Category Archives: Program News

Alumni Spotlight: Sam Acho

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Sam Acho Headshot

Sam Acho

At Canfield BHP, we have had the privilege of knowing many amazing students who have gone on to be outstanding leaders in their respective fields. Getting to see our students evolve into leaders who not only lead Fortune 500 companies or go on to realize their dream goals but more importantly, change the world, has been our highest honor. The path to being a great leader is not without its struggles. Some of the best leaders that have come out of our program have known failure and understand more than anything, what it means to rise and come out on top at the end. A model who can best represent this story is Canfield BHP alum, Sam Acho.

A UT and Canfield BHP 2010 alum, Sam is notably the recipient of the 2010 Campbell and Wuerffel trophies respectively, a former UT Longhorn outside linebacker, and former NFL pro football player for the Arizona Cardinals, Chicago Bears, Buffalo Bills, and Tampa Bay Buccaneers. In addition to his outstanding resume, Sam is also a writer and author of his new book titled Let the World See You: How to Be Real in a World Full of Fakes. We caught up with Sam to hear about the influence Canfield BHP had on him as a student and how he overcame some of his struggles. Along the way, we learned what inspired him to write his new book, what it means to him, and how his story can help teach you how to be the real you.

Before you read on, if you haven’t seen Sam’s interview with McCombs Associate Dean and Director of Texas Executive Education, Gaylen Paulson, we recommend you watch it first as there is quite a bit of context in that interview to help you follow parts of our blog piece. Click the image below to watch. The video starts at 3:54 as Sam starts to talk about his time at Canfield BHP.

Sam Acho McCombs Event Hero ImageFind Sam Acho’s new book, Let the World See You: How to Be Real in a World Full of Fakes online at Amazon. Continue reading

Internship Spotlight: Sanika Bhave

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Name: Sanika Bhave

Major: Canfield BHP, Plan II Honors, Management Information Systems 

Previous internship: Venture Capital Intern at Crosscut Ventures

Topics of Interest: clean tech, social entrepreneurship, intellectual property law, art history

For students interested in the intersection of business, technology, and social good, Sanika Bhave is a student worth learning from. As a Venture Capital Intern at Crosscut ventures, Sanika had the opportunity to spearhead various projects, from developing LA’s first free regional tech job board to helping run a social impact fund. 

Crosscut is an early-stage fund based out of Santa Monica, California. Because of the pandemic, Sanika worked remotely, but still had the opportunity to learn from leadership and develop skills throughout her summer.

“I worked under Nick Kim, who is the head of platform (at Crosscut),” she said. “Part of what I did was help spearhead Crosscut’s platform initiatives, like making sure our mission, what we stand for, and our past successes are known to the broader tech community.” 

One of the projects she worked on was something called Interchange, LA’s first free regional tech job board. Sanika said the idea behind Interchange was to reduce barriers to entry in the area.

“Silicon Beach is very much a real thing, and we want to retain top tech talent in LA, but also attract people to come to live there,” Sanika said. “The launch of Interchange was really cool. There’s no paywall, no barriers– whether it be income, racial background education, etc. Now (everyone has) a fair shot at being employed by the best and brightest. Working on that was really cool.”

In addition to working on Interchange, Sanika had the opportunity to interact with founders through Crosscut Connect, the central repository used to provide founders support. 

“Last week we had a webinar with Brian Makita, who is the head of performance marketing at Warby Parker,” Sanika said. “We also talked with art portfolio companies and marketing departments about how performance marketing has evolved at Warby Parker since COVID and how those strategies might apply to our portfolios as well.”

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A Big Thank You!

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If you haven’t already noticed, Canfield BHP’s social media presence has been refreshed and updated constantly. We’ve made an effort to provide our students, parents, alumni, and readership the best and most engaging content possible. To accomplish this, we often source fresh ideas from you, our students! However, many times we brainstorm and generate content as a team. By we, I mean the Canfield BHP Student Marketing Team.

Madison Mohns Headshot

Canfield BHP Senior and Social Media Assistant, Madison Mohns

Although we’ve been at it for what feels like a very long time, it’s only been a year since I came along and started working with this incredible team of creative and ingenious people. But the person who kick-started this effort deserves all the praise in the world. That person is, of course, Madison Mohns. She’s a senior this year and will be graduating this month.
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A Return to Lyceum: The Homecoming of Phil Canfield

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Written by Christopher Hotchkiss

Between detailing his choice to attend UT as an undergraduate to giving financial advice to students, Mr. Canfield used his return to the classroom as an opportunity to inspire the students who are currently benefiting from his recent gift to the Canfield Business Honors Program.

Mr. Canfield started by explaining the impact that BHP had on him as a student. As an undergraduate in the honors program, he made lasting friendships and found a community that helped him during his early years in banking. He also described his perspective as a parent and the visit that motivated him to donate so generously to the program. 

Mr. Canfield believed that the BHP lacked the prestige other business schools heralded. He said prospective students often don’t realize the prestige of the program until attending an event or meeting the students, staff, and faculty who make the program so great. 

As the parent of a prospective student, Mr. Canfield attended Discover BHP, our annual welcome weekend event for admitted students. “Discover BHP blew me away,” he said. But he also felt that the reputation of BHP was not where it should be. This realization coupled with his own positive experiences in the program led him to make his naming gift. “If I want to do something for UT, I wanted to do it with BHP,” he said. Continue reading

Event Recap: Leadership Kickoff 2019 by Madison Mohns

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Summer camp dreams don’t die out when you head off to college. This past weekend, 140 CBHP freshmen headed out to Newcombe Tennis Ranch in New Braunfels, Texas for Leadership Kickoff. Freshmen were able to bond as a class all throughout the weekend; sharing meals together, laughing together, singing their lungs out to karaoke together, and even tight roping 50 feet in the air together.

Besides bonding, Leadership Kickoff is really a chance for the new class to gain some leadership skills. Freshmen engage in challenges which are intended to place them in some unexpected situations; testing their communication and getting them used to working on teams.

Henry Bradley (Class of ‘23) reflects on the weekend: “I learned that while I am a strong leader, I can also strive to be a good teammate.” Collaborative learning is a large part of the Canfield Business Honors curriculum and the class of 2023 is already getting a headstart to mastering this skill. Continue reading