, if any, properties warrant an investment.
Penn State Smeal College of Business MBA Students Experience Global Immersion in Peru
As part of the Penn State Smeal College of Business MBA Program’s global immersion experience, 22 students spent one week in Lima, Peru, in order to experience the business climate and culture.
“We like to provide our students with an opportunity to visit developing economies around the world,” said Doug Thomas, faculty director for the Penn State Smeal MBA Program, who also traveled to Lima with the students. “We chose Peru specifically because of its recent pattern of strong economic growth as well as strong projected growth in the future.”
One of the company visits included a stop at Canadian Mining, which, despite its name, is a Peruvian company—the founder is Canadian. Students also visited with Emilio van Oordt, ’98 MBA and general manager for Sodimac, a chain of home improvement centers in Peru.
“As is always the case on our global immersion trips, we connected with Penn State alumni,” said Thomas. “Emilio and his team shared insights into both their commercial success but also their commitment to investing in the community through donations of products as well as employees’ time and expertise in renovating housing in lower-income communities.
Other companies students visited in Lima included ADEX, Peru’s exporters association; Pragma – Brandgroup; startup accelerator Wayra; Cendeit, an educational development center; and Sodimac, a Chilean home improvement chain directed by Smeal MBA alumnus Emilio van Oordt.
Northeastern’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business NEXPO Highlights Diverse Ventures
Northeastern’s emerging entrepreneurial ecosystem was highlighted by the school’s NEXPO, Northeastern University Entrepreneurship Expo, held at Northeastern’s Cabot Athletic Center this past week. Approximately 40 diverse ventures were showcased for students, faculty, alumni and members of the Greater Boston tech community.
Among those in attendance was Hugh Courtney, Dean of Northeastern’s D’Amore-McKim School of Business. Courtney commended the breadth of the startups involved Wednesday. “The diversity of ventures … suggests to me a healthy venture accelerator,” the dean noted, soon pointing to another powerful part of the program: the students. “I really do believe it’s the student-run nature of IDEA that is the secret to its success.” The expo showcases IDEA’s top ventures, which have been coached by IDEA’s coaching team, made up of enthusiastic students whose sole goal is to see their peers succeed.
“They’ll do everything in their power to help you get to where you want to be,” said Shivangi Shah, co-founder of genius.box, a startup dedicated to delivering a STEM education to its users. “The fact that Northeastern has this kind of support system has been so helpful.”
