Twenty-first century companies are in dire need of innovators. In many areas, from healthcare expenditure to energy and water consumption to public education, our economic status quo will lead to almost certain failure. We need path‐bending leaders to move us off these unsustainable paths.
Path-bending leadership is about putting new ideas to work effectively and responsibly in every corner of your organization. It is about energizing and inspiring those around you to achieve. It's about proactively sensing and framing the challenges of your organization, and marshaling resources toward adaptation and innovation.
To help you discover the key to this style of management, this year's Alumni Conference will bring together top Haas faculty and industry experts, some of them fellow alumni, to share essential insights on topics ranging from negotiations to brand relevance to managing career transitions.
Equally important, you will have the opportunity to network with classmates and the school's groundbreaking thinkers and visionaries who are defining what's next in our markets and societies. Join us for a memorable day back at Haas.
8:30 am
Courtyard
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Registration
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8:30 - 9:30 am
Bank of America Forum/Courtyard
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Coffee Corners for MBA Reunion Classes
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9:30 am
Andersen Auditorium |
Welcome
"Path-Bending Leadership: Redefining the Business Graduate"
Rich Lyons, BS 82 (bio), Bank of America Dean
Dean Rich Lyons, BS 82, will frame his remarks using our school’s mission "to develop leaders who redefine how we do business." Many of the straight-line paths our world has been on over recent decades cannot continue. Think healthcare expenditure, public education, the economics of ageing, energy use, global access to safe water, and many others. These unsustainabilities are also tremendous market opportunities. To address them, we need to develop more of what Dean Lyons calls path-bending leaders. In this session he will lay out a specific set of capabilities that will help you redefine our future. You won’t want to miss this important opening session.
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10:00 - 11:00 am
Andersen Auditorium |
Opening Keynote Speaker
"The Pandora Story: The Long and Winding Road — Building a Viable Company from Vision"
Tim Westergren (bio), Chief Strategy Officer & Founder, Pandora Internet Radio
Introduction by Pandora Board Member, Larry Marcus, MBA 93
A decade ago, Tim Westergren embarked on a journey to create the ultimate experience in music discovery which began with the Music Genome Project, a deeply detailed, hand-built musical taxonomy. Hear Westergren speak about how he led the Pandora team through the multiple challenges that threatened the company and the role that leadership and perseverance played in turning Pandora into a growing force within the music industry.
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| 11:00 - 11:15 am |
Break
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11:15 - 12:30 pm
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Morning Sessions (Select one)
How do the best leaders foster innovation? They create a context in which others are encouraged and empowered to generate creative ideas and implement them. They put new ideas to work in every part of their organizations. These leaders and the organizations they inspire are a primary source of invention and growth. In this session, we will consider cutting edge research and management practice aimed at surfacing creative ideas and developing a context that cultivates innovation within groups and organizations. Come ready to get creative!
"Confidence and Overconfidence"
Don Moore ( bio), Associate Professor, Management of Organizations Group, Haas School of Business
Overconfidence is one of the most common biases to which human judgment falls victim. While confidence can, under some circumstances, have benefits, overconfidence can get us, and the organizations we work for, into big trouble. Overconfidence has been implicated in the willingness to initiate lawsuits, strikes, price wars, and armed conflicts. It may also be able to explain the frequency of mergers and acquisitions (despite their problems), high rates of entrepreneurial entry (despite their high rates of failure), and the high rate of trading in the stock market (despite the costs of trading). In this presentation, I will present the evidence on the human tendency toward overconfidence and what we know about how you can avoid making mistakes biased by overconfidence
"Dynamic Directors, Dynamic Nonprofit Boards" (Morning Session)
Nora Silver ( bio),Adjunct Professor and Director of the Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership, Haas School of Business.
Paul Jansen ( bio), Director Emeritus, McKinsey & Company
If you are thinking about joining a board, wondering what a good board does, or trying to help a board you are on improve its performance--this session will provide you with frameworks for thinking about these issues and the role you can play.
"Global Poverty: Challenges and Hopes in the New Millennium"
Ananya Roy ( bio), Professor, Department of City and Regional Planning; Education Director, Blum Center for Developing Economies; co-Director of the Global Metropolitan Studies Center, UC Berkeley
The start of the new millennium has been marked by the emergence of widespread interest in global poverty. From philanthropy to social entrepreneurship, a plethora of efforts are underway to alleviate poverty. In this talk, Ananya Roy, draws upon many years of research and teaching to illuminate key victories and failures in the struggle against poverty. With Haas alumni in mind, she asks whether particular types of leadership and action can tackle the urgent millennial question of ending poverty as we know it.
"The New Career Normal: Transitions"
Sally Thornton, President and Co-Founder of Flexperience + alumni panel
The "traditional" corporate ladder doesn’t exist in many corporations any more. An exciting career more often includes climbs combined with lateral moves and even time off or step-backs as title and tenure become less relevant and results and accomplishments become more relevant. This panel will explore both how companies are changing their view of what constitutes “top talent”, and how they navigated their own surprising career transitions.
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12:00 - 5:00 pm
Bank of America Forum/Upper Level |
Research Study
Join us for a brief survey about how Haas alumni lead across sectors, and how the Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership can support you in these leadership activities.
Lead across sectors? Serve on a borad?
NEW HAAS RESEARCH on multi-sector leadership to include a view of Haas alumni:
Professor Nora Silver and McKinsey Director Emeritus Paul Jansen are researching a new trend of leaders being active beyond their strict "day jobs". We are researching 2,000 corporate, public and nonprofit/philanthropic leaders about their activity in sectors other than their own: so, nonprofit and public work for corporate leaders, and so on. The question is: How do Haas alumni compare with this national sample? Are Haas alumni involved as "students always" and "beyond yourself"?
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12:30 - 1:30 pm
Bank of America Forum/Courtyard
C220 |
Lunch
- Haas@Cal/LinkedIn Café
- Info tables: YEAH, CEE, Haas@Work, Lester Center, Haas Gear, Bay Area Alumni Chapters
MBA Class of 2010 Career Discussion
"How is it going?"
Starting your first job after business school is often a healthy transition from life as a student. Please join MBA’09 alumna Morgan Eckles, now Assistant Director of FTMBA Admissions at Haas, Abby Scott, Executive Director of MBA Career Services, and John Morel, Associate Director of Alumni Career Services for a facilitated discussion. Share best practices and obstacles encountered and be sure you are tapping all the Berkeley-Haas resources to help you be successful in your career.
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12:30 - 5:00 pm
Bank of America Forum/Upper Level
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Experience Research!
Participate in a survey about the impact your business school experience had
on your career!
What led you to become the person you are today in your professional life? What high points, low points, and turning points define your career? Professor Laura Kray and Courtney Brown, Haas doctoral student of Management of Organizations, are interested in learning about your career path. If you didn’t participate in this study last year, please stop by the research corner on the upper level of the BofA forum to complete an online survey asking you to reflect on defining moments in your professional life. In addition to being tremendously helpful for the researchers’ understanding of the evolution of professional lives, you will likely find the study to be both enjoyable and informative about the research process. You will also receive a Haas gift as a token of appreciation.
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1:30 - 2:45 pm
Andersen Auditorium
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Afternoon Sessions (Select one)
"Forget Brand Preference Competition, Win the Brand Relevance War"
David Aaker ( bio), Vice-Chairman of Prophet, Professor Emeritus of Marketing Strategy at the Haas School of Business, and Author, Brand Relevance: Making Competitors Irrelevant
Success is not about winning the brand preference battle but, rather, the brand relevance war. In brand preference competition, the goal is incremental innovation: making it better, faster, cheaper. Brand relevance focuses on developing innovative offerings that result in new categories or subcategories.
For instance, Zipcar created the car-share category. Whole Foods Market defined a category around organic, natural food. SalesForce.com started cloud computing. The common denominator is changing what customers are buying with an offering that incorporates elements and associations that competitors lacked.
In this session, Professor Aaker will address the keys to this competitive strategy, which, in turn, will make competitors irrelevant.
"Leveraging Your Team's Collective Intelligence"
Cameron Anderson ( bio), Associate Professor, Management of Organizations Group, Haas School of Business
Business Groups and teams have become a way of life in organizations. More and more, they are used to make critical decisions, solve fundamental organizational challenges, and innovate new products and processes. However, the typical team is managed ineffectively. While teams have an amazing potential to discover new insights and find creative solutions, this potential is rarely realized. In this session, Professor Anderson will outline some of the major obstacles to optimal team performance, and summarize how you as a manager can overcome those obstacles and maximize your team's success.
"Estate Planning after the 2010 Tax Law"
Kevin Crilly ( bio), Director, Gift Planning, University Relations
This session will discuss how the Tax Relief, Unemployment Insurance Reauthorization, and Job Creation Act of 2010 affects estate planning. It will also review some charitable giving techniques that are most ideal in today's economic environment.
"Strategic Giving: How Informed Donors Maximize Social Impact"
Nora Silver ( bio), Adjunct Professor and Director of the Center for Nonprofit and Public Leadership, Haas School of Business.
And students from the Strategic Philanthropy Class of 2011
Learn the tools that strategic donors use to maximize the value of their dollars: theory of change, giving criteria, nonprofit assessment, and social impact measurement. Wise donors know how to navigate the constant requests for monetary contributions. This workshop is based on an undergraduate class that teaches the ins and outs of informed giving. Thanks to the generous support of Doris Buffett of The Sunshine Lady Foundation, the class gives away $10,000 in gifts to nonprofits each year. Students and their instructor will help guide you through the curriculum, which won the "Bears Breaking Boundaries Curricular Innovation Award in 2009."
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| 2:45 - 3:00 pm |
Break
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3:00 - 3:50 pm
Andersen Auditorium
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Panel Discussion
"Dot-com, Dot-bomb. Entrepreneurs Soldier On"
Moderator: Andre Marquis, MBA 96 (bio) - In 1996 Director of Marketing, CyberGold; In 2011 Executive Director, Lester Center for Entrepreneurship, and a serial entrepreneur.
| Panel: |
- Kevin Brown, MBA 96(bio) –In 1996 VP and Founding Team, Inktomi; In 2011 CEO, Coraid
- John Hanke, MBA 96 (bio) – In 1996 Producer, 3DO; In 2011 VP Product Management for Geo at Google
- Jed Katz, MBA 96 (bio)– In 1996 Founder, Rent Net; In 2011 Managing Director, Javelin Venture Partners
- Rhonda Shrader, MBA 96 (bio) - In 1996, Associate Consultant, Healthcare Strategy and Operations; In 2011: Founder & CEO, DogMom Enterprises and VP, Marketing @ Thrive Research
- Ben Wilson, MBA 96 (bio) - In 1996 Founder, Consumer Health Interactive; In 2011 Board Member at CA State HIE/HIT Advisory Board; Director, Healthcare Strategy, Healthcare IT Program Office at Intel Corporation, Founder of Consumer Health Interactive
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In 1996, the Internet was officially the new frontier and Haas' freshly-minted MBAs had a surfeit of both opportunity and uncertainty. Looking back, the Internet has changed almost everything — from shopping to politics to entrepreneurship itself. The Class of 1996 will share with you their thoughts and reflections on this crazy time in their lives. Did they make the right business decisions? Did they embrace and nurture the right networks? Did they hire the right people? What mistakes did they make? What would they do differently today if they had only known better? Learn, listen, and share ideas with the alumni from the Class of 1996 who jumped into the dot.com craze and survived.
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| 3:50 - 4:00 pm |
Break
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4:00 - 5:00 pm
Andersen Auditorium |
Keynote Presentation
"The Economic and Real Estate Outlook: Will the Recovery Continue?"
Ken Rosen ( bio), Chair, Fisher Center for Real Estate and Urban Economics, Professor Emeritus, Haas Real Estate Group at the Haas School of Business
While the national economy is in a moderate recovery the Bay Area and California is lagging behind. When will the California and the bay area catch up and when will the for sale housing market recover? And will the apartment market continue to strengthen? A detailed view of the national and local economy and real estate markets will be provided.
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| 5:00 pm |
Conclusion |
