Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management placed No. 20 among U.S. programs in the Economist’s ranking of full-time MBA programs (No. 29 globally)—a jump from last year at 23 (and 34, respectively). The annual ranking is based on a student survey of four factors the Economist identifies as the primary reasons students pursue an MBA: to open new career opportunities, for personal development and educational experience, to increase salary and to build a professional network. If you prefer your stats in list form, Princeton Review named the Owen school to several of its 2015 Top 10 lists including No. 4—Best Professors, No. 9—Best Administered and No. 10—Best Green MBA.
Category: Departments
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Just Getting Better
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Addicted to Travel
Around the world in 80 days? Tyler Narveson needs only 17.
The Colorado native, who finished his MBA in May, travels for both business and pleasure, calling his “addiction to travel” his passion. Having circumnavigated the earth five times already—at 28 years old—he was recently featured in an August Wall Street Journal article about the current popularity of round-the-world travel.
“It was fun,” he says, “because I was doing a round-the-world trip the day it was published.”
That trip’s first leg was to Finland, followed by Croatia, Montenegro, Albania, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Qatar, Bangladesh and China before he returned home. Using an American Airlines Explorer award, he pieced the trip together based on flights available through American’s flight alliances.
“It was a bit much, to be honest,” he says. “It was just 2 1/2 weeks. The ones for work have usually been three to six weeks.”
Before graduate work at Vanderbilt, Narveson worked for Accenture, a multinational consulting firm serving clients in more than 200 cities in 56 countries.
“I did a project for the U.S. Department of State where I traveled to different embassies,” he says. “In two years, I went to 18 countries. My first round-the-world was China to Paris to Equatorial Guinea to Algeria and back. It was quite an experience.”
Now working for health care firm DaVita and based in Nashville, he’s hoping for more travel opportunities. “One of the things I like about DaVita is that they’re expanding internationally, so there may be travel opportunities down the road,” he says.
Narveson’s taste for travel was whetted by a study-abroad experience in Shanghai when he was an undergraduate at Colorado State University. “Studying in China was still kind of new at the time,” he says. “When I was there, no one spoke English. Now I go and everyone speaks English. The city has grown immensely.”
That rate of change is part of what drives his wanderlust—that, and wanting to get in as many countries as possible before life’s responsibilities slow him down.
“Originally, my goal was 50 countries by the time I was 30, but I passed that,” he says. (His current tally is 54.) “My life goal is now 100.”
Narveson’s main recommendation for other travelers is to find the hidden gems off the beaten path.
“Find those changing parts of the world now,” he says. “Western Europe will always be there, the Eiffel Tower will be there in 70 years, but I was just in Bangladesh, and I’m sure in 70 years, it will be drastically different.”
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New Organization Studies Professor On Board
Jessica Kennedy has joined the Owen faculty as assistant professor of management in organization studies. Previously with the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, Kennedy teaches Leading Teams and Organizations and Negotiation.Kennedy’s research interests focus on power and status hierarchies, as well as ethics in organizations. She studies how groups allocate power and status to individuals, how power and status affect individuals’ decisions and how ethical compromises can negatively influence women’s attraction to business careers. Recent research has revealed the way stereotypes about women’s competence in negotiations lead women to be targets of deception.
Kennedy has published in top journals, including Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Social Psychological and Personality Science. A former investment banker, she earned her doctorate at the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley.
See video of Jessica Kennedy at vu.edu/owen-kennedy-negotiations
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Executive Development Institute Welcomes New Leader
The new executive director of Vanderbilt’s Executive Development Institute lists the Darden School of Business and Chevron on his resume.Robert “Skip” Culbertson is charged with directing the school’s popular nondegree executive courses and programs for businesses and individuals.
“Skip is exactly the person Owen needs to move our nondegree executive programs to the next level,” says Dean Eric Johnson. “He brings extensive experience from a Fortune 500 leader as well as nearly a decade of experience in executive education from a world-class institution.”
Vanderbilt’s Executive Development Institute offers intensive, short-length (typically two- or three-day) programs in critical business skills such as executive leadership, marketing for strategic growth and leading change. Its programs are taught by Owen faculty and tailored for working professionals. Courses can be taken as needed for specific skills or as part of one of the institute’s certificate of excellence programs. The institute also designs and offers custom management education for organizations.
Culbertson has a comprehensive background in human resources and executive education. At the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business, he was senior director of custom programs and thought advancement in the business school’s executive education department and developed $2 million in custom executive education programming annually. He also has extensive consulting experience and was chief human resources officer for Chevron for more than two decades.
The Executive Development Institute was established in 1978 to provide Vanderbilt’s world-class management education in targeted areas for nondegree-seeking business professionals. Since then, more than 3,000 individuals from over 700 companies have participated in the institute’s courses.
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Vanderbilt’s Forté Membership is a Win-Win for Women
One of the Forté Foundation’s goals—and Vanderbilt’s—is to increase the number of women with MBAs and in top management positions. Sandra Cochran, BE’80, represents both. Cochran is CEO of Fortune 1000 corporation Cracker Barrel and earned an MBA after graduating from the Vanderbilt School of Engineering. She recently talked to Owen students about leadership and corporate strategy as part of the student-organized distinguished speaker series. Owen joined an exclusive group of business schools committed to supporting and recruiting women when it became a sponsor of the Forté Foundation in July.
The foundation is a nonprofit consortium of schools and corporations dedicated to increasing the number of women in business and helping them learn and achieve. Owen underwent a rigorous application process and vetting before being invited to join. It was one of only six schools accepted for membership in 2014 and is now one of 48 business school sponsors in the United States, Canada and Europe. This was the first year the group accepted membership applications from schools since 2011.
Forté selects sponsor schools strategically, based upon their capability to reach women as prospective MBA students and their ability to provide connections to potential sponsor companies. The schools must also add diversity to Forté in some way, so the foundation also considers school location, size, undergraduate pipeline and programs, and a proven commitment to female leadership.
“The Owen School is fortunate to have strong female leadership,” Dean Eric Johnson says, noting that top positions throughout the school are held by women and that both the alumni association and Owen Graduate Student Association are currently led by women. “Joining with Forté expands our support of women and provides opportunities for our students, alumni and prospective students.”
Christie St-John, director of MBA and MS Finance admissions, led Vanderbilt’s effort to join Forté. As someone on the front lines talking to potential students, she saw how Owen’s goals and those of Forté were aligned. Nationwide, women are less likely to apply to business school than men are—something Owen and the Forté Foundation seek to change.
In addition to the foundation’s commitment to increasing the number of women in the early business pipeline, the organization helps corporations and its partners reach, recruit and retain top female talent. It also provides resources and benefits to women at all career stages and offers fellowships through its Forté Fellows program.
For more information, visit fortefoundation.org
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Celebrating Dewey Daane
On December 16, 2013, the Federal Reserve celebrated turning 100. The commemoration featured past and present chairman of the Federal Reserve Board, board governors, officers and various dignitaries. Chief among the noteworthy—although he’d never claim such an honor himself—was Owen’s own J. Dewey Daane, the Frank K. Houston Professor of Finance, Emeritus.
Several speechmakers that day remarked on his presence and noted that Daane is nearly as old as the Fed itself. Dewey Daane, 95, knows more about the Fed than almost anyone else. After serving at the U.S. Treasury Department, Daane was first appointed to the Federal Reserve Board by President John F. Kennedy in November 1963 shortly before Kennedy’s death. He came to Vanderbilt in 1974 as the Frank K. Houston Chair in Banking and Finance in the fledgling Graduate School of Management, and Owen is honored that he has never left.
Accounts of Daane’s influential career in public service, at the Fed and in academia are matched only by legendary tales of his adventures and zest for life. On the eve of his 96th birthday, Vanderbilt Business is pleased to salute the remarkable Dewey Daane.
100 Years and the Fed
Daane, first row, third from right, during the Federal Reserve’s 100th anniversary commemoration. Washington years and impact
In the Oval Office with President Gerald Ford, August 1974. 
Before going to the Federal Reserve, Dewey Daane worked for the U.S. Treasury Department. Here he is being sworn in by Under Secretary of the Treasury Julian Baird and Treasury Secretary Robert Anderson. 
Daane with his beloved SL190 Mercedes convertible, bought new in 1962, and parked in his usual spot by the gate behind the Treasury Building. He had picked up the brand-new car in Paris and driven it through the country to the coast. He and the Mercedes then sailed across the ocean to the U.S. He still has the now-classic car. 
Daane was honored with the U.S. Treasury’s Alexander Hamilton Award, its highest honor. He was presented it by President Lyndon B. Johnson in 1963 
Daane (far right) at a Fed press conference with Paul Volcker, Arthur Burns and George Shultz during the Nixon years. At Owen and at play
The professor in his office at Owen in 1979. 
In action in the classroom, 2008. 
In 1988, Daane’s wife, Barbara, threw a black-tie tennis tournament to celebrate his 70th birthday. Tennis has always been one of Daane’s passions. -
Couldn’t Happen to a Nicer Guy
A scholarship established to honor former Career Management Center Director Peter Veruki now bears his name.
A group that includes Georgiana and Eric Noll, MBA’90; Paul Jacobson, MBA’97; Kevin Kimery, MBA’93; Heiki Miki, MBA’96; Dave Willis, MBA’97; David DiFranco, MBA’99; and Veruki’s wife, Judy Spinella, EMBA’93, established the scholarship in 2012.
Under funding rules, scholarships can’t be named after a current staff or faculty member, so the need-based scholarship was known as the Wall Street Scholarship until Veruki’s retirement as director of corporate relations last year.Veruki has been credited with expanding Owen’s recognition nationwide and with impacting the lives and careers of students for nearly two decades.Veruki hopes that students who receive the Peter E. Veruki Scholarship will be those “who could go to Wharton or Harvard to study finance, but instead chooses Owen because our finance faculty is second to none,” he says. “We’re looking for a person who appreciates the culture we have here—the camaraderie and teamwork.”
To contribute to the scholarship, contact the Owen Development and Alumni Relations office at (615) 322-0815.
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Primero!
How important is Latin America in global business? Just ask one of the MBA schools who participated in the first U.S.-based Latin Business Case Competition organized by the Vanderbilt Latin Business Association.The student-run competition was held at Owen March 28 and welcomed MBA teams from Ohio State, Washington University, Indiana University, Georgia Institute of Technology and University of Southern California, as well as a five-person team from Owen. Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business earned first place and $5,000. Scheller College of Business at Georgia Tech received $2,000 for second place.
The timing was right to launch a U.S.-based MBA case competition focusing on Latin America, says Luciana Ortega, MBA’14, Latin Business Association president. Participating teams had to recommend a strategic plan based on the actual motivations, opportunities and challenges of international expansion faced by a Latin American company. The challenge was sponsored by Deloitte, AT&T and Vanderbilt University’s Center for Latin American Studies.
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Measuring What Matters
Vanderbilt’s full-time MBA program is No. 25 in the latest U.S. News & World Report rankings. Particularly significant: Among the top 25 schools, Owen had the fourth-highest rate of students employed at graduation and the ninth highest rate of students employed three months after graduation—two key metrics used in the survey. And Poets & Quants, the online graduate business school news site, reported that Vanderbilt has seen the third largest improvement in job placement over the past five years among top-25 B-schools.
Poets & Quants also reported that Owen reduced the average student debt by 9.6 percent in 2013.
Our secret formula? The school is holding tuition and fees low, increasing scholarships and negotiating for more student internships and sign-on bonuses.
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Entrepreneurs Know No Borders
A delegation from King Fahd University in Saudi Arabia spent six days in Nashville learning how to create and build an entrepreneurship program, courtesy of an interdisciplinary group at Vanderbilt. The visit was in response to a weeklong trip that Senior Lecturer of Entrepreneurship Michael Burcham took to King Fahd in October as an adviser.Burcham set up meetings with alumni, students, faculty and staff from Owen, the School of Engineering, the College of Arts and Science’s managerial studies, and the university’s Technology Transfer Office. The Saudi Arabian team also met with representatives from the Nashville’s mayor’s office and the Tennessee governor’s office.
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Beyond the Famous Name
What do the Milwaukee Brewers, the Emperor of Japan, and a famous shipwreck have in common with the Owen Graduate School of Management? The answer can be found in the life of the late Edmund B. Fitzgerald, adjunct professor of management and Owen benefactor, who died Aug. 28, 2013.
Edmund Fitzgerald The retired chairman and CEO of Northern Telecom Inc. (now Nortel Networks Corp.), “made life-changing contributions to students at the Owen School as a teacher, mentor and philanthropist,” says Joseph D. Blackburn Jr., the James A. Speyer Professor of Production Management, Emeritus.
“In Fitzgerald’s popular course on globalization and international business, he drew on his vast corporate experience to teach students the importance of a global mindset long before it was popular to think in that way,” Blackburn says. “The scholarship he established gives a deserving student full tuition to complete their studies and begin a career in international management.”
Edmund Bacon Fitzgerald was born on Feb. 5, 1926, to a prominent Milwaukee family. His father, also named Edmund, was president and chairman of Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Co.
After serving as an officer in the United States Marine Corps during World War II and Korea, he earned a degree in electrical engineering from the University of Michigan and joined Cutler-Hammer, a Milwaukee-based electrical products manufacturer founded by his maternal grandfather, Frank R. Bacon. He rose through the ranks to become chairman and chief executive officer of the company.
Play ball!
Fitzgerald, along with Bud Selig and two others, brought major league baseball back to Milwaukee in 1969 a few years after the Braves left for Atlanta. Selig, who became president of the new Milwaukee Brewers franchise and later commissioner of Major League Baseball, has said that Fitzgerald played a crucial role in recruiting the Brewers to Milwaukee. Fitzgerald became the Brewer’s vice president and chairman of the board. He was also a member of the MLB Executive Council.
In 1980, Fitzgerald became head of the Nashville-based subsidiary of Northern Telecom, a multibillion-dollar Canadian telecommunications company. According to one account, Fitzgerald’s “contacts, credentials and Yankee know-how… helped the Canadian firm overcome its unfamiliarity with more free-wheeling U.S. business practices.”
“Big Ed … was a consummate gentleman, team builder and a good listener …”
His success in Nashville resulted in Fitzgerald being named president and CEO of the parent company, which he helped transform into a global communications leader. Author John Tyson writes in his book, Adventures in Innovation: Inside the Rise and Fall of Nortel, that Big Ed (as his employees affectionately called him) was “a consummate gentleman, team builder and a good listener who embraced the (Canadian) corporate culture with ease.”
He served on President Ronald Reagan’s National Telecommunications Security Advisory Committee and chaired the U.S. Committee for Economic Development. In 1997, the Emperor of Japan awarded Fitzgerald the Order of the Rising Sun, Gold & Silver Star, in recognition of his long devotion to improving trade relations between the U.S. and Japan.
For many years, Fitzgerald and his wife, Elizabeth McKee Christensen Fitzgerald, lived in Toronto and Nashville. The pair was married for 65 years until Elizabeth’s death in 2012. They were the parents of four and grandparents of nine.
Connection to tragedy
Fitzgerald’s name is known to many through association with one of America’s most tragic shipwrecks, made famous by singer Gordon Lightfoot in his ballad, “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald.”
In the 1950s, Northwestern Mutual named its new freighter after its chairman, Fitzgerald’s father. The Edmund Fitzgerald was one of the largest ships ever to navigate the Great Lakes. On Nov. 10, 1975, it sank in icy Lake Superior, drowning all 29 sailors aboard. The reasons for the wreck are still uncertain, but the connection followed Fitzgerald throughout his life.
Fitzgerald as most of his Owen students remember him. Unpaid and loving it
After Fitzgerald’s retirement from Nortel in 1990, Owen Dean Martin Geisel persuaded him to teach globalization courses on a pro bono basis, which the businessman continued until 2008.
Fitzgerald gave more than his teaching salary. He used a combination of annual and planned gifts to establish the Edmund B. Fitzgerald Scholarship in Global Competitiveness at Owen. Awarded annually to a second-year student who exhibits an extraordinary grasp of and commitment to global issues, the scholarship has already benefited six Owen students.
“Education was very important to my father,” says his daughter Kathleen Fitzgerald Picoli. “He was very impressed with the talented students and faculty at the Owen School. He wanted to leave a gift to the next generation of students who shared his commitment to global issues as a way to improve the world.”
Matt Clemson, MBA’10, was one of those students.
“The Edmund Fitzgerald scholarship provided me enormous financial assistance as an over-indebted first-year business school student,” says Clemson, now a senior manager with RockTenn, an Atlanta paper manufacturer. “But taking Professor Fitzgerald’s class and reading his book Globalizing Customer Solutions had an even greater lasting impact on me. It gave me a framework for evaluating decisions with an appreciation for and understanding of different cultures, perspectives and tactics, and for that I’ll be ever grateful to Professor Fitzgerald.
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Honored by Vanderbilt
Todd Jackson, BA’96, EMBA’08 Todd Jackson, BA’96, EMBA’08, received the inaugural Alumni Volunteer Award from the Vanderbilt Alumni Association Board of Directors. The award recognizes an alumnus who has positively represented the institution and its mission and has a significant pattern of volunteer service to the university.
As founders and co-chairs of the Vanderbilt-Ingram Cancer Center Young Ambassadors, Jackson and his wife, EB, helped raise $250,000 and award seven Discovery grants to innovative cancer researchers at Vanderbilt. Those grants have generated an additional $2.4 million in research funding. Jackson, strategic operations consultant specializing in health care at the CTD Group, also helped increase volunteer and giving participation as president of Owen’s Alumni Council. He also served as fundraising chair for his fifth-year Reunion.
Editor’s note: We are sorry to report that Todd Jackson died June 9, 2014, after an extended illness and after the print version of Vanderbilt Business went to press. Our thoughts and condolences are with his family and friends.
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Right on Schedule
Amelia Emmert From her perspective, there’s no such thing as a typical day for Amelia Nennstiel Emmert, MAcc’08. As an audit manager at EY Nashville, her schedule is dictated by the needs of clients, the teams she supervises, and by the tasks she plots out for herself in advance.
There’s a certain irony in this daily uncertainty, given that Emmert’s career trajectory is right on schedule.
Last October, Emmert became the first member of Vanderbilt’s 2008 inaugural master of accountancy class to reach the level of audit manager. Unlike her varying daily duties, her steady rise—and those of her fellow MAcc alumni—represents exactly what the program’s architects, drawing on input from top firms like EY that serve as partners, envisioned from the start.
“Our program is designed to lay a solid career foundation upon which entry-level professionals can grow,” says Karl Hackenbrack, associate dean and director of accountancy. “Amelia’s success at EY is affirmation that Vanderbilt’s approach is paying off for our graduates and the firms that hire them.”
Six months into the one-year program, Emmert was completing a paid internship at EY as part of her studies—a distinguishing feature of the Vanderbilt MAcc. She had a job offer before the start of Mod 4 in the spring.
Positioned for success
“The program did a great job of preparing me for the interview process,” Emmert says. “We received many opportunities for interaction with professionals at every level within the firm, including partners, and we were able to develop relationships with those people even before offers were extended.”
“As first-year staff, we have set job responsibilities to some degree as key members of the audit team,” Emmert says. “You build on the internship and begin to understand more about the audit process. Second-year staff carry out similar responsibilities as a first-year employee, but with less guidance from the audit senior,” she says.
“Seniors (in their third year with the firm) begin to take ownership of the entire engagement and become more involved in the day-to-day planning and execution of the audit. As a manager, I oversee the audit process for two of our clients and ensure the work is performed with quality and progressing as planned, even though I may not be at the client site every day. I also keep the senior manager and partner informed of our progress, and I am available to the client and the team for questions,” she says.
The new audit manager also takes on additional mentoring responsibilities. “I now have three people in the first-year staff position which I was in five years ago to whom I provide performance management and career advice,” she says.
Forget stereotypes
While her responsibilities have changed considerably in five years, Emmert has found that Vanderbilt prepared her well. That was especially true in the areas of leadership and communication that, to some, might seem peripheral skills for a public accountant.
“The MAcc program taught me to think critically and to be a well-rounded individual, someone who has technical expertise, but who also has good people skills and is known as a go-to for getting the job done,” Emmert says.
“It also helped me polish my communication skills and learn to effectively articulate what I’m trying to say.”
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New Horizons
Congratulations to American Airlines Group CEO Doug Parker, MBA’86, and his team on the successful merger of US Airways and American Airlines. To mark the occasion when the new company’s shares began trading on NASDAQ, Parker (above, center) rang the opening bell in front of hundreds of employees gathered at American’s headquarters near Dallas/Fort Worth International Airport. Read the Vanderbilt Magazine feature on Parker, “Flight Path.” -
Video is “Vital” for Project Pyramid
A video made by students about Project Pyramid spread across the Web and earned a second place award from Johnson & Johnson in the company’s “Be Vital” video contest.
Project Pyramid, a Vanderbilt organization founded by Owen students and dedicated to ending global poverty through community partnerships, education and responsive action, received $5,000 to help with travel expenses for students’ chosen projects. The video, created by students Rachel Taplinger, MBA’14, Kalen Stanton, MBA’13, Kramer Schmidt, MBA’14, and Hemant Nelaparthi, MBA’14, was posted on Johnson & Johnson’s website in November.
Videos were rated through a combination of public voting and judging by Johnson & Johnson on the basis of return on investment, best out-of-the-box solution and greatest human impact. Project Pyramid’s video was one of only two graduate school projects honored.
Representatives from Johnson & Johnson’s university relations team visited campus to present Project Pyramid members (right) with the $5,000 check held by faculty sponsor Bart Victor, the Cal Turner Professor of Moral Leadership, and Taplinger.
See their winning video at vu.edu/2013bevital.