SPRING 2008
BusinessMiami
U N I VE RSITY O F M I A M I S C H O O L O F B U S I N E S S ADMINISTRATION
Faculty Research
Breakthroughs
Lessons in
Leadership
Alumni Get
Out the Vote
Ready to
LEAD
How the School’s new undergraduate curriculum
prepares students for real-world opportunities
InTheNews
School Sponsors
Economic Impact Study
REAL ESTATE ENTREPRENEUR
OFFERS CAREER ADVICE
STEVEN C. WITKOFF, founder and president of the Witkoff Group, a
New York City-based real estate investment and management firm, spoke
on February 26 to nearly 200 University of Miami School of Business
Administration students about careers in real estate. The program was
Williams (right) and Gonzalez ultimately competed solo.
hosted by the School’s Office of Undergraduate Research and Student
MBA STUDENT A
WINNER IN TRADING
COMPETITION
Support Services.
Witkoff has close ties with the School. This year, for the third year in
a row, he was a judge in the Rothschild Entrepreneurship Competition,
and his son, Andrew, is a freshman. In addition, he has been acting as a
mentor to Josh Bergman, another freshman, who is interested in a career
HEATHER WILLIAMS, an MBA student at the
in real estate. Bergman introduced Witkoff at the event.
University of Miami School of Business Admin-
What, the students asked him, did he think about the falling values in the
istration, won $1,000 in an international algo-
real estate market, especially in South Florida? “The real estate business today
rithmic trading competition. The Interactive
may be even worse than what you read in the papers,” Witkoff told them, “but
Brokers Collegiate Trading Olympiad is open to
the single greatest time to make it in real estate is when it’s most depressed. You
any undergraduate or graduate student with pro-
just have to be prepared to
Dean Kahn joins Frank Nero, president and CEO of the Beacon Council (left), and Ian McCluskey, publisher of
WorldCity Business, at the presentation of the economic impact study results at the Coral Gables Country Club.
wait it out. That’s when
representing 32 countries competed using the
fortunes will be made.”
IN A MOVE to continue building leadership strength at the University of Miami
School of Business Administration, Dean Barbara E. Kahn has named A. Parasuraman, professor and holder of the James W. McLamore Chair in Marketing,
vice dean of faculty. In this newly created position, Parasuraman will play a key
role in efforts to increase the School’s research productivity and build its reputation for research excellence. This includes facilitating the recruitment of senior
faculty, leading a progam to provide more research support to faculty, and overseeing the expansion of the School’s PhD program.
“I look forward to helping the School attract high-caliber PhD students who
can collaborate with our faculty on cutting-edge research,” says Parasuraman.
“Such collaboration will enable our PhD students to graduate with research published in major publications and then take positions with leading business
schools, which will further enhance the reputation of our own school.” ■
4 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
FROM THEIR SOUTH FLORIDA OFFICES,
the Beacon Council, Miami-Dade County’s eco-
program interface that professional traders use
interested students to
nearly 1,200 multinational companies manage com-
nomic development partnership, and sponsored in
to create automated trading solutions. Williams
learn all they could about
bined annual revenues of more than $200 billion.
part by the University of Miami School of Business
worked with fellow MBA student Ingrid Gonza-
real estate. “The more
That’s the conclusion of the first-ever South Florida
Administration. The results of the study were pre-
lez, but each entered separate strategies. Williams’
sophisticated you are in
Global Economic Impact Study, conducted by
sented on January 17 at the Coral Gables Country
strategy was based on trade channeling and earned
this field, the less compe-
WorldCity Business magazine in conjunction with
Club to an audience of some 200 local executives.
a profit of $47,904. ■
■
tition you have,” he said. ■
Steven Witkoff (left) expects
the current real estate
slump to last five years and
told students (below) he is
investing for the long term.
IMPACT STUDY: MARGUERITE BEATY; MBA STUDENTS: MEGAN TICE; SHARMA: MARGUERITE BEATY
Parasuraman Named
Vice Dean of Faculty
Wifkoff encouraged
PARASURAMAN: MARGUERITE BEATY; WITKOFF: TOM STEPP/PYRAMID PHOTOGRAPHICS
A. Parasuraman
gramming experience, but trades must be generated by computer algorithms. Nearly 400 students
Sharma Named
Vice Dean of
Strategic Initiatives
ARUN SHARMA, professor and chair of the Marketing Department, has been named vice
dean of strategic initiatives for the University of Miami School of Business Administration by
Dean Barbara E. Kahn. In this newly created position, Sharma will head up a variety of initiatives, including the Global Business Forum scheduled for January 15–16, 2009, and the expansion of executive education.
“I look forward to working with Dean Kahn to make our school a globally preeminent center for 21st-century business education,” says Sharma. “Through executive education programs, impact conferences and other special events, we will become one of
the schools that the business world looks to for thought leadership.” ■
Arun Sharma
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 5
InTheNews
New Development
Director Joins
School of Business
School of Business Appoints
Director of Communications
THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI School of Business Administration has appointed Jeff Heebner director of communications. In this new position, Heebner is responsible for
developing and implementing the School’s integrated market-
GEORGE CORTON has joined the University
ing communications program, which includes advertising,
of Miami School of Business Administration
media relations, publications production, Web site develop-
as its director of development. In this posi-
ment and other initiatives.
tion, he will raise needed resources for pro-
“This is clearly a business school on the move, and
fessorships, scholarships, lecture series, new
I am very excited to have the opportunity to help tell
academic centers, and the naming of centers
the story,” says Heebner. “We will be working very hard
and buildings.
“I look forward to working with Dean
tionally, and to build a strong brand around our leading-
Kahn to take the School of Business to the next
edge faculty research, innovative academic programs
level,” says Corton. “Her strategy includes sub-
and global orientation.”
stantial outreach to alumni, the business com-
Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business,
where he was managing director for marketing communications. Prior to joining the Smith School, he
managed a full-service public relations and marketing
firm, which he cofounded in Washington, D.C. Heebner began his career in broadcast journalism and
worked as a television reporter, anchor and producer
for more than 10 years. He holds an MBA from the
Jeff Heebner
University of Maryland’s Smith School and a BA from
Temple University.
■
Enjoy a Day of Golf with
Alumni, Friends and Clients
14th Annual
School of Business Scholarship
Golf Tournamnet
November 7, 2008
to raise the School’s reputation nationally and interna-
Heebner joins the School from the University of
SAVE
the
DATE!
Contact:
Colleen Bernuth, Office of Alumni Relations
305-284-4052
munity and friends of the School for the
TWO ALUMNI INDUCTED INTO UM SPORTS
HALL OF FAME
support we will require to achieve our goals.”
Corton was previously the director of de-
PGA golfer Woody Austin (BBA ’86) and NFL punter
Jeff Feagles (BBA ’88) were inducted into the
University of Miami Sports Hall of Fame at its
annual banquet on February 13. Austin (left) led
the UM men’s golf team all four years, was PGA
Rookie of the Year in 1995, and finished second
to Tiger Woods in the 2007 PGA Championship
match. Feagles, who plays for the New York Giants
and won a ring at Super Bowl XLII in January,
played on the Hurricanes’ 1987 national
championship team.
velopment for the College of Law at Florida
International University, where he secured
major building gifts and directed the Dean’s
Advisory Council. He holds a BA from Florida
George Corton
International University.
■
6 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
CORTON: MARGUERITE BEATY; FEDEX AND HEDGE FUNDS: TOM STEPP/PYRAMID PHOTOGRAPHICS
Three students from the University of Miami School
of Business Administration received the Louise P.
Mills Award for their efforts to provide women in
Miami’s Little Haiti neighborhood with the skills and
knowledge to be successful in today’s struggling
economy. The students — (holding plaques, left to
right) Cassandre Davilmar, Itziar Diez-Canedo and
Henry Holaday — accepted the award, which is given
to students who have made an outstanding
contribution to the enhancement of women, on
March 18 from the UM Women’s Commission. Ana
Alvarez (left in photo), vice president of the Women’s
Commission, presented the award.
Led by Students in Free Enterprise and the
Hyperion Council, two undergraduate student
service organizations, the three award winners
conducted weekly workshops in Little Haiti, teaching
pricing, product placement, location and record
keeping, among other business skills. The goal of
the project was to “reach out to the community and
utilize our business knowledge in order to have a
positive impact on the City of Miami.”
HEEBNER: MARGUERITE BEATY; HALL OF FAME: J.C. RIDLEY; COMMUNITY SERVICE: TOM STEPP/PYRAMID PHOTOGRAPHICS
STUDENTS RECOGNIZED FOR COMMUNITY
SERVICE IN LITTLE HAITI
INVESTMENT MANAGER PRESENTS “HEDGE FUNDS 101”
FEDEX EXECUTIVE SPEAKS ABOUT GLOBAL LOGISTICS
Dean Barbara E. Kahn meets with Julio Barrionuevo, vice president for finance,
planning and administration at FedEx Express’s Latin America & Caribbean
Division (right), prior to his presentation, “Access: Changing What’s Possible,”
about the role of logistical services in a global economy, to the School’s Graduate
Business Student Association on November 29, 2007. Also pictured is GBSA
President Pablo Davidov.
Kenneth Shewer, founder, chairman and co-CEO of Kenmar Group, a “hedge fund
of hedge funds,” led what he called “Hedge Funds 101” on February 7 for
students the University of Miami School of Business Administration. Among his
lessons for anyone starting out in the investment industry: “Learning when to ask
a question of a busy person (such as a boss or mentor) is as important as what
you ask,” and “You have to run a business. A lot of hedge funds fail because the
people running them are great traders but can’t run a business.” Shewer posed
afterward with Andrea Heuson, professor of finance.
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 7
InTheNews
SCHOLAR, AUTHOR
SPEAKS AT SCHOOL
OF BUSINESS
the real estate market, Latin American business
and baby-boomer industries. The students
watched and listened as the show’s host, Dylan
Ratigan, and the panel of professional traders
discussed industries and specific stocks they like
and dislike.
“It was a great experience for students to be
around such high-caliber traders and hear from
them,” says Heather Williams, president of the
MBA Finance and Investment Banking Club.
“These traders had a lot of insight into the markets, especially Latin America.”
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS HOSTS PROJECT MANAGEMENT COMPETITION
Joining the students in the audience were Dean
The South Florida Chapter of the Project Management Institute sponsored a competition
for University of Miami School of Business Administration MBA student teams on
November 8, 2007. Each team presented its solution for improving the recycling
program of a fictitious city.The winning team, which received a $1,500 prize, included
(left to right) Supreet Arora, Ronak Gohel, Erika Gandullia and Matthew Schultz.
Barbara E. Kahn; Anuj Mehrotra, vice dean of
graduate business programs; Finance Department
Chair Douglas Emery and Associate Professor Tie
Sue; and Linda K. Rump, associate director of the
Rosabeth Moss Kanter,
renowned professor at
Harvard Business School,
met with Dean Barbara E.
Kahn following a lecture to
University of Miami School
of Business Administration
students and faculty on
November 27, 2007.
Kanter’s remarks were based
on her book America the
Principled: 6 Opportunities
for Becoming a Can-Do
Nation Once Again.
Ziff Graduate Career Services Center.
In addition to participating in the regular
After the CNBC broadcast, students and faculty joined host Dylan Ratigan and the traders on the set at
the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.
program, students had the opportunity to ask
MBAs Participate in
Live CNBC Broadcast
sion called “Fast Money University,” which
questions of the traders during a one-hour sesdirectly followed the live broadcast. Second-year
MBA student Lucas Hand asked for some
insight into telecommunications providers in
Latin America and whether wireless or infrastructure companies look more attractive.
MORE THAN A DOZEN MBA students from the
Finance and Investment Banking Club, were
The students were invited to attend the
University of Miami School of Business Admin-
among 700 people who turned out for the broad-
Florida broadcast after many of them attended
istration took part in a live broadcast of CNBC’s
cast at the Biltmore Hotel in Coral Gables.
the first live taping of Fast Money in New York
P&G EXECUTIVE SPEAKS ON INNOVATION
City last October, when they visited the studio
Claudia Kotchka, vice president of design innovation and strategy at Procter &
Gamble (third from left), spoke on February 29 at an event sponsored by UM’s
Innovation Network that helped kick off Women’s History Month. Also pictured (left
to right): Kristen DePalma, president, Entrepreneurship Club; Susan Wills Amat,
lecturer in management and president, Innovation Network; Dayle Wilson, president,
UM Women’s Commission; Zainab Khadija Ali, first vice president, Yellow Rose
Society; and Terri Scandura, dean of the Graduate School.
dents, who are members of the School’s MBA
issues related directly to South Florida, such as
during their annual Wall Street Week trip. ■
BEHAVIORAL RESEARCH LAB OPENS
Tsiros, associate professor of marketing (overseeing
THE UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI School of Business
complement our efforts to build a world-class
gives students the opportunity to be part of mar-
Administration has opened a new laboratory
PhD program.”
keting in action and enriches their understanding
designed for advanced technology-driven market-
The lab’s advanced technology enables re-
ing research. The state-of-the-art Canes Behav-
searchers to take advantage of tools ranging from
ioral Laboratory houses 31 networked computer
interactive surveys to virtual en-
workstations in 800 square feet of research space.
vironments that simulate prod-
All of the research stations are outfitted with lead-
uct features so they can learn
ing behavioral research software, computer joy-
how people react in actual situa-
sticks and headsets for students requiring audio.
tions. Each semester, as many as
“We are committed to research excellence,
450 undergraduate business stu-
and to fulfill that commitment we must provide
dents will participate in research
an environment in which leading-edge research
conducted in the lab to meet a
and innovation can thrive,” says Dean Barbara
course requirement.
E. Kahn. “Not only does the laboratory create
“It is important for business
tremendous research opportunities for current
students to understand the tools
faculty and students, but it will also help the
and techniques used in real-world
School attract more top research faculty and
market research,” says Michael
8 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
students in photo). “Participating in lab studies
of the value of research in the formulation of
sound marketing strategy.”
■
Workstations enable state-of-the-art marketing research.
A team of UM students, many from the School of Business Administration, won the
Outstanding Delegation Award at the 2008 National Model United Nations
conference held in New York City March 18–22. This marks the fifth consecutive
year that UM delegates have received the highest honor at the annual conference,
which this year drew 4,000 students from 250 institutions and 65 nations. The UM
team, shown here on the floor of the U.N. General Assembly, represented the
delegation from Peru. Patricia Abril, assistant professor of business law, was faculty
advisor to the team.
UNDERGRADUATE
STUDENTS ADVISE DEAN
TOM STEPP/PYRAMID PHOTOGRAPHICS; MODEL UN: COURTESY OF HEMA DATWANI
Much of the program focused on finance
FAST MONEY: MARGUERITE BEATY; BEHAVIOR LAB: TOM STEPP/PYRAMID PHOTOGRAPHICS
Fast Money program on February 29. The stu-
UM MODEL UNITED NATIONS TEAM RECEIVES TOP HONORS
The Dean’s Board of Undergraduate Advisors was formed
to provide student input in the
revamping of the School’s
undergraduate curriculum. This
year’s board members, shown
with Linda Neider, vice dean,
undergraduate business
programs; Ellen McPhillip,
assistant dean, undergraduate
business programs; and Dean
Barbara E. Kahn; are: (front row,
left to right) Rachel Slosberg,
Deborah Moss and Mitchell
Albury; (back row, left to right)
Ashley Flaifel, Brandon Pickett,
Arthur Pearsall, Thomas
Bartman, Matthew Custage
and Nick Kass.
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 9
NEW DIRECTIONS
Ready to
Lead
How the School’s new undergraduate curriculum
prepares students for real-world opportunities
By Robert S. Benchley • Photographs by Tom Salyer
‘R
ED BULL FOR THE CURRICULUM” IS THE DESCRIPTION USED BY ANDREA HEUSON,
professor of finance, and the energy drink so popular with college students provides just the right analogy. Heuson, who heads two faculty task
forces that have spent months examining everything the University of
Miami School of Business Administration teaches, and how we teach it,
is referring to the supercharging of undergraduate education that will begin this fall.
But the sweeping changes now under way go far beyond
the classroom and amount to a revamping of the entire undergraduate experience. Under the leadership of Linda
Neider, vice dean of undergraduate business programs,
business education now begins in the first week of freshman year, and it will be second to no other business school
curriculum in the world. This early focus will include ethi-
10 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
cal decision making, social entrepreneurship and a variety
of community-engagement initiatives that will teach both
leadership skills and how to work in teams.
The following pages describe the exciting changes
taking place and profile more than a dozen outstanding undergraduates who represent the caliber of students we are
already preparing for global business leadership. 䊳
MATT SINNREICH
HOME: Miami Beach
CLASS: Senior
ASPIRATIONS: Entrepreneur
BEST UM MOMENTS: “The chance to
apply my academic teachings to real life.”
BRAGGING RIGHTS: “A lot of students
spend their free time partying. I spend mine
starting businesses. My first idea was We
Wash, a laundry service targeted to college
students. [We Wash won the 2008 Rothschild Entrepreneurship Competition’s
Small Business category.] We pick up and
drop off, different-colored bags keep clothing colors from getting mixed, and bar-code
tracking keeps orders from getting mixed
up. We are working to sign UM as the first
participating university. I’m up and running
with TheLuxuryIndex.com, an online rental
site for high-end properties, automobiles,
yachts, private jets and personal services,
as well as conventional travel arrangements. [TheLuxury Index.com received an
honorable mention in the Rothschild Entrepreneurship Competition’s High Potential
Venture category.] I’m also partnering in the
opening of a South Beach location of the
San Francisco Peruvian restaurant Limón,
and managing a talented young Colombian
singer named Sindy.”
NEW DIRECTIONS
NICK GAVRONSKY
HOME: Knysna, South Africa
A New Generation
Blame it on the demographers, who seem
compelled to label each generation to distinguish it from its predecessor. The baby
boomers were followed by Generation X,
then by Generation Y (also called the Millennium Generation, or the echo boomers
because they are the children of the baby
boomers). The Gen-Yers, who are currently
moving through their college years and into
the workplace, are a breed apart. Wired
almost from birth, they are tech-savvy and
linked through worldwide social networks
that make the concept of a global economy
second nature. They want to make a difference now, and they aren’t interested in a
three-decade wait for a gold watch and retirement. Fortune magazine devoted a cover
story to the Gen-Yers last year, under the
headline “‘Manage’ us? Puh-leeze…” They
are forcing the corporate world to
rethink entry-level opportunities — witness
Xerox’s “eXpress yourself ” program, says
Neider — and recruiters visiting business
schools have to pitch hard for their attention
because it seems they’re all competing
against Google.
The echo boomers are also having an
influence on business education, and the
strategic curriculum changes at the School
of Business are as much in response to the
attitudes of the students in the seats as they
are to the rapidly changing work environment and the needs of the companies that
will hire them. Current high school seniors
who hear the call, and who qualify for admission (requirements have been toughened
considerably), will begin a freshman experience so different that it will seem like the
past has been turned on its head. And it has.
RACHEL DIAS
HOME: Atlantic Beach, Fla.
CLASS: Senior
ASPIRATIONS: Corporate finance (hired
by General Electric).
BEST UM MOMENTS: “Presidency of
Alpha Kappa Psi, the professional coed
business fraternity; membership in
the Hyperion Council, strengthening
bonds between UM and the community;
and UM sports!”
CLASS: Senior
ASPIRATIONS: Hired by Citigroup Latin America; enterprise software entrepreneur; maybe graduate school.
BRAGGING RIGHTS: “While a student, I
worked as the marketing manager for Capital Mortgage from 2004 to 2006, and
Ingham Group, a pension company, in
2007. During my summers, I interned at
Merrill Lynch in Jacksonville, Fla., in 2006,
and in 2007 for Goldman Sachs in New
York. My internship and campus leadership experiences, combined with my education, landed me a position in GE’s
Financial Management Program, an entrylevel leadership program with an accelerated career path.”
BEST UM EXPERIENCES: “Every moment here and every
experience, including the amazing weather, small class
sizes, great professors and education, friendly and diverse
student body, and most important, the great opportunities
UM provides for you to be successful and learn.”
BRAGGING RIGHTS: “I am most proud of the work
that my fellow students and I have done on the
Hyperion Council and SIFE (Students in Free Enterprise). I am also very proud of making it into the final
round of the Rothschild Entrepreneurship Competition
[runner-up in Small Business category], and of being
nominated to represent the University of Miami at the
Goldman Sachs Leadership Program in New York.”
ALEXANDRA PRUEITT
HOME: Palm Harbor, Fla.
CLASS: Sophomore
ASPIRATIONS: Management consulting; overseas
business-related mission work.
BEST UM MOMENTS: “Participating in a program in
which UM students interview Holocaust survivors.”
“Traditionally, freshmen and sophomores
took very few business courses while they
completed their general education requirements in other UM schools and colleges,”
explains Neider. “As a result, they did not
acquire the more advanced knowledge 䊳
12 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
NICK GAVRONSKY: TIM MCAFEE
“Front-Loading the Curriculum”
BRAGGING RIGHTS: “For several months, I have been
interviewing a woman named Irene Mermelstein. When
she was 15, she and her family were taken from their
home and sent to Auschwitz. I had heard horrific stories
before — the Holocaust was history, words on a page,
material on a test — but I had never talked with someone who was willing to share with me how that history
affected each day of the rest of her life. In terms of my
business studies and career plans, the experience has
taught me a lot about interpersonal relationships, and
about the importance of listening and interviewing skills.”
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 13
NEW DIRECTIONS
JOSHUA MORALES
and skills that employers require until they
took more core business courses in their
junior and senior years.
“What we’re doing now is front-loading
the curriculum,” she continues. “It will be
business-driven, enabling students to take
upper-level courses by their sophomore year.
This will give them a solid foundation for
their junior and senior years that will open
the doors to study-abroad programs, internships, consulting projects, working with faculty members on cutting-edge research
[sidebar, page 21] and, of course, completing
their non-business academic requirements.
When they graduate, they won’t just have
classroom knowledge; they also will have
real-world experience, possibly even published research in academic journals. These
types of experiences will make them far
more competitive in the job market. This
generation wants to make a difference from
day one. Our graduates will be able to do
just that.”
“Entering students will take courses in
marketing, accounting and business law in
their freshman year,” adds Ellen McPhillip,
assistant dean for undergraduate business
programs. “There will also be a greater
emphasis on the quantitative curriculum.
Students will have to be proficient in [Microsoft] Excel, statistics and calculus,
making them competitive for the best
internships in the country, especially in financial services.”
Fall arrivals won’t just receive conventional business instruction, however; they
will also be taught the benefit of doing well
by doing good. At the core of the freshman
experience will be a revolutionary new management course that consists of cases, lectures and videos dealing with the critical
decision points involved in making ethical
business decisions. The work of social entrepreneurs and nonprofit organizations that
have been highlighted for their efforts in
this area will be emphasized to show students the blending of both business objec䊳
tives and social initiatives.
14 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
RYAN KAIRALLA
HOME: Miami
HOME: Miami
CLASS: Senior
CLASS: Senior
ASPIRATIONS: Will attend University of Virginia School of Law;
commercial litigation; pro bono work in child advocacy.
ASPIRATIONS: Work with Teach For America, then law school.
BEST UM MOMENTS: “Excelling academically, studying
under brilliant faculty, receiving counsel from capable and
supportive administrators, leading an organization composed of infinitely driven students, and making lifelong
friends.”
BEST UM MOMENTS: “Receiving a first-class education taught by talented and caring professors; experiencing an enriching combination of
challenging curricula, a talented and diverse group of student colleagues, seemingly limitless extracurricular opportunities, and a wonderful environment in which to grow as both a student and as a person
— all of which have sown the seeds for a successful professional life.”
BRAGGING RIGHTS: “My proudest achievement lies in building a background in ethics. Not only were we able to arrange
so many great programs and symposia dedicated to important ethical issues in business, medicine, law and other
areas, but our competitive efforts also brought UM a National
Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl championship. The most gratifying
of these was the chance to offer these valuable experiences
to other students through the Ethics Society.” [Recently
named most outstanding student in business law, and UMAA
Student of Distinction Award winner, with Ryan Kairalla.]
BRAGGING RIGHTS: “I was a member of the national championship team
in the 2007 National Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl; the author of a book
(The Ethics Bowl: Adventures in Reasoning); recipient of the 2008 Student of Distinction Award from the UM Alumni Association; selected to
present my senior thesis (“Competitive Ethical Argument and Moral
Growth”) at the ACC Meeting of the Minds Conference in Tallahassee [it
also took first place at the Citizens Board Research and Creativity Forum];
and a volunteer in the Miami–Dade County chapter of Florida’s Guardian
ad Litem program, which provides assistance and support to abused and
neglected children.”
MICHAEL DESANTI
HOME: Hampden, Mass.
window on the real world after graduation.”
CLASS: Junior
BRAGGING RIGHTS: “I come from a small
town, where everyone believed a career in
the music business was a fantasy. Through
the relationships I’ve made here, I’ve been
blessed with the opportunity to intern at
Estefan Enterprises. That has translated into
an internship this summer at Bad Boy Entertainment and Atlantic Records’ marketing
department in New York. Industry professionals were willing to give me the opportunity,
and I followed through and succeeded.”
ASPIRATIONS: Law school; executive at a
major record label.
BEST UM MOMENTS: “Besides getting the
best seats to top-flight athletics and living in
one of the most exciting cities in the world?
Professors in both business and music
schools whose real-world backgrounds create
a fuller classroom experience and provide a
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 15
NEW DIRECTIONS
CHRISTOPHER SWIFT-PEREZ
HOME: Miami
The FIRST Step
16 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
ROBYN PARRIS
HOME: Bridgetown, Barbados
CLASS: Senior
ASPIRATIONS: Working as coordinator of
special projects for Sunlinc, a premier destination management company started by my
family in 1983, and which has offices in
Barbados, St. Kitts and South Florida.
BEST UM EXPERIENCES: “Encouragement
from my advisor and academic peers to take
classes outside of my major, and outside of
the School of Business Administration, to
become a more well-rounded individual. My
participation in organizations such as the
Hyperion Council and SIFE (Students in
CLASS: Junior
ASPIRATIONS: Law school.
Free Enterprise) has allowed me to apply
classroom learning to real-world situations to
benefit the greater community.”
BEST UM MOMENTS:
“The diverse student body.
Making friends with students from more than 15
countries. Starting a business, Canebooks.com, that
facilitates the buying and
selling of used textbooks
within a student community;
it’s now expanding to other
universities and to Spain.”
BRAGGING RIGHTS: “I have been part of
the Jamaica Project, which is designing
and filming lessons in entrepreneurship
and marketing that will be distributed as
DVDs to three different groups (street vendors, hair salon owners and agriculturalists) in Jamaica. The DVDs are part of a
five-week virtual course, followed by our
traveling to Jamaica to conduct a two-week
on-site course. SIFE/Hyperion was approached by Scotia Bank Jamaica about
producing and implementing this unique
program.”
BRAGGING RIGHTS:
“I began interning in July
KIZZY GIFT
HOME: Woodbrook, Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago
CLASS: Junior
ASPIRATIONS: CPA, then accounting career or JD/MBA program.
BEST UM MOMENTS: “Involvement in campus organizations
and activities — especially as a resident advisor, overseeing
40 young women — and building lasting relationships.”
KIZZY GIFT: TIM MCAFEE
MGT 100, as the course catalog will list it,
will be best known throughout the school as
FIRST Step, “FIRST” being an acronym
for Freshman Integrity, Responsibility and
Success through Teamwork.
“FIRST Step is designed to encourage
first-year students to consider the notion
that a corporate enterprise is part of a larger
social fabric, and that ethical business practices and tangible relations with the local
community are essential features of a corporate strategy for success,” says McPhillip,
who will be one of three section leaders in
the course. “The real goal is to get the students to appreciate the value of community
engagement so they will continue it
throughout their entire career. It’s not about
being good, but about doing good.”
“Students will be placed in teams, will
be mentored by upper-class students and
will work in the community on projects
designed to bring to life the concepts they learn in the classroom,” continues Neider. “Some
teams, for example, will work on
greening initiatives; others will
handle specific projects, from beginning to end, for a variety of
nonprofit organizations. Yet
other teams may develop business plans to focus on social
entrepreneurial ventures. The
course is designed not only to
help students understand key
concepts, but also to give them
hands-on experience practicing
the concepts they learn. Ultimately, they will leave the course
understanding a great deal more
about what social entrepreneurship is, the critical issues confronting organizations today and
how to work effectively in teams
to solve problems.”
In many ways, the new undergraduate experience is as
evolutionary as it is revolu- 䊳
2007 for the chairman
of the Inter–American
Development Bank 2008
Host Committee. In addition
to reinforcing important
skills in research, writing
and protocol, this internship offered me an inside
working view of all the
elements involved in
running a successful host
committee for a large-scale
political event, including
fundraising, security,
logistics, communications
and day-to-day operations.
It offered me contact with
high-level political and
business leaders on a
regular basis.”
BRAGGING RIGHTS: “I am proud to be the first and only
member of my family to attend college. It was always my
goal, and it feels so rewarding to know I am only a stone’s
throw away from graduating. I became a School of Business
senator as a freshman, and was a student representative on
the Search and Recruitment Committee that brought Dean
Kahn to Miami. I am also honored to be a member of the
Hyperion Council, developing outreach projects to create
real economic opportunities for members of the community.
The fact that my education not only enhances me but also
makes a difference in others’ lives is so satisfying.”
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 17
NEW DIRECTIONS
Goodbye to the “Easy A”
A phrase heard a lot around the School of
Business these days is “adding rigor to the
curriculum.” Translation: Coursework is
going to become more exciting, but also
more challenging, and grading is about to
get a lot harder. “If part of our goal is to
deliver a business education on par with the
top 20 schools, then our standards have to
match theirs,” says Heuson, whose task
force has been busy examining the cur- 䊳
18 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
NICK KASS
RACHEL SLOSBERG
HOME: Branson, Mo.
HOME: Cleveland
CLASS: Senior
CLASS: Junior
ASPIRATIONS: Establish a holding company.
ASPIRATIONS: Financial services at a Wall Street investment bank; possibly MBA studies.
BEST UM MOMENTS: “Networking with students, faculty
and businesspeople in South Florida. The friendships and
connections at UM have been truly invaluable.”
BRAGGING RIGHTS: “Rachel and I were asked to establish the Dean’s Undergraduate Advisory Board to act as a
liaison between administrators and undergraduate students. Our goals are to help implement administrative
improvements, create initiatives within the School of Business Administration community and act as a sounding
board for students.”
BEST UM MOMENTS: “Involvement in and leadership of student activities;
working with a wide variety of students, faculty and professionals who
share my interests.”
BRAGGING RIGHTS: “I am most proud of creating the Dean’s Undergraduate Advisory Board. I took on the project because I wanted to play a major
role in generating change within the School of Business Administration. The
board is unique because the members were selected from a pool of students who were recommended by professors and advisors. I hope that the
board will continue to play a significant role even after I have graduated.”
DANNY CARVAJAL
HOME: Miami
CLASS: Senior; President of Student
Government
ASPIRATIONS: Hired by Humana Innovation
Center in Louisville, Ky., as a project analyst
dealing with lifestyle-oriented wellness programs; MBA after some work experience.
BEST UM MOMENTS: “The people I have
met. The rich diversity and cultural backgrounds within the UM community. Stopping
to chat with a fellow student sitting at a
patio table and asking, ‘Where are you from,
and what is your passion?’”
BRAGGING RIGHTS: “Our administration
implemented new programs that directly
benefit the student body. I’m very proud to
have been the founding president of the
Canes Emergency Response Team (CERT),
the first student-led and -composed emergency response team at any university in
the country. We also partnered with Virgin
HealthMiles (normally offered to employees
of large companies) as the first university in
the country to offer the program to our student population, rewarding them for living
active, healthy lives. We implemented a new
partnership with Apple Computer, making
UM part of the iTunes U network and advancing technology in the classroom.”
TIM MCAFEE
tionary, as much of it expands on programs
— in practice and in spirit — already in
place:
• THE PEER COUNSELING PROGRAM, in which
entering students (and now transfer students as well) are mentored by an upperclass student who serves as their guide to
their first year at the School. Many go on to
become peer counselors themselves. Starting this fall, peer counselors will also
become teaching assistants in FIRST Step,
working with teams of 10 students.
• THE HYPERION COUNCIL, an undergraduate
honors organization through which students use their classroom training in a variety of community-engagement projects
ranging from financial literacy to avoiding
credit card scams. Special projects this year
have included work with women entrepreneurs in Miami’s Little Haiti section and a
similar on-site project with women entrepreneurs in Jamaica.
• THE SCHOOL’S ETHICS PROGRAMS, which dovetail with UM-wide ethics programs, and
include guest speakers, a film series and
competitive debates on ethical topics.
Debate teams led by seniors Ryan Kairalla
and Joshua Morales (profiles, page 15) won
the national championship in the 2007
National Intercollegiate Ethics Bowl and
second place in the 2008 national Bioethics
Bowl competition.
• THE MENTOR PROGRAM, in which juniors and
seniors (and graduate students) are paired
with a local business professional for a yearlong, one-on-one working relationship.
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 19
NEW DIRECTIONS
PARTNERS IN RESEARCH
Student-faculty collaborations explore real-world challenges
riculum of top-ranked schools.
One of the results has been the adoption
of “grade banding,” in which a grade of “A”
is restricted to a certain percentage of a core
class, a grade of “B” to another percentage,
and so on. A student will have to earn minimum grades in two core courses in order to
remain a business major. There has also been
a move to assure grading consistency across
sections of core courses. “The overall intention,” says Heuson, “is to distinguish the
great from the merely good.”
But along with academic rigor will
come more variety. Part of the School’s new
strategy is to identify areas in which it can
become a global leader. One, real estate, is
becoming a new undergraduate major; another, health care, is a new undergraduate
minor and may evolve into a major. Others
are under consideration.
W
20 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
than to work on a research project side-by-side with a faculty mentor? As part of an innovative program to foster student/faculty collaborative research, UM students are doing just that, says Elisah B.
Lewis, director of the Office of Undergraduate Research and Student Support
Services, which has paired 20 honors students with faculty members conducting
scholarly research.
“The goals of the program are for students to learn how research is conducted,
to assist the faculty in publishing research, and to conduct and submit to publications their own research,” says Lewis. “Students will also participate in the University
of Miami Citizens Board Research and Creativity Forum and other events where they
can showcase their research.”
TOM SALYER
Freshman Chris Papa was matched with Assistant Professor of Accounting Royce
D. Burnett to work on an analysis of the impact of financial reporting by nonprofit
organizations on potential donors. “We are looking at whether having information
about financials and how efficiently resources received are used influences whether
potential donors give, and the magnitude that they give,” explains Burnett, who saw
Students Help Design Programs
“At that point, Chris will have had a solid introduction to how you go about conduct-
thought undergraduates would be interested in contributing to a worthy cause.”
ing a research project,” says Burnett. “He’ll also gain an understanding of how deciOther students are learning about research through related classroom pro-
2004) filed by the top 100 U.S.-based nonprofit organizations. “There are a variety
jects. For example, juniors Stefan Fritz and Marvelle Adam are among the upper-
of methods of collecting data both actively and passively, and those must be strate-
level students analyzing a case put together by Thor Bruce, associate professor
gically employed in various combinations in order to achieve the desired results.
of finance, analyzing UM’s chiller loop system — a series of pipes carrying the
Being involved in a research opportunity such as this is an excellent way to force
cold water used to air-condition the university’s buildings.
CLASS: Senior
Phase one of the system, which began in 1992, cost $1.47 million. Over the sub-
Next, Papa and Burnett will employ a regression model to assess the relation-
sequent years, the system grew to connect most main campus buildings and saves
ship between information being disseminated to the public and the decision to give.
UM an estimated $800,000 per year in energy costs — more than $10 million since
Royce Burnett (right) and Chris Papa are researching how donors respond
to nonprofits’ financial reporting.
HOME: Miami
sions about resource allocation impact the choices people make.”
of work on the project involved helping to gather eight years of tax returns (1998 to
yourself to think in new and unique ways that can be trailblazing.”
ALEXANDER CORREA
Thor Bruce (center) works with Marvelle Adam, Stefan Fritz and other students
analyzing UM's chiller loop system (green pipes in background).
the project as a good fit for the program. “It has relevance in today’s society, and I
He was right.“I find the research extremely exciting,” says Papa, whose first phase
1994. Because the university continues to expand its facilities, and because energy
costs change over time, the chiller loop serves as a “living case study” for corporate
finance students learning about cost-benefit analysis, explains Bruce.
anything is possible — meeting U.S. presidential candidates, traveling to Israel on an
academic mission, interning on Capitol Hill.”
“For example, expansion of the Miller School of Medicine chiller loop was
deemed feasible when the university planned to build a new hospital, but circumstances changed when the university bought Cedars Hospital,” he says. “Now we
BEST UM MOMENTS: “Learning that
BRAGGING RIGHTS: “In 2007, the Model
U.N. team was given the task of representing the present government of the Republic
of Cuba at the U.N. General Assembly in
New York. As a son of Cuban exiles and
president of CAUSA, a student organization
that advocates for a free and democratic
Cuba, this was definitely a challenge. I
accepted the assignment, and our team
won, with the highest honors.”
need to reanalyze the chiller loop expansion to see if it is still feasible or, if not,
whether it can be modified to be so.”
For Fritz and Adam, the project offers a hands-on learning opportunity, the
chance to make a meaningful contribution to the environment and an opportunity to
serve the school. “The work we do not only teaches us about finance but helps the
university in its financial decision-making process,” says Adam, who was born in
Miami but grew up in Brazil.
“It's a great example of a project that is beneficial in an environmental way as
JOE F. CARDENAS
ASPIRATIONS: U.S. government; international relations. Admitted to Master’s in
Public Affairs Program at Princeton’s
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and
International Affairs and to Princeton’s
Scholars in the Nation’s Service Initiative.
Will first serve two years in U.S. government, with pay, as a Charles and Marie
Robertson Government Service Scholar.
TIM MCAFEE
Faculty and administration weren’t the only
voices heard in designing the new undergraduate experience. In order to gather student input, which was considered critical to
the success of whole process, Neider and
Dean Barbara E. Kahn formed the Dean’s
Undergraduate Advisory Board (story, page
9) to represent the point of view of the
School’s 2,100-plus undergraduates. In
April, the nine-member panel presented a
comprehensive set of recommendations for
a richer undergraduate engagement in the
School’s activities through student-led initiatives, awareness campaigns and increased participation by alumni.
“Helping to design the future of the
undergraduate experience at the School of
Business was an exciting process,” says
Rachel Slosberg (profile, page 19), a junior
majoring in finance and economics, who
serves as the board’s co-chair. “I look
forward to working with the other board
members to help implement our recommendations and make a real difference that
will be felt by both current students and
those who will come after us.”
hat better way to learn how to meet real-world business challenges
well as a financial one,” adds Fritz, an exchange student from Austria.“Being involved
in the analysis offers both an unbeatable learning experience and the opportunity to
make a difference.”
— Jennifer Pellet
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 21
LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP
Carnival’s
New Captain
CEO Gerald Cahill is focusing
on the customer experience
to steer the world’s largest cruise line
into the future
By Peter Haapaniemi
s the CFO of Carnival Corp. — the parent of Carnival Cruise Lines
and 10 other cruise brands — Gerald Cahill (BBA ’73) had what he
says was “the greatest job in the world.” Nevertheless, when a new
opportunity opened up last summer, he jumped at it. ¶ The job
was president and CEO of Miami-based Carnival Cruise Lines. As much
as Cahill enjoyed being CFO, he found the prospect of stepping out of 22 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
Opposite page: CEO Gerald Cahill foresees clear sailing ahead for Carnival Cruise Lines.
ANDY NEWMAN
A
LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP
STEPPING UP
his comfort zone appealing. Since his days studying finance and accounting
at the University of Miami School of Business and Administration, he says, “I
was always in the financial field, but I’ve always thought that the operational
side would be interesting.” So when Carnival Corp. Chairman Micky Arison
offered him the CEO position, he accepted immediately.
How Payless’s CEO is reinventing a retail brand
C
onsumers have traditionally associated
Payless ShoeSource with low prices, not
high fashion. That’s changing, and it’s
the result of a very strategically thought-
out campaign to completely reinvent the chain.
Matthew Rubel (MBA ’80), the company’s president
and CEO, told the story behind the strategy on
Expanding the Customer Base
For Cahill, the path that brought him to
the helm of the cruise line went from UM
to financial positions at Price Waterhouse,
Resorts International and Safecard Services. He joined Carnival in 1994 as
vice president of finance, became
the group’s executive vice president
and chief financial officer in 2003,
and CEO of Carnival Cruise Lines
last July. Cahill is now in charge of
more than 37,000 employees and
22 cruise ships that carry 3.6 million guests a year to ports across the
Caribbean and elsewhere.
The switch from finance to operations has been a big step, but
Cahill says that his CFO experience
was actually good preparation. “One
of the things about being a CFO is
that you have a license to poke your
nose into almost anything. That’s
just the nature of the job,” he says.
“So I had a lot of opportunity to sit down
with the CEOs and presidents from the
various cruise lines in the group and talk to
them about their business.”
Indeed, Cahill has been pleasantly sur-
“ You have to
communicate
the strategic
vision to all
the employees.”
24 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
prised at how much he enjoys the operational
side of the business and the variety that the
job entails. “There are a lot of things coming
at you every day, and I find that I like that,”
he says. “Part of my day I may be working on
the design of new cruise ships, another part
may be spent on a new ad campaign and another on prioritizing IT projects.”
One area of focus is the enhancement of
the onboard experience. Cahill has expanded
the role of the company’s executive vice president of marketing to include responsibility
for the “guest experience.” A key goal is to
bring more first-time customers to the line,
and Cahill sees significant untapped potential in the market. In North America, he estimates, only 17 percent of the population
has ever been on a cruise.
Part of the challenge in reaching out to
new customers is that Carnival’s ships have
more than 53,000 beds to fill every week. It
essentially needs large numbers of passengers of all ages to keep its ships fully
booked. “We can’t say that we just want
young people or old people or families. We
need to cover the whole spectrum,” he says.
At the same time, the company wants to
sharpen its appeal to various customer segments: “Carnival is all about fun, but fun is
different things to different people.”
To do so, Carnival is working to provide
several distinct experiences on each ship.
For example, with its eight Fantasy Class
ships built in the 1990s, it is spending
nearly $50 million per vessel to create separate areas that target specific market segments. Thus, a single ship will have a water
park for families, areas designed especially
for children, young teens and older teens,
February 15, when he spoke at the School of
Business Administration as part of the UM Alumni
Association’s Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series.
“You have to look at enterprises as what they
are in the marketplace, but also as businesses and
what you can do about making them grow,” Rubel
told students taking the Department of Marketing’s
Retailing course. “Wall Street likes for you to grow. If
you don’t grow, you’re dead.”
Rubel asked the students if any of them knew
how many major new malls had been built in the
MARGUERITE BEATY
Cahill believes he made the right choice.
Being the CEO of the world’s largest cruise
line has been a significant change and a
learning experience for him, and it represents no small challenge. But, as he explains,
“if you’re a young boy and a basketball
player, you want to grow up to be a Michael
Jordan. In the business world, you want to
be a CEO of a large, successful company. So
this really is the realization of my dreams.”
Matthew Rubel and
Dean Barbara E. Kahn
U.S. in the previous two years. The answer? One. “All
the growth is in strip malls,” he said. “It’s coming to the neighborhoods.” With
ly announced the launch of a new marketing campaign called I Love Shoes — a
4,600 stores, the Payless chain had enviable retail muscle in the right locations,
fun look at women’s passion for shoes that will be promoted through ads on TV
but it didn’t have the cachet to attract the customer volume needed for the sales
and in print, and through a companion Web site (www.iloveshoes.com).
“We want to reach our customers through multiple price points, especially
growth Rubel was seeking.
His solution was to create a vertically integrated global footwear and lifestyle
during a time like now when mainstream customers are pulling back,” said
company called Collective Brands. “We wanted not to be solely reliant upon the
Rubel. “And we want to reach them through retail, through wholesale, through
Payless brand, but to take its core competencies and build it out,” said Rubel. He
licensing and through e-commerce.”
is doing that in several ways. First, through the acquisition of Stride Rite Corp.,
His strategy is beginning to show results. In 2007, the company sold 220
with its lineup of “iconic American brands,” such as Stride Rite, Sperry Top-Sider,
million pairs of shoes — representing 10 percent of all the footwear coming
Saucony and Keds. Second, through the creation of Collective Licensing, a youth-
out of China — generating just above $3 billion in sales, up 8.5 percent over
oriented fashion/athletic business with its own brands, such as Airwalk and
2006 due to the addition of Stride Rite. Rubel’s efforts are receiving recog-
Vision Street Wear. Third, through the continued “democratization of fashion” at
nition from the media as well. The week after his talk, Payless was named by
Payless, which now sells many of those brands, as well as footwear created by
Fast Company as one of “The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies.”
up-and-coming designers Rubel has put on the company payroll. He also proud-
and so forth. “We have a Serenity area for
adults, with nice music, some Jacuzzis, bar
service — all very quiet and relaxed,” says
Cahill. “So we’re breaking the ship up into
separate areas with their own facilities and
activities, which gives us a real opportunity
to target different kinds of customers.”
Weathering the Economy
Having that kind of segmented approach
and focused appeal is all the more important
in a soft economy, which is affecting customers’ discretionary spending and industry
revenues. But Cahill says that the economy
is not as big a concern for Carnival Cruise
Lines as one might think. The all-inclusive
nature of a cruise appeals to many budgetconscious passengers, and Carnival’s footprint was intentionally designed with such
customers in mind. “A lot of our cruise ships
have their home port along the Gulf of
Mexico and the eastern seaboard of the
—Robert S. Benchley
U.S.,” he says. “The reason we do that is so
people can drive to the port instead of
having to fly, which reduces the cost of the
vacation materially.” Carnival also offers a
number of shorter cruises, which is an important factor for vacationers looking to
keep expenses down. Overall, he says, the
company is fairly positioned for a soft economy. “Our value proposition becomes even
stronger in an economic slowdown,” he says.
With that model in mind, Cahill has
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 25
LESSONS IN LEADERSHIP
“THINK LIKE AN ATHLETE”
VASCO’s CEO tells students why it takes strategy to win
“As CFO, you’re onstage
some of the time. As CEO,
it’s all of the time.
You have to be careful.”
year long, and the seas are calm. So I am
perfectly happy to have everybody else
take their ships to Europe.”
However, Cahill is concerned with a
global, industrywide issue — high fuel
prices. “That’s the biggest problem we
have today,” he says. “Our fuel costs have
nearly tripled in the past five to six years.”
He estimates that the Carnival group now
spends some $1.5 billion a year on fuel. In
response, Carnival has added a supplemental fuel charge to passenger fees, but
that only recoups about one-third of the
cost. As a result, increased efficiency and
reduced fuel consumption are likely to be
key areas of focus for some time.
The CEO’s Limits
Looking back over the past year, Cahill
says that he has learned a lot about what it
takes to be a CEO as opposed to a CFO.
“It requires a lot more trust in the people
who work for you, because as CEO, you
26 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
can’t know the answers to everything,” he
says. “You can’t be expert in every area
you’re involved in, so you have to be able
to rely on the people who are experts in
specific areas. One of the things I learned
in the first few months — and this is actually kind of a frustration — is that there
are limitations to what a CEO can do. For
example, a CFO can push through initiatives himself, but as a CEO, there are too
many demands on your time. You have to
rely on other people.
“I have reached the conclusion that a
CEO can basically only do three things,”
Cahill continues. “First, the CEO can help
to establish the strategic direction of the
company. Second, you can select the people
who can execute that strategy. And third,
you can communicate. That’s really important, and it’s a challenge when most of your
employees are on ships sailing around the
Caribbean. But you have to communicate
the strategic vision to all the employees.”
On a personal level, Cahill says that
the biggest adjustment he has had to
make is adapting to the relentless spotlight that comes with the job. “As CFO,
you’re onstage some of the time. As CEO,
it’s all of the time,” he says. “You have to
be careful, because the slightest thing you
say can be misinterpreted by the organization. Everybody is looking to see how
you’re acting, how you’re feeling, because
it has an impact on the organization.”
The stage that Cahill works on is likely
to get bigger in the near future. The industry is projected to grow by 50 percent
in the next five years, and Carnival should
grow right along with it. “I don’t see that
growth stopping, because consumers
around the world really value their vacations.” And for Cahill himself? “If I’m
here in five years, I’ll be happy. This is a
great business, an exciting business. Because you know what you’re doing? You
are making people happy. You’re taking
them on vacation and you’re creating a
great experience.”
W
hen Ken Hunt advised a lecture hall full of undergraduates to
said, ‘The heck with this. I’m not going back to work for The Man. I’m going to be
“think like an athlete,” he was talking about the whole game, not
an entrepreneur.’” Hunt started a consulting business and soon, in an unusual
a single play. “You can’t live in the moment,” he said. “You have
move, took it public by merging into a Utah-based public shell. “That gave us
to have a goal.”
stock to use for a rollup,” he said. “We didn’t have much cash, but you’d be
In fact, T. Kendall Hunt (BBA ’65), founder, chairman and CEO of VASCO Data
Security International Inc., wasn’t talking about sports at all when he spoke at the
amazed at what we were able to accomplish over time in terms of the acquisition of small technology companies around the world.”
School of Business Administration on March 27 as part of the UM Alumni
Today, VASCO is a leading supplier of strong authentication and e-signature
Association’s Distinguished Alumni Lecture Series. He was using the metaphor to
solutions and services, specializing in Internet security applications and trans-
tell the students that business, like sports, is full of surprises. You need an overall
actions. It serves a customer base of nearly 6,500 companies, including
strategy for winning, even if your immediate reaction is simply to fall back and punt.
approximately 1,000 financial institutions, in more than 100 countries. Total rev-
It’s a lesson that Hunt knows well. A talented UM halfback who dreamed
enue in 2007 was $120 million, up 58 percent from 2006. VASCO is head-
of a career in the pros, he had his dream ended in an instant by a non-sportsrelated ankle injury at the end of his sophomore year. “I had to redirect my
energies,” he said.
quartered in Chicago, but only 7 percent of its business is in the U.S.
Growth has been steady, but the road hasn’t always been smooth. With most
of the company’s business elsewhere, Hunt believed it didn’t make sense to be
Hunt spoke to students taking Entrepreneurial Consulting — a subject in
running it from Chicago. In 1999, he made one of his European executives CEO
which he has considerable expertise but which was never part of his redirected,
and stepped aside. Three years later, he said, VASCO was “about to go over a
non-football career plan. He originally went to work at IBM, then at several other
cliff.” Realizing it was time to redirect once more, he took back control of the
technology companies, intent on following a conventional big-company path.
company. “If you’re going to be an entrepreneur,” he told the students, “you have
“I became an entrepreneur at age 40,” he said. “I got into a disagreement
with the chairman of the company I was running at the time, and I got fired. I
to be prepared to do it multiple times.”
— Robert S. Benchley
Ken Hunt told students that they
have to have a strategic goal.
MARGUERITE BEATY
no immediate plans to shift the company’s
focus to Europe — a move other lines are
making to contend with a weak dollar and
to access the relatively undeveloped
market there. “Carnival Cruise Lines will
continue to be primarily focused on the
Caribbean and this thriving market,” he
says. “The Caribbean is accessible from
ports people can drive to, it’s warm all
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 27
ELECTION 2008
The Results Are
夝
夝
夝
夝
夝
Ali Ingersoll (BBA ’06) is getting out the youth vote.
28 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
PAUL MORRIS/GPA; LOCATION COURTESY OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY DEPT. OF ELECTIONS, OUTREACH
&
TRAINING DIV.
IN
Voters — especially young adults —
are turning out in record numbers
this campaign season.
Is it the issues? The Internet?
Media coverage? We poll faculty
and alumni who have their finger on
the political pulse to find out
夝
By Betty Spence
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 29
ELECTION 2008
Carlos Curbelo (BBA ’02)
notes the increasing power
of Hispanic voters.
Engaged, Energetic Youth
Ali Ingersoll (BBA ’06) is one of these politically awake Millennials, and she has
made it her mission to get non-collegeeducated youth worked up about voting.
CIRCLE data show that a quarter of
young Americans with some college education voted in primaries, compared to
one in 14 with no college, and Ingersoll
wants to close that gap. An entrepreneurship major as an undergraduate, she
leaped at the opportunity offered her last
year by co-founder Justin Rockefeller to
start up a South Florida chapter of GenerationEngage, a nonpartisan, nonprofit
organization previously established in
California, New York, North Carolina and
Washington, D.C.
“GenerationEngage is not like other
youth movements getting people to vote,”
explains the 25-year-old Ingersoll. “It’s
about getting people ages 18 to 29 involved
DONNA VICTOR
S
“It’s the war,” says Gregory Koger, assistant professor of political science. “With the
White House wide open and a five-year
conflict in Iraq, it reinforces that politics
matters. It can be hard to explain to students
why government matters, but when they see
classmates go off and get killed, it becomes
clear that politics is important to their lives.”
But the Vietnam War didn’t send young
voters scuttling to exercise their franchise.
Their motto was “Turn on, tune in, drop
out.” The current under-30 group is distinctly different, according to Koger’s colleague, Assistant Professor Joseph Uscinski.
He sees those born after 1980 — known as
the Millennials — as a breed apart from the
baby boomers and the Gen Xers who grew
up through Vietnam and Watergate and
were soured by politics. “We had a high level
of cynicism in the country, so they didn’t vote
at high rates,” says Uscinski. But the Millennials, he asserts, “are already into politics.
They like it. They have idealism. As they hit
college, we saw political science majors dramatically increase across the country.”
PAUL MORRIS/GPA
omething has the under-30 crowd worked up and
voting in unprecedented numbers this election year.
According to the Center for Information and
Research on Civic Learning and Engagement
(CIRCLE), the Iowa caucus saw youth turnout triple from
2000, and in New Hampshire’s early primary it jumped from 28
percent to 42 percent. On Super Tuesday, youth turnout tripled
or quadrupled in Florida, Georgia, Missouri and Oklahoma. All
primaries and caucuses boasted greater numbers of under-30
voters than other groups, who also have broken primary participation records. Has disaffection disappeared? 夝 夝 夝 夝 夝
in the political process year-round, not just
for elections. The people I’m working with
sometimes have three jobs, they’re putting
themselves through community college,
and they have families. They haven’t been
involved as voters — not due to apathy, but
because they lacked information and access
to candidates.”
Ingersoll provides that access at events she
puts together with local civic leaders, including “commissioners and mayors and councilmen who normally aren’t accessible, and they
talk about getting things done on the local
level. They see they can have an effect on
things that matter to them, like citizenship
for immigrant children or protecting the
Everglades.” She proudly reports that after
an event with Miami Mayor Manny Diaz
about environmental sustainability, “two
young people landed jobs with the mayor’s
office.” Local events have also included national videoconferences with former President Bill Clinton, Supreme Court Associate
Justice Stephen Breyer, Coretta Scott King
and filmmaker Spike Lee.
First fired up by the entrepreneurial challenge of building the South Florida chapter,
including fundraising, outreach and infrastructure, Ingersoll has made Generation
Engage her cause. “As the months went by,”
she says, “seeing the willingness and enthusiasm of these young people made me really
care about where they go and what they do.
Now I want to be the vehicle to get them
what they need in their community.”
Another politically active recent graduate, Carlos Curbelo (BBA ’02), majored in
political science and is currently enrolled in
UM’s Master of Public Administration
program. He concurs that “young people
are more engaged than ever, more mobilized, because for the first time since the
Cold War it’s evident there are major issues
to address in this country, and regardless of
whether they are Republican or Democrat,
they’d better express their opinions.”
Curbelo runs a bilingual public affairs
firm in Coral Gables called Capitol Gains,
and he attributes his early
political zeal to being the
only child of Cuban-exile
parents. “There were rarely
other kids aroud to play
with. As a result, I grew interested in the news before
most people my age,” he
says. “The whole exile experience awakened Cubans
to the importance of getting involved.”
He got pumped on politics at age 16 as a page in
Washington for Florida
Congressman Lincoln DiazBalart, and totally hooked
while in college when he
served as assistant director
of Hispanic affairs for the
Republican National Committee. Still in school, he
CIS Associate Professor Robert Plant
ran campaign administracalls Web-based fundraising the most
tion for both Diaz-Balart
interesting component of this campaign.
and his brother, “doing
under 45, compared to one-third of white
everything from paying bills to generating
voters. “The Hispanic vote is pivotal in this
revenue to reporting to the appropriate
election,” says Curbelo. “Many aren’t regiselection commissions.” He’s also worked for
tering a party affiliation. They are conservaFlorida Governor Charlie Crist.
tive on social issues, but because of the
The 2007-08 primary season has seen
immigrant experience, they agree with
Curbelo in the thick of it, organizing SenDemocrats on labor issues. So the Hispanic
ator John McCain’s campaign efforts in
vote is not only critical, it’s also up for grabs.”
South Florida, then working for Senator
Fred Thompson. “Before the Univision
debate in December, I briefed Senator
The Internet Effect
Thompson on immigration and foreign
The increasing participation by cyberpolicy toward Cuba and Latin America. It
savvy young voters has also helped drive
was an amazing opportunity for someone
the sophistication and impact of candimy age,” marvels Curbelo, 28, who expects
dates’ Web sites, which are far more into work for the RNC this summer.
fluential than in previous elections. The
Curbelo also points to the increasing
sites are filled not only with candidates’
power of Hispanic voters. According to the
positions on a host of issues but also with
Pew Hispanic Center, on Super Tuesday,
a wide variety of volunteer opportunities.
Latinos represented 30 percent of Democra“The Internet,” says Casey Klofstad,
tic voters in California. There’s also a growassistant professor of political science,
ing group of young Hispanics — more than
“lowers the cost of people’s participation
one in five Hispanic voters were between the
by making it easy to become involved.”
ages of 17 and 29. More than half were
The bad news: Any slip-up gets caught
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 31
ELECTION 2008
PROMISES, PROMISES
Why CEOs and politicians can’t speak the same language
32 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
Business Administration on January 29 as part of the Leigh Rothschild
Lecture Series. In addressing the public use of language within the
corporate world, he made an interesting side remark that applied
The Media’s Role
A Clinton–McCain (left brain/left brain)
matchup would offer a more traditional
presidential race than Obama–McCain,
according to Schriesheim, despite there
being nothing traditional about the first
woman running. However, Obama’s run
might make for a happier media community, which already has given him the
most favorable press coverage of any candidate. Uscinski points to an October
2007 study by the Project for Excellence
in Journalism and the Joan Shorenstein
Center of the Press, Politics and Public
Policy that showed 47 percent of
Obama’s early media coverage was positive and 16 percent negative, compared
to 27 percent positive for Clinton and 38
percent negative, and McCain’s 12 percent positive and 48 percent negative.
Few would deny that nonstop media
coverage has fanned the flames of fascination with this campaign, with slanted press
scrutiny of every occurrence, small or large.
“Reporters and commentators are people
with candidate preferences,” says Uscinski,
who also is not happy with the media portrayal of the election as a strategic game.
“Coverage is cynical now, with media questioning every motive. A politician can’t do
anything without the policy being suspect,
without pundits claiming the action was
taken just to get votes.”
Gonzalez also faults the media, which
despite 24/7 attention have failed to probe
for specifics. He muses about how with so
much more coverage now, we know so little.
Indeed, the vaguer candidate is more likely
to win, he says, because “all you need is a plurality, not a majority. State by state, it’s
winner-take-all to the Electoral College. It
therefore pays to be amorphous, to not make
some of the same principles to what politicians say in campaign speeches and
debates. BusinessMiami asked him to elaborate on the point.
“Corporations define goals in very broad, flowery, syrupy terms,” Kerr says,
TOM STEPP/PYRAMID PHOTOGRAPHICS
Newly energized young voters,
new activists, and deep concern about the economy and
the war in Iraq are combining
with another element for a
perfect storm of an election
season: two Democratic candidates who look like no others
in American history. Senator
Management Professor
Hillary Clinton has stirred conChester Schriesheim calls the
siderable excitement — and
Clinton–Obama contest a
backlash — as the first female
left-brain/right-brain rivalry.
candidate to win a major party
presidential primary, as has Senator Barack
on someone’s cell phone and is uploaded
Obama as the first African-American.
to YouTube for millions to see. “You’re on
Voters of all ages, from over-50 blueall the time,” says his colleague, Associate
collar women to young African-Americans
Professor George Gonzalez, “with no lag
and Hispanics, are waking up this year, betime anymore. The power of the Internet
lieves Management Professor Chester
is its immediacy.”
Schriesheim, “because we have two nontraThe Internet’s role in this election fasciditional candidates, and we know the next
nates Robert Plant, an associate professor in
president might be a woman or might be
the School’s Computer Information Systems
black. You could argue there’s so much buzz
Department. For him, the growing of the
and people throwing themselves into the
donor base via the Web is the most interestprocess because of the opportunity to elect
ing component of this campaign because “dosomeone away from the established mode.”
nating has turned into an egalitarian process,
An expert on leadership, Schriesheim
where you don’t have to be a big player anyconsiders this election unique because one
more, you don’t have to face the pressure of
candidate, Obama, is “a charismatic,” which
a $1,000-a-plate dinner. With the Internet,
he defines as “one who espouses an ideologiyou can relate to a campaign from a discal vision that speaks to the values, hopes and
tance, and you can donate a small amount.”
dreams of followers. Obama appeals to the
He points to how Democratic party
right side of people’s brains, the emotional
fundraising jumped 85 percent this primary
side, while Clinton and McCain appeal to
season over the same period in 2003-04, acthe brain’s left side, the cognitive, rational
cording to the Los Angeles Times, and how
part.” This, according to Schriesheim, is at
Democratic National Committee Chairman
the core of the crowd dynamics fueling
Howard Dean, who inaugurated Internet
Obama: “Charismatics build a strong devofundraising in 2003, raised $40 million in a
S
teve Kerr, a CEO advisor with Goldman Sachs, spoke at the School of
referring to mission statements about everything from increasing revenue to
promoting diversity. “Their intent is to get buy-in, and there’s nothing wrong with
that.” What’s essential, however, Kerr adds, “is that you move from there to
describe what other goals will be ignored, where the money [to pay for them]
will come from, things like that.”
He contrasts that to politics, where candidates talk of wonderful goals regard-
Steve Kerr (right) was a speaker in a lecture series sponsored by Leigh Rothschild.
ing health care, education and other issues. “They need buy-in from at least 50.1
polemics and oratorical skills play in campaigns, and that once elected, politi-
percent of voters,” Kerr says of politicians’ motivation. And whereas good corporate
cians can be held accountable for enacting their pledges — just as CEOs answer
leaders follow up rhetoric with specifics, politicians should explain who’s going to
to board members, stockholders and customers.
And if he were advising politicians? “First, they should tailor their message
pay for promised programs.
“The point I was making,” Kerr says, “is that while corporations work hard to
[to different audiences], but they shouldn’t say ‘A’ to one group and not to anoth-
put teeth in their mission statements and make them come alive, politicians
er. They also shouldn’t pander or lie.” His second piece of advice is tougher: “You
seek to avoid that, because the more votes they can get without pinning them-
want politicians to be specific, but they can’t until the electorate starts reward-
selves down, the more flexibility they keep.” Kerr acknowledges the roles that
ing them [with votes]. Politicians go where the rewards are.”
strong statements that can hurt you, so you
can garner as many votes as you can. A critical media should force candidates on the
record about Guantanamo or electronic sur-
DONNA VICTOR
Nontraditional
Candidates
tion among their followers.” And, he adds,
“They remain ambiguous. He’s projecting a
giant inkblot, allowing followers to see their
own definitions of what’s desirable. There’s
nothing in it for him to be more specific.”
DONNA VICTOR
year, compared to the onemonth haul of $55 million by a
current candidate. “It’s the multitude of small donors over the
Internet that’s making that difference,” says Plant. “Power has
moved to a more populous base.”
veillance, but they’re complicit in keeping
important issues off the agenda, which is
why Iran is not on the public’s radar.”
“If the media is complicit in this, then so
UM political science faculty
(clockwise from left) George
Gonzalez, Casey Klofstad,
Joseph Uscinski and Gregory
Koger monitor voter —
and media — activity.
— Bob Woods
are we as citizens,” counters Klofstad. Reporters grill candidates on the number of superdelegates rather than about Iran, he says,
because it’s the nature of the media beast.
“The media is a business, the business of selling news. For the most part, we don’t pay
much attention — we’re not very good citizens. To draw us in, they focus on the simpler
things, the more ‘interesting’ things, pushing
complex policy issues to the background,” he
says. “There’s more policy content on The
Daily Show than on CNN or Fox.”
Klofstad points to the PEJ-Shorenstein
study that found a mere 1 percent of media
stories had focused on candidates’ records
or performance, while 63 percent focused
on tactical and political aspects of the campaign. Yet a Pew Research Center poll
shows that 80 percent of voters want more
coverage of issue stances. “The media won’t
give us what we won’t consume,” he says,
“so if, as a society, we demanded savvier
media content, they’d respond.”
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 33
PATRICIA
SANCHEZ ABRIL
Assistant Professor,
Business Law
FACULTY RESEARCH
Private Practice
KNOWLEDGE MAKERS
From parenting to privacy, customization to climate change, our faculty
scholars are writing new lesson plans for today’s business managers
Photographs by Tom Salyer
F
ACULTY RESEARCH IS ONE OF THE FOUNDATIONS OF A GREAT
academic institution. At the University of Miami School of
Business Administration, the “creation of knowledge” is part
of our Mission Statement, and, in practice, it is part of our tradition. Our faculty, whether on their own or working with colleagues at other major business schools around the world, are turning
ideas into results. Their findings are published in top-tier journals and
enrich the teaching in our classrooms. This new knowledge also gives executives on the front lines new tools to better run their companies in
today’s increasingly competitive global business environment. This is
how progress is made, and it begins here.
The School has more than 100 faculty members engaged in cuttingedge research. The following pages profile several of them from a
number of academic disciplines. We believe that you will be impressed
by the variety of their interests, the importance of their findings, and by
the energy and enthusiasm they bring to their work.
— The Editors
34 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
Technology and social networking have
moved way beyond the reach of existing law.
What are the implications for business?
atricia Sanchez Abril says she
“fell into” studying Internet
privacy. “When I started teaching at UM four years ago,
privacy was at the forefront
of my students’ minds. They
asked, ‘If we’re on Facebook, what will
happen to our reputations?’ They were very
concerned about how privacy law would
protect them online.”
Concern has evolved into assistance,
and her students now help her conduct
legal research that results in law review articles. Abril’s focus is to inform practitioners, judges and legislators by bringing light
to an ongoing issue, analyzing it academically and giving a prescription for how the
law should change or adapt to it.
Her first article on the topic, published
last year in the Harvard Journal of Law &
Technology, looked at privacy in online social
networks such as MySpace. Another, also
published last year, was in the Northwestern
Journal of Technology and Intellectual Property.
“If someone says something online about
you or your company that’s embarrassing,
the consequences are greater than they used
to be,” says Abril. “Digital form allows for
permanent malleability, total anonymity and
transferability of the information and, in
some instances, total anonymity of the
speaker in ways that were never possible
before. The stakes are much higher, but the
law is more ineffective than ever.”
Businesses are highly affected by these
issues. “From a public-relations standpoint,
companies can no longer control all the messages about them,” she says. “There’s a digital
dossier that both individuals seeking employment and businesses trying to maintain their
P
good names need to contend with.” She describes a growing category of Web sites
where users can write such things as “Don’t
do business with this company.” Yet most of
these sites have nothing in place to check
the accuracy of such statements or the
hidden agendas of posters.
Abril’s latest interdisciplinary research
includes survey work, which is not traditional for law professors but is
becoming popular as attorneys,
legislators and judges realize that
surveys reveal something about
society that can ultimately
inform law. She is exploring a
section of the Communications Decency Act that gives
total immunity to Internet service providers for any postings
by third-party users. While the
law intended to encourage the
Internet’s early evolution, today,
reputation-bashing Web sites are
taking advantage.
Says Abril: “One of my research
questions is, How does this law, enacted in 1996, gel with these kinds of
Web sites whose business models seem
to be geared toward harassment and
defamation?” At the same time, her latest
survey examines the younger generation’s
concept of privacy and asks whether
their online disclosures are rooted in
immaturity or a societal privacy revolution. She says the results will
inform businesses’ understanding
of their young consumers and
employees, and the law’s evolution in this area.
— Ellen Ullman
FACULTY RESEARCH
Finding Profits in Reverse Logistics
“Trust Me!”
Repairing and reselling returned items can boost the bottom line
When trust is broken, it’s time
for damage control. The worst
response is to do nothing at all
ver wonder where all your old
cell phones end up? Or all
those appliances, clothing and
cosmetics returned to retailers
that can’t, for one reason or another, be resold? So did Vaidyanathan Jayaraman, an associate professor
of management who studies reverse logistics, or the management of products that flow back to companies
from consumers.
O ver the past decade,
much has been made of the
profit potential of speeding
time to market and trimming
costs through supply chain
management. “But once
customers purchased
E
the product, that was the end of the discussion,” notes Jayaraman, who focused
extensively on traditional supply chain
management earlier in his academic career.
“Now we’re closing the loop by looking at
what happens when consumers return
those products, and how companies can
optimally handle those returns.”
Reverse logistics is fast becoming a hot area of research.
In fact, research conducted
by Jayaraman and Yadong
Luo, professor and chair of
management, and originally
published in Academy of Management Perspectives, caught the
eye of editors of more mainstream publications, including
The New York Times Magazine
and Harvard Business
Review. The attention
comes for good reason.
Americans return more
than $100 billion worth
of products each year
and discard staggering
quantities of “e-waste” in
the form of outdated
computers, electronics and
peripherals.
Jayaraman has met
with dozens of companies
seeking to turn the way
they handle the deluge
of returns into a strategic
competitive advantage.
These include using insights gleaned from analyzing the reason for the
returns to improve products, mining returns for
raw materials, refurbishing,
remanufacturing, recycling
and reselling products, or even farming out
the sorting and selling of returned items to
outside specialists.
Estée Lauder, for example, used to
dump more than $60 million worth of returned cosmetics each year. Investing $1.3
million in a reverse logistics system capable
of scanning the expiration dates of returned
products to discern
if they can be sold
in developing markets or in stores,
enabled the company to create a
$250 million product line from these
returned goods.
VAIDYANATHAN
While bottomJAYARAMAN
line boosts like that
Associate Professor,
factor heavily in reManagement
verse logistics strategy, environmental concerns are a major
factor as well. In another research article that
Jayaraman co-authored in the Journal of Operations Management, he discusses sustainable
supply chains, in which sustainability must
integrate issues and flows that extend beyond
the core of supply chain management to include manufacturing by-products.
“Often, the first question most companies
ask is, ‘Does it make financial sense to take
products back, work on them and put them
back into the marketplace or distribute them
through a third party?’” he says. “And, yes, it
is profitable. But guess what? It’s also an issue
of sustainability that is critical from both a
societal and even a legal perspective. Many
countries are passing laws that will make it a
responsibility for manufacturers to provide
proper mechanisms for consumers to return
products. This is not an issue that is going to
go away. It’s one that will intensify.”
— Jennifer Pellet
hat do Oprah Winfrey,
JetBlue Airways and
Arnold Schwarzenegger have in common?
All have weathered
crises in which their
trustworthiness was called into question, and
all bested the challenge, according to Cecily
Cooper, whose primary stream of research is
trust repair, on both the individual and corporate/organizational level.
“When you say the word ‘trust,’ most
people automatically think of it as an integrity or honesty issue, but trust is actually
more complex. It’s multifaceted,” Cooper
explains. “It’s not just about integrity. You
can also trust in someone’s competence.
And we’ve found that this integrity versus
competence distinction is very important.”
Cooper, whose interest in the topic predated the Enron scandal, has found a fertile
field from which to draw material. She and
her colleagues (Donald L. Ferrin at Singapore Management University, Peter H. Kim
at the University of Southern California and
Kurt T. Dirks at Washington University in
St. Louis) currently have three articles in
print — two in the Journal of Applied Psychology, the third in Organizational Behavior
and Human Decision Processes. Two others are
moving quickly through the review process.
Cooper’s research has shown that “the
taint of an integrity violation lingers longer
than that of a competence question, because
it is perceived to be more diagnostic of who a
person really is.” But central to trust repair is
what the violator does after the transgression.
Cooper and her co-authors have demonstrated that, guilty or not, if an entity or individual is accused of a transgression, “not
W
Calif. She and her colleagues will
responding is basically the worst
be presenting two papers — one
thing that you can do.”
on the role of the board of direc“I’m a business school protors in maintaining trust with an
fessor, but I’m basically a social
organization’s stakeholders, the
psychologist,” says Cooper.
other on whether some individu“Specifically, I study the social
als are simply more predisposed
psychology of people in organito trust again after their trust has
zations, but our trust repair CECILY COOPER
been broken. A third project
findings are equally applicable Assistant Professor,
under way examines how groups
to other contexts, such as poli- Management
differ from individuals in making
tics and the media. Also, when I
trust judgments. “I would eventually like to
conduct research, I am just as likely to use
write a book on trust repair for a general
lab experiments as field studies. Lab experaudience in order to help people understand
iments as a methodology are quite useful
how to respond when their trustworthiness
for studying the process of trust repair.”
or that of their organizations has been called
Cooper has organized a symposium on
into question,” Cooper says.
trust repair that will take place in August at
— Karen Bennett
the Academy of Management in Anaheim,
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 37
FACULTY RESEARCH
DAVID L. KELLY
Lessons from
Investment Bubbles
A Cool-Headed Approach
to Global Warming
Consumers like to follow winning
streaks — but only so far
Who you gonna call? Maybe an economist
pen a newspaper on any
given day and chances are
fairly good that you’ll run
across at least one story about
an investment bubble — an
overvalued sector poised to
burst. These days it’s real estate; less than a
decade ago it was dot-com stocks. Joseph
Johnson, assistant professor of marketing,
set out to discover just what it is about the
way consumers think and feel about markets
that drives the bubble phenomenon.
“We found that consumers have interesting biases that lead to the investment bubbles you see,” he explains. Two well-known
but contradictory biases are the “hot hand”
in basketball — the theory that a player who
has hit several shots in a row is more likely
to score again — and the “gambler’s fallacy”
— which holds that if a coin is tossed repeatedly and tails come up several times in a
row, heads is more likely on the next toss.
“What we found is that those two biases
exist in each individual and operate together,” says Johnson, who coauthored, with
Gerard J. Tellis and Deborah J. MacInnis at
the University of Southern California, an article on their findings that appeared in the
Journal of Consumer Research. “All people will
follow a winning streak, but they will follow
it for only so long before they say, ‘This is too
long for me, I won’t invest further.’ And that
point is different for different people.”
In related area of recent study, Johnson
and Tellis looked at the relationship between
positive reviews of consumer products in
Walter Mossberg’s long-running Wall Street
Journal column and stock market performance. As anticipated, it was found that,
C
O
38 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
limbing temperatures, rising
seas, Katrina-strength hurricanes. We’ve all heard the
alarming predictions about
what global warming will
wreak upon the planet in the
decades to come. Amid this mounting hysteria, Associate Professor David L. Kelly
offers a pragmatic approach to the issue of
climate change — one backed up by extensive research on multiple fronts.
“Much of my work focuses on the challenge of designing policy when the magnitude of change is uncertain,” explains Kelly,
who points out that mounting evidence in
recent years has shifted the global warming
debate from whether changes are coming
to when they will occur and how severe
they will be. “Estimates of the change in
temperature over the next 100 years range
from one-half of a degree to 14 or 15 degrees — from a change that would be no
big deal to one that would be catastrophic.”
That uncertainty has led to a wait-andsee approach among policymakers, who
have argued that scientists would soon determine the extent of the problem, at
which point it could be addressed. Kelly,
along with Charles D. Kolstad of the University of California, Santa Barbara, created a computer simulation that included
complicated realistic uncertainties, and
published their results in the Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control.
“It turned out that it would take longer
than anticipated to figure out what was going
on,” Kelly says. The resulting policy recommendation? Act now and adjust that action
as more information becomes available.
Kelly outlines a “ramp-up” strategy that
JOSEPH
JOHNSON
Assistant Professor,
Marketing
after adjusting for such factors as an overall
market surge or fall, a favorable review of a
product would, on average, raise the price of
a company’s stock — and potentially mean
millions of dollars to the company. “Firms
are under pressure to bring new products to
market quickly, but this study shows that
firms should wait to ensure that their products are good or very good before introducing them,” he says. “The impact of a negative
product review can cause firms to suffer
losses from which they never recover.”
Johnson also recently collaborated with
Tellis to study the mixed success rates of
companies racing to capture the vast markets of India and China. “We did an his-
torical analysis by looking at case studies
and news reports to build a picture of why
companies succeed or fail in these emerging markets,” he says, noting that one finding was that success in one market does not
necessarily translate to the other. “They are
very different animals. Even a company
like Procter & Gamble, which succeeded
in China, can fail in India and vice versa.”
What does boost the odds of making inroads? Control over entry — or entering a
market directly rather than through a joint
venture — and being based in an economically similar country, says Johnson, who plans
to replicate the study for the emerging markets of Latin America.
— Jennifer Pellet
Associate Professor
& Chair, Economics
begins with a modest program to slow rather
than attempt to reduce the rate of carbon
dioxide emissions viewed as contributing
significantly to climate change. “As time
goes on, technologies improve and
the cost of reducing emissions
comes down, and then you can
get more aggressive,” he says.
Kelly’s research also extends
to exploring the optimal structure for a cap-and-trade
system, a strategy for reducing carbon dioxide emissions
that involves creating a financial incentive for emission
reductions. The cap-andtrade system works by establishing limits for emissions from
certain groups of polluters, such as
power plants, that are lower than
their current emission rates. Individual permits are then issued for,
say, each ton of pollution created,
and companies are free to buy and
sell those permits.
Kelly plans to devote his upcoming
sabbatical to exploring some of the disaster scenarios predicted by global warming
activists. “I want to design a better way to
look into the worst-case scenario —
a 14-degree temperature change — and
potential disaster scenarios such as complete melting of all the ice caps, huge
sea level rises and hurricanes,” he says.
“And second, how reversible is that? In
other words, could we shut it down
and reverse the process? My goal is to
figure out how these disaster scenarios work more definitively.”
— Jennifer Pellet
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 39
FACULTY RESEARCH
TALLYS YUNES
Assistant Professor,
Management
Science
The Costs of Customization
Research recommendations save John Deere tens
of millions of dollars in unnecessary expenses
hen Henry Ford began
to mass-produce the
Model T in 1914, he
understood the concept of customization:
Customers could have
their car “in any color so long as it is black.”
Ford’s view may seem antiquated to
today’s consumers, who customize everything from their morning coffee to their
evening television. But companies are finding
that a wide variety of product options can
translate into heavy complexity costs — in
the form of changeovers, decreased efficiency
and additional training — that reduce profits.
That’s why John Deere, a leading producer of machinery, wanted to know how
much variety is enough. The answer, ac-
W
40 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
cording to Tallys Yunes, assistant professor
of management science, lies at the intersection of marketing and operations research.
“John Deere was aware they were offering too many things,” he says, “and thought
maybe there was a way to reduce their
complexity cost.” The company looked to
researchers Sridhar Tayur and Alan
Scheller-Wolf from Carnegie Mellon University to evaluate the possibility of streamlining two of its product lines without
sacrificing profits or upsetting customers,
and Yunes was invited to join the effort.
The result was recently published in the
journal Operations Research.
“This problem is an old problem. Variety creates costs,” he says. “The issue was
that the old approaches were only able to
handle tiny problems, with a few hundred
customers and products. But our approach
was the first one capable of handling problems with up to tens of thousands of customers and millions of possible products.”
To achieve this breakthrough, the researchers used a three-step process. First,
they employed standard marketing tools to
understand how flexible Deere’s customers
were. After gathering information through
customer surveys and interviews with experts, they calculated how important a certain option is to a customer and assigned it
a numerical value.
Next, they needed to determine a formula that assigned a dollar amount to the
complexity costs. “In the John Deere case,
the company already had a mathematical
formula that they gave to us,” explains
Yunes. “In other cases, it has taken us a few
months to find that formula.”
The last step was to use operations research techniques to build an optimization
model to decide what products to offer so
that the company’s profit (revenue from
sales minus costs, which include complexity
costs) is maximized.
The model returned a list of which
products to stop offering and which to keep
if John Deere wanted to attain the highest
possible profit. “We were not really expecting them to use the model’s results blindly,”
says Yunes, “but what they did was something we didn’t expect either.”
Rather than discontinuing any products,
John Deere gave discounts to influence customers to buy those machines the model
said they should sell. As a result, the company reaped complexity cost savings without having to publicly announce any
reduction in its product lines.
It was a win-win result. Yunes and his
coauthors saw how a company could use
their ideas to develop pricing strategies,
rather than just following their recommendations, and John Deere has reported
saving tens of millions of dollars.
— Jill Colford
Family Ties
Children tend to do better in school if their parents are married — but marriage
may not be the reason
t’s not unusual to hear that couples
contemplating divorce have decided to
stay together “for the children.” After
all, research has long shown that children whose parents are married do
better in terms of health, behavior and
educational achievement. But recent findings by Assistant Professor Shirley H. Liu
suggest that the real picture is more nuanced.
In fact, Liu, a labor economist who specializes in family economics, finds “no evidence
that divorce negatively affects children’s
long-term educational attainment.”
Liu’s research is based on the Panel Study
of Income Dynamics, a nationally representative study of 5,000 U.S. families dating to
1968. She looked at data on about 3,000 children in about 2,000 families. After accounting for factors such as
family income, Liu
found that “children
of divorced parents
tend to attain less
schooling compared
with those whose
parents remain married,” she says. But SHIRLEY H. LIU
even if children of Assistant Professor,
Economics
divorced parents are
completing less education, is it the divorce
itself that’s to blame? “If parents aren’t getting
along, the household environment may not be
beneficial to children,” she notes. “So it might
be the conflicts, and not the eventual divorce,
that are causing the bad outcomes.”
Liu used statistical analysis to untangle the
issues. “I looked at both the process of divorce
and the process of investment in children over
time,” she says, “and I found that divorce is not
the problem. In fact, there is the possibility of a
positive effect from divorce for some children.”
I
More recently, Liu examined the effects on
children of unmarried couples who get married
after having children. This latest research is
based on the Fragile Families and Child Wellbeing Study, an ongoing study of nearly 5,000
U.S. children born between 1998 and 2000.
Liu looked at differences in cognitive
development revealed by the Peabody Picture
Vocabulary Test, which measures verbal ability. She also considered health problems
such as asthma and behavioral issues such as
attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder. A
paper that she coauthored, with Frank
Heiland of Florida State University, on the
findings has been accepted by the journal
Economic Inquiry.
For health and behavior, there was no difference whether parents got married. “Those
factors were affected by parenting practices,
not by whether the parents were married,”
Liu explains. As for cognitive development, she found that children whose parents got married fared better. But as with
divorce, it may not be marriage itself that
makes the difference. “Married mothers tend to have a higher level of
education than do unmarried
mothers,” Liu says. “So they may
be more likely to provide a
stimulating environment.”
The findings have implications for public policy. Liu
points out that existing and
proposed state and federal programs promote marriage and
marital stability. “But we need
to understand how the different facets of these issues affect
the probability of children’s
success,” she says. “Rather than
investing in policies that encourage
couples to get married or that make
divorce more difficult, it’s more
important to provide assistance to
families that need it, whether or
not the parents are married.”
— Eric Schoeniger
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 41
Faculty
InTheNews
AlumniNews
Stephen Stern, BBA ’63
BusinessWeek, 3/31/08 — Dean Barbara E. Kahn sat down with BusinessWeek editors in March to discuss
the School of Business Administration’s momentum and vision for achieving global prominence. In a 13-minute
video interview posted on BusinessWeek’s Web site, the dean discussed the School’s efforts to increase the
rigor of its programs, engage with other UM schools to create innovative cross-functional programs, and develop
the School’s research caliber.
CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, LORD DANIEL SPORTSWEAR, SUNRISE, FLA.
PERSEVERANCE PAYS OFF
El Nuevo Herald, 3/26/08 — An article detailed how the new Canes Behavioral Laboratory is part of the
strategy to build the research caliber and reputation of the School of Business Administration. The article
included quotes from Dean Barbara E. Kahn and Michael Tsiros, associate professor of marketing.
Persistence has been a common thread in Stephen Stern’s life.
From his first sale — at the age of 11 — to one of the residents in his Brooklyn, N.Y., apartment build-
The Miami Herald, 3/24/08 — William Werther, professor of management, was quoted in an article about
whether administrative salaries and vehicle policies at the Miami-Dade School District are too generous.
Werther argued that the salaries and policies do not appear to be unusual for an organization of that size.
LUCIA WALLER FAIN (BBA ’49) is retired and living
in Marietta, Ga.
ROBERT B. GOESER (BBA ’48) has been retired
since 1983. He and his wife, Barbara Walsh Goeser,
also a UM graduate, split their time between Miami
and North Carolina. They are both enjoying retirement and traveling extensively.
ing, Stern learned a vital lesson. “It took two weeks to sell that box of greeting cards,” he recalls. “When I
asked my dad for help, he said, ‘Just do it.’”
Two years later, Stern’s father moved the family to Miami and bought into a wholesale clothing business.
South Florida Business Journal, 3/21/08 — Anita Cava, associate professor of business law, director of Business
Ethics Programs and co-director of UM Ethics Programs, appeared in an article about UM Ethics Programs being
designated a Collaborative Center in Ethics and Global Health Policy by the World Health Organization.
Today, that company is Lord Daniel Sportswear, a multidivisional company that sells men’s and women’s apparel to more than 2,000 specialty stores. Stern acts as chief operating officer, overseeing everything from
managing employees to making sure products are shipped correctly. “I’m a seven-day-a-week guy — on the
WOR Radio – New York, 3/21/08 — Dean Barbara E. Kahn was interviewed live on the popular Joan Hamburg
talk show, which airs daily on New York City’s WOR Radio (www.wor710.com). During the 20-minute interview, Kahn
spoke about the momentum at the University of Miami, the role of marketing and business education in general.
computer, selling off unprofitable divisions, investing in new ones,” he says.
Stern took over the company in 1998, but two years ago he handed the reins to the next generation to join
the family enterprise, his son Brett. Given the uncertain economy, the company’s current goal is diversification.
CBS4 Miami, 2/27/08 — David Kelly, associate professor and chair of the Department of Economics, was quoted
extensively in television segment on what’s been dubbed “The Perfect Storm,” a situation in Florida characterized by
hurricanes, taxes and inflation. Kelly was tapped as an expert because his research focuses on climate change and
designing policy when climate change is of uncertain magnitude, or if climate change has uncertain damages.
Stern was an active member of Sigma Alpha Mu — and recently organized the fraternity’s 100th anniversary lunch — but worked whenever he wasn’t in class. “I remember a business course that really inspired
me,” he says. “The professor said that hard work, perseverance and integrity pay off, and I live by that.”
South Florida Sun-Sentinel, 2/3/08 — George Gonzalez, associate professor of political science, was quoted
in an article about how the Florida primary shaped choices for Super Tuesday voters. “McCain has staked out
positions on foreign policy that are very important for Cuban-Americans and other Hispanics,” said Gonzalez.
“It strengthens his position nationally because it shows he can mobilize Cuban-American voters here in Florida.
It tells Republicans that McCain can win in Florida. And Florida is a must-win state for Republicans.”
The “perseverance” part of the professor’s lecture paid off too. Years ago, to land the JCPenney account,
Stern sat in the buyer’s waiting room for an entire week. “At first he wouldn’t see me, but by Friday he took me
in and gave me an order.” Today, JCPenney accounts for half of Lord Daniel’s $24 million in annual revenue.
— Ellen Ullman
BBC News, 1/29/08 — Michael Connolly, professor of economics, was quoted in a story about how Florida’s
economic woes seemed to be overshadowing the state’s presidential primary. “About 7,000 families have left
the state; the quality of life is greatly diminished,” Connolly said. “There’s a greater risk from hurricanes, higher
taxes that seem to be sticking, and more difficulty in finding good jobs.”
CBS Early Show, 1/29/08 — Casey Klofstad, assistant professor of political science, was interviewed about
the importance of the Florida Democratic primary even though it awarded no delegates to the winner, Hillary
Clinton. “Florida matters because it’s a real microcosm for the country,” said Klofstad. As for why Clinton spent
time in the state following her defeat in South Carolina, he commented that she came to Florida “in order to
get herself in the news again, in order for the focus to be pulled away from Obama and his rising ascendancy.”
The Miami Herald, 1/28/08 — Marc Junkunc, assistant professor of management, was quoted in an article
about biodiesel lawn mowers. Junkunc noted that few consumers would likely be willing to pay the high
additional cost. “When people are given an alternative between a product that is more environmentally friendly
and one that’s not, they’re shfting in terms of the green market,” he said. “But definitely still a majority of people
will look closely at the economics. People aren’t just going to spend large amounts to be green.”
1950s
FRANK D. CALISTRO (BBA ’50) is a retired school
guidance counselor living in Woodbridge, Conn. A
trumpet soloist with the Band of the Hour during his
UM days and a former member of the Guy Lombardo
Orchestra, he still plays regularly in Dixieland bands
in Connecticut.
LIONEL CHAIKEN (BBA ’57) started a race in 1998
to raise money for the cure of brain tumors to honor
the memory of Pamela Sue Chaiken. He asks fellow
alumni to visit www.curebraintumors.org to find out
how to support the cause.
WILLIAM M. DELONG (BBA ’58) retired after 32 years
working in building construction to his “funny farm” on
Lake Martin, Ala., where he is writing a novel.
ARTHUR L. HIGBIE (BBA ’50) is retired and living in
Brandon, Miss.
WALLACE L. LEINHEARDT (BBA ’59) is a partner in
the law firm of Jaspan, Schlesinger, Hoffman LLP in
Garden City, N.Y. He was recently elected chair of the
Trusts and Estates Section of the New York State Bar
Association.
GEORGE D. WELCH (MBA ’52) is a professor emeritus of accounting at Drake University in Des Moines,
Iowa. He retired in 1993 after 25 years on the faculty. He taught at the School of Business for 11
years before going to Drake.
1960s
South Florida Business Journal, 1/25/08 — Joseph Uscinski, assistant professor of political science, was
quoted in an article about political contributors who “bundle” the contributions of their friends and
acquaintances, a controversial practice that watchdog groups say hides contributions that are beyond legal
limits. “No matter what reform gets passed by Congress, there are always loopholes,” said Uscinski. “If they tried
to go after bundling, they’d run into a constitutional barrier there. It’s basically the freedom to assemble.”
JEFFERY SALTER
WPLJ10, 1/15/08 — Patricia Sanchez Abril, assistant professor of business law, was interviewed for a story
about a Miami street gang leader who had made a video of himself and fellow gun-waving gang members
taunting police, and posted the video on YouTube. “This is Osama bin Laden’s M.O.; it really isn’t surprising that
it’s trickling down,” said Abril. “I think this is a good example of the challenges that law enforcement is facing
now, and in the future, with the Internet.”
The New York Times Magazine, 1/6/08 — Research by Vaidyanathan Jayaraman, associate professor of
management, and Yadong Luo, chair and professor of management, was cited in an article about reverse logistics
— what happens when unwanted products are returned to the stores or Web sites from which they were purchased.
Companies, says Jayaraman, have become much more efficient at handling the $100 billion in annual returns,
preventing much of it from ending up in landfills and turning returned products into an additional revenue stream.
1940s
ROGER O. BOGGS (BBA ’67, MBA ’70) is retired and
living in Kingsport, Tenn. He is actively involved in
numerous community and statewide volunteer activities. In January, he went to New Orleans as part of
Lutheran Social Services’ Camp Recovery to help
rebuild homes.
SAUNDRA KAPLAN (BBA ’62) has been elected to
the board of trustees at Warren Wilson College in
Asheville, N.C.
MICHAEL LITOW (BBA ’68) is executive director at
The Education Center, a counseling and referral cen-
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 43
Lau
AlumniNews
George Stoeckert, BA ’70, MBA ’72
PRESIDENT, EMPLOYER SERVICES INTERNATIONAL, ADP,
ROSELAND, N.J.
THE PATH TO SUCCESS
George Stoeckert was a self-described “military brat” whose idea of what the business world was all about went
no further than the local grocery store or shoe emporium down the block. “Living on military bases, I never
grew up thinking about pursuing a career in business,” he says. Today, Stoeckert is president of the Employer
Services International division of Automatic Data Processing Inc. It’s the latest step in a long career in business, and he credits his education and experience at the School with playing an important part in his success.
Stoeckert majored in psychology as an undergraduate and minored in economics. He says it was a “coin
toss” as to which path he would pursue. “I had originally planned on continuing in graduate school in psychology. However, at the last minute I decided to go to business school,” he says. “The education I received
there made a tremendous difference in my ability to make my way in the business world fairly rapidly.”
His first job after receiving his MBA was with Southeast Banking Corp.’s Trust Company, where he
worked as a buy-side investment analyst. He moved on to Ryder System about 18 months later. Ryder, a
Miami-based leasing and logistics giant, had diversified heavily — and, as it turned out, unwisely — in the
ter in Naperville, Ill., that provides life coaching for
young people. He lives in Aurora, Ill.
RICHARD J. MOONEY (BBA ’64) is chairman of
Hayes Mechanical, a boilermaker contractor in
Chicago. He was recently honored with the
Excellence in Leadership Award at the 40th Annual
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Dinner in Chicago. Mooney
has promoted ideals of the late Dr. King for the past
30 years, focusing on enabling employment equality and opportunity at his company.
SUZETTE S. POPE (BBA ’69, MBA ’71) works as an
advocate for the elderly. She has served on the
board of directors for the Alliance for Aging in Miami
for six years, and was elected treasurer for
2007–2008. The agency allocates and monitors
$62 million in O.A.A. (Older Americans Act) funds to
meet the needs of the elderly in South Florida. She
lives in Miami.
FELIX JOSE SUAREZ (BBA ’69) recently moved back
to the United States after working as a photojournalist in Asia for many years. He lives in Miami.
Henry Weiss, MBA ’87, MSIE ’87
early 1970s. Four months into Stoeckert’s tenure, Ryder was overleveraged and on the verge of bankruptcy.
with Ryder for over 16 years.
Stoeckert accepted an offer from ADP in late 1991. He was named president of the Major Accounts division in 1996, responsible for
the middle market, the largest
part of ADP's business. In
2003, he was tapped to run the
company’s HRO international
division, which “needed focus
integration and growth opportunities at the time,” he notes.
Stoeckert’s positioning of
ADP’s international HRO
business as not just a payroll
provider in individual countries
but
a
broad-based
provider of multinational outsourced human resources services provided the stimulus to
firmly accelerate growth in
sales revenues and profits. A
critical part of his strategy involved leveraging available
technology. Today, the operation provides solutions in
more than 38 countries, and
he counts the turnaround as
one of the most significant accomplishments of his career.
— Michael J. McDermott
44 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
RALPH ALVAREZ (BBA ’76), president and chief
operating officer of McDonald’s Corp., was recently
named one of the “25 Best Latinos in Business” by
Hispanic Business magazine and listed in the Top
Leaders section of the magazine’s 2008 Corporate
Elite. He is an active member of the Ronald
McDonald House Charities. Alvarez also serves on
the UM President’s Council and the International
School of Business Committee.
JOHN CHACONA (BBA ’78) has established his own
marketing/public relations/advertising consulting
practice after 27 years in marketing, advertising,
broadcasting and publishing. He is also a freelance
journalist and has become a member of New York’s
chapter of the National Academy of Recording Arts
and Sciences.
STEPHEN R. COHN (BBA ’78) is vice president of
Oasis Sunrooms in Berea, Ohio. He married his wife,
Elena, a computer engineer from Romania, in 2006.
He lives in Strongsville, Ohio.
RAFAEL CONTRERAS JR. (BBA ’75, MBA ’90)
became president of D’Accord Inc., an apparel
manufacturer in Miami, following the death of his
father. The two started the company in 1980.
Contreras says that D’Accord is one of the few
apparel manufacturers still making clothing in the
U.S. He remembers studying in the UM library and
running across a quote that said, “A country is only
as strong as what it produces.”
CHRIS CRYSTAL (BBA ’79, MBA ’81), owner of
Miami Real Estate Company, a luxury residential
brokerage firm in Coral Gables, was recently named
A LIFE OF SERVICE
Hank Weiss has ended up half a world away from Ohio and Illinois, where he grew up. But as Peace Corps
country director in Cape Verde, he is living the ideals he absorbed there as a young man.
“I grew up during the Kennedy years and lived in a community with many traditional American values,”
Weiss says. “I recall often hearing JFK’s famous words, ‘Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what
you can do for your country.’”
Weiss earned an undergraduate degree in mechanical engineering in Ohio, and another at American
University’s School of International Service in 1976. He was also a Peace Corps intern — an experience that
would call him back to service many years later.
Weiss launched a career in international development work, spending the better part of a decade on projects in Central America and Africa. Then, he says, “I was assigned to work in South Florida. I knew the
importance of productivity to effectively deliver public services such as education, health, water, transportation and energy. When I began looking at graduate schools, UM was one of the few universities that had a
productivity research center. I believed that getting both a graduate engineering education and an MBA
would give me the tools to better understand and measure productivity, especially considering the longerterm environmental costs that are so critical today.”
Weiss continued his international development career, but Kennedy’s words continued to inspire him.
He joined the Peace Corps in 2005 and was named the country director for Albania. After two years in Albania, the Weisses were posted to Cape Verde, a nation of widely scattered islands some 300 miles off the
west coast of Africa. Depending on the season, Weiss supports 50 to 80 Peace Corps volunteers.
“Water is everything here, and most of it comes from desalinated seawater, which requires electrical
energy that is generated using petroleum fuels. Our volunteers in a large technical school here develop,
design and build, with their students and faculty, prototype water desalination units using only solar
energy,” says Weiss. “The teamwork and stewardship that comes from partnering our volunteers with local
efforts at the grassroots level is one of the best things I have observed in many years of international project experience.”
B. NEWHOUSE
amount of work to cash flow the company out of the position it was in,” Stoeckert says. He ended up staying
COUNTRY DIRECTOR, PEACE CORPS, CAPE VERDE
1970s
DENNIS CHALKIN
“I ended up in a small group under [then-treasurer and later CEO] Tony Burns, and we did a tremendous
to the board of directors of Deering Bay Yacht &
Country Club. He lives in Coconut Grove, Fla.
STEVEN GINSBURG (BBA ’73, JD ’76) is a partner at
Adorno & Yoss LLP, a national full-service law firm in
Miami. In January, he lectured at the Zoning,
Subdivision and Lead Development Law Seminar in
Miami. He has been ranked among the top lawyers
in Florida by the South Florida Legal Guide every
year since 2005.
DANIEL W. JEFFREY SR. (BBA ’70) ended a 37-year
career of coaching and umpiring high school baseball
games in June 2007. He continues to do voiceover
work for radio and television. He lives in Howell, Mich.
STEVE LUPOVICH (BBA ’77) lives in Mt. Royal,
Quebec, Canada.
EDWARD J. NIEDZ (BBA ’75) is retired in Bradenton,
Fla. Before his retirement, he was senior vice president at Lehman Brothers and worked on Wall Street.
He was also director of a nonprofit Consumer Credit
Counseling program in southern New Jersey.
JOEL SCHACKNE (MBA ’74) retired in June 2006 from
teaching high school math after 36 years. He had
taught in Miami-Dade County’s Gifted Program since
1977. He was the county’s 1998–99 Math Teacher of
the Year and served as the AP statistics faculty consultant reader for the College Board. In 2007, he married Debbie Jenkins Jones. They reside in Davie, Fla.
The Weisses — Hank, wife Bea, and sons Hank and Frank — will conclude their five-year Peace Corps
tenure in 2010. “Then we will return to our home in Florida. Until then, it is an honor for our family to serve.”
1980s
STEPHEN BARBALACO (BBA ’88) is managing director, EMEA of private banking and distribution for SEI,
a global provider of comprehensive wealth solutions
to financial services firms, institutional investors and
high-net-worth families. He lives in London.
STEVEN K. BERNSTEIN (BBA ’88) is an attorney with
the international law firm Weil, Gotshal & Manges in
Washington, D.C. He lives in McLean, Va.
FRANCES A. BROWN (BBA ’85) is chef-owner of the
Pineapple Blossom Tea Room in Miami. She recently
expanded her menu, which led to a feature write-up in
the Food & Dining section of the Miami Herald. Brown
prepares all of the food in her restaurant herself.
RICHARD COCHRAN JR. (BBA ’85) is associate vice
president for strategy and business development at
the University of Maryland’s University College in
Adelphi, Md. He develops partnerships with corporations and with national and local governments. He
lives in Columbia, Md.
DARRELL DUCHESNEAU (BBA ’83) is owner of
Mooney Distributing Inc., in Tomball, Texas. Mooney
is the new distributor in South Texas for most products from VPX Pharmaceuticals of Florida.
CHARLES J. FOSCHINI (BBA ’87, MBA ’88, JD ’97)
has been appointed vice chairman in the Miami
office of CBRE Melody, a real estate investment
— Catherine O’Neill Grace
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 45
AlumniNews
WORKING ON THE RAILROAD
On a typical morning, Cindy Sanborn can tell you what’s happening on some 9,000 miles of railway track
across a huge swath of North America. As vice president of the northern region for CSX Transportation,
her territory ranges north from Louisville, Ky., to Montreal, and east from Chicago to Boston. In that
area she manages, she says, “anything that involves running a train.”
Sanborn graduated from Emory University in 1987, and went to work at CSX that June in Jacksonville, Fla., her hometown. “Both my parents worked for CSX, and I always knew it was what I wanted
to do,” she says. “It’s different every day — it’s like solving a big puzzle.”
She started as a transportation analyst, then took a leave to earn her MBA at the School of Business Administration. Back at CSX in 1992, she moved quickly through a series of positions around the country,
then moved back to Jacksonville in 2005 as an assistant vice president. She began her current job in 2007.
“We begin the day with a situation conference call with all the divisions to get a pulse of where everything is and what kinds of challenges are out there, looking at it from a network perspective,” says Sanborn. “We move a lot of freight. When you turn on your electricity, you don’t think about how that
happens, but we delivered the coal to the power plant. If you go to Home Depot, we probably delivered
the lumber. If you drink Tropicana juice anywhere in the New York City area, we delivered the juice in
about 55 refrigerated boxcar loads, from Bradenton, Fla., to Greenville, N.J.”
Sanborn not only understands the big picture of her business, she also knows how to operate a train.
“I’m a licensed locomotive engineer,” she says, explaining that it helps her understand more about
what the 7,000-plus people she oversees face every day. She is recertified every three years. “Once a year
I have a documented train ride with a supervisor to check off on my capability in handling a train. I have
not really run a train for living, but I could do it tomorrow.”
At UM, “it was the business experience that I was looking for — the finance piece, the accounting
piece. I wanted a business orientation, not just an operations orientation. You have to think beyond just
operating the train. My most challenging area of responsibility is the human factor element , which concerns operating trains safely. That’s my main focus. The public is at risk if we’re not at 100 percent all the
time.”
46 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
— Catherine O’Neill Grace
VICE PRESIDENT, INTERNATIONAL NETWORKS,
SONY PICTURES TELEVISION INTERNATIONAL, LOS ANGELES
HOW EAST MET WEST
George Chien jokes that although he was born in Taiwan, he was raised in an “honorable Asian way of life
in New Jersey” that dictated his career choices — law, medicine or accounting. He chose the third option.
“I chose to attend UM for its reputation and diversity,” he says. “However, when I entered as a freshman, I lacked direction. I knocked on the Peer Counseling Program’s door and Jeannie Batridge answered.
She was remarkably helpful. She taught me how to focus and stay with it. As a sophomore, when I had the
opportunity to volunteer for the program, I signed on, shepherding freshmen through their first year just
as Jeannie had done for me.”
After graduating, Chien went to work for Ernst & Young LLP in Miami and obtained his CPA. But
then Elinor Fukuda (now his fiancée) and David Gardner, a UM classmate who had gone to Los Angeles
to work in the entertainment industry, convinced him to chuck it all and go west.
“Of course, my parents thought I’d lost my mind, giving up prestige and security for ambiguity and insecurity,” says Chien. “They defined success as a person making six figures. I showed them a 10-year business plan ending with an income with two commas. They thought I was nuts.”
Chien started in at United Talent Agency’s mailroom, known internally as the “agent training program,” for a fraction of what he had made as an accountant. “I didn’t expect royal treatment, and I didn’t
get it,” he says. “Nevertheless, starting at the bottom had its advantages. It taught me that entitlement has
no place in business. I learned humility as well as every aspect of the industry, and I acquired listening
skills. In hindsight, being on the
bottom was the most valuable business experience I’ve had.”
Chien quickly moved from the
mailroom to reading scripts and recommending projects and casting.
The next stop was Walt Disney Studios, where he worked primarily on
movies. He joined Sony Pictures
Television International in 2001 as
manager of international networks,
was named director in 2003 and vice
president in 2007. In March, Sony
expanded his role to lead the
Asia/India region, which includes
ensuring profitability for the company’s TV networks in Southeast
Asia, Japan and India.
“Today’s media are linguistically,
culturally and financially diverse,”
Chien says. “To thrive, it is important to be attuned to different cultural practices, as well as different
business practices. It’s fascinating,
ALAN LEVENSON
VICE PRESIDENT, NORTHERN REGION, CSX TRANSPORTATION,
JACKSONVILLE, FLA.
work for people with depression/bipolar and other
affective disorders. He lives in Plantation, Fla.
George Chien, BBA ’94
JENSEN HANDE
Cynthia Sanborn, MBA ’92
banking firm. He is responsible for business development and restructuring of debt and equity investments throughout South Florida.
ANA CELA HARRIS (BBA ’84, JD ’87) has become a
partner with Singer Xenos Wealth Management, one
of Florida’s largest independent wealth management firms. She is also serving as a member of the
advisory board of the Department of Biomedical
Engineering at Florida International University and
represents immigrant children through the Florida
Immigrant Advocacy Center.
MICHAEL J. IRVIN (BBA ’88) served as grand marshal in the University of Miami’s 2007 Alumni
Weekend and Homecoming.
HELAINE BRISKMAN MOESNER (BS ’82, MPA ’87) is
a pilot in the U.S. Army, flying both airplanes and
helicopters. She is also a contract manager for several government contracts. Her home base is in El
Paso, Texas, and she says she would love to hear
from other alumni.
ROBERT A. NUÑO (BBA ’83) is a financial representative with Northwestern Mutual Financial Network.
He was recognized this year for outstanding performance with an invitation to attend Northwestern’s
Mutual Forum, an honor for which only a fraction of
the company’s employees are eligible. He lives in
Coral Gables.
ADETUNJI OLABIRAN (MBA ’83) is a senior revenue
inspector for customs in the U.K. He previously lectured at the University of Ilorin in Nigeria.
ROBERT G. ORBAN (BBA ’84) is the senior vice president and branch manager of the Miami office of
Studley Inc., a New York-based real estate consulting firm specializing in the representation of office
lease negotiations and site locations. He lives in
Palmetto Bay, Fla.
MITCHEL RICHMAN (BBA ’82) was recently promoted
to director of sales in the southeast and southwest
markets for Ken’s Foods Inc. He lives in Charlotte, N.C.
ROLAND SANCHEZ-MEDINA JR. (BBA ’88) has
formed Sanchez-Medina, Gonzalez & Quesada LLP,
a full-service law firm with offices in Coral Gables
and Miami Lakes, Fla. He was included in Florida
Trends magazine’s Legal Elite in 2006 and 2007.
JOHANNES M. WELSCH (BBA ’87) is a professional
percussionist. Along with a singer and a didgeridoo
player, he has released a new album titled
Stunderthorm: An Artistic Message from a Possible
Future.
WANDA B. WHIGHAM (BBA ’84, JD ’98) has been
made a partner at the West Palm Beach, Fla., office
of Hogan & Hartson, an international law firm. She
practices international and public finance.
LEW YAGODNIK (MBA ’83) is vice president for the
Depression Bipolar Support Alliance of South
Florida, the nation’s largest patient-run support net-
and I couldn’t think of anything else
I’d rather be doing.”
1990s
ALLISON BARBOSA (MS ’97, MBA ’97) lives in London.
SERDAR BASEGMEZ (MBA ’92) is general manager
and co-owner of 7G Food Traders Ltd., in Izmir,
Turkey, where he also lives.
JEFFREY E. BOLTE (MS ’99, MBA ’99) was promoted
to director of procurement desktop CM management
and direct strategy for Lenovo. He and his wife, Robin,
had a son, Jonathan “Jack” Wolking Bolte, on
September 24, 2007. They live in Durham, N.C.
IVETTE DIAZ (BBA ’92, MBA ’96) has been appointed director of corporate social responsibility at
Burger King Corp. She will serve as executive director of the Have It Your Way Foundation and the BK
Family Fund. She was previously director of marketing and community relations at Miami Children’s
Hospital Foundation.
GANEL FILS (BBA ’95) lives in West Palm Beach, Fla.
MANUEL A. GARCIA-LINARES (BBA ’90) is a litigation attorney and managing shareholder at the law
firm Richman Greer. He was elected vice president
of the Cuban American Bar Association, a nonprofit
voluntary bar association in Miami.
GASTÓN T. GONZÁLEZ (MBA ’92) is director and partner at Expertia Consulting Group, a management
consulting firm. He lives in Miami.
DANIEL GREENLEAF (MBA ’97) is president and CEO
of VioQuest Pharmaceuticals, an oncology development company in Basking Ridge, N.J., that focuses
on drug development and therapeutic treatment for
oncological and infectious diseases.
STACY HALLMAN (MBA ’98) is senior director of
Brightstar Corp. in Miami, a distributor of cellular
products. He lives in Lake Worth, Fla.
DOLLY HERNANDEZ (BBA ’98, JD ’01) has merged
her family law firm with the local international business law firm Baker & McKenzie. The new practice
focuses on complex marital and family law matters.
She is also involved in the Cuban American Bar
Association and the Junior League of Miami.
UMESH J. JADUNANDAN (MBA ’99) has joined
Coldwell Banker Commercial’s West Palm Beach,
Fla., office to specialize in office, land, industrial and
retail property sales. In addition, he is president of
JMJADU Corp., his own certified general contracting
company, also in West Palm Beach.
TAVIS KILEY (BBA ’90) is a financial editor in the
Equity Research Department at Mizuho Securities in
Tokyo. He holds several Japanese securities licenses.
RICK A. MARROQUIN (BBA ’93) is chief marketing
officer at batanga.com, a leading Hispanic music site.
He recently relocated back to Miami from Chicago.
— Stephanie Levin
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 47
AlumniNews
Winston Warrior, BBA ’92, MBA ’96
SENIOR DIRECTOR, MARKETING AND CREATIVE SERVICES,
COX ENTERPRISES, ATLANTA
WHAT’S IN A NAME?
No matter where he lands, Winston Warrior makes a name for himself — literally. At the School of Business it was “Peanut.” At Cox Enterprises it’s “Mr. Echo.” And in Atlanta business circles it’s “Up and
RICHARD PORTO (BBA ’91) is vice president of delivery at Meridian Partners LLC, a professional services
firm in Miami Beach. He lives in Davie, Fla., with his
wife, JESSICA ANN BENNETT-PORTO (BSC ’92), a
senior product manager at Jarden Consumer
Solutions in Boca Raton, Fla., and their three sons.
PABLO S. QUESADA (BBA ’93) has co-founded
Sanchez-Medina, Gonzalez & Quesada LLP, a fullservice law firm in Miami.
BRIAN J. RESHEFSKY (MBA ’98, JD ’98) is executive
vice president at Schofield Media Group in Chicago.
COREY J. SCHWARTZ (BBA ’99) has co-founded
College Town Living, a local niche marketing operation that focuses on real estate services for college
communities, in particular renters at the University
of Miami. CTL’s function is to connect landlords with
renters, and hopefully later assist those renters with
the sale or purchase of real estate.
HAYDEE IRENE ULLFIG (BBA ’98) has launched My
Sol Pools Inc., in Royal Palm Beach, Fla.
ALVARO MICHAEL VAZQUEZ (BA ’89, MBA ’96) is vice
president of MECO Miami Inc., a company that reconditions and rebuilds heavy construction equipment.
MICHAEL W. VESSER (BBA ’92) is director of Middle
East operations at Cerner, an international IT corporation in the health care industry. He is currently on
a one-year assignment in Dubai.
CHRISTOPHER J. ZANYK (BA ’ 92, MS ’96, MBA ’96)
has been promoted to vice president of the North
American region at Derry, N.H.-based Cedar Point
Communications, an international technology services provider.
Frank Kelly, MBA ’03
PRODUCT DIRECTOR, DEPUY ORTHOPAEDICS,
JOHNSON & JOHNSON, MIAMI
A LASTING IMPRESSION
When Frank Kelly addressed the School of Business Administration’s 2007 MBA class at orientation, he appeared at first glance to be just another speaker. Then the music came up and he broke into a dance, shedding his coat and tie, and captivating the audience with his message: Master the ability to leave lasting
impressions, rather than just fleeting first impressions.
Actually, the students saw both sides of Kelly. He is a product director for DePuy Orthopaedics, a division of Johnson & Johnson. But he also has begun a sideline as a motivational speaker and image consultant,
and his message boils down to “Unleash Your ACE” (Attitude, Communication Skills and External Image)
to leave a lasting impression. He says that following his own advice has helped him in his job and is what
gained him admittance to the School’s MBA program.
“I present better in person than I do on paper,” says Kelly. “I knew that my GMAT score did not reflect
my ability to succeed in the program, so I took an unconventional tack, called admissions, and asked for the
opportunity to communicate my strengths and vision in person.” Impressed by his ability to articulate — and
promise to produce — the program admitted Kelly, who went on to graduate near the top of his class.
A product director at DePuy, a major player in the $10 billion-plus joint-replacement market, Kelly was
chosen to lead a team of 60 executives, many older than he, through the integration of the company’s newly
acquired Hand Innovations LLC. J&J honored him for his efforts with the 2006 President’s Award. “If you
learn how to listen and communicate
And leading he is. In 2007,
Esquire named Kelly the Best
of his head. His election campaign signs urged “Vote for Winston Peanut Warrior” — and victory was assured.
He joined Cox Communications in 2001 as product manager of high-speed Internet marketing.
Three years later he became director of high-speed Internet marketing, and was promoted two years later
to director of marketing services for the parent company, media giant Cox Enterprises. Along the way, he
spearheaded do-it-yourself installation of high-speed Internet and a free overnight speed upgrade for all
customers, and he helped create the marketing expansion campaign for the company’s Kudzu.com consumer Web site (“The easy way to find the best services”). “I strive to be a change agent,” he says.
Warrior made a companywide name for himself when he dreamed up and launched a study of Echo
Boomers, Americans born between 1977 and 1994. “By 2015, they’ll be the largest generation — onethird of the population,” says Warrior, now known around Cox as Mr. Echo. “The study became its own
force, grew my role and gave me additional visibility. It changed our company culture.”
Equally visible outside of Cox, Warrior has racked up 14 (and counting) industry awards for his
achievements. Last year he received his newest nickname — as one of 2007’s “Up and Comers” — from
the Atlanta Business Chronicle.
“My college career was amazing — like a dream,” he says. “I was able to develop academically and
holistically, as a person. I wouldn’t change it for the world.” Noting the UM paperweights, plaques and
mugs adorning his office, he quips, “I bleed orange and green.”
48 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
— Susan Plawsky
ecutives and even homeless advocates have been clamoring
for the Coral Gables resident to
SPA, COCONUT GROVE, FLA.
ston but as Peanut, a nickname he acquired because some fellow students felt a buzz cut had changed the shape
JASON ALGAZE (BBA ’05) is an associate at Fairway
Capital Partners, a real estate fund in New York City.
AURY ARISTY (MBA ’06) is a marketing analyst at
Carrier Corp. in Miami.
JOSE ARMARIO (MSPM ’03) has been appointed
group president of McDonald’s Canada and Latin
America. He had been president of McDonald’s Latin
America since 2003.
JASON AYERS (BBA ’07) is a financial advisor with
Morgan Stanley in Miami.
DANIEL BORTNICK (BBA ’05) is an interactive sales
manager for CBS Radio in New York City.
JAMES BOYD (BBA ’02) is district lead processor for
Wells Fargo Financial in Seminole, Fla. He lives in Palm
Harbor, Fla.
DANA RASIS BRITTAN (MBA ’01) is executive director
at the American Board of Bariatric Medicine in Denver.
KRISTEN MARIE CANAMERO (BBA ’03) is an associate at Rasco, Reininger, Perez, Esquenazi & Vigil’s real
estate practice group.
JOVITA CARRANZA (MBA ’02) is deputy administrator
of the U.S. Small Business Administration. She recent-
share his story.
Why homeless advocates?
Because Kelly is so confident
that his ACE system (visit
www.frankkelly.net) will bene-
&
for Iron Arrow. “I was everywhere, and known around campus,” he says. However, he was known not as Win-
Ever since, talk show hosts, ex-
2000s
JEFFERY SALTER; LOCATION COURTESY OF BALEEN RESTAURANT, GROVE ISLE HOTEL
Organizations and the first black vice president of the Student Government. Not surprisingly, he was tapped
Dressed Real Man in America.
ANN STATES
As an undergrad, Warrior was president of United Black Students, chair of the Association of Greek Letter
with
people, you can lead,” he says.
Comer.” Each moniker (though perhaps not at first blush) has been a tribute to the energy, innovation
and leadership seemingly encoded in Warrior’s high-achieving DNA.
effectively
fit anyone that he decided to
prove that it can even work for
the homeless. “Last year I
joined with the Community
Partnership for the Homeless
to develop Project Vacant
Streets,” Kelly explains. “I
coached [two residents] with
the ‘lasting impression’ message. Equipped with confidence, pride and donated new
suits, both men are back at
work.”
ly spoke at the SBA’s annual matchmaking event for
entrepreneurs, government agencies and contractors
about the challenges facing the small business community. This year the event drew its largest crowd yet,
with about 500 business owners and dozens of corporations and government agencies in attendance.
LEWIS D. CHAZAN (MBA ’00, JD ’01) lives in Fresh
Meadows, N.Y.
DANIEL FEDERGREEN (BBA ’07) is finance and
accounting manager at Procter & Gamble. He lives in
Cincinnati.
SCOTT A. GALYA (BBA ’04) proposed to Jessica
Rothman during UM’s final game at the Orange Bowl,
and the two are now engaged to be married. The
owner of Brickell Property Management, he is also the
son of Joyce Galya, director of UM’s Citizens Board.
ELI GORIN (MBA ’04) launched gMeetings, an
Aventura, Fla.-based corporate meeting planning company focusing on Latin America. He lives in Miami.
ERIC HARGENS (MBA ’06) is vice president at Janus
Capital Group, a global investment management firm
in Denver.
TIMOTHY KEOUGH (MBA ’07) is director of human
resources for Vozzcom Inc., a provider of fulfillment
services to the broadband industry in Coral Springs,
Fla. He lives in West Palm Beach, Fla.
RICARDO LANDINO (MBA ’05) is senior operations
analyst for Ryder’s Fleet Management Solutions
Division in Miami. In this new position, he is responsible for driving major reengineering initiatives throughout Ryder’s international operations.
LAURA MCDONALD (BBA ’07) was hired for a full-time
job after a summer job as an analyst for Goldman
Sachs in Jersey City, N.J. She reports that she loves living in New York City.
ALEJANDRO MONTORRO (MBA ’01) recently moved to
Brussels, Belgium, to be finance director at DHL
Express Europe.
Brothers DAVID MULLINGS (BS ’00, MBA ’03) and
ROBERT MULLINGS (BBA ’01, MBA ’03) are cofounders of RealVibez.com, which distributes
Caribbean and reggae music via the Web. They also
have a blog, www.mullingsbrothers.blogspot.com, that
shares their experiences and lessons related to creating and managing a startup company.
ELIZABETH ANNE OUELLETTE (MBA ’02) has been
appointed by the Jackson Health System the director
of its Miami International Hand Surgical Services. She
is a nationally recognized hand surgery expert and
has developed an innovative technique for the treatment of wrist instability.
PETER PASSALACQUA (BBA ’06) and FRANCESCO
ZAMPOGNA (BBA ’06) co-founded BioActive Skincare and developed a sunscreen approved by the
U.S. Food and Drug Administration. It is sold online
and at upscale resorts in Miami Beach.
— Stephanie Levin
Spring 2008 | BusinessMiami | 49
AlumniNews
UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI SCHOOL OF BUSINESS 2007-08
Jeffrey Segal, BBA ’07
PROFESSIONAL RACECAR DRIVER, MIAMI
MAN ON THE GO
To say that Jeff Segal’s mind was racing during his four years at UM isn’t totally accurate. More precisely,
while earning his degree in entrepreneurship he also concentrated on racing. After sitting through finance, marketing, management and other courses during the week, he spent many weekends zooming
around racetracks across the country.
“Simultaneously racing and attending UM full time certainly kept me busy, but ultimately the two activities balanced each other nicely and kept me from getting too wrapped up in either one,” Segal says. A
year after graduation, he devotes nearly all his time to fast cars. “When I’m not racing, I’m either testing
a racecar, instructing at driving schools, training or kart racing for fun.” His race season, including about
25 events, runs from January to October. “From May to September, I’m usually on the road nonstop between obligations,” he says. He still lives in Miami — sort of. “It’s more like I keep a mailbox, storage and
a bed there.”
Like many pro drivers, Segal, a Philadelphia native, grew up loving cars, learning as much as he could
about them and dreaming of racing. His father, who worked in the auto industry, did some amateur
racing. “That opened the door for me to start racing when I was 12,” he says.
Segal set off in souped-up go-karts, then moved on to cars at 15. A year later, in 2002, Segal was the
youngest driver ever to compete on the BMW CCA Club Racing circuit. “Since then I’ve been involved
with factory-sponsored teams, from BMW and Mazda, and I’ve raced numerous Ferraris and Maseratis
as well,” he reports. Currently Segal drives a Mazda RX-8 in the Grand-Am Rolex Sports Car Series GT
Class — endurance events ranging from three to 24 hours — and a BMW M3 in the Grand-Am KONI
Challenge Series. On that circuit — which features shorter, faster and more furious races — he and codriver Jep Thornton won the 2007 Driver, Team and Manufacturer Championships.
Noting that “motorsport is like any other business,” Segal credits his classes at the School of Business
Administration for some of his racing success. “The off-track business of racing is almost as important as
the on-track performance,” he says, alluding to the ceaseless search for corporate sponsors. Among supportive faculty members was Marc Junkunc, assistant professor of management, whose Organization and
Operation of the Small Business course helped fuel Segal’s racing endeavors. “Using a business-plan template we developed in class, I created several sponsorship proposals,” he says. It’s one more instance of the
School fast-tracking a career.
— Bob Woods
MARIO PEREZ JR. (MBA ’06) has been promoted to
vice president and general manager at MasterCard
Worldwide in Miami.
DANIEL PETERSON (MBA ’05) has been appointed
business manager for Deutsche Bank in the Cayman
Islands, providing senior-level strategic support to the
bank’s financial intermediaries team. He was previously with the Royal Bank of Canada in Miami.
GUSTAVO PIFANO (BBA ’07) lives in Greenwich, Conn.
LIANA RODRIGUEZ (MBA ’01) is co-founder and partner of The Agency PR and Event Specialists in Miami.
JENNA SANDOVAL (BBA ’05) has been hired for an
advertising sales position with Google in Atlanta.
KEVIN SCHOLZ (MBA ’06) is a staff auditor at Ernst &
Young LLP in New York City. He lives in Mahopac, N.Y.
WILLIAM VAN ZYLL (MBA ’01) has joined Nintendo of
America as director and general manager for the company in Latin America. Previously he was director of
finance for North American sales at Whirlpool and
oversaw Whirlpool’s Latin American operations.
EVELYN M. VELASQUEZ (MPrAcc ’06) is an auditor at
Ernst & Young LLP in Miami.
MONICA VILLALOBOS (MSPM ’05) is a private banking relationship manager at Banco de Bogota S.A.
Panama. She lives in Bogota, Colombia.
LOREN ALEXANDER WEINBERG (BBA ’05) is a
Realtor at SJ Grant Realty in Hollywood, Fla.
Barbara E. Kahn, PhD
Dean
A. Parasuraman, PhD
Vice Dean, Faculty
Anuj Mehrotra, PhD
Vice Dean, Graduate Business Programs
Linda L. Neider, PhD
Vice Dean, Undergraduate Business Programs
Arun Sharma, PhD
Vice Dean, Strategic Initiatives
Rene Sacasas, PhD
Director, Real Estate Programs
Mark A. Robinson
Chief Financial Officer
EllenMarie McPhillip
Assistant Dean,
Undergraduate Business Programs
Assistant Dean, Development and Stewardship
OBITUARIES
George Corton
MICHAEL E. BOVE (BBA ’87) passed away on August
24, 2007, after a brief illness. He was a marketing
representative for Sysco Foods in Rutland, Vt. He is
survived by his parents, a daughter, his two brothers
and his companion, Christine McGinnis.
WESLEY W. CASH (BBA ’53) passed away on February
23, 2008. He lived in Chattanooga, Tenn.
WARREN C. JOHNSON (BBA ’50) passed away on
November 20, 2007. Prior to his retirement, he had
been the owner of Warren Johnson Realtors in Miami.
MAX MILES (BBA ’61) passed away on January 6,
2005. He lived in Venice, Fla.
GUILLERMO MANUEL MIRANDA JR. (BBA ’66)
passed away on November 13, 2007. He was a successful businessman in Miami, owning shoe and plastics manufacturing companies. He is survived by his
wife, two children and two grandchildren.
EDWARD K. ZIZMER (BBA ’53) passed away on
October 24, 2007. He had been division manager at
World Book Educational Products for 33 years.
— Compiled by Amanda Clinton
Director, Development
Jeff Heebner
Director, Communications
Alexander P. Pons, PhD
Director, Sanford L. Ziff
Graduate Career Services Center
FINANCE
Douglas R. Emery, Chair
Sandro Andrade
W. Brian Barrett
Gennaro Bernile
Thor W. Bruce
Timothy R. Burch
Vichi Chhaochharia
Andrea J. Heuson
Qiang Kang
William Landsea
Ricardo J. Rodriguez
Tie Su
BUSINESS LAW
Rene Sacasas, Chair
Patricia Abril
Anita Cava
Ann Morales Olazábal
MANAGEMENT
Yadong Luo, Chair
Harold W. Berkman
Cecily Cooper
John D. Daniels
Joseph Ganitsky
Haresh Gurnani
Vaidyanathan Jayaraman
Marc T. Junkunc
Jeffrey L. Kerr
Duane Kujawa
Yadong Luo
Marianna Makri
John M. Mezias
Harihara Prasad Natarajan
Linda L. Neider
Terri A. Scandura
Chester A. Schriesheim
Steven G. Ullmann
Ling Wang
Joshua Wu
William B. Werther Jr.
Yi Xu
COMPUTER
INFORMATION SYSTEMS
Joel D. Stutz, Chair
Robert T. Grauer
Robert T. Plant
Peter Polak
Sara F. Rushinek
Mario Yanez
Cristina M. Raecke
Director of Recruiting and Admissions
Graduate Business Programs
Blanca I. Ripoll-Garcia
Executive Assistant to the Dean
MISSION STATEMENT
CARLY SEGAL
DO YOU HAVE NEWS that
The mission of the
University of Miami School
of Business is to provide
an environment in which
the creation and
dissemination of business
knowledge can f lourish.
COMMENTS ON THE MISSION STATEMENT
SHOULD BE ADDRESSED TO BKAHN@MIAMI.EDU
50 | BusinessMiami | Spring 2008
ACCOUNTING
Kay W. Tatum, Chair
Royce D. Burnett
Shirley Dennis-Escoffier
Diana Falsetta
Mark E. Friedman
Elaine Henry
Oscar J. Holzmann
Lawrence C. Phillips
Olga Quintana
Sundaresh Ramnath
Avi Rushinek
Ya-Wen Yang
Steven G. Ullmann, PhD
Director, Health Sector Management
and Policy Programs
Laura Padron
you would like
to share with your friends and classmates?
E-mail us at alumni@exchange.sba.miami.edu or, if
you prefer, fax it to us at (305) 284-1569.
FACULTY
ADMINISTRATION
ECONOMICS
David L. Kelly, Chair
Serife Nuray Akin
Luca Bossi
Michael B. Connolly
Carlos Flores
James W. Foley
Laura Giuliano
Pedro Gomis-Porqueras
Shirley Liu
Luis Locay
Oscar Mitnik
Adrian Peralta-Alva
Tracy Regan
Philip K. Robins
Manuel Santos
MANAGEMENT SCIENCE
Edward K. Baker III, Chair
Ronny Aboudi
Hernan Awad
Howard Seth Gitlow
Anito Joseph
Anuj Mehrotra
Paul K. Sugrue
Huiliang Xie
Tallys Yunes
MARKETING
Arun Sharma, Chair
Joseph Johnson
Howard Marmorstein
Schweta Oza
A. Parasuraman
Dan Sarel
Michael Tsiros
Joe Zhang
Shengui Zhao
POLITICAL SCIENCE
Fred M. Frohock, Chair
Merike Blofield
Louise Davidson-Schmich
June Teufel Dreyer
Elise Giuliano
George A. Gonzalez
Casey Klofstad
Gregory Koger
Michael E. Milakovich
Luis Rueda
Donna E. Shalala
Joseph Uscinski
Jonathan P. West
If you’re an experienced
professional ready to lead
at a higher level, now is the
time to earn an MBA from
the University of Miami.
Robert B. Newman Vice President, Financial Consultant — National Planning Corporation
MBA ’04
• Learn beside the best, with highly
accomplished and experienced
students and a renowned international
faculty
Your time is now.
• Benefit from a rigorous, real-world
curriculum
MBA for Working Professionals Program
Begins July ’08
• Continue your career while attending
evening and weekend classes
Gain the leadership skills and business
knowledge you need to succeed with
the prestigious UM MBA for Working
Professionals.
RSVP for a Q&A Session today.
Q&A
SESSION
THURSDAY, JUNE 5 AT 6:30 P.M.
SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
MCLAMORE EXECUTIVE EDUCATION CENTER, 3RD FLOOR
RSVP 305.284.4607 | MBA@MIAMI.EDU
WWW.BUS.MIAMI.EDU/MBA08
UOM 12408 Business Miami_8.375x10.75_Robert N.indd 1
4/4/08 10:05:57 AM