Last month, a group of 17 MBAs embarked on the West Coast Networking Club’s annual Technology Trek to Silicon Valley. We spent three days taking in the sights and sounds of the San Francisco Bay Area while visiting companies such as Chevron, Google, Globant, Zynga, NetApp, HP, and even getting a chance to sit down with a panel of entrepreneurs to learn about the startup environment and culture in the world’s largest technology hub.
Students pose outside HP headquarters
First and Second year full-time MBA & MS-MBA students got a chance to truly feel the frantic pace of innovation that is a fact of life in the Bay Area. It was as tangible at large corporations as it was at even the smallest of startups. Not to mention, we had the “misfortune” of getting stuck in sunny 70-degree weather while Boston weathered winter storm Nemo and the 24 inches of snow it brought.
Having come from the Bay Area prior to BU, it was interesting to hear the points of view of my fellow classmates who had never visited the region before. The first thing that stood out was simply how close some of the largest technology companies in the world are to each other. For example, during our visit to NetApp, most were amazed to see that Yahoo! was right next door and that Cisco was down the road. Google is neighbors with Intuit, LinkedIn, and Microsoft, and if one were to work at any of these companies, there’s no telling whom you might run into at a local pub. It is precisely this kind of atmosphere that is the foundation of creativity and innovation, and is the reason why the area is incredibly diverse.
Students at NetApp headquarters, just a stone's throw away from Yahoo! and other leading tech companies
In speaking to some of the entrepreneurs during a panel focused on startups and small businesses in the Bay Area, it is truly remarkable that the area attracts people from every part of the world. Many have likened the tech boom in Silicon Valley to the Gold Rush era where people traveled west to seek their fortune. In my mind, however, the Bay Area bears much more resemblance to Italy during the Renaissance period. The city of Florence particularly attracted some of the greatest minds in art and science such as Leonardo Da Vinci and Michelangelo. Silicon Valley is very similar in this regard. People come to this area to exchange ideas and create paradigm-shifting technologies. Such technologies were clearly evident in our visits to Google and Zynga, as both companies have completely disrupted the way we use the Internet and play games, respectively. NetApp showed us how it is changing enterprise IT with storage solutions developed for cloud applications and distributed computing. Chevron is partnering with these same companies to leverage their expertise and provide even more intelligence for their oil and natural gas exploration efforts.
It was only fitting that we concluded our trip with a visit to Hewlett Packard’s headquarters in Palo Alto. HP was one of the first technology companies to set up shop in Silicon Valley and was founded by two engineering graduates from nearby Stanford University. Founded in 1939, HP was the driving force behind the industry and paved the way for so many companies such as Intel, Microsoft, Apple, Google, etc. It’s amazing to see how far the technology industry has come since then, and how much opportunity exists for current MBA candidates.
Neil is a 2nd-year MS-MBA student. He currently serves as the MS-MBA Program Representative to the Graduate Student Council and is the organizing committee chairman for the 2013 Grand Business Challenge in Digital Health sponsored by Merck, the School of Management's annual technology case competition.
Starting from where I left off on my last blog post, we finally arrived in the vivacious city of Toronto on Thursday, February 21st. From the airport, we directly went to The University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management which was located in the heart of city. We enjoyed a nice opening reception and were able to meet the students from all around the world. Companies such as S&P Capital IQ, CIBC and Thomson Reuters gave presentations about what their companies do and the career opportunities available for the students in the competition. It was certainly a long day with class in the morning, our flight and the presentations. We headed back to our hotel to catch some shut-eye and get geared up for the ensuing two-day competition.
Some snapshots from the weekend at Toronto's Rotman School of Management
Early Friday morning, we arrived back at Rotman and were soon immersed in a fierce Mergers & Acquisitions case competition. The case was set up so that there were twelve companies (stocks) in distress where we had to take positions on companies that we felt would be acquired. We developed models and strategies over the last few weeks to ensure a consistent P&L. For each case in the competition, there were multiple heats where our P&Ls were aggregated so that this could differentiate the most consistent trading teams and eliminate the ones who got lucky once or twice.
The conclusion of an intense Mergers & Acquisitions case competition gave us a two hour break for lunch before the start of the Sales & Trading competition. Over that time, we received the results of the M&A case where we placed 15th out of 50th (not bad…eh?). Knowing that we were in the mix gave us even more motivation to be successful in the S&T case. Unfortunately, a little curveball was thrown our way when we found out the rules for the case. We were under the impression that there was going to be one trader and one analyst. Turns out, both students had to be a trader which was tough for us since our team members were not prepared to trade in cases that they thought they would be an analyst in. However, we managed to do our best through the S&T case (and Options Trading case) given what we had to work with.
After a short break, we went to the Quantitative Outcry case which was definitely the most exciting case for me. This case included two traders down on the floor (see picture above), one analyst and one risk manager up in the research lab behind the glass. The goal was for the analyst and risk manager to communicate with their teammates down on the trading floor telling them to either “buy” or “sell” futures on the index. On top of that, the risk manager needed to keep track of the trader’s futures position which was difficult because of the hectic atmosphere. I enjoyed being on the trading floor because I feel that the atmosphere would be similar to the floor of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), which is where I hope to work someday! Following the Quantitative Outcry case, we enjoyed a nice dinner sponsored by the University of Toronto and listened to a presentation by BP about the oil markets and the career opportunities within the company.
Given my experience with options, I was certainly looking forward to the Options Trading case on Saturday. Personally, my teammate Shamir and I finished Top 10 in a few Options Trading sub heats. This helped propel our team into the Top 15 in the case rankings and Top 20 overall rankings. However, after a slight mishap in the Commodities Trading case, we closed out the Rotman International Trading Competition in 26th place.
Being slightly disappointed in where we placed, I was excited to go to the awards ceremony at the famous CN Tower, located in downtown Toronto. It is one of the seven wonders of the modern world, with the observation deck 1,122 feet above the ground. It was an amazing venue for our reception. We enjoyed cocktails and conversation amongst some of the brightest minds in the world and reminisced on the highlights from the weekend.
View from below the CN Tower
On our flight home on Sunday, we were encouraged on how our exposure will positively affect the Boston University teams to come. I am hoping to be an Assistant Coach of next year’s team and fly to Toronto to help devise useful strategies with Dr. Ahmad Namini. He was such a positive influence to us and we are very grateful to him and the University for supporting our team in this competition.
Cheers!
Justin Tyo is a second semester Math Finance student who will be working at NextEra Energy in Juno Beach, Florida this summer. He will be implementing commodity hedging models for natural gas and oil on the options trading desk. Outside of work and academics, Justin enjoys playing golf and watching Michigan Basketball (Go Blue!).
My name is Kristen Cuneo and I’m a first-year MBA student at Boston University’s School of Management. My background is in nonprofit management. For five years after college, I taught self-defense and conflict resolution to girls and managed leadership development programs for teen and college mentors. I knew that the empowerment and transformation of girls I taught came in large part from the strong mentoring relationships my staff and I formed with program participants. As I looked to broaden my perspective of the world by going to business school, I wanted a school that placed a premium on strong, healthy relationships.
When you choose a business school, you invest in the value of all the past, present and future individuals of that institution – from students to faculty and administrators. When your personal and professional development is based heavily on what others bring to your experience, maximizing the value of this investment is critical.
At BU, mentoring is a pervasive and foundational element of the school’s culture. Professors, administrators, and peers are willing to listen, learn and teach. When Ken Freeman, former CEO of Quest Diagnostics, was named the Dean of BU’s School of Management, he stated, “What thrills me more than perhaps anything else about having the opportunity to be the dean of [the BU school of management], is the opportunity to help shape minds that will impact the future of the world.” Dean Freeman is a remarkable teacher and leader, and he exemplifies how to build strong, healthy relationships and learning communities.
Dean Freeman chats with students in his office
Dean Freeman mentors every chance he gets. He makes himself incredibly accessible to the entire student body. Here are just a few examples:
When he first arrived at BU, he moved his office from a spanning, magnificent office suite on the 5th floor to a modest, glass-walled office on the 2nd floor, just next to classrooms filled with students.
In the fall, I wanted to discuss some of my student development ideas and their alignment with the vision of the school. So, I simply scheduled coffee with him!
Earlier this semester, despite being halfway across the world, Dean Freeman video-conferenced into a student event to speak with audience members and invite questions.
At LinkDay, a one-day volunteer consulting event that connects BU MBAs with nonprofits in the Boston area to address a specific business problem, Dean Freeman was chatting with and thanking participants for their volunteerism – at 8am on a Saturday morning!
Dean Freeman interviews New York Times Senior Editor Adam Bryant at the BU School of Management during a recent installment of the Dean's Speaker Series
This fall, Adam Bryant of the New York Times’ “Corner Office” came to speak as a part of BU’s Dean’s Speaker Series– an initiative started by none other than Dean Freeman. The NYT Corner Officeis a weekly column dedicated to sharing leadership lessons and insights from top industry CEOs. One major theme was the value of authentic relationships and being able to understand the true value you can get from a relationship. In a recent Corner Office column he interviews Ilene Gordon, CEO of Ingredion. Gordon states, “I’m not just hiring the person sitting there; I’m hiring the four people who mentored him. I don’t think there’s anybody who’s successful in their role today who hasn’t been mentored by somebody.”Gordon contends that you are the product of the people who mentored you; the people who you surround yourself with, from whom you learn.
At Boston University, you’ll find mentoring in every corner and level of this institution. I know an excellent value when I see one – I’m glad I invested!
Kristen Cuneo is a first-year MBA concentrating in Leadership & Organizational Transformation. Professionally, she is interested in corporate responsibility and leadership development and training. In her free time, she serves on the Board of Directors for Girls’ LEAP, cycles and practices yoga.
Last semester, I had the opportunity to team up with 6 other students to face the challenge of acting as a grant-issuing organization as part of a semester long project for one of the Public and Nonprofit Program electives, PL837: Strategic Fundraising and Corporate Philanthropy. We were generously given $10,000 by the Highland Street Foundation with very few restrictive guidelines, and although a few of us on the team had prior experience requesting grant funding, none of us had ever been on the side of those who have the money to give.
The task was daunting: the team had a mere 12 weeks to determine our “brand”, develop a mission and grant-making strategy, send out Requests for Proposals, review Letters of Inquiry and full applications, complete site visits for finalists, and then make the actual award. We decided to target shelters in the Greater Boston Area to help fund IT infrastructure enhancements intended to improve operational efficiencies to better enable these organizations to serve their clients; we placed a high priority on the impact and the sustainability of the proposals we received. We initially reached out to nearly 40 shelters and through the various rounds of the process were able to determine a final organization to which to award the $10,000 grant.
The discussions the team had when narrowing down organizations were more difficult than any of us had imagined. Every single organization had a compelling story, an admirable mission and were making tremendous strides in combating homelessness in their communities. However, through the guidance of the course we were encouraged to remaining objective and consistent with our mission in order to assess all of these proposals fairly and appropriately. In addition to these responsibilities, the team was also charged with keeping the rest of the class aware of our strategies, processes, and insights – as they were working on individual projects in grant-writing or fundraising plan development.
After countless hours of review and deliberations, the team determined that the grant would be awarded to Housing Families (www.housingfamilies.org), an organization that works to end family homelessness and has been providing safe, temporary shelter and quality affordable housing to homeless and at-risk families since their first shelter opened in 1987. Housing Families’ proposal was to enable mobile capabilities for their case workers through the use of tablets. Previously, case workers would have to go to multiple families in a day, lugging around pages and pages of documents to be completed by hand, which they would then have to enter manually into their home office later on. With these new tablets, the case workers at Housing Families will be able to have more meaningful and thorough visits with the families they serve.
After careful consideration, the team presents a grant check to Housing Families
This project was a truly fascinating challenge and provided the unique opportunity to observe the kinds of language and strategies used by grant-writers and development officers as well as gain the first-hand professional experience of the difficult decisions that foundations and other philanthropists must go through every day. It was also incredibly moving to learn about the phenomenal efforts and impact that all of the grant-seeking organizations are undertaking, and the entire student team is excited to see the impact this grant will bring to Housing Families.
Dana is a 2nd year MS-MBA in the Public and Nonprofit Management Program and currently serves as the Public and Nonprofit Representative to the Graduate Student Council.
Some people have sports stars as heroes. For me, my heroes are the people who stand for more than just themselves. After my parents, I consider Warren Buffett and Bill Gates to be my greatest heroes and among the most influential people who ever lived. Combined, they will be spending more than $120 billion (that is with a “b”!) for the betterment of humanity. I can’t think of a more noble reason than to help others, especially those who have such little opportunity due to no fault of their own.
So needless to say, I was excited when the opportunity to meet one half of that duo presented itself. The BU MBA Finance Club had been invited, along with a few other schools, by Mr. Buffett to meet him in Omaha for a Q&A session and I was one of those fortunate enough to make the trip.
Students pose for a picture with Mr. Buffett
After making a stop at the Nebraska Furniture Mart (a Berkshire Hathaway owned company), we headed to the BH office at Kiewit Plaza. We were seated in a large room with an abundance of complimentary Coca-Cola bottles (Berkshire owns a large stake in Coke as well). When Mr. Buffett stepped in the room, he was immediately greeted with a standing ovation. He was everything I had hoped for and more. He was gracious, pleasant, humorous and a very accommodating host.
View from the seats as Mr. Buffett addresses the room.
Each school took turns asking questions, and he answered them all very thoughtfully. Although I had watched him speak many times on television and on the internet, I still felt I soaked in quite a bit of wisdom that day. Some of the takeaways that stood out to me were the following: (1) Look around and see which one of your classmates you like, and see if you can imitate their favorable habits. (2) Healthcare in America is a big problem that will need to be solved. We are spending 17% of GDP on healthcare and the rest of the developed world is spending around 10%. (3) America had its own OPEC called Texas Railroad Commission. On a humorous note, Mr. Buffett mentioned that Bill Gates had chided him about using the term “Google” when referring to a web search. Mr. Buffett quipped that Bing stood for But It’s Not Google.
Following the Q&A, Mr. Buffett treated us to lunch at Piccolo Pete’s, where we were given a choice of entrées along with an old-fashioned root beer float for dessert. After lunch, we took a group photo with Mr. Buffett before departing. On our way to the airport, we made a stop at Borsheims (a jewelry store owned by BH) where we met their CEO. She imparted her wisdom upon us and shared her experiences working with Mr. Buffett.
After a very fulfilling day, students enjoy a meal at Piccolo Pete's, an Omaha tradition!
Overall, this was a once in a lifetime opportunity and I would recommend this trip to anyone who is interested in meeting one of the most brilliant people of our time. Many thanks to the MBA Finance Club, the Investment Club, as well as those who I met on the trip and shared this amazing experience with.
Ashwin Swami is a physician trained in internal medicine with an interest in financial analysis.
Neil is a 2nd-year MS-MBA student. He currently serves as the MS-MBA Program Representative to the Graduate Student Council and is the organizing committee chairman for the 2013 Grand Business Challenge in Digital Health sponsored by Merck, the School of Management's annual technology case competition.
