Newsmakers
Career Makeover: Jackie Davis (MBA ’83)
The Wisdom of Crowds: Ted Zagat (MBA ’04)
On the National Stage: Chris Heinz (MBA ’01)
Interpreting the Gipper: Michael Beschloss (MBA ’80)
Big Brothers: Steve West (MBA ’68)
Stiletto Science: Brian Hughes (MBA ’79)
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| Davis: One-day wonders and domestic do-overs. Photo by Sean Dougherty |
Maximum utilization of assets on hand is a key to business success. It’s also an operating philosophy for Jackie Davis (MBA ’83), a former executive who’s now a TV personality and interior designer. When Davis does a redecorating makeover, she typically limits herself to what’s already in the home, with maybe a few widely available added touches she’ll bring in from outside. And often, by her own choice, she’ll do the job all in one day. “If I was rich, I would do it for free,” declared Davis, who previously spent twenty years in high tech. “That’s how much I love what I do” (Boston Globe, July 8, 2004).
Davis first worked at IBM before moving on to Digital. While there, she enrolled in night classes in interior decorating, a longtime interest. Through her membership in a design association, she was discovered by HGTV, which was looking for redesigners for its one-day decorating show, Decorating Cents. In addition to her TV gig and her one-day makeovers, Davis does traditional decorating and real-estate staging through RoomScape Interiors, her Wilmington, Massachusetts–based business.
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| Zagat Photo by Laurie Swope |
The judgments of many people regarding the merits of a restaurant, hotel, or bar trump a single reviewer’s opinion. That’s the philosophy behind the Zagat Survey leisure guides, and Ted Zagat (MBA ’04) has literally grown up with that concept: His parents founded the guidebook company 25 years ago, and he’s now its COO.
Zagat (pronounced “zuh-GAT”) worked for the company while at HBS and came up with the idea of introducing nightlife guides, which have become a successful part of the business, the Boston Globe reported (July 14, 2004). When out on the town, though, Zagat likes to keep a low profile. “He refuses to use his name to get a dinner reservation,” said his roommate, Matt Bakal (MBA ’04).
Zagat intends to expand Zagat Survey’s Web business (building Zagat.com’s content and capabilities) and its corporate sales (developing relationships with Fortune 500 companies interested in creating customized Zagat guides for their customers). “And now that I’m back home in New York,” he added, “I can check out all the great new nightspots that opened while I was in Boston.”
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| Heinz: While stumping hard for his stepfather, speculation about his own political future. Photo by AP photo/Steven Senne |
With the fall election season now in full swing, Chris Heinz (MBA ’01) is stumping hard for his stepfather, Democratic presidential contender John Kerry. Heinz is a Kerry supporter because of his stance on the issues — jobs and health care are particularly important to Heinz — but he’s also a fan for personal reasons. Heinz’s father, John Heinz (MBA ’63), a Republican senator from Pennsylvania, was killed in a plane crash in 1991.
It was Kerry, Heinz says, who helped his grieving mother, Teresa Heinz, regain her interest in life. “My dad’s death took a lot of color out of her sight and a lot of music out of her ears,” Heinz told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (June 17, 2004). “John Kerry brought that back.”
On leave from Jacobson Partners, a New York private equity firm, Heinz has seen his own future become the subject of much Kennedyesque speculation. “I really have no plans after November 2,” Heinz said (phillyBurbs.com, June 17, 2004). “If I could be half as successful as my dad and stepdad,” he added, “I would be a happy guy.”
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| Beschloss Photo Courtesy of The Newshour with Jim Lehrer |
Following the death of former President Ronald Reagan in June, presidential historian and author Michael Beschloss (MBA ’80) was frequently quoted in the media on his assessment of Reagan’s legacy. History’s verdict on Reagan, Beschloss wrote in Newsweek (June 14, 2004), will hinge more than anything else on one question: “How much credit does he deserve for the fact that the Cold War ended far earlier than almost anyone suspected — and on terms that Americans had fantasized about for 45 years?”
Reagan’s first-term efforts to escalate U.S.-Soviet competition forced the Soviet Politburo to install a reformer, Mikhail Gorbachev, rather than a hard-liner, Beschloss asserted. Then that same escalation caused Gorbachev to feel pressure “to make arms deals and improve negotiations with the West, which contributed to the unraveling of his empire.”
Beschloss was also on hand at the White House in June when President George W. Bush (MBA ’75) hosted Bill and Hillary Clinton at the unveiling of the Clintons’ official portraits. As the former President spoke, Beschloss’s cell phone very publicly went off, a particular pet peeve of the incumbent President. Explained the sheepish historian, “I’m afraid I’m so 19th century. I pressed the button to turn it off when I went into the room and accidentally turned it on instead” (Washington Post, June 16, 2004).
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| West Photo by Ken Stewart |
In 1970, Anthony Carter was nine when he was first paired up with Steve West (MBA ’68) through the Big Brothers/Big Sisters (BBBS) organization in Cincinnati. West had become a BBBS volunteer because, he told the Cincinnati Post (July 3, 2004), “I had been very fortunate in life, and I decided this was a chance for me to give a little back.”
Carter recently recalled that the two spent time together playing basketball, reading, and talking. “The fact that I was a black male child and he was a young white man wasn’t even an issue,” he added. “We were just friends.”
Still pals today, Carter, a Cincinnati police lieutenant, and West, president and CEO of Hospice of Cincinnati, remain BBBS supporters; both spoke at BBBS’s national convention last spring. “Big and little have become big and big,” West said. “Tony has accomplished so much and has become such a positive influence in this city, it makes me proud just to know him.”
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| Hughes: Forsaking space for a down-to-earth venture. Photo by Amber Novak |
MIT grad Brian Hughes (MBA ’79) is bringing technology to bear on what may result in a giant step forward for womankind. Imagine, gushed the Austin, Texas, American-Statesman (July 8, 2004), a high-heeled shoe “so cozy you can wear it all day, dance all night, and go to sleep without throbbing feet.” Or, as Hughes described it, “A shoe you can think in.”
Hughes is chairman of HBN Shoe, which owns Insolia, a biomechanically correct design that’s built into a heeled shoe and can’t be seen when the shoe is being worn. Nordstrom is currently the only retailer that sells Insolia shoes, under the Amalfi brand.
“I’ve run a rocket company, I’ve built transatlantic fiber cable,” said Hughes. “But if I go to a cocktail party and say, ‘Oh, I’m a CEO of a rocket company,’ after all the rocket scientist jokes are done, there’s not much people really want to talk about. But now I walk into a cocktail party, and half the people in the room are fascinated by what I’m doing.”
