The Johnson School Club of Southern California co-sponsored with the Cornell Hotel Society a wine tasting event at Le Dome Restaurant in West Hollywood. Pictured are event organizer, Dori Berlin, MBA ’97, along with Cornell Western Regional Office Director, Peter Lee ’63, Jaime Montemayor, MBA ’03, and Elissa Meadows from the Stern School of Business at NYU.
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Reunion 2005
June 9-12
See details for Johnson School events in the events section down below
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Director’s message: Come join us for Reunion 2005!
The Johnson School is pleased to present Reunion 2005 on June 9-12. This year's program will kick off with a Faculty Welcome Reception at the Cayuga Lake homes of professors Joe Thomas and Tom Dyckman, and will include traditional program favorites, such as the Reunion barbecue (complete with entertainment by the Faculty Follies Players) at the home of Rich Marin, MBA '76, the Reunion Golf Tournament, a wine tasting conducted by Joe Thomas, a lecture/demonstration in the Parker Center for Investment Research, the State of the School Address by Dean Robert Swieringa, and a State of the University address by President Jeffrey S. Lehman ’77. The program will also feature many new offerings, such as:
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A Sage Hall Cinema screening of “True Big Red”, a documentary about the career of computer graphics pioneer, Donald P. Greenberg’55, PhD ’68, Cornell’s Jacob Gould Schurman Professor of Computer Graphics, who teaches a course at the Johnson School on “Disruptive Technologies.” Professor Greenberg will be present for the screening and will also show his own pioneering computer graphics film, “Cornell in Perspective”.
“Extreme Makeover: The Worldcom Experience” -- Robert T. Blakely’64, MBA ’65, executive vice president and chief financial officer of MCI will discuss the steps he took to help MCI/Worldcom emerge from bankruptcy and charges of accounting fraud to achieve dramatically reduced debt, clean accounting records, proper internal controls, and restored customer confidence.
“Scenario Planning: A Practical Tool for Managing the Future,” an executive education presentation by Michael Hostetler, the Johnson School’s director of Leadership Studies and Custom Programs.
“How to Be a Savvy Consumer of Polling Data”, an alumni presentation by David Binder, MBA ’80, CEO of David Binder Research. Binder is an expert in qualitative and quantitative market research, and has appeared as a public opinion analyst for “CBS Evening News” and “The News Hour With Jim Lehrer,” as well as a commentator for San Francisco’s ABC, NBC, and FOX television stations.
“The Future of Networking,” a demonstration of Jambo wireless networking technology, by company co-founder, Charles Ribaudo, MBA ’00.
Alumni who graduated in a year ending in a "5" or "0" are especially encouraged to attend these festivities, and all alumni are welcome to participate and become part of our "Continuing Reunion Club." For more information, and to register, please go to http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/alumni/events/reunion/
We look forward to having you join us.
Risa M. Mish '85, JD '88
Director, Alumni
Relations
The hometown team finally won the homegrown competition. After two years of placing second, the Johnson School’s team prevailed against stiff competition from Duke and Michigan in the third annual Stock Pitch Competition in April—the only contest of its kind for MBA students and one developed by Johnson School faculty and students.
Congratulations to Michael Albrecht, Albert Chu, and Edward Zelmanovitz, who defended their stock selection before a stellar panel of judges from firms that included Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Lehman Brothers. The winning team received $3,000 and their names (along with the runner-up team from Duke) will be added to the Jack Ferraro Trophy.
Other teams participating this year included representatives from Columbia, the University of Chicago, Yale, UC-Berkeley (Haas), Michigan, Kellogg, NYU, Duke, and University of Rochester (Simon). The competition was also covered by a writer from Forbes.com.
Congratulations again to our Johnson School team!
Durland speaker Fudge shares leadership principles
More questions were asked than answered on global trends relating to privacy, corporate responsibility, and control of the flow of information when the chairman and CEO of marketing behemoth Young & Rubicam Brands spoke at the Johnson School’s Durland Memorial Lecture on April 6. The mostly upbeat presentation by Ann Fudge focussed on her perception of leadership from her own experience in reinventing Young & Rubicam, and on the adaptive strategies by advertisers to compete for the attention of consumers in an increasing cluttered information environment.
The mental noise will get worse before it gets better, Fudge predicted, as marketers find ways to reach individuals through cell phones, iPods ™ , and in ways that seamlessly integrate advertising with program content. The process is being refined, however, as the Internet makes it possible for marketers to gather information about consumers and target advertising to their particular interests. “It doesn’t do us any good to send you an ad you’re not interested in,” Fudge explained. “We’re listening more carefully now so we can speak with a truer voice.” She noted, in fact, that the industry was supporting a “consumer’s bill of rights” to give individuals the power to opt in or opt out of receiving advertising messaging.
Fudge, who serves on the Board of Directors of General Electric and is a trustee of the Brookings Institution and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, among many other elite organizations, holds trust as the “most precious quality” of leadership. Leaders must be trusted to serve the group without sacrificing the rights of individual team members. Particularly with reference to the current state of the field of marketing and communications, leaders are catalysts that create order out of disorder to make things happen.
Her much-talked-about decision to take a break from the world of work just a year after achieving executive heights at Kraft, she believes, helped accelerate an industry-wide reconsideration of the work-life balance and what it means to be on the career track for men and women alike. “On-ramping and off-ramping” is becoming more acceptable, she said, as people in the corporate world adopt the practice once seen only in academia, in which sabbatical breaks are taken for personal and professional renewal. Even the concept of retirement is changing, as more and more people reenter the workforce.
As part of her appointment as Durland Lecturer, Fudge met earlier with student members of the Women’s Management Council and the Marketing Association. Questions there were more narrowly focussed on career issues, but one point was made during the general lecture that highlighted Fudge’s belief that progress will be complete when there is no need for gender or ethnic distinctions in achievement. Fudge, who was voted one of Fortune’s 50 most powerful women in American business – and as the 18th person to hold the Johnson School’s most prestigious lectureship was also the first African American woman to hold the honor – looks forward to the day when facts like that will be irrelevant.
The Durland Lecture Series is the most prestigious invitational business-speaking event at the Johnson School. Initiated in 1983, its purpose is to bring distinguished executives from the fields of business, finance and investment management. It was established in memory of Lewis Durland, treasurer emeritus of Cornell who served as the university’s chief financial officer for more than 25 years. Past speakers include Kenneth Chenault, chairman and CEO of American Express; Craig Barrett, chairman and CEO of Intel; Abby Joseph Cohen of Goldman Sachs; and Karen Katen, executive vice president of Pfizer, Inc. and president of Pfizer Pharmaceuticals Group.
Alan Pike says farewell to Johnson
Alan Pike, who has served on the Johnson School faculty since September 1, 1980, and taught many of you in management communications courses, will be retiring on July 15, 2005. We will be honoring Alan at Reunion, and would encourage alumni who had the good fortune to be Alan’s students to email the Alumni Office at alumni@johnson.cornell.edu with their well wishes. We will assemble these messages and present them to Alan at Reunion. Many thanks!
Camp $tart-Up needs alumni support
The student organizers of Camp $tart-Up 2005 (June 25 - July 2, 2005) and the Office for Women and Minorities in Business are seeking Johnson School alumni to fill the roles of business plan coach and entrepreneur panelist. Please help support this educational camp that teaches young women about business and entrepreneurship. In addition, please continue to spread the word about Camp $tart-Up to all young women you know between the ages of 13 and 19. To learn more about this great opportunity and how you can help, please e-mail the organizers at campstartup@cornell.edu or visit the web site at http://www.johnson.cornell.edu/owmb/campstartup/.
Alumnus’ health-care plan wins competition
“It is the year of India” said Lorne Weil, founder of Columbia Business School’s Annual Outrageous Plan competition as he presented the winner’s check for $5,000 to Anupendra Sharma, MBA ’98, and Jordan Tongalson, Columbia MBA ’06. It indeed was. The business plan that won the competition was Mobile Medics, a simple yet powerful idea to solve a problem about rural health care in India, which remains amongst the biggest challenges facing the nation’s 700 million villagers.
Management Guru, CK Prahalad wrote a best-selling book recently titled “The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid” about making money by selling to the world’s poor. The business plan offers quality mobile medical care by bringing doctors to the more affluent villagers for a low cost of $9 per year. By combining grassroots marketing, innovative selling, and investments in inexpensive technologies for communication and processing to provide mobile medical care, the team believes a national brand can be rapidly created that would be visible within five years to 70 million people.
Anupendra and Jordan were ably supported by a team of five students at BITS Pilani, a top engineering school in India in a rural area. The team surveyed villagers, talked to local doctors and videotaped some heart-rending findings that were also presented to the judges.
To pilot the plan, the team is reaching out to corporates and wealthy individuals, seeking a small sum of $200,000, which would be sufficient to reach break-even. This will allow the team to hire seven doctors and support staff, and target 100 villages with a population of 700,000.
The Columbia competition was tough with many brilliant ideas backed by Columbia labs, protected by patents, being piloted, and run by PhDs. However, a panel of eight judges – venture capitalists, private equity experts, successful entrepreneurs, and a well known writer at Fortune magazine awarded a historic win to an international socially aware plan. Anupendra says “This is a great moment for me personally, because it validates an idea that will benefit both villagers and healthcare providers in India.”
Anupendra Sharma is a director of Mergers & Acquisitions at Siemens Corporation in New York, where he executes Medical-related deals. Anupendra can be contacted on SharmaAnupendra@jgsmalum.cornell.edu
Christine Marchell ’75, MBA ’81, has become president of the Cornell Club of Arizona, a Cornell University alumni organization serving the more than 1,100 Cornellians in Phoenx, Scottsdale, and Northern Arizona. Said Marchell, “The first challenge in bringing the Big Red Bear out of hibernation here has been to get a new organization up and running, almost from scratch, and to lay out a calendar of events for the next 12 months. We had 22 people turn out for our first meeting in February, with representatives from the Class of 1942 all the way through the Class of 2004.” There are 100 Johnson School alumni in Arizona, and Kent Craven, MBA ’83, is on the new board. Events in the planning stage include Derby Day at the Races (Ascot Style) on May 7 and a "Get Out of the Heat" Rafting Trip down the Rio Chamas in northwestern New Mexico in late July. The club will also hold a poetry reading in September with selections from "A Bend in the Road" by Eamon McEneaney ’77, which was recently published by the Cornell Library Press. Eamon was a star lacrosse player for Cornell in the mid-’70s and was lost to us in the World Trade Center disaster in September of 2001. Any alumni who live in Arizona or who are winter visitors are welcome to contact Marchell to get on the new e-mail list.
Michelle Garvey, MBA '81, is global chief information officer for Warnaco, a global designer and manufacturer of intimate apparel, sportswear and swimwear with over 12,000 employees worldwide. Garvey, who reports to the CFO of Warnaco, is responsible for direction and oversight of global information systems for the company, which has offices in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, France, Holland, Europe, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. Before joining Warnaco, Garvey held various positions including CIO of Brooks Brothers and Sportmart (Sports Authority), and in senior management roles with Crate & Barrel and Memberworks, having started her career post-MBA as a consultant with Arthur Andersen. She and her husband, Luke Garvey, MBA '82, who is CIO of the NYU School of Medicine, live in Weston, Connecticut with their children, Alison (14) and Luke (12). Garvey credits her Johnson School MBA as a necessary component complementing her engineering background in preparing her for her career. "Understanding technology is a requirement for CIOs but nowhere near sufficient on its own to earn the job. The CIO position in the 21st century is really a general management position with a focus on technology as a tool for problem-solving, and the most critical skill set is being able to explain the relevance and value of technical solutions to business problems in understandable ways. The Johnson School gave me credibility in the board room by giving me the tools I need to communicate on a level playing field with marketing, financial, and operational executives."
Anne Chow, MBA '90, vice president of AT&T Business Marketing, was honored in March at the annual Outstanding Women in Somerset County (N.J.) awards dinner sponsored by the County Commission on the Status of Women. The commission presents the awards annually in celebration of Women's History Month to women who reside or work in Somerset County. Chow was recognized for her leadership in the business management category. Chow leads a global organization dedicated to supporting AT&T's enterprise customers. Chow and her team have full responsibility for a client base that generates billions of dollars in revenue for the company and has responsibility for portfolio management, market positioning and messaging, sales support, customer communications, pricing, and channel strategy, as well as for the retail customer revenue and profitability streams. Before assuming her current role, she was Vice President of AT&T's Signature Client Program, a sales and support program for the company's largest, multinational customers. Chow serves on the Board of Trustees for the AT&T Foundation, on the Boards of Trustees for Hunterdon Healthcare System and the Hunterdon Medical Center Foundation, is a member of the National Board of Directors for the Asian and Pacific Islander American Scholarship Fund, the first nationwide scholarship fund for Asian and Pacific Islander Americans, is a member of the National Advisory Council for the National Asian Pacific American Legal Consortium, and has served as the co-chairperson of the AT&T Asian Association for Advancement. She lives in Neshanic Station, New Jersey with her husband, Robert Moore, and their daughters, Alana and Camryn.
Sonny Sonnenstein, MBA ’91, was promoted to director of the Governance, Risk and Compliance practice at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he focuses on technology enablement in support of governance, risk, and compliance. He is also a singer/songwriter and has released his debut album, “Coming Home,” which was inspired by his survival of the World Trade Center disaster. Sonnenstein was on the 81st floor of 1 WTC, visiting with clients, when the first plane struck. Fortunately, he was able to escape from the building before it collapsed to the ground, and the experience gave him the catalyst he needed to focus on the music that had long been his passion. It also inspired the album’s title song. To hear samples of “Coming Home,” go to http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/sonnenstein
Paul Kavuma, MBA ’93, has joined Actis’s Africa team. Actis is a leading emerging markets private equity firm with 56 years experience investing in emerging markets companies and 93 professionals in 19 offices in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. Prior to joining Actis in 2003, Paul spent four years with HSBC Investment Bank in Johannesburg and London, where he was responsible for originating and executing African corporate finance and advisory activities. Previously a senior consultant focusing on emerging markets in PricewaterhouseCoopers’ International Privatisation Unit in Washington and as project officer for East African Development Bank in Uganda, Paul has advised on numerous high profile transactions, including the disposal of Lonrho Africa's pan-African cotton operations and the acquisition by an Egyptian conglomerate of a strategic interest in an Ethiopian tobacco company. He also founded, operated and, after five years, exited a retail and family entertainment business in Miami, Florida.
The CEO compensation research of Professor Yaniv Grinstein has been all over the media lately—New York Sun, Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, Journal Gazette and Barron’s……The Wall Street Journal wrote about Professor David Weinbaum’s mutual fund and that was carried in the Herald Tribune, the Boston Herald, the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Star Telegram and Marketwatch.com…..renewableenergyaccess.com posted a guest article by Professor Stuart Hart……The Economist has a story that references the work of Professor Robert Frank……and The Wall Street Journal highlighted the accounting research of Johnson School Professors Mark Nelson and Robert Libby.
For more Johnson School media hits, see Johnson School in the News.
May 13
West Long Branch, NJ
An Evening with Cornell University President Emeritus Frank H.T. Rhodes. President Emeritus Frank H. T. Rhodes will discuss the future of higher education. Time: 7:30-9:30 p.m. Location: Branches, 123 Monmouth Road, Route 71, West Long Branch, NJ. Cost: $10/person-Current club members; $20/person-Non-members; includes hors d'oeuvres and beverages. Attendance is limited, so replies are requested by May 2, 2005. For more information: men12@cornell.edu or 212/986-7202.
May 24
Miami, FL
The Cornell South Florida Business Network and the Cornell Club of Greater Miami and the Florida Keys invite you to attend an evening of business and networking with world renown architect Chad Oppenheim '94. Mr. Oppenheim's presentation is entitled "10 - A Decade of Architecture Since Rand Hall". Time: 6:30-8:30 p.m. Location: Courtyard Marriott, Miami Downtown, 200 SE 2nd Avenue, Miami, FL. Cost: $30/person includes reception buffet, dessert, and coffee. Cash bar. RSVP: www.alumni.cornell.edu/orgs/clubs/ccgmfk/events.html. For more information contact Elizabeth Stavis at 305-893-7283 or ejs19@cornell.edu.
June 9-12
Ithaca, NY
Johnson School Reunion 2005 - celebrating graduation years ending in “0” and “5”. For details, a schedule of events, and to register, go to www.johnson.cornell.edu/alumni/events/reunion or call 800-847-2082 ext. 2 or 607-255-9437.
Johnson School specific events appear in red.