“When I started school, GSB was a relatively new building,” Ken Parekh reflected as he now looks forward to all that the new graduate business building, Robert B. Rowling Hall, has to offer to students, alumni, and the greater Austin business community. Parekh will become the chair of the MBA Advisory Board this fall and we recently had the opportunity to interview him about his business school memories, career path, and goals for the board.
How did you choose McCombs and what are some of your business school memories?
I was an engineer at Texas Instruments in Dallas and I decided to start exploring MBA programs. I really craved the in-person experience, so I wanted to explore programs where I would feel a part of a community. When I visited the Texas business school, not yet called McCombs, I found the community that I wanted to connect to. The balance between case study and practical applications and the management applications—and to do it with a fairly diverse group of students—really appealed to me.
Some of my fondest business school memories involve my professors. I had multiple classes with Professor Dan Short who changed by perception of accounting and he became my favorite teacher and a sort of mentor. I also really enjoyed Jack Brittain’s organizational behavior class. I found the combination of what I learned from these classes with what the Kozmetsky Center had to offer very interesting.
How did your educational experience change you?
It ended up bringing me in a very different direction than I would have initially predicted. With my engineering background, I was particularly interested in the school’s program for information systems and the practical application of theory. However, after taking Dan Short’s accounting classes and Jack Brittain’s organizational behavior class, my eyes were opened to the value and importance of people. I was an engineer at the time and all of a sudden I’m introduced to the concept of teams and culture. This was an eye-opening experience for me. You need to have the right teams and culture to be successful in business. That really started my path to what I do now. That class was the spark for me. Here was a technology guy—an engineer—who discovered a much larger scheme to this puzzle.
Can you walk me through your career path since graduating? How did you end up in the Bay Area?
UT really opened my aperture and I was seeking broad-based business experience. I thought the consulting path was a great opportunity. So I took a job with Deloitte based in Dallas, but focused primarily on Boston and its tech sector. I thought I would be at Deloitte for a few years and then go back into industry, but I fell in love and was there for 17 years. In 1994, the market moved from the northeast to Silicon Valley and I found myself on a plane between Boston and the Bay Area for four years before asking for a transfer to San Francisco. This was before the dot com boom. It allowed me to stay close to the tech sector and my roots. My passion is around innovation and how to create cultures to drive innovation, and the Bay Area is actually an incubator for this.
I left Deloitte in 2005 to start my own business. The firm had become so large and I craved to focus on the small, early-stage, building phase of business—Deloitte was like that in the early days. I wanted to pursue my passion for executive coaching. There was a mentor, apprenticeship culture at Deloitte in the early days and I wanted to focus full time on that. I valued that experience such as working with Dell and on the HP/Compact integration.
I also chose to start my own business for lifestyle reasons. The life of a consultant can get overwhelming at times. It ended up being the right choice for me because one month after I left Deloitte, I met my future wife and we got married one year later. We now have two sons, aged 7 and 11 years old. My family has brought balance to my life.
What are you most proud of in your career so far?
The fact that I’ve developed a number of leaders—a bunch are amazing leaders in their own right that I helped to groom when they were starting out as business analysts or engineers. Now they are running their own companies and I love that I’ve had some impact on creating future leaders. I still keep in touch with many of them professionally and informally and it’s wonderful to have built 30-year relationships with them and to see their careers progress.
And of course, on a personal note, my two boys are amazing and they are going to do great things in the world. They are my true legacy.
How have you stayed involved with the school as an alumnus?
I’ve been very involved with the MBA Advisory Board. I am starting my 4th term this fall and have spent 9 years being actively involved on the board. I have also been active in local chapters, particularly in the Bay Area. I was a class ambassador a few years ago and now I am on the Bay Area for McCombs Board. Of course, I am also involved with the Texas Exes and I’m a rabid Longhorns fan. I find some excuse to come back to Austin 3-4 times per year because there is always something going on. I also keep in touch with my classmates and attended the reunion in Austin and we have also had class reunions in New Orleans during Jazz Fest. I have personally benefited from being part of the alumni network. I am particularly proud of the work I’ve been doing with the MBA Board’s “Third-Year MBA Task Force” that works on initiatives to promote the value of the alumni network to new graduates. We are “Texas for life.” Our network is a huge force to be reckoned with. One of my main goals as the incoming chair for the MBA Advisory Board is to continue to promote the network and to educate others that The University of Texas is not just within the borders of Texas. We are prominent in other business centers throughout the world and there is great value in that. Alumni engagement and activation are key goals of mine.
What other types of community involvement initiatives are you involved with?
I am very active in nonprofit work and have three areas of focus. The first is for children’s educational development and making sure that all kids have an opportunity to get an education by leveraging technology and other resources to make this happen. My second focus is neighborhood housing and affordable home ownership, which is a big issue in the Bay Area. My third focus is my work for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in support of eradicating diseases in Africa. I was born in Nairobi, Africa, so this is particularly personal for me. My work with the foundation involves coaching health administrators to use technology and other resources to increase their capacity to do their jobs. The foundation has learned that it takes more than money to solve problems. I travel there somewhat frequently and I have extended family in east Africa. I highly recommend that everyone add an East African safari to their bucket list.
