PITT BUSINESS · 2018-08-30 · teachers, Pitt Business faculty have many other interesting talents...

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Ready to Fly

UNIVERSITY OF PITTSBURGHJOSEPH M. KATZ GRADUATE SCHOOL OF BUSINESS & COLLEGE OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION

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Pitt CBA Next Level

Standards Wars in the Digital Age

Generations Keeping It Katz

50th Annual Business Alumni Association Awards

Hidden Faculty Talents

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A Storied History and A Promising Future

A Message from Dean John T. DelaneyIn April, I had the privilege of introducing the 2014 award recipients at our Business Alumni Awards ceremony at the University Club. It being the 50th anniversary year, I couldn’t help but get wrapped up in the history of the moment. In the audience I saw alumni and friends who played a big part in the City of Pittsburgh’s inspired renaissance. Likewise, I saw alumni whose leadership is transforming other American cities and fueling economic growth in Brazil, China, India, Indonesia, South Korea, Singapore, and many other nations.

Seeing these vivid examples of our global impact got me thinking about our strategic positioning going forward. Our College of Business Administration (CBA) is celebrating record enrollment, as well as improved test scores and GPAs among the incoming class. Our Full-time MBA program was recently ranked as a Top 25 U.S. public university and a Top 50 U.S. overall university in Financial Times, The Economist, and Forbes, and in U.S. News & World Report we experienced the fourth-highest improvement of any previously ranked school, just missing the respective Top 25 and Top 50 marks. Furthermore, we recently established a new Center for Supply Chain Management that in the coming months will create new opportunities for faculty research and student projects.

The articles in Pitt Business personify our history and future direction. We are offering a new capstone program for MBA students called the Management Simulation. The course challenges them to role-play the executive team of a global organization, as they compete against their peers for market share. At CBA, new Associate Dean Audrey J. Murrell has wasted no time in implementing a number of bold changes. Her torrid pace and sweeping vision reminds me of the first one hundred days of a U.S. presidency.

The magazine also focuses on our doctoral program. We tell the interesting stories of a number of PhD graduates who later became business school deans and explore how our program enabled their success. Another article highlights the ground-breaking research of faculty member Chris Kemerer, whose insights are of interest to anyone shopping for a new electronic device.

The magazine shares personal stories, too. You may have a favorite former professor or two, but do you know the hidden talents and hobbies that they have outside the classroom? In another story, we focus on families who, for one reason or another, made going to Katz a family tradition. We also provide a window into how Katz has changed over the years by comparing the experiences of alumnae from the 1970s to today.

Each spring, we send you the magazine to keep you informed about the school. Regardless of where you live, there are a number of ways to get more involved with your alma mater. Volunteering as a student mentor, guest speaker, or company representative in a class project can be as valuable as a fundraising contribution. Go ahead and contact our Alumni Director Jim Waite — he would love to get you started.

This brings me back to the 50th annual Business Alumni Awards ceremony. That night the best of our graduates were on display. I refer not only to those who accepted awards, but to the rest of the audience as well. Collectively, our 28,000 alumni are changing the business world and making lives around them better. People just like you.

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1 A Storied History and A Promising Future Dean John T. Delaney reflects on Pitt Business achievements past and present, with an eye to the future.

2 Taking CBA to the Next Level CBA is taking students from the classroom, to the city, to the world.

6 Winners Take Some Faculty member Chris Kemerer explores how standards wars between competing products are changing in the digital age.

10 Playing the Management Game Katz MBA students run a global manufacturer and compete head-to-head with peers in this sophisticated simulation.

12 Generation After Generation For some, attending the Katz School is not just an opportunity to learn lifelong lessons — it’s also a family tradition.

16 Ready to Fly Graduates of the Katz doctoral program have taken lessons learned in Pittsburgh and applied them as b-school deans all over the world.

22 50th Annual Business Alumni Association Awards Six individuals and one corporate partner were honored in 2014 for their positive impact on their professions, community, and the business school.

26 Hidden Faculty Talents Beyond being excellent scholars and teachers, Pitt Business faculty have many other interesting talents that students and alumni don’t know about.

30 Then & Now What was it like to be a Katz student in the 1970s compared to today? Bibiana Boerio (MBA ’76) and Jamie Harshman (MBA ’14) weigh in.

DesignerAmy Biss Benscoter

WriterGreg Latshaw

EditorDerek McDonald

ProofreaderCarol Pickerine

Cover IllustrationDaniel Bridy

PhotographyAmy Biss Benscoter (p. 2)Terry Clark (p. 26)Sara Dubravcak (p. 4)Dennis Galletta (pp. 6, 26, 27, 28, 29, 31)Jim Judkis (pp. 12, 15, 20, 23, 28, 29)Val Ritter (p. 14)Michael Schwarz (p. 14)Scott Smith (p. 14)Mandy Whitley (p. 14)

www.business.pitt.edu

The University of Pittsburgh is an affirmative action, equal opportunity institution.

So many ways to keep in touch.www.katz.pitt.edu/social

2 | Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration business.pitt.edu | 3Associate Dean Audrey J. Murrell advises students on a leadership and ethics project.

Rose Choi is starting her dream job right out of college: LinkedIn’s global sales rotational program in San Francisco. The highly competitive, management-track position will expose her todifferent sides of the rapidly growing social media enterprise.

“I’m beyond excited,” says Choi (BSBA ’14),

whose start date is in July. The 21-year-old Philadelphia native majored in marketing and earned certificates in leadership and ethics and international business at the University of Pittsburgh’s College of Business Administration (Pitt CBA).

Choi landed her job at LinkedIn through hard work in the classroom and the completion of marketing internships with the Pittsburgh Steelers, PNC Financial Services Group, and Naeva Business. Preparing students to make an

immediate impact upon graduation is a primary objective of Pitt CBA, and in this spirit, the school is rolling out new academic programs, expanding its international reach, and even claiming a newly remodeled residence hall for freshmen, says Associate Dean Audrey J. Murrell.

In August 2013, Murrell became the leader of Pitt CBA with the retirement of longtime Associate Dean Edward J. Palascak. Before Palascak, there effectively was no College of Business Administration. He helped to reinstate Pitt’s undergraduate business program in 1993, ending a long hiatus dating back to a University decision in the 1960s to disband the undergraduate program. Under Palascak’s leadership, the quality of Pitt CBA improved, as did its enrollment, from an initial class of 156 students to more than 2,000, enough to make it Pitt’s third-largest school by enrollment.

Palascak’s are big shoes to fill, but Murrell is up to the task. “In my mind, the letters C-B-A stand for community, betterment, and analytics,” Murrell

says. “It’s about building community among our students. It’s about helping students better themselves and the world around them. And it’s about the analytics. How can we measure our impact and improve our ROI?”

Murrell’s strategy is already taking shape. Starting this fall, incoming Pitt CBA freshmen will live together in the Bruce Hall Living Learning Community (LLC), located just blocks away from the Cathedral of Learning. While LLC residence halls are not new to Pitt or CBA, Bruce Hall’s size and scope set it apart. The residence hall has space for about 170 students. Students live on floors dedicated to one of four themes: global business, social responsibility, business honors, and entertainment and sports. As LLC residents, students have the added benefit of interacting with dedicated faculty advisors and attending special lectures, events, and extracurricular community projects.

“We want our students to feel connected from their very first day on campus,” Murrell

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As a student, Rose Choi took charge at the Berg Cup Case Competition.

TAKING Pitt CBA to the NEXT LEVEL

4 | Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration business.pitt.edu | 5

Beyond the option of studying in more than 75 locations worldwide through Pitt’s traditional study abroad programming, Pitt CBA students have access to tailored programs. The International Internship Program enables students to work at major companies in Asia, Europe, and South America over the summer. Short-term trips happen periodically, like one over 2014 Spring Break when students completing the Certificate Program in Leadership and Ethics traveled to Paris for a class project in which they studied sustainability practices at L’Oreal and FedEx. Add it all up, and about one-third of Pitt CBA students complete at least one international experience, which is three times the national undergraduate average, according to the Institute of International Education.

Pitt’s international footprint is growing. Starting next fall, in conjunction with Pitt’s Study Abroad Office, Pitt CBA will begin to offer courses at five “anchor locations” internationally, called Panther Programs, Schultz says. Of those finalized, London will have a finance focus, Sydney a marketing focus, and Florence a human resources focus. Plans call for the fourth location, Shanghai, to have a supply chain focus, while the final location and its academic focus are yet to be determined, although Buenos Aires is under consideration.

“Most universities use private for-profit third-party vendors in study abroad,” Schultz says. “We’re building more programs in-house, which makes it less expensive for students and gives them a chance to go abroad with faculty members teaching Pitt CBA courses.”

CONTINUING THE EVOLUTION OF PITT CBA

More Pitt CBA changes are in the pipeline. Pitt’s Provost’s office recently gave preliminary approval to a new experience-based learning initiative modeled after Pitt’s Outside the Classroom Curriculum (OCC) program. Pitt’s OCC encourages students to complete extracurricular activities that make them into well-rounded students. The Pitt CBA version, according to Murrell, will feature different levels to progress through by completing activities in business categories, such as professional development, global business, social engagement, and more.

“For us, this is another opportunity to measure our effectiveness in teaching appropriate skills, as the categories are modeled after

the competencies that Fortune 500 organizations value in employees,” Murrell says.

The Pitt CBA OCC curriculum is just one program in

the works. Another is the creation of Panther Projects. These multi-year initiatives call for student teams to complete a series of projects for the same Pittsburgh-area organization. This would work well, Murrell says, for an organization like the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank. The nonprofit has received marketing support from students in the past and would benefit from supply chain management consulting as well, Murrell says.

“At its heart, the goal of Pitt CBA is to take our students from the classroom to the City of Pittsburgh and to the world,” Murrell says.

says. “The Living Learning Community helps them, as freshmen, to form a strong identity as Pitt business students. It also gets them plugged in faster to their business education.”

Also new this fall, Pitt CBA is offering its first honors track. The nine-credit program has three components: honors core classes, honors electives, and an experience-based learning (EBL) capstone. The EBL capstone gives students the option of completing either a research project with a faculty member, an experiential-learning project tying in core classes, or an international internship or global study program. Honors students, who must maintain at least a 3.5 GPA, will receive a special designation on their Bachelor of Science in Business Administration diploma.

ELEVATING CAREERS AND INTERNATIONAL

OPPORTUNITIES

The Pitt CBA honors track comes on the heels of three new majors added in fall 2013: business information systems, human resources management, and supply chain management. The majors make Pitt CBA graduates more responsive to the talent needs of employers, one of the top priorities of new Career Services Director Fredrick “Fred” Kendrick.

Kendrick, who joined Pitt in November 2013, is the former director of global human resources and employee benefits at K&L Gates. In order to better serve students, his department is further integrating the services of academic and career counseling, so the two are more in sync. Additionally, students can count on more one-on-one mentoring support from the school’s Executives in Residence, who are retired senior-level professionals from a range of professions. Another change will increase Career Services’ involvement in professional student-led organizations, to improve the quality of the extracurricular experiences.

“My goal is to make sure a student’s DNA matches the DNA of the employer. It’s not just about getting a job, it’s about sustaining a career,” Kendrick says.

Global experiences are crucial on a résumé, and soon more Pitt CBA students will have them, thanks to Bryan Schultz, new director

of international programs. He is driving up students’ participation rate by offering more extensive global experiences in new locations and reducing the participation cost for students.

“The ultimate goal is to get 100 percent of business students studying abroad,” Schultz says.

As a Pitt student, Rose Choi took that message to heart. On campus, she was the president of the school’s chapter of the professional business organization Phi Beta Lambda, otherwise known as Pitt’s Business leaders. She was selected by her peers to serve as the student graduation speaker. In Pittsburgh, she was head of campaign strategy for a marketing project that won first place in Mazda’s national college competition. In Spain, she completed a sales internship for a Madrid startup through an International Internship Program.

Choi is thrilled to be starting a new life in San Francisco and feels ready for whatever business challenge comes next. “Pitt CBA hands you the tools you need to be successful. It’s up to you to use them,” she says.

“AT ITS HEART, THE GOAL OF PITT CBA

IS TO TAKE OUR STUDENTS FROM

THE CLASSROOM TO THE CITY OF

PITTSBURGH AND TO THE WORLD,”

MURRELL SAYS.

THE WINDS OF CHANGE

#PITTCBANEXTLEVEL

• Bruce Hall Living Learning Community residence hall

• CBA honors track program• Three new academic majors• Global Panther Programs

Bienvenue en France: Student Sara Dubravcak captures the nighttime glow during a class project in Paris.


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WinnersTAKE SOME

A New Norm in Standards Wars?

In attics everywhere, boxes of video tapes are collectingdust. So are vinyl records, eight-track tapes, audio cassettes, typewriters, flip cell phones, early-generation gaming systems, LaserDisc movies, and HD-DVD players.

Competition drives innovation. The items in the attic arethere because at some point they were surpassed as technology evolved or they were bested by the competition. These competitions are known as standards wars. Standards wars occur when products with incompatible formats compete for the same market, and typically end when one dominant standard emerges and renders the competition obsolete.

Which technologies will win, and when will there be only one winner? These questions have been the focus of research by Chris F. Kemerer, David M. Roderick Professor of Information Systems and Professor of Business Administration at the University of Pittsburgh’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate Schoolof Business. For more than two decades, he has studied network effects in technology systems, fertile ground for his dual background in economics and software engineering.


THE POWER OF NETWORK EFFECTS

In the 1980s, Kemerer was, like many Americans, excited about the prospect of watching movies at home, but unsure about whether to choose Sony’s Betamax or JVC’s VHS videocassette recorder. His older brother recommended the Betamax for its superior picture quality. What could go wrong?

Of course, the market shares of Betamax and VHS, then 50-50, soon tipped sharply to VHS.

“I GOT THIS RUDE LESSON ABOUT

THE POWER OF NETWORK EFFECTS

FROM BUYING A BETAMAX PLAYER.

IT STUCK WITH ME,” KEMERER SAYS.

Network effects occur when a product’s value to a user increases as the number of compatible devices increases. Telephone systems, credit cards, and e-mail are all

examples of products subject to strong network effects. As a network grows, outside vendors begin producing more complementary goods, such as media for players, which support the product and add to its value proposition. When two incompatible technology products compete in an industry where network effects are present, at some point the installed base of one of the competitors will reach critical mass, resulting in the market tipping in its favor. Which product offers a superior technology, or arrived first, becomes less relevant as network effects dominate, and eventually the market only has room for one standard. Twenty years after Betamax, people who bought HD-DVD players ended up on the wrong side of this process as the market tipped to Blu-Ray and movie studios stopped releasing movies in HD-DVD format.

Kemerer began his academic study of network effects in the 1990s, with his highly cited study of Lotus’s 1-2-3 software, then the world’s dominant spreadsheet, which he co-authored

with Erik Brynjolfsson of the MIT Sloan School of Management. Using statistical analysis, they determined the economic value of Lotus’s individual features and user interface as well as the additional amount that consumers would pay for products that adhered to a standard with a large market share.

In such single-winner environments, business managers can make gaining market share their top priority. If it means subsidizing prices and temporarily operating at a loss, so be it. Once their product emerges as the standard, the company

can recoup its profits handsomely. “Products with consumables have long understood this lesson — razor blades, camera film, and computer printer ink. It has also applied to products with strict complements, like computer software or entertainment media,” Kemerer says.

THE SHIFT TO WINNERS-TAKE-SOME MARKETS

Kemerer was on a family vacation at the beach when he had a breakthrough moment. His young daughter had filled up her simple digital camera’s small-capacity flash memory card, and Kemerer, determined to not interrupt the vacation with a trip to a store, checked to see if his own camera’s memory card would work as a substitute. It did.

The fortuitous inter-compatibility between the two cameras raised questions in Kemerer’s mind. So he and fellow researchers — including his doctoral student Charles Liu, who made computer flash memory the subject of his dissertation and is now assistant professor at University of Texas, San Antonio — studied the market and saw not one dominant flash memory standard, but no fewer than six major types.

Using statistical analysis of data on technology attributes, retail prices, and Amazon.com sales information, the researchers determined that the power of network effects, while still a factor, was weakening because digital converters were leveling the playing field by enabling interoperability. Their research stream produced three peer-reviewed papers: the first, focused on economic theory, appeared in Information Systems Research; the second, reporting the main empirical results for flash memory, appeared in MIS Quarterly; and the third, which expanded their ideas for business managers, was published in Communications of the ACM last year.

Kemerer followed up these research papers with two new teaching case studies, developed in conjunction with current Katz doctoral student Brian Kimball Dunn, that were

published by Harvard Business School. One explores the strategies of Barnes & Noble’s NOOK in the e-book reader market, and discusses consumer rejection of proprietary e-book formats. The other case focuses on BlackBerry’s dire economic state in the smartphone market and, in addition to exploring its failures to adapt, surveys the landscape of multiple mobile operating systems, including Android and iOS.

Kemerer is among the first to document this market evolution and explore its root causes. His research shows that digital conversion — which, for example, enables Amazon’s Kindle and Apple’s iPad to read the same e-book files — is a game-changer because it bridges the gaps of different formats.

“DIGITAL PRODUCTS ARE JUST

ARRANGEMENTS OF ONES AND

ZEROES. THAT MEANS YOU CAN

POTENTIALLY CONVERT AND

COPY FROM ONE TO ANOTHER,

AND DO IT CHEAPLY, QUICKLY,

AND PERFECTLY,” KEMERER SAYS.

In these environments, which Kemerer terms “winners-take-some,” managers are often better served to cross-license their standards to increase total market size. Here, consumers increasingly value factors such as design features and functionality over mere platform compatibility.

“Multiple winners with convertible standards can be better for consumers because there is less chance of becoming stranded by making the wrong technology choice. Further, there will be more flexibility and more applications for their devices. It’s good for manufacturers, too, as they also prefer certainty,” Kemerer says.

REDRAWING THE BATTLE LINES IN VIDEOGAMES

Digital products are altering market dynamics in established industries. In his current project,

Kemerer is analyzing the videogame console market with Dunn. Historically, the winner-take-all cycles in videogame consoles have followed a pattern of rapid generational shifts, which Harvard Business School professor Clayton M. Christensen — who coined the phrase “disruptive innovation” — documented in his ground-breaking study of the disk drive industry. His research showed that with technological change the market incumbent is rarely the next-generation winner, despite its numerous economic advantages.

Although this pattern was repeated in the early videogame console generations, Kemerer and Dunn’s early research results suggest that the market has stopped tipping to a single device. The most recent market share was clearly divided among the Sony PlayStation 3, the Microsoft Xbox 360, and the Nintendo Wii, and the full impact of the latest generation, PlayStation 4, Xbox One and WiiU, is still playing out. “In the last generation, the gaming consoles did not settle into winner-take-all. Each of the three platforms had significant market share. Why did the market change? That is what our work is exploring,” Kemerer says.

In the years to come, technology will continue to evolve and push into new frontiers in videogame consoles and countless other devices. With markets increasingly shifting

THE DEFENSE CALLS DR. CHRIS KEMERER

Late 1990s. Kemerer was hired as an economic damages expert witness by Lotus Development Corp. in lawsuits over competitors copying the look and feel of Lotus’s dominant spreadsheet software interface.

Early 2000s. Kemerer was an expert witness in the multiple state cases related to the federal anti-trust case against Microsoft. He provided testimony on how winner-take-all effects can occur naturally in IT markets as a result of network effects.

to winners-take-some outcomes, the managers who win the standards wars of tomorrow must adjust their tactics accordingly.

For the rest of us, does it mean that fewer electronic devices will clutter our future attics? Only time will tell.

HEAVYWEIGHT STANDARDS WARS

1800sA single North American

railroad track gauge - KOs -

More than half a dozen track widths

1880s

Alternating current (AC) electricity

- KOs -Direct current (DC)

electricity

1970sVHS

- KOs - Betamax

2000s

Blu-Ray - KOs -

HD DVD


F

“While simulations aren’t new to business schools, what makes ours rare, compared to others,” Magnuson says, “is that our students compete against schools internationally, they interact with boards of directors composed of real executives, and they are graded by board evaluations, compensation, and peer evaluations, in addition to firm performance.”

More than 100 people, many of them alumni, have volunteered as board members thus far. Magnuson says the school is always looking for more qualified people to serve as board members.

BATTLING ON THREE FRONTS: PRICE, PRODUCT, AND PROMOTION

The simulation’s architecture was created by and is maintained by faculty member Dave Lamont of Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. During a given semester, about 25 teams participate in the simulation. Of them, most are from Katz and Tepper, while the others come from business schools in Chile, Ukraine, Mexico, Japan, and China. Groups of teams operate within distinct universes, whereby actions in one universe do not affect the others.

Student teams run a fictional watch manufacturer, for three fiscal years, that has two products: a high-end watch and an economical watch. Markets include the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, Mexico, China, and Japan. Factories are located in two countries. It is up to the students to decide where to sell the watches, where to make the watches, and what to price the watches. In all, they make 75 different input decisions each fiscal quarter, including inventory and shipping management, debt and dividend policies, and quality, brand, and environmental

decisions. In order to make informed judgments, student teams have 15 years of historical data with which to generate business models.

“The beauty of this simulation is the core curriculum tie-in,” Magnuson says. “Our students take everything they’ve learned across the different business functions and apply it as executives. This makes them that much more ready to add value on their first day of work after graduation.”

Like the real world, unexpected things happen. Wrenches are thrown in, such as the labor strife and price fixing scandal experienced by teams in Venkataramani’s universe. Future improvements to the Management Simulation are limitless, says Magnuson, who anticipates further coordination of the capstone with the MBA core course faculty and the MBA Office.

Early on, Venkataramani’s team identified a strategy. The more expensive watch would be their focal product. They invested accordingly, expending above-average marketing expenses and becoming the price leader in key world markets. Their watch developed a reputation for high quality and strong green practices. Concurrently, with the less expensive watch, their focus was to be competitive in the same metrics.

So, at the final board meeting, when recommending their compensation plan, the students confidently pointed to the balance sheet. Net income increased 47 percent during the students’ tenure. Sales revenues increased about 7 percent. The company controlled 22 percent market share. And the company had exceeded its sustainability targets by several percentage points.

The students asked for the raise, and the board gave it to them.

THREE CONTINENTS,

ONE SIMULATION

The Executive MBA Worldwide program implemented a management simulation before the July 2013 graduation that included all students from all three program locations: Pittsburgh, Prague, and São Paulo.

In the computer simulation, team members assumed C-suite roles at automobile manufacturers. They waged a battle for market supremacy that lasted only five days in real time, but covered 12 years in the management simulation. Difficult decisions in production capacity, supply chain management, marketing resource allocation, and financial accounting defined the students’ work. Ultimately, teams presented to a panel of EMBA Worldwide alumni in a mock investor briefing that made up the lion’s share of their final grade.

“The simulation brings together executive skills taught throughout the program,” says William T. Valenta Jr., assistant dean for the EMBA Worldwide program and The Center for Executive Education. “Holding it during a Global Executive Forum gives the students one final chance to interact and is an opportunity for them to see how students from other countries attack management problems.”

Because the simulation was centered on the automobile industry, macroeconomic variables including GDP growth and interest rates were important considerations, says Lawrence Feick, the professor of business administration who led the simulation. In addition to strategic and tactical decisions on production and marketing, teams needed to make decisions on purchasing market research, investing in R&D, and financing operations through debt and equity.

Factory workers threatened to strike. Worldwide demand for their product fluctuated. New competitors entered the market. The U.S. Department of Justice opened an industry-wide investigation. Crisis after crisis tested the leadership of Saiprasad Venkataramani and his executive team.

On this day, they stood before the board of directors at their annual meeting. Compensation packages were on the agenda. “What did we learn in the last three years?” Venkataramani, company president, asked the board, flanked by Himanshu Taranekar, vice president of finance; Dhanajay “DJ” Sharma, vice president of operations; and Pratibha Sharan, vice president of marketing. “We learned to adapt to what the market wants. This helped guide our pricing strategy and which product attributes we focused on.”

Listening to the market worked. The company had eclipsed or hit targets for net income, sustainability, and market share during a three-year period. With these achievements in mind, the executives recommended the board give

them a 20 percent increase in their base pay, on top of a 20 percent bonus. Another self-serving reason to shoot high: compensation was part of their final grade.

The Management Simulation, a mandatory capstone for all full- and part-time MBA students at the Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business, puts students in the driver’s seat of a multinational manufacturing firm. Using a sophisticated computer simulation, teams compete against one another for market dominance, and the actions taken by one team can cause a ripple effect on the others.

Added as part of the school’s revamped curriculum in 2012, the Management Simulation sharpens skills in cross-functional management, strategic leadership, and group presentations, says Ron Magnuson, the interim simulation coordinator and director of administration for the Katz School and College of Business Administration. So far, more than 100 students have completed the simulation, and the class rates exceptionally well in student evaluations.

“The stress of owning our decisions and collectively steering the firm to success was a great experience,” Taranekar says. “As a team, after we provided our decision inputs at 9:00 at night, we would be restless until 6:30 in the morning when the results would be out. Did our decisions pay off ? With the results came either a wave of distress or a huge sigh of relief. But we had to move onward to the next quarter regardless.”

The Management Simulation is different from most Katz courses. There are no tests. Problems have no one answer. Learning by mistakes is critical. Nor do students control their own destinies. As in corporate life, their fate is intertwined with the perceptions of board members. Venkataramani’s team developed a strong rapport with their board, all of whom were senior-level managers: John George (MBA ’73), InterGroup Services Corporation; Joseph K. Dykta Sr. (MBA ’87, ENGR ’75), Dormont Manufacturing Company; and L. Jon Koteski (MBA ’99), Oakmont Capital Management, LLC.

MANAGEMENT GAMEPlaying the


Like Father, Like SonsSince its start in 1949 as a single South Hills drive-in with carhop service, Eat’n Park has grown into one of Western Pennsylvania’s largest restaurant chains, famous for its cheerful Smiley® cookies and fresh, dependable meals.

But the restaurant, with more than 75 locations across Pennsylvania, Ohio, and West Virginia, is only one piece of the company pie, albeit a sizable one. The Eat’n Park Hospitality Group features three additional restaurant brands (Six Penn Kitchen, The Porch at Schenley, and Hello Bistro), an online cookie store with sales in all 50 states (Smileycookie.com), and two dining providers that bring a restaurant-style flair to college dining halls, corporate headquarters, cultural destinations, hospitals, and senior living communities (Parkhurst Dining and Cura Hospitality).

Chairman James “Jim” Broadhurst (MBA ’66), the architect of this diverse business model, and his wife, Suzy, past director of corporate giving, have turned over management of day-to-day operations to their three sons. The company continues to grow, another generation carrying on the legacy with their own twist.

“Our ability to share best practices across our brand portfolio is an important competitive advantage,” says CEO Jeff Broadhurst (MBA ’93), who works alongside younger brothers, Mark, vice president of corporate dining and retail development, and Brooks, senior vice president of food and beverage.

Today, it is impossible to imagine Eat’n Park without the Broadhursts. In 1973, Jim was working at Pittsburgh National Bank when he was approached about becoming Eat’n Park’s chief financial officer. “Without my Katz accounting courses, I would have been ill-prepared and probably would not have gotten the job, but I was able to come in with a fundamental understanding of managerial accounting,” recalls Jim, who years later purchased the company.

Following in dad’s footsteps came naturally to Jeff and his siblings, all of whom studied hospitality management in college but had first careers elsewhere. Under their leadership, the company continues to support community initiatives and sustainability. Eat’n Park, through its FarmSource® program, gets about

one-fourth of its food from farms and local suppliers within 150 miles of each location. The company donates a minimum of 5 percent of pretax earnings to local charitable organizations. It also has supported more than $1 million in employee scholarships and raised more than $8 million for children’s hospitals.

“It started with my parents,” Jeff says. “They live here and work here. It’s about supporting those who have supported us.”

This philosophy helped his father become a recipient of the University of Pittsburgh’s Legacy Laureate award and the Katz School Distinguished Alumnus award. The future looks bright for a company that today serves 50 million guests annually.

“It’s a family business now that hopefully goes on for generations,” Jim says.

GENERATIONAfter

GENERATIONFamilies carrying on the Katz School tradition

James Broadhurst (left) with Jeff Broadhurst.


Sibling Rivalry

Almost everything was a competition in the Sheerer household. With their father timing them, the kids raced to see who could deliver the most newspapers in the fastest time on neighborhood paper routes. In school, they tried outdoing each other’s grades and extracurricular activities. At home, they played cutthroat games of pickup basketball and two-on-two football.

Good sibling rivalries don’t disappear in adulthood. Sarah “Sally” Sheerer (A&S ’88, MBA ’90), Edward “Ted” Sheerer (A&S ’86, MBA ’90), and John Sheerer (A&S ’91, MBA ’95), continue to stoke each other’s

competitive spirit. But they can all agree on this: the University of Pittsburgh played a big role in their professional success.

“Competition has always given us that extra push to succeed,” Sally says.

She should know. The founder of the Pittsburgh-area advertising specialty firm Paws, Inc., Sally is a former captain and MVP of the Pitt women’s basketball team, where she ranked among conference leaders in scoring, rebounds, and field goal percentage.

Her time in the Katz MBA program briefly overlapped with older brother, Ted, and they shared a few classes. Both faced challenges: Sally, the unrelenting pace of the 11-month MBA, and Ted, the high-wire balancing act of evening MBA classes while working part-time and being a husband and father.

“Deep down, I probably wanted to beat her scores on the tests, but ultimately we supported each other,” says Ted, who today is the senior vice president of the cash management department of First Commonwealth Bank.

Collectively, the Sheerer family holds eight degrees from Pitt. The parents, Martin “Tim” Sheerer (ENGR ’59) and Beverly Sheerer (A&S ’60), met at Pitt and raised their children on a steady diet of Pitt football games.

John, the youngest sibling, sells electricity and natural gas to commercial businesses in a position with Frontline Power Solutions, LLC.

“Katz was one of the greatest decisions I ever made, though my family kind of made it for me,” John says.

A Family Affair

Brothers in tight-knit families tend to share the same interests and tastes. They like the same music, the same clothes, the same sports, but how often do they like the same business school? Look no further than Ken Rowles (BBA ’64, MBA ’65) and younger brother, Kerry (MBA ’66).

“I think Katz prepared us for a career in business as well as any school possibly could,” says Ken, a retired co-managing shareholder at Schneider Downs & Co., Inc. in Pittsburgh and a recipient of the Business Alumni Association Distinguished Alumnus Award in 2000. His wife, Gail Nixon Rowles, is a 1966 graduate of Pitt’s School of Nursing.

Ken and Kerry’s deep and abiding love of the blue and gold, particularly its business

school, was passed on to their children, some of whom went to Katz: Ken’s daughters, Kristin Rowles (MBA ’95) and Karlye Rowles (MBA ’01), and Kerry’s son, Scott Rowles (MBA-MIS ’97). Years ago, Kerry and Ken established the Rowles fellowship to provide an annual scholarship to a Katz student.

Through successful and varied careers, the children are carrying on the family legacy. Kristin founded Policy Works LLC, an environmental policy consulting firm based near Atlanta. She helps governmental and private entity clients to develop watershed plans that fairly serve all stakeholders — a major issue, for example, in states such as Georgia, Alabama, and Florida that fight over a shared water basin.

Her younger sister, Karlye, worked as a marketing manager at Schneider Downs before recently taking on a similar role in her husband’s company, Kulzer and Company, Inc., a real estate appraisal and consulting firm. Today Karlye supports Katz as president of the Alumnae Council.

Kerry and his son, Scott, achieved business success in different ways. Kerry spent 33 years with PPG Industries, Inc. and had a variety of financial, general management, and HR career experiences. Scott, by contrast, has started several companies, including Crux Systems, an IT services firm, and Dive N Dog, a manufacturer of boat ladders for pets. Today, Scott is involved in new ventures, including a hydroelectric turbine company, FlowXtreme. A natural-born risk taker, Scott once sailed a 50-foot catamaran motorboat from the Caribbean island of Martinique to Australia.

The family’s connection to the Katz School began with Ken and Kerry in the 1960s and continued a generation later with Kristin, Scott, and Karlye. With six grandchildren on the scene, the stage is set for more Katz MBAs in the Rowleses’ future.

Ken Rowles

Kristin Rowles Karlye Rowles Scott Rowles

Kerry Rowles

Ken Rowles

Sally Sheerer and John Sheerer


IReadyto FlyFROM GRADUATION TO

BUSINESS SCHOOL DEAN

In Chengdu, China, population 15 million and growing, the Nordic International Management Institute (NIMI) is a world removed from the country’s urban sprawl, situated on a tranquil campus of well-manicured lawns and pristine brick buildings. Established in 2012, the school is the result of an unlikely partnership between North Europe academic institutions and government agencies, and the governors of Sichuan Province and Chengdu City.

NIMI President Per Jenster (PhD ’85) says school training programs, which for the time being include non-degree international exchange and executive development programs, serve two primary audiences: Chinese companies who want to become more international and Western companies eager for business in China. The faculty is composed of full-time professors and visiting lecturers from accredited business schools in Europe, the United States, and China.

“NIMI is the first internationalmanagement school in western China,which has a population of 500–600million people,” Jenster says. “Chengdu

has so much energy and opportunity. Its economy is bigger than Vietnam’s.”

With seven areas of study, the doctoralprogram of the University of Pittsburgh’s Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business is well known for placing its graduates as faculty at prestigious business schools. But as Jenster’s lofty position demonstrates, the program also has a strong track record for something else: educating the future leaders of business schools. Records show that more than a dozen Katz PhD alumni have served or are serving as deans of business schools all over the world — and the ranks are growing: Peter Brews (PhD ’96) became

dean of the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore Graduate School of Business in January 2014.

While no PhD program is a bona fidetraining ground for future deans, theKatz program excels in several respects,including its mentoring culture, emphasis on building research skills, and absence of departments by discipline, which brings down walls and spurs greater cooperation, says Dennis Galletta, director of the doctoral program and a professor of business administration.

In their role as deans, Katz PhD alumnihave taken lessons learned in Pittsburghto locations all over the world. Such wasthe case with Jenster, a Denmark native,who, prior to his role at NIMI, joined themarketing faculty at the University ofVirginia, Copenhagen Business School,IMD in Switzerland, and China EuropeInternational Business School.

PERJENSTER

NORDIC INTERNATIONALMANAGEMENTINSTITUTE

Kulpatra Sirodom (PhD ’87), former dean of Thammasat Business School, is a 2014 Distinguished Alumni Winner. See page 24

In their role as deans, Katz

PhD alumni have started a

business program from scratch

in Tanzania, reinvigorated a

top-ranked business school,

and put a historically black

college and university (HBCU)

program on the path to AACSB

International accreditation.

In every case, they are taking

lessons learned in Pittsburgh to

locations all over the world.


In Dan Smith’s (PhD ’89) eight years as dean of Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business, the school doubled the size of its student body while at the same time raising admission standards, vastly improved its financial position, doubled the size of its faculty, launched graduate programs in India and Korea, and raised over $170 million in private gifts despite the economy being in the throes of a recession.

As chief engineer of the transformation, Smith says he relied daily on lessons learned in the Katz doctoral program. “Going to the University of Pittsburgh for the doctoral program was singularly the best career move of my life,” he says.

Smith, a prolific scholar in strategic marketing, credits Katz for developing his ability to frame and diagnose problems and for teaching him the value of staying committed to your personal cause and institution. Former Katz faculty members C.W. Park and Gerald Zaltman and current faculty member John Prescott mentored him and continue to inspire.

“When you change the way people think, you change their life. That’s what Katz did for me,” Smith says.

After graduating from Katz, Smith joined the faculty at the University of Wisconsin, before returning to the Katz faculty and then accepting a faculty chair at Indiana University. In his current position as CEO and president of the Indiana University Foundation, Smith directs university-wide development and fundraising activities and oversees the foundation’s $1.8 billion endowment. “You’d be hard-pressed to find two activities that have changed the human condition more than philanthropy and higher education,” he says.

In his first months on the job, Martin “Marty” Roth, dean of the University of Hartford’s Barney School of Business, is taking a page from Pittsburgh’s playbook by aggressively seeking new partnerships between the business community and the university.

“Just as Pittsburgh evolved around clusters in health care, technology, and other industries, in Hartford there are clusters in insurance, financial services, aerospace, and health care with which we can align our capabilities and strengths,” says Roth, who became dean in August 2013.

A Squirrel Hill native, Roth knows a thing or two about Pittsburgh’s transformation. He earned his bachelor’s degree in business and economics (1983), and his MBA (1985) and his PhD in business administration (1990) from the University of Pittsburgh. As a professor of marketing and international business, he taught at the Katz School, Boston College, and University of South Carolina, where he served as chair of the school’s International Business Department and as chief innovation and assessment officer, before joining Hartford.

“Katz faculty members were such great role models: smart, enthusiastic, and very effective in the classroom,” Roth says. He cites the support he received from current faculty Tom Saaty, Luis Vargas, John Prescott, and Larry Feick, the latter with whom he co-authored an international marketing simulation game used by business schools worldwide.

Roth says the structure of the Katz doctoral program, because it wasn’t partitioned into departments, helped prepare him for leadership roles. “Running a college is more like running a business,” he says. “If your knowledge is limited to one functional area, you won’t be successful. The type of environment at Pitt gave us a much broader perspective.”

Before he entered academia, Anthony Nelson (MBA ’81, PhD ’91) cut his teeth in the manufacturing sector. First at National Steel Corporation, then at Champion International Paper, he managed the design and implementation of complex industrial information systems and supply chain networks.

“I ate, breathed, and slept information systems. That was my training,” Nelson says.

Now dean of Bowie State University’s College of Business, his skill set is significantly broader. Highlights from his tenure, which began in 2007, include the establishment of the Bowie Business Innovation Center, creation of the student Entrepreneurship Academy, and implementation of the school’s first assessment and assurance of learning strategy in pursuit of AACSB International accreditation.

“I’ve taken my MIS process improvement background and parlayed it into the ability to shape and design this dean’s position and the College of Business into something that is constantly improving,” Nelson says.

Nelson, who previously served as the dean of Grambling State University’s College of Business, credits the Katz doctoral program, where he studied information systems, for kindling his love of research. “That value for research follows me throughout my career, to this very day, through supporting faculty research agendas, course releases, and trips to conferences,” Nelson says.

Bowie State, which is located near Washington, D.C., Baltimore, and Annapolis, is Maryland’s oldest historically black college and university. “I think being the dean is a great job, but it’s very trying — definitely not for the shy and the innocent,” Nelson says.

As dean of Loyola University Chicago’s Quinlan School of Business, Kathleen A. Getz (PhD ’91) oversees a program dedicated to the belief that building personal wealth and enhancing the lives of others are not mutually exclusive objectives.

“Mission matters here,” says Getz, who has served as dean since 2011.

Getz’s academic path started with a detour. After college, she tried to get a job assisting low-income families with financial planning. Only volunteer positions were available. Getz became a bank teller, earned her MBA, and then taught business part-time at a technical school. When she looked into doctoral programs, her meeting with a professor at the Katz School kicked her academic journey into high gear.

“As soon as I met Barry Mitnick, I knew that I wanted to study with him,” Getz recalls. “He has a gift for asking such challenging and thought-provoking questions. In the hour I spent with him, I knew that I wanted to work with a brain that worked that way.”

Getz next joined the faculty of American University’s Kogod School of Business in Washington, D.C. She developed research interests in managerial ethics, regulatory issues, corruption, and peace through commerce that are a natural match for Loyola’s curriculum.

Getz credits Katz for building her research muscle, teaching her to be innovative, and helping her be a better collaborator. Further, the absence of departments in the Katz PhD program showed her the value of breaking down walls between the business disciplines.

“I went into this profession because I loved teaching, and I still love working with students,” Getz says.

DAN SMITH

INDIANAUNIVERSITY

MARTIN ROTH

UNIVERSITY OF HARTFORD

ANTHONY NELSON

BOWIE STATE UNIVERSITY

KATHLEENGETZ

LOYOLA UNIVERSITYCHICAGO

ACHIEVING EXTRAORDINARY RESULTS

CULTIVATING HOMEGROWN TALENT

RIDING INDUSTRY TO ACADEMIA

DOING WELL BYDOING GOOD


BOON- SIONG NEO

NANYANG TECHNOLOGICALUNIVERSITY

ANSWERING HIS NATION’S CALL

MARK CORDANO

MERRIMACKCOLLEGE

TRAILBLAZING IN ENVIRONMENTAL MANAGEMENT

Mark Cordano (PhD ’98) gravitated to the environmental side of business — topics such as energy usage, waste management, soil erosion, and chemical outputs — long before business schools established programs in the subject.

“When I first thought of environmental topics, people said you should go into public policy. I said, ‘No, this is a business issue.’ There were virtually no business schools with this topic,” Cordano recalls.

Then Cordano met William C. Frederick, a pioneer in establishing Katz as a leader in business and society issues. Cordano jumped at the chance to conduct research and teach classes in the emerging field of environmental management, and subsequently taught at Wright State University and Ithaca College, where he served as chair of the management department and interim dean.

In July 2011, Cordano became dean of Merrimack College’s Girard School of Business, located about 30 miles north of Boston in the quiet town of North Andover. The business school’s 800 undergraduates and 50 graduate students collectively make up nearly a third of the college’s entire student population.

“I’ve done a fair amount of research since I left Katz,” Cordano says. After graduation, he became division chair of the Organizations and the Natural Environment (ONE) interest group of the Academy of Management. Cordano credits the Katz doctoral program for introducing him to top researchers, especially his dissertation chair, Irene Hanson Frieze.

R. CHARLESMOYER

UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE

PUTTING PEOPLE FIRST

R. Charles Moyer (MBA ’68, PhD ’71) has led business programs to new heights as former dean of University of Louisville and Wake Forest University, but there was a time when he was like any other doctoral student, sweating over his first teaching lecture.

In that moment, it wasn’t a TA or a fellow doctoral student who quelled his nerves, but the dean of the Katz School, H.J. Zoffer. “I’ll always remember that. He was the dean and he took the time to come and give me his tips,” Moyer recalls.

Terrific, caring faculty made Katz stand out then, as it does now, says Moyer, who sought to replicate that model as dean of Wake Forest’s Babcock Graduate School of Management from 1996 to 2003 and dean of Louisville’s College of Business Administration from 2005 to 2013. During his tenure, the schools instituted new programs and centers, recruited distinguished faculty, and achieved positive recognition in the rankings.

Moyer, a renowned finance scholar, was a 2004 recipient of the Katz School Distinguished Alumnus Award. Louisville officials knew he was a huge college basketball fan, so when recruiting him for the deanship, they turned to their big guns. Moyer had this message waiting on his answering machine: “Charlie, this is Rick Pitino calling from the University of Louisville. We’ve had a great year recruiting, and we’d love to add you to the team.”

The two later became such good friends that Pitino presented him with the ultimate retirement gift at Moyer’s final Board of Visitors meeting: a signed basketball from the 2013 national championship team and his Final Four coach’s watch.

In the 1980s, Boon-Siong Neo was an accountant at Royal Dutch Shell in Singapore when the National University of Singapore recruited him for a nationalistic venture: Would he go abroad to earn his doctorate and then return home to build up Singapore’s higher education infrastructure?

“Our mission was to transform a business school in Singapore from a teaching institution into a research institution,” he recalls. “I was one of the first to come back, not with just a PhD in information systems, but one of the first PhDs, period.”

The investment in Neo (MBA ’88, PhD ’89) paid off. After the roles of director of a research center, departmental chair, and vice dean, he became dean of Nanyang Technological University’s business school at the age of 39, serving from 1998 to 2004, a time when the program catapulted from rankings obscurity to one of the world’s leading programs.

Neo, now a professor and chairman of Nanyang Business School’s Executive Programs, selected Katz over all other U.S. business schools because it offered a top-ranked MIS program and the ability to earn his degrees in three years. “The courses were very rigorous, and it was helpful that the professors understood my goal to get my PhD done quickly,” he says.

Today, Neo is director of multiple corporate boards, including Keppel Telecommunications & Transportation Ltd, and has served on more than 20 boards in total. Additionally, he continues to answer the call to civic duty as an advisor to the Singapore government on IT, economic development, social, and health issues. “It’s unusual for a professor in a business school to spend half his work with corporations, half with the government,” Neo says.

KYUNG-IL GHYMN

THE UNITED AFRICAN UNIVERSITY OF TANZANIA

ALLEVIATING POVERTY IN AFRICA

Kyung-il Ghymn’s (PhD ’74) retirement from the University of Nevada, Reno, where he taught marketing and international business for 28 years, did not last long. Almost immediately, he traveled to Tanzania’s capital city, Dar es Salaam, to lay the groundwork for a private business school financed by the Korea Church Mission.

Established in 2011, the United African University of Tanzania (UAUT), which also offers an engineering program, will graduate its first class of students next year. Ghymn, who served as founding dean, says the school’s curriculum, while a far cry from that of an elite, accredited institution, helps to address the continent’s three national enemies: ignorance, poverty, and disease.

“When I was at the Katz School, I learned that teaching marketing techniques for underdeveloped countries was far better than giving them millions in foreign aid. Africa needs business education to reduce poverty,” Ghymn says.

Ghymn has since become dean of Georgia Christian University near Atlanta but still returns to UAUT to teach. The school faces a unique set of challenges: overcoming the language barrier of students whose native tongue is Swahili and the financial difficulty of their severely limited incomes. But through hard work and dedication, the faculty and staff make do. Starting next year, student internships in South Korea, China, and the United States will be offered, Ghymn says.

Ghymn is inspired by the potential he sees in his UAUT students.

“I scream at my students. ‘You have to go and seize the opportunity for yourself and the future of your country!’ ” he says.


For more information about the awards

or to nominate an alumnus or friend

of Pitt Business for future awards, visit

www.katz.pitt.edu/awards.

La’Tasha D. Mayes

Gloster B. Current Jr.

The 50th Annual Pitt Business Alumni Association

awards, held in April, was a milestone occasion

as we honored the achievements of this year’s

outstanding award recipients and reflected back

on 50 years of history.

Susan E. Arnold Kulpatra Sirodom

George A. Davidson Jr.Max H. Mitchell

Texas InstrumentsCorporate Appreciation Award

Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) is a global semiconductor design and manufacturing company that sells products to more than 100,000 electronics designers and manufacturers worldwide.

With 2013 revenues of more than $12 billion, TI offers a broad array of integrated circuits central to almost all electronic equipment. During the past few years, TI underwent a strategic transformation to shift its primary focus to analog and embedded processors, known as the semiconductor engines of the Internet age. This market segment offers TI growth opportunities in a number of directions, including inside of the industrial and automotive markets.

TI has been a Fortune’s “World’s Most Admired Company” for 10 consecutive years and made the Thomson Reuters “Top 100 Global Innovators” list for two consecutive years. TI has been named seven times to the Dow Jones Sustainability Index for its leadership in corporate economic, environmental, and social performance. TI is the first semiconductor company to earn certification from the U.S. Green Building Council.

As the owner of more than 40,000 patents, TI has been behind many landmark innovations over the years, including the first commercial silicon transistors, the first integrated circuits, and the first electronic hand-held calculator. TI’s innovative spirit was established more than 80 years ago, when Geophysical Service Inc. pioneered signal processing technology as a tool for locating underground oil reservoirs.

Today, TI’s semiconductors are used across a wide variety of industries, including industrial, energy, medical, safety and security, and consumer products. TI’s goal is to help its customers unlock the world as it could be: smarter, safer, greener, healthier, and more fun. Based in Dallas, Texas, TI has more than 32,000 employees and the industry’s largest sales and support staff.


Gloster B. Current Jr. (KGSB ’72)

2014 Distinguished Service HonoreeImmediate Past President,

Pitt Black MBA Network (PBAN)Board member, A.O. Smith Corporation

Retired executive Gloster B. Current Jr. was a founding member and first president of the Pitt Black MBA Network (PBAN), an alumni organization dedicated to help present and future diversity students at Katz. Established in 2010, PBAN has a membership of about 140 individuals who offer support in the areas of student recruitment, scholarship funding, and alumni mentoring.

Current serves on the board of directors and audit committee of A.O. Smith Corporation, a $2 billion global manufacturer of commercial and residential water heaters, boilers, and water filtration equipment. At his retirement in April 2009, Current was vice president of corporate affairs and assistant to the CEO at Northwestern Mutual and served as president of the Northwestern Mutual Foundation. He directed the team responsible for corporate philanthropy totaling $17 million annually and served as the liaison to Northwestern Mutual’s Board of Trustees.

Prior to this position, Current served as vice president and chief marketing officer for Lincoln Financial Group from 1995 to 2003. He directed all facets of the company’s branding campaigns, advertising, Internet, promotions, and event management. One of his signature achievements was leading the initiative to secure 20-year naming rights at Lincoln Financial Field, home of the Philadelphia Eagles NFL football team.

Earlier Current served as a vice president at Citibank and held key leadership roles at KFC Corporation, Del Monte Foods, Inc., and Procter & Gamble. Current earned his bachelor’s degree from Howard University. During his time at Katz, Current was president of the business student government and won the 1972 Marshall Alan Robinson prize granted by the faculty.

Current and his wife, Yvonne, have two daughters.

La’Tasha D. Mayes (CBA ’03)

2014 CBA Outstanding Alumna Honoree

Founder and Executive Director, New Voices Pittsburgh: Women of Color for Reproductive Justice

La’Tasha D. Mayes is a nationally recognized leader in the fields of sexual and reproductive health, human rights issues, and leadership development, particularly as it relates to women and girls of color. She is the founder and executive director of the community-based organization, New Voices Pittsburgh: Women of Color for Reproductive Justice (NVP).

Since 2004, NVP has improved the health and well-being of more than 10,000 women in the greater Pittsburgh region by creating opportunities for social change, activism, civic engagement, and leadership development. This year, NVP will launch the Black Women’s Health Agenda™ and Black Girls’ Health Agenda™: five- to 10-year plans designed to address the physical, emotional, spiritual, cultural, political, economic, environmental, and social health of black women and girls.

Mayes’s social activism extends to other causes. She is the national chair of SisterSong, an Atlanta-based organization that is the largest human rights advocacy organization for indigenous women and women of color in the United States. Mayes is a member of Women for a Healthy Environment Leadership Committee and a co-chair of the Social Action Committee of Delta Sigma Theta Sorority’s Pittsburgh Alumnae Chapter. Additionally, she is a past president of the Urban League Young Professionals of Greater Pittsburgh and, as a founding commissioner of the Allegheny County Human Relations Commission (2009 to 2012), helped to protect the civil rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) residents.

Mayes holds a Master of Science in Public Policy and Management in Reproductive Health and Justice Policy from Carnegie Mellon University’s Heinz College. She is a native of West Philadelphia and believes in the indefatigable spirit of women.

George A. Davidson Jr. (ENGR ’61)

2014 H.J. Zoffer Medal for Meritorious Service Honoree

Chairman, Dominion Resources, Inc. (Retired)Pitt Business Board of Visitors member

University of Pittsburgh Board of Trustee Emeritus

George A. Davidson Jr. is a retired chairperson of Dominion Resources, Inc. and also spent 34 years with Consolidated Natural Gas Co., where he held a number of managerial and executive positions, including CEO and chairperson. Additionally, Davidson served more than 20 years on the boards of The PNC Financial Services Group and Goodrich Corp.

Davidson joined the University of Pittsburgh’s Board of Trustees in 1987 and was elected an Emeritus Trustee in 2011. In addition, he has served on the Pitt Business Board of Visitors since 1987, including for 15 years as its chair (1996 to 2011). Davidson is also the vice chairperson of the Swanson School of Engineering Board of Visitors and served previously as a University Director of the UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside Board.

Through gifts to the University, Davidson has established the George A. Davidson Engineering Laboratory for Freshmen, the George A. Davidson Jr. Unit Operation Laboratory in the Department of Chemical and Petroleum Engineering, the George A. Davidson Jr. MBA Endowed Scholarship Fund, and the George Davidson Graduate Fellowships in Chemical Engineering. He is a Golden Life Member of the Pitt Alumni Association and is a member of the Cathedral of Learning Society and the Brackenridge Circle.

In 2003, the American Gas Association presented Davidson with its Distinguished Service Award, the association’s highest honor, for his contributions to the natural gas industry. Davidson’s contributions have been recognized by the University, as well, for he is a Legacy Laureate, the recipient of the Distinguished Alumni Award of the School of Engineering, the recipient of the Bicentennial Medallion of Distinction, and the recipient of the 225th Anniversary Medallion.

Davidson and his wife, Ada, have been married for 52 years and have three children and six grandchildren.

Kulpatra Sirodom (PhD-KGSB ’87, PhD-A&S ’87)

2014 International Distinguished Alumna Honoree

Associate Professor in Finance, Thammasat University Business School

Board member, Thai President Foods PCL, Thai Wacoal PCL, President Bakery PCL,

The Siam Commercial Bank PCL

For more than 25 years, Kulpatra Sirodom has served in leadership roles at Thammasat Business School in Thailand. From 2010 to 2013, Sirodom was dean of the school’s Faculty of Commerce and Accountancy, and during her tenure, undergraduate and master’s students won multiple global case competitions.

Since 2002, Sirodom has served as chairperson of curriculum in Thammasat’s International MBA Program. Previously she served as director of the International Business Center, director of the Business Research Center, and director of the BBA International program.

Sirodom, who has published extensive research about Thai equity markets, is an advisor to the option trading platform of the Stock Exchange of Thailand. She is a former director and committee member of the Agricultural Futures Exchange of Thailand and a former advisor of multiple committees.

Sirodom is an independent director on the boards of Thai President Foods PCL (chairperson of audit committee), Thai Wacoal PCL (chairperson of audit committee and corporate governance committee), President Bakery PCL (audit committee), and The Siam Commercial Bank PCL (audit committee).

Sirodom has also assisted the Thailand government on committees for social security, pension funds, government housing, public–private partnerships, state enterprise policies, performance agreements, and university affairs.

Sirodom earned an MBA with a finance concentration from West Virginia University and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Thammasat University, graduating first in her class. She is married to Dr. Rom Hiranpruk, a computer scientist, who shares her interests in social development projects. Together they serve in various foundations focused on education, industry, and sustainability.

Max H. Mitchell (KGSB ’89)

2014 Distinguished Alumnus HonoreePresident and CEO,

Crane Company

Max H. Mitchell is the president and CEO of Crane Co., a global diversified manufacturer of highly engineered industrial products, headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, with more than 12,000 employees and $3 billion in revenue. He is also a member of the Pitt Business Board of Visitors.

At Crane, Mitchell has held positions of increasing responsibility: corporate vice president of operational excellence (March 2004), president of Crane’s $1.2 billion fluid handling group (April 2005), executive vice president and chief operating officer companywide (May 2011), president and chief operating officer (April 2013), and president and CEO (January 2014).

Prior to Crane, Mitchell held a variety of managerial roles with leading manufacturers. He served as senior vice president of global operations for the Pentair, Inc.’s Tool Group from 2001 to 2004. The $1.1 billion division of Pentair was a manufacturer of consumer and professional power tools under the Porter-Cable, Delta, and DeVilbiss brands.

Prior to this experience, Mitchell held operating roles with the Danaher Corporation, including vice president of operations of Joslyn Hi-Voltage; manager of Danaher Business System; director of operations for Matco Tools; and vice president of operations and general manager of Veeder Root.

Mitchell earned his bachelor’s degree in liberal arts from Tulane University in 1985. After earning an MBA with a finance concentration from Katz, he joined the Ford Motor Company. He worked in the Controller’s Office of Powertrain Operations and later became a financial analyst in Powertrain Operations New Product Programs before moving into manufacturing line management.

Mitchell and his wife of 28 years, Jennifer, have four children: Max II, 22, attending Lynn University; Rachel, 21, attending Rice University; Katherine, 19, attending Boston University; and Nick, 16.

Susan E. Arnold (KGSB ’80)

2014 Distinguished Alumna HonoreeVice Chair/President, Procter & Gamble (retired)

Operating Executive, The Carlyle GroupBoard member, Walt Disney Co. and McDonald’s Corp.

Susan E. Arnold was president of global business units at Procter & Gamble when she retired after more than 29 years with the company. In this position, she was responsible for 300 brands resulting in $80 billion in sales worldwide.

Arnold broke the glass ceiling at P&G, serving as the first female leader of P&G’s global beauty business and first female vice chair. As head of P&G’s global beauty and health business, Arnold oversaw brands such as Pantene, Head & Shoulders, Herbal Essences, Wella, Hugo Boss, Always, Actonel, Crest, Olay, and Old Spice. Her leadership contributed to P&G’s overall growth during the decade of the 2000s and established P&G as one of the world’s leading beauty companies.

Arnold was known for her strong business intuition, decisive leadership, focus on customers, and commitment to workplace diversity. She was instrumental in embedding sustainability into P&G’s products and operations. Overall, Arnold led P&G’s varied businesses to record results.

Arnold now serves on the boards of directors of Walt Disney Co. and McDonald’s Corp. In addition, she is an operating executive in the consumer and retail practice of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity firms. In this role, Arnold assesses the strategy and acquisition potential of target companies and evaluates personnel and leadership.

Arnold holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania. She was on Fortune’s “50 Most Powerful Women” list for seven years and Forbes’ “World’s 100 Most Powerful Women” list for five years.

Arnold and her partner have two children, one of whom is a senior in high school and considering the University of Pittsburgh for college. Her mother is also an alumna of the graduate school of business.


HEIDI BARTHOLOMEWClinical Assistant Professor of Business Administration and Interim Director of the David Berg Center for Ethics and LeadershipAccounting

In the fourth grade, Heidi Bartholomew was showing enough promise on the clarinet that her music teacher asked if she was ready for the challenge of a double-reed instrument. “I really wanted to play the oboe,” she recalls, “but the band already had an oboist, so I got to be the bassoonist.”

The second choice worked out quite well. Bartholomew honed her bassoon-playing talents in a youth symphony before later earning a music scholarship to Mount Union College in northeastern Ohio, where she played in the school’s wind ensemble and woodwind groups — all while majoring in accounting.

“I bought half my college education with my bassoon,” says Bartholomew, who later became the vice president

RICHARD FRANKLINClinical Assistant Professor of Business AdministrationInformation Systems and Technology Management

Richard Franklin is a versatile, classically trained guitarist and composer who once supported himself as a professional musician and continues to release albums of his original jazz compositions, available through iTunes, Spotify, and Shufflocity.com.

In the 1970s, Franklin drew effusive praise from Pittsburgh music critics for his performances of Brazilian composer Heitor Villa-Lobos’s work in concertos with the Wilkinsburg, McKeesport, and Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestras. He learned from guitar greats Sophocles Papas and Carlos Barbosa-Lima at Carnegie Mellon University, where he earned a bachelor’s and a master’s degree in fine arts and later taught as a Visiting Lecturer in Guitar and Harmony.

“Nobody goes into music expecting to make a lot of money. It’s a really rough way to make a living,” Franklin says. Music is in his family. His father, the late Harry Franklin, was a world-class pianist who could trace his musical lineage to

and controller of FedEx Ground, responsible for company-wide functions including M&A accounting, SEC reporting, and SOX compliance.

Today, Bartholomew is a member of the North Suburban Symphonic Band in Pittsburgh and a band aptly named West Winds (all its woodwind players all once lived west of Pittsburgh). She also regularly attends Pittsburgh’s very own Bassoonapalooza, which attracts bassoonists from the skill level of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra on down.

“After 30 years of playing, I can’t imagine stopping,” she says.

the famed 19th century Hungarian musician Franz Liszt, and was a member of the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra, as well as head of the music department at Carnegie Mellon University.

Later, Franklin became interested in jazz and headlined various groups playing in Pittsburgh clubs. These days he performs less frequently live, focusing instead on releasing solo albums. His songs have a jazz bent, although pinning him to one style is impossible, as smooth jazz, fusion, swing, bebop, the blues, funk, and rockabilly are all present.

While Franklin has many musical influences, The Beatles’ performance on The Ed Sullivan Show is what inspired him to play guitar. “It was beyond exciting. I can’t even begin to articulate how important they are in terms of my musical self,” Franklin says.

For Ryan Teeter, the rock climbing gym is more than just a training ground for his next big adventure. It is also the perfect venue for a first date. “It’s fun and good exercise. One of you holds the rope and the other scales the wall,” he says, adding this is how he and his wife began their courtship. Many of Teeter’s hobbies are daring. He likes bouldering, which entails crawling up massive rocks and hopping to the next one. “Arches National Park is a great place for it. You’re surrounded by beautiful red rock,” he says. Teeter enjoys cliff diving and has plunged from three stories high into the water. He is a certified scuba diver with more than 100 different dives under his belt, including a Bahamas dive when bloody chum was dropped into the water to RYAN TEETER

Clinical Assistant Professor of Business AdministrationAccounting

THE ADVENTURER

“Woodworking is in my blood. I picked it up from my dad. He had a number of woodworking tools,” Kimpel says.

Stained glass is another hobby Kimpel is perfecting. The painstakingly slow process requires carefully cutting glass, then fitting the cut glass into lead came, soldering the joints, and brushing the lead with gun bluing, which turns the lead a deep steel-gray color. Several doors in his home display Kimpel’s colorful stained glass designs, one of which he salvaged from his wife’s family’s old house.

Kimpel’s workshop contains all the tools a craftsman needs. Only time will tell what creative piece he comes up with next.

JIM KIMPELClinical Associate Professor of Business AdministrationInformation Systems and Technology Management

THE CRAFTSMAN

In Jim Kimpel’s family room is an armoire whose fashionably distressed look is the real thing. The wood is old floorboards reclaimed from his wife’s now-demolished childhood home, straight down to the pock marks from beetle bites.

“Some of the things that I build have sentimental value, as well as being made as an antique piece of furniture,” Kimpel says.

Kimpel also uses his tools to create new memories. Years ago, he built for his children an old-fashioned wooden rocking horse. The attention to detail is evident in the horse’s smooth curves, the rich grain of the poplar wood, and the realism of the horse’s eyes — in this case, procured from a taxidermist.

summon sharks, while Teeter’s group watched in fascination from the sea floor below. Epic childhood summer vacations established Teeter’s wanderlust. Along with his parents, six brothers and sisters, and grandmother, Teeter traveled via motorhome to all 48 continental U.S. states and parts of Canada. The adventures were many. Once his parents accidentally left Teeter behind at Grand Canyon National Park (they realized their mistake 30 minutes later). Teeter spent a birthday in the gloriously bat-filled caves of Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico, and a Fourth of July watching fireworks from the Tidal Basin near Washington, D.C. The urge to travel and take bold adventures never left Teeter. It is part of his identity.

BEYOND THE CLASSROOM

HIDDEN FACU LTY TALENTS

THE SYMPHONIST

THE GUITARIST


JAMES “JIM” CRAFTProfessor of Business AdministrationOrganizations and Entrepreneurship

NICOLE COLEMANAssistant Professor of Business AdministrationMarketing and Business Economics

THE POET

THE ARTIST

Craft writes in his poem, “A January Midnight Walk”:

Reflected radiance from moon and stars/ Glistens on the path/ As my steps yield residue of sight and sound/ In the shimmering crust/ That unifies and disguises the visible world.

Beyond poetry, Craft expresses himself through music, as he plays everything from Spanish ballads to the Kingston Trio on his acoustic guitar, and has written a few of his own instrumentals.

“My academic work is focused on concepts and theories, modules and analysis. This is based on, ‘I see something and I feel something.’ It’s not logical or analytical. It’s experiencing and enjoying,” he says.

were Coleman’s own broken tibia, fibula, and humerus bones. Behind her desk is a metal-etched drawing of a flying monkey from The Wizard of Oz, updated for modern times by a helicopter blade affixed to the crown of its head.

Art immersion is like meditation for Coleman. When a research paper is giving her trouble, she can put it aside, work on an art project, and come back feeling refreshed.

“Art for me has always been an escape,” she says. “I get to turn off my analytical brain that is running all the time and spend some time in another world.”

Nicole Coleman is one of the few, if only, students to graduate from the University of Pennsylvania with bachelor’s degrees in business and the fine arts. The double major was like a double life: the Wharton students were snobby toward the art students, and the art students thought the Wharton students sold their souls for money.

“As an undergraduate, I was living in two different worlds with very little overlap,” she says.

Although business remains her first love, Coleman’s artistic side continues. Her office provides gallery space for her paintings and print-making art. On the wall is her abstract painting of molecular forms, down to the orbs and matrices — her take on the interior of a sweetgum fruit. Next to it are anatomic prints of human bones, the inspiration for which

“Human resources expert” is only one side of Jim Craft’s personality. There is also the side of him who writes poetry, plays folk music on the guitar, landscapes extensively, and photographs nature scenes. This is Jim Craft, self-expressionist.

“Poetry is a valuable and meaningful source of personal expression, a great source of insight into the way people see the world,” says Craft, who became deeply interested in poetry in college and has dabbled at it ever since.

His poems, which include some written in Spanish, span what he calls the “extraordinary experience of living,” universal themes we all feel at one time or another: the passage of time, the excitement of a new beginning, the swift pendulum swing between happiness and sadness. MICHAEL DONOHOE

Clinical Associate Professor of Business AdministrationInformation Systems and Technology Management

THE FISHERMAN

Michael Donohoe treasures days spent fly fishing in the Youghiogheny River. He shows up around sunrise and stays through sunset.

“The best thing is the satisfaction of catching a fish on your own fly — that’s what it’s all about,” Donohoe says.

Donohoe makes his artificial flies by hand. He puts the hook in a vise, wraps in thread, and attaches a weighted bead, and then adds feathers and other bright, reflective accents. Each fly takes less than five minutes to produce. “I tie them knowing that I’m going to lose them,” says Donohoe, whose flies include the varieties Wooly Bugger, Clouser Minnow, and San Juan worm, and his unnamed concoction, created from a Koosh ball’s tendrils.

Donohoe is drawn to the challenge of fly fishing. The whip-like casting motion takes power and precision — enough strength to throw the line 50 feet, yet the soft touch to land it gently on the water, to make the fish think lunch has arrived in the form of an insect. Furthermore, one must anticipate the current’s directional flow, so the line drifts where intended. There is also that small detail about actually standing in a raging river rather than sitting comfortably in a boat.

Donohoe wouldn’t have it any other way. “For me, standing in the river in early spring, when there is a light rain and the sun is coming up, and it seems like I’m the only person on the river, this is one of those great moments,” he says.

DENNIS GALLETTAProfessor of Business Administration and Director of the Doctoral ProgramInformation Systems and Technology Management

THE SHUTTERBUG

Last year, while most of Maui’s population slept, Dennis Galletta drove his rental car on a 90-minute trip to the 10,000-foot summit of Mount Haleakalā, known as House of the Sun. The elevation was supposed to give him a clear view of the night sky so that his camera could capture, with astounding clarity, more stars than could be seen by the naked eye. But as he ascended the peak, starry skies yielded to clouds and rain, then sleet and snow.

“I’m thinking, ‘What? How is this happening?’ The concierge at the hotel told me the mountain is above the clouds, that it’s above the weather,” Galletta recalls.

This was not the first time Galletta risked danger or dashed off in the night to pursue the perfect picture. He once drove hundreds of miles through the night to photograph the Rocky Mountains at sunrise, only to turn around and come back just in time for his flight home. Last May, he

hiked 25 miles of rough Arizona terrain to photograph waterfalls and sunlit caverns. He has trekked to Mount Washington at midnight to photograph lightning streaking across Pittsburgh’s skyline.

Amateur photography is another side to Galletta, who won two awards this year for his research into human–computer interaction in information systems. He volunteers his time to take professional portraits of the business school’s faculty, staff, and students (displayed online) and contributes photographs to its print publications (including this magazine).

“Photography turns me into a different person because I’m really on a mission,” Galletta says.

Atop Mount Haleakalā, Galletta did not let inclement weather stop him. Eventually the weather cleared and he captured a sublime photo.


RIRight after college, Jamie Harshman landed a coveted job as an internal auditor at Ernst & Young. Despite her aptitude for compliance reporting and the potential for promotion, she felt a career switch was in order.

“Even though I’m good with numbers, I learned that my true passion is in the people side of business, and that’s why I decided to go back to grad school for human resources,” Harshman says.

The decision paid off. Harshman (MBA ’14) bolstered her résumé with an internship in PNC Financial Services Group’s Living Well Department and through her leadership positions at Katz. She was president of Katz’s chapter of the National Association of Women MBAs (NAWMBA), which hosts an array of alumnae networking and professional development events. Harshman helped start “lean in” circles featuring experts in subjects important to female businesswomen, such as time management and contract negotiations.

“We serve as a support system for women MBAs,” Harshman says. “It should not always be about competing and trying to be better than one another. It’s about helping each another reach for higher goals.”

Harshman admires Chalene Johnson, an American fitness entrepreneur. Johnson’s home fitness programs have sold more than 10 million copies, and she wrote the best-selling book Push: 30 Days to Turbocharged Habits, A Bangin’ Body, and the Life You Deserve. “Chalene is a role model because she used wellness and fitness, two passions of mine, to become a successful businesswoman,” she says.

As a human resources professional, Harshman is looking forward to the opportunity to address gender and diversity issues, including the salary gap between men and women.

“It’s clear there still is not equality. Work remains to be done,” Harshman says.

2014

Jamie Harshman

In fall 1975, Bibiana “Bibie” Boerio began the Katz One-Year MBA program as the only student in the class with a degree in textiles and design. While she knew fashion principles by heart, business terminology was like a foreign language.

“Starting from day one, it was like drinking from a fire hose with all spigots on at full blast,” Boerio says.

Fortunately, Boerio was thirsty. She studied hard and quickly befriended her classmates and professors, some of whom became lifelong friends. In fact, after becoming an accountant at Ford Motor Company — the start of 31 years there — she sent one of her favorite professors, Jim Rossell, an autographed copy of the global balance sheet she prepared for the company’s annual report with the comment, “Thanks to you!”

“Professor Rossell was a crusty old soul with this tough exterior. Here I was, this ‘home ec’ major getting a business degree, but he never skipped a beat, working with me and the others who had much more of an accounting background to make sure we all learned it,” Boerio recalls.

For the past year, Boerio has served as the interim president of her alma mater, Seton Hill University. At Ford, she broke the glass ceiling with executive positions in corporate finance, global marketing, and operations, including

a stint as managing director of Jaguar Cars, Ltd., and as Ford Motor Credit’s executive vice president and chief financial officer.

The Pitt campus that Boerio knew in the 1970s was vastly different from today’s grounds. Katz classes were held in windowless rooms on the 16th floor of the Cathedral of Learning (Mervis Hall did not open until 1983). Boerio used a calculator four times the size of an iPhone. She learned FORTRAN and COBOL computer programming languages via punch cards and paper tape. Female MBA students did not have their own student organization. “Women were afraid to talk about issues then,” she says. “We had a small group who met informally to talk about our challenges.”

All these years later, one part about Pitt hasn’t changed: gritty South Oakland. Boerio’s student apartment abutted a company that sold cemetery vaults, and she still remembers the loud bangs they heard on Saturday mornings when vaults were being moved for the day’s cemetery services.

As a student, Boerio had little leisure time. She did attend a number of football games at the old Pitt Stadium, but sadly not the game when Tony Dorsett ripped off 303 yards against Notre Dame. But she mostly studied, studied, and studied some more. “I don’t remember having much fun,” she says.

19 76

Bibiana “Bibie” Boerio

Then & NOW

Apple Computer is launched

The $2 bill is issued

Fidel Castro becomes the president of Cuba

Average cost of gallon of gas: 59 cents

Average cost of new home: $16,000

Pittsburgh Steelers win the Super Bowl

Pitt Panthers win the national championship

Pitt running back Tony Dorsett wins the Heisman Trophy

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest wins the Oscar for Best Picture

1976 Time Capsule


Katz and CBA marketing faculty

ranked No. 16 in the world

for marketing research based on

productivity in four preeminent

academic journals. (DocSIG)CBA students win the 2013 Mazda National College Marketing Challenge for their creative campaign, “What

Drives You?,” to market the Mazda3 to young people.

Katz Full-time MBA program is ranked in

the Top 25 of U.S. public universities

and the Top 50 in U.S. universities.

(Financial Times, Forbes, The Economist)

The second-annual BNY Mellon Katz Invitational hosted 14 top business schools and awarded $18,000 in prizes to the winning teams.

CBA student and Pitt men’s basketball player Cameron Wright is the recipient of 2014 ACC Skip Prosser Award, given to the conference’s top scholar–athlete.

Katz Full-time MBA program is

No. 1 in the U.S. for salary increase.

(Financial Times)

Katz Executive MBA Worldwide program

ranked in the Top 10 among U.S.

public institutions and the Top 25

in the United States. (Financial Times)

Read & Repeat > Read & Repeat > Read & Repeat > Read &

The Center for Supply Chain Management has been established at Katz and CBA, a new resource center for experience-based learning, supply chain management research, and enhanced industry partnerships.

Accounting doctoral student Michele Frank receives the 2014 Deloitte Foundation Doctoral Fellowship. The $25,000 prize is awarded to 10 students nationally each year.

Katz students win the 2014 Pittsburgh Association for Corporate Growth (ACG) Cup for the third straight time.

CBA students, Joshua Yoskosky (finance and pre-law) and Joseph Fogiato (marketing and supply chain management), are hailed as

heroes for rescuing an elderly neighbor from an Oakland house fire in January 2014.

Four Pitt graduates are among the Top 10 scorers on the CPA Exam in Pennsylvania in 2013.

The Katz MBA program has the No. 1

return on investment (ROI) in the United

States and 19th-best ROI in the world.(The Economist analysis of select schools, May 2014).

Faculty member Jay Sukits is a recipient of the Pitt 2014 Chancellor’s Public Service Award.

Since 2012, the Katz Full-time MBA program has climbed the most spots of any ranked school in the U.S. News & World Report annual rankings.

34 | Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration

Joseph M. Katz Graduate School of Business and College of Business Administration

372 Mervis HallRoberto Clemente DrivePittsburgh, PA 15260

NONPROFIT ORG.US POSTAGE PAID

PITTSBURGH, PAPERMIT NO. 511

Event dates (alumni page) homecoming

Social Media Icons

Giving Link?

MARK YOUR CALENDARwww.katz.pitt.edu/social

www.business.pitt.edu/alumni/events

October 24: Annual 51+ Pitt Business LuncheonPitt Business alumni who graduated more than 51 years ago are invited to attend the Annual 51+ Pitt Business Luncheon.

October 24: Pitt Business Homecoming Social A tradition that grows in numbers each year, the Pitt Business Homecoming Social is not to be missed as part of 2014 Homecoming activities.

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