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Even with his 50th birthday just around the corner, Mark Tillinger, BA’81, MBA’82, did not have a midlife crisis: He was too busy fighting for his life. Emerging on the other side of a cancer diagnosis and treatment, he sought opportunities to make small investments in the lives of others—with hope that those small changes would build into something much larger.

Tillinger knew first-hand how investing in someone can make a difference for that person. He came to Vanderbilt as an undergraduate, inspired—and invested in—by his high school math teacher in Atlanta, a Vanderbilt alumnus. Tillinger chose the combined five-year Vanderbilt MBA degree offered at the time—four years for his bachelor degree in economics, the last year overlapping with Vanderbilt’s MBA program.

Soon after graduation, Tillinger landed at Arthur Andersen in its management consulting information division. He was based in Nashville until he was hired away by Commerce Union Bank as a director of strategic planning. When the bank merged with another, he was recruited back to Andersen’s Nashville office, and then on to Richmond, Virginia, where he headed the banking division. When he became partner—and Andersen morphed into Accenture—he moved to the New York office.

Opportunities for extraordinary things

He was working in New York and living in nearby Connecticut when he started cancer treatment. Cancer coincided with reaching the age of early retirement, an Andersen/Accenture benefit for partners at age 50. Although he hadn’t originally planned on retiring right at 50, his illness made him question how he wanted to spend the rest of his life.

The answer was help others. He took retirement.

One of his first ways to help was creating a need-based scholarship for Vanderbilt MBA students, the Mark A. Tillinger Scholarship Fund.

“I knew I wanted to make a reasonably significant contribution, but I wasn’t sure how to do it since I was an undergrad as well as an Owen grad. Ultimately, we focused on funding the scholarship at Owen,” he says. “It was exactly for that reason: to give opportunities to students who might not otherwise be able to go and help them launch their own careers.”

Five Owen students have received the scholarship since he endowed it in 2007. But he’s given more than the funding—he’s invested personally in the lives of students who received it as well. “That’s been on an individual basis and if it’s something the student wants,” he explains.

Those relationships have helped him to see how his goals for the scholarship program are being met. “It’s a small gesture, but one that hopefully will generate some people who go on to do some extraordinary things,” he said. “I’ve been thrilled to be able to do it.”

Continuing the fight

After retiring, Tillinger did something else that has even made the pages of People magazine: He launched the Riedel & Cody Fund, which offers assistance to pet owners whose dog or cat has cancer.

Why? While Tillinger was in a battle for his life, his beloved Bernese Mountain Dog, Riedel, was fighting her own cancer battle.

While Tillinger successfully beat cancer, Riedel did not. “She was a special dog and I had a very special relationship with her,” he says. “We were fighting so long together and then, when she was gone, I still wanted to fight. I couldn’t turn it off. I didn’t want to turn it off.”

The fund has since helped more than 200 pet owners who needed financial assistance to provide cancer treatments for dogs and cats with cancer. “What has been inspiring to me is there have been many owners who have stepped forward and done extraordinary things and changed lives as a result of our intervention and allowing them to have more time with their dog or cat,” he says. “It sounds cliché, but we truly do believe it: By changing individual lives, one instance at a time, we hope to try to effect major change in the world.”

Back to work and to Tennessee

Not long ago, Tillinger returned to the workforce as vice president of transforming client relationships at Cognizant Technology Solutions. The role has him traveling the globe and helping to solve client challenges. Accepting the job came with the condition that he be allowed to continue his work with Riedel & Cody. The organization has a full-time executive director and generous financial support from Blue Buffalo Company and Petco, but Tillinger continues to chair its board of directors.

Tillinger and his wife, Theresa, recently have moved to the Nashville area and he hopes to be even more involved in Owen. In the 30 years since graduating, he has served on Owen’s Alumni Board and currently serves on the dean’s Board of Visitors. “I don’t know what I’ll be doing over time with Owen and Vanderbilt, but I love the school,” he says. “It’s been a huge part of my life and that’s why I’ve stayed involved with it.”

Whether through a successful career or envisioning a different kind of nonprofit, Tillinger feels he owes much to his Vanderbilt education.

“Without a doubt, the Vanderbilt undergraduate program and Owen trained me how to think,” he says. “The whole approach to the educational philosophy at Vanderbilt at the time—and I’m confident it still is this way—is all about giving graduates the skills and tools to be analytical, with that core capability to essentially always ask the next question in a very structured way.” ■

 

Soon nonprofit leaders from all over the country may line up for the opportunity to earn a Vanderbilt MBA degree tuition-free.

In spring 2014, the Executive MBA program opened up eligibility for its annual nonprofit sponsorship to those outside the Nashville area for the first time. The sponsorship, which gives deserving executives at 501(c)(3) organizations access to a business education they otherwise might not be able to afford, had previously been reserved for applicants in Middle Tennessee.

In June, the school announced that Abby Shue, vice president of the Kentucky Center for the Performing Arts in Louisville, was selected as its Class of 2016 recipient. Shue’s selection marked an important new chapter for not only the sponsorship but the school as well. By bringing in the best candidates possible, regardless of geographic location, Owen signaled its intent to play a bigger role in bridging the nonprofit and for-profit worlds.

“It was the nonprofit alumni—the past recipients of the sponsorship—who came to us and encouraged us to expand our nonprofit reach,” says Juli Bennett, MBA’93, executive director of the Executive MBA and Americas MBA for Executives programs. “They saw the need to strengthen the sponsorship’s impact, and we at Vanderbilt agreed with them. It makes sense to draw from a strong nationwide applicant pool that mirrors the one we draw from for our entire EMBA class.”

Puts nonprofits on equal footing

Shue’s interest in earning an MBA stemmed from her work with senior management and the board of directors at the Kentucky Center, which is home to five resident performance companies, including the Louisville Orchestra and Kentucky Opera. The 30-year-old center hosts more than 1,000 events per year. Among her responsibilities are helping oversee general operations and directing strategy.

“Arts administration is a large field that remains relatively undefined. Like any nonprofit, we need to focus on operational effectiveness and efficiency,” Shue says. “I can’t imagine a better way to hone my managerial skills and learn to tackle complex business issues than in an Executive MBA program like Vanderbilt’s.”

The sponsorship, which began as a partnership with the Nashville Center for Nonprofit Management in 2006, is a rarity at a business school in the U.S. Unlike other schools that offer partial scholarships for such programs, Vanderbilt covers the full two years’ worth of tuition, or approximately $95,000. The program is currently funded from Owen’s operating budget, although the school would welcome a named sponsor for it.

To be considered, an applicant must meet the same criteria as any other Executive MBA candidate, including a strong GMAT score, record of academic accomplishment, previous management experience, professional recommendations and a formal interview.

Sponsorship recipients follow the same curriculum as their classmates, completing 60 credit hours of coursework over a two-year period and working closely with their peers. Part of that work includes two capstone projects that provide valuable strategic experience. They also have access to the school’s top-ranked Leadership Development Program.

“Our nonprofit students are exposed to the best practices in the business world,” Bennett says. “They learn the way their board members think and understand the expectations for how a nonprofit should perform.”

The interaction with their for-profit peers is a crucial part of the experience, Bennett notes. “They must be the voice for nonprofit in the classroom,” she says, “and cause others to ask, ‘How do I give back when I finish this two-year journey I’m on and make good things happen in my community?’

“But at the same time they must learn from the for-profit voices in the room, too, and ask questions like, ‘How are my challenges different from those in the for-profit world? And what are the challenges that don’t seem the same but really are?’”

Bridge for nonprofit and business sectors

Former recipient Michael McSurdy, EMBA’09, attests to the difference the sponsorship has made in his career. Today he is president and CEO of Family and Children’s Service, which provides counseling and child well-being services across the state of Tennessee.

“Five years out from graduation, the benefit of my time at Owen is clearer to me,” he says. “I’m a much more strategic thinker. I’m also more keenly aware of the value of a full team in moving my organization forward. I see daily how my broader understanding of management and finance is applicable in the nonprofit world, and I’m better at bridging the gap between the social service sector and personal and corporate philanthropy.”

Beth Torres, EMBA’11, another former recipient, shares McSurdy’s convictions about the sponsorship. She credits it with giving her the confidence to assume her current role as CEO of Make-A-Wish Middle Tennessee, an organization that grants the wishes of children with life-threatening medical conditions.

“I had good business instincts before Vanderbilt,” she says, “but Owen gave me the language to communicate. If something didn’t make sense, I learned to ask questions immediately—where I may have waited before. Owen gives you that. You’re in a room with 50 of the smartest people you’ve ever met and they’re asking questions. If they’re asking them, I have no excuse. I can admit what I don’t know.”

In working with corporate partners at Make-A-Wish, Torres sees more similarities than differences between the nonprofit and for-profit worlds.

“The nonprofit sector and the traditional for-profit are not that different, and they shouldn’t be,” Torres says. “Too often we’ve made exceptions for nonprofit, saying, ‘If we don’t reach as many people, if we don’t raise as much money, it’s OK. We tried really hard.’ That can’t be OK. If we miss on fundraising or on our mission, people don’t get served. We should be holding ourselves to higher, not lower, standards.”

Know of someone who would be a good candidate for the nonprofit sponsorship? The Executive MBA team wants to hear from you. Go to vu.edu/owen-nonprofit for more information. Contact Sarah Fairbank at 615-322-3120 or  email sarah.fairbank@owen.vanderbilt.edu.

 

Kim Killingsworth, Owen’s director of international recruiting and relations, doesn’t let much rattle her as she travels globally to recruit the right students for Vanderbilt’s business programs. The start of the July-through-March recruiting season found her dealing with challenges ranging from tension in Tel Aviv to an airline strike in Argentina and a nonfunctioning ATM card in Rio. Here are some of her thoughts and experiences from the road.

July 12, 2014

I am currently on the last leg of a more than 24-hour trip home from Tel Aviv. I was there for a two-day MBA recruiting fair sponsored by EducationUSA, a U.S. Department of State-sponsored network of educational advisors.

I arrived in Tel Aviv and waited at the airport for my Emory MBA colleague to arrive so we could share a taxi to the hotel. I had been to Tel Aviv for this event last year and prior to that in 2006. I was familiar with the scrutinizing questions at immigration upon arrival and felt I knew the city and culture somewhat.

In other words, I felt perfectly comfortable traveling there in spite of the previous week’s violence. We dropped our bags at the hotel, went up to the roof to see the sunset over the Mediterranean and then jumped in a taxi to head out to dinner. No sooner did we get in than we ended up in a standstill. We asked our driver what was happening. He made an arcing motion with his hand and responded in his limited English, “Syria missiles.” The air raid sirens sounded briefly, the first of four or five air raid warnings we would experience during our few days there. Reading The New York Times later on our cellphones, we discovered the missiles were from Gaza.

The MBA fair was immediately canceled after this incident, but then reinstated 12 hours later and reduced from two days to one. Of the 22 MBA programs that had planned to participate, 13 showed and of those, seven schools had admissions reps with the rest covered by local alumni. Those of us who attended were continually thanked by the local attendees for coming to Israel during this crisis.

I remember one conversation in particular with a young woman who lingered near my table. When I engaged her in conversation about her experience and post-MBA goals, she opened up. She told me she was nervous about the situation because she had completed her military service on a base close to the Gaza Strip and was concerned for her colleagues there. She had been an artificial intelligence officer. She was in the reserves and knew there was a good chance she could get called up.

Overall, we did not experience any obviously tighter security. Locals continued business as usual. Perhaps there were fewer people on the beach as they did not want to be in an exposed area without easy access to bomb shelters. One early morning I was walking on the beach when the sirens sounded. I had to run from the shoreline to crowd into a public restroom with others. In general people, including kids, don’t panic. They seem concerned with getting cellphone photos of the smoke trails of the intercepted missiles. It drove home to me how they are accustomed to this activity.

August 6, 2014

Kim set out on the Latin America leg of her recruiting tour. She visited Santiago, Buenos Aires, Rio de Janeiro, São Paulo, Lima, Medellin and Bogotá in the nearly three weeks she was away.

On this trip, some of the best conversations I had were with taxi drivers. It started with my arrival into the first city of the trip, Santiago. I had lived there 21 years ago as a Peace Corps volunteer so I always feel nostalgic returning. I arrived near midnight after a full day of flying, and despite just wanting to get to the hotel, I had a very engaging conversation with the driver. As we cruised along the highway, my favorite Mercedes Sosa song came on the radio and I was delighted that we both sang along. It was the perfect welcome back to Chile.

With my taxi driver in Buenos Aires, I had a charming conversation about my two favorite Argentine actors and left the taxi with a list of all the films they acted in together. In a taxi in Bogotá, stopped at a traffic light, we were serenaded by a harp player in the middle of the street.

The primary focus of this tour was MBA recruiting fairs, but when the schedule permits, I conduct Vanderbilt-specific information sessions or sometimes dinners or receptions with alumni to which I invite prospective students. I take advantage of any partnerships I’ve entered into as a way to meet prospectives, such as one with the Medellin-based Sindicato Antioqueño, which is comprised of over 120 Colombian companies including Grupo Suramericana and Bancolombia. Vanderbilt, along with six other schools (only three in the U.S.), presented to employees who will apply for company sponsorship to pursue an MBA abroad.

Of course I’m always open to meeting prospectives in other, informal ways as well. I’ve been known to meet prospectives on flights, which makes sense given the amount of time I spend flying. I find myself often giving educational and career advice to strangers and it usually seems to be appreciated.

My first morning in Santiago, I ended up in a long conversation with my waiter at breakfast. His graduate studies focus on scallop production and I learned more than I ever knew about the industry. We discussed how an MBA might make sense for him after he gets a few years’ work experience. An advising session over a perfectly prepared cortado and Chilean raspberry juice.

At the events, what really makes a difference is having help from alumni. It gives the prospects a perspective they can relate to—somebody who was recently in their shoes and who can speak about the student experience firsthand. I was fortunate to have alumni assistance in Santiago, Rio, Lima and Medellin. Prospects love meeting alumni.

What was particularly rewarding this trip was that I reconnected with candidates who I met a year and a half ago. Enough time had passed since the first Latin America recruiting tour I did for Owen that now students are ready to apply. At the São Paulo fair, I was able to greet the first person who walked up by name. “Eduardo, it’s great to see you. How is the GMAT prep going? Are you going to apply to Owen this year?” Greeting him by name and remembering that he works in agribusiness demonstrated to him that we really do provide a personalized approach at Owen.

The theme of this trip seemed to be the interesting conversations with taxi drivers and dealing with the challenges of international travel—more than what seemed normal on this trip.

For example, I arrived at the city airport in Buenos Aires to chaos—Aerolineas Argentinas (the nation’s largest airline) had gone on strike that morning. There were TV crews filming and lines were a kilometer long. I was told the first available flight to my next destination was 36 hours from then, meaning I would miss my event in the next city. The solution was to buy a ticket on another airline and leave later in the day from a different airport. Leaving the next city, I experienced a five-hour delay for a one-hour flight due to rain.

Then I tripped on the sidewalk in São Paulo and sprained the thumb of my dominant hand—my primary texting digit. I made a splint and taped it up, but then was challenged by the basics of typing, buttoning and opening water bottles. On this trip, my ATM card failed to work in two countries and I found out my banking identity was stolen and used fraudulently.

I’m good at—and enjoy—finding solutions and don’t let these inconveniences get in the way. While I may have to deal on my own with some of the challenges, there are always colleagues with whom to share the stories at the end of the day. A highlight is reconnecting with alumni, educational advisors, colleagues from other schools and friends in the region. Each trip is so different and memorable due to those I meet along the way.

Prior to starting this trip I was still thinking about the young woman I met at the Tel Aviv fair, the former artificial intelligence officer. I sent out a message to all the females I had met at the Tel Aviv event, hoping to send good wishes to that woman and find out if she had indeed been sent to Gaza.

I heard back from almost all but the one woman, saying they weren’t her but they were sure she would appreciate my concern. The responses came in at the beginning of my Latin America trip, then nothing. I assumed she had been sent to Gaza and imagined what that might be like. Then the very last day of my Latin America trip—three weeks later—I received a message from her. She apologized for her late reply but had not yet been sent to Gaza. I felt incredible relief and realized the impact just one candidate’s story can have.

September 2014

After Latin America, Kim Killingsworth returned to Nashville for a few weeks, then took off for three countries in Asia on corporate visits and a few recruiting events—all in 10 days. Part of her work is meeting with decision makers in Asian companies to discuss how the Vanderbilt MBA may fit the companies’ and employees’ professional development needs. She then returned to campus for a couple of weeks before heading out again. She says, “I have my schedule memorized of all my planned trips through the end of the year. You can give me a date between now and then and I know what city I will be in.”

The approximately 50 feet between the Owen Graduate School of Management and Vanderbilt Law School just shrunk a bit as the two schools launched a trans-institutional program that offers students the opportunity to earn a master of finance degree and a law degree at the same time.

Students in Vanderbilt’s new dual J.D./M.S.F. program spend their first two years at Vanderbilt Law School, then take a full semester at the Owen Graduate School of Business and finish with a final semester of both law and finance courses.

The program’s inaugural four students began their Owen portion at the start of the fall 2014 semester. All four were already working on their Vanderbilt law degrees when they were accepted into the one-year master of finance program.

For third-year law student Kevin Saunders, the program combines his two career passions, business and law. He comes from a third-generation family business and earned an undergraduate degree in accounting before deciding on Vanderbilt Law School. He had taken four credit hours at Owen as law electives when he heard that the J.D. and M.S.F. program was in the works.

“I was a huge proponent of the program when I found out about it,” he says. “I was already considering an externship with the SEC in Atlanta but decided to wait, just on the idea that this program might come to fruition.”

Natural partners

The program grew out of discussions between Dean Eric Johnson and Vanderbilt Law School Dean Chris Guthrie shortly after Johnson’s arrival last year. Both deans say that in addition to expanding education in business and law, the program expands a natural partnership between the two schools.

“Owen has long offered courses that introduced business students to legal issues and discussed specific areas of finance that relate heavily to law and legislation,” says Johnson, the Ralph Owen Dean and Bruce D. Henderson Professor of Strategy. “For lawyers heading to Wall Street, understanding markets is critical to building a successful career in financial service.”

Guthrie, who is also the John Wade-Kent Syverud Professor of Law, says that in addition to appealing to students interested in corporate law, the program’s specific finance focus will give them an added edge and opportunities. The J.D./M.S.F. builds on the law school’s existing Law and Business program, he noted, which includes basic principles of finance and accounting, business operations and today’s regulatory environment. That program offers law students a specialization certificate in business; the school also offers a joint J.D./MBA.

“I am excited to have the opportunity to partner with Owen and its terrific faculty, and I am very bullish on the opportunities this joint degree program will create for a select group of Vanderbilt Law students,” Guthrie says.

The J.D./M.S.F. dual degree was one of the fastest programs developed and launched at Vanderbilt. The deans conceptualized it in fall 2013, the curriculum was proposed by late winter 2014, and the degree was approved by both schools’ faculty and the provost in time to start accepting applications in April.

Going forward, interested students will apply to both programs separately and Owen and law school officials will meet to decide who they want to admit to the joint program. All prospective students have to take the GMAT as well as the LSAT and go through the same admissions process as other business and law school students.

Not for slackers

The new dual degree is rigorous, says Kate Barraclough, director of Vanderbilt’s M.S. Finance program. She leads the program and was charged with helping set it up and determining the business school curriculum.

“They’ll take some of our most challenging finance classes, the ones that are the more quantitative classes,” Barraclough says. “When we were putting together this degree—because it’s 24 credit hours opposed to 36 for a standard M.S.F.—we wanted to make sure all those credit hours really counted toward finance.”

The program kicked off in August with the J.D./M.S.F. students joining incoming M.S.F. students for an intensive two-week orientation. “We onboard them with a Finance Economics I class,” Barraclough says. “That’s kind of a level set for people who don’t have a finance background versus people that do—we do it very quickly in two weeks.” In mod I and II, they take the same classes as the M.S.F. students but also add an additional elective. “This is going to be a big mod for them because the typical load is four,” Barraclough says. “Taking five is a lot. It’s very intense.”

Worth the work

Barraclough says she’s interested in discovering how the class dynamic is different with the addition of the law students. “I think they bring a little more maturity,” she says, noting that most M.S.F. students are younger than the typical law student. “My sense from the law school early on in this process is that they feel that these are really some of their best students. It is an interesting mix—I have 41 M.S.F.s and four J.D./M.S.F.s.”

The four inaugural students see the value in having a master of finance degree as well as a law degree. Over the summer, Saunders completed a 10-week law internship with BakerHostetler in Cleveland. He worked on a variety of projects, including work involving project finance, mergers and acquisition, buyouts and IPOs. He feels that the J.D./M.S.F. will increase his knowledge and allow him to further relate to clients.

“Clients with law firms like lawyers that understand their business,” he says. “That was apparent to me even as a summer intern. The hard finance knowledge will really be valuable.”

Over its four decades, Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management has produced hundreds of leaders in functions and industries all over the globe. Meet seven of them in the CEO circle.

David N. Farr, Chairman and CEO, Emerson

Class of 1981
Age: 59
Residence: St. Louis
Education: B.S., Wake Forest University; MBA, Vanderbilt
Married to alumna Lelia Farr, MBA’80, two children

David Farr has been chief executive officer of Emerson, a $25 billion diversified global manufacturing and technology company, since 2000 and chairman since 2004. He joined the company in 1981 and soon earned increasingly significant responsibilities. He served as the company’s manager of investor relations, vice president of corporate planning and development, president of its Ridge Tool business unit, and group vice president for its industrial components and equipment business. After several years as the Hong Kong-based president of Emerson Asia-Pacific and CEO of Emerson’s Astec joint venture, he returned to St. Louis as executive vice president directing Emerson’s process management business. Two years later, he became senior executive vice president and chief operating officer, responsible for the firm’s global operations, and was appointed CEO one year later. Farr also served as Emerson’s president from 2005 to 2010.

Doug Parker, CEO, American Airlines Group

Class of 1986
Age: 52
Residence: Dallas
Education: B.A., Albion College; MBA, Vanderbilt
Married, three children

Doug Parker became CEO of American Airlines following the merger of US Airways and American in 2013. The newly formed carrier, headquartered in Fort Worth, Texas, is currently the world’s largest airline, operating an average of nearly 6,700 flights daily to 339 cities in 54 countries. Parker is a vocal proponent of airline consolidation, which, he argues, brings more financial stability and competitiveness to the industry. Prior to the merger with American, he was chairman and CEO of US Airways, which experienced record revenue growth under his leadership. In 2005, Parker oversaw the merger between US Airways and America West Airlines, where he had been chairman, president and CEO since 2001. Other professional highlights include four years with Northwest Airlines, where he had two vice president roles, and an earlier five-year stint with American Airlines, which hired him in 1986 after he graduated from Vanderbilt.

Josué Gomes da Silva, Chairman and CEO, Coteminas

Class of 1989
Age: 50
Residence: Sao Paulo, Brazil
Education: M.E., Universidade Federal De Minas Gerais; L.L.B., Faculdade Milton Campos; MBA, Vanderbilt
Married, two children

Josué Gomes da Silva is chairman and CEO of Coteminas, the biggest textile group in Latin America and a leading bed and bath home fashion products company with more than 15,000 employees and manufacturing operations throughout the Western Hemisphere. He joined Coteminas as chief financial officer in 1989 and became CEO in 1993. Under his leadership, the company expanded internationally, diversified and increased its production, developed strategic alliances with suppliers in Asia, and acquired Springs Global, a worldwide leader in the towels and bedding segment. Gomes da Silva also directed Coteminas in deepening vertical integration to encompass all steps of cotton production and finishing. In 2009, Coteminas started its own retail distribution and today has a complete and integrated supply chain from cotton to the end consumer. Gomes da Silva is also the founder and chairman of the board of Cantagalo General Grains S.A., a company with operations in production, commercialization and logistics of grains.

 

Maria Renz, CEO, Quidsi

Class of 1996
Age: 46
Residence: New York City
Education: B.S., Drexel University; MBA, Vanderbilt
Married to alumnus Thomas Barr, MBA’98, two children

Maria Renz was named CEO of Amazon.com’s Quidsi, a family of 10 online retail sites including diapers.com, soap.com and vinemarket.com, in July 2013. An experienced online retail executive, Renz had been Amazon’s vice president of physical media and was also responsible for Amazon’s Canadian business. In those roles, she directed the parent company’s on-site customer experience; handled merchandising, buying, inventory and marketing for books, movies, music, video games and software; and led Amazon.ca. She has held a variety of leadership positions since joining Amazon in 1999, including managing the company’s consumables group, launching popular categories such as beauty, health and personal care and grocery, and leading its marketing communications department. As marketing director, Renz made the monumental 2011 recommendation to forgo a yearlong ad campaign in favor of offering a new supersaver shipping program—today an Amazon staple. Previously, she held positions at Kraft Foods Inc., Hallmark Cards Inc. and Nelson & Associates.

Martin S. Craighead, Chairman and CEO, Baker Hughes Incorporated

Class of 1998
Age: 54
Residence: The Woodlands, Texas (Houston area)
Education: B.S., Pennsylvania State University; International Executive MBA, Vanderbilt
Married, two children

Since joining oilfield services giant Baker Hughes 28 years ago, Martin Craighead has held a broad range of roles—from technical to operational to executive—before being named chairman and chief executive officer in 2012. Craighead began in the oil industry as a research engineer, then joined Baker Hughes’ predecessor Dresser Atlas in technical sales. He served in a variety of operational and leadership roles in North America, Latin America and Asia Pacific. Prior to his current role, he was president and chief operating officer of the $22 billion global organization, which has 59,000 employees working in more than 80 countries.

Rochelle Weitzner, CEO, Erno Laszlo

Class of 1999
Age: 45
Residence: New York City
Education: B.S.M., Tulane University Freeman School of Business; Executive MBA, Vanderbilt
Partnered

Rochelle Weitzner took over as CEO of luxury skin care brand Erno Laszlo in 2014 after serving as chief operating officer. She is responsible for directing all aspects of the legendary business in its continuing global expansion. Prior to joining Erno Laszlo, Weitzner was the chief financial officer for Gurwich Products, the international skin care company best known for its Laura Mercier and RéVive brands. In that role, she oversaw the organization’s global finance and accounting functions and directed its fiscal business initiatives. She was also responsible for Gurwich’s information technology, legal and administrative teams. Weitzner spent 19 years in a variety of leadership positions for International Paper, where she held vice president roles for $1 billion businesses within the group and where she was the youngest person and first woman to serve as CFO, responsible for finance, human resources, IT and administration for one of the company’s Paris-based operations.

Tim Murray, CEO, Aluminium Bahrain (Alba)

Class of 2003
Age: 43
Residence: Kingdom of Bahrain
Education: B.S., Susquehanna University; Executive MBA, Vanderbilt
Married, two children

Tim Murray moved his career and family to the Middle East in 2007 when he joined Alba, one of the world’s top aluminium producers, as general manager, finance and legal. Within a few years, he rose to be chief finance and supply officer, then chief financial officer, chief marketing officer and in October 2012, CEO. Murray weds U.S.-style management with respect for Middle Eastern culture as he oversees a workforce of nearly 3,000 for one of the Middle East’s largest industrial companies. In addition to managing Alba’s initial public offering on the London and Bahrain stock exchanges, Murray has overseen safety improvements, launched new initiatives and directed operations that resulted in record-breaking annual sales of $1.993 billion U.S. for 2013. Before joining Alba, Murray spent 10 years at ARC Automotive, most recently as vice president and chief financial officer.

Leadership is as much art as science. Its components can be studied, but to see it in practice is to develop an appreciation for the intangibles that turn those components into success. In training not just executives but leaders, Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management has long provided both practical and personal lessons.

Vanderbilt was pivotal in the lives of each of these alumni. What they drew from their experience is as varied as their personalities and backgrounds, but all built on their time at Owen while advancing careers that are challenging and successful.

Flight Plan on Course

Paul Jacobson, MBA’97
Executive Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, Delta Air Lines

Career Path Milestones:
Senior VP of Finance, Treasurer, Financial Analyst, Delta

The best career decision Paul Jacobson ever made, he says, was “ignoring Peter Veruki’s advice.”

There may be a touch of humor in Jacobson’s statement about the legendary former head of Owen’s career center, but the story is indicative of the way Jacobson has always dealt with roadblocks to his dreams. New at Vanderbilt, he met with Veruki and the placement staff “to tell them that my goal was to get a job with an airline. Peter spent two years trying to talk me out of it, saying I should think about Wall Street.”

But Jacobson had dreamed of flying since boyhood, and when childhood asthma and a lack of resources grounded that goal early on, the goal of working for an airline took its place. By the time he got to Owen, he had earned his pilot’s license and a degree in aviation management from Auburn. When the closest aviation job he could find was with McDonnell Douglas in St. Louis, he decided, “getting an MBA would open some doors.”

Owen did just that.

“I learned a lot about finance and accounting, but most important, how to think critically,” he says. “On the softer side, with such a small class and collaborative culture, I learned a lot about working in teams. That’s not a skill everyone has.”

He also learned from Clinical Professor of Management Fred Talbott’s communications class. “To this day,” he says, “the most nerve-racking project I have ever undertaken was his five-minute stand-up comedy routine. I’ve never felt more exposed.”

Lifelong overcomer

While Veruki’s warning had some merit (“I still owe him one for bringing down the average salary from that class at first,” Jacobson says), Jacobson landed at Delta, starting as a $40,000-a-year financial analyst. He was the firm’s treasurer at 33 and its chief financial officer at 40.

His rise to CFO, he says, came in part because he followed a passion for capital markets, learning enough to make himself invaluable and a natural for the post. “I like to say that they promoted me by default,” he says.

As a lifelong overcomer, he is grateful for the bad as well as the good the job has offered.

“It’s not about achieving perfection,” he says. “It’s about getting things done and steadily improving. I spend a lot of time with the new MBAs at Delta each year. I try to instill patience into them. Everyone is looking for rapid advancement and is often chasing titles. I try to tell them that it is the experience you are getting that is going to get you ahead in the long term, and to try to stay focused on that.”

Major challenge

“The stakes were never higher than when we were taking the company through the bankruptcy process,” Jacobson says. “I was fortunate to be part of a laser-focused team with a clear strategy for turning the company around. I came out of the process with a much deeper sense of capital stewardship, and it has helped fuel our desire to change the history of this company and the industry that it is in.”

These days, when he talks about Veruki’s advice and his own humble start at Delta, he adds a qualifier—“I graduated first in my class for getting exactly what I wanted out of a Vanderbilt degree.” The lessons of his life figure prominently in his worldview and the things he passes along to those setting out on their own paths.

“There’s just something about following your passion,” he says, “that will always lead to happiness.”

The Thing That Gets You Excited

Adena Friedman, MBA’93
President, Global Corporate, Information, and Technology Solutions, NASDAQ

Career Path Milestones:
Chief Financial Officer, The Carlyle Group
CFO/Vice President for Corporate Strategy, NASDAQ

“The key to great leadership is that you don’t pretend to know every answer,” says Adena Friedman, president of global corporate, information, and technology solutions, NASDAQ in Washington, D.C. “If you’ve got the right voices around you and you’re listening to them, you don’t have to feel alone in making decisions, even when they’re staring at you.”

That mix of discernment and experience were part of her Vanderbilt education, reinforced particularly, she says, by Professor of Management David Rados. “He was our case study professor in marketing and he was a very hard teacher—just cutthroat—and I loved it. You had to be prepared. We did product management, which I ended up doing for the vast majority of my career.”

It was a key component of a period made all the more important by the fact that she was fresh out of college.

“What Owen got was a very enthusiastic, somewhat opinionated, higher-energy person,” she says, “and what they pushed out the door was a business-oriented thinker able to turn soft skills into hard skills and apply them to an industry I really wanted to go into.”

From researcher to CFO

Friedman joined NASDAQ, rising from researcher to CFO in 18 years. Key challenges came when she was given NASDAQ’s $100 million data business (which grew to $250 million) and then oversight of corporate strategy as well.

“Suddenly I’ve got to find a way to bolster the trading business and expand in new ways. I started looking at merger and acquisition candidates on the trading side, which I’d never done before,” she says. “Our CEO, Bob Greifeld, put a lot of faith me and it was a lot of fun.”

She was key in the acquisition of Brut, a relatively small but important electronic trading system, and of INET.

During her time there, NASDAQ failed in attempting a hostile takeover of the London Stock Exchange, which she views as a key learning experience. “We learned a great deal about political and cultural sensitivities in addition to the structural complexities,” she says. “That helped us do better the next time around when we purchased OMX, which was a far more strategically aligned asset than London would have been.”

Chaos and decisions

She faced trial by fire when NASDAQ realigned its business following collusion charges after a 1994 study by Owen professor Bill Christie and Notre Dame’s Paul Schultz indicated that the exchange’s market makers inflated trading profits. Friedman was among seven of 14 vice presidents retained in the reorganization in a period marked by increased workloads and chaos.

“I asked my mentor what I should do. Should I stay?” she says. “He said, ‘You’re a survivor. Why would you leave now? The best days are in front of you.’ He was totally right.”

She did stay at NASDAQ and rose to CFO. She left NASDAQ in 2011 to serve as CFO of The Carlyle Group, but recently returned to NASDAQ. As president of the exchange’s information services, technology solutions and corporate client group business segments, Friedman directs strategy and operations, as well as has financial responsibility for those businesses.

Her experience prompts two pieces of advice for current students.

“Take a chance,” she says. “Don’t be afraid to try something new and different even without a clear understanding of the path it might take you down. Find the thing that gets you excited and it will probably take you in the right direction.

“And don’t be too greedy too young. Don’t turn down an opportunity because it doesn’t give you enough money right away. I probably took down the salary average for Owen in my early years with NASDAQ, but I never regretted it because the opportunities that came my way were terrific.”

Making a Business Leader from an Engineer

Steve Gruver, Executive MBA’01
Co-CEO/Owner, Orchid International

Career Path Milestones:
Manufacturing Engineer, Grumman Allied

Steve Gruver knew the value of mixing school and work. He’d worked for the local Grumman factory while attending high school and the Pennsylvania College of Technology. While earning his bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology, he worked for Grumman through a co-op program.

It was eight years later that Gruver, now running his own business in Mt. Juliet, Tenn., discovered a different mix of school and work. Gruver allowed a group of Vanderbilt Executive MBA students to use his company, Orchid International, as the subject of its final strategy project. He wasn’t prepared for what happened next.

“I worked closely with them,” he says. “I was impressed with them and the tools they were using to analyze our company. The group’s final presentation blew me away. After that experience, I was sold. I needed to try to get into that program.”

Gruver’s 2001 Vanderbilt MBA for Executives turned him from an engineer into a business leader just at the right time.

Irresistible opportunity

After graduation from RIT in 1989, Gruver had overseen manufacturing engineering at Grumman’s South Carolina plant, but was looking for something more.

He found it when he met Grant Bibby, an engineer who had recently started a small automation company. Gruver left Grumman, the two joined forces, and six months later, he was operating Orchid’s U.S. sales office out of his apartment.

“Looking back,” he says, “it does seem like it was a big risk, but at the time, it didn’t. I could not resist the opportunity to grow a business from the ground floor.”

Orchid originally provided custom automation. The firm designed and built quick die change systems for smaller presses and tooling, primarily in the appliance industry, then moved into other automation for metal stamping.

“Soon we were designing, building and installing large-scale automation systems for major automotive manufacturers,” he says. In 1994, the firm acquired a metal stamping operation and moved it to Tennessee. The facility attracted the team of Owen students and led to Gruver’s own Executive MBA.

Immediately applicable

When he applied to Owen, Gruver’s metal stamping and automation company was dealing with investors, acquisitions and an eventual realignment. “The majority of my time was spent growing and managing the business,” he says. “An executive MBA program made good sense.” Eventually, three other Orchid executives earned Vanderbilt business degrees as well.

“It was challenging to balance the workload, but immediately applying what I learned made the process very enjoyable and rewarding,” he says of his Vanderbilt education. “The class was divided into small groups. As a team, we worked very well together and the team provided a support system to get us through the difficult and challenging times.”

He says the knowledge gained through Ray Friedman’s Organizational Behavior, Germain Böer’s Cost Accounting and a strategy project with Rick W. Oliver was especially valuable. “Understanding accounting principles was extremely important as a business owner,” he says. “Germain had a way to teach this in very simple and basic terms that made sense.”

In 2004, Orchid sold its automation business to focus on metal stamping. The 2008 economic downturn further focused its business and prompted use of the skills and teamwork Gruver had polished at Owen.

“It forced us to consolidate and get very lean,” he says. “We had reached $180 million in sales with 800 employees. We scaled back and consolidated work to just two locations in the U.S., with $70 million in sales and three hundred employees.” Today Orchid is more product-focused and further diversifying its customer/industry base to be less affected by industry economic downturns.

“My biggest takeaway on my career journey is my appreciation and recognition for the people I met along the way and for the people who support our business,” Gruver says. “There is such power within a group of people working together toward a common goal. People have ideas and ambitions and want to contribute and make a difference.”

The Leader She Chose To Be

Cindy Kent, MBA’99, MDiv’01
President and General Manager, Drug Delivery Systems Division, 3M Health Care

Career Path Milestones:
GM and Vice President Gastro/Uro Therapies, Medtronic,
Marketing Manager, Eli Lilly

Cindy Kent was prepared to begin work on dual post-graduate degrees in law and business when her career services director at Eli Lilly called her into his office. Kent had turned her industrial engineering degree into early success with Lilly and now she was ready to take a big step forward. The meeting came after the company put her through a battery of assessments.

She recalls that he said her tests showed she had all the right skills to succeed in their executive program, but that her empathy component was off the charts.

“Have you ever considered the seminary?’” he asked.

There’s no way I can do three degrees, she thought. So she decided to set aside law school.

The senior vice president of human resources later told her, “We think this MBA/divinity combination will nurture your leadership. People follow you and we believe your religious leanings will make you a better leader overall, not just a better business leader.”

Kent looked at several schools before choosing Vanderbilt. “When I visited other campuses, everyone told me how competitive they were, how cognizant they were of the rankings,” Kent recounts. “We didn’t have that as much at Owen. It was a nurturing environment where I could learn and thrive as it shaped me as a business leader.”

She calls the workload of pursuing dual degrees “maddening”—and says she regrets missing out on socializing—but the workload made her the first ever to earn the dual MBA/divinity degree at Vanderbilt.

No casualties

She is proudest not of her rapid advancement at Lilly and then Medtronic, but rather that her success was “never because I left casualties in the wake. I think my dual degree and the fact that I was at Owen at all was a reflection of the type of leader I have chosen to be.”

Always one to embrace work-related challenges, Kent wrestled instead with career changes.

“Some of the hardest and best decisions I ever made involved leaving jobs and companies I absolutely loved to take new jobs and get new skills in my toolbox,” she says. “I didn’t leave because I was mad or because I wasn’t getting what I wanted or needed. I just realized I was way too comfortable (or perhaps even a bit bored at times), and that’s my signal that I’m probably ready for a change. Part of that is, ‘Do you want to be a good leader in that specific setting or do you want to be a great business leader in general?’ If it’s the latter, then it may require different experiences that your current role cannot provide.

That wider calling has taken Kent into the community and prompted her to nurture the leadership potential in others.

Balance of business and divinity

“I spend significant amount of time mentoring others,” she says. She got involved with the Girl Scouts, high school mentoring and STEM programs in her 20s as an opportunity to lead and mentor girls and young women. Currently, she and her husband are establishing a charitable giving fund, and Kent remains active in the ministry as well.

She is looking always for the kind of balance she was able to bring to the seemingly disparate degrees of business and divinity, balance she began practicing at Vanderbilt.

“Metaphorically, at least, I kept my Bible close at hand when I was in business school,” she says. “Then, when I was in the Divinity School, I’m there with my calculator. Leadership means being a balanced citizen. Every day we see examples of business leaders who’ve made ethically poor decisions. First on my list of guiding principles—a list that I have kept since my first manager role—is ‘Integrity above all else.’ I have honestly never had to compromise my ethics and personal values. I feel like I’ve been more rewarded and personally satisfied for not compromising.”

Turnaround Man

Geoff Walker, MBA’94
Executive Vice President, Fisher-Price Global Brands Team

Career Path Milestones:
Senior Vice President and General Manager, Mattel Europe
Vice President-Marketing, Wheels, Entertainment and Games divisions, Mattel

As a young marketing executive at Mattel, Geoff Walker found himself heading cross-functional brand teams with senior-level representatives of design, engineering and packaging, among others.

“You don’t have direct authority, but you have the responsibility to drive the business,” he says. “How well you do that defines how successful you’ll be. I was able to develop unique management skills while at Owen; much of your success there is based on how well you work with teams, since the case work and projects are mostly team-based.”

Hot Wheels to Europe

That was just one of the ways Owen helped prepare Walker for a career track that now has him leading worldwide strategy and development for Mattel’s Fisher-Price division. The turning point in his career was an international assignment. Following success in turning around the Hot Wheels brand, he was given a major new challenge and moved to Europe.

“Even though it was considered a lateral move, going there was the best decision. The role really stretched me,” he says. “I dealt with the nuts and bolts of running a business from core, developed markets like the U.K. to opening Russia and growing emerging markets in Eastern Europe. It got me out of my comfortable marketing zone. Ultimately, it taught me a lot about owning who I am as a leader.”

The task was as challenging as anything he had ever undertaken, but it suited his personality.

“I’m aggressive,” he says. “I make bets, and while I don’t mind failing, I love to develop a culture of winning with people who will also take risks. Some people want to work on the brands that are growing. I want to be on the turnaround brands. They are a lot more rewarding and fun.”

Beyond child’s play

His current position pulls together the marketing and product development culture from Mattel headquarters in El Segundo, Calif., and the cross-functional leadership he practiced in Europe. With Fisher-Price in a turnaround mode, Walker has already set in motion three key strategies for the company: designing more innovative products, making the Fisher-Price brand more meaningful to the millennial mom and globalizing the brand. “About 65 percent of the company’s sales now come from the U.S., but the majority of growth is going to be fueled outside the U.S.,” he says.

Walker’s career has included successes in virtually every aspect of the company’s toy and game businesses. He cites the business basics he learned at Vanderbilt as an asset he has applied throughout his career.

“You have to deal with a wide variety of situations when running a business,” he says, “and as you encounter complex problems that require clear or creative thinking, you’ll find yourself drawing from the strong foundation you acquired through the coursework and classmate interaction at Owen.”

His advice? “Seek as many experiences as you can.”

We invited five alumni across four decades to participate in a roundtable discussion about leadership. We asked one question: What did you learn about leadership at Owen? The conversation went like this:

On collaboration

Jim Rodrigues: Effective leadership is almost an intangible of being able to get people—whether it’s your peer group or people who report to you—to follow you, follow instructions and understand. In my opinion, it’s got to be collaborative, not a directive.

Erika Bogar King: Right, you want leadership to be effortless. You want it to be collaborative, for it to be a team effort versus a power effort.

Derek Young: From my standpoint, the best leaders are those who really are able to take their entire teams and feel like they’ve got them all behind them with everything they’re doing in every way.

Corbette Doyle: It doesn’t matter what your role is. I think that leaders are at all levels of the organization and they influence people to achieve something.

Erika Bogar King: All of us come to MBA school wanting to learn how to conquer the world and how to be CEO one day. You show up and one of your first classes is Leading Teams and Organizations. What that course really teaches you is that there’s such a thing as leadership at all levels. A lot of that, frankly, played out in our two years as we worked with the different people on different teams in each of our different courses.

On trust

Mario Avila: What came to mind were, obviously, influence and being authentic. I think that as leaders we’re constantly challenged—especially when we’re talking to our teams—to make sure that what we ask them to do is authentic. I think the critical point is trust. It’s building trust, having those directives come from an honest place. It’s coaching, and working with people to make sure they’re understanding.

Derek Young: The thing I love about Owen is that we’re a school that, at the end of the day, really puts leaders out there who are trusted. From my standpoint, it’s part of the personality of the school.

Mario Avila: I think it’s also the way this whole program has been structured. You can’t hide here. Talk about trust and building trust! When you’re in a school that only has 170, 180 students within that MBA class, you can’t hide. You have to be yourself so people can trust you so you can all get through.

Corbette Doyle: I think one of the reasons Owen has been able to build that kind of culture is that it “discovered” the importance of groups long before it became the buzzword in most B-schools. Owen’s always had a strong focus on group work and succeeding as a team. Well, it takes a lot of work to learn how to be an effective group member, and learning how to influence without authority is a real skill.

Jim Rodrigues: The theme that I’m hearing is that (the trust and the relational nature of the Owen experience) has given us all confidence. It’s contagious. It allows us to be better at what we do and bring our teams up and foster that kind of similar environment as we had here.

On listening

Jim Rodrigues: Communications is a big part of that—listening to what people want and reaching out. I was given some advice years ago and now I follow it almost to a T: Take your employees out to lunch once a quarter. You learn so much more about your team and what they really need in just listening through 45 minutes, an hour. … You really get your pulse on what’s going on in the organization. To me, it’s not a leadership thing, it’s just listening.

Corbette Doyle: I think listening is a big part of leadership. We talked earlier about the importance of building trust: Well, how do you build trust? As a leader, that’s not an easy thing to do. So taking people out to lunch and having casual conversations is one way to try to bring those barriers down.

On reflection

Corbette Doyle: One of the things that I’ve learned since I left here—and I think current Owen students are learning—is the power of reflection. It’s not just managing down and up if you actually want to be successful. It’s taking a step back and saying, “What did I learn from this, good or bad, and what am I going to do about it going forward?”

Jim Rodrigues: When you are able to reflect, you are able to better communicate and coach your team—whether it’s peers, those working for you or those managing you. I really take it to heart that a leader is one who really looks at the big picture. I think Owen does a really great job of making sure that we do take that step back, look at the big picture and what’s best for you and your progression.

On doing it all

Jim Rodrigues: The higher you go up, the more diverse your skill set has to be because you’re ultimately a sales person for your vision, for the product, for people to believe in themselves at work. You’ve got to be able to do all of it to manage those people. That’s where the diversity of coursework has really made us a stronger alumni group when we go into the workforce.

Erika Bogar King: Recognizing as a leader what your strengths are and then surrounding yourself with people who have the things you don’t is so huge.

Corbette Doyle: As a leader, it’s becoming increasingly critical that we not only have all the things we’ve talked about, but that we also value differences. And I think that learning agility, that ability to be resilient, to be reflective, to learn from your experiences, to be open to other experiences, is critical.

Jim Rodrigues: To be a real leader, you can’t have an ego because you have to communicate with so many people and transition your message to make the same point but make sure it’s heard by every level.

Mario Avila: Until you mentioned this, I didn’t really think about it, but you talk about these circles that are created within Owen. We build these bonds as almost family and we take it to the workplace. We know that’s an effective way to lead an organization.

Derek Young: I do feel like there’s a diversity in what we do here at Owen that makes us unique … it’s a different approach. There’s not an entitlement that comes from graduating from Owen. It’s every day you get out there and you earn it. You earn the respect of those that work for you.

Watch video at vu.edu/owen-leaderrt

Editor’s note: The roundtable discussion was edited for space.

There’s a leader within us that is at odds with our inner elephant. That conflict impacts our growth and ability to lead, says Richard Daft, the Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Professor of Management, Emeritus.

The leader is objective, rational and responsible, while the elephant is emotion-driven, impulsive and habitual. Daft believes that successful leaders must recognize both sides of themselves and use them to be effective.

Daft has studied leadership and business for decades. Going on what he calls a type of spiritual journey to India in 1995, Daft returned with the concept of the inner elephant and inner executive. He explored the tension between the two in his book, The Executive and the Elephant: A Leader’s Guide for Building Inner Excellence. He’s also used it to prepare students for leadership and to help executives looking to vault their leadership skills forward.

In addition to his emeritus role, Daft continues that work in Vanderbilt’s Executive Development Institute, where he teaches the bulk of the courses that make up the Certificate of Leadership Excellence, a popular series of four programs.

An elephant doesn’t forget . . . and that’s bad

Daft says the elephant literally grows from almost the time we’re born.

“When we start interacting with the world, these interactions make an impression on the nervous system, and over a long period of time, we develop a way of responding,” Daft says. “How we respond—that’s the elephant. The other part of us is the executive—our higher consciousness that can see and offer guidance to this elephant and go higher, above the elephant, to have better experiences with people.”

Our inner elephant never forgets—and there lies part of the problem. “We avoid what we’ve found painful and go toward things that we found loving and what feels good,” he says. “Our memory bank guides us. … But what about that person who avoids conflict because he had bad experiences early on? Unfortunately that’s a decent amount of people.”

Leadership begins within

So how do we become more of the executive and less of the animal within?

Daft offers some simple exercises that can help anyone become a better leader. The first is to simply calm your mind. “I tell people to breathe and think clearly,” he says. “They usually have their mind wander within a few seconds. Then they breathe again. Now it takes a little longer before they wander. They try to breathe again … Throughout, it’s the elephant that keeps them from concentrating.”

Another aid is self-talk. “It’s a self-hypnosis,” Daft says. “Take someone who is quiet and doesn’t participate in meetings. You say to yourself 20 times in the morning, ‘I am becoming more outgoing and participating in meetings.’ Then, in the evening, do it 100 times. Lo and behold, in a few days you are rewiring your elephant and participating more. It’s amazing how well it can work.”

Living with the elephant

As much as anything, being a better leader is also about avoiding common blind spots. “The biggest may be when a person is negative to others,” he says. “Some speak strongly and don’t realize how they’re pushing people away. They also tend to want to fight things out. You need to resist this or you’ll have a hard time motivating people.”

Although some change can happen quickly, you can’t expect to transform all your negative traits overnight. Daft has even wrestled with a few of his own.

“For example, I would have sometimes liked to have been more visible on campus,” he says. “I became better at this as time went on, but I know firsthand change doesn’t happen easily. … The funny thing is many executives I’ve met know what they need to do but they find it hard, too.”

One of the world’s most highly cited authors in the fields of economics and business, Daft held the Brownlee O. Currey Jr. Chair in Management and focused on teaching leadership and change management at Owen before being named to emeritus status last year. A fellow of the Academy of Management, he frequently works with corporate executives (his clients have included Bristol-Myers Squibb and the Ford Motor Company) and tested many of the ideas and techniques in The Executive and the Elephant on them. He continues to share his leadership expertise in a series of popular courses in Vanderbilt’s Executive Development Institute.

When students in Vanderbilt’s one-year programs—the master of accountancy, master of finance, and master of accountancy valuation—graduate, they don’t just enter the workforce with business skills and expertise in accounting, accounting valuation or finance—they also leave with powerful leadership skills.

To prepare for what awaits in a rapidly changing workforce, students participate in Owen’s Leadership Development Program, which provides robust assessments of their strengths and weaknesses plus sessions with an independent, certified executive coach.

“We would like to differentiate our program by seeing it not just providing skills for your first job, but providing you with skills that will last over the course of your career,” says Kate Barraclough, the MS Finance program director.

Proven

Part of that success requires being able to lead projects, people or both, regardless of job title. Already, master’s program graduates are demonstrating that they have the skills needed to make a difference in the workplace.

Karl Hackenbrack, associate dean and director of accountancy, points to Amelia Emmert, MAcc’08, who was just promoted to manager at EY—the first MAcc graduate to do so. He believes she will quickly be joined by others. “Her class is the first one to have the tenure to earn the rank of manager,” Hackenbrack says. “No one will ever question her technical, teaming or managerial skills. She’s proven them to earn the position of manager. I see leadership potential in all students or they wouldn’t be in the program.”

In the international public accounting firms, recent hires have an opportunity to showcase skills at the earliest stages of their career.

“Someone has to do the blocking and tackling,” Hackenbrack says of new public accounting hires. “The willingness to be a contributing member of a larger team and knowing your place within that larger team is extremely important.”

“Who is going to do that the next year? That year’s new hire. That’s where the traditional definition of leadership kicks in with public accounting: You’ll never do this task again. You’ll train someone to do the task that you did last go-round. These teams are structured so that an important part of your job is training the person coming in behind you.”

It’s apparent in the workplace that Vanderbilt MAcc graduates possess those abilities. Hackenbrack recounts a story told to him by a student whose father is a partner at a Big Four firm. She said that during her internship, she could recognize other Vanderbilt MAcc alums by the way they acted on the job.

Vanderbilt MAcc alumni, Hackenbrack notes, are characterized by their professionalism, strong client and team skills and maturity. “The career development program is recognizable in the workplace,” Hackenbrack says. “I’m sure some of that is recruiting the right people in the first place, but a lot has to do with the professional development programming that occurs on campus.”

A world of possibilities

Barraclough says that the leadership and career development work for Vanderbilt MS Finance students includes building skills that can be applied to jobs in different facets in the industry. “With MS Finance, we’re helping them identify what they want to do and what makes it a good career choice,” Barraclough says of the intensive nine-month program. “We help them understand who they are as professionals and how knowing their strengths helps them be more effective and successful as team members and as leaders in the workplace.”

An individualized approach runs throughout Owen’s Leadership Development Program, no matter the degree, says Amy Lambert, MBA’04, senior manager of the program. Lambert works with students in the young professional tracks directly.

“The way that we have approached leadership development at Owen in general has been to meet each student where they are as an individual, no matter where they are in their career path,” Lambert says. “Regardless of where they are headed, we help them capture the building blocks to start working toward to that long-term future.”

It’s a four-minute walk down 21st Avenue South from Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management to the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine.

While the two schools once seemed worlds apart, an increasingly vital partnership has resulted in degree programs, hands-on learning and collaborative research projects that seek to educate the health care leaders of the future and help answer the burning question for today’s medical providers: How do we do more with less?

Massive challenges face health care systems across the country. The Vanderbilt University Medical Center alone has been challenged to make $250 million in budget cuts in less than two years, yet still maintain the high quality of care, innovation and research for which it has become known.

“The future of health care is going to be in answering the question, ‘How do we effectively deliver the care that’s needed to an aging and growing population and do it with less resources?’” says R. Lawrence “Larry” Van Horn, associate professor of management and executive director of health affairs for Owen. “The answer to that is not a silver bullet. It’s the blocking and tackling of running a business efficiently, and that’s an opportunity for a business school and a medical school to partner together.”

Owen has already built a foundation in helping future health care leaders understand the science behind health care management. Dr. Oran Aaronson, a neurosurgeon who just completed Owen’s master of management in health care in May, is putting that business science to work as the new director of the Vanderbilt Spine Center.

“You know the joke, this is not brain surgery? Well (management) is, and it’s different and it’s hard,” Aaronson says. “These are very specialized skills that you need and they are very important skills to have now. Health care is one of the most complicated systems out there.”

Productive agents for change

Challenges in health care management are not going away. Neither is the Affordable Health Care Act, something practitioners and politicians alike should “accept and move on,” Van Horn says.

A desire to more effectively train the next generation of clinician leaders among the already time-strapped health care professionals at Vanderbilt University Medical Center led to the formation of Vanderbilt’s Master of Management in Health Care program in 2008.

“We started about five or six years ago knowing we needed to develop a training program for midlevel managers to improve their knowledge and their sophistication,” says C. Wright Pinson, MD’80, deputy vice chancellor for health affairs and CEO of the Vanderbilt Health System. “We had always sent a lot of employees out of Vanderbilt for coursework. Creating the MMHC was a way for us to invest in our own management team as well as our employees’ personal development.”

“The amazing thing is that we had a conversation in October, and by the following June, we had our first class enrolled,” Pinson marvels. “It’s a statement of the need that we had and a statement that both the Medical Center and Owen were very responsive.”

The master of management in health care is a one-year graduate degree program designed especially for managers, health care practitioners and executives in health care organizations. Through intensive classes one night a week and one weekend a month, the program delivers the fundamentals of business with a focus on developing interdisciplinary leadership and robust management skills.

The program has graduated five classes with an average of 30 students in each. Many are Vanderbilt employees, but an increasing number of students in each class—as much as a third—come from outside health care organizations. That diversity contributes to the richness of the classroom experience.

“As more years pass and as more have the experience, the better it gets,” says Pinson, who earned his MBA in 1976 before entering medical school, an unusual path for those times.

“We’re not only investing in ourselves but other people’s future,” he says. “We are looking for people who can make innovative changes and resolve difficult issues. Some of those may be huge and dramatic and major, nationally. A lot of it will be small and incremental. We are asking these individuals who take an interest in business training to shape the future.”

Clinician leaders

Receiving her master of management in health care was “a dream come true” for Barbara Sanders, MMHC’12, who worked as a nurse for many years before jumping into MMHC classes.

“Returning to school after being in the workforce for many years, you wonder if you’re going to be able to keep up, but honestly, it was the most fun and challenging year of my life,” Sanders says. As director of perioperative administration for Vanderbilt University Medical Center, she is involved in capital and strategic planning, operation redesign, and construction and renovation project management.

Sanders says she found immediate benefits to the Owen coursework by using a more analytical and leaner thought process to solve problems and achieve results in real time.

“When we renovate or create ORs, I’m now looking at projects in different ways,” she says. “What are the things we can standardize? How can we have what we need and remain cost-efficient? How do we create an experience that is streamlined for the patient?”

Recent graduate Aaronson is also associate professor of neurological surgery and residency program director for the Department of Neurological Surgery.

“My message that I’m already delivering to my residents is: ‘We are working toward a common goal. It’s not us against them,’” Aaronson says. “We have to consider whether we are really delivering care to the patient that’s not just good for the patient but also cost-effective.”

Today’s health care delivery is exceptionally complex and medical professionals need to understand better those complexities. Physicians will need to learn to work in teams and learn from all disciplines, including management, he says. “The people who are driving this today have to communicate clearly. They have to get people on board. Otherwise, it’s not going to happen,” Aaronson says.

The business of health care

MBA students who want to focus on the vibrant and growing business of health care benefit from Vanderbilt’s medical excellence and Nashville’s status as a health care capital. The full-time Health Care MBA provides the basics of business education along with immersion coursework and experiences specific to health care management. Launched in July 2005, it graduates about 29 students each year.

A new facet of the degree is the Health Care MBA Residency program, which provides opportunities for Vanderbilt MBA students to engage in actual problem-solving situations for local health care organizations.

The residency provides the organizations with students who plan and develop in-depth projects. The Health Care MBA students work with the health care organizations on a weekly basis during the spring and then full-time in the summer. If needed, they perform follow-up work through the fall months.

The program started with a phone call between Van Horn and Derek Anderson, director of transformation and innovation for Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt.

“We had this talent pool sitting there,” Anderson says. “That was really the motivation. We felt we could give them an opportunity to really sink their teeth into something.”

Current residency partners include Community Health Systems, Heritage Group, Quorum Health Resources, Vanderbilt Transplant Center, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Vanguard Health Systems and the Children’s Hospital.

On-time surgery improvement

Cody Schmits, MBA’11, was one of the first residency interns. His project centered on surgical scheduling for outpatient services at the Children’s Hospital, working with physician and nurse leaders to get the first patients of the day into surgery suites more quickly.

Schmits laid the procedural groundwork that led to on-time, first-case starts improving to nearly 95 percent. Previously, they had been about 15 percent, Anderson says. Improving on-time first-case starts saves money, increases efficiency and reduces delays for other patients throughout the day.

Schmits enrolled in the Health Care MBA program to help transition from a career in engineering and construction. He now works in health care consulting through Atlanta-based North Highland Worldwide Consulting.

Anderson points out that the residencies are not shadowing. “This is hands-on,” Anderson says. The residencies also allow the students to learn if health care is truly a match for them. “They just don’t come and analyze data. We’re interested in making change happen. And that’s work.”

Both physician and MBA

Within the past three years, Vanderbilt’s MD/MBA program has seen increased interest among students. Designed to train the next generation of physician leaders in the science of business, the program graduates new physicians who are also MBAs.

Future doctors increasingly recognize the need to know more than just the science of medicine, which may explain the heightened interest in joint degree programs, including the MD/MBA, says Dr. Bonnie Miller, senior associate dean for health sciences education at Vanderbilt School of Medicine.

“To lead in academic medicine, I think we will increasingly find that additional formal training will be necessary to augment clinical training,” Miller says.

“If you’re really interested in leadership, maybe there’s not a better time. We’re really turning the Titanic. We’ve got an unsustainable system and we’re trying to rapidly change it into something more effective and more efficient, and we need people to take leadership roles.”

An average of four students complete the MD/MBA program at Vanderbilt each year. Miller would like to see that trend continue, with more students entering the program with the intent to pursue the joint degree.

MD/MBA students become “a cohort within a cohort,” taking an extra year between the third and fourth years of medical school to concentrate on business disciplines. Their electives, research projects and outside interests gear toward business offerings as well.

Different perspectives

First-year emergency medicine resident Ryan Fritz admitted he never considered pursuing a joint degree when he first entered medical school. Fritz, MD’13, MBA’13, worked in management consulting for several years after college. “I felt like I already had that experience,” Fritz says.

But during medical school clinical rotations, he became interested in the inefficiencies of health care. “It doesn’t take long to see there’s a ton of waste and a ton of inefficiencies. It’s understandable, but it exists,” he says.

“As a medical student, you learn a lot of basic sciences and pathology and how to treat patients, but little of economics and policy. I began to see there would be a lot of value in understanding that,” Fritz says. “You don’t need to have an MBA to be a better leader in medicine, but it certainly is a great start.”

Alon Peltz, who received his dual medical and MBA degrees from Vanderbilt in 2012, says his business training has already transformed his approach to clinical work.

“My viewpoint now is, ‘How can we, in the context of improving clinical care for this patient, also think of the systems issues behind it?’” says Peltz, now in the second year of a three-year pediatrics residency at Boston Children’s Hospital and Boston Medical Center.

“I sometimes wonder how I would have perceived this (residency experience) had I not had the business education I had at Owen. And I wonder what that lens would have looked like, because this one is so different. In a way, I don’t think I could go back to the old one,” he says. “It’s fair to say my approach to medical care is very much shaped by my experience in business school.”

At Boston, Peltz has embarked on a quality improvement study, working with a group of medical students conducting a root-cause analysis to determine why certain patient populations do not adhere to follow-up appointments.

“This is a small part of many quality improvement initiatives here but it is nice to contribute clinically as well as administratively,” he says.

In addition to classes, medicine and business students have the opportunity to explore outside research with professors, something that Peltz and Fritz pursued. The university also has numerous organizations, such as the student-run Medicine and Business Interest Group and Vanderbilt Health Care Club, as well as the Vanderbilt Health Care Improvement Group, an interprofessional community of Vanderbilt education, management, medicine and nursing students.

Having business-minded students in medical school classes contributes a great deal to the learning atmosphere, Miller says.

“Students learn from each other so much,” she says. “We talk about diversity a lot in the School of Medicine. What we really want are diverse skill sets and interests. Maybe not everyone can get an MBA, but everyone else can benefit from those who do.”

Core expertise

The strength of the overall Owen, School of Medicine and Medical Center partnerships is also buoyed by faculty who delve into the complex issues of the day with research projects.

Research ranges from improving quality of care by reducing inefficiency to the impact of industry consolidation on health care. Other projects consider patient satisfaction as well as the Affordable Care Act’s effect on implementation of electronic records (see sidebar, Researching Health Care).

It’s not surprising that Owen faculty are drawn to issues regarding health care. The region has a robust health care industry—one of the first for-profit hospital corporations was birthed here—and Vanderbilt ranks in the nation’s top 10 in National Institutes of Health funding.

“Nashville is the capital of health care delivery. That’s very much what we market and sell here,” Van Horn says.

The core expertise from Vanderbilt’s medicine and management partnership is spilling out into the Nashville community. This year marked the inaugural class of Nashville Health Care Council Fellows, co-directed by Van Horn and Dr. William H. Frist, a physician and former U.S. Senate majority leader. The annual initiative is designed to identify, nurture and engage Nashville’s next generation of health care leaders.

“Nashville couldn’t be a better environment for this kind of training,” Pinson says. Owen’s degree programs and partnerships between Vanderbilt’s business and medical sides challenge tomorrow’s leaders to devise new ways to solve current and future issues.

Dean Eric Johnson, who researches how information technology can improve health care quality and reduce cost, sees endless opportunities for future partnerships between management and medicine. Discussions with his colleagues in the Medical Center began almost immediately after his arrival at Owen.

“They rightly realize there is a lot of opportunity and it’s time to seize it,” he says. “We’re already dreaming about the next big thing we can do.”

What would you do if you were out with your family one day and suddenly you found yourself in the middle of a personal horror and an international news story? Where would you be, physically and reflectively, nine months later?

Kevin White, MBA’10, can tell you.

Kevin and his parents were enjoying the day at the Boston Marathon on April 15 when bombs exploded and 264 people were severely injured—tragically, some fatally. All three Whites were injured and hospitalized. Kevin’s father, 72-year-old Bill White, ended up losing his right leg. In the days to come, they experienced media attention, interviews and even a visit from President Barack Obama.

Today, the family—with the support of their neighbors and friends, the people of Boston and the Owen and Vanderbilt communities—is moving forward. Kevin White says they believe that this year’s events have put their lives in different perspective. While they are still adjusting to challenges, they are positive about their future and are making great steps in recovery.

“This experience has given me the opportunity to step back from what I was doing, and ask if this is what I want to continue doing,” he says. “It’s like someone asking you, ‘What do you want to be when you grow up?’

“If we were five feet in another direction that day, we might not be here. If we were five minutes earlier or later, none of this would have happened,” he says. “But you can’t dwell on all the ifs in your life.”

Healing and reassessment

Recognizing that other families have been devastated by the event, that lives were lost, and the best must be made out of a terrible situation, Kevin says, “we have to reassess our goals and priorities and who we are as people going forward.”

Prior to the bombing, Kevin worked for a private equity firm in Chicago (focused, ironically enough, on distress situations). Feeling the need for a change, he left the firm in late 2012, and returned to Massachusetts, where he grew up. In the days leading up to April 15, he had been doing some private equity consulting work.

Kevin, who was the least injured of the family, sustained damage to his arms, shins and thighs. He tore ligaments in his hips, and still has pieces of metal in his system that will work their way out over time. His mother, Mary Jo, broke a wrist and rib, and also sustained damage to her legs, but her main injuries have healed.

As for his father, Kevin says, “he’s walking around pretty good right now” with a new prosthetic leg. “His progress is pretty astounding, in terms of getting comfortable with it. He’s getting to know his limits and boundaries and navigating walking again. Mentally, he’s very sharp,” the younger White says. “I wouldn’t say he’s excited, but he’s very happy to be home from the hospital. He was getting very tired of the food … He’s very engaged in starting ‘Life 2.0.’”

Now after his own recovery and helping his parents regain their health, Kevin is re-evaluating. “I’ve kind of had to reassess my career, and think about, ‘What makes you happy?’ contrasted to, ‘What are you good at?’” he says. Those are questions he’s still considering.

Focused on positive outcomes

Kevin won’t say much about the media coverage of the event or the bombers, stating only that his family is more focused on the future and the other survivors. When he thinks of positive experiences, he notes a few that stand out.

First is the way his parents’ community of about 2,500 people sponsored a 5K fundraising run to help with medical expenses for those injured. “It was a way for the town to express its support, not just for our family but for those who have been impacted by any type of hardship. The community realized it was one of them that was hurt. My father used to coach soccer in town, and all the people my age knew him because he had coached them,” Kevin says. “I think it was a way for people to understand that this could happen to any of us.”

Second, he says, was a realization of how truly special the Owen community is. Of all the well wishes and donations, Kevin was particularly floored by the response from those connected to Owen and his time here.

“One of the things Owen really fosters is the sense of community,” he says. “While that phrase can sometimes be a cliché, I can be a testament to the reality. The outreach from my class, the class above me, the class below me, from people connected to Owen and Vanderbilt I’d never even met was remarkable.”

Vanderbilt taught Kevin White much about working with others in pursuit of the same goal, he says—but also about options, responsibility and looking ahead, wherever the next road may lead.

“I’ve learned that there’s more to life than what you think there is,” he says. “But sometimes you have to go out and find it. And if you’re given the chance to find it, you should.”

When David Owens set out to teach a massive open online course (MOOC) with 52,000 registrants across the globe, he knew he was charting new territory. What he didn’t know was that the territory would also include his classes right here at Owen.

Owens, professor of the practice of management and innovation, was one of four professors asked to pioneer Vanderbilt’s participation in Coursera, an online learning platform through which higher education institutions offer MOOCs. Students take the equivalent of a university-level class for free but do not receive credit.

He taught the Coursera class in spring 2013. The class, which will be offered again in 2014, aligns closely with the professor’s Mod 2 Innovation Strategy class as well as his book, Creative People Must Be Stopped.

Owens, who is also faculty director of the Accelerator— Vanderbilt Summer Business Institute, says that what he learned in teaching 52,000 students online has changed how he teaches his in-person Vanderbilt class of 67 students.

Not the usual MOOC

On the surface, the methods of teaching a MOOC are simple. Prepare slides to be the visuals and then digitally record lectures to be viewed online by MOOC participants on their own time. Class interaction happens in online forums. The number of students and their geographic locations vary.

Owens started by trying the basic MOOC tack—recording his lectures, both in class and in a makeshift studio—but found that boring. So the professor of innovation found his own way of improving the online course.

“I went with more high-quality production. It made more work, but made it more interesting and fun,” he says. “It was all-consuming.”

And that was just the creation of the video lectures, which he then edited, incorporating music and slides; a teaching assistant created original artwork. Since Coursera is a for-profit company, the same copyright laws that allow fair use of creative works in the classroom did not apply.

After each Coursera lecture posted, he and teaching assistants would participate in forums with the students. “Every time I went into the forums, I’d see something and go, ‘Wow that’s interesting.’”

Project work was another area in which Owens veered from usual MOOC practice. The Coursera students were offered two options. The first was to view the lectures, participate in forums and take quizzes to receive a certificate. But those who completed an additional project received a certificate with distinction. The tiered certificate—Owens’ idea—was a first for Coursera. About 1,000 students completed the project.

The classroom profits

Understanding how online students applied the course material and built upon insights shared in the forums led Owens to make a change in his MBA classes.

For his on-campus fall Mod 2 course, he assigned students to view his video lectures outside of class. They also read material and took quizzes online. Class time was devoted to working on projects.

“I can tend to projects—which is more my stronger skill—during class time rather than trying to fit them in between classes,” he says. Students benefit from the focused classroom time to work on projects.

Based on the success of the Coursera students’ projects, Owens has also raised his expectations for what Vanderbilt MBA students can accomplish.

Owens says that the Coursera students who chose to do extra work ended up doing amazing projects. “It makes me believe that I’m not challenging students enough. We’ll push ourselves to do more complex projects,” he says. “On the other hand, the goal of the project is the application of the material. It was interesting to see that the problems people in China were having were the same as in the U.S. People in Tierra del Fuego have the same issues of pushing projects ahead. In that way, it was reassuring.”

The international cooperation carried out in the Coursera program has led to another requirement for Vanderbilt MBA students: Each project team now includes at least one international student. Owens says this allows students to “work on the skill of being able to bring people to your problem or issue and getting them committed to it.”

Powerful online discussion

He’s also gained a new appreciation for the power of discussion boards; he had used them previously at Owen but without success. “I’d use one, and two people would post, so I’d stop it. In the online course, all the action was there,” he says. “I saw that it can be powerful if I enforce the use of it, build etiquette around it and tend to it myself.”

Requiring students to participate in the forums is better than inviting them into the classroom discussion, Owens believes.

“Requiring people to post and respond to posts, you can’t hide. I may cold-call a student in class once, and if I see I have made a horrible mistake, I tend to not do that again because of the emotional effect it will have on the class,” he says. Some students are shy, haven’t read the material or are in a bad mood, he says. “In the online forums, when they feel like doing it, they can.”

Owens also believes teaching through Coursera has transformed his lectures forever.

“I’m more careful and aware that there is a lot of power in the slides. If I do a lot of slides, any one slide is a throwaway. But through Coursera, I had to look at every slide to make sure that there was nothing copyrighted and knowing that thousands of people would be looking at it,” he says. “Now I’m aware of the power in that, and in the image, and that I can use it very powerfully or very poorly.

“I think more about using video and audio in class,” he says. “Those are things that help bring classes alive.”