School Notes: School of Management
January/February 2012

CEO Caucus launches in Washington

The Chief Executive Leadership Institute at the Yale School of Management hosted its inaugural Yale CEO Caucus in Washington, DC, on November 15. The quarterly roundtable convenes business leaders, political leaders, and scholars to discuss the business implications of urgent national and global events that span economics, diplomacy, security, energy, environment, regulation, and politics. The theme of the first event was “Putting America Back to Work,” showcasing what corporate leaders are doing to address the nation’s economic and employment challenges.

SOM team wins national competition

A team of second-year Yale SOM students won the Pioneer Employer Case Competition at the national Net Impact conference held October 28 in Portland, Oregon. Net Impact is a global organization of students and professionals dedicated to using business to improve the world. The Yale SOM group—Julia Otis, Emma Pollack-Pelzner, Julia Rozovsky, Matt Schmitt, and Jason Zahorchak—beat finalists from four other MBA programs: MIT, Rice, Washington University, and the University of Maryland. For the competition, teams were asked to analyze a case about Pioneer Employer QuikTrip, a convenience/gasoline retailer in the South that was considering how to expand into North Carolina. According to a press release, the Yale team “showed the highest quality analysis, but where they really shined was in their ability to defend their recommendations for the case.”

Lecture series features Yale scholars

A new lecture series called “Convening Yale,” aimed at presenting some of Yale’s most eminent minds to future business leaders, debuted last October. The first lecture was given by Ramamurti Shankar, the John Randolph Huffman Professor of Physics, who discussed the Theory of Relativity. Later speakers included Marvin Chun, professor of psychology, and Charles Hill, the Brady-Johnson Distinguished Fellow in Grand Strategy and senior lecturer in humanities. Shyam Sunder, the James L. Frank Professor of Accounting, Economics, and Finance, who helped organize the series, said the program illustrates how Yale SOM teaches students to comprehend issues of complexity, which has become more important to managers in an increasingly global workplace.