Tag: WashU at Brookings

The partnership between Washington University and the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, goes back a long way. Back in 1916, a St. Louis business leader named Robert S. Brookings founded the first private organization to study public service and nurture future public leaders. From that point on, the Brookings Institution became a community home for anyone looking to learn about government and a service-driven career.

Robert Brookings was also head of Washington University’s governing board for more than three decades (1895-1928). Seventy seven years after his passing, the Brookings Institution and Olin Business School joined in partnership to offer a new program in 2009, now known as WashU at Brookings.

In this program, leadership education brings the worlds of government and business together. The program focuses on the principle that the development of leaders is always about service and purpose. Leaders who are purpose-driven will contribute to their communities, help colleagues to advance in their careers, and educate and inspire others to think globally.

What can students expect from the ‘WashU at Brookings’ program?

The WashU at Brookings program combines the environments of business and government and acknowledges the intersection of these two fundamental bodies of knowledge. Through this self-aware approach, the program empowers students to develop skill sets for both worlds.

Students will experience this intersection for themselves to gain a level of insight into the business and government relationship beyond just news coverage. Students study firsthand the impact of government policies on business, the way think tanks work, and how policymakers are solving problems from different viewpoints.

How does this work in practice?

Learn from leaders about national or international topics

The program offers unique access to leaders. Washington, D.C., is the physical meeting point of business and government, and it can connect a student to the exceptional thinkers they need to learn from.

Need to talk to somebody who’s an expert on Thailand’s economy? You can find them here. Need a source from the IMF or the World Bank? They’re here. Students get to connect with people who actually have a working role in building policy for emerging economies. Learning from lived experience is highly valuable for students and sets them up to move from MBA to careers in government.

Be part of interactive discussions

Students have the opportunity to participate in interactive discussions with the people that they would normally see on CNN or FOX. The learning they can have in the WashU at Brookings program is not just a lecture series; students ask questions specific to their own research and business interests. Students can follow up and seek deeper understanding during discussions, and they can get frank answers they wouldn’t hear anywhere else.

Benefit from a wider perspective

On top of these relationships with influential people and organizations, WashU at Brookings gives students the perspective to see the forest for the trees, to understand how everything fits together.

An MBA from a program focused on global business can show a future leader what working in a real global business environment will be like, complete with obstacles and issues. Learning about the impact of government policies on business takes them one step further. If you talk to the people leading large companies, the most important issues that are facing them will often involve government. From an airplane manufacturer to a pharmaceutical company, governing rules and regulations are one of the most impactful elements in their success.

Shape a varied career

The WashU at Brookings program inevitably helps to shape a student’s career trajectory. The first thing to note is that the program can help set up and support government jobs for MBA graduates, something many students will be thinking about before they even enter the MBA program. By having real experiences, students will get a leg up when submitting their job applications.

The business and government relationship will also inform how students plan and carry out their career choices. From the relationships they form with policymakers, government workers, business leaders, and other networks in D.C. to the real-life topics they uncover during discussions, students can see the paths others have taken before them to get to their dream jobs.

How will the Brookings perspective impact the rest of the MBA experience?

The skills and perspectives gained during the program ultimately impact the rest of the MBA experience for students, and this is one of its biggest advantages.

The practical education they receive helps students right away. Take regulatory issues, for example. When we were creating the program, we thought hard about how students would be able to gain practical skills to help them understand and navigate regulatory issues in their future business plans.

In many cases, leaders can actually go in and talk with regulators. Regulators want to get their jobs right and don’t want to implement policies that hurt society. In this way, educated MBA students can actively influence regulation in their spaces and learn how regulators make their decisions.

But perhaps the most important and lasting impact of the Brookings experience is the perspective that students take into the rest of their MBA and beyond — the perspective that learning about business and government can fundamentally change the country and the world. Students gain a better sense of how they can get involved in serving our society and will be equipped with the skills and tools to do so.

Pictured above: Olin’s Lamar Pierce, Beverly and James Hance Professor of Strategy, teaching at the Brookings Institution.

This is an excerpt of WashU’s summary of the Olin Brookings Commission’s 2023 project. Read more here.

The venture capital (VC) industry has backed some of the most successful American companies and innovation. It is responsible for tremendous growth in pension funds and endowments in recent years and is considered one of the great American inventions, according to Doug Villhard, director of the entrepreneurship program at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis.

It’s well known, however, that the industry does not work well for women, Black and Latinx founders. Despite increased scrutiny on the industry and pledges by VC firms to diversify funding portfolios, funding for women, underrepresented founders has remained persistently low. Just 3% of total VC funds were allocated to these companies last year.

Last fall, the Olin Brookings Commission—a partnership between WashU’s Olin Business School and the Brookings Institution supported by The Bellwether Foundation—assembled a commission of entrepreneurs, venture capitalists and public policy experts to analyze the problem and develop evidence-based solutions to drive more equitable VC funding.

The commission presented their findings and recommendations as outlined in the report, Bridging the Startup Funding Gap for Women, Black and Latinx Entrepreneurs, on April 20 at the Brookings Institution.

Commission member Akeem Shannon, founder/CEO of Flipstik, shared his personal experience in raising funds for his business. “If we want to stay ahead and, more importantly, not fall behind the rest of the global economy, we have to invest in what we have. Let us show you what you’re missing. I think once VCs get a taste of this success, the sky’s the limit.”

Commission members focused their recommendations to address the issue in three categories:

• Increased transparency: When trying to enact change, the first thing you need to do is track where you are today so you can tell whether the strategies are working, Villhard said. Commission members recommended that data leaders like PitchBook and Crunchbase should create options for expanded self-reporting in leading databases and provide a straightforward way for researchers and stakeholders to access and analyze date through a secure platform interface or data sharing agreements. Additionally, investors and mentors should also encourage founders to self-report information in leading databases in respectful ways.

• Government support: Venture capitalists’ one goal is to make the largest possible return for investors, said Morgan DeBaun, AB 2012, a commission member and founder/CEO of Blavity Inc., a tech company for forward-thinking Black millennials. Therefore, the most promising solutions are those that incentivize venture capitalists for making diverse choices, she said.

• Increase public awareness: In the aftermath of George Floyd’s murder and the social unrest that followed, many firms acknowledged there was work to be done to create more equitable funding. We have to hold each other accountable to those commitments as an important first step, Carter said.

Read the entire summary of the Olin Brookings Commission’s work on The Source.

Commission members

• Lori Coulter, co-founder and CEO of Summersalt
• Morgan DeBaun, founder and CEO of Blavity and advisory board member for the Black Economic Alliance
• Martin Hunt, CEO of Swanlaab USA Ventures
• Akeem Shannon, CEO and founder of Flipstik
• Charli Cooksey, founder and CEO of WEPOWER
• Andre Perry, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution

Faculty conveners/PhD students

• Doug Villhard, professor of practice in entrepreneurship, academic director for entrepreneurship
• Daniel Elfenbein, professor of organization and strategy
• Dedric Carter, Olin’s professor of practice in entrepreneurship and WashU’s vice chancellor for innovation and chief commercialization officer
• Gisele Marcus, professor of practice
• Ming zhu Wang, sixth-year Olin PhD student in strategy
• Aditi Vashist, fifth-year PhD student in organizational behavior

PICTURED ABOVE: Commission members, front row from left: Martin Hunt, Lori Coulter, Akeem Shannon, Charli Cooksey and Andre Perry (not pictured, Morgan DeBaun). Back row, faculty conveners and students, from left: Aditi Vashist, Ming zhu Wang, Doug Villhard, Gisele Marcus and Daniel Elfenbein.

Boston University’s Amisha Miller examined 2,000 decisions by a real-world venture capital firm weighing the prospects of startups. Wharton Business School’s Valentina Assenova analyzed thousands of episodes of “The Startup Game,” a simulation played globally that casts students as startup funders or founders as they navigate investment decisions.

And the University of Southern California’s Melody Chang contrasted hundreds of cases of conventional equity funding against cases of the relatively new option of equity crowdfunding. At WashU Olin’s invitation, those three scholars and seven others presented research affirming the woeful inequity in startup funding funneled toward women and underrepresented minorities—and exploring the possible causes and likely effects.

The researchers presented their work at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, November 10 to an audience of funders and founders who make up the 2022-2023 Olin Brookings Commission, which is working toward a slate of public policy recommendations to address the inequity.

“I appreciate having my experience validated in the work you all are doing,” said Lori Coulter, MBA 1999, a member of the Olin Brookings Commission. She’s the founder and CEO of Summersalt, a tech-enabled women’s apparel company.

Identifying root causes toward finding solutions

Widely reported statistics—reinforced by the stark data shared last week—show that women and underrepresented minorities bring down about 2% of the startup funding provided to founders in the United States. The commission, funded by a grant from The Bellwether Foundation, began its work on this project in September. The seven-member commission, supported by student workers and academics from WashU and Olin, is exploring root causes for the inequity before crafting policy recommendations that could address it. The commission expects to issue its recommendations in April.

As part of that process, the commission organized last week’s academic conference at Brookings. Researchers globally submitted more than 40 papers for consideration. Ultimately, 10 were invited to present their work, sharing early-stage research work focused on the issue.

“This event wasn’t about finding solutions. It’s about examining root causes, and it was very valuable,” said Christine Aylward, founder and managing partner at Magnetic Ventures and a member of the commission. “I have ideas about solutions, and I’m looking forward to getting to those.”

Causes examined in some of the scholars’ research included unconscious bias or other beliefs that lead to different evaluation standards for startups founded by men versus women—or by white individuals versus individuals of color. For example, presenters at the conference shared research showing male founders were asked “promotion” questions—looking for information about startup progress and prospects. Meanwhile, women were asked “prevention” questions—seeking information about staving off problems or avoiding pitfalls.

Unlocking exclusive networks

Another common theme was the power of “homophily”—the idea that “birds of a feather flock together.” Networks tend to develop among people with common interests and backgrounds, which often leads to people outside those networks being excluded from opportunities. Such attitudes, researchers found repeatedly, often lead to the assumption that minorities and women don’t secure as much funding because there just isn’t a robust pipeline of minority and women founders.

“It is lazy to say it is a pipeline issue. It is lazy to say it’s a talent issue,” Nasir Qadree, founder and managing partner of Zeal Capital Partners, told conference attendees. “If you choose to stay where 80% of capital flows or stay within your own social network, then you are going to continue to see the same types of entrepreneurs. That has yielded a bias in terms of this idea that there’s a pipeline issue.”

One research team from Boston University shared early data from a novel research project begun in early 2021—soon after the May 2020 launch of a newly formed venture capital firm that provides pre-seed investments and mentorship for new startups. “We embedded ourselves in the whole process,” said Siobhan O’Mahony, a professor of strategy and innovation at Boston University. The VC firm, established with the expressed purpose of supporting otherwise marginalized communities, allowed researchers to interview participants throughout the process as the firm whittled down 911 funding applicants to 45.

While their work and data analysis is still ongoing, O’Mahony told conference attendees it was already affirming many of the same observations around investor bias.

Leaving money—and ideas—on the table

Their work also provided affirming data for another oft-observed phenomenon affecting the flow of dollars to URMs and women. Projects conceived in these communities often address needs found in these communities—for example, people living in transit-scarce regions or healthcare for targeting minority populations.

Yet while those needs are identified, conventional investment channels historically and systematically dismiss or undervalue them because the incentives to invest are considered too weak.

“We keep dancing around it, but if you want change, it has to come from the funders,” said Andre Perry, a Brookings senior fellow, professor of practice of economics at Olin and commission member.

The work presented left commission members energized and determined, if in some cases also a little stunned.

“What I heard in this room can make a tremendous difference,” said Martin Hunt, CEO of Swanlaab USA Ventures and a commission member. But, he added, the themes raised by the research also smack of Jim Crow economics. “This work repeatedly speaks to the idea that money is being left on the table by not investing in a broader range of founders. We have to start talking about that. If I’m giving money to my retirement fund and you’re not investing in women, that’s not working. You’re costing me money.”

Pictured at top: Emmanuel Yimfor, a researcher from the University of Michigan, presents work on “What explains the venture capital funding gap for black entrepreneurs?” conducted jointly with colleagues from the Federal Reserve Board and Cornell University at the Olin Brookings Commission’s academic conference November 10, 2022.

The global immersion is back and in full swing! Olin’s MBA Class of ’24 kicked off their six-week global immersion program in Washington, DC, last week. 

They met with policymakers and industry professionals at the Brookings Institution while completing their Global Institutions and Values class, taught by Professors Trish Gorman and Sharon James. The course is designed to give students unique access to experts on global issues through Olin’s partnership with the Brookings Institution, one of the world’s leading think tanks and policy centers. 

At WashU at Brookings, students were treated to guest lectures by leaders from the Center for European Policy Analysis, American Enterprise Institute, Refugees International and more. 

Students made the most of their trip, visiting the National Mall for a monument tour, browsing through museums to gain relevant knowledge for their team projects and walking through historic Georgetown. The week culminated in the presentation of individual assignments — specifically, access and identify components of an effective COVID-19 policy that incorporates public health as well as business interests.

The global immersion is now truly global: Students landed in Barcelona, Spain, on Sunday, July 17, and will travel to Paris and Santiago, Chile, before heading back to St. Louis to begin the fall semester. 

Bon voyage, MBAs!

The return to a sense of normalcy and traditional in-person events continued in late April as more than 90 PMBA students arrived in Washington, DC, for their two-day residency at the Brookings Institution.

Students arrived for the trip in time for dinner on April 27 and spent the next two days in conversation with noted political insiders, media experts and policy wonks—all in service of connecting the dots between business, government and policy.

“We spend so much of our time optimizing our market strategy, but there are so many other factors at play,” said Archie Karanwal, PMBA class 48, a product owner at Edward Jones. He said the Brookings residency was a great opportunity to gain an understanding of some of those other factors.

Indeed, the trip is a manifestation of Dean Mark P. Taylor’s oft-stated desire that every WashU Olin student have a Brookings experience during their time. The April residency included students from four different PMBA cohorts: classes 46, 48, 49 and 50. The two-day visit even included an evening tour of DC monuments among the activities on April 28 and 29.

Ian Dubin, associate dean and managing director for WashU at Brookings, exhorted the students to bring their own experiences and professional work with them as they listened to and engaged with the speakers, who covered topics including cyber-security, the government regulatory process and Congress.

“It’s not all like cable news here in Washington, where people are yelling at each other all the time, believe it or not,” Dubin said.

Speakers included Ron Christie, CEO of Christie Strategies and former deputy assistant to the vice president for domestic policy under Dick Cheney, who shed light on the more subtle interactions that occur among policy makers and elected officials—and who reinforced the importance for business leaders of understanding that process.

Those connections were not lost on Kelsey Wortmann, PMBA 49, a product planner at Emerson. “I hadn’t realized how actual work gets done in Washington. I never really thought before about how easy it is to make connections.”

Other speakers included:

• Michael Fitzpatrick, director of global strategy and innovation, Google; former associate administrator, Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs, Office of Management and Budget
• Jim Papa, senior vice president and managing director, Global Strategy Group; host of Staffer podcast; former special assistant to the president for legislative affairs; former House and Senate senior staffer 
• Susan Page, author and Washington bureau chief, USA Today 
• Steven Chabinsky, former deputy assistant director, cyber division, FBI 
• Hon. Albert Wynn (D-MD), senior director, Greenberg Traurig LLP; former member, energy and commerce committee, US House of Representatives 
• An assortment of foreign policy experts.

Pictured at top: Kelsey Wortmann, PMBA 49 (with book), asked a question of Ron Christie (on screen, left) during the 90 students’ visit to DC for a two-day residency at the Brookings Institution.