Tag: Denver

On Friday, May 19, Denver’s Executive MBA class 49 welcomed a special speaker for a lunchtime presentation. Mariner Kemper, Chairman, President and
Chief Executive Officer of UMB Financial Corporation, shared his insights at a special and opportune time, as the Class 49 students kicked off their Corporate Financial Management section of the first year of their EMBA curriculum.

Mariner Kemper

Kemper spoke on the evolution of the banking industry, specifically how he has seen it change over the years as well as the consistent and constant aspects of the business. He shared information about areas of business that have worked well with new ideas. Kemper also discussed decisions that have been made over the 100-plus year history at UMB, and how his organization has made strategic choices along the way.

At the session, students were able to ask questions and expand on what they have been learning with real instances in banking.

The Executive MBA program extends a big thank you to Mariner Kemper for coming to visit and sharing his knowledge with the students!

Army veteran Katie Buehner, a former Black Hawk helicopter pilot, has found a new and rewarding career path in the medical profession. Buehner’s professional and personal journey from serving in the Army to creating a new business venture has recently been featured in both The Denver Business Journal and The National Business Journal.

Buehner’s accomplishments cross the educational, military and healthcare sectors.  An alumnus of Olin’s Executive MBA program (EMBA), Buehner served ten years in the Army as a Black Hawk pilot. Her husband is a fellow army aviator and she did not originally intend on leaving the Army, but family responsibilities took priority. With three kids ranging from ages one to four, a pending assignment to Germany for six months provided a milestone moment for Buehner. She chose to care for her young children stateside, and in so doing, that pivotal moment opened the door for a career-changing opportunity, earning her MBA degree via WashU’s EMBA program.

While at WashU, Buehner took advantage of the rich business school network by meeting and eventually partnering with fellow classmate, John Spranger and his wife Erin. The team focused on the need for staffing nurses to local medical offices, clinics and hospitals. Meeting demand for nursing supply, their company, Presto Staffing, benefits both its clients and its talent. By permitting flexible scheduling, the firm naturally draws nurses who search for alternative schedules to help their work-life balance, while also serving a growing healthcare industry.

Notably, with a revenue of $260,000 since opening in July 2016, Presto Staffing had a 150 percent growth rate, between September and December of that same year.  A May 2017 EMBA graduate, Buehner applies her “operational background” to a role that also allows her to manage her own flexible schedule while focusing on essential time with her family.

Buehener credits her journey through EMBA with connecting her to the business realm, pointing out that the “classes are… comprised of experienced professionals.”  Through molding her in-depth military operations experience with her acquired real-world business knowledge and connections at WashU, Buehner is looking forward to the next chapter of her joint venture.

For more coverage of Buehner’s career, please click here (note: full article is available for National Business Journal’s subscribers only).

For more on the WashU Executive MBA program, please visit our website.

Jacob Zax, BSBA’13, has been helping people make music since he graduated. From launching his first music composing app during spring semester of his senior year, Zax and his startup Edify have gone on to create another app, MusiQuest. We’ve got an update direct from Denver where Zax and his company are based. (more…)

On Tuesday, October 27, professor Stuart Bunderson, associate dean and director of Executive Programs and the George and Carol Bauer professor of Organizational Ethics and Governance presented “Working for Pay or for Purpose? Lessons from Zookeepers” live from the Denver Zoo.

Nick, a sea lion at the Denver Zoo says hello to professor Stuart Bunderson following his presentation.

The premise of professor Bunderson’s talk is research he and colleagues performed around finding purpose and meaning in work. Specifically, many of today’s workers are looking for more than just a fat paycheck and an impressive title.  They want to do work they care about, that has personal and societal meaning.  But what makes work meaningful?  And what price do individuals and organizations pay for meaningful work? The research presented focused on zookeepers and how their meaning and purpose in what they do provides key insights into these questions.

The presentation also provided insight to help individuals and managers better navigate the complexities of a purpose-driven workforce.

Delivered to a full audience at the Denver Zoo’s Gates Center, the program is one of the many ways WashU’s Executive MBA program is engaged with the Denver community.

WashU’s Executive MBA program is delivered in Denver with classes starting each September. The 20-month curriculum includes one-time a month studies for busy executives and four residencies, two in St. Louis, one in Washington, D.C., in partnership with the Brookings Institute (a WashU-only opportunity) and one in Beijing/Shanghai in partnership with WashU’s Executive MBA program in Shanghai, a partnership with Fudan University.

For additional events and activities in Denver, visit us today.

On May 27, Olin’s Executive MBA program hosted the first Thought Leadership event in Colorado Springs, An Evening of Entrepreneurship: Breaking Through the Barriers. Ron King, The Myron Northrop Professor of Accounting at Olin and an angel investor, moderated the first portion of the event, a panel discussion on the community efforts of entrepreneurship in Colorado Springs.

Ron King, opening the panel discussion in Colorado Springs on May 27

Ron was joined by three expert panelists: Ben Sparks, attorney at Sparks Willson, Bill Miller, managing partner at Miller Investment Management, and Lisa Tessarowicz, owner of Epicentral Coworking. The audience was engaged in the panelists’ discussion on how Colorado Springs could benefit from a proactive and welcoming entrepreneurial community.

The panelists discussed the roadblocks that entrepreneurs face in general and how collaboration in the community would make a huge impact. There were questions from the audience on the challenges faced by new businesses starting in Colorado Springs. Ben Sparks was able to address the legal impact that the recently signed crowdfunding bill poses in Colorado. As the panel moderator, Ron King was able to share insights from the St. Louis start-up scene and his experience as an angel investor.

Following the panel discussion, an hour long pitch session was hosted by Ric Denton, CEO of the Rocky Mountain Innovation Partners. Ric saw success early in his career as CEO of TAU Corporation and then Televere Systems, before retiring to Colorado Springs in 2006. Since then, he has been active in the Colorado Springs start-up community.

The pitchers included:

Let’s Go Aero, Marty Williams

Protocol Insight, Ross Nelson

Flair, Dinah Wagner (EMBA 45 student in Denver)

Each participant had seven minutes to pitch his/her idea, whether it was a growth strategy or a brand new business. The audience was given the opportunity to ask questions of the pitchers for about 10 minutes.

Colorado Springs is a prime environment for making a splash in the entrepreneurial scene and we look forward to watching it grow!

Image: Colorado Springs, CO.