As general manager of the Ryman Auditorium in downtown Nashville, revered as the Mother Church of Country Music, Buchanan oversaw the building’s million dollar renovation and reinstatement as one of the world’s premiere music venues.

Flood waters at the Opry stage door, May 3, 2010

On May 2, 2010, the momentous flood that destroyed parts of Nashville also devastated the Grand Ole Opry House at Opryland in Donelson, the home to the Grand Ole Opry since the 1970s. In the hours when floodwaters entered the building and rose, Buchanan and a team of 10-15 workers courage-ously stayed in the flood zone to protect and preserve instruments, historic recordings and other artifacts by moving them to safety. Even so, not everything could be saved.

When the rain stopped, the ground floor of the 4,400-seat Opry house was covered with muddy water up to its back four rows. Forty-six inches of water covered the stage. Almost everything would need to be replaced: seats, retail store, lobby, dressing rooms, green room, control booth, stage, stage curtains and rigging, along with the mechanical and power systems.

Buchanan once again found himself charged with restoring another cherished building. “It breaks your heart, but it’s our responsibility to be sure that that building comes back to life, and it will,” Buchanan told USA Today.

In addition to overseeing the physical renovation of the building, Buchanan immediately hired restorers, conservators and luthiers (specialists in string instruments) to care for the historic artifacts, photos, tapes, costumes and instruments impacted by flood damage.

“After the flood waters receded, Steve led the recovery of the property—literally and figuratively,” noted Dave Kloeppel, BS’91, MBA’96, former president and COO of Gaylord Entertainment Company. “Importantly, Steve insisted the Opry never miss a show—and it didn’t. Using venues all over Nashville, the Opry never missed a beat.”

Steve Buchanan on the Bluebird Cafe set of TV

Five short months later, Buchanan and the cast of the Grand Ole Opry stood on a new stage in a renovated Opry House and welcomed audiences back with a celebration dubbed “Country Comes Home.” Backstage, performers marveled over 17 dressing rooms, facilities, instrument lockers and a comfortable, cheery green room that featured a new artifact—a marker showing how high the waters reached in the historic flood.

In recognition of his resilience, courage and dedication to excellence, Owen honored Buchanan with the school’s inaugural Distinguished Service Award at Owen’s annual alumni dinner in 2012.

Ryman Hospitality Properties Executive Vice President Steve Buchanan at the historic Ryman Auditorium.

The man the crowd knows as Deacon from the popular television show Nashville takes the stage at the Grand Ole Opry to screams of recognition. He starts with a sensitive ballad, and women of all ages stream past the lip of the stage and take his photo before being urged by ushers to make way for the next in line. Charles Esten looks to be having the time of his life. Is he a country music star, an actor playing a country music star or something in between?

Who knows, and really, why would it matter? Everybody is having a good time. Esten segues into a drinking song. “Pour, pour, pour some more,” he sings, “just like the four you poured before.” The crowd eats it up.

Off to the side of the stage, a low-key, conservatively dressed man looks on. The man is Steve Buchanan, BS’80, MBA’85, president of Opry Entertainment and co-creator and executive producer of ABC’s nighttime TV drama, Nashville.

The TV show gives audiences a new look at the city--and reasons to visit.

At Ryman Hospitality Properties, Buchanan is also a music business executive, a type represented on Nashville as the heartless and manipulative character Marshall Evans, head of fictional Edgehill Records. But Evans, Deacon, Rayna, Juliette and the rest of the television Nashville world exist only because of the vision of this real-life executive with a heart for the music and a business sensibility forged at Vanderbilt University and Owen Graduate School of Management.

Scientific Beginnings

Raised in Oak Ridge, Tenn., the son of a nuclear engineer and a chemist, Buchanan first enrolled in Vanderbilt as an undergraduate in the engineering school, intending to become an environmental engineer.

“I loved music and I very quickly got involved in the concert committee as a freshman,” Buchanan says. “In fact, that and the fact that engineering school was very challenging contributed to less than stellar academic performance for me.”

Buchanan and his cohorts brought many memorable shows to campus. Some of his favorites include Ray Charles, Bonnie Raitt, Muddy Waters, Pat Metheny, Lester Flatt, David Bromberg, George Thorogood and Karla Bonoff.

“We were freshman hallmates in 1975 at Vanderbilt and immediately became best friends,” remembers Ken Levitan, now an artist manager whose clients include Kings of Leon and Emmylou Harris. “We were both involved on the concert committee and Steve was unbelievably hardworking at everything he did.”

“Steve brought Bob Marley to town,” Levitan says, still sounding astounded decades later that the reggae legend played Vanderbilt. Buchanan shakes his head, calling the Marley concert “an amazing experience.”

Buchanan says a course with Vanderbilt’s legendary cultural sociologist Richard “Pete” Peterson led him to transfer to the College of Arts and Science and major in sociology and psychology.

But it was really his extracurricular activities promoting music shows that allowed Buchanan to discover his vocation. “It was enlightening for me because despite my complete love for music, I had never necessarily thought of it as being a business,” Buchanan says.

First Job on Music Row

Fresh out of Vanderbilt, Buchanan worked with new and legendary artists at booking agency Buddy Lee. From left, Buchanan, Dwight Yoakam and Bill Monroe.

Upon graduation, Buchanan rejected suggestions that he move to Atlanta or New York, where he was told he could probably find work at a promoter or record label. Instead, he placed his bets again on Nashville. Levitan had already graduated and gone to work at Buddy Lee Attractions, a booking agency on Music Row.

“I helped Steve get a job at Buddy Lee,” Levitan says. “At that time there were still a lot of independent booking agencies in Nashville and you could make a mark there.”

At Buddy Lee, Buchanan was in a position to meet music industry people in Nashville, New York and Los Angeles.

“Two of the agents I worked with had played with Hank Williams (Sr.),” he recalls. The two, Jerry Rivers and Don Helms, still worked weekends as the Drifting Cowboys. “So I was both learning the business and learning the history of the business.”

Still, Buchanan had a nagging feeling that there was too much he didn’t know. He questioned if he even wanted a career in the music industry.

Once Again, Vanderbilt is the Answer

“I made the decision to quit my job and go back to school full time because I wanted to do a specific concentration and immerse myself,” he says.

Buchanan entered the MBA program at the Owen Graduate School of Management, focusing on marketing and gaining a strong foundation in the fundamentals of management.

Like his undergraduate career, getting started was rough.

“It was a rocky start, because it’s very difficult to just disconnect yourself when you’re still in the same playground that you were in before,” he says. “You’re still in your mid-20s and you still like to go out and listen to music, and your friends are still around and you’re supposed to be totally bathed in academics. It finally kicked in second semester.”

At Owen, Buchanan learned to be disciplined in his approach to business. “It really made me focus,” he says. “I learned to be methodical and strategic about things.”

Coming out of Owen, Buchanan faced a crossroads between a managerial training program at Northern Telecom and becoming the first marketing manager in the history of the Grand Ole Opry.

Today, sitting in his office dominated by a picture-window view of the Cumberland River, Buchanan explains what made him choose the Opry. “You want to know what it was?” Buchanan says. “I just loved Bill Monroe.”

Monroe, for those who don’t know their bluegrass, is the legendary musician whose band, the Blue Grass Boys, put together the high lonesome elements that became bluegrass music in the 1940s. By the time Buchanan crossed paths with Monroe in the 1980s, the master was in his 70s.

“Buddy Lee booked Bill Monroe. I would come out to the Opry to see Bill and I developed a deep appreciation of what the Opry is,” says Buchanan, casual in jeans and blue sweater. “That was a passion that would only grow.”

“It ultimately wasn’t a hard decision to pass on the Northern Telecom job,” Buchanan says. “Yes, it was a better paying job and had a more defined career path. But I thought that the Opry job offered me the opportunity to be in a more traditional business environment while at the same time being engaged in the entertainment and music industry.

“It felt like it was the perfect fit, especially because Bill Monroe, who I’d grown to love booking at Buddy Lee, was a member of the Opry as well,” he says.

Marketing from Scratch

Buchanan found himself walking into a unique situation.

“The Opry had never had a marketing manager, meaning it had never had a marketing budget,” he says. “Most freshly minted MBAs don’t really want to go to work for a place where they don’t have a budget. That doesn’t fit in with the typical scenario.”

Hal Durham, then general manager of the Opry, put aside a modest amount for an advertising budget. Buchanan created a small, simple campaign, which started to address the identity problem his market research showed was holding the country music institution back.

First broadcast in 1925 as a radio show and for many years a national broadcasting powerhouse, the Opry was part of Gaylord Entertainment, today Ryman Hospitality Properties. By the 1980s, the Opry was overly dependent on Gaylord’s Opryland USA theme park and hotel for its audience. Both brought thousands of tourists to the area regularly, which translated into tickets sales for the Opry.

Buchanan’s efforts to revitalize and separate the image of the Opry from the theme park were successful business strategies, which was fortuitous as the park closed in 1997.

“We were also dealing with a much more competitive marketplace from a destinations perspective,” Buchanan says. “Branson, Missouri, became a major competitor. There was huge investment in the ’80s and ’90s in Orlando and then there was the proliferation of casinos around this country. That is still what we deal with today.”

The Ryman Auditorium

If there’s a proudest moment in Buchanan’s early Gaylord career, it would have to be the revitalization of the historic Ryman Auditorium. Along with much of downtown Nashville, the legendary building—former church and for years home of the Grand Ole Opry—had fallen into disrepair during the 1960s and ’70s. The Opry itself had left the building in 1974 for a new facility on the grounds of the Opryland theme park.

“I had never even been in the Ryman Auditorium, and suddenly it was part of my responsibility to market it,” Buchanan says. “This was way before it was fixed up. We charged a couple of bucks and people could tour through it. You could go stand on stage and there was a little gift shop in the back.”

Buchanan was captivated by the Ryman, even though it was in obvious physical distress. It had sat empty for almost 20 years and had been recommended for demolition several times. The building was rundown and the downtown area in which it sat was decidedly seedy.

In 1992, the centennial of the building’s construction, Buchanan was instrumental in arranging for the Ryman to be used for a series of concerts and a live album by Emmylou Harris, her landmark At The Ryman.

He also organized a one-man play with musical performances that included Bill Monroe performing “Working on a Building.”

“Ricky Skaggs and Vince Gill went on just before Bill doing ‘Drifting Too Far from the Shore’ and did such a great job that I think Monroe wanted to one-up them,” Buchanan says. “He did. He was outstanding.”

The two events were fortuitously timed. Downtown Nashville was about to undergo urban renewal, and Gaylord and Buchanan had the vision to lead the way.

“It was life- and career-changing for me because I was appointed general manager of the Ryman and got to develop the first business plans to oversee the renovation of the Ryman Auditorium,” Buchanan says. “There was a companywide belief that it was a worthy investment regardless of what it took, that it would be a meaningful and impactful undertaking for the company and city.”

Under Buchanan’s direction, the old building came back to life. Structural issues were addressed. High-tech sound, lighting and engineering were installed, along with the addition of a proscenium for the stage. Central heat and air were added to the now 102-year-old former church. A 14,000- square-foot support building was attached to house ticketing, offices, restrooms, concessions and a gift shop; proper dressing rooms were built (previously, a sole ladies’ room backstage had done double duty as a dressing room for the Opry’s female performers). The building’s original wooden pews were refinished and stenciled artwork on the balcony was faithfully recreated. The Ryman reopened in 1994 to public and performer acclaim, quickly earning a reputation as one of most prestigious performance halls in the world, esteemed for its astounding acoustics.

“We’re sitting here and that was basically 20 years ago and it’s great to be able to look back and see what a visionary decision that really was for (former Gaylord Entertainment CEO) Bud Wendell to make that $8.5 million commitment and investment,” Buchanan says. Gaylord also built the Wildhorse Saloon on Second Avenue in downtown Nashville during that era.

“Both of those investments were critical for the redevelopment of downtown Nashville,” Buchanan says.

Television’s Nashville

What might be remembered as the opening of the second act of Buchanan’s career began with a meeting in late 2010 between the Gaylord executive and some West Coast talent executives. Buchanan was then president of the Grand Ole Opry and senior vice president of Gaylord Entertainment. Again, like in the 1980s, he faced the need to draw people to Nashville and the Opry.

“The first thought was film opportunities,” Buchanan says. “We were kicking around maybe a period piece that captured a moment in time of the Opry’s history and building something around the characters that made up the Opry.” That led to discussions about other film projects, television and theatrical ideas. Rejected concepts included a 30 Rock-like take on the Opry.

“In looking at shows like American Idol, where country artists were sometimes winning, and shows like Glee and Smash—there was an acceptance of performance within a scripted show,” Buchanan says. “It was my feeling that with country music, so many of the barriers had fallen by the wayside. Younger generations are not as identified by genre. They’re interested in artists and songs.

“And it just felt like Nashville was really being accepted and regarded as a cool place, a very strong creative community and a place where the popular music of the day is being created.”

After finding a production partner with Lion’s Gate and a writer in Callie Khouri (Thelma and Louise, Divine Secrets of the Ya-Ya Sisterhood), they pitched Nashville to all three major networks and received offers from ABC and NBC. They chose ABC.

“I really didn’t fully understand about the Nashville vibe until later,” says Loucas George, a producer of Nashville, who says he had misgivings initially about filming the show in its namesake city—mostly because of the lack of film industry infrastructure. It took Buchanan in his role as one of the show’s executive producers to demonstrate how and why Nashville itself was an important character in the series.

The Nashville cast and crew film on a soundstage located just a few miles from downtown. From left, Director of Photography Ross Berryman, Buchanan and Transmedia Producer Lindsay Mayer monitor a scene being shot.

“I didn’t understand about the (important songwriter’s showcase) Bluebird Cafe being in a strip mall. That didn’t make sense to me,” he says. “Steve took me to the Grand Ole Opry and all these other places and I started to realize that it was important to film here.

“When I first came here, I thought Steve was going to be a silent extra production partner. He’s been anything but. He’s been the salt of the earth. He is Nashville. He constantly reminds us of the niceness of the people here.”

Khouri says that Buchanan helps to keep it real.

“He is so well-versed in Nashville that we would be very unwise not to call on his knowledge,” she says. “Personally, Steve is an absolute joy. He’s thoughtful, famously low-key and soft-spoken but with a tremendous sense of fun. He’s a fantastic ally.”

Actor Charles Esten, who plays the show’s Deacon Claybourne, calls Buchanan “the face of connectivity and the face of kindness to all of us.”

“From the start, he made everyone involved in the production feel instantly welcome in Nashville. He handles what could be an extremely demanding and stressful job with ease and grace,” Esten says.

From left, Nashville cast members Jonathan Jackson (Avery Barkley) and Charles Esten (Deacon Claybourne) talk with Buchanan following Esten's February performance on the Grand Ole Opry.

People in the fictional Nashville are not always so nice. “It’s not a documentary, after all,” Buchanan says. “It’s important to realize that you are creating a drama for network television. You have got to be able to do something that is compelling and captures people and the genre is that of a prime-time soap opera, so that means that things are exaggerated and a bit over the top.

“But it can still have heart, passion and emotion, and the city and music community don’t have to be disappointed in the portrayal from the perspective of the characters being stereotypes that are inaccurate or dated,” Buchanan says.

Putting the characters aside, almost everyone in Nashville agrees that the cinematography of Nashville represents the city beautifully. “One of the most common comments I hear from people is that they love the way the city looks,” Buchanan says.

That’s no accident. Millions of music fans, tourists and now television viewers have been influenced to see Nashville the way Buchanan sees it—as a deep musical wellspring, a must-visit destination, and now the hip town where the cast of Nashville spins webs of deceit and music each week.

Editor
Nancy Wise

Contributors
Joan Brasher, Stephanie Dozier, Bonnie Arant Ertelt (BS’81), Jim Patterson, Rangaraj “Ranga” Ramanujam, Sandy Smith, Ryan Underwood (BA’96), Amy Wolf

Photography
Daniel Dubois, Steve Green, Lauren Holland, John Russell

Designer
Michael T. Smeltzer

Art Director
Donna Pritchett

Chief Marketing Officer
Yvonne Martin-Kidd

Associate Dean of Development and Alumni Relations
Cheryl Chunn

Editorial Offices: Vanderbilt University News and Communications, PMB 407703, 2301 Vanderbilt Place, Nashville, TN 37240-7703, Telephone: (615) 322-4624, Fax: (615) 343-8547, owenmagazine@vanderbilt.edu

Please direct alumni inquiries to: Office of Development and Alumni Relations, Owen Graduate School of Management, PMB 407754, 2301 Vanderbilt Place, Nashville, TN 37240-7754, Telephone: (615) 322-0815, alum@owen.vanderbilt.edu

Vanderbilt University is committed to principles of equal opportunity and affirmative action. Opinions expressed in Vanderbilt Business are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the Owen School or Vanderbilt University.

Vanderbilt Business magazine is published twice a year by the Owen Graduate School of Management at Vanderbilt University, 401 21st Avenue South, Nashville, TN 37203-9932, in cooperation with the Vanderbilt News and Communications.

© 2013 Vanderbilt University. “Vanderbilt” and the Vanderbilt logo are registered trademarks and service marks of Vanderbilt University.

It’s a classic case of supply and demand, with Vanderbilt meeting the demand for sharp human resources professionals with a supply of MBAs trained in human resource. The crunch is driven equally by changes in the corporate world and the reputation of Owen’s Human and Organizational Performance program.

The HOP concentration is among the highest ranked programs at Vanderbilt’s Owen School. Financial Times, for instance, named it No. 4 in specialty MBA programs in the U.S., and No. 7 globally.

That reputation creates competition to land Owen grads for the working world.

“Employers want to get here before anyone else and skim off the cream of the crop, find those qualified students and lock them up for internships,” says Read McNamara, executive director of the school’s Career Management Center. “They feel if they can lock them up for an internship, they have a pretty good chance of having that particular student convert the internship to a full-time offer and a good chance of the student accepting that offer. Companies will push us as hard as they possibly can to get to campus as soon in the school year as they can.”

Case in point: By January 2013, every second-year HOP student had accepted a full-time position. About 60 percent of them came back from their summer internships in the fall with offers for jobs. Vanderbilt’s rate for all MBAs is 40 percent receiving offers after summer internships.

HOP has virtually caught up with other MBAs in salaries, too; McNamara says that the average starting salary for a Vanderbilt MBA grad with a HOP concentration is about $90,000, just shy of the $92,000 average for all MBAs. He expects HOP to be on par with other MBAs by 2015.

“It’s not just the salary. The number of offers per HOP person and the credentials of the people applying to Owen with the stated goal of HOP are certainly on the rise,” McNamara says. “We’re delighted with that and if we keep doing the things we’re doing, there’s no limit to what we can do.”

And no limit to the need, either. Changes in corporate America have shifted views of the workforce. Technological improvements that handle typical HR functions have created opportunities for HR professionals to claim a seat at the table of the upper echelon of company management.

Barry Salzberg, CEO of Deloitte Touche Tahmatsu Limited

“The HR function has been elevated,” says Barry Salzberg, chief executive officer of Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu Limited and a former member of the Owen Graduate School of Management Board of Visitors. “Ten to 15 years ago, human resource directors in large organizations reported to COOs or CFOs; today chief talent/HR officers report directly to CEOs, reflecting the increasing importance of talent. While leading a winning organization looks radically different today versus five years ago, business still relies on people to succeed.”

New demands on HR professionals include using predictive analytics to identify high performers early in their careers or to identify which employees may be likely to leave, Salzberg says. “This model allows for overall workforce planning, which is just as critical to a business’ bottom line as financial planning. Human resources has become a broad and strategic driver in business. This has not only helped us identify and cultivate careers of high-performers, but shifted our development approach from reactive to proactive.”

Reflecting Current Business Needs

Whether a company is growing rapidly, winding down a segment of its business or trying to do more with less to remain competitive, people issues are at the forefront and HR professionals are finding sometimes that seat at the table means at the head.

When Virginia “Ginger” Barnes, EMBA’91, began her career as a contracts administrator at Boeing, she recalls that “empowerment and encouragement thoughts existed only in small pockets and they certainly weren’t popular.” In her first program management job of overseeing early phases of Boeing’s involvement in the International Space Station, she began to understand the importance of people management as she worked closely with Russian counterparts. “That was a real people kind of epiphany,” she says. “We didn’t look alike, but we had the same values.”

Barnes

As CEO of United Space Alliance (USA), Barnes has had the unenviable task of retiring NASA’s space shuttle program. At the peak, USA—an alliance between Boeing and Lockheed Martin—employed 10,500. That number now stands at less than 2,000.

“What I’m most proud of is that we’ve done that with an intense focus on taking care of our people,” Barnes says. “Before I got here, USA benchmarked other companies that had shut down big programs. We didn’t find good examples of people who did it well. We went out to the workforce and said, ‘What do you need from us?’ I have an 11-by-17 spreadsheet of all the initiatives that we have implemented, and I have to say, we have been wildly successful. People come back and thank us for the ways that we helped.”

In 2011, when the shuttle flew its final mission, USA garnered five perfect performance scores from NASA; it marked the first time that USA had received even one perfect score. “I’ve been criticized by some for focusing more on people than I did on profits,” Barnes says. “But at the time that I did, we received the 100 percent award. As hard as this job is, and as unglamorous as it is, it’s the most rewarding experience of my career. Part of that has to do with the people I’m doing it with. We’ve made deliberate decisions about the people that we kept on board to finalize the closeout. In every case, each of those employees has come to me and said, ‘I will take on more, and do whatever you need me to do.’”

Crises, especially over the last five years, have certainly influenced the importance of staffing in companies, whether navigating external challenges or internal issues. “Those kinds of reactive developments have made companies, at the board level, look at the alignment of their own human capital, the importance of human capital and the importance of succession,” McNamara says. “And they’ve reached the conclusion that human resources is no longer a compliance function, but an absolutely essential element in the quiver of a company in terms of the elements it has available to ensure its own success. Visionary companies that recognize the importance of human capital and human capital deployment and planning are way ahead of the curve.”

Those visionary companies are using their human relations personnel for entirely new functions. “Attracting and retaining game-changing talent is at the top of the CEO agenda, as companies and clients expand exponentially in key markets—particularly in Asia and the Middle East,” Deloitte’s Salzberg says. “In our global knowledge economy, the right employees make or break organizations, and we’re in the midst of a talent paradox: While layoffs continue and unemployment is high, many jobs still go unfilled because of skill shortages.

“For instance, in the United States alone, 3.6 million jobs were unfilled as of December 2012, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, even though the unemployment rate was at 7.8 percent,” Salzberg says. “Globalization and the proliferation of new technologies have forced companies to radically reconsider traditional talent and organizational models to distributed, crowd-sourced models.”

A Need to Understand

As HR gains visibility in upper management, it’s equally important that HR professionals know and understand all facets of business just like their peers with MBAs.

King

Erika Bogar King, MBA’99, began her career as a recruiter before moving into more of an HR generalist role, where she found herself recruiting those with graduate degrees to fill banking positions. “I hadn’t really thought of it before, but one turned to me and said, ‘So when are you going (to graduate school)?’ I looked at Owen because the professionals that I knew came from there were more accessible, more balanced in their approach,” says King, now talent director for Deloitte Consulting. “I liked the cultural sense that I was getting from the talent as well as the quality. I knew it fit would me.”
She also was attracted to the business background that embodied the HOP concentration. “I knew I wanted to stay in professional services and Owen’s HOP program was not from a psychology or people basis, but from a business basis first with the people element,” she says.

Nancy Abbott, EMBA’91, wanted to change fields and move out of the IT function at her company, GE. Her undergraduate degree in behavioral science made human resources the logical choice. “I wanted to immerse myself in areas I hadn’t studied in undergrad. I needed to know how to read a balance sheet, get better grounded in economics and learn the language of business,” she says. “That was my goal in choosing Owen. In the job that I had, I realized I didn’t truly understand finance, business metrics and key drivers. I wanted to build my skills to be a credible business partner. We continue to have a strong relationship with Owen and recruit here every year because of the talented, business-focused HOP graduates.”

“I think I’ve been lucky to be in a company where it’s assumed that HR has a seat at the table,” says Abbott, who leads organization and talent development for GE Capital. “Although it’s expected that you have a seat, you have to understand how the business works and contribute broadly to the business’s success, or you’ll lose that seat.”

Abbott

When Abbott worked on an acquisition, one of the biggest learning curves was helping the new employees to understand the role of HR. “They viewed HR as very tactical, more about benefits and payroll transactions,” she says. “They had no vision of the value we could add, such as attracting, growing and developing terrific talent.”

Abbott sees traditional human resource functions such as payroll and benefits as activities many companies are outsourcing to specialists or centralized centers of excellence. “That’s an evolution that has allowed HR people at GE to focus on the most critical and strategic needs of the business,” she says.

In her role, Abbott must have a clear understanding of the company’s worldwide business goals. “Without really knowing the needs of a particular business unit, and its plans for the future, I can’t help to identify the best possible talent to help it reach its goals. In my role, I’m one of the few people in GE Capital who looks across the top performers in all our businesses to see where in the world they might be matched with a great new opportunity,” she says.

Success Secrets

In business, timing is everything and Vanderbilt has a strategic advantage: It’s growing its HOP concentration at a time when other business schools have eliminated programs. “A number of premier programs either de-emphasized or dropped human resources,” McNamara says. “I think they’d love to have that one back and do it again.”

McNamara

While others may have stepped out of the HOP studies, Vanderbilt has stepped up. McNamara sees the possibility of doubling the number of students specializing in HOP to as much as 15 to 20 percent of its MBA class. The secret to the success? “No. 1 is faculty,” McNamara says. “If you look at the accomplishments of our management department faculty, and specifically people who teach HOP, these are folks who have gained a reputation inside the classroom and out, in terms of research and recognition. The kind of people who come to study HOP do their homework and understand the value of the faculty.”

McNamara also cites Owen’s forward-looking curriculum and association with Peabody College of education and human development, which is widely recognized for its organizational performance programs. “There’s a spillover effect of the wonderful reputation of Peabody on Owen,” he says. “We’re recognized as having two of the premier organizational programs. Finally, it’s the self-perpetuating excellence in that our HOP people go on to great careers in corporate or consulting, and they’re people who come back and get involved. The alumni involvement will not permit this great program to slip.”

Transforming the Future

Human capital has risen in importance along with other corporate functions, but it is not without unique challenges.

“Because people associate HR with the touchy-feely things, it does not get the respect that finance does,” King says. “I do think there are probably HR organizations that still are the people who organize the company picnic and other events. It’s hard to pull away and tell your clients that you’re not going to do this anymore.”

At Amgen, the transactional aspects of HR have been moved back to the staff level, and human resources has shifted to coaching and advising. Centers of excellence handle recruiting and scheduling job interviews, says Joe Parise, MBA’10, Amgen human resources manager. “Having a business background helps you speak the client’s language much faster. Transactional work is not what our clients need,” he says. “Clients come to me for decisions on what they want to do. My job is really to hold a mirror up to them, to explore unintended consequences, to be a sounding board.”

Parise

And to be a sounding board requires a strong understanding of the issues, the kind of understanding gained through an MBA.

“It’s doubly important here at Deloitte,” King says. “My clients have the degree. My clients are advisers to their clients. They expect that I have the ability to manage change, to be able to craft a vision, to understand project management and how we extract value from our practitioners.”

When all the elements come together, the role that HR professionals play in their corporations can—and will continue to—be a formula for success. “When an organization becomes known for cultivating and developing talent, the market brand is strengthened,” Salzberg says. “This ultimately increases their ability to attract and retain high performers. When a company attracts top talent, it can quickly fill new and open positions without missing a beat. Keeping unfilled positions to a minimum can lead to increased productivity and profitability, greater innovation and faster time to market.”

Going Green

Bob Whaley

Fifteen years ago, Bob Whaley and his wife, Sondra, MBA’82, visited Ireland and fell in love with the people, food, countryside and culture. Over the years, they have returned numerous times to visit, but going back just wasn’t enough. So they decided to bring a bit of Ireland to Tennessee.

“When you go into the Irish pubs, the people are so friendly and charming—they talk to you like they’ve known you forever,” says Whaley, the Valere Blair Potter Professor of Finance and professor of management. “We wanted to create that kind of atmosphere for ourselves and our friends, and so we did.”

Whaley, who is also co-director of the Financial Markets Research Center, used his carpentry experience and the help of his college-age son to transform his home’s entire lower level, including the garage, into a 1,500- square-foot Irish pub dubbed Whaley Tavern. Just like the ones in the Emerald Isle, this watering hole has Irish brews like Guinness and Smithwick’s on tap, game tables and dartboards to keep patrons occupied, and Irish flags adorning dark wood paneled walls.

The Whaleys entertain year around, but they go all out on St. Patrick’s Day. Around 100 or so fellow Hibernophiles crowd the place to feast on Guinness stew and shepherd pie, shoot pool and sing shanties over a pint (or two). While he won’t name-drop, Whaley says more than a few popular singer-songwriters have been known to stop by and perform (signed guitars on the walls are proof).

With all this talk of Ireland, one has to wonder if Whaley has some Irish blood in his veins.

“I did some searching and I think my parents’ lineage is English, not Irish,” he says. “I found a Jerusalem Whaley—I’m not sure I’m a descendent, but you never know. I may have to go over there and do some digging.”

Different Strokes

Jennifer Escalas

Jennifer Escalas isn’t an enthusiastic swimmer, but that hasn’t stopped the associate professor of marketing from launching and running what has become a $3 million-a-year swimwear company.

She is married to swimmer Rafael Escalas, who competed in the 1980 and 1984 Olympic games for his home country of Spain. The two met during their undergraduate years at University of California, Los Angeles, where she was studying Spanish and he was an engineering major competing on the university swim team.

“When we started dating, his swim schedule was just something I put up with,” Escalas says. “I didn’t realize how much dedication it took.”

After they married and moved to North Carolina and she entered the Ph.D. program at Duke University, they decided it was time to start their own company. He quit his engineering job and together they launched Agon Sport, a competitive swimwear company. He set up the factory in Spain and she took on the marketing and the books.

“We didn’t have a stash of money,” she says. “We maxed out credit cards and took out a second mortgage to get the business off the ground.”

The gamble paid off. In 2012, they created custom swimsuits for more than 1,800 swim teams—including their 16-year-old daughter Elena’s high school team. “Nike doesn’t create custom suits, so we fill a really important niche,” she says.

In the classroom, Escalas often uses examples of challenges encountered in her business and that has given her credibility with her students, she says.

“I don’t just write articles about how to run a successful, profitable business, I am actually doing that,” she says. “I think my students are far more impressed with that than my Ph.D.”

Writing the past

Debra Jeter

By day, her world is black and white—debits and credits, columns in a spreadsheet, numbers in a row. But by night Debra Jeter’s world is sepia-toned and dreamlike, as she weaves words into short stories, screenplays and novels that draw on her life as a child in rural Kentucky.

“I’m happier when I’m writing,” says the associate professor of accounting. “I’m more productive if I’m preparing for class or interacting with my students if I’ve got a project going. It makes my whole day go better.”

A recent project brought her talents to the national stage. The prestigious Sundance Film Festival chose Jess + Moss, an art-house film she helped pen and executive produce with her son Clay, as an official selection. It’s a bittersweet coming-of-age story about two cousins spending the summer at their grandmother’s house for the last time.

“We shot Jess + Moss in a very short time period at my grandmother’s abandoned farmhouse in Lynn Grove, Ky.,” Jeter says. “It was shot on aged film stock to give it that grainy quality—grainy the way my memories are of spending all my summers there.”

The film was well received by critics, which she attributes to Clay, a former child actor, who directed.

“It was unbelievable for us at Sundance, seeing people lined up to see our film—for the first time it was real,” Jeter says.

Jeter juggles numerous writing projects, including a script for a TV pilot about a real estate office in a small Southern town that is based on the lives of her father and sister.

“Their stories could fill several books,” she says. “I just don’t think I’ll ever run out of stories to tell.”

The Art of the Meal

Craig Lewis and his wife, Tari

Craig Lewis has a secret identity. Students and fellow Owen faculty know him as the Madison S. Wigginton Chair of Management and a finance professor. His colleagues at the Security Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C., know him as the SEC’s chief economist. And his family knows him as husband and father. But many don’t know he is also a charcutier—a curer of meats—a process he has mastered to create his own private-label sausages, pancetta, lardo, salami and coppa.

It all started after a particularly delicious meal at Nashville’s F. Scott’s restaurant in 2005.

“They served a nice duck prosciutto and I thought it was interesting,” he says. “I am an amateur chef, and I thought, ‘I can do this.’ Then I found this book called Charcuterie, by Michael Ruhlman and Brian Polcyn, and it just went from there.”

To dry cure meat, he starts with a piece of farm-fresh pork, which he rubs with a special combination of curing salts over a period of weeks. Then the meat is wrapped in cheesecloth and hung to dry in a cool, humidity-controlled curing chamber for several months.

“Our house in Nashville doesn’t have a basement, so at one point I bought a large dorm fridge, and rigged it up with a thermostat like microbrewers use,” he says. “I also wanted to be able to monitor it during the day so I put it in my office at Owen.”

There is no curing chamber in his office at the SEC, but Lewis admits to the occasional pork shoulder hanging in his coat closet in his D.C. home. When he returns to Nashville after his two-year appointment and leave, he looks forward to sharing his gastronomic skills with his colleagues and students once again.

“I enjoy getting my smaller classes together at the end of the semester for a nice meal,” he says. “Culinary experiences are such a wonderful way to bring people together.”

A Need for Speed

Miguel Palacios

Growing up in Bogotá, Colombia, Miguel Palacios never set out to be a competitive water-skier. But Columbia’s warm, year-round climate makes water activities popular. One summer, 7-year-old Miguel went with his father to a nearby sports club and signed up for a water-skiing lesson. Before long, he was skimming across the water at electrifying speeds and performing gravity-defying jumps, spins and flips.

“It is the most awesome feeling in the world—and it’s only a little bit dangerous,” says the assistant professor of finance with a grin, later explaining that it raises adrenaline without danger.

Palacios quickly rose in the sport and earned a spot on Colombia’s national water-skiing team. He continued to ski when he could while earning three degrees—a bachelor’s in mechanical engineering from the Universidad de los Andes, Colombia; an MBA from the Darden Business School at University of Virginia; and a master’s in economics and Ph.D. in finance from the University of California, Berkeley.

Competitive water-skiing requires very specific man-made lakes on which to perform and practice, so it’s not convenient to train just anywhere. But even with a full course load at UC Berkeley, he managed to pull off a third-place ranking in the West Coast men’s division for trick skiing.

“I like speed,” admits Palacios, who is also an instrument-rated pilot. “It’s so different from what I try to achieve in my academic life, which takes a lot of focus and patience. When I ski, I can let go of everything that’s on my mind.”

Palacios, who came to Owen in 2009, says he doesn’t get out on the water as often as he would like. But when he does, it’s at a competition-ready lake in nearby Manchester, Tenn.

“For me it’s just pure fun,” he says, “but water-skiing is also a good lesson for life. When you try, you may fall, but if you want to learn, you have to get back up and try again.”

After nine years as dean of the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, Jim Bradford is stepping down from his position at the end of the academic year in June. Jim recently discussed some of the highlights of his time as dean with Vanderbilt Business magazine. He also laid out some of the broad areas he thinks will shape Owen in its next era of leadership. Here’s Jim in his own words.

On Passages

When we were writing the announcement that I’d be stepping down, it felt at times like crafting my own obituary. What do you say about a 40-year career in both the private sector and academia in just a couple of paragraphs? It reminded me of the book Tuesdays with Morrie.

What’s been great fun and interesting is visiting with alumni. My message to them is simply that this is an incredible school worthy of their time, energy and support. And in that process, I’ve greatly enjoyed hearing how Owen has influenced people’s dreams and how appreciative they are of the education they received here.

Of course, anytime there’s change you’ll find pockets of worry. But I tell people this is a team sport, that whatever course a new dean charts, the intimate, collaborative culture of Owen will carry the school forward. That’s one of the most valuable lessons the alumni taught me when I started my tenure: Make whatever changes are necessary to help the school thrive, but don’t lose the culture.

On Strategy

I believe the school—or any organization—has to be guided by two things. First, it needs a mission or a vision that works for it. What are we about? What are we doing? Second, there needs to be a sustainable business model that allows for smooth functioning. If those two priorities get out of whack, it doesn’t matter how great the mission is if you can’t make it work financially. Likewise, if you are rudderless and just go where the wind blows, you might get through in good times, but if you forget who you are and what you’re doing, you won’t be able to make it through in hard times.

For me personally, it has been gratifying to see the Leadership Development Program reach the levels it has. It’s sustainable and it’s something that we’re now being noted for by incoming students, employers and peer schools. We’ve also been fortunate that—starting with the Accelerator program in 2004, the Health Care MBA and MS Finance degree in 2005, then adding a Master of Accountancy, Master of Management in Health Care and the Americas MBA—all these new programs continue to thrive. They may need to morph over time to accommodate what the global economy demands. But I feel like we have met an obligation to build programs that business wants.

On Priorities for the Last 100 Days

The last 100 days are a wonderful time to look back at what has been accomplished and what’s still left to do. When I began thinking about this notion of the last 100 days, I remembered when I sent my own kids off to college. As a parent, you want to impart every article of wisdom that you can. Of course, you can’t do that in the last hour—the morals and values you instill have to begin at a very young age.

So while I certainly can’t plot a strategy for Dean Johnson, I want to do whatever I can to leave Owen in the best condition I possibly can. Right now that means communicating just how strong this school is. You can see that in the quality of our faculty, our students, and our staff. The rankings have all validated our strengths as well.

Bradford (center) joined students for the last Thursday Social at Owen in April. He also presented the 100% Owen Clash of the Class Trophy to the Class of 2014.

Second, I feel confident that as some optimism comes back into the economy—and we at least know that we’ll see some interest rate stability—our base of giving will continue to grow. It’s important to keep raising money for scholarships as a way to help recruit the best students possible.

I also have an eye on the faculty recruiting process. We have three major faculty members taking emeritus status this year—Germain Böer, Dick Daft and Hans Stoll—and I want to ensure that we are supporting and identifying the next generation of stars.

On Areas for Growth

The levers are there to ensure the continuing quality and vigor of the faculty. Along with that, you want to have the resources and facilities to attract the best students and stay plugged in to the employment market. Those types of levers can be pulled to guarantee our continued status as a highly ranked, intellectually robust school.

And when I talk about facilities, I don’t just mean a new building or additional classrooms. I also mean technology. What is Owen’s role in the world of MOOCs (massive open online courses)? Vanderbilt University and Owen have already taken a lead in this. So while technology may ultimately help lower the cost of providing an education, we want to make sure we protect the quality of what we offer. How, for example, do you stay in control of a classroom with 40,000 students? The school will need to understand those hurdles and be able to jump over them.

I think you’ll also see the nature of global education change. We’ve already come down that path somewhat with the Americas MBA, where students are having more immersive experiences and working with teams across borders, for example.

In addition to being dean of the Vanderbilt Owen School of Management, Jim Bradford is the Ralph Owen Professor of Management. He plans to take a yearlong sabbatical before returning to Owen, where he will once again teach strategy.
— Ryan Underwood

Vanderbilt students gained wisdom straight from the Oracle himself. Here the group gathers with Warren Buffett after lunch.

A few times a year, the second richest man in the U.S. invites students from business schools to meet and ask him anything. On February 22, Owen students traveled to Omaha, Neb., for a day with Warren Buffett. We enlisted second year MBA student Stephanie Dozier to give us a first-person account of the rare opportunity to meet the chair and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. She and her fellow students also filled social media and blogs with information about their visit.

We almost didn’t make it. The week of our planned trip to meet with Warren Buffett, a major snowstorm went through the country. Omaha was expected to receive 12 inches of snow the evening we were to arrive, so everyone who could got excused from class on Thursday (the final day of Mod 3) and flew out early in the morning instead of late afternoon.

The group chosen for the trip consisted of 10 MBA students (five first years and five second years), three MAcc students, three MSF students, four EMBA students and our adviser, Phil Woodlief, adjunct professor of management. We each applied to be chosen, but the selection was random. I had applied because I knew it would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to meet a brilliant man whom I tremendously respected. We had prepared for months in advance, reading The Essays of Warren Buffett (a compilation of letters to shareholders), discussing what we’d learned about him as an investor and a person, and carefully crafting and choosing questions for the Q&A session. Still, throughout all that, it seemed more like an exercise than preparation for something we would actually do.

But there we were, on a Friday morning in snowy Omaha, rising early to visit the Nebraska Furniture Mart, a Berkshire Hathaway company. We toured the largest furniture store in the U.S. and listened to stories of how it was founded by Mrs. B, a Russian immigrant who could neither read nor write. And our tour guide? Mrs. B’s great-grandson, the head of real estate development for the company. This was an example of what we’d already learned—Buffett chooses great companies with great management, and continues to give that management free rein to succeed.

After our tour, we headed to Berkshire Hathaway Headquarters for the meeting with Buffett. We were there with six other business schools, including University of Pennsylvania–Wharton and University of Wisconsin–Madison. NYU’s Stern School of Business was supposed to join us, but the weather had led to their cancellation.

Buffett opened the room for questions, going alphabetically by school. The questions posed varied, with topics ranging from financial- and investment-related queries to advice for facing challenges, choosing good companies and prioritization, as well as his thoughts on social responsibility and emerging markets. One of our Owen group, MSF candidate Matthew Trautman, was excited to ask Buffett about his private jet—which Buffett has openly called both “indefensible and indispensable.” On that topic, Buffett said that “it’s about the only thing that costs money that makes my life better.”

It was great to hear his financial perspective from him, but the real value from the experience came in listening to his philosophy on life and career. Some of the key takeaways from the two-hour session with Buffett include:

• When dealing with a crisis or problem, “get it right, get it fast, get it out, get it over.”
• Stay within your circle of competence. The most important thing is not how big that circle is, but that you know where the perimeter is. “How do you beat Bobby Fisher? Play something other than chess.”
• Work for a company of people you admire. Write down the qualities of the people you admire most—these are habits, developed over time—and you can build them in yourself.
• Since we sit in the shade of trees others have planted, we should plant some ourselves if we have the means.
• Improving your ability to communicate makes you at least 50 percent more valuable.



• Time is the precious asset. Buffett doesn’t believe in determining how to live his life based on how other people expect him to live.
• Think through what you want in life. The main things are interesting activities and great friends. You can’t make a mistake doing something you enjoy with your life. You’ll be a better person.
• Get out there and do it. Always move forward. Take some risks. “A lot of good things happen by accident.” If you do something you love, good things happen.
• On the most important job any of us will have: parenting. As parents, we have to be teachers and we don’t get a chance to hit the reset button. We should know that it isn’t what we say, it’s what we do. And never forget about the power of unconditional love.

After the Q&A, Buffett treated everyone to lunch at his favorite restaurant in Omaha, Piccolo Pete’s, where we finished off our meal with root beer floats. After lunch, Buffett took group photos with each of the schools, and we presented him with gifts we brought from Nashville—Goo Goo Clusters, an inscribed bottle of Jack Daniel’s, and an Owen Hatch Show print.

Our final stop in Omaha was Borsheim’s, a jewelry store and another of Berkshire Hathaway’s companies. Susan Jacques, president and CEO of Borsheim’s, met with us and discussed her history with the company and Buffett. Buffett has been open about his support of women in leadership, and even requires that all groups that visit him be at least 30 percent women. Knowing this, it was great to hear from one of the women managers that Buffett has supported. She had started with the company in the early 1980s, and told us about the shock she felt when Buffett told her he was promoting her to president in 1994. We had to leave directly from Borsheim’s to go to the airport and back to Nashville, but I was glad we’d had the time to fit in that tour as well.

Professor Phil Woodlief (left) and Owen Board of Advisor's member Doug Cahill (center) help students prepare for their session with Buffett. Cahill was instrumental in funding the trip for the students. Photo by Joe Howell.

In the end, the experience was exactly what I had expected from the Omaha trip: a rare, never-to-be-forgotten opportunity that I experienced by being at Owen.

Editor’s Note: Adjunct Professor of Management Phil Woodlief spent months applying for and orchestrating the visit, an offshoot of his Financial Statement Analysis Class. Woodclief says that 175 students applied for the 20 spots available on trip so attendees were chosen by lottery.

The students surprised him with a specially designed and created Hatch Show Print recognizing Bradford’s tenure as dean. The poster was one of only 100 made using hand-carved images and letterpress printing in Hatch Show Print’s iconic vintage-style, a particular favorite of Bradford’s.

Nelson Andrews, EMBA'95

Nelson Andrews III, BA’89, EMBA’95, grew up around the automobile business, but he didn’t see himself making it his career. His father owned a dealership in Michigan before the family moved to Brentwood, Tenn., to establish the area’s first Cadillac dealership. As a teen, Andrews found himself doing whatever needed to be done for the business: mopping floors, manning the parts department, tending the landscape.

When it came time for college, Andrews majored in political science at Vanderbilt and took computer classes at the School of Engineering. The two fields combined research-oriented, big-picture projects with organization and structure, which suited Andrews’ skills and interests. After graduating from Vanderbilt, he moved to Detroit and a job in the computer industry at Electronic Data Systems. A few years later, however, Andrews recognized that he wanted to do more than computer coding. He wanted to know the principles behind industry and be someone who could lead and shape strategy. Looking at MBA programs, he liked what he saw at the Owen Graduate School of Management.

“I had a great experience at Vanderbilt as an undergrad and Owen had what I wanted,” Andrews says. He could also help the family business, Andrews Cadillac, by working there and upgrading and integrating its computer systems.

A funny thing happened during those two years: He discovered he liked the family business. Today, Andrews is general manager of Andrews Cadillac and Land Rover of Nashville, two of Middle-Tennessee’s most successful automobile dealerships.

As general manager, he oversees everything from planning and construction to special events and sales. The role of planner and strategist suit him, he says.

“The biggest thing I learned at Owen was strategy. Everything was strategy. It might be Germain Böer’s Financial and Managerial Accounting course, but he really taught strategy,” Andrews says.

That emphasis on strategy has helped Andrews in the changing world of marketing his business. Where automobile companies used to rely on newspaper, radio and TV advertising to reach customers, Andrews now relies on the wired world. “If a Land Rover customer expresses an interest in off-roading, I can send them an email inviting them to an off-roading event. We can text them when a part is in because that’s how the customer said to reach them,” Andrews says. “It’s much more personal. Customers let us know how they want to be contacted.”

Andrews and his wife, Trisha, are the parents of four children ranging from 15 to 5. He says that although all but the 5-year-old have helped around the dealership, it’s too soon to tell if any will want to take over the family business. And that’s ok with him.

“I’m more concerned that they seem to want to go to Michigan for college,” he says.

Tricia Siegfried, EMBA'83

Tricia Siegfried, EMBA’83, retired at the end of 2012 after 17 years as Owen’s chief financial officer. “With an overriding passion for this school’s success over the years, she has time and again proven her dedication to Owen,” said Dean Jim Bradford in announcing her retirement. “Her husband, John, has finally convinced her that they need leisurely time to travel.” In the coming year, that travel will include domestic trips, a Baltic Sea cruise, a visit to Egypt and a stay in Australia. Siegfried expects to stay connected to Owen and recently volunteered for her 30th reunion.

The Associated Press

Feb. 18: Doug Parker, MBA’86, CEO of US Airways, is profiled. Parker will lead the newly merged US Airways and American Airlines.

April 18: The Pilot Flying J headquarters in Knoxville, Tenn., was raided by FBI and IRS agents due to allegations of rebate fraud. The raid signaled fresh scrutiny of competition issues involving the nation’s top retail seller of diesel fuel. Paul Chaney, the E. Bronson Ingram Professor of Accounting, is quoted.

Bloomberg Businessweek

Jan. 3: Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management ranks ninth among the top business schools in the world in leadership development.

Jan. 4: Tami Fassinger, chief recruiting officer, is quoted in an article in which business school administrators admit there is a natural inclination for students, especially those who have already found a full-time job, to feel less pressure to ace their classes. However, the administrators urge seniors to keep up the good work through graduation as classmates and school officials may be watching.

Jan. 10: Business schools that toil in obscurity may soon be able to gain some prominence—for a price. In a new rating system devised by Quacquarelli Symonds, the company behind the QS World University Rankings and a global business school ranking, schools will have to pay for their evaluation. Dean Jim Bradford is quoted.

Jan. 29: Full-time MBA students head back to business school, aware that—barring access to a healthy trust fund—they’ll have to live as if they’re broke. This can provide great motivation for outside-the-box thinking. Owen second year Walker Matthews Jr. is featured in a story about creative moneymaking ventures that have been tried, with some success, by cash-strapped MBA students.

Feb. 21: Eight months after the GMAT exam underwent its biggest overhaul in 15 years, the test’s new Integrated Reasoning section is beginning to be used by admissions committees at top business schools to determine which applicants to accept. The Owen School is mentioned.

March 1: The Owen School is mentioned in a story about how to navigate getting wait-listed at business school.

March 7: A university in the United Kingdom will officially unveil its “MBA for the Music Industry” program in the United States at a global music event in Hollywood. A similar program offered by the Owen School is referenced.

March 13: What are the best business school keepsakes? A custom Hatch Show print for the Owen School is one of the more unusual—and affordable—items mentioned.

Bloomberg Markets

December 2012: Investors can use derivatives such as VIX futures and options to help shield a portfolio from market disaster. Robert Whaley, the Valere Blair Potter Professor of Finance, is profiled for Bloomberg Markets’ annual 2013 terminal guide, an annual review of investment strategies and trends for institutional investors.

CNBC Nightly Business Report

Jan. 25: Research by Nicolas Bollen finds that hedge funds, widely prized for their safety, may contain previously overlooked risks and may be prone to failure of performance for investors.

Feb. 5: Steve Posavac was interviewed about the impact of shareholder value as it compares to the success of a company’s celebrity endorsements.

NBC

Jan. 28: For years, Super Bowl commercials were closely guarded secrets until they aired on the biggest ratings day of the year. These days, companies have discovered that teasing them online in advance of the big day is a more efficient way of getting their brand message in front of the masses. Steve Posavac weighs in.

Jan. 31: Salacious commercials are as much a part of the Super Bowl experience as instant replays, controversial calls and boring halftime shows. And consumers only have themselves to blame. Or, more accurately, their own conditioned reflex to stimuli. Steve Posavac is quoted.

March 16: A new ad by Amtrak shows scenes of travelers doing things that are forbidden or frowned upon while traveling on a plane: using electronic devices, moving about and socializing on the train during transit. Steve Posavac is quoted.

Deseret News

Jan. 30: With health insurance access being widened under the health care reform law, attention is focused on groups that, presumably, place disproportionate burden on the health care system—mainly smokers and the obese. W. Kip Viscusi, University Distinguished Professor of Law, Economics, and Management, is quoted.

Environmental Leader

April 2: Strategic Sustainability Consulting CEO and founder Jennifer Woofter applies to her industry the lessons she has learned from the Coursera course, Leading Strategic Innovation in Organizations, taught by David Owens, professor of the practice of management and innovation at the Owen School.

Financial Times

Jan. 30: The Owen School rose three places to No. 53 in the Financial Times’ 2013 roundup of the world’s top business schools.

Forbes

March 14: The Owen School invited four financial luminaries to a discussion where they tangled with the country’s current economic issues. One of them was Robert Whaley.

FOXSports

Jan. 17: Sports agent Bo McKinnis, MBA’91, worked with Vanderbilt baseball star and now Cy Young Award winner David Price to construct a new $10 million contract with Tampa Bay Devil Rays that smartly saves Price $250,000 in “fiscal cliff” taxes.

NPR, On Point

March 31: Larry Van Horn, associate professor of management, was a guest on National Public Radio’s On Point, discussing how states are preparing for the Affordable Care Act, set to roll out in six months.

Poets and Quants

Jan. 8: The MBA bashers are everywhere, especially in the media where uninformed reporters are eager to write stories that often make little sense. The latest example surprisingly comes from The Wall Street Journal, which reported on Jan. 7 that MBA pay is declining. The Owen School is mentioned.

USA Today

Jan. 24: The mania for Super Bowl teasers—call them ads for ads—began last year, with Volkswagen posting a teaser online aimed at driving folks to social media to get hints about VW’s Super Bowl game ad. Steven Posavac is quoted.

April 21: Bruce Barry, the Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Professor of Management, is quoted in an article regarding professors who use pop culture in their teaching. Academics are reaching beyond dense economic texts and into the world of pop culture to help students and others recognize that business and economic concepts are all around.

April 28: As the dust settles on the FBI raid of the Knoxville, Tenn., headquarters of Pilot Flying J, the nation’s largest truck stop chain, the long wait for the legal fallout has begun. Mark Cohen is quoted.

USA Today College

April 1: The term “bridge program” is often used to refer to crash courses in business or corporate skills that can give liberal arts majors a boost before entering the working world. The Owen School’s Accelerator program is featured, and Greg Harvey, administrative director of Accelerator, is quoted.

For more media mentions, visit the newsroom page at owen.vanderbilt.edu.

Christie St-John

Q. Welcome back! Tell us a little about your connection to Owen, and what you’re doing now.

A. I was recruited to Owen from the Vanderbilt Ph.D. program in 1997. I had lived in France and Italy for about eight years and had come back to Nashville in 1992. One day, a friend from the Spanish department who was working with the International Executive MBA Program called and asked if I would be interested in working at Owen.

I met with Peter Veruki, Susan Motz and Tami Fassinger, and I guess I passed the test since I knew the difference between Saks Fifth Avenue and Goldman Sachs. They liked the fact that I had worked in several industries in the U.S. and in Europe and that I brought a strong international outlook to the program.

Admissions was quite different from any other job I had been in, and I loved working with the students. I started out managing the exchange programs. Luckily, the dean then, Marty Geisel, was willing to let me expand my role considerably. Because of my eclectic background, in addition to handling the exchange programs, I started doing some international recruiting and helping international students with their resumes and career paths. It soon developed that I was doing just about anything related to international affairs. It was a unique position and allowed me to get to know the students from the time of their first contact with Owen throughout their careers as alumni. I have remained in touch with a number of our alums over the years. It has been so gratifying to receive welcome-back notes from many of them.

When Tami Fassinger and I started talking about the director of admissions position last summer, I was intrigued. After visiting the school and seeing all the changes that had happened during my nine-year absence, I thought it would be a great opportunity for me to make an impact and contribute a different perspective on MBA recruiting from my work with the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth.

Q. What goals do you have for your office?

A. Recruiting more military candidates, expanding outreach to women and minority candidates, and diversifying our international pool of applicants. To that end, we’ve added several new recruiting events, such as four military-focused recruiting events, a second trip to Latin America, a few stand-alone events and fairs in Europe, and our first foray into Africa. We also joined the Foundation for African Leadership in Business. I’m very excited about this because Africa is in great need of trained managers for their expanding economy. I am very pleased that Owen will be a leader in this endeavor.

Q. How can alumni help?

A. I have always believed that alumni are the key to recruiting and yielding great candidates. It is especially helpful when they talk (in person or via email) to prospective candidates because they can share their views on the value of the Vanderbilt MBA. Moreover, our alumni are proof that a Vanderbilt MBA will lead to career success. We urge all alumni to send good prospective candidates to us directly, to help us with our yield of admitted candidates, and to remain involved with the school through any activity that they feel suits them best, whether helping at MBA fairs, recruiting students at their companies, coming back to help with interviewing, or hosting coffee chats or dinners for admitted students.

I encourage all alumni to contact me directly if they want to be involved. We promise not to abuse their generosity.

Q. What differences do you see in Owen of 15 years ago and today?

A. All the students look younger now! The library has been updated and refurbished and is really impressive. That used to be one of my favorite places to go for research and also to get away from my desk. And, of course, there are more programs today than then, and the overall class size of the MBA program is much smaller.

I do feel that the international mix needs to be tweaked a bit to include areas where we already have a solid alumni base and new areas that are opening up for MBA talent. I am also very pleased to see the caliber of alums on the Alumni Board and the business people on our Board of Visitors.

Q. You have a lot of international experience. How will that apply to your new role?

A. Working in admissions with a focus on international recruiting has led me to more than 70 countries so far. I also served on the evaluation committee at American Councils, an organization launched by former Sen. Edmund Muskie. It provides scholarships for candidates from the former CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries. This gave me the opportunity to travel to some really exotic places, such as Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Ukraine, to name a few.

I believe in establishing relationships wherever I go, so I am bringing personal contacts with overseas educational advisers and agencies—and Owen alumni—that will help us get the kind of international diversity that we are seeking. Plus, adding Kim Killingsworth to our admission office brings an even larger wealth of international knowledge since Kim had a similar job at Cornell University.

Q. Your Vanderbilt degrees are in French and Italian. How did you parlay those interests into your recruiting career?

A. Having language skills permitted me to get meaningful jobs in Europe. It has also meant success in recruiting in Europe. I can talk to potential candidates in their languages and can also speak with corporate recruiters about things other than just business because I know the history and culture of those countries—and other Francophone countries as well. It has allowed me to develop strong relationships with educational advisers, and to empathize with our international students when they come to the U.S.—I’ve been there and I know how confusing it can be. It also helped me have credibility with U.S. students who wanted to work abroad. It isn’t easy and it requires a lot of preparation and a lot of humility.

Q. If there’s one message you could convey to Owen alumni, what would it be?

A. We need your help to keep the Owen brand in front of recruiters and prospective students. And we want to stay in touch with you. Above all, please keep us updated as to where you are and what you are doing. I foresee lots of travel in the future where we will need alumni help. The MBA market is becoming more and more competitive, and to show how strong our program is, we need to show off our alums—they are the proof that this program is one of the best for success in one’s career.

Fifty years later, Parkland is once again drawing national attention, only this time, not for its service to the nation, but rather for its woeful record of violating basic patient safety procedures.

In August 2011, the hospital received a damning 600-page report issued by federal and state regulators detailing scene after painful scene of chaos and confusion. Emergency room patients were repeatedly placed in soiled bedding, children were discharged without proper medical screening, and unqualified medical residents were treating patients. In one instance, on-site regulators were forced to intervene to help lost patients seeking medical attention who were left wandering the halls.

Ranga Ramanujam

In short, there have been few—if any—instances of such a large, high-profile public hospital facing similar funding cuts for regularly placing patients in “immediate jeopardy” as a result of the facility’s systemic violation of basic safety practices.

But the truth is that even without the scathing reports issued by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, Parkland would have been in crisis. Like most public hospitals, Parkland is an anachronism that has been propped up by a too-important-to-fail mentality.

In an environment that includes a shrinking margin for medical errors, relentless pressure to cut costs, uncertainty over how to implement the Affordable Care Act, and acute physician and nursing shortages, the status quo is no longer good enough. Safety is more than a matter of operating for a long period without major adverse events—that’s just getting lucky. Instead, safety must be purposefully managed throughout every layer of an institution.

And doing that requires a fundamental shift in today’s health care organizations. Issues of quality and safety are intensely local and as such, they are not items that can be managed from a suite of executive offices.

Rather, the hospital of the 21st century demands that management build and maintain organizations designed to encourage what former Treasury Secretary and Alcoa chairman Paul O’Neill calls habitual excellence. Hospital leadership teams should seek to build an organizational infrastructure where employee engagement and continuous improvement are paramount. Improving care for patients can be brought about only by identifying and solving problems in the delivery of that care.

Hospital CEOs must start these transformations by expanding their traditional definitions of success. While financial outcomes and regulatory compliance remain crucial, management must also set audacious goals around employee engagement, communication and learning.

Patient safety is more likely when clinical employees are treated with respect and dignity, when they’re given the necessary resources to carry out their work, when they are recognized for their contributions, and when they are afforded physical and psychological safety. When these critical preconditions are absent or go unmet and hospital employees are not meaningfully engaged in their work, patients face dangers that are all too real—as Parkland and the people it serves discovered.

While the idea of employee engagement may strike some as too squishy or touchy-feely, in the case of medical institutions nothing could be further from the truth. By some estimates, as many as 44,000 patients die each year in U.S. hospitals as a result of medical error—the equivalent of a 9/11-type attack happening each month. That means employee engagement literally becomes a matter of life and death in a clinical setting, a fact that every hospital CEO needs to fully comprehend.

CEOs must also recognize that change is not easy, especially in an entrenched culture like medicine where doctors typically go unchallenged by nurses and other staff members. Resistance and setbacks are almost guaranteed.

But with time and effort this will change. It starts at the top. Executives must be as attuned to quality and safety metrics as they are to profits and losses. This means undertaking things like frequent employee surveys and ensuring that senior leadership engages in regular walk-arounds. It may also require new team clinical structures that include physicians, nurses, pharmacists and dietitians who are jointly reviewing cases on a daily basis. There must also be mechanisms that enable and encourage employees to report medical errors and other safety issues.

Hospital leaders should have a mindset not of fixing problems but rather of redesigning structures and processes in a way that delivers care that is safer, more cost-effective and, most important, patient-focused.

The need to implement effective health care organizations has become as pressing as the need for medical breakthroughs. Safety is too important to be left to chance.

A version of this article originally appeared in the Dallas Morning News as part of a continuing series on safety problems at that city’s Parkland Memorial Hospital. Associate Professor of Management Rangaraj “Ranga” Ramanujam’s current research examines leadership, communication and learning processes in enhancing the quality and safety of health care.

Germain Böer

Dick Daft

Hans Stoll

The Vanderbilt University Board of Trust has bestowed emeritus status on three of Owen’s most acclaimed faculty. Germain Böer, Richard Daft and Hans Stoll were honored during Commencement as the school’s newest faculty emeriti.

Böer, who was professor of accounting, as well as director of the Owen Entrepreneurship Center, is now professor of accounting, emeritus. Daft, formerly Brownlee O. Currey, Jr. Professor of Management, is now professor of management, emeritus. Stoll, the Anne Marie and Thomas B. Walker Jr. Professor of Finance, is now professor of finance, emeritus.

“Together, these three professors have dedicated more than 90 years of scholarship and teaching to Owen. They have been favorite professors to hundreds of students and outstanding colleagues with whom it has been a pleasure to work,” says Dean Jim Bradford. “I regret that their retirement will rob future students and faculty of the opportunity to learn from them.”

The original premise of a “hedged fund,” as a financial journalist originally described the concept in 1949, was simple: A portfolio balanced between long and short positions could profit in nearly any market.

That idea may have taken a while to seep into the mainstream, but as it has over the past decade, the hedge fund industry has exploded, rocketing from $310 billion in assets under management in 2002 to more than $2 trillion today. Institutional investors and high net-worth individuals flocked to these largely unregulated, nonpublic funds in no small part because they offered access to assets and trading strategies that are all but impossible to replicate.

But new research from Nicolas Bollen, the E. Bronson Ingram Professor of Finance, says those hedge funds that are hardest to imitate—something investors look for and for which they often pay a premium—are the ones most prone to failure.

In addition, Bollen finds that these types of funds contain a significant amount of volatility, indicating that they are vulnerable to the type of risks they are supposed to guard against. “This result suggests the presence of an omitted but potentially catastrophic risk factor in funds for which standard regression analysis fails,” Bollen writes in the study, forthcoming in the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.

Those previously undetected risks raise the annual probability of failure for hard-to-replicate funds from 10 percent to 12 percent. The findings have implications for investors who rely on statistical models to screen funds for heightened risk factors as part of their due diligence process.

Determining Hedge-fund Performance

The difficulty in assessing hedge fund performance lies in the industry’s opacity. Fund managers report returns publicly at their discretion, leaving wide gaps of data about holdings, accuracy, and even whether a fund is still operating. (In October 2011, hedge funds with more than $1.5 billion in assets under management were required to start disclosing fund details to U.S. regulators, but that information will not be made public.)

As hedge funds have grown, academic researchers have developed statistical models designed to correlate hedge fund returns with known investment strategies. Using these models, along with data from a broad cross section of funds from 1994-2008, Bollen found that more than one-third of all funds cannot be correlated to known style factors. The phenomenon becomes even more pronounced in funds with short histories.

Bollen suggests those results indicate that using hedge fund regression models to learn about a fund manager’s trading style and selection of assets may be even weaker than previously thought. Further, he says it may be a Sisyphean task to try to develop a complete set of risk factors, especially those representing catastrophic losses during rare events.

Where does that leave investors? For the time being, relying more heavily on qualitative judgments about things like a fund manager’s background and strategy mix than the quantitative analyses of econometricians.

A version of this article originally appeared in VB Intelligence.

New research co-authored by Steve Posavac, the E. Bronson Ingram Professor in Marketing, finds that in some consumers’ minds, price denotes quality. Yet for others, low price leads a consumer to believe he or she is getting a good value.

Steve Posavac

“Consumers rarely have complete information and use various strategies to fill the gaps in their knowledge as they consider and choose products,” the researchers wrote in an article published in the April 2013 Journal of Consumer Research. “One of these strategies involves using naive theories: informal, common sense explanations that consumers use to make sense of their environment. For example, consumers may believe that popular products are high in quality while also believing that scarce products are high in quality.”

Posavac and collaborators Hélène Deval, Susan P. Mantel and Frank R. Kardes found that consumers use a series of theories when considering value and price. How they size up a possible purchase depends on what is on their mind when they’re thinking about a given product— something marketers need to take into account when crafting ads, marketing strategies and promotions.

Price vs. Quality Experiments

The researchers conducted eight experiments that tested marketing techniques that leaned toward price or quality. In one experiment, consumers were shown an ad for a bottle of wine with either a high or low price. When subtly reminded of quality, consumers evaluated the expensive wine more favorably than the cheap wine. However, when subtly reminded of value, they rated the cheap wine more favorably.

“In the case of price, most people simultaneously believe that low prices mean good value and that low prices mean low quality. But these two beliefs are not equally present in consumers’ minds all the time,” the authors wrote. In short, people can hold opposing beliefs about the same product.

When Product Marketing Backfires

Sales promotions succeed when consumers perceive that they are getting a good deal, but they can also backfire if consumers perceive that lower prices indicate poor quality. And if the company makes assumptions that one naive theory guides consumers, they run the risk that the strategy could actually cause a decrease in sales and perceived value. “For example, a marketer who feels that low prices signal value may go all in on a low-price strategy in an attempt to drive sales but may succeed only at reducing brand value and alienating consumers if a substantial percentage of the firm’s customers believe that low prices are commensurate with low quality,” they wrote.

Posavac and his fellow researchers cite retailer J.C. Penney as an example. The company moved to a new strategy of abandoning sales events in favor of everyday low pricing. However, J.C. Penney customers had been so conditioned to the naive theory that sales promotions signified good deals that the absence of such events was taken by many longterm customers to mean that there were no longer opportunities to get good deals—and sales dropped.

“[Companies] design a strategy by assuming that a certain naive theory is going to drive consumer evaluation and choice when, in fact, several naive theories are available to the consumer,” the authors conclude. So what’s the best strategy? The authors suggest that, in practice, marketing communications that set the stage by suggesting a given naive theory—quality, for example—and then make a product appeal in keeping with that theory will have the best results.

Among the factors measured were Vanderbilt’s direct spending on operations and construction, spending by students and visitors, and spending by businesses as a result of Vanderbilt’s presence in the state.

The analysis, prepared by Austin, Texas-based TXP Inc., reported that Vanderbilt, the second largest private employer in Tennessee, generated an economic impact of $8.6 billion for the fiscal year ending June 30, 2012.

• The economic activity supported 58,000 total jobs with wages and benefits in excess of $3.4 billion.
• Vanderbilt spent $86.6 million on construction, building and leasehold improvements. These expenditures supported hundreds of jobs in the construction and building maintenance sector.
• University-related activity attracted 700,000 visitors to campus, including patients, parents and athletic enthusiasts, creating jobs and wages for businesses and vendors in the community.
• Tax revenue generated by Vanderbilt and related activities drove estimated Tennessee tax revenue of $221.6 million into state coffers.

The TXP report said that the impact potentially exceeds the calculations, since a university’s economic impact extends well beyond the traditional workplace due in part to factors not easily quantifiable such as “a highly capable workforce, innovation and entrepreneurship, clusters in knowledge industries, and superior quality of life.”

In addition, Financial Times ranked Owen No. 35 globally for job placement and No. 37 globally for academic research.

This continues a strong showing in popular rankings. Bloomberg BusinessWeek just ranked the Vanderbilt MBA program No. 25 overall and No. 9 in leadership. And Vanderbilt once again made it into the top- 30 MBA programs as ranked this year by U.S. News & World Report. Regardless of ranking publication, Vanderbilt can always be found among the top 10 percent of the AACSB-accredited B-schools in the world.

Timothy_Vogus

Timothy J. Vogus has been promoted to associate professor of management and organization studies, with tenure, effective fall 2013. Vogus, who joined Owen in 2004, teaches in the MBA core curriculum on leading teams and organizations as well as an elective MBA course on negotiation.

Vogus’ area of research involves the mechanisms through which organizations create and sustain a culture of safety. Currently, he is interested in these dynamics in health care settings and their effects on the incidence of medical error at the point of care delivery.

Vogus was recently named one of the 50 most influential business professors of 2013 and earlier named one of the Top 40 Business School Professors Under 40 by poetsandquants.com.

New Dean Eric Johnson

M. Eric Johnson, current associate dean at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College and former Owen faculty member, has been named dean of the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management effective July 1. He succeeds Dean Jim Bradford, who announced his retirement in December.

Johnson said that Owen is a true gem among the world’s best business schools.

“I am honored to be given the opportunity to lead the school to even higher achievement,” he said.

At Dartmouth, Johnson oversaw Tuck’s top-rated MBA program and its nine centers and initiatives. He was responsible for launching several of those centers in the areas of digital strategies, energy, entrepreneurship and health care, and also held a named chair.

Johnson taught at Owen from 1991- 99, first as assistant professor of management, then as a tenured associate professor of operations management. He twice won awards for teaching excellence.

Johnson’s teaching and research concentrate on the impact of information technology on the extended enterprise. His latest book, The Economics of Financial and Medical Identity Theft, examines the security failures and economic incentives that drive identity theft. He holds patents on interface design and has testified before Congress on information security. Additionally, he has held positions with Systems Modeling Corp. and Hewlett-Packard and has consulted for top companies around the world.

An expert in information technology as well as supply chain management, Johnson holds bachelor degrees in engineering and economics and a master’s in engineering and operations research from Pennsylvania State University. He received his doctorate in industrial engineering and engineering management from Stanford University.

The subject of our cover story knows all about the Grand Ole Opry and transitions. As president of Opry Entertainment and executive vice president at Ryman Hospitality Properties, Steve Buchanan, BS’80, MBA’85, handles the business and entertainment sides of the Grand Ole Opry, celebrated Ryman Auditorium and legendary WSM radio. He was also instrumental in the development of the hit ABC television show, Nashville, for which he serves as an executive producer. As you’ll read, Steve was also responsible for transitioning the historic Ryman Auditorium from a candidate for demolition to an acclaimed performance venue.

Owen itself is going through some transitions. In this issue, we reacquaint (or introduce) you to Christie St-John, MA’94, PhD’99, the new head of admissions. Christie has returned to Vanderbilt from Dartmouth and she has some wonderful ideas for recruiting future Owen students.

The big transition we’re facing, of course, is that Jim Bradford is stepping down as dean of Owen and a new dean, M. Eric Johnson, will soon be at work. Fortunately, Jim is leaving the school in a strong position and Eric will have a powerful foundation on which to build.

We asked Jim to talk about what’s next. What we got instead was a manifesto that every business leader should follow: Jim’s wisdom about how leaders should spend their last 100 days in office is profound and visionary.

Speaking of changes, you’ve probably noticed a new author of this column. Seth Robertson, who edited Vanderbilt Business for more than five years, has joined Vanderbilt Magazine and passed the editorship to me. I’m enjoying learning about Owen and discovering all its wonderful people and stories.

There are other changes ahead for Vanderbilt Business. We are beginning work on a redesign of the magazine. That means a fresh look as well as new features and departments. Are there regular features you like? Never read? Would like to see expanded or changed? Should we do more alumni profiles? More stories about students? Email me at owen.magazine@vanderbilt.edu. I look forward to your feedback.

Yet, it’s just as important —if not more—for leaders to be guided by what they want the last 100 days in office to look like. Jack Welch at GE and Meg Whitman at eBay offer two examples of extraordinary leadership exits, passing on an organization that was both stronger than when they found it, and primed for a new period of growth. Compare that to someone like Kenneth Lay, whose Enron career ended in scandal and disgrace.

That’s not to say one should attempt to cram all the work of a meaningful and enduring legacy into little more than three months. Rather, thinking about your last 100 days is a state of mind that should pervade the everyday actions, as well as the major decisions, of anyone heading an organization. Leaders need to ask themselves how their actions today will help build upon a solid foundation that any successor could add to starting in the next 100 days, if not the next week.

As I consider the Owen Graduate School of Management, I’m pleased to see that many of the initiatives we started with a community effort are now thriving. We have expanded our suite of programs to meet the needs of a wide range of backgrounds and experience. Along with Vanderbilt University as a whole, Owen continues to attract some of the brightest minds in the world, both among faculty and incoming students. We have also worked closely with industry and employers to ensure that our graduates are fully equipped to compete in a complex global business landscape.

Owen’s next dean, Eric Johnson, will have his own priorities, of course, but I feel fully confident that together we have set the stage for a new era of growth in several different areas, which I reflect upon elsewhere in this issue.

While this will be my last letter in Vanderbilt Business as dean, it is not goodbye. I plan on taking a yearlong sabbatical to spend time with my family, ride my bike, shoot pictures, teach at Escade in Barcelona, and continue to work with the Graduate Management Admissions Council before returning to Owen in 2014.

I’ve often said that this has been the hardest—yet most rewarding—job I’ve ever had. Please know that I will forever be indebted to the entire Owen community for all your hard work, support and wise counsel to help make my tenure as dean a success. I hope you feel confident, as I do, that this very special institution stands well positioned not only to endure, but also to embark on an exciting new phase of its journey.

Please join me in supporting this great school and Dean Eric Johnson in the coming years.

Sincerely yours,

James W. Bradford
Dean, Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management
Ralph Owen Professor of Management

Tim Murray leads Aluminium Bahrain, one of the world's top 10 aluminium producers.

You never know where a blind ad will lead you. It led Tim Murray from Knoxville, Tenn., to the Kingdom of Bahrain in the Middle East.

Murray is CEO of Aluminium Bahrain (Alba), one of the world’s top 10 aluminium producers. He joined Alba in 2007 as general manager of finance after applying to an ad in the Economist.

Then things moved fast. Murray served as Alba’s chief finance and supply officer, chief financial officer and chief marketing officer before being appointed CEO in October 2012.

In 2010, Murray was instrumental in launching Alba’s initial public offering on the London and Bahrain stock exchanges. “I was responsible for running the Alba team as well as working with the army of advisers to develop the prospectus. When it came to the roadshows, I was the one who did all the presenting,” he says. “The skills I gained at Owen were very helpful, as the IPO Information Memorandum was like doing a case study on steroids.”

Murray says people thought he was crazy to move from Middle Tennessee to the island nation of Bahrain, which he calls the one of the most welcoming places he’s ever been.

“I had a nice life in Knoxville and both my kids were born there,” says Murray, who had spent 10 years at Knoxville’s ARC Automotive, the last as vice president and CFO. “However it was a great opportunity and my wife was very supportive.”

The adjustment to life in Bahrain was easier than Murray expected, he says. “What surprised me the most is how western Bahrain is. I find it easy to relate to most people,” he says. “I have learned how little we in the U.S. understand the world. I have also learned that people outside the U.S. are much more tolerant than we are.”

He’s continuing to learn as CEO. “In my career, I have handled just about every function there is, but when you are the guy at the top, it is a different feeling of responsibility,” he says. “Alba and the aluminium industry contribute around 10 percent of the GDP of Bahrain. It is a humbling experience knowing you are running a company that is so important to the country and the families of Bahrain.”

Jacqueline Parker, recently named Chief Strategy Officer at Covenant, has been with the company since it opened in 1986.

In 1986 Jacqueline Parker had to make one of the toughest decisions of her life: either complete her senior year in college and earn a bachelor’s in nursing, or join her husband, David, in an ambitious startup in the trucking business. Parker chose the latter, setting the wheels in motion for a career at Covenant Transportation Group that has lasted more than 26 years. She hasn’t looked back since.

“At the time I thought, ‘You know what? My efforts are better spent with Covenant. That’s where my future is,’” says Parker, who serves as the company’s Chief Strategy Officer. “With a startup, there’s so much work to be done. You need a lot of hands. So I signed up, and I just stayed.”

Covenant opened for business with just 25 tractors and 50 trailers. Since then, the Chattanooga, Tenn.-based company has grown considerably, acquiring other carriers along the way. Covenant now operates approximately 3,000 trucks, which transport a variety of goods across the United States.

Parker attributes much of Covenant’s success to her and her husband’s strong faith. “Some people call it chance; others call it luck. We call it God,” she says. This philosophy is reflected in the name of the company, which she explains is about not only a spiritual commitment but also “an agreement that we have with our customers, employees, vendors and shareholders.”

This sense of commitment is what spurred Parker to enroll in the Vanderbilt Executive MBA program in 2010. When Covenant encountered a rough stretch during the late 2000s, Parker remembers wishing that she could have done more to help the company. “You’re disappointing stakeholders on all fronts, and you feel responsible,” she says. “I had a lot of institutional knowledge, but I knew I was lacking some valuable skills.”

That’s when Parker made perhaps the second toughest decision of her life. “Going back to school was one of the hardest things I’ve done,” she says. “But I thought, ‘It’s going to be worth it in terms of time and money and effort.’

“And indeed it was.”

From left, Director of Corporate Relations Peter Veruki; JAMI SMITH, MBA’05, Global Marketplace Program Manager at Microsoft; MAYANK VERMA, MBA’08, Senior Partner and Channel Marketing Manager at Microsoft; Dean Jim Bradford; BOB GROHOVSKY, MBA’90, Worldwide Services Partner Director at Microsoft; and JUDSON RANDOLPH, MBA’91, Web Analytics and Online Customer Satisfaction Analysis and Improvement at Microsoft, gathered at the company’s headquarters in Redmond, Wash., on Aug. 3, 2012.

From left, Ziya Alemdar, MBA’98, Managing Director of ProAd Media Solutions; Judy Spinella, EMBA’93, Vice President and Project Leader at B.E. Smith; and Mehmet Baser, MBA’95, Managing Director of BT Global Services, enjoyed a mini reunion along the Bosporus in Istanbul this past June.

“I have partial symptoms of both, but the doctors can’t do anything for either one,” he says. “They’re progressive diseases, and unfortunately they’re doing just that—progressing.”

Steele

Steele, however, also knows that even the toughest of odds can lead to surprising outcomes. His work with Uganda Children’s Project, a nonprofit organization that he and his wife, Lisa, founded 11 years ago, is a testament to what can be accomplished in the face of adversity. Thanks to the group’s efforts, countless orphaned and desperately poor Ugandan children have enjoyed educational opportunities that otherwise would not have been possible.

“Something has to be done to help this disenfranchised class climb out of the ghetto,” he says. “Education gives them that chance.”

Uganda Children’s Project, which grew out of mission work at Steele’s church near Chattanooga, Tenn., currently has around 240 children and young adults paired with sponsors throughout the U.S., Europe and Australia. The group’s two full-time Ugandan employees are responsible for identifying potential children for the project, while Steele and his wife focus on the sponsorships.

“I draw upon my MBA experience for all of the finance, marketing and operations that go into this,” he says. “For example, we work in several foreign currencies right now, and trying to manage the exchange rate against a very unstable Ugandan shilling is difficult.”

An unstable currency is just one of the problems facing Uganda these days. Years of political turmoil, corruption and a devastating AIDS epidemic have all left their mark on the country. Yet Steele isn’t daunted by the challenges.

“We’ve never felt like we were called to deal with the big problems in Uganda,” he says. “We can only keep working our own way—child by child, sponsor by sponsor.”

Fittingly it’s the same philosophy that defines Steele’s own personal struggle against tough odds: Take things day by day, step by step, and relish the small victories.

For more information, visit ugandachildrensproject.org.

Bloomberg Businessweek

June 4: Every year around this time, a wave of anxiety ripples through most of the nation’s newly admitted business school students: How to depart a job without burning any bridges, and ideally, leaving a positive, lasting impression? Tami Fassinger, Chief Recruiting Officer, writes in this op-ed about how to resign gracefully.

July 13: The admissions interview is the business school’s opportunity to meet potential students face to face and go beyond the pages of their applications. For applicants, the interview is a chance to show their true colors. Consuela Knox, Senior Associate Director and Diversity Recruiting Manager of Admissions, offers tips to students about the interviewing process.

Sept. 25: The number of people taking the Graduate Management Admission Test (GMAT) is on the rise this year, bolstered by a surge of people trying to take the exam before the addition of a new section, as well as by growing interest in the business programs from students outside the United States. Dean Jim Bradford is quoted.

Christian Science Monitor

Aug. 13: Could “liking” something on Facebook get you fired? That’s what six sheriff’s deputies say happened to them after they liked the political opponent of their boss. A district judge ruled that Facebook likes aren’t protected speech, but the case is being appealed. Bruce Barry, the Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Professor of Management, is quoted.

CNBC

Aug. 29: Many of Paulson and Co.’s investors stayed with the company last year even though its flagship hedge fund lost 35 percent. But with returns continuing to sag amid a rising equities market, some of those investors are now jumping ship. Nick Bollen, the E. Bronson Ingram Professor of Finance, is quoted.

NBC.com

Aug. 13: As the Olympics wind down, experts are awarding a gold medal in ambush marketing to Nike, which scored with bold commercials, smart PR moves and its distinctive, ubiquitous neon-yellow Volt shoes. Jennifer Escalas, Associate Professor of Marketing, is quoted.

USA Today

May 21: Facebook raised about $16 billion through its IPO, which gave the company a market value of $104 billion. But its lackluster public debut deflated the pre-IPO hype that had floated in the business press and on Wall Street for weeks. Bill Christie, the Frances Hampton Currey Professor of Finance, is quoted.

The Wall Street Journal

May 21: When the economy tanked four years ago, corporations reduced their presence at business schools. So, universities started reaching out to smaller employers—something they had never really done before. Owen alumna Julie Brink, MBA’11, went to a small consultancy firm in Nashville and is quoted.

July 12: Consumer-products companies are turning to new technology to overcome the biggest obstacle to learning what shoppers really think: what the shoppers say. To find out what really draws their test shoppers’ attention, companies are combining three-dimensional computer simulations of product designs and store layouts with eye-tracking technology. Steve Posavac, the E. Bronson Ingram Professor of Marketing, is quoted.

Hans Stoll

Q. What was the world of finance like when you first began thinking about opening the Financial Markets Research Center?

A. It was the mid-1980s, and derivatives were pretty new. At the time, Bob Whaley, who is now the Valere Blair Potter Professor of Management in Finance, and I had developed a bit of a reputation for doing work in this area. But there were a lot of changes, questions and suspicions about derivatives and other newfangled instruments. In 1986 we had just completed a study of the triple witching hour—when three kinds of derivative securities expire at the same time—which we undertook for the major options and futures markets at the behest of the Securities and Exchange Commission. I then went to Chicago to answer questions being raised by those in the industry. That study helped establish Vanderbilt’s reputation in derivatives and provided a path to the FMRC, which I started in 1987.

Derivatives were pretty sleepy then—mostly related to agriculture—until the exchanges developed into financial derivatives, which caused a lot of controversy and discussion about how they work and how you set up a market for them. The other thing that was going on in the 1980s was in the market microstructures area. Stock commissions were under pressure since being deregulated in 1975. At the time, the New York Stock Exchange set fixed prices for commissions, and they had a lot of rules and regulations in place that protected them. All that was in flux.

So there was this sense that there were new instruments, new innovations like derivatives, the securitizing of mortgage-backed securities, and portfolio insurance, which played a big role in the ’87 crash. That was the atmosphere when the FMRC started.

Q. What was the original goal of the FMRC?

A. The idea was that the academic world could help clarify and bring further understanding to new financial markets. We wanted to be a link to the real world. We wanted to have relationships with companies that would help us understand what was going on and we would help them understand what was going on with our research. Second, we wanted to be connected to the regulators because they were determining exactly what could be done with these new instruments and what constraints they had.

Q. How did the idea for the annual conference come about?

A. I didn’t state it publicly, but my commitment was to have a conference every year. And in fact, it proved to be more successful than I’d anticipated, at least in the sense that it gave the industry an opportunity to talk to academics and also to each other. It provided a kind of neutral territory for everyone.

After several years of the conferences, I was talking to one of the FMRC members and said, “I’m not sure I want to do this conference each year.” And he said, “The conference is the thing. That’s really what makes the FMRC. If you don’t have a conference, you’ll lose the members.” He was right. The conference is what members enjoy, and it’s where the FMRC makes a contribution. We bring together interesting people who are in the trenches when it comes to some of these issues.

Q. So the 1987 crash just happened to provide the perfect topic for the first conference?

A. It wasn’t a full-fledged conference like we have today, more like a panel. But yes, that was the first topic. We held the discussion—and I think a dinner—in April 1988. The title was “Stock Market Crash of ’87: What Have We Learned?” We hadn’t had much time to reflect. So 10 years later, we had the same title.

Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve, discussed the Great Recession at the 2009 conference.

Q. And what were some of the key lessons about the ’87 crash that emerged at the discussion?

A. The issue came down to whether the crash was caused by new futures and options instruments or by something more fundamental. Was it Chicago, or was it New York? You had this big battle going on.

For the FMRC, the benefit of the industry panel discussion was that the participants conveyed a sense of the terror that people in the exchanges and the futures markets felt when prices were crashing. I mean it was phenomenal—this was a 20 percent drop in one day. There’s been nothing like that since. I was sitting down in the lobby, and the TV stations were interviewing me. It was remarkable.

So what did we learn? There were opinions. I’m not sure anybody learned anything. But I distill the lessons as follows:

• It wasn’t the futures markets. It was a fundamental misevaluation of the stock market. Interest rates had gone up, and when that happens, stock prices usually go down. They went up instead. I think the market realized this and said we’re overvalued, we’ve got to sell. But since the quickest way to get out of the market is to sell stock index futures, that made it look like the futures market was the cause. But it wasn’t. It was just an easier way to trade.
• The other instrument that was a problem was portfolio insurance. It was designed to give investors the right to switch from equity to debt when their portfolios started to fall. That caused a self-cumulative effect that caused stocks to fall some more. Portfolio insurance lost its charm after that.

Q. How did the conferences progress from there?

A. They didn’t get too much bigger. It was always about 50 people—industry people and others from Vanderbilt, professors, students and the like. We also began to have FMRC members like the Chicago Board Options Exchange and the New York Stock Exchange.

The topics have been reasonably narrow for the most part—things like securities markets transaction costs, world financial markets and global risk. In 1999 we had a conference on coping with global volatility. This was two years after the Asian and Russian currency crises and the Long Term Capital Management disaster. Peter Fisher of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York spoke. He was the person who had the meeting with the 10 biggest investors to settle the thing with LTCM before it spread to the markets.

The conferences honoring Dewey Daane, the Frank K. Houston Professor of Finance, Emeritus, always drew big names. We had one in 1989 that Paul Volcker, former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, attended. The Fed Chairman at the time, Alan Greenspan, was there as well, but he only stayed for cocktails. Dewey worked hard to put that conference together. I was impressed. Of course, we had a second Dewey conference in 2009, and Paul Volcker came to that one as well.

Edward DeMarco, Acting Director of the Federal Housing Finance Agency, addressed mortgage reform at the 2011 conference.

Q. One of the conferences lives in infamy as “financial wrestle-mania.” Explain what happened.

A. That was in 1995, on the topic of odd-eighths and what to do about spreads on the NASDAQ market. Bill Christie, now the Frances Hampton Currey Professor of Finance, had written a paper about the topic (which led to a $1 billion settlement against NASDAQ), and he presented it at the conference. We thought it would be just a normal academic conference. Oh, no. There were lawyers and regulators, and all these people came out of the woodwork that we never invited. I looked up and there were three lawyers sitting in the back—you could tell they were lawyers by the way they were dressed. I said, “Who are you?” They said, “We represent the defendant, NASDAQ. We just wanted to see what was going on here.” Nobel Prize-winner Merton Miller had been hired by NASDAQ to present their point of view, which he did at the conference. His line was, “You don’t buy three-eighths of a pound of bologna, you buy a quarter-pound or half-pound.” Things got pretty heated. The local paper called it “financial wrestle-mania.”

Q. Looking over 25 years of conferences, what are your big takeaways? How has the world of finance changed in that time?

A. It’s dramatic how the market microstructure work that we’ve done here and elsewhere has had an influence on the sweeping changes that have occurred in the business of trading securities. The automated exchanges, the decline in the bid-ask spread, the position of the New York Stock Exchange—the fact that some European company is ready to buy it is a phenomenal event when we think that here’s an exchange that was founded in 1792 under a buttonwood tree. And suddenly it’s gone as an institution that had so much power. Ultimately I think it’s a good thing that some of that power has declined. Look at commissions: You can trade for $8 what used to cost you $800. That’s a tremendous reduction in cost and increase in efficiency.

The other big change that we’ve been involved in is derivatives. I think they have helped make markets more resilient, deeper, better, cheaper. Have we protected ourselves against every accident or mistake? No. There will be future problems. Whenever you innovate, you don’t do it right the first time. So the crash of ’87 was an equity crash, and the crash of 2008–2009 was a fixed income and banking thing. They’re different. You don’t learn very much about one from the other. You just have to be ready to handle whatever comes, to have the mechanisms in place and have resilient markets that can withstand these shocks.

Q. What’s next for the FMRC?
Another 25 years?

A. I don’t know. The future of the FMRC is on good footing in terms of its endowment. It can do interesting things, and I think it will. I don’t want to do conferences just for the sake of doing conferences. They should be interesting, and if people find that they’re not interesting then we should stop and do something else. But my guess—my hope—is that they’ll continue. I don’t know who’s going to do them or how we’re going to do them, but I suspect we’ll try to continue the conferences. The FMRC will continue for sure. This school and this finance group are well-respected and well-connected in the real world of industry and regulators. We have this important link to what’s going on in the business world. The FMRC helps maintain that.

Peter Veruki thanks the attendees at the 2012 Owen Circle dinner as Eric Noll and wife, Georgiana, look on.

Peter Veruki didn’t attend Owen or any other school at Vanderbilt. He doesn’t teach or conduct research at the university either. But ask many alumni which person had a big impact on their lives while at Owen, and odds are Veruki’s name is near the top of the list.

Veruki came to Owen in 1988 at the behest of former Dean Marty Geisel. The two met when Veruki was working on Wall Street, recruiting and training MBAs. Geisel, then at the University of Rochester, was looking for Wall Street jobs for his MBA candidates.

“I was impressed with his style, and when he went to work at Owen he called and asked me to come down,” Veruki says. “He told me that Owen was too good to be just the best school in the Southeast. He wanted someone to help market the school on Wall Street and in California and Chicago.”

Initially Veruki wasn’t interested in leaving New York for Nashville, but eventually Geisel won him over. Veruki came on board to lead Owen’s career center, but running that office was only part of his job. He also was charged with working his Wall Street connections and strengthening relationships with alumni—relationships that could eventually mean internships and jobs for Owen students.

“I’d get out on the road and take students with me,” Veruki says. “Traditionally career centers just sit back and wait for the companies to come to them. We changed all that—we took our students, or at least their resumes, to the companies.”

During this time Owen’s reputation went from being a regional school to a national one. The rankings improved, and applications from other parts of the country increased. Students received one-on-one coaching and were encouraged to set their sights high. Veruki realized that Owen had turned the corner in 1990, despite a bleak job market. Several students landed noteworthy positions, including Eric Noll, MBA’90, who is now Executive Vice President of NASDAQ OMX Group’s Transaction Services.

“When I left Owen, I had an offer from the Chicago Board Options Exchange,” Noll says. “Before I started at Owen, I didn’t realize that such jobs existed. But Peter and Hans Stoll really opened my eyes. They educated us on what kinds of jobs were out there and how to get them.”

Unfortunately Geisel died in 1999, just as the school was starting to make its mark. Veruki left soon thereafter to take a position at Rice University. Several years later, just as he was ready to retire, Veruki got another call from Owen. Jim Bradford, who was Acting Dean at the time, wanted Veruki back.

“Jim told me that I didn’t necessarily need to return to Nashville. He said, ‘I need you in Seattle and New York, getting alumni reconnected,’” says Veruki, who currently lives in Houston. “He and I both realized that every alum out there is a potential employer, and they’re the ones hiring MBAs.”

Over the course of his career at Owen, Veruki has made a real difference to the school’s alumni. Owen graduates can be found in boardrooms around the world, and many credit Veruki for their success. In fact, a group of them, led by Eric Noll and his wife, Georgiana, established a scholarship in Veruki’s honor—a rare recognition for a staff member. The scholarship was announced at the 2012 Owen Circle dinner.

“I was the last to know. Even when I was seated at the dinner with five of my favorite alumni, I still didn’t suspect anything,” says Veruki, who now serves as the school’s Director of Corporate Relations. “But then they started calling them up to the podium, and I finally realized what was going on. I was so humbled.”

For now, the scholarship is designated as the Wall Street Scholarship. When Veruki retires, it will be given his name.

Paul Jacobson, MBA’97, Chief Financial Officer at Delta Airlines, was one of the first to contribute to the scholarship fund. “When I got the call about the scholarship, I just felt that it was the right time to make a sizeable gift,” he says. “Peter was an inspiration to me and he always gave me good advice, even if it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. I owe a lot of my career to the start that he gave me, and I will always remember that.”

Veruki hopes that the type of student to receive the scholarship will be someone “who could go to Wharton or Harvard to study finance,” he says, “but instead chooses Owen because our finance faculty is second to none. We’re looking for a person who appreciates the culture we have here—the camaraderie and teamwork.”

That Owen culture is something appreciated by today’s employers. “What we’ve found at Delta is that Owen alumni really fit our group dynamic,” Jacobson says. “There’s a level of humility that really helps them blend in with our culture. We’ve had a lot of success hiring Vanderbilt MBAs.”

Noll further explains the reasoning behind honoring Veruki. “His longevity, his concern for students and their future and their careers, have been extremely influential,” he says. “There’s always lots of recognition for strong faculty—like endowed chairs—but it’s not always so easy to recognize staff members. That’s why I’m so happy to be a part of this scholarship.”

If you would like more information about the Wall Street Scholarship, please contact the Owen Development and Alumni Relations office at (615) 322-0815.

A section of the Great Wall near Beijing

April 29: Beijing
Although the buildings were beautiful, what struck me most on this part of the visit were the Chinese people. The younger people clamored to have their pictures taken with us. Parents would bring their small children to say hello, and we were obvious objects of attention. ~Sherie Edwards

The Great Wall

Tiananmen Square

April 30: Beijing
Today marked the first day of visits to businesses—the true reason for the trip. I joined the health care group since my career for the past 19 years has been in risk management and medical malpractice. Our first stop was Peking Union Medical College Hospital. It was well-equipped, clean and similar to hospitals in the U.S. ~Sherie Edwards

Peking Union Medical College Hospital

Apple Store

Street food

Hong Kong skyline

May 1: Hong Kong
Once we landed in Hong Kong, it quickly became apparent that there was an entirely different mentality here than in mainland China. Buildings towered into the clouds, and the influences of British rule were starkly felt. We took a tram up a near 45-degree slope to the peak of the island, where hot and humid jungle trails were interspersed with shops and eateries. ~Brett Wade

Victoria Peak

May 2: Hong Kong
We started our first full day of business tours in Hong Kong with a visit to the American Chamber of Commerce. We were presented information on business challenges facing both Hong Kong and the mainland. It was interesting to learn how high the cost of living is in Hong Kong and the amount of lavish wealth there is in turn. ~Brett Wade

View from JPMorgan office

Victoria Harbour

American Chamber of Commerce

China International Marine Container headquarters

Huawei headquarters

May 3: Shenzhen
Huawei is developing cutting-edge communications products to integrate into all aspects of a person’s life. It was fascinating to see the products that will be launched in the next year. It was also unnerving to realize the potential applications of such technology and the implications these applications could have on individual privacy. ~Sherie Edwards

Wal-Mart office

High roller suite

The Venetian lobby

May 4: Macau
With more than six times the gaming revenues of Las Vegas, the casinos of Macau are immense, impressive structures. The Venetian is no different. We were given time to explore its casino, shops and restaurants before a quick Q & A and a behind-the-scenes tour of the kitchen, the built-in stadium and an impressive 6,000-square-foot “high roller” suite. ~Brett Wade

Turns out he was right.

“It’s definitely a really tough job market, but the master’s helped me get the job I wanted,” he says. This past summer Maloney, BS’11, MSF’12, began working at Morgan Stanley as an Analyst. His focus is largely in fixed income, foreign exchange and emerging markets.

Preparing students to enter a variety of finance jobs is at the core of the yearlong Vanderbilt MS Finance program—a goal made all the more important after the financial sector was hit particularly hard with job losses during the recession.

“What we aim to do is give students a broad-based skill set so that they can go into almost any area—banking, investments, corporate finance—and start tackling real problems right away,” says Kate Barraclough, Senior Lecturer of Finance and Faculty Director, MS Finance. “We want them to be able to deal with any type of problem that comes up and deal with it quickly and effectively. They may be starting at entry level, but they should be star performers.”

MS Finance versus MBA

For Maloney, the MS Finance program was not merely a stepping stone to an MBA. “In my field, sales and trading, it may not help to have an MBA,” he says. “Even if I do eventually become a manager, I don’t think I’ll pursue an MBA.”

He’s not alone. Students in the MS Finance program are “seeing it as a terminal degree and they’re not coming back for an MBA,” Barraclough says. “In the six years of the program, there have only been a handful who have come back.”

When compared to MS Finance students, those on the MBA track typically have a bit more job experience, with most pursuing the degree about five years into their careers. MS Finance students, on the other hand, tend to come with fewer than two years’ experience. “There is the benefit with the MS Finance that students don’t have to take two years off to go to business school and then come back to the job market,” Barraclough says.

While the comparisons to the MBA program may be obvious, there’s no sibling rivalry between the two. Students in both programs take classes together, and the MBA students often mentor those in MS Finance. In fact, the MBA program was somewhat responsible for MS Finance being developed in the first place.

“Having a smaller MBA program allowed us to expand our offerings through a portfolio of one-year master’s programs, including the MS Finance,” Barraclough says.

Besides filling an important niche among specialized postgraduate programs, a one-year degree in finance makes sense because Owen is well-stocked with professors who are among the world’s leading experts in the field. The close alignment with the MBA program, however, causes some confusion over which degree a student should pursue.

One rule of thumb for deciding is the student’s career goal: “If someone comes to us with a few years of work experience wanting a less specific finance education or a job in consulting, we’ll typically suggest the MBA path,” Barraclough says. “Do they want a more generalist business education so that they can move into a higher position, or a targeted master’s and an entry-level position? That’s usually the determining factor.”

The MS Finance program also can be useful in switching career focus. Zach Eskelson, MSF’07, Assistant Vice President at Redwood Trust near San Francisco, had worked in account management but found that he wanted a more quantitative finance role. “I started looking at job opportunities and educational options and decided, based on what I wanted to do and my experience, that MS Finance was a better fit for me,” he says.

Master’s degrees in finance are growing in popularity at colleges and universities throughout the country. “It seems like every week we’ve got a new competitor,” Barraclough says. Yet Vanderbilt made Eskelson’s list even though he graduated from the University of Washington in Seattle. He had visited Nashville several times before, and all it took was an official visit to campus to help him make up his mind.

“My decision was made,” he says. “The program is part of the business school. I wasn’t attracted to programs where they were part of the math or engineering schools. The fact that some of the classes were MBA classes—that attracted me. I’d be getting that exposure. There were only a few schools that had that.”

Access to the Very Best

Most students who enroll in the MS Finance program have received their undergraduate degrees elsewhere. In fact, only five of the 41 in last year’s class had attended Vanderbilt for their undergraduate studies.

“Our students tend to come from all over,” Barraclough says. “Students are attracted to the Vanderbilt brand and the strength of our alumni network.”

Kate Barraclough, Faculty Director of MS Finance, has helped the program fill a niche among specialized degrees offered at Owen.

In addition to Vanderbilt’s overall reputation, it helps that students have access to professors who have authored landmark studies on virtually every aspect of finance. For example, the faculty includes Bob Whaley, the Valere Blair Potter Professor of Management in Finance and Co-director of the Financial Markets Research Center. Among his many industry innovations is the development of the Market Volatility Index (VIX) for the Chicago Board Options Exchange.

“The classroom was generally a really interactive environment,” says Tony Cox, MSF’09. “It was really challenging, so we had to have a lot of interactions outside normal class hours or just talking to faculty in their offices. That kind of interaction was helpful. Being able to pick their brains whenever I wanted was definitely a great part of the experience. Bob Whaley’s class was one that I wanted to take just because he was teaching it. Having the opportunity to be around those people every day made Vanderbilt stand out.”

For Cox, a Financial Analyst with Goldman Sachs, another valuable benefit of a Vanderbilt education is access to the alumni network. “I know I wouldn’t be at Goldman without it,” he says. A graduate of the University of Kentucky, Cox connected with a fellow Kentucky alumnus who had received a master’s from Vanderbilt. Though the two had both schools in common, it was the Vanderbilt alumni network that connected them. “That’s how I was introduced to him and to Goldman and the office here in Atlanta,” he says. “Without that, I don’t think I ever would have had the opportunity to get the job here.”

Cox represents his class as an Owen Alumni Council representative to ensure that the network remains helpful for those who follow. “Coming in, one of the things that I heard about Vanderbilt was the alumni network was really strong, and not just that they had a lot of alumni at great places, but there was a huge sense of community and people willing to return your calls,” he says. “The alumni network was a big drawing point for me, and I think it will be a big selling point going forward. If someone’s looking at any number of great schools, being able to show that you have an alumni network that’s willing to help you out, that’s something that you can use to compete against anyone. That’s the best resource you can have. It helps to keep the school strong and helps the school recruit.”

Eskelson, an Alumni Council representative for the Class of 2007, agrees. “One of the benefits of going to a school like Vanderbilt is that the alumni are so great,” he says. “Staying connected and keeping the program successful is an important way to give back, but I’m doing it because I think it adds value to my degree.”

Pursuing a master’s degree in what amounts to nine months creates an intensity, with every minute made to matter. It also forges deep relationships that carry on for years after graduation. “At University of Kentucky, it was easy to go through and not make a lot of connections,” Cox says. “Part of it was that you went from semester to semester and may never have had another class with someone. At Owen we had classes with the same people all the time. You really had to rely on your fellow classmates to make it through.”

Exposure to MBA students also makes a big difference, both inside the classroom and in extracurricular activities like the Owen Finance Club, which offers programming specifically for MS Finance students. Since many of the MBA students have had several years of work experience, their insight as mentors and career coaches is particularly valuable.

“Coming out of an undergraduate program and into a master’s is a different teaching environment,” Barraclough says. “Being in a classroom with a group of people who have, on average, five years under their belts is a wonderful experience for MS Finance students. They get a different style of learning, and they’re exposed to people with some background in their areas of interest.”

Ready for the Working World

Students in the MS Finance program usually fall into two categories: economics and finance undergraduates who want to differentiate themselves in the job search, or liberal arts majors wanting to home in on a career. The first semester follows a core curriculum, while the second allows a student to specialize in an area of finance based primarily on where they’d like to work, such as in corporate finance or at an investment firm.

Much of the academic year is devoted to the job search process. In fact, for many the job search often begins much earlier. Owen’s Career Management Center is in contact with students before they arrive on campus, and quite a few pursue internships the summer before classes start.

Sheila Swedberg landed a position as a Financial Analyst at Caterpillar Financial Services more than six months before graduation.

Sheila Swedberg, MSF’12, didn’t start quite that early, but might as well have. After receiving a bachelor’s in business from Boston University, she worked in accounting at a university for two years—long enough to determine she didn’t want that as a career. Arriving at Vanderbilt in mid-August 2011 (MS Finance students come two weeks early to plan for courses and career preparation), she immediately set to work on finding a job.

“We were told that there has to be an equal balance of school work, personal life and job search,” she says. “You can’t put too much effort in one area. That approach was new to me. When I’ve been in school, the message has been, ‘Focus on school work. Everything else will work out later.’”

Swedberg took advantage of the exposure to MBA students and the Owen Finance Club. She also participated in mock interviews through the club and set goals for herself, which she then emailed to the CMC’s career coach assigned to MS Finance students.

By November 2011—more than six months before graduation—she had landed a position as a Financial Analyst at Caterpillar Financial Services in Nashville. “There’s a lot of emphasis on networking, which was somewhat new to me,” Swedberg says. “I was terrible at it before, but it became a process of learning how to talk to people, making connections, reaching out and hoping that something will materialize from it.”

The MS Finance program is perhaps best described as a “really short runway,” says Barraclough. “Students can come out of undergrad pretty green, and in a short time they have to become accustomed to grad school and be ready to go into the job market.”

With such a rapid turnaround, every interaction with students matters—and translates into the working world. For Cox, it was the emphasis on communications. “The curriculum stressed it so much early on, from orientation and all the way through the first set of classes,” he says. “It was one of the biggest insights I got.”

He also gained technical skills, like something as simple as using Excel, which has helped him in his work. And then there is the intangible aspect that comes with the confidence of being able to engage in high-level discussions with fellow students and professors. “Because it was such an interactive and dynamic environment, being able to take the things that we were learning and turn them into a conversation was hugely helpful,” Cox says. “I interact with clients every day where I’m able to take what we see in the markets and distill it.”

For Eskelson, working at a small boutique firm has required virtually every aspect of his degree. For instance, the accounting courses have provided a high level of understanding about financial statements. “That has probably been the one single skill that lots and lots of people with high titles don’t have. Understanding complex financial instruments and being able to talk intelligently helped me get the job. It’s not that I can come into the job and do it immediately, but it is valuable being able to understand what, to most of the world, is very opaque.”

Vanderbilt MS Finance graduates may not be ruling the world of finance just yet, but they’re working their way up the ladder, reaching a hand behind to help those a few rungs below on the alumni network.

“Most of the people in my class have been lucky and have had some success in their careers over the last couple of years,” Eskelson says. “If I were to look for another job, that would be one of the first resources I would reach out to. I know people keep in touch and let each other know when they’ve moved. If someone came to me, I’d try to help them out, and other people would do the same.”

A personal touch

Fassinger

In 2011 Tami Fassinger, BA’85, was named Owen’s Chief Recruiting Officer, a role that closely aligns the Admissions office with the CMC. The appointment reflects the school’s initiative to take a more personalized, career-centric approach to finding the right B-school candidates and then giving them the resources to land their dream jobs. “Rather than just blindly pursue candidates with the highest GMAT scores and slot them into one of our programs,” Fassinger says, “our team strives to understand the career goals of each person who comes through our doors, and then do what we can to support each one through the enrollment decision, graduation and far beyond.”

By the numbers

No. 19

Vanderbilt’s placement on Bloomberg Businessweek’s rankings of MBA pay by career totals (2012)

$96,500

The median base salary for the MBA Class of 2012 at graduation

2.5

The average number of job offers received by each student in the Class
of 2012 with a Human and Organizational Performance concentration

25

The number of companies extending multiple full-time job offers to the Class of 2012, including Amazon, Credit Suisse, Goldman Sachs, Hanesbrands, McKesson, Johnson & Johnson and Nissan

40

The number of companies extending multiple internship offers to the Class of 2013, including Deloitte and Goldman Sachs

Anderson

Gore

Kinnett

Fend

Coaches’ Corner

The CMC has four coaches on staff, each with their own expertise. All first-year Vanderbilt MBA students select a coach to assist them with their job search strategies and have access to Read McNamara and Tami Fassinger—both with deep industry experience and connections. The four student coaches are:

• Emily Anderson, Senior Associate Director, Director of Internal Operations
  Expertise: consulting, finance and health care
• Blake Gore, Senior Associate Director
  Expertise: finance and international
• Sandy Kinnett, Associate Director, Employer Relations and Events
  Expertise: HOP, real estate and operations
• Amanda Fend, Associate Director
  Expertise: marketing

On the road

Cities where the CMC has arranged interview events in recent years