The Governor’s Admission
John Lynch (MBA ’79), New Hampshire’s Democratic governor, stepped away from the State House last February to teach a case about globalization at the University of New Hampshire. A UNH graduate who majored in English, Lynch confessed that his only formal college encounter with economics had been a pass/fail course in the subject (Portsmouth Herald, February 17, 2006).
Emphasizing that “the world is going global” and that “no businesses out there can just compete locally,” Lynch used a case study to help students think about how they might prepare a company to meet those realities. Economists estimate that, despite its modest size, Lynch’s Granite State exports more than $2 billion annually in goods and services.
Lynch, who was inaugurated in 2005, entered politics after resuscitating national furniture-maker Knoll, Inc., where he turned sizable losses into hefty profits and increased workers’ benefits and compensation at the same time. He also has a law degree from Georgetown and served for a time as director of Admissions at HBS in the 1980s.
Utopian Vision
It’s one thing to dream of utopia; it’s another to actually invest in one. That’s what Boykin Curry (MBA ’94), a New York money manager, has accomplished by convincing an A-list of successful friends to buy into what he calls a “Creative Person’s Utopia” on the north shore of the Dominican Republic (The New Yorker, March 20, 2006). At the moment, his would-be utopia is an undeveloped 2,200-acre tract — nearly three times the size of Central Park — acquired for $50 million. Aiming for a highbrow clientele, Curry wrote in one pitch letter: “We are going to keep it Bohemian, and not filled with dentists who got lucky on the stock market.”
The development plan calls for a golf course with villas, a luxury boutique hotel, farms, a nature preserve and science research center, and a beach village with a nearby artists’ colony. Curry will maintain total control over all decision-making. And admission will be by invitation only issued by an independent board. Observed one enthusiastic supporter of Curry’s utopian project: “I don’t know anyone else who’s done anything like this.”
Sending a Message
In March, bankers, lobbyists, lawyers, and other messaging-intensive professionals heaved a collective sigh of relief and kept on thumbin’ like nobody’s business. Thanks to $612.5 million shelled out by the Canadian company Research In Motion (RIM) over a patent dispute, a shutdown was averted for its 3.2 million BlackBerry handheld e-mail devices in the U.S. market.
RIM was essentially forced to settle the case because the threat of a court-ordered injunction that would halt BlackBerry operations was spooking established and potential customers. Said RIM chairman and co-CEO Jim Balsillie (MBA ’89) of the settlement, “We were definitely feeling the effect of the case on our business. We took one for the team” (Steven Levy column, Newsweek, March 13, 2006). Observers have noted that NTP, the Virginia-based patent-holding company receiving the payout, has no products and no factories and that many of it patents were subsequently rejected after being reviewed by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.
Silver Lining
Despite the grim headlines, Sanjay Bhatnagar (MBA ’93) knows there’s a silver lining in Enron’s dark corporate cloud. In 1997, while supervising the company’s energy operations in South Asia, Bhatnagar worked with Andrea Miller, a member of Enron’s international finance team, on the $2.9 billion Dabhol power-plant project in India. As Enron began to emphasize energy trading over hard assets such as power projects and pipelines, the two independently decided to leave the company in 2000. They later reconnected in New York, and then became engaged last year.
Enron currently lives on as Prisma Energy International, a company formed to manage its physical assets, which, as it happens, are actively being sought after by private-equity groups from around the world. Said Bhatnagar, who has since founded THOT Capital Group, an energy partnership that buys power plants primarily in Europe, “The real story is what survived of Enron today. Ultimately, it’s the hard assets that are still successful” (Business Week, February 6, 2006).
Banking on Success
As president and CEO of JPMorgan Chase, the nation’s third-largest financial corporation, Jamie Dimon (MBA ’82) has a shot to prove whether the model of one-stop-shop for financial services really works. It’s a model he helped build at Citigroup before being pushed out by his boss and mentor, Sandy Weill, in 1998. Undaunted, he turned around a flagging Bank One, where he was chairman and CEO, and sold it in mid-2004 to JPMorgan Chase, where he immediately became president and, since January, CEO. Still committed to the supermarket model of banking, Dimon has a straightforward formula for success: “It’s all about having the best systems, the best people, the best products, and the best risk controls,” he told Fortune (April 3, 2006).
Since arriving at JPMorgan, Dimon has driven down costs, consolidated systems, and promoted a more aggressive sales culture. “If the market is convinced you’ll keep the cost line flat and that you have the discipline to raise revenues faster than your competitors, your stock price can rise in double digits,” he said.
Sleight of Hand
Camirand
Photo Courtesy Guy Camirand
It turns out that sawing ladies in half or pulling rabbits out of hats doesn’t worry professional magicians nearly as much as a bad case of dry hands. High-performance legerdemain, such as palming coins or making cards disappear, can be tough if hands are so moisture-free that objects won’t adhere slightly to the skin. Enter Guy Camirand (MBA ’70), inventor of Elite Magician’s Hand Lotion, which does the trick quite nicely — without making cards or coins all gooey.
Camirand, who has been a professional magician for nearly fifty years, is president of the Camirand Academy of Magic, a magic-products supplier in Quebec. “I use this lotion at least twice a week, minimum, and I probably go through an ounce, an ounce and a half a year,” he told the New York Times (February 19, 2006). “For most people who are amateur magicians, my four ounces of lotion will probably last five to ten years.” And, he adds, let there be no illusion: This is not a beauty cream.
