Since our charter class graduated more than 25 years ago, alumni
from the UC Davis Graduate School of Management have been making
their presence known around the world.
Our graduates are CEOs, vice presidents, chief financial
officers, chief operating officers and entrepreneurs. Around the
globe, they have taken prominent roles as international business
leaders in a wide range of industries and organizations.
Graduate School of Management alumni are actively involved in
their communities, and they make time for mentoring, advising and
assisting current students and networking with fellow graduates.
UC Davis MBA Mayoral Fellows Help Propel Sacramento Forward
Making an Impact in Education and Economic Development
By Alex Russell
First-year MBA student Tiffany Tan loves basketball—and being on a team led by a former NBA all-star with a bold vision for the state capital. When Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson’s chief of staff visited the Graduate School of Management to present the Mayoral Fellowship program, Tan recognized it was a slam dunk opportunity.
“I knew Mayor Johnson was leading the charge for a new sports and entertainment complex in the downtown railyards,” said Tan, who joined fellow first-year MBA student Trevor Jha as this year’s UC Davis MBA Mayoral Fellows.
Students from Historically Black Colleges Prep for Business
New UC Summer Institute for Emerging Managers and Leaders
A landmark collaboration between the six University of California business schools and the nation’s historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs)launched in May with the first annual UC Summer Institute for Emerging Managers and Leaders (SIEML).
Entrepreneur Craig Hall Redefines Making a Difference
Businessman, Author, Philanthropist Joins Dean’s Advisory Cabinet
Bitten by the entrepreneur bug very early, Craig Hall launched his first—and quite profitable—venture at age 10 with 50 cents saved from returning empty bottles to his neighborhood drugstore. When he saw the store was going out of business, Hall’s entrepreneurial gene kicked in.
Symposium Shines Spotlight on Private Equity
By Alex Russell
The Graduate School of Management hosted its second annual Symposium on Financial Institutions & Intermediaries in March, bringing together two dozen top scholars and industry practitioners from around the world.
Organized by Associate Professors Ayako Yasuda and Roger Edelen, the symposium focused on private equity, an asset class that typically raises capital from institutional investors to invest in companies that are already private or are public and then taken private.
Lauren Davis MBA 13
Daytime MBA Student
By Joanna Corman
Like a hard, game-winning spike that leaves a big impression, Lauren Davis has never forgotten the inspiring words of her junior high school club volleyball coach. “He said, ‘play with heart.’ Everything you do in life should be done with heart and with passion.”
With that advice in mind, Davis has hit the ground running as a first-year Daytime MBA student. She’s found a new interest in marketing and new business development after a successful career in financial services.
Dr. Steven Brass MBA 14
Sacramento MBA Student
By Joanna Corman
Dr. Steven Brass, a neurologist with a sleep medicine specialty at the UC Davis Medical Center has run clinics, directed sleep labs, conducted research, and served as a consultant on several FDA advisory panels that approve medical devices and medications during his 14 years as a doctor.
Peter Buggy Leads New Directions in Health Care Strategy
Alumnus Enjoys Long, Healthy Career at Kaiser Permanente
By Marianne Skoczek
As Kaiser Permanente’s director of strategy management, Peter Buggy leads a high-powered team of business consultants that work with the health plan’s business lines to better execute strategies and measure their success. Often referred to as the model for the future of health care, Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente is the nation’s largest not-for-profit health plan and health care provider, with annual operating revenue of more than $42 billion.
Banking Expert Foretold Risk that Led to Global Financial Crisis
Robert Marquez to Join Faculty this Summer
By Robert Preer
As U.S. housing prices peaked during the real estate bubble in 2006, Boston University Associate Professor Robert Marquez and Giovanni Dell’Ariccia of the International Monetary Fund, wrote a compelling paper showing that when banks have easy access to capital and demand for credit is high, the tendency is to take excessive risks that could endanger the financial system.
Alumnus Antonio Zaccheo Takes Tuscany Winery Global
During a trip to Italy last summer, Professor Emeritus Robert Smiley visits his former student Antonio Zaccheo ’93 (left) for a tour of the picturesque Vino Nobile estate near Montepulciano in Tuscany, one of four estates at Carpineto, Zaccheo’s family winery.
By Joanna Corman
Antonio Zaccheo’s first paying job was at the age of 12. He would rise early, pick peaches from the family orchard outside Rome, pack them into wooden crates and balance them on his moped to deliver the fruit to produce shops.
From Combat Zones to Classroom
Tony Lawson Retires Air Force Wings for Business Career
By Joanna Corman
Tony Lawson piloted drones over a tsunami-devastated Japan and flew refueling planes during wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. In July, he retired his nine-year tour with the U.S. Air Force for another mission: a UC Davis MBA.
Lawson has experienced some culture shock as a first-year Daytime MBA student, but welcomes the change. He marvels at the School’s cultural diversity and his fellow students’ varied life experiences compared to the Air Force’s homogeneity.
Brenda Guo Accelerates IT to Raise the Bar
By Joanna Corman
Brenda Guo prepared to enter the Chinese foreign ministry, but serendipity led her to a 12-year career in information technology and most recently to the Bay Area Working Professional MBA Program, where she is a second-year student.
Guo, a native of China, has built her career at a diverse collection of U.S. companies, and a stint co-founding a company in China.
Delia Perez Engineers a New Future
by Marianne Skoczek
As a teenager in Laredo, Tex., Delia Perez yearned for a bigger world.
“Growing up first generation Mexican-American, I was fascinated by cultural diversity,” she remembers. “I was very interested in the French language, but there were no opportunities to study it. So I researched study-abroad programs and started working as a tutor and saving my money. I convinced my parents to send me to France and embarked on a journey that changed my life.”
New MBA Curriculum Designed to Prepare Innovative Leaders for Global IMPACT
Enhancements build on core strengths of values-based leadership, teamwork skills and turning ideas into action to solve strategic business issues
In the aftermath of the global financial crisis and recession, calls for change at business schools have come from every corner. Employers say they want MBAs who are creative and collaborative, and who can step in as leaders their first day on the job. Students say they want to learn to think strategically, work in teams and tackle issues that affect real businesses. Society demands that business school graduates have grounding in social responsibility, accountability and ethics.
Polycom CFO Joins Council
We recently welcomed to the Dean’s Advisory Council Michael R. Kourey, executive vice president, finance and administration, chief financial officer and board director of Polycom, Inc., a global leader in unified communications solutions with industry-leading telepresence, video, voice and infrastructure solutions. Kourey spoke to new MBA students in fall 2009 after they signed a student-initiated Ethics Pledge.
MBAs on the Ground in Latin America
Two Worlds Apart: Argentina & Chile
Argentina and Chile: Two countries that share a common language and climate but remain worlds apart. As Chile flexes its economic muscles, Argentina struggles.
Following 10 weeks of intensive classroom preparation, 18 UC Davis MBA students recently traveled to Buenos Aires and Santiago accompanied by Wil Agatstein, executive director for the Child Family Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Their goal: new insight into international trade and the distinct twists in each country’s business environment.
Alumni Giving Boosts Faculty Research
by Adrienne Capps, Senior Director of Development
Alumna May Seeman ’89 established the Seeman Faculty Opportunity Fund in 2009 to support emerging faculty needs such as research, travel to conferences and presentations. The first beneficiary of Seeman’s gift, Associate Professor Beth Bechky, said the funding helped her significantly during the data analysis phase of her research project, “Science Under Scrutiny,” an ethnographic study of a crime laboratory.
Nilisha Agrawal ’08 Establishes Student Award in Finance/Accounting
by Anya Reid ’04, Assistant Dean of External Relations and Development
Not long after her graduation, alumna Nilisha Agrawal ’08 approached the Graduate School of Management to explore how she might give back to her alma mater and at the same time help others pursue their UC Davis MBA.
Maurice J. Gallagher Jr. Keynotes Largest Commencement in School’s History
One hundred and eighty men and women assembled for the last time as UC Davis MBA students on June 11 and marched with pomp and circumstance onto the stage at the Mondavi Center for the Graduate School of Management’s 29th commencement ceremony. It was the largest graduating class in the School’s history.
Major Gift from Alumnus Mark Otero Supports Faculty Research
Mark Otero ’07 is enjoying tremendous success in his second start-up, which he credits his UC Davis MBA with helping make possible.
After founding and expanding Sacramento-based KlickNation Corporation into a multimillion-dollar social online success story, Otero sold the start-up in December 2011 to Fortune 500 gaming giant Electronic Arts. KlickNation has become BioWare Sacramento, the newest division of Electronic Arts, with Otero as CEO.
Water for Change
Bay Area MBA Team Makes Waves in Hult’s Global Case Challenge
A business plan to wean consumers from wasteful, plastic-bottled water and toward an ecologically responsible high-quality water and reusable bottle vending machine landed a team of Bay Area Working Professional MBA students in the regional finals of an international social enterprise competition.
Water for Change—which offers water for just that: two quarters to refill a metal bottle—is a blueprint that students John Becker, Randy Bodiford, Jennie Eckardt and David Mun wrote for lecturer Cleveland Justis’ Social Entrepreneurship course last fall.