Seeing the Light
A Natural Balance
Carnival Queen
Slam Dunk
Debbie Cohen Scales Her Mountain
World Bank's Wolfensohn Highlights Challenges, Increased Role for Private Sector

Living in Los Angeles and working as a marketer for a global biotechnology firm, Jana Kirlin Brownell (MBA '83) saw her career path take an unexpected turn. More than once, her father had asked her to come home and take over the Kirlin Company, the family's Detroit-based commercial lighting business. But Brownell, happy in the health-care field, was hesitant to do so. On a visit home in 1986, however, things suddenly changed -- her father's health was in question.

After discussing the matter with her husband, HBS classmate Stephen Brownell, she decided the next day that she would leave her biotech job for Kirlin, a company her great-grandfather had founded. As she told the Detroit News (March 20, 2000), "Detroit is the hub of resources important to manufacturers like Kirlin. It was my first home. I could be part of the heartbeat of the city." For his part, Stephen also agreed that he would join the company on the manufacturing side, leaving behind a job in investment banking.

As it turned out, her father made a complete recovery and was able to continue with the company. But Brownell stuck by her decision, worked at Kirlin under her dad's tutelage, and eventually took over the top spot in 1996. Today, sales at Kirlin are 300 percent higher than in 1986; the company, which designs and manufactures lighting systems for commercial, institutional, and custom residential construction, has created lighting for a full spectrum of venues, including the Detroit Opera House, Euro Disney, Graceland, and O'Hare Airport.

Brownell herself has become a business luminary -- she was honored recently as one of ten "women of distinction" by the Greater Detroit chapter of the National Association of Women Business Owners.

Cavan Mahony and Ayla Hussain (both MBA '96) became friends and business partners through a mutual devotion to yoga and health -- and a conviction that beauty is more than skin deep. The two have joined with a third partner, supermodel Christy Turlington, to form SUNDÃRI, a New York-based company that produces all-natural oils, lotions, and skin cleansers from ingredients such as sandalwood oil, rose oil, and lavender.

SUNDÃRI means "beautiful woman" in Hindi, and in a TV interview on CNNfn's Entrepreneurs Only (March 17, 2000), Mahony explained that the company's products are based on the ancient Indian practice of ayurveda, "a holistic science about well-being, inner balance, and inner beauty." Ayurvedic medicine holds that a person's body type, or dosha, derives from the three elemental energies of air, fire, and earth; ayurvedic beauty treatments aim to correct imbalances among those energies and to suffuse one's inner radiance throughout the skin and complexion.

Mahony noted, "It's very much about skin, not makeup. Our products are simple, effective, and quick and easy to use." Added Hussain, "Just because it's healthy doesn't necessarily mean that it needs to be in a health food store or that it won't appeal to a luxury product consumer. We wanted to create something in a beautiful package, with high-quality, grade-A ingredients that are good for you."

In Chicago, Desirée Glapion Rogers (MBA '85) is known as a hardworking executive at Peoples Energy, a diversified energy company, and as the former head of the Illinois State Lottery. But ask folks in New Orleans about her and you'll get a different story -- to them, Rogers is royalty, none other than the Zulu Queen at the Big Easy's celebration of Mardi Gras.

The Zulu Queen presides for one year over the Zulu Organization, a New Orleans nonprofit that supports charities throughout the city. Rogers's reign is in honor of her late father, Roy Glapion, a New Orleans city councilman and longtime Mardi Gras supporter. "Mardi Gras is a wonderful thing that you don't really understand unless you get away from the city for a while," she told the New Orleans Times-Picayune (March 7, 2000). "Everyone can just come out of their door and experience, basically, a party; that's just not something that happens all the time."

Rogers, who also served as queen in 1988, paid tribute to her father for teaching her that "people are people -- it doesn't really matter what your position or income level is." She said she also learned that "what really matters is not being afraid of anyone regardless of how different they are from you . . . we can all come together to get something accomplished."

Slam Dunk Good news for basketball fanatics: Your obsession is only going to get worse, thanks to Scott O'Neil (MBA '98), president of HoopsTV.com, an Internet start-up based in Paoli, Pennsylvania. According to the Dow Jones News Service (March 9, 2000), Hoops, launched last November, is aimed primarily at the 17 million American males who play basketball and have access to the Net -- you know, the electronic one. As its slogan suggests, the company is serious about its game: "If basketball is your religion, HoopsTV.com is your church." HoopsTV.com's content will showcase interviews, features, and video, including games from some of the country's best playground leagues. "We want to be the No. 1 online basketball destination," said O'Neil, who cut his teeth in the sports business working in sales for the Philadelphia Eagles and the New Jersey Nets. He noted that "basketball has been a kind of cultural center for 25 years," influencing youth fashion, lifestyle, and music. These elements will also be a big part of HoopsTV, thus presenting a variety of revenue opportunities. O'Neil has signed on some big names (such as basketball analyst Bill Raftery and hip-hop producer DaddyO) to help make it all happen. "Our focus is on building a successful business," he said. "This is not your short-term, get-rich-quick type of Internet business."   RETURN TO THE TOP OF THE PAGE

"I never intended to write a book," says Deborah A. Cohen (MBA '87). Nor did she expect to be diagnosed with breast cancer at the age of 35. The author of Just Get Me Through This! The Practical Guide to Breast Cancer (Kensington Publishing), Cohen wrote the book that she wished she had upon her diagnosis -- a "road map" or "operating guide" for breast cancer patients. While Just Get Me Through This! includes medical information from her coauthor, Dr. Robert M. Gelfand, its primary intent is to help women manage the day-to-day decisions and details of living with breast cancer. She hopes that arming women with better information will encourage them to become more involved in their own care and lead to better results in their fight with cancer.

Cohen was working at Price Waterhouse as marketing director for the consulting practice when she discovered a lump in 1997. Because she was young, had recently had a baseline mammogram, and was told by her doctor that 80 percent of tumors are benign, she was surprised to learn that hers was malignant. Eight days later, she had surgery to remove the tumor and began six months of treatment that included chemotherapy and radiation.

Cohen's book includes practical tips, inspirational support, and medical insights. On the practical side, Cohen discusses how to find the right wig, get rid of the bad taste of chemotherapy, and ease the pain of mouth sores. At a more emotional level, she writes about why a spouse or close friend might act distant, how to maintain a routine and avoid depression, and how to involve others in the recovery process.

The easy-to-read advice Cohen presents comes from her own experience with the disease and from conversations with other patients, survivors, and professional experts. After collecting six notepads of information that she could not find elsewhere, she realized her research might help others as well. "The book is the collective wisdom of those who've been there, the anecdotal advice only a friend might tell you," observes Cohen. "Putting it all into a book was a healing process for me as well, helping me make sense of the experience."

Throughout her treatment, Cohen continued to work but cut back on her hours. "I wanted to maintain some sort of normalcy and routine," she says, noting that her friends, family, and coworkers were extremely supportive. She also credits HBS with playing an important role in her recovery and her book project, explaining that an HBS friend directed her to one of the world's leading breast oncologists upon her diagnosis. In addition, she notes with a smile, a sectionmate came up with the title of the book.

Reflecting on this life-altering experience, Cohen is considering a career transition into health care. "I'd like to apply my skills in marketing and communications to health and medical services. In particular, the e-health world is exploding with incredible opportunity."

This August, Cohen and 125 breast cancer survivors from America and Japan will climb Mt. Fuji along with medical, research, and public-policy personnel in a venture sponsored by the Breast Cancer Fund of San Francisco. The climb has been organized to raise awareness and funds for breast cancer research and to serve as a vivid symbol of the strength of those who have successfully battled the disease, as well as an inspiration for those who are confronting it. Cohen is looking forward to that challenge and plans on tackling it the same way she did breast cancer -- one step at a time.

-- Morgan Baker

For more information on either her book or the Mt. Fuji climb, please contact Cohen at debbie@justgetmethroughthis.com.

Describing his organization's mission as one focused on issues of poverty and equity, World Bank president James D. Wolfensohn (MBA '59) addressed the National Press Club in March. Wolfensohn took the helm of the Bank in 1995 after a successful Wall Street career. In a unanimous board vote last fall, he became only the third Bank president to be reappointed to a second five-year term. Excerpts from his speech, "The Challenges Facing the World Bank in the 21st Century," appear below.

World Poverty

"Today we have over six billion people on the planet. Three billion of them live on under $2 a day, and a billion two hundred million of them live on under $1 a day in what we call absolute poverty. Two billion of them don't have any electrical power. A billion and a half don't have any water. One hundred and twenty-five million kids don't go to school. There are too many people dying due to lack of vaccines, and the world is showing an increasing inequity in terms of the distribution of assets and income. The rich are getting richer, and the poor are getting poorer."

Digital Revolution

"We're entering a new age of global development -- not the agricultural revolution and not the industrial revolution, but a digital and electronic revolution, which will have enormous implications on where we go both in the world in general and in the developing world in particular."

Bilateral Involvement

"In our fifty-year history, the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund were the big guys on the block. We had the money. We were helping to reform a world after World War II and gradually mutated into an institution to assist in development. But we are no longer alone, and happily so. We have been joined by bilateral agencies, regional banks, government-sponsored development agencies, and civil society. In this time period, the flow of funds to developing countries has grown from $30 billion to $300 billion. So you have no longer just the Bank and the Fund giving a lecture from the mountaintop. The private sector has taken an increasingly important role in terms of economic life and of development."

Developed and Developing Countries

"The challenge of the next 25 years is not a challenge of us sitting in developed countries seeing what we can dole out to developing countries. If you think about the links of finance, economics, health, migration, trade, crime, drugs, and peace, pretty soon you are forced to the conclusion that what happens in the developing world is a significant issue for our children. In fact, I would say for my children that their peace and their future depends on the challenge of what happens with the 6.8 billion people just for the next 25 years."