Giving New Ventures a Boost
Some $80,000 in cash and in-kind legal and accounting services were awarded to winners and runners-up in the 11th annual HBS Business Plan Contest last April. Traditional track winner Sandra Nudelman (MBA ’07) and her sister Michele, a student at Washington University Law School in St. Louis, proposed a plan for Judicial Intelligence, a suite of computer-based tools that will help litigators strategically analyze the opinions of judges they will face in court. In the social enterprise track, a team from Harvard’s School of Public Health took top honors for Unite for Health!, a plan to reduce heart disease in China through education, training, and community networks.
Paulson Speaks on China at HBS
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson (MBA ’70) told an HBS audience in May that in addition to China’s economic influence, its energy and environmental policies will have a far-reaching global impact for years to come. He also spoke of China’s need for reform and improvement in areas such as trade, intellectual property protection, and domestic consumption. In addition, Paulson said, the Chinese will not “be able to develop the financial markets and banks they want unless they have a currency that reflects economic reality.” (See “Faculty Opinion”)
Wheelwright Heads BYU-Hawaii HBS professor emeritus Steven Wheelwright has been named president of Brigham Young University–Hawaii. Wheelwright retired from the HBS faculty in 2000 after 22 years to become president of the London Mission of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. In 2003, he returned to HBS as a Baker Foundation Professor and senior associate dean, director of HBS Publishing.
The FBI Makes Its Case
FBI Director Robert Mueller and three high-level bureau executives spent a day on campus in late April talking with first-year students about the bureau’s transformation since 9/11 to focus on domestic intelligence gathering and prevention of terrorist attacks. The discussions focused on two recent HBS case studies on the FBI. Students gave Mueller a standing ovation at the end of class.
MBAs Chosen for Leadership Fellows Program
Ten new MBAs have taken positions with nonprofit and public-sector organizations with the help of the School’s Leadership Fellows program. Now in its sixth year, the program provides fellows with one-year appointments at a competitive salary, supported in part by grants from HBS.
This year’s fellows and organizations are Annie Bertrand, Mercy Corps; Laura Dicker, Hospital for Special Surgery; Jared Henderson, Teach For America; Heather McLetchie-Leader, Citizen Schools; Kara Medoff Barnett, Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts; Roshini Moodley Naidoo, Oxfam America; Andrew Murphy, World Wildlife Fund; Lauren Scopaz, Harlem Children’s Zone; Cindy Song, Habitat for Humanity International; and Matt Thomas, ACCION International.
Former French Finance Minister Joins HBS Faculty
Thierry Breton, former French finance minister, has joined the HBS faculty as a senior lecturer and will teach the first-year Leadership and Corporate Accountability course this fall. Breton is well-known in France as former chairman of France Telecom from 2002 to 2005, when he left to head the Ministry of Economy, Finance and Industry between February 2005 and May 2007. He has also served on the School's European Advisory Board.
Replica Bell for Baker Library; Historic Original Returns to Russia
In August, the bell atop Baker Library was replaced by a replica as the original, along with seventeen other bells at Harvard University, is being returned to Russia. Amid fears that the Soviets might melt them down, the bells were sold in 1930 to an American businessman who donated them to Harvard. A Russian entrepreneur has financed the casting of replacements for Harvard; a ceremony next month will mark the formal installation of the new HBS bell.
