Category Archives: Program News

Accenture Leadership Program Application Opening Feb. 1

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BHP students are encouraged to apply for The Accenture Leadership Program, a four-week leadership seminar series led by Accenture Executives. The program equips emerging student leaders with proven leadership techniques, enabling participants to be more effective leaders on campus and within their community. This year marks the eleventh year of the recently re-vamped program. With topics and techniques taken from Accenture’s internal development program for consulting executives, this is an opportunity you don’t want to miss with one of BHP’s corporate partners.

Lisa Feng, current BHP and Finance senior, participated in last year’s program, where she learned leadership skills and concepts related to personal strengths, working on great teams, and leaving a legacy. “I enjoyed learning alongside a diverse group of students from across the Forty Acres,” she said, calling ALP a “one-of-a-kind” experience. “I had never met most of the other participants before, so it was inspiring to hear about all of the unique perspectives and experiences they each brought to the table.”

ALP isn’t just for students in the McCombs School of Business. Students from all backgrounds are encouraged to apply and participate. Last year, students from Engineering, Fine Arts, and Natural Sciences, ranging from freshmen to seniors were among the participants.

Tamara Fields, a managing director based out of the Austin office and UT Austin alumna, is a program presenter each year on one of the most popular topics covered: Social Styles. Individuals each have their own way of thinking, acting, and making decisions, and Social Styles aims to define those unique qualities. Each year, ALP participants are asked to distribute the Social Styles questionnaire to their peers, mentors, and fellow leaders. The input is then analyzed to reveal to each participant’s unique social style that indicates unique aspects about the way they communicate and lead. Each ALP session covers a unique leadership topic and includes interactive activities, facilitated discussion, and time to network and interact with top consulting executives.

In Spring 2018, Accenture will again be hosting Accenture Leadership Program on campus. The program runs Mondays from March 19 to April 9. Full-time undergraduate students graduating between Dec ‘18 and May ‘21 are encouraged to apply – the application opens February 1, 2018. We invite emerging leaders, idea generators, and strategic thinkers to apply for the 2018 Accenture Leadership Program.

If you have any questions, please contact Rebecca Teng at Rebecca.Teng@Accenture.com.

Sophomores Solve National Expansion Issue for BHP Case Competition

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Sophomores Solve National Expansion Issue for BHP Case Competition

Each year, all BHP sophomores compete in the BA151 Sophomore Lyceum Case Competition. The competition, held this past Friday, is the first case competition many of these students have competed in, and offers a great chance for them to practice the skills they are learning in their business classes.

This year’s case, presented by Sense Corp, presented students with the challenge of accelerating the national expansion of College Forward. College Forward is an Austin-based non-profit that coaches underserved, motivated students to achieve the benefits of higher education and a college degree.

The case asked student what one strategy they would suggest pursuing to scale the organization so it can serve more students both in Texas and nationally.

Out of 30 teams, five advanced to the final round. Each team took a very different approach to solving the problem, and the judges were impressed with the level of thought that went into the cases. In the end, first place went to Catherine Cheng, Emily Gex, Brandon Jodie, Thomas Jordan and Ronald Rodriguez. Honorable mention went to Zhiqi Wang, Alison Daily, Arjun Menta, Maitreya Movva and Veshal Prakash.

“Our team recognized how important it is for lower-income students to have access to information about higher-level education, and we wanted to reach the largest population of low income students possible with our proposed solution,” said Emily Gex. “By creating a website that we would license to high schools, students of all income levels would receive personalized information about colleges that would be perfect matches for them. By inputting one’s personal and financial information into our database, our website would automatically generate a list of scholarships that the individual student is eligible for. By handing low-income students personalized college and scholarship information, we hope to empower these students to continue onto higher-level education successfully.”

The names of the winning team members will be etched onto a plaque, which lives on permanent display in the BHP office. Congratulations to all of these students and special thanks to Sense Corp for providing us with such a great case, and to BHP alumnus Michael Daehne for coordinating the case on behalf of Sense Corp.

From left to right: Ron Rodriguez, Catherine Cheng, Thomas Jordan, Emily Gex, Brandon Jodie

Faculty Spotlight: Ram Ranganathan – General Management and Strategy

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Faculty Spotlight: Ram Ranganathan – General Management and Strategy

Written by Megan Tran-Olmsted

Professor Ram Ranganathan has travelled throughout the globe on various career expeditions. While he began his career in his home country of India, Professor Ranganathan has settled in the U.S. in various states to pursue his passions, exploring the intersectionality of the science of strategy, business management, and finally, academia.

Professor Ranganathan teaches the Business Honors Capstone class – Management 374/H. This class is one of the final BHP classes that students take during their time at UT. Professor Ranganathan says that this class is particularly insightful because it is not just another class where students learn a single subject. Instead, he believes that this class serves as a bridge between all the classes that students have taken – exploring how finance, accounting, marketing, and supply chain all work together to create successful businesses. Students are assigned to explore a single business of their choice, analyzing how business decisions made in various aspects of the company have contributed to the company’s success or the company’s failure.

Dr. Ranganathan says that a career in academia is unlike so many other careers. He is able to contribute to knowledge creation and knowledge dissemination. He says that he is able to create knowledge through the extensive research that he conducts with colleagues at McCombs, and he is also able to disseminate this knowledge unto others through the classes he teaches. Teaching is something special, says Professor Ranganathan. Not only does he get to interact with a younger generation of bright, insightful students, but he also gets to learn from students as they often challenge his research ideas, strengthening his work.

Professor Ranganathan joined The McCombs School of Business after finishing his Ph.D. in Strategic Management at The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania. Prior to making the switch to academia, Professor Ranganathan worked for Deloitte as a strategy consultant in California. This job was particularly stimulating for Ranganathan since he had received his a dual-undergraduate degree in computer science and computer engineering, allowing him to contribute to problem-solving for some of the world’s largest technology companies.

In addition to teaching, Ranganathan conducts research with The University of Texas, focusing on how companies adapt to technological changes, looking at company responses and the factors that enable companies to control the evolution of technology. One of the main reasons that Professor Ranganathan chose to come to UT after finishing his Ph.D was because of the excellence of the research department, coupled with the strong culture, focus on professor retention, and the bright students.

If you want to get to know Dr. Ranganathan better, but need some conversation starters, consider asking him the about the following topics:

  1. His travel aspirations (He travelled to 5 countries this summer alone!)
  2. What he likes to do in his free time (Hint: he’s an outdoorsman as long as it’s not allergy season)
  3. How him and his neighborhood cricket team are doing
  4. Some of his favorite books (He most recently read Justice, a book by Harvard Professor Michael Sandel, that discusses philosophy and the criminal justice system)

Stop by Professor Ranganathan’s office in CBA 4.234 on Tuesdays and Thursdays from 1:30-2:30PM to get to know him even better.

Faculty Spotlight: Leigh McAlister – Principles of Marketing

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Faculty Spotlight: Leigh McAlister – Principles of Marketing

Leigh McAlister – Marketing

Written by Maddy Rock, BHP Sophomore

Professor Leigh McAlister teaches Principles of Marketing (MKT 337H) for the Business Honors Program. She attended the University of Oklahoma before pursuing her M.S. and Ph.D. from Stanford University. Now, Professor McAlister is a highly-recognized researcher in her field, and brings her passion for her work to the classroom each day.

Professor McAlister lights up talking about her extensive research experience. Initially, she worked on variety seeking at the University of Washington for three years. Then, she moved to MIT, gaining access to state-of-the-art technology that she used to further advance her research and publish Grocery Revolution, a book Professor McAlister co-authored with Professor Barbara Kahn of Wharton. This is when she developed a relationship with H-E-B, which in her eyes, is “the coolest grocery store in the world.” Upon entering her office, students will notice a letter written by Charles Butt, Chairman and CEO of the company, hanging beside Grocery Revolution. Professor McAlister continued to study consumer behavior, regularly working with teams of students to conduct world-renowned research.

Professor McAlister aims to share her enthusiasm for marketing with her students in the classroom. She explains that her favorite aspect of teaching BHP students is their determination to succeed at the highest levels. She speaks highly of their ability to create academic goals and work their hardest to meet these aspirations. Professor McAlister strives to create a very interactive course, emphasizing the importance of each student speaking up and communicating their ideas. Additionally, she is thrilled to have “differentiated and fabulous” reading material for her classes.

Professor McAlister beams about her work, admitting that she spends an awful lot of time on it because it brings her so much joy. “I work a lot because it’s fun to me,” she says. “It’s discovery; it’s a puzzle.” She also loves to mentor doctoral students because it gives her the unique and rewarding opportunity to “shape the minds that shapes the minds”. When she is not on campus, however, Professor McAlister and her husband enjoy listening to local musical performances. In addition to regularly attending shows from a guitar concert series which brings in the world’s greatest musicians, Professor McAlister is a big fan of Conspirare, a Grammy award-winning choral ensemble based in Austin. She speaks about the concerts with great admiration, describing them as warm and soothing, “like it’s a cold night and I’ve gone to a campfire.”

Professor McAlister encourages her students to stop by her office hours on Mondays and Wednesdays from 1:30-2:30 pm in CBA 7.228. She loves discussing her students’ big ideas and plans for the future as well as Austin’s unique music scene.

BHP Students Take 2nd Place at National Stock Pitch Competition

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BHP Students Take 2nd Place at National Stock Pitch Competition

This weekend, a team of four BHP University Securities Investment Team (USIT) students traveled to the University of Michigan Ross School of Business to compete in one of the oldest undergraduate stock pitch competitions, hosted by the Michigan Interactive Investments Team . USIT has historically done very well at this competition (3rd in 2016, 1st in 2014), and this year the team was thrilled to clench 2nd place!

The team, comprised of Karna Venkatraj (BHP Junior, USIT Industrials Portfolio Manager), Ryan Spencer (BHP Junior, USIT Energy Fund Analyst), Catherine Cheng (BHP Sophomore, USIT Senior Analyst), and Ananya Rajesh (BHP Sophomore, USIT Senior Analyst), beat out 25 teams from other top business schools.

Stock pitch competitions allow teams of students to formulate a variant view revolving aroung a particular security, conducting intrinsic and relative valuation to arrive at an implied valuation for the company. Students then present their findings to the competition judges in a preliminary and final round. This year, the team chose to pitch Hawaiian Airlines.

The four students on the team are leaders within the University Securities Investment Team (USIT), an investing team that seeks to provide financial education through active securities investing. USIT is the only UT finance organization to send teams to national competitions. The organization also boasts and all-female executive board, including two BHP students serving in the roles of President (Phoebe Lin) and Director of Investment (Megan Tran-Olmsted).