O'KELLY AND KIDS: An idea grows up.
Photo by PETER FREY
Mom Corps
As a new mom doing freelance CPA work, Allison Karl O’Kelly (MBA ’99) had an idea for a start-up. The result is Mom Corps, which connects companies looking for top-tier, experienced talent with professionals seeking flexibility. It’s an idea whose time may well have come, as retiring baby boomers deplete companies of skilled and experienced workers. And O’Kelly has found that there is no shortage of mothers looking for a kid-friendly route back to corporate America.
Mom Corps, launched in 2005 and based in Atlanta, is on the move. Already turning a profit, it has expanded into four additional cities and has drawn favorable coverage in a variety of national and regional publications. O’Kelly, who recently won an entrepreneurship award from Working Mother (September 11, 2006), told the magazine that “it’s very empowering to run a business that’s making life better for parents.”
The Life of Bailey
For most executives, looking good and being fit are personal and professional goals. But as Richard Bailey (MBA ’81) notes, the business lifestyle, especially travel, often gets in the way. “Combine jet lag with hectic meeting schedules and gyms with weird hours and it’s just impossible to keep a routine,” he told the “What’s Your Workout?” column in the Wall Street Journal Online (November 13, 2006). When not traveling, Bailey alternates between regular swims and at-home workouts with weights and a rowing machine (he rowed at HBS). Bailey has extra incentive to keep up appearances — he is a resident of Tahiti and CEO of the resort-development company Tahiti Beachcomber. Sometimes he even wears a bathing suit to work, when he’s checking on the beaches or snorkeling sites at the properties he owns. “We show a lot of skin in Tahiti,” Bailey said. “It’s that basic vanity that keeps you a little on edge about physical conditioning.”
Bailey spoke proudly of another sort of conditioning: “Our seawater air- conditioning system at our Bora-Bora property saves two-thirds of the electricity used by a conventional system.”
BUCHANAN: LBS an asset to business around the globe.
Photo COURTESY LONDON BUSINESS SCHOOL
LBS Picks New Dean
When it came time for the London Business School to appoint a new dean, a ten-month global search turned up the right candidate close to home. Late last year, the school announced that it had picked London-based management consultant Robin Buchanan (MBA ’79), senior partner in the UK of Bain & Company. Buchanan replaces Laura Tyson (who once taught at HBS). Tyson resigned to return to teach at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, where she had previously served as dean.
Commenting on his appointment, Buchanan told the Times (November 8, 2006): “London Business School is an outstanding asset, not only to this city and this country, but also to business around the globe.” He expressed eagerness to help the school deliver on its mission to become the preeminent global business educator.
Buchanan is the seventh dean (the fifth, HBS professor John Quelch, preceded Tyson) in the school’s 42-year history. Last year, LBS graduated over 800 MBAs, Executive MBAs, Masters of Finance, and Ph.D.’s from more than seventy countries.
Eyeing the Dominoes?
Is America ready for another Harvard MBA as president? As the final years of the George W. Bush (MBA ’75) presidency wind down, there seems to be no lack of potential candidates eager to replace him. In the event that the Democrats and Republicans choose candidates from the extremes of their parties, one politician who some experts believe could make a strong run as a centrist alternative is New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg (MBA ’66), according to the Associated Press (December 20, 2006).
Bloomberg’s strengths are that he is a Republican, with a reputation as a social moderate and fiscal conservative, who won reelection in a Democratic city by nearly 20 percentage points, the AP article stated. His personal wealth frees him from many of the fundraising obligations, and the time and energy they demand, that occupy other candidates. Although the 65-year-old mayor publicly denies any interest in running, others aren’t buying it. Said one veteran Republican operative of Bloomberg, “He’s a very savvy, smart, strategic politician. He recognizes the hunger for something new. He’s making the preparations in case the dominoes fall the right way.”
A Helping Hand
Conducting an independent study project during his second year at HBS, John Rice (MBA ’92) learned that many talented minority college students didn’t know much about the business world, and therefore leaned toward careers in law or medicine because those professions seemed to offer more job security and opportunities to give back to society. It brought to mind the words of his father, a World Bank economist and governor of the Federal Reserve System. Recalled Rice, “He wanted to change the world, and he thought he could do that through monetary policy. But he realized you have to have economic power to really shape the world, and that always stuck with me.”
Rice subsequently founded a nonprofit organization, Management Leadership for Tomorrow (MLT), to help educate young people about, and prepare them for, business careers, according to Fortune magazine (November 27, 2006). MLT has become integral to business school recruiting strategies, including at HBS: A number of minority students in the MBA Class of 2007 are alumni of MLT’s fifteen-month MBA Preparation program.
GRAHAM: From rodeo to CEO.
Photo by GETTY IMAGES, FOR AMYLIN
Pharma Suits a Farm Gal
Amylin Pharmaceuticals CEO Ginger Graham (MBA ’86) had a good year in 2006, with Amylin stock up as much as 45 percent, with Byetta and Symlin, its two innovative diabetes drugs, performing well, and with the company added to the Nasdaq 100. Her performance, and that of the San Diego–based company, earned Graham a spot as one of five finalists for the MarketWatch CEO of the Year award, the Dow Jones News Service (December 6, 2006) reported.
Graham has reached rarefied heights after growing up on a small farm in Arkansas, where she tended livestock and excelled at roping and bull riding. “On my HBS application, I put that I was Miss Rodeo Arkansas 1976,” she recalled. “I am convinced that the people looking at the application said, ‘Well, we’ve never had one of those; we should have her come in.’” She credited her farm background with instilling valuable lessons. Whether rotating crops, breeding animals, or investing in equipment, “You spend a good deal of your time trying to plan forward in terms of timing and scheduling,” said Graham, who added that living on a farm “provides great evidence that life goes on, no matter how hard it is.”
