wharton club of new york magazine - fall 2014
DESCRIPTION
This Fall 2014 issue focuses on entrepreneurs in the New York areas. Jake Schwartz of General Assembly Joe Meyer of Hop Stop and ExecThread Mark Hirsch of CreativeWorx Raj Jeyakumar of Skillbridge Due Quach of Calm Clarity Ross Klenoff - AttorneyTRANSCRIPT
WHARTON ALUMNI CLUB OF NEW YORK | FALL 2014
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START-UPS
JOSEPH WHARTONAWARDS DINNERHONOREES
WHARTON STYLE
TEACHING A
GLOBALCOMMUNITY
FRONT COVER: Jake Schwartz, WG’08, Co-Founder: General Assembly
PresidentKenneth Beck, WG’87, P’16CEO [email protected]
Executive Vice PresidentGeorge Bradt, WG’85PrimeGenesis Executive [email protected]
Vice President, FinanceRosemarie Bonelli, WG’99American International Group, [email protected]
Vice President, Marketing & CommunicationsPeter Hildick-Smith, C’76, WG’81, P’13Codex-Group [email protected]
Vice President, Career DevelopmentCharles S. Forgang, W’78, P’11Law Offices of Charles S. [email protected]
Vice President, Business DevelopmentRegina Jaslow, W’97Penn Club of New [email protected]
Vice President, Volunteer ServicesDiana Davenport, WG’87The Commonwealth [email protected]
Vice President, ProgrammingJennifer Gregoriou, W’78Jennifer Gregoriou, Management [email protected]
Vice President, University RelationsUdayan Chattopadhyay, [email protected]
The Wharton Business SchoolClub of New York 485 Madison Avenue, Suite 747, New York, NY 10173 Phone: (212) 463-5559 Club website: www.WhartonNY.com
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
PUBLISHER Kenneth Beck, WG’[email protected]
MANAGING EDITOR Peter Hildick-Smith, C’76, WG’81, P’[email protected]
EDITOR Kent Trabing, WG’[email protected]
DESIGN DIRECTOR Joyce Chan, W’06, C’[email protected]
READ THE MAGAZINE ONLINE www.readwny.com.
WHARTON CLUB OF NEW YORK MAGAZINE
Fall 2014
Benjamin Franklin and Joseph Wharton were both pioneering entrepreneurs. They would be pleased to see the growing number of alumni transforming themselves into the newest generation
of entrepreneurs. WCNY knows that the startup journey is an arduous one and supports that journey in the New York region. This Fall issue showcases the enthusiastic vision and successes of six local thriving entrepreneurs, and one working to break into the market. Four of the founders interviewed participate in the WCNY affinity group, Wharton Entrepreneurs-Education and Resource Network (WE-EARN): Joe Meyer, WG’97, of ExecThread; Rajeev Jeyakumar, WG’13, of SkillBridge; Melissa Shin Mash, WG’12, of Dagne Dover, and Mark Hirsch, W’88, of Creative Worx. WE-EARN, led by Ross Klenoff, W’94, C94, offers educational, networking, and brainstorming events. Jake Schwartz, WG’08, co-founder of the rapidly growing teaching company, General Assembly, matches their training to companies’ needs. Broadway producer and co-founder of Musicians on Call, Vivek Tiwary, W’95, spoke at a Club Speaker Series on “Can’t Buy Me Love: The Business of the Beatles”. He shared his insights on creativity, how to invest in the theatre, building a nonprofit at the beginning of your career, and his new book, The Fifth Beatle.
We love to profile those who truly invest themselves in the Club and broader alumni community. Jay Bakhru, WG’04, brings years of experience in the education sector to driving the Wharton Education Network, (WhEN). He is actively recruiting affinity group members interested in this essential part of our economy. Arthur Bass, W’73 was key to getting the first Joseph Wharton Dinner resurrected and in maintaining its tradition of excellence by ensuring that each year’s Joseph Wharton Award honorees are elected by all past honorees.
And yes, our Dinner is coming up this October 2nd. We hope you will come and support the club, meet your peers and meet the honorees: Robert Crandall, WG’60, Former Chairman, American Airlines, will receive the Joseph Wharton Award for Lifetime Achievement; Alex Gorsky, WG’96, Chairman and CEO of Johnson & Johnson will receive the Joseph Wharton Award for Leadership; Durreen Shahnaz, WG’95, Founder and Chairperson of Impact Investment Exchange Asia (IIX) and Shujog will receive the Joseph Wharton Award for Social Impact; and Neil Blumenthal, WG’10, and David Gilboa, WG’10, GEN’10, Co-Founders and Co-CEOs of Warby Parker, will receive the Joseph Wharton Award for Young Leadership!
Be inspired by these alumni and “Take the Call”! ♦
Kenneth Beck, WG’87Chief Executive Officer | CEO ConnectionPresident | Wharton Club of New YorkT 646.416.6991 | F [email protected]
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
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The WCNY Magazine is mailed three times annually, to more than 30,000 Wharton alumni living or working in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
Alumni discounts are available upon request. Non-camera-ready ads may be subject to production charges.
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IN THISISSUE
LETTER FROM THE PRESIDENT
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JOSEPH WHARTON AWARDS DINNER
PROFILE – ARTHUR BASS, W’73
WE-EARNINTERVIEWS:
6-13
ROSS KLENOFF, C’94, W’94
JOE MEYER, WG’97
RAJ JEYAKUMAR, WG’13
MARK HIRSCH, W’88
MELISSA SHIN MASH, WG’12
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4
3
5
JAKE SCHWARTZ, WG’08
VIVEK TIWARY, W’95
ENTREPRENEURSAT- L A R G E :
14-17
1417
DUE QUACH, WG’06
JAY BAKHRU, WG’04
TAKE THE CALL!
JOIN WCNY!
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4 | WHARTON CLUB OF NEW YORK | WHARTONNY.COM | FALL 2014
Come join Jacob Wallenberg, W’80, WG’81, Brett Hurt, WG’99, D. Wayne Silby, W’70, and other eminent Wharton alumni to celebrate and honor the 2014 Joseph Wharton Award winners. Meet old Wharton friends and make new ones at the Metropolitan Club on 1 East 60th Street in New York City. Cocktails and conversation begin at 6 p.m., dinner at 7 p.m.
The Joseph Wharton Awards recognize exceptional leaders within the alumni community in four distinct categories: Lifetime Achievement, Leadership, Social Impact and Young Leadership.
The first dinner was held at the Waldorf-Astoria in 1972 and continued through 1990, honoring such luminaries as Nelson Rockefeller, Don Regan and William S. Paley. This year’s dinner will be the ninth since it was revived in 2006, as the premiere business school alumni event in New York, recently honoring Jon M. Huntsman, W’59, H’96, James David Power III, WG’59, Peter Lynch, WG’68, and Ivanka Trump, W’04. The 2014 Joseph Wharton Awards Dinner Honorary Chair is Harold W. McGraw III, WG’76, Chairman of the Board of McGraw Hill Financial, inheriting that role from Alvin V. Shoemaker, W’60, HON’95, Former Chairman, Executive Committee of First Boston. ♦
Drumroll please...The 2014 Joseph Wharton
Dinner honorees are:
ROBERT CRANDALL, WG’60Former Chairman American Airlines
2014 JW Award for Lifetime Achievement
ALEX GORSKY, WG’96Chairman and CEO, Johnson & Johnson
2014 JW Award for Leadership.
DURREEN SHAHNAZ, WG’95Founder and Chairperson
Impact Investment Exchange Asia (IIX) and Shujog
2014 JW Award for Social Impact
NEIL BLUMENTHAL, WG’10 AND DAVID GILBOA, WG’10, GEN’10
Co-Founders and Co-CEOs, Warby Parker2014 JW Award for Young Leadership
JOSEPH WHARTON AWARDS DINNERTHURSDAY, OCTOBER 2, 2014 METROPOLITAN CLUB, NEW YORK CITYCOCKTAILS 6PM
DINNER 7PM, EVENING ATTIRE
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Arthur Bass, W’73, had been involved with the Wharton Club of New York for a number of years, but his involvement substantially increased when he joined a team to revive the Joseph Wharton Awards Dinner as a premier business event in New York City.Arthur served on the Awards Committee for the first dinner, and was instrumental in developing the awards categories and criteria. He has served as the Chairman of the Awards Committee for each subsequent dinner — and this year marks the ninth year of Arthur’s involvement.
Arthur also serves on the Board of Directors of the WCNY, and has become involved in two WCNY affinity groups, the Wharton Hedge Fund Network and the Wharton Angel Network. Arthur is active as a Penn alumni, and this year, interviewed applicants for the undergraduate school.
What challenges did you face with the first Joseph Wharton Awards Dinner?Our first task was to re-establish the credibility that this would again be a premier event. An important step in that process was an introduction to Geoff Boisi, WG’71, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Roundtable Investment Partners LLC, that I obtained through a close friend and business associate of my wife. Geoff agreed to support the dinner as Honorary Chairman, and in addition to Geoff, we had a stellar list of award winners. That dinner, held at the Rainbow Room, was a huge success, and the momentum has grown with each subsequent dinner. Given the attendance and our list of award winners, I am very proud of our efforts in making the dinner a success.
What motivated you to get involved with the dinner and the Club?I had a favorable experience a number of years before attending WCNY leads events, and had
participated a couple of times telephoning New York-area Wharton alumni for
membership in the Club. I was looking to get involved in a deeper manner to give something back for the opportunities that attending Wharton provided me. Ken Beck proposed reviving the Joseph Wharton Awards Dinner, and the idea
of Awards Committee intrigued me. My participation in the Club has grown over the
years to the point that I am now a member of the Board of Directors.
What opportunities are there for alumni to get involved?The WCNY has grown dramatically in the past 10 years, both in size and the diversity of activities it provides, and I give Ken Beck a lot of credit for promoting these efforts.
Alumni can get involved by participating in the activities they are interested in or, on a deeper level, by volunteering to work with or sponsor an event. The key is providing a forum for alumni to network and share experiences to enable continued personal and career growth. Alumni can also choose the level in which they would like to participate — attending activities they are interested in, or volunteering. As you know, this is a group where, if you have an idea and submit it in an organized manner, it will be taken seriously. The other area I would encourage alumni to participate is to “take the call” from other Wharton alumni.
What do you do?I am a Managing Director and Co-Head of Financial Futures and Options in New York City for Newedge, which this year became a wholly owned subsidiary of Société Générale. Newedge is the largest futures broker in the world, and is also active in fixed income securities and derivatives. I and my group structure relative value and arbitrage strategies for hedge funds and large investor accounts, and the accounts we deal with are among the largest in the world.
I have been with my firm for 18 years, and have an extensive background in the financial markets. Newedge is in the midst of being integrated into Société Générale, which is expanding our ability to do swaps and other derivative structures. ♦
Arthur Bass, W’73 Managing Director, Société Générale-Newedge
Premier Event Establishing a
PROFILE
6 | WHARTON CLUB OF NEW YORK | WHARTONNY.COM | FALL 2014
This issue focuses on the activities of the Club’s WHARTON ENTREPRENEURS-EDUCATION AND RESOURCE NETWORK (WE-EARN) and highlights four of its intrepid members. ROSS KLENOFF, C’94, W’94, leads this enterprising affinity group, producing some of the most well-attended events of the WCNY. WE-EARN under Ross’ leadership illustrates the broad and additive benefits that the Wharton Club of New York brings to alumni in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.
How does WE-EARN help New York-area alumni?
First, we produce
educational events highly
targeted to Wharton entrepreneurs. Events feature innovative entrepreneurs, experienced venture capitalists and seasoned attorneys. Our events are large enough to create a dynamic dialogue, yet small enough to afford up-close access.
Second, while we’re not a networking group, many of our events offer excellent opportunities for collaboration and networking. For example, we’ve held two intragroup brainstorming sessions and have another planned for September. After a few fun exercises to get the creative juices flowing, we’ll break
up into groups, and members of each group will brainstorm outside-of-the-box growth options for one another. The collaboration resembles the dynamic you might see back on campus. The goal is real, tangible results. Events are designed to help members grow their businesses (or connect with others who can help).
Are there mentoring opportunities at WE-EARN?If we have enough interest from alumni with a proven track record, we may establish a mentor and mentee program, not just a one-off event but a six-month program
Tell me about yourself.I work as a general corporate attorney. After working at top firms in the city for over a decade, I launched my own practice, the Law Offices of Ross Klenoff, a few years ago. Running my own practice, I’m really connected to the work and my clients. That’s not always the case at a
larger firm. I love running a leaner operation, which enables me to deliver strong value. I work with emerging growth and successful mid-size companies on a full range of corporate transactions (such as financing, M&A, joint ventures, formative counseling and commercial contracts). I love using my corporate law skill set, along with my Wharton business background, to help companies achieve their goals efficiently and effectively. My Wharton background has been very helpful over the years. For example, my eyes definitely don’t glaze over when some of the more complicated accounting and financial concepts pop up in a deal.
Why did you get involved in the Club?I have a proclivity for organizing and running groups, and I find the startup and emerging growth space really exciting. At the same time, I enjoy helping out and giving back to the Wharton community. So when the opportunity arose, I was happy to volunteer!
WE-EARN
CREATING A DYNAMIC DIALOGUE
BETWEEN ALUMNI
Ross H. Klenoff, C'94, W'94, General Corporate Attorney and Chair of WE-EARN Affinity Group
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I get to meet a lot of interesting people with whom I would not otherwise connect. And my role has given me extra visibility in the Wharton community, so I’m well-positioned to help out.
Who are some of the participating WE-EARN members?I understand you’re interviewing Rajeev Jeyakumar, WG’13, Mark Hirsch, W’88, Joe Meyer, WG’97, and Melissa Shin Mash, WG’12. We have hundreds of members. I can tell you about a few of them.
Siddharth Saran, WG’04, is an active member of WE-EARN. He’s Co-Founder and CFO of Tuck-It-Away, which reduces inefficiencies and waste in the $25 billion self-storage market. It enables consumers and small businesses to optimally manage their possessions through a unique combination of storage and services, powered by an innovative technology platform.
Diego Jimenez, WG’09, is Co-Founder and Head of Client Development for ExpertAngle, a company that connects business professionals with healthcare practitioners and industry experts directly through an online marketplace.
Robert Seo, WG’12, is CEO of Slidejoy, an intelligent Android app that pays users to view beautifully designed ads every time they unlock their phones. Over time, the app learns the preferences of a user and curates a more profitable and relevant user experience.
Nadine Kahane, WG’12, is CEO of Stone & Strand, a leading online destination for unique fine jewelry, bringing the age-old relationship of a personal jeweler and client into the modern era. It uses the convenience and storytelling capabilities of the Internet as a platform for jewelry lovers to discover the best designs. (Nadine also participates in our alumni discount program.)
WE-EARN
Maria Yuan, W’10, founded IssueVoter, a social enterprise that gives socially active people a voice and ability to influence issues that matter to them. It sends their opinion to their representative on bills up for vote in Congress — and they can track their representative’s votes and bill outcomes.
What were some recent events?I mentioned our February event, “Emerging Trends in Media.” In June, we had an event called “Lessons Learned From Successes (and Failures) Leading Startups and Emerging Growth Companies,” where I facilitated a panel discussion with Neil Vogel, W’92, CEO of About.com, Dan Gellert, WG’06, Co-Founder and CEO of GateGuru, which was acquired by TripAdvisor last year, and Joe Meyer.
In September, we have our next intragroup brainstorming session. It will be led by Kaihan Krippendorff, W’94, who works with leading companies to design disruptive growth strategies.
In October, I’ll be presenting “Legal Boot Camp for Entrepreneurs.” If you’re an entrepreneur, this event is a fantastic opportunity to get an overview of the key legal issues you can expect to face
from the “idea phase” through to your first venture capital financing. Going forward, we’ll continue to pull together practical, value-added programs for folks in the startup and emerging growth space, and create opportunities for like-minded alumni to connect.
What kind of positive results do you see arising out of WE-EARN events?Folks have picked up team members from events. Participants and panelists connect with one another. And group networking has helped connect members with financing sources.
These events work because of the alumni. Events are well-attended, and the alumni ask great questions. At the same time, we have alumni who want to help out. For example, Thatcher Bell, WG’05, Managing Director of Gotham Ventures, helped me organize and moderate the “Emerging Trends in Media” event back in February. Joe Meyer, former CEO of HopStop, saw the write-up for that event and offered to be on the panel for an event we had in June. I appreciate that kind of help. I encourage folks to reach out to me at [email protected] if they’re interested in speaking or being on a panel, or they can help pull together an event. ♦
The collaboration resembles the
dynamic you might see back on campus. The goal is real, tangible results.
8 | WHARTON CLUB OF NEW YORK | WHARTONNY.COM | FALL 2014
What’s the genesis of ExecThread?Over the past decade, while serving at the director level or higher at both large and small companies, I began to realize that as your skills and experience increase your awareness of new job opportunities decreases.
Let’s say I start thinking: “Maybe I should become a CEO, CMO, COO, CFO, CRO, President, EVP or VP of another company.” How many current searches are there for one of those positions? Tens of thousands? But how many am I aware of? A handful? And who decides what job opportunities come across my desk? Not me, and often times it’s decided by recruiters who don’t know me well nor my areas of interest!
Talk to any executive who’s ever had to find a new job. They either wait for a recruiter to present them with a new career opportunity, or had to have 20 coffee meetings per month
JOE MEYER, WG’97, believes that securing a fulfilling executive-level job can be grueling and ineffective, even if you’re well-connected. One month after Joe launched the invitation-only nonprofit ExecThread.org, several hundred executives have already signed on to share
with one another the otherwise confidential job opportunities that have recently crossed
their desks.Joe isn’t currently looking for a job — he’s been
at Apple since last July when it acquired the firm he led as CEO, HopStop, an online city transit guide
offering door-to-door subway and bus directions and maps for over 140 cities around the world. He just likes to solve problems and help people. Joe took some time to speak with us on July 8 in Manhattan.
with people in their network and hope that at least one person meeting with them heard about a job that’s a perfect fit.
This inefficiency in executive search is why there’s often job dissatisfaction among senior executives. Executives make career-altering decisions based on limited information, and hence are making imperfect life-altering decisions.
Can you explain how ExecThread works?Let’s say five new job searches come across my desk each month, all interesting confidential opportunities. The majority I’m not interested in for various reasons. A peer might also see five opportunities each month as well, but her five are likely different than my five. Chances are I might like one of the jobs presented to her, and she might like one of the ones presented to me; but she’ll never see mine and I’ll never
see hers. In a nutshell, ExecThread is crowdsourcing meets executive search. It’s an invite-only network of high-caliber executives who agree to “give to get”!
Members earn a point for each new exec-level job opportunity they contribute to ExecThread, and for each new member they refer. ExecThread then acts as a clearinghouse and disseminates all the opportunities that members contribute to all other members. And when a member looks at the key attributes provided by ExecThread for a particular job opportunity (role, level, industry, company size/stage, etc.), and feels it may be a good fit, the member can request the hiring company name from ExecThread by redeeming a point.
If a member is still interested after researching the company then he/she
CROWDSOURCING EXECUTIVE
SEARCH
Joe Meyer, WG'97Founder: ExecThread.org
WE-EARN
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asks ExecThread for the recruiter’s name (which costs an additional point), after which the member leverages his/her own network to get introduced to the recruiter. It’s a win-win for both the executive and recruiter alike, and best of all it is pro bono (no money changes hands). Meanwhile, ExecThread is the recruiters’ best friend because they get free curated referrals!
How has ExecThread progressed since launch?I launched a small test in 4Q13 via email to 50 executives — not my closest contacts, but two or three degrees of separation from me — and 85% of them joined. After I nuanced the service, one-third of the executives began submitting job opportunities of which they were aware but not interested in pursuing. I brought in a technical lead, productized it and re-launched in late June.
After a few weeks we now have hundreds of discreet exec-level job listings in the system, and are up to several hundred members, with each new member invited by a current member. We continue to see similar ratios: ~85% of those invited become members, and over 30% of members contribute job leads of which they’re aware but aren’t pursuing. Additionally, non-job searching members are now contributing job opportunities that they’re trying to fill on their own teams.
You had a great run with HopStop and are now with Apple. You could be relaxing a bit more.My dad was a father of four sons and an EVP at a large bank. He reached a point in his career when he got re-engineered out of his job and replaced by someone younger. It took him six months to find his next role. It happened again five years later, and it took him a year to find his next role.
I now see the same thing playing out with my friends. The process that executives go through to find a job, no matter how qualified they are, isn’t easy — it’s kind of a maze. So I have an ambition to help executives manage their careers in a more proactive way by helping them to discover more job opportunities.
Most executives, no matter how successful they are, need more options to avoid the sort of challenges that my father faced. I like helping people, and believe it or not I think most executives are underserved when it comes to identifying new job opportunities.
What lesson did you learn from HopStop that you’re applying to ExecThread?• Make sure there’s a true need for the service
being created.
• Stay focused on the core value proposition and on exceeding user expectations.
• Invite and encourage feedback from your users, and act on their advice.
• Build something before raising money. If your v1 gets adoption then enhance it. Is ExecThread perfect? Do I have a website or an app? No! It’s email- and database-driven. But ExecThread is aggregating valuable proprietary jobs, hence why executives are embracing it.
• If your business is data-driven, then structure the data if it’s not already structured. When HopStop started we had to manually curate time-tables from each transit agency. It’s the same with ExecThread. Do you think these jobs come to me structured? No way! I’m doing this by hand (and a little bit of automation) to match the job attributes to user preferences.
How do you think the Club can help alumni to be better entrepreneurs?I think the Wharton Club can help alumni by exposing them to alums who have been
entrepreneurs and who know what it takes to be successful as a founder — similar to what we did at the recent Lessons Learned From Successes (and Failures) Leading Start-Ups event in NYC. Everyone has good ideas, but as Edison said, it’s 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration.
JOE MEYER has been a panelist for Wharton Entrepreneurs Education & Resource Network (WE-EARN), and served as a judge at Wharton’s Business Plan Competition, and also participated in the Wharton EIR program on three occasions.
Professionally, Joe served as GM at eBay, and VP of Business Development at Quigo (acquired by AOL) before becoming CEO at HopStop in 2009. Since then, Joe navigated the popular NYC-based Web service and mobile app to grow profitably, while entering 500 new cities and being consistently ranked among the top 10 navigation apps. Joe has worked at Apple since it acquired HopStop in July 2013.
Crain’s New York Business recognized Joe as Entrepreneur of the Year in 2012, and Business Insider placed him as No. 9 on its 2013 Silicon Alley 100 list. ♦� – KT
WE-EARN
All executives and aspiring
executives should proactively manage their careers — they should be aware of what new opportunities are out there, and regularly ask themselves: “Am I still in the right role at the right time at the right company?”
10 | WHARTON CLUB OF NEW YORK | WHARTONNY.COM | FALL 2014
What's your background?I grew up in the U.K., attended Oxford and then spent five years at Marakon Consulting. After it was acquired by Charles River Associates, I moved to New York City, and decided to attend Wharton.
What was your aha moment to create SkillBridge?I can tell you the moment exactly. It was in 2008, at my former consulting firm, while working on a project for an internationally renowned family-owned entertainment guide. We could serve it only as long as it could pay our full rates, with 50% of the fee going to our partners and overheads. If the client wanted to pay only for the actual people it needed, a manager and two consultants, then it was an opportunity cost to us. I thought, "That's broken." We were turning down smaller clients that consultants themselves enjoyed working for, but the economics prevented the consulting firm from taking them on.
You began SkillBridge at Wharton. How did it come together?I began taking entrepreneurship courses, and then joined the pilot program at the San Francisco campus, to experience the startup culture in the Bay Area. Our three co-founders met through the Wharton Venture Initiation Program: Brett Lewis, WG'13, who has gone on to take a full-time job, Stephen Robert Morse, C'07, now head of marketing for SkillBridge, and me.
Our thought process was that, if you look at the consulting industry, there are many ex-consultants who would love to do work in their spare time. And there are companies that would love to hire them. We asked, "Why isn't there a platform for people like us and the companies that would hire us?" And it's not just grad students. About 70% of MBA women who leave work to raise a family have difficulty re-entering the work force. We decided to build a simple online marketplace where companies could connect to elite independent consultants. Our brand is built around consultants who have very high-level academic and professional experience. That was the genesis of SkillBridge.
How important has support been from the Wharton community?It has made all the difference. In 2012, we applied to the Dorm Room Fund started by Josh Kopelman, W'93, and became one of the first startups it invested in.
When you start a business, people constantly say, "No."I say "Try out our service, and tell us how to make it better!" So in the beginning, getting people's time is more valuable than clients or money. In that respect, Alberto Vitale, WG'59, the former CEO of Random House, gave us a boost. He invested in SkillBridge, because he said, "I saw what happened with the publishing industry and could see it happening to the consulting industry. Our company used consultants, and I would have utilized a service like SkillBridge." [Continued on page 20]
RAJ JEYAKUMAR, WG'13, wants to introduce you — to yourself — just 10 years younger. That is, if you have finance, strategy or marketing challenges, and wish you could hire someone as smart as you, he has thousands of former consultants and graduate students, able and ready to help. His company, SkillBridge, enables organizations to hire just-in-time bright business consultant talent, connecting both sides of the market, while minimizing search and discovery costs. Raj is an enthusiastic participant in WE-EARN and the Wharton Angel Network.
Rajeev Jeyakumar, WG'13, Co-Founder of SkillBridge:
CREATING A NEW MARKET FOR CONSULTANTS
WE-EARN
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WE-EARN
HOW TO BE MORE PRODUCTIVE!
Mark Hirsch, W'88Founder of CreativeWorx
HOW TO BE MORE PRODUCTIVE!
Mark Hirsch, W'88Founder of CreativeWorx
MARK HIRSCH, W’88, enjoys making things happen. At 14, he began a software firm with
friends, and sold it at 16 to Software City. While at Wharton, Mark opened a clothing store at 36th Street and Lancaster, and sold it in his senior year to another Philadelphia retailer that would ultimately go on to found Steve & Barry’s clothing chain.
Upon graduation, Mark offered to help friends in the film industry when they ran
out of funding in the first week. Without industry knowledge, but with Wharton financial
smarts, Mark traveled to New York City and cold-
called Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, Miramax and New Line Cinema, asking them to review day screenings. At one point while trying to reach an executive and seeing that a floor was closed to elevators, Mark stopped at the next floor, walked down a fire escape and met the executive, who did attend the screening. Those efforts eventually raised $1.3 million, and Mark was promoted from volunteer gofer to co-producer!
Mark went on to create one of the first interactive website ad agencies, started and ran a successful video technology business for almost a decade, and headed up the digital media practice for Adobe Global Consulting. His present enterprise, CreativeWorx, is a unique data mining solution that helps professionals drive productivity and profitability.
Why would a firm use CreativeWorx?Professional services companies, such as legal firms and ad agencies, need to know if their projects are profitable. CFOs need better metrics and better data to track employees’ time for billing and profitability, and to understand productivity. While they have metrics at the client level — they know they have X consultants working with Y hours allocated — they don’t know the profitability of each of their projects for that client.
CreativeWorx TimeTracker extracts information while people work, without interrupting them. It analyzes that data and helps them improve their productivity. TimeTracker privately tracks activities in applications, calendars, browsers, GPS and desktop phone systems to do this.
By capturing that real-time awareness, TimeTracker provides analytics for management and the individuals themselves. They can be alerted if they are going over their time budget or if they are working on the wrong thing, by their own definitions.
Can you drill down a little?A client calls in while you are working in Microsoft Word. Our software notices if you start working on another Microsoft Word document during that call. Our system learns how you associate the time you
spend on that Word document to Client A and Project 123, while another document is associated with Client B for Project 456. While time is being captured, TimeTracker also knows how to properly allocate the time spent on the projects.
Do people become more productive, as they measure themselves?Yes. There is a movement called the Quantified Self, and there are devices that capture, for example, your heartbeats per minute. CreativeWorx is launching the Quantified Enterprise. We go beyond identifying when people have large blocks of uninterrupted time, to observe if a consultant is more productive with a particular person or when working on a particular kind of project. We can also articulate benchmarks, such as the expected productivity within a given industry.
Can CreativeWorx help freelancers’ focus?Absolutely. We provide a free Basic Plan for designers using Adobe Creative Cloud and Creative Suite products. By measuring or tracking their own time, they can improve their productivity.
Describe your interaction with the WCNY.The networking at WE-EARN has been tremendous! Recently, I met an investor who, I hope, will participate in the next
round. Roughly, 50%, or 15, of our investors are Wharton grads. Several years ago, I put in a number of hours as a user, to help construct the platform for the Wharton Angel Network. I’m glad to hear it is reviving.
What is the most difficult part of ramping up a company?Even if you are a master multitasker, there isn’t enough time in the day when you’re growing a new company. It’s still prioritization, time management — with TimeTracker, I’m solving my own problem!
For all of my entrepreneurial efforts prior to CreativeWorx, I was not married. I had more time to focus on my business. In hindsight, I realize that I did not manage my time most effectively. Now that I have kids, it’s much more important to understand how my time is spent. ♦� – KT
Companies can then say to their clients:
Our invoices are more trustworthy, because we use TimeTracker.”
WE-EARN
What was your path to Wharton?I never thought I would go to business school. I thought I could learn everything I needed to know about starting a business through work experience and hands-on learning. But when I looked at successful entrepreneurs in New York City, I realized how helpful an MBA was, especially for people like me who hadn't had formal business training. After seeing such talent at Warby Parker and Diapers.com come out
Melissa Shin Mash, WG'12,Co-Founder, Dagne Dover
MAKING CONSCIOUS CHOICES
MELISSA SHIN MASH, WG'12, working at Coach and DEEPA GANDHI, WG'13, at Club Monaco, were both already successful in the fashion industry. Yet they knew two things: They wanted to create something of their own; and they believed that attending Wharton would enable them to do it. Melissa explains how they created Dagne Dover, a company producing a line of sophisticated, organized handbags that make you feel ready for anything.
Melissa Shin Mash, WG’12, Jessy Dover, and Deepa Gandhi, WG’13
READ ARTICLES ONLINE AT READWNY.COM | 13
WE-EARN
of Wharton's entrepreneurial community, and after learning about the Jay Baker Retailing Center, I realized it was the only business school I was interested in going to.
You and Deepa didn't know each other before Wharton?We did, since 2007. I was at Coach in New York managing brick-and-mortar and e-commerce wholesale accounts. Then, I was in London in charge of turning around Coach's first U.K. location. Deepa was a merchandise planner at Club Monaco. It's funny. Because we had successful careers in retail and knew each other prior, people sometimes ask us, "Couldn't you two have just started this on your own without business school?" We tell them, "It's not just about being talented and being able to create something — people have to have a reason to listen to us!" People pay a lot more attention, because we have formal business training from a top school, and the Wharton community supporting us.
How has Wharton helped you create Dagne Dover?While I was at Wharton, I researched designers in the New York area and discovered Jessy Dover, an award-winning
handbag designer from Parsons. Then I re-connected with Deepa when she joined one of my first focus groups. Both were passionate about the vision and purpose of this brand and we had complementary retail backgrounds. While we worked on the business, we surveyed and focus-grouped over 1,000 women and men from the Wharton network and beyond. We also did a marketing independent study with Professor David Bell, took a pricing class, and went on the global modular course in China for supply chain and operations. These things directly impacted the Dagne Dover business and were the ideal complement to our previous work in the industry.
Then Dagne Dover gained some credibility by winning the Wharton Venture Award, a $10,000 award that is given to five student-run companies each year. It was also the first MBA company to receive an investment from the Dorm Room Fund.
What keeps you going?Our customers! Our customers are so enthusiastic about our products. It changes their lives. The fact that a girl can go home, and she knows where her
keys are instead of being stressed in front of her apartment building late at night, is huge. The fact that she knows she didn't leave her wallet at work, because it's always in her wallet pocket, is great. The fact that her tech isn't going to get ruined, because her water bottle has a pocket that makes it stand upright and not spill over. And these are just some of the handbag problems that women face every day. We ask our customers a lot about their opinions. We want them to know that they're being heard, and we're going to give them what they want!
What advice do you have for budding entrepreneurs?Find partners with complementary skill sets to expand your business's bandwidth. It reduces ambiguity about who ought to work on what part of the business.
Prove that you have a market fit before you sink a bunch of money into anything.
Stop trying to think of the idea and just live your life, acutely aware of what's broken in your daily routine. If something isn't working for you, it's likely not working for millions of other people, too. That's an opportunity. ♦� – KT
General Assembly teaches technology, design and business in a variety of formats that appeal to its enterprising adult students and to the companies that hire them. With 11 campuses worldwide and a large presence in New York City, General Assembly (GA) is growing by 20% per quarter. More than 90% of its current base of 6,000 ‘long-form course’ alumni have secured good-paying jobs within three months of graduation, in hot industries, in the leading cities on the planet.
CEO and co-founder Jake Schwartz, WG’08, learned a ton at Wharton, loves New York City and wants GA graduates to thrive. I interviewed Jake at GA’s campus, located at
902 North Broadway in Manhattan, and then took a fun and insightful class in storytelling.
What is GA’s core value proposition?Students invest in our 10- to 12-week courses to transform themselves. They learn skills to level up in their current positions or change the trajectory of their careers. We have a full-time staff whose only job is to build a relationship with employers and to help graduates on their journeys to find that job or career that will make them tremendously excited. That is our core value proposition — and we invest in it accordingly.
We want students to experience an outrageous ROI on their time here, by having a successful career they love. Our philosophy is that, when students spend 12 weeks with us in a course, they are alumni for the next 50 years. Our mission is to build a global community and provide all kinds of opportunities for our alumni, for their entire lives. That’s how we think about GA.
Jake Schwartz, WG’08 CEO and co-founder General Assembly
Global CommunityTeaching aINTERVIEW
One on one learning at General Assembly
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Can you share GA’s secret sauce?We have skilled practitioners teaching relevant subject matter. Originally, we assumed we needed professors from NYU and Columbia to obtain that imprimatur of credibility, but those professors uniformly received the worst reviews. What we backed into was that students came to us because we did not have professors. That was the “aha” moment. We became a school of practitioners — teaching subjects that did not exist 20 years ago. The education system of the 20th century created an odd environment where things that were practical in nature were eschewed by academia.The 21st century is about making things and doing things, not just thinking about them.
What was your path from Wharton?Upon graduation in 2008, I began working at a small private equity firm. I learned so much from the principals and spent time with smart entrepreneurs in the portfolio companies, but business was at a standstill, and there just wasn’t much for me to do.
I decided to hustle for my rent money by consulting for all kinds of businesses in New York. I was lucky in that I had worked two years at the Small Business Development Center (SBDC) while at Wharton, consulting to help local Philadelphia businesses. My time at the SBDC was an incredibly rewarding experience, because I learned
how to scope and sell work. I had invaluable mentors, including Leslie Mitts, WG’90, who was the SBDC Director at the time. I managed to convert my knowledge into a survival strategy by helping online grocers, ebook publishers and mobile development shops. I would say that I knew how to do anything people wanted to pay me to do, and figured it out along the way.
I loved New York City from the moment I first set foot here. There were all these people joining Meetups and talking about their startups in New York in a different way. I left one day per week open for entrepreneurial efforts, hoping to build up equity in something. In the process, I met Matthew Brimer and Brad Hargreaves, who wanted to build a community space for all their entrepreneur friends. Over the course of several weeks, we brought in another co-founder, Adam Pritzker, took on 20,000 square feet at 21st Street and Broadway, and sold out the space to entrepreneurs and startups.
It was one of those special situations wherein each of the co-founders brought very different orientations, skill sets and relationships to bear. By having these four people focused on the company, we built more value than we could have imagined out of this tiny idea. Then our job became figuring out how to harness that momentum, energy, cash flow and community, and turn it into something more. We began teaching classes for the entrepreneurs and had 60 classes in one room by the time we raised our Series A funding.
Describe your day as CEO.As the CEO, my day is filled with meetings. I focus on hiring amazing people, making sure GA’s vision is consistent among these team members, and ensuring they are given the resources they need to be successful in their roles. GA now has 260 full-time employees, plus contractors. My job is to marshal attention to allow the organization to grow and do more amazing stuff.
What is GA’s approach to the enterprise market? There are hundreds of corporate training companies.Are there really? It’s the fastest growing part of our company. We teach the same fields as we do to our consumer students, leveraging our skilled practitioners, but in the corporate context.
Productivity of the individual
is not the issue in modern society — it’s the productivity of the team, which comes down to communication, understanding and empathy.
Long-form course at General Assembly
INTERVIEW
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We offer our Digital Immersion Program, in-person, which covers topics including social media, mobile and big data, with all kinds of additional modules attached. Our clients include JPMorgan Chase, American Express and GE, as well as smaller firms. They want to catch up with recent shifts in marketing and product development. Firms want to build the capability to understand and evaluate opportunities in-house, versus relying on external service providers. The corporate students range from middle managers to senior executives. What’s wonderful is that, after they complete the programs, they come back and hire our GA graduates. I do my best to help these corporate clients see our graduates for the talented resources they are.
Our corporate clients also asked us to develop an online platform to serve a larger part of their population, delivering those same modules. There has been incredible engagement and adoption at the companies where we’ve launched this program. The students who work in these corporations are the same as those who come to us from other avenues. They have the same desire — to find work that they love, that gets them excited to wake up in the morning. We want to welcome them all into our community.
You look like a reader.I ask every GA manager to read two books. The first is Getting More: How to
Negotiate to Achieve Your Goals in the Real World by Wharton professor Stuart Diamond. It teaches not only negotiations but interpersonal communication inside the company. The other is Great by Choice: Uncertainty, Chaos, and Luck — Why Some Thrive Despite Them All, the newest book by Jim Collins, which talks about the disciplines you need when you are growing this fast. My favorite author of all time is Neal Stephenson, a science fiction writer. Everything he has ever written is prescient.
Why does Wharton have such impact?I love to meet with recent Wharton grads, to help guide them through the waters that I had to go through myself.
Wharton has a tough job because it has to be a lot of things to a lot of different people. What makes Wharton so impressive is its ability to gather that diverse group of people, with diverse ambitions, and still deliver a coherent view of the world of business.
What I personally enjoyed at Wharton was how well-thought-out the curriculum was, and how those frameworks are still meaningful to me today. There is the finance/accounting track, the game theory turning into the strategy and statistics track, and the human capital and management track. If you think of business through these three frameworks, it’s not that hard on the surface, yet there
are incredible complexities underneath.My experience at Wharton was incredible. My training, however, wasn’t immediately relevant for me as I started this company. Now that we’ve become a real business, with all kinds of complicated problems to solve, those frameworks that I learned at Wharton have more application all the time. I still rely on my mentors, Leslie Mitts and Eric Clemons, Professor of Operations and Information Management, who helped me negotiate that journey from working at a firm to becoming my own person and having the confidence to manage uncertainty. That came from their mentorship.
How do you see productivity?I think about productivity in terms of communication and context.
Working in a team, each person has a discipline. Team productivity can break down in communications, when members have different disciplines, different vocabularies and different ways of understanding the world. When you bring a breadth of knowledge along with deep expertise to a team, it increases productivity. That idea applies in most corporate and entrepreneurial settings. The ability to speak other peoples’ languages, whether they are technical or creative or business-oriented, becomes important for you to be a member of the team and a leader of that environment.
Productivity of the individual is not the issue in modern society — it’s the productivity of the team, which comes down to communication, understanding and empathy.
What we are doing at GA, besides building skills in people to do the work needed in today’s world, is building in people a broad perspective of the other skill sets necessary to get a job done, and the ability to work together in those teams to do so. That’s what we do both for enterprises and individuals.
I’ve had my Wharton classmates taking GA classes in Web development, not necessarily because they want to be Web developers, but because they want to speak that language, and understand it for whatever role they are taking on. ♦�
� – KT
INTERVIEW
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INTERVIEW
What did you first do when you came out of Wharton?While at Wharton, I began working for Sony music distribution as a marketing rep in the Philadelphia area. After I graduated Wharton, I moved back to New York City and started working at Mercury Records as the head of alternative marketing, overseeing a staff of 15 alternative marketing reps scattered across the country.
How did you start on Broadway?When I started my career in theater production, financing was something I was good at, so it was a place to start. I had come out of Wharton, so I understood business, and I knew how to explain that a Broadway theater investment was a wise
alternative investment not connected to the financial markets. The first project that I worked on in theater production was Mel Brooks’ The Producers. They were convincing Mel to do it, and it was prior to casting when I came on board. I was a junior producer on the show, kept my ears open and my mouth shut — and I earned my place at the table. I did raise money for the show, and put my own money in the show, which is Business 101 from Wharton — you need to have some skin in the game. A lot of producers don’t have a business background. The traditional investor at that time was a wealthy individual who loved the arts, and could use it as a tax write-off. Those were never the folks I talked to. My investors enjoy coming to opening night, but they expect to make money.
What I enjoy the most is the creative work — putting the elements together, finding the director, finding the cast, thinking about choreography, stage design. These days, I don’t get involved in a project where I just put financing together and I’m not involved creatively. The days when I did do that was because I wasn’t experienced enough. As soon as I had enough experience, I would consider myself more of a general producer than a financier. When you’re a general producer, financing is part of the responsibility.
How do you make money on Broadway?While my personal tastes run more downtown, where I grew up, I do work exclusively on Broadway, and exclusively on musicals. So if you want to make
Beatles…The Businessof the
Speaker Series Event:
SUCCESSFUL BROADWAY PRODUCER AND AUTHORVIVEK TIWARY, W’95 Tiwary Entertainment Group
Vivek J. Tiwary, W’95, shared his insights to an overflow WCNY Speaker Series crowd, on The Business of The Beatles, Broadway, and Beyond, based on his experience producing musicals like, The Addams Family. He also spoke about the lessons learned on his journey to write The Fifth Beatle: The Brian Epstein Story, the New York Times #1 Best-Selling graphic novel. He recently completed the screenplay for the film adaptation and secured music rights. Vivek has taken a nontraditional path from Wharton, producing Broadway shows and entertainment, through his company, Tiwary Entertainment Group. In this follow-up interview, Vivek spoke enthusiastically about that path, the economics of Broadway, his family, and on his nationwide charity — Musicians On Call!
18 | WHARTON CLUB OF NEW YORK | WHARTONNY.COM | FALL 2014
money on Broadway, you need the following:
1. You make money when the show runs for many years, and only musicals run for many years.
2. The project must have some underlying marketability. For example, the Addams Family, a great TV brand; Green Day, which has multiple platinum albums; A Raisin in the Sun, a classic piece of literature; Spiderman — everyone around the world knows Spiderman.
3. Celebrity participation in the actor, director and composer — hopefully, all of the above.
4. I like musicals that have production costs of $12 million to $16 million, with running costs of half a million. American Idiot costs $12 million. Why so low? There were no major stars — the music was the star — and there were no crazy stage changes, no fancy costumes. The Addams Family production cost $16.5 million, on the higher end. We had Nathan Lane, Bebe Neuwirth and a number of stage sets, and a huge squid came up from the basement and did a duet with one of the characters. Spiderman, at $80 million, isn’t even in the ballpark!
If you run these four criteria as a litmus test, thinking of yourself as an investor, then you will rule out 95% of the shows, and for the ones you’re left with, it’s difficult not to make money.
Regarding Brian Epstein, when he saw the Beatles, he saw a great band that had a great message of love to share, and he wanted to share it. In this area, in contrast to my historical mentor, I follow my business acumen, learned at Wharton.
What is your secret to success?Passion and persistence. To have dreams and to follow them passionately, whatever they are. You might be told over and over again that, whatever it is you’re passionate about is foolish, isn’t lucrative or can’t be done. So you also need to be persistent.
When you boil down passion and persistence, you get discipline. If you are passionate about something and you’re sticking with it you have to be disciplined. What is it exactly that you’re passionate about? Is it a certain kind of music? Performing? Or being behind the scenes? Don’t give up until you figure it out, and then chase it. The discipline and the
persistence part is being able to deal with and plow through heartbreak. I don’t think there is a passionate person in this world who hasn’t faced heartbreak.
What are you passionate about at this time?My current passions, outside of spending time with my lovely family, remain focused on The Fifth Beatle as we go into production for the feature film — for which I’ve written the screenplay and am a producer. And I’m still happily continuing to speak about the book and champion the legacy of Brian Epstein at every chance I get!
… if you can’t find a job, then shift your
thinking. Who needs a job? I’ll make my own job.
READ ARTICLES ONLINE AT READWNY.COM | 19
Your grandfather helped build up the economy of Guyana. What did you learn from him?The two main things my grandfather taught me were: (1) you need to work for yourself; and (2) you need to do what you love. His family came to Guyana from India, when he was an infant, to seek a better life. My grandfather started his career in fruits and vegetables, because his father was a farmer. At a young age, he began exporting mangos and pomegranates to the rest of the world, which led him to importing things that Guyana needed. He wound up becoming the minister of agriculture for the country. Soon thereafter he realized that he didn’t like the politics of politics, and decided that he could make a bigger difference in the private sector, where he found “the sky is the limit.”
His first businesses were in manufacturing candy, then Indian spices and then pasta, which didn’t exist in Guyana but was a very inexpensive food that Guyanese people could afford. The insurance and the banking sectors in Guyana were disreputable, so he opened a marine, life and fire insurance company, then a merchant bank and a commercial bank. He saw a need for more eco-friendly cars, so he opened a Toyota dealership. He helped the country launch the Guyana Stock Exchange. All this stuff might sound diverse to the point of being random, but the common thread was they were things that the country needed. For my grandfather, yes, it was about working for himself and doing what he loved, but it was also about ethical businesses that supported his community and extended family, whoever that may entail. If that meant the entire country, then that’s what it meant. So I learned a great many things from my grandfather, not just business lessons.
Have you accomplished what you set out to, when you entered Wharton?I entered the Wharton School in 1991, and at the time, I fancied myself a bit of a rebel. One side of my head was shaved; on the other side, my hair was long and green. Walking around the halls of Steinberg and Dietrich, I got a few looks wondering whether a West Philly punk rock squatter had wandered in. But the truth was I showed up to all my classes on time; I worked my ass off; and I usually finished the semester in the top four or five of the class. I like telling that story, because I think an integral part of who I am is this
desire to defy expectations. Also, I am of Indian origin — and young people of my ethnicity were encouraged to enter fields like medicine or engineering. On top of that, I come from a family with a network of many successful businesses who do nothing in the arts and entertainment. At the time, I felt like I was this rebellious person and turning my back on my education, culture and family.
One of the great things about speaking to your alma mater is it forces you to look back on where you came from, where you are today and where you are going. I can happily say that I am the person who I want to be, and perhaps to the great disappointment of that rebel, I am a product of my family, my background and my education. I took their best elements and pursued my dreams, and I have done so to my personal and professional success.
How does it feel to get your book published?It’s been a great joy. I’ve worked on it, literally, for a decade. It’s hard to talk to your friends for years about a project and not have anything to show for it. So, it was gratifying to be able to say, “Look, see — here it is! I wasn’t kidding for all those years.” Now, I am also applying it into another medium, film. For me, that’s the main reason I will talk to anyone for as long as they want to talk. It’s awesome! I also recognize in media and entertainment that you never know how the tides of pop culture may change, so I need to do as much as I can, when people are interested, so I am going to — travel, talk, and be at every conference and festival. It’s both fun and the smart business thing to do.
You are involved in several nonprofit activities. Can you speak about one particularly close to your heart?Musicians On Call is a non-profit organization that I co-founded 15 years ago. Its mission is to use music and entertainment to complement the healing process. Being more specific, we bring live music to the bedsides of patients.
I will quickly tell you the founder’s story. I lost my mom to cancer at a young age. I wanted to do something that would make
some good come out of that, apply my experience in the arts and entertainment, and give back.
My co-founder in Musicians On Call, Michael Solomon, came from a similar place. He lost a loved one when he was 21, a girlfriend who may have been on her way to being his fiancée. We set out to do something constructive with our experience, and while we were trying to come up with our big idea, we were bringing musicians into Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center where we had a number of contacts, and we had them performing in those rec centers.
One night, we had a musician, Kenli Mattus, playing, and afterwards, a nurse came up to us and said, “You know, that was wonderful, but it’s a shame. There are a number of patients on this floor who love music and couldn’t be here, because they were having a treatment, eating dinner, or whatever the reason. Michael Solomon and I said, “If you’ll have us, why don’t we bring the musician to them?”
You could feel the atmosphere lighten in those rooms. It had such a profound impact on everyone involved. There were patients in their beds who we were later told hadn’t smiled in a week who, all of a sudden, started smiling and clapping their hands. I saw young people, as I had been once, whose relatives were sick in bed. These young people not knowing how to act around their sick relatives would connect over the music. They would say, “Hey, mom, the music. Wasn’t that
INTERVIEW
I can happily say that I am the person who I want to be, and perhaps
to the great disappointment of that rebel, I am a product of my family, my background and my education.
INTERVIEWS
[Continued from page 10]
When you have someone who was a CEO of a major company for that long tell you to ignore the naysayers, and that he would have used it, it's liquid motivation. It will keep you going when you are working on your birthday and Thanksgiving. When people do that for me, I try to pay it forward to undergraduates asking for advice.
Wharton Professor David Bell invested in SkillBridge and gave us a lot to think about. He talks about the digital experience of real-world dynamics. Consulting has a real-world face-to-face element. How do you translate that into a digital experience?
And we have been lucky to serve companies founded at Wharton, like ChargeItSpot, Lead Edge Capital and Warby Parker.
My observation on Wharton is that, whereas Stanford startups tend to focus on consumer products, like a skateboard with electric power, Wharton is perfectly suited to focus on B2B issues like finance, business development and marketing, which may not be as sexy as consumer products, but are ripe for innovation.
What is SkillBridge's value proposition?Elite consultants quickly and in bite-sized chunks! The typical SkillBridge project can be kicked off within two to three days and lasts about four weeks. Our algorithm and filters choose the right consultant for your project.
Our communication tools allow you to
monitor progress and record work. We bring technology to the interaction between client and consultant, which results in multiple efficiencies. For example, someone can look at a consultant's LinkedIn profile and use that to hire him or her. This person will ask, "How many people I know, know this person?" That's real-world social validation, online! This generation wants an interface where they can go online, filter it and get it straight away.
They trust it. They know what to look for, and they want to directly do it themselves, not wait for HR, or after two or three weeks of meetings for coffee or drinks. We are consulting for the Internet Age. Consultants love SkillBridge. They tell us, "Just getting paid on time, and not having to talk to clients about money, are worth the 20% fee."
What is your experience with the WCNY?First of all, I think it's fantastic! Our team has attended WE-EARN events, and on June 25, I pitched at the Club's Wharton Angel Network Demo Day. These bring together the Wharton alumni in New York City who are building new businesses and are able to exchange ideas, capital and advice. The experience was helpful as practice for pitching an idea to new people, and was informative in seeing what questions people had — more prompt and constructive feedback would make it even better! It's also a great way to see what other Wharton entrepreneurs are working on and how you can help each other. ♦� – KT
great?” They would all of a sudden have something to talk about and connect over.
I saw nurses who were working these insane shifts who were tired, all of a sudden, start laughing, smiling and singing. Doctors — who are often not the most gregarious or lighthearted, nor should they be on a cancer floor with a serious job to attend to — all of a sudden, would be poking their heads around the corner and smiling, laughing, dancing and singing. It was a remarkable experience. To top it off, when we walked out of the hospital that night, Kenli said that was the most rewarding musical experience he ever had. We knew that night, this is the organization we need to start.
Neither of us had reached any major success in our fields. Michael and I would
joke that we started our non-profit when we didn’t have our two pennies to rub together. Fast-forward 15 years, and Musicians On Call is in Miami, Nashville, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, Boston, and other cities. We’ve been supported by musicians as varied as Bruce Springsteen and Britney Spears. Today, I’m still an active board member.
What’s your advice to college graduates seeking to find a job in this economy?My advice is to stop trying to get a job and create one. Figure out what your passion is, and chase it with persistence. If you want to work at a record label, and no record label will hire you, then go start a record label. Or publishing, another industry in big trouble right now. You love books, you love literature, and are dying
to work at a major publishing company but can’t get a job there. OK, maybe you should start a publishing company. Publish one of your friends’ books and get it out there. Start somewhere. Find a non-profit organization that supports publishers in some way, and do pro bono work as a way in the door.
For those who are determined to be team players, and want a job, then my advice would be to just stick with it. You are coming out of Wharton, which means, right off the bat, you are educated. You will find a job. It just might take a minute, so stick with it. Although my first line of attack would be, if you can’t find a job, then shift your thinking. Who needs a job? I’ll make my own job! ♦� – KT
When you have someone
who was a CEO of a major company for that long tell you to ignore the naysayers, and that he would have used it, it's liquid motivation. It will keep you going when you are working on your birthday and Thanksgiving.”
READ ARTICLES ONLINE AT READWNY.COM | 21
WCNY’s Special Interest Speaker Series hosted an event titled “Calm Your Mind, Think Clearly and Be a Better Person” on July 24. A sizable crowd attended, confirming the notion that New Yorkers may indeed feel stressed out! Due Quach, WG’06, of Calm Clarity energized attendees through several exercises.First, we partnered up to share four positive experiences, such as your favorite food and your favorite song. I learned that Idehen (I.D.) Aruede, WG’06, Chief Financial Officer of the Whitney Museum of American Art, likes nothing better than to have a leisurely meal, sitting by himself in an outdoor café, to read, think and watch the world go by.
Next came exercises such as smiling, which makes us happier. It works, as Due explained, because, “Thinking doesn’t just happen in your brain — it happens in your body as well. You can’t isolate thoughts from emotions and sensations!”
The main attraction was ‘compassion meditation’, which is named thus, “Because you generate feelings of loving-kindness and compassion. The way the meditation works is, you are going to start by verbalizing positive wishes for yourself, the people in your life and then all people. Then you try to have a feeling comparable to what an ideal mother would have for her child. The wishes are very benevolent.” After being guided in the meditation with eyes closed, for about 10 minutes, everyone was smiling — and no, nobody snored.
Due also shared her personal journey from escaping Vietnam with her family in a boat to refugee camps, to inner-city Philadelphia, to Harvard College and
then to Wharton. This was “the why” behind her own search to create tranquility from trauma.
Due is currently teaching her Calm Clarity program in Philadelphia high schools and colleges to show young people how to manage stress in healthy ways and improve focus, resilience and well-being, to give back. She also wants to teach executive teams in New York to clear their minds, create calm, think clearly, improve their focus and be better people, and thus better leaders.
Due compared and contrasted executives and West Philly students: “Both are faced with chronic stress. They experience triggers throughout the day that keep them in a fight-or-flight state. This takes a toll on their cognitive functions and emotional regulation, which leads to difficulties controlling impulses and increases the risk of depression, substance abuse and other compulsive behaviors. The difference between these two groups is the triggers themselves and the buffers available to them. The challenges most executives face are usually not life-threatening, and they have access to a wealth of resources that buffer stress. West Philly kids are exposed to dangerous situations and have very thin or nonexistent buffers.”
Listen to Due lead a 12-minute meditation, and read an extensive profile and interview with her at www.readwny.com under the Social Impact tab. ♦
Due Quach, WG’06 Founder of Calm Clarity
MINDFULNESS IS POSITIVELY POWERFUL!
CLUB
22 | WHARTON CLUB OF NEW YORK | WHARTONNY.COM | FALL 2014
What is the goal of WhEN?Education is the second biggest sector in the U.S. economy and continues to grow. New opportunities arise every day, and we want to support Wharton alumni to thrive in this sector. Our goal is to be a network for ideas and knowledge that will help our members better run their companies, identify new opportunities, or obtain better results from their investments in the education market.
How has the response been to your outreach?The response has been terrific so far. We have about 30 active members and are looking to grow the group over the next few months. The individuals in the group are phenomenal — personally and professionally — and are very passionate about the education sector. It’s also a diverse group with professionals working in financial services, publishing, higher education, non-profits and so on. So far this year, we’ve sent out a survey to potential members to better understand their interests, and we plan on hosting an event about every two
months. In June, we co-hosted an event on public-private partnerships with the Government Relations Committee, and are planning a social on September 17 (keep an eye on the Events Calendar on the Club website). Readers interested in finding out more can contact me at [email protected].
Why are you interested in education?My interest in education is longstanding — it is a root cause sort of thing that, if you start with education and get it right, then it can have this outsized effect on solving some of the most significant challenges in the world. I started my career as a middle school English teacher in Osaka, Japan. The role was a natural extension of the ESL teaching and tutoring I had done as an undergraduate student at Brown University. I enjoyed my time as a teacher and grew to appreciate how important it is for students to have great teachers (and how truly difficult it is to be one!). The opportunity to work with like-minded Wharton alumni is a natural outgrowth of that interest. ♦
CLUB
Root Causes!Supporting
JAY BAKHRU, WG’04 Affinity Chair of Wharton Education Network
Jay Bakhru, WG’04, was recently asked to be the Affinity Group Chair of the Wharton Education Network (WhEN). WhEN brings together New York-metropolitan-area alumni who are working in the education sector or have an interest in that area. Jay
was the 2010 Co-Chair of the WCNY’s Wharton Alumni Business Plan Competition . Jay is enthusiastic in
getting the word out about WhEN to interested alumni.
Jay Bakhru is Director of Strategic Marketing at Educational Testing Service (ETS). In his current role, he focuses on the intersection of business strategy, marketing and public policy in the education industry. Prior to ETS, he worked in a variety of strategy and marketing roles: Founder and CEO of Language Tailor, Senior Vice President of marketing in Citigroup’s Global Consumer Division, and management consultant in Deloitte’s corporate strategy practice. Jay has a BA from Brown University and an MBA from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, and is pursuing an MA in education policy from Teachers College at Columbia University. Jay lives with his wife and two-year-old son in Princeton, New Jersey.
JAY BAKHRU
CLUB
TAKE THE CALL!The Take the Call Forum allows you to directly reach 30,000 Wharton alumni in the New York City metropolitan area. Promote yourself! Find opportunities offered by your fellow Wharton alumni! Help alumni get answers! Gain ideas and useful information! Just submit to www.whartonny.com/forum.html. Here are some excerpts from the latest Take the Call Forum.
We are establishing the Asuka Nakahara Scholarship.The scholarship will benefit students interested in real estate at UPenn, and honor our beloved professor and friend for his leadership in the industry and devotion to his students.
This endowment is being structured as a matching fund with the International Council of Shopping Centers (ICSC) — https://donate.icsc.org/FND/UnderG.aspx. Juan Martinez, WG’10, [email protected]
Seed round startup investment opportunity.Hi. I am raising a seed $800K convertible note seed round for the SaaS startup I’ve co-founded, Bunchcut. Please contact me at [email protected] if you’re interested in investing or using our product. Bunchcut allows teams to make quicker, better decisions on visual content. Thank you! Nathalie DuPreez, W’05
Language translation for businesses with global operations or aspirations! VerbalizeIt delivers access to a global community of 19,000+ human translators to ensure that language is never a barrier to communication. Contact [email protected] to request a customized quote. Ryan Frankel, WG’12. ♦
THE WHARTON ALUMNI COMMUNITY IS ONE OF THE MOST EXCLUSIVE AND POWERFUL NETWORKS IN THE WORLD. A KEY ELEMENT TO OUR SUCCESS IS THE WILLINGNESS OF ALUMNI TO HELP OTHER ALUMNI. TAKE THE CALL IS A SIMPLE CONCEPT: WHARTON ALUMNI SHOULD BUY FROM, HIRE AND HELP WHARTON ALUMNI. AND IF A FELLOW WHARTON
ALUM CALLS US FOR ANY
REASON, WE TAKE THE CALL.
YES, I want to be a Contributing Member of the Wharton Club of New York, giving me benefits including:
To complete your application online, please visit http://www.whartonny.com/memsub.html Or please complete and mail to:
Wharton Business School Club of New York, 485 Madison Avenue, Suite 747, New York, NY 10173Questions? Contact Gabriela Sanchez at [email protected]
Name
Address
Town/State/Zip
Phone
Credit Card Number
Expiration Date
� Supporting Membership - $95/year � Silver Membership - $500/year � Gold Membership - $1,000/year � Benefactor Membership - $4,000/year – includes membership in the Penn Club
y More access to fellow alumni y Eligibility for leadership positions
y 1/2 price on most WCNY events y Special, members-only discounts on special
services, and health insurance.
SOCIAL MARKETOLOGY — A FRAMEWORK FOR SOCIAL MEDIA MARKETING STRATEGIC PLANNING
Digital Marketing Speaker Series Event
Wednesday, September 10, 2014 at 6:00 p.m.
Location: Midtown (address emailed to all registered guests prior to the event)
Ric Dragon, author of Social Marketology: Improve Your Social Media Processes and Get Customers to Stay Forever, provides a framework that creates a customized social media marketing strategy that has a business’s desired outcomes at its core.
SPECIAL AND SOCIAL EVENTS COMMITTEE PRESENTS SEPTEMBER HAPPY HOUR
Monday, September 15, 2014 at 6:30 p.m.
230 Fifth Avenue (between 26th and 27th Streets), New York, NY 10001
Register at www.whartonny.com/article.html?aid=2227.
THE INEVITABLE CITY: THE RESURGENCE OF NEW ORLEANS AND THE FUTURE OF URBAN AMERICA
Speaker Series Event
Wednesday, September 17, 2014 at 6:00 p.m.
Location: Midtown (address emailed to all registered guests prior to the event)
Scott Cowen, President of Tulane University, speaks on his book, The Inevitable City.
LOCATION IS (STILL) EVERYTHING
Speaker Series Event
Thursday, September 18, 2014 at 6:00 p.m.
Hear Wharton Professor David Bell speak on his book Location Is (Still) Everything: The Surprising Influence of the Real World on How We Search, Shop, and Sell in the Virtual One — which is about how the real and virtual worlds connect.
2014 JOSEPH WHARTON AWARDS DINNER
Thursday, October 2, 2014 at 6:00 p.m.
Location: Metropolitan Club at 1 East 60th Street, New York, NY
Come honor Robert Crandall, WG’60, Alex Gorsky, WG’96, Durreen Shahnaz, WG’95, Neil Blumenthal, WG’10, and David Gilboa, WG’10, GEN’10.
WCNY–CALENDARCheck website for full details on exceptional upcoming events!Whartonny.com/events.html