{"id":36131,"date":"2017-03-03T11:32:01","date_gmt":"2017-03-03T18:32:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/haas-school-receives-largest-gift-ever-from-alumnus-under-40\/"},"modified":"2017-03-17T11:50:43","modified_gmt":"2017-03-17T18:50:43","slug":"haas-school-receives-largest-gift-ever-from-alumnus-under-40","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/haas-school-receives-largest-gift-ever-from-alumnus-under-40\/","title":{"rendered":"Haas School Receives Largest Gift Ever from Alumnus Under 40"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"newUC Berkeley\u2019s Haas School of Business <\/strong>announced it\u00a0has received the largest gift made by an alumnus under the age of 40<\/a>\u2014Kevin Chou<\/strong>, the 36-year-old founding CEO of mobile gaming firm Kabam, and his wife, Dr. Connie Chen<\/strong>, have pledged\u00a0$15\u00a0million,\u00a0with\u00a0two potential step-ups of $5 million or $10 million at the end of five years.<\/p>\n

In recognition of the gift, the school will name its new, state-of-the-art academic building opening later this year, seen in the above rendering, Connie & Kevin Chou Hall.<\/p>\n

After graduating with his bachelor\u2019s degree from Berkeley-Haas in 2002, Chou co-founded\u00a0Kabam<\/a>\u00a0along with two fellow Berkeley alumni. Late last year, he sold the majority of Kabam\u2019s assets to South Korea\u2019s Netmarble Games Corp. in an $800 million deal, according to the <\/a>Wall Street Journal<\/em><\/a>.<\/p>\n

Chou says it is important to him to give back to the school early in his career to inspire current and future Haas students to become entrepreneurs.<\/p>\n

\u201cBeyond Yourself is a principle that really resonates with me today,\u201d says Chou, citing\u00a0one of the four Haas Defining Principles. \u201cI\u2019m excited to be able to do this at this point in my career because I get to spend time with students and with Haas professors and other administrators, collaborating and helping them think about the new student space and the program.\u201d<\/p>\n

Chou is one of 176 Berkeley entrepreneurs who have signed the Berkeley Founders\u2019 Pledge,<\/a> a personal, non-binding pledge to give a portion of the value of their venture to support the university\u2019s schools and programs, if and when they have a liquidity event.<\/p>\n

The couple says their gift is also a testament to their support for UC Berkeley\u2019s role in providing world-class public education to students of all backgrounds.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that diversity is so important in terms of shaping future leaders. We\u2019re excited about bringing together students of all backgrounds\u2014not just business students\u2014to formulate ideas that will improve the world,\u201d says Chen, 29, a practicing physician and co-founder of Vida Health<\/a>, a venture-backed startup providing health coaching and programming.<\/p>\n

Dean Rich Lyons<\/strong>\u00a0calls the Chou and Chen gift transformative for Berkeley-Haas, noting that,\u00a0\u201cWhat makes this gift so special is that these are two people in their 30s\u2014an extraordinary time in life to be making a commitment to an institution that Kevin says has had so much of an impact on his life. Their donation is going to have a catalytic effect on generations of donors to come.\u201d<\/p>\n

You may also be interested in:<\/strong><\/h4>\n

UC Berkeley Haas Joins the Global Network<\/a>
\nUC Berkeley Haas to Provide Seed Funding to Student Entrepreneurs<\/a><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

***<\/span>
\n<\/i><\/div>\n
If you are looking for guidance on your \u00a0Berkeley Haas\u00a0<\/i>MBA\u00a0<\/span>application, Stacy Blackman Consulting can help with\u00a0hourly<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0comprehensive<\/a>\u00a0consulting services.\u00a0Contact us<\/a>\u00a0to learn more. Visit the website for\u00a0Stacy Blackman Reviews<\/a>, and check out the company\u2019s e-publications for more in depth school-by-school guidance.<\/i><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

UC Berkeley\u2019s Haas School of Business announced it\u00a0has received the largest gift made by an alumnus under the age of 40\u2014Kevin Chou, the 36-year-old founding CEO of mobile gaming firm…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":122,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11,749,775,243],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mba","category-stacy-blackman","category-admission-consultants","category-blog","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36131","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/122"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36427,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36131\/revisions\/36427"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gmatclub.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}