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11 May 2015, 09:00
| FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Leading effectively from day one |
 Today marks the start of “Leadership Week” at Kellogg, sponsored by the school’s Business Leadership Club. The theme of the week is “Leading effectively from day one.” Leadership Week will feature a collection of nine speaker events on campus. The complete schedule can be found below, and video of the events will be available afterward. Also, keep an eye on the hashtag #KelloggLeads on Twitter all week for lessons and advice about becoming a better leader. Monday, May 11 SPEAKERS: Marc Malnati, CEO of Lou Malnati’s and Mark Agnew, President EVENT TITLE: Leading with a Relational Model DESCRIPTION: Malnati’s is recognized as a top workplace by the Chicago Tribune, and they have a passion for leading the company with a “relational model.” Marc and Mark will share how this model and management style has created a unique culture at their company. TIME: 12:15 p.m. SPEAKER: Ben Hernandez, Founder/CEO of Numat Co-Sponsored by the Entrepreneurship Club EVENT TITLE: An Entrepreneur’s Perspective: Challenges & Strategies for Board, Investor and People Management DESCRIPTION: This fireside chat with Ben Hernandez will provide guests with a unique look at the entrepreneurs perspective on leadership. Hernandez founded a company during his time at Kellogg and has dealt with the challenges and strategies for managing boards, investors and people directly after graduating from Kellogg. TIME: 5:15 p.m. Tuesday, May 12 SPEAKER: Professor Jon Maner Co-Sponsored by the General Management Club EVENT TITLE: Prestige v. Dominance: Avoiding Career Self-Sabatoge DESCRIPTION: Professor Maner will discuss balancing leadership traits of prestige and dominance. Effective leaders such as Steve Jobs (dominance) and Warren Buffet (prestige) have used these traits to lead their respective organizations. Learn what naturally comes to you and how to adjust your leadership to effectively lead your team to ensure that you are not sabotaging your own career. TIME: 12:15 p.m. SPEAKER: Paul Corona, clinical asst. professor of leadership & director of MBA leadership development EVENT TITLE: Giving and Receiving Feedback DESCRIPTION: This will be a highly interactive and engaging workshop with Paul Corona, clinical assistant professor of leadership and director of MBA leadership development. Corona will offer insights based on his 30-year career in management and coaching to help set you up for success in your summer internships and full-time jobs. Share your experiences and hear what the experts have to say about the “do’s and don’ts” for effective feedback. Be ready to contribute and role-play; you’ll have an opportunity to practice what you’ve learned and improve your feedback skills real-time! TIME: 5:15 p.m. Wednesday, May 13 SPEAKER: Hon. Brad Carson, Acting Undersecretary of the Army (US) and the Acting Deputy of Defense for Personnel and Readiness Co-Sponsored by the Kellogg Veterans Association EVENT TITLE: Leadership Lessons from the Pentagon DESCRIPTION: Brad Carson, the recently-appointed acting Deputy Secretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, will be on campus to share his unique perspective on effective leadership based on his years of experience with the U.S. Army and in the U.S. House of Representatives. The Honorable Mr. Carson’s speech will focus on developing large-scale strategies and policies. TIME: 12:15 p.m. SPEAKER: Paul Brown, CEO, Arby’s Restaurant Group, Inc. EVENT TITLE: Sparking Culture and Igniting a Brand DESCRIPTION: As CEO, Paul Brown is overseeing a revitalization effort of the Arby’s brand. In his presentation, Brown will discuss his strategy of cultural reinvigoration and how the brand has clarified vision, purpose and strategy to outperform the industry. Prior to Arby’s, Mr. Brown was the President of Brands at Hilton Worldwide, President of Expedia.com, Partner at McKinsey — where he lead the firms global hospitality practice — and Manager at BCG. He is a Kellogg alumnus. TIME: 5:15PM Thursday, May 14 SPEAKER: Professor Carter Cast EVENT TITLE: A Conversation on Personal Leadership DESCRIPTION: Professor Carter Cast’s fireside chat will feature a discussion on leadership in a variety of business settings based on his own experiences at large companies, startups, and now at a venture capital. TIME: 12:15 p.m. SPEAKERS: Dean Sally Blount & Professor Harry Kraemer EVENT TITLE: A Conversation on Values-Based Leadership DESCRIPTION: Be among the first to hear about the contents of Professor Harry Kraemer’s new book! Dean Sally Blount will conduct this interview with Professor Kraemer in what will be a very interactive session. TIME: 5:15 p.m. Friday, May 15 SPEAKER: Betsy Ziegler, associate dean of MBA programs and dean of students EVENT TITLE: Influence Tactics Workshop DESCRIPTION: Interested in learning how to adjust your influence style to different situations or for different people? The ability to gain buy-in from peers across an organization and to “manage up” with your company’s leadership is an essential skill in today’s world. Come join this interactive workshop on how to effectively develop and leverage your ability to influence. Learn from Dean Ziegler about her approach to influence tactics and hear examples from her experience. TIME: 12:15 p.m. Learn more about the Kellogg Business Leadership Club. Filed under: Academics, Business Insight, Career, Student Life Tagged: Business Leadership Club, guest speakers, leadership, student clubs, thought leadership  
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12 May 2015, 08:00
| FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Searching for ‘The Good Life’ |
 “Think about the metric by which your life will be judged, and make a resolution to live every day so that in the end, your life will be judged a success.” — Clay Christensen “Productivity is the act of bringing a system closer to its goal.” — Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt “The most important thing about the good life is that you get to decide what good is. If you are living someone else’s good life, you’re making a huge mistake.” — Seth Godin Over the past two years, these three quotes have given me plenty of food for thought and have helped me think about two big questions:
For many of us, the weight of these questions can leave us overwhelmed, almost to the point that tackling our ever-growing daily to-list feels like a productive relief and welcome distraction! And yet, is there anything more important than asking these questions to ourselves? There is no productivity if we’re not working towards the goal, after all. The Good Life sessions Last month, Professor Cast, Professor Corona, Professor Murnane, Lexie Smith and I launched a three-part workshop series we called “The Good Life” sessions. Our idea was to help our classmates and friends breakdown this life concept into three meaningful questions:
We launched the Good Life series, in part, because we had never seen this topic tackled. From our research, many books have approached this topic from various angles, but none had created any ready-made content or structure for us to use. We framed these sessions to our classmates and friends as an opportunity to get exposed to tools and frameworks that would hopefully help each of them start to think about those three important questions and ultimately help each of them progress on their path to the Good Life. It turned out there was a huge group of students who were just as interested as Lexie and I were in getting started on this journey. In the first two minutes of registration for the Good Life series, we received more than 70 sign-ups. After four hours, more than 25% (+300) of the student body had registered. Weeks later, we continue to hear incredible Good Life stories from friends and classmates who have begun to change their daily habits, who have changed their priorities to focus more on what they value most and who have created new found friendships with other “Good Lifers.” Creating your own “Good Life” Designing a life you consider “good” is a personal endeavor. There’s no tool or template that will solve it for you. However, there are principles that you can apply. As a special gift to you, we’d like to share each session’s worksheet that we created for our friends and classmates. The links below lead to the session worksheets: 1. What do I value? 2. How do I find my personal mission? (Mission statements examples sheet) 3. How do I create an action plan to live a life consistent with this mission? As you can see from the worksheets, we worked hard to keep the process simple. Hopefully you’ll find it easy to understand and follow as well. If you have any trouble, please just leave a comment or email us at the email address in the final worksheet. Continuing the “Good Life” journey There are many false assumptions around ideas of happiness and purpose. Many assume that you only achieve happiness and purpose once you become wildly successful. That’s missing the point. It is only when we live a life we consider “good” that we feel successful in the first place. It isn’t about getting things “right” without wavering. It’s about working at living “the Good Life” each and every day. Think of life as an EKG: a good life works like a good EKG reading. For every EKG, there is a “good” target heart rate. Most of the time, your heart rate fluctuates around that target line. Too much fluctuation is a problem. Too little fluctuation and you can flat line, which is a massive problem. This process works the same way when attempting to lead a good life. First, you define what is “good” and, in that process, create that ideal target line. And then you spend every day balancing around that line, recommitting to your action plan that aligns with your values and personal mission statement. It will never be perfect. But it will be good. And, most importantly, it will be good based on how you define it. And we’d argue that there are few things that matter more than that. Rohan Rajiv is a first-year student in Kellogg’s Full-Time Two-Year Program. Prior to Kellogg he worked at a-connect serving clients on consulting projects across 14 countries in Europe, Asia, Australia and South America. He blogs a learning every day, including his MBA Learnings series, on www.ALearningaDay.com. Lexie Smith is a second-year student in Kellogg’s dual-degree MMM program. Prior to attending Kellogg, she worked in private equity and at General Electric. This past summer, she interned as a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group and will join the firm full-time after graduation. Filed under: Academics, Career, Student Life Tagged: Good Life, Innovation, life lessons, MBA Learnings, speaker events, thought leadership  
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13 May 2015, 08:00
| FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Comprehensive communication: The two key words that led to our case competition win |
 Our first-round submission to the Wake Forest University Marketing Analytics Summit began late on a Saturday night this past winter. Our team was excited to put together a video about ourselves and a five-slide analysis on the carbonated beverage industry. We worked efficiently and braved a blizzard to complete our video and analysis, and we were thrilled to be invited to the semifinals with seven other MBA teams. In the springtime semifinals, we had one week to analyze our next case: how to get consumers to use their mobile phones in grocery stores? It was a busy time of year because we just returned from spring break, and we had to balance the new case with our normal schoolwork. But with our priorities aligned, we put in the time to research, analyze, design and practice that week. We arrived in Winston-Salem, N.C., and rehearsed our presentation until 2 a.m. Up early to practice, we headed over to Wake Forest University’s School of Business for semifinal presentations. We presented to a panel of five judges and left the room feeling it went well, but wondering if the judges felt the same. Late that evening, we were thrilled to learn that we made it to the finals with two other MBA teams. We were going to present to hundreds of people at the Inmar Analytics Forum two days later! Presenting in front of that size crowd was a rush; my nerves were finally calm as I was finishing my part of the presentation. We were announced as winners that night, and with it I accomplished a life-long goal: winning a really big check. It was an amazing experience, and looking back there are three things I believe we did well that enabled us to succeed: We created a diverse team around the case theme: This was a competition on marketing analytics, so we all needed to be grounded in both subjects. However, we also ensured we had a variety of experiences, including consulting, finance, entrepreneurship, data analytics and a mix marketing classes. We used that diversity to enable team members to use their strengths: There are many opportunities in school to try new things and improve your weaknesses, but this wasn’t one of them. We made sure everyone used their expertise to help the team. Analysis is important, but communication of the analysis is more important: While we spent a significant amount of time on analysis and our recommendations were backed by data, we spent more time crafting a clear story. The feedback we received on the presentation was we were “comprehensive,” which I took as a huge compliment. Not only did we analyze the data in interesting ways and create a compelling strategy, but we also communicated it in a way that our audience could understand. We would like to thank Wake Forest School of Business and Inmar for their hospitality and giving us the opportunity to present. The case competition is run by students who did an amazing job; a special thanks to the student team. All of the other teams we met, both MBA and undergrad, were extremely impressive and we enjoyed meeting you. We hope Kellogg returns in 2016 to defend our win in this fantastic competition. Adam Hirschkatz is a One-Year MBA student at Kellogg. His prior experience includes finance, data analytics and entrepreneurship. After graduation he will be joining BCG’s Chicago office. Filed under: Academics, Business Insight, Student Life Tagged: analytics, Case Competition, communication, competition, data analytics, diversity, entrepreneurship, marketing, marketing analytics  
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13 May 2015, 08:11
13 May 2015, 10:50
13 May 2015, 13:20
13 May 2015, 19:40
14 May 2015, 08:00
| FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Launching a social venture at Kellogg |
 This past fall I joined three of my MMM classmates in a case competition. Two quarters later, what started as a distraction from studying is blossoming into a real business. We secured more than $16,000 (and counting!) of initial funding, we have a great set of advisors and potential partners and we are planning to launch our first pilot this summer. So how did we actually get here? It started with the Hult Prize competition at Kellogg, where we were tasked with answering this question: Can we provide quality early education to 10 million children under age six in urban slums by 2020? It’s not an easy task by anyone’s standards, but it is crucially important. Because of the way the brain develops in the child’s formative years, it is much more effective to intervene at this point rather than later in life. Children who receive early education are more prepared for school, are more likely to graduate high school and are more likely to accrue a higher income in later life. Unfortunately, due to high costs and lack of proper training, quality early education is not always a possibility. Our solution, sharEd (pronounced like “shared”), is a simple answer to this complex problem. We focus specifically on addressing the quality gap in existing preschools by providing the right resources and ongoing teacher training:
After winning the Kellogg Hult Prize competition in December, our team advanced to the regional semifinals in London. While we didn’t win, we returned to Evanston confident that our idea was solid. Without explicitly discussing it as a team, sharEd became much more than a case competition idea – it became a company. We would find the resources another way. (Plus, can you imagine if JK Rowling had given up after the first 8 publishers turned her down?) Our team immediately launched into funding mode. We started a crowd funding campaign on Indiegogo – which is also part of an online competition for the Hult summer accelerator – and applied to more competitions. We have been able to raise more than $16,000 in the last month and are on our way to launching a pilot this summer! And with that, I want to comment as to how Kellogg and MMM have been integral in our startup adventure so far: Kellogg Innovation and Entrepreneurship Initiative: One of the things that makes business school a great place to bring an idea to life is that Kellogg actively supports students and their ventures. In addition to helping us market our crowd funding campaign on Twitter and Facebook and connecting us with additional contacts, Kellogg also provided the initial seed money for the business and financial support so that some of our team could focus exclusively on the business in lieu of a summer internship. Professors: Apart from what they teach us in class (we came up with our concept after talking about the benefits of pooling resources in an operations class), our professors also serve as mentors. Our professors have helped us tweak our hub-and-spoke model to reduce waste, better tell our story in order to win over investors, proactively recruit summer interns and connect us to other similar businesses. And did I mention some of the professors helped us without having any of our team members take their class? Students: My peers at Kellogg continue to impress and amaze me. Kellogg boasts such a modest student body, so it is easy to forget that the classmate you just saw dancing in Bollywood Bash actually founded a startup in Rwanda or advised the Clinton Foundation in Malawi. Not only have my classmates contributed to our fundraising campaign, they also willingly and proactively share their expertise and introduce us to their contacts. And that’s sharEd! Stay tuned for more updates. Kate Geremia ’16 is a first-year student in Kellogg’s full-time MMM Program. Prior to Kellogg, Kate worked as a consultant at Simon-Kucher & Partners, where she helped companies develop product marketing and pricing strategies. She received her undergraduate degree from UC Berkeley. Filed under: Academics, Student Life Tagged: competition, Education, entrepreneurship, Hult Prize, Innovation, MMM, social impact  
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14 May 2015, 11:17
18 May 2015, 10:00
| FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Poets & Quants names Kellogg student to ‘Best of the Class of 2015′ list |
 Photo via Poets & Quants Current student Bruno Valle represented Kellogg this past weekend as Poets & Quants debuted its inaugural list of this year’s 50 best and brightest MBA graduates. To compile the list, Poets & Quants surveyed 60 of the top-ranked full-time global MBA programs to find graduates who “exemplify the best of your school” as evidenced by academic prowess, leadership in extracurricular activities, personal excellence and striking personal narratives. Valle certainly excels in all categories. He came from Brazil to Kellogg, where he served as the co-president of LAHIMA (Latin American, Hispanic and Iberian Management Association), and also held leadership roles with the Entrepreneurship Club and the Kellogg Student Association. He previously worked as a consultant at Bain & Company in São Paulo, Brazil, did his internship in private equity at Bain in Chicago, and will transition to Bain in Rio de Janeiro after graduation. Poets & Quants posted Q&As with each of the “Best of the Class of 2015″ students. Learn more about Valle and his Kellogg experience from his answers below. Why did you choose this business school? I chose Kellogg because its curriculum focuses strongly on the challenge behind driving growth in companies and organizations – my passions are new industries for which there is still no consensus on where they are going or how fast they are going to grow. Rapid growth can create unexpected challenges, and I knew that the school I chose would have to be focused on addressing those challenges: How do properly decide which customers to target using transaction data? How can you mitigate high working capital in positive cash conversion cycle companies? How do you design incentives for new managers [that] reward both their targets but also the growth of the whole company? These are the kinds of questions I find interesting, and Kellogg has allowed me to fully explore them. Favorite Courses: Global Entrepreneurial Finance, Public Economics, International Finance and Managerial Leadership Which academic or professional achievements are you most proud of? One of the best academic experiences at Kellogg was taking advantage of the experiential learning curriculum to explore industries and topics that I am interested in. Through the New Venture Development class, I worked on starting an online marketplace with a team of classmates. It didn’t work out, but the experience of being coached by experienced entrepreneurs and current venture capitalists showed me what differentiates a successful business from a failed one. People spend a lot of time talking about the value of ideas, but Kellogg showed me that the details are where businesses are made – things like industry timing, sales effectiveness and ability to change directions. What did you enjoy most about business school? It’s hard to say since there are so many interesting things going on at once, but I would have to say it’s a split between the amazing people I’ve met and the leadership experience I’ve had by leading the Latin American, Hispanic and Iberian Management Association. About a year-and-a-half ago, the current team and I created a slate to become the new leaders of the group, and quickly went about designing a strategic plan, mission, vision and where we wanted the group to be in five years. We scheduled road show meetings with the deans and administration, created KPIs and individual responsibilities and leadership roles for each “division” (the organization has several sub-groups, such as admissions, alumni, marketing, social events etc.). It’s amazing to see how a dedicated and energized group of people can think of an idea and immediately set out to make it happen. I got really lucky to find people who were similarly committed to growing the organization, and I think we all learned a lot about what it takes to put an ambitious plan into action when you have limited funding, time and attention available. What are your long-term professional goals? I really like thinking about the future, and fast-growing industries that change quickly and impact life on global level – energy, technology, space, transportation, telecommunications – industries the entire world depends on and that are not linked to one specific region. We need more people who actively try to create the future instead of waiting for it to arrive. If I can focus my career on being one of those people, I’ll be pretty happy. Read the complete Q&A on Poets & Quants. Filed under: Academics, Student Life Tagged: culture, LAHIMA, leadership, new venture, student clubs  
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21 May 2015, 20:16
21 May 2015, 22:17
23 May 2015, 06:22
25 May 2015, 05:08
26 May 2015, 11:00
| FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: From GMAT To Deposit: An Engineer’s Journey (via Poets & Quants) |
 Photo via Poets & Quants Dean Nordhielm was recently admitted to Kellogg and will begin taking classes in Evanston this fall. In this article, originally published on Poets & Quants, Dean looks back at his application journey and offers advice on what he thinks worked well for him and what he would not do again. I just finished a 12-month process to get from GMAT to putting down the $2,000 deposit for Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. In some ways, it has been a spectacular process of self-discovery, and in others, it has been a grueling process of painful disappointment. I’ve been fortunate enough to benefit from the MBA applicant community, and I’d like to pay it forward by sharing a bit about my experience. Read Dean’s advice and the complete article on Poets & Quants Filed under: Student Life Tagged: Advice, application, GMAT  
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01 Jun 2015, 07:00
| FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Optimizing proxy measurements for you and your business |
 First-year student Rohan Rajiv is blogging once a week about important lessons he is learning at Kellogg. Read more of his posts here. In our Operations Management class, we discussed how Wilson tests the durability of its tennis balls. It does so by subjecting them to pressure and checking for signs of contortion in the shape of the ball. It isn’t possible for Wilson to put each ball through hours of tennis hitting and then confirm it is ready for sale. So, it works with a proxy measurement. It is unclear if customers can tell the difference between a tournament standard ball and a non-tournament standard ball. Perhaps professional tennis players can. There isn’t necessarily an issue with this proxy. It seems to have largely worked out OK for them. But, it is a proxy measurement nevertheless. And, it is foreseeable that there might come a day (if it isn’t already here) when the distance between the proxy and the needs of the customer grows and Wilson fails to adapt simply because it is optimizing for the wrong thing. Proxy measurements such as the Wilson durability test are critical in Operations. Proxy measures are critical in our life’s operations, too. They’re our attempt at simplifying a complex world and making our lives easy to navigate. Venture capitalist Fred Wilson had an incredibly insightful post on his excellent blog around entrepreneurs using valuations as a scorecard. In Fred’s words: “When you set out to build a great company, it’s hard to know how you are doing along the way. There does come a time when you know you’ve done it. Apple, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Salesforce, Tesla, etc. got there. We know that. And the founders of those companies know that too. But two years in, three years in, four years in, it’s hard to know how you are doing. The market moves quickly. Customers are fickle. Competition emerges. Trusted team members leave. Your investors flake out on you. And so on and so forth. So entrepreneurs want something they can hang on to. They want a scorecard. A number. Validation that they are getting there.” He notes that valuation is that scorecard. This idea is perpetuated even more so these days when financing and the valuations are reported every day as the most important news items in the tech blogs. And then, he describes the dark side from decades of experience as a leading venture capitalist: “This obsession with valuation as the thing that tells you and the world how you are doing has a dark side. And that is because valuation is just a number. Unless you sell your business for cash at that price, valuation is just a theoretical value on your company. And it can change. Or you can get stuck there trying to justify it year after year all the while doing massive surgery to your cap table to sustain it. And the markets can move on you and one day you are worth $2 [billion] and the next day your are worth $500 [million]. Did you just mess up by 75%? No. The market moved on you. The message of this post is don’t let yourself get sucked into a world where a number is your measure of self worth. Because you don’t control that number. The market does. And some days the market is your friend and other days it is most decidedly not your friend. Measure yourself on whether your employees are happy. Measure yourself on whether your customers are happy. Measure yourself on how much free cash flow your business is generating. Measure yourself on how your brand is known and appreciated around the world. Measure yourself on how your spouse and children feel about you when you come home from work each day. You control all of those things, at least to some degree. But please don’t measure yourself on valuation. It might make you feel good today. But it won’t make you feel good every day.” Fred’s post beautifully illustrates the issues with proxy measurements. It is easier to treat income and a job title as a measure of success or a valuation as a measure of our self worth. It is much harder to identify and measure the things that actually matter – happiness, love, and so on. But beware what you measure. Because what you measure will be what you optimize for … and the worst outcome is a life spent optimizing all the wrong things. Rohan Rajiv is a first-year student in Kellogg’s Full-Time Two-Year Program. Prior to Kellogg he worked at a-connect serving clients on consulting projects across 14 countries in Europe, Asia, Australia and South America. He blogs a learning every day, including his MBA Learnings series, on www.ALearningaDay.com. Filed under: Business Insight, Student Life Tagged: MBA Learnings, operations, operations management, proxy, Venture Capital  
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02 Jun 2015, 09:00
| FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: How we won Ben Graham Centre’s International Stock Picking Competition |
 From left: Ken Broekaert of Burgundy Asset Management, Kellogg’s Will Manderscheid and Alex Acosta, and Ivey Professor George Athanassakos. How did you get comfortable with the replacement value analysis? Why does this business have a more durable competitive advantage than its peers? Why is short interest so low? These are some of the questions our Kellogg team of Alex Acosta, Anish Pasari and Will Manderscheid received after our final round presentation for Ivey Business School’s Ben Graham Centre International Stock Picking Competition. The competition features 25 teams of MBA students from top business schools around the world who vie for $17,500 in cash prizes. In the first stage of the competition, held in January, each team prepared a written report on a company that was judged by a panel of value investors. From a list of 10 companies, our team selected Monarch Cement Co. (MCEM), a manufacturer of cement and ready-to-mix concrete. We recommended a “buy” due to significant undervaluation, positive industry trends, improving cash flow, and favorable industry consolidation. The top three teams from Haas Business School, Ivey Business School and Kellogg advanced to the next stage, which involved presenting in-person at Ivey Business School in Toronto. The final round required us to evaluate Buhler Industries (BUI), a manufacturer of heavy agricultural equipment. We recommended a “no buy” at the current price because of continued pain from declining commodity prices, substantial overvaluation relative to larger and better capitalized peers and high leverage, which would prohibit the company from investing in needed operational improvements and growth. The challenge was ultimately to convince a panel of highly accomplished value investors to not buy the stock. Judges for this year’s competition included Ken Broekaert (Burgundy Asset Management), Wayne Peters (Peters MacGregor Capital Management), Robert Robotti (Robotti & Company Advisors) and Kim Shannon (Sionna Investment Managers). Our team took the top prize of $10,000, with Haas finishing second and Ivey rounding out the top three. Ultimately, we were successful because we: Developed creative fundamental analyses Any good financial analyst can examine gross margins, EV/EBITDA multiples and customer concentration. However, we called farmers and dealers to get real-time feedback on the trends in the business. We also developed a unique way of estimating declining industry prices and volumes by scouring dealer websites to compare new and used versions of tractor and combine models. Exhibited organized thinking with imperfect information Stocks as small as BUI ($125 million market cap) are rarely covered by Wall Street analysts and frequently do not disclose much information at all. As a result, we were forced to both find and analyze the data ourselves, as well as present a compelling story to the judges with a systematic analysis of why each segment of the industry value chain was going to struggle. Communicated clearly Answering questions from a panel of highly respected and successful value investors can be intimidating. However, preparation and four quarters of experience in Kellogg’s Asset Management Practicum enabled us to present confidently and tell a clear story of why we believed BUI was destined to underperform the market. Will Manderscheid is a second-year student in Kellogg’s Full-Time Two-Year Program. Prior to moving to Evanston, he worked in private equity at Sentinel Capital Partners in New York. After graduation, he will be joining Carlson Capital, a multi-strategy hedge fund based in New York. Learn more about Kellogg’s Full-Time MBA Program. Filed under: Business Insight, Student Life Tagged: competition, stocks, Wall Street  
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03 Jun 2015, 09:00
| FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Preparing women for future board opportunities |
 By Amanda Schmid Only 18% of S&P 500 boardrooms contain women. It will likely take 30 years for that number to grow to 30%. In order to continue supporting women in leadership, the Women’s Business Association (WBA) recently hosted a panel to hear how two prominent female executives navigated their careers to lead them to positions on several boards. The panel was led by Professor Victoria Medvec (above, left), executive director of the Center for Executive Women. She was joined by Gerri Elliott (above, middle), who serves on the boards of Whirlpool Corporation, Bed Bath and Beyond, and Charlotte Russe, and by Lisa Shalett (above, right), a former partner at Goldman Sachs who serves on the boards of Brookfield Property Partners and PerformLine. Through many inspirational stories and life lessons, the panel conveyed five key messages: Boards need more women Research shows how women on boards improves overall company performance. As more and more women graduate with MBAs and other higher education degrees and attain senior leadership roles, it is time for the percentage of women in board seats to better reflect the percentage of women in the workplace. Take smart risks Great careers do not stay in a comfort zone. Being willing to step forward and embrace a new challenge will propel your career to new heights. Both panelists encouraged attendees to get comfortable being uncomfortable in their careers in order to gain experience and confidence. Ask yourself, “What would I do if I were not afraid?” and then pursue that answer. Develop a strong network At every level of a career, your effectiveness in your job can be enhanced by knowing more people. Seek out opportunities to work across divisions, sectors and countries to build a web of contacts and relationships. Be disciplined about committing the time required to build your network. Pay it forward to your relationships and they will repay in kind. Invest in your reputation Work hard at the start of a career to gain trust and respect of your colleagues. It will pay off in new opportunities that come your way and in greater potential to have control over how you manage your time. Carefully evaluate a board Once you identify a potential board that would value your experience, do your due diligence carefully. Take time to ensure that the board is a good fit for you and for the company, given that the role is a significant commitment of 20-40 days per year. Corporate boards have a tremendous opportunity to seek out women leaders. It is important for female students to aspire to board seats by investing in their skills and networks and challenging themselves to take the smart risks that create experience and expertise. It’s not too early for Kellogg students to begin their careers with that ultimate goal in mind. For additional information on serving on boards and finding opportunities, check out Broadrooms.com, a newly-launched resource for women, founded by our guest Gerri Elliott. Amanda Schmid is a first-year student in Kellogg’s Full-Time Two-Year Program. Prior to moving to Evanston, she worked in hospitals in DC and Baltimore as a clinician and a department head. She is specializing in finance and marketing at Kellogg and hopes to eventually find a strategic or general management role at a med device company. Filed under: Business Insight, Career, Student Life Tagged: boardrooms, guest speakers, WBA, Women's Business Association  
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04 Jun 2015, 08:00
| FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Bringing a data-driven approach to Microsoft |
 Visha Chadha ’15 spent last summer in Seattle working at Microsoft, where she interned as a product marketing manager intern. After graduation she will return full time to Microsoft and do product management/marketing in the company’s cloud computing group and work on Microsoft Azure. One of the most valuable realizations Chadha had as a Microsoft intern was how she constantly applied lessons learned in Kellogg’s data analytics courses. Chadha, who previously designed semiconductor chips for microprocessors and smartphones at AMD (Advanced Micro Devices), took time to talk about why it was important to build a strong foundation in data analytics while at Kellogg. Why was it important for you to focus on data analytics? Today, we’re living in a world where things are changing at a much faster pace than they ever did in the past. Technology is disrupting any and every industry, and it is becoming much harder to stay competitive and gain market leadership consistently. On top of that, the convergence of social, mobile, cloud and big data technologies poses new requirements of getting the right information to the consumer as quickly as possible. No matter which path I chose to pursue after school, it was clear to me that data-driven insights and strategies are key to becoming an important point of competitive differentiation for organizations. What were some of the most impactful courses you took? Kellogg offers a range of exciting courses in data analytics. My interests are primarily in technology, marketing and entrepreneurship, so I chose to take analytics courses across these disciplines. A few interesting analytics courses I took were:
I’m part of a one-year rotation program and will do three rotations of four months each in different functions within Azure. My role will be primarily inbound focused, which involves business planning, building pricing/licensing/subscription models, analyzing existing and new market opportunities for specific products and services, and assessing B2B partnerships. How do you think your data analytics coursework will set you up for success at Microsoft and beyond? I interned at Microsoft last summer in the same group and my project revolved around building models to identify and analyze strategic partnerships for their new Internet of things service. We were able to use real-time data to generate meaningful insights into which type of partnerships would be most effective. I used a lot of concepts from the analytics courses I took in my first year for my internship project. That has further strengthened my belief in the power of using data analytics as an effective means towards gaining a competitive edge for organizations. I also think that focusing on analytics, especially early on, will help build a strong foundation in developing a comprehensive skill set, as well as a sharp business acumen, in the long term. In your mind, what stands out about Kellogg’s approach to data analytics? Kellogg has a very strong and practical approach to data analytics for a few reasons. First, the faculty at Kellogg is at the forefront of data analytics and data science, and that ensures that you’re learning from the very best. Second, all courses take a data-driven approach to solving business problems to come up with the most effective solutions. Finally, I feel like Kellogg takes a very practical approach to using data to solve real world problems. As one of our professors rightly said, “Any model will always give you a result as long as you input some data into that model. So, you could still be analyzing data but not getting the desired results. It is definitely important to learn how to model and crunch all the numbers but it is much more important to ask the right questions to make sure you’re solving the right problem to get to the desired outcome.” That has stuck with me ever since. Is there anything else you would tell prospective students about data analytics at Kellogg? Kellogg recognizes that big data and analytics matter in today’s business world like never before. In the past few years, a number of new courses have been introduced focused on data analytics and how managers can be more effective at establishing analytics competence across all areas of an organization. These courses are taught by some of the best professors in the school. Last year, a group of students formed a Big Data and Analytics club, which is another great step. The club organizes exciting big data events and brings in guest speakers from the business world that talk about how they use data in their organizations to gain a competitive edge. This helps the students get a holistic understanding of how all the concepts we learn in the classroom are applied in the real world. Learn more about the data analytics program at Kellogg. Filed under: Academics, Career, Student Life Tagged: analytics, big data, data analytics, entrepreneurship, marketing, technology  
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05 Jun 2015, 08:00
| FROM Kellogg MBA Blog: Private equity, venture capital and unprecedented change |
 By Kevin Pukala The worlds of private equity and venture capital are facing unprecedented changes. An influx of non-traditional investors, fewer potential targets and anemic economic growth are all contributing to intense competition for returns. The formerly well-defined lines of fund categorization have begun to blur, and major industry shifts are requiring a rethinking of traditional capital structures and holding periods. Given these momentous shifts in the PEVC landscape, the 2015 Kellogg Private Equity and Venture Capital Conference sought to explore the challenges of building value at both the fund and portfolio company level. We were honored to have two fantastic keynote speakers — Scott Dorsey ’99 of ExactTarget and Paul Finnegan of Madison Dearborn Partners — as well as industry professionals on six different panels walk us through how their respective firms are addressing these new challenges and trends. The conference drew a high level of interest from students and professionals as more than 300 tickets were sold for the event, held at the University Club of Chicago. As a Kellogg alumnus, Dorsey’s story was particularly compelling. He co-founded marketing technology leader ExactTarget and led the company from start-up to IPO, and subsequently to its $2.7 billion acquisition by Salesforce.com in 2013. Following the acquisition, Dorsey led the newly created Salesforce ExactTarget Marketing Cloud – a global team of nearly 3,000 employees. It was interesting to hear how he juggled the ongoing challenge of keeping the company’s orange culture intact as it grew from a three-person startup into a large public company. Dorsey co-founded the company after the dot-com bubble burst, so there was not much capital for software startups. It meant he had no choice but to bootstrap the company and focus on building great applications. At the same time, he had to convince investors and clients of the company’s vision — that all organizations would use email for marketing. Scott Maxwell, a venture capitalist and board member of the company, told the story of ExactTarget from an investor’s perspective and offered a unique tale-of-two-companies for the audience. In 2004, he led a deal team that ultimately invested $10.5M in the company — the firm’s first private placement from a Venture Capital firm — nearly four years after its founding. SalesForce attempted to buy the company 18 months after this investment for $90M, but Maxwell was able to convince the founders to forego the liquidity in light of all the potential growth ahead of them. After eight more years of hard work growing the company and evolving its leadership team and board, SalesForce came back to the table with a $2.7B offer price. Maxwell mentioned that even the most optimistic people on the investment team didn’t expect this colossal result. A few of the early investors received a 50x return on invested capital. Maxwell closed by asserting that Dorsey was the single most important person in the company’s exceptional success and that he built a company full of talented people that became exceptional together. He went on to further say that Kellogg helped Dorsey and asked the students in the crowd which one of us would be next? The 2016 conference student team looks forward to continuing this year’s success, and I hope to see you all in attendance! Kevin Pukala is a First-Year student in Kellogg’s Full-Time Two-Year program. Prior to Kellogg, he worked in management consulting in Accenture’s Strategy practice. This summer, he will intern at McNally Capital, a Chicago-based private equity firm that partners with family offices and high net worth investors to make and manage direct investments. Learn more about Kellogg’s Full-Time MBA Program. Filed under: Business Insight, Student Life Tagged: alumni, guest speakers, PEVC, private equity, student conferences, Venture Capital  
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AGSM at UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA RIVERSIDE
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