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01 Sep 2017, 13:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Career Insider Follow-ups: Consulting (Podcast) |
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Now that class is back in session, we follow up with Andrew Glover, who interned with North Highland, and Bennet Hayes, who interned at Boston Consulting Group, to learn about how their summer internships went and where they stand career-wise heading into their second year at Owen. If you didn’t catch their initial interviews, check out the podcast “Career Insider – Consulting” to learn more about their internship search. Listen on iTunes here Listen on Stitcher Listen on Overcast The post Career Insider Follow-ups: Consulting (Podcast) appeared first on Vanderbilt Business. |
05 Sep 2017, 09:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Paying It Back, Paying It Forward: How One Young Alum Mentors Students |
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Kaye Luenprakansit (MBA’15) once planned on becoming a college counselor. She loved reviewing resumes and helping her friends put their best foot forward in the application process, and she seriously considered going into the higher education sector. However, after “a lot of soul searching,” she decided that she wanted to unite business with her passion for helping people. The decision led her to get her MBA at Owen and, eventually, secure a position in the HR rotational program at HP Inc., where she now works as a Business Partner.  Kaye Luenprakansit, MBA’15 But Luenprakansit knew that no matter her official job title, she still wanted to still help counsel her peers, and that’s when she started mentoring Owen interns at HP. “I have a very strong connection with Owen and what (the school has) given me,” she said. “I just want to be able to give back and let students know that it’s okay to reach out to me.” Multiple students have firsthand experience of Luenprakansit’s passionate commitment to the Owen community. She mentored Jeff Stephens (MBA’17) throughout his interview process and ensuing internship, even though she was living in the U.K. at the time. “She was probably the toughest of the three interviews I had, which was great, because having that right out of the gate made me that much more prepared for subsequent interviews,” Stephens said. Despite the time difference, the two arranged regular calls to check in and discuss how his internship was going. Ultimately, Luenprakansit’s advice and Stephens’ hard work paid off: he received a full-time offer to become HP Inc.’s first-ever Global University Hiring Leader.  Jeff Stephens, MBA’17 “(Kaye really emphasized) there’s a difference between a job offer at the end of your internship and a good job offer,” he said. “I owe her a debt of gratitude.” Luenprakansit was equally involved with Michael Warburton (MBA’18), who interned at HP this summer, and Margaret Flannery (MBA’17), who recently accepted a full-time offer in HP’s rotational program. “I definitely felt from the moment that I got the offer and started the job that (HP Inc.) was really excited to have me, and I think Kaye was a big part of that,” Flannery said. “I don’t think that without her perspective, I would have been able to position myself to get off on such a good foot.” No matter her mentee’s position at HP, Luenprakansit gives everyone the same candid, forthcoming advice, and hopes to provide a “safe space” where interns and employees can honestly discuss issues they might not want to broach with their supervisor. She also helps them decide if HP is the right place for them to land, either for an internship or a full-time job.  Michael Warburton, MBA’18 “Kaye did a fantastic job of authentically and honestly saying ‘let’s just talk about where you want to be, and then I’ll tell you if HP is the right fit for that.’” Warburton said. “She really focused on who I was as an Owen student, not as a recruitment effort.” Luenprakansit says that while maintaining this candid honesty can sometimes be difficult, it’s what she would want if the roles were reversed. “Half of me, probably 40% of me, is still trying to sell them on HP,” she said. “But 60% of me knows what it was like to be in their shoes, and I would have liked somebody to tell me if something wasn’t right.” Her mentees have already started paying this honesty it forward: Flannery worked in the same office as Warburton, so she was able to mentor him and act as a sounding board during his internship. “The best thing I could do for Michael was be super candid,” she said. “If there were aspects of the experience that were positive, we were going to discuss those in a really frank way. And if there were aspects of the experience that were lacking a little bit, we could talk about that as well, and I think that really creates that atmosphere of trust.” Luenprakansit’s contributions don’t stop with mentoring individuals. She also played a role in securing the HP Inc. corporate partnership, which was formalized at the beginning of this school year. While she wasn’t the final decision maker, Luenprakansit proposed the partnership to HP Inc. and kept championing its benefits.  Read McNamara, Assistant Dean, Corporate Partnerships “I just think the world of her as an advocate for the partnership,” said Read McNamara, Assistant Dean of Corporate Partnerships. “For a company in Silicon Valley to accept…a partnership with a school three-quarters of the way across the country is no mean feat.” The timing for the partnership proposal wasn’t ideal, as Hewlett-Packard was in the process of splitting into two entities: HP Inc. and Hewlett Packard Enterprise. Despite the company circumstances, Luenprakansit refused to let the proposal process stall and kept promoting the Owen partnership internally at HP Inc. “Despite this breaking up of a very large company, and all that entails, we didn’t lose a step,” McNamara said. “It wasn’t due to us or me being persistent, it was due to Kaye who kept up the momentum and carried the ball across the goal line in terms of making the proposal.” While HP has informally recruited on campus for years, the partnership will expand the company’s presence, as well as increase recruiting opportunities. This fall, HP Inc. will also co-sponsor the Human Capital Case Competition, along with Deloitte. While not everyone may be able to advocate for a corporate partnership, Luenprakansit does have some advice for young alumni looking to mentor current students or recent graduates: don’t assume that people realize you’re willing to mentor them. Rather than being reactive and waiting until someone contacts you, be proactive and spread the word that you’re happy to help out. “If you have interest in mentoring people, reach out to the CMC and see if there are students interested in any career advice…or working in this industry,” she said. “Put on that Owen hat and be really proactive about wanting to give back to the community.” The post Paying It Back, Paying It Forward: How One Young Alum Mentors Students appeared first on Vanderbilt Business. |
05 Sep 2017, 13:02
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Political Uncertainty and Firm Disclosure |
| The post Political Uncertainty and Firm Disclosure appeared first on Vanderbilt Business. |
07 Sep 2017, 07:02
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Tran-si-tion (n.) The process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another |
There is a thread that flows through my executive coaching engagements – transition. Clients are moving into challenging new positions, planning retirements, or searching for the next best opportunity. It was my own transition that led me to executive coaching. LDP Coach Diane Watson During my mid-fifties, I realized that while I liked my job and worked with amazing colleagues at a stellar university, my work was no longer fulfilling. I wanted to be purposeful as I moved to my next career and started reading about professions that interested me, interviewed people working in those areas, and attended a few classes. One day, I found my inspiration in a Wall Street Journal story about coaching. I trained and received my coach certification at one of the top schools in the country and hung up my shingle. While the journey has included a few pot holes along the way, I haven’t looked back. Transitions occur often during our lifetime, and while some may be unwelcome or challenging, when embraced with growth in mind, life on the other side can be amazing. Today, we frequently confuse change and transition. William Bridges, author of Transitions: Making Sense of Life’s Changes, says that change is situational, while transition is psychological. In other words, an internal shift will make the change stick. Change is moving out of your parents’ house. Transition is the shift that occurs when you moved out of your parents’ home and learned to live independently. This applies to any personal milestone. We moved from “me” to “us” when we found our life partner. We understood unconditional love when we held our first child. We developed new skills and expertise when we stepped into a new position. We learn to redefine our self when we retired. These transitions move us from one life chapter to another. Bridges discovered three stages to transition: 1) the Ending, such as the loss of a job; 2) the Neutral Zone, where we experience a disconnection with our past and future; and 3) the New Beginning, when we move into new activities and start our next chapter without the limits of the previous chapter. U.S. culture values individualism. We admire self-starters and believe in pushing forward through adversity. We want to move through the most challenging and emotionally difficult transitions quickly. Yet, the neutral zone is where our growth, insight, and next chapter begin. There is richness in the neutral zone. That is where we find the opportunity to reflect, question our beliefs, and audition new behaviors and ways of doing things. To skip the neutral zone is to skip self-discovery and deprive ourselves of lasting change. Make the neutral zone work for you
Learn more about the Alumni LDP program The post Tran-si-tion (n.) The process or a period of changing from one state or condition to another appeared first on Vanderbilt Business. |
08 Sep 2017, 09:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: MMHC Students Help Bring Vanderbilt Health OnCall online |
 Vanderbilt OnCall Mobile App Vanderbilt Health OnCall launched in November 2016 as a pilot with significant anticipation from Vanderbilt University Medical Center (VUMC). “We’re excited by the addition of Vanderbilt Health OnCall to our health care delivery choices,” said Laura Beth Brown, vice president of Vanderbilt Health Services and president of Vanderbilt Home Care Services, in a December 1 release. Since then, the service, which provides basic care at homes, hotels, and workplaces within Davidson County, has generated significant excitement and scale. OnCall has changed VUMC offices (from Home Health to Advanced Practice), started billing insurers (it started cash-only), and recently expanded into the post-operative, scheduled-visits space. “Volume has been ramping up considerably, and now we’re dealing with the challenges of having a popular product,” said April Kapu, an Associate Nursing Officer within the Advanced Practice at VUMC and an overseer of the OnCall program. The Origins Flash back a year, and OnCall was in a very different place. The brainchild of Dr. Wright Pinson, CEO of Vanderbilt Health System and a co-founder of the MMHC program, the service was just a good idea waiting to happen. “We saw a huge amount of press about how this concept was taking off in the (western US), in similar populations (to Nashville),” said Emily Carpenter, Vanderbilt Health Services Program Coordinator and the Project Manager for Health OnCall. Carpenter and her team initially researched the on-call service space and conducted a large survey within Vanderbilt to assess validity, and the feedback was positive. By the time students from the Masters of Marketing in Health Care (MMHC) got involved, Carpenter and Brown were having the concept vetted by executive teams. The project initially came to MMHC Director Burch Wood through Dr. Pinson himself, who provides capstones on an annual basis (just one of his many ongoing contributions — he teaches the program’s strategy class and delivers the closing address on “Senior Day”). “We were excited by the opportunity to work with the capstone team and MMHC; there were such a diverse group of individual involved with the program,” Carpenter said. The Project While Brown and Carpenter worked to earn buy-in from their leadership, the MMHC team focused on operational details, working with billing, marketing, and other departments at Vanderbilt to finalize important aspects of the program. The diversity of experience on the team helped. “We had a great, diverse group of students – from background in Finance, IT, pharmaceuticals, dietary – and a wide variety of skill sets that spoke to this particular project,” said Heather O’Dell, an MMHC’16 graduate, a Lead Nurse Practitioner, Liver Transplant, at VUMC, and member of the OnCall capstone team.  Heather O’Dell (Far Left) on the job (photo by Susan Ermy) Much of the team’s learning was done on the fly. “I think we could draw from some of the knowledge gained from our education, drawing some similarities that would lead us in the right direction, but a lot of it was hands-on experience,” she said. Through the process, the team was able to meet with key decision-makers across VUMC that offered previously unconsidered insights and proved to be a receptive audience at the end of the project, when the team delivered a vision for the program over the next five to 10 years. “How could you implement this structure in different areas of the healthcare system, or even outside of Vanderbilt? Could (OnCall) teams go to large businesses if they need physicals or vaccinations, or go to schools? Our final presentation looked further into the future to see where this could be most valuable to Vanderbilt,” said O’Dell. For the OnCall team, the MMHC students provided a high level of support at an early juncture in the life of the program. “They asked great questions,” Carpenter said, “and knew who to go to to get the right answers.” For O’Dell and her capstone team, the project was mutually beneficial. “I think that we added value, but I would absolutely look at it as a partnership.” The post MMHC Students Help Bring Vanderbilt Health OnCall online appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
08 Sep 2017, 14:02
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Career Insider Follow-Up: Marketing Internships (Podcast) |
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Our Career Insider series continues this week with a look at marketing internships. We checked in with Christiana Newcomb and James Northcutt, who interned at Mars Petcare and Mattel, respectively, over the summer. They shared their highlights, challenges, and some advice for the next generation of summer interns. The post Career Insider Follow-Up: Marketing Internships (Podcast) appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
11 Sep 2017, 12:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Professors Kennedy and Park Receive Inaugural Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Dean’s Faculty Fellowships |
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M. Eric Johnson, Dean of the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, announced today that Professors Jessica Kennedy and Tae-Youn ‘Ty’ Park are the inaugural recipients of the Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Dean’s Faculty Fellowships. The new fellowships recognize young assistant professors whose research has a significant impact. Recipients hold the fellowship for a two-year term, which carries support for research activities. “I can’t think of two better young scholars to be recognized as inaugural fellows,” said Johnson. “I am certain that the fellowships will further propel their great work. We are especially grateful for support from Brownlee O. Currey, Jr. in endowing the awards. These fellowships help develop our most promising young faculty.” Professor Kennedy’s research seeks to understand how hierarchy and ethics are fundamentally linked, and the implications of that relationship for gender dynamics. She attends in particular to how hierarchical rank and gender shape identity. Her most important theoretical contribution to date is the integration of these concepts by showing how ethics can serve to generate inequality between social groups. Recent studies by Kennedyhave found that holding higher-ranking positions blinds people to unethical practices they are responsible for stopping by leading them to internalize the group’s values, and that gender differences in identity can help to explain why women and men negotiate differently. “I am grateful that Vanderbilt has been so supportive of my research,” said Kennedy. “It was a great surprise to receive the call on Labor Day.” The Assistant Professor of Management has multiple projects she may apply to earlier-stage projects. “In particular, one set of data challenges the idea that incivility leads to the attainment of power and status in groups,” she says. “Another paper examines how people’s relative social status impacts their decisions about accountability. Both projects will benefit from these resources, so I am excited to get to work!” Professor Park researches important policies and practices in Human Resource Management, such as compensation, turnover/retention, and employment relations. His recent work has explored the consequences of large pay differences among employees within teams or across levels of an organization. In a recent study, Park revealed that large pay differences affect not only employee fairness perceptions and work incentives, but also employee emotions such as envy. He is currently researching pay secrecy issues. “I feel very honored to receive this fellowship,” Park, who plans to use the fellowship to fund data collection, said. “I think this shows Owen’s strong commitment to support junior faculty members and our research. I am grateful to be part of the Owen community.” The post Professors Kennedy and Park Receive Inaugural Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Dean’s Faculty Fellowships appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
11 Sep 2017, 14:02
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Second Annual Brand Symposium Introduces Students to Brand Management |
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Whether they’re MBA or Master of Marketing candidates, many Vanderbilt students come to Owen in the hopes of launching a career in marketing or brand management. But because of all the required classes in Mod I, they might not even touch a marketing course until Mod II — meaning they may have to start the recruiting process without any marketing experience. Last year, the Career Management Center (CMC) launched the Brand Symposium to help new students figure out if branding is the right career path for them. Similar to the HOP Symposium, the Brand Symposium happens only a few weeks after school starts and features Owen alumni from prominent brands talking about their experiences and responsibilities.  Amanda Fend, Senior Associate Director of the CMC “We realized through the years that if students were interested in brand, they had to commit to the recruiting path early,” said Amanda Fend, Senior Associate Director at the CMC, who helped coordinate this year’s Brand Symposium. “It’s hard to make that commitment if you don’t really understand what brand management entails, so having an early event that was really a deep dive into (the industry) seemed like it would be valuable for students.” The two symposiums to date have featured alumni from a variety of big-name consumer-goods companies and retailers: General Mills, Mars Petcare, Procter & Gamble, L’Oreal, NBTY, Frito-Lay, Heinz, Nestle USA, Target, SC Johnson, and Pepperidge Farm. Speakers explain what typical brand management work looks like at their companies and share tips for acing the recruiting process. “The most valuable part of the symposium is hearing what these alums actually do and have done in their roles. What does a day in the life look like, and how does that vary across companies, brands and experience levels?” Fend said. “Students walk out with a much firmer understanding of brand management and hopefully feeling that it’s more appealing or less appealing than when they walked in from a personal fit standpoint.” This year’s symposium, held last Friday, opened with a panel discussion about “Brand Career Paths and ‘Day in the Life,’” followed by three longer breakout sessions that gave students a chance to discuss their unique career concerns with the panelists. The half-day session ended with the panel “Brand Recruiting Insight and Advice.” “(The recruiting process) is insanely fast, so the more info students are armed with, the better they can align their personal stories with brand recruiting and prepare for interviews,” Fend said. THE SPEAKERS  Alex VanVliet Alex VanVliet (MBA’15), marketing manager at Frito-Lay (part of PepsiCo), told listeners that brand managers must become absolute experts on what products they are given, since everyone will rely on them for expertise. “You need to be the go-to person for that business (i.e. your brand), and if you’re not, you’re failing at your job,” he said. Devin Kunysz (MBA’15), senior associate marketing manager for snack innovation at General Mills, urged students to determine what factors matter most to them in a future internship or job, and then prioritize that during recruiting. “The CMC has a really nice framework,” he said. “Figure out (what you want): Is it industry? Is it (job) function? Is it geography?” He also discouraged interning at a company you don’t want to work for post-graduation, since re-recruiting is difficult.  Cara Trasgeiler Cara Tragseiler (MBA’10), a brand manager for the BRAUN division at Procter & Gamble, explained how brand management is much more than just marketing; in fact, at some companies it’s seen as must-have experience for employees aiming for general management positions. She estimated that 90% of senior leaders at Procter & Gamble came up through brand management. “Brand is our training ground for general management,” she said. KEY TAKEAWAYS No brand experience? No problem. All three speakers offered strong encouragement for students hoping to switch into a brand management career without any prior experience. In fact, it’s rare that someone does have brand experience before coming to business school, and companies like Procter & Gamble do a lot of recruiting out of MBA programs for this very reason. “Everyone is new to brand management…very few people did it for three or five years before business school,” Kunysz said. “Don’t feel like…everyone you’re interviewing against is this experienced brand manager who will crush you. You’re all in the same boat.”  Devin Kunysz Reach out to alumni early. Because the recruiting cycle for brand management starts so early, reaching out to alumni for informational interviews needs to happen quickly as well. Students should take these conversations seriously and treat them like interviews; “the follow-up note is really important,” VanVliet affirmed. While reaching out cold can be intimidating, most alumni are happy to help, and many are interested in actively recruiting Owen students (“I genuinely would like more Owen alums at P&G,” Trasgeiler revealed). After all, alumni have no way of knowing you’re interested in their company unless you proactively contact them. “The people who reach out are the people who get help,” Kunysz said. The post Second Annual Brand Symposium Introduces Students to Brand Management appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
12 Sep 2017, 08:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Equifax flaws exposed by hack attack |
| The post Equifax flaws exposed by hack attack appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
12 Sep 2017, 14:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: DSS: Microsoft General Manager Talks Work-Life Balance and Leading as a Woman of Color |
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On Yvette Smith’s first job as a technical sales rep for IBM, she was assigned as the branch representative to a major regional drug company. However, her client contact decided that she “wasn’t the branch rep for them,” because she was “so young.” He routinely berated her during meetings, and even requested that another branch rep be assigned to his company. But Smith’s boss at IBM stood behind her, saying that if the client was going to buy supplies from IBM, he was going to buy them through Smith — or not at all. With her boss’ support, Smith persisted and successfully grew the account over the years. “Eventually (the client) stopped screaming, and he bought a lot of stuff from me,” she noted with a smile. “What I developed was an incredibly thick skin…I’ve had to take that lesson many times in my career.” This thick skin served her well later on in her career at IBM, when Smith volunteered to work on a difficult financial client that had never been successfully led by a woman, and that had never had an African-American stay on the team for more than six months. I developed an incredibly thick skin…I’ve had to take that lesson many times in my career. -Yvette Smith While taking on the assignment was risky, Smith reasoned that if she failed, everyone would be expecting it — whereas if she succeeded, she would be applauded. Not only did Smith stay on the team, she successfully led it until an opportunity for an international position came along (which allowed her to put her newly honed leadership skills to use working with people from many different countries). “I still have mentors from that (client) that are on my board of directors, that I call when I need help,” she said. Smith has made a successful career in customer service out of this resilient work ethic, which helps her tough out difficult assignments until she finds a solution. After long stints at IBM and Xerox, she is now the now General Manager of the Global Customer Services and Support team for the Cloud and Enterprise SBU at Microsoft. Smith came to speak at Owen to kick off this year’s Distinguished Speakers Series (DSS), a student-run initiative that coordinates regular presentations from big-name business leaders. Hosted by Dean Eric Johnson, the talks are open to all students, faculty, and staff at Owen. Past speakers include Dan Cathy, CEO of Chick-fil-a; Megan Barry, mayor of Nashville; and Reese Witherspoon, founder of Draper James (not to mention a famous actress).  Upcoming speakers for the fall semester include Paul Jacobson, Chief Financial Officer of Delta Air Lines, who will give an informal lunch presentation on October 6 as part of the alumni reunion. Tom Plath, Senior Vice President of Human Resources at International Paper, will speak on October 17, and Dayne Walling, former mayor of Flint, Michigan, will speak as part of a special inaugural event on November 9. So what can attendees expect from these distinguished speakers? As a sample, here are four major leadership lessons that Smith doled out to the crowd: Don’t let the executive role run your whole life. Smith exhorted the audience: “It’s important to know all of your roles…in the end, when it’s all said and done, the executive role will be the first one to go. It’s not really the one that’s going to last until the end of time. So I need to make sure that I’m feeding those other roles (such as wife and mother), and I say that because it’s so easy. The executive part will take over all the rest (if you let it).” Be intentional about your career path. Smith says that one of the best pieces of advice she ever got regarding her career is: “Focus on the job after the next job, and make sure that the next job is giving me the skills I want…The biggest thing I would say: be intentional. You can hear that I’m super intentional about my path, about the things I’ve done.” Ultimately, she wants to become the CEO of a mid-size tech company, and she took the job at Microsoft to help hone the skills she will need for this next step. Learn from mistakes — and let your team do the same. Smith’s former managers allowed her to make mistakes and learn from them throughout her career, and now she does the same for her team. “People learn so much more when you let them make a couple mistakes than they do when you save them,” she said. “Quite honestly, the learning from the mistake is so much bigger than the impact and the downside that happens when you make it.” The post DSS: Microsoft General Manager Talks Work-Life Balance and Leading as a Woman of Color appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
13 Sep 2017, 11:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Accelerator Project Spotlight: Olivia Management and The Secret Sisters |
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The client: Founded in 2012 by Erin O. Anderson (MBA ’10), Olivia Management is an artist management and music consulting company based in Nashville. Erin has worked in several capacities within the music industry: as a product manager for Amazon Music and MP3, as well as a consultant for Sony Music Entertainment, the Americana Music, Nashville Chamber of Commerce, and more. Olivia Management’s clients have been featured in NPR’s First Listen, Bonnaroo, SXSW, Austin City Limits Festival, Grey’s Anatomy, The Bluebird Café, Music City Roots, CMT’s Nashville, Mile of Music Festival, and many more. The project: Olivia Management currently represents five different artists, including The Secret Sisters. Originally from Alabama, The Secret Sisters comprise Laura and Lydia Rogers. Their third album, You Don’t Own Me Anymore, was released by New West Records on June 9, 2017. The band is currently on tour through October across the United States. They have almost 40,000 likes on Facebook, and their last album reached No. 18 on the U.S. Country Billboard charts. Teams were asked to design an engaging fan club for The Secret Sisters, with a goal of creating a steady revenue stream and fostering a solid artist-fan relationship. According to research from the Boston Consulting Group, just 2% of a brand’s customers provide 20% of the company’s revenue and drive the majority of sales through their recommendations. Olivia Management wants the fan club to be a compelling incentive for avid fans to receive unique and desirable content.  Team 9 celebrates their victory (Photo cred: Erin Anderson) The presentation: Relying on an impressive amount of research on the music and entertainment industries, fan clubs, and digital marketing trends, teams incorporated a variety of intriguing content opportunities and promotional strategies to incorporate into their visions for the fan club. Tangible benefits like exclusive music, engagement opportunities, ticket and merchandising discounts, were peppered throughout proposals, with creative uses of video and podcasts for fresh content. Teams were divided on whether to charge for membership, with compelling arguments on both sides of the debate. The feedback (quote from faculty, coach, client): “I was completely blown away with how thoroughly the Accelerator students understood the challenge, dug deep into research, and presented me with findings I had never even dreamed about,” said Erin. “All of their ideas were backed up by data, and they’ve given me multiple solutions that make sense for my artist. “It was next to impossible to pick a ‘winner.’ We plan to implement a piece of every single student solution.” The post Accelerator Project Spotlight: Olivia Management and The Secret Sisters appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
14 Sep 2017, 11:02
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Leading the Pack: Executive Education Launches New Women in Leadership Program |
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More women have earned more higher education degrees than men, and women also make up approximately half of managers and related occupations in the U.S. However, the farther you move up the hierarchy, the fewer women you’ll find in leadership roles. In fact, only 6.4% of Fortune 500 companies in 2017 had a female CEO — and that was a record high. The Executive Education team at Owen has launched a new short program, Women in Leadership, to help address the female leadership gap. Aimed at female executives, managers, and entrepreneurs, the program will help attendees work on skills like communicating strategic vision and managing risk that are essential to securing top leadership roles. The two-day course will be taught at Vanderbilt on October 23 and 24.  Kimberly Pace “What specifically can (women) do to overcome those (roadblocks) in order to move into those senior positions? Or, if we’re already in those senior positions, how do we help build a culture for other women?” explained Kimberly Pace, Professor for the Practice of Communication and the organizer behind the new short program. Pace says that women who are beginning their careers in business often aspire to top leadership positions, perhaps even CEO. But as they run up against entrenched gender bias in organizations, that ambition doesn’t always translate into promotions. “One of the things we know about women leaders is that when we ask most women starting in business, they have high ambition. It’s not that they’re not ambitious,” she said. Pace has always been passionate about women in leadership; she helped start the Owen Executive Women Think Tank, which brings together female business leaders from the Nashville community with faculty, staff, students, and alumni from Vanderbilt. It looks at best practices and research for women in leadership, as well as investigates what leadership development resources Vanderbilt and Nashville have to offer. Through her work on the initiative, Pace realized that there was an opportunity for a development program for women in leadership, or women aspiring to a leadership position. She began planning what would eventually become the Women in Leadership short program. “I would definitely say that it’s a personal passion of mine. I was really fortunate that as soon as I tried to put this together, we had people (commit to present),” she said.  Nancy Lea Hyer In addition to Pace, several other Vanderbilt professors will be teaching at the short program: Nancy Lea Hyer, Associate Dean and Associate Professor of Operations Management at Owen, will present on “Project Management: The Essentials for Women Leaders,” while Jessica Kennedy, Assistant Professor of Management, will speak on “Gender Research: Stereotypes and Negotiations.” Deb George, Executive Coach for Executive MBA Program and CEO of Palmer Solutions, will also coach attendees on “Conversational Intelligence.” Corbette Doyle, a Lecturer in Organizational Leadership at the Peabody College of Education and Human Development, will be teaching on “Research on Women at the Top of an Organization.” Hyer will open the two-day program with a hands-on, experiential workshop that will help attendees get to know one another and also introduce themes they will return to throughout the program. “I spent four years of my career as an operations research manager at a large manufacturing facility. I was the only woman on the senior staff,” she said. “I had a great experience, and I learned a tremendous amount, but it really sensitized me to the challenges that women leaders confront in organizations.” Part of Jessica’s Kennedy research focuses on the challenges women face when negotiating in business settings, and why negative stereotypes about women as negotiators continue to persist. During the course, she’ll present some of her findings and then lead attendees through a live negotiation workshop.  Jessica Kennedy “Far from possessing inferior negotiating skills, women are often equal matches to men at the bargaining table, but aspects of the negotiating context — specifically, negative stereotypes — undermine perceptions of their performance,” Kennedy wrote in a recently published paper entitled “Changing the Narrative: Women as Negotiators — And Leaders,” co-authored with Laura J. Kray of the University of California, Berkeley. “Men and women become effective negotiators through hard work and practice, not genetics.” Kennedy’s teaching is emblematic of the short program’s focus on research and evidence, as well as an emphasis on applying the research and best practices to real life. “One of the things we’ll be sharing (in the program) is research that backs up the results. I think a lot of times people talk about women in leadership, but they don’t really back it up with facts,” Pace said. “All of this will be coming from ‘what does the research really tell us, and then what can we do about it?’” Pace acknowledges that increasing the number of women in leadership will take far more than a just a two-day short program, and that existing leadership — male and female — need to advocate for more female leaders in order for them to successfully rise to the top. “The top management has to be bought in (to encouraging women in leadership). If the culture really wants to…have diversity of all genders…it really does come from the CEO believing in that value of diversity of opinion,” she said. “Having one person that’s different at the table is not diversity of opinion.” However, Pace says that as more and more women secure leadership positions, which is already beginning to happen (albeit slowly), organizational culture will begin to change as well. “I do think that as more women come into the workforce, they will help change the culture. I’m already seeing that take place, (although) we still have a long way to go,” she said. Learn More and Register To register for about the Women in Leadership short program, click here. To learn more about the program, sign up for Pace’s complimentary webinar about “Women’s Leadership Roadblocks,” to be held on Tuesday, Sept. 19 at 10 a.m. CST. The post Leading the Pack: Executive Education Launches New Women in Leadership Program appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
14 Sep 2017, 14:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Americas & Executive MBA Admissions Essentials |
| The post Americas & Executive MBA Admissions Essentials appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
15 Sep 2017, 08:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Executive MBA Return on Investment |
| The post Executive MBA Return on Investment appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
15 Sep 2017, 08:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Americas & Executive MBA Viewbook |
| The post Americas & Executive MBA Viewbook appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
18 Sep 2017, 13:02
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Vanderbilt Business Adds Seven New Full-Time Faculty Members |
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Every school year brings dozens of new faces to Management Hall, but this year, students will find some new ones at the front of the classroom. Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management has added seven new full-time faculty members, including four female professors. “This has been a spectacular year of faculty recruiting,” said M. Eric Johnson, Ralph Owen Dean. “It represents one of the biggest recruiting years in our history, as we build upon the legacy of retiring faculty and execute our growth strategy.” Spanning every level of seniority, the new faculty’s research areas include Accounting, Finance, Marketing, Operations, and Organization Studies. Their scholarship and research interests will enhance several areas of study at Owen, including Venture & Entrepreneurial Finance, Big Data, Marketing Analytics, and Diversity & Inclusion. ACCOUNTING  Rita Gunn, Assistant Professor of Accounting, earned her PhD in Accounting from Northwestern University in 2017. Her research interests include mergers and acquisitions (M&A), corporate restructurings, and financial reporting. Her recent studies have focused on corporate inversions: the relocation of corporate tax domiciles from the US to a foreign country. She will teach “Essentials of Financial Reporting” in the Vanderbilt undergraduate business minor.FINANCE  Peter Haslag, Assistant Professor of Finance, earned his PhD in Finance from Washington University in St. Louis in 2017 and his M.S.F. from Owen in 2011. His research interests include financial markets and empirical corporate finance. Findings from his dissertation show that financing frictions affect how firms invest and can impede the reallocation of assets to efficient users, acting as a detriment to shareholders. He will teach “Principles of Finance” in the Vanderbilt undergraduate business minor. Berk Sensoy, Hans Stoll Professor of Finance, earned his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in Finance in 2006 and has taught at USC, Duke, and Ohio State University. His research interests include private equity, hedge funds, and asset management. His research on the private equity market has provided insights on corporate control and organizational design. He will teach “Investments” and “Entrepreneurial Finance” in the MBA program.  Joshua T. White, Assistant Professor of Finance, earned his PhD in Finance from the University of Tennessee in 2012. Josh began his post-graduate career at the US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), where he maintains a consulting role. Josh’s research focuses on the role of securities regulation and disclosure in addressing information asymmetries and agency or moral hazard problems between capital market participants. He will teach “Corporate Financial Policy” in the MBA program and “Managerial Finance” in the EMBA and MMHC programs.MARKETING  Kelly Goldsmith, Associate Professor of Marketing, earned her PhD in Marketing from Yale University in 2009. Kelly joins Owen from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Her research interests include consumer response to risk and uncertainty, goals and consumer behavior, behavioral decision theory, and construal level theory. Her scholarship draws on and extends aspects of behavior decision theory, in showing that consumers can behave in ways counter to normative predictions and demonstrates when and why consumers do so. She will teach “Quantitative Analysis for Marketing Decision Making” and “Marketing Strategy” in the MBA program.OPERATIONS  Kejia Hu, Assistant Professor of Operations, earned her PhD in Operations from Northwestern University in 2017. Her research interests include empirical operations management, structural modeling and causal inference, service operations, sustainability management, and statistics and stochastic modeling. Her scholarship investigates consumer retrial by connecting customers’ decisions with their preferences on service aspects: the speed in service access and quality in service delivered. She also studies product life cycle (PLC) curves from historical demand data for use in forecasting demand of ready-to-launch new products. She will teach “Management of Service Operations” in the MBA program and “Managerial Operations” in the Vanderbilt undergraduate business minor.ORGANIZATION STUDIES  Melissa Thomas-Hunt, Professor of Management, earned her PhD in Organization Behavior from Northwestern University in 1997. She will serve as the Vice Provost for Inclusive Excellence, a full-time administrative position. She has authored influential papers in several streams of scholarship; looking at how different people within a team can influence group decisions; investigating the effect of non-performance based employee characteristics on how their work is assessed within organizations; and exploring the male-female differences in influence within teams. Her earliest work was on negotiation, addressing how negotiators process data during the negotiation process. The post Vanderbilt Business Adds Seven New Full-Time Faculty Members appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
19 Sep 2017, 09:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Healthcare Symposium Gives MBAs a ‘Bootcamp’ Introduction to Industry |
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Many business students have already begun the recruiting cycle in earnest; some even know where they’ll be interning next summer. For MBA candidates interested in health care, recruiting doesn’t follow a specified schedule. In fact, when Matt Sternberg (MBA’18) left campus at the end of his first year, he didn’t even have an internship finalized. Sternberg, president of the Vanderbilt Business Healthcare Association (VBHA), discussed his internship search with a group of first-year MBAs at the VBHA’s annual Healthcare Symposium event, held last Friday. Run by students, for students, the symposium seeks to help new MBAs understand the informal and irregular recruiting process for health care internships, as well as give them a primer on basic industry knowledge. THE INTERNSHIPS Sternberg secured an internship shortly after classes finished, thanks in part to connections through the Center for Entrepreneurship at Owen. He also consulted for some health care startups. Sternberg’s internship story may sound unusual compared to students from other verticals, but his late-breaking offer is actually pretty typical in an industry that moves very slowly. “People are getting (health care) internships in Mod I and Mod II and Mod III and Mod IV, and that’s just how the process works. You can’t let that deter you…it all ends up working out,” affirmed Doug Chod (MBA’18), VP of Finance for VBHA. The symposium opened with an interactive workshop, led by Sternberg, which helped students figure out their personal brand and how to communicate their value to healthcare recruiters. Then Scarlett Gilfus, Program Coordinator for the Health Care MBA , gave students an overview of Immersion Week, which falls between Mods I and II and offers students hands-on experiences in various aspects of the health care industry, including a rotation in an emergency room.  THE INDUSTRY Professor Larry Van Horn, Executive Director of Health Affairs, dropped by for a few minutes to discuss the future of health care, which he believes is moving to a private-sector, consumer-based model. Stenberg then walked students through the history of health care and the provider landscape before turning the presentation over to Chod, who discussed the major payors in the healthcare industry. Finally, Arielle Samet (MBA’18), VP of Alumni Relations for VBHA, gave an overview of major Nashville health care companies. To end the symposium, the VBHA board brought seven more second-year MBAs up to the front for a rotating panel about their variety of health care experiences. The more seasoned students offered the new MBAs tactical advice on recruiting, telling them not to get discouraged if classmates in other tracks secured internships before they did. “We wanted to make sure that we were giving (information) we thought would have been really, really valuable during the prior year,” said Samet, explaining why VBHA brought in so many second-year students for the panel. “We want to make it a community where the first years feel like they can approach us. They don’t have to treat us like the alums.” People are getting (health care) internships in Mod I and Mod II and Mod III and Mod IV, and that’s just how the process works. -Doug Chod KEY TAKEAWAYS: Networking is king. “Health care is a very network-driven industry, especially in Nashville,” Sternberg told attendees during his opening talk, and the other student speakers throughout the afternoon seconded his opinion. During the panel, Bill Faucher (MBA’18) encouraged first years to reach out to alumni, even though it can be intimidating to email someone cold. “I have yet to have a single alum turn me down, or not respond to me,” he said. He recommended that students keep a spreadsheet of their health care contacts and when they last connected, so they can track their networking touch points throughout the school year. Start early and be patient. Because health care recruiting is so informal, students need to build relationships from the very beginning, reaching out to alums for informational interviews and attending networking events. After the relationship is built, they can inquire if the company has a need for summer interns. Students need to keep in mind that health care recruiting is a long game; even with an early start, it may take months to secure an internship offer — so don’t panic. The post Healthcare Symposium Gives MBAs a ‘Bootcamp’ Introduction to Industry appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
22 Sep 2017, 07:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Faculty Spotlight: Kejia Hu |
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A hotel guest has a billing issue after check-out and decides to vent on Twitter. A research center wants to transfer a large amount of data from coast to coast. A regulatory agency considers new emission standards for automobiles. A nursing home chain looks to expand its footprint by acquiring a rival. What do these decisions have in common?
 Professor Kejia Hu These are some of the big considerations that drive Professor Kejia Hu’s research. An empiricist in operations management, the newest member of the Operations faculty at Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management believes that big data can benefit companies and customers alike. She looks across industries to find her focus. “Mainly, I will go with interesting questions – what is the next revolutionary thing happening in our society,” she says. “The other thing I need is data. I need to have both – an interesting question and a suitable data set.” The Assistant Professor of Operations earned her Ph.D. from Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management earlier this year, but she’s already co-authored several studies with interesting questions and ample data sets. Her scholarship investigates consumer retrial by connecting customers’ decisions with their preferences on service aspects: the speed in service access and the quality in service delivered. She also studies product life cycle (PLC) curves from historical demand data for use in forecasting demand of ready-to-launch new products. Her work on nitrogen oxide (NOx) emissions and regulations in the automobile industry found that tighter NOx standards led to a higher probability of misconduct, a particularly important revelation in the wake of Volkswagen’s emission scandal. Sheco-developed a model for the Department of Energy to map data traffic speeds on high-speed internet networks (“we gave them a google map,” she said), to optimize large data transfers within an increasingly taxed infrastructure. All told, Hu’s collection of studies past, present, and future has already reached the double digits. Data-driven decision making is one of the most important skills (MBAs) can have. Throughout her scholarship, Hu’s attention to customer benefit has remained constant. “The research is focused on how we can provide better services to customers to generate more profit for the companies, something that’s beneficial for both parties,” she says. In the classroom – Hu teaches in the MBA, and Undergraduate Business Minor programs. She will teach “Management of Service Operations” in the daytime MBA program and “Managerial Operations” in the Vanderbilt undergraduate business minor. She plans to share data from her research and let students explore. “Data-driven decision making is one of the most important skills (MBAs) can have,” she says, “so I want them to have the ability to understand the data and ask more insightful questions.” More specifically, she strives to “teach students how to analyze data, collect information, acquire knowledge, and impart wisdom.” The post Faculty Spotlight: Kejia Hu appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
25 Sep 2017, 09:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: On the Frontlines of the Future of Audit |
With artificial intelligence and big data capabilities evolving and growing on what seems to be a daily basis, an increasing number of business functions stand to change with them. Audit is no exception – the big 4 accounting firms are leveraging AI, machine-learning, and even drones to process huge amounts of financial information quickly and deliver smarter insights to clients. Improved capabilities will have a dramatic impact on an auditor’s day-to-day responsibilities. Sara Simonds In her role as an Operations Manager in Deloitte’s Audit Innovation group, Sara Simonds (MAcc’09) guides a 150-person team of auditors and developers tasked with building those capabilities. Through new software, mobile applications, and more, her team is developing solutions that deliver the “Deloitte way” to clients in an increasingly innovative fashion. “My current role has given me so many opportunities to use everything I learned at Vanderbilt, starting with my first class freshman year through my masters,” Simonds says, “really thinking strategically and understanding how all pieces of the audit go into what we’re seeing as the future of audit.” “My current role has given me so many opportunities to use everything I learned at Vanderbilt…really thinking strategically and understanding how all pieces of the audit go into what we’re seeing as the future of audit.” As an undergraduate in Vanderbilt’s Human and Organizational Development (HOD) major, Simonds heard about the MAcc program her junior year. “I was a little unsure about what I wanted to get out of it, but I loved the idea of getting a business background to complement the interpersonal skills I learned in HOD,” she says. After earning her bachelor’s degree and, a year later, her Master of Accountancy, Simonds took the offer she earned through her in-school internship at Deloitte and took advantage of the opportunities a Big 4 firm can provide, getting involved with Deloitte’s Learning & Development program. “We have a great resource in Deloitte University,” she says, “but even more important to me was the opportunity to connect with people.” Learning & Development has been a core feature of Simonds’ career at Deloitte. She facilitated a number of trainings throughout her career and authored training materials. As a member of the firm’s Manager Development Program (MDP), she had a learning rotation in Deloitte’s Global Center of Excellence and worked on new hire training as well. Her commitment to learning has afforded her special opportunities to train at scale. “Last year, I spent a month at DU working with new hires,” she says. “We had around 700 per week…in total almost 3,000 new hires. It was amazing experience to see them take a training that I had actually written.” During that month at DU, she reached out to a Nashville-based partner to discuss new opportunities at Deloitte. That partner connected Simonds to another Nashville-based partner within Audit Innovation. “She said she had something coming up that was perfect for my background in HOD and accounting,” Simonds recalls. “After I took a closer look, I made the transfer over.” After a year in the group, “audit innovation is definitely where I see myself going forward,” she says. “There are so many things we’re doing that are going to change the way we audit, and it’s really exciting to be a part of this.” Simonds credits the MAcc program with offering a variety of classes and experiences that separated her from the pack, as an associate and manager. “I never just had an accounting focus. Vanderbilt gave me a broad view of what business is,” she explains. “I got that feedback in Deloitte from day one: I had a business acumen that other first years didn’t.” Through the early recruiting cycle, Simonds developed an ease with networking that has helped her grow in the firm. “In MAcc, you’re literally recruiting from Day 1, with some of the highest-level partners you’ll ever meet,” she says. “Now I sit in meetings with the head of Deloitte US, or the head of Deloitte Innovation, and I’m not intimidated because I was able to have those (high-level) conversations at MAcc.” Over the last six years, an effective combination of hard and soft skills has helped Simonds grow and thrive at Deloitte – one that she began building at Vanderbilt. “MAcc prepared (our class) for every aspect of what you need to be successful in the Big 4, which is having the accounting knowledge but also those people and interpersonal skills.” The post On the Frontlines of the Future of Audit appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
25 Sep 2017, 13:01
| FROM Owen Press Releases: Workforce 2025: A Conversation with P&G’s Rich Postler |
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Vanderbilt Business recently welcomed Rich Postler, Vice President of HR for Global Business Services and Global Information Technology at Procter & Gamble, to Owen as part of the school’s Leadership-in-Residence program. He sat down with Dean Johnson to discuss what the workforce will look like in 2025, and the skills that leaders and employees will need to thrive. The post Workforce 2025: A Conversation with P&G’s Rich Postler appeared first on Vanderbilt Business School. |
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