Club Events Reflect Diverse Student Interests
A Random Sampling of HBS Graduates in the News
Lawrence S. Kramer (MBA '74), who spent twenty years as a newspaper reporter and editor for publications such as the Washington Post and the San Francisco Examiner, was himself in the news last January. Kramer's financial information company, CBS MarketWatch.com, debuted with one of those breathtaking Internet IPOs - the company's stock went from $17 to $95.50 on its first day of trading. "It's the first pure-play journalism IPO," Kramer told USA Today (January 26, 1999), adding that the wonders of the Web are such that even "journalists have a chance to build something" in cyberspace.
Kramer is no stranger to entrepreneurship. In 1991, he created a sports data service that he sold three years later to Data Broadcasting Corp. (DBC), a firm that hired him to set up DBC News, where he founded MarketWatch. With Kramer as CEO, MarketWatch joined forces with CBS in 1997.
This year's IPO was an odd experience for Kramer the journalist: SEC rules prohibited MarketWatch from covering its own much-anticipated debut - or even from running stories by other news media that might mention it - so as not to unfairly promote its stock. Apparently, investors needed little prompting. After the dust had settled on that first day of trading, Kramer's personal stake in CBS MarketWatch.com was reportedly worth some $19 million.
Taking a good idea to heart, Mark Krasnow (MBA '96) and Jonathan Reis (MBA '96) have launched a 24-hour call-in and emergency service system, CardioResponse, Inc., to serve recovering cardiac patients and other individuals who may have potential heart problems.
Reis, a medical doctor and former emergency-room physician from Israel, explained that a similar service has operated in Israel for some ten years. "I was very surprised it didn't exist in the United States," he told the Boston Business Journal (January 114, 1999). Added Krasnow, "The [medical] system today doesn't really provide the resources people need. Patients are discharged from hospitals very quickly."
CardioResponse customers rent or buy portable EKG devices that render readings that may be transmitted over phone lines to the firm's Natick, Massachusetts, offices, where experienced cardiac nurses also field voice calls. Most calls are questions about symptoms or the advisability of various lifestyle behaviors. Calls involving symptoms undergo a triage process and are immediately referred to a doctor (preferably the patient's own). In cases of full-blown emergencies, CardioResponse alerts emergency services and hospitals and provides them with the patient's medical history, current data, and other necessary information.
Marketing itself to hospitals and insurance companies as a money-saving alternative to unnecessary emergency-room visits, CardioResponse, which took on its first customers last May, eventually hopes to expand well beyond Massachusetts.
A self-professed "guy from upstate New York," James R. Houghton (MBA '62) has recently become chief of one of downstate's toniest citadels of culture, the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Houghton, who retired as chairman of Corning Inc. in 1996, told the New York Times (January 12, 1999) that a principal facet of the job of Met chairman is that "you've got to watch to keep your place at the top of the pinnacle." Houghton takes over at the museum at a key time, with the Met in the midst of a campaign to raise $400 million.
The article also detailed Houghton's lengthy stint of physical therapy and rehabilitation after a near-fatal accident in 1993 when he was struck by a car as he stepped from a sidewalk in Colonial Williamsburg, Virginia. "Everybody says, 'Jeez, what a terrible thing,' " Houghton noted. "And I say, 'I'm so happy to be here, I can't tell you.' " Of her husband's rehabilitation, Maisie Houghton added, "He just behaved completely in character. He's a person of enormous energy, and he absolutely attacked it."
Houghton said the accident did not figure in his retirement at Corning, where, the Times observed, "he was often described as a visionary leader" during his thirteen years as chairman of the company.
With his enthusiasm and expertise in helping others polish their résumés, plot job search strategies, and execute savvy career moves, Robert S. ("Bob") Gardella has become a popular contact for HBS alumni since assuming the role of assistant director of Alumni Career Services (ACS) eighteen months ago. "My first priority is to respond directly to the needs of alumni customers," says the congenial Gardella. "I work hard to show them the value of calling on us."
The demand for ACS's services is steady, with between fifteen and thirty graduates receiving information packets each week. Gardella says he has interacted with more than 750 alumni since coming to HBS, "not including attendees at HBS presentations I've given on campus and on the road."
Many of ACS's most avid customers are newer graduates, who began their careers in an unpredictable environment of mergers and reengineering. Job changes are common among these younger managers, Gardella discovered from a poll that members of the MBA Class of 1993 conducted last year as part of their fifth reunion. Sixty percent had changed jobs at least once, 30 to 40 percent had done so at least twice, and 13 to 17 percent were on their third transition in five years. While the careers of many alumni shift frequently, 71 percent of the graduates who contact Gardella's office are currently employed while they consider their next career move.
"Often alumni call just to explore what we offer," Gardella notes, "and almost across the board, they're amazed at the breadth of the School's career services for graduates." In addition to a twice-monthly Jobs newsletter, available by subscription or free to alumni on the Web, these services include:
"But the most valuable service we provide is to support the incredible willingness of alumni to help each other," says Gardella. The online alumni directory, for instance, allows alumni to search jobs by categories such as industry, company, and geographic location. ACS is also available to help alumni fine-tune their résumés. Over three hundred graduates have taken advantage of this service in the last fifteen months.
Looking to the future, Gardella says that alumni will soon see a sleeker, more flexible version of the ACS online Jobs newsletter that will allow them to search for their dream jobs by categories such as function, geographic location, and salary.
by Eileen K. McCluskey
Contact Information:
Alumni Career Services, Wilder 302
Harvard
Business School
Boston, MA 02163
Telephone: 617-495-6587
Fax: 617-496-5699
Web site: www.alumni.hbs.edu
HBS Collaboration Helps Management Education for Minority Students
Five years ago, HBS professor Francis J. Aguilar (now emeritus) and
Walter Y. Elisha (MBA '65), then chairman and CEO of Springs Industries,
Inc., brought together a dynamic coalition of corporations and business
schools to address the challenge of increasing the number of minorities
embarking on careers in management. The Management Education Alliance
comprises several of the country's leading business schools (including
Harvard's), ten predominantly minority business schools, and thirteen
U.S. companies. Since its founding, the Alliance has become an important
force in fostering excellence in business education at institutions of
higher learning serving primarily African Americans and Hispanic
Americans.
"It is an issue of national importance that minority communities achieve economic success," Aguilar says. "So we want to help these students receive a first-class business education and help companies tap into this incredible talent pool."
When he first began visiting historically black colleges, Aguilar recalls, he discovered that few faculty members were conversant with the teaching of business practice. As a result, the Alliance concentrated initially on faculty development, leveraging HBS's strength in this area by launching a series of programs designed to connect professors to practice. The group has since sponsored workshops on the case method, interactive learning, and research techniques, among other topics, and enabled faculty to attend executive education seminars and participate in internships with member corporations.
In addition, the Alliance has put a priority on helping each school develop an educational strategy focused on business practice. "Developing competitive niches is particularly important for schools with limited resources and name recognition," Aguilar says. "To attract top students, they need to offer career opportunities by providing skills relevant to targeted corporations."
Recently, the Alliance turned its attention to connecting member corporations with talented minority students through internships and recruiting. In 1998 it began an "inside track" recruiting program, in which a faculty member from a minority school establishes a relationship with a particular company. He or she then identifies one or two high-potential students and encourages them to interview with that firm.
Another new Alliance program is a "Teaching with Technology" initiative. Harvard Business School hosted a workshop on this topic last June, and HBS Publishing has made new CD-ROM cases available to Alliance schools. "We're constantly evolving," Aguilar says. "It's very exciting. If we can help even two or three schools give their students a first-class management education, it will have a lasting impact on so many lives." by Anne Kavanagh
For more information on the Management Education Alliance, please contact Professor Aguilar at 617-495-6494, or e-mail faguilar@hbs.edu.
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