Office of Public Affairs44 West Fourth Street, Suite 10-160 New York, NY 10012

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t h e A l u m n i M a g a z i n e o f N Y U S t e r n

STERNbusiness

Launch 2011 Greets New MBAs Alumni Meet in London TRIUM Celebrates in Paris Geeta MenonLeads Stern Undergrads Paul Romer Explains Charter Cities Scott Simpson Talks Cross-border M&A

WORLDBUSINESS

CITYTHE

RECURRING THEMES

OF STERN

a l e t t e r f r o m t h e deanAn accelerating rate of

change – technological,social, and economic – seemsto be a hallmark of our era.The ability to keep up willbe a key determinant of suc-

cess in the 21st century. We began the fall semes-ter setting a lively pace of our own. In late Augustwe welcomed an impressive new class of under-graduate, MBA, and executive MBA students. Wecontinue to extend our international reach as partof NYU, the world’s first Global NetworkUniversity. Whether through the TRIUM executiveMBA program, a “Doing Business In” study tour,one of our undergraduate international experi-ences, or our vast alumni network, an increasinglyglobal perspective permeates all levels of the NYUStern experience.

The global experience is central to the vision ofour beloved new Undergraduate Dean GeetaMenon, the Abraham Krasnoff Professor of GlobalBusiness and professor of marketing. A 21-yearveteran of Stern’s faculty, Geeta has a vision forfurther integrating the international experienceinto our BS degree programs and taking fulladvantage of what NYU, our alumni, and NewYork City have to offer (page 16).

Renowned economist Paul Romer joins our fac-ulty this fall and begins The Urbanization Projectwith a $10 million gift. Romer, a pioneer in thefield of technology and economic growth, is thefounder of the Charter Cities concept, an ambi-tious vision for economic development that takeshim around the world (page 10).

We welcomed our full-time MBA students tocampus in late August with a brand new startcalled Launch, an intellectual summit with threedriving themes: World, Business, and City.Incoming students engaged in riveting discus-sions with a range of experts including facultymembers Nouriel Roubini and William Silberand NYU alumna Maria Bartiromo. They alsoheard from Mayor Cory Booker of Newark, New

Jersey, who spoke about the business and policyissues central to creating successful cities (page19).

Two marquee alumni events took place over thesummer. In early June, I joined nearly 250 mem-bers of our community in London for Stern’sGlobal Alumni Conference. A full schedule of cul-tural events and panel discussions kept attendeesbusy, with thought-provoking panels on the worldeconomy, sovereign risk, and the future of advertis-ing. The Right Hon. Gordon Brown, former primeminister of England, delivered the keynote address(page 6).

A month later, I was pleased to meet nearly halfof the 500 graduates of the TRIUM program whogathered in Paris in early July for the program’s10th anniversary. There we announced the expan-sion of our unique partnership with the LondonSchool of Economics and HEC Paris. Over the past10 years the program has bestowed more than 500MBA degrees on executives from more than 70countries, and we are excited to announce we willbe adding another cohort in fall 2012 (page 12).

Finally, after months of intense collaboration,we launched a brand new website. If you haven’talready done so, please take a look:www.stern.nyu.edu. You may be particularly inter-ested in the “Experience Stern” section that aggre-gates faculty thought-leadership, academic andcultural offerings, global experiences, our alumninetwork, and Stern news.

Enjoy the magazine. Stay connected and sup-port your School. Your participation makes every-one’s experience all the richer, and we are gratefulfor your continuing commitment.

With all best wishes,

Peter HenryDean

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STERNbusinessA publication of New York UniversityStern School of Business

President, New York UniversityJohn E. Sexton

Dean, NYU Stern School of BusinessPeter Henry

Vice Dean and Dean of theUndergraduate CollegeGeeta Menon

Chairman, Board of OverseersWilliam R. Berkley

Chairman Emeritus, Board of Overseers Henry Kaufman

Chief Marketing OfficerBeth Murray

Associate Dean, Marketingand External RelationsJoanne Hvala

Editor, STERNbusinessMarilyn Harris

Managing Editors, STERNbusinessRika Nazem and Carolyn Ritter

Contributing WritersAlycen Ashburn, Anna Christensen, and Katherine O'Malley

IllustrationsMichael CaswellGordon Studer

DesignAnne Sliwinski

Letters to the Editor may be sent to:NYU Stern School of BusinessOffice of Public Affairs44 West Fourth Street, Suite 10-160New York, NY 10012www.stern.nyu.edu/sternbusiness

sternbiz@stern.nyu.edu

Follow us on Twitter @NYUStern

2 Public OfferingsStern professors speak at DC conference on housing and the economy; Alan Greenspan and John Paulson discuss the deficit; the NY Fed’s William Dudley predicts low interestrates; Former British PM Gordon Brown meets and eats with students; marketing in a digital world; experts measure progress since Dodd-Frank; Ashoka’s Bill Drayton urges social entrepreneurship; the Directors Institute presents speakers on board responsibilities;venture competitions announce winners

6 Cover Story – A Smashing Celebration World, business, and city were central themes of the provocative discussions at theGlobal Alumni conference, along with reconnecting and enjoying London’s museumsand theater.By Joanne Hvala

10 Meet Paul Romer The renowned economist is leading Stern’s Urbanization Project

12 A Votre Santé! TRIUM Turns Ten The three-way global Executive MBA program of NYU Stern, LSE, and HEC celebrates its international heritage and a decade of accomplishment at a Paris gathering.By Joanne Hvala

16 Promoted from WithinNew Undergraduate College Dean and Stern veteran Geeta Menon has her eye on global business education.

19 And They’re Off! The Class of 2013 Finds An Innovative WelcomeDean Henry and Vice Dean Brandenburger recount the development of Launch 2011.

23 The View from Across the Pond8 Questions for Skadden cross-border M&A expert Scott Simpson

24 Stern in the CityZynga’s David Ko helps connect the world through games. By Carolyn Ritter

26 Leading Indicators Stern’s CEO Series:CEO Ed Haldeman discusses Freddie Mac’s recent past and possibilities for its future.

28 ProspectusDistinguished faculty chairs are recognized; new scholars join Stern; and noteworthyfaculty papers, awards, and honors are highlighted.

Office Hours – Faculty Research

30 Gimme that Old-Time ReligionSome people are more devoted to name brands than to traditional worship. By Tülin Erdem

32 Alumni RelationsAlumni News and Events: Photos from the Global Alumni Conference in London;Reunion 2011; Haskins Partners Giving Society; the 1900 Society; and networking opportunities

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40 Past PerformanceEntrepreneur C.W. “Walt” Nichols’s gifts to Stern include a legacy that’s endowed a business and ethics chair and honored 50 years of business leaders.By Marilyn Harris

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Public OfferingsEXPERTS PROFFERED ANALYSES, PRESCRIPTIONS

FOR THE HOUSING SECTOR, ECONOMIC AND MONETARYPOLICY, AND DIGITAL MARKETING …

NYU Stern’s Salomon Center for the Study ofFinancial Institutions partnered with The Center forFinancial Policy at the University of Maryland’s RobertH. Smith School of Business for a daylong conferenceon “The GSEs, Housing & the Economy” on January24, in Washington, D.C. The conference broughttogether leading academic experts and policymakers,including keynote speakers Rep. Randy Neugebauer(R-Texas), member of the House Financial ServicesCommittee, and James Lockhart, former Director of theFederal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA). In a panelon “Housing and the Macroeconomy,” ProfessorMatthew Richardson proposed a hybrid solutionbased on a private-public partnership to reform hous-ing finance and ensure an efficient mortgage market,both in primary (origination) as well as secondarymortgage markets. In a panel on “The MacroeconomicEffects of Housing,” Professor Stijn VanNieuwerburgh called for reducing the distortionsinduced by government and shifting the policy focusfrom home ownership to rental housing.

On February 17, to mark the establishment of theAlan Greenspan Chair in Economics, Former FederalReserve Chairman Alan Greenspan (BS ’48, MA ’50,PhD ’77, Honorary Doctorate of Commercial Science

’05) was interviewed by John A. Paulson (BS ’78), thepresident of Paulson & Co. Inc., before more than 400students, faculty, and alumni in Paulson’s namesakeevent space, Paulson Auditorium. Greenspan stated thatthe proportion of liquid cash flow that businesses arewilling to invest in illiquid assets is at historic lows andthat capital investment is being crowded out by largefederal deficits. He believes government activism is themain cause of thedeficit issues andexpressed support forthe bipartisan plandeveloped by formerClinton Chief ofStaff Erskine Bowlesand former SenatorAlan Simpson, whichaims to change taxstructures andimpose limits ongovernment spend-ing.

On February 28,William C. Dudley,president and CEOof the FederalReserve Bank of NewYork, shared an opti-mistic outlook foreconomic activity inthe US and described

More than 400 students, faculty, and alumni convened in Paulson Auditorium to hear the illuminatingdiscussion between Stern alumni John A.Paulson and Alan Greenspan.

Stern alumni John A. Paulson (left) and Alan Greenspan (right) discussed the future of finance andfinancial markets as well as the implications of recent regulatory action.

William C. Dudley (bottom and top left) shared his outlookfor the US economy with Dean Peter Henry (top right) andsome 200 students, faculty, and alumni.

Visiting ResearchScholar at Stern,spoke to Stern alum-ni and studentsabout his latestbook, World 3.0,which offers a newapproach to global-ization. Inspirationfor the title camefrom Web 3.0, which

is not just about communicating but about doing sowith context and understanding. The event was jointlyhosted by Stern, NYU’s Institute for Public Knowledge,and NYU’s Center for Global Affairs.

On May 26, more than 80 academics, marketingprofessionals, and industry experts convened forStern’s 2011 Conference on “Measurable Marketing ina Digital World,” hosted by the School’s Center forMeasurable Marketing. Professor Russell Winer, chairof Stern’s Marketing Department and head of theCenter, welcomed attendees and participants, whoexplored challenges facing advertisers; digital mediatrends; the measurement, effectiveness, and ROI ofdigital advertising; and how to take advantage ofcross-media synergies. Social media, digital marketing,and mobile Internet expert Anindya Ghose, associateprofessor of information, operations & management

sciences, shared insights during a panel discussion on“Cross Media Effectiveness Measurement.”

On June 27, Stern and the Pew Financial Reform

the implications for monetary policy before an audi-ence of approximately 200 Stern students, faculty, andalumni. Dudley also serves as vice chairman and apermanent member of the Federal Open MarketCommittee (FOMC), the group responsible for formu-lating the nation’s monetary policy. Dudley attributedhis optimism to an increase in real personal consump-tion and improved consumer and business confidence.Short-term interest rates are likely to remain low foran extended period, he said, adding that the biggestrisk to the economy over the next two years is the pos-sibility that inflation expectations could become unan-chored. He emphasized that the Federal Reserve hasthe means and the will to tighten monetary policywhen needed.

On April 13, the Right Honorable Gordon Brown,former UK prime minister, broke bread with a selectgroup of Stern graduate and undergraduate studentsto discuss the economic crisis, the role of policymakersin preventing future crises, and the growing intercon-nectedness of world economies. Brown also met withseveral Stern faculty members to share his perspectiveon the state of the world post-financial crisis, global-ization, emerging markets, and the role of Europe andthe US in the worldwide economic recovery. Brown, a

member of the BritishParliament, is NYU’s inaugu-ral Distinguished GlobalLeader in Residence.

On May 24, PankajGhemawat, the AnselmoRubiralta Professor of GlobalStrategy at IESE BusinessSchool in Barcelona and

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Pankaj Ghemawat

Pankaj Ghemawat signed copies of World 3.0, his mostrecent book, which presents a new approach to globalization.

The Right Honorable Gordon Brown (right), along with Dean Peter Henry (left), sat down with a selectgroup of students and met with faculty to discuss the the state of the world post-economic crisis.

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1. Scholars, marketing professionals, and industry experts gathered for a conference on “MeasurableMarketing in a Digital World.” 2. Russell Winer 3. E. Craig Stacey, director of research in Stern’sCenter for Measurable Marketing (left), and Anindya Ghose (right)

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Public Offerings

Project hosted distin-guished speakers fromacademia, the regulatorycommunity, and the pri-vate sector to discuss theprogress in implementingfinancial reform sincethe Dodd-Frank WallStreet Reform andConsumer Protection Actbecame law last year.Speakers includedThomas Hoenig, presi-dent of the FederalReserve Bank of KansasCity; Pat Parkinson, director, supervision, regulationand credit, Board of Governors of the Federal ReserveSystem; and Professors Viral V. Acharya, Thomas F.Cooley, and Matthew P. Richardson. Shadow bank-ing, systemic risk, and the durability of the Dodd-FrankAct’s architecture were a few of the subjects covered.

… while social entrepreneurs andboard directors gathered …

Nearly 200 alumni,guests, and friends ofNYU gathered on April7 for the annual AshokC. Sani DistinguishedScholar-in-ResidenceLecture featuring BillDrayton, chair andCEO of Ashoka:Innovators for thePublic, who delivered apresentation entitled“Making Change in aRapidly ChangingWorld.” Drayton spokeabout social entrepre-

neurship and the skills required to effectively createchange – starting with empathy. He declared that socialentrepreneurship is not defined by function alone, butby a deep commitment to the good of all. Draytonencouraged audience members to practice being achange maker in society. The Sani lecture is named inhonor of Ashok C. Sani (BS ’74), a successful entre-

preneur, president of CGS Industries Inc., and thefounding member of the School’s Alumni Council. TheSani lecture promotes Sani’s interest in ethics, truth,love, peace, nonviolence, compassion, and the moraland social responsibilities of the NYU community asmembers of society.

On May 6, the 2011 NYU Directors’ Institute, hostedby the NYU Pollack Center for Law and Business, heldan event called“CorporateGovernance: ANew GovernanceLandscape?”ProfessorWilliam Allen,director of thePollack Center,welcomed promi-nent speakers from various industries who discussedhow to maintain high ethical standards and avoid liti-gation, successfully navigate mergers and acquisitions,and handle compensation issues. The Directors’Institute is an annual continuing education programfor directors, general counsels, and corporate secre-taries, designed to strengthen the corporate gover-nance practices of boards of directors and help direc-tors stay current on their legal, fiduciary, and ethicalresponsibilities.

On April 29, the winners of Stern’s New VentureCompetition and Social Venture Competition, and, newthis year – NYU’s Technology Venture Competition –received more than $250,000 in seed money and in-kind support. The three winning teams, each led byNYU students, faculty, or alumni, were chosen byjudges from the for-profit, social enterprise, and tech-nology sectors. Stern’s Entrepreneurs Challenge, organ-ized by the Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship &Innovation, is one of the largest and most rigorous busi-ness plan competitions in the country, attracting arecord-high 221 teams this year and lasting eightmonths.

Teams competed in the 12th Annual New VentureCompetition; the 8th Annual Social VentureCompetition, in which venture teams pursue a doublebottom line of social impact and financial profitabilityor sustainability; and the First Annual TechnologyVenture Competition. The Ira Rennert Entrepreneurial

William Allen (left) and Martin Lipton, chairman of NYU’s Board ofTrustees (right), shared their perspectives on shareholder activismand the institutionalization of investing during a discussion at the2011 NYU Directors’ Institute.

Bill Drayton opined about social entrepreneurshipduring Stern’s annual Sani Lecture.

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Prize of $75,000 was awarded to CourseHorse, anonline registry for local New York adult educationclasses developed by Nihal Parthasarathi (BS ’08)and Katie Kapler (CAS ’08). The Stewart Satter FamilyPrize of $100,000 was awarded to See & Be Seen,founded by Ben Lillienthal (MBA ’04), KelleyLitzner (MBA ’11), and Jeffrey Witte. The companyaddresses the huge problem of road traffic injuries tochildren in urban Africa via the production and socialmarketing of reflector-enhanced school bags. TheTechnology Venture Prize of $75,000 was awarded toAnzenna, which is developing a diagnostic device toquickly diagnose the hospital-acquired infection, methi-cillin-resistant staphylococcus aureus (MRSA), inpatients. Anzenna’s founders are NYU Poly alumniSamir Ajmera (BS ’07, MS ’08), Avdar San (MS ’11),and Margarita Shinder (MS ’11); and Professor KalleLevon of NYU Poly’s Department of Chemical andBiological Sciences. The winning teams will also receivesupport from the Stern Incubator program. Showcased

International, a virtual fash-ion showcase started byNathalie Parizat (BS ’11)and Parsons School of Designstudent Romy Schreiber, wonthe Audience Choice Award.

Over the spring semester,undergraduates from acrossNYU teamed up to competefor up to $20,000 in Stern’sSocial Impact BusinessChallenge. The competition,offered jointly by Stern’sOffice of Social ImpactProgramming and the BerkleyCenter, challenged students todesign an ethics quiz that canbe distributed through socialnetworking platforms to pro-mote the ongoing discussionof basic human values. Thewinning team – selected onApril 29 by judges from theAcumen Fund, AmericanExpress, the Aspen Institute,Bridgespan Group, Saatchi &Saatchi, and the UN – con-

sisted of students from Stern, College of Arts & Sciences,and the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and

Human Development. They proposed a plan for aninteractive online application to generate discussionabout issues in medical ethics. “The students all did agreat job responding to the challenge,” said ProfessorMatt Statler, Richman Family Director of BusinessEthics and Social Impact Programming.

1. Winners of Stern’s 12th Annual New Venture Competition Nihal Parthasarathi (left) and Katie Kapler (right), with William R. Berkley (BS ’66), chairman ofStern’s Board of Overseers (center) 2. Nathalie Parizat (center) and Romy Schreiber (right), winners of the 2011 Audience Choice Award, with CynthiaFranklin, senior associate director of Stern’s Berkley Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation (left) 3. (From left to right) Samir Ajmera, Margarita Shinder,and Advar San, winners of NYU’s First Annual Technology Venture Competition 4. Winners of Stern’s Eighth Annual Social Venture Competition JeffreyWitte (left) and Kelley Litzner (right) with Stewart Satter (MBA ’82), member of Stern’s Board of Overseers (center)

Matt Statler (left) addressed a group of undergraduate students competing in Stern’s Social ImpactBusiness Challenge.

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AMONGFRIENDS,

FOOD FORTHE MIND

The 2011 Global Alumni Conference in London Offers Varied Intellectual Fare

By Joanne Hvala

gainst a backdrop of spec-tacular, sunny weather,

NYU Stern alumni from around theworld met in London for three daysin early June to listen and learnfrom distinguished speakers and theSchool’s own professors. The alumnihost committee, co-chaired by ThorBjörgólfsson (BS ’91) and StefanoRusso (MBA ’81), assembled anoutstanding slate of speakers,including keynote speaker TheRight Hon. Gordon Brown, the for-mer UK prime minister who cur-rently serves as NYU’s DistinguishedGlobal Leader in Residence. Therange of topics – from thefuture of advertising andluxury retail to the outlookfor sovereign debt and eco-nomic growth – provided acatalyst for conversationamong nearly 250 alumni,drawn from 27 countries aswell as greater London.

Dean Peter Henry welcomedalumni to the Queen Elizabeth IIConference Center, across the streetfrom Westminster Abbey.Referencing the recent announce-ment of NYU’s Shanghai campus, tobe opened in 2013, as the latestaddition to NYU’s Global NetworkUniversity, Dean Henry called it“the most exciting thing in educa-tion.” He shared highlights of a newMBA Launch 2011 program (seepage 19) designed to reinforce val-ues and create value for businessand society, and announced the

addition of Paul Romer, a world-renowned economist and confer-ence speaker, to Stern’s faculty(see page 10).

Sir Martin Sorrell, ChiefExecutive of WPP Group, whoseadvertising and marketing servicesgroup has revenues of $13.6 bil-lion and offices in 107 countries,addressed “The Future ofAdvertising” in an interview withJeff Randall, editor-at-large ofThe Daily Telegraph. Contrastingold and new media, Sir Martincalled Google a media companymasquerading as a technology

company, driving clientsinto channels it controls. Hepredicted that consumersincreasingly will have topay for content, that therewill be further consolidationof power in new media asold media gets weaker, and

that state subsidies will increas-ingly be needed to support oldmedia. He pointed out that theeffectiveness of social networking,which amplifies word of mouth,requires that companies pay moreattention to reputation, fuelinginterest in the public relations sideof the business. Moreover, PR inits pure form of editorial andopinion has become more impor-tant. In a networked world, every-one has to worry about reputa-tion, he observed.

The Spectre of Sovereign RiskShifting to a discussion of sov-

ereign risk, Professor and ViceDean Ingo Walter led a panel thatbrought together Lord CharlesAldington, senior advisor ofDeutsche Bank in London;Richard Milne, the capital marketseditor of the Financial Times; andProfessors Roy Smith and Edward

1. Dean Peter Henry welcomed alumni to the opening ofthe Global Alumni Conference. 2. Vice Dean of Faculty Ingo Walter raised his hand tomake a point, as Sovereign Risk panelists (left to right)Professor Roy Smith, Lord Charles Aldington, Professor EdAltman, and Richard Milne listen. 3. The Microfinance in Emerging Markets panel broughttogether (left to right) Michael Green, F.K. Day, NYUProfessor Jonathan Murdoch of the Wagner School ofPublic Service, and moderator Matthew Bishop, NY bureauchief of The Economist. 4. Alumni listened to Sir Martin Sorrell, Chief Executive ofWPP Group.

“NYU – the Global Network University – is the most exciting

thing in education today.” — Dean Peter Henry

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inevitable migration of large numbers of people fromrural areas.

Spence, whose new book, The Next Convergence, wasdistributed to conference-goers, provided historical con-text for economic growth in developing countries post-World War II and some perspective on how it will affectpeople living in developed countries. The 2008-2009financial crisis led to an exodus of capital, credit tighten-ing, and a huge decline in trade in advanced countries,while China, India, and Brazil bounced back in thatorder. But Spence acknowledged that old growth modelswon’t work, and cited challenges to governance, interna-tional coordination, and the environment.

Origins of the Tribeca Film FestivalIn an interview with Professor Al Lieberman, the

executive director of NYU Stern’s Entertainment, Media,and Technology Program, Craig Hatkoff, who with JaneRosenthal founded the Tribeca Film Festival, provided acase study in “disruptive innovation.” Launched in theaftermath of 9/11, the film festival was a creative andambitious project conceived to bring films and audiencesto lower Manhattan. Though Hatkoff started with anidea but no films, venues, or sponsors, his December2001 press conference garnered actor Robert De Niro’ssupport for the festival, which debuted 120 days later, inApril 2002. Crediting American Express for taking a riskto sponsor the festival, Hatkoff reported that 100,000people came to the first festival, timed to when peoplewere moving back to lower Manhattan. The festival’sinnovative distributed model, which “smashed every filmfestival rule,” according to Hatkoff, has since beenexpanded internationally to Rome, Toronto, and Doha.

A Riveting Keynote AddressAs keynote speaker, The Right Hon. Gordon Brown

riveted the audience with his remarks on the financialcrisis, in which he looked both forward and backward.He called the last 100 years the greatest economic trans-

Altman to analyze the Greek debt crisis and its rami-fications. Calling sovereign risk “central to the inter-connectivity of markets,” Walter, Stern’s residentexpert on risk, noted that backing into political unionthrough a common currency is a high-risk venture.Smith put in a good word for Brady Bonds, used toaddress the Mexican debt crisis of 1989. The US gov-ernment let Mexico buy zero-coupon bonds at 70cents on the dollar, and 17 other countries followedthis example. In Altman’s view, there is already toomuch debt, and he advised against issuing more.With risk premiums already low, another Lehman-like event could shatter fragile markets, he cautioned.Sir Charles pointed out that it is not a market ormodels game, but rather a political one. Altmanagreed and predicted that Italy would be the “endgame,” while Milne predicted that a hard or softdefault would spread to other countries and reverber-ate as Lehman’s collapse did.

When asked how to assess sovereign risk, Altmansuggested looking at the health of the private sectorto predict sovereign debt default because “macro datadoes not give a warning.”

Emerging Markets Bounce BackTurning from debt to growth in emerging

economies, Dean Henry introduced Nobel LaureateMichael Spence and urbanization expert Paul Romer,both recent additions to Stern’s faculty. Romerextolled the value of cities as an efficient way to getpeople to work together. Cities produce a lot and con-sume little, providing gains in trade and value ofland. Today 3.3 billion people live in cities, but thatnumber is expected to rise by 3 billion to 5 billionmore in the next century and stabilize around 9 bil-lion to 10 billion. He showed slides of a banana plan-tation in Honduras that is the greenfield site of a newmodel of a city, where the outsourcing of key ele-ments such as the legal system could facilitate the

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The Future of LuxuryAt the other end of the economic spectrum was a

series of presentations revolving around the topic ofluxury marketing. The four-part segment was intro-duced by Marketing Professor Scott Galloway – whoreferenced the durability and explosive growth of luxu-ry goods as China and other emerging markets grow inwealth – before introducing Finance Professor AswathDamodaran, who gave the audience a framework forvaluing luxury. Management Professor Sonia Marcianoused Saks Fifth Avenue’s experience using aggressivediscounting in response to the financial crisis of 2008to show how value brands can be devalued, evendestroyed, through mismanagement. Professor LukeWilliams of frog design gave a lesson in “disruptiveinnovation,” telling the audience to “start with what isnot broken” and use imagination to disrupt clichédthinking. Demonstrating the power of celebrity to cre-ate value, Stern Finance Professor David Yermacklooked at “The Michelle Mark-up.” His analysisshowed how the First Lady’s choice of fashionincreased revenues for designers, fashion houses, andmid-market retailers.

Gala at GuildhallThe closing dinner was held in the Great Hall of

Guildhall, a Gothic town hall that still serves as theadministrative center for the City of London.Following closing words from Dean Henry and WilliamR. Berkley (BS ’66), chairman of the NYU Stern Boardof Overseers, the audience was entertained in the musi-cal theatre traditions of London’s West End, a perfectending to a show-stopping alumni conference. ■

formation since the Industrial Revolution, noting thatwith the rise of China, India, and the rest of Asia, morethan 2 billion people have been added to the globaleconomy. For the first time, Europe and the US con-tribute less than half of all manufacturing output,investment, and exports and trade. Refusing to yield topessimism, he urged America to capitalize on the highgrowth in consuming power in the rest of the world,advocating free trade and exports as a way to rebalancethe global economy.

Turning to Europe, Brown remarked that the deficitcrisis, bankruptcy crisis, and lack of growth need to beaddressed together. He called for a global banking stan-dard and cautioned against lowering standards for fearof creating a capital crisis that could spread fromemerging markets to the US and the UK.

Eliminating Poverty Through MicrofinanceThe Economist’s New York Bureau Chief Matthew

Bishop moderated a panel on “Microfinance inEmerging Markets” that tackled the question of how toplay a constructive role in developing countries usingmicrofinance to transition from a charitable approach topoverty. The panel featured F.K. Day, the co-founder ofWorld Bicycle Relief; Jonathan Morduch, professor ofpublic policy at NYU Wagner Graduate School of PublicService; and Michael Green, author of Philanthrocapitalism.Day’s company provided the object lesson, as heexplained how moving a person from walking to bicy-cling opens up opportunities for better education, betterhealthcare, and access to better jobs.

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1. (left to right) Dean Peter Henry standing with the Sovereign Risk panelists: Vice Dean of Faculty Ingo Walter, Richard Milne, Lord Charles Aldington, Professor Ed Altman and Professor RoySmith 2. (left to right) Stern Alumni and Administrators Gary Fraser (MBA ’92), Susan Greenbaum (BS ’71, MBA ’78), and Pamela Mittman (MBA ’01), and Professors Kim Corfman and SoniaMarciano at the opening reception 3. Alumni and guests mingled at Victoria and Albert Museum. 4. Alumni and guests dined in Guildhall’s Great Hall. 5. (left to right) Nomi Ghez (GSAS ’76,ADCRT ’81), Board of Overseers, and Marianne Smith 6. A restored crypt in Guildhall was the scene of the closing reception before guests had dinner in the Great Hall. 7. Alumni and gueststoured Bonhams auction house with Colin Sheaf (far right), group deputy chairman and chairman of Bonhams UK and Asia. 8. The Right Hon. Gordon Brown delivered a keynote speech. 9. Professor Al Lieberman interviewed Craig Hatkoff, co-founder of The Tribeca Film Festival. 10. Alumni gave rapt attention to a conversation between Professors Michael Spence and PaulRomer. 11. Professor Scott Galloway introduced four presentations on The Future of Luxury.

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Q: Possibly all of the details aren’t worked out yet, but can you tell us whatyou have in mind for the Urbanization Project?Paul Romer: The Urbanization Project (UP) is an effort to explore andinform the coming wave of urbanization. We live in the century of the city –more people will move into urban areas this century than in any previous orfuture century. The question now is not whether this surge will occur, it’show we’re going to respond to it. The ways in which governments, firms,and nonprofits respond to urbanization will be dynamic, diverse, and experi-mental. UP aims to document these responses, aggregate and analyze theexperiences of different cities, diffuse knowledge between cities, and devel-op new conceptual frameworks for understanding urban systems. Thoughspecifics aren’t in place, there are many opportunities for collaboration.Organizations from the Rockefeller Foundation to the Santa Fe Institute,IBM, and Singapore’s Centre for Livable Cities are beginning to treat citiesas a fundamental unit of analysis.

We’ll start by offering a graduate course on Urban Systems at Stern nextspring. The goal is to equip students with an analytical toolkit that will helpthem take the lead in addressing the major challenges that will arise in thecentury of the city, whether they go on to careers in the public, private, ornonprofit sector.

Q: How did you come to evolve from your New Growth theory, which empha-sizes technology’s role in economic growth, to your interest in rules and howpeople interact, and then to the charter city concept?PR: Earlier in my career, I was focused on a question about frontier growth:Why were the world’s advanced economies – those at the economic “frontier”– experiencing growth rates that increased over time? Existing theory sug-gested that scarcity combined with population growth should be makingthings worse. Yet things kept getting better. Economists understood that newideas, in the form of new technologies, had to be the answer. Less clear waswhy new technologies kept arriving at faster rates. One key insight is that

ideas are non-rival – we can share them. Because we can share ideas, webenefit from interacting with ever more people. In this sense, ideas are theexact opposite of scarce objects. As population grows, physical objectsgrow scarcer but new ideas about technologies become much more plenti-ful, allowing us to use scarce physical objects more efficiently and in waysthat generate much greater value.

Over time, I became interested in a different question, one about catch-up growth: If people can share good ideas, what keeps economies in thedeveloping world from using existing ideas to “catch up” to the frontiereconomies? Economists such as Douglas North and Avner Grief suggestthat the key to understanding this puzzle lies in institutions – the rules, bothformal laws and informal social norms, that govern peoples’ interactionswith one another. In too many places in the developing world, inefficientrules either hold back the transfer of new ideas from other places or preventthe good ideas that manage to get through from doing the most good.Charter cities are special reform zones where people who are currentlytrapped under an inefficient system of rules can, if they choose, live andwork under more efficient rules while enjoying the benefits of scale thatcome with city life.

Q: What particular teaching experiences led you to develop Aplia?PR: I believe that student effort is the key input to education outcomes. Asstudents or teachers, we’ve all experienced a situation in which a class suf-fers because too many of the students failed to do the small amount of read-ing or problem solving that would have been required for a lively andengaging discussion. With Aplia, students complete auto-graded problemsets online, enabling both professors and students to get immediate feed-back. Students who struggle with a problem can read through a thoroughexplanation and take a crack at another problem. This allows them to go attheir own pace. Aplia gives professors the ability to assign homework morefrequently, keeping the stakes for any given problem set fairly low but still

Paul RomerA world-renowned economist, Paul Romer joined NYU Stern in fall 2011 as a profes-

sor in the department of economics, after a year as the School’s Henry Kaufman

Visiting Professor. He will lead Stern’s Urbanization Project, which the School is

launching with a $10 million gift. Romer is also a nonresident fellow at the Center for

Global Development. Early in his career, he was the lead developer of what is known

as New Growth Theory. Romer formerly taught at Stanford’s Graduate School of

Business, where he developed Aplia, educational software that increases student

effort and engagement. Recently, he founded Charter Cities, a research nonprofit

focused on the interplay of rules, cities, and development. He recently agreed to intro-

duce himself to the larger Stern community in an interview with STERNbusiness.

Sternbusiness 11

giving students an incentive to stay on top of their coursework.

Q: What did you learn from starting a company?PR: Aplia reinforced my sense that starting a new organization is the bestway to drive progress. When we started Aplia, traditional print publishersunderstood that the Internet would soon be disrupting their business, yetthey largely failed to create useful online tools for the students and profes-sors who bought their textbooks. The publisher culture was oriented towardhigh-quality textbooks. Education technology always ended up as an after-thought rather than an opportunity to rethink the possibilities for teachingand learning. Aplia was dedicated to offering the best online learning expe-rience for students and professors, so it attracted like-minded people. Thusthe content quality of our problem sets was high, the tools students used toanswer problems worked well, and our support team was hyper-responsive– unlike online offerings from traditional publishers.

Q: Please explain the Charter Cities concept.PR: Charter Cities is a research nonprofit dedicated to exploring the ideathat developing countries can improve growth and governance by establish-ing city-scale reform zones on uninhabited land. The proposal is very muchtied to the notion that startups drive progress. We also explore the idea that,in establishing a special reform zone, a country might choose to partnerwith its particularly well-governed allies to institute strong and accountablegovernance in the zone. For example, a developing country might ask theUK to have its Privy Council serve as the court of final appeal for the judi-cial system in a new reform zone. Such an arrangement could make a newcity significantly more attractive to would-be investors and residents. A newreform zone can quickly create a legal environment that might otherwisetake decades – even centuries – to develop elsewhere in the country, pro-viding safety and formal sector jobs for families in the developing worldthat do not currently have options to participate in the life of a well-run city.

Q: A charter city seems like an almost utopian solution to the problems ofasymmetry that keep people in the developing world from attaining a decentstandard of living. What do you see as the potential pitfalls?PR: Unlike utopia, the goal here is very attainable: a substantial improve-ment over the dangerous slums that are currently the only urban option formany families in the developing world. To give millions of people a chanceto have a formal sector job, charter cities will have to offer entry-levelemployment opportunities in industries like garment assembly or lightmanufacturing. To be affordable, housing will be much smaller and offerfewer amenities than we’re used to. None of this is particularly “utopian,”but a city that starts this way could grow over time just as Hong Kong did.City-scale reform zones are not without risk. Some could see their govern-ments captured by bad actors, others may fail to attract sufficient residents.The idea behind enlisting strong and effective governments from elsewherein the world is to mitigate these risks, but even then there is a chance thatsome zones will not take off. Yet, the potential gains far outweigh these

risks. The key is to foster competition among new and existing cities. As itstands, many of the families that will move to cities this century will end upin informal slums on the outskirts or in the interstices of cities that don’twant them. If more cities compete vigorously to offer the best urban experi-ences for would-be residents, families will have more and better choicesabout where to live and work.

Q: If workers come en masse from different cultures and traditions, how doyou create a thriving melting pot versus a zone of incompatible tribal/culturalfactions?PR: People get along reasonably well when they feel safe. The problemcomes when there is no effective policing, or even worse, when control ofthe police force is up for grabs between different gangs. Imagine, for exam-ple, that a group of Shiites and Sunnis leave Iraq to live and work in one oftwo new reform zones. In one, the Australians would appoint the chief ofpolice, help her train officers, and hold her accountable. In the other, theShiites and Sunnis would have local elections to decide who is in charge ofthe local police. We ran the second experiment in Iraq and it produced ethniccleansing of neighborhoods that used to be integrated. People who livedthrough this might actually prefer to move someplace where a trusted thirdparty democracy manages the police and offers everyone equal protectionunder the law.

Q: What odds would you give it of working out? What conditions wouldmake it more likely to be a success in any particular locale or country versusanother?PR: I believe the odds are good. I’m also optimistic that shared governance,arrangements where a country partners with one or more well-governedallies to strengthen its own governance, will become a more widely usedapproach to reform and development. The charter cities proposal itself isbest suited to developing countries that have coastal land available and arein a region that is urbanizing rapidly. A reform zone on the coast can host itsown sea and air ports (and potentially manage its submarine communica-tions cables), making it much more likely that it can eventually tap into thenetwork of global hub cities. I encourage anyone who is interested in learn-ing more to visit www.chartercities.org.

Q: You are the son of a former governor and grew up in a political family.How did this background help shape your career? PR: I had the enormous good fortune to grow up in a middle-class familythat valued education. As a politician, my father has devoted more of hisenergy to education than to any other issue, but it was his commitment toeducation as a parent, and that of my mother, that made my career possible.

Q: What are your outside interests?PR: The world goes by at just the right speed on a bike. And there is noth-ing like the quiet of deep powder, during a snowstorm, in a forest, when noone else is around.

T R I U MTURNS TENALUMNI RECONNECT AT

PARIS CELEBRATIONBy Joanne Hvala

Sternbusiness 13

of Commerce and Industry.Following Gailley’s introduction,Dean Ramanantsoa greeted thegroup and reflected on the earlydays of TRIUM and how prescient

the three institutions were inlaunching the program. “The valueof the TRIUM program in fosteringboth leadership and entrepreneur-ship as well as a deeper understand-ing of global issues has been proven

ore than half of TRIUM’s500 alumni gatheredat the Chambre deCommerce et d’Industrie

in Paris in early July to celebrate the10-year anniver-sary of theTRIUM GlobalExecutive MBAProgram. Threedays of lecturesand social eventsthat mirrored theglobal orientationof the programhera lded theannouncement ofTRIUM’s expan-sion to anotherclass of 60 in thefall of 2012. Participantsincluded leading facultyfrom all three schools:Dean Bernard Ramanan-tsoa of HEC Paris; DeanPeter Henry of NYU Stern;and Professor Saul Estrin,head of the department ofmanagement at the LondonSchool of Economics andPolitical Science (LSE).

Pierre-Antoine Gailly,president of the Paris Chamber ofCommerce and Industry, welcomedthe TRIUM alumni and guests to theHotel Potocki, which was once a pri-vate home and whose classic Frencharchitecture now houses the Chamber

by the careers and lives of our alum-ni in the past 10 years,” he said.“We set about creating a programwithout equivalent in modern execu-tive education. We are now expand-

ing this programbecause both theneed and thevalue of having aglobal perspectivehave increased inthe interveningdecade.”

Dean Henrypraised the pro-g r a m a n d i t sgraduates, callingthem “leaders whoare truly global inyour perspec-

tive,” and reflected on thesense of pride that eachSchool has in the achieve-ments of the TRIUMalumni.

Lessons in the Art ofLeadership

Deans Henry andRamanantsoa joined SirHoward Davies, formerdirector of the LSE, to

interview Morgan Stanley ChairmanJohn Mack. Posing questions in turn,they focused on Mack’s experienceas a leader, drawing out the advice,humor, and wisdom gleaned duringhis nearly 40-year career. Following

“The value of the TRIUM program in fostering both leadership and

entrepreneurship as well as a deeperunderstanding of global issues has been

proven by the careers and lives of ouralumni in the past 10 years”

— Bernard RamanantsoaDean of HEC Paris

MTRIUM alumni gathered at the Chambre de Commerce et d'Industrie in Paris, France to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the TRIUM Executive Global MBA Program.

The TRIUM Class of 2012 came together for a group photo in the garden of the Hotel Potocki, a private residence that nowhouses the Chamber of Commerce and Industry.

the interview, TRIUM alumnireconnected at a reception in theformer ballroom, overlooking amagnificent garden.

Finance, Energy, and the ArabSpring

On Saturday, prominent pro-fessors from each of the threeschools tackled the serious sub-jects of the financial crisis andthe Arab Spring. In a talk enti-tled, “Postcards from the Edge:Lessons from the 2008 Crisis,”Stern Finance Professor AswathDamodaran tackled the topic of val-uation, analyzing the lessons of thecrisis and their implications for thefuture. In particular, he highlightedthe new reality of increased correla-

14 Sternbusiness

tion across asset classes, highervolatility, and a blurring linebetween emerging and developed

markets. “If uncertainty is the nameof the game, we have to develop esti-mation approaches that are flexible,less dependent on historical data,and more grounded in fundamen-

tals,” he concluded. Economics and Finance Professor

Marc Bertoneche of HEC Paris, aTRIUM teacher, took on the taskof “Rehabilitating the Image andRole of Finance,” providing acounterpoint to Damodaran’sobservations.

Dr. Fawaz Gerges, director ofthe Middle East Center at LSE,brought the conversation aroundto politics, providing insightinto the uprisings and govern-mental changes in Tunisia andEgypt and their implications for

the rest of the Middle East in histalk, “A Perfect Storm: A Revolutionin the Making in the Middle East.”

Following a buffet lunch thatenabled alumni to mingle in the gar-

Entrepreneurship and Innovation at TRIUM’s 10th

One of the hallmarks of the TRIUM Global MBA Program is its emphasis on entrepreneurship and innovation. Those values are developed and given full expres-sion through the TRIUM Term Project, which is intended to synthesize the learning of the program.

Ten years and ten cohorts later, the term project has evolved into the TRIUM Global Incubator, a capstone experience that is now at the heart of the TRIUM experi-ence. At the anniversary celebration in Paris last July, HEC Professor Jean Loup Ardoin, director of the TRIUM Global Incubator, and Professor Matt Mulford led apanel of alumni from around the globe in an exploration of the challenges and opportunities they faced when starting and building new businesses, expanding intoglobal markets, and leading social business enterprises.

Nicolai Kobliakov (TRIUM ’07) and Cyrus Razzaghi (TRIUM ’10) spoke about their experience in launching companies based on their TRIUM term projects.Kobliakov founded a chain of private retirement homes, bringing a new business model to Russia. Razzaghi founded SabioQ, an e-commerce provider that connectsbusiness partners in established and emerging markets to facilitate trade to their mutual benefit.

An experienced entrepreneur, Antoine Lemarchand (TRIUM ’09), shared how he benefited from his TRIUM experience as he expanded his Resonances retail chainfrom its Paris base. His aim is to design and develop the first chain of French stores devoted to “well-being” products and services.

Bringing an NGO perspective to the conversation, Monica Garry (TRIUM ’10), executive director of the Bridge Fund, spoke about its work providing Tibetan com-munities with the tools to improve their livelihood and the means to preserve their cultural heritage and the environment.

Charles Kie (TRIUM ’09) explored the chemistry that makes the TRIUM community adept at entrepreneurship and discussed how the collective experience mightbe translated across cohorts to foster other projects.

From term project to global incubator, the lessons of leadership, entrepreneurship, and the value of the strong TRIUM alumni network resonated with the paneland the audience.

TRIUM alumni heard from speakers including (center photo, from left to right), former director of the LSE Sir Howard Davies, Morgan Stanley Chairman John Mack, NYU Stern Dean Peter Henry,Peirre-Antoine Gailly, president of the Paris Chamber of Commerce and Industry; and Dean Bernard Ramananatsoa of HEC Paris.

“If uncertainty is the name of the game, we have to develop estimation approaches that are

flexible, less dependent on historical data, and more

grounded in fundamentals.”— Professor Aswath Damodaran

Sternbusiness 15

den, Henri Proglio, chairman andCEO of French electrical utility EDFand an alumnus of HEC Paris, spokeabout “Facing Tomorrow’s GlobalEnergy Challenges,” in which hewove together a long-term look atthe energy supply with up-to-the-minute observations about thenuclear reactor disaster in Japan.

A New Tradition The anniversary conference pro-

vided a fitting moment to introducea new award, the TRIUM AlumniLeadership Award, or TALA, and tonote the contributions of alumnifrom each graduating class. “Eachand every one of you has helped cre-ate TRIUM by sharing innovative

ideas to make the program better,helping each other through careertransitions, and speaking with can-didates about the program,” saidErin O’Brien, associate dean forTRIUM, before singling out VictorMeyer (TRIUM ’03), Margaret-AnnCole (TRIUM ’04), Florence Klein-Bourdon (TRIUM ’05), Paul Ward(TRIUM ’06), Daniel Spitezki(TRIUM ’09), Todd Wade (TRIUM’09), Erick Blanc (TRIUM ’09),Adam Alexander (TRIUM ’10) andShin Lee (TRIUM ’10) for theirwork in creating the TRIUM AlumniSteering Committee. AcademicDirector Mary Logan joined O’Brienin handing out the awards.

Calling the TRIUM 10 pro-

Erin O’Brien (top left), associate dean of TRIUM and Global Programs at NYU Stern, welcomed the more than 250 alumni and guests at the 10-year anniversary of the TRIUM program.

gram “a mini-Davos,” BertrandMoingeon, vice dean of HEC Paris,thanked the speakers and alumni fortheir participation.

A Champagne Toast to TRIUMThe day concluded with a cele-

bratory reception and dinner atPlanete Equinoxe-La Palmerie,where indoor palm trees and exoticsculptures created a festive environ-ment for dinner and dancing to alively band whose music reflectedthe multicultural blend of theTRIUM alumni. A dramatic cascadeof champagne into a pyramid ofglasses prefaced a rousing toast tothe TRIUM program and lastingbonds of friendship.

16 Sternbusiness

Q: You’ve been at Stern for 21 years. What changes have you seen inthe teaching of business education over that period?Geeta Menon: When I started, there was no Internet, people wereusing land lines, and it was harder to travel across the world. Sincethen, there’s been so much change in terms of access to information,and, with travel easier, globalization for businesses has become real-ly key. So we have seen business education evolve in response. OurBarr International Studies Program (ISP) requires every student inthe business program to take a semester course focused on interna-tional issues and spend a week inan immersive program in one ofthree locations in Europe, Asia, orLatin America. Our Business andPolitical Economy (BPE) degreeprogram, started in 2009, sends 50students to London for sophomoreyear. This year, our first group ofjuniors in the program will spend asemester in Shanghai. There has also been a great change in theinterdisciplinary nature of business education. Stern students cannow take more than half their courses in the liberal arts, and we edu-cate them for different markets around the world. Even within cours-es, it’s more interdisciplinary: in marketing, you have psychologyand economics. In addition, Stern has also moved to the forefront ofstudying the impact of business on society.

Q: How has the student population as a whole changed over that time?GM: Stern students have always been ambitious, smart, and savvy,but I think the stress level is up. They put tremendous pressure onthemselves to succeed, and they’re under more pressure financially.As educators, we need to encourage students to explore their pas-sions and experiment intellectually. “Figuring it out” is a wonderfulphilosophy for an undergraduate.

Q: What changes would you like ultimately to implement in your newrole? What is your vision?GM: I’d like to continue to pushboundaries in three areas: aca-demics, globalization, andengagement within our communi-ty. Academically, I’d like to contin-ue on the path of excellence andinnovation. We have the socialimpact core, which gives us

breadth by bringing liberal arts to bear on business issues. I wouldlike to add depth and introduce a series of research seminars overthe next few years so that undergraduates can get excited aboutresearch and interact one-on-one with faculty. Globally, we will beactively a part of NYU’s Global Network, at its three portals(Washington Square, Abu Dhabi, and Shanghai) and 10 global cam-puses. Finally, here in New York City we are surrounded by alumni

Introducing Geeta Menon

Geeta Menon assumed her position as dean of Stern’s

Undergraduate College last July. Menon, the Abraham Krasnoff

Professor of Global Business, professor of marketing, and,

from 2004 to 2008, chair of the School’s marketing depart-

ment, joined the Stern faculty in 1990. Shortly after her

appointment as dean, Menon shared her insights and vision

with STERNbusiness.

“Globalization has had a big impacton how the world works, and it is soimportant to bring that perspective

into the classroom, whether in New York City or beyond.”

Sternbusiness 17

who can be mentors, speakers,and recruiters, so I’m interestedin finding new ways to enhanceour engagement among ouralumni, faculty, and students.

Q: You’ve been a visiting profes-sor at the Indian Institute ofManagement, Stanford BusinessSchool, and Wharton. How doesthe Stern experience compare tothe student experience in thoseinstitutions, in your view?GM: The Stern experience isunique, and not just because weare in New York City. With ourstudy abroad – through both ISPand BPE – and the opportunitiesafforded by NYU, combined withour amazing students, Sternoffers an academic experiencelike no other. It all adds up to anextraordinary combination for success.

Q: What do you believe are Stern’s advantages over other under-graduate business schools?GM: You may have noticed I am a big NYC fan. The City providesStern students with a unique experience. With access to Wall Street,Madison Avenue, arts and culture, and alumni, there are manyadvantages. NYU offers tremendous opportunities and a diversecommunity. And Stern’s academic experience sets us apart, with ourstudy abroad programs and emphasis on the social impact of busi-ness. We are at the forefront of innovation. There are lots of goodreasons to be at Stern.

Q: How does your background in marketing contribute to yournew role?GM: Marketing is about studying people and understanding whatmotivates them. My research has taught me the importance of data

and the context for understanding it; it’s important to talk to people toget the context. I’m excited about working with the Stern communityand the different constituencies here – faculty, administration, stu-dents, parents, and alumni. And as a marketing person, I understandthat the reputation of a school is really important. Stern is a reallygreat place to experience as an undergraduate, and I will seek tomake that even better known.

Q: With NYU’s global university in mind, how can you bring that out-look and those resources to bear on the undergraduate experience?GM: Being part of the Global Network University is a big part of myvision. I visited the NYU site in London recently and had a chance totalk about Stern classes there. I will be visiting Abu Dhabi soon, andam already thinking of new academic initiatives that will benefit ourcommunity. Globalization has had a big impact on how the worldworks, and it is so important to bring that perspective into the class-room, whether in New York City or beyond.

Geeta Menon, dean of Stern’s Undergraduate College, delivered remarks at a welcome dinner in September.

Q: If you had a wish list for Stern,what would be on it?GM: On a broad level, I would liketo see the Stern undergraduate pro-gram achieve a more global reputa-tion as the place to be for futurebusiness leaders. In many ways, thebarrier to moving forward in thatrespect is financial because we areunable to provide as much financialaid as we’d like. So, much morespecifically, I want very much toincrease our ability to providescholarships. This is where alumni,friends, and parents can help makea difference in the lives of studentsand, ultimately, in the future of theStern School.

Q: Would you please describe yourbackground growing up in India? GM: My father was in the Indiannavy, so we moved around India alot: I went to 10 schools beforegraduating from high school. From this I learned how important it isto find commonalities and create relationships. So, I relate to ourstudents when they first get here, many coming from thousands ofmiles away to make their way in a new environment. That’s whybuilding community here is so important, and that takes a village.

Q: When did you decide to go into academia? Why marketing?GM: After I received my master’s in economics in India, I worked inmarket research there, primarily writing surveys for consumer prod-uct companies. I became interested in how consumers come upwith answers to such questions and organize the information intheir memories and how they make decisions, so I applied for aPhD in business administration with a minor in psychology andnever looked back.

Q: Did you have a goal to go into administration? Do you think youwill return to teaching and research?GM: When I first started, I had no specific goal to go into adminis-tration, but I did develop an interest in leadership and in developingand implementing a vision, finding the right people around me, and

leading the way to the finish line. I was president of the Associationfor Consumer Research and associate editor of premier marketingjournals. As chair of the marketing department, I enjoyed workingwith the deans and faculty to foster a research and teaching environ-ment that we could all be proud of, and we are today one of the topmarketing departments in the world. I will continue to be involved inteaching and research, though will need to pull back a bit as I diginto to my role as dean.

Q: How do you balance your work and personal lives?GM: I’m a busy New Yorker like so many others. I have a son in col-lege and tight social circles of friends with whom to unwind. In NewYork it’s easy to snap back and forth between work and personal life,so balancing the two is easy.

Q: What are your outside interests?GM: I’m a citizen of the world, and I love to travel. I think of theworld as a very accessible place. I find cooking and experimentingwith cuisines therapeutic. I like movies, especially mysteries andcrime stories. And I am a huge fan of Bollywood music.

Geeta Menon, dean of Stern’s Undergraduate College (right), discussed schedules with Eleanor Kyung (PhD ’11)

18 Sternbusiness

Peter Henry: We say to students con-sidering Stern that our mission as aschool is to produce people and ideasthat transform challenges into oppor-tunities to create value for business andsociety. But to transform challengesinto opportunities, you first have to seethose challenges as potential opportu-nities. And, yes, the tools of business –marketing, finance, accounting, com-munications, economics – are veryimportant ingredients, if you will, thatyou can use to construct a recipe. Butfirst you have to have the right mind-set. You have to have a mindset ofwhat’s possible, expanding your sense

Launch 2011: The BackstoryWhy Stern’s deans decided to break the mold for MBA orientation

The very nameLaunch propels you;you’re immediatelythinking out-side the box. — Mark Harper (MBA ’13)

“”of what it is that business can actu-

ally do. To me, that really requires a

reawakening, a re-embracing inmany ways of the broader spirit of

liberal arts education, because Ialways say we’re a business school,but we’re part of a university. Anduniversities exist to transform thehuman condition. It just so happensthat at business schools you spend alot of time thinking about how to dothat through the allocation of capital,whether human capital or physicalcapital, so that’s what this is reallyall about. It requires a change ofmindset.

Since my arrival at Stern, I setabout understanding the story of theSchool. What is the story of the SternSchool of Business in the larger con-

Sternbusiness 19

This past August, as the MBA class of 2013 crossed thethreshold of Paulson Auditorium, NYU Stern broke the moldin the way the School welcomed our entering class. In lieu oftraditional orientation programming, the students were drawninto an innovative three-day summit designed to reframe thebusiness education they were about to underake.Each of the first three days of Launch 2011included addresses by thought leaders andpractitioners, provocative panel discussions,breakout groups, and activities related tothree main themes: world, business, and city(see box, page 21). Dean Peter Henry andVice Dean for Graduate Education AdamBrandenburger explain the creation and devel-opment of Launch 2011.

I’ve always been kindof a big thinker, but if I wasn’t before, I certainly am now.— Kevin St. John (MBA ’13)

“text of the university, in the largercontext of New York City, and in thecontext of the larger world?

Not surprisingly, depending on whoyou talk to, you hear very differentstories. We have many constituencies:faculty, students, and alumni are theobvious ones. But there are also theCEOs whose companies hire our stu-dents and alumni, and then there’ssociety at large that thinks about busi-ness schools. Depending on who youtalk to, you get a very different view ofNYU Stern specifically, and more gen-erally of the role of business schools.

People are asking the question,what use are business schools? Whatuse are these institutions who creat-ed the leaders who brought thefinancial system to its knees? There’sreal skepticism out there.

Launch really is an articulation, asI see it, of what I call the intersection

”particularly in the first instance ourstudents, we needed to start with thefirst day that they were here oncampus.

When I tried to express the reasonwhy I thought of starting with thiskind of athletic training camp men-tality – let’s start in the first day, let’sset the tone for what we’re trying todo – I understood that what we’rereally trying to do is nothing small.We’re really trying to change the waypeople think about business educa-tion, what business education canactually do.

And I said, “I’ve got this veryrough idea of sort of five days, fiveideas, five thought leaders. Let's nottalk about how to get any particularjob. Let’s talk about the big inex-orable trends facing the world – andhow people will use the tools of busi-ness to transform those challengesinto opportunities to create value forbusiness and society. So let’s haveconversations about cities, about theworld, about urbanization, aboutwater, emerging markets, the bigmountain-top trends.”

of common interests among all ofthose constituencies, weighted dif-ferently because obviously studentsand faculty are the core of our mis-sion.

Sometime in the summer of 2010,after having lots of conversationswith all these different groups, ideasbegan to gel. A few key trusted peo-ple that I had been talking to beganto play back to me what they werehearing, and the thing that reallycaptured my imagination – and Iguess this comes a bit from my ownstory being an athlete – is that thebeginning is very important. Itdawned on me that if we reallywanted to capture the imaginationsof our students and our faculty, but

1. CNBC’s Maria Bartiromo 2. NYU President John Sexton 3. Newark Mayor Cory Booker 4. Incoming MBA students gaineda new perspective from Professor Robert Salomon.5. Professor Marti Subrahmanyam moderated an alumni panel discussion (from left to right): Sarah Martin (MBA ’06), Dan Gulick(MBA ’94), Ron Blaylock (MBA ’89), Professor Subrahmanyam,Glenn Saldanha (MBA ’96), Conor Grennan (MBA ’10), DahnaGoldstein (MBA ’04), and Olivier Jarry (MBA ’08)

20 Sternbusiness

1

4 5

2 3

A Mind-ExpandingWelcome to SternBelow are highlights of the provocative presenta-tions that greeted first-year MBAs at their orienta-tion in late August. Block discussions and groupactivities were interspersed throughout. The aimwas to expand the students’ mindsets and set thetone for the next two years.

Day 1: WORLD

Welcome: Peter Henry, dean

Teaching moment: Robert Salomon, associate professor of management and organizations

Expert Panel on World Financial Markets:Maria Bartiromo, CNBC; Nouriel Roubini, professor of economics and international business;William Silber, Marcus Nadler Professor in Financeand Economics

Moderator: Marti Subrahmanyam, Charles E. MerrillProfessor of Finance, Economics, and InternationalBusiness

Opening Dinner: Ellis Island

Speaker: Roger Ferguson, president and CEO, TIAA-CREF

Day 2: BUSINESS

Teaching moment: Anindya Ghose, associate professor of information systems

Panel: Innovation in PracticeAlumni entrepreneurs discuss renewable energy,social entrepreneurship, and growing a company

Moderator: Professor Marti Subrahmanyam

9: Nine ideas, nine speakers, nine minutes each

Moderator: Scott Galloway, clinical professor of marketing

Reception: Rubin Museum of Art

Day 3: CITY

Address: John Sexton, president, NYU

Teaching moment: Paul Romer, professor of economics

Address: Cory Booker, mayor of Newark, NJ

Transitions: Adam Brandenburger, vice dean for graduate education

Reception: NYU Stern, Patrons’ Lobby, Tisch Hall

that particular class, it becomesabout acquiring the tools that canhelp you build and construct yourown cathedral.

And it’s important I add that acathedral’s not about self-aggrandize-ment. It’s about allowing others to seethemselves, and about helping others.And by the way, if doing that actual-ly creates a lot of wealth for you, well,then that’s wonderful.

AB: We decided that in order to try tocreate an extraordinary first momentfor the students when they arrive atStern, to try to capture the excitementand energy that we knew the studentshave inside themselves, to validateand unleash this energy, we had tobreak a few rules. In fact, as academ-ics, we enjoy breaking rules every dayin our work, and this was an oppor-tunity to break some rules at the levelof an entire organization and to try tocreate a very different way for ourstudents to begin their education. Wealso thought that really exciting, cre-ative minds need to be destabilized.We used a rather fancy term, “healthydestabilization.” We also thought thestudents needed to be overloaded alittle, and so the three days of Launchhave deliberately overloaded our stu-dents, although I think in an exhila-rating way.

PH: What makes Launch distinct isthat we are not trying to change thecurriculum, we’re trying to changemindsets. If you want to be an invest-ment banker, come to NYU Stern,experience Launch, and hear abouturbanization, hear about the fact thatthree billion to five billion people aregoing to be moving to cities over thecourse of the next century, which asProfessor Paul Romer and others onour faculty can tell you, translatesinto roughly $20 trillion of infra-structure that needs to get laid downin various forms, in roads, telecom,

This fit with our vision of theschool as being in and of New YorkCity, and being in and of the world.

Adam Brandenburger: In asking meto head up Launch 2011, Peter readsomething in my interest in beingpart of what I would call a little dis-ruption of education as usual, of busi-ness school as usual, to create some-thing bigger, deeper, something thatwill inspire our students to be a classthat people will look back at and say,“There was some magic in the class of2013.”

He then told me about his think-ing and the conversations he hadbeen having about the idea of a wholenew kind of orientation for our MBAstudents, and he asked me if I wouldget started with trying to build a teamto bring this idea to fruition. Hewanted a brand new orientation. Thiswas a big decision for me because Ifelt that Peter was trusting his ideaand his vision to a group of peoplewith little time and little direction,but great hope and expectation.

PH: Again, it’s the beginning thatreally matters. It’s an attitude, it’s theway in which you enter the class-room. So if you enter the classroomthinking about the great problemsfacing the world, thinking about yourstory, and how you’re going to plugin, then a class in any particular dis-cipline doesn’t just become about

Vice Dean for Graduate EducationAdam Brandenburger shared some parting thoughts with students.

Sternbusiness 21

hospitals, and schools in the emerg-ing world over the course of the nextcentury. That’s a huge opportunityto allocate capital more efficiently,to create profits and value.

So there’s an opportunity to dowell, and do good at the same time.Or, you can be on what people mightsee as the other end of the spectrum,somebody who is interested not inallocating capital for the sake of gen-erating return, but is interested in thenot-for-profit world, to be a socialentrepreneur. In that case, sus-tainability means two things. Forinstance, if you’re interested in greenissues, that’s in one sense sustainabil-ity, but you also need to understandhow to run an organization so that itis financially sustainable.

Launch, then, is about creating avery broad canvas on which we canthink about how to paint our ownpicture, how to write our own story,irrespective of whether your person-al proclivities drive you towardswanting to be an investment bankeror a social entrepreneur. The toolsthat we have here, the ingredientswe have, the environment we’ve cre-ated, the climate, the community,the mindset, is conducive to trans-formation for both of those individ-uals and everybody in between onthat spectrum.

AB: Traditionally, our MBA pro-gram has begun gently and slowly.We start comfortably, methodically,build over time, introduce harderideas as the semester goes on.Slowly climb the mountain of ideasto reach the summit.

So we decided if that’s so clearlycorrect, let’s try the other wayaround. Why don’t we begin ourstudents’ education with a three-day summit? And so we builtLaunch as three days, world/busi-ness/city, a high-level summitmeeting with very prominentspeakers, panelists, activitiesaround the city, project work,engagement in big questions, bigissues, big challenges. AfterLaunch, we can come down to thebottom of the mountain and beginthe methodical climb back up.

Usually your first interac-tion at a new school isabout the nuts and boltsof your academic experi-ence. Launch is about thehow and why. It willframe the next two years for all of us. — Stephanie Gent (MBA ’13)

“As part of this, we decided we

would take the students the momentthey arrived on a whirlwind visualtour of the world. We began Launchwith the very famous picture of theearth from the Apollo 8 mission, inwhich – and this is rather shocking tous New Yorkers – New York City isentirely invisible!

PH: There are two things that sur-prised me about Launch. Number one,Launch exceeded even my high expec-tations. And the second thing, whichhas been just an enormously gratifyingexperience, is to hear the studentscome up to me after the first day, afterthe second day, after the third day, andsay, “It just keeps getting better.”

AB: I’ve also been overwhelmed by thereaction of my colleagues, the faculty,and the administration who haveworked for many months together oncreating Launch. Faculty from manydepartments across the school, admin-istrators who have made the impossi-ble possible in a very short period oftime – we’ve all worked together on acreative journey, and there are smilesand hugs, and a great sense of pride onthe part of the School. Our goal hadbeen to achieve all of those things onthe part of our students, and to tell ourstory to the world beyond Stern. But Ithink we’ve also begun a new storywithin Stern.

(top row, left to right): Sternfaculty Anindya Ghose, PaulRomer, Marti Subrahmanyam,Scott Galloway, and RobertSalomon engaged with stu-dents during several teachingmoments. (bottom) Students heardfrom Dean Peter Henry (farleft), worked in teams, andtraveled to Ellis Island dur-ing Launch 2011.

”

22 Sternbusiness

but M&A activity has returned and private equity is gettingmore active. On the corporate side, many companies that havesubstantially restructured their balance sheets have tremendousliquidity and are looking for M&A opportunities. We’ve seen apickup in transatlantic M&A with US companies seeking toacquire companies in Europe. Large players from Asia-Pacific(China as well as Japan) want to enter new markets or expandin existing markets, and this is driving transactions in the USand Europe. Within Europe we anticipate cross-border consoli-dation in certain sectors. M&A activity in economies formerlycharacterized as emerging – China, Brazil, Russia – is verystrong, and we see that trend continuing.

5. What are your goals for Skadden’s international platform?Over the last 23 years we have built strong European and Asia-Pacific platforms and expanded in the Americas to includeCanada and Brazil. The key goal is to be the market leader infully integrating our business in the Americas, Asia-Pacific, andEurope so that we can deliver consistent, high-end service toour global clients. M&A is now a global phenomenon.

6. How did your time at Stern prepare you for your career?I decided to get an MBA to complement my legal training. Myfirst big break was that Skadden was looking to recruitJD/MBA graduates for the M&A department. I would not havebeen able to hit the ground running at Skadden without myStern education and its training in finance and accounting. I’ma big believer in the JD/MBA combination and a big believer inStern.

7. What do you think of Stern’s international program?We live in a global community. I think it was very importantfor Stern to expand its footprint. In fact Skadden has assistedStern in the creation of NYU Shanghai, and we were excited tohelp the University with its newest portal in the global NYUnetwork.

8. Are you ever coming back to the US? What’s next?I am an American and I have no doubt that I will return to theStates at some point, but I’ve developed a global perspective Iwill never abandon. My wife and three kids are very supportiveof my career, which has been the key to my success. EventuallyI hope we will have the opportunity to devote more time andenergy to education and a variety of charitable pursuits andgive a little more back. In the meantime, there remain a num-ber of career challenges and a number of waves to catch.

8QuestionsSCOTT SIMPSON (MBA ’83)Co-head of Global Transactions Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom LLP & Affiliates

Scott Simpson is co-head of the global transactions practice atlegal giant Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, and a memberof the firm’s policy committee. He has been based in London since1990 and before that practiced law in Skadden’s New York officethroughout the 1980s. Simpson advises clients on cross-bordermergers and acquisitions, including contested and hostile bids.Since 1999, according to third-party data, he has been involvedin more than 80 transactions with a deal value of more than $500billion, including advising Mannesmann in the largest corporatetransaction ever completed, the Vodafone/Mannesmann takeover.

1. When did you first arrive in London for Skadden and whatwas your charter?I transferred to London in 1990 to start Skadden’s M&A prac-tice in Europe. We had anticipated a wave of cross-border M&Ain Europe, and I was tasked with building a team and an M&Abusiness that would complement our US market position.Although my original tour of duty was described as two to threeyears, I have been here for 21 years and we now have 200lawyers in seven European offices.

2. What challenges did you face in the early years and howdid you capture market share in European M&A?There was a recession in Europe then, and so the business cli-mate was challenging. We were fortunate to be introduced to anumber of important M&A assignments in Central and EasternEurope that resulted from a wave of privatizations that began in1990 after the Iron Curtain fell and continued for several years.We also had correctly anticipated a wave of consolidation inEurope. When that wave arrived, it included a number of high-profile contested takeovers, which played to a key strength andcompetitive advantage of the firm.

3. You’ve raised Skadden’s profile in what was previously arelatively insular European M&A theater. What was yourstrategy?We practice across all European offices and pride ourselves onshort lines of communication and a commitment to integratedteams of professionals. We were a first-mover in combining ourUS M&A capability with a core capability in some of Europe’smost important markets. Possibly the most important driver ofour success was the decision to complement our US skill set withthe very best talent in Europe.

4. What are some of the current global trends in M&A?The sovereign debt crisis in Europe continues to cast a shadow,

Sternbusiness 23

24 Sternbusiness

Can’t get enough ofZynga’s games on Facebook?You’re not alone. More than230 million people fromaround the world are playingZynga’s popular social gamessuch as CityVille, FarmVilleand Zynga Poker and thenumbers keep growing –especially on mobile.

“I’ve always loved playinggames and strongly believedthat the next great gamingfrontier would be on mobiledevices and would incorpo-rate a social component,” saidDavid Ko (BS ’93), chiefmobile officer for Zynga, theleading social game developerbased in San Francisco.

Ko oversees Zynga’s mobile offerings includingthe development of new games and features thatprovide a best-in-class mobile social game experi-ence. Zynga’s mobile socialgames, such as Words WithFriends, Zynga Poker, andMafia Wars, enable players toconnect and play with theirfriends while on-the-go acrossplatforms and devices.

A self-proclaimed fan ofgaming, Ko found a way tomake his passion for gadgets and new technology apart of his professional life… but he didn’t startout that way.

Ko began his career as afinancial analyst for theInvestment Banking division inGlobal Energy at SalomonSmith Barney. “I worked withsome incredible people, learnedthe ropes of the markets, andhad an opportunity to partici-pate in several strategic deals,”he recalled.

All the while, Ko pursued hisinterest in technology, makingseveral trips to the West Coast,both for networking and forvisiting friends in Silicon Valley.In early 2000, Ko accepted aposition at Yahoo! to manageaspects of business developmentfor the company. Throughout atenure at Yahoo! that spanned

10 years, he made his way up the corporate ladder, tak-ing on roles from running the company’s global mobileoperations to heading Yahoo!’s properties, including the

Front Page, Finance, Sports,News, and Entertainment, acrossthe Americas.

During his time at Yahoo!, Koalso had an opportunity to lead aYahoo! team in Asia – an experi-ence that he found exciting havingspent time abroad earlier in hislife, notably while studying abroad

as an undergraduate. “While at NYU Stern, I had theopportunity to study in Asia,” he pointed out, “and thatinternational experience was key in helping me make

sternInTheCity

Social Gaming Goes MobileBy Carolyn Ritter

“The key to success in this businessis to keep your eye on the big

picture, focus on what consumers are looking for, and think about how different technologies help to solve

needs for different users. ”

David Ko has helped make CityVille a global phenomenon.

Sternbusiness 25

the transition for work later inlife, which included moving myfamily to Singapore for a fewyears.”

Residing in the SanFrancisco Bay Area now formore than 10 years, Ko hasgrown to love what he calls the“lifestyle of Northern Californiaand the entrepreneurial spiritof Silicon Valley.”That said, he doesmiss a few thingsabout the EastCoast: “In particu-lar, I miss thechanging seasons,the excitement ofNew York City, and,of course, my familyand friends.”

Despite being atechnology enthusi-ast, Ko said he isnot one to staycooped up inside fortoo long: “I have alovely wife and twowonderful daughters, and on weekends, we try toenjoy the outdoors as much as possible, spendingtime at the beach or going hiking.”

Zynga, Ko said, continues to make incrediblestrides in mobile. Most recently the company addedtwo new games to its mobile portfolio – CityVilleHometown, in which players can create the virtual

town of their dreams, and Hanging With Friends,which offers a new twist on the classic ‘Hangman’game.

Navigating the rapidly changing landscape inthe technology industry can be tricky, admitted Ko.“There is a lot of hype surrounding the next big thing,which is predicted to revolutionize the industry,” heexplained. “The key to success in this business is tokeep your eye on the big picture, focus on what con-sumers are looking for, and think about how differenttechnologies help to solve needs for different users.”

Popular social games, including Zynga Poker(bottom right), Hanging With Friends (bottom

left), and CityVille (right), are drawing hun-dreds of millions of players from around theworld, explained David Ko (opposite page),

chief mobile officer for Zynga, the leadingsocial game developer.

26 Sternbusiness

Nick Timiraos: Can you tell us whatFreddie Mac does? Ed Haldeman: Freddie Mac is in thesecondary mortgage business. We arenot originators of mortgages but ratherbuy mortgages from the originator andessentially package them together in asecurity and issue a mortgage-backedsecurity. In addition to that, as we aredoing it, we guarantee the underlyingmortgage. So we are both a securitizerand a guarantor in the secondary mort-gage market, both for single-family res-idences and the multi-family or apart-ment business.

NT: Home prices have been falling forthe past five years, with some stabilityover the past year. Is the end in sight?EH: We believe prices will continuedeclining in 2011, with no recoveryuntil 2012. There is a huge inventory ofhomes, many empty and foreclosed andwe have to work through that supply.Also, there is almost certainly a hugeinventory of homes belonging to babyboomers that are in the shadow inven-tory – people of an age when they’d bethinking about downsizing to an apart-ment or condominium but elected notto do it because of the decline inprices. In a recovery, they’d go throughwith that plan, which will shut down therecovery. So it’s a pretty pessimisticoutlook for any economic series that’sdown 30 percent.

NT: The White House published along-awaited white paper on the future

of housing finance and on the futureof Fannie and Freddie that made clearthere’s no real political appetite forFannie and Freddie to be releasedback into the housing world.EH: It did not have as much specificdirection as I was hoping for. Myreaction was that I could understandthe fragility of the market causing usto need the five- to seven-year transi-tion that was outlined, but it’s prettyhard to run a company when theheadline is Fannie and Freddie to bewound down over five to seven years.

NT: One viewpoint is that Fannie andFreddie caused all the problems andthey need to go. What do you say toyour staff?

EH: The first thing is constant com-munication and transparency. Second,try to inspire people to keep doingtheir jobs because their jobs matter.You try to have them understand whatbad condition our country would be inif they weren’t doing their day-to-dayjobs – such as the liquidity thatFreddie Mac has provided to thehousing finance market at a timewhen the private sector hasn’t done it,and the work our people have done tohelp families stay in their homes andprevent foreclosure. In 2010, weworked with 250,000 families to helpthem avoid foreclosure.

NT: In mid-2009 you arrived as thefourth CEO in 12 months at a compa-ny of 5,000 people with $2.5 trilliondollars in assets – a big company thathad been through a lot. In the previ-ous year it had been taken over by thegovernment and the management

replaced. Six months later, the CEOinstalled by the Treasury quit, amonth later the acting CFO commit-ted suicide. How did you keep peoplefocused? EH: Add to the list that by the time Iarrived, everybody’s stock holdingsand 401(k) had been completelywiped out in September ’08. They hadno job certainty beyond about sixmonths. Right away we had a townhall for all employees and also put iton the Web, and I simply told mypersonal story, where I grew up,what was important to me, what mypersonal situation was with family,my prior job experiences. Then Itook questions. I talked to themabout why I had taken the job. That

started a dialogue that I think hasbeen pretty open.

NT: You had spent your career infinancial services, but not really inhousing finance. What went throughyour head when you were thinkingabout taking this job? Did yourfriends caution you against taking it?EH: I went to the same businessschool about the same time asGeorge W. Bush, so I had very closefriends from school in his administra-tion – one in particular who stronglysaid it was a real mistake to take thisjob. He was well aware of the deep-seated animosity there was towardFreddie Mac in certain parts of thepolitical spectrum. Though I’m a free-market person, I’m an agnostic aboutthe cause of the financial crisis andalso the future of the GSEs and hous-ing finance. I took the job because Ithought it was in the best interests of

Charles E. “Ed” Haldeman, Jr.joined Freddie Mac in July 2009from Putnam Investments, one ofthe world’s largest mutual fundadministrators, where he waschairman of Putnam InvestmentManagement and president andCEO of Putnam Investments.Freddie Mac is the second-largestsource of mortgage financing in theUS. Since the start of the housingfinancial crisis, Freddie Mac and its sibling Fannie Mae have fundedmore than 70 percent of the coun-try’s single-family mortgages andan even greater proportion of therental market. Haldeman’s leader-ship during the financial crisis hasbeen heralded by BloombergBusinessweek, which named himone of the 50 most powerful peoplein real estate in March 2010. A summa cum laude graduate ofDartmouth College, he earned hisMBA and JD from HarvardUniversity.

Ed Haldeman was interviewed onMarch 8, 2011, by Nick Timiraos, areporter for The Wall Street Journalsince 2006, currently on the hous-ing and mortgage markets beat.Previously, Timiraos covered the2008 presidential election and trav-eled with the Obama campaign.

Ed Haldemanchief executive officer Freddie Mac

“We are preparing ourselves for a futurewhere we would compete against multiple

competitors in the private sector. ”

LeadingIndicators

Sternbusiness 27

EH: I think it would befoolish of the governmentand society to just close itdown completely. Five toseven years down theroad, there is going to stillbe a secondary mortgagemarket, because banks andmortgage brokers andoriginators aren’t going tohold those mortgages for30 years. We are preparingourselves for a futurewhere we would compete

against multiple competitorsin the private sector. We have beenimproving our systems and technolo-gy and have streamlined our expensestructure – by over $100 million lastyear, down 7 percent. We want to getready to perhaps be a competitor inthe private market. If not, the govern-ment ought to sell it off or break it up.It’s too valuable not to be used insome way going forward.

Q: Before the financial crisis, FannieMae and Freddie Mac were recognizedas organizations that helpedAmericans realize their dreams ofowning their own homes. But nowpeople blame Fannie and Freddie forcontributing to the crisis. Do you thinkthat’s fair? EH: I don’t believe Freddie and Fanniewere a major part of the problem. IfFreddie and Fannie were the solecause of the financial crisis, how doyou reconcile the fact that the USmortgage market is 9 percent serious-ly delinquent and Freddie Mac’s rate isjust 3.8 percent? Those statisticsaren’t consistent with the notion that itwas all because of Freddie and Fannie.I think those statistics underscore thata broad range of factors were going onsimultaneously.

the country to keep the machineryoperating and I could add value tokeep it going and thereby give thegovernment options.

NT: You were the first in your familyto go to college. You worked at yourfamily’s small business, processinglicense plate applications inPhiladelphia. But the career route youtook was distinctly different.EH: Haldeman’s Auto Tags is still inbusiness in north Philadelphia, and mybrother’s working there today – mymother’s probably left for the day, she’s85 so she leaves a little early. My fathercame back from the war and worked.That was the value system he taughtme: work hard, go to a good college,get a good job, and you’ll be morefinancially secure than I was. At 25,after getting my JD/MBA from Harvard,I went into the investment business inPhiladelphia. That was lucky becausein 1974 the market had tanked, theDow was 500. So the story of my suc-cess is entering the work force and theinvestment business when the Dow is500 and just riding it from 500 to12,000. Believe me, you didn’t have tobe very smart if you got into that busi-ness at that time. You made a lot ofmoney just by being around.

NT: Did you think about Wall Street?EH: In law school I had a summer job

at Cravath, Swaine & Moore inNew York. Even as a summer person, Iwas working until 10 at night and onweekends. I could see how hardlawyers and people on Wall Streetworked. I didn’t want to do that. Itwasn’t that I was indifferent to money;I wanted to be north of poor and stillhave a normal family life. I wanted tobe home for dinner, and coach mykids in Little League and not workuntil 10 p.m. That’s why I decided togo into the investment business inPhiladelphia, not Wall Street.

NT: What decisions set you up for theopportunities that came along later inyour career?EH: The number one piece of advice Igive is, every single day do what youare supposed to, show up on time,and get the job done on deadline. Ifyou just do that for 35 years, it differ-entiates you because everybody elseis going to screw up somewherealong the road. You will earn a repu-tation for always getting the job done.My second bit of advice would be tohave a good balance between yourpersonal life and your work life. It isjust awful what young people do tothemselves today.

NT: What are some of the commonmistakes CEOs make? How aboutnewly minted MBAs?

EH: The dumb things that CEOs doare just unbelievable. It all has to dowith ego and thinking they’re a bigdeal. How else can you explain thingslike redecorating your office in thedepths of the financial crisis? CEOsshould try to stay more connectedwith the real world, which must behard if everybody’s telling you howgreat you are. CEOs need to keepthinking about how lucky and hownon-special they are.

New MBAs should think less aboutcompensation to determine theircareer choice and more about whatwould really get them excited about ajob – were they really born to be afinancial analyst?

NT: What do you look for when you’rehiring?EH: My decision isn’t based on IQpoints. It’s based on my perception ofsomeone’s ability to relate well topeople, peers, fellow management andtheir staff, and operate as a team.“Silo mentality,” “management is notaligned” – that’s code for “Bob andMary can’t get along.”

Audience QuestionsQ: If the government were to restruc-ture its stake in Fannie or Freddie orto be able to be repaid, could theGSEs be part of a future privatefinancing in the mortgage market?

Freddie Mac CEO Ed Haldeman was interviewed by The Wall Street Journal'sNick Timiraos at a CEO Series event in March.

(From left to right): Nick Timiraos, Ed Haldeman and ProfessorMatthew Richardson

28 Sternbusiness

Prospectus department after having been a professor at NYU for six years. She is also the direc-tor of the Center for Innovation in Teaching and Learning. Sosulski’s scholarly inter-ests include social media, small business entrepreneurship, information visualiza-tion, and educational technology. Assistant Professor Arash Asadpour earned aPhD in management science and engineering from Stanford University. His researchfocuses on modeling, analyzing, and improving complex systems where optimizationand game theory both play important roles. Assistant Professor SrikanthJagabathula’s research interests involve understanding how to handle and extractuseful insights from the large quantities of data being generated by businesses. Hereceived a PhD in electrical engineering and computer science from theMassachusetts Institute of Technology. Assistant Professor of Statistics PatrickPerry’s research interests are in modern multivariate statistics, a combination ofhigh-dimensional inference and efficient methodology for emerging data sources. Heearned his PhD in statistics at Stanford University.

The marketing department added three new assistant professors: BryanBollinger, Hal Hershfield, and Masakazu Ishihara. Prior to joining Stern,Bollinger earned his PhD in marketing from Stanford University, and was anAmerican Marketing Association Sheth Foundation Doctoral Consortium Fellow in2010. His current research includes the study of solar panel markets, the effect ofcalorie posting laws on consumer choices, and green technology adoption by drycleaning firms, for which he has been awarded grants from both the National ScienceFoundation and Environmental Protection Agency. Hershfield received a PhD in psy-chology from Stanford University, and his research focuses on judgment and deci-sion-making and social psychology. Ishihara, who earned his PhD in marketing fromthe Rotman School of Management at the University of Toronto, has research inter-ests focusing on quantitative marketing and empirical industrial organization.

Nathan Pettit, who earned a PhD in management from Cornell University, isan assistant professor in the management and organizations department. Hisresearch focuses on the behavioral and perceptual consequences of experiencingand desiring status. Assistant Professor of Management Claudine Gartenbergalso joined the department, after earning a DBA and MBA from Harvard BusinessSchool, where she graduated as a Baker Scholar. Gartenberg’s research focuses onthe connection between strategy and the internal organization of firms.

New Scholars Join NYU SternIn fall 2011, NYU Stern welcomed 16 new tenured, tenure-track, and clini-

cal faculty members. Professor Paul Romer, a world-renowned economistwidely recognized for his contributions to New Growth Theory, joined thedepartment of economics and will lead Stern’s Urbanization Project, which theSchool is launching with a $10 million gift. Kim Schoenholtz also joined thedepartment as a professor of management practice, as well as director of theCenter for Global Economy and Business, after having been an adjunct profes-sor for two years. Schoenholtz is a panel member of the US Monetary PolicyForum. Until 2008, he was managing director and senior advisor in Citigroup’sEconomic and Market Analysis department, and he served as Citigroup’s globalchief economist from 1997 to 2005. The department of economics also wel-comed Assistant Professors Kei Kawai and Jidong Zhou. Kawai, whoreceived a PhD in economics from Northwestern University, will spend the fall of2011 as a Cowles Foundation Postdoctoral Researcher at Yale University beforejoining Stern in 2012. He is an applied microeconomist who is currently study-ing issues involving auction design. Zhou’s research fields include appliedmicroeconomic theory, industrial organization, and behavioral economics. Heearned his PhD in economics from University College London.

Tim Baldenius is the Vincent C. Ross Professor of Accounting and thechair of the department of accounting. Baldenius’s primary research interestsinclude managerial accounting, performance measurement, and corporate gov-ernance. Prior to joining Stern, he chaired the accounting department ofColumbia Business School from 2009 to 2011. The department of accountingalso welcomed Assistant Professor Xiaojing Meng, who earned her PhD fromColumbia Business School. Her research interests include financial reporting,corporate governance, and debt covenants.

Assistant Professor Aurel Hizmo joined the finance department after earn-ing a PhD in economics from Duke University. His primary research interests lieat the intersection of asset pricing, real estate, and urban and labor economics.

Four professors are new to the information, operations, and managementsciences department. Clinical Assistant Professor Kristen Sosulski joined the

NYU Stern faculty and guests gathered in Tisch Hall to honor the School’s existing faculty chairs andto celebrate this year’s recipients of endowed chairs. Dean Peter Henry and Vice Dean of Faculty IngoWalter recognized Stern’s current faculty chairs, each of whom was presented a captain’s chair.(above, from left to right) Professors Zur Shapira, Roy Smith, Richard Sylla and Lawrence White(left, from left to right) Professors Vicki Morwitz, Geeta Menon and Elizabeth Morrison

Award for “Towards a Theory Modelfor Product Search” at the 20thInternational World Wide WebConference (WWW 2011), the pre-mier international event for Internet-

Co-authors Anindya Ghose andPanagiotis Ipeirotis, associate pro-fessors of information, operations, andmanagement sciences, along with PhDstudent Beibei Li won the Best Paper

Natalia Levina, associate professor of information,operations, and management sciences, Anne-Laure Fayardfrom NYU’s Polytechnic Institute, and Karim Lakhani ofHarvard Business School, were awarded a $398,314 grant fromthe National Science Foundation based on the VirtualOrganizations and Sociotechnical Systems program forresearch on open innovation and crowdsourcing. The three-year grant will provide funding for their research, “Open

Innovation Intermediaries: Brokering Technology and the Wisdom of the Crowds.”

Sternbusiness 29

Rankings, developed under NobelLaureate Robert Engle, MichaelArmellino Professor of Finance, alongwith Lasse Pedersen, John A. PaulsonProfessor of Finance and AlternativeInvestments; Thomas Philippon, asso-ciate professor of finance; and MatthewRichardson, Charles E. SimonProfessor of Applied Economics andSidney Homer Director of the SalomonCenter for Research in FinancialInstitutions and Markets.

On June 15, Research ProfessorRalph Gomory testified before the US-China Economic and Security ReviewCommission’s hearing on “China’s Five-Year Plan, Indigenous Innovation andTechnology Transfers, and Outsourcing.”

Nobel Laureate and ProfessorMichael Spence exam-ines the rapid economicgrowth occurring indeveloping countriesas they catch upwith the industrial-ized West in his book,The Next Convergence, (Farrar,Straus and Giroux, 2011).

In The Little Book of Valuation(Wiley, 2011), Professorof Finance AswathDamodaran provides,in easy-to-understandlanguage, how to valuestocks in order to make

better investment decisions. The book

was selected in The Wall Street Journal’s2011 summer book list.

Stern faculty, together with theCentre for Economic Policy Research,have published an e-book of the pro-ceedings of the June 27, 2011, confer-ence, “The Dodd-Frank Act – One YearOn,” hosted by NYU Stern and The PewFinancial Reform Project in

Washington, D.C. Professor of

Accounting BaruchLev explains howcompanies can dealwith Wall Street andinvestors, and boosta company’s

earnings and stock pricein his book,Winning InvestorsOver: SurprisingTruths About Honesty,Earnings Guidance, andOther Ways to Boost Your Stock Price(Harvard Business Press, 2011).

RichardSylla, HenryKaufman Professorof the History ofFinancial Institutionsand Markets andprofessor of eco-nomics, received the

Lifetime Achievement Award from theBusiness History Conference, the leadingprofessional association of business his-

Sinan Aral,assistant professorof information,operations, andmanagement sci-ences, headlinedthe TEDx SiliconValley 2011 Talks,

presenting on social contagion andcausality. Aral studies contagion as a wayto understand how behaviors spread insocial networks, how those networks canpromote or contain behavior, and howthey can be used in viral marketing andproduct development.

Lawrence J. White, RobertKavesh Professor in Economics, testifiedin Washington, D.C., before the HouseSubcommittee on Oversight andInvestigations at its July 27 hearing on“Oversight of the Credit Rating AgenciesPost-Dodd-Frank.”

Viral Acharya, C.V. Starr Professorof Economics in the finance department,was selected by the European SystemicRisk Board to be one of the 15 membersof its newly established Advisory ScientificCommittee, where he will participate inimproving analytical methodologies fordetecting risk and assessing its impacts.Acharya was also named one of Treasury& Risk’s “100 Most Influential People inFinance,” in recognition of his contribu-tion to the NYU Stern Systemic Risk

torians, at its April conference.Clinical

Professor ofManagement andOrganizations JillKickul, director ofthe Stewart SatterProgram in SocialEntrepreneurship,

won the inaugural Distinguished SocialEntrepreneurship Award from IndianaUniversity’s Johnson Center forEntrepreneurship & Innovation and theInstitute for Social Impact.

Matthew Richardson, Charles E.Simon Professor of Applied Economics,received the Curriculum DevelopmentGrant, sponsored byDeutsche Bank, inrecognition of hisinnovative coursecontent in the springof 2011, describingthe causes leadingup to the financialcrisis of 2007 to 2009, the events of thecrisis, and the resulting financial legisla-tion enacted in the aftermath.

The 2010 Bernácer Prize, which isgiven annually to a European economistunder the age of 40 who has made out-standing contributions in the fields ofmacroeconomics and finance, wasawarded to Xavier Gabaix, Martin J.Gruber Chair in Asset Management andprofessor of finance.

s h o r t t a k e s

r e s e a r c h r o u n d u prelated research, drawing scholarsfrom across several disciplines andaround the world.

The NYU Abu Dhabi Institute hasawarded a grant to the Center forInterdisciplinary Studies in Securityand Privacy in Abu Dhabi to provideseed funding for aresearch center inAbu Dhabi that per-forms multidiscipli-nary research incomputer securityand privacy for bothacademic investiga- Vasant Dhar

Sinan Aral

Richard Sylla

Matthew Richardson

Baruch Lev

Jill Kickul

Natalia Levina

tion and practical applications.Vasant Dhar, professor and head ofthe information systems group anddirector of the Center for DigitalEconomyResearch, andAnindyaGhose, associ-ate professor ofinformation,operations, andmanagement sci-ences, have been appointed as two ofthe co-principal investigators for theproject.

Anindya Ghose

write that brands and religiosity areboth avenues through which individualscan express feelings of self-worth, andthat people generally tend to chooseone, to the exclusion of the other, as ameans of self-expression.

Brands enable people to express thatthey are meaningful, worthwhile humanbeings, deserving of good things in theirlife, according to the authors. Religionfulfills a similar function, assuringbelievers that they are loved, valued,and unique in the eyes of God. These

hoever named TrueReligion jeans knewwhat she or he was

doing. Over the past few decades, atleast since Madonna sang that it’s amaterial world, you may havenoticed that many people cherishbranded goods – particularly, butnot limited to, clothing (and, somewould argue, handbags) – with thesame devotion others save for reli-gion. The data show that people whopray at the altar of Prada, Ralph

Lauren, or Apple Computer aremost likely not religious in thetraditional sense.

The very concept may strikesome as profane, but NYU SternProfessor of Marketing TülinErdem and co-authors RonSchachar, Keisha Cutright, andGavin Fitzsimons demonstratedits legitimacy in their paper“Brands: The Opiate of the Non-Religious Masses?” In explainingthe phenomenon, the professors

W

Gimme That Old-Time Religion

By Marilyn Harris

BUT FOR THOSE WHO AREN’T RELIGIOUS,NAME-BRAND GOODS WILL DO

30 Sternbusiness

two avenues of self-expression aretypically mutually exclusive. A com-pensatory mechanism exists, saidErdem, such that “when an individ-ual expresses her self-worth via onemedium, be it brands or reli-gion, she needs the other medi-um less. Thus, brands and reli-gion function as substitutes inexpressing self-worth.”

Marketers have played foryears with the concept thatconsumers are apt to form quasi-religious connections to their prod-ucts – Apple early on anointed“evangelists” to represent its brandto exploit the religious association. Acontemporary strategy adopted bymany companies is to use socialmedia to create communities, if notcults, of devoted followers.

Science meets religionErdem and her co-authors set out

to explore distinct aspects of thebrand/religion relationship. Buildingon previous research in the field,they set up studies to measure therelationship between brand reliance(which they defined as the degree towhich consumers prefer brandedgoods over unbranded goods or storebrands) and religiosity (defined asthe centrality of religion to the indi-vidual as reflected in his or her atti-tude and behavior toward life).

First, to establish the correlationbetween brand reliance and religios-ity, the researchers did a preliminaryanalysis of secondary data on brandreliance and religiosity. They opera-tionalized brand reliance at the stateand county level, by counting thenumber of branded stores, such asApple, Macy’s, and Gap, and dis-count-brand stores such as K-Martin New York, California, and Texas –states with large, politically and reli-giously diverse populations. Tomeasure religiosity, they counted the

number of congregations per thou-sand people and the percentage ofself-reported church and synagogueattendance in each state. They thenregressed each measure of brand

reliance on each measure of religiosi-ty, controlling for income, education,and urbanization. This exploratoryanalysis showed a negative correla-tion between brand reliance and reli-giosity.

Next, to explore the nature of therelationship between brand relianceand religiosity, a series of surveys wasconducted on an online sample ofmore than 300 participants, of whomroughly two thirds were female, hav-ing a median age of 59. Two thirdswere Christian, and almost 90 per-cent were whites.

In one survey, participants wereasked to choose between branded andgeneric or store-branded products,with realistic price differences, intwo categories: self-expressive (e.g.,Ralph Lauren versus Target sunglass-es) and functional (e.g., Energizerversus CVS brand batteries).

Soul satisfactionParticipants were then asked to

describe the role of faith in their lives.The results showed that people whoregularly attended religious serviceswere approximately 20 percent lesslikely to select a name brand in theself-expressive category than thosewho did not attend services regularly.In the functional category, namebrands were less important to boththe religious and the so-called reli-gion-neutral folks. “When religiousbeliefs are salient,” Erdem wrote,

“individuals appear to have alower need for self-expressivebrands.” However, such a relation-ship between religiosity and brandreliance was not found to exist for

functional brands.Further surveys demon-

strated that there was a slid-ing scale among the religious-minded and their embrace ofbrands: the less religiouslooked more to brands as a

means of self-expression, whilethose who were more religiousexpressed themselves morethrough their faith than throughbrand-name goods. Additionally,this negative correlation betweenreligiosity and brand devotion wasstrongest among extroverts.

Especially intriguing was theauthors’ finding that whether reli-gion and brands acted as substi-tutes depended on the manner inwhich people were religious. Forexample, when religion served as asource of security, the negativecorrelation between religiosity andbrand reliance did not exist.Whether individuals were more orless materialistic made no differ-ence in the relationship betweenbrand reliance and religiosity.

“It appears that religion is mostlikely to reduce brand reliancewhen it serves as a source of self-worth expression,” the authorsconcluded, adding that the con-cept of self-worth appears to bethe key driver in the interestingrelationship between religiosityand brands.

TÜLIN ERDEM is professor of marketingat NYU Stern. RON S C H A C H A R isprofessor of marketing at Tel AvivUniversity and visiting professor at theFuqua School of Business at DukeUniversity, and K E I S H A CUTRIGHTand G AV I N F I T Z S I M O N S are pro-fessors of marketing at the FuquaSchool of Business.

“Brands enable people to express that they are meaningful, worthwhile human beings,

deserving of good things in their life, according to the authors. Religion fulfills a similar function, assuring believers that they are

loved, valued, and unique in the eyes of God.”

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Alumni News & EventsALUMNI RELATIONS

London 2011, he ld June 2 -5 , i n the hear t o f t he f i nanc ia l cap i ta l o f Eu rope, b rough t t oge ther hundreds o fa lumni and gues ts f rom a round the wor ld fo r a weekend o f i n te l lec tua l , cu l tu ra l , and soc ia l oppor tun i -t i es . To recap tu re the energy and exc i tement o f t he weekend, v i s i t s te rna lumni .nyu.edu /gac - london2011.

LONDON 2011: GLOBAL ALUMNI CONFERENCE

1. Dean Peter Henry welcomed alumni and guests in the John Madejski Garden at theVictoria & Albert Museum.

2. (From left to right) Stefano Russo (MBA ’81), Dean’s Executive Board, Co-Chairman,London 2011 Alumni Host Committee; Dean Peter Henry; Thor Björgólfsson (BS ’91),Dean’s Executive Board, Co-Chairman, London 2011 Alumni Host Committee; William R.Berkley (BS ’66), Chair, NYU Stern Board of Overseers; Julie A. Lucas, Associate Dean ofDevelopment & Alumni Relations

3. Professors Roy Smith and Al Lieberman (MBA ’63) at the closing dinner

4. Alumni enjoyed drinks, summer fare, and engaging conversation at the opening event.

5. (Left to right) Dean Peter Henry welcomed Rafiu Abina (MBA ’05); Gary Fraser (MBA’92), Dean of Students and Associate Dean of MBA Student Affairs; and John Anderson(MBA ’87).

6. Alumni and guests toured London as part of the conference social track.

7. Dean Peter Henry (right) concluded a session on the global economy with NobelLaureate and Professor Michael Spence (left), and Professor Paul Romer (center).

8. Alumni from Stern’s Executive MBA Program reconnected during an evening reception.

9. Sir Martin Sorrell, Chief Executive, WPP Group, engaged the audience during a ses-sion on “The Future of Advertising.”

10. Aswath Damodaran, Kerschner Family Chair in Finance Education and Professor ofFinance, discussed valuing luxury at the panel, "Innovation Module: The Future ofLuxury."

11. Jairo Riveros (MBA ’09) and Christopher J. L. O’Connell (MBA ’00), Chair of theNYU Stern Alumni Council, connected at the closing dinner.

12. Alumni dined and mingled at the closing dinner.

13. Trumpeters welcomed attendees to Guildhall London for the closing dinner.

14. Entertainers performed “West End” showstoppers at the closing dinner.

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NYU Stern is pleased to announce new opportuni-ties for members of our Haskins Giving Society, whichwill better align Stern’s esteemed giving society withthose of peer business schools and across NYU. Thisnewly expanded portfolio of offerings will providemembers with more networking opportunities,increased access to thought leadership, and mostimportant, an enhanced relationship with each otherand the School.

Haskins members enjoy opportunities, such as:◆ Your name listed in the Annual Dean’s Report◆ An invitation to the Annual Haskins Award

Dinner or the new Annual Haskins CocktailReception for Young Haskins Partners

◆ Exclusive access to networking and content-driven events throughout the year

Join the Haskins Giving Society today andexperience Stern, and your alumni network, likenever before. For questions, more information, or tomake a gift, please contact the Office of Developmentand Alumni Relations at (212) 998-4161 or visitwww.sternalumni.nyu.edu.

New Opportunities for Haskins Giving Society Members

On October 22, 2011, nearly 600 members ofthe Stern alumni community gathered in NewYork City to celebrate the Stern Reunion program.Honoring the classes of “1” and “6,” this uniqueinaugural event provided the opportunity forreconnecting, reminiscing, and reveling withfriends, fellow business leaders, and esteemed fac-ulty. Alumni attendees and their guests spent theday on the Stern campus, engaging with DeanPeter Henry, faculty and each other. An elegantevening at the Waldorf=Astoria followed, bringingtogether 10 classes and 50 years of graduates for anight to remember!

One Shared Experience Worth Celebrating

Stern Reunion 2011 Committee members (left to right) Bruce Berger (BS ’66),Richard Berke (BS ’66, MBA ’74), and Ronald Sheppard (BS ’66) convened to planfor the big event.

Sternbusiness 33

The annual NYU Stern Reunion tradition continues on October 13, 2012!At this festive gathering, Stern will honor alumni from the quinquennial reunion classes of

2007, 2002, 1997, 1992, 1987, 1982, 1977, 1972, 1967, and 1962. For more information on how to join your Reunion Committee or to make a gift in honor of your class,

visit the reunion 2012 website at www.sternalumni.nyu.edu/reunion2012.

MEMBERSHIP LEVELSChairman’s Circle $25,000+Haskins Founder $10,000 - $24,999Haskins Benefactor $5,000 - $9,999Haskins Investor $2,500 - $4,999Haskins Partner $1,500 - $2,499Haskins Fellow $1,000 (for MBA alumni 0-4 years out)Haskins Partner Associate $250 (for undergraduate alumni 0-4 years out)

$500 (for undergraduate alumni 5-9 years out)

Kenneth G. Langone(MBA ’60), ViceChairman, NYUTrustees and Vice Chairman, NYUStern Board ofOverseers, welcomesAdam Gold (BS ’05),Former Member of theAlumni Council andHaskins Partner, to theAnnual Haskins AwardDinner.

34 Sternbusiness

The 1900 Society was recently established torecognize the many alumni and friends who haveprovided for NYU Stern’s future by naming theSchool in their will.

Since its founding in 1900, Stern has engendereda spirit of collaboration unparalleled in businesseducation, one that supports and encourages itsyoungest members – our students – to achieve and tobecome the next generation of leaders. Members ofthe 1900 Society enable Stern to continue its com-mitment to preparing some of the world's best and

brightest students for a future that, in our ever-changing business climate, will not resemble thepast.

1900 Society members may designate their giftto a number of exciting initiatives, including schol-arships, faculty chairs, centers, and the Stern Fund.Their generosity will be recognized in our annualDean’s Report.

If you have any questions, please contact AllisonDeRaad, Assistant Director of Development, at(212) 998-0436 or aderaad@stern.nyu.edu.

LEAVE A LASTING LEGACY AT YOUR ALMA MATER

The NYU Stern community is a robust global net-work that includes business leaders and industry inno-vators. Take advantage of your NYU Stern connections,linking you to information, advice, and opportunities,by attending one of many alumni events worldwide.

Visit the online alumni calendar at NYUSternConnect (www.sternalumni.nyu.edu/events) toview all of the exciting events in 2012, including AfterMarkets Hours, networking receptions, reunions, andother events connecting you with notable alumni, world-renowned faculty, and the ideas that challenge business-as-usual.

Event information is also sent through e-mail. Toensure no announcements are missed, log in to your NYUSternConnect account at www.sternalumni.nyu.edu toupdate your profile and contact information, and addalumni@stern.nyu.edu to your safe sender list in your e-mail service.

If you need assistance accessing your NYUSternConnect account, please contact the Office ofDevelopment and Alumni Relations at (212) 998-4040or alumni@stern.nyu.edu.

2012 NYU STERN ALUMNI EVENTSNetwork with Fellow Alumni, Engage with Industry Experts,

Learn from Faculty Greats

Alumni gather at events on campus (left) and in their region (right) to network, socialize,and gain insight on business topics and trends.

100,000+ alumni in more than

100 countries worldwide

Connect today through NYU

SternConnect, your exclusive

online alumni community.

Who�s in Your Network?

CONNECT | NETWORK | ENHANCE YOUR CAREER | STAY IN TOUCH | VOLUNTEER | INVEST IN THE SCHOOL

Log on to NYU SternConnect at www.sternalumni.nyu.edu to discover your global alumni network today!

Sternbusiness 35

Keep Current – Stay ConnectedHave you changed your name, job, or address? Update your informa-

tion online using NYU SternConnect or by calling (212)998-4040 to receiveimportant updates about the School, information on career services, andinvitations to alumni events in your area. Help us be environmentallyresponsible by providing your email address. When possible, we will sendalumni content electronically.

Chinwon Park and his family meet with NYU President John Sexton during his recent visit to Korea. (Pictured from left to right) Jessica Park (BS ’07); Stern freshman Seungwon Park; Chinwon Park (MBA ’93);Debra LaMorte, NYU SVP for Development & Alumni Affairs; NYU President John Sexton; Geewon Park (MBA ’90); Yewon Park (BS ’09); and Taewon Park (MBA ’96) (Not pictured) Yongsung Park (MBA ’69),Sukwon Park (MBA ’99), and Brian Park (BS ’11) The group stands in front of a statue of Chinwon Park’s grandfather, founder of Doosan Group. See page 37 for a full profile on Chinwon Park.

Build Your NetworkThe Stern community is 90,000+ strong in more than 100 countries.

It includes 500 CEOs and access to alumni at leading companiesacross all industries. Make career connections and find friends on

Facebook, LinkedIn, Flickr, and NYU SternConnect.

1960sWilliam L. Singer (BS ’61), of Hollis,NY, is on the National Executive Committeeof the Jewish War Veterans of the USA andwas the past department commander inNew York.

1970sJohn R. Buran (BS ’71, MBA ’77), ofNew York, NY, is to serve as MemberDirector of the Federal Home Loan Bank ofNew York.

Peter Guang Chen (BS ’75), ofHolmdel, NJ, has joined Charles RiverAssociates as Vice President in the TransferPricing Practice.

1980sLise Barbanti (MBA ’80), ofBronxville, NY, was appointed CMO ofTunecore.com, a music distribution com-pany. Previously, she was CMO at FrontierCommunications.

Craig L. Mattoli (MBA ’80), opened thefirst foreign-run gallery of Chinese Art,Leona Craig Art, in Guangzhou, GuangdongProvince.

Elizabeth T. Hirsch (MBA ’81), ofHewlett, NY, has been named VP andController of Praxair, Inc.

John D. Demsey (MBA ’82), of NewYork, NY, has been named to the Board ofDirectors of the Jones Group Inc., a globaldesigner, marketer, and wholesaler of morethan 35 brands.

Elyse Douglas (MBA ’83), of Cos Cob,CT, has been named to the Board ofDirectors of Assurant, Inc., a provider ofspecialty insurance and insurance-relatedproducts and services. Douglas is EVP andCFO of Hertz Global Holdings Inc., and theHertz Corporation.

David B. Readerman (MBA ’83), ofDenver, CO, has been named PortfolioManager for Forward Management, LLC.

Susan Skerritt (MBA ’84), of Brooklyn,NY, has been named EVP of BusinessStrategy, Development, and Investment atthe Bank of New York Mellon.

Francois R. Teissonniere (MBA ’85),of Paris, France, has been named SeniorManaging Director of Mesirow Financial.

John A. Fry (MBA ’86), of Lancaster, PA,has been named President of DrexelUniversity. He was previously President ofFranklin and Marshall College in Lancasterand was a former University ofPennsylvania executive.

Todd E. Korren (BS ’86, MBA ’94), ofRoslyn, NY, has been promoted to EVP andDirector at Swig Equities, LLC.

Brian Todd Schreiber (BS ’87), of NewYork, NY, has been named EVP of Treasuryand Capital Markets with AIG.

Ian N. Bernstein (MBA ’88), of Towaco,NJ, has been appointed Director of CeresManaged Futures, LLC.

Claudia B. Slacik (MBA ’88), of NewYork, NY, has been named Director atMartha Stewart Living Omnimedia.

Marc E. Brown (MBA ’89), of Seattle,WA, has been named Independent Non-executive Director of Access Industries.

1990sAlexander Grinberg (MBA ’90), of NewYork, NY, has been named to the Board ofDirectors of Movado Group, Inc.

Dale P. Westhoff (MBA ’90), of NewYork, NY, joined Credit Suisse as GlobalHead of Structured Products Research.

Luis A. Zaldivar (BS ’91), of New York,NY, has been promoted to ManagingDirector of Palladium Equity.

Elliott Kugel (MBA ’91), of Skillman, NJ,was named in Barron’s magazine as one ofthe “Top 1,000 Advisors in America” andwas recognized as one of the top Advisors inNew Jersey. Elliott is SVP of Investments atMerrill Lynch in Bridgewater, NJ.

c l a s s n o t e sSend us your news, update your contact information, and access the contact information of your fellow alumni throughNYU SternConnect, Stern’s online alumni community, at www.sternalumni.nyu.edu.

You could say that Pamela Craig isin the business of giving advice.Working with clients across a numberof industries for more than 20years before taking on the role ofChief Financial Officer at Accenture,Craig has spent most of her careerdirecting those who seek counsel,both professionally and personally.

“I believe mentoring and coachingthose who will follow us is our ulti-mate calling,” said Craig. “It is anopportunity to strengthen the nextgeneration of global leaders.”

Craig began her post-collegiate leadership journey in1979 at Accenture, practicing as a Certified PublicAccountant for three years. While pursuing an MBA at NYUStern, Craig transitioned from auditing to consulting andbecame Partner in 1991.

Craig credits Stern with helping her to prepare for “themost interesting and challenging” position of her career. Sheexplained, “The preparation and skills that I received at Sterngave me the opportunity to have this role as CFO.”

Over the course of her five years as CFO at Accenture, Craighas served as a close business advisor to two CEOs, providedexpert testimony to the SEC, informed shareholders throughthe delivery of quarterly earnings calls, and counseled bothpublic and private companies as an active member of theirboards. Craig’s career has been defined by her remarkable abil-ity at, and dedication to, creating mentor relationships bothinside and outside her office walls, even on a global scale.

Ten years ago, while working for Accenture in Japan, Craigobserved an absence of females in executive roles. She madeworking with women on their personal and professional devel-opment a priority. “We created a formal program, connectedpeople, and helped some senior women become established.Since then, participation in the program has grown significant-ly, and I’m still involved today,” said Craig.

At present, while traveling on business between NorthAmerica, South America, Asia/Pacific, and Europe, Craigmakes a point of meeting with groups of women in the work-place to share career advice and discuss what’s on their minds.“These meetings help me understand what and how people arethinking and, ultimately, make better business decisions,” saidCraig. “Although, what I value tremendously is helping otherwomen achieve their dreams and helping more women attainsenior ranks.”

Craig suggests that bestowing guidance is only half theequation when it comes to helping others. “What makes me agood advisor is being a good listener: my ability to understandand synthesize. Being a good ‘noodler’ helps too.”

A d v i c e W o r t h Ta k i n g

Pamela Craig (MBA ’84)

36 Sternbusiness

Troy Prince (BS ’92), of Bronx, NY, hasbeen named to the trading team at MerlinSecurities. Prince was most recently a US andAsian Equity Trader with RBC CapitalMarkets.

Maryam Ayromlou (MBA ’93), of NewYork, NY, has been named SVP of the publicrelations firm Ruder Finn, Inc.

Colleen F. Rush (MBA ’93), of PortWashington, NY, has been named to thenewly created position of EVP and ChiefResearch Officer at MTV Networks.

Louis Di Franco, Jr. (MBA ’94), ofNewtown, PA, has been promoted to Head ofInsurance Services at the Bank of New YorkMellon.

John P. Boylan (MBA ’95), of Houston,TX, has been named CFO of ProbeResources, Ltd.

Adam C. Guild (MBA ’95), of BeverlyHills, CA, has been named President andCEO of HUNGRY? City Guides.

Eric P. Wolfeiler (MBA ’95), of Fairfield,CT, has been named Group Director with PertGroup.

Henry Taibo (BS ’96), of Malverne, NY,has been named EVP of CorporateDevelopment for Antares Shipmanagement.

John Melvin (MBA ’96), of Riverside, CT,has signed on as Managing Director andGlobal Head of Insurance Fixed IncomePortfolio Management at Goldman SachsAsset Management. Prior to the move, he wasa managing director at Deutsche InsuranceAsset Management.

Isaac Zion (MBA ’96), of Rye, NY, hasbeen named a Co-CFO of SL Green RealtyCorp.

Scott B. Flaherty (MBA ’97), of Clinton,CT, has been promoted to SVP of Financeand CFO at Colt Defense, LLC.

John A. Hamel (MBA ’97), of BalboaIsland, CA, joined ROTH Capital Partners,LLC as Managing Director.

Nick C. Liu (MBA ’97), of San Marino, CA,has been named Independent Director ofGigaMedia Limited.

Jessica L. Cohen (BS ’98), of New York,NY, and Andrew Jacob Weber were marriedin February at Stage 6 at Steiner Studios inthe Brooklyn Navy Yard.

Harry Prassakos (BS ’98), of Wayne, NJ,and wife Sandy announced the birth of theirdaughter, Angela, who was welcomed by bigbrother George.

Chinwon Park’s matriculation at NYU Stern did not mark thenative Korean’s first encounter with New York City. Although hehad been living in Korea for nearly two decades before embarkingon his MBA journey, Park had resided in New York as a toddlerwhile his father attended NYU Stern in the late 1960s.

“Returning to New York to pursue my MBA was meaningful tome both personally and professionally,” Park reminisced.

Majoring in marketing and international business, Park choseStern for the practicality of its curriculum and its global focus. Withjust under a year of work experience when he entered the full-timeMBA program, he recognized the value of “learning from fellow stu-dents coming from various fields and countries, while being exposedto a global atmosphere.”

Park began his post-MBA career in 1993 with Doosan BeverageCo., which was the largest Coca-Cola bottler in Korea at the time.He then did a brief stint at the Tokyo branch of Doosan Corporation, founded by his great-grandfather in 1896 and today Korea’s oldest and fastest-growing company, with operationsacross Europe, the Americas, and Asia. Park next moved to the corporate headquarters of theDoosan Group, where he managed internal consulting, new business development, and M&Afor seven years. When Doosan Corp. acquired Daewoo Heavy Industries and Machinery in2005, he joined as director of the strategy department.

Just as his father had influenced Park’s decision to pursue his graduate business degree atStern, another family patriarch had inculcated the values of perspicacity and humility. Parkexplained, “My grandfather insisted, you must work for other people and understand what itis like to be an ‘employee’ first and then you can lead the family business.”

In 2007, Park became chief of the forklift division of Doosan Infracore. “At the time of myentry with the forklift division, I was head of all operations globally. By the summer of 2008, withthe onset of the global economic crisis, I realized we had real issues with internal processes.”

“It was a rollercoaster,” he recounted, “I rode it to the top and then back down for nearlytwo years.” Over that two-year period, Park made some of the most difficult decisions of hiscareer and, with a series of calculated risks, was ultimately rewarded. By 2010, the divisionwas profitable once again, and in 2011 it was spun off as an independent company namedDoosan Industrial Vehicle.

Viewing this turnaround as one of his defining professional accomplishments, ChinwonPark now serves as CEO of Doosan Industrial Vehicle Co., Ltd., an infrastructure support busi-ness of Doosan Corp.

Today, with approximately 70 percent of his company’s transactions occurring overseas,Park attributes his success on the global stage to Stern. “[Stern] gave me the ability to under-stand what is happening outside of my family, my company, and my country, and how to coop-erate with global partners.”

With eight family members who are fellow “Sternies,” Park takes real pride in his associa-tion with NYU and Stern. “At first, I was affiliated with the Korean NYU alumni association,”he explained. “That was a good starting point.” Park currently serves on the NYU Stern Dean’sExecutive Board and views himself as “a connecting point between the School and Koreanalumni.”

A F a m i l y A f f a i r

Chinwon Park (MBA ’93)

Ivan Wanat (MBA ’98), of New York, NY,has been appointed Director of BusinessDevelopment of Arrow Capital Management,LLC. Prior to joining Arrow Capital, Wanatwas a Principal at Atlantic-Pacific Capital.

George J. Pagano (BS ’99), of StatenIsland, NY, has been elected to Partner in theBankruptcy and Creditors’ Rights Practice of

Katten Muchin Rosenman LLP.

Thomas J. Nestor (MBA ’99), ofMadison, NJ, has been named EVP ofFinance with Wolters Kluwer Corp LegalServices.

Scott Stanley (MBA ’99), of Bethesda,MD, has accepted an attorney position in the

Sternbusiness 37

When Vanessa Reggiardo finds something she likes, shesticks with it. Completing both her undergraduate and gradu-ate degrees at NYU Stern, Reggiardo has enjoyed a quarter-century-long journey in the beauty industry that has definedher career.

A native New Yorker, Reggiardo admits that she stumbledupon business and beauty marketing. She took on part-timejobs throughout college in a quest to discover her personal andprofessional passions, and tried out a few majors, too. “I start-ed out at NYU as a language and art history major,” recountsReggiardo, “but switching to finance and international busi-ness was the best decision that I could have made.”

Upon graduation in 1989, a family friend encouragedReggiardo to apply for an entry-level position at L’Oréal.There, she began as a secretary and quickly ascended the

ranks of the organization. Reggiardo explained, “I attribute my success, in part, to thewonderful people for whom I worked.” Lynn Emmolo (BS ’84) was one of those people.A fellow Stern alumna, Emmolo would later recruit Reggiardo to join her at AVON.

While at L’Oréal, working in the cosmetic & fragrance retail division, Reggiardoreturned to Stern part time to pursue an MBA in marketing and international business.“Working and going to school at the same time was challenging but the exposure to oth-ers who were also working gave me a tremendously well-rounded experience and helpedme to know what I wanted to do next.”

With encouragement from Emmolo, Reggiardo made the transition to AVON’s globalskincare marketing team in 1995. During her subsequent 15-year career with AVON,Reggiardo has held positions across the various beauty categories, in both a global andNorth American capacity. As vice president of the company’s global color category, sheled the turnaround of one of AVON’s largest categories. Reggiardo and her team workedwith their local and regional matrix partners to help deliver 17 consecutive quarters ofgrowth, gaining significant market share, globally.

Most recently, Reggiardo was appointed as President and General Manager of themark. brand, a separate and distinct division of AVON. Reggiardo is responsible for thecompany’s long-term growth strategies as well as overseeing the mark. core businessunits in North America, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, and Canada. Launched in2003, mark. is described as an expertly edited beauty and fashion boutique brand thatconnects, engages, and empowers women.

“There’s something to be said for loyalty, loving what you do, and knowing that it’shaving an impact,” said Reggiardo. “Consistent with the values and principles of parentcompany AVON, the mark. experience gives women the opportunity to make their markthrough economic empowerment, financial and social responsibility, and self-confi-dence.”

With three sons, ages 13, 12, and 9, Reggiardo can be found on the weekends cheer-ing from the sidelines of their soccer matches. She’s recently taken up tennis and teach-es Sunday school with her husband as well. She shares her NYU pride with her motherJosephine Contrastano (BA ’86), and her sister and fellow Stern alumna MelissaContrastano Shenker (BS ’91, MBA ’02).

“It’s all about the team,” Reggiardo emphasized. “You can’t do anything alone. Myadvice: surround yourself with kind and talented people and know that everything hap-pens for a reason.”

M a k i n g a L a s t i n g M a r k

Vanessa Reggiardo (BS ’89, MBA ’96)

Market Abuse Unit at the US Securities &Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C.

2000sStephen L. Tobias (MBA ’00), of Westport,CT, has been named SVP and ManagingDirector at MarketShare, Inc.

Todd Jones (MBA ’01), of Lititz, PA, hasbeen named President of Willis North America.

Travis Cai (MS ’01), of Beijing, China, hasbeen appointed CFO of China-Biotics, Inc. Hepreviously served as Director of Finance atVimicro International Corp., from 2007 to2009. Both companies are operating in Chinaand listed on NASDAQ.

Bryan W. Keane (MBA ’02), of WhitePlains, NY, has been named Co-PortfolioManager of Alpine Global Consumer Growth.

Alejandro A. Latorre (MBA ’02, MS ’03),of New York, NY, has been promoted to VP inAIG relations of the Federal Reserve Bank ofNew York.

Lewis Fan (MBA ’03), of Harrison, NJ,joins Rodman & Renshaw, a full-serviceinvestment bank, as Managing Director andSenior China Analyst. Prior to joiningRodman, Fan was CFO of China-Biotics, Inc.

Hiroshi Harada (MBA ’03), of Stamford,CT, has joined HedgeMark as ManagingDirector and Head of Research.

Neal J. Goldenberg (MBA ’04), of UpperSaddle River, NJ, has been named President ofPolymer Technologies, Inc.

Matthew P. Johnston (MBA ’04), of JerseyCity, NJ, has been promoted to CMO of uTestSoftware Testing.

Timothy P. Mcalea (MBA ’04), of NewYork, NY, and Courtenay Carolan White weremarried in March at the St. William CatholicChurch in Naples, FL.

Valerie Susskind (MBA ’04), of Bronx, NY,launched TreZ’ Unique, an online retailer forchildren’s fashion.

Steven Golus (MBA ’05), of New York, NY,joins DataXu as Vice President of Sales and

38 Sternbusiness

Daniel W. Holmes, Jr., has always found satisfaction in see-ing the positive effects of his actions. This has been a constantin his life from the time he came to NYU Stern – at the time,called the School of Commerce – to his rise to ChairmanEmeritus of Morrison Products, Inc., a privately owned manu-facturer of fans and blowers.

After serving in the army in the late 1950s, Holmes’s busi-ness career began in 1960 in the management training programat Bankers Trust Company in New York City. With Holmes’sinterests in math, science, and history, and a hobby of coin col-lecting, he suspected banking would be a good fit. He alsoappreciated being able to see the results of his work.

“If I was involved with a loan to a mine, a factory, or a retailstore, I could see or learn about what people did with the

money lent,” said Holmes. “I could see the good work being done.”Holmes enrolled at NYU in the early 1960s to advance his career in banking. He

earned a bachelor’s degree in 1964 and an MBA in 1965. “There were many schoolsto choose from, but NYU had the best reputation for accounting, economics, banking,and finance,” Holmes said. “The School’s education was the foundation for what Iwanted to do.”

After receiving his MBA, Holmes went to work at Ford Motor Company in theOverseas Financing Department of the Treasurer’s Office.

In 1971, Holmes began working for a much smaller organization, Morrison Products,Inc., in Cleveland, Ohio. Unlike Ford, which had a presence in about 70 countries at thetime, Morrison had few factories and gave Holmes the opportunity to get closer to thecompany’s product.

Holmes began his career with Morrison in a manufacturing position and quicklymoved up the ladder. In 1972, he transferred to the sales department and continuedascending until 1984 when he was named CEO. He held this position for nearly twodecades and was elected Chairman in 2002.

It was during Holmes’s time at Stern that he studied the financial history of the US,one of his most memorable classes, with Economics Professor Herman E. Krooss.Holmes’s interest in US financial history aligned with his hobby of coin collecting, whichhe began early in life. In 1974, he started collecting in earnest, mostly old pennies mint-ed between 1793 and 1857. Holmes joined Early American Coppers, Inc. (EAC), anumismatic organization for people interested in early copper coinage and American his-tory, and he eventually became EAC president.

In 2008, Holmes was diagnosed with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, commonly knownas ALS or Lou Gehrig’s Disease. It was at this time that Holmes decided to sell the coins.After the sale, he generously invested $1 million in Stern. His gift will fund scholarships.

Holmes engaged in his hobby as he did his work, and, true to form, the end result isa positive and observable impact on the community.

S m a l l C h a n g e , B i g I m p a c t

Daniel W. Holmes, Jr. (BS ’64, MBA ’65)

Go-to-Market from Google, where he ledsales strategy for DoubleClick.

Kevin M. Nichols (MBA ’05), ofGreenwich, CT, and his wife Leah F. Nicholswelcomed their second daugher, CocoSienna, on September 7, 2010.

Adi Blum (MBA ’06), of New York, NY, hasbeen named VP at First Reserve Corporation,serving on the energy-infrastructure team.

Alexander Yavorsky (MBA ’06), of StatenIsland, NY, has been named ManagingDirector in Jefferies’ Financial InstitutionsInvestment Banking Group.

Narendra Chokshi (MBA ’07), of NewYork, NY, and wife Anu Kapur welcomed theirsecond child, Natasha Chokshi, onSeptember 1, 2010. Chokshi currently worksat Bank of America Merrill Lynch inInvestment Banking.

Jared C. Kushner (MBA ’07, JD ’07), ofLivingston, NJ, and wife Ivanka Trump wel-comed daughter Arabella Rose in July 2011.

Alan Katz (MBA ’08), of New York, NY, hasjoined Covanta Holding Corporation as VicePresident, Investor Relations; he will beresponsible for Covanta’s global investorrelations program, as well as the company’sfinancial press efforts.

Yusuke Ando (MBA ’09), Tatsuya Ikeda(MBA ’09), Yoichi Yamasaki (MBA ’09),of Tokyo, Japan, and Koki Masuhara(MBA ’10), of Astoria, NY, collaborated totranslate Restoring Financial Stability: How toRepair a Failed System, authored by Sternprofessors, into Japanese. The translationwas published in February 2011.

Jenna Bussman-Wise (MBA ’11), ofBrooklyn, NY, and Jayne Leslie Wise weremarried in June at the Barn at Gibbet Hill inGroton, MA. Bussman-Wise is an associatein the training program at Deutsche Bank inNew York.

Matthew Doria (MBA ’11), of New York,NY, and Carly Lynn Fraser were married inJuly at the Jonathan Edwards Winery in NorthStonington, CT.

In Memoriam

Charlotte Pearl Rubens Bloomberg (BS ’29)

Henry Taub (BS ’47)

Joseph R. Lasser (MBA ’51)

Armen Gregory Sarkisian (MBA ’78)

William F. May (Dean of NYU Stern, 1980-1984)

Nancy Ho (BS ’08)

Professor Aaron Hipscher

Sternbusiness 39

At commencement last May, DeanPeter Henry awarded the 50th annualNichols Award to John Paulson (BS,’78), president of Paulson & Co., thethird-largest asset manager in the world,managing approximately $36 billion ininvestments in global mergers, eventarbitrage, and credit and distressedsecurities.

A native of Brooklyn, Paulson, 55,started his fund in 1994. Among otherphilanthropic interests, he has sharedhis phenomenal success with NYUStern, where, said Dean Henry, “Hisexemplary investment judgment hasmost generously supported scholarships,faculty research (including two endowedchairs), and the recent renovation of ourspace at Washington Square.”

Paulson has also shared his time withhis alma mater, serving as a member ofthe NYU Board of Trustees and theStern Board of Overseers and participat-ing last spring in a forum where heinterviewed former Federal ReserveChairman Alan Greenspan (BA ’48, MA’50, PhD ’77, Honorary Doctorate ofCommercial Science ’05), in the epony-mous Paulson Auditorium.

Paulson follows a long line of illustri-ous Nichols Award recipients – the likesof Tom Watson Jr. of IBM, Laurence andDavid Rockefeller, Walter Wriston andJohn Reed of Citicorp, GE’s Reg Jonesand Jack Welch, Paul Volcker, FelixRohatyn, Jim Robinson III of AmericanExpress, Merck’s Roy Vagelos, andLillian Vernon, to name a few of the 50business legends who have been so hon-ored since the first award in 1961.

The past is presentThe Nichols name has long been

associated with Stern. Many alumniremember attending NYU’s businessschool when it was housed in NicholsHall at 100 Trinity Place in lower

and sewage disposal, while not glam-orous, “are of great importance tohuman health and comfort,” heacquired an incinerator company that,he discovered, had merely been care-taking its product. “You are not engi-neers,” he asserted. “You are merelymaintenance men for a product thatshould have been discontinued yearsago.” He cleared the decks and reengi-neered the product to state-of-the-artstandards. The company also designedmachinery for use in pulp plants andflash roasting furnaces.

Service was another of Walt’s pas-sions. During World War II, hedirected a salvage unit for theReconstruction Finance Corp. thatreclaimed unessential finished mate-rials to be converted into scrap forthe war effort. On a personal level,during the Depression, he used hisgreat wealth to keep many localworkers employed extending andtending his family’s magnificentNorman chateau and farm in WestOrange, NJ (which still exists, as anupscale event location). He alsosponsored a Sunday morning radiobroadcast of a Bible program andestablished a Presbyterian church inWest Orange. “The art of giving,” hesaid, “is the most difficult of all toacquire, yet is one of the most valu-able of human traits.”

Nichols died in 1961, but his legacylives on at Stern. Some of the proceedsfrom the 2007 sale of Nichols Hallwere earmarked to support a chair inbusiness ethics, currently held byProfessor Bruce Buchanan. This year’sPhD Nichols fellowship recipient isNatalya Vinokurova. And the 2011prestigious Nichols Award winner,Paulson, inherits Walt Nichols’s mantleof integrity, enterprise, and service. ■

MARILYN HARRIS is editor of STERNbusiness.

Manhattan. And dozens of PhD stu-dents have been generously supportedin the fifth and final year of theirstudies by the Nichols Foundation.

So just who was C.W. Nichols?“My grandfather was known as an

extremely ethical person,” recalledCharles Walter “Wally” Nichols IIIrecently. C.W. “Walt” Nichols, born in1875, was the second son of WilliamH. Nichols, one of the men behind theformation of General Chemical Co.,which became Allied Chemical Corp.,later Allied Signal, and now part ofHoneywell, the industrial giant anddefense contractor.

Walt Nichols inherited a good dealof Allied Chemical stock, but washardly an idle scion. After managingvarious units of General Chemical andheading another family company,Nichols Copper (eventually sold toPhelps Dodge), at age 60 he foundedNichols Engineering and Research Co.,which became a world leader in incin-erators and waste systems.

An engineering featSix foot, one inch tall and straight

as an arrow, Walt was an engineerthrough and through – albeit with amischievous streak. As an engineeringstudent at Cornell, he managed to puta horse on the roof of his dormitory –and ultimately get it down. Hisrefusal to rat out his accomplicesearned him an expulsion, and in trib-ute his schoolmates boycotted class tomarch him to the railroad station –whence he headed to New York toattend NYU.

While successfully managing hisGeneral Chemical and Nichols Copperresponsibilities, Walt really came intohis own after the latter was sold,when he founded Nichols Engineeringand Research. Declaring that garbage

PastPerformance

A Benefactor’s Legacy:The Nichols Award By Marilyn Harris

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40 Sternbusiness

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