Description
On this description around from passion to profit faculty and alumni harness the entrepreneurial spirit.
A M A G A Z I N E F O R A L U M N I A N D F R I E N D S O F E M O R Y U N I V E R S I T Y ’ S G O I Z U E TA B U S I N E S S S C H O O L
business
Drive Leader
Manage
Competitive advantage
Adapt
Disruptive
Connected
Instagram
Fun
Leader
Perseverance
Innate
Vision
Strategy
Question
Innovate
Evolve
Marathon
Mine
Service
Balance
Patience
Execution
Focus
Persistence
Innovation
Creative
Research
Hardworking
Idea
Reinvent
Passion
FA L L 2 0 1 3
Bulletproof
Listen
Humor
Entrepreneurial
Network
#crushit Detailed
Consuming Learn
Sweat
Rewarding
FROM PASSION TO PROFIT:
FACULTY AND ALUMNI HARNESS THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT
Values
26
A TOAST TO
ENTREPRENEURS
FEATURES
The Goizueta Alumni Entrepreneur Network (GAEN) provides
programming and networking—including a recent Monday
Night Brewing get-together—for the entrepreneurially minded
conte
14 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AT GOIZUETA
How faculty provide students with the fundamentals for
entrepreneurial success
20 A LUMNI ENTREPRENEURS
From beer-flavored ice cream to cloud solutions,
Goizueta alumni launch successful new enterprises
business
FALL 2013
On cover:
WANT A HOT TIP?
Alumni create a tag cloud for entrepreneurship. Throughout
this issue, alumni offered feedback and suggestions while also
helping to track down friends and colleagues to showcase our
robust network of alumni entrepreneurs.
Serial entrepreneur
Brian Lacey 90EMBA
+ 35 fellow alums offer
advice on starting a business
emory | business
28
8
nts
Fortune editor
Andy Serwer
84MBA
delivers
address
5
DALAI LAMA MEETS WITH
BBA STUDENTS
During his October visit to campus,
His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama, Presidential
Distinguished Professor at Emory, delivered
a guest lecture in Prof. Wesley Longhofer’s
Business and Society course
10
Coffee with Charlie Goetz and
Melanie Mueller 08MBA
34
Leslie Tessler 03BBA on
business in Buenos Aires
43
Advice:
The business pitch
Scott Blanck 12EvMBA
goizueta buzz yournetwork
+ plus
04 OVER THE TOP
05 FACULTY ADDITIONS
Class of 2013 breaks gift-giving records
05 RENOVATIONS
The new Jenkins Commons
06 S PORTS MARKETING ANALYTICS
Professors score high in media mentions
35 S ID MOOKERJI 04MEMBA
on differentiation
36 ADEKALU BALOGUN 07MBA
on entrepreneurship in Nigeria
37 C ALVIN CLARK 05MBA
19 ENTREPRENEURIAL GROWTH
IN DOWNTOWN ATLANTA
39 WHAT’S NEW: CLASS NOTES
on impact investing
fall | 2013
goizuetavision
Founded in 1919, Goizueta
Business School provides a
world-class business education
that combines functional
specialization with a broad
business perspective to create
principle-based leaders.
EMORY
ACCESSIBLE
INTIMATE
NETWORK
EXPERIENTIAL
GLOBAL
Ties to Emory
University, a
Top-20 Institution
Accessible, WorldClass Faculty
Scholars
Intimate & Smallby-Design Learning
Experience
Passionate &
Engaged Goizueta
Network
Stimulating,
Experiential Learning
Opportunities
Global
Perspective &
Understanding
Experience World-Class
Executive Education
Your career is a series of transitions—from individual contributor
to manager to leader. Where will your path lead you?
Success depends upon how you prepare for each transition and how
well-equipped you are as you step into a new role. Emory Executive
Education offers programs that work to elevate your capabilities in
executive-level business acumen, strategy and execution, and leadership.
December 3-4, 2013
Finance for Non-Financial Managers
December 10-11, 2013
Critical Thinking and Decision Making
March 11-12, 2014
Finance for Non-Financial Managers
March 18-19, 2014
Strategies for Maximizing Negotiation Outcomes
April 15-16, 2014
Talent Strategies That Drive Organizational Success
April 29-May 1, 2014
NEW: Your Brain on Business: Emotional Intelligence at Work
May 6-8, 2014
Strategy and Value Creation: Capturing, Delivering, and Measuring Value
June 17-18, 2014
Marketing for Non-Marketing Professionals
July 14-17, 2014
Managerial Leadership Program
July 22-23, 2014
Critical Thinking and Decision Making
July 29-31, 2014
Strategic Execution: Aligning the Organization for Competitive Advantage
August 5-6, 2014
Marketing Analytics That Drive Business Outcomes
August 19-20, 2014
Finance for Non-Financial Managers
www.EmoryExecEd.com/Training2014
emory | business
business
Senior Associate Dean for
External Relations and
Professor of Marketing
Douglas Bowman
EMORY BUSINESS
is published twice a year by Emory University’s Goizueta Business School
and is distributed free to all alumni and other friends of the business
school. Emory University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of
the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (1866 Southern Lane,
Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097; 404-679-4501) to award degrees at the
associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels. Send letters to the editor
and other correspondence to Nicole Golston, Managing Editor, Goizueta
Business School, Atlanta, Georgia 30322 or [email protected] or call
404.727.3434.
© 2013 Goizueta Business School, Emory University. All Rights Reserved.
Articles may be reprinted in full or in part if source is acknowledged.
goizueta.emory.edu/magazine
Magazine Alumni Advisory Board
Atul Agarwal 07MBA
Jeff Booth 84BBA 94MBA
Rosalie (Sakkas) Collado 05EMBA
Steve Greenfield 04EvMBA
Mara Lapp 97BBA
Michael Ryan 07EMBA
Carrie (Simon) Schonberg 97C 03MBA
Assistant Dean for Marketing and
Communications
Angela Lee Bostick 04MBA
Managing Editor
Nicole Golston
Art Director
Plus One Media
Photographers
Tony Benner
Ann Borden
Kay Hinton
Bryan Meltz
Allison Shirreffs
Contributors
Cynthia Blakeley
Meredith R. Farahmand
Michelle Hiskey
Tim Hyland
Susan Merritt Jordan
Carol Lindsey
Allison Shirreffs
Myra A. Thomas
Don’t Miss the 4th Annual EmoryMAC Conference
Join prominent industry speakers
and thought leaders from Goizueta’s
renowned faculty for the Emory
Marketing Analytics Center’s
4th Annual Conference on Friday,
March 21, 2014.
The day-long event will combine
academic perspectives with
recent examples from industry of
successfully applied analytics.
For more information, visit
EmoryMAC.org.
EmoryMAC co-directors (L to R):
David Schweidel, associate professor of marketing;
Michael Lewis, associate professor of marketing;
and Doug Bowman, professor of marketing and
McGreevy Term Chair.
fall | 2013 1
AnnualGiving
FOR THE MILLERS, Emory is a family affair. Jonathan Miller is a 1969 graduate of Goizueta Business
School, and he and his wife, Ilene, have made annual gifts to support the greatest priorities at the
school for 38 consecutive years. Daughter Kerry Miller followed in her father’s footsteps, graduating
from Goizueta in 2001. They love Emory and encourage others to support the business school through
their example. Make your annual gift to Goizueta today and discover how you can make a difference.
dean’s message
Dear alumni & friends,
I am both excited and honored to begin this new academic year as Goizueta’s
interim dean. After 14 years at Goizueta—12 of them in the dean’s office as
vice dean—I am deeply familiar with the strengths and potential of our great
school. The academic year is off to an excellent start, including the addition of
new faculty, new courses, and of course, great new students.
Though taking on the leadership of a top-ranked business school such as
Goizueta can be daunting, I am supported in my new role by an experienced
and seasoned leadership team. Rob Kazanjian, who has taught and served
in leadership positions at Goizueta for the past 25 years, remains as vice dean
for programs. He continues to oversee the MBA and BBA programs, as well as
admissions and career services. Narasimhan Jegadeesh, Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Finance, joined
the dean’s office as interim vice dean for faculty and research last July. A world-class scholar who arrived
at Goizueta in 2003, Jegadeesh has extensive knowledge of the school. In addition to these stalwarts, our
leadership at the program level remains strong.
This team is committed to building on the school’s momentum and achievements under our former dean,
Larry Benveniste, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Finance. Our priorities include positioning the school for
an era of new leadership and energizing and expanding our connections with both alumni and the business
community.
As the school’s ambassadors, you are essential to this sustained momentum. From your contributions while
students to your current roles as mentors, financial supporters, guest speakers, and more, you are at the heart
of Goizueta’s story and success. I will be doing a fair bit of traveling as interim dean during this year, and I look
forward to meeting many of you. I value your insights and feedback, not only as I lead the school during this
time of transition but also as we proceed in the search for the school’s permanent dean. As you know from
Provost Claire Sterk’s recent email, a search committee for the new dean has been identified and the process
is fully underway.
I hope you enjoy the current issue of Emory Business, which focuses on entrepreneurship—how it’s taught at
Goizueta and how it’s practiced by our successful and innovative alums. Other sections will catch you up on
school events and what’s happening with faculty and classmates. Enjoy—and join me in celebrating Goizueta.
Maryam Alavi
Interim Dean, Goizueta Business School
John M. and Lucy Cook Professor of Information Strategy
fall | 2013 3
goizuetabuzz
Class of 2013 breaks
gift-giving records
Class gift campaigns are a strong tradition at Goizueta, and each year the BBA, MBA,
EvMBA, WEMBA, and MEMBA graduating classes present their deans with a check
demonstrating their support and appreciation. This past year, however, topped the
charts for giving. The Full-Time MBA Class of 2013 raised over $267,000 in cash, pledges,
and corporate matching dollars, more than any previous class of Goizueta graduates.
About 75 percent of the FTMBAs participated in the campaign. The Weekend Executive
MBA Class of 2013 also set a record by raising more than $168,000, which will support
various ongoing programs and initiatives at Goizueta.
“The class gift epitomizes why I chose to come to Emory—for the sense of community
and belonging at Goizueta,” says Ben Jarrett 13MBA, co-leader of the Full-Time MBA
class gift campaign with Hannah Hillman 13MBA. Jarrett says the money raised will
help endow a merit-based scholarship to support a Full-Time MBA student.
Ken Keen, Goizueta’s new associate dean for
leadership development
Military leader
named new
associate dean
Lieutenant General (Retired) Ken Keen has joined
Goizueta as the new associate dean for leadership
development, overseeing the school’s leadership
development activities across all degree programs.“I
am looking forward to building upon the leadership
development initiatives already in place,” he says,
“while growing the effectiveness of Goizueta’s
offerings to prepare students for leadership at all
levels.”
Nwandi Lawson 13WEMBA headed the WEMBA class gift campaign with Jason
Barnes 13WEMBA and Katherine Strong 13WEMBA.“Our cohort is very competitive,”
she says.“When we announced the previous record for EMBA giving, there was an
immediate desire to top it.”
The trio recruited six 13WEMBA classmates (Dorothy Sood, Trad Wadsworth,
Clayton Whitfield, Tamika Longino, Josh Jones, and Sandeep Bajaj) as campaign
ambassadors, and the group fanned out to classmates to make personal pitches.
“We employed humor, emotion, rationalization, competition, deadlines, and good oldfashioned guilt to get 100 percent participation,” Strong says. To top the previous record
for dollar amount, professors even chipped in, adds Lawson.
The 2013 MBA and WEMBA fundraisers hope subsequent classes will embrace their
roles as caretakers of the Goizueta brand. The class gift, they note, is a promise each
graduating class makes to provide opportunities for future students and to continue
enhancing the value of the Goizueta degree.—MH
Keen, who recently retired from a distinguished
career of more than 38 years in the US Army, has an
outstanding leadership development background. In
addition to leading military organizations in Pakistan,
Central America, South America, and Haiti, Keen has
amassed a wide range of experiences and contacts
among high-level government, business, and NGO
leaders across the world.
Conversant in Spanish and Portuguese, Keen is a
graduate of the US Army War College and has an
MA in Latin American Studies from the University of
Florida.—CDB
Benjamin Jarrett 13MBA (left) and Hannah Hillman 13MBA join Brian Mitchell 00MBA/MPH,
associate dean of the FTMBA program, in celebrating the largest FTMBA class gift to date.
4 emory | business
New Faculty
New look for Jenkins Commons
Bill Black, Susan Crosson, Oliver Randall, and Tongil Kim
Tongil Kim, Assistant Professor of Marketing
Tongil “TI” Kim (PhD, UC Berkeley, 2013) earned a BA in electronics
engineering from Simon Fraser University (Canada) and an MS in
operations management from Stanford University. His research interests
include empirical industrial organization, marketing strategy, behavioral
economics, and marketing and public policy. The recipient of several
doctoral fellowships, Kim also received UC Berkeley’s 2012 Outstanding
Graduate Student Instructor Award.
Oliver Randall, Assistant Professor of Finance
A native of the UK, Oliver Randall (PhD, NYU, 2013) graduated
with a BSc from the University of Bristol, where he was awarded
the university’s highest prize in mathematics. Before pursuing his
MS in statistics at the University of Chicago, Randall worked as an
analyst for Financial Risk Management, the Royal Bank of Scotland,
and Deutsche Bank. His research focuses on asset pricing and market microstructure, and he teaches courses in business economics.
Bill Black, Assistant Professor in the Practice of
Accounting
Bill Black (PhD, UMiss, 2012) taught most recently at the University of
Illinois and Case Western Reserve University. His teaching and research
interests include ethics and management behavior, forensic accounting,
intellectual property identification, and corporate governance. A CPA,
Black has extensive industry experience at professional services firms
such as Deloitte and PWC.
Susan Crosson, Senior Lecturer in Accounting
Most recently an adjunct faculty member at Goizueta, Susan
Crosson (MS, Texas Tech) teaches financial accounting, managerial
accounting, and income taxation. Prior to arriving at Emory, she
taught at Santa Fe College, the University of Florida, Washington
University, and the University of Oklahoma. She has won several
teaching awards and has been honored by the American Accounting Association with the Outstanding Service Award.
Over the summer Jenkins Commons, named after Howard M. Jenkins
75C, underwent a significant renovation to create a more flexible
working and socializing space for students. The reconstruction added
more natural light; replaced stationary banquettes with comfortable,
moveable furniture; incorporated Internet café features such as a
bar-height counter with power sources; created quiet student carrels
and an ancillary computer lab; and replaced the former Jazzman’s Café
with a student galley, ideal for sharing bagged lunches in a welcoming
environment. The school showcased the renovations to faculty and
staff at an August reception.
Editor of FORTUNE
speaks at Goizueta
Andy Serwer 84MBA, managing editor of FORTUNE, visited campus
on October 8 as part of the 2013–14 Goizueta Dean’s Leadership
Speaker Series.
In his lecture entitled “Money, Madness, and Mayhem,” Serwer
shared memorable story covers from past issues, including pieces
on Walmart and Steve Jobs, and discussed the value of a solid
business education for business
journalists. The audience included
students, faculty, alumni, members
of the Atlanta business community,
and donors from the National
Public Radio affiliate WABE, a local
supporter of the Dean’s Leadership
Speaker Series. Past speakers in the
series have included David Abney,
chief operating officer for United
Parcel Service; Herbert Allen, former
CEO of Allen & Co Investment; and Mark
Andy Serwer 84MBA
Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks.
Alumni are invited to attend the speaker series. Details on past
and upcoming speakers can be found at goizueta.emory.edu/
aboutgoizueta.
fall | 2013 5
goizuetabuzz
Professors team up on
sports marketing analytics
Research by Michael Lewis, associate professor of marketing, and Manish Tripathi,
assistant professor of marketing, has been making the news, cited in publications
ranging from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times to ESPN, USA Today,
and CBS Sports.com. Using a combination of statistical tools and analysis of
consumer behavior, Lewis and Tripathi produce studies on how sports leagues,
teams, and players create valuable marketing assets—in particular, brand equity
and customer (fan) loyalty. For example, the pair has created a statistical model to
evaluate the “social media equity” of NBA teams, finding the Lakers the dominant
franchise online. They’ve also developed a metric for determining the “fan volatility
rating” of NFL teams by calculating the ratios of positive to negative tweets after
games during the 2012 regular season. Citing Lewis and Tripathi’s research, the
WSJ reported in September that “Raiders fans hate-tweeted their way to the title of
most unstable base in the NFL,” while “the Steelers and Patriots weren’t far behind.”
Lewis and Tripathi, who post their research and blog on the Emory Sports
Marketing Analytics website (blogs.emory.edu/sportsmarketing), have also been
cited for their study on the economic effect on college athletic departments of
dropping Indian mascots.“The professors . . . found these colleges tended to have a
year or two of marginal financial losses before quickly recovering,” wrote the New
York Times in June.
The Emory Sports Marketing Analytics website, launched in April 2013, covers
several major US sports, bringing data-driven analysis to the industry while
addressing game-changing topics in college and professional athletics.—CDB
New index gains quick
recognition
Roy Black
Roy Black, professor in
the practice of finance and
director of Goizueta’s real
estate program, was recently
featured in the Wall Street
Journal’s MarketWatch. The
CoreNet Global Confidence
Index, which Black helped
develop, was cited as
evidence of a strong global
economic outlook for the
second half of 2013.
Drawing on surveys of corporate real estate executives
who serve large, multinational companies from multiple
industry sectors, CoreNet Global converts the demand
for space—a key internal corporate performance
indicator—into a forward-facing macro-economic
indicator that predicts the likelihood of future growth
and expansion. The index published its first set of
results in July 2013.
With more than 7,000 members, CoreNet is a leading
professional association for corporate real estate
professionals.—MF
Master of Professional Accounting (MPA)
to launch fall 2014
Goizueta Business School wil launch a joint BBA/Master of Professional Accounting
(MPA) program beginning the 2014–15 academic year. Its purpose is to bring the
depth and breadth of our accounting program in line with evolving professional
standards, as well as to allow Goizueta BBA accounting students to earn enough
credit hours to sit for the CPA exam based on their Goizueta education.
Emory University recently changed the way it determined credit hours for existing
courses. Although this move brought Emory in line with accepted practices at most
other universities, it is now nearly impossible for students to obtain enough credit
hours to sit for the CPA exam based on the BBA degree alone. Students working
towards professional licensure in Georgia are required to present 150 academic
credit hours, which they will be able to achieve through the combined BBA/MPA
degree. Though the program will require an additional calendar year to complete,
6 emory | business
it will involve just one additional semester in the
classroom. The remaining time will be spent in the
program’s built-in practicum with accounting firms,
which will have faculty oversight.
Commenting on this newest addition to Emory
Goizueta’s portfolio of degree programs, Rob
Kazanjian, vice dean of programs and professor
of organization & management, observes,“In
collaboration with leading accounting firms, our
faculty has developed an innovative new master’s
program designed around the needs of our students
and the industry.”
GMSC Case Competition winners, from left to right:
David Waters-Honcu, Gillian Koh, Kristin Traina, Brianna
Levin,Saxon Seay, Jerry Meng, and Brandon R. Smith.
Far right, team guide Jon Hall 13MBA.
Management Practice kudos
Management Practice (MP) is the school’s initiative for providing students
with realistic experiential learning opportunities. In the Two-Year Full-Time
MBA program, students take one field-based MP elective in their second
semester. Working on real-world problems with real clients has proven
useful preparation for the summer internships. Electives in spring 2013 were
Catalyzing Social Impact; Goizueta Marketing Strategy Consultancy (GMSC);
Marketing Analytics Consulting; Project Management; and Valuation. Spring
2014 will bring an additional option, Healthcare Field Projects.
Congratulations go to the 2013 winning team of the longtime hallmark
of experiential learning, the GMSC case competition: Gillian Koh 14MBA,
Brianna Levin 14MBA, Jerry Meng 14MBA, David Waters-Honcu 14MBA,
Kristin Traina 15JD/MBA, Brandon R. Smith 14MBA, and
Saxon Seay 14MBA. Their challenge was to provide FOCUS
Brands, Inc. with a strategic positioning plan for the Auntie
Anne’s brand in China. The team analyzed China’s retail food
market industry, local competition, customer preferences, and
best marketing practices, and they presented FOCUS senior
management with strategic recommendations supported by
financial analysis.
Mike Shattuck, president of FOCUS Brands International, offers
high marks not only to this year’s winning team, but also
to previous teams that had worked with the multinational
corporation.
“The quality of consultancy provided by the program is
excellent,” he says. “The investment of time and money has
provided superior returns for us. And an added benefit is that,
by working together with what we view as one of the top MBA
programs in the country, we are able to interact with some of
the best talent available.”
Organizations with potential projects should contact the
associate dean for the MP programs, Professor Patrick Noonan,
at [email protected].
TECHNOBUZZ
While students were away this summer, Goizueta’s geeks were at play,
implementing the following technological upgrades:
• Deployment of Emory’s Blackboard Learning Management System for all
Goizueta classes, replacing FirstClass course conferences.
• The EMBA student technology framework, a combination of systems and
tools that help students find program information, receive announcements,
access calendars, and stay connected.
• A new BBA student portal where students find all their academic information
in one place, including program announcements, advising needs, schedules,
documentation, CMC guidance, and a master calendar of events.
• Case classroom enhancements, including new high-definition projectors and
Echo360, a lecture capture program that allows professors to record classes
and upload this multimedia lecture content, which students can access from
within Blackboard.
• A redesigned Goizueta website.
14WEMBA students Cornell Hazelton, left, Latonda Henderson,
and Leigh Dobbs working with new technology.
“We’re committed to maintaining and building on the school’s
sophisticated and accessible technological resources,” says
Jackie Breiter 01WEMBA, associate dean of technology
services.“Keeping pace with innovation has significantly
enhanced the Goizueta experience for all.”—CDB
fall | 2013 7
goizuetabuzz
DALAI LAMA GUEST
LECTURES IN BUSINESS
AND SOCIETY CLASS
Students in Wesley Longhofer’s BBA course Business and Society had the experience of a lifetime when His Holiness the XIV
Dalai Lama visited the classroom to deliver a guest lecture and
field questions. The Presidential Distinguished Professor made
two such classroom lectures during his recent visit in October:
one in a College course on religion, and the other at the b-school.
“My class addresses the practice of business ethics in a complex
world,” explains Longhofer, an assistant professor of organization and management who also teaches an MBA version of the
course. He notes that the Dalai Lama’s main topic during The
Visit 2013—secular ethics and its importance in education and
in today’s increasingly globalized society—dovetailed perfectly
with the course’s concerns.
says Ariella Sela 14C, who is pursuing a BBA/College Environment and Sustainability Management concentration. “He stated
that when choosing a job or career path, if you do not align with
the culture of a particular company, it is your duty to change it
to fit your ideals and inner values to help it reflect a culture of
responsibility; he specifically noted honesty, transparency, and
truth as key traits for responsible business. He explained that he
favors this to abandoning the company, because this is where
positive change occurs.”
“The goal of the class is to get students thinking about the
broader societal impacts of business, for both good and bad, intentional or unintentional,” Longhofer says. “The teachings of His
Holiness reveal that we all share a common humanity and that all
of our actions, whether as individuals or as companies, should be
conducted with that common humanity in mind. The visit helped
reinforce the general principle that business should be thoughtful as well as calculated.”
For students, the visit helped shape their perspectives about
business on a more personal level.
“I asked His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, for his take on aligning our
inner values with the material rewards of professional success,”
8 emory | business
At top, His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama teaching on the Nature and
Practice of Compassion; above, Interim Dean Maryam Alavi, left,
and Olga Goizueta Rawls 77C 80L pose with His Holiness along with
members of the Business and Society class.
Kevin Frey 14BBA commented on how appreciative
he was for the “tremendous opportunities” Emory
and Goizueta have provided him through events like
this, while Alexander Hwang 14BBA noted that the
accessibility to such a renowned figure made The Visit
2013 all the more meaningful.
“The Dalai Lama’s opinions and philosophies didn’t
come off as absolute truth, but as genuine and
personal,” he says. “It reminded me that as we go off
into the business world, we are able to contribute to
potential change of a greater organization by simply
living by our beliefs and values.”
Patrick McBride 14BBA summed up the experience
for many, saying, “Regardless of your personal beliefs,
the Dalai Lama is someone who has a following of
millions, and to be in his presence—especially in such
a small setting—is life-changing.”—NG
His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama shares his philosophy on business and ethics with
BBA students during a recent campus visit. To right, Professor Wesley Longhofer.
Left, Geshe Thupten Jinpa Langri, a Buddhist scholar and former monk who serves
as the Tibetan spiritual leader’s chief translator for North America.
Award-winning faculty
Commencement is a time not only for celebrating the graduates
but also for announcing the annual faculty teaching awards.
Brad Killaly, associate professor in the practice of organization
& management, is the 2013 winner of the Marc F. Adler Prize for
Excellence in Teaching. The Adler Prize, which is selected by a
committee of alumni, honors outstanding teaching quality, course
innovation, and relevance to real-world problem solving in all
MBA graduates pose for a celebratory photo in May as
Mrs. Olga C. de Goizueta and senior staff look on.
Goizueta programs over a three-year period. Professor of Marketing and McGreevy Term Chair Doug Bowman received the Emory
Williams Award for Distinguished Teaching. Excellence in teaching
awards also went to Allison Burdette (BBA), Ray Hill and Soojin
Yim (Full-Time MBA), Nicholas Valerio and Patrick Noonan (Evening MBA), and Shehzad Mian (WEMBA and MEMBA).
fall | 2013 9
COFFEE WITH...
EACH ISSUE WE SELECT FACULTY OR STAFF MEMBERS, CURRENT OR RETIRED, TO “HAVE
COFFEE WITH.” THE OBJECTIVE IS TO GATHER INSIGHTS AND PERSPECTIVE ON A TOPIC OF
INTEREST TO ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF EMORY UNIVERSITY’S GOIZUETA BUSINESS SCHOOL.
IF YOU HAVE A FAVORITE FACULTY OR STAFF MEMBER YOU WOULD LIKE TO “HAVE COFFEE
WITH,” PLEASE SEND YOUR SUGGESTION TO [email protected].
Charlie
Goetz
Coffee with Charlie Goetz,
senior lecturer in organization and management and
a successful entrepreneur, is
more like a power lunch. Just
ask Melanie Mueller 08MBA,
the creative director/founder
of Mel Boteri, LLC, a company
that specializes in custom
accessories for women and
men. In July, the two sat down in Mel Boteri’s Buckhead showroom to discuss the
entrepreneurial journey and Mueller’s plans to take her business to the next level.
Mueller: You’re an investor in twelve businesses and on the advisory
boards of half of them. How do you decide which ones to invest in?
Goetz: A large part depends on the person who is running it, the
business concept, and possible barriers to entry. I’m looking for people
who are passionate about their ideas and have that spark, even if
they’ve had a business that failed—as long as they’ve learned lessons
from the experience.
Mueller: What’s been your toughest business lesson?
Goetz: After completing grad school and working for Citicorp, I started
a French fry business called Paris Fries, with a number of locations in
10 emory | business
mall food courts in the Houston area. While the business was actually
doing better than projected—which is atypical, because most
businesses do worse—I sold it and took a loss. The question is, why did I
sell a business when we had lines out the door?
Mueller: Okay, I’ll bite. Why?
Goetz: Because I hated what I was doing. Although I understood how to
analyze a business, calculate projections, and sell and do marketing, I did
not understand what it would be like to run that business or to deal
with unreliable employees. Afterward, I vowed not to get into a business
where the people I hired didn’t take their jobs seriously. And I realized I
was not a manager. I have a lot of skills, but I cannot manage day-to-day
matters. I either bring on a junior partner or a senior-level manager to
handle that aspect of the business.
Mueller: How do you go about finding that person? I certainly could
use the help, but where can I find someone who is as knowledgeable,
passionate, and emotionally connected to my business as I am?
Goetz: You need to find someone who has both passion for your
idea and a complementary skill set. This person can be an angel
investor who knows someone with the skills you seek or even a
recent grad with the background and entrepreneurial interests you
need. The best way to find these leads is by networking: asking
people you know and trust for recommendations, attending industry
conferences and events, or even using LinkedIn to identify people
who might have synergies.
Mueller: Networking definitely helped me launch my business, and I
also attended a bunch of events either to exhibit my bags or to meet
new people. Relationships are very important for me, especially since
referrals are a critical element of my business.
Goetz: Your eBook, which I think women will definitely enjoy, must
help you make connections.
Mueller: It’s part of my social media marketing strategy, and wow,
did it take me out my comfort zone! The Bag Guide: 7 Secrets of
Handbag Shopping is a free download that launched in September
(melb.co/BagGuide). In the eBook, I discuss the seven things to
consider when in the market for a handbag—how to select the
perfect piece and create a quality collection for your lifestyle.
Goetz: Your clients create their own bags; how do they do that?
Mueller: I have base bags—close to 50 silhouettes. Everything from
small clutches to bags large enough for a laptop. Clients pick their
silhouette and then choose from more than 100 different leather
swatches. You can change the strap, add a pocket—whatever you
want in order to fit your lifestyle. But because everything is
customizable, the one thing I keep standard in all my bags is the
lining—this rich turquoise color. I’m continuously designing new
silhouettes based on clients’ needs, and I’ve recently incorporated
exotic skins into my collection. The bag you’re holding is python. I
hope you like snakes.
Goetz: I like them better like this [pointing to the bag] than in real life.
What about online commerce?
Mueller: My website, melboteri.com, is a full e-commerce site where
clients can shop for handbags that I’ve pre-designed. I’m looking to
add a configurator—similar to what NIKEiD does for shoes—so
people can customize and visualize their bags online. I’ll have that
tool available early next year.
Melanie Mueller 08MBA in the Mel Boteri showroom in Buckhead.
Goetz: People are always asking me how to get started in business, but
you came to Goizueta with that in mind.
Mueller: Yes, my undergraduate degree was in finance and I studied
marketing and entrepreneurship at Goizueta. While the design aspect
of my business was completely self-taught, my MBA taught me
essential business skills that have given me a competitive advantage
over the many talented designers out there who may not be as
commercially trained.
Goetz: Your decision to approach Mercedes-Benz was a great strategic
move.
Mueller: Yes, it was thrilling to get the call last year that they loved my
concept of a luxury, Mel Boteri for Mercedes-Benz handbag and would
move forward on it! We hope to apply customization to the handbags
at Mercedes-Benz, since they also offer this option with their cars.
Goetz: So that’s the niche—the angle—you’re trying to fill?
Customization?
Mueller: That’s my core focus. When I got into fashion, people told me I
was crazy, but I knew it was the way of the future. People want to
express themselves, to stand out as their own person. I believe it’s a
market that’s only going to get bigger and bigger.—Allison Shirreffs
fall | 2013 11
COFFEE WITH...
Sandy Jap
Sandy Jap, professor of marketing and holder of a
Goizueta term chair, is drawn to the dark side of B2B
relationships—specifically, why relationships don’t work.
“Business partners are opportunistic,” says Jap.“It’s easy
to understand why—the stakes are often high. But why
do partners cheat when the stakes are low?”
cheating.“People tell themselves, ‘If I take a little here or there from my
partner, it’s okay,’” says Jap,“because in the long run, they reason, ‘it will
all even out.’” Or, she adds,“they tell themselves, ‘my partner is probably
either already aware of it or doing it to me as well.’”
Whether in the dugout
at Turner Field or in the
boardroom, integrity in
relationships is key, says
Sandy Jap.
According to Jap’s research, even when a business partner cheats in
small ways, people tend to let it go, perhaps because they believe it’s
the “nice thing to do,” or it won’t happen again. In fact, her research
shows that managers will let their business partners cheat them as
many as two or three times before they start venting, threaten to end
the relationship, or exit. What they should do instead, recommends
Jap, is to nip that kind of behavior in the bud. Tolerating it will cost
them in the long term, in the form of suspicion, more monitoring, and
an eroding relationship. Actively responding the first time—even if it
makes everyone uncomfortable—will be better for business than to
let it go.
Jap’s current research offers answers to this question by analyzing the
mistakes people make, in what context they’re made, and the faulty
reasoning that leads to them. One such misstep is the tendency to focus
more on pleasing the business partner than on paying attention to the
terms of a deal.“The assumption that maintaining a good relationship is
most important is not always the way to go,” says Jap.
Given that B2B relationships are crucial for the success of entrepreneurs,
Jap suggests that they keep these pitfalls in mind. “Though many
entrepreneurs try, they can’t do everything,” she says.“If you want to go
far or fast in business, you have to go with others.“ And partnering with
businesses that have capabilities and can supply you with the resources
you need is more important than establishing great rapport, Jap adds.
“If you can layer good relationships on top of that, great.”
And a good relationship with a business partner doesn’t mean he or
she won’t take advantage of you. Petty opportunism—the omission of
information, the taking of credit when it should be assigned elsewhere,
the misrepresentation of expenses—is actually most likely to occur in
long-term relationships where business partners have great rapport.
Jap explains that this behavior is typically due to “morally malleable
reasoning,” where morals are flexibly used to justify misbehavior, lies, or
Jap arrived at Goizueta in 2001. Prior to that, she was a faculty member
at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She was a visiting professor
at the Wharton School from 2008 to 2009. In 2010 she co-launched the
Marketing Analytics Initiative, better known as EmoryMAC. She earned
her BA and PhD in marketing at the University of Florida, and she loves
her Gators. In her spare time, she often has a racquet in hand.“My vice is
never giving up on my tennis game,” she says.—Allison Shirreffs
12 emory | business
EB: How do you facilitate the research
efforts of Goizueta faculty?
Harris: I work in research and data
services, combining tools for data
gathering and processing to provide
strategic technological support to the
school. My role focuses on supporting
empirical archival research. Professors
come to me with issues regarding
procuring, accessing, cleaning, and
analyzing data.
EB: What kind of assistance do you
provide to PhD students, and how has
the addition of the doctoral program
in 2002 changed the school?
Doctoral candidates Shikha Jaiswal, left, and Jingran Zhao
consult with Ron Harris on data research analysis.
Ron Harris
Ron Harris, senior research data specialist
for Goizueta Technology Services (GTS),
has seen the demands for research data
collection and analysis grow by leaps
and bounds at the school, along with the
technology to support it. He came to GTS
in 1993 as a research computing assistant,
moving up the ranks before assuming his
current position in 2011.
Harris: The PhD students enrich
Goizueta’s intellectual environment. My interactions with them lie
on the consulting side. It’s important for doctoral candidates to
understand what is involved in the research process, and I have
offered a class on research data analysis since the founding of the
program. We talk about issues of data collection and analysis, and
the students take a “hands-on” approach to a set of problems that I
develop in collaboration with faculty.
EB: How have the demands of increasingly larger research datasets
impacted GTS?
Harris: In 1994 we added the first computer server dedicated solely
to research. We’re now in our sixth generation of research servers.
At any premier university, research and teaching go hand-in-hand.
Over the years we’ve added support for empirical archival research
and have increased scope to include behavioral and experimental
research. We’ve also added large storage arrays that allow us to store
terabytes of data and fiber channel connections, passing information
back to the server at light speed. My project work is often large in
scope, dealing with datasets with millions of observations.
EB: You’re married to Grace Pownall, professor of accounting. How
did you meet? Do your paths ever cross when working on research?
Is there a healthy competition there?
Harris: I met Grace in an econometrics class at the University of
Chicago. She was on her way to a PhD in accounting and economics,
and I was getting my MBA. Since I support the faculty, I work on
projects for her from time to time. She has a keen sense for data and
analysis. I’ve learned a lot from her on projects we’ve collaborated on,
and perhaps she’s learned a little from me. The only competition we
have is in the kitchen. That’s a win-win for everyone.—Myra Thomas
fall | 2013 13
Entrepreneurship
at Goizueta:
Faculty offer thoughts
on shaping
business creation
by Cynthia Blakeley
Rags-to-riches tales of entrepreneurs
who started their business in garages,
kitchens, or dorm rooms and made it
big are legendary.
From Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to Walt Disney or the Mattel
founders Elliott and Ruth Handler, these visionaries and their
stories evoke the belief that one’s extraordinary talent or skill can
overcome the difficulties inherent in creating businesses and
catapult entrepreneurs to success.
But research from Chris Rider, assistant professor in organization
and management, and his
coauthors shows that many
entrepreneurs acquire the
psychological and social
resources to create a business
from their experiences working
in an established firm.
Furthermore, subsequent
research by Rider and three
colleagues—Goizueta Chair of
Organization and Management
Anand Swaminathan and
O & M professors Peter Roberts
Chris Rider
14 emory | business
and Peter Thompson—details how
knowledge and connections gained
through education and employment
influence not only individuals’ careers
but also organizational founding and
survival.
If talent and skill alone do not
guarantee a hot IPO, and elements
such as experience and one’s network
play important roles in determining
Anand Swaminathan
the success of an enterprise, how
does—or should—academia help shape future entrepreneurs?
The teaching of entrepreneurship has grown considerably over
the last few decades, from a scattering of offerings in the 1970s
to its current established place in nearly every competitive
b-school curriculum. But as a pedagogical field it is still quite
young, with no unified agreement on how to teach the art of
creating a successful business.
At Goizueta, students have access to a wide range of coursework
applicable to entrepreneurship, from foundational courses in core
business concepts to electives in entrepreneurship and fieldwork
courses that help hone many of the skills useful for establishing
one’s own business. This combination of academic and
experiential learning allows students to acquire the knowledge
and tools necessary for success not only as corporate leaders but
also as founders and executives of their own ventures.
Question
Balance
Passion
Manage
Perseverance
Innate
Hardworking
Patience
Evolve
Focus
Sweat
Marathon
Persistence
Idea
Reinvent
Fun
Leader
Innovation
Creative
Disruptive
Connected
Instagram
Peter Roberts
Getting grounded
For anyone looking to become an entrepreneur, it’s important to
build a foundation in all aspects of business creation. Thompson,
who teaches corporate strategy, has done significant research on
entrepreneurship and has found that strong generalists, or “Jacks
of all trades,” enjoy a higher rate of success than those driven to
business ownership by a “taste for variety” as evidenced by a
highly varied work history. Given that Thompson’s research
shows that the majority of entrepreneurs fall in the latter
category—and have lower earnings than the average wage
worker—it’s essential for any student eager to bring a new idea
to market to acquire as many foundational skills as possible.
“Although my research is not designed to predict what it takes to
become an entrepreneur, an awful lot of the skills important for
entrepreneurs are, in fact, personal skills that many different
people need,” says Thompson. “In the spring I’m going to teach a
new behavioral economics course in the BBA program, and we’ll
look at standard economic theories on how to make rational
decisions, as well as why a lot of psychology experiments and
empirical observations indicate that people don’t make decisions
like that. For example, we know people tend to be overly
optimistic. If you ask founders of startups what they think their
likelihood of success is, typically they will say, ‘I have a 90%
chance of success.’ Research shows that number is more like 30%.”
Understanding the motivations and biases that impact decisions
is a critical skill for entrepreneurs, Thompson argues, because
people tend to hang onto their beliefs even in the face of
conflicting evidence,
seeking out evidence that
supports what they already
believe.
“Everyone suffers these sorts
of cognitive biases, but it is
particularly damaging if you
are an entrepreneur.
Peter Thompson
Consider if you are founding
a company and making decisions about how much to invest or
what a product looks like, and there is no institution around
you to push back against your biases,” he adds. “In business
creation, it’s important to recognize that you have these biases
and how to take action to undo them. These are valuable skills
for anybody, but they are particularly salient for entrepreneurs.”
At Goizueta, students with a strong commitment to
entrepreneurship benefit from coursework in the core
curriculum that ranges from economics, marketing
management, and financial reporting/analysis to professional
development, organizations and strategy, data and decision
fall | 2013 15
Humor
Question
Balance
Vision
Adapt
Sweat
Rewarding
Detailed
Consuming
Mine
Mine
Patience
Leader
Research
Innovate
Execution
Creative
Network
Bulletproof
analytics, and
systems
management.
One important and
relevant goal in the
core curriculum for
all programs is the
development of
diagnostic thinking
skills.
“The greatest
challenge faced by
entrepreneurs—
who often start off
as their own general
managers—is
simply to identify
and understand
Richard Makadok
what a problem is,”
says Richard Makadok, an associate professor of organization
and management who teaches the core strategic management
course in the Evening MBA program. “Diagnostic reasoning, as
distinct from analytical reasoning, is therefore an essential skill.”
Makadok likens entrepreneurs to emergency room doctors,
saying, “they never have all of the right information necessary to
make fully informed decisions or the luxury of experimenting
with different strategies to arrive at the right one.”
Listen
Targeting entrepreneurship
While many professors at Goizueta teach valuable skills that can
be applied to launching new ventures, the school’s curriculum
also includes electives focused specifically on entrepreneurship.
For example, Charlie Goetz, senior lecturer in organization and
management and a seasoned entrepreneur, offers a
comprehensive, two-class series for MBA students interested in
launching their own business: Introduction to Entrepreneurship,
followed by Applied Entrepreneurship (also offered to BBA
students). “The first course begins with the creation of a new
product or service and is centered on the development of a
team’s business plan,” says Goetz. “Students learn how to
determine product viability, think strategically in terms of a small
business, develop an investor presentation, and raise funds. The
applied course picks up where the introductory course ends,
with the kinds of skills an entrepreneur needs to build, manage,
grow, and sell a new venture.”
Students in the applied course learn, for example, how to think
creatively, develop marketing strategy and tactics on a shoestring budget, convince prospects to buy their product, manage
employees in an unstructured environment, and sell the
business at an impressive profit. A small number of students
across all degree programs who are in the process of starting a
new business may also take an independent study course with
Goetz, who meets weekly with each student to provide
individualized advice on implementing business plans.
Success depends, Makadok says, on developing “insight,
judgment, experience, and intuition to fill in the gaps in available
information.” Intuition, in turn, requires a storehouse of
experiences that allows a manager to see patterns and cues that
might easily be missed by others.
Throughout their business school coursework, Goizueta students
accelerate the growth of these experiences, laying the
foundation for the kinds of memories that will serve them well
when faced with the need to make rapid decisions.
Charlie Goetz
16 emory | business
Innovation
Creative
Innovate
Vision
Strategy
Question
Balance
Patience
Research
Hardworking
Idea
Rewarding
Drive
Listen
Adapt
Leader
Humor
Competitive advantage
#crushit
Detailed
Consuming Learn
Andrea Hershatter
Goetz, like faculty throughout Goizueta, draws on a variety of
teaching methods in his courses, combining lectures with
frequent in-class exercises, guest speakers, case studies based on
his own businesses, and external interviews. At the close of the
Introduction to Entrepreneurship course, for example, he brings
in dozens of entrepreneurs and business investors, who listen to
and provide feedback on student presentations—some of which
may lead to continued investor interest.
At the BBA level, Andrea Hershatter, senior lecturer in
organization and management and senior associate dean and
director of the BBA program, teaches an experientially based
Entrepreneurship and New Venture Management course in
which students start the semester with an idea for a venture and
complete it with an executable business plan. “The plan is not an
end unto itself, but rather a template for working through all the
functional areas of business necessary for entrepreneurial
success,” Hershatter explains. Students apply core concepts
through an entrepreneurial lens, tempered by an “on-the-ground
reality check” that requires them to go into the field to meet with
industry experts.
No new business can get off the ground without adequate
capital, and students can learn how to navigate the world of
financing through electives such as Klaas Baks’s courses on
private equity and venture capital. Baks, executive director of the
Emory Center for Alternative Investments and associate
professor in the practice of finance, provides students with
essential overviews of the private equity industry, alternative
investments, leveraged buyouts, deal making, and venture
capital investing while also teaching them practical skills that
enhance their chances of success in launching a business.
“The three most valuable skills I teach future entrepreneurs,” he
says, “are how to clearly and quickly articulate what their
business is about; how to sell their ideas; and how to network.
The first is perhaps most important. Many aspiring entrepreneurs
focus too much on selling a product idea and too little on
presenting both themselves and their business plan. But
potential investors focus on the person behind an idea, who is
the linchpin for the success or failure of a new
enterprise.”
Hershatter agrees, saying that “the value is not so
much in the idea itself—as I tell my students all
the time, if you’re thinking about a new offering,
it’s very likely that someone else is too—but it’s
all about the execution. You have to have a
strategic position and operations plan that
creates a sustainable, distinctive competency for
your venture.”
Another important task for any entrepreneur is
assessing the size/potential of a market
opportunity. Students in David Schweidel’s new
elective course, Digital and Social Media Strategy,
for instance, study the data collected by
e-commerce and online video sites in order to
understand how it can inform strategic decisions.
This process helps future entrepreneurs
understand how to use marketing data that is
relevant to their new business. “If you’re planning
to bring a new product or service to market, who
are the competitors you need to consider?” asks
Schweidel, associate professor of marketing. “How
Klaas Baks
David Schweidel
fall | 2013 17
Idea
Reinvent
Balance
Persistence
Evolve
Network
Creative
Vision
Passion
Drive
large is the potential market? How much market share do you
expect to capture within the year? How are you going to
promote it?” He says that one way to address these questions is
to look at what others have done in the past and what has been
successful. “In many cases,” he notes, “that’s going to involve
looking at consumers’ online activities.”
Such research, and the savvy use of social media, is essential for
new entrepreneurs, who “don’t have traditional, large-scale
budgets for marketing,” says Hershatter, adding, “Entrepreneurs
absolutely need to understand the social media landscape in
order to effectively build awareness and gain traction.”
Learning by doing
Goizueta’s multifaceted approach to business education includes
experiential opportunities outside the classroom. Susan Hogan,
for example, sends students in her
Nonprofit Marketing and in her
Entertainment and Media
Marketing Fieldwork courses into
the field, likening the experience
to learning how to ride a bike.
“One of the best ways to learn is
by doing,” says Hogan, adjunct
assistant professor of marketing.
“In my class, student teams work
with organizations to resolve
current challenges they’re facing.”
Echoing her colleagues, Hogan
says that the most important
entrepreneurial skills she teaches
are how to isolate and define a
business challenge and how to
Susan Hogan
develop a roadmap for resolving
it. “I stress the importance of making conscious decisions
regarding the questions students ask, the methods they choose,
and the people they involve, in order to achieve the outcome(s)
they desire,” she says.
18 emory | business
Steve Walton
Students who participate in the Global Feasibility Studies
organized by Social Enterprise @ Goizueta get similar exposures
to project-based assignments. So far, student teams have worked
on plans for creative, socially oriented ventures in Ethiopia,
Honduras, and Bolivia. “The goal of the program is for students to
gain experience analyzing and then developing solutions to the
complex challenges currently faced by organizations striving for
meaningful social impacts,” says Peter Roberts, who is the
director of Social Enterprise @ Goizueta and teaches courses
such as Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing.
“The kind of hands-on problem solving we teach at Goizueta—
which is also the focus of the school’s Management Practice
courses—is excellent preparation for future entrepreneurs,” says
Steve Walton, associate professor in the practice of information
systems and operations management.
But research into entrepreneurship is important as well, says
Roberts. Accordingly, Social Enterprise @ Goizueta has
established a clear research mission, and Roberts is building on
his published work examining how founders’ prior experiences
influence the behavior and performance of their new ventures.
Current projects include a detailed analysis of the social
performance of B Corporations and an ambitious project that is
collaborating with numerous accelerator programs to collect
and analyze data from hundreds of impact entrepreneurs who
are establishing new ventures in various sectors and countries
around the world.
Be it fieldwork, part of the core curriculum, or an elective, “there’s
virtually no course taught at Goizueta that isn’t useful for
somebody who aspires to become an entrepreneur,” Hershatter
concludes. “Sure, there are multiple examples of those who have
created successful ventures using seat-of-the-pants
management, but Goizueta students can gain a huge
competitive advantage by using the best available knowledge
and frameworks, along with the full power of the Goizueta
network.”
Atlanta’s
entrepreneurial
allure
A.J. Robinson 77BBA has
spent a decade as president
of Central Atlanta Progress
(CAP), a private nonprofit
fostering economic development on behalf of the
business community. He
also serves as president
for its sister organization, Atlanta Downtown
Improvement District, a
public-private partnership
working to improve the
center city. According to
Robinson, Atlanta is a popular spot for entrepreneurs, and the city’s friendly business climate and desirable location
are two reasons why. Robinson previously served as president of Portman Holdings, a global real estate development,
investment, and management company. He applies that extensive knowledge to his role at CAP today.
EB: Atlanta has become a top city for entrepreneurs. What
about the city makes it such a draw?
Robinson: As the biggest city in the South, Atlanta has always
been a destination. It really expanded after the Olympics,
attracting people not only from the South but from across the
country. Its location, friendly tax policies, weather, and airport are
all incredible assets. We have great restaurants and we’ve
developed a thriving arts and culture scene. We’ve become more
sophisticated in what we have to offer. Atlanta is a big city, but it
can feel like a small city in the neighborhoods, and that’s what
makes entrepreneurs feel comfortable here.
EB: How has CAP contributed to making the city so appealing
for business?
Robinson: CAP has remained passionate about downtown. That’s
fundamental. We live in a very linear city and the growth toward
the north has been unbelievable. Fortunately, we have a core of
business leaders who care about the city center. We’re constantly
projecting a few years down the road, working with public
leaders, business leaders, and NGOs to show how great our
prospects are if we focus and coordinate our efforts.
Robinson: Money is fluid and fungible. Just because Atlanta isn’t
the focus of venture capital doesn’t mean we won’t continue to
grow and attract capital here. Of course, we can always do more.
CAP is focused on that, as is the Metro Atlanta Chamber.
EB: The recession certainly impacted Atlanta. How is the city
faring now?
Robinson: The real estate community is recovering and buildings
are changing hands at a rigorous pace. In fact, the next 18 months
will be transformational for downtown Atlanta, which will see a
surge of development, improvements, and growth. We’re
completing the first phase of the Atlanta Streetcar project in April
2014, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights as well
as the College Football Hall of Fame Atlanta will open shortly after.
Additionally, The Coca-Cola Company is relocating 2,000
employees from its Cobb County information technology center
into offices in SunTrust Plaza, while nearby at Ponce City Market,
2.2 million square feet of retail, restaurant, office, and residential
space will open, changing the urban fabric of Atlanta. As if that’s
not enough, construction starts on the new Falcons football
stadium next year. The future is bright.—Myra Thomas
EB: Atlanta isn’t known for its strong venture capital activity.
Could the city create a model more akin to Silicon Valley?
fall | 2013 19
Risk and Reward
Every business faces obstacles that can sink it or catapult it to the
next level. Emory Business cast a wide net, polling faculty and
staff and emailing alums to find eight entrepreneurs from very
different sectors who stood up to a pivotal challenge and won.
Their stories follow.
The business challenge:
fighting for
By Myra Thomas
The business challenge:
Reaching the tipping point
The solution:
Be willing to take on a new CEO
For business partners and friends Michael Cohn 05MBA and Eran Gil
05MBA, outside investment has taken their company, Cloud Sherpas,
from a small startup to one of the largest cloud solutions providers
today. The idea for it was born in 2007 when Cohn and Gil worked
together at Canvas Systems, a global provider of pre-owned IT
equipment and systems. With a desire to become entrepreneurs, the
pair left the firm in 2008 to officially start Cloud Sherpas. Cohn says, “My
main responsibility at that time was to raise capital. It was a challenge,
to say the least, given the economic conditions in the summer and fall
of 2008.”
Cohn took on the role of CEO while Gil served as VP of business
development. Cloud Sherpas made it through its first year with a
number of deals and friends and family injecting
about $170,000 into the business. Says Cohn, “We
ended with just shy of $1M in sales.” By 2010,
cloud computing was set to change the IT
landscape, and the company was in a better position to raise outside
capital. The pair also reached out to Jon Hallett, a seasoned
entrepreneur who invested in the company, to take over as CEO. The
move quickly boosted sales.
“We garnered the attention of Columbia Capital, which has since led
two investment rounds that brought nearly $80 million of venture
capital into the company, along with a new CEO,” says Cohn. He now
serves as SVP of marketing, Gil as SVP of business development, and
Hallett as chairman of the board of directors. The company is 600
employees strong with 17 offices across four continents and eight
countries. Gil tells entrepreneurs that even with considerable financial
support, running a business is an evolving challenge—but nonetheless
rewarding. “With every investment, new client, and additional
headcount, there is greater responsibility and much hard work ahead.” g
20 emory | business
The business challenge:
Introducing a new concept
The solution:
Reach out to your market
& respond
Getting a new product or service
to market can be difficult,
but healthcare products and services are
particularly problematic, says Dan Pompilio
98EMBA, the founder and CEO of SimpleC.
Pompilio’s company uses a variety of cloudbased technological solutions to promote
memory, engagement, and quality of life in
shelf space
The solution:
Think
outside
the box
When Alyson Moler 09BBA and Ari
Fleischer 06BBA wanted to get their
premium craft beer ice cream into stores,
the pair faced a number of hurdles. The
challenge was to take the product, the
first of its kind, from the testing phase to
store shelves. Moler and Fleischer not only
had to fight for limited shelf space but
also discovered that the alcohol content
in their Frozen Pints ice cream required it
to be sold in places licensed to sell liquor.
The thing that set the product apart was
also something that required a rethink
when it came to distribution. The duo,
who met as co-workers at The Nielsen
Company, hit upon the idea to provide
stores with a freezer, redrawing the battle
for shelf space and giving their product
prominent placement.
seniors, as well as to collect health and wellness data. Not
only did SimpleC have to deal with the usual hurdles any new
venture faces—from financing to product launch—but patient
efficacy presented an additional and overwhelming concern.
Reaching out to the elderly in assisted living facilities,
SimpleC gathered valuable feedback to help develop its
current suite of offerings. Pompilio says, “Our first product
was an email capability using cognitive tools to simplify and
set reminders by email.” But after dealing with an increasing
number of dementia and Alzheimer’s patients, he says that
SimpleC’s products necessarily adapted and in the process
became more robust.
“You have to think about who you are really serving,”
Pompilio says. “You have to be able to adjust, and that
requires honesty, feedback, and focus.”
Executing on the information gleaned led to the refining of
The SimpleC Companion™, an intuitive touch-screen
Inspiration for the ice cream came at a
party where the beer sat near the ice
cream maker. Fleischer seized on the idea,
and Moler soon bought into it as well.
Today, Frozen Pints can be found at more
than 100 licensed beer, wine, and spirits
stores in the Atlanta area and on
restaurant menus across the city. The
novelty of the product makes it easy to
pitch to customers and store managers,
says Fleischer, a critical aspect for
entrepreneurs to consider when vying for
shelf space.
Continually distinguishing the product is a
top priority for the pair. Frozen Pints offers
five year-round flavors and select seasonal
flavors based on different styles of beer.
Year-round flavors include Peach Lambic,
Vanilla Bock, Brown Ale Chip, Malted Milk
Chocolate Stout, and Honey IPA. Seasonal
flavors include Pumpkin Ale in the fall and
Cinnamon Espresso Stout in the winter.
Moler says, “There’s a seasonal aspect to
food, and creativity is an important pillar
of craft beer and of ice cream. You have to
keep people interested. There has to be an
element of surprise.” g
application that promotes
memory, engagement, and
better communication by
seniors. Through the work
of Chantal Kerssens PhD,
vice president of SimpleC
Research and Innovation,
the company’s innovative
products caught the eye of the National Institute on Aging,
with SimpleC winning a Fast Track Small Business Innovation
Research grant in 2012 to develop the mobile version of
SimpleC Companion, the company’s main product. Other
products include Community Connect, which provides
television programming for brain stimulation, mood, and
spiritual support in group settings, and Clarity, a system that
uses eHealth and telemedicine devices to enable a caregiver at
a remote site to connect with a patient in a medical setting. g
fall | 2013 21
The business challenge:
Getting your idea off the ground
The solution:
Capitalize on your network
While at Goizueta, Pat
Shea 12BBA, Spencer
Barkoff 13BBA, Nir Levy
13BBA, Giovanni
Hobbins 13C, and Ian
McCall 13C launched
the Web portal and iOS and Android app, giving Emory
University its own social media platform for organizing
information about university campus groups and events.
Professors and students post public content for academic and
co-curricular groups to begin discussions, add files, edit
documents, assign tasks, and more.
Campus Bubble was
truly a dorm-room
creation.
After the group presented their business concept to the
President’s Cabinet and Executive Board of Trustees, Ajay Nair,
senior vice president of campus life, initiated the very first effort
to fund an undergraduate business venture at Emory University.
By tapping into faculty, administration, and alumni support, the
five were able to finalize a license agreement with Emory’s
Office of Technology Transfer for a minority stake in Campus
Bubble in April 2012. Emory Bubble.com officially launched in
fall 2013, acting as a one-stop solution for bringing disparate
information together in a simple and accessible format.
While Campus Bubble remains focused on Emory for the
moment, the plan is to roll out the concept to other universities
in another year or so.
Levy advises entrepreneurs to seek out help and tap into the
resources and people in their network to get their business
concept off the ground. For example, Jackie Breiter
01WEMBA, associate dean of technology services, has
introduced Campus Bubble to leaders at other universities.
Timing was another factor bolstering Campus Bubble. FirstClass,
the University’s email and
information-sharing site, was
being retired in favor of Outlook.
The bubble concept was the
perfect vehicle for facilitating
communications among
students and for building
interactive communities. Says
Levy, “Emory truly helped to
incubate Campus Bubble. Our
community supported us.” g
The business challenge: Growing a startup
The solution: Expand your knowledge
In 2001 at the age of 14,
Sean Belnick 09BBA started
a sideline online furniture
business, one of the first on the
Web. Inspired by his stepfather’s office
furniture business, Belnick took the
concept and added an e-commerce spin.
By the time he was in his mid-twenties,
Belnick was well on his way to becoming
a millionaire. In 2012 his company,
22 emory | business
BizChair, an Internet retailer of office
furniture, posted $97 million in revenues.
The company operates four warehouses
totaling 1,150,000 square feet, with
two in Canton, one in Cartersville, and
another in Reno, NV. BizChair currently
employs 275 people and ships products
to a growing client base, including the
likes of Google and Microsoft.
Belnick ran BizChair from his dorm room
during his time at the business school,
The business challenge:
Implementing complicated technology
The solution:
Engage your stakeholders
Sahil Patel 00BBA, co-founder and executive
vice president of ER Express, doesn’t believe
in holding court in a stately office. He says it’s
essential to interact in person when getting a concept off the
ground or garnering new sales. “Get out from behind the desk
and meet with people and listen to them and read their body
language,” he advises. He launched his company, ER Express, an
online check-in system for ERs and urgent care, in 2011
following just such an approach. ER Express, designed for
non-life-threatening care, allows patients to make online
reservations at a local ER, avoiding long stays in crowded
waiting rooms. With increased competition for patients and
heightened attention to patient satisfaction scores, Patel says
his product is particularly timely.
Whether it’s customers, investors, management, or employees,
successful entrepreneurs need to take into consideration every
cog in the wheel, he says. “What I did on the first day, before
developing pricing models or finding out how big the market
and he credits Goizueta for helping to refine
his business skills. “I was able to expand my
knowledge in corporate finance and accounting,”
he says. He advises fledging entrepreneurs to be
persistent when it comes to long-range financial
and strategic decisions. Belnick advises, “Don’t
get frustrated if you get rejected at first. There
are lots of ways to finance your business. Banks,
friends, angel investors, and Kickstarter are just
a few of the places to start.”
was, was to talk with ER managers, doctors, and nurses in the
hospitals to see if they would use the technology. The buy-in by
hospital administrators and medical staff was the first step in
getting a foot in the door. Feedback from potential and current
customers also helped the software development team create a
more user-friendly and sellable product.” The next phase of the
operation has been to make the site mobile-friendly.
Drawing on his Goizueta degree and experience in
management consulting, Patel says he understood the strategic
end of running a business. “There is certainly an analytical
component to it, but if you want to get your ideas implemented,
you have to work with the front-line managers to make it
happen. There’s a time to be analytical, clinical, and technical,
but there’s also a time to develop a rapport with the staff and
other stakeholders in the business.” g
for the course, and every entrepreneur needs to be
ready for them, says Belnick. “If you’re a business
owner, you’re going to make mistakes. It’s a matter
of how you react to and learn from the mistakes
that will determine your success. You have to
realize that you can’t make decisions with a short
time horizon. You have to look at the long-term
consequences of your decisions.”g
When it comes to strategy, he adds, expect some
miscalculations along the way. Mistakes are par
fall | 2013 23
The business challenge:
Making your product stand out
The solution:
Do market research and differentiate
Husband and wife team Matthew
Guard 07MBA and Carolyn Guard
08MBA co-founded Babiators, a children’s
sunglasses maker, along with business partners Ted and Molly
Fienning, in 2010. Marine Corps fighter pilot Ted Fienning served
as inspiration for the concept, with his wife Molly supplying the
design and the Guards providing the financial and marketing
acumen. The Guards worked at competing consulting firms after
graduation from Goizueta—Carolyn at McKinsey and Matthew
at Bain—before jumping ship to co-found Babiators.
But how to take something common, albeit cool, like sunglasses,
and cause the market to stand up and notice? For the problemsolving couple, the answer lay in differentiation and marketing.
The extremely flexible and durable rubber sunglasses fit children
from 6 months to 7 years old. The Guards applied their
The business
challenge:
Contending
with the
unknown
The solution:
Be passionate and
remember your
target audience
Campus
MovieFest
24 emory | business
consulting world expertise to market research, determining a
strong demand for “high-value and middle-cost” sunglasses for
the youngest set. The product also had to appeal to a parent’s
sensibility and style, catering to someone looking for more than
the readily available and cheap cartoon-covered options. “Our
sunglasses are close to what an adult would wear,” Carolyn says.
Babiators are getting tons of buzz, with celebrity moms from
Sarah Jessica Parker to Mariah Carey snagging a pair for their
offspring.
Babiators offers a “Lost & Found Guarantee,” which provides free
replacements in the first year if the sunglasses are lost or broken.
Matthew adds, “To be successful, you have to consider the entire
value chain and the challenges that growth brings.” That means
understanding customer
service, production costs,
supply chain issues, and
inventory management. He
points to Babiators’ own
growing pains. “We’ve had an incredible increase in volume in a
very short period of time,” he says. “You can easily outgrow a
supplier. You have to anticipate demand and have multiple
suppliers in place, as well as the cash facility to buy inventory
before you need it.” g
In 2001 David Roemer 02BBA, Dan Costa 01BBA,
Ajay Pillarisetti 03C 07PH, and Vijay Makar 02BBA
launched Campus MovieFest, the world’s largest
student film festival.
The venture started at Emory with the four
undergrads arranging for Apple and Emory to
give digital video cameras and Apple iMovie
equipment to aspiring student filmmakers on
campus. “We wanted to feature young
filmmakers and give them a chance to see their
stories on the big screen,” says Roemer. As the
demand for online video content grew, the
concept took off. Today, university students
across the globe can use free equipment,
technology, and training through Campus
MovieFest to make their movies.
Now in its thirteenth year, Campus MovieFest
has assisted more than 500,000 student
moviemakers, and winners have showcased their
films in Cannes, Hollywood, and Sundance. Ideas
United, the company co-founded by the four,
was the venture that took the movie festival
global. Ideas United has expanded to produce
commercials and event coverage for
corporations, with content created in-house and
through their top student filmmakers. Reflecting
on his trajectory, Roemer, CEO of Ideas United,
advises, “Do something you are passionate
about, and you’ll be ready to grow and take on
new challenges. Remember your target
audience and don’t let your enthusiasm push
you in new directions that are too far-flung from
the path of that audience.”
Mentors are essential when dealing with the
unknowns in starting a business, says Costa,
president of Ideas United. “You can’t be totally
prepared, and it’s encouraging to talk to
someone who understands the situation. You’ll
face a ton of decisions,” he adds. “But you have to
make them, and it’s best to do so with an
entrepreneurial mindset. Be a risk taker—any
mistakes should propel you further.” g
Business library aids
student and alumni
entrepreneurs
Research is essential for any person wanting to gauge market
sentiment or hoping to launch a business. The Goizueta Business
Library (GBL) provides students and alumni with access to valuable
resources and a professional staff—many with corporate
backgrounds—who can help them to navigate GBL’s wide array of
data portals.
The business librarians have worked with faculty teaching
entrepreneurship to create course guides that assist
entrepreneurially minded students as they research companies
and develop business plans. Eddie Kovel 13BBA, for example,
used library offerings to conduct research for his own venture,
Playout: The Game, which uses social play and competition in the
form of an online card game to make fitness more enjoyable,
convenient, and variable. The idea came to Kovel while he was an
exchange student in India, where he had to learn how to stay in
shape without access to gyms.
“I sought help from the library to research my primary competitor,”
says Kovel, who is also writing a book entitled The Tools and Rules
of Health.
For Sam Bryant 08EMBA, founder of the boutique consulting
firm BlackLight Strategic Partners, access to information is one of
many reasons he makes sure to visit the library when researching
industries and companies for clients.
“The critical piece for me is not only the databases, but also having
access to business librarians like Marilyn Pahr and Susan
Klopper. They help you narrow down the plethora of resources
and target your search,” says Bryant. “They are some of the most
brilliant people I know because of their ability to synthesize data
and keep track of the ever-changing information landscape.”
Bryant’s first exposure to the library came while researching a
project for Professor Jeffrey Rosensweig’s Global Perspectives
course. As an alum he continues to draw on library resources as he
works to figure out what keeps executives up at night and then to
provide them with perspective and solutions.
“From the beginning, I understood that it takes time to build
relationships with clients and that in doing so, you need to be
credible. At GBL I can find the information I need to establish a
scientific grounding for the recommendations I make,” says Bryant,
adding that the ability to bounce ideas off library staff has similarly
proven valuable.
Notes Bryant, “GBL is an exceptional opportunity for alums like me,
a budding entrepreneur with resource constraints.”
In addition to providing information-gathering strategies and
resources for developing business plans, GBL’s librarians offer other
key services to alumni. For example, they help career changers or
job seekers to develop target lists of potential companies, research
a specific company or industry, or utilize professional development
databases.
“As for alumni interested in help with their work-related research,”
adds Klopper, executive director of the business library, “we can
help them clarify what they need and suggest strategies and a
variety of resources—depending on the nature of the request—
that are free or available via a vendor.”—Nicole Golston
Library announces new resources for current Goizueta students, faculty, and staff
• FT.com (Financial Times.com): Full access to FT.com website and
mobile apps.
• WSJ.com (Wall Street Journal.com): Full access to WSJ.com web
and mobile apps.
• Factset: Wall Street financial research and analytical database and
a strong competitor to Bloomberg.
• Datamonitor Consumer: A new source of consumer packaged
market research reports, which includes market share and segmentation, innovation, successes and failure, case studies, trends,
and more.
• Topsy Pro Analytics: Full-scale index of the public social Web, providing comprehensive analyses of hundreds of billions of Tweets
and Web pages gathered from millions of unique websites, blogs,
and social media services.
fall | 2013 25
Making connections in Goizueta’s alumni entrepreneur group
With more than 740 members globally on LinkedIn,
Goizueta Alumni Entrepreneur Network (GAEN) is one of
the most active affinity groups at Goizueta. Each month,
GAEN president Stuart Bracken 07MBA and a team
of six alumni board members plan and execute either a
speaker program or networking opportunity to aid alumni
and students interested in entrepreneurial ventures and
business ownership. A serial entrepreneur, Bracken’s latest
venture is Bioscape Digital, which provides patient-focused
educational content to healthcare providers. Bioscape’s
platform integrates text, audio, and visual imagery into an
intuitive touch screen solution helping to bridge the communication chasm between patients and their healthcare
providers. During a recent visit to campus, Bracken shared
information about GAEN and its goals, explaining why it is
a powerful resource for alumni.
EB: You started attending GAEN meetings after graduating
from the One-Year program in 2007. What has kept you a
participating member?
Bracken: GAEN is a diverse group, but we all share one thing in
common—an interest in being more entrepreneurial, whether in
our own businesses or within an organization. You can interact
with anyone from a lawyer working at a large corporation to a
marketing person or someone with a startup. You never know
what tidbit or piece of information the conversation is going to
produce. The same is true with programming and speakers.
Speakers can share their experience in a 30- or 40-minute talk
and provide four or five tools you can apply to your life or
business that same day. Such encounters offer a way to get
valuable perspective.
EB: A lot of demands are placed on business owners. How
can GAEN help?
Bracken: As an entrepreneur, there are times you feel like you
are in a battle by yourself. You can’t complain to your employees
or always share the pressures with a spouse. Sometimes though,
you can go to a meeting and hear from another entrepreneur
GAEN members from the Emory Community gather to cheer a new year of networking at the 2013 launch event, held at Monday Night Brewing.
26 emory | business
whose business may be at a different stage of development or in a
different industry but is experiencing the same struggles. It’s comforting
to know you’re not alone in facing challenges or tough choices.
EB: What types of events and benefits do members of GAEN enjoy?
Bracken: Once a month we hold a breakfast or lunch event with a
speaker, usually attracting 50 or 60 people. In August a large crowd came
out for a networking event held at Monday Night Brewing, which is
co-owned by alum Jonathan Baker 05BBA. We also offer business
insights and information on GAEN’s LinkedIn website. This is a great way
to stay connected with alums outside of Atlanta and abroad. Other
benefits include access to important connections, peer advising, and
resources related to funding and professional services.
EB: What in particular would you like alumni to be sure to know
about GAEN’s offerings?
Bracken: First and foremost you do not have to be an entrepreneur to
join. Maybe you want to be more entrepreneurial in your job. A lot of
companies look for people who can think outside the box or in the white
space of what they are doing to create new growth opportunities. GAEN
helps inspire this type of thinking. The organization is open to alumni
from the Emory University community.—Nicole Golston
Monday Night Brewing co-founder Jonathan Baker 05BBA,
left, talks business with Stuart Bracken 07MBA during a
recent GAEN networking event.
GAEN board members:
Bonnie Daneker 10MEMBA
Donald “Wes” Gifford 96EMBA
John Harris 79JD/MBA
Steven Lang 98JD
Edwin “Ned” Morgens 03MBA
Zahir Palanpur 94MBA
Stuart Bracken 07MBA
If you are interested in starting your own interest
group or joining an existing affinity group, please
contact Adrienne Jaroch, assistant director of Alumni
Relations, at [email protected].
fall | 2013 27
36
Top tips
<
With a Google form, a slew of email addresses,
and several interviews, Emory Business
surveyed alumni on their top tips and favorite
words for entrepreneurship—many of which
now grace our cover.
from successful entrepreneurs
Form a board of advisors—trusted
professionals, colleagues, and
friends—who have strengths to
complement yours. Ask them for
good, honest advice—what you need
to hear, not want to hear.
—Bonnie Daneker 10MEMBA, Write
Advisors, Atlanta, GA
First, before you build anything, spend some time and effort
identifying authentic, unmet customer demand. Filling this
unmet customer demand is the key to real growth and
success.—Ed Rieker 04MEMBA, Softlinc, Atlanta, GA
Do not rest
on your laurels.
—Harris Pollock 81BBA, Leopard Brands,
Deerfield Beach, FL
Build a business that
self-funds its operations
and growth, with minimal
outside capital
requirements. You will be
more in control to
implement your vision,
with less debt and less
liability to financiers.—
Brian Bombei 97MBA,
Sunchoice Corporate
Housing, Tampa, FL
Before you do anything, list what you
need to do in a single day, rank the items by importance,
and then work on them in that order. Focus is as much
not doing things you don’t need to be doing as it
is doing the right things.—Nick Ducoff 03BBA,
Boundless, Boston, MA
Your people are your most
important asset. Start building a
“culture of success” from the very
beginning. Once you’ve built a
strong culture and team, then
have everyone involved in
training your new employees.—
Mitch Weintraub 94MBA,
Pinnacle Promotions, Atlanta, GA
Be flexible. In many of the companies I have worked
with, the original business idea was not exactly what
ended up working. Always be open to the possibility
that your assumptions are wrong and be ready to
change and focus on what is working.—Farid Naib
81BBA, Lightspeed Trading, New York, NY
28 emory | business
First, you’re going to fail.
The key is growing from
those failures instead of
wallowing in them. Second,
don’t try to be everything
to everyone. Instead, succeed by understanding
what you and/or your company are the absolute best
at. Focus there—and then
get even better.—Stuart
Schultz 04BBA, BeautyRX
Skincare, New York, NY
You can’t know everything. Contract
or outsource professional expertise but
know your core business better than
anyone else.—James Mark 99WEMBA,
American Home Companions, Orlando, FL
Go west. If you are an entrepreneur and
young, you just have to move to Palo
Alto or San Francisco. There is no other
network and experience like it, funding is
readily available for good ideas, and most
importantly—yet regretfully—other
places, while well-meaning, just don’t
stack up.—Amanda Besemer 01BBA,
Hiya Media, Carthago Media, Ocean Blue
Entertainment, Two By Two Interactive;
Los Angeles, CA
If you are not on top of, or care to know
your P&L, it will be difficult to be successful.
—Jonathan Mittleman 99MBA, Fish Window
Cleaning, Atlanta, GA
Believe in your product or service
and don’t be afraid to move fast,
break some stuff, experiment, and
fail.—Aaron Marcus 11BBA,
onefinestay, New York, NY
Failing fast is essential in the pursuit of long-term success. These
small experiments are often what leads one to the real opportunity.
—Ashish Mistry 98C, KontrolFreek and BLH Venture Partner,
with Billy Harbert 09MEMBA, Atlanta, GA
PREMATURELY SCALING A
BUSINESS CAN LEAD TO A
DISASTER. SPEND TIME
UNDERSTANDING HOW TO
EXECUTE ON A SMALL SCALE
AND THIS WILL SIGNIFICANTLY
INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF
When I started WikiWealth.com, I
had no concept of market size,
customer needs, or competitive
advantages. I just had one
undercooked idea. Today, 2
million happy visitors applaud my
ignorance.—David Durant 13MBA,
WikiWealth.com, Charleston, SC
Don’t expect it to be easy;
be prepared for some
headaches! In addition,
focus on what you are
doing—don’t get intimidated by others’ successes. Lastly, it’s all about word of mouth,
PR, and social media. Don’t fall behind on this.—Alexandra
Samit 09BBA, Alexandra Beth Designs, New York, NY
LONG-TERM SUCCESS.—
Stuart Bracken 07MBA,
Bioscape Digital, Atlanta, GA
Balance focus with exploration,
planning with execution, and look
for value at the intersections.—
Zahir Palanpur 94MBA, Azul Arc, Atlanta, GA
Never let the size of your wallet
determine the scope of your
entrepreneurial vision. Doing so limits
your creativity and the types of
people who are looking to help those
working on big things. Most
entrepreneurs fail not because of a
lack of resources, but because of a
lack of resourcefulness.—Michael
Curry 02BBA, Seneca Creek Partners,
Atlanta, GA
fall | 2013 29
Being afraid is a plus. It keeps you focused on the things that
are the most important in your business, such as sales, cash,
and customers.—Amiel Rubinstein 07MBA, Optomeditech Oy,
Helsinki, Finland
Try what you like, but you have to
be flexible. Don’t be stringent
about your business plan.
—Wes Gifford 96EMBA, Ameriprise Financial Services,
Atlanta, GA
Don’t fear failure. I admit fear
nearly prevented me from launching
my business. Then I saw an
infographic of famous people who
failed early in their careers, and it
changed my perspective. On the
list: Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs,
Walt Disney, and Oprah Winfrey.
What would the world miss out on
if you let your fear of failure become
a stumbling block instead of a
stepping stone to your success?—
Rae Oglesby 14EvMBA,
Oglesby Communications
Consulting, Atlanta, GA
Avoid high customer concentration business models. If
your business model is built on large orders from a small
number of customers, you will have significant
challenges when (not if) one of those customers
leaves.—Rhett Marlow 02MEMBA, foomanchew,
Atlanta, GA
Solicit negative feedback and
respond with positivity and
appreciation. Open, honest
communication is necessary to
discover areas where improvement
is needed. It’s key to accept
responsibility for what needs
improvement.—Nir N. Levy 13BBA,
Campus Bubble, Atlanta, GA
Just get started. It took me a couple of years before I
left my day job to join the entrepreneurial team I had
set up. Within the first few months of devoting myself
full-time to our business, we found additional markets.
So, after you have tested the markets to see if your
business works, just do it.—Mark Deal 08EvMBA,
Foreign Investor Resource Group, Atlanta, GA
30 emory | business
You have to make the decisions—
it’s your business. Other
entrepreneurs, by nature,
have all sorts of ideas and
input for your business.
You have to filter what makes sense
and what doesn’t.
—Daryl Lu 13MBA, Body Boss
Fitness, Atlanta, GA
Sales are critical. If selling
is not part of your current
role, find an opportunity
to learn this process before
you go out on your own.
Entrepreneurship is all
about sales: earning clients,
recruiting employees,
raising capital—all are
about sales.—Grant Moss
11EvMBA, Adapt IP
Ventures, Atlanta, GA
Find something you are passionate
about. I’m passionate about music
and have been a DJ since the 90s.
Starting my own label was a
natural extension of the desire to
create my own music.—Terry Sartor
93BBA, Valiant Horizon, Atlanta, GA
You do not yet know that your
outsourced technology developers
will fail miserably, but they will, and
they will charge you far more than you
ever imagined possible. Build a great
technology team internally.—Andrew
Bate 01BBA, SafelyStay, Atlanta, GA
Be a student of the game. Read and learn
as much as you can about
entrepreneurship, successful startups,
failed startups, your industry, your
competitors, and your customers.
—Shaun Kalnasy 12MBA, Dynamic Vacations, Los
Angeles, CA
First, make sure to capitalize yourself
more than you’ve projected, maybe by as
much as 50 percent. Second, never be
afraid to ask for help. Don’t let your ego
get in the way of your better sense. Third,
even when your circumstances look like
death, usually you are only three feet
from gold, so never quit. But do
understand what your walk-away point
is, then constantly make sure you never
approach that point.—Brian Lacey
90EMBA, BGB Enterprises, Cedalion
Enterprises, Atlanta, GA
Find out exactly what your prospects want/need, and provide
it to them. People are always surprised how effective this is.
—Charlie Goetz 78C, Senior Lecturer in Organization and
Management, Goizueta Business School, Atlanta, GA
BE AWARE THAT BUILDING A PROFITABLE SMALL BUSINESS WITHOUT
OUTSIDE FUNDING IS A MARATHON AND NOT A SPRINT. TECH
ENTREPRENEURS WHO RAISE SIZABLE ANGEL FUNDING AND/OR VENTURE
CAPITAL HAVE A RELATIVELY SHORT WINDOW AND FAIRLY NARROW PATH TO
EXIT. THE MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS THESE GLORY STORIES AND THESE EPIC FAILS,
BUT BE PREPARED TO COMMIT FOR THE LONG HAUL, AS IT SOMETIMES
REQUIRES 10–15 YEARS TO MEET YOUR GOALS FOR GROWTH, PROFITABILITY,
AND EVEN EXIT.—Anthony Caponiti 06BBA, Activ8Social, Arlington, VA
Rule #1: Never run out of money.
Rule #2: Refer to Rule #1.
—Ryan Born 01BBA, AudioMicro.com/
AdRev.net, Los Angeles, CA
From day one onwards you should have a clear idea about the
end game that your company’s product will play that makes it
sustainable. At every step validate the assumptions and evolve.
—Uttam Bandugula 12EvMBA, Big Data Cognition, Suwanee, GA
Playing it “safe” is actually
riskier when it comes to
marketing. Don’t be afraid
to take a stand; try different
things and you will have a
better shot at becoming
unforgettable. You don’t
want to be normal, because
“weird” is remarkable.—
Tyrona “Ty” Heath 12MBA,
Spectacled Marketer, New
York, NY
Never, ever quit. If you
quit, you die. If you keep
pushing, you’ll eventually
find your way to a profitable business model and a
happy life.—Peter Corbett
03BBA, iStrategyLabs,
Washington, DC
fall | 2013 31
knowledgecreation
A significant marker of a leading business school is the creation of new knowledge. Goizueta faculty, using rigorous methodologies, focus on researching important problems that affect the practice of business. The following is a sampler of recently created
new knowledge. To learn more, please visit goizueta.emory.edu/faculty.
Multitasking physicians: Good medicine?
New mandate for IT
Hospital emergency departments (ED) provide an ideal environment
for examining the effects of multitasking on worker productivity and
output quality, says Diwas KC, assistant professor of information systems & operations management. His recent study examines the multitasking behavior of physicians in a busy East Coast metropolitan ED
from 2004 to 2007. Using microlevel operational data, KC analyzes how
multitasking affects the processing of patients (the amount of time
from intake to discharge) and the quality of patient care. In both cases
he finds a U-shaped response to the level of multitasking, noting that
some multitasking is initially beneficial but that excessive multitasking
is detrimental to productivity
and adversely impacts the quality of care. The ideal patient
load for ED physicians? From
three to five patients per hour,
says KC. Manufacturing and
Service Operations Management
(forthcoming).
The relationship between IT strategy
and business strategy is fundamentally
changing, argues Anandhi Bharadwaj,
professor of information systems &
operations management, and coauthors
Omar El Sawy (USC), Paul Pavlou (Temple
U.), and N. Venkatraman (BU). “The prevailing view of IT strategy has been that of a
functional-level strategy that must be
Anandhi Bharadwaj
aligned with the firm’s chosen business
strategy,” they write. But “impressive
improvements in information, communication, and connectivity
technologies have unleashed new functionalities,” moving IT far
beyond its traditionally subordinate role. The researchers term the
resulting fusion “digital business strategy,” and its key characteristic
is the leveraging of digital resources to drive competitive advantage and strategic differentiation. MIS Quarterly, Special Issue: Digital
Business Strategy (2013).
Protecting girls through strict marriage laws
High status: High scrutiny
The personal and societal toll of teen
births across the globe—90 percent of
which occur within marriage—is of central
concern to many organizations. In addition
to problems of overpopulation and gender
inequity, teenage pregnancy increases the
risk of school dropout, HIV infection, and
death in childbirth. Using the incidence
of adolescent fertility, coauthors Minzee
Kim (UMinn); Wesley Longhofer,
Wesley Longhofer
assistant professor of organization and
management; Elizabeth Boyle (UMinn);
and Hollie Nyseth Brehm (UMinn doctoral student) analyze the effect
of national laws regulating minimum marriage age in 115 poor- and
middle-income countries from 1989 to 2007. They find that “countries
with strict laws setting the minimum age of marriage at 18 experienced the most dramatic decline in rates of adolescent fertility” during the period under study. But those countries that allowed exceptions to a legal marriage age of 18 (for example, permitting marriage
with parental consent) saw levels of adolescent pregnancy indistinguishable from countries with no such minimum age. The researchers
conclude that laws strictly adhering to global norms on minimum
marriage age are more effective than flexible policies at reducing
adolescent fertility rates over time. Law & Society Review (2013).
In a study on the hazards associated with high status, James B.
Wade, Asa Griggs Candler Chaired Professor of Organization &
Management, and four coauthors examine two such hazards:
(1) opportunistic behavior that leads to a fall from grace, and
(2) targeting by various audiences that results in more accountability than among lower-status counterparts for similar offenses.
Drawing on data from the well-known 2009 British Parliament
scandal in which some members of Parliament (MPs) made questionable expense claims, the researchers find that high-status MPs
were no more likely than lower-status MPs to abuse the expense
system, but that they were twice as likely to be targeted by the
press for it. As a consequence, elite MPs with high levels of inappropriate expense were much more likely than non-elite MPs to exit
Parliament. High-status MPs who were not implicated in the scandal, however, were far more
likely to remain in Parliament
than their lower-status counterparts. The researchers also find
that media coverage of the
expense incident by British
newspapers played a significant
role in shaping social reactions
to the scandal. Administrative
Science Quarterly (2013).
32 emory | business
knowledgecreation
CFOs speak out on earnings quality
Direct marketing and customer response
Ilia D. Dichev, Goizueta Chaired Professor
of Accounting; John R. Graham (Duke and
NBER), Campbell R. Harvey (Duke and
NBER), and Shiva Rajgopal, Schaefer
Chaired Professor in Accounting, surveyed
169 CFOs of public companies and conducted in-depth interviews with 12 CFOs
and two standard setters to examine the
concept of earnings quality. The researchers report three key findings. The first
Ilia D. Dichev
relates to the characterization of highquality earnings, which most CFOs believe
are “sustainable and repeatable,” reflecting
a valuation perspective. The second
relates to how standard setting affects
earnings quality. Surveyed CFOs have
come to view financial reporting largely as
a costly compliance activity and believe
standard setters should issue fewer rules.
In addition, they would like to see more
emphasis on conservatism and the matching of revenues and expenses, and less
Shiva Rajgopal
emphasis on fair value accounting. The
third set of results relates to earnings management. “The CFOs in our sample estimate that, in any given period,
roughly 20% of firms manage earnings and the typical misrepresentation for such firms is about 10% of reported EPS; thus, perhaps for the
first time in the literature, we provide point estimates of the economic
magnitude of opportunistic earnings management.” Taken together,
the coauthors’ findings raise several possible directions for future
research, particularly on the sustainability of earnings, the role of standard setting in the determination and quality of earnings, and the
detection of opportunistic earnings management. Journal of
Accounting and Economics (2013).
Deciding on the best allocation of marketing resources is a crucial,
yet often uncertain, task for managers. Offering significant
improvements to the standard models for customer base analysis
and customer valuation, David Schweidel, associate professor of
marketing, and George Knox (Tilburg) study donation data from a
nonprofit organization to determine the impact of direct marketing on three behaviors: the frequency with which customers conduct transactions, the size of the transactions, and the length of
time customers maintain their relationship with the organization.
The researchers find that direct marketing increases the number
of donations for active donors, but that it also has the potential
to shorten the length of a donor’s relationship. Their proposed
model, which offers superior predictions compared to models that
ignore the impact of direct
marketing activity, has the
potential to assist managers by more accurately
identifying those donors
most likely to conduct
transactions in the future.
Marketing Science (2013).
Word power
In a study on content analysis for finance and
accounting information, Narasimhan
Jegadeesh, Dean’s Distinguished Chair of
Finance, and Andy Wu (Wharton doctoral student) develop an innovative approach to
quantify the tone of companies’ statutory filings. Jegadeesh and Wu determine the impact
of different words used in the statutory filings
based on how the market prices react to these
filings. The paper applies this approach to
quantify the tones of 10-K filings and of prospectuses that companies file prior to initial
public offerings of their stocks. Journal of
Financial Economics (forthcoming).
Narasimhan Jegadeesh
All in the name
Firms seeking to improve investor
recognition and increase firm value
should consider selecting, or changing
to, a “fluent” company name, say
Clifton Green, associate professor of
finance, and Russell Jame (Australian
School of Business). By fluency, the
coauthors mean the ease with which
the information contained in a company’s name is mentally processed—not
Clifton Green
the content. “We find that companies
with short, easy to pronounce names
have higher breadth of ownership, greater share turnover, lower
transaction price impacts, and higher valuation ratios,” they write.
The researchers’ results suggest a new, low-cost channel—selecting a fluent name—through which companies and investment
funds can take advantage of investors’ preference for the familiar.
Journal of Financial Economics (2013).
fall | 2013 33
NETWORK
Leslie Tessler:
On the value of
shaking things up
The growing collection of women’s
vintage capes in her closet inspired
Leslie Tessler 03BBA to begin creating
and selling her own line of women’s
outerwear. The opportunity to realize
her dream, however, did not arrive
until seven years after graduation,
when Tessler left New York for Buenos
Aires. Her intention was to learn
Spanish while taking six months off
to assess her options. “I finally had the
time to work on my own projects,”
she says. “I started making individual
pieces for friends and family. The brand
has grown organically and steadily
ever since.”
Tessler had experience in merchandising for Ralph Lauren and
“I am also lucky to be able to do business in a city that inspires me,
in marketing for companies such as L’Oreal and Replay, an Italian
with passionate people and incredible craftsmen,” she
denim brand. As the founder and creative director of Leslie Tessler
adds. “Everything in the line is handmade in Buenos Aires.
(leslietessler.com), she works with a small team. “I definitely wear a lot
The fabrics include Peruvian alpaca, Italian cashmere, and
of hats, but that’s what keeps it interesting!”
French woven silk.”
As a beginner entrepreneur working in Argentina, Tessler says she
Tessler travels widely and frequently to meet with clients, host private
was impatient with the more relaxed pace of business there. “When
trunk shows, and hunt fabrics. Her favorite way to spend spare time at
I began accepting the cultural and professional differences and
home or away is to explore new restaurants, especially the dynamic
learning how to work with them instead of fighting them, everything
food scene in Buenos Aires.
began to click.”
34 emory | business
NETWORK
She is often in New York on business, but Tessler remains sure
that leaving the US was the right thing to do. “Moving to a
country where I didn’t speak the language and knew no one
set my life on a different track and was by far the single best
decision I’ve ever made. Taking a leap of faith can scare the
socks off of you! But if you never shake things up, things will
never change.”
Tessler and her husband are expecting their first child. They also
foster greyhounds retired from racing. “As soon as one gets a
forever home, we get another foster dog. My dream is to have a
farm one day, filled with rescue dogs!”—Susan Merritt Jordan
Downtown Buenos Aires
EB: What was the genesis of SPI?
Mookerji: After graduating as an electrical engineer from BITS [one of India’s premier tech
schools], I worked in technical consulting roles helping corporations solve business challenges
using technology. In 1994 my wife and I founded SPI to address the specific needs of large
retailers, using an outsourced technology services model. They were facing a desperate
shortage of business savvy, high-quality software programmers. The primary requirement was
reliable delivery, but lowering costs was also a goal.
EB: How did you get funding for SPI? Any advice for those seeking funding for their
fledgling business?
Mookerji: I bootstrapped the company. We have zero debt and no external investors.
Depending on the kind of business, it’s smart to seek angel investors or private equity funding
if cash is available and leveraging capacity is not sufficient.
EB: You earned an undergraduate electrical engineering degree in 1988, worked in
industry, and started and had success with SPI before you decided to pursue an Executive
MBA in 2002. What spurred you to return to school in the middle of a successful career?
SID MOOKERJI:
ON THE BENEFITS OF
DIFFERENTIATION
Sid Mookerji 04MEMBA is global CEO
and founder of Software Paradigms
International (SPI), a provider of IT and
back office services to retailers across
the world. Mookerji recently spoke with
Emory Business about differentiation,
networking, and lifelong learning.
Mookerji: It goes without saying that networking is key to success, even if—like me—you
are not a natural networker. Goizueta provided a great networking opportunity. Some of my
Goizueta professors and classmates are my best friends and advisors. Jag Sheth is a valued
advisor and is on SPI’s advisory board. I’ve sought out assistance from many other professors,
including Rick Gilkey, and gained tremendously from the association. Many of my 04MEMBA
cohorts are good friends, and some of them also became clients. In addition, I learned more
about running a business in aspects I didn’t know even existed. It shows in the results: we are
more focused on our differentiators, using M&A as a tool to emphasize our success and to stay
laser-focused on retail.
EB: You are a seasoned entrepreneur and an innovator in your field; what are the biggest
lessons you’ve learned over the years?
Mookerji: First, it’s important to have a product or service that a customer wants and is
different from what the competition offers. Differentiation that is tangible in the eyes of a
prospective client requires declaring what you will not do, particularly in the services space.
Second, use diversity as a tool for success. It’s easiest to surround yourself with people who
look and talk like you, but who said that success is easy? Third, give back to those elements
that made you successful: employees, leadership, and the world that you, your clients,
and employees come from. This is not just about being a nice person; it’s a sound business
strategy.—Myra A. Thomas
fall | 2013 35
NETWORK
Adekalu Balogun:
On working and investing
in Nigeria
Adekalu Balogun 07MBA wanted to help
develop the economy in his native Nigeria. “I also
had a larger dream of setting up new businesses
and supporting the growth of existing businesses
across multiple sectors,” he says.
As founder and managing director of Kyautae Advisory & Ventures,
Balogun is well on his way to making that dream a reality. This four-yearold company has been collaborating with other equity partners in a travel
aggregator website for the African market, www.hopoptions.com, as well as
in an agro-processing project (production of frozen foods) to be located in
Nigeria.
“I started my career as a management consultant with Accenture in
Nigeria,” Balogun explains. After Goizueta he joined Ernst & Young in
Chicago. “Then came an offer to lead the strategy team of a young agroallied group in Nigeria, and I took the opportunity to return. About a year
later, I started Kyautae.”
Balogun continues to take on independent consulting contracts. “The
uncertainty of income is a self-funded entrepreneur’s challenge,” he notes.
“It does take some courage not to jump back into a regular job with the
comforts of steady income, company-paid health insurance, and associated
perks.” Balogun credits his wife and partner in Kyautae,
Bash Balogun, with the finance expertise their family
and the company have needed to manage the
uncertainties.
Balogun describes Lagos as similar to any big city, but
with some considerable differences. “You have rush
hour traffic, impatient commuters, and expensive
accommodations as you get closer to the city center.
But the law enforcement system needs significant
improvement and there are several infrastructure
challenges, such as an epileptic power supply that
makes it difficult to do business. On the other hand,
these infrastructure deficits also present huge
opportunities for investments.”
Nigeria offers a wealth of other business opportunities
in Balogun’s view. He says he sees “huge gaps in
traditional industries relating to everyday needs such
as fast-moving consumer goods—toiletries, food, and
beverage—plus real estate, insurance, and healthcare, in
a country with a huge and growing population.” In the
current environment, he anticipates focusing on “brick
& mortar” businesses—enabled by technology when
possible.
Referrals from former colleagues, Balogun notes, have
been key in most of his recent businesses and projects.
In his leisure time, the father of two says he enjoys
cooking, family time, books, connecting with friends,
and movies and TV about politics, crime, or history.—
Susan Merritt Jordan
Lagos, Nigeria
36 emory | business
ON THE VALUE OF
IMPACT INVESTING
Calvin Clark 05MBA always knew he wanted a
career in “impact investing.”
“When I was applying to graduate school, I
decided on an MBA because I wanted to make a
positive difference in the world,’” says Clark, now
a finance manager with Gray Matters Capital.
NETWORK
CALVIN CLARK:
Clark got that MBA at Goizueta, after which he worked for a few
years in traditional investment banking at Morgan Keegan in
Atlanta—an unexpected career turn that served him well, he
says, by forcing him out of his comfort zone and pushing him to
adapt to new ideas, experiences, and challenges. He then took
a 50-percent pay cut and moved to the Calvert Foundation, a
Washington, DC–based nonprofit that addresses social problems
through strategic investment. It was there that Clark discovered
his passion for impact investing, a fast-growing niche that seeks
to make meaningful social contributions while also generating
solid returns.
“I’m exactly where I want to be right now,” he says. “I believe
impact investing is going to be a huge and growing industry in
the future.”
Among Clark’s notable accomplishments while at Calvert was
the creation of the Communities at Work Fund, a $200-million
initiative that makes affordable loans to individuals in low-income
communities. Clark later moved to the Atlanta-based social
investment firm Gray Matters Capital, which has contributed to the
creation and growth of social enterprise organizations like Village
Capital, a global organization that has launched 19 incubator
programs worldwide, and the IDEX Accelerator, which offers
young practitioners the opportunity to spend six months working
on important projects around the world.
Clark says that his experiences in the industry have convinced him
that “doing good” through business does not necessarily preclude
healthy financial returns.
“A lot of people, even people in our space, tend to think there’s
a tradeoff between financial return and the impact you have,”
Clark says. “But at Gray Matters our theory is that while not all of
our investments will be extremely successful, many of them will
result in solid returns. But even for the ones that don’t, we can feel
good that we’ve helped create an enterprise that is improving the
world.”
But how, exactly, does Clark figure out which ideas and projects
get funding?
While a number of factors play into Gray Matters’ investment
strategy—how well certain initiatives fit within the organization’s
mission, for example, or the markets those initiatives might
serve—more often than not, it’s the people behind the ideas that
matter most.
“Ultimately, we invest in people,” Clark says. “Particularly with
early-stage investments, markets may change and ideas may
need to change, but it is the people who must have the passion,
integrity, and ingenuity to navigate that change well and in a
way that meets the spirit in which the investment was made. In
short, we aim to invest in the best ideas for improving the world—
backed by talented people who are committed to seeing the idea
through.”—Tim Hyland
fall | 2013 37
goizueta class notes
HOMECOMING
CELEBRATION 2013
Emory alumni returned to campus this September to reconnect
with classmates, faculty, and staff for Homecoming 2013. In addition
to a parade and class year reunions, the weekend was packed with
activities that catered to personal interest, including career coaching
sessions and a talk by Emory Admissions staff on navigating the
college application process, as well as more general fare such as
building and exhibit tours.
For those seeking educational enrichment, the university offered a
Back to Class program that showcased faculty and alumni talents
in two concurrent panels. “A Global Dilemma: Our Health and the
Environment” at the Candler School of Theology featured faculty
from Emory’s schools of public health, medicine, and nursing, as well
as Peter Roberts, professor of organization and management and
academic director of Social Enterprise @ Goizueta. In “A View from the
Top: Lessons in Leadership,” Rick Rieder 83BBA, an Emory trustee and
the chief investment officer and co-head of the fixed income portfolio
for BlackRock, and Carol Ward 83L, vice president and corporate
secretary of Mondel?z International, discussed what they’ve learned
about leadership during a session at Tull Auditorium in the School of
Law.
In addition, Peter Corbett 03BBA, chairman and CEO of iStrategyLabs,
was a guest speaker in a Department of Film and Media Studies
course entitled Digital Media and Culture.
On Saturday evening as undergraduate college and business school
alumni held class reunions around campus, Goizueta’s MBA classes of
1988, 2003, and 2008 encountered a flash from the past on Patterson
Green when they discovered their name badges emblazoned with
their Facebook student photos.—CL
Picture perfect
Emory Business wants to share your good news. New baby? Job change? Wedding? Photos of you
and other alums meeting in exciting international locales? Send a few details and/or your photos
to [email protected], and we will publish as many as space allows. Preference is
given to photos in which at least 60 percent of persons are affiliated with Goizueta. And don’t
forget to let us know which smile goes with which name.
Please note that submissions may be used in Goizueta’s print and online publications and
would thus be accessible on the Internet. Goizueta Business School assumes no
liability for unauthorized use of submitted materials.
Nancy E. Nunley 88MBA, left,
Andrew William Lowitt 88MBA, and
Sandra J. Beer 88MBA/MDiv celebrate reunion.
38 emory | business
1950s
2000s
J. Joseph Edwards 54OX 56BBA 58MBA of Barnesville, GA, was elected
vice chairman of the Georgia Student Finance Commission.
Adina Pollan 01BBA of Jacksonville, FL, was awarded the AV Preeminent
rating by Martindale-Hubbell.
The Atlanta Commercial Board of Realtors (ACBR) established the Bruce
Wilson Diamond Phoenix Award in honor of Bruce Wilson 55BBA.
Wilson is the first Atlanta real estate leader to reach 45 years in the ACBR
Million Dollar Club.
Phillip Han 02BBA and Jennifer Han of New York, NY, announce the birth
of a daughter, Catharine Elizabeth, on March 26, 2013.
1960s
Fred Ware 62MBA of Valdosta, GA, retired in December 2012 after 41
years of teaching at Valdosta State University. Ware was a professor
of management and served for eight years as department chair of
Management and International Business.
1980s
Jed Selkowitz 02MBA of New York, NY, has become vice president of
connections at Clear Channel Media and Entertainment.
Zhoujing Bao 03MBA and Bryan Le of Milpitas, CA, announce the birth
of a son, Conner Le, on December 18, 2012.
Bola Olusanya 03MBA of Nashville, TN, was named one of the 2013 top
40 under 40 institutional asset owners worldwide by asset international’s
Chief Investment Officer (aiCIO). Olusanya is the managing director of risk
and portfolio strategy for Vanderbilt University’s Office of Investments.
Douglas Hooker 87MBA of Atlanta, GA, is a recipient of the 2013
Atlanta Community Leader of Faith Award. Hooker is the executive
director of the Atlanta Regional Commission.
Aarti Bijlani 04MBA of Malvern, PA, is now a senior director of marketing
at Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, where he oversees a portfolio of specialty
products.
David Ulmer 88MBA of Huntersville, NC, was recently named CIO for
the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
Justin Davis 02OX 04BBA of Smyrna, GA, recently joined the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention as an ORISE fellow in the Office of
Prevention through Healthcare.
Herbert Silverman 89MBA of Marietta, GA, is certified as a multiple line
representative at State Farm.
1990s
Ronald Hughes 93MBA of Atlanta, GA, was named one of “America’s
Top 1,000 Advisors: State by State” in the February 21 edition of Barron’s
magazine.
Shantella Carr Cooper 89C 95EvMBA of Atlanta, GA, is the new board
chair for the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education. Cooper
succeeds Paul Bowers, president and CEO of Georgia Power.
Valerie Leventhal 04BBA and
Cory Scott Mingelgreen were
married at Pine Hollow Country
Club in East Norwich, NY, on
June 15, 2013. Below, the
couple in Chatham, MA, next
to the two-ton sand sculpture
Mingelgreen commissioned to
propose to Leventhal.
Donna Stephenson 98MBA of Alpharetta, GA, accepted a project
manager position with AutoTrader.com.
Reggie Bradford 99EMBA of Atlanta, GA, was honored with the
E. Milton Bevington Distinguished Entrepreneur Award by the MIT
Enterprise Forum.
Lucien Chan 99BBA and Joanna Gonsalves of Westlake Village, CA,
announce the birth of a son, Greyson, on June 18, 2012. Chan is now
director of Social/Community Investment at Gap Inc.
Kerry McArdle 99MBA of Atlanta, GA is the managing director of
external relations at KIPP Metro Atlanta.
fall | 2013 39
goizueta class notes
Anna Diehn Bewley 05BBA 10L and Benoit Bewley 10M of New York,
NY, were married on May 4, 2013 at the Community Presbyterian Church in
Deerfield Beach, FL.
Addison Dana 05MBA recently moved to Washington, DC, to accept the
position of chief investment officer for The Nature Conservancy, where he
will oversee and implement the investment strategy for the organization’s
investable assets. He is married to Caroline Dana and they have two sons:
Addison II, age 6, and Banks, age 2.
Tam’ra Osborne Powell
05MBA and Reinhard
Powell of Atlanta, GA,
announce the birth of a
son, Rory Gage, on March
13, 2013.
Jodi Daniels 98BBA 05EMBA and Justin Daniels of Atlanta, GA, announce
the birth of a daughter, Dorielle Hadley, on July 9, 2013.
Sanjay Parekh 06MBA of Atlanta, GA, is currently taking part in the 2014
class of Leadership Atlanta, a community leadership program.
Allison Stewart 07BBA and James Stewart 07C of New York, NY, were
married on May 4, 2013.
Gady Blitz 08MBA of Caracas, Venezuela, is a senior marketing manager
at LG Electronics in Venezuela. He is married and has an 18-month-old son
named David Ethan.
Jesus Gonzalez 08MBA now lives in Mexico City and has two children,
Lorena and Daniel. Gonzales is a sales director at Emerson Electric.
Stuart Bracken 07MBA
and Lindsey Bracken of
Atlanta, GA, announce
the birth of a daughter,
Emma Holmes, on
August 23, 2013.
Kelly Fierro 07MBA
and Pete Fierro
09MBA of Atlanta, GA,
announce the birth of a
daughter, Mary Kathryn,
on August 1, 2012.
Julian Volio 08MBA of San Jose, Costa Rica, is commercial manager at
Farmacia Fischel/Cefa. He has two children with a third on the way.
Andrew Daniels 09EvMBA and Pei Sun of Atlanta, GA, announce the
birth of a son, Colin Yanglong, on September 9, 2013.
Russell Jesski 09MEMBA of Brooksville, FL, is a director at FCCI Group
Insurance and the president of the Emory Tampa Bay Alumni Group.
Wendy McGill 09EMBA and Chris Kellam of Atlanta, GA, announce the
birth of a son, Collin Thomas, on August 20, 2013.
David Smith 07C 09MBA and Amanda Liss 06C 08A of Atlanta, GA,
were married on March 10, 2012, at Hyatt Regency Pier Sixty-Six in
Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
Stephanie Espy-Chinyere 08MBA
and Dr. Kalvin Chinyere 08MBA of
Atlanta, GA, announce the birth of a
daughter, Zoe Dawn Cheryl, on August
2, 2013. Espy-Chinyere is the founder
and executive director of MathSP, a
math and science academic tutoring
and test prep company. Chinyere is a
physician at Northside Hospital.
2010s
Victor Brown 10EMBA of Centerville, GA, accepted a new role as dean of
the College of Arts & Sciences at Fort Valley State University on April 15,
2013.
Joshua Linder 10EMBA and Jill Linder of Atlanta, GA, announce the birth
of a son, Ryan Jacob, on April 13, 2013.
40 emory | business
Ingi Fenger 11EvMBA
and Deven Greene 01C of
Atlanta, GA, announce the
birth of a daughter, Olivia,
on May 25, 2013. Fenger is a
procurement manager for
AGCO Corporation.
Emre Karatas 13MBA and
Cigdem Karatas 13MBA
of Ankara, Turkey, announce
the birth of a son, Can, on
July 24, 2013.
Stephen Scouten 10EMBA and Haley Scouten of Atlanta, GA, announce
the birth of a son, Hudson David, on March 14, 2013.
Darryl Grant 10EMBA of Birmingham, AL, was promoted to managing
director at Accenture.
Kevin Fairchild 10EMBA of Smyrna, GA, married Brandi Covil on April 13,
2013. The wedding took place in the Senoia Historic District, GA.
Josh Finley 12EvMBA of Marietta, GA, recently joined the Atlanta office
of Guardian Investment Bank.
Parul Lahoti 10MBA of Boston, MA, is now an HR business partner at
Twitter.
IN MEMORIAM
Elliott Berman 42BBA of Atlanta, GA.
Be in the Know.
Charles West 42BBA of Atlanta, GA
Frank Cook 47BBA of Germantown, TN
Lolan Granger 49BBA of Anniston, AL
John Wiggins Jr. 50BBA of Valdosta, GA
Bill Jones 51BBA of Bainbridge, GA
Harris Williams 51BBA of Macon, GA
Raymond Coltrane 56BBA of Jacksonville, FL
Harold Jennings 58BBA of Perry, GA
Thomas Brown III 66MBA of Greenville, SC
V. Gordon Moulton 68MBA of Daphne, AL
Stay abreast of all the latest alumni
activities in Atlanta, New York, and
your city.
For upcoming events, visit
www.goizueta.emory.edu/events
To RSVP, visit the events website,
email [email protected], or call
770.727.6723.
Gary Shaivitz 79BBA of Reisterstown, MD
Edwin Holt 82EMBA of Lake Mary, FL
John Mulligan 83EMBA of Richmond, VA
John Simpson 90Ox 91BBA of Highlands, NC
Jeremy Kowall 06EvMBA of Marietta, GA
fall | 2013 41
goizueta advice
How can
entrepreneurs
improve their
pitches for business
and funding?
KLAAS: You must be able to clearly articulate what your
product is, what problem it solves, and what your market
is. If you cannot communicate that clearly, then you
cannot sell it.
DAVID: Focus on getting the first round of outside
investment from someone who is extremely well
respected in your industry niche and, ideally, will agree
to become a strategic advisor. You need a well-prepared
pitch that explains the business strategy. Investors like
investing in entrepreneurs they trust and believe in.
SANJAY: It all comes down to truly understanding your
business and your market so that if you forget what you
were saying during the presentation, you can confidently
KLAAS BAKS
Associate Professor in the
Practice of Finance;
Executive Director
Emory Center for Alternative
Investments
42 emory | business
DAVID N. WILLIAMS JR.
97MBA
Cofounder
Blinq Media LLC
move forward, because you know the topic and the
market better than anyone else in the room.
DOUG: A detailed and complete business plan is of
course a must. This means not only financials but all the
elements of a good business plan: the human resource
plan, the marketing plan, etc. If there is one thing in
particular that draws attention, it is the basis for the
assumptions in the financial plan. When the success
for an entire venture is based upon unsupported sales
projections, the pitch is invariably met with skepticism.
The numbers might look great, but where did those
sales figures come from? Bottom line: know what you are
talking about and be able to provide substantiation for
everything. If it was easy, everyone would be doing this!
SANJAY PAREKH 06MBA
Founder
Startup Riot
DOUG MATTHEWS
80WEMBA
President
Intercredit Ltd.
BONNIE: When presenting to potential
investors, customers, or analysts, be able to
relay these five things enthusiastically: what
your product is, why you are passionate,
why the market needs it, what support you
need (money, business counsel, marketing,
etc.), and how you will use that. Couple
your story with a well-thought out, wellrehearsed business description and you’ll
have a winning pitch.
NIKKI: Think of pitching an idea to a
potential investor as speed dating. You
have limited time to make an impression,
so communicate strategically. Analyze
your audience to determine which details
of your business plan are most persuasive
and create an elevator pitch of your plan.
Additionally, remember that you are not
just selling a business plan; you are selling
yourself as the visionary these investors are
looking for.
LIN: The best way for entrepreneurs to
improve their pitch is to have a realistic
projection on growth and earnings along
with an understanding of the private equity
role and expectations.
TED: In developing your pitch, know what
it is you want to do and why you want to do
it. Surround yourself with knowledgeable
people—no one knows everything. Be
aware of the funding options available
to you, whether self-funding, friends and
family, bank loans, angel investors, venture
capitalist, etc. Federal legislation has also
recently made it possible for start-ups
to ask for equity investments of up to $1
million a year via the Internet and social
media sites, without needing to register the
shares for public trading. That’s a boon for
small businesses just starting out.
SCOTT: Keep in mind that pitching to
investors is not your only option for
funding. I bootstrapped my own business
with my own funds, so it was pretty modest.
You can start a business today using online
services for a fraction of what it would
have cost 10 years ago. It will be a slower
growth curve, but I own 100 percent of
my business. I don’t have to answer to
investors, only customers!
PATRICK: In pitching for business,
remember that not all business is good
business. Entrepreneurs must first segment
targeted customers and assess how they
align with their business strategies and
capabilities. Once you have targeted
prospective customers and groups, listen
to their problems and provide them
with sustainable solutions, handcrafting
messages and cold-call pitches to meet the
focus group’s needs. Then play the numbers
game. The more people you pitch, the more
likely one or more of them will respond
positively.
PATRICK L. BROWN
05WEMBA
President and CEO
Sierra International LLC
SCOTT BLANCK 12EVMBA
President and Owner
Start Code
BONNIE DANEKER
10MBA
President and CEO
Write Advisors LLC
NIKKI GRAVES 99G 03G
LIN ROGERS 08MEMBA
TED DAYWALT 80MBA
Assistant Professor
in the Practice of
Management Communication
Goizueta Business School
Chairman
Lin Rogers Electric
President and CEO
VetJobs.com Inc.
fall | 2013 43
Goizueta Business School
1300 Clifton Road
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia 30322
Help Recruit the Next Class of Goizueta MBAs
As alumni of Goizueta Business School, you know all the reasons our programs are so effective at empowering talented
individuals to become principled, successful business leaders around the world. But don’t keep what makes us great to yourselves.
Share our success and refer a friend, family member, or colleague to one of our top-ranked programs.
Together, we can grow our community and strengthen networks.
Email your applicant referral name and information to [email protected].
doc_678358255.pdf
On this description around from passion to profit faculty and alumni harness the entrepreneurial spirit.
A M A G A Z I N E F O R A L U M N I A N D F R I E N D S O F E M O R Y U N I V E R S I T Y ’ S G O I Z U E TA B U S I N E S S S C H O O L
business
Drive Leader
Manage
Competitive advantage
Adapt
Disruptive
Connected
Fun
Leader
Perseverance
Innate
Vision
Strategy
Question
Innovate
Evolve
Marathon
Mine
Service
Balance
Patience
Execution
Focus
Persistence
Innovation
Creative
Research
Hardworking
Idea
Reinvent
Passion
FA L L 2 0 1 3
Bulletproof
Listen
Humor
Entrepreneurial
Network
#crushit Detailed
Consuming Learn
Sweat
Rewarding
FROM PASSION TO PROFIT:
FACULTY AND ALUMNI HARNESS THE ENTREPRENEURIAL SPIRIT
Values
26
A TOAST TO
ENTREPRENEURS
FEATURES
The Goizueta Alumni Entrepreneur Network (GAEN) provides
programming and networking—including a recent Monday
Night Brewing get-together—for the entrepreneurially minded
conte
14 ENTREPRENEURSHIP AT GOIZUETA
How faculty provide students with the fundamentals for
entrepreneurial success
20 A LUMNI ENTREPRENEURS
From beer-flavored ice cream to cloud solutions,
Goizueta alumni launch successful new enterprises
business
FALL 2013
On cover:
WANT A HOT TIP?
Alumni create a tag cloud for entrepreneurship. Throughout
this issue, alumni offered feedback and suggestions while also
helping to track down friends and colleagues to showcase our
robust network of alumni entrepreneurs.
Serial entrepreneur
Brian Lacey 90EMBA
+ 35 fellow alums offer
advice on starting a business
emory | business
28
8
nts
Fortune editor
Andy Serwer
84MBA
delivers
address
5
DALAI LAMA MEETS WITH
BBA STUDENTS
During his October visit to campus,
His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama, Presidential
Distinguished Professor at Emory, delivered
a guest lecture in Prof. Wesley Longhofer’s
Business and Society course
10
Coffee with Charlie Goetz and
Melanie Mueller 08MBA
34
Leslie Tessler 03BBA on
business in Buenos Aires
43
Advice:
The business pitch
Scott Blanck 12EvMBA
goizueta buzz yournetwork
+ plus
04 OVER THE TOP
05 FACULTY ADDITIONS
Class of 2013 breaks gift-giving records
05 RENOVATIONS
The new Jenkins Commons
06 S PORTS MARKETING ANALYTICS
Professors score high in media mentions
35 S ID MOOKERJI 04MEMBA
on differentiation
36 ADEKALU BALOGUN 07MBA
on entrepreneurship in Nigeria
37 C ALVIN CLARK 05MBA
19 ENTREPRENEURIAL GROWTH
IN DOWNTOWN ATLANTA
39 WHAT’S NEW: CLASS NOTES
on impact investing
fall | 2013
goizuetavision
Founded in 1919, Goizueta
Business School provides a
world-class business education
that combines functional
specialization with a broad
business perspective to create
principle-based leaders.
EMORY
ACCESSIBLE
INTIMATE
NETWORK
EXPERIENTIAL
GLOBAL
Ties to Emory
University, a
Top-20 Institution
Accessible, WorldClass Faculty
Scholars
Intimate & Smallby-Design Learning
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Opportunities
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Perspective &
Understanding
Experience World-Class
Executive Education
Your career is a series of transitions—from individual contributor
to manager to leader. Where will your path lead you?
Success depends upon how you prepare for each transition and how
well-equipped you are as you step into a new role. Emory Executive
Education offers programs that work to elevate your capabilities in
executive-level business acumen, strategy and execution, and leadership.
December 3-4, 2013
Finance for Non-Financial Managers
December 10-11, 2013
Critical Thinking and Decision Making
March 11-12, 2014
Finance for Non-Financial Managers
March 18-19, 2014
Strategies for Maximizing Negotiation Outcomes
April 15-16, 2014
Talent Strategies That Drive Organizational Success
April 29-May 1, 2014
NEW: Your Brain on Business: Emotional Intelligence at Work
May 6-8, 2014
Strategy and Value Creation: Capturing, Delivering, and Measuring Value
June 17-18, 2014
Marketing for Non-Marketing Professionals
July 14-17, 2014
Managerial Leadership Program
July 22-23, 2014
Critical Thinking and Decision Making
July 29-31, 2014
Strategic Execution: Aligning the Organization for Competitive Advantage
August 5-6, 2014
Marketing Analytics That Drive Business Outcomes
August 19-20, 2014
Finance for Non-Financial Managers
www.EmoryExecEd.com/Training2014
emory | business
business
Senior Associate Dean for
External Relations and
Professor of Marketing
Douglas Bowman
EMORY BUSINESS
is published twice a year by Emory University’s Goizueta Business School
and is distributed free to all alumni and other friends of the business
school. Emory University is accredited by the Commission on Colleges of
the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools (1866 Southern Lane,
Decatur, Georgia 30033-4097; 404-679-4501) to award degrees at the
associate, bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral levels. Send letters to the editor
and other correspondence to Nicole Golston, Managing Editor, Goizueta
Business School, Atlanta, Georgia 30322 or [email protected] or call
404.727.3434.
© 2013 Goizueta Business School, Emory University. All Rights Reserved.
Articles may be reprinted in full or in part if source is acknowledged.
goizueta.emory.edu/magazine
Magazine Alumni Advisory Board
Atul Agarwal 07MBA
Jeff Booth 84BBA 94MBA
Rosalie (Sakkas) Collado 05EMBA
Steve Greenfield 04EvMBA
Mara Lapp 97BBA
Michael Ryan 07EMBA
Carrie (Simon) Schonberg 97C 03MBA
Assistant Dean for Marketing and
Communications
Angela Lee Bostick 04MBA
Managing Editor
Nicole Golston
Art Director
Plus One Media
Photographers
Tony Benner
Ann Borden
Kay Hinton
Bryan Meltz
Allison Shirreffs
Contributors
Cynthia Blakeley
Meredith R. Farahmand
Michelle Hiskey
Tim Hyland
Susan Merritt Jordan
Carol Lindsey
Allison Shirreffs
Myra A. Thomas
Don’t Miss the 4th Annual EmoryMAC Conference
Join prominent industry speakers
and thought leaders from Goizueta’s
renowned faculty for the Emory
Marketing Analytics Center’s
4th Annual Conference on Friday,
March 21, 2014.
The day-long event will combine
academic perspectives with
recent examples from industry of
successfully applied analytics.
For more information, visit
EmoryMAC.org.
EmoryMAC co-directors (L to R):
David Schweidel, associate professor of marketing;
Michael Lewis, associate professor of marketing;
and Doug Bowman, professor of marketing and
McGreevy Term Chair.
fall | 2013 1
AnnualGiving
FOR THE MILLERS, Emory is a family affair. Jonathan Miller is a 1969 graduate of Goizueta Business
School, and he and his wife, Ilene, have made annual gifts to support the greatest priorities at the
school for 38 consecutive years. Daughter Kerry Miller followed in her father’s footsteps, graduating
from Goizueta in 2001. They love Emory and encourage others to support the business school through
their example. Make your annual gift to Goizueta today and discover how you can make a difference.
dean’s message
Dear alumni & friends,
I am both excited and honored to begin this new academic year as Goizueta’s
interim dean. After 14 years at Goizueta—12 of them in the dean’s office as
vice dean—I am deeply familiar with the strengths and potential of our great
school. The academic year is off to an excellent start, including the addition of
new faculty, new courses, and of course, great new students.
Though taking on the leadership of a top-ranked business school such as
Goizueta can be daunting, I am supported in my new role by an experienced
and seasoned leadership team. Rob Kazanjian, who has taught and served
in leadership positions at Goizueta for the past 25 years, remains as vice dean
for programs. He continues to oversee the MBA and BBA programs, as well as
admissions and career services. Narasimhan Jegadeesh, Dean’s Distinguished Professor of Finance, joined
the dean’s office as interim vice dean for faculty and research last July. A world-class scholar who arrived
at Goizueta in 2003, Jegadeesh has extensive knowledge of the school. In addition to these stalwarts, our
leadership at the program level remains strong.
This team is committed to building on the school’s momentum and achievements under our former dean,
Larry Benveniste, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Finance. Our priorities include positioning the school for
an era of new leadership and energizing and expanding our connections with both alumni and the business
community.
As the school’s ambassadors, you are essential to this sustained momentum. From your contributions while
students to your current roles as mentors, financial supporters, guest speakers, and more, you are at the heart
of Goizueta’s story and success. I will be doing a fair bit of traveling as interim dean during this year, and I look
forward to meeting many of you. I value your insights and feedback, not only as I lead the school during this
time of transition but also as we proceed in the search for the school’s permanent dean. As you know from
Provost Claire Sterk’s recent email, a search committee for the new dean has been identified and the process
is fully underway.
I hope you enjoy the current issue of Emory Business, which focuses on entrepreneurship—how it’s taught at
Goizueta and how it’s practiced by our successful and innovative alums. Other sections will catch you up on
school events and what’s happening with faculty and classmates. Enjoy—and join me in celebrating Goizueta.
Maryam Alavi
Interim Dean, Goizueta Business School
John M. and Lucy Cook Professor of Information Strategy
fall | 2013 3
goizuetabuzz
Class of 2013 breaks
gift-giving records
Class gift campaigns are a strong tradition at Goizueta, and each year the BBA, MBA,
EvMBA, WEMBA, and MEMBA graduating classes present their deans with a check
demonstrating their support and appreciation. This past year, however, topped the
charts for giving. The Full-Time MBA Class of 2013 raised over $267,000 in cash, pledges,
and corporate matching dollars, more than any previous class of Goizueta graduates.
About 75 percent of the FTMBAs participated in the campaign. The Weekend Executive
MBA Class of 2013 also set a record by raising more than $168,000, which will support
various ongoing programs and initiatives at Goizueta.
“The class gift epitomizes why I chose to come to Emory—for the sense of community
and belonging at Goizueta,” says Ben Jarrett 13MBA, co-leader of the Full-Time MBA
class gift campaign with Hannah Hillman 13MBA. Jarrett says the money raised will
help endow a merit-based scholarship to support a Full-Time MBA student.
Ken Keen, Goizueta’s new associate dean for
leadership development
Military leader
named new
associate dean
Lieutenant General (Retired) Ken Keen has joined
Goizueta as the new associate dean for leadership
development, overseeing the school’s leadership
development activities across all degree programs.“I
am looking forward to building upon the leadership
development initiatives already in place,” he says,
“while growing the effectiveness of Goizueta’s
offerings to prepare students for leadership at all
levels.”
Nwandi Lawson 13WEMBA headed the WEMBA class gift campaign with Jason
Barnes 13WEMBA and Katherine Strong 13WEMBA.“Our cohort is very competitive,”
she says.“When we announced the previous record for EMBA giving, there was an
immediate desire to top it.”
The trio recruited six 13WEMBA classmates (Dorothy Sood, Trad Wadsworth,
Clayton Whitfield, Tamika Longino, Josh Jones, and Sandeep Bajaj) as campaign
ambassadors, and the group fanned out to classmates to make personal pitches.
“We employed humor, emotion, rationalization, competition, deadlines, and good oldfashioned guilt to get 100 percent participation,” Strong says. To top the previous record
for dollar amount, professors even chipped in, adds Lawson.
The 2013 MBA and WEMBA fundraisers hope subsequent classes will embrace their
roles as caretakers of the Goizueta brand. The class gift, they note, is a promise each
graduating class makes to provide opportunities for future students and to continue
enhancing the value of the Goizueta degree.—MH
Keen, who recently retired from a distinguished
career of more than 38 years in the US Army, has an
outstanding leadership development background. In
addition to leading military organizations in Pakistan,
Central America, South America, and Haiti, Keen has
amassed a wide range of experiences and contacts
among high-level government, business, and NGO
leaders across the world.
Conversant in Spanish and Portuguese, Keen is a
graduate of the US Army War College and has an
MA in Latin American Studies from the University of
Florida.—CDB
Benjamin Jarrett 13MBA (left) and Hannah Hillman 13MBA join Brian Mitchell 00MBA/MPH,
associate dean of the FTMBA program, in celebrating the largest FTMBA class gift to date.
4 emory | business
New Faculty
New look for Jenkins Commons
Bill Black, Susan Crosson, Oliver Randall, and Tongil Kim
Tongil Kim, Assistant Professor of Marketing
Tongil “TI” Kim (PhD, UC Berkeley, 2013) earned a BA in electronics
engineering from Simon Fraser University (Canada) and an MS in
operations management from Stanford University. His research interests
include empirical industrial organization, marketing strategy, behavioral
economics, and marketing and public policy. The recipient of several
doctoral fellowships, Kim also received UC Berkeley’s 2012 Outstanding
Graduate Student Instructor Award.
Oliver Randall, Assistant Professor of Finance
A native of the UK, Oliver Randall (PhD, NYU, 2013) graduated
with a BSc from the University of Bristol, where he was awarded
the university’s highest prize in mathematics. Before pursuing his
MS in statistics at the University of Chicago, Randall worked as an
analyst for Financial Risk Management, the Royal Bank of Scotland,
and Deutsche Bank. His research focuses on asset pricing and market microstructure, and he teaches courses in business economics.
Bill Black, Assistant Professor in the Practice of
Accounting
Bill Black (PhD, UMiss, 2012) taught most recently at the University of
Illinois and Case Western Reserve University. His teaching and research
interests include ethics and management behavior, forensic accounting,
intellectual property identification, and corporate governance. A CPA,
Black has extensive industry experience at professional services firms
such as Deloitte and PWC.
Susan Crosson, Senior Lecturer in Accounting
Most recently an adjunct faculty member at Goizueta, Susan
Crosson (MS, Texas Tech) teaches financial accounting, managerial
accounting, and income taxation. Prior to arriving at Emory, she
taught at Santa Fe College, the University of Florida, Washington
University, and the University of Oklahoma. She has won several
teaching awards and has been honored by the American Accounting Association with the Outstanding Service Award.
Over the summer Jenkins Commons, named after Howard M. Jenkins
75C, underwent a significant renovation to create a more flexible
working and socializing space for students. The reconstruction added
more natural light; replaced stationary banquettes with comfortable,
moveable furniture; incorporated Internet café features such as a
bar-height counter with power sources; created quiet student carrels
and an ancillary computer lab; and replaced the former Jazzman’s Café
with a student galley, ideal for sharing bagged lunches in a welcoming
environment. The school showcased the renovations to faculty and
staff at an August reception.
Editor of FORTUNE
speaks at Goizueta
Andy Serwer 84MBA, managing editor of FORTUNE, visited campus
on October 8 as part of the 2013–14 Goizueta Dean’s Leadership
Speaker Series.
In his lecture entitled “Money, Madness, and Mayhem,” Serwer
shared memorable story covers from past issues, including pieces
on Walmart and Steve Jobs, and discussed the value of a solid
business education for business
journalists. The audience included
students, faculty, alumni, members
of the Atlanta business community,
and donors from the National
Public Radio affiliate WABE, a local
supporter of the Dean’s Leadership
Speaker Series. Past speakers in the
series have included David Abney,
chief operating officer for United
Parcel Service; Herbert Allen, former
CEO of Allen & Co Investment; and Mark
Andy Serwer 84MBA
Cuban, owner of the Dallas Mavericks.
Alumni are invited to attend the speaker series. Details on past
and upcoming speakers can be found at goizueta.emory.edu/
aboutgoizueta.
fall | 2013 5
goizuetabuzz
Professors team up on
sports marketing analytics
Research by Michael Lewis, associate professor of marketing, and Manish Tripathi,
assistant professor of marketing, has been making the news, cited in publications
ranging from the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times to ESPN, USA Today,
and CBS Sports.com. Using a combination of statistical tools and analysis of
consumer behavior, Lewis and Tripathi produce studies on how sports leagues,
teams, and players create valuable marketing assets—in particular, brand equity
and customer (fan) loyalty. For example, the pair has created a statistical model to
evaluate the “social media equity” of NBA teams, finding the Lakers the dominant
franchise online. They’ve also developed a metric for determining the “fan volatility
rating” of NFL teams by calculating the ratios of positive to negative tweets after
games during the 2012 regular season. Citing Lewis and Tripathi’s research, the
WSJ reported in September that “Raiders fans hate-tweeted their way to the title of
most unstable base in the NFL,” while “the Steelers and Patriots weren’t far behind.”
Lewis and Tripathi, who post their research and blog on the Emory Sports
Marketing Analytics website (blogs.emory.edu/sportsmarketing), have also been
cited for their study on the economic effect on college athletic departments of
dropping Indian mascots.“The professors . . . found these colleges tended to have a
year or two of marginal financial losses before quickly recovering,” wrote the New
York Times in June.
The Emory Sports Marketing Analytics website, launched in April 2013, covers
several major US sports, bringing data-driven analysis to the industry while
addressing game-changing topics in college and professional athletics.—CDB
New index gains quick
recognition
Roy Black
Roy Black, professor in
the practice of finance and
director of Goizueta’s real
estate program, was recently
featured in the Wall Street
Journal’s MarketWatch. The
CoreNet Global Confidence
Index, which Black helped
develop, was cited as
evidence of a strong global
economic outlook for the
second half of 2013.
Drawing on surveys of corporate real estate executives
who serve large, multinational companies from multiple
industry sectors, CoreNet Global converts the demand
for space—a key internal corporate performance
indicator—into a forward-facing macro-economic
indicator that predicts the likelihood of future growth
and expansion. The index published its first set of
results in July 2013.
With more than 7,000 members, CoreNet is a leading
professional association for corporate real estate
professionals.—MF
Master of Professional Accounting (MPA)
to launch fall 2014
Goizueta Business School wil launch a joint BBA/Master of Professional Accounting
(MPA) program beginning the 2014–15 academic year. Its purpose is to bring the
depth and breadth of our accounting program in line with evolving professional
standards, as well as to allow Goizueta BBA accounting students to earn enough
credit hours to sit for the CPA exam based on their Goizueta education.
Emory University recently changed the way it determined credit hours for existing
courses. Although this move brought Emory in line with accepted practices at most
other universities, it is now nearly impossible for students to obtain enough credit
hours to sit for the CPA exam based on the BBA degree alone. Students working
towards professional licensure in Georgia are required to present 150 academic
credit hours, which they will be able to achieve through the combined BBA/MPA
degree. Though the program will require an additional calendar year to complete,
6 emory | business
it will involve just one additional semester in the
classroom. The remaining time will be spent in the
program’s built-in practicum with accounting firms,
which will have faculty oversight.
Commenting on this newest addition to Emory
Goizueta’s portfolio of degree programs, Rob
Kazanjian, vice dean of programs and professor
of organization & management, observes,“In
collaboration with leading accounting firms, our
faculty has developed an innovative new master’s
program designed around the needs of our students
and the industry.”
GMSC Case Competition winners, from left to right:
David Waters-Honcu, Gillian Koh, Kristin Traina, Brianna
Levin,Saxon Seay, Jerry Meng, and Brandon R. Smith.
Far right, team guide Jon Hall 13MBA.
Management Practice kudos
Management Practice (MP) is the school’s initiative for providing students
with realistic experiential learning opportunities. In the Two-Year Full-Time
MBA program, students take one field-based MP elective in their second
semester. Working on real-world problems with real clients has proven
useful preparation for the summer internships. Electives in spring 2013 were
Catalyzing Social Impact; Goizueta Marketing Strategy Consultancy (GMSC);
Marketing Analytics Consulting; Project Management; and Valuation. Spring
2014 will bring an additional option, Healthcare Field Projects.
Congratulations go to the 2013 winning team of the longtime hallmark
of experiential learning, the GMSC case competition: Gillian Koh 14MBA,
Brianna Levin 14MBA, Jerry Meng 14MBA, David Waters-Honcu 14MBA,
Kristin Traina 15JD/MBA, Brandon R. Smith 14MBA, and
Saxon Seay 14MBA. Their challenge was to provide FOCUS
Brands, Inc. with a strategic positioning plan for the Auntie
Anne’s brand in China. The team analyzed China’s retail food
market industry, local competition, customer preferences, and
best marketing practices, and they presented FOCUS senior
management with strategic recommendations supported by
financial analysis.
Mike Shattuck, president of FOCUS Brands International, offers
high marks not only to this year’s winning team, but also
to previous teams that had worked with the multinational
corporation.
“The quality of consultancy provided by the program is
excellent,” he says. “The investment of time and money has
provided superior returns for us. And an added benefit is that,
by working together with what we view as one of the top MBA
programs in the country, we are able to interact with some of
the best talent available.”
Organizations with potential projects should contact the
associate dean for the MP programs, Professor Patrick Noonan,
at [email protected].
TECHNOBUZZ
While students were away this summer, Goizueta’s geeks were at play,
implementing the following technological upgrades:
• Deployment of Emory’s Blackboard Learning Management System for all
Goizueta classes, replacing FirstClass course conferences.
• The EMBA student technology framework, a combination of systems and
tools that help students find program information, receive announcements,
access calendars, and stay connected.
• A new BBA student portal where students find all their academic information
in one place, including program announcements, advising needs, schedules,
documentation, CMC guidance, and a master calendar of events.
• Case classroom enhancements, including new high-definition projectors and
Echo360, a lecture capture program that allows professors to record classes
and upload this multimedia lecture content, which students can access from
within Blackboard.
• A redesigned Goizueta website.
14WEMBA students Cornell Hazelton, left, Latonda Henderson,
and Leigh Dobbs working with new technology.
“We’re committed to maintaining and building on the school’s
sophisticated and accessible technological resources,” says
Jackie Breiter 01WEMBA, associate dean of technology
services.“Keeping pace with innovation has significantly
enhanced the Goizueta experience for all.”—CDB
fall | 2013 7
goizuetabuzz
DALAI LAMA GUEST
LECTURES IN BUSINESS
AND SOCIETY CLASS
Students in Wesley Longhofer’s BBA course Business and Society had the experience of a lifetime when His Holiness the XIV
Dalai Lama visited the classroom to deliver a guest lecture and
field questions. The Presidential Distinguished Professor made
two such classroom lectures during his recent visit in October:
one in a College course on religion, and the other at the b-school.
“My class addresses the practice of business ethics in a complex
world,” explains Longhofer, an assistant professor of organization and management who also teaches an MBA version of the
course. He notes that the Dalai Lama’s main topic during The
Visit 2013—secular ethics and its importance in education and
in today’s increasingly globalized society—dovetailed perfectly
with the course’s concerns.
says Ariella Sela 14C, who is pursuing a BBA/College Environment and Sustainability Management concentration. “He stated
that when choosing a job or career path, if you do not align with
the culture of a particular company, it is your duty to change it
to fit your ideals and inner values to help it reflect a culture of
responsibility; he specifically noted honesty, transparency, and
truth as key traits for responsible business. He explained that he
favors this to abandoning the company, because this is where
positive change occurs.”
“The goal of the class is to get students thinking about the
broader societal impacts of business, for both good and bad, intentional or unintentional,” Longhofer says. “The teachings of His
Holiness reveal that we all share a common humanity and that all
of our actions, whether as individuals or as companies, should be
conducted with that common humanity in mind. The visit helped
reinforce the general principle that business should be thoughtful as well as calculated.”
For students, the visit helped shape their perspectives about
business on a more personal level.
“I asked His Holiness, the Dalai Lama, for his take on aligning our
inner values with the material rewards of professional success,”
8 emory | business
At top, His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama teaching on the Nature and
Practice of Compassion; above, Interim Dean Maryam Alavi, left,
and Olga Goizueta Rawls 77C 80L pose with His Holiness along with
members of the Business and Society class.
Kevin Frey 14BBA commented on how appreciative
he was for the “tremendous opportunities” Emory
and Goizueta have provided him through events like
this, while Alexander Hwang 14BBA noted that the
accessibility to such a renowned figure made The Visit
2013 all the more meaningful.
“The Dalai Lama’s opinions and philosophies didn’t
come off as absolute truth, but as genuine and
personal,” he says. “It reminded me that as we go off
into the business world, we are able to contribute to
potential change of a greater organization by simply
living by our beliefs and values.”
Patrick McBride 14BBA summed up the experience
for many, saying, “Regardless of your personal beliefs,
the Dalai Lama is someone who has a following of
millions, and to be in his presence—especially in such
a small setting—is life-changing.”—NG
His Holiness the XIV Dalai Lama shares his philosophy on business and ethics with
BBA students during a recent campus visit. To right, Professor Wesley Longhofer.
Left, Geshe Thupten Jinpa Langri, a Buddhist scholar and former monk who serves
as the Tibetan spiritual leader’s chief translator for North America.
Award-winning faculty
Commencement is a time not only for celebrating the graduates
but also for announcing the annual faculty teaching awards.
Brad Killaly, associate professor in the practice of organization
& management, is the 2013 winner of the Marc F. Adler Prize for
Excellence in Teaching. The Adler Prize, which is selected by a
committee of alumni, honors outstanding teaching quality, course
innovation, and relevance to real-world problem solving in all
MBA graduates pose for a celebratory photo in May as
Mrs. Olga C. de Goizueta and senior staff look on.
Goizueta programs over a three-year period. Professor of Marketing and McGreevy Term Chair Doug Bowman received the Emory
Williams Award for Distinguished Teaching. Excellence in teaching
awards also went to Allison Burdette (BBA), Ray Hill and Soojin
Yim (Full-Time MBA), Nicholas Valerio and Patrick Noonan (Evening MBA), and Shehzad Mian (WEMBA and MEMBA).
fall | 2013 9
COFFEE WITH...
EACH ISSUE WE SELECT FACULTY OR STAFF MEMBERS, CURRENT OR RETIRED, TO “HAVE
COFFEE WITH.” THE OBJECTIVE IS TO GATHER INSIGHTS AND PERSPECTIVE ON A TOPIC OF
INTEREST TO ALUMNI AND FRIENDS OF EMORY UNIVERSITY’S GOIZUETA BUSINESS SCHOOL.
IF YOU HAVE A FAVORITE FACULTY OR STAFF MEMBER YOU WOULD LIKE TO “HAVE COFFEE
WITH,” PLEASE SEND YOUR SUGGESTION TO [email protected].
Charlie
Goetz
Coffee with Charlie Goetz,
senior lecturer in organization and management and
a successful entrepreneur, is
more like a power lunch. Just
ask Melanie Mueller 08MBA,
the creative director/founder
of Mel Boteri, LLC, a company
that specializes in custom
accessories for women and
men. In July, the two sat down in Mel Boteri’s Buckhead showroom to discuss the
entrepreneurial journey and Mueller’s plans to take her business to the next level.
Mueller: You’re an investor in twelve businesses and on the advisory
boards of half of them. How do you decide which ones to invest in?
Goetz: A large part depends on the person who is running it, the
business concept, and possible barriers to entry. I’m looking for people
who are passionate about their ideas and have that spark, even if
they’ve had a business that failed—as long as they’ve learned lessons
from the experience.
Mueller: What’s been your toughest business lesson?
Goetz: After completing grad school and working for Citicorp, I started
a French fry business called Paris Fries, with a number of locations in
10 emory | business
mall food courts in the Houston area. While the business was actually
doing better than projected—which is atypical, because most
businesses do worse—I sold it and took a loss. The question is, why did I
sell a business when we had lines out the door?
Mueller: Okay, I’ll bite. Why?
Goetz: Because I hated what I was doing. Although I understood how to
analyze a business, calculate projections, and sell and do marketing, I did
not understand what it would be like to run that business or to deal
with unreliable employees. Afterward, I vowed not to get into a business
where the people I hired didn’t take their jobs seriously. And I realized I
was not a manager. I have a lot of skills, but I cannot manage day-to-day
matters. I either bring on a junior partner or a senior-level manager to
handle that aspect of the business.
Mueller: How do you go about finding that person? I certainly could
use the help, but where can I find someone who is as knowledgeable,
passionate, and emotionally connected to my business as I am?
Goetz: You need to find someone who has both passion for your
idea and a complementary skill set. This person can be an angel
investor who knows someone with the skills you seek or even a
recent grad with the background and entrepreneurial interests you
need. The best way to find these leads is by networking: asking
people you know and trust for recommendations, attending industry
conferences and events, or even using LinkedIn to identify people
who might have synergies.
Mueller: Networking definitely helped me launch my business, and I
also attended a bunch of events either to exhibit my bags or to meet
new people. Relationships are very important for me, especially since
referrals are a critical element of my business.
Goetz: Your eBook, which I think women will definitely enjoy, must
help you make connections.
Mueller: It’s part of my social media marketing strategy, and wow,
did it take me out my comfort zone! The Bag Guide: 7 Secrets of
Handbag Shopping is a free download that launched in September
(melb.co/BagGuide). In the eBook, I discuss the seven things to
consider when in the market for a handbag—how to select the
perfect piece and create a quality collection for your lifestyle.
Goetz: Your clients create their own bags; how do they do that?
Mueller: I have base bags—close to 50 silhouettes. Everything from
small clutches to bags large enough for a laptop. Clients pick their
silhouette and then choose from more than 100 different leather
swatches. You can change the strap, add a pocket—whatever you
want in order to fit your lifestyle. But because everything is
customizable, the one thing I keep standard in all my bags is the
lining—this rich turquoise color. I’m continuously designing new
silhouettes based on clients’ needs, and I’ve recently incorporated
exotic skins into my collection. The bag you’re holding is python. I
hope you like snakes.
Goetz: I like them better like this [pointing to the bag] than in real life.
What about online commerce?
Mueller: My website, melboteri.com, is a full e-commerce site where
clients can shop for handbags that I’ve pre-designed. I’m looking to
add a configurator—similar to what NIKEiD does for shoes—so
people can customize and visualize their bags online. I’ll have that
tool available early next year.
Melanie Mueller 08MBA in the Mel Boteri showroom in Buckhead.
Goetz: People are always asking me how to get started in business, but
you came to Goizueta with that in mind.
Mueller: Yes, my undergraduate degree was in finance and I studied
marketing and entrepreneurship at Goizueta. While the design aspect
of my business was completely self-taught, my MBA taught me
essential business skills that have given me a competitive advantage
over the many talented designers out there who may not be as
commercially trained.
Goetz: Your decision to approach Mercedes-Benz was a great strategic
move.
Mueller: Yes, it was thrilling to get the call last year that they loved my
concept of a luxury, Mel Boteri for Mercedes-Benz handbag and would
move forward on it! We hope to apply customization to the handbags
at Mercedes-Benz, since they also offer this option with their cars.
Goetz: So that’s the niche—the angle—you’re trying to fill?
Customization?
Mueller: That’s my core focus. When I got into fashion, people told me I
was crazy, but I knew it was the way of the future. People want to
express themselves, to stand out as their own person. I believe it’s a
market that’s only going to get bigger and bigger.—Allison Shirreffs
fall | 2013 11
COFFEE WITH...
Sandy Jap
Sandy Jap, professor of marketing and holder of a
Goizueta term chair, is drawn to the dark side of B2B
relationships—specifically, why relationships don’t work.
“Business partners are opportunistic,” says Jap.“It’s easy
to understand why—the stakes are often high. But why
do partners cheat when the stakes are low?”
cheating.“People tell themselves, ‘If I take a little here or there from my
partner, it’s okay,’” says Jap,“because in the long run, they reason, ‘it will
all even out.’” Or, she adds,“they tell themselves, ‘my partner is probably
either already aware of it or doing it to me as well.’”
Whether in the dugout
at Turner Field or in the
boardroom, integrity in
relationships is key, says
Sandy Jap.
According to Jap’s research, even when a business partner cheats in
small ways, people tend to let it go, perhaps because they believe it’s
the “nice thing to do,” or it won’t happen again. In fact, her research
shows that managers will let their business partners cheat them as
many as two or three times before they start venting, threaten to end
the relationship, or exit. What they should do instead, recommends
Jap, is to nip that kind of behavior in the bud. Tolerating it will cost
them in the long term, in the form of suspicion, more monitoring, and
an eroding relationship. Actively responding the first time—even if it
makes everyone uncomfortable—will be better for business than to
let it go.
Jap’s current research offers answers to this question by analyzing the
mistakes people make, in what context they’re made, and the faulty
reasoning that leads to them. One such misstep is the tendency to focus
more on pleasing the business partner than on paying attention to the
terms of a deal.“The assumption that maintaining a good relationship is
most important is not always the way to go,” says Jap.
Given that B2B relationships are crucial for the success of entrepreneurs,
Jap suggests that they keep these pitfalls in mind. “Though many
entrepreneurs try, they can’t do everything,” she says.“If you want to go
far or fast in business, you have to go with others.“ And partnering with
businesses that have capabilities and can supply you with the resources
you need is more important than establishing great rapport, Jap adds.
“If you can layer good relationships on top of that, great.”
And a good relationship with a business partner doesn’t mean he or
she won’t take advantage of you. Petty opportunism—the omission of
information, the taking of credit when it should be assigned elsewhere,
the misrepresentation of expenses—is actually most likely to occur in
long-term relationships where business partners have great rapport.
Jap explains that this behavior is typically due to “morally malleable
reasoning,” where morals are flexibly used to justify misbehavior, lies, or
Jap arrived at Goizueta in 2001. Prior to that, she was a faculty member
at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She was a visiting professor
at the Wharton School from 2008 to 2009. In 2010 she co-launched the
Marketing Analytics Initiative, better known as EmoryMAC. She earned
her BA and PhD in marketing at the University of Florida, and she loves
her Gators. In her spare time, she often has a racquet in hand.“My vice is
never giving up on my tennis game,” she says.—Allison Shirreffs
12 emory | business
EB: How do you facilitate the research
efforts of Goizueta faculty?
Harris: I work in research and data
services, combining tools for data
gathering and processing to provide
strategic technological support to the
school. My role focuses on supporting
empirical archival research. Professors
come to me with issues regarding
procuring, accessing, cleaning, and
analyzing data.
EB: What kind of assistance do you
provide to PhD students, and how has
the addition of the doctoral program
in 2002 changed the school?
Doctoral candidates Shikha Jaiswal, left, and Jingran Zhao
consult with Ron Harris on data research analysis.
Ron Harris
Ron Harris, senior research data specialist
for Goizueta Technology Services (GTS),
has seen the demands for research data
collection and analysis grow by leaps
and bounds at the school, along with the
technology to support it. He came to GTS
in 1993 as a research computing assistant,
moving up the ranks before assuming his
current position in 2011.
Harris: The PhD students enrich
Goizueta’s intellectual environment. My interactions with them lie
on the consulting side. It’s important for doctoral candidates to
understand what is involved in the research process, and I have
offered a class on research data analysis since the founding of the
program. We talk about issues of data collection and analysis, and
the students take a “hands-on” approach to a set of problems that I
develop in collaboration with faculty.
EB: How have the demands of increasingly larger research datasets
impacted GTS?
Harris: In 1994 we added the first computer server dedicated solely
to research. We’re now in our sixth generation of research servers.
At any premier university, research and teaching go hand-in-hand.
Over the years we’ve added support for empirical archival research
and have increased scope to include behavioral and experimental
research. We’ve also added large storage arrays that allow us to store
terabytes of data and fiber channel connections, passing information
back to the server at light speed. My project work is often large in
scope, dealing with datasets with millions of observations.
EB: You’re married to Grace Pownall, professor of accounting. How
did you meet? Do your paths ever cross when working on research?
Is there a healthy competition there?
Harris: I met Grace in an econometrics class at the University of
Chicago. She was on her way to a PhD in accounting and economics,
and I was getting my MBA. Since I support the faculty, I work on
projects for her from time to time. She has a keen sense for data and
analysis. I’ve learned a lot from her on projects we’ve collaborated on,
and perhaps she’s learned a little from me. The only competition we
have is in the kitchen. That’s a win-win for everyone.—Myra Thomas
fall | 2013 13
Entrepreneurship
at Goizueta:
Faculty offer thoughts
on shaping
business creation
by Cynthia Blakeley
Rags-to-riches tales of entrepreneurs
who started their business in garages,
kitchens, or dorm rooms and made it
big are legendary.
From Bill Gates and Steve Jobs to Walt Disney or the Mattel
founders Elliott and Ruth Handler, these visionaries and their
stories evoke the belief that one’s extraordinary talent or skill can
overcome the difficulties inherent in creating businesses and
catapult entrepreneurs to success.
But research from Chris Rider, assistant professor in organization
and management, and his
coauthors shows that many
entrepreneurs acquire the
psychological and social
resources to create a business
from their experiences working
in an established firm.
Furthermore, subsequent
research by Rider and three
colleagues—Goizueta Chair of
Organization and Management
Anand Swaminathan and
O & M professors Peter Roberts
Chris Rider
14 emory | business
and Peter Thompson—details how
knowledge and connections gained
through education and employment
influence not only individuals’ careers
but also organizational founding and
survival.
If talent and skill alone do not
guarantee a hot IPO, and elements
such as experience and one’s network
play important roles in determining
Anand Swaminathan
the success of an enterprise, how
does—or should—academia help shape future entrepreneurs?
The teaching of entrepreneurship has grown considerably over
the last few decades, from a scattering of offerings in the 1970s
to its current established place in nearly every competitive
b-school curriculum. But as a pedagogical field it is still quite
young, with no unified agreement on how to teach the art of
creating a successful business.
At Goizueta, students have access to a wide range of coursework
applicable to entrepreneurship, from foundational courses in core
business concepts to electives in entrepreneurship and fieldwork
courses that help hone many of the skills useful for establishing
one’s own business. This combination of academic and
experiential learning allows students to acquire the knowledge
and tools necessary for success not only as corporate leaders but
also as founders and executives of their own ventures.
Question
Balance
Passion
Manage
Perseverance
Innate
Hardworking
Patience
Evolve
Focus
Sweat
Marathon
Persistence
Idea
Reinvent
Fun
Leader
Innovation
Creative
Disruptive
Connected
Peter Roberts
Getting grounded
For anyone looking to become an entrepreneur, it’s important to
build a foundation in all aspects of business creation. Thompson,
who teaches corporate strategy, has done significant research on
entrepreneurship and has found that strong generalists, or “Jacks
of all trades,” enjoy a higher rate of success than those driven to
business ownership by a “taste for variety” as evidenced by a
highly varied work history. Given that Thompson’s research
shows that the majority of entrepreneurs fall in the latter
category—and have lower earnings than the average wage
worker—it’s essential for any student eager to bring a new idea
to market to acquire as many foundational skills as possible.
“Although my research is not designed to predict what it takes to
become an entrepreneur, an awful lot of the skills important for
entrepreneurs are, in fact, personal skills that many different
people need,” says Thompson. “In the spring I’m going to teach a
new behavioral economics course in the BBA program, and we’ll
look at standard economic theories on how to make rational
decisions, as well as why a lot of psychology experiments and
empirical observations indicate that people don’t make decisions
like that. For example, we know people tend to be overly
optimistic. If you ask founders of startups what they think their
likelihood of success is, typically they will say, ‘I have a 90%
chance of success.’ Research shows that number is more like 30%.”
Understanding the motivations and biases that impact decisions
is a critical skill for entrepreneurs, Thompson argues, because
people tend to hang onto their beliefs even in the face of
conflicting evidence,
seeking out evidence that
supports what they already
believe.
“Everyone suffers these sorts
of cognitive biases, but it is
particularly damaging if you
are an entrepreneur.
Peter Thompson
Consider if you are founding
a company and making decisions about how much to invest or
what a product looks like, and there is no institution around
you to push back against your biases,” he adds. “In business
creation, it’s important to recognize that you have these biases
and how to take action to undo them. These are valuable skills
for anybody, but they are particularly salient for entrepreneurs.”
At Goizueta, students with a strong commitment to
entrepreneurship benefit from coursework in the core
curriculum that ranges from economics, marketing
management, and financial reporting/analysis to professional
development, organizations and strategy, data and decision
fall | 2013 15
Humor
Question
Balance
Vision
Adapt
Sweat
Rewarding
Detailed
Consuming
Mine
Mine
Patience
Leader
Research
Innovate
Execution
Creative
Network
Bulletproof
analytics, and
systems
management.
One important and
relevant goal in the
core curriculum for
all programs is the
development of
diagnostic thinking
skills.
“The greatest
challenge faced by
entrepreneurs—
who often start off
as their own general
managers—is
simply to identify
and understand
Richard Makadok
what a problem is,”
says Richard Makadok, an associate professor of organization
and management who teaches the core strategic management
course in the Evening MBA program. “Diagnostic reasoning, as
distinct from analytical reasoning, is therefore an essential skill.”
Makadok likens entrepreneurs to emergency room doctors,
saying, “they never have all of the right information necessary to
make fully informed decisions or the luxury of experimenting
with different strategies to arrive at the right one.”
Listen
Targeting entrepreneurship
While many professors at Goizueta teach valuable skills that can
be applied to launching new ventures, the school’s curriculum
also includes electives focused specifically on entrepreneurship.
For example, Charlie Goetz, senior lecturer in organization and
management and a seasoned entrepreneur, offers a
comprehensive, two-class series for MBA students interested in
launching their own business: Introduction to Entrepreneurship,
followed by Applied Entrepreneurship (also offered to BBA
students). “The first course begins with the creation of a new
product or service and is centered on the development of a
team’s business plan,” says Goetz. “Students learn how to
determine product viability, think strategically in terms of a small
business, develop an investor presentation, and raise funds. The
applied course picks up where the introductory course ends,
with the kinds of skills an entrepreneur needs to build, manage,
grow, and sell a new venture.”
Students in the applied course learn, for example, how to think
creatively, develop marketing strategy and tactics on a shoestring budget, convince prospects to buy their product, manage
employees in an unstructured environment, and sell the
business at an impressive profit. A small number of students
across all degree programs who are in the process of starting a
new business may also take an independent study course with
Goetz, who meets weekly with each student to provide
individualized advice on implementing business plans.
Success depends, Makadok says, on developing “insight,
judgment, experience, and intuition to fill in the gaps in available
information.” Intuition, in turn, requires a storehouse of
experiences that allows a manager to see patterns and cues that
might easily be missed by others.
Throughout their business school coursework, Goizueta students
accelerate the growth of these experiences, laying the
foundation for the kinds of memories that will serve them well
when faced with the need to make rapid decisions.
Charlie Goetz
16 emory | business
Innovation
Creative
Innovate
Vision
Strategy
Question
Balance
Patience
Research
Hardworking
Idea
Rewarding
Drive
Listen
Adapt
Leader
Humor
Competitive advantage
#crushit
Detailed
Consuming Learn
Andrea Hershatter
Goetz, like faculty throughout Goizueta, draws on a variety of
teaching methods in his courses, combining lectures with
frequent in-class exercises, guest speakers, case studies based on
his own businesses, and external interviews. At the close of the
Introduction to Entrepreneurship course, for example, he brings
in dozens of entrepreneurs and business investors, who listen to
and provide feedback on student presentations—some of which
may lead to continued investor interest.
At the BBA level, Andrea Hershatter, senior lecturer in
organization and management and senior associate dean and
director of the BBA program, teaches an experientially based
Entrepreneurship and New Venture Management course in
which students start the semester with an idea for a venture and
complete it with an executable business plan. “The plan is not an
end unto itself, but rather a template for working through all the
functional areas of business necessary for entrepreneurial
success,” Hershatter explains. Students apply core concepts
through an entrepreneurial lens, tempered by an “on-the-ground
reality check” that requires them to go into the field to meet with
industry experts.
No new business can get off the ground without adequate
capital, and students can learn how to navigate the world of
financing through electives such as Klaas Baks’s courses on
private equity and venture capital. Baks, executive director of the
Emory Center for Alternative Investments and associate
professor in the practice of finance, provides students with
essential overviews of the private equity industry, alternative
investments, leveraged buyouts, deal making, and venture
capital investing while also teaching them practical skills that
enhance their chances of success in launching a business.
“The three most valuable skills I teach future entrepreneurs,” he
says, “are how to clearly and quickly articulate what their
business is about; how to sell their ideas; and how to network.
The first is perhaps most important. Many aspiring entrepreneurs
focus too much on selling a product idea and too little on
presenting both themselves and their business plan. But
potential investors focus on the person behind an idea, who is
the linchpin for the success or failure of a new
enterprise.”
Hershatter agrees, saying that “the value is not so
much in the idea itself—as I tell my students all
the time, if you’re thinking about a new offering,
it’s very likely that someone else is too—but it’s
all about the execution. You have to have a
strategic position and operations plan that
creates a sustainable, distinctive competency for
your venture.”
Another important task for any entrepreneur is
assessing the size/potential of a market
opportunity. Students in David Schweidel’s new
elective course, Digital and Social Media Strategy,
for instance, study the data collected by
e-commerce and online video sites in order to
understand how it can inform strategic decisions.
This process helps future entrepreneurs
understand how to use marketing data that is
relevant to their new business. “If you’re planning
to bring a new product or service to market, who
are the competitors you need to consider?” asks
Schweidel, associate professor of marketing. “How
Klaas Baks
David Schweidel
fall | 2013 17
Idea
Reinvent
Balance
Persistence
Evolve
Network
Creative
Vision
Passion
Drive
large is the potential market? How much market share do you
expect to capture within the year? How are you going to
promote it?” He says that one way to address these questions is
to look at what others have done in the past and what has been
successful. “In many cases,” he notes, “that’s going to involve
looking at consumers’ online activities.”
Such research, and the savvy use of social media, is essential for
new entrepreneurs, who “don’t have traditional, large-scale
budgets for marketing,” says Hershatter, adding, “Entrepreneurs
absolutely need to understand the social media landscape in
order to effectively build awareness and gain traction.”
Learning by doing
Goizueta’s multifaceted approach to business education includes
experiential opportunities outside the classroom. Susan Hogan,
for example, sends students in her
Nonprofit Marketing and in her
Entertainment and Media
Marketing Fieldwork courses into
the field, likening the experience
to learning how to ride a bike.
“One of the best ways to learn is
by doing,” says Hogan, adjunct
assistant professor of marketing.
“In my class, student teams work
with organizations to resolve
current challenges they’re facing.”
Echoing her colleagues, Hogan
says that the most important
entrepreneurial skills she teaches
are how to isolate and define a
business challenge and how to
Susan Hogan
develop a roadmap for resolving
it. “I stress the importance of making conscious decisions
regarding the questions students ask, the methods they choose,
and the people they involve, in order to achieve the outcome(s)
they desire,” she says.
18 emory | business
Steve Walton
Students who participate in the Global Feasibility Studies
organized by Social Enterprise @ Goizueta get similar exposures
to project-based assignments. So far, student teams have worked
on plans for creative, socially oriented ventures in Ethiopia,
Honduras, and Bolivia. “The goal of the program is for students to
gain experience analyzing and then developing solutions to the
complex challenges currently faced by organizations striving for
meaningful social impacts,” says Peter Roberts, who is the
director of Social Enterprise @ Goizueta and teaches courses
such as Social Entrepreneurship and Impact Investing.
“The kind of hands-on problem solving we teach at Goizueta—
which is also the focus of the school’s Management Practice
courses—is excellent preparation for future entrepreneurs,” says
Steve Walton, associate professor in the practice of information
systems and operations management.
But research into entrepreneurship is important as well, says
Roberts. Accordingly, Social Enterprise @ Goizueta has
established a clear research mission, and Roberts is building on
his published work examining how founders’ prior experiences
influence the behavior and performance of their new ventures.
Current projects include a detailed analysis of the social
performance of B Corporations and an ambitious project that is
collaborating with numerous accelerator programs to collect
and analyze data from hundreds of impact entrepreneurs who
are establishing new ventures in various sectors and countries
around the world.
Be it fieldwork, part of the core curriculum, or an elective, “there’s
virtually no course taught at Goizueta that isn’t useful for
somebody who aspires to become an entrepreneur,” Hershatter
concludes. “Sure, there are multiple examples of those who have
created successful ventures using seat-of-the-pants
management, but Goizueta students can gain a huge
competitive advantage by using the best available knowledge
and frameworks, along with the full power of the Goizueta
network.”
Atlanta’s
entrepreneurial
allure
A.J. Robinson 77BBA has
spent a decade as president
of Central Atlanta Progress
(CAP), a private nonprofit
fostering economic development on behalf of the
business community. He
also serves as president
for its sister organization, Atlanta Downtown
Improvement District, a
public-private partnership
working to improve the
center city. According to
Robinson, Atlanta is a popular spot for entrepreneurs, and the city’s friendly business climate and desirable location
are two reasons why. Robinson previously served as president of Portman Holdings, a global real estate development,
investment, and management company. He applies that extensive knowledge to his role at CAP today.
EB: Atlanta has become a top city for entrepreneurs. What
about the city makes it such a draw?
Robinson: As the biggest city in the South, Atlanta has always
been a destination. It really expanded after the Olympics,
attracting people not only from the South but from across the
country. Its location, friendly tax policies, weather, and airport are
all incredible assets. We have great restaurants and we’ve
developed a thriving arts and culture scene. We’ve become more
sophisticated in what we have to offer. Atlanta is a big city, but it
can feel like a small city in the neighborhoods, and that’s what
makes entrepreneurs feel comfortable here.
EB: How has CAP contributed to making the city so appealing
for business?
Robinson: CAP has remained passionate about downtown. That’s
fundamental. We live in a very linear city and the growth toward
the north has been unbelievable. Fortunately, we have a core of
business leaders who care about the city center. We’re constantly
projecting a few years down the road, working with public
leaders, business leaders, and NGOs to show how great our
prospects are if we focus and coordinate our efforts.
Robinson: Money is fluid and fungible. Just because Atlanta isn’t
the focus of venture capital doesn’t mean we won’t continue to
grow and attract capital here. Of course, we can always do more.
CAP is focused on that, as is the Metro Atlanta Chamber.
EB: The recession certainly impacted Atlanta. How is the city
faring now?
Robinson: The real estate community is recovering and buildings
are changing hands at a rigorous pace. In fact, the next 18 months
will be transformational for downtown Atlanta, which will see a
surge of development, improvements, and growth. We’re
completing the first phase of the Atlanta Streetcar project in April
2014, and the National Center for Civil and Human Rights as well
as the College Football Hall of Fame Atlanta will open shortly after.
Additionally, The Coca-Cola Company is relocating 2,000
employees from its Cobb County information technology center
into offices in SunTrust Plaza, while nearby at Ponce City Market,
2.2 million square feet of retail, restaurant, office, and residential
space will open, changing the urban fabric of Atlanta. As if that’s
not enough, construction starts on the new Falcons football
stadium next year. The future is bright.—Myra Thomas
EB: Atlanta isn’t known for its strong venture capital activity.
Could the city create a model more akin to Silicon Valley?
fall | 2013 19
Risk and Reward
Every business faces obstacles that can sink it or catapult it to the
next level. Emory Business cast a wide net, polling faculty and
staff and emailing alums to find eight entrepreneurs from very
different sectors who stood up to a pivotal challenge and won.
Their stories follow.
The business challenge:
fighting for
By Myra Thomas
The business challenge:
Reaching the tipping point
The solution:
Be willing to take on a new CEO
For business partners and friends Michael Cohn 05MBA and Eran Gil
05MBA, outside investment has taken their company, Cloud Sherpas,
from a small startup to one of the largest cloud solutions providers
today. The idea for it was born in 2007 when Cohn and Gil worked
together at Canvas Systems, a global provider of pre-owned IT
equipment and systems. With a desire to become entrepreneurs, the
pair left the firm in 2008 to officially start Cloud Sherpas. Cohn says, “My
main responsibility at that time was to raise capital. It was a challenge,
to say the least, given the economic conditions in the summer and fall
of 2008.”
Cohn took on the role of CEO while Gil served as VP of business
development. Cloud Sherpas made it through its first year with a
number of deals and friends and family injecting
about $170,000 into the business. Says Cohn, “We
ended with just shy of $1M in sales.” By 2010,
cloud computing was set to change the IT
landscape, and the company was in a better position to raise outside
capital. The pair also reached out to Jon Hallett, a seasoned
entrepreneur who invested in the company, to take over as CEO. The
move quickly boosted sales.
“We garnered the attention of Columbia Capital, which has since led
two investment rounds that brought nearly $80 million of venture
capital into the company, along with a new CEO,” says Cohn. He now
serves as SVP of marketing, Gil as SVP of business development, and
Hallett as chairman of the board of directors. The company is 600
employees strong with 17 offices across four continents and eight
countries. Gil tells entrepreneurs that even with considerable financial
support, running a business is an evolving challenge—but nonetheless
rewarding. “With every investment, new client, and additional
headcount, there is greater responsibility and much hard work ahead.” g
20 emory | business
The business challenge:
Introducing a new concept
The solution:
Reach out to your market
& respond
Getting a new product or service
to market can be difficult,
but healthcare products and services are
particularly problematic, says Dan Pompilio
98EMBA, the founder and CEO of SimpleC.
Pompilio’s company uses a variety of cloudbased technological solutions to promote
memory, engagement, and quality of life in
shelf space
The solution:
Think
outside
the box
When Alyson Moler 09BBA and Ari
Fleischer 06BBA wanted to get their
premium craft beer ice cream into stores,
the pair faced a number of hurdles. The
challenge was to take the product, the
first of its kind, from the testing phase to
store shelves. Moler and Fleischer not only
had to fight for limited shelf space but
also discovered that the alcohol content
in their Frozen Pints ice cream required it
to be sold in places licensed to sell liquor.
The thing that set the product apart was
also something that required a rethink
when it came to distribution. The duo,
who met as co-workers at The Nielsen
Company, hit upon the idea to provide
stores with a freezer, redrawing the battle
for shelf space and giving their product
prominent placement.
seniors, as well as to collect health and wellness data. Not
only did SimpleC have to deal with the usual hurdles any new
venture faces—from financing to product launch—but patient
efficacy presented an additional and overwhelming concern.
Reaching out to the elderly in assisted living facilities,
SimpleC gathered valuable feedback to help develop its
current suite of offerings. Pompilio says, “Our first product
was an email capability using cognitive tools to simplify and
set reminders by email.” But after dealing with an increasing
number of dementia and Alzheimer’s patients, he says that
SimpleC’s products necessarily adapted and in the process
became more robust.
“You have to think about who you are really serving,”
Pompilio says. “You have to be able to adjust, and that
requires honesty, feedback, and focus.”
Executing on the information gleaned led to the refining of
The SimpleC Companion™, an intuitive touch-screen
Inspiration for the ice cream came at a
party where the beer sat near the ice
cream maker. Fleischer seized on the idea,
and Moler soon bought into it as well.
Today, Frozen Pints can be found at more
than 100 licensed beer, wine, and spirits
stores in the Atlanta area and on
restaurant menus across the city. The
novelty of the product makes it easy to
pitch to customers and store managers,
says Fleischer, a critical aspect for
entrepreneurs to consider when vying for
shelf space.
Continually distinguishing the product is a
top priority for the pair. Frozen Pints offers
five year-round flavors and select seasonal
flavors based on different styles of beer.
Year-round flavors include Peach Lambic,
Vanilla Bock, Brown Ale Chip, Malted Milk
Chocolate Stout, and Honey IPA. Seasonal
flavors include Pumpkin Ale in the fall and
Cinnamon Espresso Stout in the winter.
Moler says, “There’s a seasonal aspect to
food, and creativity is an important pillar
of craft beer and of ice cream. You have to
keep people interested. There has to be an
element of surprise.” g
application that promotes
memory, engagement, and
better communication by
seniors. Through the work
of Chantal Kerssens PhD,
vice president of SimpleC
Research and Innovation,
the company’s innovative
products caught the eye of the National Institute on Aging,
with SimpleC winning a Fast Track Small Business Innovation
Research grant in 2012 to develop the mobile version of
SimpleC Companion, the company’s main product. Other
products include Community Connect, which provides
television programming for brain stimulation, mood, and
spiritual support in group settings, and Clarity, a system that
uses eHealth and telemedicine devices to enable a caregiver at
a remote site to connect with a patient in a medical setting. g
fall | 2013 21
The business challenge:
Getting your idea off the ground
The solution:
Capitalize on your network
While at Goizueta, Pat
Shea 12BBA, Spencer
Barkoff 13BBA, Nir Levy
13BBA, Giovanni
Hobbins 13C, and Ian
McCall 13C launched
the Web portal and iOS and Android app, giving Emory
University its own social media platform for organizing
information about university campus groups and events.
Professors and students post public content for academic and
co-curricular groups to begin discussions, add files, edit
documents, assign tasks, and more.
Campus Bubble was
truly a dorm-room
creation.
After the group presented their business concept to the
President’s Cabinet and Executive Board of Trustees, Ajay Nair,
senior vice president of campus life, initiated the very first effort
to fund an undergraduate business venture at Emory University.
By tapping into faculty, administration, and alumni support, the
five were able to finalize a license agreement with Emory’s
Office of Technology Transfer for a minority stake in Campus
Bubble in April 2012. Emory Bubble.com officially launched in
fall 2013, acting as a one-stop solution for bringing disparate
information together in a simple and accessible format.
While Campus Bubble remains focused on Emory for the
moment, the plan is to roll out the concept to other universities
in another year or so.
Levy advises entrepreneurs to seek out help and tap into the
resources and people in their network to get their business
concept off the ground. For example, Jackie Breiter
01WEMBA, associate dean of technology services, has
introduced Campus Bubble to leaders at other universities.
Timing was another factor bolstering Campus Bubble. FirstClass,
the University’s email and
information-sharing site, was
being retired in favor of Outlook.
The bubble concept was the
perfect vehicle for facilitating
communications among
students and for building
interactive communities. Says
Levy, “Emory truly helped to
incubate Campus Bubble. Our
community supported us.” g
The business challenge: Growing a startup
The solution: Expand your knowledge
In 2001 at the age of 14,
Sean Belnick 09BBA started
a sideline online furniture
business, one of the first on the
Web. Inspired by his stepfather’s office
furniture business, Belnick took the
concept and added an e-commerce spin.
By the time he was in his mid-twenties,
Belnick was well on his way to becoming
a millionaire. In 2012 his company,
22 emory | business
BizChair, an Internet retailer of office
furniture, posted $97 million in revenues.
The company operates four warehouses
totaling 1,150,000 square feet, with
two in Canton, one in Cartersville, and
another in Reno, NV. BizChair currently
employs 275 people and ships products
to a growing client base, including the
likes of Google and Microsoft.
Belnick ran BizChair from his dorm room
during his time at the business school,
The business challenge:
Implementing complicated technology
The solution:
Engage your stakeholders
Sahil Patel 00BBA, co-founder and executive
vice president of ER Express, doesn’t believe
in holding court in a stately office. He says it’s
essential to interact in person when getting a concept off the
ground or garnering new sales. “Get out from behind the desk
and meet with people and listen to them and read their body
language,” he advises. He launched his company, ER Express, an
online check-in system for ERs and urgent care, in 2011
following just such an approach. ER Express, designed for
non-life-threatening care, allows patients to make online
reservations at a local ER, avoiding long stays in crowded
waiting rooms. With increased competition for patients and
heightened attention to patient satisfaction scores, Patel says
his product is particularly timely.
Whether it’s customers, investors, management, or employees,
successful entrepreneurs need to take into consideration every
cog in the wheel, he says. “What I did on the first day, before
developing pricing models or finding out how big the market
and he credits Goizueta for helping to refine
his business skills. “I was able to expand my
knowledge in corporate finance and accounting,”
he says. He advises fledging entrepreneurs to be
persistent when it comes to long-range financial
and strategic decisions. Belnick advises, “Don’t
get frustrated if you get rejected at first. There
are lots of ways to finance your business. Banks,
friends, angel investors, and Kickstarter are just
a few of the places to start.”
was, was to talk with ER managers, doctors, and nurses in the
hospitals to see if they would use the technology. The buy-in by
hospital administrators and medical staff was the first step in
getting a foot in the door. Feedback from potential and current
customers also helped the software development team create a
more user-friendly and sellable product.” The next phase of the
operation has been to make the site mobile-friendly.
Drawing on his Goizueta degree and experience in
management consulting, Patel says he understood the strategic
end of running a business. “There is certainly an analytical
component to it, but if you want to get your ideas implemented,
you have to work with the front-line managers to make it
happen. There’s a time to be analytical, clinical, and technical,
but there’s also a time to develop a rapport with the staff and
other stakeholders in the business.” g
for the course, and every entrepreneur needs to be
ready for them, says Belnick. “If you’re a business
owner, you’re going to make mistakes. It’s a matter
of how you react to and learn from the mistakes
that will determine your success. You have to
realize that you can’t make decisions with a short
time horizon. You have to look at the long-term
consequences of your decisions.”g
When it comes to strategy, he adds, expect some
miscalculations along the way. Mistakes are par
fall | 2013 23
The business challenge:
Making your product stand out
The solution:
Do market research and differentiate
Husband and wife team Matthew
Guard 07MBA and Carolyn Guard
08MBA co-founded Babiators, a children’s
sunglasses maker, along with business partners Ted and Molly
Fienning, in 2010. Marine Corps fighter pilot Ted Fienning served
as inspiration for the concept, with his wife Molly supplying the
design and the Guards providing the financial and marketing
acumen. The Guards worked at competing consulting firms after
graduation from Goizueta—Carolyn at McKinsey and Matthew
at Bain—before jumping ship to co-found Babiators.
But how to take something common, albeit cool, like sunglasses,
and cause the market to stand up and notice? For the problemsolving couple, the answer lay in differentiation and marketing.
The extremely flexible and durable rubber sunglasses fit children
from 6 months to 7 years old. The Guards applied their
The business
challenge:
Contending
with the
unknown
The solution:
Be passionate and
remember your
target audience
Campus
MovieFest
24 emory | business
consulting world expertise to market research, determining a
strong demand for “high-value and middle-cost” sunglasses for
the youngest set. The product also had to appeal to a parent’s
sensibility and style, catering to someone looking for more than
the readily available and cheap cartoon-covered options. “Our
sunglasses are close to what an adult would wear,” Carolyn says.
Babiators are getting tons of buzz, with celebrity moms from
Sarah Jessica Parker to Mariah Carey snagging a pair for their
offspring.
Babiators offers a “Lost & Found Guarantee,” which provides free
replacements in the first year if the sunglasses are lost or broken.
Matthew adds, “To be successful, you have to consider the entire
value chain and the challenges that growth brings.” That means
understanding customer
service, production costs,
supply chain issues, and
inventory management. He
points to Babiators’ own
growing pains. “We’ve had an incredible increase in volume in a
very short period of time,” he says. “You can easily outgrow a
supplier. You have to anticipate demand and have multiple
suppliers in place, as well as the cash facility to buy inventory
before you need it.” g
In 2001 David Roemer 02BBA, Dan Costa 01BBA,
Ajay Pillarisetti 03C 07PH, and Vijay Makar 02BBA
launched Campus MovieFest, the world’s largest
student film festival.
The venture started at Emory with the four
undergrads arranging for Apple and Emory to
give digital video cameras and Apple iMovie
equipment to aspiring student filmmakers on
campus. “We wanted to feature young
filmmakers and give them a chance to see their
stories on the big screen,” says Roemer. As the
demand for online video content grew, the
concept took off. Today, university students
across the globe can use free equipment,
technology, and training through Campus
MovieFest to make their movies.
Now in its thirteenth year, Campus MovieFest
has assisted more than 500,000 student
moviemakers, and winners have showcased their
films in Cannes, Hollywood, and Sundance. Ideas
United, the company co-founded by the four,
was the venture that took the movie festival
global. Ideas United has expanded to produce
commercials and event coverage for
corporations, with content created in-house and
through their top student filmmakers. Reflecting
on his trajectory, Roemer, CEO of Ideas United,
advises, “Do something you are passionate
about, and you’ll be ready to grow and take on
new challenges. Remember your target
audience and don’t let your enthusiasm push
you in new directions that are too far-flung from
the path of that audience.”
Mentors are essential when dealing with the
unknowns in starting a business, says Costa,
president of Ideas United. “You can’t be totally
prepared, and it’s encouraging to talk to
someone who understands the situation. You’ll
face a ton of decisions,” he adds. “But you have to
make them, and it’s best to do so with an
entrepreneurial mindset. Be a risk taker—any
mistakes should propel you further.” g
Business library aids
student and alumni
entrepreneurs
Research is essential for any person wanting to gauge market
sentiment or hoping to launch a business. The Goizueta Business
Library (GBL) provides students and alumni with access to valuable
resources and a professional staff—many with corporate
backgrounds—who can help them to navigate GBL’s wide array of
data portals.
The business librarians have worked with faculty teaching
entrepreneurship to create course guides that assist
entrepreneurially minded students as they research companies
and develop business plans. Eddie Kovel 13BBA, for example,
used library offerings to conduct research for his own venture,
Playout: The Game, which uses social play and competition in the
form of an online card game to make fitness more enjoyable,
convenient, and variable. The idea came to Kovel while he was an
exchange student in India, where he had to learn how to stay in
shape without access to gyms.
“I sought help from the library to research my primary competitor,”
says Kovel, who is also writing a book entitled The Tools and Rules
of Health.
For Sam Bryant 08EMBA, founder of the boutique consulting
firm BlackLight Strategic Partners, access to information is one of
many reasons he makes sure to visit the library when researching
industries and companies for clients.
“The critical piece for me is not only the databases, but also having
access to business librarians like Marilyn Pahr and Susan
Klopper. They help you narrow down the plethora of resources
and target your search,” says Bryant. “They are some of the most
brilliant people I know because of their ability to synthesize data
and keep track of the ever-changing information landscape.”
Bryant’s first exposure to the library came while researching a
project for Professor Jeffrey Rosensweig’s Global Perspectives
course. As an alum he continues to draw on library resources as he
works to figure out what keeps executives up at night and then to
provide them with perspective and solutions.
“From the beginning, I understood that it takes time to build
relationships with clients and that in doing so, you need to be
credible. At GBL I can find the information I need to establish a
scientific grounding for the recommendations I make,” says Bryant,
adding that the ability to bounce ideas off library staff has similarly
proven valuable.
Notes Bryant, “GBL is an exceptional opportunity for alums like me,
a budding entrepreneur with resource constraints.”
In addition to providing information-gathering strategies and
resources for developing business plans, GBL’s librarians offer other
key services to alumni. For example, they help career changers or
job seekers to develop target lists of potential companies, research
a specific company or industry, or utilize professional development
databases.
“As for alumni interested in help with their work-related research,”
adds Klopper, executive director of the business library, “we can
help them clarify what they need and suggest strategies and a
variety of resources—depending on the nature of the request—
that are free or available via a vendor.”—Nicole Golston
Library announces new resources for current Goizueta students, faculty, and staff
• FT.com (Financial Times.com): Full access to FT.com website and
mobile apps.
• WSJ.com (Wall Street Journal.com): Full access to WSJ.com web
and mobile apps.
• Factset: Wall Street financial research and analytical database and
a strong competitor to Bloomberg.
• Datamonitor Consumer: A new source of consumer packaged
market research reports, which includes market share and segmentation, innovation, successes and failure, case studies, trends,
and more.
• Topsy Pro Analytics: Full-scale index of the public social Web, providing comprehensive analyses of hundreds of billions of Tweets
and Web pages gathered from millions of unique websites, blogs,
and social media services.
fall | 2013 25
Making connections in Goizueta’s alumni entrepreneur group
With more than 740 members globally on LinkedIn,
Goizueta Alumni Entrepreneur Network (GAEN) is one of
the most active affinity groups at Goizueta. Each month,
GAEN president Stuart Bracken 07MBA and a team
of six alumni board members plan and execute either a
speaker program or networking opportunity to aid alumni
and students interested in entrepreneurial ventures and
business ownership. A serial entrepreneur, Bracken’s latest
venture is Bioscape Digital, which provides patient-focused
educational content to healthcare providers. Bioscape’s
platform integrates text, audio, and visual imagery into an
intuitive touch screen solution helping to bridge the communication chasm between patients and their healthcare
providers. During a recent visit to campus, Bracken shared
information about GAEN and its goals, explaining why it is
a powerful resource for alumni.
EB: You started attending GAEN meetings after graduating
from the One-Year program in 2007. What has kept you a
participating member?
Bracken: GAEN is a diverse group, but we all share one thing in
common—an interest in being more entrepreneurial, whether in
our own businesses or within an organization. You can interact
with anyone from a lawyer working at a large corporation to a
marketing person or someone with a startup. You never know
what tidbit or piece of information the conversation is going to
produce. The same is true with programming and speakers.
Speakers can share their experience in a 30- or 40-minute talk
and provide four or five tools you can apply to your life or
business that same day. Such encounters offer a way to get
valuable perspective.
EB: A lot of demands are placed on business owners. How
can GAEN help?
Bracken: As an entrepreneur, there are times you feel like you
are in a battle by yourself. You can’t complain to your employees
or always share the pressures with a spouse. Sometimes though,
you can go to a meeting and hear from another entrepreneur
GAEN members from the Emory Community gather to cheer a new year of networking at the 2013 launch event, held at Monday Night Brewing.
26 emory | business
whose business may be at a different stage of development or in a
different industry but is experiencing the same struggles. It’s comforting
to know you’re not alone in facing challenges or tough choices.
EB: What types of events and benefits do members of GAEN enjoy?
Bracken: Once a month we hold a breakfast or lunch event with a
speaker, usually attracting 50 or 60 people. In August a large crowd came
out for a networking event held at Monday Night Brewing, which is
co-owned by alum Jonathan Baker 05BBA. We also offer business
insights and information on GAEN’s LinkedIn website. This is a great way
to stay connected with alums outside of Atlanta and abroad. Other
benefits include access to important connections, peer advising, and
resources related to funding and professional services.
EB: What in particular would you like alumni to be sure to know
about GAEN’s offerings?
Bracken: First and foremost you do not have to be an entrepreneur to
join. Maybe you want to be more entrepreneurial in your job. A lot of
companies look for people who can think outside the box or in the white
space of what they are doing to create new growth opportunities. GAEN
helps inspire this type of thinking. The organization is open to alumni
from the Emory University community.—Nicole Golston
Monday Night Brewing co-founder Jonathan Baker 05BBA,
left, talks business with Stuart Bracken 07MBA during a
recent GAEN networking event.
GAEN board members:
Bonnie Daneker 10MEMBA
Donald “Wes” Gifford 96EMBA
John Harris 79JD/MBA
Steven Lang 98JD
Edwin “Ned” Morgens 03MBA
Zahir Palanpur 94MBA
Stuart Bracken 07MBA
If you are interested in starting your own interest
group or joining an existing affinity group, please
contact Adrienne Jaroch, assistant director of Alumni
Relations, at [email protected].
fall | 2013 27
36
Top tips
<
With a Google form, a slew of email addresses,
and several interviews, Emory Business
surveyed alumni on their top tips and favorite
words for entrepreneurship—many of which
now grace our cover.
from successful entrepreneurs
Form a board of advisors—trusted
professionals, colleagues, and
friends—who have strengths to
complement yours. Ask them for
good, honest advice—what you need
to hear, not want to hear.
—Bonnie Daneker 10MEMBA, Write
Advisors, Atlanta, GA
First, before you build anything, spend some time and effort
identifying authentic, unmet customer demand. Filling this
unmet customer demand is the key to real growth and
success.—Ed Rieker 04MEMBA, Softlinc, Atlanta, GA
Do not rest
on your laurels.
—Harris Pollock 81BBA, Leopard Brands,
Deerfield Beach, FL
Build a business that
self-funds its operations
and growth, with minimal
outside capital
requirements. You will be
more in control to
implement your vision,
with less debt and less
liability to financiers.—
Brian Bombei 97MBA,
Sunchoice Corporate
Housing, Tampa, FL
Before you do anything, list what you
need to do in a single day, rank the items by importance,
and then work on them in that order. Focus is as much
not doing things you don’t need to be doing as it
is doing the right things.—Nick Ducoff 03BBA,
Boundless, Boston, MA
Your people are your most
important asset. Start building a
“culture of success” from the very
beginning. Once you’ve built a
strong culture and team, then
have everyone involved in
training your new employees.—
Mitch Weintraub 94MBA,
Pinnacle Promotions, Atlanta, GA
Be flexible. In many of the companies I have worked
with, the original business idea was not exactly what
ended up working. Always be open to the possibility
that your assumptions are wrong and be ready to
change and focus on what is working.—Farid Naib
81BBA, Lightspeed Trading, New York, NY
28 emory | business
First, you’re going to fail.
The key is growing from
those failures instead of
wallowing in them. Second,
don’t try to be everything
to everyone. Instead, succeed by understanding
what you and/or your company are the absolute best
at. Focus there—and then
get even better.—Stuart
Schultz 04BBA, BeautyRX
Skincare, New York, NY
You can’t know everything. Contract
or outsource professional expertise but
know your core business better than
anyone else.—James Mark 99WEMBA,
American Home Companions, Orlando, FL
Go west. If you are an entrepreneur and
young, you just have to move to Palo
Alto or San Francisco. There is no other
network and experience like it, funding is
readily available for good ideas, and most
importantly—yet regretfully—other
places, while well-meaning, just don’t
stack up.—Amanda Besemer 01BBA,
Hiya Media, Carthago Media, Ocean Blue
Entertainment, Two By Two Interactive;
Los Angeles, CA
If you are not on top of, or care to know
your P&L, it will be difficult to be successful.
—Jonathan Mittleman 99MBA, Fish Window
Cleaning, Atlanta, GA
Believe in your product or service
and don’t be afraid to move fast,
break some stuff, experiment, and
fail.—Aaron Marcus 11BBA,
onefinestay, New York, NY
Failing fast is essential in the pursuit of long-term success. These
small experiments are often what leads one to the real opportunity.
—Ashish Mistry 98C, KontrolFreek and BLH Venture Partner,
with Billy Harbert 09MEMBA, Atlanta, GA
PREMATURELY SCALING A
BUSINESS CAN LEAD TO A
DISASTER. SPEND TIME
UNDERSTANDING HOW TO
EXECUTE ON A SMALL SCALE
AND THIS WILL SIGNIFICANTLY
INCREASE YOUR CHANCES OF
When I started WikiWealth.com, I
had no concept of market size,
customer needs, or competitive
advantages. I just had one
undercooked idea. Today, 2
million happy visitors applaud my
ignorance.—David Durant 13MBA,
WikiWealth.com, Charleston, SC
Don’t expect it to be easy;
be prepared for some
headaches! In addition,
focus on what you are
doing—don’t get intimidated by others’ successes. Lastly, it’s all about word of mouth,
PR, and social media. Don’t fall behind on this.—Alexandra
Samit 09BBA, Alexandra Beth Designs, New York, NY
LONG-TERM SUCCESS.—
Stuart Bracken 07MBA,
Bioscape Digital, Atlanta, GA
Balance focus with exploration,
planning with execution, and look
for value at the intersections.—
Zahir Palanpur 94MBA, Azul Arc, Atlanta, GA
Never let the size of your wallet
determine the scope of your
entrepreneurial vision. Doing so limits
your creativity and the types of
people who are looking to help those
working on big things. Most
entrepreneurs fail not because of a
lack of resources, but because of a
lack of resourcefulness.—Michael
Curry 02BBA, Seneca Creek Partners,
Atlanta, GA
fall | 2013 29
Being afraid is a plus. It keeps you focused on the things that
are the most important in your business, such as sales, cash,
and customers.—Amiel Rubinstein 07MBA, Optomeditech Oy,
Helsinki, Finland
Try what you like, but you have to
be flexible. Don’t be stringent
about your business plan.
—Wes Gifford 96EMBA, Ameriprise Financial Services,
Atlanta, GA
Don’t fear failure. I admit fear
nearly prevented me from launching
my business. Then I saw an
infographic of famous people who
failed early in their careers, and it
changed my perspective. On the
list: Michael Jordan, Steve Jobs,
Walt Disney, and Oprah Winfrey.
What would the world miss out on
if you let your fear of failure become
a stumbling block instead of a
stepping stone to your success?—
Rae Oglesby 14EvMBA,
Oglesby Communications
Consulting, Atlanta, GA
Avoid high customer concentration business models. If
your business model is built on large orders from a small
number of customers, you will have significant
challenges when (not if) one of those customers
leaves.—Rhett Marlow 02MEMBA, foomanchew,
Atlanta, GA
Solicit negative feedback and
respond with positivity and
appreciation. Open, honest
communication is necessary to
discover areas where improvement
is needed. It’s key to accept
responsibility for what needs
improvement.—Nir N. Levy 13BBA,
Campus Bubble, Atlanta, GA
Just get started. It took me a couple of years before I
left my day job to join the entrepreneurial team I had
set up. Within the first few months of devoting myself
full-time to our business, we found additional markets.
So, after you have tested the markets to see if your
business works, just do it.—Mark Deal 08EvMBA,
Foreign Investor Resource Group, Atlanta, GA
30 emory | business
You have to make the decisions—
it’s your business. Other
entrepreneurs, by nature,
have all sorts of ideas and
input for your business.
You have to filter what makes sense
and what doesn’t.
—Daryl Lu 13MBA, Body Boss
Fitness, Atlanta, GA
Sales are critical. If selling
is not part of your current
role, find an opportunity
to learn this process before
you go out on your own.
Entrepreneurship is all
about sales: earning clients,
recruiting employees,
raising capital—all are
about sales.—Grant Moss
11EvMBA, Adapt IP
Ventures, Atlanta, GA
Find something you are passionate
about. I’m passionate about music
and have been a DJ since the 90s.
Starting my own label was a
natural extension of the desire to
create my own music.—Terry Sartor
93BBA, Valiant Horizon, Atlanta, GA
You do not yet know that your
outsourced technology developers
will fail miserably, but they will, and
they will charge you far more than you
ever imagined possible. Build a great
technology team internally.—Andrew
Bate 01BBA, SafelyStay, Atlanta, GA
Be a student of the game. Read and learn
as much as you can about
entrepreneurship, successful startups,
failed startups, your industry, your
competitors, and your customers.
—Shaun Kalnasy 12MBA, Dynamic Vacations, Los
Angeles, CA
First, make sure to capitalize yourself
more than you’ve projected, maybe by as
much as 50 percent. Second, never be
afraid to ask for help. Don’t let your ego
get in the way of your better sense. Third,
even when your circumstances look like
death, usually you are only three feet
from gold, so never quit. But do
understand what your walk-away point
is, then constantly make sure you never
approach that point.—Brian Lacey
90EMBA, BGB Enterprises, Cedalion
Enterprises, Atlanta, GA
Find out exactly what your prospects want/need, and provide
it to them. People are always surprised how effective this is.
—Charlie Goetz 78C, Senior Lecturer in Organization and
Management, Goizueta Business School, Atlanta, GA
BE AWARE THAT BUILDING A PROFITABLE SMALL BUSINESS WITHOUT
OUTSIDE FUNDING IS A MARATHON AND NOT A SPRINT. TECH
ENTREPRENEURS WHO RAISE SIZABLE ANGEL FUNDING AND/OR VENTURE
CAPITAL HAVE A RELATIVELY SHORT WINDOW AND FAIRLY NARROW PATH TO
EXIT. THE MEDIA HIGHLIGHTS THESE GLORY STORIES AND THESE EPIC FAILS,
BUT BE PREPARED TO COMMIT FOR THE LONG HAUL, AS IT SOMETIMES
REQUIRES 10–15 YEARS TO MEET YOUR GOALS FOR GROWTH, PROFITABILITY,
AND EVEN EXIT.—Anthony Caponiti 06BBA, Activ8Social, Arlington, VA
Rule #1: Never run out of money.
Rule #2: Refer to Rule #1.
—Ryan Born 01BBA, AudioMicro.com/
AdRev.net, Los Angeles, CA
From day one onwards you should have a clear idea about the
end game that your company’s product will play that makes it
sustainable. At every step validate the assumptions and evolve.
—Uttam Bandugula 12EvMBA, Big Data Cognition, Suwanee, GA
Playing it “safe” is actually
riskier when it comes to
marketing. Don’t be afraid
to take a stand; try different
things and you will have a
better shot at becoming
unforgettable. You don’t
want to be normal, because
“weird” is remarkable.—
Tyrona “Ty” Heath 12MBA,
Spectacled Marketer, New
York, NY
Never, ever quit. If you
quit, you die. If you keep
pushing, you’ll eventually
find your way to a profitable business model and a
happy life.—Peter Corbett
03BBA, iStrategyLabs,
Washington, DC
fall | 2013 31
knowledgecreation
A significant marker of a leading business school is the creation of new knowledge. Goizueta faculty, using rigorous methodologies, focus on researching important problems that affect the practice of business. The following is a sampler of recently created
new knowledge. To learn more, please visit goizueta.emory.edu/faculty.
Multitasking physicians: Good medicine?
New mandate for IT
Hospital emergency departments (ED) provide an ideal environment
for examining the effects of multitasking on worker productivity and
output quality, says Diwas KC, assistant professor of information systems & operations management. His recent study examines the multitasking behavior of physicians in a busy East Coast metropolitan ED
from 2004 to 2007. Using microlevel operational data, KC analyzes how
multitasking affects the processing of patients (the amount of time
from intake to discharge) and the quality of patient care. In both cases
he finds a U-shaped response to the level of multitasking, noting that
some multitasking is initially beneficial but that excessive multitasking
is detrimental to productivity
and adversely impacts the quality of care. The ideal patient
load for ED physicians? From
three to five patients per hour,
says KC. Manufacturing and
Service Operations Management
(forthcoming).
The relationship between IT strategy
and business strategy is fundamentally
changing, argues Anandhi Bharadwaj,
professor of information systems &
operations management, and coauthors
Omar El Sawy (USC), Paul Pavlou (Temple
U.), and N. Venkatraman (BU). “The prevailing view of IT strategy has been that of a
functional-level strategy that must be
Anandhi Bharadwaj
aligned with the firm’s chosen business
strategy,” they write. But “impressive
improvements in information, communication, and connectivity
technologies have unleashed new functionalities,” moving IT far
beyond its traditionally subordinate role. The researchers term the
resulting fusion “digital business strategy,” and its key characteristic
is the leveraging of digital resources to drive competitive advantage and strategic differentiation. MIS Quarterly, Special Issue: Digital
Business Strategy (2013).
Protecting girls through strict marriage laws
High status: High scrutiny
The personal and societal toll of teen
births across the globe—90 percent of
which occur within marriage—is of central
concern to many organizations. In addition
to problems of overpopulation and gender
inequity, teenage pregnancy increases the
risk of school dropout, HIV infection, and
death in childbirth. Using the incidence
of adolescent fertility, coauthors Minzee
Kim (UMinn); Wesley Longhofer,
Wesley Longhofer
assistant professor of organization and
management; Elizabeth Boyle (UMinn);
and Hollie Nyseth Brehm (UMinn doctoral student) analyze the effect
of national laws regulating minimum marriage age in 115 poor- and
middle-income countries from 1989 to 2007. They find that “countries
with strict laws setting the minimum age of marriage at 18 experienced the most dramatic decline in rates of adolescent fertility” during the period under study. But those countries that allowed exceptions to a legal marriage age of 18 (for example, permitting marriage
with parental consent) saw levels of adolescent pregnancy indistinguishable from countries with no such minimum age. The researchers
conclude that laws strictly adhering to global norms on minimum
marriage age are more effective than flexible policies at reducing
adolescent fertility rates over time. Law & Society Review (2013).
In a study on the hazards associated with high status, James B.
Wade, Asa Griggs Candler Chaired Professor of Organization &
Management, and four coauthors examine two such hazards:
(1) opportunistic behavior that leads to a fall from grace, and
(2) targeting by various audiences that results in more accountability than among lower-status counterparts for similar offenses.
Drawing on data from the well-known 2009 British Parliament
scandal in which some members of Parliament (MPs) made questionable expense claims, the researchers find that high-status MPs
were no more likely than lower-status MPs to abuse the expense
system, but that they were twice as likely to be targeted by the
press for it. As a consequence, elite MPs with high levels of inappropriate expense were much more likely than non-elite MPs to exit
Parliament. High-status MPs who were not implicated in the scandal, however, were far more
likely to remain in Parliament
than their lower-status counterparts. The researchers also find
that media coverage of the
expense incident by British
newspapers played a significant
role in shaping social reactions
to the scandal. Administrative
Science Quarterly (2013).
32 emory | business
knowledgecreation
CFOs speak out on earnings quality
Direct marketing and customer response
Ilia D. Dichev, Goizueta Chaired Professor
of Accounting; John R. Graham (Duke and
NBER), Campbell R. Harvey (Duke and
NBER), and Shiva Rajgopal, Schaefer
Chaired Professor in Accounting, surveyed
169 CFOs of public companies and conducted in-depth interviews with 12 CFOs
and two standard setters to examine the
concept of earnings quality. The researchers report three key findings. The first
Ilia D. Dichev
relates to the characterization of highquality earnings, which most CFOs believe
are “sustainable and repeatable,” reflecting
a valuation perspective. The second
relates to how standard setting affects
earnings quality. Surveyed CFOs have
come to view financial reporting largely as
a costly compliance activity and believe
standard setters should issue fewer rules.
In addition, they would like to see more
emphasis on conservatism and the matching of revenues and expenses, and less
Shiva Rajgopal
emphasis on fair value accounting. The
third set of results relates to earnings management. “The CFOs in our sample estimate that, in any given period,
roughly 20% of firms manage earnings and the typical misrepresentation for such firms is about 10% of reported EPS; thus, perhaps for the
first time in the literature, we provide point estimates of the economic
magnitude of opportunistic earnings management.” Taken together,
the coauthors’ findings raise several possible directions for future
research, particularly on the sustainability of earnings, the role of standard setting in the determination and quality of earnings, and the
detection of opportunistic earnings management. Journal of
Accounting and Economics (2013).
Deciding on the best allocation of marketing resources is a crucial,
yet often uncertain, task for managers. Offering significant
improvements to the standard models for customer base analysis
and customer valuation, David Schweidel, associate professor of
marketing, and George Knox (Tilburg) study donation data from a
nonprofit organization to determine the impact of direct marketing on three behaviors: the frequency with which customers conduct transactions, the size of the transactions, and the length of
time customers maintain their relationship with the organization.
The researchers find that direct marketing increases the number
of donations for active donors, but that it also has the potential
to shorten the length of a donor’s relationship. Their proposed
model, which offers superior predictions compared to models that
ignore the impact of direct
marketing activity, has the
potential to assist managers by more accurately
identifying those donors
most likely to conduct
transactions in the future.
Marketing Science (2013).
Word power
In a study on content analysis for finance and
accounting information, Narasimhan
Jegadeesh, Dean’s Distinguished Chair of
Finance, and Andy Wu (Wharton doctoral student) develop an innovative approach to
quantify the tone of companies’ statutory filings. Jegadeesh and Wu determine the impact
of different words used in the statutory filings
based on how the market prices react to these
filings. The paper applies this approach to
quantify the tones of 10-K filings and of prospectuses that companies file prior to initial
public offerings of their stocks. Journal of
Financial Economics (forthcoming).
Narasimhan Jegadeesh
All in the name
Firms seeking to improve investor
recognition and increase firm value
should consider selecting, or changing
to, a “fluent” company name, say
Clifton Green, associate professor of
finance, and Russell Jame (Australian
School of Business). By fluency, the
coauthors mean the ease with which
the information contained in a company’s name is mentally processed—not
Clifton Green
the content. “We find that companies
with short, easy to pronounce names
have higher breadth of ownership, greater share turnover, lower
transaction price impacts, and higher valuation ratios,” they write.
The researchers’ results suggest a new, low-cost channel—selecting a fluent name—through which companies and investment
funds can take advantage of investors’ preference for the familiar.
Journal of Financial Economics (2013).
fall | 2013 33
NETWORK
Leslie Tessler:
On the value of
shaking things up
The growing collection of women’s
vintage capes in her closet inspired
Leslie Tessler 03BBA to begin creating
and selling her own line of women’s
outerwear. The opportunity to realize
her dream, however, did not arrive
until seven years after graduation,
when Tessler left New York for Buenos
Aires. Her intention was to learn
Spanish while taking six months off
to assess her options. “I finally had the
time to work on my own projects,”
she says. “I started making individual
pieces for friends and family. The brand
has grown organically and steadily
ever since.”
Tessler had experience in merchandising for Ralph Lauren and
“I am also lucky to be able to do business in a city that inspires me,
in marketing for companies such as L’Oreal and Replay, an Italian
with passionate people and incredible craftsmen,” she
denim brand. As the founder and creative director of Leslie Tessler
adds. “Everything in the line is handmade in Buenos Aires.
(leslietessler.com), she works with a small team. “I definitely wear a lot
The fabrics include Peruvian alpaca, Italian cashmere, and
of hats, but that’s what keeps it interesting!”
French woven silk.”
As a beginner entrepreneur working in Argentina, Tessler says she
Tessler travels widely and frequently to meet with clients, host private
was impatient with the more relaxed pace of business there. “When
trunk shows, and hunt fabrics. Her favorite way to spend spare time at
I began accepting the cultural and professional differences and
home or away is to explore new restaurants, especially the dynamic
learning how to work with them instead of fighting them, everything
food scene in Buenos Aires.
began to click.”
34 emory | business
NETWORK
She is often in New York on business, but Tessler remains sure
that leaving the US was the right thing to do. “Moving to a
country where I didn’t speak the language and knew no one
set my life on a different track and was by far the single best
decision I’ve ever made. Taking a leap of faith can scare the
socks off of you! But if you never shake things up, things will
never change.”
Tessler and her husband are expecting their first child. They also
foster greyhounds retired from racing. “As soon as one gets a
forever home, we get another foster dog. My dream is to have a
farm one day, filled with rescue dogs!”—Susan Merritt Jordan
Downtown Buenos Aires
EB: What was the genesis of SPI?
Mookerji: After graduating as an electrical engineer from BITS [one of India’s premier tech
schools], I worked in technical consulting roles helping corporations solve business challenges
using technology. In 1994 my wife and I founded SPI to address the specific needs of large
retailers, using an outsourced technology services model. They were facing a desperate
shortage of business savvy, high-quality software programmers. The primary requirement was
reliable delivery, but lowering costs was also a goal.
EB: How did you get funding for SPI? Any advice for those seeking funding for their
fledgling business?
Mookerji: I bootstrapped the company. We have zero debt and no external investors.
Depending on the kind of business, it’s smart to seek angel investors or private equity funding
if cash is available and leveraging capacity is not sufficient.
EB: You earned an undergraduate electrical engineering degree in 1988, worked in
industry, and started and had success with SPI before you decided to pursue an Executive
MBA in 2002. What spurred you to return to school in the middle of a successful career?
SID MOOKERJI:
ON THE BENEFITS OF
DIFFERENTIATION
Sid Mookerji 04MEMBA is global CEO
and founder of Software Paradigms
International (SPI), a provider of IT and
back office services to retailers across
the world. Mookerji recently spoke with
Emory Business about differentiation,
networking, and lifelong learning.
Mookerji: It goes without saying that networking is key to success, even if—like me—you
are not a natural networker. Goizueta provided a great networking opportunity. Some of my
Goizueta professors and classmates are my best friends and advisors. Jag Sheth is a valued
advisor and is on SPI’s advisory board. I’ve sought out assistance from many other professors,
including Rick Gilkey, and gained tremendously from the association. Many of my 04MEMBA
cohorts are good friends, and some of them also became clients. In addition, I learned more
about running a business in aspects I didn’t know even existed. It shows in the results: we are
more focused on our differentiators, using M&A as a tool to emphasize our success and to stay
laser-focused on retail.
EB: You are a seasoned entrepreneur and an innovator in your field; what are the biggest
lessons you’ve learned over the years?
Mookerji: First, it’s important to have a product or service that a customer wants and is
different from what the competition offers. Differentiation that is tangible in the eyes of a
prospective client requires declaring what you will not do, particularly in the services space.
Second, use diversity as a tool for success. It’s easiest to surround yourself with people who
look and talk like you, but who said that success is easy? Third, give back to those elements
that made you successful: employees, leadership, and the world that you, your clients,
and employees come from. This is not just about being a nice person; it’s a sound business
strategy.—Myra A. Thomas
fall | 2013 35
NETWORK
Adekalu Balogun:
On working and investing
in Nigeria
Adekalu Balogun 07MBA wanted to help
develop the economy in his native Nigeria. “I also
had a larger dream of setting up new businesses
and supporting the growth of existing businesses
across multiple sectors,” he says.
As founder and managing director of Kyautae Advisory & Ventures,
Balogun is well on his way to making that dream a reality. This four-yearold company has been collaborating with other equity partners in a travel
aggregator website for the African market, www.hopoptions.com, as well as
in an agro-processing project (production of frozen foods) to be located in
Nigeria.
“I started my career as a management consultant with Accenture in
Nigeria,” Balogun explains. After Goizueta he joined Ernst & Young in
Chicago. “Then came an offer to lead the strategy team of a young agroallied group in Nigeria, and I took the opportunity to return. About a year
later, I started Kyautae.”
Balogun continues to take on independent consulting contracts. “The
uncertainty of income is a self-funded entrepreneur’s challenge,” he notes.
“It does take some courage not to jump back into a regular job with the
comforts of steady income, company-paid health insurance, and associated
perks.” Balogun credits his wife and partner in Kyautae,
Bash Balogun, with the finance expertise their family
and the company have needed to manage the
uncertainties.
Balogun describes Lagos as similar to any big city, but
with some considerable differences. “You have rush
hour traffic, impatient commuters, and expensive
accommodations as you get closer to the city center.
But the law enforcement system needs significant
improvement and there are several infrastructure
challenges, such as an epileptic power supply that
makes it difficult to do business. On the other hand,
these infrastructure deficits also present huge
opportunities for investments.”
Nigeria offers a wealth of other business opportunities
in Balogun’s view. He says he sees “huge gaps in
traditional industries relating to everyday needs such
as fast-moving consumer goods—toiletries, food, and
beverage—plus real estate, insurance, and healthcare, in
a country with a huge and growing population.” In the
current environment, he anticipates focusing on “brick
& mortar” businesses—enabled by technology when
possible.
Referrals from former colleagues, Balogun notes, have
been key in most of his recent businesses and projects.
In his leisure time, the father of two says he enjoys
cooking, family time, books, connecting with friends,
and movies and TV about politics, crime, or history.—
Susan Merritt Jordan
Lagos, Nigeria
36 emory | business
ON THE VALUE OF
IMPACT INVESTING
Calvin Clark 05MBA always knew he wanted a
career in “impact investing.”
“When I was applying to graduate school, I
decided on an MBA because I wanted to make a
positive difference in the world,’” says Clark, now
a finance manager with Gray Matters Capital.
NETWORK
CALVIN CLARK:
Clark got that MBA at Goizueta, after which he worked for a few
years in traditional investment banking at Morgan Keegan in
Atlanta—an unexpected career turn that served him well, he
says, by forcing him out of his comfort zone and pushing him to
adapt to new ideas, experiences, and challenges. He then took
a 50-percent pay cut and moved to the Calvert Foundation, a
Washington, DC–based nonprofit that addresses social problems
through strategic investment. It was there that Clark discovered
his passion for impact investing, a fast-growing niche that seeks
to make meaningful social contributions while also generating
solid returns.
“I’m exactly where I want to be right now,” he says. “I believe
impact investing is going to be a huge and growing industry in
the future.”
Among Clark’s notable accomplishments while at Calvert was
the creation of the Communities at Work Fund, a $200-million
initiative that makes affordable loans to individuals in low-income
communities. Clark later moved to the Atlanta-based social
investment firm Gray Matters Capital, which has contributed to the
creation and growth of social enterprise organizations like Village
Capital, a global organization that has launched 19 incubator
programs worldwide, and the IDEX Accelerator, which offers
young practitioners the opportunity to spend six months working
on important projects around the world.
Clark says that his experiences in the industry have convinced him
that “doing good” through business does not necessarily preclude
healthy financial returns.
“A lot of people, even people in our space, tend to think there’s
a tradeoff between financial return and the impact you have,”
Clark says. “But at Gray Matters our theory is that while not all of
our investments will be extremely successful, many of them will
result in solid returns. But even for the ones that don’t, we can feel
good that we’ve helped create an enterprise that is improving the
world.”
But how, exactly, does Clark figure out which ideas and projects
get funding?
While a number of factors play into Gray Matters’ investment
strategy—how well certain initiatives fit within the organization’s
mission, for example, or the markets those initiatives might
serve—more often than not, it’s the people behind the ideas that
matter most.
“Ultimately, we invest in people,” Clark says. “Particularly with
early-stage investments, markets may change and ideas may
need to change, but it is the people who must have the passion,
integrity, and ingenuity to navigate that change well and in a
way that meets the spirit in which the investment was made. In
short, we aim to invest in the best ideas for improving the world—
backed by talented people who are committed to seeing the idea
through.”—Tim Hyland
fall | 2013 37
goizueta class notes
HOMECOMING
CELEBRATION 2013
Emory alumni returned to campus this September to reconnect
with classmates, faculty, and staff for Homecoming 2013. In addition
to a parade and class year reunions, the weekend was packed with
activities that catered to personal interest, including career coaching
sessions and a talk by Emory Admissions staff on navigating the
college application process, as well as more general fare such as
building and exhibit tours.
For those seeking educational enrichment, the university offered a
Back to Class program that showcased faculty and alumni talents
in two concurrent panels. “A Global Dilemma: Our Health and the
Environment” at the Candler School of Theology featured faculty
from Emory’s schools of public health, medicine, and nursing, as well
as Peter Roberts, professor of organization and management and
academic director of Social Enterprise @ Goizueta. In “A View from the
Top: Lessons in Leadership,” Rick Rieder 83BBA, an Emory trustee and
the chief investment officer and co-head of the fixed income portfolio
for BlackRock, and Carol Ward 83L, vice president and corporate
secretary of Mondel?z International, discussed what they’ve learned
about leadership during a session at Tull Auditorium in the School of
Law.
In addition, Peter Corbett 03BBA, chairman and CEO of iStrategyLabs,
was a guest speaker in a Department of Film and Media Studies
course entitled Digital Media and Culture.
On Saturday evening as undergraduate college and business school
alumni held class reunions around campus, Goizueta’s MBA classes of
1988, 2003, and 2008 encountered a flash from the past on Patterson
Green when they discovered their name badges emblazoned with
their Facebook student photos.—CL
Picture perfect
Emory Business wants to share your good news. New baby? Job change? Wedding? Photos of you
and other alums meeting in exciting international locales? Send a few details and/or your photos
to [email protected], and we will publish as many as space allows. Preference is
given to photos in which at least 60 percent of persons are affiliated with Goizueta. And don’t
forget to let us know which smile goes with which name.
Please note that submissions may be used in Goizueta’s print and online publications and
would thus be accessible on the Internet. Goizueta Business School assumes no
liability for unauthorized use of submitted materials.
Nancy E. Nunley 88MBA, left,
Andrew William Lowitt 88MBA, and
Sandra J. Beer 88MBA/MDiv celebrate reunion.
38 emory | business
1950s
2000s
J. Joseph Edwards 54OX 56BBA 58MBA of Barnesville, GA, was elected
vice chairman of the Georgia Student Finance Commission.
Adina Pollan 01BBA of Jacksonville, FL, was awarded the AV Preeminent
rating by Martindale-Hubbell.
The Atlanta Commercial Board of Realtors (ACBR) established the Bruce
Wilson Diamond Phoenix Award in honor of Bruce Wilson 55BBA.
Wilson is the first Atlanta real estate leader to reach 45 years in the ACBR
Million Dollar Club.
Phillip Han 02BBA and Jennifer Han of New York, NY, announce the birth
of a daughter, Catharine Elizabeth, on March 26, 2013.
1960s
Fred Ware 62MBA of Valdosta, GA, retired in December 2012 after 41
years of teaching at Valdosta State University. Ware was a professor
of management and served for eight years as department chair of
Management and International Business.
1980s
Jed Selkowitz 02MBA of New York, NY, has become vice president of
connections at Clear Channel Media and Entertainment.
Zhoujing Bao 03MBA and Bryan Le of Milpitas, CA, announce the birth
of a son, Conner Le, on December 18, 2012.
Bola Olusanya 03MBA of Nashville, TN, was named one of the 2013 top
40 under 40 institutional asset owners worldwide by asset international’s
Chief Investment Officer (aiCIO). Olusanya is the managing director of risk
and portfolio strategy for Vanderbilt University’s Office of Investments.
Douglas Hooker 87MBA of Atlanta, GA, is a recipient of the 2013
Atlanta Community Leader of Faith Award. Hooker is the executive
director of the Atlanta Regional Commission.
Aarti Bijlani 04MBA of Malvern, PA, is now a senior director of marketing
at Auxilium Pharmaceuticals, where he oversees a portfolio of specialty
products.
David Ulmer 88MBA of Huntersville, NC, was recently named CIO for
the North Carolina Department of Transportation.
Justin Davis 02OX 04BBA of Smyrna, GA, recently joined the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention as an ORISE fellow in the Office of
Prevention through Healthcare.
Herbert Silverman 89MBA of Marietta, GA, is certified as a multiple line
representative at State Farm.
1990s
Ronald Hughes 93MBA of Atlanta, GA, was named one of “America’s
Top 1,000 Advisors: State by State” in the February 21 edition of Barron’s
magazine.
Shantella Carr Cooper 89C 95EvMBA of Atlanta, GA, is the new board
chair for the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education. Cooper
succeeds Paul Bowers, president and CEO of Georgia Power.
Valerie Leventhal 04BBA and
Cory Scott Mingelgreen were
married at Pine Hollow Country
Club in East Norwich, NY, on
June 15, 2013. Below, the
couple in Chatham, MA, next
to the two-ton sand sculpture
Mingelgreen commissioned to
propose to Leventhal.
Donna Stephenson 98MBA of Alpharetta, GA, accepted a project
manager position with AutoTrader.com.
Reggie Bradford 99EMBA of Atlanta, GA, was honored with the
E. Milton Bevington Distinguished Entrepreneur Award by the MIT
Enterprise Forum.
Lucien Chan 99BBA and Joanna Gonsalves of Westlake Village, CA,
announce the birth of a son, Greyson, on June 18, 2012. Chan is now
director of Social/Community Investment at Gap Inc.
Kerry McArdle 99MBA of Atlanta, GA is the managing director of
external relations at KIPP Metro Atlanta.
fall | 2013 39
goizueta class notes
Anna Diehn Bewley 05BBA 10L and Benoit Bewley 10M of New York,
NY, were married on May 4, 2013 at the Community Presbyterian Church in
Deerfield Beach, FL.
Addison Dana 05MBA recently moved to Washington, DC, to accept the
position of chief investment officer for The Nature Conservancy, where he
will oversee and implement the investment strategy for the organization’s
investable assets. He is married to Caroline Dana and they have two sons:
Addison II, age 6, and Banks, age 2.
Tam’ra Osborne Powell
05MBA and Reinhard
Powell of Atlanta, GA,
announce the birth of a
son, Rory Gage, on March
13, 2013.
Jodi Daniels 98BBA 05EMBA and Justin Daniels of Atlanta, GA, announce
the birth of a daughter, Dorielle Hadley, on July 9, 2013.
Sanjay Parekh 06MBA of Atlanta, GA, is currently taking part in the 2014
class of Leadership Atlanta, a community leadership program.
Allison Stewart 07BBA and James Stewart 07C of New York, NY, were
married on May 4, 2013.
Gady Blitz 08MBA of Caracas, Venezuela, is a senior marketing manager
at LG Electronics in Venezuela. He is married and has an 18-month-old son
named David Ethan.
Jesus Gonzalez 08MBA now lives in Mexico City and has two children,
Lorena and Daniel. Gonzales is a sales director at Emerson Electric.
Stuart Bracken 07MBA
and Lindsey Bracken of
Atlanta, GA, announce
the birth of a daughter,
Emma Holmes, on
August 23, 2013.
Kelly Fierro 07MBA
and Pete Fierro
09MBA of Atlanta, GA,
announce the birth of a
daughter, Mary Kathryn,
on August 1, 2012.
Julian Volio 08MBA of San Jose, Costa Rica, is commercial manager at
Farmacia Fischel/Cefa. He has two children with a third on the way.
Andrew Daniels 09EvMBA and Pei Sun of Atlanta, GA, announce the
birth of a son, Colin Yanglong, on September 9, 2013.
Russell Jesski 09MEMBA of Brooksville, FL, is a director at FCCI Group
Insurance and the president of the Emory Tampa Bay Alumni Group.
Wendy McGill 09EMBA and Chris Kellam of Atlanta, GA, announce the
birth of a son, Collin Thomas, on August 20, 2013.
David Smith 07C 09MBA and Amanda Liss 06C 08A of Atlanta, GA,
were married on March 10, 2012, at Hyatt Regency Pier Sixty-Six in
Ft. Lauderdale, FL.
Stephanie Espy-Chinyere 08MBA
and Dr. Kalvin Chinyere 08MBA of
Atlanta, GA, announce the birth of a
daughter, Zoe Dawn Cheryl, on August
2, 2013. Espy-Chinyere is the founder
and executive director of MathSP, a
math and science academic tutoring
and test prep company. Chinyere is a
physician at Northside Hospital.
2010s
Victor Brown 10EMBA of Centerville, GA, accepted a new role as dean of
the College of Arts & Sciences at Fort Valley State University on April 15,
2013.
Joshua Linder 10EMBA and Jill Linder of Atlanta, GA, announce the birth
of a son, Ryan Jacob, on April 13, 2013.
40 emory | business
Ingi Fenger 11EvMBA
and Deven Greene 01C of
Atlanta, GA, announce the
birth of a daughter, Olivia,
on May 25, 2013. Fenger is a
procurement manager for
AGCO Corporation.
Emre Karatas 13MBA and
Cigdem Karatas 13MBA
of Ankara, Turkey, announce
the birth of a son, Can, on
July 24, 2013.
Stephen Scouten 10EMBA and Haley Scouten of Atlanta, GA, announce
the birth of a son, Hudson David, on March 14, 2013.
Darryl Grant 10EMBA of Birmingham, AL, was promoted to managing
director at Accenture.
Kevin Fairchild 10EMBA of Smyrna, GA, married Brandi Covil on April 13,
2013. The wedding took place in the Senoia Historic District, GA.
Josh Finley 12EvMBA of Marietta, GA, recently joined the Atlanta office
of Guardian Investment Bank.
Parul Lahoti 10MBA of Boston, MA, is now an HR business partner at
Twitter.
IN MEMORIAM
Elliott Berman 42BBA of Atlanta, GA.
Be in the Know.
Charles West 42BBA of Atlanta, GA
Frank Cook 47BBA of Germantown, TN
Lolan Granger 49BBA of Anniston, AL
John Wiggins Jr. 50BBA of Valdosta, GA
Bill Jones 51BBA of Bainbridge, GA
Harris Williams 51BBA of Macon, GA
Raymond Coltrane 56BBA of Jacksonville, FL
Harold Jennings 58BBA of Perry, GA
Thomas Brown III 66MBA of Greenville, SC
V. Gordon Moulton 68MBA of Daphne, AL
Stay abreast of all the latest alumni
activities in Atlanta, New York, and
your city.
For upcoming events, visit
www.goizueta.emory.edu/events
To RSVP, visit the events website,
email [email protected], or call
770.727.6723.
Gary Shaivitz 79BBA of Reisterstown, MD
Edwin Holt 82EMBA of Lake Mary, FL
John Mulligan 83EMBA of Richmond, VA
John Simpson 90Ox 91BBA of Highlands, NC
Jeremy Kowall 06EvMBA of Marietta, GA
fall | 2013 41
goizueta advice
How can
entrepreneurs
improve their
pitches for business
and funding?
KLAAS: You must be able to clearly articulate what your
product is, what problem it solves, and what your market
is. If you cannot communicate that clearly, then you
cannot sell it.
DAVID: Focus on getting the first round of outside
investment from someone who is extremely well
respected in your industry niche and, ideally, will agree
to become a strategic advisor. You need a well-prepared
pitch that explains the business strategy. Investors like
investing in entrepreneurs they trust and believe in.
SANJAY: It all comes down to truly understanding your
business and your market so that if you forget what you
were saying during the presentation, you can confidently
KLAAS BAKS
Associate Professor in the
Practice of Finance;
Executive Director
Emory Center for Alternative
Investments
42 emory | business
DAVID N. WILLIAMS JR.
97MBA
Cofounder
Blinq Media LLC
move forward, because you know the topic and the
market better than anyone else in the room.
DOUG: A detailed and complete business plan is of
course a must. This means not only financials but all the
elements of a good business plan: the human resource
plan, the marketing plan, etc. If there is one thing in
particular that draws attention, it is the basis for the
assumptions in the financial plan. When the success
for an entire venture is based upon unsupported sales
projections, the pitch is invariably met with skepticism.
The numbers might look great, but where did those
sales figures come from? Bottom line: know what you are
talking about and be able to provide substantiation for
everything. If it was easy, everyone would be doing this!
SANJAY PAREKH 06MBA
Founder
Startup Riot
DOUG MATTHEWS
80WEMBA
President
Intercredit Ltd.
BONNIE: When presenting to potential
investors, customers, or analysts, be able to
relay these five things enthusiastically: what
your product is, why you are passionate,
why the market needs it, what support you
need (money, business counsel, marketing,
etc.), and how you will use that. Couple
your story with a well-thought out, wellrehearsed business description and you’ll
have a winning pitch.
NIKKI: Think of pitching an idea to a
potential investor as speed dating. You
have limited time to make an impression,
so communicate strategically. Analyze
your audience to determine which details
of your business plan are most persuasive
and create an elevator pitch of your plan.
Additionally, remember that you are not
just selling a business plan; you are selling
yourself as the visionary these investors are
looking for.
LIN: The best way for entrepreneurs to
improve their pitch is to have a realistic
projection on growth and earnings along
with an understanding of the private equity
role and expectations.
TED: In developing your pitch, know what
it is you want to do and why you want to do
it. Surround yourself with knowledgeable
people—no one knows everything. Be
aware of the funding options available
to you, whether self-funding, friends and
family, bank loans, angel investors, venture
capitalist, etc. Federal legislation has also
recently made it possible for start-ups
to ask for equity investments of up to $1
million a year via the Internet and social
media sites, without needing to register the
shares for public trading. That’s a boon for
small businesses just starting out.
SCOTT: Keep in mind that pitching to
investors is not your only option for
funding. I bootstrapped my own business
with my own funds, so it was pretty modest.
You can start a business today using online
services for a fraction of what it would
have cost 10 years ago. It will be a slower
growth curve, but I own 100 percent of
my business. I don’t have to answer to
investors, only customers!
PATRICK: In pitching for business,
remember that not all business is good
business. Entrepreneurs must first segment
targeted customers and assess how they
align with their business strategies and
capabilities. Once you have targeted
prospective customers and groups, listen
to their problems and provide them
with sustainable solutions, handcrafting
messages and cold-call pitches to meet the
focus group’s needs. Then play the numbers
game. The more people you pitch, the more
likely one or more of them will respond
positively.
PATRICK L. BROWN
05WEMBA
President and CEO
Sierra International LLC
SCOTT BLANCK 12EVMBA
President and Owner
Start Code
BONNIE DANEKER
10MBA
President and CEO
Write Advisors LLC
NIKKI GRAVES 99G 03G
LIN ROGERS 08MEMBA
TED DAYWALT 80MBA
Assistant Professor
in the Practice of
Management Communication
Goizueta Business School
Chairman
Lin Rogers Electric
President and CEO
VetJobs.com Inc.
fall | 2013 43
Goizueta Business School
1300 Clifton Road
Emory University
Atlanta, Georgia 30322
Help Recruit the Next Class of Goizueta MBAs
As alumni of Goizueta Business School, you know all the reasons our programs are so effective at empowering talented
individuals to become principled, successful business leaders around the world. But don’t keep what makes us great to yourselves.
Share our success and refer a friend, family member, or colleague to one of our top-ranked programs.
Together, we can grow our community and strengthen networks.
Email your applicant referral name and information to [email protected].
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