Tag: Alumni

Olin Business School will honor three distinguished alumni on Friday evening, April 21. They are Chris Bloise, BSBA 1997, Lal Karsanbhai, MBA 1995, and Ari Lewine, BSBA 2009. Please register here to join the celebration.

The Distinguished Alumni Award is a tradition—now in its 36th year—in which Olin recognizes the accomplishments of outstanding alumni who have become leaders in their community and have attained distinction in their careers. Those who are honored embody the core values of vision, innovation and leadership and have each made a positive impact on business and the communities in which they live and serve.

Chris Bloise, BSBA 1997

Chris Bloise serves as president and managing partner at Court Square Capital in New York City. Bloise joined the firm in 2003, focused on technology and communications investments. He currently serves on the boards of GoEngineer, Momentum Telecom, Smart City and Virtium.

Bloise previously served on the boards of AHEAD, Connatix, Conterra Ultra Broadband, Encompass Digital Media, Fibertech Networks, IWCO Direct, Mosaic Sales Solutions, nTelos, SPS, System1 and Thrive.

He received his BSBA, summa cum laude, from Washington University in St. Louis and his MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management.

Lal Karsanbhai, MBA 1995

Lal Karsanbhai is president and chief executive officer of Emerson. He was named CEO of the $18.2 billion global technology and industrial software leader based in St. Louis in 2021. Under his leadership, the company is modernizing its culture and transforming into a global automation leader advancing sustainability, safety and productivity for the world’s most essential industries.

Karsanbhai began his career at Emerson in 1995 as an international planner and has held global roles of increasing responsibility for strategic growth, technology investment and digital transformation innovation. His global career has taken him from St. Louis to France and London.

He serves on the boards of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis and the US-China Business Council. He is a member of Business Roundtable and The Business Council.

Karsanbhai has a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Michigan and an MBA from Washington University in St. Louis.

Ari Lewine, BSBA 2009

Ari Lewine is the co-founder of TripleLift and from 2012-2022 served as its chief strategy officer. TripleLift is one of the world’s largest advertising technology firms and a pioneer in native programmatic advertising. TripleLift has been named an Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Company in America for five years in a row. Lewine led TripleLift’s direction on sales, strategy and product innovation. Vista Equity Partners acquired the company in 2021.

Previously, Lewine served as head of the performance sales team at AppNexus. He started his business endeavors at 17 as co-owner and CEO of University Trucking, which has been operated by WashU students since 1977. He was named Forbes “30 Under 30” for his contributions to the online advertising industry.

He holds a BSBA in finance and entrepreneurship from the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

Pictured at top, from left: Chris Bloise, Lal Karsanbhai and Ari Lewine.

Next in a series of Olin Blog features on recent alumni.

Franklyn Nnakwue, MBA 2020, has fond memories of—and continues to make great use of—several courses he took while he was a student at WashU Olin. And a major lesson from the pandemic serves him well: be adaptable.

What are you doing for work now, and how did your Olin education impact your career?

I manage market P&L and provider partnerships for Oscar Health. The Olin education has prepared me to lead teams and leverage data-driven processes to solve problems.

What Olin course, “defining moment” or faculty influenced your life most, and why?

It is tough to choose as Olin is comprised of excellent teachers and enriching courses. I particularly enjoyed the Introduction to Management Strategy and the Competitive Industry Analysis classes by Dan Elfenbein and Stephen Ryan. I have found the Negotiations Class taught by Hilary Elfenbein and the Game Theory class taught by Mariagiovanna Baccara very helpful in my career.

How do you stay engaged with Olin or your Olin classmates and friends?

I try to grab time with colleagues whenever I visit a new city where my classmates are domiciled. We also have an online group to stay in touch. I also attend virtual Olin events such as the Healthcare Symposium whenever I can. Recently, I was part of a group of alums who supported the Weston Career Center to provide interview coaching to first-year students.

Why is business education important?

Business education provides an unmatched opportunity to meet and learn from ambitious and bright colleagues, gain new exposure from faculty and classmates and develop the leadership skills necessary to make a global impact.

What advice would you give current Olin students?

I’d advise them to be insatiably curious, build deep relationships and have fun along the way.

How has the pandemic influenced your thinking about doing business locally or globally—or your career?

My biggest lesson from the pandemic is that only the adaptable survive. It was Max McKeown who said, “All failure is failure to adapt, all success is successful adaptation.” Leaders had to quickly adapt to a rapidly changing environment and embrace new work paradigms to comply with public health measures and keep their businesses running. Looking back, it is incredible to think about how we acclimatized to new ways of working and living in such a short time. These days, I find myself asking, “Which pervasive behavior are we clinging to due to tradition even though it can easily be supplanted by technology? What needs to change for us to realize this on a massive scale? Can this change be engineered? What will this potential reality mean for business and culture?”

The following is from a news release by healthcare industry startup Paytient, founded by Brian Whorley, PMBA 2012. The release was dated January 10, 2023. 

Paytient, the creator and leading provider of health payment accounts, announced a $40.5 million Series B funding round, bringing the company’s total funding to $63 million. The funds, consisting of $33 million in equity from new and existing investors and $7.5 million in debt from Silicon Valley Bank, will be used to scale growth and product development in 2023 and beyond.

“Few people plan on getting sick, and even fewer are immune to the financial impact of unexpected out-of-pocket healthcare costs,” Brian Whorley, co-founder and CEO, said in a statement. “Over 15 years in hospital administration, I saw how challenging this was for patients, providers, and employers.”

Leading the funding round: Utah-based Mercato Partners Traverse Fund, with participation from Bertelsmann Investments. They were joined by existing investors Lightbank, Felicis Ventures, Box Group, Lachy Groom, Left Lane Capital, Commerce Bank, Crossbeam Ventures, Cultivation Capital and Inspired Capital, which led Paytient’s Seed and Series A rounds. Mercato Partners Traverse Fund managing director, Joe Kaiser, joins the company’s board of directors and Thorsten Wirkes of Bertelsmann Investments joins the board as an observer.

Founded in 2018, Paytient partners with employers and insurers to empower Americans to more easily pay out-of-pocket healthcare costs that too often feel out of reach. Paytient’s HPAs provide a new source of funds—interest-free credit on a Visa card—and an app that allows cardholders to set up flexible repayment plans that fit their budget.  

“Fundamentally, we believe the healthcare journey deserves its own financial products that enable equitable access to care,” Whorley said. “Our platform gives patients the power to control when and how they pay medical expenses in a way that’s good for their own wellbeing.”

In partnership with Commerce Bank, the Paytient platform enables employers to provide a low-cost, flexible benefit that creates a better experience around paying for care that supports their strategic workforce objectives.

“Paytient is really a healthcare company built on empathy,” Whorley said. “We hear from people leaders who pride themselves on giving their employees a more dignified and less stressful way to take care of their families.”

The following is an adapted from a news release issued January 4, 2023, by Chesterfield, Missouri-based Reinsurance Group of America.

Tony Cheng, PMBA 2002, has been appointed president at RGA effective January 4, 2023, succeeding Anna Manning, who remains CEO.

Consistent with her long-held plans, Manning will retire as CEO on December 31, 2023. The board plans to appoint Cheng as CEO effective January 1, 2024. The RGA board appointed him to the board of directors effective immediately.

Reinsurance Group of America specializes in life and health reinsurance and financial solutions that help clients effectively manage risk and optimize capital. RGA celebrates its 50th anniversary this year.

Board chair Stephen O’Hearn expressed his gratitude for Manning’s leadership over the past six years—particularly through the challenges of the pandemic. He said the board was confident Cheng was “the right person to lead RGA into the future.”

“It was important to the board that we identify someone who combines vision with experience, capable of leading RGA in delivering on our financial targets and fulfilling our purpose,” O’Hearn said in the company’s statement. “Tony has clearly demonstrated these qualities, as well as a passion for RGA that gives us confidence that he will continue RGA’s rich legacy.”

Cheng was previously executive vice president, head of Europe, Middle East, and Africa, Asia, and Australia. Prior to this role, he spent seven years as executive vice president, head of Asia following his success as the senior vice president, Asia region, and CEO of RGA’s Hong Kong branch. Under Cheng’s leadership, the Asia region has experienced exceptional growth in both premiums and profits. He will continue to provide executive leadership to Europe, Middle East, and Africa, Asia, and Australia while assuming his new responsibilities as president, and plans to relocate to St. Louis.

“Tony’s tireless contributions over the years, combined with his strong leadership, his relentless client focus, and his innovative capabilities, make him uniquely situated to lead the company into the next phase of its strategy,” Manning said in the statement. “I am highly confident in the future of RGA under Tony’s leadership.”

Prior to Manning, another WashU Olin alum, Greig Woodring, served as RGA’s CEO. Woodring earned his MBA in 1989 and was honored as a distinguished alum in 2002.

For his part, Cheng said in the statement that he was humbled to follow in Manning’s and Woodring’s footsteps at the company where he has dedicated his career.

“I am fully committed to continuing the legacy built by Anna and Greig, and with the help of the tremendously talented people at RGA, I know we can build on the special culture and growth engine that has been created,” he said.

What happens when you combine a profound appreciation for the power of education, deep gratitude for opportunities opened by a scholarship, setting priorities, and career success?

For J.T. Mosbacher and Heidi Morris-Mosbacher, you get the chance to be among the youngest alumni ever to endow a scholarship for future business students at WashU Olin Business School.

“Education and philanthropy are very important to our family. It has shaped who we are,” said J.T., AB 2010/PMBA 2015. “These are some of our biggest priorities. Heidi and I have deep discussions about how to pave the path forward.”

Indeed, for Heidi, AB 2009, it’s a perfect opportunity to give back after being a self-described “scholarship kid.” Thirteen years after graduating from WashU, she was excited to let her own scholarship donor know of their gift.

Both J.T. and Heidi work as financial advisors for Edward Jones in St. Louis, where they take great pride in serving in coaching roles with their clients, helping them to set and achieve goals. The couple sees the ability to endow a scholarship as an extension of some of the work they do with clients—prioritizing and establishing a legacy.

Impacting lives ‘in perpetuity’

“We’ve been blessed with career success,” Heidi said. “Our hope is that we can impact the lives of others in perpetuity. With what we do for a living, we are confronted by the following questions: ‘What do we want our legacy to look like? What impact do we want to have on the world?’ on a near daily basis. I see our legacy as threefold: the human beings we shape our children into, philanthropy, and being a part of our clients’ life stories.”

The couple also hopes to instill these values into their three children.  “Our hope is that our actions will inspire them and others along the way,” said J.T.

The pair met at WashU thanks, in part, to what J.T. described as his “snaking path” to a career. Initially, he felt pressure to declare a major early on and chose architecture but soon realized that was not going to be his career. “Going to a university that was forgiving if I changed my major was a prerequisite.  I also have a second major in American Culture Studies,” he said. “That’s how I met Heidi. She’s a dual major in Political Science and American Culture Studies.”

For her part, Heidi found a path as a WashU student looking into investment research. “I didn’t grow up around investing jargon. I didn’t know what stocks or bonds were,” she said. “I stumbled upon investing my freshman year and ended up in a brokerage firm office at 18 years old telling them I wanted to open an account. The advisor looked at me and asked if my parents knew I was there.”

Her path eventually led her to study at the London School of Economics.

Enduring influence of WashU

“Not only do I enjoy wealth management and financial planning, the true highlight of my career is forming relationships with the families that I serve,” she said. “I enjoy getting to know people on a very deep level and helping them achieve their version of financial success.”

J.T. and Heidi’s contribution brings the number of endowed scholarships at Olin to 205 as of December 2022. Their endowed scholarship was established with a gift where a portion of the earnings are reinvested, helping to ensure resources for the scholarship will always be available.

Both J.T. and Heidi specifically recalled a personal finance course they took under Mike Gordinier as a highlight of their WashU education. “That was a phenomenal class,” Heidi said. “It opened my eyes to a career path.”

For J.T., joining a cohort of young professionals in their PMBA program was also a formative experience as successful classmates worked together to catapult their careers: “The discussions and ability to relate to our work experiences helped bring the theories we learned in the classroom to life.”

To join J.T. and Heidi in supporting financial aid resources for our students, please visit the Scholars in Business website for more information.

Rick Skwiot wrote this article for Washington Magazine.

For Albert Ip, BSAMCS ’73, coming to Washington University in St. Louis from Macau, China, for his undergraduate studies in applied mathematics and computer science was a life-changing experience that launched a distinguished career in international banking and hospitality investing. Now, with multiple appointments at universities in Hong Kong, the former WashU trustee (2017–21) is working to burnish Washington University’s brand in Hong Kong so more students there apply and benefit as he has.

While WashU ranks ahead of many Ivy League schools, students from Hong Kong often elect to attend those East Coast universities when given a chance, Ip says. “I think it is a matter of name recognition, so I’d like to help build Washington University’s brand in Hong Kong.”

Collaborations

To that end, Ip, as an adjunct professor, has established collaborations between WashU and top universities in Hong Kong and Macau, trying to expose more students to WashU and thus raise its profile. The Chinese University of Hong Kong and University of Macau, for example, offer dual MS degrees with Olin Business School. At Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), its engineering school signed a collaboration agreement with McKelvey School of Engineering in 2020. And Ip also connected the University of Hong Kong’s top-flight medical school with WashU. 

Not that Ip has anything against the Ivy Leagues: He earned MS degrees from Cornell and Carnegie Mellon universities. He contends the smaller size and faculty accessibility at WashU, though, can pay students big dividends. The willingness of “faculty members to counsel students, especially international students, propels my preference for WashU,” Ip says.

“I had a great relationship with Professor Ervin Rodin, who taught in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Computer Science,” Ip says. “Rodin (who retired in 2010 after 44 years at the university) inspired me and showed me how mathematics can open your mind, making you think methodically, which gave me the confidence to look at the data and theory and apply them to real life.”

Multiple roles

And apply them he did, serving in multiple roles at Citigroup, including managing director and corporate banking and transaction banking head; at Merrill Lynch (Asia Pacific) as managing director of investments; and at Langham Hospitality Investments as CEO. Ip has served on the boards of 11 listed companies in Hong Kong, and he still serves on five, including New World Development, Power Assets and Hutchison Telecom HK.

Still, for all his success, Ip remembers how he got there and spends much of his time helping students to succeed. His circuitous journey from Hong Kong to St. Louis and eventually back to Hong Kong, via stops in Pittsburgh, New York City and San Francisco, “inspired me to support students in career development,” says Ip, “advising them on how to select the right companies for their career paths and using my business connections to help them get jobs.”

Ip founded and chairs the Career Advisory Council at two business schools at City University of Hong Kong and at HKUST. “I am proud of that work, work first developed at WashU,” Ip says. 

About Albert Ip

WashU advocate: Albert Ip, BSAMCS ’73, served as a member of the Washington University Board of Trustees from 2017–21.

WashU liaison: Ip promotes Washington University and is an adjunct professor at theChinese University of Hong Kong; Hong Kong University of Science and Technology; University of Hong Kong; and the University of Macau.

Learn more: Ip’s journey to WashU was chronicled in Washington Magazine in 2017 in the story, “Giving back for a better future.”