Dean Solomon, left, with Rick Rees (A&S ’74, MBA ’75), chairman of the Business School Council.

It is now almost six months into my term as dean, a natural point for reflection on this most exciting period.

I wasn’t looking for a job when the search firm hired by Tulane contacted me last fall about the possibility of becoming dean, but as I researched the position and learned more about Tulane and the Freeman School, I began to realize that this wasn’t just another job. It was a very special, even unique opportunity, a chance to work with an outstanding group of people in an extraordinary city to help transform a very good business school into a truly great one. It was, as they say, an offer I couldn’t refuse.

Since my arrival on campus, I have been meeting with faculty and the Business School Council to develop in collaboration a new strategic plan for the school, one that leverages our existing strengths while addressing the rapidly evolving landscape of management education. While this plan will comprise initiatives spanning virtually every facet of the school, our ultimate goal can be summed up rather simply: to make Freeman a “school of choice.”

By school of choice, we mean a school students choose to attend not because they can’t get into their first choice but because we offer one of the nation’s very best programs in their particular area of interest. As dean, my challenge will be to work closely with our faculty to pick those areas where we have a legitimate chance to become a nationally or even globally recognized center of excellence. That process is already underway in the form of several task forces and committees, and I look forward to sharing our findings with you in the coming months.

While developing a comprehensive strategic plan is our long-term goal, a more immediate need had to be addressed. The Freeman School lost a number of tenured and tenure-track faculty members following Hurricane Katrina, but now, with enrollments surpassing pre-Katrina levels across our programs, it’s essential for us to grow the faculty. I am pleased to report that President Scott Cowen recently approved our plan to hire 15 additional tenured and tenure-track faculty members over the next two years. In addition to expanding the size of our faculty by almost 40 percent, these new faculty members will provide a tremendous infusion of intellectual capital with the potential to shape the business school for many years to come. This is truly exciting news for the entire Freeman community.

In the almost six months I’ve served as dean, one of the activities I’ve enjoyed most is meeting alumni. In all my years in academia, I’ve never seen an alumni population with such strong ties to an institution. It’s one of the things that attracted me to Tulane, and it’s one of the greatest assets that a business school can have. So, in closing, I’d like to offer my sincerest thanks to you, our friends and alumni, for your continued support and encouragement. If I have not already done so, I look forward to meeting you at a future Freeman School event, and I look forward to working with you to make Freeman a school of choice.

Ira Solomon
January 2012

Jamie Mauthe, left, co-owner of Mauthe's Progress Milk Barn, shows off the family farm to a team of MBAs from the Freeman School.

The Mauthe family have been dairy farmers in South Louisiana for five generations, but in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, their small, family-owned dairy was forced to suspend operations.

Now, with the help of celebrity chef John Besh and a team of Freeman School MBAs, the Mauthes hope to bring their fresh glass-bottled milk, Creole cream cheese and homemade cheesecakes to a new generation of customers.

In September, Mauthe’s Progress Milk Barn became the first recipient of funds from the John Besh Foundation’s microloan program, which provides low-interest loans to help local farmers increase production and bring products to market. The Mauthes, who resumed dairy operations in 2010, plan to use the $20,000 loan to purchase cows and upgrade equipment at the dairy, located just across the Louisiana state line in tiny Progress, Miss.

The Mauthes sell their fresh, grass-fed milk in returnable glass bottles.

“Before Katrina, we were processing off of about 45 cows and currently we’re processing off of 14, so we’re hoping to get back to somewhere around that neighborhood,” says Katie Mauthe Cutrer, who runs the dairy along with her parents, Kenny and Jamie Mauthe, her brothers, Daniel and Travis Mauthe, and her sister, Sarah Mauthe Tullos.

In addition to the loan, the Mauthes received another valuable commodity through the program: consulting services from Freeman School MBAs.

The Besh Foundation has partnered with the Freeman School to provide loan recipients with support from MBA students in the areas of marketing, finance and strategy. A team from the Freeman School’s chapter of NetImpact, a national organization dedicated to the use of business skills to improve society, is working with the family.

“The Mauthes are amazing,” says Simone Reggie (MBA ’12), who helped organize the microloan program during her internship with the Besh Foundation. “Basically, they’re just trying to get their name out there and step up from just being at the farmers markets and a few grocery stores.”

Reggie says her team, which also includes MBAs William Cazun, Larry Hall and Sara Steele, hopes to provide the Mauthes with some marketing assistance as well as financial analysis to help them identify potential opportunities.

“We’d like to help them figure out how to market some of their products a little better,” says Reggie. “They’re sitting on a gold mine.”

The Mauthes currently sell their milk, cheeses and cheesecakes at farmers markets, a few grocery stores and to several restaurants (including Besh’s Restaurant August, Lüke and La Provence), but even if they widen their distribution, Cutrer says the company’s mission will remain the same.

“We want it to stay fresh and stay local,” Cutrer says. “What I bottle today came from the cow this morning and will be in our customer’s home tomorrow.”

Photos by Paul Morse/PaulMorsePhotographs.com

MBA students toured Reciduca’s recycling facility during November’s MBA Global Leadership trip to Buenos Aires. From left to right, Taylor Gilbert, Lindsey Varney, Freeman School program coordinator Laney Armstrong, Brittany Williams, Megan Peck, Joshua Rupert and Danielle Lee.

Tom Connor (MBA ’12) has worked on a lot of consulting projects but probably none as simultaneously inspiring and sobering as the one he recently undertook for CILSA, an Argentinean nonprofit dedicated to helping at-risk children and the disabled access educational and career opportunities.

“There are a huge number of logistic, socioeconomic and cultural barriers they have to work around, so progress is often measured in inches,” Connor says. “I told the client the night before we left Buenos Aires, ‘I honestly don’t care about a grade. I just hope the work my team did helps you help your kids.’”

Connor was one of 80 Tulane MBA students who put their business skills to work for nonprofits in Buenos Aires as part of this year’s Global Leadership III course.

Last year about half the MBA class volunteered for public service work during their trip to Buenos Aires for the Global Leadership course. That initiative was so well received that public service was fully integrated into this year’s course.

Working in partnership with Help Argentina, an organization that connects people abroad with volunteer opportunities in the country, Freeman matched MBA students with four nonprofits in need of consulting services: Fundapaz, a producer of goat cheese made with milk from indigenous farmers; Reciduca, which provides job training and placement for at-risk youth funded in part through a recycling program; RACI, an umbrella group that supports nonprofits across Argentina; and CILSA, the group that Connor worked with.

Bundles of plastic await processing at a recycling plant in Buenos Aires. MBA students worked with Reciduca, an Argentinean nonprofit that provides job training services funded in part through a recycling program, as part of this year’s Global Leadership III course.

The MBAs began working with the nonprofits in September, communicating via phone, Skype and email to learn more about each organization and the problems it was experiencing. Reciduca, for example, needed help identifying potential clients. Fundapaz was seeking recommendations on pricing and operations.

Working in teams of four, the MBAs spent eight weeks consulting with the organizations and then presented their final reports to the clients in person during their November program in Buenos Aires.

“We designed a complete outreach strategy for CILSA including contact timelines, a phone script, a form letter and even a few leads to contact,” Connor says. “Obviously, we’re not in Buenos Aires to help them out after this, so it was very important for us to give them a final deliverable that they could use by themselves.”

According to Director of Professional Education Stephen Estrada, who helped organize the project, the clients especially appreciated the templates and samples that students provided them with.

“That’s what they liked the best—the things that could be easily implemented,” Estrada says. “I think the clients were a little leery about what level of understanding the students were going to be able to get from such a distance. Considering the obstacles, they were surprised by how relatable and implementable the recommendations were.”

“I think it’s important for MBAs to try to solve social problems, and it’s great that Tulane gives us that opportunity while we’re still in school,” Connor concludes. “I like getting the experience, I like helping people, and if I’m going to be a free MBA, I’d much rather it be for an organization that wouldn’t normally have access to the kinds of resources we can bring in.”

Tulane Business Forum presenter Leslie Jacobs, chairman of Greater New Orleans Inc., said recent success in economic development is a direct result of increased collaboration at the state, regional and local levels.

This year’s Tulane Business Forum focused on growth through innovation and collaboration, and according to a panel of New Orleans economic development officials, the city’s remarkable rise in a host of national business rankings—everything from best city for attracting people under 25 with college degrees to top metro area for IT job growth—is a perfect example of that theme.

“These impressive national rankings did not happen by accident,” said Leslie Jacobs, chairman of Greater New Orleans Inc., which leads economic development activity for the 10-parish southeast Louisiana region. “There is an alignment at the state, regional and local level that is unprecedented.”

Jacobs moderated a panel presentation on regional economic development at the 32nd annual forum, which took place at the Hilton New Orleans Riverside on Sept. 30. More than 700 people attended the event to hear local and national business leaders discuss strategies that leverage innovation and collaboration.

Economic development panelist Michael Hecht, president and CEO of GNO Inc., said the organization divides its efforts between business development—recruiting companies to come to New Orleans—and what he calls product development, or ways to make the greater New Orleans region more attractive to businesses.

Jay Grinney, president and CEO of HealthSouth Corp., discussed how the company recovered and rebuilt itself in the wake of a near-fatal accounting scandal as this year's luncheon keynote speaker.

Hecht cited a long list of initiatives championed by GNO Inc. in collaboration with other groups that have made the region more competitive, including the elimination of capital gains tax on the sale of a business, incentives for digital media companies, angel investor tax credits, a tax incentive for creating well-paying jobs, and even social developments like educational reform. Those efforts have helped to attract high-profile companies like Gameloft, which plans to build a software development studio in New Orleans, and Globalstar, which recently moved its corporate headquarters from the Silicon Valley to Covington.

“The fact is, because of our good product development, we’re having business success,” Hecht said.

The forum also included presentations by Stephen Moret, secretary of Louisiana economic development, who talked about the state’s economic development efforts, and Walter L. Schindler, managing partner of SAIL Venture Partners, who highlighted sustainable energy investment opportunities.

This year’s keynote speakers were Michael C. Slocum, president of commercial banking at Capital One, who delivered a morning keynote session on funding innovation, and Jay Grinney, president and CEO of HealthSouth Corp., who delivered a luncheon keynote on how the company rebuilt itself in the wake of its near-fatal accounting scandal.

Paul Spindt, Keehn Berry Chair in Banking and Finance, says new federal rules for the banking industry may not be strict enough.

New federal rules to rein in the banking industry may be causing a stir on Wall Street, but the regulations likely won’t go far enough to prevent a crisis like the 2007–2008 financial meltdown, says the Freeman School’s Paul Spindt.

Last fall, regulators released how they plan to implement the controversial Volcker Rule, a provision that prevents large banking institutions from engaging in speculative investments, known as proprietary trading. The new 298-page rule spells out exactly what banks can and can’t do with their investments and attempts to ensure that they aren’t trading against the interests of their customers.

“We need something like the Volcker Rule to limit the risk-taking of large national banks who are custodians of insured deposits,” says Spindt, senior associate dean and Keehn Berry Chair in Banking and Finance. “But it’s not clear that the bill that passed Congress is going to be effective in accomplishing this since it was written by the banking lobby.”

Spindt points to several loopholes that banks have pushed into the legislation. For example, it still allows currency trading — a highly volatile market, he says.

“I would prefer to see a stronger regulatory fence put around activities available to commercial banks,” Spindt says, referring to reforms enacted in the 1930s that separated commercial and investment banks. “But there is no appetite now for the government to insert itself in that kind of direct way.”

The rule would have an impact on business students who end up working on Wall Street. It’s discussed in classes about the broader challenges of regulating financial markets. With each new regulation, an incentive is created to innovate around the rules. “Markets are pretty clever at inventing ways to trade risks as long as people are willing to take them,” Spindt says.

The Villere family, owners and operators of investment advisory firm Villere & Co., received the 2011 Tulane Family Business Center Outstanding Family Enterprise Award.

St. Denis J. Villere and Co., a 100-year-old family-owned investment management company, is the 2011 recipient of the Tulane Family Business Center’s Outstand Family Enterprise Award.

The award, presented annually by the Tulane Family Business Center, was presented at the center’s annual Wealth Management Seminar, which took place in April at the Intercontinental Hotel in New Orleans.

Villere & Co. was founded in New Orleans in 1911 by St. Denis J. Villere as a sole a proprietorship involved in public underwriting and brokerage of local stocks and bonds. Villere’s son Ernest C. Villere joined the company in 1926 and, following his father’s death, moved the company into investment advisory services. Today, under the leadership of family members St. Denis J. Villere II, George G. Villere, George V. Young and St. Denis J. Villere III, the firm has more than 600 individual and institutional investor clients and more than $1 billion in assets under management.

The Tulane Family Business Center was established in 1992 to assist family-owned enterprises with the unique issues and challenges they face in growing and prospering from one generation to the next. Operated under the auspices of the Freeman School’s Levy- Rosenblum Institute, the Tulane Family Business Center sponsors seminars, lectures and programs featuring nationally recognized experts on family business issues as well as providing consulting services and networking opportunities for family business members.

PitchNOLA contestant Tamara Prosper delivers her pitch for Sheaux Fresh Sustainable Foods, which builds vegetable gardens in underserved neighborhodds to give residents access to fresh food.

The ideas presented spanned everything from urban farms to educational wetlands trips to an online crowdsourcing program to support underprivileged students, but in the end, it was an innovative approach to health care that captured the top prize at PitchNOLA 2011.

The Well, a multi-modal clinic combining primary, holistic and mental health care services, won first place at this year’s PitchNOLA competition, an “elevator pitch” contest for local social entrepreneurship ventures.

The competition, a presentation of Tulane Social Entrepreneurship Initiatives and Social Entrepreneurs of New Orleans (SENO) with support from the Freeman School and the Tulane Entrepreneurs Association, took place on Oct. 6 in the Woldenberg Art Center’s Freeman Auditorium.

In earning this year’s top honors, the Well edged out nine other ventures to win a prize package worth more than $6,000, including a $3,500 cash award, $2,000 in pro bono marketing and PR services from Trumpet Group, $500 in billable legal hours from the law firm of Baker Donelson, and a mentorship and pro bono technical assistance from SENO.

Serving as judges for the competition were Leslie Jacobs, founder of Educate Now! and chair of GNO Inc.; Eric Shaw, vice president of policy and programs at Foundation for Louisiana; and Nishith Acharya, executive director of the Deshpande Foundation, who delivered a keynote address to attendees.

Sarah Mason, left, and Arwen Podesta, right, won first place at this year's PitchNOLA competition with their pitch for the Well, an integrative medical practice. Also pictured is Andrea Chen, executive director of SENO, and Stephanie Barksdale, manager of Tulane Social Entrepreneurship Initiatives.

The Well’s Dr. Arwen Podesta, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Tulane Medical School, and Sarah Mason, a registered nurse, won the competition with their pitch for a new outpatient clinic, one that would serve both the primary care and mental and behavioral health needs of patients. Podesta noted that the lack of a comprehensive approach to care at the clinic level results in many patients failing to receive the treatment they need.

“There are examples of integrative, holistic centers, but none that I know of that include mental health, psychiatry, behavioral health and addiction,” said Podesta.

That unique approach to meeting a significant social need impressed the judges.

“One of the things we were asked to judge was the level of innovation,” Jacobs said. “In our mind, they were clearly very innovative. This problem exists, it is the first we’ve heard of this type of solution, and we felt it was worth an investment to see if this could be viable.”

“The Well really had the passion,” added Shaw. “I think they could create a model that could be replicated throughout New Orleans and throughout the state.”

AMPS, a producer self-sustaining urban farms, won this year’s “audience favorite” award and a prize package worth $1,000. Audience members were able to vote on which pitch they liked best via text message during the competition.

Prior to PitchNOLA, LifeCity in conjunction with SENO and Tulane presented Green the Gras, a competition for ideas to make Mardi Gras more environmentally sustainable. Beadcycle, an initiative to reward individuals who recycle their Mardi Gras beads with tokens good for discounts at local restaurants, won the top prize of $1,000 plus consulting services from SENO.

This year’s competition attracted an audience of more than 200 people, making it the biggest in the three-year history of the event. According to Shaw, that attendance reflects the remarkable growth of social entrepreneurship in New Orleans.

“It really is a groundswell,” Shaw said. “SENO has been amazing bringing attention to it, Tulane has been amazing bringing attention to it, and a lot of foundations are supporting it. It really is a new type of entrepreneurship, to help people and address a need in the community.”

John Elstrott greets attendees at the 2011 Tulane Business Plan Competition, the only business plan competition in the nation dedicated to the principles of Conscious Capitalism.

The Tulane Entrepreneurs Association (TEA) has begun accepting applications for the 2012 Tulane Business Plan Competition, the only business plan competition in the nation dedicated to the principles of conscious capitalism.

This year’s event, which takes place at the Freeman School on April 13, will award a cash prize of $50,000 to the most promising new venture embodying the conscious capitalist philosophy. In addition, competition partner and sponsor the Domain Cos. will award a prize of $20,000 to the venture with the greatest economic impact on New Orleans.

“Our goal is to continue to grow the competition by focusing on the principles of conscious capitalism,” said Court Robinson (MBA ’12), president of TEA. “We believe that students are more dedicated than ever to creating businesses that align the interests of all of their stakeholders.”

The Freeman School has established a national reputation in recent years for social entrepreneurship and conscious capitalism, a broader concept that calls for organizations to consider the interests of all stakeholders—including employees, customers, suppliers, shareholders and community members—rather than focusing solely on shareholder returns. In October, the Princeton Review ranked the Freeman School 14th on its list of the nation’s top graduate programs for entreprepreneurs, the sixth consecutive year Freeman has made the Princeton Review’s list of the nation’s best entrepreneurship programs.

“By devoting our passion and creativity to raising the level of entrepreneurship education at the Freeman School, we hope to inspire a new generation of entrepreneurs and social innovators across the university and in the community,” said John Elstrott, professor of practice and executive director of the Levy-Rosenblum Institute for Entrepreneurship.

To enter the Tulane Business Plan Competition, student contestants must submit an executive summary no longer than six pages by Jan. 22. For more information about the competition, including eligibility requirements and how to enter, please visit http://www.freeman.tulane.edu/tea.

John M. Trapani III has been appointed as the new head of executive education at the A. B. Freeman School of Business.

John M. Trapani II, professor of economics and Streiffer Chair in International Finance, will serve as the Freeman School's new associate dean for executive education.

Trapani, professor of economics, Streiffer Chair in International Finance and executive director of the Goldring Institute of International Business, will oversee executive programs as associate dean for executive education.

He succeeds Russ Robins, who had served as associate dean since 2002.

In addition, Yiorgos Bakamitsos has been appointed assistant dean for executive education. In that role, Bakamitsos will report to Trapani and manage the day-to-day operations of the school’s executive MBA programs in New Orleans and Houston. Bakamitsos will also have responsibilities for developing new executive education options.

The one-year appointments were announced by Freeman School Dean Ira Solomon in July.

“John has served the Freeman School as a professor, administrator and director for more than 20 years, and his wealth of experience and insight will be a great asset to all our executive programs,” said Dean Solomon. “As a longtime instructor in the EMBA program, Yiorgos brings knowledge, enthusiasm and a deep understanding of the executive education market to his new position. I am delighted to have John and Yiorgos on board in these new roles.”

Trapani served as the Freeman School’s director of executive and international programs from 1989 to 1991, and since then he’s served in a variety of senior administrative positions at the business school, including senior associate dean, vice dean and director of the Goldring Institute of International Business.

Assistant Professor of Marketing Yiorgos Bakamitsos, center, will serve as the Freeman School's new assistant dean for executive education, with responsibilities for the day-to-day operations of th school's EMBA programs.

“The executive education market is undergoing a transformation, and we hope to be on the leading edge of that change,” said Trapani. “I’m looking forward to working closely with Yiorgos to improve and expand our executive education options.”

Bakamitsos joined the Freeman School in 2005 as assistant professor of marketing and has taught in the executive MBA program since 2007. Prior to joining the Freeman School, he served as an assistant professor at the Amos Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth and as a lecturer at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He earned his PhD in marketing from the Kellogg School in 2000.

“The Freeman School attracts some of the brightest business leaders in New Orleans and Houston for its executive programs,” said Bakamitsos. “I’m excited by the opportunity to help create a more valuable, dynamic educational experience for these outstanding executives and working professionals.”

When a British dealer learned that Queen Victoria was interested in William Powell Frith's "Life at the Seaside," above, the dealer sold it to the queen at cost but retained the exhibition and engraving rights, which the dealer subsequently sold for a £3,000 profit.

By John R. Page, associate professor of accounting

A recent investigative article in the Wall Street Journal discussed in some detail the operation of the famous contemporary “uber-art dealer” Larry Gagosian. The author, Kelly Crow, describes an international network of galleries and connections managed to run in tandem to effect virtual control of a market segment: Gagosian’s stable of artists. Far-flung and apparently with deep pockets, this network can propel artists to instant international fame with corresponding impact on price levels. Savvy collectors are de-facto partners in this network as the dealer’s preferred clients, able to “get in” early. The art market’s need for constant renewal makes fame brief and timing critical.

While all this might sound like 21st century Wall Street-style art dealing, nothing could be further from the truth. Research into past art markets has revealed the existence of sophisticated dealer networks in the 19th century and possibly even earlier.

John R. Page

As soon as the art market changed from functioning on the basis of direct contact between patron/buyer and artist/producer to an exchange mechanism that revolved around professional middlemen, networking developed. My colleague Thomas Bayer and I were initially struck by the frequency at which dealers bought painting at auction that had been consigned by other dealers. In the art world of 18th and 19th century London, dealers knew each other and their respective inventory personally. Why would they have chosen to incur additional transaction costs when they could have acquired the work directly? We also noticed that dealers paid on average more for their auction purchases than the rest of the buyers. Does such behavior not present a barrier to the arbitrage opportunities on which the trade depends? However, once we reconstructed the respective inventories each dealer had bought at auction, it became clear that these transactions were meant to support and boost the value of existing stock and send price signals to the market. Art auctions had become popular social and media events, and the trade took advantage of the inherent opportunities.

Further analyses of a specific dealer’s transaction records identified an extensive dealer network whose members collaborated to maximize their role as the art market’s hub. Specific dealers, for instance, bought works directly from certain artists in such numbers that it must have amounted to their entire production. These paintings were then quickly and regularly sold at small profits—more like a handling fee—to other members of this network who would then attempt to retail them directly to the public or, if unsuccessful, recycle them back into the network to give another member an opportunity. Our dealer bought as much from the network’s members as he sold to them. His auction activity, furthermore, showed that he used these trading platforms to signal price levels for the works of his “stable” of painters.

All this created an unstoppable art marketing machine that propelled artists to hitherto unknown levels of fame and fortune and made dealers into the princes of the art world.

Clearly, uber-art dealing has quite a pedigree.

John R. Page is co-author of The Development of the Art Market in England: Money as Muse, 1730-1900, published in March 2011 by Pickering and Chatto. The book, co-authored with Thomas M. Bayer, adjunct lecturer of art history, traces the growth of the modern art markets through an analysis of more than 42,000 art sales at British auction houses.