Tag: WashU at Brookings

Eric Maddox, decorated Army veteran and May 2016 graduate of the Executive MBA program assisted in the capture of Saddam Hussein in 2003. He will share his experience as an interrogator for a Special Operations Task Force in Iraq on the CNN series “Declassified: Untold Stories of American Spies” scheduled to air June 26 at 10 p.m. ET/PT.

Maddox spoke at Olin’s Century Club lecture earlier this year and shared his interrogation tactics that led to crucial intelligence on Saddam Hussein’s location and his ultimate capture by U.S. forces. In an email, Maddox writes,

“The episode to air June 26 is called ‘Hunting Saddam.’ Last summer, CNN producers and crew came to my hometown and spent three days filming and interviewing.  I have since been able to view the final cut and am really proud of the job they did.”

Eric Maddox, EMBA Class 45, addressed the Century Club in January 2016

While assigned to a Special Operations Task Force in Iraq, Maddox conducted over 300 interrogations and collected the intelligence which directly led to the capture of Saddam Hussein.

The new CNN series premieres Sunday, June 19, at 10 p.m. ET/PT and according to the website features, “true stories of America’s covert operations told firsthand by the agents who lived it, while getting unprecedented access to the riveting and secret world of espionage. Hosted by former U.S. Congressman, former House Intelligence Committee chair and current CNN national security contributor Mike Rogers.”

Click on image at top of page to watch CNN trailer.

You might think that a WashU Medical School resident in neurosurgery who assists in teaching an anatomy course for nurse practitioners and physician’s assistants, and mentors medical students interested in brain surgery, might not have time to pursue an Executive MBA degree. But then you don’t know Kathleen McCoy.

The 31 year old  McCoy who runs marathons, half-marathons, and triathlons in her spare time, just completed the rigorous 20-month Executive MBA program at Olin and was featured on the Poets & Quants website as one of the Best and Brightest of the Class of 2016. Here are a few excerpts from the P&Q profile:

“I knew I wanted to go to business school when …” My department had a presentation from the executive leadership of the hospital on the changing face of medicine and the financial impact that new health care legislation would have on the delivery of health care. I knew that I wanted to get involved in this realm, trying to maximize the quality of health care for our patients in a fiscally responsible manner, something that an MBA would help me achieve.

Favorite MBA Courses? Macroeconomics, Business Analytics, Negotiations.

Why did you choose this executive MBA program? Washington University’s executive MBA program has a reputation for excellence and its graduates have a track record of success. I spoke with multiple alumni of the program and was impressed with the quality of the executive education as well as the importance placed on the development of leadership skills.

What is the biggest lesson you gained from business school? The biggest lesson that I learned is the importance of not only the “hard skills” of finance, strategy, etc., but also the importance of the “soft skills” of leadership, including emotional intelligence. These interpersonal skills are equally as important, if not more so, for success as a leader.

What was the hardest part of business school? Two words: time management.

What is your best advice for juggling work, family, and education? There are no tricks or shortcuts. Work hard but efficiently, make time for family, and don’t forget to occasionally take time out for yourself.

What’s your best advice to an applicant to your executive MBA program?  Don’t be afraid to try something new! I had very limited knowledge of what the world of business entailed upon entering the executive MBA program, and I encountered many skeptics who did not see the value of a physician getting an MBA.

The program has opened my eyes to innumerable opportunities that allow me to continue practicing medicine while bridging the gap between health care practitioners and the business world in the ever-changing world of health care.

What are your long-term professional goals? I want to establish and maintain a busy neurosurgical practice, while also getting involved in hospital administration in an effort to bridge the gap between health care professionals and the business of medicine. My hope is to maximize the value of health care delivered to our patients with a focus on quality improvement balanced with cost management.

Link to Kathleen McCoy’s complete profile on Poets & Quants.

His first official day on the job is several months away, but the Chancellor and Provost were eager to introduce new dean designate Mark Taylor to faculty and staff during his visit to campus this week. Taylor, who is currently dean at Warwick Business School was welcomed at a reception in the Frick Forum on June 6.

In brief remarks at the gathering, Taylor said WashU’s collegiate Gothic architecture made him feel a bit at home with its references to the great halls of his alma mater, Oxford University. He acknowledged Dean Gupta’s achievement of establishing a strong “platform upon which we can build.”

Taylor takes office Dec. 1, 2016. Kurt T. Dirks, senior associate dean and the Bank of America Professor of Managerial Leadership at Olin, will serve as interim dean from July 1 through November. Related post.

In addition to being one of the most cited researchers in the areas of economics and finance, Taylor’s career has included positions at Citibank, the International Monetary Fund, and BlackRock. In addition to his academic honors and numerous degrees in social sciences, he holds a Master’s degree in English literature with a focus on Shakespeare.

Taylor said he welcomes the opportunity and challenge to lead Olin. As he prepares to take the helm of the business school and steer it successfully into its second century, he cited these lines from the bard to conclude his remarks:

There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries
On such a full sea are we now afloat,
And we must take the current when it serves
Or lose our ventures.
Julius Caesar, Act 4, Scene 3

Reception welcoming new dean Mark Taylor:

Click on thumbnail to expand image. Photos by Sid Hastings, WUSTL Photo Services.

After a whirlwind week in New York, we headed south to Washington, D.C. to immerse ourselves in the workings of government and financial regulation with Olin’s Brookings Executive Education (BEE) team as our guide. The day started with welcoming remarks and introductions from Ian Dubin, Associate Director, and Chris Mancini, Program Coordinator. They explained the general agenda for the week, and the long and special history between the Brookings Institution and Washington University in St. Louis.

After the brief introduction, Mr. Dubin gave us an overview about the basic structures of U.S. government and legislative processes to set the stage for the week. He explained the unique roles of the Executive Branch, Senate and House of Representatives, and the complexity of the legislative process.

We also learned about the Brookings think tank and how it contributes to making public policy. The Brookings Institution is one of the most important and influential public policy research think tanks in the world.

The rest of the day was spent learning more about the various key financial sector regulators as well as learning directly from current and former regulators from both the Department of the Treasury and the Federal Reserve.

First, we learned from David Wessel, who is the Director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy. He briefly explained the function of the United States Financial Stability Oversight Council (FSOC), and also introduced 10 micro-prudential regulators in the system, such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation (FDIC), Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), and The Federal Reserve, to name a few. Although the FSOC provided the chairperson of each of the 10 agencies with the opportunity to communicate with each other, he stated that those 10 chairs have different missions and have issued regulations on financial institutions (banks) that are conflicting. This resulted in banks having a hard time fulfilling the requirements outlined by different regulators. He also touched upon the importance of Macro-Prudential Regulation (FSOC role), and highlighted the differences between finance and other industries, especially in terms of contagion risk. Last but not the least, he compared the FSOC structure with that of the Bank of England.

Winthrop Hambley speaks to Olin students during their visit with Brookings Executive Education.

Our last speaker of the day was Winthrop Hambley, former Senior Advisor, Board of Governors, The Federal Reserve. He first introduced the structure of the Federal Reserve and its key monetary policy-making body, the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

He then proceeded to explain to us both traditional monetary policies as well as non-traditional monetary policies, which were introduced after the financial crisis–namely, large scale asset purchases, forward guidance, and maturity extension.

Last but not least, to address the popular topic of the Fed rate hike expectation, he spent some time explaining to us the rate normalization process and considerations during Q&A.

This is part of a series of blogs chronicling the experiences of 41 Global Master of Finance (GMF) dual degree students during their two week long immersion course in New York and Washington, DC. Each blog will be written by a small subset of students during their experience.

On May 6, President Barack Obama introduced executive reforms designed to eliminate loopholes that allow foreigners to conceal tax fraud and evasion in the United States. They include a new U.S. Department of the Treasury rule that that will force banks and investment companies to report the actual owners of the companies they serve.

The crackdown comes after the recent release of the so-called “Panama Papers,” a data dump revealing the offshore accounts and shell corporations secretly held by thousands of politicians, business leaders and public figures in an attempt to hide assets.

Lamar Pierce

Lamar Pierce, associate professor of organization and strategy at Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School, said the move is an effort to show U.S. global partners that it is ready to practice what it preaches when it comes to curbing shadowy financial transactions.

“As the U.S. puts more emphasis on pressuring other countries to help enforce U.S. tax law, it must show some reciprocation in closing some of the state-level loopholes that allow those countries’ citizens to evade taxes and launder money,” Pierce said. “The difficulty in doing so is that several states (such as Delaware) that profit from banking secrecy will vehemently oppose ownership transparency mandates at the federal level.”

Forcing banks to become more transparent, both in this country and around the world, also could help reduce criminal activity on a sweeping, global scale.

“Banking secrecy not only facilitates tax evasion, but also provides the financial services for many globally costly criminal enterprises, including illicit drugs, arms, organized crime and government corruption,” Pierce said. “Lubricating the financial system for such enterprises has much broader implications for political and economic stability across the world that certainly concerns the U.S. Government.”

by Erika Ebsworth-Goold, WashU Public Affairs, The Source

Related post on Brookings  about the upcoming Anti-Corruption Summit on May 12, championed by Prime Minister David Cameron as a game-changing event.

Three top information technology experts – all Olin alumni – recently hosted more than 30 CEOs and CFOs at the Knight Center to discuss the future of IT and break down some of its mysteries for non-tech executives.

The expert alumni-in-residence for the day included:

• Joe Blomker, EMBA’90, CEO & President, Maryville Technologies
• Jerry Kent, BSBA’78 & MBA 1979, Chairman & CEO, TierPoint
• Don Imholz, MS IT’79 & EMBA’91, retired EVP & CIO, Centene Corporation; currently  leading Don Imholz and Associates

All three alumni shared their insights on how to prepare for the future.

“Technology legacy is sunk costs,” according to Blomker.  “Legacy is currently consuming approximately 70% of IT resources to maintain functionality vs. investing in innovation and the future.”

Imholz remarked that organizations today need to be more flexible and ready to adapt to the changing landscape of both the future of IT in their organization as well as the talent that is providing the support for the newer technologies.

Afterward, John Herber, Chairman, Rubin Brown, who was in attendance, said it was great to get this group together to engage in this kind of dialogue. It is so important, he said, that we think about costs and its impact related to IT needs in the future.

This was the first in a series of conversations that Blomker, Kent, and Imholz plan to hold with executives interested in the role of information technology in business today.