Jeff Fox, MBA’88
The St. Louis Business Journal reports that Jeff Fox, MBA’88, is serving as a finance co-chairman for New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie’s presidential campaign. Other co-chairs include tech exec Meg Whitman and Home Depot co-founder Ken Langone.
Since 2007, Fox has been chairman and CEO of Harbour Group, a private, St. Louis-based operating company founded in 1976. He was honored as an Olin Distinguished Alumnus in 2011.
The St. Louis American profiles Tamiko Armstead, EMBA ’06, president of Cardinal Ritter College Prep High School in its July 17, 2015 edition, “Grooming excellence in black students is now Tamiko Armstead’s business.”
Armstead who was honored this spring in the first class of Olin Emerging Leaders tells the newspaper that she feels her life experiences over the last 20 years have prepared her for her new role in education – including her training at Edward Jones and the Executive MBA program at Washington University.
Tamiko Armstead is pictured above with Dean Mahendra Gupta at the Emerging Leaders event at Olin.
The Journal of the American Institute of Architects posts an article June 18, 2015, about the construction of the five-story glass Atrium in the new Knight Hall and Bauer Hall. Read the article here: “Washington University’s Olin Business School’s new buildings feature Super Sky skylights finished by Linetec”.
Four PMBA alumni have been named as members of the St. Louis Business Journal’s 30 Under 30 Class of 2015. Congratulations! Scott (who is also a new Dad), Ryan, Kathleen, and Eric! A well-deserved recognition of your accomplishments and contributions to the community.
Scott Cornish (PMBA 32) Nidec Motor Corporation
Ryan Corrigan (PMBA 33) 8760 Engineering
Kathleen Manning (PMBA 32) Monsanto
Eric Schrenker (PMBA 33) Scottrade
Shareholders are pressing companies for more details on corporate campaign contributions, reports David Nicklaus in The St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Some companies have opened up to show shareholders where the money is going, but others continue to balk claiming first amendment rights and “competitive disadvantage”.
Wash U. law professor and Olin adjunct Hillary Sale tells Nicklaus that shareholders may need to demand more than transparency if they want to see where the money goes.
“Forcing disclosure can actually change behavior, but by itself this is just about transparency,” says Hillary Sale, a professor of law at Washington University. “In corporate governance discussions, we usually say transparency is a good thing.” Indeed. This slow-motion shareholder revolt won’t end the flow of corporate cash into politics anytime soon, but may at least bring it out of the shadows.
Read David Nicklaus’ column here.
Image: Flickr Creative Commons, DonkeyHotey, Citizens United Money Globe
Karen Dodson, Executive MBA 42, is manager of professional development and Academic Publishing Services at Washington University School of Medicine. When she began the EMBA Program in April of 2013, Dodson had begun writing her novel, Set: A Love Story, and was thinking about how to use the book to market a business.
Kate, an American journalist, travels to Patagonia to fly-fish and falls in love with Nico, her kind and handsome Argentine fishing guide. Does she stay?
Set in Patagonia, South America and published in January 2015, the novel is a journalistic work of fiction that led her–with the help of her EMBA teammates, the EMBA Program faculty, and EMBA Program staff–to create Reveal Patagonia, a travel excursion business. St. Louis Magazine published an interview with Dodson about the book this month.
Reveal Patagonia began coming together as a result Dodson’s EMBA coursework. In Bart Hamilton’s Strategic Innovation class she experienced an “aha” moment that her idea for Reveal Patagonia was real. Dodson said, “We had to pull together a presentation and during the presentation I realized it was all coming together. We had a three to five year plan, an exit strategy, and a whole business model.” Her team continued to support her business plan throughout the EMBA program. A study of “Reveal Patagonia: the China market” was their final project for the Global Theme section of the program.
Author, entrepreneur, and fly fishing enthusiast Karen Dodson
Dodson said, “My EMBA teams, especially my second team, were very helpful in developing the business plan, along with [professor] Ron King. All of the classmates were enormously generous with their time and advice.” Lee Pelligreen, EMBA 44, is Dodson’s business partner for Reveal Patagonia, and was instrumental in getting the business started. They are putting the finishing touches on their “beta” trip, which will begin November 1. A two-page ad promoting the trip will appear in the July-August issue of Sophisticated Living magazine.
Now that Reveal Patagonia is launched, Dodson plans to eventually hand the business over to the team now running it. Working multiple jobs, she supported all expenses for starting the business herself, including starting Pesca Publishing to get Set: A Love Story published.
Dodson says the EMBA experience was transformative, “I look at the world differently. I had a qualitative view, and now I have a quantitative view of the world. There is a structure around things that wasn’t there before, and I can walk away from what doesn’t make sense. I can analyze data more deeply. I now think in P&L. Now, if I have an idea, I know the absolute steps to make it happen.”
Images: courtesy of Karen Dodson
