georgetown business spring 2009

Georgetown

BusinessGeorgetown University’s McDonough School of Business

SPRING 2009

Students create multimedia tours for the hearing impaired

Bigidea

for small devices

Inside the minds of alumni entrepreneurs

Researching risky business

Results. Now.

Upcoming programs that will help you make an immediate impact include:

Negotiations and Persuasion Workshop June 2–5

Real Options June 9–11

Transitional Leadership for Government Executives July 6–10

Global Strategy Program at Oxford (especially for MBA graduates) July 27–31

Leading Change: Strategies for Recovery November 15–20

Visit msb.georgetown.edu/prospective/executive for additional programs currently under development.

Alumni are eligible for preferred pricing.

For more information on Custom and Accelerated Executive Programs, contact the director of program development at (202) 687-2704.

What are you doing to improve results in your organization? Georgetown Executive Education will give you the tools you need now to succeed in this turbulent environment. McDonough School of Business Accelerated Executive Programs and Corporate Custom Programs will enable you and your best people to lead change at the individual, intergroup and organizational levels.

1Georgetown University McDonough School of Business

ContentsSpring 2009

Georgetown

BusinessGeorgetown University’s McDonough School of Business

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Ideas in Actionby Melanie D.G. Kaplan

What do a revolutionary telecom service, a company that turns sugar cane waste into power,

an e-learning enterprise, and a Swiss skin-care line have in common? They all started in the minds of

McDonough School of Business alumni.

A Winning Planby Andrea Orr

Student entrepreneurs are moving iPods beyond entertainment. After winning a national business plan competition, their new company is creating

accessible walking tours of museums and galleries for the hearing-impaired.

Researching Risky Business

by Chris Blose

Professors Catherine Tinsley and Robin Dillon-Merrill examine how risks and near-misses

influence our decisions on everything from space travel to hurricane evacuation.

COVER: Peter von Felbert/Getty Images

2 msb.georgetown.edu

Georgetown

Business

Dean

George G. Daly

associate Dean Marketing anD coMMunications

Chris M. Kormis

eDitor anD Director of eDitorial services Jill Lindstrom

staff Writer Zia Morales

Managing eDitor

Chris Blose

art Director

Jeffrey Kibler

Photo eDitor

Sara Elder

coPy eDitor

Tara Kawar

Project Manager

Connie Otto

ProDuction artist

Brenda Waugh

contributors

Patrick HayesMelanie KaplanAndrea OrrMolly PolenMeredith Stanton

Georgetown Business welcomes inquiries, opinions, and comments from its readers. Please send an e-mail to [email protected].

Alumni should send address changes to [email protected] or contact alumni records at (202) 687-1994.

3 From the DeanDean George G. Daly talks about a new era at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

4 NewsKeep up to date on life at the Georgetown McDonough School of Business with articles about a new building, faculty and associate dean hires, student victories at prestigious competitions and student elections, the MBA Evening Program, a visiting scholar, and more.

12 Faculty Spotlight

12 Timing Is EverythingAssociate Professor Rohan Williamson takes on corporate governance, credit default swaps, and executive pay.

13 BooksGeorgetown McDonough School of Business professors cover workplace revenge, global innovation, and producer dynamics.

33 Alumni News and Class NotesCatch up with classmates and find out about the latest alumni news, events, and programs.

35 Gaining MomentumJennifer Folsom (MBA ’02) directs Momentum Resources, a company that connects working mothers with flexible jobs.

39 Sweet Success Three young graduates offer the Washington, D.C., area a healthy twist on gourmet at sweetgreen restaurants.

40 Business Sense

40 The New Washington: Finance and PoliticsProfessor Reena Aggarwal offers her take on Washington, D.C.’s role in the current economy.

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From the Dean

Spring has arrived in Washington, D.C., and this year the season’s connection with new life takes on greater meaning at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business.

Professors, students, and staff will move into our new building over the summer months. This facility will help us advance our institution in a variety of ways. The numbers are impressive. The

five-story facility contains 105,000 square feet of space housing 15 classrooms, ranging from lecture halls to case-style spaces. There are 34 breakout rooms, 11 interview rooms, 15 conference rooms, 120 faculty offices, a 400-seat auditorium, common areas for undergraduates and graduate students, and much more.

These numbers tell only a small part of the story. We are excited about the student and faculty engagement that will take place inside our new home. Coming together at last under one roof will help us build on our community of achievement that focuses on developing leaders with a global mindset.

Our students will have new spaces to gather, brainstorm, and practice the skills that will serve them in their careers. Our faculty, from professors who have been here for years to the 12 new faculty members who will join us in the fall, will have everything they need to teach and perform their research. At the center of Georgetown’s campus, in the center of a major world capital of politics, policy, and business, this facility will be a center of scholarship.

Speaking of new, you may notice that our magazine has a fresh look and feel, too. We have redesigned it, and this is its premiere issue. In these pages, we feature stories about all that happens at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, from students who excel at case competitions to alumni entrepreneurs explor-ing new ventures of their own to faculty research.

Please let us know what you think. As we start this new era at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business, we welcome your feedback and participation more than ever.

George G. Daly Dean

New Life for Our School


News

12 New Faculty Join McDonough School of Business

Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business has recruited 12 new full-time faculty

members who will begin teaching at the school in August. “I am pleased we can add so many outstanding fac-ulty to our roster,” says George G. Daly, dean of Georgetown’s McDonough School of Busi-ness. “This is the largest influx

of such scholars during my administration in the school.”

Among the new hires are three professors of the practice.

William D. Novelli, distin-guished professor of the practice, will lead the school in devel-oping courses and programs in nonprofit management, social responsibility, and social marketing. For the past eight years, Novelli was CEO of AARP; he previ-ously served as co-founder and president of Porter Novelli, one of the world’s largest public relations agencies. He has been president of the Campaign for

Tobacco-Free Kids and execu-tive vice president of CARE. He also taught marketing management for 10 years in the University of Maryland’s MBA program. He is teaching a course on social responsibility at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business with pro-fessor Alan Andreasen. Novelli holds a BA and an MA from the University of Pennsylvania.

He pursued doctoral studies at New York University. He has written numerous articles and chapters on marketing management, marketing com-

munications, and social marketing in journals, periodicals, and textbooks.

Former Treasury Department Assistant Secretary for Eco-nomic Policy Phillip L. Swagel will serve as professor of the

practice. While working at the U.S. Treasury Department from 2006 to 2009, Swagel advised Secretary Henry Paulson on all aspects of economic policy,

including the development and analysis of the administration’s economic initiatives. Previ-ously, Swagel was a resident scholar at the American Enter-prise Institute, chief of staff at the White House Council of Economic Advisers, and an economist at the Federal Reserve Board and the International Monetary Fund. He also taught courses on

macroeconomics and international economics at Northwestern University and most recently on money and banking at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Swagel received a BA in economics from Princeton University and an MA and a PhD in economics from Harvard University. He has published widely in top academic journals, as well as in the popular press.

Mary “Meg” VanDeWeghe, professor of the practice in finance, is a former senior vice president for finance at Lockheed Martin and chairman of the board of

Lockheed Martin Investment Management Company. In that role, VanDeWeghe was respon-sible for the company’s trea-sury, financial strategies, inves-tor relations, and merger and acquisition activities. She also has been CEO and president of Forte Consulting Inc. She began her career at J.P. Morgan and Company in 1983, rising to the position of managing director reporting to the chair-man’s office. VanDeWeghe also spent a decade as executive in residence and finance professor at the University of Maryland’s Smith School of Business, where she taught graduate-level courses in investment management, equity analysis, corporate finance, and entre-preneurship. She received an MBA in finance from Dart-mouth College’s Amos Tuck School of Business and a BA in economics from Smith College.

The remaining new faculty will be on the tenure track. They include: Bumjean Sohn in finance; Michael O’Leary and Chris Long in man-agement; Kurt Carlson in marketing; Volodymyr Babich and Victor Jose in operations and information manage-ment; and Daniel Baer, Jacob Gramlich, and David Tan in strategy. The school also hired Jie Yang as a research associate who will teach one finance class. Additionally, adjunct professors Michael Fitzgerald and Charles Skuba will become professors of the practice.

Mary “Meg” VanDeWeghePhillip L. SwagelWilliam D. Novelli

“This is the largest influx of such scholars

during my administration

in the school.”— Dean Daly

Read more at msb.georgetown.edu/newsroom


News

New Home, New Era

Construction workers are moving out as Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business faculty and staff are mov-ing into the school’s new home this spring. The building is a 179,000-square-foot facility in the center of George-

town’s campus that will enable the McDonough School of Busi-ness to solidify its position as one of the world’s leading business schools. The structure includes seminar, lecture, and conference rooms, a 400-seat auditorium, MBA career development facilities, and a technology center. The entire building will offer wireless Internet access.

“We are excited about the opportunities this new state-of-the-art building will provide to our community members as they engage in the many facets of a business education,” says George G. Daly, dean of Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business.

As part of Georgetown’s commitment to sustainability, the facility is equipped with environmentally friendly features such as

low-flow water fixtures, an advanced energy-efficient heating and cooling system, windows that open, and planters on the terrace.

Excitement for the facility pervades the school community. While the grand opening ceremony is scheduled to take place in September, the Georgetown McDonough School of Business is hosting events in its new home during May, including Reunion Weekend.

The glass, brick, and stone building marries Georgetown’s aesthetic tradition with contemporary style and the latest in high technology. “Everything from the façade to the interior spaces has been the product of careful planning,” says Virginia Flavin, facilities planning and special events director. “The close attention to detail extends to the finishes in the building — everything from the paint to the wood and glass is gorgeous.”

Funded entirely by alumni and private donations, the new build-ing will be an important symbol and uniting force for the George-town McDonough School of Business as it moves into the future. “Our new home will bring us together as a community of students and scholars,” Flavin says.

— Zia Morales


News

It all began with the Ameri-can Chamber of Commerce in Kosovo. While running the chamber and teaching

at the American University of Kosovo, Mimoza Kusari-Lila, a Fulbright scholar and now visiting researcher at the Georgetown McDonough School of Business, became fascinated by the idea of bringing capital markets, mar-kets for securities that allow companies and governments to raise long-term funds, to developing countries.

“Kosovo is the newest country in the world and has no capital markets,” she says. “Right now, while the rest of the world is trying to recover from the economic crisis, it’s a great moment for leaders in the Balkans to look at the gaps in our economic system.”

Soon enough, Kusari-Lila found the Georgetown McDonough School of Busi-ness’s Capital Markets Research Center online. The center was created to develop and share research and policy analysis on domestic and global financial issues, and an integral part of this mission is its Visiting Scholars Program.

Begun in 1996, the inter-national scholar-in-residence program is aimed at business executives and government leaders. Kusari-Lila’s Fulbright scholarship covers her costs to participate in the program.

The Visiting Scholars Pro-gram averages eight scholars per semester, and their research at Georgetown can last from one semester to two years. The goal of the experience is to enhance

participants’ understanding of capital markets and public pol-icy issues in the United States in a collaborative and supportive academic setting.

Kusari-Lila personifies that goal. After completing her semester of research, Kusari-Lila plans to bring a group of scholars from the center to Kosovo to assess where the country stands and how to partner with the rest of the Balkans to enhance economic development. She hopes to create a roadmap to generate a stable environment in which more advanced economic systems can develop.

“Five years from now, when hopefully the global economic crisis will be in the past, the Balkans will have had the chance to catch up with the rest of the world,” she says. “This is just the beginning.”

— Molly Polen

A Visiting Scholar’s Capital Gain

Calen Angert has more than two years of school to complete before he will graduate from the

Georgetown McDonough School of Business in 2011, but as the newly elected president of the Georgetown University Student Association (GUSA), the sopho-more already is consumed with managing a sizable budget and adopting policies to improve the lives and career prospects of his 1,400 classmates.

Angert and his running mate, Jason Kluger (BSBA ’11), were elected president and vice president of GUSA in March after a hotly contested race in which eight tickets declared their candidacy. Although students from Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service have dominated past elections, most candidates this year hailed from the McDonough School.

“I would say there’s an inherent connection in real life between business and govern-ment,” Angert said shortly after winning the election. “Cer-tainly, having a business mind about things helps.”

Business School Jumps to No. 19 in MBA Rankings

The McDonough School of Business moved up three places on U.S. News & World Report’s list of the best business schools in the country. The school ranked 19th among U.S. full-time

MBA programs, up from 22nd last year. U.S. News & World Report examines a variety

of factors when ranking business schools, including peer assessment, recruiter assessment, mean starting salary and bonuses for graduates, graduate employment rates, and admis-sions selectivity. All 426 master’s programs in business accred-ited by AACSB International are considered.

Sophomores Lead Student BodyAngert and Kluger organized

a highly professional campaign, complete with a Web site that addressed students’ concerns about activities and safety on campus, as well as jobs after graduation. The pair drafted a lengthy platform that included plans to create a more proactive Career Center.

They also showed their more collegial side by starring in a rap video urging students to vote. Their efforts won widespread praise, including an endorsement by The Hoya student newspaper.

Angert and Kluger also plan to establish a GUSA fund through which student organizations can apply for grants to host events. Angert’s goal is to improve campus life for fellow students, as well as for himself. As a sophomore, Angert points out that he has a vested interest in any policies GUSA adopts.

“Any changes that are made, I will live through them for the next two years,” he says. “I definitely reap what I sow.”

— Andrea Orr

Mimoza Kusari-Lila


News

Ready, Set, Go With the MBA Evening Program

Designed for work-ing professionals, the MBA Evening Pro-gram at Georgetown’s

McDonough School of Business provides access to progressive career management tools. The 1-2-3 MBA Career Manage-ment Program offers individual coaching, group learning, and online research tools to help students develop strategies that will position them to reap professional rewards.

The 1-2-3 Program is built on three distinct but related modules: Organize & Explore, Build Materials & Strategies, and Conquer the Marketplace. The first module helps stu-dents recognize their strengths and accomplishments, gain a deeper understanding of job resources and market opportu-nities, and refine their inter-view skills.

The benefits are often immediate. First-year student Jennifer Meyer, who works in Lockheed Martin’s finan-cial leadership development division, made the most of the program’s first step. “Just before my most recent job interviews, I attended the first of three full-day sessions,” she says. “The training gave me the opportunity to assess my strengths and develop my story.”

During the second mod-ule, students are coached on how to develop their personal brand, sharpen their network-ing strategies, and create a compelling résumé and cover letter. The third stage of the program helps students craft a two-minute pitch and career portfolio, as well as

develop negotiation skills and job-search and career-fair strategies.

Alex Jennings (MBA ’08) applied the career management tools while searching for his dream job. “The career office’s help on résumé development and the ability to articulate my career goals was very impor-tant and beneficial to me dur-ing interviews,” says Jennings, now with the FBI. “It allowed me to better understand and communicate my skills and how I best could help the employers I interviewed with.”

The MBA Evening Program also has helped individuals make the daunting switch to a new industry. A seven-year veteran of management and strategy consulting, Jarret Jack-son (MBA ’10), was looking to

make a career change. “I spoke with professors about the work I had done and my areas of interest,” he says. “I also worked with MBA Career Man-agement to develop an effective résumé and other materials that I could use to market myself

to prospective employers,” he says. “In the end, I was able to make the career transition I was seeking.” Today, Jackson is director of sales operations for Positive Energy.

Jackson believes the 1-2-3 MBA Career Management Program gives students the

opportunity to be competitive. “The career management pro-gram provides a framework for creating the positioning and collateral that job seekers need to stand out from other candi-dates in the market,” he says.

— Zia Morales

Jennifer Meyer

Jarret Jackson

Alex Jennings


News

High Honors for Undergrad Teams

Despite frigid tempera-tures, undergraduate students from George-town’s McDonough

School of Business found the winter months to be quite fruitful. Two student teams placed in the top three in pres-tigious business competitions.

The Marshall International Case Competition (MICC), held Feb. 17–22 at the Univer-sity of Southern California, is a 30-team invitation-only con-test. Each group reviews a case and has roughly 24 hours to create a strategy and executive summary to present to judges representing industry and academia. This year’s client, global food company Nestlé, asked the students to develop a strategic marketing program and improve Nestlé’s product portfolio in the Nutrition, Health, and Wellness sector.

Seniors and teammates Brian Brush, Paul Campbell, Shannon Corrigan, and Vicente Velez decided that develop-ing a healthful candy was the first step. The team incorporated the growing popular-ity of dark chocolate, due to its beneficial antioxidants and omega-3 fatty acids, with the entrenched popularity of bite-sized snacks into a product, Nestlé Crave, to market to stu-dents, mothers, fitness buffs, and light snackers seeking an alternative to high-sugar candy.

The team finished third at MICC. Associate Professor

Jeffrey Macher, the faculty adviser who helps students prepare for competitions, lauds the students’ dedication and ability to think on their feet.

“I work with the best of the best,” Macher says. “What they can accomplish in 24 hours is astounding.”

The second competition, the Business Strategy Challenge (BSC), hosted by George-

town’s McDonough School of Business and Hilltop Con-sultants on Feb. 26–28, is a smaller invitation-only contest focused on nonprofit organiza-tions. This year, Georgetown’s team of juniors — Katherine Barasch, Max Gaby, Adam Kostrinsky, and Andrew

Madorsky — developed a strategy for the country’s larg-est charitable organization, the United Way, to deal with the current economy.

The team created a com-munity impact model and called for immediate action to aid in fundraising and promote awareness of the organization. For example, in a campus initiative, students would work for the United Way for a summer, providing cheaper labor and increas-ing the group’s presence on campuses.

In an effort to boost flag-ging fundraising, the team outlined a local initiative for distributing detailed infor-mation about the United Way’s success. This would give potential donors a better

understanding of where their money goes and whom it helps. The students proposed other strategies, too, mixing short-term impact and long-term goals.

“The question is, ‘In this environment, do you shift your efforts to more immedi-ate help?’ ” Kostrinsky says. “We say, don’t withdraw all your current initiatives and shift them toward immediate impact. Refocus your efforts on the community through our community impact model.”

Such astute thinking earned the team second place in the BSC, a feat Macher says is especially impressive because the team was made up entirely of juniors.

— Patrick Hayes

“I work with the

best of the best. What they can

accomplish in 24

hours is astounding.”— Prof. Macher

Brian Brush, Shannon Corrigan, Paul Campbell, and Vicente Velez


News

Graduate Students Go Deep in Competition

A team of Georgetown McDonough School of Business undergradu-ate students placed first

in the Quiz Bowl among 35 schools at the Financial Man-agement Association’s (FMA’s) Student Leaders’ Conference in New York, March 5–6. The team included juniors Andrew Madorsky and Lauren Migliori and sopho-more Patrick Go.

The Quiz Bowl tested students’ knowledge of finan-cial theory, problem-solving, and current financial events. Georgetown’s team scored highest in this preliminary round, which featured a written test of con-cepts and problems in finance. The top four teams competed in a Jeopardy-style competi-tion, featuring categories such as “financial institutions in distress,” “acronyms,” “Buffett quotes,” “option plays,” and “financial felons.”

“Participating in the Quiz

Two Georgetown McDonough School of Business teams qualified for the semifinals in the Mid-Atlantic Business Plan Competition, hosted again by Georgetown University this spring. Sponsored by the MIT Enterprise Forum of

Washington-Baltimore, the competition allows budding gradu-ate student entrepreneurs to meet investors and receive coun-seling from business professionals while vying for the coveted championship belt and a cash prize.

The Georgetown team Employee Aptitude Test, made up of Venkat (Kashyap) Hothur (MBA ’10) and Kodonate Lakshmanan (MBA ’10), developed a business plan designed to advance the recruitment process in the information technology industry in India. The current system is cumbersome and expensive and does not guarantee that the best candidates are selected, Hothur and Lakshmanan argue. The team’s standardized recruitment platform will add value to both employers and aspir-ing software professionals.

The business plan of team SolarCycle, composed of Shyam Sundaram (MSFS ’10) and Drew Durbin (a colleague but not a student), offers a solution to the staggering health problems caused by contaminated drinking water in the developing world. The team has designed a new material, made from used plastic bags and the aluminized interior of potato chip bags, to be used as a cheap reflective material in solar cookers and water pasteurizers.

The competition attracted 44 student teams from 17 uni-versities. The top-scoring teams presented their plans before a judging panel of prominent entrepreneurs and venture capitalists for semifinal and final rounds, held at Georgetown on May 2.

— Jill Lindstrom

Bowl was a fantastic expe-rience for our team,” says Migliori. “We were able to combine our quantita-tive financial skills with our understanding of the current economic environment and historical factual knowledge to

succeed.” The Student Lead-

ers’ Conference is an annual gathering for leaders of student FMA chapters from around the country. Professor Lynn Doran, faculty adviser of Georgetown’s FMA chapter, attended the conference with Go, Madorsky, Migliori, and additional FMA

members Will Chu, Bonjean Koo, and Po-Cheng (Ray-mond) Lin.

“The conference enabled our students to learn about both the successes and the problems of FMA chapters at other schools,” Doran says. “This will allow our students to be more effective officers of our FMA chapter.”

Team Takes Quiz Bowl Title

“We were able to

combine our quantitative

financial skills with our understanding of the current

economic environment and historical

factual knowledge

to succeed.”— Lauren Migliori

Drew Durbin and Shyam Sundaram

Lauren Migliori, Andrew Madorsky, and Patrick Go


News

McDonough School of Business Welcomes New Associate Deans

Four new associate deans were named at George-town’s McDonough School of Business this

spring: Elizabeth Griffith, associate dean for the MBA Evening Program; Chris M. Kormis, associate dean for marketing and communica-tions; Norean Radke Sharpe, associate dean and director of undergraduate programs; and Melissa Trotta, associate dean

for program initiatives and engagement. Their combined experiences and skills will provide sound leadership to further advance the school’s programs and goals.

As associate dean for the MBA Evening Program, Grif-fith will develop and imple-ment curriculum in addition to providing faculty oversight to ensure the Evening Pro-gram delivers consistent and outstanding education to all students. She will play a key role in enhancing the pro-gram as increasing numbers of MBA candidates maintain a career while pursuing an advanced degree.

Griffith spent 20 years

in senior financial positions at Monticello, the Phillips Collection, National Public Radio, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Most recently, Griffith was partner at Tatum LLC, a consulting and executive services firm, where she managed nonprofit clients and helped lead the nonprofit services group.

Kormis, associate dean for marketing and communications,

will lead, develop, and imple-ment strategic marketing and communications efforts that will advance Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business. She will be the primary spokesperson, after the dean, to all external audiences, and will direct communications strategies to promote the school and raise its visibility among the news media, key stakeholders, and alumni.

Kormis previously served at The George Washington University as assistant vice president for university rela-tions, winning numerous awards. In 2001, she was tapped to lead the University

Relations team as executive director, where she launched the GW News Center Web site, implemented new crisis communications measures, and enhanced university publications.

As associate dean and director of undergraduate programs, Sharpe will be responsible for curricular development, student advis-ing, and implementing

academic policies and assessment initiatives.

Her career spans 20 years, with the last 14 at Babson College, where she served as both a faculty member and an administrator. She most recently was chair of the Division of Mathemat-ics and Science. In this role, she facilitated the revision of the undergraduate business curriculum and improvement of the co-curricular experi-ence of students. Babson, a stand-alone business school, is noted for its outstand-ing teaching and focus on entrepreneurship.

Sharpe also is a professor of statistics and operations

research, with previous appointments at Bowdoin College and Yale University. Sharpe earned a BA in math-ematics and German from Mount Holyoke College, an MS in biomathematics from the University of North Carolina, and a PhD in systems engineering from the University of Virginia.

Trotta, in her new role as associate dean for program initiatives and engagement, will pursue internal and external strategic priorities for the business school, includ-ing expanding Georgetown’s McDonough School of Busi-ness partnerships with the business, government, and not-for-profit communities.

Prior to her current posi-tion, Trotta was assistant dean of the McDonough School’s MBA Evening Program since its launch in September 2005. Under her leadership, the program grew from just fewer than 60 students to nearly 300 students in 2008–09. It has become the premier part-time MBA program in the Washington, D.C., area.

Trotta’s 20 years of higher education experience include roles as director of admissions at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University and associate director of academic affairs at Harvard Business School.

The new associate deans agree that this is an excit-ing time to be part of the McDonough School, and they express excitement over its innovative programs, distin-guished faculty, and motivated students.

Chris M. KormisElizabeth Griffith Norean Radke Sharpe Melissa Trotta

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News

Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business con-stantly connects

academics with the real world. Since the start of the year, the school has hosted top diplomats, business leaders, key policy makers, finance experts, and performing arts managers, who have shared their expertise and experiences with students, faculty, staff, and alumni. The school also has hosted influential speakers, held panel discussions featur-ing top names in business, government and industry, and welcomed prominent leaders through the Lead-ers Breakfast Series and Distinguished Leaders Series.

Business Leaders Take Center Stage

Read about events at msb.georgetown.edu/newsroom

His Excellency Aleksander Kwasniewski, former president of Poland and a distinguished scholar at Georgetown University, spoke about national leadership on March 24.

On Jan. 26, IMF Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn, former U.S. Deputy Treasurer Roger Altman, and Brookings Institution Vice President William Gale talked about the U.S. government’s measures to resolve the financial crisis. Chrystia Freeland, U.S. managing editor of Financial Times, served as moderator.

His Excellency Amr Al Dabbagh, governor and chairman of the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority, discussed economic developments in Saudi Arabia on March 23.

Award-winning lyricist and arts manager Murray Horwitz (left) moderated a panel on “Managing the Performing Arts in Times of Economic Challenge” on March 16. Panelists included (second from left to right) Luca Zan, director of the Program on Management and Innovation of Cultural Organizations at the University of Bologna; Anna Harwell Celenza, chair of the Department of Performing Arts at Georgetown University; and Joseph Volpe, former Metropolitan Opera general manager. Dean George G. Daly (right) welcomed the panelists.

Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Financial Stability Neel Kashkari addressed the financial crisis on Jan. 13.

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SpotLightFaculty

Williamson’s research on credit default swaps, which he performed with two colleagues at Ohio State University, provides a particularly suitable example. The team’s paper, “How Much Do Banks Use Credit Derivatives to Hedge Loans?” was published in the October 2008 issue of Journal of Financial Services Research. The research started about three years ago, but the publication process went from acceptance to publication in only three months — an accelerated timeframe allowing them to get the paper out in the midst of the economic downturn.

The working paper was timely back in early 2006, when Alan Greenspan men-tioned it in a speech. However, it took on a whole new level of importance when the credit derivatives market quickly went downhill. The finished paper examines how many banks used this relatively new and somewhat risky financial tool. The results indicated only

a small number of banks were using credit derivatives or credit default swaps, but they were doing so in large volume.

“We think the market just grew too fast,” Williamson says. “It’s not that credit de-rivatives are a bad instrument; it’s just that monitoring the system and controlling growth were not done.”

Williamson, a Washing-ton, D.C., native who has been teaching and conduct-ing research at Georgetown’s McDonough School of

Business since 1997, also sees his other scholarly work as particularly relevant to today’s economy. He has examined international corporate governance, along with Professor Reena Aggarwal (see page 40) and others. The group’s paper, to be published in a forthcoming issue of Review of Financial Studies, compares governance within United States firms to those in other countries.

“The idea is that the U.S. has better governance than

When Rohan Williamson started his most recent research in 2005, he was unaware how relevant his topics would be today. How could he have known credit deriva-tives, corporate governance, and execu-tive compensation would be on the tips

of politicians’ tongues and journalists’ pens?“It’s a very interesting time to be a financial

researcher,” says Williamson, associate professor and Holowesko Research Fellow at Georgetown Univer-sity’s McDonough School of Business. “You don’t hope for things like this to happen, but when they do, you take advantage of it and see what you can learn.”

Timing Is Everything

Rohan Williamson

13

the rest of the world — more disclosure, for instance, board independence, protection of minority shareholders, and other factors we think of as positive,” Williamson says. “We look at the value of governance throughout the world using the U.S. as a benchmark.”

Additionally, Williamson, along with Aggarwal and others, is working on research examining executive pay. Wil-liamson seeks to understand why executives make the deci-sions they make. For example, do they make riskier deci-sions if their reward structure is based on the company’s performance rather than a flat

salary? Does a CEO’s relation-ship, or lack of relationship, with supposedly independent board members play a role?

The goal in asking these questions is not to point fingers or create scapegoats, Williamson says. In all his research, he seeks to identify what structures and processes maximize value and control risk at an acceptable level.

“This is a stress test of our financial system, and it’s a test of some of the theories and practices we’ve had out there for years,” he says. “We just want to know what works and what doesn’t.”

— Chris Blose

BooksInnovation in Global Industries:U.S. Firms Competing in a New World Edited by Jeffrey T. Macher, Georgetown University, and David C. Mowery, University of California, Berkeley

For years, debate has raged in companies, business schools, political circles and

popular media about offshor-ing, outsourcing of production, and the transfer of technological capabilities abroad. Critics and pundits bemoan a decline in the competitiveness of companies in the United States.

Innovation in Global Indus-tries challenges prevailing opinion that “the world is flat” and ques-tions the idea that innova-tive capacity

is spreading uniformly. This collection of studies exam-ines structural changes in the innovation process in 10 service and manufacturing industries: personal computers, semicon-ductors, flat-panel displays, software, lighting, biotechnol-ogy, pharmaceuticals, financial services, logistics, and venture capital.

Global sourcing of innovation has undoubtedly accelerated, and new centers of research and hotbeds for technical skills have emerged, but the patterns are inconsistent, according to the book. However, although many industries and some firms in nearly all industries retain leading-edge capacity in the United States, the book cautions against complacency

about the future. Instead, it advocates for more emphasis on innovation in firm perfor-mance measures and more sus-tained support in public policy.

Producer Dynamics: New Evidence from Micro DataEdited by Timothy Dunne, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland; J. Bradford Jensen, Georgetown University; and Mark J. Roberts, University of Wisconsin

In this book, renowned economists make use of new data that was previously unavailable

from government statistical agencies for a comprehensive review of firm entry, growth,

and exit — all integral parts of the mechanism of resource reallocation in a market economy.

With new access to this data and advances in micro data construction, empirical analysis of producer dynamics has become a major focus over the past 15 years.

In Producer Dynamics, authors probe topics such as firm dynamics across coun-tries; patterns of employment dynamics; firm dynamics in nonmanufacturing industries such as retail, health services, and agriculture; employer-employee turnover; and turn-over in international markets. The book will serve as a refer-ence to economists and policy makers seeking to understand the links between firms and workers, and the sources of economic dynamics, in the age of globalization.

Getting Even:The Truth About Workplace Revenge — and How to Stop ItRobert Bies, Georgetown University; Thomas Tripp, Washington State University

Contrary to the old adage, revenge is a dish rarely served cold. In fact, work-

place revenge usually is a heated reaction spurred by a feeling of violation and injustice. It leads rational people to make snap decisions that can lead to nega-tive results for themselves and their companies.

The “best served cold” idea is one of many myths busted in Get-ting Even: The Truth About Work-

place Revenge — and How to Stop It. The book provides an insightful overview of this rarely explored topic. More than

15 years of research went into it, and the authors learned over time that semantics are important. People will admit to “getting even” more than the taboo “revenge,” which has connotations of violence. The professors say the current climate — with reports of layoffs, cutbacks, and company closings — is ripe for acts of workplace revenge, which are a drain on company resources.

The book also offers tips for managers to avoid revenge in the first place, including dealing with tense situations or conflict promptly and making sure every-one involved feels they received fair treatment. The goal is to reduce the time CEOs and others spend managing conflict, which is often 25 percent to 35 percent of the work day.

“We look at the value of governance throughout the world using the U.S. as a benchmark.”

Thomasm. Tripp

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SpotLightFaculty

Alumni Entrepreneurs Turn Big Dreams Into Big BusinessBy Melanie D.G. Kaplan

Craig Walker Ada Polla

Pete MessmanNicole Miller

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Craig Walker’s workday lasts about 15 hours. Ada Polla went more than three years without a salary. Mark Smith and Pete Messman often feel like they’re oper-ating on faith. Nicole Miller put her wed-ding on hold for two years. For all these graduates of George-town Univer sity’s McDonough School of Business, the uncertainty and excitement of entrepreneurship trumped the stability and balance of a more traditional business route — with its lure of steady paychecks and built-in vacations. These graduates started companies with products as varied

Ideasctionin

Alumni Entrepreneurs Turn Big Dreams Into Big Business

Craig Walker Ada Polla

Pete Messman Mark Smith GaR

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Craig Walker has turned an innovative telecom idea into a new Google venture.


as a skin-care line and a renewable energy source, but their shared experiences are countless. No matter the product or ser-vice, the funding source or company struc-ture, entrepreneurship is a roller coaster that these graduates say they would ride over and over again.

“There’s something about being an entrepreneur that’s great and wonderful,” Miller says. “You have a vision, and with your education and your tools, you have an idea how to get there.”

Tapping Phone Frustration

Craig Walker (MBA ’91), co-founder of GrandCentral Com-munications Inc., always knew he wanted to create his own business, but he didn’t know

what or how. “I’d sit there in college and come up with, say, the best onion peeler,” he says. “Entrepreneurship has always been inside me, but trying to figure out some-thing that makes sense is really hard. It’s got to be something you personally experi-ence.” Or, in Walker’s case, something that personally drove him crazy.

Walker was tired of not having control of his phone setup. When traveling, he would get off a flight and have to check three voicemail systems. He would call the phone company and get billed $20 to turn on or off any feature. He had no way to archive important messages. “I was person-ally frustrated,” Walker says. “It seemed like a broken system.”

Walker’s fix was GrandCentral, a Web-based voice communications platform that helps users manage all their phones through one single, lifetime number that forwards calls to all of an individual’s phones. When he started GrandCentral, Walker was armed with his Georgetown MBA and a law degree from UC Berkeley and had spent years working in Silicon Valley’s startup telecommunications indus-try, largely on the venture capital side.

He worked with one venture capital firm that invested in DialPad Communica-tions, a Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) company that provides worldwide phone communication using the Internet. The company grew like a weed, Walker says, but it began losing $4 million a month as the Internet bubble grew in late 2000. So Walker was placed in the role of CEO and also served as chief financial officer

and general counsel. One of his first tasks was cutting down the staff of 150 to 15. He went on to guide the company through Chapter 11 bankruptcy and turned it into the most profitable VoIP company in the industry. In 2005, Yahoo acquired DialPad, and Walker stayed for a few months until he got the entrepreneurial itch again.

From the get-go, GrandCentral cre-ated a lot of buzz, as Walker apparently had tapped into a global frustration. The product gave users just one phone number and one voicemail and also allowed them to listen in as voicemail messages were being recorded and to switch a call from cell phone to desk phone. The company received coverage in The Wall Street Journal, Time, Newsweek, and The New York Times. And in

2007, for the second time, a Silicon Valley giant came calling when Google presented an offer Walker could not refuse.

“On my 42nd birthday, June 2, 2007, we joined Google,” Walker says. “I’ve been at Google since then.” Walker serves as group product manager for real-time communi-cations. His department includes Google-Talk, and he oversaw the March relaunch of GrandCentral as a Google product called Google Voice.

Walker says Google is very entrepre-neurial for a large company and encourages experimentation. But for now, he dedicates a significant amount of time to management tasks, whereas he used to spend every wak-ing hour on the product. Still, the hours are only slightly shorter than they were when he was working as an entrepreneur. On an average day, Walker wakes up at home in Danville, Calif., at 6:30 a.m. and catches

the 7 a.m. WiFi-equipped Google shuttle, aboard which he works until the shuttle arrives at the company’s headquarters in Mountain View 75 minutes later. He’s on his computer through meals (provided by Google), hops on the 5 p.m. shuttle, gets home at 6:30, plays with his kids, eats din-ner, and picks the computer up again from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m.

Walker has learned that many business dealings boil down to common sense, which makes him especially appreciative of his Georgetown education. “Georgetown is a Jesuit school, even at the business level,” he says. “There’s that embodiment of com-mon sense, and it’s helped me get through things, from foreign investors to raising money to getting acquired.”

Although he was not the most dedicated student, Walker says, he is making up for it now. Out of the blue, he is discovering a lot of material he did not think he fully digested in school. “What’s surprising and really delightful is that later in life, what I learned became useful,” he says. “I didn’t even remember what I learned until I needed it; then it came to the forefront.”

Developing a Thick Skin

ada Polla (MBA ’04), founder of Swiss antioxidant skin-care line Alchimie Forever, was no stranger to entrepreneurship when she arrived at George-

town’s McDonough School of Business. Her parents, both doctors, opened a medi-cal spa in Geneva in the 1990s, and Polla wanted to expand their limited line of skin-care products. But she and her father had differences of opinion on the path she should pursue.

“He encouraged me to take the more traditional route,” says Polla, speaking from her office at 25th and M Streets in Wash-ington, D.C. She says her father thought she should first work for Estee Lauder or L’Oreal after graduation. Instead, Polla decided to start her company while she was a student to see if it was a viable business she could run full time after graduation.

Polla had the confidence to take the plunge before she had acquired all of her business tools, in part because of the entrepreneur-friendly environment in the United States.

“The mindset here is, ‘Just try it, and if it doesn’t work, you’ll be stronger. Or you

Find out more at www.google.com/voice/about

Walker’s fix was GrandCentral, a Web-based voice communications platform that helps users manage all their phones through one single, lifetime number that forwards calls to all of an individual’s phones.

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can just close and start another,’” she says. “In Europe, that is not so accepted. The U.S. is very pro-entrepreneur.”

So Polla used Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business as a laboratory of sorts. She took an entrepreneurship class with adjunct professorial lecturer Jim Hunt, who now sits on her company’s board of advisers, and enlisted classmates as free consultants in developing her business plan. She found it exciting to work on a real business instead of one simply created for the class.

“Professors liked the idea that when they suggested something, I brought it

back to the business,” Polla says. “The busi-ness school experience was more targeted and fun, because I saw what I was working for.” Besides the concentration of brain-power at Georgetown, Polla says the access to tools — from the library to a free Lexis-Nexis account — was invaluable.

During the summer before her second year of school, Polla returned home to Geneva and named the brand, worked on developing new products and redesigned the packaging. By the time school started, she was juggling classes and the launch of Alchimie Forever. She would hustle from class to local dermatology offices and bou-tiques, where she tried to sell her products. She didn’t sleep much.

Today, Polla is head of Alchimie Forever, which has small offices in Washington,

D.C., and Geneva. She grew the business from the five products her parents created solely for their clients to nearly two dozen products for men and women. Those prod-ucts now are sold in high-end boutiques in the United States, France, Switzerland, and Canada.

Polla says despite the recession, sales of mid-range personal care products like Alchimie Forever still are strong, perhaps more so than super-premium brands. “A woman might forgo a $300 dress,” Polla says. “But for women or men to give up their favorite moisturizer, things have to be a lot worse.”

Alchimie Forever is projecting a 35 per-cent increase in sales this year after a 28 percent increase in 2008. The company is continuing to expand to other countries

Find out more at www.alchimie-forever.com

Ada Polla expanded a family business into a growing line of personal care products.

and may build retail space in Washington and Paris.

Polla, 31, says starting a business has been difficult. She just started paying her-self a salary last fall, and she ran the busi-ness out of her home for a while. But she says it’s easier to do when you are young, renting, and childless. Although Polla still lives frugally, she says upon graduation from business school, she put two things behind her forever: Ikea furniture and ramen noodles.

The “Ultimate Lesson” in Business

nicole Miller (MBA ’99), one of four co-founders of exam preparation company FIRE (Finance, Insurance, Regula-tion, and Education) Solutions

Inc., remembers then-adjunct professor Jonathan Silver telling her entrepreneur-ship class about starting your own busi-ness, “Everyone will tell you it’s a lot of work. And it’ll be more work than you can possibly imagine.” Miller can now attest to that fact.

“I don’t recommend starting a company to anyone who wants to have a life,” says Miller, 41. “You have to put your entire heart, body, and soul into a business when you’re starting it.” After nearly a decade of doing just that, Miller stepped down as CEO of the San Francisco-based compliance and online training provider in mid-February to spend more time with her husband and two young children at their home just out-side of Paris. She remains on the company’s board of directors, still owns a percentage of its stock, and is making herself avail-able for consulting during the leadership transition.

Miller teamed up with classmate Juliana Lutzi (MBA ’99); Lutzi’s father, Roy (a teacher in the field); and Nicole (Kinnan) Stone (MBA ’98) to found FIRE Solutions right after she graduated. Miller worked as the company’s chief learn-ing officer, chief operating officer, and, finally, CEO.

“The field we went into — exam prepa-ration — isn’t exactly sexy, but it’s criti-cal,” Miller says. “When you get hired by a broker-dealer and you need to pass this

exam, companies usually give you one chance to pass. It’s a make-or-break thing. We’ve developed this system where there’s so much support, test-takers shouldn’t fail it. I’m very proud of it. We’ve helped thousands of people get into their career of choice.”

FIRE Solutions now has 16 employ-ees and has worked with more than 280 financial services firms. Out of the four co-founders, only Roy Lutzi is still actively involved.

“When it came time to choose between business and family, I chose business for several years,” Miller says. “The company was the most important thing in my life. Now, it’s family.”

Miller maintains her pride in the com-pany, but says she now regrets putting her personal life on hold for so long. She says if she starts another company in the future, it would be a small, personal enterprise. But for now, her business is raising her family,

Find out more at www.firesolutions.com

Nicole Miller chose business for several years. Now, she chooses family.

Mark Smith and Pete Messman see potential in waste; their company uses sugar cane waste as a source of engergy.


working on crown molding in her house, and using power tools.

Whatever her next venture, she says she will be prepared; she knows she has had the best schooling possible by starting and growing a company.

“It is the ultimate lesson in business,” Miller says. “It’s a wild ride.”

A Sweet Idea for Energy

Less than a year after the gradu-ation party at which they first talked about the opportunity that would later become Claren Power, Mark Smith (MBA ’07) and Pete

Messman (MBA ’07) found themselves communicating with Barclays Bank about investing $50 million in their company. Today, Claren Power develops and operates clean and renewable energy projects that use sugar cane waste as the fuel source.

“Barclays found our business on the Internet a few days after we’d started the Web site, and they were very gung-ho,” Smith says. He and Messman made a due diligence trip with the Barclays team to Brazil, where Claren Power does much of its work. They had the go-ahead from one of the team’s two managing directors to move forward and pitch their investment committee. Smith and Messman felt con-fident the funding would come through, but they soon learned that significant dif-ferences of opinion were brewing between the bank’s managing directors, and Barclays ultimately pulled out.

The experience was rough, says Smith, but it offered an important lesson. “After that,” Smith remarks, “we realized we needed to give ourselves a number of paths to success — not just count on one.”

Looking back, Smith and Messman laugh about the Barclays experience, saying they were completely unprepared to deal with an investor of that scale. In retrospect, they say, it was a conversation they had no business entering into at the time. But today, both have confidence in themselves and their ability to generate large returns for their clients and investors.

“Sugar cane is as good a source of bioenergy as there is in the world,” says Messman, 38. “We know the idea’s good,

we know the time is right, and we know there’s nobody better than us to bring the piece parts together into a cohesive story.”

The power-producing process begins when Arlington, Va.-based Claren Power partners with a sugar mill and builds a modern “cogeneration” facility, meaning a facility that generates heat and power simul-taneously. The mill provides the sugar cane waste, called bagasse, as the fuel source. Claren Power handles every step in the development cycle: sourcing of equity and debt; permits, design, and construction; transmission and interconnection with the electrical grid; ongoing maintenance and operation of the facility; and management of the sale of electricity and carbon credits. Once operational, the mill gets its heat and power for sugar operations and generally receives 20 percent of the facility’s net prof-its. Claren Power and its investors receive the majority of the revenue. The energy company now has pulled together more than $1 billion worth of such cogeneration projects in Brazil, says Smith, 36, a former managing director for the U.S. Chamber of Commerce who led efforts to pass the Central American Free Trade Agreement.

In the economic downturn, short-term credit has become largely unavailable, and some investors have vaporized. Still, Smith

says their business model has gotten stron-ger for a couple of reasons. First, because sugar mills have felt the squeeze caused by frozen credit markets, Claren Power’s part-nership model has become more appealing. Second, the owners of the mills understand that a cogeneration program would give them a consistent and guaranteed source of revenue. Finally, the partners say long-term financing is still available for projects like theirs (for example, through the Brazilian National Development Bank), but you have to know where to look.

Because the business began right after graduation, Smith and Messman essentially have not had down time since before they arrived at Georgetown. On one hand, Mess-man says, it is a lot of pressure — especially on his wife and family. But, as a friend has reminded him, the two of them are living the dream of all business school students.

“It’s so rewarding, so fun, so painful,” Messman says. “But you gotta do it. It’s why you go to business school. You throw your hat in the ring and see what you can do.” w

Washington, D.C., freelance writer Melanie D.G. Kaplan has written for The Washington Post, USA Weekend, The Christian Science Monitor, and Georgetown Law Magazine.

Even before Ada Polla, founder of Alchimie Forever, stepped into her first class at Georgetown’s McDonough School of Business

in 2002, she picked up a line from Associ-ate Professor Paul Almeida that has stuck with her to this day.

“He was addressing students, and he said, ‘Hope is not a strategy,’” Polla says. “It’s a funny thing to say. You often tell someone, ‘I hope to see you,’ or ‘I hope it’s going to go this way.’ But now, I remind myself and my team of this line. You don’t hope; you make it happen.”

Polla has the quote on a Post-it in her office and catches herself when she starts off a sentence with the “H” word. Almeida’s phrase, which touched her so profoundly, seems to have stuck with many of her peers, too.

“Almeida is so famous for it,” says Pete Messman, co-founder of Claren Power, who says the line often came up in conver-sations with classmates. “It’s a cliché, but it’s so true.”

Messman says “Hope is not a strategy” has been somewhat of a driving force behind the business he and Mark Smith started in 2007. “You have to think through everything that needs to get done,” he says. “Nobody else is going to do it, no matter how much you hope.” He says that’s the most challenging part of being an entrepreneur, but also the most reward-ing. They were two guys who never really started a business before, who never raised money before, but they were able to put one foot in front of another.

That, Messman knows, takes a lot more than being hopeful.

More Than Hope

Find out more at www.clarenpower.comG

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Karen Borchert and Martin Franklin entered the MBA Evening Program at Georgetown Univer sity’s McDonough School of Business in 2006 with the near-term goal of acquiring skills to help them advance in their current jobs and the long-term goal of starting their own companies — someday.

That day arrived sooner than they expected in 2008 when their student team won the school’s Business Planning Residency Compe-tition with a service offering guided museum tours for the hearing impaired using iPods and other personal media devices. Over the next few months, the two students incorpo-rated the business, assembled a formal man-agement team, and quit their jobs.

Savvy students create a business out of multimedia tours for the hearing impaired

Martin Franklin, Catharine McNally, Karen Borchert, and Frank McNally are the minds behind Keen Guides.

By Andrea OrrA Winning Plan

Find out about Keen Guides at www.keenguides.org


Borchert and Franklin now spend their days with two other colleagues in an office in Arlington, Va., where they work with-out salary on the multiple tasks required to turn their fledgling company, Keen Guides Inc., into a viable business. When they are not fine-tuning the guided tours that Keen Guides offers, they are working to sell the service, identify new markets, and raise the

financing that will help the business accel-erate its expansion to stay ahead of poten-tial competitors.

And then, they go to class at night.“I think you can give entrepreneurial

people some tools to improve their skills, but there’s also just a certain ‘nonfear factor’ that these people have,” says Borchert, who, in addition to serving as Keen Guides’ CEO

and studying for an MBA, is mother to a 1-year-old daughter. “We don’t always know what we’re doing, but we took a leap.”

Keen Guides was born out of Borchert’s friendship with Catharine McNally, a fel-low graduate of Wake Forest University in North Carolina, who has been deaf since she contracted meningitis when she was 8 months old. A lover of art, McNally had

Ted Williams of Washington, D.C., tests a tour at the National Gallery of Art. Top right, an iPhone application (in development) shows the piece of art at this tour stop.

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own money in the young business.After the first-place win in the

McDonough School of Business competi-tion, Keen Guides’ full management team took shape, with Catharine McNally serv-ing as president and her brother, Frank McNally, serving as chief administrative officer. The team redoubled its efforts. To an outside observer, it may have looked like the successes were piling up with ease. The young business won a social entrepre-neurship competition at Wake Forest Uni-versity, raised about $35,000 in financing from friends and family, and earned glow-ing reviews when it tested the service at the National Gallery of Art. In April, Keen Guides won an additional $20,000 for earn-ing first place in The George Washington University’s Business Plan Competition.

“I absolutely hate guided tours because I spend more time lip-reading the guide

she went home and videotaped her own tour in sign language and then downloaded it onto her iPod.

The next day, she returned to the museum, walked up to the front desk, and showed how she had developed a prototype for a new and improved tour in just a few hours. McNally spent another year work-ing on the project, researching captioning technologies and media players, and talk-ing with interpreters and museums. When she shared the idea with Borchert, the MBA student was impressed with the product and the energy behind it. She told McNally, “What you need is a business plan.”

As it turned out, Borchert needed a business plan, too, so she could compete in the residency competition. She and Franklin had already bonded over their shared dream of starting a company. The two joined forces with six other classmates to turn the bare-bones tour McNally had created in her home one night into a plan to provide a much-needed product to an underserved population.

Borchert and Franklin, Keen Guides’ chief operating officer, immediately recog-nized that McNally’s guided tour was supe-rior to the options most museums offered. Because the tour was accessible for portable media players, it was less conspicuous than a bulky transcript or a sign language inter-preter and allowed users to move through the museum at their own pace, fast- forwarding and rewinding as necessary.

To help get the rest of the team on board, they invited McNally to come and pitch the project. A polished professional who now can hear with the help of a cochlear implant, but still struggles with the echoes and crowds in museums, McNally put a face to the deaf population and shared a com-pelling statistic: Between 20 million and 26 million Americans have some hearing loss. Because many people are unwilling to admit to poor hearing, it is difficult to get an accurate count. However, even the most conservative statistics underscore the large size of the hearing-impaired population.

“At first it sounded like a nice feel-good idea,” recalls Lejla Alic, a teammate who became excited about the idea when she started learning about the pervasiveness of hearing loss and the shortage of services. “Keen is a nice hybrid between having a chance to make money and helping peo-ple.” Over time, Alic’s conviction grew to the point that she invested $10,000 of her

grown frustrated over the poor access for the hearing impaired in museums and other public places.

After one particularly unsatisfying visit to a museum in Washington, D.C., where she had been offered a 50-page transcript in lieu of an audio tour, McNally resolved to come up with a better solution. Using the transcript the museum had provided,

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than looking at the artwork,” says Rachel Dubin, one of the hearing-impaired indi-viduals who participated in the pilot pro-gram. “Keen has changed that by provid-ing a seamless museum-going experience. I can walk through an exhibit unburdened by a giant transcript.”

Yet for all the friends, teachers, and judges who liked the service, many con-tinued to see Keen Guides as a niche non-profit. Borchert and Franklin saw otherwise. They already had good jobs. Borchert was the co-founder and director of the Campus Kitchens Project, a nationwide organiza-tion that provides food to the hungry, and Franklin ran the U.S. office of Ceenex, a consulting firm headquartered in his native South Africa. They were not about to leave those jobs unless they saw in Keen Guides the potential to go beyond a niche non-profit and offer a product that could gain the widespread traction needed to help make the world a more accessible place.

Smith Wood, an adjunct professor who

worked with the team during the com-petition, says Borchert and Franklin were always pushing beyond the politically cor-rect image of a nonprofit for the deaf to focus on the top line.

“They had an understanding that if you don’t bring money in the front door, the business doesn’t make it,” Wood says. “It was a matter of looking within the unique characteristics of the business to determine the best potential markets. It looked quite promising.”

By the summer of 2008, the newly incorporated Keen Guides Inc. was firing on all fronts: selecting the best technology for distributing its tours, exploring new markets besides museums, and developing tours to suit individual needs.

Accomplishing this while going to school created some time-management challenges, but it also provided a steady stream of useful information. “Starting a business from scratch requires the thought-ful application of everything we’ve learned, from strategy and accounting to negotia-tions and finance,” Franklin says.

Keen Guides currently offers tours in four formats: spoken word, captioned, American Sign Language, and cued speech, a system that supplements lip reading with a series of hand shapes in various locations near the mouth. The company also plans to expand into multiple languages and is looking into developing tours for other underserved populations, such as those suf-fering from dementia or autism. Research has found that individuals with dementia, for example, may be able to better follow a guided tour if it contains repetition and shifts back and forth between factual and abstract concepts.

A key breakthrough has been the ex-pansion of its market to encompass both the deaf and the hearing impaired. This vast group, according to most estimates, includes one in 10 Americans and contin-ues to grow as baby boomers age. Many people do not know anyone who is pro-foundly deaf, but almost everyone has a friend, parent, or grandparent whose hear-ing has declined. And because many of those with hearing loss are retired people, they are part of one of the main groups who frequent museums.

With the product built and the market opportunity clarified, other pieces started to fall into place. As it fine-tuned its prod-uct, the Keen Guides team also realized it could serve people who had no hearing loss at all, but preferred the convenience of an audio tour. It signed up its first paying customer when it persuaded Wake Forest University to offer campus tours so visitors

tarting a business from

scratch requires the thoughtful

application of everything we’ve learned, from strategy

and accounting through to

negotiations and finance.”— Martin Franklin

Top, a tour of Old Salem in Winston-Salem, N.C., features American Sign Language interpretation. Bottom, Wake Forest University’s admissions tour welcomes families to campus.

“


could explore the campus independently when no formal tours were scheduled.

Keen Guides now is eyeing some 34,000 cultural institutions in the United States as potential customers and projecting it will be cash-flow positive within two years. It aims to have 125 paying customers by its third year in operation and is working hard to raise $300,000 in angel financing or venture capital so it can avoid tapping friends and family any further.

Of course, even the best businesses rarely grow exactly according to plan. While Borchert and Franklin had the good fortune to have a friend with a winning idea and a nurturing school environment in which to launch it, they kicked off their first full year of business this year in a chal-lenging business climate.

The two remain as exhilarated and motivated as ever. They know they have to expand rapidly to gain a foothold, but the current market environment is creating challenges. Financing is difficult to come by, and nonprofit organizations, such as museums, are short on funds.

“This is a really risky venture now,” Borchert admits. She says Keen Guides has responded by cutting back even further on its shoestring budget and pursuing partner-ships with more established tour providers or book publishers that might benefit from a technology upgrade.

Alic, who became an early investor in Keen Guides last year, says she remains so strong a supporter that she is considering making a second, larger investment, tough market conditions notwithstanding.

“If they had started the company a year earlier, they’d probably be having an easier time,” she says. “But starting a business in tough times, you learn how to operate in a lean mode.”

So far, Keen Guides’ management team is finding that the potential to create some-thing from scratch and provide a valu-able service outweighs the challenges of starting a business in a tough economy. “I could have continued to work for my old employer,” Franklin says, “but it is fun building your own thing and seeing how it grows.” w

Andrea Orr is an author, blogger, and freelance writer who writes frequently about high-tech startups. She recently relocated to Washington, D.C., from San Francisco.

Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business

attracts students inter-ested in working for estab-lished consulting com-panies and finance firms, as well as those intent on starting a business from scratch.

Most recently, the ranks of the latter group are growing. George-town’s Entrepreneurship Network swelled from about 15 members last year to upwards of 60 in 2009. Brett Kornblatt, a first-year student in the MBA Full-Time Program, serves as co-president of the Entrepreneurship Network and believes the current economy has caused more students to contemplate nontradi-tional careers. “The risk

associated with creating or going to work for a very young startup may seem more acceptable,” says Kornblatt.

The club hosts venture capital competitions for student entrepreneurs and maintains ties with local startups, including some formed by Georgetown alumni.

Undergraduates at Georgetown University also can acquire manage-ment skills while work-ing in student-owned businesses on campus as coffee shop baristas and convenience store cashiers. The Corp is a 27-year-old organization that runs these operations, which include a grocery store, a snack shop, three coffee shops, and a storage service. The Corp reinvests profits back into Georgetown.

Students hired to work for The Corp start in minimum-wage jobs but can advance into manage-rial roles, where they can help set prices and decide how to reinvest profits.

Last year, the company earned $35,000, which it put toward student events, including the Harakat festival celebrat-ing Arab culture. Although it is an incorporated business, The Corp also has a social mission and tries to keep prices low on the products it sells for students.

“It is a large, complex operation,” says The Corp CEO and President Ryan Callahan, a junior at Georgetown’s School of Foreign Service. “There is a lot to keep track of all at once. You have to be able to hold it all in your mind and delegate.”

Entrepreneurs in Training

Students who work for The Corp gain management skills and provide campus services.

29

Imagine you have to attend a meeting in a rough neighborhood. You know from looking up crime sta-tistics that there is a 2.5 percent chance you will be mugged in this part of town. You go anyway, and you do not get mugged. Then you go to another meet-ing, and another, and you continue to return home safely.

The more you go to that neighborhood without getting mugged, the more comfortable you start to feel. However, there is still a 2.5 percent chance you will be mugged next time.

“It’s not that you change the number,” says Catherine Tinsley, associate professor at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. “You just change how you feel about the number.”

By Chris Blose

BusinessWhat managers, astronauts, and hurricane survivors alike can learn from near-misses

RiskyResearching

Robin Dillon-Merrill and Catherine Tinsley study what near-misses mean in storms and space travel, among other areas. B

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The mugging anecdote helps illustrate the work of Tinsley and Robin Dillon- Merrill, also an associate professor. Com-bining their expertise in decision theory and risk analysis, respectively, they study exactly how and why people make deci-sions that involve risk.

Specifically, Tinsley and Dillon-Merrill have explored and refined the idea of a “near-miss” event. Researchers have vary-ing definitions of near-misses, but for the purposes of their studies, Tinsley defines them as follows: “A near-miss is an event that could have been a failure but for an element of luck or chance.”

Near-misses are everywhere. They hap-pen on the highway every day. They happen in the manufacturing industry. They hap-pen in risky ventures such as space flight, and they happen in areas prone to natural disasters such as hurricanes.

Tinsley and Dillon-Merrill say the goal of their research is to help managers and others respond to near-misses not by say-ing, “That was a close call, but we made it,” but instead, “That was a close call. What did we learn?”

Tragic OriginsDillon-Merrill started down the road toward this research when she heard a presenta-tion by Elisabeth Paté-Cornell, a Stanford University researcher who later became her mentor. In the late 1980s and early 1990s, Paté-Cornell performed an extensive risk analysis for NASA about the heat-resistant tiles that protect space shuttles during re-entry into Earth’s atmosphere. The report identified the risk that those crucial tiles could be damaged by debris that sheds from the shuttles’ insulating foam.

When the space shuttle Columbia disin-tegrated on Feb. 1, 2003, that foam was the culprit. In the wake of this tragedy and the death of all seven astronauts on board, NASA managers, investigators, and the public were left asking why nothing had been done to deal with a known risk.

“When we lost the space shuttle Colum-bia for a reason that was clearly identified in the risk analysis, it showed me some-thing,” Dillon-Merrill says. “There’s noth-ing wrong with the risk analysis tools. The issue was everything that had happened from when [Paté-Cornell] turned in her report to when we lost the Columbia — the many different launches when the foam fell off and didn’t cause any problems.”

The 2003 space shuttle Columbia tragedy spurred Dillon-Merrill and Tinsley to assess why people do not learn from near-misses.

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Like the mugging scenario, Dillon- Merrill theorized, every time a shuttle mis-sion ended without incident, NASA man-agers likely altered their feelings about the statistical probability of risk, even if the foam kept shedding and the probability of catastrophe had not changed. The Colum-bia Accident Investigation Report backed that idea, too, saying NASA may have grown complacent about the foam shedding.

Seeing an opportunity to learn from trag-edy, Dillon-Merrill enlisted Tinsley’s expertise in the behavioral aspects of decision making,

and the two got to work.“What motivates us is that when fail-

ures happen, you get a huge investigation of everything,” Tinsley says. “But failures are really costly. Can you avoid failures and find early warning signals by paying more attention to near-misses?”

Near-missed OpportunitiesWith a $250,000 grant from NASA, Dillon-Merrill and Tinsley set out to explore why people don’t learn from near-misses. The resulting study, “How Near-Misses Influence Decision Making Under Risk: A Missed Opportunity for Learning,” was published in the August 2008 issue of the journal Management Science.

The researchers started with the idea that people interpret near-miss events not as near-failures, but as successes. If people view a near-miss as a success, focusing solely on the outcome instead of recogniz-ing it could have led to disaster, they will lower their perception of risk. In turn, they will be more comfortable making risky decisions.

“When you’re faced with a near-miss, a close call, you can interpret it two ways,” Tinsley says. “You could say, ‘Wow, our sys-tem was really resilient because this thing missed, and we’re OK.’ Or you could say, ‘Wow, our system is vulnerable because we almost got hit.’ So whether you interpret the near-miss as a success or as almost a failure will influence how you view sub-sequent situations that have the same deci-sion parameters.”

To test this idea, Dillon-Merrill and Tinsley

set up a series of controlled experiments involving hypothetical scenarios. NASA managers, defense contractors, and George-town students participated in these experi-ments. In the first, participants were asked to rate the decisions of Chris, a fictional project manager working on an unmanned spacecraft project.

Because of a tight schedule, Chris decided to skip peer review of an impor-tant instrument on the spacecraft. He also failed to investigate a design problem that could lead to catastrophic failure. Different

participant groups received different infor-mation about the mission’s success, failure, or near-miss.

In the success scenario, the mission occurs without incident. In the failure scenario, chance alignment with the sun causes catastrophic malfunction of the instrument in question. In the near-miss scenario, chance alignment with the sun kept that instrument in the shade, so it did not malfunction.

People in the near-miss group rated Chris’ management of the project in a way that was statistically indistinguishable from how people in the success group rated Chris’ management of the project. In other words, people viewed a near-miss as a suc-cess rather than as a near-failure.

In another experiment, a simulation, par-ticipants were asked to assume control of an unmanned Mars rover on day six of an 11-day mission. On each morning of the mis-sion, participants were given a 95-percent-accurate weather forecast. They had to decide whether to drive that day or stop for safety and deploy a guard on the rover’s wheels.

All participants were given the following information: On days one through five, the rover was operating on autopilot. There was a 40 percent chance of catastrophic wheel failure in a severe storm. All else being equal, it was favorable to drive because of limited battery life, which depleted at a constant rate whether the rover was driv-ing or stopped. For that first morning, day six, all participants also received a forecast calling for a severe dust storm.

From there, information varied for a

control group and a near-miss group. The control group was told there had been mild weather for all previous days of the mission. The near-miss group was told the rover had made it through severe storms on three of those days.

Only 13 percent of the control group decided to drive that day, but a full 75 per-cent of the near-miss group chose to drive despite the threat of a severe storm, likely because they knew the rover had made it through such storms before. The evidence supported Dillon-Merrill and Tinsley’s

hypothesis that people who have near-miss information make riskier decisions than those without this knowledge.

Further experiments, with minor changes to the information, suggested that people were not logically updating the statistical probability based on the informa-tion they had; instead, they seemed simply to alter their perception of risk and grow more optimistic that they were safe.

“The full learning value of near-misses will be realized only when they are sepa-rated from successes and examined to dem-onstrate not only system resilience, but also system vulnerability,” the study concludes.

If unexamined, near-misses may turn into hits.

Should I Stay or Should I Go?Building on Dillon-Merrill’s prior work in a mentorship program for the National Science Foundation (NSF), she and Tinsley received $300,000 from NSF to examine why and how people decide whether to evacuate a hurricane zone.

For more than 40 years, the disas-ter research community has studied why people evacuate for hurricanes or choose to stay. This research has explored more than 70 variables, such as demographics, education, and past experience. However, results are often inconclusive and unpre-dictable — just like people’s emotions.

“It really boils down to this,” Dillon-Merrill says. “If people feel safe, they stay, and if they don’t feel safe, they go.” The idea may be simple, but the process by which people reach that feeling is complex.

“When you’re faced with a near-miss, a close call, you can interpret it two ways,” Tinsley says. “You could say, ‘Wow, our system was really resilient because this thing missed, and we’re OK.’ Or you could say, ‘Wow, our system is vulnerable because we almost got hit.’ ”


To explore this process, the two col-leagues arranged another set of controlled experiments. The results were similar to those of the NASA study, and they helped the researchers refine the near-miss idea. In a working paper Dillon-Merrill and Tinsley plan to publish, near-misses have evolved into two categories: the “didn’t near-miss” and the “almost near-miss.”

In the “didn’t near-miss” scenario pre-sented to study participants, a hurricane had hit their property three times before, but they and their property were safe each time. In the “almost near-miss” scenario, the same was true, but a tree had fallen on their neighbor’s house and produced sig-nificant damage.

The “didn’t” information produced a

different reaction than the “almost” infor-mation. People who knew their neighbors had experienced damage felt less safe and were more likely to evacuate from a hurri-cane. One little piece of information made all the difference in the world, Tinsley says. Again, the statistical probability of dam-age to people and their property was the same; only the perception of that probabil-ity changed.

Government agencies that deal with disasters are trying to understand and influence people’s evacuation decisions. They want to help people in the most dan-ger reach the decision to leave. In turn, they want to help people who may be in relatively little danger stay so they don’t clog up the roads.

In other words, helping people decide whether to stay or go is about more than understanding behavior; in the face of a natural disaster, it may save lives.

A Hammer for Many NailsBecause risk is involved in so many deci-sions, near-miss research has the potential to reach far beyond space missions and natural disasters.

Dillon-Merrill and Tinsley talk about possible applications ranging far and wide. Near-miss information can help explain the current state of the economy, for example, and the behavior of finan-cial institutions that engaged in risky investments. According to these profes-sors, instead of managing risk and avert-ing disaster ahead of time, everyone is looking backward to determine just what happened.

Although the research stems from large-scale crises, it also can benefit a man-ufacturing manager running an assembly line just as much as it can help a financial

manager or a small-business owner. With the right understanding of near-misses, the researchers believe they can teach everyone to make better decisions in the face of risk.

“We think it has applications just about everywhere,” Tinsley says, “but of course that’s because we have a hammer now, so everything is a nail.” w

In other words, helping people decide whether to stay or go is about more than understanding behavior; in the face of a natural disaster, it may save lives.

In research related to hurricanes, Dillon-Merrill and Tinsley seek to understand why people evacuate or stay.

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ALUMNINotes

BSBA Class of 1973

Joe David Berg retired Feb. 2 from the U.S. House of Representa-tives, where he had served since 1977. Berg worked under the chief administrative officer at House Information Resources as a senior systems engineer providing technical support. He has been accepted into a training program to become a Virginia Master Natu-ralist and plans to enjoy garden-ing, bird-watching, photography, and outdoor activities. Berg lives with his wife, Nadine (Reamy) (SFS ’75), in Arlington, Va.

BSBA Class of 1985

Michael Rachap founded the Atlanta-based company Readeez, which makes “edutainment” videos for children, in 2005. In October 2008, it released its first product: a DVD titled Readeez Volume One. A “readee” is a short film, about a minute long, that uses synchronized video and audio to teach preschoolers how to read. The company is seeking interna-tional distribution.

MBA Class of 1986

Ivy Cohen’s firm, Ivy Cohen Cor-porate Communications, enters its ninth year of helping multinational and U.S. companies build their reputations through high-impact strategic marketing, media rela-tions, and crisis communications campaigns. In 2008, ICCC created the first-of-its-kind College Part-nership Program with low-income Bensonhurst elementary school PS 247 in Brooklyn, N.Y. Since then,

15 colleges from the Northeast have engaged with the K–5 student body to make college education part of their future plans.

BSBA Class of 1989

Nick McCormick published a book called Lead Well and Prosper: 15 Successful Strategies for Becoming a Good Manager. The book is a return to the fundamentals of management and leadership told in a humor-ous, edgy, and enlightening way. McCormick is a practice manager for CAI, an IT services firm. He lives with his wife and three chil-dren in Downingtown, Pa.

MBA Class of 1991

Bob Karig’s second book, Coal Cars: The First Three Hundred Years, was published by the University of Scranton Press in December 2007. The book traces the history and evolu-tion of coal cars from their earliest use in England through the end of the steam era on American railroads.

Raj Patel lives in Dubai and serves as director of IT and innovation technology for Omniyat Prop-erties, one of the city’s largest real estate developers. The firm’s projects include the technologically advanced apartment building called the Pad and the office tower Opus.

MBA Class of 1995

Gustavo A. Darquea has been leading Trebol Verde, a subsidiary of Cateringecuador, the largest food service solutions company in Ecuador, for seven years. The company serves more than 50,000 meals per day, catering to clients in business and industry, health and education, and remote loca-tions. Darquea, who graduated with a focus on corporate finance, is constantly translating strategy learned at Georgetown into action in a country with challenging and

changing macroeconomic condi-tions. Darquea and his wife, Paola, have three children: Gustavo, 11; Santiago, 8; and Sergio, 6.

MBA Class of 1996

Andrew Sachs founded Sachs Capital in 2007, a private equity fund that invests in private operat-ing companies in the mid-Atlantic region. He lives in Potomac, Md., with his wife, two children, and dog.

MBA Class of 1997

Karen Schroeder works at IBM as a senior managing consultant in public-sector financial manage-ment practice. She has worked with the U.S. Department of Justice on its unified financial management system and now works with the U.S. Coast Guard on its financial systems segment architecture.

Mike Blake became director of val-uation services at Habif, Arogeti & Wynne LLP in Atlanta on March 2. He also has co-founded nonprofit StartupLounge.com in Atlanta to help early-stage investors and ven-tures connect with one another.

Phil Cefaratti was running for City Council in Alexandria, Va., at press time. He lives in Alexandria with his wife, former Redskinette Deb Antonini-Cefaratti, and her three children.

IEMBA 3 Class of 1998

Kimberly Higgins Deobald works at IBM as a software business unit executive and is responsible for all software sales for civilian agen-cies and Department of Home-land Security agencies. She works on new initiatives to transform government, including cyber security, dynamic infrastructure, Smarter Planet, enterprise asset management, collaboration/social networking, and document/con-tent management. Amr ElSawy became president and

CEO of Noblis in October 2007. The Falls Church, Va., science, technology, and strategy consult-ing firm works on some of the nation’s most complex issues in health care, climate change, national security, transportation, and telecommunications.

Joanne Hannafin chaired the third annual Strollathon this past fall in Fairfax, Va., to benefit the Interna-

tional Rett Syndrome Foundation. Started in honor of her daughter, Claire, the event raises funds for Rett Syndrome research. Hannafin is grateful to her fellow IEMBA 3s who have generously supported the event as part of team “Hoyas for Claire.” Hannafin is a corporate finance and accounting consultant.

Ivo Maric became an American citizen in June 2008.

T.C. Mullany and his wife, Elizabeth, started a small software development and consulting company, 3SigmaSoftware.com, in 2003 to help facilitate delivery of services by federal Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) programs. The program is available in all 50 states and in 33 Indian tribal organizations.

After 15 years of marriage, Anna and Alan Li are expecting their first child in July. Last year, Alan became vice president of business development of AOL’s mobile advertising business, the same role he previously held at a venture capital–funded company based in San Francisco.

Share your news! Send an e-mail to alumniclass [email protected]


ALUMNINotes

MBA Class of 1999

Chuchi Arevalo is a manager in the advisory practice of Pricewater-houseCoopers in Washington, D.C. His clients include large financial firms and leading international financial institutions. He lives in Arlington, Va., with his wife, Michelle; two sons, Tate, 10, and Chase, 7; and English mastiff, Bear. Arevalo volunteers as a youth bas-ketball coach for Arlington County.

Huatao and Nancy Bao had their third child, Mindy, on Feb. 23. Myles, 4, and Mia, 2.5, are crazy about their new sister.

Lisa Kleinknecht Canty and her husband, Paul, are expecting their first child in August. She continues as president at Kleinknecht Electric Company (KEC), a New York City union electrical contractor. KEC is one of the 25 largest Women’s Business Enterprise–certified con-tractors in the New York City area. Current projects include renovat-ing the New York University Stern School of Business building and Grey Advertising.

Kathy Robins accepted an offer from Barclays Capital after gradu-ation. After four years at Barclays in New York City and London, she returned to asset management, strategy, and product management positions. In 2007, she found her-self among the laid-off NYC talent pool and spent the following year interviewing. In 2009, Robins and her sister started Chyten Tutors and Test Preparation in Penning-ton, N.J.

Ed Rogers sends his greetings from Tokyo, where he has lived with his wife, Betsy, since 2001. They were married in 2002 and have three children: Eddie, 6; Wyatt, 4; and Maya, 2. Their children go to Japanese public school, and their 6-year-old speaks flawless Japanese. In early 2006, Rogers left Deutsche Bank to become an independent professional money manager. He started Wolver Hill Asset Manage-ment with his partners, and they launched their first product, the Wolver Hill Japan Fund of Hedge Funds, in October 2006.

MBA Class of 2001

Alexander Smouha and his wife, Naomi, announce the birth of their son, Jackson, in February. All three are in good health.

MBA Class of 2002

Sam Robfogel and his wife, Elea-nor, welcomed their first child, Esther, in January. Robfogel is director of International Initiatives in Georgetown University’s Office of the Provost, where he develops new international scholarships and assists the faculty in launching new programs with foreign insti-tutions. He also opened George-town’s first liaison office in China.

Shana Levitt has worked at The Nielsen Company for more than four years, managing the Kraft Refreshment Beverage business, which consists of Crystal Light, Kool-Aid, Country Time, Tang, and Capri Sun. She lives in Norwalk, Conn., and was recently engaged.

MBA Class of 2003

Lindsay Stroud and Shannon Delany are engaged.

MBA Class of 2004

Lynn Metzger Coulter and her hus-band, Mark, welcomed their first child, Evan Kent, on Feb. 10.

David Johnson and his wife, Alexandra John-son (Law ’05), had their first baby girl, Lily Maine, on Dec. 26, 2008. His company, Atlas Digital Solutions, which he started with his partner in 2005, is progressing well, despite the tough economy.

Mary Jo Slidell, her husband, Duncan, and their 3-year-old twins, Hallie and John, welcomed a new baby, Anna MacFarlane, on Oct. 11, 2008. The family lives in Bethesda, Md.


Timothy Yoo was promoted to director in Archstone Consulting’s

strategy and operations practice in December 2008. He works primarily with Fortune 500 clients in cost-reduction efforts focused on sourcing and procurement, as well as business process outsourc-ing advisory work.

Kevin Tomlinson received the best Christmas present ever — the delivery of twins Finley Brook and Clara McKee at 1:22 a.m. and 1:23 a.m., respectively, on Christmas morning 2008. With daughter Tatum now 22 months old, things are busy at the Tomlinson household.

Lea Kirkwood had quite a year in 2008. In March, she was pro-moted to lieutenant colonel; in April, she got engaged to Yorkshire man Drew Raw at the Pantheon in Rome; on July 26, they quietly got married in Cambridge, Mass.; and in August, she took command of the 422 Air Base Squadron.

Patrick McGinnis continues to work for the Cerner Corpora-tion as chief medical officer, and last year he was promoted to full colonel in the USAF Reserve.

Amy Appleby got engaged in Janu-ary to Eric Troop, who grew up in Pennsylvania and works in bio-technology. The two are planning their “I do’s” for October.

Kevin and Patty Hoder welcomed their second child, Ian, on Feb. 27. Big brother John seems to approve. Kevin started a new job with McLaren Inc. in March, and Patty continues to work at Intel.

Alumnus Appointed to the White House Peter M. Rogoff (MBA ’01) has been appointed administrator at the Federal Transit Administra-tion, U.S. Department of Transportation. Rogoff has served for 22 years on the staff of the Senate Appropriations Committee, including 14 years as the democratic staff director of its Transportation Subcommittee.

Rogoff is an acknowledged expert in federal infrastructure budgeting and finance and was instrumental in estab-lishing new user-fee regimes to finance expanded security measures following the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. He has played a key role in advising policymakers on the operating and capital needs of Amtrak and has been influential in overseeing and reforming troubled procure-ments in the Federal Aviation Administration, Coast Guard, Federal Transit Administration, and Federal Highway Administration. He was the principal staff strategist for both the .08 blood alcohol content law and the youth drunk driving “zero tolerance” law.


PROFILE

Gaining Momentum

With twins at home and a husband also working full time, Jennifer Folsom (MBA ’02) had a hard time juggling the often 60-hour workweek required of her at consulting powerhouse BearingPoint.

“Our twins were both 4 at the time, and we realized that they needed a lot more of us than we were giving them, especially in that time of their development,” says Folsom, 34, of that chapter in her life, about three years ago.

Folsom was unable to negotiate a part-time arrangement with the company and realized she needed to make a switch. Otherwise, she would end up missing out on key moments in her children’s lives, from sports to volunteering in the classroom.

Folsom worked freelance positions for a while until she recon-nected with a former college classmate from Randolph-Macon College, Whitney Forstner, and Forstner’s business partner, Tanya Cummings. Folsom helped the two develop and launch Momentum Resources, a boutique staffing firm that helps women find part-time and flexible professional work.

Forstner and Cummings had the original idea, but Folsom wrote and implemented a business plan and strategy for succeeding in the Washington, D.C., market. She also evaluated a plan for partner-ships with prospective clients and candidates, as well as created a corporate blog and social media strategy.

As director for Momentum, Folsom now interviews clients and candidates for positions daily, ensuring that it places women in jobs that are the “right fit, not the next fit,” she says. She fills positions with nonprofit and for-profit orga-nizations across varied industries. Candidates range from moms to retired women who seek to return to work part-time.

“We’ve gotten a lot of résumés recently from people whose 401(k)s have crashed while other costs of living are rising,” Folsom says. “That’s not a niche we saw coming, but we’re able to fill it.”

Employers willing to offer flexible and part-time jobs also see the benefit, Folsom says. They can hire experienced professionals to take on tasks as needed without committing to a full-time salary. Still, not every employer is willing to consider part-time or flexible work for its employees.

“A lot of times, HR professionals would just say, ‘I think it’s great, and I’m a mom, but we don’t do part time,’ and that was it,” Folsom says. “The door was shut. So I had to learn the hard way that if they aren’t biting, we’re moving on.”

Momentum also educates and trains women wishing to re-enter the professional market who have taken a break from the working world for a few years. The firm connects them with career coaches and stylists.

Today, Folsom is trying to live Momentum’s own business model and working a “flexible full-time” schedule. Five days a week, Folsom pitches new clients about the Momentum concept. She also follows up with candidates and leads. But most important, she’s there to see her twins off the bus from school and spend time with her 1-year-old. She’s also able to help with homework, fix dinner, and put the children to bed — simple but essential activities she otherwise would not be able to do.

“My hope is that we’ll prove once and for all that part-time and flexible work arrangements are a really smart way for employers to retain top talent,” Folsom says. “These women, and some dads, are proving that it works, and that will revolutionize the work force in five to 10 years.” — Meredith Stanton

Working mother Jennifer Folsom knows the importance of flexible full-time work.

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ALUMNINotes

Kathleen and Mark Wolf cel-ebrated Thanksgiving 2008 by bringing home their first child, Cassidy Brooke, from the hos-pital. Cassidy was born Nov. 25, 2008, at Georgetown University Hospital.

MBA Class of 2005

Brian Jennaro and Kate Joslyn (MBA ’06) married at the Dahl-gren Chapel on Georgetown’s campus on Sept. 27, 2008.


Todd Barnum was recently married and moved to Buffalo, N.Y., to be closer to his family. Before moving north, he worked at classmate Dan Berkon’s company, Culmen International, for more than a year as a project manager and strategic adviser.

Daniel Berkon started his own company, Culmen International, in the last months of the IEMBA program to provide management and technical expertise to the U.S. government for international security and logistics programs. Berkon and his wife have four kids, ages 1–15.

Lee Bodner leads a new nonprofit organization called EcoAmerica as executive director. He previously served as an organizer at MoveOn.org.

Jennifer Boettcher still works at Georgetown University, reliv-ing the IEMBA experience year after year with each new class of students. She and Ken live in Laurel, Md.

Richard Butcher recently mar-ried and went on a months-long honeymoon around the world. Upon the couple’s return, Butcher was asked to take on the chief of staff position for Rep. Diane Watson (D-Calif.), serving the 33rd district. Butcher and his wife have bought their first house on Capitol Hill.

Chris Checco started his own com-pany called Customer Chemistry. His classmate David Rook helped with marketing for a few months. Checco sold the company in July with the help of classmates John Stroud and Jason Ettinger. He is staying on with the new com-pany and is enjoying the learning experience.

Christine Cox lives in Colorado. She recently went to Colombia for classmate Adriana Nino’s son’s baptism. Cox is the godmother.

Scott East started mSights Inc., and invited classmate and resi-dency teammate Fabrice Martin to be his business partner and chief operating officer. East and Martin were hired by classmate Dan Berkon’s company, Culmen International, to develop a stra-tegic reporting Web application. East and Holley recently added a second child to the family.

Melanie El-Sabaawi stepped down as senior vice president at Cal-lahan & Associates to help her husband start his international private practice. The couple recently purchased a house in Italy, which, of course, everyone is invited to.

Jason Ettinger is still at Booz Allen Hamilton, but runs a merger and acquisition company with classmate John Stroud. Ettinger and Stroud helped with the sale of classmate Chris Checco’s company. Ettinger and his wife have three children, the young-est of whom turned 3 in April. Ettinger’s wife was recently fea-tured in Newsweek and Washingtonian for her accomplishments at Kipp, a charter school in D.C.

Jeremy Finn is a managing direc-tor at Fidelity Investments in Bos-ton. His wife and three children are contemplating moving to the suburbs and leaving behind their two-bedroom apartment in the heart of Boston, less than a mile from work.

The Power of Alumni NetworkingThe Georgetown University McDonough School of Business alumni com-munity, as well as Georgetown alumni with an interest in the McDonough School, met at three separate business network-ing events this spring. A gathering on March 24 drew close to 100 alumni to the Fairmont Hotel on the top of Nob Hill in San Francisco. G. Doug Dillard (BSBA ’93), managing partner and portfolio man-ager at Standard Pacific, and Neil Ashe (BSBA ’90), president of CBS Interac-tive, spoke on the topic “Business, Innovation, and the New Reality.” The lively discussion covered the influence of China on West Coast business and the concept of “keyboard-ready” projects as com-pared to “shovel-ready.”

The following day, the Georgetown McDonough School of Business, with the support of the Georgetown University Alumni Association, hosted a full house of more than 150 Georgetown alumni at the Beverly Hilton in Los Angeles. Greg Foster (BSBA ’94), chairman and president of Filmed Entertainment, IMAX, and Juliana Jaoudi (MBA ’96), vice president of sales at latimes.com, shared their personal stories on the power of the Georgetown business network.

A sold-out gathering in New York City on April 15 took place at the historic Time-Life Building. A panel of alumni spoke to the approximately 200 attend-ing alumni on the topic “Managing Your Career in Times of Crisis.” J. Christopher Hoeffel (BSBA ’83), managing director at Investcorp International Inc., Ed Finneran (BSBA ’77), director of marketing at Brigade Capital, and Palden Namgyal (C ’86), senior managing director at Atlas Strategic Advisors LLC, talked about their experiences and gave straightforward advice on career choices, the value of integrity, and the future of financial services.

March 24 in San Francisco: Martin Doyle (MBA ’02), Ian Sims (MBA ’06), Dean George Daly, Betsy Eshoei (MBA ’06), and Garrett Vygantas (MBA ’04, MD ’04).

March 25 in Los Angeles: Slade Smith (BSBA ’06), Reagan Smith (BSBA ’08), Brittany Basset (BSBA ’08), and Christine Jahina (BSBA ’06).

April 15 in New York: Palden Namgyal (C ’86), senior managing director at Atlas Strategic Advisors LLC; Ed Finneran (BSBA ’77), director of marketing at Brigade Capital; and J. Christopher Hoeffel (BSBA ’83), managing director at Investcorp International Inc.

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Gary Gadson recently was pro-moted to director at AT&T Inc. Gadson is concerned about his neighborhood now that classmate Eric Kessler has moved in and their daughters share a preschool class.

Deena Gift Fox married and moved to Michigan shortly after graduation. Fox is a project manager at Rossetti, an archi-tecture and planning company that encourages employees to put family first and work second. Fox and her husband recently purchased their first home in a suburb of Detroit.

Arun Gopalaswarmy returned home to India to be with his fam-ily. He says his Georgetown MBA provides him tremendous benefits in India.

Ajay Gupta continues to grow and adapt his company, GSecurity, an IT security and green technology firm with clients in a broad range of industries: government, finan-cial services, health care, Fortune 500, education, and legal.

David Hardwick and his wife and child moved from the D.C. area after 12 years of residency to Maplewood, N.J., to be closer to family. Hardwick is a solu-tion architect with Fry Consult-ing, which was placed in the top leader quadrant by Forrester Research for e-Commerce Soft-ware and Service. Hardwick also is helping a local wrestling league as a volunteer coach.

Michael Johnson is the regional chief of finance for Eurasia Part-ners. He had been working in the country of Georgia, but moved to neighboring Armenia due to security concerns. While help-ing people in Armenia, Azerbai-jan, and Georgia, Johnson met a woman who swept him off his feet. They were recently married.

Brian Kathman sold his com-pany, Hook Mobile, and joined

classmate Eric Kessler at Arabella Advisors as the chief operating officer.

Eric Kessler started Arabella Advisors, a philanthropic invest-ment advisory firm, shortly after graduating. The organization grew rapidly and opened offices in D.C., Chicago, and New York.

Andrei Lavrov is president and CEO of LATISTA Technologies Inc., which provides mobile enter-prise field operations and quality management software for capital projects.

Michelle Lee has a new son. She went back to China during the Olympics and hosted classmate Richard Butcher there. Lee and her family recently returned from a trip to Barcelona, Spain.

Fabrice Martin teamed up with Scott East to start mSights Inc. shortly after graduation. Martin is the chief operating officer and manages the product development performed offshore in Mexico, which allows him to see family and friends back in Mexico.

Tyler Moynihan and his wife moved to the West Coast shortly after graduation after his wife got a job with Microsoft. Moyni-han transitioned from AOL to T-Mobile when he moved to Seattle, but now he enjoys life at a startup company that works with mobile mapping technologies.

Adriana Nino is back from Martin-ique, where she worked as project manager for a French Caribbean project and knew it would be a challenge when she realized there was no direct translation for the word “deadline.” Adriana has two children.

Mohana Opesh is back in the D.C. area after working inter-nationally for the past three and a half years. She still travels regularly and has houses in India and Fairfax, Va. She seeks a role at

a company that will require less travel so she can spend more time with her family.

Todd Palmer has completed his work at Genworth Financial as the managing director of global product development. He now is working independently and travel-ing extensively.

Huong Pham left the telecom business and now is working at the corporate headquarters of the AES Corporation, a global power company based in Arlington, Va. She and her husband have trav-eled to Germany and Dubai, and she highly recommends Dubai for the next IEMBA international residency.

Brenda Quiroz-Maday’s husband, Brian, graduated as an IEMBA 13 while she raised their twins. She continues to run the Small Business Development Center in Alexandria, Va. In their free time, she and her husband created a business plan to use a new plant to create ethanol. They submitted their business plan to an inter-national competition and have advanced to the final round.

Chris Ramsey is executive vice president at LATISTA Technologies Inc., and manages the company’s sales activities. Ramsey was hired by Andrei Lavrov, an IEMBA class-mate and president of LATISTA.

Erika Rhoades is engaged. She con-tinues her career at the World Bank as a senior financial officer in the International Finance Corporation.

Dave Rook has left AOL after eight years, last serving as a director of brand marketing, to become general manager of the consumer media division at Hanley Wood LLC, one of the nation’s lead-ing B-to-B and B-to-C media companies.

George Salamie is vice president of global sales at Anue Systems and is building a global distribution

Engagement Board Offers Alumni More Ways to Get InvolvedGeorgetown University’s McDonough School of Business is organizing its first MBA Alumni Engagement Board, which is scheduled to launch this fall. Spearheaded by Michael Havard (MBA ’89) and Director of Alumni Affairs Anne Jones, the Alumni Engagement Board will draw on a strong network of 18,000 accomplished alumni who span the globe and several key indus-tries. “So many of our alumni are interested in getting involved in the McDonough School of Business’ initiatives and ensuring that the school and its alumni continue to be successful,”

explained Jones. “We envision the board as a results-oriented group that will actively support the McDonough School of Business.”

The Alumni Engagement Board will leverage the wisdom, energy, and commitment of graduates in the areas of career placement and recruitment, networking, admissions, brand awareness, development and fundraising, and communication. Aside from generating an initial roster of board members, the organizing committee also will hold focus groups with alumni throughout the summer to fur-ther develop the board’s mission and vision.

Alumni are encouraged to participate by exploring volun-teer opportunities and sharing their thoughts and suggestions through the Alumni Engage-ment Board survey, which can be found on msb.georgetown.edu/alumni. The deadline for the survey is June 30, 2009.

“We envision the board

as a results-oriented

group that will actively support the McDonough School of

Business.”— Anne Jones

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channel and operations center for a new product.

Jan Smilek is chief accounting officer and controller at Sucampo Pharmaceuticals in Bethesda, Md. Smilek joined the company in February 2008 as vice president of finance and corporate controller.

John Stroud still is the second-best dresser of the IEMBA Xs — behind Gary Gadson, of course. Stroud recently joined classmate Jason Ettinger as a director at Aktivist Finance, a merger and acquisi-tion firm specializing in emerging markets.

Obinna Squires joins the rest of the class in wishing Ilkka a speedy recovery.

Chani Vines is married and has a daughter. Her family now resides in Ann Arbor, Mich. Vines is work-ing for a startup biofuel company as a strategic adviser.

Marc Waggener still works in the auto industry in Detroit. He enjoys testing the maximum speed on American muscle cars when he is not practicing martial arts.

Tim Winter still peddles petro-leum out of Annapolis, Md. In his spare time, he bumps around in the wild blue yonder in the Navy Reserves. He currently resides in Annapolis with his wife, Julie, and three kids.


Duane Deason is president of The Efficacy Group, a firm focusing almost exclusively on offering cost-management services to cli-ents in the D.C. metropolitan area. He lives with his wife and son in Alexandria, Va. Deason spends most of his spare time wondering why he thought financials were a good buy in November 2008.

Webb Dryfoos is a director of new product development at NeuStar and lives in Georgetown with

his wife, Emily. They recently enjoyed a holiday family reunion in Beaver Creek, Colo., and cel-ebrated their first anniversary in St. Michaels, Md., at the end of March.

Celeste Diaz Ferraro was hired as a professor of international business and entrepreneurship in the MBA program at St. Mary’s University in San Antonio. She is grow-ing her management consulting practice working with socially and environmentally responsible micro-enterprises, serving on volunteer boards, and playing with her new Rottweiler puppy.

John Gray has been working as project controls manager on a Bechtel project in Tbilisi, Georgia, a great place to work where the food is fantastic and the wine is plentiful. He hopes to head home soon, before the snow melts and the Russians start coming over the border again.

Susan Payne and her husband, Kyle, have had a busy year: new jobs, a new baby, and marriage. Ethan Joseph Payne Stokes was born Aug. 2, 2008, at 9 pounds, 5 ounces. Payne recently joined the George-town University Medical Center as deputy director of Web strategy, where she is responsible for 40+ Web sites, including the Lombardi and the School of Medicine.

Dan Polk and his wife, Claire, wel-comed the birth of their first child on Jan. 13. Gabriel Austin Polk was born at 6:22 p.m., weighed 7 pounds, 15 ounces, and measured 21 inches. Mom and baby are doing well.

Ada Vaughan has enjoyed lots of domestic travel with baby Zola, now 17 months, and nanny in tow. She says it was great to see fellow IEMBA 11 Isabelle Leveugle in Jackson Hole, Wyo., this winter. Professionally, she is shifting her schedule at Allegro to four days per week so she may pursue a new business endeavor.

Hoyas Helping Hoyas: Young Alumni ProgramFrom New York and Dubai to London and Tokyo, the Georgetown Uni-versity McDonough School of Business alumni network spans the world’s leading financial centers and an array of key industries. “The George-town network is well placed and very tightly connected,” explains Ellen Bates of the Young Alumni Mentoring Program (YAMP). “And Hoyas are extremely helpful and responsive to other Hoyas.”

Established in 2007 and overseen by Professor Lynn Doran and outgoing Alumni Program Chairman Jim Gregoire (BSBA ’04), YAMP connects undergraduate students with successful alumni and provides students and mentors opportunities to learn from each other via social gatherings, workshops, and roundtable discussions. Entrance into the program is competitive and based on a student’s academic record and leadership potential. Currently, more than 30 mentors from companies such as MTV Networks, Booz Allen Hamilton, IBM Consulting, and IMG Group coach 120 Georgetown McDonough School of Business students on how to succeed in the business world.

Mentors also share their expertise and experiences with students one on one. Each mentor has up to three mentees, allowing them to develop personal and meaningful relationships tailored to each student’s profes-sional goals. Incoming Alumni Program Co-Chairman Elaine Maslamani (BSBA ’99), manager at KPMG LLP, has given her mentees insights into what to expect in the first five years after business school and which academic experiences best prepare students for a professional career.

Junior Andrew Madorsky (BSBA ’10) has learned important lessons from his mentors, Justin Gaither of Merrill Lynch and Kevin DeSanto of KippsDeSanto. “The opportunity to have them make suggestions on my résumé, as well as give me sample interview questions, has been invaluable,” he says. “By interacting with them, I have gotten a great perspective on how to explore various business fields and what I need to be successful in my career.”

Tom Raffa (BSBA ’76), founder and president of accounting and tech-nology firm Raffa Corporation, signed on as a mentor because he wanted to give back to his alma mater. “You quickly learn that you get more out of such a program than you feel like you could ever give,” he says. “I have seen at least two generations of students through the program and learned much about their goals, ambitions, and abilities. It has helped me become a better leader and develop friendships with people who are generations apart from me, but very similar in their hopes, experiences, and visions for the future.”

YAMP’s successful start has paved the way for more ambitious future plans. New York alumni chairman Stephen McMullin (BSBA ’07) is spear-heading efforts to organize a New York City chapter for students interning in the city this summer. The D.C. program also is expanding to provide students with mentors from other areas of expertise, such as the legal industry and the nonprofit sector. “The response from students and men-tors has been overwhelming and surpassed our expectations,” Gregoire says. “We’re hoping for even more success in the future.” — Zia Morales

Young Alumni Mentor Program’s 2008 Winter Dinner in Copley Formal Lounge


A sk most college students about their school days, and they’ll regale you with stories about classes, dorm life, and going out on Saturday nights. But for three friends at Georgetown University’s

McDonough School of Business, their college years also included building a fully functional — and now expanding—business from the ground up.

“We’d been at Georgetown for four years, and we were sick of spending money at Chipotle and Dean and Deluca,” says Nicolas Jammet (BSBA ’07). “We saw no in-between fast-casual concept where you could get a good, healthy meal, inex-pensively and quickly.”

Thus, the idea for sweetgreen was born. Pals Jammet and Nathaniel Ru, now both 23, and Jonathan Neman, 24, got busy during their senior year devising a business plan, finding a location, and putting together the menu for their concept of a casual salad bar and yogurt restaurant in Georgetown.

“We saw this empty little green and white house sitting on M Street,” Jammet says. “Jon actually called the landlord, which is Eastbanc, one of the largest building owners in D.C., every day for 30 days. We were seniors, and they didn’t really think we were serious. Finally, they agreed to take the meeting to get us to stop calling them.”

From there, sweetgreen moved closer to reality as the part-ners secured an architect and

began testing salad ingredients, dressings, and yogurt varieties. Jammet, whose parents owned several high-end restaurants in

New York, is the point person for developing the menu, while Ru (BSBA ’07) and Neman (BSBA ’07) handle construction development and corporate structure. Together,

they manage the financing, capital raising, and research into differ-ent produce purveyors. Before opening in August 2007, the three devoted several months to testing products in Jammet’s kitchen.

The “green” concept extends beyond the restaurant’s salads. sweetgreen is certified by the Green Restaurant Association.

Jonathan Neman, Nathaniel Ru, and Nicolas Jammet have opened three sweetgreenrestaurants in the D.C. area.

PROFILE

Sweet Success

All of the products, from the bowls and dressing cups to the forks and spoons, are biodegradable. The restaurant uses wind power and is designed with reclaimed hickory wood salvaged from a barn in Virginia.

“From the beginning, the whole sustainable factor was a big issue for us,” Jammet says.

Although students make up about 30 percent of sweetgreen’s business today, young professionals and health-conscious eat-ers also regularly turn to the tiny eatery — so much so that in April, sweetgreen opened locations in D.C.’s Dupont Circle and Bethesda, Md. The new restaurants have indoor seating and give the team catering capability.

In the past couple of months, the team also has been building its frozen-yogurt-to-go business with plans to debut a traveling sweetflow truck. They will outfit the eco-friendly truck with speakers and create a social media component, allowing people to track the truck through the city on Facebook, Twitter, and the iPhone.

“We’ve brought this old-school Mr. Softee idea to 2009,” Ru says.

Business has been on the upswing. “We’ve learned a lot in about a year,” says Ru. “Everything from our products to the cus-tomers we serve — it’s been an incredible journey, and we’ve met so many people.” — Meredith Stanton

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BusinessSense

The New Washington: Finance and Politics

Read Professor Aggarwal’s papers at www.msb.edu/faculty/aggarwal

Washington, D.C., is no longer just the political capital of America. It also has been trans-formed into the financial capital by the current financial crisis.

Over a short period of time, some of the nation’s largest financial institutions have ceased to exist (Leh-man, Countrywide, WaMu) or have been completely transformed (Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, AIG, Citi, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley). The credit markets came to a complete halt, with the government becoming the only provider of capital with signifi-cant ownership stake in several financial institutions. This finan-cial tsunami has spread around the world and has left no country untouched. For a long time, academics and policymakers will be asking: How did we get here? How do we make sure this does not happen again?

The need for revisiting the regulation of our financial markets is quite clear. I believe the issue is not simply more regulation, but more effec-tive regulation. The institu-tions that got into the deepest trouble — Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, or Citi — have been some of the most heav-ily regulated entities. The issue is how to regulate so systemic risk can be understood and managed before it blows up. The issue is how to get away from what I would call the “silo” approach to regulation. We have too many regula-tory bodies, each supposedly minding only its own part, and in some cases creating regulatory arbitrage.

We also need to examine capital adequacy requirements, stan-dards for loan origination and mortgage financing, the need for increased transparency in innovative and complex new financial products such as credit default swaps, a regulatory scheme for credit rating agencies, and executive compensation. A well-functioning real economy cannot exist without a strong banking sector and solid financial markets. The financial markets and the free-enterprise system are built on trust, but at this time confi-dence in the financial system does not exist.

Several of our regulatory bodies have been found lacking in

their actions. The regulatory structure failed to monitor the many signs of trouble and risks in the economy. We need a new com-prehensive system to oversee our large and complex financial sys-tem, an “umbrella” approach capable of identifying and manag-ing systemic risk. This entity should be able to coordinate across regulatory bodies and break down the silos. It must monitor both domestic and foreign markets and address global harmonization and coordination, because capital has no bounds. Our regulatory agencies also need adequate funding to function effectively.

But regulators are not the only ones monitoring the financial system and companies. Institutional ownership of corporations has increased significantly, and these institutions have become

more active, voting with their “voice” and not simply exiting investments by “vot-ing with their feet.” My own research provides insight. In a study of 23 countries, we find institutional investors play an important role in bringing about improvements in corporate governance at companies around the world. Globally, we find that firms with better governance have higher firm value, and the market rewards them. Therefore, the investment in governance pays off.

The 2009 proxy voting season is upon us, and executive compensation will top many agendas. In further research, I will examine the role of institutions in proxy voting on executive compen-sation issues. In addition to institutions, research analysts, credit rating agencies, and even the media can bring

more transparency into our financial system.Our financial system has recently seen major challenges, but

we will emerge stronger. Challenging times provide an opportu-nity to examine and strengthen our systems. In time, the modi-fied capital market system will once again be on track, and I hope Washington’s role in the financial markets will soon be reduced.

By reena aggarwal, Professor of Finance

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Zubaid AhmadVice PresidentStandard Chartered Bank

Joseph AmatoCEONeuberger Berman LLC

Doreen AmorosaVice President, AcquisitionsAmerican Express

William D. Anderson, Jr.Managing DirectorGoldman, Sachs & Co.

James AtwaterManaging DirectorRyan Beck & Company

Dewey John AwadManaging DirectorBrookside Capital

W. Robert Berkley, Jr.Sr. Vice President-SpecialtyOperationsW. R. Berkley Corporation

Ronald E. BlaylockManaging PartnerGenNx360 Capital Partners

Alison Blood-LohrfinkLondon, England

Lawrence R. BotelManaging PartnerJoss Realty Partners

Robert BowlinPresident-RetiredSony Music International

James Buckley DirectorTechnology, Communication & Media PracticeSpencer Stuart

Mark J. CasellaPartnerPricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Michelle C. CherrickManaging DirectorConsumer Investment BankingThomas Weisel Partners

Jerome J. Claeys, IIICEO & ChairmanHeitman Capital Management

Peter N. CrnkovichManaging DirectorMorgan Stanley

Alberto de la CruzPresidentCoca-Cola PR Bottlers

William H. Diamond, Jr.CEOXradia, Inc.

Donn C. DolceSenior Vice PresidentUBS Financial Services, Inc.

James S. EisensteinChairman & CEOOptasite, Inc.

John J. FauthPresident & CEOChurchill Companies

Alfred J. Fisher, IIIPresidentFisher Corporation

Michael R. FisherPresidentFisher Corporation

Robert J. FlanaganExecutive Vice PresidentClark Enterprises, Inc.

Christopher P. FrancoPresident Rock Point Investment Partners

Hon. Richard FredericksChairman Dionise Capital, Inc.

Jacque P. GelardinPrincipalGelardin & Co., LLC

Carol A. GrefenstetteManaging DirectorStrategic Investment Group

Saadadeen “Saad” HaririCEO/Board MemberHariri Foundation

Peter W. Henderson, Jr.Vice PresidentBank of America

Paul J. HillPresidentHarvard Development Ltd.

William H. HoeflingCEOFinancial Resources Elite Agents

Lee C. Howley, Jr.President/OwnerHowley Bread Group

Richard E. JoyceManaging DirectorMerrill Lynch & Co., Inc.

Arlen H. KantarianSenior AdvisorMiami Dolphins

Kenneth J. KencelChief Executive OfficerChurchill Financial Corporation

Gerard M. KennyPresidentThe Kenny Partners

Lisa S. KleinknechtKleinknecht Electric Company, Inc.

Jonathan R. LynchManaging PartnerCCMP Capital Advisors

Herbert MacArthurVice PresidentBooz Allen Hamilton

David F. McBrideCEOMcBride Enterprises

Timothy B. McBrideChairman/CEOMcBride Enterprises (N.J.)

William C. McInnes, S.J.ChaplainBoston College

Daniel M. McNamaraManaging DirectorCiti

John Maier, IISenior Managing Director FBR Capital Markets

Philip A. MarineauFormer President & CEOLevi Strauss & Co.

Lorraine MonteroManaging Director-RetiredEmerging Market Regional HeadCiti

Ellen MorrellVice President Washington Fine Properties, LLC

Robert B. Nolan, Jr.Managing PartnerHalyard Capital Fund

Geoffrey A. OliverCEO, Managing PartnerHilltop Advisors, LLC

Warren OlsenChairman & CEO1st Western InvestmentManagement

Charles Palmer, IIIManaging General PartnerNorth American Co., LLP

Gregory PalmerCEORemedy Temp

Patricia Mulvaney PignataroPartnerPricewaterhouseCoopers LLP

Wayne C. PlewniakManaging DirectorGAMCO Investors, Inc.

Elaine PochtarPrincipalMorgan Stanley

Peter PritchardPresidentPritchard Industries

Michael G. PsarosManaging PrincipalKPS Special Situations Funds

David K. ReyesCEOReyes Holdings

Charles F. SarkisPresident & CEOBack Bay Restaurant Group, Inc.

Ann Misiaszek SarnoffPresidentDow Jones Ventures

Eric L. SmallPresident & CEOBrooks Investment Corporation

John SpirtosSenior Vice President Corporate DevelopmentNeuStar

Thomas T. StallkampIndustrial PartnerRipplewood Holdings, LLC

Robert SteersChairmanCohen & Steers Capital

Marc H. SulamHedge Fund ManagerHealy Circle Capital

Timothy TassopoulosSenior Vice President,OperationsChick Fil-A, Inc.

Gil Tenzer PartnerContrarian Capital Management LLC

Michael TodmanPresidentWhirlpool North America

John F. VitaloManaging DirectorAbsa Capital

Stanley WoodPresident Integrated Business Information Systems, Inc.

Carlos ZallesChairman & Chief Executive LW Securities LTD

Georgetown UniversityMcDonough School of Business Board of Advisors (2009)

Georgetown

BusinessMcDonough School of BusinessGeorgetown UniversityOffice of Marketing and Communications37th and O Streets, NWWashington, DC 20057

Join your classmates and Dean George Daly at the 2009 Reunion Weekend, May 28–31. This year promises to be very special, and if you join us on the Hilltop, you will be among the first to walk the halls of our new building.

During Reunion Weekend, you will have access to a multitude of events. We especially hope you will attend the following activities: Friday, May 29Business, Innovation, and the New Reality:Discussion and Networking, 4–5 p.m.Our talented professors and alumni will hold a discussion about the way business is adapting to meet the challenges of our current market.

New Building Open House, 5–8 p.m.Join all McDonough alumni for an evening of cocktails and connecting with your classmates in our dynamic new building. Alumni from all classes are invited.

Saturday, May 30MBA and IEMBA Class Celebration, 7–10 p.m. Alumni from the classes of 1984, 1989, 1994, 1999, and 2004 are invited to dinner on the top floor of the new building for the McDonough School of Business.

To sign up for the 2009 Reunion Weekend, go to reunion.georgetown.edu.

For more information, go to msb.georgetown.edu/alumni.

See you there!

2009 Reunion WeekendMay 28–31

idea for small devices

georgetown business spring 2009

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