Yesterday, the Rady community joined together to celebrate a special announcement – the Rady Family Foundation’s $100 million commitment to the Rady School of Management.
With a $30 million lead gift in 2004, Evelyn and Ernest Rady and the Rady Family Foundation helped establish UC San Diego’s world-class,entrepreneurial business school—the Rady School of Management. They also contributed $5 million toward the expansion of the business school’s campus,and gave other significant gifts to ensure excellence at the school. Now, the Rady Family Foundation has made a $100 million commitment enabling the recruitment of world-class faculty, attracting the best and brightest students,and pioneering with creative new academic initiatives at the Rady School of Management.
This support from Evelyn and Ernest Rady is the largest single commitment in history to a business school of Rady’s size and youth and is driven by Ernest Rady’s “Return on Life (ROL)” philosophy. “We want the resources that we’ve been fortunate enough to accumulate to go to help other people,” he explained. Click the image below to see more examples of Rady School alumni and student return on life stories in action, made possible by the Radys and the Rady School.
Watch a video on the Rady School’s achievements and growth over the past 11 years.
At 10:30 a.m. Rady School alumni, students and members of the Rady School community began to arrive to hear the special news. At the time of the announcement, the Beyster Auditorium was nearly filled to the brim! Attendees watched a short video on the Rady School’s history and progress and heard from UC San Diego Chancellor Khosla, Rady School Dean Sullivan, Rady School alumni (Pierre Sleiman and Ashley Van Zeeland), Gay Grossman and Ernest Rady, himself.
“11 years ago Ernest and Evelyn’s visionary philanthropy led to the Rady School of Management and 11 years later the Rady School of Management is a world class institution.” – UC San Diego Chancellor Khosla
The Rady School is currently ranked #1 in Intellectual Capital by Bloomberg Businessweek and is the only institution in San Diego to be ranked. The Financial Times ranks the Rady School 14 in their global MBA rankings for faculty research.
“These achievements are more than impressive, they are transformational. Thanks to Dean Sullivan’s leadership and the Radys’ generosity, the Rady School is destined for greatness and this gift is going to get us there.” – UC San Diego Chancellor Khosla
Rady School Dean Sullivan explained that the $100 million commitment will allow the Rady School to continue to recruit and retain the very best faculty, keeping in competition with the best schools in the world. These are scholars who care for, mentor and guide Rady School students. It will also enable us to attract, matriculate and educate the best and brightest students, wherever they might be. Lastly, the commitment will help the Rady School initiate and take risks for cutting-edge programs that will define management today and in the future, such as programs focusing on social innovation and big data analytics.
Rady School alum Pierre Sleiman (’13) described how the Rady School helped him bring his dream to combine technology and agriculture into a vision to put a farm in every city in the U.S. He started his MBA at the Rady School with three employees and now he has around 30 and produces approximately a quarter of a million heads of lettuce a month for Vons, Whole Foods and more.
“During my time at Rady I raised millions of capital to grow my company, became best friends and partners with my dad, and found and married my soulmate. The impact of Rady doesn’t just provide a world class education, it provides an impact to the local community, the nation and definitely throughout the world.” – Pierre Sleiman
Alum Ashley Van Zeeland (’12) also shared her Rady story. Identifying the need and opportunity to deliver new technologies and scientific discoveries to a broader community for broader impact, Van Zeeland sought out a Rady School MBA.
Van Zeeland’s very first participant while working with DNA sequencing to identify rare genetic diseases was a girl named Lilly, who had been facing a neurological disease.
“Rady has given me the knowledge and tools to translate these scientific discoveries and technologies into a meaningful business and set up connections that helped me build a first class management team, advisory board, and board of directors. I’d like to offer a very sincere thank you to Ernest and Evelyn for your continued support of the school and your belief in the graduates of this program and the impact we can have on current and future generations.” – Ashley Van Zeeland
Lastly, Gay Grossman, Lilly’s mother, shared their return on life story made possible through Van Zeeland’s work. By the time Lilly was eight years old, she had been seen by over 40 specialists. The Grossman family moved to San Diego seeking out an institution rooted in knowledge, innovation and collaboration to help Lilly. Lilly was accepted into a study utilizing sequencing technology developed by Van Zeeland and her team, enabling the diagnosis of Lilly’s genomic mutation and treatment. Lilly is now known as the #1 patient in that study and the Grossmans’ lives have been immensely changed.
Lastly, Ernest Rady took the stage to thank the Rady Community and key members who helped the school grow to become the success it is today.
Read more on the Rady commitment here.
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Lauren Herr is the Social Media Manager for the Rady School. In her free time she can be found snapping landscape pictures and taking advantage of San Diego’s amazing beaches and coffee shops.