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The MFin capstone: A ticket into the finance industry

written by Danica Brindley

Launched in 2014, the Master of Finance (MFin) program at Rady School of Management is a relatively new program. But despite its adolescence, the program and its curriculum has quickly become highly praised within the industry.  

Just last year it was ranked by the Financial Times as one of the top MFin programs in the world; a huge accomplishment after a mere four years since the program’s conception. It placed 14th in the U.S. and is expected to rise higher in the future.  

The highly-regarded ranking isn’t all that the MFin degree has to offer. The Rady School MFin program is a STEM-designated, CFA Institute-affiliated professional degree that delivers rigorous, hands-on training to prepare graduates to immediately contribute in environments where quantitative and analytical skills are at a premium.

Students learn leading-edge methods for analyzing big data for financial decision-making and risk management. The program’s emphasis on quantitative models and methods ensures that graduates are equipped to develop innovative solutions to the complex problems facing the financial industry.

“The Master of Finance program at Rady is designed for the current needs of the finance industry. It incorporates class work that reflects what’s going on in the industry today and includes a heavy component of data science, which is presently very important for financial firms,” says Michael Melvin, the Executive Director of the MFin program at Rady.  

Michael Melvin, Executive Director, Master of Finance, Rady School of Management

As Melvin notes; “It’s a quant program, so students learn quantitative skills, including financial econometrics that they can apply throughout their coursework including the final capstone research project.”

The MFin capstone is a project-based course that allows students to work with a prestigious firm within the finance industry. Students work together in teams of four and complete research that demonstrates the application of skills developed throughout the MFin program.

“Our students work with a mix of local and global firms. From San Diego to London to Hong Kong, capstone project stakeholders present students with a particular idea to research, which may cover a range of financial topics.”

These topics can include anything from portfolio construction, cryptocurrencies and bitcoin, trading issues, payments, asset management, and risk management, among many others. What’s more is that students can learn from collaborating with respected industry professionals.

Examples of capstone companies that students worked with this year include some of the top financial firms in the world, such as Goldman Sachs and BlackRock. They also worked with companies that have finance groups within them, like ViaSat, and a local La Jolla firm, Alphacore.

 “Alphacore is a great example of a firm where we had students interning with them that were so successful in their research that Alphacore executives were interested in continuing the relationship and building upon what was started,” recalls Melvin.   

Melvin says that “students might do a project with one firm but then that experience will lead them to opportunities with other firms as well.” Opportunities for students to network and showcase their skills often lead to their ultimate goal; employment.

“I think the MFin degree is a ticket into the industry. I used to be a Managing Director at BlackRock and we’re teaching students at Rady the skills that I wanted to hire for my teams at BlackRock, which were quantitative investing teams.”

The capstone increases employability because the students gain the skills and the abilities that firms want to hire. Not only that, but students can differentiate themselves from other job applicants because they’re able to highlight bespoke research on their resume.

“When capstone teams are doing very well, which they often do, firms will request resumes from the teams so that they can interview students, which leads to internships and permanent jobs.”

For anyone looking to enhance their career within the finance industry, the MFin program at Rady is a great place to start.

For more information about Rady’s MFin program, please visit https://rady.ucsd.edu/programs/masters-programs/master-of-finance/

July 24, 2019 0 comment
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A spotlight on Rady’s MSBA capstone
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A spotlight on Rady’s MSBA capstone

written by Danica Brindley

In today’s business environment, being skilled in analytics is becoming more and more of an advantage across many industries and corporations. Playing it safe with a basic understanding of business practices might be satisfactory, but successful businesses use data analytics techniques and models to make better decisions and gain a competitive edge.

At Rady School of Management, we equip our students enrolled in the Master of Science in Business Analytics (MSBA) program with the skills needed to thrive in these types of data-rich business environments.

Our MSBA program offers rigorous, hands-on training that prepares students how to identify business opportunities, generate business insights and create business solutions, all through data and analytics. It’s unique in the sense that it delivers a curriculum at the convergence of data science and business.

As Raymond Pettit, Executive Director of Rady’s MSBA program, notes, “Rady is one of the few business schools that has a strong and collaborative relationship with our data science colleagues on campus. Many other schools that offer MSBA degrees are often stand-alone, however Rady offers cross-discipline opportunities through our close relationship with the Halıcıoğlu Data Science Institute and the Supercomputer Center at UC San Diego and our world-class faculty in all these areas.”

As part of the MSBA curriculum, students must participate in a capstone project, which consists of solving a well-defined business problem for a real life company. Each student pursues this experience as part of a team and must complete both written and oral exams to pass the course, as well as a complete report for the sponsor company.

With more companies seeking skilled professionals who can work effectively in teams to answer key operational and strategic business questions using data and analytics, the capstone project is crucial to position students for future career success. 

“The capstone project isn’t just mandatory for students, it’s beneficial for them because it gives students the opportunity to practice what they’ve learned throughout the course and apply it to a real-world setting with an industry leading company,” says Pettit.

Every year, the capstone stakeholders include Rady School industry partners and big name companies such as Petco, Hewlett Packard, Becton Dickinson, Cisco, DIRECTavenue, Mirum, and Mazda among many others. These companies present students with an opportunity to obtain real industry experience that aids them in their job search and beyond.

It’s also not just beneficial for students, but it’s also valuable for the participating companies. Pettit added, “Many companies that our students work with see the capstone as a way to create a talent pipeline, so they can keep these students on as interns or they can hire students for permanent jobs afterwards.”

Some participating companies have been involved with the MSBA capstone project for several years, meaning they can build off projects from the previous years. Not only that, but the capstone is growing tremendously with more than 25 companies submitting proposals to take part just this year alone.

For this academic year, Pettit and the rest of the MSBA faculty were overall very pleased with the capstone results noting that; “The quality of students emerged in the amazing work and reports the teams presented to the sponsoring firms. This group of students will be making sizable contributions as their careers continue to grow and evolve.”

It’s an exciting time to enroll in an MSBA program at Rady as there are many advancements on the horizon.

“We’re going to expand the program and we can envision this expansion benefitting a larger number of companies based on the success we’ve seen so far,” says Pettit. “There is scope for the current capstone to develop into a joint-capstone in partnership with other disciplines on campus including data science undergraduates and our Master of Professional Accountancy program. To do this on the business side and work together would be huge and a new type of collaboration that nobody else is doing.”

If your organization is interested in participating in the MSBA capstone project, please contact Raymond Pettit at rcpettit@ucsd.edu or if you would like more information about Rady’s MSBA program, visit https://rady.ucsd.edu/programs/masters-programs/ms-in-business-analytics/

July 2, 2019 0 comment
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The Rady School of Managment Celebrates Graduation 2019
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The Rady School of Managment Celebrates Graduation 2019

written by Melinda Battenberg

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.

June 18, 2019 0 comment
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Rady School Immersion Trip

Rady School China Immersion Trip

written by Rady School

In China’s fast-paced technologically advanced market, autonomous self-driven cars, paperless transactions and digital grocery shopping are considered the norm. Two Rady School Full-Time MBA students, Adam Stallings and Eric Nouwen, experienced this first hand as part of the school’s China immersion trip. While on the trip, they learned China is a world of difference from what they had expected.

The students shared how much the trip opened their minds to new, cutting-edge philosophies they can now use in business ventures here in America. The trip left a significant impression on Nouwen. “You will have one of the best international experiences of your life,” he said.

Watch this video to learn more about the invigorating, educational and eye-opening experience these two students had in a country that is building faster infrastructure and technology than anywhere else in the world.

June 11, 2019 0 comment
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“I’ve Got a Golden Ticket…” in Biotech!
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“I’ve Got a Golden Ticket…” in Biotech!

written by Rady School

“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

May 20, 2019 0 comment
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MBARady School

Jackie Lu, Yem Innovation

written by Melinda Battenberg

Jackie Lu (MBA ’12) is the founder and CEO of Yem Innovation, located in Shanghai, China. Yem Innovation is a SaaS cloud platform that encourages employee innovation. Jackie shared how his Rady MBA contributed to his journey of success with Yem Innovation.

What impact has Rady had on your career progression?

After years in a multinational and local stock listed company, I found the most important resources executives ignored is their own employees. There are huge opportunities to leverage employee talents and boost corporate profits by motivating employees. During my study and life at the Rady School of Management at UC San Diego, I learned about Marketing, Operations, Human Resources, Innovation & Technology and Lab to Market. All of these courses prepared me for launching my own business: Yem Innovation, which is a human resources SaaS cloud platform. The Yem Innovation platform can be used to stimulate, manage and monetize employee ideas, or simply put, it is a cloud platform for corporate internal innovations. The results of using our platform are three fold: to improve corporate revenues, boost employee engagement and lead a bottom-up management revolution.

Has your Rady MBA enabled you to change industries or functional areas? 

Before I joined the Rady MBA program, I had years of marketing and corporate communications experience. With the help from the Rady School’s Innovation & Technology and HR & Leadership courses, I made the pivot from marketing to human resources. Now with Yem, I am dealing with ABC technology leveraging AI, Big Data, and Cloud Computing to monetize employee ideas.

How did the Rady School help you create and launch your company YEM Innovation? The Rady School is not just about business; it is also about management. From here, I learned more about the problems of modern management. After some solid research, we found that there are six bottlenecks for corporate internal innovations, which are caused by a traditional management style. By tackling these problems, we built a human resources SaaS cloud platform to simulate, manage and monetize employee ideas. Using our product, employees can submit ideas on the Yem Innovation cloud platform, which is both compatible for PC and smart devices. Meanwhile we provide professional service and help to make the ideas happen, with the ultimate goal of creating innovative revenues to the client. Yem Innovation has been referred to as an internal incubator. Under the new era of uncertainty, we truly believe the power of enabling, and the power to unlock each employee’s potential. What makes us special is that those staff who submitted ideas are responsible to implement the ideas. When finishing the idea, employees will get 30% profit sharing, and the other 70% goes to the company. It is a win-win-win solution to drive new business revenues and to initiate a new management style of bottom up. So far, we have had a very successful case in a manufacturing industry. Our client used our platform to encourage employees to submit ideas and to implement their ideas. One idea saved 400,000 Chinese Yuan for the company. My Rady experience has helped every aspect of my business, especially when starting the new business. I needed to go through a business plan, and every class I attended during the school helped me a lot to make the business plan more reasonable, more practical and more convincing for the investors.

What event or realization served as a ‘turning point’ for you during your Rady School and/or professional career? Honestly, I would say there is no turning point for me, but a continuous adaption for change. Nothing changes overnight. By learning and adapting, I found my way to start a business that is unique and innovative. All of my clients and potential investors think it is new, special, and the right time to help companies to drive innovation. Currently, we are working with Fortune 500 companies and also middle to large size local companies. We are working with manufacturing, medical devices, hospitality, and consumer goods industry companies to help their product innovation, service innovation and process innovation. We even made our own turning point by creating a feature called Inno-Cube, which is a tool to stimulate employee ideas. This set us apart from competitors. With the whole platform innovation, we were awarded the Best SaaS Provider 2018 and a Top Digital 100 Award.

Why did you decide to come to the Rady School? What attracted me to the Rady School is its young, vibrant spirit and entrepreneurship. It is located in San Diego, which is indeed American’s Finest City. It  gave me the chance to walk along the beautiful beaches, and I met various people to talk about Random Act of Kindness. That inspired me to create China’s First Random Act of Kindness Happiness platform: Happiness100. Happiness100 is an non-government organization (NGO), open innovation platform to collect ideas. We have only one criteria for the idea, which is to make people feel happy, and we will provide funds to make the idea happen. I feel proud to have a charity and I include this as part of Yem Innovation’s corporate social responsibility. More than 10 creative projects have been carried out, and Happiness100 itself also got honorable mentions by the Ellen MacArthur Foundation, and Overseas Young Chinese Forum.

What was your favorite class and why? My favorite classes are Consumer Behavior with Wendy Liu, Innovation & Technology with Kevin Zhu and Lab to Market with Del Foit. What’s funny is that because they were my favorites, I found they were also very easy to learn.

How did your view of entrepreneurship/innovation change throughout your time at the Rady School? I had a much larger view of the world because my classmates were from different backgrounds and different countries. It was a small class so we had the chance to know more about each other. My peers in the class were willing to share, to help and to inspire. In my point of view, the Rady School is a perfect school to get connected to an unexpected and surprising world. The entrepreneurship and innovation atmosphere there is like a soil that inspires people to grow new ideas and create their own business.

What was the most valuable thing you learned while at the Rady School? I remember the slogan years ago of our school is “From innovation to impact.” The most valuable thing is to impact, to do something to change the status quo. The goal of Yem Innovation is to change the status quo of traditional management styles, empower staff from the bottom up, and drive innovation. Instead of managing people, we change to empower people. Actually, scalability is another critical thing I learned in school. It is quite important for a business, especially for a mobile internet company like Yem Innovation. Because of our scalability, we got investment from an angel investor and also from SOSV last year for nearly one million Chinese Yuan. SOSV is an accelerator VC that manages $500 million USD worldwide. Another benefit of the Rady School is the ability to network and collaborate. For example, alum Jason Qi (MBA ‘16) is our COO, because we knew each other as alumni. He was also the vice president of the Rady Student Board at that time. Without the Rady School, I would not have found a brilliant alum and team member like Jason.

How have you applied your studies to your career? I applied human resource and technology, especially cloud technology, to create my new business. In some ways, I would say innovation is not that hard. Innovation is just a new arrangement of two old elements, which is how we created the one-of-its-kind Inno-Cube feature to stimulate employee ideas. I believe newcomers at the Rady School can also apply any two-field knowledge to create their own new business after they graduate.

What is the best thing about being a Rady alumni? Since the Rady School is a young school, there are advantages of being young. I feel strongly being part of the growth and I could witness its growth every single day. Thus I feel more engaged with the school and more engaged with the university alumni too, since UC San Diego is also a young university established in 1960. I always feel proud to say Go Tritons!

Yem Innovation is compatible for PC and smart devices (pictured above)

Yem Innovation was awarded the TopDigital 100 in 2018

Jackie is pitching on Chinaccelerator Demo Day

Jason is doing two live streamings for thousands of audience

April 22, 2019 0 comment
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Immersion Trip to Cambodia
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Immersion Trip to Cambodia

written by Rady School

Eye opening, exuberant, unique, were all words Lauren Murphy and Andrew Engram used to describe their recent Rady School immersion trip to Cambodia. Engram and Murphy, along with a team of six students from the Rady School were chosen to support the Cambodian company, Hydro-logic. Hydro-logic is working to help provide water filters to those who have little to no access to clean water.

During this immersion trip, they got a chance to put everything they have learned at the Rady School into action. The students used their business acumen to find out what challenges Hydro-logic is facing, how the company can increase revenue and how to help the company discover the best plan of action possible.

Getting There

Andrew Engram

The trip was extensive, but enjoyable. Getting to travel together as a team, made us closer friends and we enjoyed our time together. We (six of us and Professor Michael Finney), took a shuttle up to LAX, then we took a plane from Los Angeles to Taiwan, which was 14 hours long. After another plane ride and a bus ride later, we finally arrived. When we arrived, our main source of transportation was a tuk-tuk, which is a small, three wheeled, motorized vehicle. Getting there took 19 hours total, and when we arrived, we were in immediate culture shock. We realized how much of a developing country this really was, and how much of the country was living in poverty. We were also very excited to begin working on our project as a team, and to do everything we could to help improve the water shortage problem with Hydro-logic.

Why were you interested in the Cambodia Immersion Trip?

Murphy

I thought it was a great opportunity to learn more about consulting. Also, knowing how beneficial Professor Finney’s courses have been gave me that extra motivation because he is a great teacher and I wanted to learn from him more on the trip.

Engram

It was an opportunity to travel internationally, and get in the weeds with different cultures by working in an international environment. This trip was different because it wasn’t so much having an outline of things to get done, but a learning experience to put into action. It was great to understand how rural Cambodians live and find out about their access to drinking water. The client in Cambodia was trying to improve the livelihood by improving the amount of people who have access to clean water. Professor Finney was also an amazing counselor and guide for the trip. This is by far the best experience I’ve had at Rady. Every second was a learning experience and research. I was grateful to be able to use all I’ve learned and put those thoughts into action, rather than reading a textbook.

What did the work consist of?

Murphy

Our tasks included reporting to the social enterprise, Hydro-logic. We learned about their needs and built a relationship with their team. We also got to go into the field and bring interpreters to chat with rural Cambodians who were getting the water piped directly to their homes. About 40 percent of the country gets piped water, and Hydro-logic sells water filters for those who don’t have easy access to clean water. One of Hydro-logic’s goals is to bring social impact, but also increase revenue. We were able to help them do that.

Engram

Once we understood what we needed to do, we met with the Chief Financial Officer, marketing team and private water operators. We also got to meet with rural customers, how they cleaned and obtained their water, and what they did to drink it.

Did the trip meet your expectations?

Murphy

The trip exceeded my expectations, though I didn’t know what to expect. The quality of engagement and work we were able to do, as well as our exposure to a beautiful international culture and building great relationships, made the trip a huge highlight of my time at the Rady School.

Engram

Yes. Getting positive feedback from the client was wonderful. Seeing the client believe in what we were helping them understand made me feel like all my hard work at the Rady School was paying off. It was good knowing the MBA program can make an impact and have a lot of value. We both gained confidence and were grateful for the courses we have taken.

Did the trip change your perspective of doing business in Cambodia?

Murphy

Yes. This trip inspired me to want to work more in an international, complex environment. I grew a lot professionally and personally.

Engram

It was such an immersive learning experience and everything I see is now through a filter of what was learned in Cambodia. I hadn’t worked in a country with an emerging market. It was eye-opening to see people need things we take for granted on a daily basis. It was also an opportunity to make a difference in the world.

What lasting impressions did the culture reveal to you?

Murphy

We explored Siem Reap, a city in northern Cambodia. It was full of aesthetic temples including Angkor Wat. The details, art and decorations were beautiful and breathtaking. Seeing the beauty of Cambodia and its historical city structures inhabited by people, opened our minds and gave us greater context to our work. It helped with our project to take a couple days to rest and process our thoughts and expanded our creativity in greater ways.

The Food

Murphy

The food was interesting as there was food from all over Asia in one country. Some of the peculiar foods included bugs, frogs and ants. There was a lot of Thai food, as well as a twist on a kind of noodles and stir fry. Their delicacies, which included tarantulas and scorpions, were very different from America’s.

Any Last Words?

Engram

Thank you to Rady Moxie who provided the funds for the trip and, had a stipend for expenses. Thank you to the Center for Social Innovation and Impact for the grant and Professor Finney for taking the time to do this. We want to be an example of what is possible and we think the Rady School should do more of these trips.

Conclusion

Murphy

While we were in Cambodia, the team, with the help of Professor Finney, was able to help solve revenue challenges, recommend a manual washing machine, improve a system to collect rainwater and analyze how the company could best increase their current product awareness and online presence. Hyro-logic even let Professor Finney know afterwards how impressed the company was with the team and the amount of knowledge they gained from the students. The students would recommend this trip to anyone who can go. They said it was more than another school project, it was a truly life-changing process they will never forget.

April 17, 2019 0 comment
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StartR Demo-Day on a Whole New Level
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StartR Demo-Day on a Whole New Level

written by Rady School

StartR, founded by a group of Rady students in 2013, is a non-profit six-month accelerator program homed on the Rady campus. The program includes a workshop, mentoring, advice and access to other resources for early-stage companies. StartR has been highly successful and currently has one hundred and thirty-seven teams who have gone through the program. Eight of these teams have also been accepted into EvoNexus. There are fifty-five unduplicated companies that are active, and $63.8 million has been raised so far.

Along with the 6-month accelerator program, StartR also encourages students to partake in the StartR demo day, where entrepreneurs pitch their business ideas to students, faculty, investors, and professors. Nine companies chose to participate this year in the StartR DemoDay. In the past, the only StartR group to partake in the demo day are Rady MBA students and alumni, but this year was a little different. This is the first Demo Day event where teams from multiple StartRPrograms were invited, rather than only MBA students. All of the teams under StartR Accelerator include Rady, Inclusion, Impact, Veteran, and Teen. This was a monumental step, and highlights Rady’s commitment to champion and spotlight entrepreneurs of all styles!

At  Demo Day, the teams dressed in slacks, polished shoes, and newly pressed blazers, lined up one by one, while they anticipated putting their best foot forward in hopes to win a prize, or attract the attention of a potential investor or partner. As they shared their pitch, they stood in front of the audience with refined power points, apps, and even a real, live business prop itself, including a sleeping pod! The audience listened to each hopeful entrepreneur, all while cheering on their family and friends.

The StartR programs spotlighted this year, and the ones highlighted below with their company pitches, include: StartR Rady, Inclusion, and Impact.

StartR Rady – The premier StartR accelerator, the Rady track is exclusively for our MBA students and alums.  The teams who presented are as follows:

AngioX: – AngioX Therapeutics is an early stage biopharmaceutical company that develops novel therapies for patients with rare Cerebral Cavernous Malformations (CCMs). 

Freightracker: – This Company is bringing IOT solutions to the transportation industry in order to streamline operations and reduce costs bycreating a device which allows users to track their freight anywhere in the world.

SurfUp – An automated surfboard rental station that is paired with a smartphone application to make the surfboard rental process convenient for beginner surfers and tourists on the beach, in-front of stores, resorts, restaurants, and much more.

bou: Bou is a small device that can save, transfer, and emit smells instantly in various circumstances to enhance consumers’ daily experiences in different settings including while watching movies, playing video games, shopping, online shopping, relaxing, etc. 

Virtual Sleep Environment: A virtual sleeping pod which increases human performance, entraining a natural sleep-wake circadian rhythm. This makes it easy to sleep anywhere, at any time!

Visionful: An app that provides fully automated parking guidance and enforcement, making parking simpler than ever before.V

Inclusion: Open to students across UC San Diego and designed to highlight diversity, teams    must have at least one leader from a traditionally underrepresented population.

Felicity CBT – Aims to better the mental well-being of users by providing cognitive behavioral therapy at the convenience of a mobile application.

Impact: The StartR Impact accelerator is open to startups and ideas from across campus aiming to make a societal impact. The teams from Impact, that performed at demo day included:

Athlete Initiative: A sexual violence prevention program and app for college student-athletes, helping to prevent sexual violence on campuses, where one in five students are currently affected.

Family Proud – Connecting patients and families to the technological resources necessary to effectively maximize their quality of care.

It was a competitive battle at Demo Day, and each entrepreneur deserved a prize, but, there are only two awards—a judges choice, and an audience choice.

The team who presented the most polished, well thought out idea according to the judges this year, was Thomas Fontes from Freightracker. Thomas walked up to the stage with excitement, as he won a $1,000 prize towards his business. Thomas is working on creating a custom device with AT&T, in hopes to have a freight tracker on the market by 2020! Rady School is excited to see where Thomas’s business will take him in the future! You can contact Thomas at Thomas.fontes@rady.ucsd.edu.

The team who won the audience choice award was Robert Sweetman with Virtual Sleep Environment. Robert brought a real, live sleeping pod to his presentation that tracked the brain waves of the sleeper, revealing to the sleeper if their brain was active, calm, or busy. This would allow the sleeper to find peace and calmness and fall asleep at any time! Robert is working on getting the sleeping pod in airports, and creating stations for consumers to sleep anywhere, anytime, and especially before or after a long flight! You can contact Robert at Rob@existech.us for questions or thoughts.

Rady School of Management is proud to house and educate students and alumni, who are passionate about entrepreneurship.  Building on the success of their startups, all of the teams who presented will be continuing to pursue their business ideas in hopes to continue to succeed in pioneering a new, innovative way to solve and better our world!

April 10, 2019 0 comment
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Rady School

Engineers-Turned-Investors Share Expertise with UC San Diego Community

written by Hallie Jacobs

In celebration of the partnership between the Rady School of Management and Jacobs School of Engineering, the Rady School hosted a discussion with Engineering alums Greg Warner and Paul Temby who have moved into the investment industry. This collaboration across schools allows the two intellectual powerhouses to feature true work scenarios and show students interesting career options between engineering and business.

Earlier this month, Warner and Temby spoke to an audience ofstudents, faculty, staff and friends of the UC San Diego community to share their expertise on investing. Rady School professor Michael Melvin served as a moderator for the discussion.

Lessons learned

Warner and Temby emphasized the importance of “getting your hands dirty” – being in the investment business involves learning by doing and seeing, making mistakes and growing. Some jobs also require meetings with clients and selling the various services investment companies provide.

The typical entry-level position may involve “back office” work – dealing with trades and paperwork and interfacing with clients through their retirement plans and internal customer relationship management systems. As workers learn the ropes, they may get more professional designations so that face-to-face client interaction increases.

Career Advice

Warner and Temby offered career advice that went beyond the typical skills and competencies needed to succeed in investing.

“If I could go back and tell myself anything, my younger version would have been like ‘How did you get there?’ I would have said, ‘You have no idea what’s in store for you. Just build really good skills that are durable that no matter what career you’re in you can use. Chill out, and enjoy life,’” Warner said. “The answer isn’t what you’re going to be doing in 30 years, it’s whether you enjoy what you’re doing right now. Whatever you’re doing, have passion for i.”

The two experts also spoke of the benefits of ethics in investments, accentuating the importance of civility, treating people with kindness and avoiding the temptation to cheat others for personal gain.

 Warner and Temby suggested a traditional method to stay ahead of the competition – being a lifelong learner.

“I would suggest studying business books and investment books, and pick up a book that a president of the company would pick up, and learn as much as you can,” Temby said.

In their closing statements, the investment gurus shared more valuable life lessons on success. They encouraged the audience to take an inventory of their skills, career interests, likes and dislikes and passions and challenged them to perform routine audits to ensure their careers align with their goals.  

“Thinking about your next job – think about it as if it’s a two way street – what job I’m going to do vs what type of employee will the organization be hiring,” Temby said. “Figure out how you will support the organization and figure out what you’re good at, and who would value you, and go there.”

February 6, 2019 0 comment
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Rady School

Instagram Tips and Tricks for Your Business

written by Nik Souris

With 104.7 million US based accounts (over 1 billion worldwide) and 72% of users reporting they made a purchase based on something they saw on the social network that turns 9 years old next July; it is no wonder 70.7% of US companies will use Instagram this year. eMarketer also predicts Instagram ad revenue will grow from $4.10b in 2017 to $10.87b by 2019. These guides and hacks will make sure your Instagram presence supports your brand and your Instagram efforts help your business.

Consistency creates credibility and here are 3 guides to keep your Instagram (actually almost any social network presence) on point with your brand for your audience:

  1. “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” From brand voice with tone and content to brand image with filters and imagery; leverage your organization’s brand investment and follow your brand guidelines to maintain the consistent look and feel your customers, partners and employees trust.
  2. “Plan the work and work the plan.” From posting on a consistent schedule to setting service levels and standards for private message responses and public engagement procedures; defining when and how you use the social network are extremely important to develop your audience’s expectations and maintain their interest.
  3. “For every minute spent organizing, an hour is earned.” From the basic use of hashtags for indexing your posts to defining a list of your most used hashtags to more easily cut and paste a consistent group of hashtags into a post; the time to add this social network utility in a consistent fashion will make your life easier and aid content to be found more readily.

While you will undoubtedly receive countless offers to grow your Instagram account’s following from solicitors, nothing will take the place of an earned audience that begins by informing customers and contacts of your Instagram presence and builds with off-line real-world marketing, on-line cross-promotion from the website, email and other social networks, and in-network activity that includes great content, community engagement and promotions.

That said there are hacks to improve your presence and boost your business’s return on Instagram investment. And in keeping with 3s, here are 3 hacks to help get noticed and 3 hacks to help be found and drive traffic:

  1. Make your profile stand out. You may use emojis inside the app or pick up a special font not often found in the Instagram community. Use a third-party site like LingoJam on your phone to create your bio or if on a web browser download a font from FontSpace to edit your profile.
  2. User white space. Use “Return” to clean up your profile. Not seeing “Return”? Press the “123” key in the bottom left-hand corner of the keyboard and the “Return” key will appear on the bottom right. Also, consider centering your bio by inserting spaces to the left of each line. This will take some trial and error to get just right.
  3. Hide the hashtags. After your caption is written, add a series of symbols — dashes, asterisks, or dots, each on a separate line. This will push the hashtags down and make the post neater.

Hacks to be found or drive traffic

  1. HashTags. HASHTAGS. Instagram allows for 30 but you should use 11 of them to be precise at least that is reported to be the optimal number to use. Keeping the hashtags within the guidelines we spoke to earlier, look to leverage popular hashtags to have your posts included for onlookers and consider creating a brand-specific hashtag like #ShareACoke or #TweetFromTheSeat (Charmin).
  2. Leverage the website box (the only clickable URL) in your bio to drive traffic. Change the field to the URL of where you want to drive traffic – your latest blog content, YouTube video, product, or offer. Then use the caption of your post to encourage people to visit your profile for a link. Instagram verified accounts have some additional clickable link features that may come to all accounts in the future. Additionally, business accounts can leverage Instagram stories to include links to external websites.
  3. Help yourself get found. The “Name” field in your Instagram bio is searchable. By including important keywords in your Name field, you can increase your chance of appearing in Instagram’s search when anyone searches for those keywords.

To learn more on how to leverage Instagram or any social network for your business join our next Center for Executive Development (CED) program. More details and course registration click here.

The course is taught by Steven Bellach and Nik Souris. Bellach is the co-founder of BottomLine Marketing, a strategic business and marketing consulting firm specializing in helping organizations build effective and differentiated marketing strategies and plans. Souris currently leads channel partnership enablement for Privoro, a mobile security technology company.

November 28, 2018 0 comment
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