2001 msb magazine spring summer

Business

(c)2001 The New Yorker Collection from cartoonbank.com. All rights reserved.

Are Dot.Coms Dead?

SPRING / SUMMER 2001

VOLUME 13 NUMBER 2

Georgetown Business is published during the academic year by The McDonough School of Business for alumni, parents,friends, and business colleagues.

Dean Christopher P. Puto, Ph.D.

Senior Associate DeanJohn Mayo, Ph.D.

Editor Elizabeth Shine g’99

Contributing Writers Tom PriceSusan PriceElaine Ruggieri, APR

Designer Nancy Van Meter

Georgetown Businesswelcomes inquiries, updates,opinions and comments expressedby its readers. Letters should beaddressed to:

the editorGeorgetown Business

dean’s officegeorgetown universitythe mcdonough school of businessold north buildingwashington dc 20057

phone: 202-687-4080

www.msb.edu

Welc

ome

1

CONTENTS

Inside Information . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Are Dot.Coms Dead?. . . . . . . . . . . . 5

Business School Launches New Graphic Identity . . . . . . . . . . 12

Foolish MBAs CompoundEntrepreneurial Skills by Writing Book . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 14

Alumni Notes. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Letter from the Dean

As you can see, Georgetown Business has a new look. The redesign of the

magazine reflects the launching of a new graphic identity for the

McDonough School of Business. The growing recognition of our various

programs demanded an identity that gives weight to Georgetown’s distinct style of

business education. Accompanying the feature on our new identity are static decals.

We hope you’ll display the decals with pride!

The decline of the Nasdaq composite index has led to a massive dot.com shakeout,

and much media ink has gone into chronicling the death of dot.coms and the resulting

financial losses. But as Professor Paul Almeida observes, we should never have

expected most or even many dot.coms to succeed. History shows that the trajectory

for new technologies typically leads to a rash of new companies that undergo vigorous

competition culminating in a bloodbath. A few clear industry winners emerge to

exploit and develop the new technology.

Our lead feature in this issue focuses on the lessons our faculty and alumni have learned

through their experiences with founding, running and funding dot.coms, and what the

future holds for Internet businesses. It’s a thought-provoking article, and gives valuable

insights into what it takes to succeed, or successfully fail, in the New Economy.

As we end another successful year, and look forward to the fall, I hope you will con-

tinue to keep in touch. Please let us know what you think of the new graphic identity

and the way we have incorporated it into the magazine. Send your comments to

[email protected].

Christopher P. Puto, Ph.D.

Dean

McDonough Dean Christopher Puto presents TedLeonsis (C’77), president of AOL Interactive Proper-ties Group, with a sweatshirt incorporating the

school’s new graphic identity at Georgetown’s Capital TechnologySummit, January 26–27. The summit is the fourth annual MBAstudent-run conference that brings industry leaders to George-town to discuss the latest trends in technology. Leonsis and MotleyFool co-founder Tom Gardner were this year’s keynote speakers.

Georgetown’s MBA Program Rises Seven Places inU.S. News & World Report Ranking

U.S.News & World Report ranked Georgetown’sMcDonough School MBA program at #22 in itsannual “America’s Best Graduate Schools” edition,

up seven places from last year’s ranking of #29.This placesGeorgetown’s MBA program among the top six percent of341 accredited American MBA programs surveyed.

“We are pleased to be recognized by U.S. News & WorldReport as an elite MBA program,” says Christopher Puto,dean of the McDonough School. “The U.S. News rankingunderscores the significant advancement of Georgetown’sMBA program.”

U.S.News &World Report surveyed all 341 accredited master’sprograms in business, and calculated rankings based on a weighted average of several quality indicators, includingreputation by academic and corporate recruiters, placementsuccess, and student selectivity.

U.S.News & World Report also lists the leading MBA programspecialities ranked by business school deans and senior faculty.Georgetown’s MBA program ranked 15th in internationalbusiness and 13th in non-profit management.

2 The McDonough School of Business

Inside Information

“I don’t pay all that much

attention to [U.S.News] ,

but I think you’ll find

that our business school

is ranked ahead of theirs.”

Leo J. O’Donovan, S.J., former president of Georgetown University,

in the March 22 Washington Post, commenting on a remark that

several of Maryland’s graduate programs rank above Georgetown’s.

“Leaders in world business are the first true global citizens. As such, they have

worldwide capability and responsibility. Our decisions affect not just economies but

entire societies. Not just the direct concerns of business, but world problems of

poverty, the environment and security.”

Anita Roddick, founder of The Body Shop, who spoke about her book,

Business as Unusual, to the Georgetown Business Ethics Institute on January 30.

U.S. Treasury Secretary PaulO’Neill delivered the keynoteaddress at the Workplace Safety

Summit on March 30. The summit wasdesigned to raise awareness of workplacesafety. Co-sponsors included the George-town Business Ethics Institute andDuPont Safety Resources. The event washosted by the McDonough School.

3Spring/Summer 2001

Robert Piacesi’s (MBA’02) initiative to improve fuel efficiencyfor trucks won the $10,000 prize in the ideaChallenge,a new McDonough School business plan competition. Left

to right: Dean Christopher Puto; keynote speaker Dave Holtzman,CEO of Opion, Inc.; Robert Piacesi; and second keynote speakerKamran Amjadi, CEO and co-founder of e-centives, Inc.

Dariush Afshar (B’01) is the recipient of a Fulbright

Scholarship. Afshar will examine issues concerning

European Union and French telecommunications

laws, and will work with faculty from the École des

Hautes Études Commericales and École des Hautes

Études Politiques, and officials at the French Min-

istry of Finance and the French Commission to the

European Union.

Jason Vines, vice president for communications at the Ford Motor Company, spoke to MBAs April 10 about the Ford Explorer/Firestone Tires case and the role crisis

communications plays in corporate life.


Inside Information

Harold McGraw III, president and CEO ofThe McGraw-Hill Companies, urged the2001 MBA graduating class to “find their

voice” by becoming engaged in issues that will shape thefuture. Mr. McGraw was the MBA commencementspeaker at the ceremony on May 25.

5Spring/ Summer 2001

Are Dot.Coms Dead?

Dot.Coms Redefined

8 Internet hype blurred the reality that any new technology needs to evolve before it

can make a widespread impact. Professor Paul Almeida examines the hype and the

industry shake-out.

Sound Business Models Are Key to Successful Dot.Coms

9 Proven business practices aren’t sexy enough to make the news, but they’re the reason

Blackboard Inc., an e-education company, has survived the dot.com tailspin.

Dot.com Dive Underscores the Potential of the Technology Sector

10 Has venture money for dot.coms dried up? Andrew Sachs (F’96, MBA’96)

explains funding opportunities for tech companies are still possible.

The Myth of the Dot.Com Whiz Kids

11 Peter Mellen (MBA’96) lived the roller-coaster ride of the dot.com startup.

He talks about what he has learned from the experience.


Professor Paul Almeida

Professor Paul Almeida

earned his Ph.D. from Wharton.

His current research focuses

on the inter-firm transfer

of knowledge within

technology-intensive regions.

We should never haveexpected most or evenmany dot.coms to suc-ceed. Through history,

technological opportunities have promptednew entrants into new or redefined busi-nesses. This pattern could be seen in theauto industry nearly a 100 years ago, orsemiconductors 40 years ago, or homevideo games a couple of decades ago. Ofthe new entrants, some get it right, butmost don’t. The invisible hand works, thereis a shake-out (and a learning process), anda few firms go on to exploit and build thetechnology at hand successfully. Dot.comsare following this pattern.

Ironically, it was information technol-ogy (IT) that helped create and feed thehype about Internet-related businesses.Part of the problem was the acceptance ofhalf-truths or complete myths by “experts,”including investment managers and ven-ture capitalists. Phrases like “first-moveradvantage” and “winner-take-all markets”inspired both established firms like Reutersnewswires and new firms like Bluefly.com,an online outlet store for designer fashions,to make large investments in attemptedland grabs. The idea of “reach” suggestedthat Internet firms could go after numer-

ous customers in different locations andmarket segments simultaneously throughthe Internet. For instance, WebMDattempts to reach hypochondriacs, doctors,nurses, pharmacies and hospitals all at once!Firms like Priceline.com bought into theidea that the Internet made a firm instantlyglobal. But words, even cute businessphrases, are not substitutes for analysis.

The Internet (or more broadly, IT) is atool. This tool has provided an opportunityfor easy entry into business. But easy entryinto business never meant easy or sustain-able profits (in fact, it often points to theopposite). To be profitable, a firm needs tobe in an attractive business segment. Acommon mistake is to equate growth of abusiness area with attractiveness. Also, forany firm, profitability is not just abouttechnological capabilities, but associatedbusiness capabilities.

Finally, and this is especially relevant todot.coms, the firm needs a business modelthat works. Look at the pure advertisingmodel adopted by a large number of hope-ful dot.coms. Yahoo, for instance, is the pre-mier example of a company that relies onadvertising. Even as Yahoo increased trafficto its sites, its stock price plunged alongwith advertising revenues.The industry

Dot.Coms Redefined

Are dot.coms dead?

Are large numbers of them dying?Of course not!

Of course.


realized that banner ads weren’t very effec-tive. Now Yahoo has to look at alternativebusiness models as well as seek to make itsadvertising more effective.

Many dot.coms didn’t just mistakesales for profitability; they ignored anotherconcept—sustainability. EBay, which isone of the few customer-to-customer busi-nesses, is also one of the few that makesmoney. This model works, in my opinion,because it makes use of one of the lesstalked-about opportunities for an Internet-related business, i.e. network effects. eBayis customer-to-customer based, and isfocused on creating a community; thismakes it really hard for a new entrant toduplicate or overtake eBay. Why shouldanyone want to sell something throughanyone other than eBay? EBay has over sixmillion users. If I want to sell something, Iwant six million people to be able to see it.If I want to buy something, where do I go?I go to the site with the most products onsale. This creates a positive feedback loopthat makes eBay hard to challenge.

Beyond dot.coms, the Internet and IThave already transformed businesses andindustries and will continue to do so formany years to come. The Internet hasaided productivity increases by helpingfirms control their logistics or reach theircustomer or manage knowledge. But thereare still many opportunities for furtherapplication. Business-to-business (B2B)has not fully taken off. IT offers tremen-dous opportunities for further improve-ment in management of supply, distribu-tion and inventory. Multinational firms arejust beginning to harness the power ofinformation technology in coordinatingoperations—from transfer pricing toR&D and manufacturing—across coun-

tries. These may not be visible to the aver-age consumer, but they are improving effi-ciency in dramatic ways.

So information technology is here tostay and dramatically change business. Thepast irrationality of bloated expectationsfor Internet-related firms and the currentpessimism about the possibilities of theInternet will both dissipate. Dot.coms will

continue to exist, only occasionally as inde-pendent “pure plays.” Increasingly, thesefirms will be linked to established firms,forming hybrids with complementarycapabilities. These surviving dot.coms (andventure capitalists) are now going to bemore evaluative and sophisticated aboutwhat IT can do. And this will show up inthe bottom line.



Michael Chasen

Michael Chasen (MBA’95) is the CEO

and co-founder of Blackboard Inc., a

Washington-based e-education company.

In April 2001, Blackboard received

$48 million in its fifth round of venture

funding. Mr. Chasen sits on the

McDonough School Board of Advisors.

One of the reasons Blackboard issuccessful in this market full ofdot.bombs is because we builtthe company around a strong

business model. We did not go crazy withthe mantra of “build-it-and-they-will-come.”So many web-based companies believedthat they should first attract a user base andthen monetize that user base.They were notclear about how they would earn revenue orwhere the earning potential was.

Blackboard’s business model stuck tothe fundamentals—build a good productand then sell it to make a profit. Black-board sells software and services, and wealso charge an annual license fee, so wehave strong recurring revenue each quarter.I think a lot of the dot.com bust was aresult of emerging business models thatwere not really grounded in the basic busi-ness fundamentals.

That said, I still think business modelsthat are focused around websites or usermonetization can work, but the fundamen-tals need to be there. A company needs tooffer a product that people will pay for andthat can generate enough money to make aprofit. There are several dot.coms that actu-ally do make money—for example, Yahoo.The companies that gave their productsand services away for free, causing hugecosts to their investors and squandering thecapital they were raising, really led to thedot.com crash.

I think Blackboard’s greatestchallenge—and that of the marketoverall—is that some startups have sur-vived in the wake of the dot.com crash,even though they have questionable busi-ness models. They have survived on largeamounts of capital, since capital has beenalmost free over the last year. In thedot.com glory days, these startups becamecompetitors with other startups that alsodid not have sound business models, and

have since been forced to close. But in thecurrent environment, the surviving startupsare competing against capitalized compa-nies that are making a profit. In order tocompete now, the startups are giving theirproducts away or selling them below cost.

This trend puts pressure on compa-nies like Blackboard to raise capital, or fig-ure out another business strategy because itbecomes increasingly difficult to competewith a company that is giving their productaway for free. I think that these startupsnot only hurt themselves, but are also con-tinuing to hurt the industries that they arein. For example, there are still a lot ofdot.com companies competing for thesame customers as Blackboard. Thesestartups give away products that are similarto ours, essentially giving institutions a freealternative to purchasing our product.

But, the long-term benefit stillbelongs to Blackboard because we haveimplemented a business model based onthe fundamentals of sound economics andwith the goal of making money. Thismeans that in the future, we will still behere and will be able to service our clients,while our competitors mostly likely will beout of business.

There’s been a lot in the news latelyabout graduates who have been scared orintimidated by the dot.bomb scenario, andwant to work for larger, “safer” companiesrather than take advantage of theentrepreneurial route. But I don’t think thatdot.coms are dead. It is the companies thatdon’t have sound business models that aredead. Whether someone is creating anInternet-based company, a bricks-and-mor-tar company, or a technology company, s/hehas to remember the business basics. Ilearned these in Georgetown’s MBA pro-gram—a sustainable business model createsrevenue. Realize that, and you’ll find thatthe entrepreneurial opportunity is still there.

Sound Business Models

Are Key to

Successful

Dot.Coms

9Spring/Summer 2001

Andrew Sachs

Andrew Sachs (F’96, MBA’96) runs

Capital Investors, a venture capital firm

that provides seed capital to technology-

related businesses in the Greater Washington

D.C. area. Mr. Sachs sits on the

McDonough School Board of Advisors.

There was a huge bubble in the techmarket, and what we’re seeingnow is a fundamental shift occur-ring to correct that. The money

deployed in the tech market was extrava-gant. I would say dot.coms are gone. Tech-nology is a tool—you don’t build a busi-ness just on the Internet, which hasbecome abundantly clear.

But opportunities in the technologysector (broadband, telecom) are still there.Over time, as we become more and morenetworked, information flows will be fasterand greater, and inherent in that should begreater productivity. We’re just at the verybeginning of seeing those effects.

But I think it will take a long time,because you’re talking about not only build-ing an infrastructure, where significantinvestment opportunities exist, but alsoabout fundamentally changing the waycompanies conduct business. Financial mar-kets thought that changes wrought in busi-ness by technology would happen in two tothree years, but it will take 20 to 30 years.

The financial side of the technologysector is brutal at the moment. We’ve seen

Dot.com Dive

Underscores the

Potential of

Technology Sectora period when the markets, especially inthe dot.com sector, were overvalued; ashakeout was natural. For example, whenthe car was invented, there were 200 to300 car companies. Today there are three.The technology revolution is in itsinfancy—Netscape only went public in1996. Since then, there has been a depar-ture of reality in the tech sector, with start-ups mushrooming. Venture capitalistswere putting out tremendous amounts ofcash. Last year, New Enterprise Associ-ates, a venture capital firm here in North-ern Virginia, did 60 deals. Every venturecapital firm did many more deals than theyever would have in the last couple of years.Traditional private equity funds, depend-ing on the size of the fund, average six to10 deals a year at most.

It’s also important to remember thatnot everyone yet has access to the Internet.It took cable television 30 years to becomecommonplace in homes, and today, only60 percent of homes have cable. The paceat which the technology infrastructure hasbeen built out is fast, but the investmentcommunity was completely unrealistic in

thinking it would take a couple of years tobuild out a technology infrastructure inhomes in such a brief period. And it’s notonly homes. Look at most small businessestoday—they’re not even online, and can’ttake advantage of these new B2B opportu-nities in e-commerce. The spending wastoo far ahead of the infrastructure, butthat’s only one part of it. Even if you addthe infrastructure, too much money wasthrown at dot.coms. A number of compa-nies even in an ideal world wouldn’t besuccessful simply because they’re bad ideasand didn’t have realistic business models.

Dot.coms are dead, but technology ismaking the long-term outlook extremelybright. In the past, a 20 to 30 percentreturn over five years was considered good.The problem during the dot.com boomwas that investors were seeing 50 to 100times return on their investment in a year.Can the 20 to 30 percent returns still hap-pen? Yes, because technology is improvingthe efficiency of business.

Venture capital firms gorged duringthe tech boom, and now they’re sufferingindigestion. They are being very carefulabout putting out capital. They’re lookingto invest in quality companies with busi-ness plans and cash flow management thatare using technology to make traditionalbusinesses better. You still need a crediblebusiness plan and time is key—it’s goingto take 10 times longer than was originallyanticipated. If I were recommending com-panies to invest in, I would say that tech-nology companies with a credible businessmodel still make the most sense. Softwarecompanies are a good example, becausethey are not capital intensive. Wireless,broadband, supply chain technology, net-working—these could all be good invest-ments.

Dot.coms in terms of selling widgetson the Web or content on the Web aredead. Rightly, retailers understand it’s justanother sales channel. It’s a wonderful saleschannel, but it’s no different from cata-logue or telephone sales.


Peter Mellen

Peter Mellen (MBA’98) and Scott Mitic (MBA’98)

created Headlight, a company that provided

online training solutions for corporations.

Headlight closed on March 15, 2001.

The Myth of

Scott Mitic (MBA’98) and Peter Mellen (MBA’98), co-founders of headlight.com

11Spring/Summer 2001

The Internet has allowed greatinnovation in business, but I wouldsay that dot.coms, as we knewthem in the late 1990s, are dead.

Our company was doing extraordinar-ily well. When we spoke with venture cap-italists in March 2000, they asked with astraight face, “Are you expecting a valua-tion north or south of a $100 million interms of what you think the company isworth?” Within a couple of weeks of thecrash, the focus shifted exclusively to rev-enues and profitability.

So why did all these dot.coms, includ-ing ours, fail?

First, the dot.com business model hadproblems. The business model is crucial,because it’s the blueprint for the replicablethings that a business can do really well,profitably and consistently. The right wayto achieve this in business is to start at amicro level, prove that people are willing topay for your service if you can sell it tothem in a cost-efficient way, and then scaleit to a large operation. At Headlight, westarted by selling training to small- andmedium-sized businesses via the Internet.While revenues were slow to ramp, weassumed that sales would follow the tradi-tional “hockey stick” curve as awareness ofour product grew.

We continued to invest heavily in thebusiness and run substantial losses underthe assumption that we would be able tocapitalize on the seemingly unlimitedopportunity of the Internet. Although wesaw signs from the beginning of limiteddemand, we believed the reach and powerof the Internet would enable us to reachnew, larger markets. We invested substan-tially in marketing before simply runningout of time as the market contracted and

access to capital became substantially more difficult.

In trying to capture markets quickly, alot of dot.coms fell prey to the fallacy offirst mover advantage (FMA). It wasbelieved that if you were first to marketand established a brand name, you couldsew up your market. Headlight achievedgreat recognition for its FMA. We werefeatured in The Wall Street Journal,Newsweek and The San Francisco Chronicle.I was invited to speak at conferenceshosted by Harvard, Stanford, and MerrillLynch. We assumed that profits would fol-low FMA. But sales failed to grow asrapidly as expected, and did not keep trackwith the company’s growing expenses.Ultimately, the company ran out of money.

Critical mass was another fallacy.Dot.coms followed Internet business mod-els that were focused on web advertisingand co-branding. The volume of sales fromthe Internet model was low, because itfocused on selling to individuals, whichdoesn’t generate as much revenue as thetraditional corporate sales model. Withcorporate sales, one employee is in chargeof buying in large volume for the company.At Headlight, we took a risk by betting on

reaching a new market with a new tech-nology. Had we switched to the corporatemodel early on, Headlight might still be inbusiness today.

Another myth I hope is laid to restwith the dot.com crash is that of the whiz-kid entrepreneur. The Marc Andreessenswere the exception, not the rule. Duringthe dot.com era, it seemed that a good ideaand smart people were all you needed toget a business off the ground. But a strongventure opportunity needs many ingredi-ents to be successful—intellectual property(patents, etc.), a proven strategy, and goodmanagement skills. Investors were socaught up in the enthusiasm of the marketthat they were willing to bet on less provenventures that would have had a lowerprobability of success in a tougher market.

At Headlight.com, we took too longto make the shift from a dot.com to a moreB2B focus. We could see the writing onthe wall, but we created the company, andit’s like killing your own child to close it.But I have no regrets. It’s very easy for meto look back now and recognize just howlittle experience we had beginning this. It’sbeen incredibly educational, but not defeat-ing. I remain an entrepreneur to the bone.

the Dot.Com Whiz Kids


Taking another step to secure itsposition among the nation’s elitebusiness schools, the McDonough

School of Business has developed a newgraphic identity that is designed to pro-mote the school’s young name while con-tinuing to embrace Georgetown Univer-sity’s centuries-old tradition.

The keystone of the project is a newlogo that emphasizes McDonough as adistinct institution within the larger uni-versity.

The logo incorporates the university’scolors of blue and gray— adopted after theCivil War to symbolize the reunification ofNorth and South—along with the griddesign that is part of the university’sgraphic identity. The typeface used isCaslon, the standard Georgetown Univer-sity typeface, which was used to printGeorgetown founder John Carroll’s “Pro-posals for Establishing an Academy atGeorge-Town, Patowmack-River, Mary-land,” in 1787. The name “McDonoughSchool of Business” is set off in a gridbetween the words “Georgetown” and“University.”

“Georgetown University is a 210-year-old legendary academic name that isworld renowned. So the business schoolgains leverage by being associated withGeorgetown,” McDonough Dean

Christopher P. Puto said, explaining thedual message communicated by the newidentity. At the same time, Puto added,“We have to establish ourselves withinGeorgetown, establish that we are a specialpart of Georgetown. And that’s where Ithink the McDonough name has thepotential to be the differential.

“The challenge is to tie the twotogether, so that we create theMcDonough name as a strong connectionwith Georgetown.”

To develop the graphic identity sys-tem, the school retained artist Rob Szabo,who had created the university’s graphicidentity in the early 1980s. The task was todevelop a system that distinguished

McDonough within the university’s overallidentity. That posed a more complicatedchallenge than the typical corporate iden-tity project, Szabo said, because “you havebranding within branding.”

Interviews and focus groups were con-ducted with business school undergradu-ates, MBAs, faculty, administrators, alumniand senior University officials to determinetheir conceptions of the image the schoolshould project. Common sentiments weredesires to emphasize the connection withGeorgetown and to promote theMcDonough name.

“When you do any sort of branding,you have to know where you’re comingfrom—the history of the institution, thefeelings about the institution—before youjust go out there and draw up something,”said McDonough CommunicationsDirector Elizabeth Shine, who coordi-nated the project. “We felt it was impor-tant that everyone feel they had a role inthis. What we wanted to find out (in theinterviews) was what does Georgetownmean to you and what does the businessschool mean to you.”

The value of the Georgetown brand isobvious, Shine said. For McDonough,being a named school seems to conveyprestige, because the vast majority of thetop-rated business schools—Kellogg,

Business School Launches New Graphic Identityby Tom Price


Wharton, Sloan, Haas, Fuqua, Tuck,Stern, for instance—are named, she noted.

The graphic identity enablesMcDonough to project a unified, identifi-able image in multiple media. For instance,the logo is displayed prominently through-out McDonough’s recently upgradedInternet site. It is used in McDonoughpublications, letterheads, envelopes andbusiness cards. A special MBA ligature canbe used with the logo by the master’s pro-gram. The logo also has been printed onsweatshirts and paperweights and soonwill be added to other memorabilia.

“I like the logo a lot,” said BinduVaswani (B’00), who was a focus groupparticipant while she was on campus andnow works as an associate account man-ager at D’Arcy Advertising in New York.“I think it does a great job of integratingthe traditional blue and gray colors thateveryone associates with Georgetown, andit’s modern. I can envision it on a bannerwhen I go to reunions.

“It’s nice to have something otherthan the Georgetown seal that is just forthe business school.”

New Website Reflects Business School’s Advances in Technology, and Innovative Programs

by Tom Price

The McDonough School presented a new face to the world when the upgraded msb.edu

Internet site went on-line March 16.

The site, developed by the McDonough Technology Center and ExecCard Inc., incorporates the

school’s new graphic identity, adds new functions for users, is simpler to navigate and can be

updated easily.

“The basic design of the (old) site had been in place for a few years,” McDonough Chief Technol-

ogy Officer John Carpenter noted, “and that’s two or three lifetimes when it comes to the Web.”

The old site lacked cohesion, according to Jerry Haley (MBA ‘00), an ExecCard consultant who

worked on the Web redesign and earlier on the MBA program’s electronic business card.

“The goal was to create a clean, good-looking Web page,” Haley said.

Prospective students can gather extensive information

about the business school on-line, request a catalog,

and file and track an application to the MBA program.

Employing software from a company co-founded by

Michael L. Chasen (MBA ‘95), the site enables students

to file class assignments, take tests, enter online discus-

sions, and complete such administrative functions as

changing class schedules. MBA students can submit on-line resumes to prospective employers.

The goal is to create an “on-line class environment” and to “take most of the things you had to

go to the dean’s office for and put them on line,” Carpenter said. “If you can think of it, we want

to put it on the Web page.”

In the works are Web pages for alumni clubs and e-mail lists that will allow alums to communi-

cate in online affinity groups—“like MBA grads who are working in England,” Carpenter

explained.

The site is graphically attractive and dynamic. Changing campus photos are featured on the

home page, along with the new McDonough logo and links to news about the school. Univer-

sity publications, including Georgetown Business magazine, can be downloaded at the site.

The old site “didn’t reflect the progressive nature of the school,” Carpenter said. “We wanted an

advanced site because the Internet is the hallmark of progressive organizations, and the future

utility of these Internet tools is enormous.”


By Elizabeth Shine (G’99)

MBAs aren’t often noted fortheir literary prowess, but withthe help of Motley Fool co-

founder and author Tom Gardner,Georgetown MBAs wrote a book in sixweeks, and plan to publish it this winter.

Titled Einstein’s Miracle, the bookdeals with the subject of compound inter-est, and was the sole assignment for theoversubscribed integrative course Gardnertaught this spring, EntrepreneurialGrowth Strategies.

Unique among the standard MBAprojects usually assigned by professors,Gardner feels that writing a book is theperfect case study for buddingentrepreneurs.

“Writing a book illustratesentrepreneurship in a few different ways,”says Gardner, who is co-author of severalbooks, including bestsellers The MotleyFool Investment Guide and The MotleyFool’s Rule Breakers, Rule Makers. “TheMBAs worked in teams on a product, abook, to make it as relevant and as usefulas possible. And like most entrepreneurs,they were ultimately dealing with scarcity

issues, the greatest of which was time. I’mextremely pleased with the way the classresponded.”

Gardner chose the subject of com-pound interest with the objective of mak-ing a subject that’s “dull, boring but criticalto long-term financial health” accessibleand enjoyable to the novice investorthrough the use of amusing, factual anec-dotes. Topics such as total market index,inflation, cost of borrowing, social securityand illustrations of compound interest arecovered.

One example the MBAs use to illus-trate compound interest is the purchase ofManhattan by the Dutch from the Man-hattan Indians in 1625 for $24. “Let’s

assume that [the $24 was invested] for thelast 375 years at a very conservative eightpercent,” the MBAs write. “Had they donethis, the proceeds from the purchase wouldbe worth $82 trillion today!”

Before beginning the book, Gardnerasked the class to define core values for theproject. Students voted for four values: fun,fair, fast and familial. “My belief is thatnone of us should work for or be associatedwith organizations if we don’t understandthe organization’s aims and values,” saysGardner.

To complete a draft of the book in sixweeks, the 48 MBAs were organized intoteams to work on each chapter. Studentsvolunteered to be writers, researchers or

Foolish MBAs

Compound Entrepreneurial Skills

by Writing a Book


editors on each chapter team. Anotherteam of MBAs worked on a marketingplan for the book, which was critiqued byMotley Fool executives Pat Garner,Jonathan Mudd, and Scott Shedler.

“The process was very entrepreneurial,”says Brewster Crosby (MBA’02), who coor-dinated all the chapter teams. “We had toproduce high-quality, accurate, but creativewriting in six weeks, and I think the finalproduct is quite good.”

Professor Elaine Romanelli, who runsthe Global Entrepreneurship Program andsponsored Gardner to teach the course,believes writing a book is a smart way todevelop students’ entrepreneurial skills.“Tom’s been incredibly creative in the wayhe’s taught the MBAs to rise to the chal-lenges and opportunities thatentrepreneurship entails,” she notes.

Gardner feels he learned as much asthe MBAs. “In every way imaginable, Iwas dealing with expert students who weredealing with an amateur professor,” he

notes. “I can confidently say I learned asmuch as the MBAs did from the wholeexperience. As for the book, we’re unani-mously enthusiastic about the prospect ofhelping people and generating a lot ofexcitement.”

The eleven-chapter book is approxi-mately 150 pages, and will be published byThe Motley Fool in conjunction with theMcDonough School. Editing will continueover the summer, with several MBAs volun-teering to assist with final production of thebook. Gardner anticipates it will hit book-stores during the winter. Proceeds from thebook will benefit MBA scholarships.

The six-week integrative is Gardner’sintroduction to classroom teaching atGeorgetown, but he’s not the first memberof the family to be connected with the uni-versity. His grandfather, H. Gabriel Mur-phy (C’30, L’36), was graduate manager ofathletics at Georgetown from 1930 to1941. Gardner himself coached basketballcamp at Georgetown for three summers.

Gardner plans to teach the courseagain next year, but students won’t be fac-ing another book assignment. Instead,Gardner wants to draw on MBAentrepreneurial skills to create a non-profitfoundation.

“As a teacher, I believe one of thewasted opportunities in class is not lettingstudents direct more of their own learningand providing ways for them to learn col-laboratively,” says Gardner.

But the man who has made financefun for millions of Americans isn’t restingon his teaching laurels. “I had a lot of funteaching this course, and I hope I did agood job,” says Gardner. “Let’s see if any-one signs up in the fall!”

“In every way

imaginable,

I was dealing

with expert students

who were dealing

with an amateur

professor”


For months now, the airwaves haveraged with news of the Californiapower crisis, including on-going

reports of power blackouts, utilitybankruptcies, government bailouts, andelectricity price hikes. All players involvedseem intent on assigning blame for the cri-sis, proposing a wide assortment of villains,including incompetent politicians and reg-ulators, profiteering power generators,overzealous environmentalists, and power-hogging consumers.

While some claim that California’selectricity deregulation plan went too far,others assert that it did not go far enough.Meanwhile, some observers emphasize therole played by bad luck, such as droughtsaffecting hydroelectric facilities, sharpincreases in natural gas prices, and unex-pected power plant outages.

How did the California crisis comeabout? Why did it become so severe?What lessons does California’s experienceprovide for electricity reforms in otherstates, and the perils and promise of dereg-ulation in general?

In the early 1990s, Californiastruggled with the effects of a deeprecession. California’s electricityrates were then among the highestin the nation, despite a significantsurplus of power generating capacityand the availability of low cost, out-of-state power supplies. The highprices could be explained by a tradi-tional utility regulatory systemdesigned to pass along the utilities’costs to customers.

Paradoxically, excess capacity led tohigher prices, since rates incorporated theutilities’ capital costs. Most of the state’selectricity was provided by three privatelyowned utility companies, Pacific Gas &Electric (PG&E), Southern CaliforniaEdison (SCE), and San Diego Gas &Electric (SDG&E)—“the Big Three”—each with a monopoly service territory.These companies generated power, trans-mitted it over high voltage power lines,and distributed electricity to customers.

Many in the private sector and stategovernment believed that power prices inCalifornia could be reduced significantlythrough changes in the structure and regu-lation of the state’s electric utility industry.In 1996, the California legislature unani-mously adopted reform legislation thatcontained three main elements. First, theBig Three were required to divest theirpower-generating facilities to third parties.Second, all sales and purchases of powerwere to be made through a newly-estab-

lished wholesale power pool, the CaliforniaPower Exchange, which would buy andsell electricity at prices set at half-hourintervals based on the lowest (marginal)bid offered by power generators. Third,retail (customer) electricity rates would becut by 10 percent, then frozen for up tofive years to allow the Big Three to recoverthe so-called “stranded costs” utilities wereexpected to incur by divesting their gener-ating facilities at a loss in the midst ofindustry overcapacity.

In theory, California’s power sectorreforms would provide benefits all around.Business and residential consumers wouldenjoy stable electricity prices during a tran-sition period and, then, presumably paylower rates as competition among powergenerators drove down wholesale electric-ity prices. The Big Three would be able tooffset any losses associated with capacitydivestments with the additional profitsexpected to result from fixed retail pricescoupled with declining wholesale prices.

Thereafter, these firms would con-tinue to provide regulated transmis-sion and distribution services. Newpower generators, acquirers of capac-ity divested by the Big Three, andout-of-state generators would enjoyaccess to the California PowerExchange and, if efficient, profitfrom selling electricity into thewholesale power pool. Finally,incumbent politicians could expect tobe rewarded by satisfied electricityconsumers and service providers.What went wrong? Perhaps the mostcritical assumption in the reformplan was that wholesale power priceswould decline over time. Unfortu-

FACULTY FORUM

California Dreamin’? The Perils and Promise of Deregulation



nately, wholesale prices actually increased.Price increases at peak demand times wereparticularly severe as rates rose from tensof dollars per megawatt (MW) to hun-dreds of dollars per MW in someinstances.

By 2000, these cost increases threat-ened the financial health of PG&E andSCE, which still were obligated to sellelectricity at fixed retail prices. SDG&Efared somewhat better: having recoveredall of its stranded costs by 1999, it was freeto increase retail rates to reflect higherwholesale power costs. Yet this utility facedits own financial problems when the Cali-fornia legislature voted in September 2000to cap its residential rates temporarily, ineffect allowing its customers to accumulateIOUs to be paid back over time.

Why did wholesale power pricesincrease so sharply? Essentially, weakdemand and overcapacity at the time ofthe reforms evolved into surging demandand increasingly constrained supply. Cali-fornia’s economy boomed in the late1990s, and demand for electricity rose over6% per year.

At the same time, oil and natural gasprices, which had declined for much of thedecade, rose sharply in the late 1990s,increasing the costs of power plants thatrelied on these fuels. To make mattersworse, severe droughts reduced the supplyof power available from hydroelectric gen-erating plants within and outside Califor-nia. Excess supply from neighboring stateswas reduced as well by rising electricitydemand in those markets.

What about new power plants in Cal-ifornia? Unfortunately, several factors dis-couraged investment in new generatingcapacity at the time of reform, includingovercapacity in the mid-1990s, the expec-tation of falling wholesale power prices,uncertainty regarding the changing regula-tory environment, and concerns relating toCalifornia’s strict plant approval process.Even after it became apparent that addi-tional capacity was needed, the lead timerequired to obtain approvals and construct

power plants limited the speed at whichadditional power supplies could be broughtinto the market.

Additional factors exacerbated theimbalance between supply and demand inthe wholesale power market. Because end-users typically enjoyed fixed electricityprices, demand continued to rise even afterthe costs of providing service increasedsubstantially. Moreover, in some instances,power generators idled their capacity whenmajor utility buyers, faced with severefinancial difficulties, stopped paying billsfor power purchases. It also appears thatsome power generators engaged in “strate-gic behavior,” using their control of keysources of supply to drive up prices artifi-cially in the wholesale power pool, espe-cially at times of peak demand.

The California government’s responseto the crisis has been piecemeal. Initially, itfocused on supply, intervening as a buyerin the wholesale market to enhance avail-ability of power supplies to the Big Three.The state also offered to purchase thetransmission networks of the Big Three tohelp improve the utilities’ financial condi-tion and urged the U.S. Federal EnergyRegulatory Commission to impose pricecaps on wholesale power prices (an area offederal jurisdiction) in order to reducealleged price manipulation by generatorsand, reluctantly, permitted significantincreases in retail electricity prices.

Currently, California is working toaccelerate the approval of new powerplants and encourage electricity conserva-tion. Even with these steps, however, theGolden State faces the short-termprospect of additional power blackouts andutility bankruptcies.

What can we learn from California’sexperience? It is important to recognizethat, despite the determination ofobservers on the right and left to pinpointideologically acceptable scapegoats, thecrisis really has no single cause. Perhapsthe most general lesson is that highly regu-lated markets, while often inefficient, arealso highly predictable.

Deregulation, in contrast, offers thepromise of greater efficiency and innova-tion, but also the perils of greater instabil-ity and variation in prices and productquality—which carry especially significanteconomic and political risks in the case ofbasic goods and services such as electricity.

Furthermore, the exact path of industrydynamics following deregulation is devil-ishly hard to predict, evidenced not only bythe power sector, but also by other industriessuch as airlines and telecommunications.

Ultimately, California designed areform program that attempted simultane-ously to open the power market to compe-tition and protect the interests of con-sumers and established utilities in a periodof transition. Yet the program was inher-ently risky because it was built on rosyassumptions about future trends in supplyand demand, with few contingency mech-anisms in place to cope with less favorableindustry dynamics.

As other states look to deregulate elec-tricity markets, and as governments in theUnited States and abroad seek to introducemarket-based reforms, the California powercrisis should serve as a warning that failureto manage the inherent risks may lead tomarket chaos and popular backlash, whichmay undermine the sustainability of reformsand the benefits they potentially offer toconsumers and producers alike.

Associate Professor Willis Emmons is authorof The Evolving Bargain:Strategic Implications ofDeregulation and Priva-tization, which examinesthe impact of deregulation

on managers’ strategic agendas in industriesaround the world, including the utility indus-try in the U.S. and abroad. A member of theHarvard Business School faculty for over adecade, Emmons also consults to a wide rangeof private and public sector organizations.

Faculty


RESEARCH AND ACTIVITIES

Associate Professor Reena Aggarwal pre-sented “Regulatory Infrastructure Cover-ing Financial Markets,” at the Brookings-Wharton Papers on Financial ServicesConference in January 2001. She chaired apanel on market infrastructure issues indeveloping economies for the U.S. Securi-ties and Exchange Commission Interna-tional Institute in May 2001. In June, shepresented “Allocation and Price Support inIPOs: Who Benefits?” for the WesternFinance Association Annual Meeting.

Professor Alan Andreasen organized thethird annual Nonprofit Marketing Man-agers Summit in April 2001. He editedand contributed two chapters to Ethics inSocial Marketing. He and Philip Kotler(Northwestern University) co-authored“Strategic Marketing for Nonprofit Orga-nization,” forthcoming in the 2001 Inter-national Encyclopedia of Business and Man-agement (2nd ed.). Andreasen’s “IntersectorTransfer of Marketing Knowledge” will bepublished in the forthcoming Handbookof Marketing and Society. He presented“Social Marketing for EnvironmentalAction” at the Conference on NonpointSource Pollution Information and Educa-tion Programs in May. In June, Andreasenwill present “Social Marketing Ethics” atthe Conference on Social Marketing inPublic Health, and give a presentation onbranding at the 2001 National Conferenceof Volunteers of America.

Associate Professor Thomas Brewer co-authored The Multilateral Investment Sys-tem and Multinational Enterprises withStephen Young (University of Strath-clyde). He also co-authored a number ofpapers, including “The U.S. in the WTO:Industry Structure, Firm Strategy andGovernment Policy,” with Alan Rugman(Indiana University) forthcoming in theOxford Handbook of International Business.

Assistant Professor Ken Cavalluzzo’s arti-cle, “Competition, Small Business Financ-ing and Discrimination: Evidence From aNew Survey,” co-authored with LindaCavalluzzo (CNA Corporation) and JohnWolken (Federal Reserve) is forthcomingin Journal of Business.

Associate Professor Michael Czinkota’s

paper, “International Information Cross-Fertilization in Marketing: An EmpiricalAssessment,” was selected as the EuropeanJournal of Marketing’s most outstandingpaper for 2000, and received the MCB2001 University Press Award for Excel-lence.

Professor William Droms’ Finance andAccounting for Nonfinancial Managers (4thed.) has been translated into Portuguese.He and Professor David Walker’s article“Performance Persistence of InternationalMutual Funds,” will be published in theGlobal Financial Journal, Vol.12, No. 2.

Associate Professors Patricia Fairfield’s

and Teri Yohn’s paper, “Using AssetTurnover and Profit Margin to ForecastChanges in Profitability” is forthcoming inthe Review of Accounting Studies. Fairfield,Yohn and Assistant Professor Scott

Whisenant’s paper, “Accrued Earnings andGrowth: Implications for Earnings Persis-tence and Market Mispricing” wasaccepted at the 2001 Summer Symposiumat Hong Kong University of Science andTechnology.

Associate Professor Ronald Goodstein’s

paper “The Moderating Effect of Per-ceived Risk on Consumers’ Evaluations ofProduct Incongruity: Preference for theNorm,” co-authored with MargaretCampbell (University of Colorado) willappear in the December 2001 issue ofJournal of Consumer Research. In February2001 he gave two presentations to theSociety for Consumer Psychology: “Affec-tive Responses to Music in TV Advertise-ments,” with Julie Edell, Marian Moore,and Wanda Wallace (Duke University);and “The Effects of Consumer Controland Motivation on Information Processingand Communication Effectiveness on theWeb,” with Andrew Aylesworth (BentleyCollege) and Ramaprasad Unni (PortlandState University).

Visiting Professor Prem Jain published“Financial Leverage Changes Associatedwith Corporate Mergers,” in the Journal ofCorporate Finance, Vol. 6, December 2000.

Associate Professor Catherine Langlois’

and Jean-Pierre Langlois’ article, “Engi-neering Cooperation: A Game TheoreticAnalysis of Phased Treaties and Agree-ments” appears in the July 2001 volume ofAmerican Journal of Political Science.

Professor Joseph Mazzola’s paper“Heuristics for the Multi-Resource Gener-alized Assignment Problem,” co-authoredwith Steven P. Wilcox (Logicon, Inc.) isforthcoming in Naval Research and Logis-tics. Mazzola will organize invited papersessions at the INFORMS NationalMeeting in November.

Professor Douglas McCabe served as theassociate editor of an international man-agement issue of the Journal of BusinessEthics.

Professor Marcia Miceli’s paper “IndividualDifferences and Whistle Blowing” hasbeen accepted for presentation and publi-cation at the Proceedings of the Academyof Management meeting in August 2001.She will also present on her research onwhistle blowing at Toulouse University(France) in May.

Professor J. Keith Ord recently co-authored several articles, including: “Pre-diction Intervals for ARIMA Models,”Journal of Business and Economic Statistics,Vol. 19, 2001 with R.D. Snyder (MonashUniversity, Australia) and A.B. Koehler(Miami University of Ohio); “The Impactof Imperfect Processes on Production RunTimes,” with T. Boone and R. Ganeshan(both College of William and Mary) andY. Guo (Advanta Corporation) in Deci-sion Sciences, Vol. 31, 2000. His forth-coming publications include: ‘Testing forLocal Spatial Autocorrelation in the Pres-ence of Global Spatial Autocorrelation,”co-authored with A. Getis (San DiegoState University), Journal of Regional Sci-ence; “A New Look At Exponential

Smoothing,” with C. Chatfield (Universityof Bath, UK), R.D. Snyder (Monash Uni-versity, Australia) and A.B. Koehler(Miami University of Ohio), Journal of theRoyal Statistical Society; and two articles,“Forecasting Models and Prediction Inter-vals for the Multiplicative Hold-WintersMethod” and “Forecasting for InventoryControl with Exponential Smoothing,”both co-authored with R.D. Snyder andA.B. Koehler, both in International Journalof Forecasting. He has also received $43,000in research funding from the U.S. Depart-ment of Transportation to develop an on-line monitoring scheme for the principalmonthly and quarterly indicators.

Associate Professor N. Lamar Reinsch ispresident of the International Associationfor Business Communication. He published“Business Performance” in the January 1,2001 issue of Vital Speeches of the Day.

Assistant Professor Catherine H. Tinsley’s

article, “How We Get to Yes: Predicting theConstellation of Strategies Used AcrossCultures to Negotiate Conflict,” is forth-coming in Journal of Applied Psychology.

Assistant Professor Jeanine Turner pre-sented the following papers: “Understand-ing the Communicative Context CreatedThrough Telemedicine Interactions” inMarch 2001 at the National Library ofMedicine’s Telemedicine Symposium; and“Becoming Telecompetent: Creating aVirtual Organization Within aTelemedicine Network” as the keynotespeaker at the University of Dayton’sCommunication Day in February 2001.Other recent articles that are in pressinclude: “Consumer Response to VirtualService Organization: The Case of

Telemedicine” written with Professor BobThomas and Michelle Gailiun (Ohio StateUniversity) in International Journal of Med-ical Marketing; “Media Richness andSocial Information Processing: A Ratio-nale for Multifocal CME Activities,” withStuart Gilman (Department of VeteransAffairs) in the Journal of Continuing Edu-cation in the Health Professions; and“Telepsychiatry as a Case Study of Pres-ence: Do You Know What You Are Miss-ing?” in the Journal of Online Computer-Mediated Communication.

Professor Emeritus Othmar Winkler pre-sented “Data Obsolescence and Forecast-ing,” at the Federal Forecasters Conferencein September 2000. He will present hispaper, “A Different Approach to Regres-sion-Correlation in the Social Sciences,”at the International Statistical Institute in Korea in August 2001.

Assistant Professor Bennet Zelner willconduct research in Eastern Europe thissummer as part of an ongoing project withWitold Henisz (Wharton) examining theeffects of political institutions on electricityinfrastructure.



It takes more than a passport to equipMBAs for careers in the global mar-ketplace.Since its inception two years ago, the

required McDonough international resi-dency for MBAs has provided second-yearMBAs with the skills and experience tofunction effectively in the internationalbusiness environment.

According to Professor Stanley D.Nollen, the goal of the program is to “helpall our MBAs become competent andcomfortable conducting business in differ-ent countries and cultures, and to have anopportunity to improve their problem-solving and critical-thinking skills in arealistic setting.”

According to the students, that’swhat’s happening.

“It gave us the opportunity to delveinto the kinds of problems we’re going tosee as future executives,” says StephenTansey (MBA’01), who worked with ICIArgentina, a division of British-headquar-tered Imperial Chemical Industries. “It’snot simply theory, rehashing another case.We’re helping a real organization deal withreal issues they currently are facing.”

Andrea Gonzalez (MBA’01), whoworked with the National Stock Exchangeof India (NSE), believes the experienceunderscored that “the trend toward global-ization is a real thing” and that face-to-facecontact remains important despite thepowers of modern telecommunications.

“With all this technology—telecon-ferences, e-mail, telephones—you’d thinkthat business can be done without havingface-to-face meetings,” Gonzalez says.“But I don’t think you can. Because myperception of the people I talked to overthe phone completely changed when I wasin front of them.”

All McDonough MBA candidates arerequired to participate in the program,which integrates the functional skillslearned in the classroom into working onan international consulting project duringthe second semester of their second year.

The students are grouped in teams offive or six, with each team working on a

Overseas Integrative Experience

Going Global Broadens MBA Business,Cultural SkillsBy Tom Price

MBAs taking a break on the Argentina integrative.


consulting project for an overseas business.The students this year worked on 47 pro-jects in five countries—Brazil, England andthe Czech Republic, as well as India andArgentina. A sixth country will be addednext year, Lawrence W. Abeln, associatedean for graduate business programs, says.

Six weeks prior to the residency, theteams are assigned their corporate projects,and study the business practices, economicsystem and culture of the country. Theoverseas residency allows them to conductfurther research before presenting theirrecommendations to top company execu-tives on site.

During the residency, they visit a sec-ond company for an on-site case study ledby company executives, attend a joint ses-sion with local business school students,and are exposed to local culture throughlectures and tours.

The faculty involved with the projectsand the residency have taught, researched,worked or lived in the country previously.

Calling the program, which he directs,“an exercise in depth, not in breadth,”Nollen says that “we don’t want to act likesuperficial American business people skat-ing across the surface and hardly noticingwhere they are. We want our students torelate to the local life and times. So weneed to educate them about differences inthe national culture, in the business sys-tem, in the problems and issues that areoccupying the locals’ attention.

“The residency in Prague had speak-ers who talked about the problems of tran-sition from central planning to a marketeconomy. The speakers in India talkedabout the liberalization of trade andinvestment.

“The key point is that this kind oflearning can only occur through practicalexperiences outside the classroom-we haveto go abroad, we need to do the consultingprojects, which is a centerpiece of thecourse. These are genuine, real-life busi-ness problems that companies face, thatthey need solved.”

Tansey’s team developed a marketingand distribution plan for ICI Argentina tobegin selling its grape seed oil in theUnited States. The company “has to burnthe heck out of the oil” to turn it the yel-lowish color of common cooking oils, aprocess that destroys many of the oil’shealth benefits, Tansey said. ICI plannedto sell the product in the United Statesunder the brand “Vin Oil.”

The MBAs advised leaving the prod-uct its natural green color, emphasizing itshealth benefits, and promoting it as “extravirgin grape seed oil” or “oil in the raw.”They also recommended branding it“Mendoza Valley,” a name that evokesArgentina’s Mendoza wine region andresembles the Napa and Sonoma valleysthat Americans associate with good wine.

One remarkable moment in their resi-dency occurred when the five students metwith nine executives from several ICI depart-ments. At that meeting, for the first time, themarketing executives learned from the pro-duction executives that green oil could claimmore health benefits and be cheaper to pro-duce than yellow oil,Tansey says.

Gonzalez’s team advised the Indianstock exchange on developing a globaliza-tion strategy. NSE is a powerful competi-tor in the fragmented Indian stock market,doing about 40 percent of the business,and it wanted to expand internationally.

“We recommended that they pursue astrategic alliance first with some regionalstock exchanges and in the long term witha global stock exchange like NASDAQ,”she says.

“They would need to get their firstexperience within Asia. After that, theycould move to a more international scenario.”

Gonzalez, a Mexican citizen, said shewas struck by the contrasts in India—high-tech industries and sophisticated businessexecutives along with extreme poverty.

“I had heard comparisons betweenMexico and India,” she says, “and I wasshocked that it wasn’t similar at all. India ismuch more poor than I expected it to be.”

She found informal time spent withIndian business school students to be espe-cially interesting. “We got to talk to peoplewho are in a similar situation to us, and tocompare points of view,” she says.

The companies clearly benefit as well, says William Rocca (MBA’92), vice-president at Citigroup Prague. CitigroupPrague asked MBAs to examine the feasibility of e-exchanges in the CzechRepublic, where various industries grouptogether to buy items, such as office equip-ment, in bulk to avail themselves of thelowest possible prices.

“With just a nugget of guidance, thestudents produced a good, comprehensivestudy,” says Rocca. “The development of e-exchanges is very leading edge, and it’s agood opportunity for us to learn what willwork here in the Czech Republic whilegiving MBAs the experience of working ina global environment.”

Nollen believes that the feedbackMBAs have received from companiesspeaks volumes about the practicality ofthe international integratives.

“During the team presentation for oneproject,” he says, “the managing directorwas there, and he gave instructions to hiscolleagues at that moment to take up thisrecommendation.

“We had a company in India tell usthis project was worth a six-figure consul-tant’s price.”


Brazilian Orphanage

Offers MBAs Lessons

in Management

By Professor Michael Ryan

Second-year MBA students who selected

Sao Paulo, Brazil, for their Global Experience

took time out from projects with Bank Boston,

Bechtel, Edelman Public Relations, Enron,

Gartner Group, General Motors, Interfarma,

and Merck to visit a local orphanage,

Lar do Menino Jesus, and learned a lesson

in management along the way.

The founder and director of the orphanage,

Ms. Guiomar Morselli, explained that her

orphanage filled a vital need in Sao Paulo

because of the city’s extreme poverty and the

fact the government provides neither care for

orphaned children nor funding for charitable

organizations. Through private donations,

Ms. Morselli has been able to create a home

for several hundred children. The orphanage

provides food, housing, health and dental

care, and education.

While the orphanage receives donations

from charitable organizations, including the

Canadian Women’s Society of Sao Paulo, who

hosted the MBA student visit to the orphan-

age, fundraising in a systematic fashion in

a developing country is challenging. Maintain-

ing a steady, reliable income flow to pay for

staffing and equipment needs is difficult.

For example, cash shortages have sometimes

resulted in a lack of paychecks. But the staff,

which consists mostly of locals, is so loyal

that they have continued to work despite

not being paid.

The students met with Ms. Morselli to discuss

running the orphanage in the face of such

challenges, and learned some valuable man-

agement lessons. They observed Ms. Morselli’s

core values, and her selflessness and genuine

concern for the orphans, and viewed it as a

powerful motivator in retaining workers and

keeping morale high. Her savvy financial man-

agement enables her to keep the orphanage

stocked with food, medicine, etc. The MBAs

concluded the visit by meeting the children

and presenting them with gifts of coloring

books, crayons, and construction paper.

Georgetown MBAs have a special leadership

mission because of the Jesuit tradition of the

university, which emphasizes the obligation

we have to create a just society. Our orphan-

age visit allowed MBAs to experience the

shadow side of a dynamic, growing Brazilian

economy that has not yet raised the living

standards of much of its population.

Many of our graduates are now working

in developing countries such as Brazil. Their

business expertise is just as valuable to

humanitarian causes, and need not be mutu-

ally exclusive to their corporate careers.

Professor Mike Ryan teaches strategy

and public policy at the McDonough School

and led the Sao Paulo residency.


Egan is chairman and CEO of Rodamco North AmericaNV, which owns Urban Shopping Centers, of Chicago, thethird-largest regional shopping mall company in the UnitedStates. He said his strong ties to Holland, Georgetown andJesuit education in general motivated his gift.

“The stockholders of Urban Shopping Centers are largelyDutch, and I wanted to give something back personally to theDutch people,” he said. “I received a Jesuit education, and I amimpressed by the Jesuit education received at Georgetown by mythree children,” two of whom earned undergraduate degrees atMcDonough.

Steers Faculty Research Fellowship to StrengthenTeaching, Research

Members of the McDonough faculty will become more activescholars and more challenging and stimulating teachers thanksto the newly created Steers Faculty Research Fellowship.

Founded with a $100,000 contribution from McDonoughalumnus Robert “Bob” Steers (B’75), the fund will support sum-mer research projects. Such research strengthens the curriculumby enabling faculty to generate innovative, continuously updatedcourses as they pursue their scholarly interests, according toDean Christopher P. Puto.

Steers is co-founder and chairman of Cohen & Steers Cap-ital Management Inc. of New York, a pioneer in real estateinvestment trusts. An active alum, he is a member of theMcDonough Board of Advisors, the MSB Major Gifts Com-mittee, the Wall Street Alliance Advisory Board and the Blueand Gray Society.

In 1999, Steers contributed $100,000 to the McDonoughgraduate facility.

Planned Gift Significantly Advances Campaign

Business education and social justice both will be advancedthrough a $3.5-million gift from Joseph E. and Allanah W. Behof Atherton, California. The Behs contributed $3 million to theMcDonough School and $500,000 to the Georgetown Univer-sity Center for Social Justice Research, Teaching and Service.

Mr. Beh (F’41) studied business at the Georgetown Schoolof Foreign Service, which housed business programs prior to theestablishment of the business school in 1957. Mrs. Beh is a for-mer external affairs director at the business school.

Mr. Beh has served on the Georgetown University Board ofRegents and on the McDonough School Board of Advisors. Heretired as president of the Joseph E. Beh Co., a Silicon Valleyreal estate company.

“I believe you have to give something back in life,” Mr. Behsaid. “Georgetown University gave me something to begin with,so it’s payback time.”

He said he hopes the gift will motivate others to contribute.The gift—a bequest in the Behs’ estate plan—represents

the kind of planned giving that makes up about 40 percent ofthe funds raised in the university’s current Third Century Cam-paign, Planned Giving Director Jeffrey Comfort said. Informa-tion about planned giving is available from Comfort at 202-687-3697.

Chairman and CEO of Rodamco North America NVEstablishes Dutch Scholarship

Top students from the Netherlands will enrich the internationalatmosphere at McDonough thanks to a $1 million gift fromGeorgetown University parent Gerald E. Egan. The gift estab-lished the Gerald Egan MBA Dutch Scholarship for Excel-lence, which will bring several outstanding Dutch students toMcDonough each year.

The scholarships will “help the McDonough School com-pete with other top-ranked institutions for the most competitiveMBA students while enhancing the school’s strong internationalreputation,” Dean Christopher P. Puto said.

Lawrence W. Abeln, associate dean for graduate businessprograms, said the program will “support our mission to encom-pass a diverse and international student body and will impor-tantly enhance our visibility in Europe.”

Dividends

Associate Dean Lawrence Abeln, Dean Christopher Puto and

Mr. and Mrs. Gerald Egan celebrate the establishment of the

Gerald Egan MBA Dutch Scholarship for Excellence.


“The ultimate effect of these develop-ments, which career advisers say have ledrecent and soon-to-be graduates to acceptwhatever offers they receive very quickly,may be a rash of job-hopping a few yearsdown the road,” commented LawrenceAbeln, associate dean and director of grad-uate programs, about the rescinding ofmany MBA job offers in the New YorkTimes article “Dear New Employee: Wel-come, and Goodbye” ( Jonathan Glater),May 4.

“Despite a record number of recruiters oncampus this fall, the job-placement num-bers will be lower than last year,” said Dar-nell Hoose, assistant dean and director ofMBA career management, commenting onthe economic downturn and its effect onMBAs in The Washington Post article “ForMBAs, the Reception Has Cooled” (SaraGoo), May 4.

“Fortunately at Georgetown, we have nothad any of our full-time job offersrescinded,” said Darnell Hoose, assistantdean of MBA career management, com-menting about the recent downsizing ofnew hires on CNNfn’s “Tough Call,” Fri-day, May 11.

Professor Robert Grant appeared on CNN

on March 9 to discuss the introduction of“no e-mail Fridays” by several Europeancompanies.

“With today’s activity in Yahoo, it lookslike NASDAQ is moving in the directionof more rather than fewer trading halts.Clearly, it is not in the market’s best inter-est to allow trading to occur in a chaotic ordisorderly situation,” said Professor JamesAngel in the Wall Street Journal article,“Yahoo! Trading Halt Creates Confusion”(Kate Kelly), March 8.

“Demand for hot IPOs can run 20 to 30times greater than supply. And individualinvestors usually take a back seat when bro-kers are doling out the sought-after shares,”commented Professor Reena Aggarwal in“Morgan Stanley Keeps Lead On AgereIPO,” (Emma-Kate Symons) Wall StreetJournal, March 22. Aggarwal’s research onIPOs was also mentioned in “Unwise Wis-dom: IPOs Will Make You Rich” (RuthSimon) Wall Street Journal, January 29.

Monica Gray, associate director of MBAadmissions was quoted in USA Today in afeature on the recent surge in graduateschool applicants. “Some people are mak-ing a professionally protective move. Theysee opportunities are not as accessible...andfrankly, some people are panicking,” saidGray in “Slowing Economy Sends WorkersBack to School” (Stephanie Armour),February 27. The article also noted thatapplications to the McDonough School ofBusiness MBA program are up 10% fromlast year, a pace expected to set the record.

“The productivity gains of recent yearshave gone disproportionately to sharehold-ers rather than to labor in higher wages,”observed Professor William Byron in a LosAngeles Times article, “Bush’s Tax Cut:Implications for You and the Economy”( James Flanigan), February 11.

Professor Ronald Goodstein noted that“smaller independent grocery and specialtystores will need to count on customer loy-alty to stay afloat on National Public Radio’s“Morning Edition,” January 22.

“Because we are trying out new things,there are going to be mistakes, there aregoing to be things unexpected,” said Pro-fessor Willis Emmons in “California IsUrged to Alter, Not Scrap, Electric MarketApproach” (Michael Davis) HoustonChronicle, January 13.

Alumni In the MediaDoreen Amorosa (B’79), vice president ofglobal recruitment and retention at MerrillLynch, commented on the company’s newtelecommuting program in the Wall StreetJournal. “In these times, retaining yourgood employees becomes even moreimportant,” she said, in “This Time, FirmsSee Work-Life Plans as Aid DuringDownturn” (Sue Shellenbarger) March 28.

Michael Periu Jr. (B’98) was featuredin a front-page Wall Street Journal article,“Young Dot-Commers In Trouble GoHome To Mom and Dad,” February 8.

In the Media

We encourage all business

school alumni–undergraduate,

MBA, and executive MBA,

to send us class notes. Please

contact Elizabeth Shine at

202.687.4080 or e-mail her at

[email protected].,

if you would like to become

a class agent. We do not accept

engagement or pre-birth

announcements.


investing. Vincent has alsoworked for ten years with theMultiple Sclerosis Society. Hecurrently holds a seat on thelocal chapter’s Board of Trustees,as well as serving on variousother committees. Vincentremains unmarried and lives on Long Island, N.Y.

William Sullivan lives in Wilmette, Ill.

1978John Duffy has been promotedto senior vice president with theNational Bank of South Carolina.He resides in Sumter, S.C. withhis wife, Liz Timdale (N’79), andtheir son, Jack, age 7.

1979Smiti Kumar has been a seniorpromotions manager at Coca-Cola North America in Atlanta,Ga., since 1999. Smiti leads ateam of consumer promotiondevelopers for Sprite and eightother regional brands in the U.S.

1980Kathleen Cosgrave has movedto Milton, Mass.

1981Gary Sherman is a partner atthe New Jersey CPA firm ofRosenberg, Rich, Balter, Berman& Co. In September 2000, hebecame a member of theBernards Township EducationFoundation, which hosts a bene-fit concert to raise money forschool grants.

1985Bruce Ackerman is chairmanand CEO of One Touch Corpo-ration, an interactive media com-

pany with offices in 18 countries.Bruce lives in the Princeton, N.J.area with his wife, Diane, andtheir four children.

Paula Gifford is married toChris Casiraghi and lives inWilton, Conn. Together, theyare raising their six-month-olddaughter, Isabel.

1987Eric Allan Koch is an attorneywith Appelgate, McDonald &Koch, P.C. and has beenappointed chairman of the boardat Dunn Memorial Hospital inBedford, Ind.

Alan Press is a founder of AlanR. Press, LLC, a full-service lawfirm. Alan lives with his wife ofeleven years, Lety Press, in Buf-falo Grove, Ill. They have athree-year-old son, EthanJoseph, and a one-year-olddaughter, Elizabeth Bennet.

1989Eric Christ, and his wife Mau-reen McIvor (CAS’91), recentlycompleted a worldwide tour.

1990Sam Khichi was named chiefoperating officer of youpow-ered.inc, a provider of permis-sion-based personalization soft-ware for e-business, softwarevendors, platform vendors andconsumers, on February 1, 2001.

Edward Ponzi is currentlyemployed at the real estate bro-ker Coldwell Banker in Wash-ington, D.C. He is working inthe commercial real estate group,handling bankruptcies.

UNDERGRADUATE

1956James Chute lives in Mt.Gretna, Pa.

James Lauerman is chairman,vice president and secretary ofCRL, Inc., a maker of MarblesProducts for sportsmen, includ-ing compasses, gunsights, hunt-ing knives, folding straightblades and small axes. James issemi-retired. He is also activewith Marble Arms Rotary andRotary Boys club.

1962George M. Ruppert (L’65) livesin Arlington, Va.

1972John Woodruff and his wife,Tina, are living deep in the rain-forest of Puerto Rico. After leav-ing Dial Corporation, where hewas area director for LatinAmerica, John finally realizedhis dream of running his owninternational company,CasAmerica, headquartered inPanama City. John enjoys beingable to work by his pool once ina while. John and Tina spendmost of their free time on animalrights, growing orchids, andisland-hopping in theCaribbean.

1976Vincent Restituto served in theUnited States Army for six-and-a-half years. Retiring at the rankof captain, due to multiple scle-rosis, he earned an MBA fromAdelphi University in GardenCity, N.Y., and manages a smalloffice specializing in private

Alumni Notes

ALUMNI PROFILE

Early Alumna Credits Her Success to Business School

By Tom Price

Ellen M. Morrell (B’66) has drawn on her

experiences as a Georgetown Business

School student and teacher to become a pre-

mier Washington-area real estate broker.

“I think real estate is just like teaching,

because you are not effective as a real

estate broker if your clients are not making

educated choices,” said Morrell, who is vice president and principal bro-

ker of Washington Fine Properties, an affiliate of Sotheby’s International

Reality. “My job is to educate clients on the market, on location and on

the price, so that when they make a decision to buy or sell they have

enough facts to make that decision on their own.”

As a teacher, Morrell said, “You learn how to deal with people, and how

to get things across that might seem simple to you but might be compli-

cated to the other person.” Those skills are useful in serving clients, she

said, as is the marketing knowledge she acquired studying, researching

and teaching the subject.

Morrell’s remarkable career began when she managed to enroll in the

Georgetown Business School at a time when only a handful of women

were enrolled, and women were discouraged from applying.

“I don’t know how I got the gumption to keep going,” she said. She

made her case to the acting business school dean, Joseph Sebes, S.J.,

explaining she would be unable to receive a Catholic education because

there were no Catholic business schools for women. Eventually, Sebes

told her to attend summer school, and she received a letter of acceptance

in the fall.

Morrell taught at Mount Vernon and Marymount colleges as well as at

Georgetown, where she also served as assistant to the dean. She entered

the real estate business 22 years ago, and helped to found Washington

Fine Properties two years ago. The firm has grown from four to more

than 30 agents.

Morrell, whose three children graduated from Georgetown, serves on

the McDonough Board of Advisors and the University Alumni Board and

mentors McDonough students.


1991William R. Casey is a principalat Morgan Stanley Dean Witterin London, England.

David Guarriello, a U.S. ArmyCurrent Operations Officer, ismoving from Fort Shafter,Hawaii to Fort Leavenworth,Kan., to work in the BattleCommand Training Program.

Sara Giere Rivenburgh gavebirth to a son, Jackson, inAugust 2000. Although heweighed two pounds at birth, heis doing fine. Sara is currentlystaying at home with her son.

Buwon Tran is a marketresearch manager at BP-Arco,the result of the merger of the oilcompanies BP Amoco and Arco,in the West Coast business unit.She received her MBA from theUniversity of Southern Califor-nia in May 2000.

1992Kevin Joseph Ronayne is atrader/principle at the invest-ment bank Robertson Stephensin California.

Troy Thorn is president of 2.82Inc. and lives in Fort Worth,Texas.

1996Sasha Discala was married onSeptember 9, 2000 to MichaelZolik. Erin Sheridon (B’96),Jennifer Pace (B’96), andVeronica Smiley (B’96)attended the wedding.

Abigail Farris is a partner atBenedetti & Farris, LLC. andlives in Richmond, Va.

Alumni Notes

1997Regina (Reyna) Gonzalesrecently passed the New Yorkand New Jersey bar exams. She ispresently clerking for the Hon-orable Jonathan N. Harris.

1999Bradford Caldwell lives in Sil-ver Spring, Md., and is an execu-tive director for the CampusCredit Union Council, an orga-nization that assists credit unionsthat serve college students. Hehas been appointed to the advi-sory board of the GeorgetownUniversity Alumni & StudentFederal Credit Union, and to theMontgomery County, Md.,Consumer Affairs AdvisoryCommittee.

Angel Florenzan is working onthe consumer marketing staff atEntertainment Weekly magazine,a Time, Inc., publication.

Brett Helgren lives in New YorkCity and is now working as awriter at Forbes magazine.

Karis Youngblood lives inTampa, Fla., and is volunteeringfor several organizations, includ-ing Habitat for Humanity,Inroads, Inc., an organizationthat places minority youth inbusiness and industry and pre-pares them for corporate andcommunity leadership; and as atutor for Crestwood.

2000Jason Benjamin Lee is aresearch analyst for the invest-ment bank UBS Warburg. He isnow working in the mergers &acquisitions group. Prior toworking in M&A, he was withthe real estate division. He has


traveled to Switzerland, Austria,Germany, Puerto Rico andConnecticut on assignments.

Meghan Rice is working atArthur Andersen in Virginia.

MBA

1988Dodd Kazem-Zadeh is livingin Rockville, Md., and works atAccenture.

1990Class agent: Lorraine [email protected]

Shaul Berechman has movedfrom Israel to Boston, Mass. Hereports making the transitionsmoothly, except for the Bostondrivers.

Beth Laboe Edgar has herhands full with daughter Isabeland her younger sister, Colette(born November 2000). Sheand Jason are enjoying theirfamily. Beth left 3M in October2000 and is pursuing a master’sin public policy at the Univer-sity of Minnesota.

Jane Ashton Hawes has beenout of touch since her son Colinmanaged to delete her entire e-mail address book from hercomputer. Daughter Emmacontinues to have better com-puter etiquette. Jane and herfamily are planning a trip toChicago in May 2001.

Lorraine Herr, your faithfulclass scribe, is busy chasing hertwo-year-old around and hatch-ing a second child. Her draperydesign business is expandingfrom Illinois to Minneapolisand Omaha.

MBA

Bill Kummel (MBA’90) calledto say he attended Rob Torreswedding in Maui, where hecaught up with Mohab Khat-tab (MBA’90) and MonteCarlo (MBA’90) and their fam-ilies. Bill is working in the newmedia field.

C. Whitney Mandel has beenmaking many trips to Africancountries as a sought-aftervacation consultant. He is plan-ning on extending his next stayto make a quick pilgrimage toVictoria Falls.

Christine Campe-Price sent abeautiful family photo for theholidays, with husband Chris,Peter (5 years) and Eliza (3years). Peter is in kindergartenand Eliza is in pre-school.Christine is very active in bothof their schools and gets a lot ofsatisfaction from that work.

Eileen Utter remains based inSan Francisco and has beendashing around the country inher role at Charles Schwab.Recently, she had an articlepublished on the Schwabintranet about her sabbaticalexperience—five weeks inFrance. Eileen has been work-ing out and training for a bikeride she has planned for July2001. She reports seeingMonte Carlo when he was inwas in California on a consult-ing gig and swears she cookedhim dinner—trout bleu, whichis French, of course.

Jason Wu and wife Jackie, havea son, Jeffrey, born July 2000.They are living in Shanghai.Jeffrey is sitting, turning aroundand will be walking and talkingsoon, reports his proud father.We have it from an unbiasedsource that Jeffrey is also “verycute.” Jason works for Coca-

Cola (China) Beverages Ltd.,where he has been for the pastfive years. He continues to wit-ness dramatic progress beingmade in Shanghai. Jason expectsto be in Atlanta some time thisspring for a three-month Coketraining program. He hearsoccasionally from David Burke.

1991Class agent: Mary Pat [email protected]

Layla Kashani has left CNBCafter two years and is now work-ing in e-commerce at GlobalExchange Services, a division ofGeneral Electric. Currently, sheis telecommuting to work in SanDiego from her home in Ran-cho Santa Fe, Calif. Layla is vol-unteering with ELFUN, aglobal organization of GEemployees who are committedto improving communitiesthrough volunteerism.

1992Stephen Corcoran celebratedthe third anniversary of theopening of his restaurant, Sky, inSudbury, Mass. He is currentlylooking into opening a secondrestaurant. Stephen and his wife,Nancy Sarkis (C’87), had theirfirst child, Holden Stephen, onJune 5, 2000.

John Rarick lives in San Fran-cisco, Calif., and is a vice presi-dent at Wells Fargo.

1993Class agent: Jordan O’[email protected]

Tom Billington received a pro-motion from director of newproduct development to grouppublisher in charge of 11 publi-cations and the conference unit

for Pike & Fischer, a subsidiaryof The Bureau of NationalAffairs, a publishing firm thatprovides coverage of legal andregulatory developments fordecision makers in business andgovernment. The four confer-ences he has led all focus onInternet and e-commerce publicpolicy. His work has been writ-ten about in Folio magazine andThe Professional PublishingReport. On a personal note,Tom’s wife and four-year-oldson are enjoying their house inChevy Chase, Md.

Holley Darden and SteveVolkers are working together atThe Nature Conservancy(www.nature.org), the largestprivate conservation organiza-tion in the world. Steve is thedirector of the InternationalLeadership Council, a group ofthe largest global public and pri-vate corporations that meet reg-ularly to share information onenvironmental issues and giveinput to the Conservancy’s ini-tiatives. Holley is enjoying her10th year with the Conservancyand is currently producing atraveling photography exhibitionfor the organization. She workspart-time and raises her twochildren in McLean, Va.

1994Class agent: David [email protected]

Mary Akimoto gave birth toAlastair Johnstone Carlyle onFebruary 7, 2001.

Manish Agrawal is now head-hunting as CEO of Itsearchplusin India. He is focusing onhead-hunting for large- andmedium-sized informationtechnology companies.


Alu

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esSimon Black and his wife,Alice, recently celebrated thebirth of their son, Jacob Maurice( January 2001) in London,where Simon is CEO andfounder of N-Circle Limited, amarketing management trans-formation company.

Brian Christie is president andco-founder of QuantumStream,a Virginia-based Internet soft-ware and online service providerstart-up.

Marlise Eillis left the textileindustry in November 2000 aftereight years. She is now workingat 1-800-FLOWERS.com inWestbury, N.Y. as the productmanager for flowers. She devel-ops the flower products for boththe website and the telecenter.

Herve Francoise and his wifeFabienne had a baby boy, JaredHerve, on February 10, 2001.Jared weighed in at 7 pounds 5ounces and was 20 inches long.

Holly Fulgum and husbandAndy have a beautiful baby boy,William DeWitt Tisdale, bornon March 6, weighing 8 pounds,8 ounces. Holly is planning to bea stay-at-home mom for a while,and manage her husband’s lawpractice and father-in-law’s con-struction business.

Mattias Graff resides inChicago, Ill. He is currentlydeveloping a townhouse project,as well as two large apartmentprojects.

Ashley Lowe (JD/MBA ‘94)married Rob Shaya on Septem-ber 3, 2000.

Danielle Slentz and husbandAndy have returned from Aus-tralia and are currently living inHouston, Texas.

Samantha Tarlton and hus-band, Dave, are living in Boston,Mass., and recently visited CostaRica.

Alison and Bill Van Dyke hada baby girl, Claire Marie, bornon March 17, 2001. Allison andBill are living in Northern Cali-fornia.

1996Class agent: Jill [email protected]

Aleco Bravo (JD/MBA ‘96) hasbeen living in Los Angeles,Calif. for the past four years. Hestarted as an actor and is nowworking as an executive pro-ducer. He has been workingwith classmate Efraim Wyeth(MBA ‘95) on building theinFILM Network for the pasttwo years. Aleco is vice presi-dent, business affairs, andEfraim is CEO/founder of thecompany, which provides aglobal marketplace that helpsmotion media professionalsaccess industry information,market themselves, conductbusiness and execute projects ina more efficient, effective anddynamic manner, utilizing acombination of appropriatemediums for information distri-bution, communication andtransactions. Both Aleco andEfraim are involved with theGeorgetown University LosAngeles Alumni Chapter. Any-one wanting to contact Alecocan reach him [email protected].

Paul Maloney is living in SiliconValley and is the president andCFO of a semiconductor com-pany, while also continuing to runhis legal, investment, and privacyadvisory business for a smallnumber of wealthy families.

Lisa Mitiguy is one of the fewstill with her original 1994employer, Ernst & Young, inWashington, D.C. She will bevisiting Thailand for three weeksin July 2001.

Paul and Jane Murphy nowhave two children, Kathryn andMargaret. Kathryn is two yearsand three months and Margaretis three months. Paul took a newjob with Sentinel Capital Part-ners, a private equity firm inNew York City that focuses onconsumer products and businessservices. They have moved backto NYC and bought an apart-ment on the Upper East Side.

Liz and Ben Rabinowitz areliving in Highland Park, Ill. Benis spending a lot of time inIsrael, while Liz is enjoying hertime with baby Maya.

Scott Shuda (JD/MBA ‘94) iscounsel for Vicinity.com in PaloAlto, Calif.

1995Class agent: Scott [email protected]

Katie Bauersfeld celebrated herone-year anniversary in SanFrancisco. She loves the area andswears she won’t leave.

James Creigh (JD/MBA ‘95)was the former counsel forGarage.com and is now in pri-vate practice. He works at Wil-son, Sonsini, Goodrich &Rosati, based in Palo Alto, Calif.

Bruce Dincin married BethMadorsky in Detroit, Mich., inNovember 2000. Bruce and Bethbought a house and are currentlyliving in Chevy Chase, Md.

Claudia Kern had a baby girl,Andrea, on November 9, 2000.Andrea weighed 7 pounds 3ounces and measured 50 cms.Claudia is living in Tysons Cor-ner, Va.

Andy Libuser and wife Andiare moving to London, Eng-land, where Andy will be thedirector of product managementand sales support for SprintInternational.

Al Mazloom (JD/MBA ‘95)lives in Arlington, Va., and isinvolved with the inFILM Net-work, a California-based com-pany founded by other George-town alums.

Kui Nakamura is still trading inNew York City. He is getting acrew together to do some sailingduring the week and weekendsand is considering entering someraces.

Kerri Olson and Ariel Ecksteinhave a beautiful addition to theirfamily. Sonia Isabelle arrived onJanuary 1, 2001. Kerri and fam-ily are living in the New YorkCity area.

Michelle Russey married BobMcCarthy (MBA ‘92) onAugust 19, 2000, in SpringMills, Pa. Michelle is currently adirector of corporate strategy atVerizon Communications inNew York, and Bob is a riskmanager at GE Capital inStamford, Conn. They’re livingin Manhattan.

Alumni Notes


Bob Gabriel is currently the vicepresident of Investlyes.comSolutions, a division of IXI Cor-poration, a privately-helddatabase marketing and con-sumer-segmentation consultingcompany based in McLean, Va.Bob still lives in Georgetownwith wife Megan and childrenMargaret (7), Will (4), anddaughter Honor (2). He recentlyran into Professors RicardoErnst, Bardia Kamrad andDavid Walker at neighborhoodparties and reports they are alldoing well.

Stephan Gaull returned toWashington, D.C. after nearlyfour years in Sao Paulo, Brazil,to serve a one-year appointmentas an Executive Fellow at theExport-Import Bank of theUnited States. He is working onemerging-market debt restruc-turing as well as originatingstructured finance transactions.

Juliana Jaoudi is executivedirector of pan-European busi-ness development for AOLEurope. She recently sawWendi Norris (MBA ‘96), vicepresident of marketing forScale8, an infastructure andInternet services company, forNew Year’s Eve 2001, and for awedding in San Franciscoshortly after. She also keeps inclose touch with StefanSchmitz (MBA’97), who is cur-rently working for J.P. MorganChase & Co. in New York.

Michele Joseph is CEO of aconsulting brokerage firm,www.klickconsultants.com,focusing on strategic marketingsolutions for the telecom indus-try. One of the firm’s projectswas the rebranding of BellAtlantic and GTE to Verizon

Communications. Michele is thebusy mother of a four-year-oldboy named Austin. Theyrecently moved into a home inthe greater Silver Spring, Md.area.

Richard Oren lives in Hunting-ton, N.Y., with his wife Nancyand new baby daughter Emma,born on November 3, 2000.Richard recently became direc-tor of licensing for HBO, wherehe develops and markets con-sumer products for hit showssuch as “The Sopranos” and “Sexand the City.”

(Richard) Yun Xu has beenworking with various Asianoffices for the international lawfirms of O’Melveny & Meyers(1996-1997) and Debevoise &Plimpton (1997-present) onmergers and acquisitions activity,corporate finance, debt restruc-turings, private equity transac-tions, and cross-border jointventure deals. He is currentlystationed in Hong Kong.

1997Class agent: Andrea [email protected]

Andrea Alexander has leftProcter & Gamble for thebiotech industry. She has movedto the Bay Area and is workingin strategic marketing division atChiron Corporation.

Grace deFries and her husband,Stephen Aroesty, became theproud parents of Ryan on January4, 2001. Grace and Stephen alsohave a daughter, Maggie (2).

Jeff Fassett has moved to SanDiego and has joined ChrysalisSoftware as their vice presidentof marketing.

MBA ALUMNI PROFILE

MBA Sets Alum on Road to Academy Award Nomination

by Tom Price

Varied emotions swept over Joan Stein (MBA’91),

as she sat in the audience at this year’s Academy

Awards presentations and learned that her film

did not win the Oscar for live-action short.

“In that moment, when I heard another name

announced, it was shock and disappointment,”

Stein recalled. “Then there was a sense of relief that I didn’t have to get up

to give a speech. And then there was the realization of how incredible it is

to be nominated, and how having gone to the awards was like a dream.”

Mixing with the emotions of the Academy moment, were the emotions

of the true story behind the film—of relatives lost in the Holocaust and

the feeling that telling their stories will help to make sure that the world

never forgets.

Stein’s 25-minute film, “One Day Crossing,” is the fictional story of a Jew-

ish family trying to survive the Nazi terror in Hungary near the end of

World War II. It is inspired and informed by the stories of relatives from

her parents’ and grandparents’ generations, some of whom survived and

some of whom perished.

Stein’s business education helped her manage her cast and interact with

the many teams that are involved in creating a movie, she said. Her busi-

ness school experiences also put her on the path that led to the award-

winning film.

While at Georgetown, Stein was a founding member of Students for

Eastern European Democracy (SEED), composed of MBA candidates who

wanted to help the emerging democracies of the former Soviet Bloc.

After graduation, she worked as a management consultant in Budapest,

helping Hungarian companies adapt to free markets and international cor-

porations invest in Hungary. While there, she volunteered at a camp for

refugees from the Balkan conflicts. And she began making videotapes at

the camp, “to show people the faces of suffering.” That rekindled a long-

standing interest in film and led her into the Columbia University film pro-

gram. “One Day Crossing,” filmed in Hungary, was part of her thesis.

Stein now is working on the script for her first full-length feature.

Alu

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Chris Hickson has moved onfrom Snap! He has joined thebusiness development arm ofkeen.com, a company that offerspersonal advice for everyday life.He works with PatrickMcKenna (MBA ‘98).

Scott Humphrey and wifeRachel are the proud parents ofa baby girl. Samantha Rose wasborn on March 4, 2001, and isdoing well. Scott, Rachel &Samantha are still enjoying lifein Atlanta. The last weekend inMarch, Scott hosted anovernight with some formerclassmates to kick off theirannual Rotisserie BaseballLeague. Attendees includedAndrea Gothelf, Tom Javitch,Meg Mulvihill, Rose Baisch,Dan Smink, Scott Williamson,Todd Corley, Phil Cefarattiand Max Smith (all MBA ‘97).

Kris Lichter is now a director atPalm Ventures, the businessdevelopment arm for the PalmOperating System at Palm, Inc..

Malinda McCulloch Marshwas married to ChristopherMarsh on November 4, 2000.She is now living in Ridgewood,N.J., and is teaching business atthe local community college.

Heather Price, Leigh Jack-man, Jennifer Thompson andJean Berger are settling downat their new jobs at Procter &Gamble in Cincinnati. The fourget together once a month forthe “Second Tuesday Club” toeat dinner and talk about theglory days.

Ernesto Priego and his wife,Traci, are the proud parents ofThomas Charles, born onNovember 26, 2000. The familylives in Roswell, Ga.

Jeff Rothschild is now an invest-ment banker at J.P. MorganChase & Co., working in themergers & acquisitions group.He is also in charge of the UnitedJewish Appeal campaign for themergers & acquisitions group.Jeff married Debra Silverman(L’96) almost two years ago.

John Wolpert has moved toAustin, Texas and rejoined IBM,working with fellow classmateLeslie Givens on the ExtremeBlue program, IBM’s incubatorfor talent and technology.

1998Class agent: Brian Knox [email protected]

Ali Bastani and Shalini Lalwere married in October, 2000.Ali works with Goldman Sachsin their private wealth manage-ment group, while Shalini is vicepresident of marketing for anewly-formed technology com-pany called Learning Technol-ogy Partners.

Chris and Christa (Varney)Demitz live in Rockville, Md.Chris works in project financefor HMSHost, while Christaworks in the public relationsdepartment for Symantec. Theykeep busy with their little boy,Connor.

Mitchel Fenster and KristenKlemperer were married onMarch 17, 2001 at the Car Barnin Georgetown. Class of ‘98wedding attendees includedCarrie Eiche, Danielle Ring,Steve Woo, Rich Garodnick,Margaret (Owen) Welch,Jane Dwyer and HeatherHunt. The new couple reportsthat 8” x 10” wedding photos areavailable upon request.

Carlos Fonseca has been pro-moted to vice president for busi-ness development and strategyfor Citigroup Latin America.While at Citigroup, Carlos hasworked in India, Brazil, Aus-tralia and Trinidad.

Jay Jacobs lives and works inOrange county, Calif. He is stillwith PIMCO Advisors, a firmthat provides fixed income andequity investment managementto institutional and retail clients,and was recently promoted tosenior vice president.

David McCarthy works for GECapital in their corporatefinance department. He recentlymade a successful appearance on‘Who Wants to be a Million-aire?’, where he schmoozed withRegis Philbin and plugged theGeorgetown MBA program.

Julie Zarenko has moved toCadence Design Systems, in SanJose, Calif., where she works intheir mergers and acquisitionsgroup.

1999Class agent: Mike [email protected]

Darcy Chamides is planning amove to Mount Laurel, N.J.Darcy has also changed jobs, andis now working as an associatemarketing manager for theCampbell Soup Company.

Kit Cooper reports that he isliving in Houston, Texas, andthat he and Alberto Fernandezare running Hispanic Teleser-vices. Kit is enjoying the differ-ence between his native Califor-nia and his adopted home inTexas, and has traveled to SanMiguel de Allende and WhiteSands, N.M.

Mariana Ippolito got marriedlast fall in Bogota, Colombia.

Lisa Kleinknecht works for theBank of New York.

Smrithi Prabhu plans to move to New York this spring. She isvery happy working for AMS,and recently traveled to Munichto see classmates Mariana Ippo-lito, Jason Cross and SirkoSiemssen.

Maren Sturm married Jeff Nel-son (MBA ‘98) on April 28. Thecouple plans to live in Roway-ton, Conn.

2000Burak Eksioglu is an associateat Citigroup in New York City.

Tamara Lopez-Jimenezreceived a promotion from LatinAmerican region CEO to inter-national banking officer at Stan-dard Chartered, an emergingmarkets bank. Tamara was inSoutheast Asia for training fromJanuary to March 2001. Shetraveled to Singapore, HongKong, Malaysia and Thailand.

IEMBA

1996Class Agent: Thom [email protected]

It is hard to believe that it hasbeen almost seven years since abunch of strangers got togetherand became the inauguralIEMBA class. We took a chanceon a new program, betting thatGeorgetown would only create atop-notch program, and theytook a chance on us. Well, fiveyears ago we graduated, not as

Alumni Notes


strangers, but as friends and asIEMBA Is. Although many ofus have kept in touch since grad-uation, time and distance hastaken its toll, making it difficultto maintain relationships thatformed during the program. Wehad a chance to rekindle oldrelationships and catch-up withfriends at our five-year reunionat Georgetown, June 1–3, 2001.

Matt Brooks is in the process of relocating to a new home inMcLean, Va. He continues toserve as the executive director ofthe Republican Jewish Coali-tion. He reports that it has beena very busy year for him. Notonly did he work tirelessly dur-ing the Presidential election buthe, his wife Deborah, and theirdaughter Samantha celebratedthe birth of the newest memberof the Brooks family, Max Har-rison, born May 15, 2001. Matthas been very involved in help-ing the new Bush Administra-tion with their transition andpromoting their policy agenda of the first 100 days and recentlyhad the honor of meeting withthe President in the Oval Officefor the first time.

Gloria Garcia is still living inthe D.C. area, but has left theCotton Council International.After a stint running her ownconsulting firm, she decided toaccept a senior position atAGEX.com. AGEX.com is aservice company providing web-based e-procurement software tothe global food and beverageindustry. She reports that she ishaving a blast.

Pietro and Terri Gerosa haverelocated to Geneva, Switzer-land, where both have taken newjobs. Terri is still with the Citi-

group Private Bank and Pietrohas joined the European Broad-casting Union. They have twochildren, Francesco (2 years) andPenelope (18 mos.). Both feellucky to still be in contact withmany Georgetown classmates onboth sides of the Atlantic. Theyalso plan on attending thereunion in June and look forwardto seeing even more old friendsfrom the IEMBA program.

Lisa Graham McCormack andher husband had a baby girl,Lacey Marie, joining her two-year-old brother, Matthew.

1997Class agent: Lynn Anne [email protected] [email protected]

Michelle Young Barnum hasgone broadband. She can bereached at [email protected], although she might keep [email protected] for a while.

Jean Luc Bejot and his familyare now living in Georgetown,Washington D.C. He previouslywas in France. Jean Luc is nowwith Prestwick Scientific Capi-tal. The company was foundedby a private investment bank(formerly Graham & Hamilton,now Crosshill Financial Group)and a pharmaceutical physician.

Clark Beyer is still out in SiliconValley, working for a softwarestart-up on B2B e-procurementapplication. He is trying hard toavoid the whole dot.com SiliconValley meltdown! He was in Bal-timore for a trade show a whileback and had dinner with KevinPitts, (IEMBA II).

Sally Buzbee, and her husbandJohn had another baby girl,Margaret Anne, known as

IEMBA

“Meg,” born Jan. 8, 2001. Megjoins sister Emma, who is nowalmost two-years-old and start-ing to talk up a storm. Theyleave Saudi Arabia in July 2001,after John’s two-year posting atthe U.S. Embassy there. Theywill be back in Washington forone year in fall 2001 beforeheading overseas somewhere foranother four years. Sally is look-ing forward to getting back towork this fall after her years inRiyadh.

Nicolas Davidson can bereached at work at [email protected].

Shawn Green has landed twonew strategic equity partners athis company, LabBook.Recently, both IBM and JohnWiley & Son, a global publisherof textbooks and journals,became strategic equity partnersin LabBook, a Virginia-basedfirm that makes software toallow researchers to manage andanalyze huge amounts of rawbiological information. Shawnwas previously with Entremed,where he was vice president ofdrug discovery research. Shawncan be reached at [email protected].

Todd Hatfield has relocatedfrom Northern Virginia to thebucolic splendor of Kentucky.He traded in life in suburbia fora custom-built arts & craft bun-galow on 50 acres! Todd is oftenin Northern Virginia, workingas an independent technologyconsultant.

Deborah Hughes has relocatedto Pensacola, Fla. Deborah con-tinues to home school her fourchildren while applying herbusiness skills to, as she puts it,“of all things, the Catholic

Church. Mostly on a local level,”she notes, “but it opened myeyes to possibilities on nationallevels as well. You may see moreon this in later years!”

Suzanne Kaiser reports thatshe was invited to attend a din-ner last fall with then-New Yorksenatorial candidate HillaryClinton and 20 Who’s Who OfAmerican Women living in NewYork (Suzanne became part ofthis group back in 1988). Theydiscussed women’s issues, chil-dren’s rights issues universalhealth care. Suzanne continuesto write features for The SanFrancisco Chronicle, The New YorkTimes, Stage Directions Maga-zine, Architecture Magazine andmost recently earned threeassignments with AmericanArtist Magazine, which will takeher to California and Mas-sachusetts. She is writing a jour-nalistic “non-fiction novel”under the whip of a professor-mentor from the ColumbiaSchool of Journalism, of whichshe is a graduate. She is alsodoing voluntary assignments forHabitat for Humanity inWestchester, N.Y. She has beennominated to Pen & Brush, a100-year-old national organiza-tion for notable women in thearts based in New York. On thehome front, she is busy restoringher two homes, heading up vari-ous local charities, and participat-ing in NYC cultural activities.She is a volunteer tour guide onemorning a week at the NYBotanical Garden, the largest pri-vate teaching/botanical researchfacility in the world. Her NewYork home will be part ofWestchester Garden Week.

Alu

mni

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Michael McCarthy can bereached at [email protected].

Susan McVay is still with Mar-riott Corporation in Bethesda,Md. She is heading off to Lon-don to speak at Hostec 2001, theEuropean hospitality industrytechnology conference.

Dennis Morris welcomed hisfifth child, Juliana Marie, bornJanuary 26, 2001. Dennis andhis family reside in the Freder-ick, Md. area. He was recently inLondon on business and had achance to catch up with anotherIEMBA II, NicholasDavidson. Nicholas has beenwith McKinsey Consulting forabout seven months now. He isquite happy with his new assign-ment. Dennis and his BAE Sys-tems and IEMBA II colleague,Lucy Fitch, collaborated on thelive case study used by theIEMBA VIIs at their openingresidency. Professors LamarReinsch and Bob Bies wrote afabulous case study on BAE andthe global defense industry. Sev-eral speakers from the companyand Wall Street rounded out thecase study. Lucy was one of thecompany’s speakers, and Dennisserved as a judge. Dennis can bereached at work at [email protected].

Mary (Stancill) Plock, and hus-band Ernie welcomed theiradopted baby girl, Marina Clair,born March 21, 2001. She’shealthy and according to herparents, an absolute joy! Mary istaking several months off fromher job as vice president, publicaffairs for the Advanced MedicalTechnology Association, whereshe oversees U.S. public relation

efforts supporting Medicarereform, as well as campaignsreinforcing the value of medicaltechnology in Germany, Franceand the U.K. Mary notes thatthe process of adopting has beena great learning experience. She’sthinking about focusing more ofher professional interest here—if anyone has thoughts or con-tacts, Mary would appreciatehearing from you [email protected]

Pat Quinlan has relocated fromthe Washington, D.C. area toBoston, Mass., to accept a newposition as acquisitions editorwith Pearson Educational Pub-lishers.

Amy Sample gave birth to ababy girl, Kalin, on February 16,2001. Amy has been enjoyingsome time off and plans toreturn mid-April to US Air-ways, where she is director ofhuman resources with responsi-bility for benefits sourcing. Amycan be reached at [email protected].

Eric Sklar, the original IEMBAII entrepreneur, has left SiliconValley’s Technet, where he wasinvolved in galvanizing techcommunity support for techissue lobbying. In a greatIEMBA connections move, Ericand Michael McCarthy(IEMBA II), are now both withLend Lease Real Estate Invest-ments in Bethesda, Md. Michaeljoined the firm as a principal lastMay to launch an internationalreal estate fund for taxableinvestors. At the start of the newyear, Eric joined the firm as apartner, working from the SanFrancisco Bay Area. Eric Sklarcan now be reached at:[email protected].

Mikel Williams was appointedpresident of wholesale servicesat the Global TeleSystemsGroup, Inc. in January, 2000.Based in London, Mikel joinedthe firm in 1996 as vice presi-dent of finance operations. Asvice president, he oversaw thefinancial operating activities ofall GTS operations and partici-pated in driving GTS’s annualrevenue from under US$100million to a run rate of US$1billion.

1998Michelle Franck is living inMunich, Germany.

1999Class Agent: Alphonse [email protected]

Holly Brown is working at thestrategic planning office of theU.S. Secretary of Defense.

Richard Eng and Margarethave moved to a small ranch inOceanport, N.J.

Karen Flood will begin work asa quality trainer for George-group, a consulting firm.

Chris Ford is still at Marriott’scorporate office, in Bethesda,Md., and hopes to have a newjob when the next update rollsaround.

Seth Grae tells us that MichaelHarrison was born on March23, 2001, weighing in at 8pounds, 14 ounces.

Niel Gregory just completedhis first short-course triathlon.

Ross Lindholm and his wifeLori had their first child, Adam(six months).

Francesco Mejia and wife Lisa-Beth Mayr (MBA ‘98) are theparents of Isabel Maida, born onMarch 26, 2001 at 7 pounds, 9ounces.

Richard Meyer is making a liv-ing on his new 25-acre farm.

Albert Razick has made contactfrom New Jersey and USAir. Hemisses those Fridays and Satur-days more and more and wishesus all peace.

Alphonse and Liz haven’trecapitalized their company,National Government Proper-ties, LLC, yet, but are still work-ing on their options…and arealso trying to organize anIEMBA IV get together.

Alumni Notes

Executive EducationDeveloping Leaders for the New Economy

The Office of Executive Education

offers non-degree executive programs

in the areas of management, finance,

leadership and e-commerce.

Additional opportunities offered

through Executive Education include

the International Executive MBA

Program, an eighteen-month graduate

degree program, custom programs

and Public Policy Forums.

To learn more about these programs,

visit our website at www.msb.edu/

or telephone 202-687-2704.

Non Profit OrganizationUS Postage

P A I DWashington DC

Permit 3901

georgetown universitythe mcdonough school of businessold north buildingwashington dc 20057-1008

2001 msb magazine spring summer

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