Dean Angelo S. DeNisi

As I write this, we have just concluded our largest commencement ceremony since the undergraduate class became part of Newcomb-Tulane College. We not only awarded diplomas to an outstanding MBA class, but we also gave degrees to a very large Master of Finance class, a large Master of Accounting class, students from several of our Executive MBA programs, students from international partner universities who received Master of Management degrees, and students in our new Master of Global Management program. Let me also add that we recently returned to the top 50 MBA programs in U.S. News and World Report, received another high ranking for entrepreneurship in Entrepreneur magazine, and earned a top 15 ranking in finance by the Princeton Review. So clearly there is much evidence that the Freeman School continues to thrive and prosper.

The coming year, however, will not be without challenges. Although Tulane has received a record number of applications, the university is feeling the strain of additional needs for financial aid, lower endowment earnings and greater difficulty in fund raising. These trends affect Freeman both directly and indirectly, so we expect another year of belt-tightening. Furthermore, the current economic downturn presents unique challenges to our students seeking employment.

Yet despite these issues, I see much to be optimistic about. Our faculty and staff have repeatedly demonstrated that they are willing to do whatever is needed. Enrollments in all of our graduate programs are at or above last year’s levels, and the quality of our students is outstanding. We have two new endowed chairs—the James W. McFarland Distinguished Chair in Business and the Rolanette and Berdon Lawrence Distinguished Chair in Finance—about to come online, and we are getting more requests for overseas programs than we can handle. Our new P.R. representative, Ben Haimowitz, has made TV stars of several of our faculty, and our corporate relations people—Kara Schonberg and Byron Kantrow—have been building new contacts with employers all around the country. We have begun discussions with Ken Schwartz, dean of the School of Architecture, about a possible master’s program in sustainable real estate development, and we are working on creating an energy finance program in Houston and a risk management program in New Orleans. Indeed, there is much to look forward to, and nothing has diminished my enthusiasm about what the Freeman school can accomplish.

I want to close with a quick note about the man on our cover, Charles Atwood. I have come to know Chuck reasonably well over the past few years, and I can say unequivocally he represents the best the Freeman School has to offer. Generously, he has decided to share some of his good fortune with us by endowing four professorships, and we plan to name the first Charles L. Atwood Professor this coming year. So I will end by thanking Chuck and everyone else who helped to make this a great year and who will help to make next year even better. Now if only those pesky hurricanes can stay away.

Angelo DeNisi
May 2009

Second-year MBAs visited the Great Wall during their trip to China

The Freeman School isn’t unique in having its MBA students read cases about multinational firms and global strategies. What is unique is having those students—all those students—travel overseas to visit the companies described in the cases and present their strategic recommendations directly to senior managers.

In March, the Freeman School sent its entire first-year MBA class to Paris and its entire second-year MBA class to Beijing for a week of lectures, company visits, case presentations and cultural activities as part of the program’s Global Leadership module. It was the first time since Freeman added a travel component to the MBA program three years ago that both classes traveled abroad at the same time, creating a huge logistical challenge for faculty and staff, but according to students who participated in the trips, the one-of-a-kind international experience more than justified the extra work.

“Instead of hearing how international business is conducted from a second-hand source, we were able to hear directly from executives in their country,” says Eric Seling (MBA ‘10). “Spending ti

First-year MBA students found time to sightsee in Paris between lectures, company visits and case presentations

me in France really exposed us to differences in the people and gave us context on why differences exist in the business world.”

“Listening to business leaders themselves talk about the strategies they adopted for their companies is definitely more motivating and stimulating than just reading a case and discussing it among ourselves,” adds Vamsi Illindala (MBA ‘10).

The first-year class—including 89 full-time MBAs and seven part-time Professional MBAs—spent a week in Paris that included lectures on European business culture and management of multinationals, talks from executives with companies including Schlumberger, L’Oreal and Anovo, and a case discussion with Richard Seurat, CEO of Alcatel-Lucent, followed by a visit to the headquarters of the French telecommunications company.

The Paris trip culminated with a presentation to senior management of the Colas Group, one of the world’s leading road construction firms. Earlier in the semester, students read a case involving Colas and then participated in a videoconference with company executives in which the students were asked to develop expansion strategies for Colas in the U.S., Mexico and China.

During the trip to Paris, the students visited the company’s headquarters and presented their recommendations directly to Colas Group CEO Hervé Lebouc and 11 senior executives of the company.

“The highlight of the trip for me was watching my classmates present to the CEO and CFO of Colas,” says Seling. “After each presentation, the executives asked some incredibly difficult questions, but my classmates did a wonderful job defending their positions and offering specific suggestions for ways the company could expand.”

A highlight of the second-year MBA trip to China was a lecture by David Daokui Li, seated, noted economist and director of the Center for China in the World Economy at Tsinghua University

The second-year class—67 students—spent a week in Beijing attending an academic program organized by Tsinghua University. The students’ itinerary included lectures on China’s economy and culture; visits to electronics manufacturer AIGO, software company Hanwang Technology Co., and sportswear manufacturer Li-Ning Co.; and a Q&A session with Yaokun Hu (MBA ’99), an associate with Hopu Investment, the leading private equity firm in China. That session was followed by a reception at which students had a chance to network with Freeman alumni working in China.

Tsinghua University is sometimes referred to as the “Harvard of China,” and the faculty members selected by the university to deliver lectures were among the leading academics in Asia.

“David Daokui Li, one of our guest lecturers, spoke to the G20 last week,” says Will Donaldson (MBA ‘09). “It was definitely the highlight of the Global Leadership series of courses and had me thinking for several days. His insight was invaluable.”

While each of the trips focused on lectures, meetings and company visits, there were also cultural and social activities, such as tours and receptions, as well as ample free time. According to some students, the free time to explore was often just as valuable as the classroom experiences.

“It’s really the intangibles,” says Eric Klein (MBA ‘09). “You can learn something in a book and recite it, but it doesn’t necessarily have any impact on your actions. But if you go and fumble through an interaction with someone, you can learn how to do things better and apply that knowledge in a real-world situation. I think that’s really what we got by traveling to China.”

Shane Price (MBA'09) spoke to Latin American academic advisors about Burkenroad Reports as part of a special seminar organized by the graduate admissions office

Latin America represents a growing market for management education, but recruiting those potential students—many of whom are unfamiliar with U.S. business schools—can be difficult. The Freeman School has developed an innovative way to target that market, one that focuses not only on the students but also on the people who advise the students.

In April, Freeman hosted its second annual seminar for Latin American educational advisers. More than a dozen advisers from educational and governmental organizations across Latin America traveled to New Orleans for a full-day seminar designed to introduce them to the Freeman School and provide them with the information they need to help students decide if Freeman is the right choice for them.

“We want to give advisers an opportunity to learn about Freeman and see firsthand what differentiates us from other schools,” says Margarita Ahumada, assistant director of graduate admissions. “We travel to meet with advisers in Latin America on a regular basis, but there’s no substitute for letting them see our facilities and resources in person. This is a great way to develop a closer working relationship with advisers in Latin America and the rest of the world.”

The seminar included a presentation on the school’s overall strategy and vision, sessions on specific programs including Burkenroad Reports, the Levy-Rosenblum Institute, the Darwin Fenner Fund and the Tulane Energy Institute, and a discussion of MBA and MFIN curricula, admissions and financial aid. In addition, the seminar was scheduled to coincide with the Tulane Business Plan Competition, enabling guests to attend that event and the evening’s Tulane Council of Entrepreneurs Awards Gala.

Claudia Carrillo, an adviser with EducationUSA in Chile, was interested in learning about both the curriculum and some of the less tangible aspects of the school. “The feeling I’m getting from Tulane is that the people are very warm,” Carrillo says. “Besides the fact that it has a very good faculty and it’s a very good school with the necessary infrastructure, there’s something extra. People are just more welcoming, and that is very important for people from South America because our culture is a little more like that.”

“People in Brazil are very interested in top 10 schools, but it’s important to show them that a school like Tulane might be able to offer them more than a top 10 program,” adds Miriam Viniskoske, an adviser with Brazil’s the Point Academic. “I think that by coming here and seeing the work Freeman is doing, I can help them understand that they can study in a school that’s not that big but is among the oldest and the best in the United States.”

John Mackey, chairman and CEO of Whole Foods Market, will talk about conscious capitalism at this year's Tulane Business Forum

The Tulane Business Forum celebrates its 30th anniversary this year with a program dedicated to corporate consciousness. A distinguished lineup of speakers from retail, health care, energy, banking and other industries will discuss doing business in a more socially responsible and environmentally friendly manner, returning to core business values, remaining true stewards of ethical performance and practices, and giving back to the community.

“In light of the big government bailouts being extended to organizations that did not conduct business in a very responsible manner, I think this theme is especially timely,” says Tom Spiers (MBA ’01), chair of the forum.

This year’s speakers include John Mackey, chairman and CEO of Whole Foods Market Inc.; Mark Quartermain, president of Shell North America (US); Alan Yuspeh, senior vice president and chief ethics and compliance officer of HCA; and Gary Jay Saulson, director of corporate real estate at the PNC Financial Services Group. The forum will also feature an alternative energy panel featuring businessmen Jon Guidroz, director of project development at Free Flow Power Corp.; D’Juan M. Hernandez, president and CEO of Sun Energy Group; Eldon Klaassen, CEO of Allegro Development; and Michael L. LeBourgeois, principal of NGP Energy Technology Partners.

The 2009 Tulane Business Forum will take place on Friday, Oct. 16, at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside. For registration and updated program information, visit www.tulanebusinessforum.com.

The stock market may have been dismal in 2008, but the end of the year did bring one piece of positive news.

According to mutual fundtracker Morningstar, since its inception in 2001, the Hancock Horizon Burkenroad Fund ranks as the 38th best performer out of 4,823 mutual funds, placing it in the top 1 percent of all mutual funds. The Burkenroad Fund is up 58 percent over the last seven years; the stock market as a whole is down 10 percent over the same period. The Burkenroad Fund, which is run by Mississippi’s Hancock Bank, was inspired by Burkenroad Reports and invests in

many of the stocks followed by the program.

The Freeman School has been named one of the top 15 graduate business schools in finance by the Princeton Review. The ranking, based on a survey of MBA students, appeared in the April 2009 issue of Entrepreneur magazine.

The Princeton Review contacted 19,000 MBA students attending 296 business schools to compile its “Student Opinion Honors for Business Schools” in six core areas: finance, accounting, general management, global management, marketing and operations. The top 15 schools in each category according to the MBAs are listed alphabetically and are not ranked from one to 15.

Edward Crawford, center, founded the Freeman 50 to provide support for the Freeman School in the areas of placement and fund raising

A new alumni group hopes to improve the Freeman School’s national ranking by reaching out to recent graduates.

The Freeman 50 is the brainchild of Edward Crawford (MBA ’08, MGM ’09), who says he was inspired to start the group after seeing the success that other schools had with initiatives such as class agent programs.

“We have alumni who love Freeman and want to come back to New Orleans all the time, but they’re not connected to the school,” says Crawford. “I started talking to some recent alumni and people at the school about how to fix that, and the idea just grew from there.”

Crawford says the mission of the group, which held its first meeting in March, is to improve the quality of the Freeman MBA brand, and since rankings are the most visible way to value an MBA program, it made sense for the group to focus its initial effort on improving the Freeman School’s ranking.

The Freeman 50’s first initiative is to launch a class agent program to maintain connectivity with MBA alumni and improve the percentage of alumni giving, a significant factor in national rankings. The idea behind the program is to assign two alumni from each MBA class to help maintain contact information for the class and keep track of how many members of the class have made a donation. By leveraging the close relationships that exist within classes, Crawford says the group can help Freeman build stronger ties with alumni and, ultimately, increase the percentage of alumni supporting the school.

“The way giving works is through classes and programs,” Crawford says. “It’s about relationships—‘I know these people and I want to donate to my class and have my class have some ownership.’”

At the class of 2009 graduation dinner in May, Freeman 50 members Porter Nolan (MBA ’08) and Emily Mitchell (MBA ’07) spoke to graduating students about the group and got the members of the class to sign pledge cards agreeing to give a fixed amount to the Freeman School for each of the first five years following their graduation, the first time Freeman graduates had ever made such a commitment.

Crawford says the Freeman 50 also hopes to work with the Career Management Center to bring more recruiters to campus and to create a scholarship fund to attract more top-quality candidates to the MBA program.

The group currently includes five alumni from the class of 2007 and five from 2008, with the goal of adding five new members from each subsequent MBA class. New Freeman 50 members will be selected by the group based on nominations from the class and recommendations from the Career Management Center.

“I think we really hit the ground running with this effort,” Crawford says. “We don’t pretend we’re going to do a lot of different things or raise a ton of money. We’re going to focus on a few small initiatives and try to maintain connectivity between the school and alumni because, ultimately, that connection is more important than any donation.”

SENO received the Tulane Social Entrepreneurs of the Year Award at this year's gala. Members of the organization include, from left to right, Eduardo Platon, Morgan Williams (L '07), Andrea Chen, Karen Leung, Tung Ly (E '04), Lizzy Shepard, Kris Hoplin and Tom Fischmann

Rick Rees and SENO (Social Entrepreneurs of New Orleans) were honored as entrepreneurs of the year at this year’s Tulane Council of Entrepreneurs Awards Gala. Rees was named the 2009 Tulane Most Distinguished Entrepreneur while SENO was named Tulane Social Entrepreneurs of the Year. The gala, which also honored the winners of this year’s Tulane Business Plan Competition, took place on April 17 at the Westin New Orleans at Canal Place.

Rees (A&S ’74, MBA ’75) is co-founder of LongueVue Capital, a private equity company that makes value-oriented investments in middle market companies. He is the former chief financial officer of Halter Marine Group, a $1 billion revenue company at the time of its merger with Friede Goldman Inc.  Following the merger, he joined FGI as chief financial officer.

Rees previously served as president of Texas Drydock Inc., a rig repair and conversion business. He also served as principal of Maritime Capital Inc., a company formed in 1989 to purchase and service a portfolio of distressed marine loans.

SENO’s mission is to build a powerful community and ecosystem of support for social entrepreneurship so that social entrepreneurship can thrive and all citizens can act as agents of change. The principals of SENO include Andrea Chen, Morgan Williams, Kristen Hoplin, David Robinson-Morris, Christopher Brown, Jewel Constance, Tom Fischmann, Chris Boudy, Tung Ly, Eduardo Platon, Karen Leung, Elizabeth Shephard, Lavonzell Nicholson, Lauren Bartlett, Blake Haney and Laura White.

Levy-Rosenblum Institute Executive Director John Elstrott, left, and Rick Rees, who received the 2009 Tulane Most Distinguished Entrepreneur Award

The Freeman School’s Levy-Rosenblum Institute for Entrepreneurship presents the Tulane Most Distinguished Entrepreneur and Tulane Social Entrepreneur of the Year awards to recognize individuals and organizations that exemplify true entrepreneurial spirit and philanthropic generosity.

New Orleans experienced an unprecedented influx of young professionals in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but the challenge now, civic leaders say, is how to keep these talented 20- and 30-somethings in New Orleans. MBA student Ishaneka Williams came up with one idea to help accomplish that goal, and earned a $200,000 prize package for her effort.

Ishaneka Williams (MBA '10) and Will Donaldson (MBA '09), below, were the big winners in the 504ward Business Competition

Williams (MBA ’10) was the grand prize winner in the 504ward Business Competition, which challenged entrepreneurs to develop business proposals to retain and engage 23-to-35-year-olds in New Orleans. The competition, which was sponsored by the Idea Village and 504ward, a local collaborative effort aimed at retaining the city’s young professionals, offered the winning venture $100,000 in startup cash and $100,000 worth of business services and resources.

Williams and partner Lavonzell Nicholson earned that prize for Play NOLA, a recreational sports league that will combine activities like volleyball, basketball and kickball with social networking opportunities for young professionals.

“We were thinking what would draw us to cities, and we kept coming back to social connectivity and quality of life,” explains Williams. “Play NOLA allows us to encompass social connectivity and quality of life under the umbrella of economic development through networking. We want to provide networking opportunities to young professionals through sports leagues and specialized events.”

According to Williams, Play NOLA is modeled after similar programs in cities like San Diego, Washington, D.C., and Chicago, home of Chicago Sports and Social Club, one of the largest such organizations. Like Chicago Sports and Social Club, Play NOLA plans to generate revenues through fees charged to league participants and corporate sponsorships.

Williams emphasizes that Play NOLA will feature more than just athletic events. Among the special events planned for its launch this fall are a scavenger hunt and a “lock-and-key” networking party, in which attendees are asked to find the person in attendance whose lock matches his or her key.

“We want to give people more of an experience,” says Williams. “It’s not just to come out and play kickball or something like that. We’ll have snowball stands and jazz music to create an atmosphere not only for those who want to play, but for those who want to look on and cheer as well.”

Williams wasn’t the only Tulane MBA to shine in the competition. Three of the five business proposals selected as finalists were submitted by current Tulane MBA students and a fourth was submitted by a pair of 2008 graduates. Will Donaldson (MBA ’09) so impressed 504ward organizer Leslie Jacobs with his plan to provide affordable office space to entrepreneurs that she created a second-place prize of $25,000 just for his proposal.

“We’re trying to make a place that will nurture entrepreneurs,” Donaldson says of Launch Pad, which offers affordable office space in the Intellectual Property building on Magazine Street, whose cutting-edge tenants include the Idea Village, iSeatz.com, TurboSquid and Carrollton Technology Partners. “When you’re working out of your bedroom, you don’t get that community, you don’t get that culture of entrepreneurship you need that fosters a real business.”

John Elstrott isn’t surprised that Tulane MBAs dominated the competition. Social entrepreneurship—creating businesses with a social purpose beyond profits—has become a strength of the Freeman School in recent years, and a growing number of students are interested in creating and working for businesses that meet significant social needs. “I think we’re attracting that kind of student to Tulane in general,” says Elstrott, executive director of the Levy-Rosenblum Institute for Entrepreneurship. “They see business not only as a way to fill a need and make a profit but as a way to address an environmental or social issue. It’s something we’re trying to work more into the curriculum, and it’s something our faculty have a strong interest in.”

Albert Johnson, senior analyst in the office of the chief of technology at Corning Inc., talked about managing innovation and innovators as part of this year's Burkenroad Symposium on Business and Society

When Burkenroad Institute Director Laura Cardinal selected the topic for this year’s Burkenroad Symposium—“Leadership and the Eye for Innovation”—she knew it was a subject of interest to business students and executives. She just didn’t realize how relevant it would become.

With the global economic crisis and the passage of the stimulus bill, technology and innovation have emerged as major themes in discussions of how best to grow the U.S. economy.

For the 16th annual Symposium on Business and Society, which took place on March 6 in Dixon Hall, Cardinal brought together a panel of experts who addressed the topic of leadership and innovation from markedly different perspectives.

National Science Foundation Director Arden L. Bement Jr. told the Burkenroad Symposium audience that supporting science research is a critical part of growing the nation's economy

The American Recovery and Reinvestment Act included more than $3 billion in funding for the National Science Foundation. In his remarks, National Science Foundation Director Arden L. Bement Jr. emphasized the importance of science in building the U.S. economy.

“Science and technology are a vital component of economic growth,” Bement said. “The White House and Congress agree that job creation, infrastructure improvements, energy efficiency and other means of stimulating the economy depend on a foundation of basic research and education. If we fail to continue investing in that base, the bloom on the rose will fade quickly, leaving behind few prospects for sustainable long-term growth.”

Robert M. Price, president and chief executive officer of PSV Inc. and former chairman of Control Data Corp., a pioneer in the field of supercomputing, emphasized the intersection of three critical concepts—technology, innovation and entrepreneurship—that historically have combined to bring about dramatic economic change and progress.

“Innovation and entrepreneurship are so tightly interwoven that frequently innovation and entrepreneurship are embedded in the same person,” Price said. “That does not have to be. The eye for innovation has two meanings. One is the ability to see innovations that have real-world economic potential, and the other is to see what someone else has done that has that same potential. Leadership is very simply forging the environment in which these wonderful things can happen.”

Patrick J. Yam, chief executive officer and founder of Sensei Partners, spoke from the perspective of a venture capitalist focused on early-stage technology companies. Yam said that a concentration of capital within a small number of firms in the wake of the dot-com bust together with the current recession have resulted in a critical lack of support for early-stage technology enterprises. Yam founded his company to meet this emerging niche.

“In 2008, there were only 440 early-stage technology enterprises funded as compared to 1,177 later-stage companies, a correlation of nearly 3-to-1 for later-stage companies,” Yam said. “Tech entrepreneurs need to understand this change in the venture capital industry. The quicker this understanding is gained, the more efficiently entrepreneurs can maximize their fund-raising efforts by identifying the venture firms best able to strategically assess their firms.”

Albert Johnson, senior analyst in the office of the chief of technology at Corning Inc., focused on leadership at technology and innovation companies. “How do you lead leaders?” Johnson asked. “For those of you who are going to be business leaders in an industrial, governmental or nonprofit context, you’re going to have to figure out some things about leading leaders.”

Referencing the human development theories of psychologist Clare W. Graves, Johnson emphasized the importance of understanding the personality types of leaders and what each responds to, but he added that one of the most simple management techniques is also one of the most powerful. “Be sure to communicate genuine appreciation that’s more than a routine thank you,” Johnson said. “Appreciation is currency to leadership. Be sure you mind that.”