Newsmakers
Alumni in the News
Raw, Done Well: Michael Klein (MBA '82)
An Admirable CEO: Reuben Mark (MBA '63)
Slam Dunk: Stephen Pagliuca (MBA '82) and H. Irving Grousbeck (MBA '60)
Thinking Inside the Box: Paul (MBA '84) and Peter Centenari (27th OPM)
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| The Kleins: welcome to "the most innovative restaurant of our time." Photo by Frankie Frost/Marin Independent Journal |
It's been five years since Michael Klein (MBA '82) has eaten anything cooked — not even tofu, which is made from cooked soybeans. “I've never felt better,” said Klein, who lives on about 800 calories per day, some 2,100 fewer than the intake generally recommended for an adult male.
As the New York Times (September 1, 2002) explained, Klein, “who made his fortune in data communications before dropping out to hang with the Grateful Dead and become an environmental advocate, is on the well-heeled vanguard of the hottest (or, in this case, the coolest) dietary trend: raw-foodism.” In Larkspur, California, Klein has bankrolled a 65- seat, gourmet raw-food restaurant called Roxanne's, named after his wife, who is also the establishment's chef.
Klein sold his final high-tech venture in 1994 and became, for a time, chairman of the Rainforest Action Network. He continues to serve on the boards of several nonprofits and is chairman and CEO of Modulus Guitars, a leading maker of guitars and basses for professional musicians. Many scientists and nutritionists scoff at raw-foodism, but Klein eschews proselytizing. “Roxanne's is about having a wonderful dining experience, period,” he said. “It's never been about, ‘We're going to make the world raw.' ”
The magazine Gourmet (October 2002), calling dinner at Roxanne's “an astonishing adventure in pure, sensual flavors,” declared it “simply the most innovative restaurant of our time.”
With CEOs being viewed in a harsh light these days, Business Week (September 23, 2002) profiled six corporate leaders who “have built enduring U.S. companies without bending the rules.” Among them was Reuben Mark (MBA '63), chairman and CEO of Colgate-Palmolive (CP), whom the magazine praised for his low-profile leadership, his focus on the company's core areas of expertise, and his success at continuous improvement of CP's operations. Over the years, Mark has steadily boosted profits while controlling costs, so that the price of a tube of Colgate toothpaste has not increased for a decade in the United States.
Mark has been with CP since graduating from HBS; with 39 years at the company under his belt, Business Week speculated about who might succeed him. But, the magazine added, one thing was clear: “For now, Mark is the standardbearer of his industry.”
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Stephen Pagliuca (MBA '82), H. Irving Grousbeck (MBA '60), and Grousbeck's son, Wycliffe, are the proud owners of a Boston institution: the city's NBA team, the Boston Celtics. Pagliuca, managing director at Bain Capital, Grousbeck père, a cable-television pioneer and former HBS professor who currently teaches at Stanford Business School, and Grousbeck fils, a Boston venture capitalist, purchased the team in September for $360 million, the Boston Globe reported (September 29, 2002).
Pagliuca, whose grandfather was a New York City shoemaker, played freshman basketball at Duke where, he confessed, “I was the slowest, nonjumping guard” on the team (Boston Globe, September 28, 2002). At HBS, he recalled, he was unable to get into the elder Grousbeck's HBS entrepreneurship courses because they were so popular. He met “Wyc” Grousbeck more recently, in 1995. “We're going to be very active owners in terms of caring about the players and making sure that everything is taken care of, making sure that the coaching staff has everything they need,” said Pagliuca, who will continue at Bain Capital. “Then we'll get out of the way and let them do their job.” The Boston Basketball Partners, as they are known, say they intend to emulate the standards of community involvement set by New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft (MBA '65) and his family, especially with regard to children's issues and education.
Back in 1988, Paul (MBA '84) and Peter Centenari (27th OPM), brothers who coowned a small Colorado investment bank, had grown tired of moving from deal to deal. They wanted to get back to the basics: running a low-tech manufacturing operation. While checking out a cheesecake company for possible purchase, “the brothers got sidetracked by the boxes in which the treats were shipped, and started down a road that led them from Denver and a world of high finance to Baltimore and a life of corrugated cardboard,” the Baltimore Sun (September 10, 2002) reported.
And so it was that the Centenaris bought Maryland-based Atlas Container Corporation and began to think inside the box. “We had no idea what the box industry was about; we had no idea that there even was an industry,” said Peter. “But now, unlike everyone else, when we get a gift at Christmas, we look over the box before we open it — how it was made, how well it was made, and who made it.” Today, Atlas has operations in three states, 350 employees, and about $70 million in annual revenues. The Centenaris think Atlas is a decade away from becoming a $300 million business, at which time they may sell, go public, or pass it on to their children. “Or we may continue to grow,” added Peter. “If you ask me ten years from now, I might say $1 billion is a good sales number.”
