Student Org Spotlight: Executive MBA Entrepreneur Board of Advisors

Posted on by
Reply

Last semester, Texas Executive MBA student David Doran had an idea to help out his entrepreneurial classmates. He wanted to create a program that would allow EMBA students who own businesses to work together and directly apply the knowledge gained in the classroom. What resulted was the launch of the McCombs Executive MBA Entrepreneur Board of Advisors (EEBA) this past fall.

I recently caught up with David, who between his busy work and school schedules, managed to answer a few questions about this new group.

What made you want to start up this Board?
I have a few students in my Executive MBA class that own businesses. Most, if not all Executive MBA student business owners do not have a formal board of directors. I thought it would be helpful to leverage our class’ knowledge and expertise by establishing a student run peer group that acts as each other’s board of advisors. The peer group helps fellow business owner classmates set quarterly SMART (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, and Timely) goals and holds each other accountable for executing them. The McCombs School of Business already has Texas Venture Labs to help students launch new ventures. This new program is targeted at Executive MBA students who are already running companies and fellow classmates who want to help be advisors. The goal for this peer group is for each EMBA business owner’s company being an on-going, real-world case study in which we can interact with management.

How did you get the idea?
Peer based advisory boards are not a new concept. I have been a member of The Alternative Board (TAB) and I am currently a member of the HTG Peer Groups and have found them extremely valuable in helping me growing my company. Peer based boards of advisors organizations that provide professional facilitators such as The Alternative Board and Vistage, charge members over $5,000 per year. I figured with the talent and leadership we have in our Executive MBA classes, we could create our own peer group without the need for professional facilitators. There’s no cost, except our limited time, to participate in the McCombs School of Business Executive MBA Entrepreneur Board of Advisors.

How does the board work?
All members share in running the meeting and performing board tasks. The EEBA peer group works by having the group establish a “go-giver” culture where everyone is focused on being a “go-giver” in helping Executive MBA student led companies. We had a very successful first EEBA meeting on December 8th, 2012 with six companies presenting to a board of 18 advisors. Bill Blackstone, MBA ’14, and Community Strategist at Rackspace, volunteered to host our first board meeting at the Rackspace office in Austin.

Who can join the group?
Membership will be open to all Texas EMBA students (past and present) who wish to help their fellow business owners by applying what they have learned in the EMBA program. Our next meeting is Sunday, March 17th which is the same as our class weekend. Cynthia Huchingson, MBA ’12, and Development Director at Oncology San Antonio, has volunteered to host the meeting at her office. We have students from the EMBA class of 2012, 2013, and 2014 planning to attend. EMBA students and alumni interested in attending the next meeting should contact Cynthia Huchingson, cynthia@oncsa.com.

David Doran, MBA ’14, is also the CEO of Texas System Group based in Austin. He can be reached at david.doran@utexas.edu.

Longhorn Love Stories

Posted on by
Reply

It doesn’t get any better than a Longhorn Love Story! All week, McCombs Today has been featuring Q&As with couples who met and found love at McCombs, and we figured these stories were worth a share. Enjoy.

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Stefanie Gudis, MBA ‘11, and Pete Conrad, MBA ‘11

Says Stefanie: “Pete and I met during our first year of our MBA program at McCombs. Neither of us can remember the exact moment when we met for the first time (apparently it wasn’t that memorable!), but we know it was soon after we arrived in Austin and were going through MBA orientation activities. We were both new to Austin (I moved from Los Angeles and Pete from Chicago) and neither of us knew anyone, so we were both focused on meeting our new classmates and getting to know the city. Little did we know we would also be meeting the person who would become our future spouse!”

Stefanie and Pete are set to get married on March 23. Congratulations! Read full story.

Michelle Musil, MPA ‘03, and Sean Musil, MBA ‘04

Says Sean: “We met in Professor Rao’s finance class. I saw two really pretty girls that I didn’t recognize from the MBA program. In the second class it became clear that they were joining our class from the MPA program. I’m still not a great accountant, so when we organized into teams I REALLY wanted to make sure that we had them on the team. I checked with the rest of my team who signed off on their joining us – and that’s how we met”

Michelle and Sean live in Austin and have been married since 2011. Read full story.

How Do You Find The Right Business School For You?

Posted on by
Reply

How do you find the right business school for you?

Rodrigo Malta, Director of MBA Admissions, McCombs School of Business, says:

Research is key!  An MBA requires the commitment of a lot of time and financial resources, so it is always best to find an MBA program that is the right fit for you.  Back when I was an applicant, I used a spreadsheet with several attributes to evaluate MBA programs.  The attributes ranged from cost, program length, location, post-MBA placement, class size, school size, entrance requirements, etc.  A lot of this information is available on ranking websites. This spreadsheet really helped pare down my list of schools to a top 4-5.  At that time, after narrowing down the list of schools, I started contacting the admissions team at these institutions to schedule class visits, etc.  Only after visiting all schools, I finally decided on the school to pursue my MBA studies.  Visiting the campus is key before applying and/or making the final selection for your MBA pursuit.

Original question and answer found on Quora.

Meet Frankie Arvelo, MBA ’14

Posted on by
Reply

Texas MBA Student Frankie ArveloName: Frankie Arvelo
Class: Full-Time, ’14
Hometown: Boston, Massachusetts
Concentration: General Management
Education: Sports Management, University of Massachusetts – Amherst / Law, University of Pennsylvania
Pre-MBA Job: Compliance Officer at Goldman Sachs

Why did you want to come back to school for your MBA?
I wanted to further develop my analytical toolkit by strengthening my quantitative ability through the rigorous courses and opportunities presented by an MBA. Additionally, I wanted to move away from a back-office support position to a business decision-making role; an MBA provides the perfect avenue for career switchers.

What has been your biggest surprise since starting the Texas MBA program?
I have been pleasantly surprised by the breadth and depth of interests and abilities of my classmates and the faculty.  Prior to attending McCombs I believed that the Texas MBA mainly focused on energy finance.  However, while energy finance is a strength of the school, the Texas MBA program and its students are involved in many fields from technology marketing, entrepreneurship, consulting, and the list goes on.

Anything specific that you are looking forward to this spring semester?
I am looking forward to my elective courses and exploring the greater UT community. Through electives students gain exposure to fields they may not be familiar with (i.e. myself and real estate finance) or to acquire knowledge on fields that they wish work in post-graduation. As to the second point, the resources available to students at UT are tremendous and I am keen on taking advantage of those resources.

Outside of class, what organizations and activities are you involved with?
I am a member of the McCombs Admissions Committee, the Graduate Business Council, Graduate Business Wine Club, Graduate Consulting Group, Graduate Marketing Network, and am a Consortium Fellow.

Texas MBA Consortium Students

Frankie, second from right on bottom row, pictured with Texas MBA classmates at the 2012 Consortium Orientation Program.

What attracted you to the Consortium?
I was interested in the Consortium for a variety of reasons: there is an opportunity for a fellowship and potential scholarship money, consolidated application and fee, Consortium holds an orientation program where there are summer internship positions available, as well as networking opportunities with sponsoring companies and students from member schools.

McCombs Super Week 2013

Posted on by
Reply

By Gabrielle Zandan, Assistant Director, Texas MBA Career Management

While the majority of students were spread out across the globe enjoying their restful winter break, a group of about 90 first year Full-Time Texas MBA students permeated the otherwise empty halls of the McCombs building adorned in suits and toting padfolios, prepared for the grueling Super Week up ahead.

Super Week is an event put on by the Texas MBA Career Management team, held each year during the last week of winter break. Super Week provides an opportunity for students interested in investment banking and consulting to be interviewed for Summer Internship positions (see where our students interned last summer) without the distraction and scheduling conflicts that occur during the normal semester period. Super Week is notorious for being a test of not only mental but physical endurance, with some students having as many as 16 interviews in as little as two days. This year, we had a record-breaking number of firms participate in Super Week: 18 investment banks, two private wealth management firms, and 13 consulting firms. First round interviews took place in the comfortable Ford Career Center here at McCombs, while second round interviews took place at the company’s home office. In the evenings, students attended happy hours and dinners hosted by the employers, allowing them to get a better sense of the culture of each firm before being grilled on financial modeling and case studies.

As the students found refuge in Carpenter Center between interviews, I asked some of them to describe Super Week in one word. Here is what they came up with: impressive, exhausting, unpredictable, fun, humbling, tedious, interesting, hard, repetitive, blitzcrack (your guess is as good as mine), numbing, and emotional.

By the end of the week, the moods of the anxious, worn out students quickly shifted as invitations for second round interviews and offers started pouring in. Those who did not receive an offer during Super Week commented that the process made them more confident in their interviewing skills, preparing them for future interviews. Those who did receive offers quickly realized that this crazy process resulted in the opportunity to spend a summer working at one of the top banks or consulting firms in the country and the luxury of being done with recruiting for the rest of the year.

As one student summed it up, “Now I know why this is called Super Week.”

Related posts: