When Suman Kanuganti (MBA ’14) arrived at the Rady School of Management, he knew he wanted to leave with an idea that would change the world—he just wasn’t sure where to start. An impactful course in entrepreneurship incited Kanuganti to pull from his experience to address a societal need. A question was posed to the class: How can entrepreneurship inspire positive change in the lives of others?
Motivated by a perseverant friend with deteriorating vision, Suman decided to use his engineering skills to help empower visually impaired individuals to achieve their full potential. Launched by Kanuganti in 2015, Aira was created to help visually impaired individuals navigate the world with more freedom and autonomy. By leveraging leading technologies, such as smart glasses and mobile devices, Aira connects users with a network of trained remote human agents to provide them with instant access to information and assistance in the physical and digital world, when and where they want it.
Aira is one of today’s fastest-growing assistive communities, revolutionizing travel, commuting, and shopping for visually impaired individuals. Aira users are able to connect to agents who are able to see a user’s location and surroundings, providing a clear, live auditory narrative of the user’s environment in virtually any daily activity.
Through partnerships with Lyft, airports, Walgreens, universities (including the University of California San Diego), sports stadiums, museums, and other lifestyle venues, Aira has brought its assistive service to millions across the U.S. and around the world. As the technologist and innovator who co-founded and serves as president of Aira Tech Corp., Kanuganti is reducing barriers and empowering people who are blind or have low vision to fully engage, explore, and experience the visual world.
Kanuganti is an active alumnus at the Rady School of Management, and has hired five other Rady School alumni to Aira. He has also worked with Rady School faculty to host two capstone projects for the Master of Science in Business Analytics. In addition, Kanuganti has spoken at several events to share his story with students, including a TEDxUCSD talk in 2017.
Suman Kanuganti (MBA ’14) Honored by AACSB as a 2020 “Influential Leader” was last modified: February 5th, 2020 by Rady School
It’s the most wonderful time of the year! As the holidays approach, however, you may find yourself with a to-do list longer than Santa’s Nice List—and that’s why we’re here to help! Below you’ll find innovative gifts for your loved ones, all of which were created by companies founded by Rady alumni. We hope this guide helps make your holiday season bright, and we wish you all the best in the New Year!
Last Christmas, you gave kids new clothes and the very next day … they outgrew them! Skip the store and save by shopping “pre-loved” finds, delivered to your door.
Treat someone you love (or yourself) to some pampering—haircuts, manicures, beard trims and more—at the mobile salon that’s easily accessible to busy professionals.
Take something off your loved one’s to-do list and book an oil change on their behalf! These automotive experts bring their services to office parks and businesses across San Diego for a quick and convenient change during the work day.
For the friend whose New Year’s Resolution is (always) to drink less caffeine, try Cascaraa, an antioxidant rich tea made from coffee fruit that contains about one third the caffeine of your average cup of joe.
No holiday season is complete without snow … shaved snow, that is! Get the family together for a creamy frozen dessert that would satisfy even Santa’s sweet tooth.
Robert Yang MBA ’11
These Companies Founded by Rady Alumni Can Make Your Holiday Shopping Easier was last modified: December 10th, 2019 by Camille Cannon
At 3 p.m. on Fridays, employees at LinkedIn’s San Francisco
headquarters step away from their keyboards and gather on the 17th
floor terrace to enjoy each other’s company. They mingle with colleagues in
different departments. They savor a drink or some snacks. And they soak up the
glimmer and bustle of the SoMa neighborhood below. Doesn’t sound too bad, eh?
In late October, Rady School students had the opportunity to
immerse themselves in LinkedIn’s culture (and others) during the Bay Area Trek
organized by Rady’s Career Management Center. Over the course of two days, Rady
students (primarily MBA students, but also those in other master’s programs) visited
LinkedIn, Facebook, KLA, Komodo Health, Salesforce, AirBNB, Flex and Intel,
touring the state-of-the-art office spaces, asking questions of the working
professionals—many of whom are UC San Diego or Rady alum—and getting a clearer
picture of where their degree from Rady School of Management can take them.
We caught up with two students who attended—Ping Gu and Sitong Liu (MFin ’20) to ask them about their most memorable moments and why they encourage more Rady students to make the trip.
Which companies did you visit and why did you select them?
Gu: I visited Facebook and LinkedIn. I saw the big names and I didn’t think too much! I knew I wanted to go visit these companies.
Liu: I went to LinkedIn, Komodo and KLA. I was exciting to learn about them all. They offered a broad range of experiences. I was curious to know what kind of career advice they would give us.
What left the biggest impression on you from these visits?
Gu: At LinkedIn, all three speakers were UC San Diego alum. They were so supportive of us and said they see Rady growing very fast. Eric Darwin (Head of Corporate Development) shared his story of transitioning from investment banking to working at Salesforce and now doing mergers and acquisitions at LinkedIn. It painted a picture for us of how we can navigate our own careers. After the session, we got a tour of the building. Because it was Friday, we also got to join in on their regular happy hour on the 17th floor. That was so cool! People from every floor of the building came up to join.
Rady students enjoy the views at LinkedIn’s San Francisco headquarters
Liu:I did not know what to expect from Komodo, because they are a small firm, but they ended up being my favorite part of the trip! They have about 200 employees. There were three presenters—two were remote who are based in New York. They shared what it was like to move from a big company to a startup, and then grow in the new role from startup to small company. The employees were all very open. We had a short tour of their office and got to spend most of the time asking questions, even common interview questions, such as how to respond to “Tell me about yourself,” or what kind of opportunities I could be looking for based on my interests. One of their presenters, Brice, who is Head of Engineering, is also involved with recruiting, so he had a lot of great insight to share. I asked the question, “What can I do if I don’t like coding but I do like analytical work?” Brice followed up after the visit with a thoughtful email response to that question and it has really helped me in my career planning.
Komodo Health welcomes Rady students.
What interactions did you have with Rady alum during the Trek?
Gu: On Thursday night, there was an alumni mixer at Atwater Tavern in San Francisco. Dean Ordóñez was there too! I got to meet a lot of Rady alum working in the Bay Area. Some alum even drove from San Jose—almost two hours with traffic—just to come to the event. I talked to Jessica from KLA about Rady life and how much she loved it. I also met Jessica’s classmate Chiara (18). She’s doing consulting for the nonprofit sector and she told me about some really exciting job opportunities. In that moment I realized how networking can work for everyone. She said they needed someone with an accounting background. I studied finance and accounting as an undergraduate. Sometimes you don’t expect too much from just talking, but that is the magic of networking!
All of the alum shared an appreciation for Rady. They love Rady. They love San Diego. And they know what to expect from Rady graduates. They all showed a willingness to help one another.
KLA in Milpitas.
Rady students join alum Jessica Bonilla in KLA’s cleanroom.
Liu: At KLA, three employees—two who are Rady alum—made themselves available for a Q&A session. They offered us great advice about how to negotiate with a supplier. During their presentation, they showed us this video, The Monkey Business Illusion, to demonstrate that if you focus too much on one thing during negotiations, you end up ignoring some really important aspects of the transaction.
What did you gain from going on the Bay Area Trek?
Gu: The company visits allow you to not only learn what these employers do, but then you get to explore what you want to do and what direction you want to go after graduation. At LinkedIn, for example, each speaker had a different route getting to where they are today. Nobody had a typical path. Hearing about their processes and how they made it work opened my mind to what kind of career path I can pursue in the future. If you don’t go on a trip like this, you’ll never get to hear those stories. And if you weren’t attracted by the big company names alone, it’s also a great opportunity to meet Rady alumni and students from other departments.
Liu: Don’t underestimate what you can get out of visiting a small company, or a startup! [On the Trek], you really get to know the companies on a deep level. You can build personal connections with some of the presenters. This is a rare opportunity to take these tours. When you read online about what companies are like or what the culture is, the answer comes for a PR department, or maybe someone outside of the people who are doing the actual work that interests you. On the Bay Area Trek, you get to meet them. You get an authentic answer.
Your Invitation to LinkedIn’s 17th Floor Terrace Awaits was last modified: December 10th, 2019 by Camille Cannon
“As a marine, the reality is, ‘I’m going to war. I’m going to battle. I’m going to defend this country and if I’m gonna die, I’m gonna die. And then you die of a disease that you could do nothing about.”
In 2010, Clay Treska (MBA ’19) was diagnosed with terminal cancer. He had served since 1998 in the U.S. Marine Corps, most of that time spent as a counter intelligence agent. Treska’s propensity to ask questions and seek answers led him to challenge his diagnosis, research his options, and ultimately save his life. His experience surviving the disease—and witnessing it take his father’s life and the life of fellow marines—led him to co-found Family Proud, an app with a mission to connect patients to healthcare resources, and to foster a network of support so that no patient feels like they’re battling illness alone.
“I was able to beat my terminal diagnosis and I wanted to understand why that was. I wanted to be able to share that with other people,” Treska says. The same year he was diagnosed, he graduated from San Diego State University with the intention of becoming a physical therapist. After volunteering and interning with UC San Diego Health, where he helped advise cancer patients and counsel mourning families after loss, he decided that he wanted to pursue a different kind of career in healthcare.
“I saw that the amount of good that you can do from an executive perspective in healthcare is just so far sweeping. It takes one meeting and one decision and you can impact tens of thousands of people and the future of healthcare. I realized that getting an MBA and learning about business was the path that I wanted to take,” he says.
Treska researched graduate business programs across California including those at Stanford, USC, University of San Diego and San Diego State University. “All of the [other] programs that I saw were missing those key components towards helping my own business,” he says. Rady’s emphasis on entrepreneurship and innovation appealed to him. “I made the decision that I need to go to Rady if I want to not only excel in the healthcare environment, but also have the opportunity to start up a company.”
Treska enrolled in Rady’s FlexWeekend MBA program and
continued working full-time in healthcare. He met classmate and Family Proud CEO
and co-founder Jaden Risner, and the two of them developed the business plan
for Family Proud through Rady’s Lab-to-Market course sequence.
“[At
Rady], you’re not just getting education from the class itself and from the
course material, but you’re getting education from your peers. One of the
greatest aspects of the program is how you realize that you can’t
possibly know everything there is to know about business. But that’s not the
point. The point is to understand it enough to be able to have conversations
with people, find those people that are smarter than you in these specific
disciplines and have them help you work on those aspects.”
As a young company with limited resources, only about a third of the Family Proud team are currently full-time employees. The rest are volunteers who give their time because they believe in the product, says Treska. “Everybody on this team, or someone close to them, has dealt with some type of an ailment or a struggle and thought that this is a service that would have helped them,” he says. “We’re all growing through our own challenges.”
Ultimately, Treska says that the goal for Family Proud is to help make high quality healthcare accessible to anyone. “Everybody should receive the highest quality medicine, the highest quality care, regardless of who you are, regardless of what type of insurance you have, what your pedigree is, what your job is, where you came from or who you know. This is our way of being able to make sure that everybody receives the highest quality care, inside and outside of their provider.”
It’s
Treska’s desire to help other patients that motivates him to keep building the
business.
“What more could you possibly ask from a program?” he says. “To take something from it that you can continue to grow and prosper, something other than the degree itself. That’s the most valuable thing that Rady gave me: to take a dream and turn it into a reality.”
Cancer Survivor Clay Treska Co-Founded an App to Help Patients Get the Support They Need was last modified: December 4th, 2019 by Camille Cannon
Amy Bernal’s path to become Chief Experience Officer at
artificial intelligence company Aira began before the company was even born. Prior
to entering the Rady School in 2011, Bernal, who graduated from the Flex MBA
program in 2014, had worked in project management and business development for
local non-profit organizations. “I was hungry to operate in an entrepreneurial
environment,” she says. “I knew that Rady was the best in terms of the ability
to connect to the right people.”
It was in her first study group at Rady where Bernal met classmate
Suman Kanuganti. Bernal and Kanuganti also worked together through their Lab to
Market course sequence. By their final quarter, Kanuganti had the idea for
Aira, which connects blind and low-vision people to remote human agents via smart
phone or smart glasses, and developed his concept through Rady’s Lab to Market
and StartR programs.
“I was able to see him create that company, leave where he
was working before, and I eventually followed him,” says Bernal, who a senior
offering program manager at Intuit before joining Aira.
Since 2016, Bernal has grown from Director of Agent Services
to Chief Experience Officer at Aira. Currently, she is working to expand Aira’s
network of 25,000+ partners across companies, locations, platforms and devices
to increase accessibility for Aira “explorers” (users).
In the video, Bernal explains how her MBA degree from Rady broadened her skillset and opened her world to new opportunities.
How Collaboration at Rady Changed Amy Bernal’s Career Path was last modified: November 6th, 2019 by Camille Cannon
2019 has been a banner year for Aira. Launched in 2014 when Suman
Kanuganti was a Rady School MBA student, Aira (“Ai” is a nod to artificial
intelligence and “ra” references remote access) connects blind and low-vision
people to remote human agents via smartphone app or smart glasses, “enhancing
everyday efficiency, engagement, and independence” for users, which Aira calls “explorers.”
This year, Aira was recognized on Forbes’ list of 50 Most
Promising Artificial Intelligence Companies, honored in Fast Company’s World
Changing Idea Awards (finalists included Amazon, IBM and Microsoft), and
expanded its 25,000+ partnerships to include the some of the country’s busiest
airports and transit systems.
“I always tell people that if it was not for Rady School of Management, Aira probably wouldn’t exist,” Kanuganti says. Kanuganti entered Rady having earned a bachelors in electrical and electronics engineering and a masters in mechatronics, robotics and automation engineering. He says he chose Rady because “I wanted to do a program focused on how to build a business,” and build he did.
In the video, Kanuganti
shares how a friend who is blind inspired him to leverage wearable technology,
and how the Rady School taught him the quantitative and qualitative skills needed
to create a business that changes lives.
Suman Kanuganti Is Making an Impact with Aira was last modified: October 30th, 2019 by Camille Cannon
Sarah Feldman (MBA ’15) has led technical analytics programs at several pre- and post-IPO companies including Tesla, Lyft, and venture capital firm Institutional Venture Partners. While at Rady, Feldman founded the RadyX Technology Conference, landed a summer internship developing VR technology at Sony Playstation, and says she gained the leadership and finance skills necessary to advance beyond her B.S. in Computer Science to managing multi-billion-dollar analytics programs upon earning her MBA. Here, Feldman shares how the Rady School coursework, alumni network and staff propelled her success.
How did you land your MBA internship at Sony PlayStation?
I utilized Rady’s career services to the fullest. I signed up for all Rady interview practice sessions while in school. In the Career Connections office, there were shelves of interview preparation literature such as “Cracking the PM Interview,” which I made sure to read. … I made a list of companies and types of roles where I would add the most value as an MBA intern. I narrowed down the list by attending the Rady Executive Speaker Series, San Diego Tech Meetup groups, and discussions with the brutally honest FT2015 and FT2014 cohorts. After further researching companies by reading articles on Wall Street Journal, Yahoo Finance, and TechCrunch, I would email Rady alumni with well-thought-out questions about culture fit and their company’s products.
During the Bay Area Trek, I was able to meet with Rady alumni at Tesla, Cisco, and Google, and attend company presentations. I asked pertinent gaming industry questions at the Sony PlayStation presentation, which caught the attention of the Sony internship recruiter, who asked me to interview for three different internships where she thought I would be a good fit.
Sarah visits Google during the Bay Area Trek.
Sarah with Rady FT2015 and FW2014 students at Tesla in Palo Alto.
During the interview process, I utilized my knowledge of Computer Science courses on Matlab, OpenGL, Computer Vision, and video game creation to address the technical interview questions. With the new lessons from Rady’s leadership and finance courses, I was able to demonstrate financial knowledge of discounted cash flow statements, leadership best practices, and product management.
I landed competing internship offers at Cisco and PlayStation. I could add the most value assessing and planning product launches for the gaming industry, so I accepted the PlayStation offer.
I led development for PlayStation VR (a then-secret and stealth project to launch Virtual Reality products). I was fortunate to work cross-functionally at Sony and present to the CEO at the end of the summer.
Sarah tries a light-based VR game at the Silicon Valley Virtual Reality Meetup.
How did you land your first tech role after receiving your Rady MBA?
During my first Rady Bay Area Trek, I met an alumnus who was working at Tesla Motors. We were both passionate about innovation in tech and we stayed in touch after my MBA internship at Sony PlayStation. When the Rady alumnus decided to change roles at Tesla, he offered to help me take over his original responsibilities. He connected with the Tesla hiring manager about the quality of Rady MBAs. After a few rounds of interviews, I was offered the role.
Elon Musk and the “ICBM Map” that Sarah managed.
At Tesla, I created global supply chain analytics platforms and data. I utilized the R and statistics skills I learned through Professor On Amir and Vincent Nijs’ classes to build global analytics models. I leveraged similar linear regression principles when creating supply chain analytics in my role at Tesla. These were later featured in Elon’s Model 3 launch event, which was pretty cool to discover in a few online articles. During his presentation, Musk coined the dashboard an “ICBM Map.”
I enjoyed my time working at Tesla, but realized I needed to have better work life balance for my life goals. Having a personal life was key for me. This led me to start a charity organization focused on athletics in my free time, and eventually leave Tesla for a different industry altogether.
How did you transition from Tesla to venture capital firm Institutional Venture Partners?
During my finance classes at Rady, I enjoyed the precision of creating financial statements, algorithms, and elaborate excel macro sheets with the purposes of evaluating the financial health of companies. Naturally, I featured this certification on my LinkedIn (as Rady Career Connections recommended for a career change). After I spent some time job hunting, an executive recruiter reached out to me on LinkedIn, inquiring about a role in an established venture capital firm. The firm had investments in Uber, Twitter, Dropbox, and Snapchat. They later offered me the role of Senior Manager of Analytics. I was in awe, as venture capital was a seemingly impossible industry to enter.
At IVP, I worked closely on analytics and excel valuation tools, weighing-in on pitch meetings for autonomous vehicles, and attending executive VC events with the likes of Huffington Post founder Ariana Huffington and NBA player Kevin Durant. I even worked with the financials of the corporate board of directors’ books. It was everything I had imagined and more. I was able to leverage my VC Finance Class, DCF Certification, and startup valuation knowledge from the MBA program.
Why did you leave venture capital to work on autonomous vehicles?
I felt [something missing] in my daily work
without the hands-on aspect of creating, strategizing, launching, and scaling
tech products. Helping to advise on funding was fascinating, but I realized I
enjoyed being part of a team that is ‘making a product’ more than
anything.
I had a few experiences working and advising in
the self-driving car sector while at Tesla and IVP, and I co-founded the Self-Driving
Car sector of Women Who Code. At Tesla, I worked on ad-hoc behavior analytics
reports for the Autopilot team in addition to supply chain analytics. During my
time at Tesla, I also purchased a Model S with Autopilot.
The ease and pleasant nature of driving in Autopilot, a Level 2 autonomous vehicle, convinced me that this is the future of transportation. While Tesla is leading the consumer market for Level 2 autonomous vehicles, they are not alone in the quest to create an autonomous future. A colleague of mine from Tesla, and now Lyft, recommended Lyft’s Level 5 division. I saw a great fit for my skill set and made the jump to join the future of autonomous transportation.
What work did you do at Lyft?
I led data infrastructure, simulation software, and testing hardware in the loop, V&V and strategy for Lyft’s autonomous vehicle. An incredible aspect of autonomous vehicles is how many different technologies are combined to create self-driving vehicles. At a high level, a car must know where it is in the world in relation to everything else, and plan what it will do next. The underlying technology, including machine learning algorithms, compute, and simulation software, has been fascinating to work on and build. In many cases, the well-organized quantitative analysis course at Rady helped me understand some of the underlying computer vision and machine learning involved in creating a self-driving car.
How did your Rady MBA prepare you for Lyft’s IPO, and what was the day of the IPO like?
The MBA program prepared me not just to understand Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP) to build and read balance sheets and cash flow statements, but also to understand the landscape of the financial markets. Until recently, the IPO landscape was desolate, as a result of the 2007/2008 market collapse and the following financial levers and regulation.
In an advanced behavioral finance course at Rady, my team worked with stock market data to predict market performance for a given month. This was an extension of the common statement, which we proved accurate, that “Monday’s market will predict the market performance for the rest of the week”. Despite these stellar lessons in financial market behavior, I did not expect to be part of a company listing itself on the market in an IPO. However, my lessons at Rady prepared me well for this experience.
Sarah at an event for San Francisco’s The Commonwealth Club to discuss IPOs.
Lyft’s Level 5 division on IPO day.
On the day of the Lyft IPO, as a Program Manager in Lyft’s Level 5 Autonomous Vehicle Division, I awoke at 4 a.m. When I drove to the office at 5 a.m., the freeways were ghostly empty. I arrived at the Palo Alto office early for the 6 a.m. NASDAQ bell tolling for Lyft’s televised IPO. The room was filled with my enthusiastic coworkers, celebrating the ringing of the bell. For those who followed the series of large tech unicorn IPO’s, the rest is history.
How do you suggest others learn more about autonomous vehicles, since many companies are in stealth mode?
Take strides to learn about open source libraries for machine learning like TensorFlow. Look into Udacity’s Degree in Self Driving Cars. And of course, stay up to date on regulation.
What’s next for you?
I recently left Lyft’s self-driving division, and have just accepted a new role at a search company. The charity organization that I founded (Silicon Valley Ice Skating Association) will be hosting its first Tech and Ice crossover event on January 11th, 2020, “Robots on Ice.”
In the meantime, if you have any questions about Rady, please be sure to reach out to the wonderful Rady admissions team! I feel very lucky to have chosen such a great school to attend for business school, and keep in touch with classmates. The alumni network, Rady Career Connections, fellow students, and professors have been a delight to work with and guide me throughout my career.
Volunteer work brings Sarah to Washington D.C.
How a Rady MBA Helped Sarah Feldman Land Roles at Tesla, Lyft and More was last modified: October 7th, 2019 by Camille Cannon
On June 16, 2019, the Rady School of Management
at UC San Diego held commencement ceremonies for 344 students. The commencement
ceremonies celebrated the graduation of the school’s Full-Time, FlexEvening and
FlexWeekend MBA classes, Ph.D. students, and students from the Master of
Finance and Master of Science in Business Analytics classes.
Family,
friends and Rady School supporters joined the graduates for the ceremonies. The
commencement keynote speakers were Julia Brown, a life science industry
executive and Charles Brandes, an investment firm founder and visionary.
“Don’t be
afraid to take a risk and try something new,” said Brown. “Decide what path you
will take then go for it and don’t look back. Achieving a peak gives absolutely
no assurance of staying there. We must earn it every day. What it took to be
successful yesterday may be different than what will be required tomorrow. So
we need you. We need your brain power, your talent, your energy and your
leadership as you embark on your career. We wish you all the best. Whatever you
decide to do, we wish you great success, great happiness and a long and
gratifying career. So now let’s get out there and make things happen.”
Rady School
Dean Robert S. Sullivan presided over the ceremony and emphasized the
importance of remaining connected to the Rady School and its alumni after
graduation.
“So to our graduates on behalf of this your
Rady School community, we look forward to your successes and to your impact,”
Sullivan said. “We look forward to confidently building our bridges and our
support network. So please know that we will be here for you, our alumni,
throughout your professional careers, not just now. If you had an issue five
years or 10 years from now, this is the place to come back to keep the
connections. And the network that you build as friends, they’ll go on forever.”
Students and alumni also took part in the ceremony, with Lauren
Murphy (MBA ’19) and Robert Louis Beyer (MSBA ’19) delivering the student
commencement addresses. Rady School Alumni Association President Bosco Lujan
(MBA ’12) and Andrea Yoder-Clark (MSBA ’17) delivered the alumni addresses.
Retiring Rady School Adjunct Professor Dr. Harry
Markowitz was honored with the Rady School of Management Founders Medal at the
ceremony for his outstanding contributions to the school.
Markowitz is
an esteemed economist, beloved professor and thoughtful philanthropist, His
seminal work, “Portfolio Selection,” launched a distinguished career lauded
with economics’ most prestigious accolades, including the Nobel Prize in
Economics, the John von Neumann Theory Prize, and the Wharton-Jacobs Levy
Prize. His lifetime of teaching ultimately brought him to the Rady School where
he joined the founding faculty as an adjunct professor of finance and
accounting in 2006 and continued to teach his groundbreaking theory to Rady
students until his retirement this year.
In addition to
his critical contributions to the establishment and quality of the Rady School,
Markowitz has also dedicated himself to securing the future of the Rady School
and its students through his timeless generosity. In 2017, Markowitz pledged a
$4 million gift to the Rady School of Management to create fellowships for
students. He placed his Nobel Medal at the UC San Diego Library in 2018.
The Rady School of Managment Celebrates Graduation 2019 was last modified: June 18th, 2019 by Melinda Battenberg
“Boehringer Ingelheim knows what it takes to be innovative and
entrepreneurial. From the small factory in 1885 to today’s multi-billion-dollar
global pharmaceutical organization, we know how important it is to nurture and
develop young science and technology businesses. Our track record of bringing
breakthrough medicines to patients starts with new ideas and new science.
Collaborations with external partners play an essential role in helping us
deliver an innovation-led portfolio…” From “Partnering Day with Boehringer Ingelheim,” Biocom,
September 21, 2017.
Three young entrepreneurs from the University of California San Diego,
knew the value of the Boehringer Ingelheim prize when they pitched their
business ideas to investors, faculty and students. The prize includes a “golden
ticket,” or one years ‘worth of workspace at bio-labs, an infrastructure office
space for startups, located on the UC San Diego campus. It also includes
mentorship and exposure to investors to help the companies get a kick-start to
successful innovation and connections.
The Rady School is honored to have alumni who were the last three prize-winners
of the three previous years. We wanted to find out how the prize affected them,
and where they are today:
Cory
Bentley
The 2017 winner of the first-ever Boehringer Ingelheim Innovation prize was RIFT Biotherapeutics, a biotech company founded by Rady alum, Cory Bentley (MBA ’10).
Tell
me about your company?
I founded RIFT because I saw there was a critical area of cancer biology
that hadn’t been addressed: Inflammation. I believe if the inflammation in
cancer is targeted, cancer treatments can be improved.
Why
did you start RIFT?
I didn’t see anyone addressing cancer in this way at the time. The immune
system often sees cancer as a wound that should be healed, rather than
something it should get rid of. The immune system will actually make cancer
stronger by supporting it with blood supply and growth factors, components of
inflammation. People become resistant to anti-cancer treatments because their
immune system is protecting the tumor from therapy with this inflammatory
environment. It is an essential mechanism of resistance to cancer treatment.
RIFT discovered an antibody-based drug that may help the immune system switch
from being pro-tumoral to anti-tumoral.
How
has the Rady School of Management helped you achieve your goals?
Rady gave me the confidence to know some of the significant components of
starting a business and moving a large project forward. Some of these
components included financing, intellectual property, accounting and people
management. I wouldn’t have known how to start or run a business if I hadn’t
gone to the Rady School.
Eric Venn-Watson
The 2018 winner of the Boehringer Ingelheim Innovation prize was Epitracker, a biotech company founded by Rady alum, Eric Watson (MBA ’10).
Tell
me about your company?
Epitracker is a San Diego-based life sciences company that discovers and
optimizes small molecules to treat some of the world’s most devastating
diseases. To date, Epitracker has analyzed millions of metabolomic, genomic and
clinical data points from archived, longitudinal, serum samples collected over
50 years. Through this process, we have discovered novel small molecules that
target longevity, neurodegenerative diseases, fibrotic diseases and pulmonary
diseases.
Why
did you start Epitracker?
Part of my background includes being a physician in the Navy. I have a
passion for science, as well as the entrepreneurial and business side of the
equation. I wanted to start a company and it has included both of those
passions.
How
has the Rady School of Management helped you achieve your goals?
Every business school has its area of expertise. The Rady School’s, is
innovation, especially in the tech and biotech fields. I learned everything
from the operational aspects of being an entrepreneur to handling finances as a
business owner, and I was even able to grow my network within the San Diego
area substantially. San Diego is an incredible city that has many key opinion
leaders who are willing to help you and mentor you. The Rady School has amazing
professors that will provide real-time feedback and help you develop your
ideas. Knowing what you need to get started, and how to successfully develop
and grow your technology, is essential.
The Boehringer Innovation prize provided lab space for a year. It helped
us focus on growing the company more than anything. It also gave us credibility
in terms of pitching our business to investors and experts in the field, as
well as submitting for grant funding. Today, we have many compounds going
through the FDA process, over 30 patents, and have raised just under three million
dollars in private capital and an equal amount in grant funding. The Boehringer
prize has helped us expand more rapidly by having access to a state of the art
lab and a broad support network. It is an environment that is very conducive to
advancing our research and our company.
The combination of a Rady MBA and Boehringer Innovation prize has
enabled us to accomplish much in a relatively short period. Thank you, Rady and
BI!
If you’d like to read more about Epitracker, click here:
http://www.epitracker.com/
Simon
Bailey
The 2019 winner of the Boehringer Ingelheim Innovation prize was Darkwood Pharma, a biotech company founded by Rady alum, Simon Bailey (MBA ’11).
Tell
me about your company?
Darkwood Pharma is a drug discovery company, focusing on developing novel
therapies for fibrosis, with a particular emphasis on liver fibrosis due to
advanced non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). NASH is a progressive liver
disease that affects millions of Americans, causing fibrosis and cirrhosis, and
it will be the leading cause of liver transplantation by 2020. Darkwood
Pharma’s mission is to discover and develop liver-targeted compounds which will
halt and reverse fibrosis and prevent cirrhosis in this disease, for which
there is currently no approved treatment, despite intense interest from the
pharma/biotech world. By developing compounds that selectively act in the
liver, our approach will both increase the effectiveness of the drug as well as
minimize side effects which will benefit these severely ill patients.
We are hoping to have our first drug candidate molecule identified in
2020.
Why
did you start Darkwood Pharma?
I’ve spent my entire career working in drug discovery, leading diabetes
and oncology medicinal chemistry departments at a large pharmaceutical company
then as head of research for a mid-sized biotech. I’ve been very fortunate to
have led teams that have discovered many drug candidates, including two that
been approved for use in lung cancer. So, if I ever started a company, it was
going to be a drug discovery company.
The specific reason for founding Darkwood Pharma is that in NASH there is
a compelling combination of unmet medical need and scientific opportunity that
attracted me. I recognized that a small company that can be singularly focused
on developing liver-targeted drugs, that can be flexible and nimble in a way
that larger companies can’t, would be differentiated from the competition.
Plus, I thought it would be fun.
How
has the Rady School of Management helped you achieve your goals?
In a way, the Rady School led to me applying for the Boehringer-Ingelheim
Innovation Prize. I went to the BI prize event in 2018 to support another Rady
School company, long before I had founded Darkwood Pharma, and so it was on my
radar to apply for it this year. The judging process involves a pretty rigorous
evaluation by BI scientists as well as their “Research Beyond Borders” external
innovation group, so it was pleasing to hear the positive feedback and
validation of the science and the company concept after such a thorough
process. We are continuing to explore a possible collaboration with BI since
NASH is a focus area for them.
More generally, going to the Rady School allowed me to connect with and
learn much more about the local San Diego biotech/entrepreneur ecosystem, than
I ever had the opportunity to do during the 20 years I spent working for a
large pharma company. This included venture capitalists, entrepreneurs and
small biotech companies. I gained an appreciation of how that world works.
Also, San Diego is an active environment for innovation, and we need people
creating companies here, not in Boston or the Bay Area. The Rady School is a
great way to make connections and get involved to continue to build the San
Diego innovation community.
Find out more about Darkwood Pharma here: www.Darkwoodpharma.com
“I’ve Got a Golden Ticket…” in Biotech! was last modified: July 2nd, 2019 by Rady School
Career Fair Day – A day full of new opportunities, insightful conversations, and potential job offers on the horizon. Here at the Rady School of Management, there have been dozens of doors open for students at career fairs; from internships, to long-term jobs for the graduate students who have participated in Rady’s career fairs.
Each career fair typically consists of employers from corporate companies that have 250 employees or more. This one, however, consisted of not only large corporate companies but also smaller startups. This was an exciting, unique event for Rady because it is the first career day to ever have startups verses only corporations.
The Rady School of Management not only champions, but raises up entrepreneurs, so having startups present was an encouraging factor for the students who attended the career fair. Some of the startups that came to the career fair included founders from Rady School of Management such as LabFellows.
Some of the startup companies who attended were:
Leadcrunch
– B2B Sales and Marketing
Sendlane
– An intelligence-driven email automation service
LabFellows
– An integrated lab management platform
Offer1
GoSite
– A web platform for businesses
Launch
Factory – A creative co working space
The list of new companies who attended were:
Booz
Allen Hamilton – Strategy, technology, and engineering
AT&T
– Communications, media, entertainment, and technology
Tealium
— A universal data hub
Some of the other companies that were present included, Trust&will, Artevist and Prudential.
Here at Rady, we are happy to host career fairs and have found them to be very successful for students looking for job leads and internships.
Rady’s First Ever StartUp Career Day was last modified: June 10th, 2019 by Rady School
