After a brief hiatus due to the pandemic, the HBS Association of Southern California (HBSASC) is once again hosting its annual Holiday Benefit Gala on December 9 to support the HBSASC Scholarship Fund.

The event, held at the California Club in Los Angeles, will feature a cocktail hour, formal dinner and dancing, and a silent auction. All net proceeds are benefitting the fund, which sends local MBA students and nonprofit leaders to HBS.

HBSASC president and board chair Edward Chen (OPM 53, 2019) says the HBSASC Scholarship Fund has sent more than 200 local MBA students to Harvard since 1968. The fund has also supported 11 local nonprofit leaders to attend the Strategic Perspectives in Non-Profit Management Program (SPNM) at HBS. In addition, the Fund has recently added scholarships to two other HBS Executive Education courses: Driving Nonprofit Performance and Innovation and Governing for Nonprofit Excellence.

“Through these scholarships, we’re able to have a direct and meaningful impact on the local community,” says Chen. “We’re really proud of this and want to continue to support deserving students and leaders from Southern California. We’re expecting a great turnout and we’re optimistic that we can again offer a substantial set of scholarships.”

During the dinner, several past recipients will share their experiences and talk about how impactful and transformative the scholarships have been for their lives and careers.

“It’s going to be a really fun evening,” Chen says. “We call this ‘friend-raising.’ Yes, we’re fundraising, but we want people to enjoy their time together . The silent auction has some great beach packages, some wine packages, and lots of other fun items. Everyone is encouraged to dress to impress, participate in the auction, connect with friends, and dance. Overall, this is about engagement. We want to benefit the community as much as we can, and we want them to have a good time. I know a lot of people are really looking forward to it.”

To organize the gala, which is the club’s main fundraiser for the scholarships, Chen has been working with a volunteer committee of alumni including Sheila Sun (MBA 2013), the club’s VP of Events; Shari Gibbons (MBA 1990), Coordinator of the HBSASC Scholarship Fund; Jennifer Waltzer (MBA 1986), Treasurer; Alexa McCulloch (MBA 1999), Co-Chair, HBS Angels of Southern California; Leanne Huebner (MBA 1997), the Women’s Initiatives Coordinator; and Joe Grimes (MBA 1988), VP of Communications.

Chen says there’s “still time to have fun for a good cause” and interested HBS alumni in the area can find ticket and donation information here.

The HBS Club of Seattle is once again an active and growing alumni club, thanks to the recent efforts of its current co-presidents Shyam Ayengar (MBA 2006) and Jon Weintraub (MBA 1989). The pair took on the task of rebuilding the club after discovering it had gone dormant following the retirement of its previous president.

“The club had no programming in 2018 and 2019, just before COVID,” recalls Weintraub. “I had moved here from New York and was still on the mailing list for the HBS Club of New York. I saw how much they were doing, and I was frustrated that there was nothing here.”

Ayengar felt similarly, having returned to his hometown after living and working in several Asian cities with active HBS alumni clubs.

“One of the reasons I chose to attend HBS was its global alumni network,” says Ayengar. “After HBS, my first job was in Hong Kong, which has a vital HBS alumni club where I got to know people and build a network. When I moved to Mumbai, I found another active HBS club. Then, when I moved to Singapore, I helped start the HBS alumni club there.”

When they met up at a Global Networking Night in 2019, the two agreed they could combine Ayengar’s experience with launching the Singapore club with Weintraub’s business development skills to reboot the Seattle club. After an initial push was delayed by the global pandemic, they did just that.

“Coming out of Covid, we wanted to put together a club that could rival any other club in any city in the world,” says Ayengar. “We committed to producing at least 12 to 16 high-quality business-oriented events a year to reach our HBS community, and the extended business community in Seattle.”

Among the events they’ve produced this year was a “marquis” CEO speaker series featuring prominent Seattle-area business leaders. The first speaker of the series was HBS alum and Seattle Mariners Owner John Stanton (MBA 1979), who hosted alumni at T-Mobile Park in April.

“We got to spend two hours at the ballpark, eating hotdogs and hearing about John’s career path, and about the business of baseball,” says Ayengar, adding that the CEO events are aimed at giving alumni a firsthand look at how these very successful Seattle business leaders got where they are. The club also hosted truck manufacturer PACCAR’s CTO, John Rich (MBA 1999), who spoke on electrifying and automating US shipping, and Glenn Kelman, the CEO of Redfin, who talked about a wide range of issues around housing and real estate during a fireside chat.

Ayengar says the club recently cosponsored an event on AI with McKinsey and expects to plan more events in partnership with the firm. Another series of events focused on Seattle’s “awesome startup ecosystem” featured several of the city’s local incubators. Other goals include a speaker series on local government and programming that includes visiting HBS faculty.

While the club is growing, Weintraub says there is no formal paid membership. Instead, he promotes programs and events to about 2000 people in the Seattle area who are either alumni or have another affiliation with HBS. Another 500 or so people affiliated with other business schools are also invited.

“We want to engage with the greater Seattle community,” says Weintraub. “Over the last year, we’ve had about 1,000 people attend all events combined, with some overlap of course.”

While the co-presidents have been doing the bulk of the organizing, they give credit to all the alumni who have been stepping up to take on tasks like building the club website, or helping with events.

Rebooting an alumni club has not been easy. Ayengar estimates he’s been putting a good 15 hours a week into it as he wears many hats, from event organizer to budget manager. Meanwhile Weintraub can be found working his networks to find resources, guest speakers and volunteers.

“You have to think of it like a startup,” he says. “Everyone is going to do everything. You have to be creative. It’s actually really expensive to put on an event. So we do our own catering, and we’re finding partners to give us space. I have 200 wine glasses in my garage!”

Weintraub adds that a few “really dedicated people” are essential to getting things off the ground, as well as a plan for succession so the club remains vibrant regardless of changes in leadership.

Both say the benefits of an active and engaged alumni club are well worth the effort.

“Going to HBS was the best two years of my life. I loved it,” says Ayengar. “You can capture some of that magic with the club.”

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