John Riccitiello, former president of Electronic Arts, Inc., BS 81, spoke at the 2004 Business Forecast Luncheon June 16 on the future of digital entertainment.

Orientation week for the full-time MBA program featured a stellar list of business leaders as speakers, including Phillip Marineau, president and CEO of Levi Strauss & Co., on leadership; Gary Erickson, founder and former CEO of Clif Bar, on innovation; and Andre Marquis, MBA 96, COO of Chorus, on the value of the Haas Alumni Network

Emerging hubs for innovation was one of the topics covered at the third annual Sangam Conference on October 10 at UC Berkeley’s International House. Titled “Succeeding in a Global Economy,” the conference featured keynote speaker Krish Ramakrishnan, CEO of Topspin Communications.

David Greenberg, senior vice president and chief compliance officer for the Altria Group, parent company of Philip Morris, spoke at a special October 13 event organized by the Center for Responsible Business and sponsored by the Rudolph Peterson Business Ethics Lecture Series.

Aart de Geus, chairman and founder of Synopsys, a pioneer of the commercial logic synthesis market, spoke on October 27 as part of the Management of Technology (MOT) lecture series.

United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) Director-General Carlos Magariños spoke on “New Directions for the UN” at a special MOT lecture on November 1, as part of the growing collaboration between UNIDO and the MOT Program at UC Berkeley.

The fifteenth annual Conference on Financial Reporting, held on November 5, focused on current issues such as compliance with Sarbanes-Oxley and handling equity-based compensation. Keynote speakers were Robert Herz, chairman of the Financial Accounting Standards Board (FASB), and Mary Barth, board member of the International Accounting Standards Board (IASB).

"Making Marketing Better: What's Working and What's Not" was the topic for discussion with Dartmouth Professor Kevin Keller (and a former Haas Professor) at this fall's David A. Aaker Distinguished Lecture in Marketing on November 10.

John Hanke, MBA 96, co-founder and CEO of Keyhole; Kevin Brown, MBA 96, vice president of Marketing for Decru; and Greg Hildebrand, MBA 96, co-founder and CFO of Volterra Semiconductor Corporation, discussed their entrepreneurial successes at the “Old Blues/New Blues” panel at the Berkeley Entrepreneurs Forum on November 18.