Jim Bradford

World Shapers!

 My heroes in life are many.  I admire and have read a great deal of the writings and speeches of Winston Churchill.  I am particularly enthralled by people who have caused great change, often without the power of title, elected office or wealth—people like Martin Luther King, Mahatma Gandhi, Desmond Tutu, Nelson Mandela, Muhammad Yunus.  I admire sports figures like Michael Jordan and Lance Armstrong for their talent, humility and sportsmanship.

I met Muhammad Yunus last spring when he spoke at Vanderbilt.  He struck me as a humble man with a strong dislike for being told what he couldn’t do.  Winner of the Nobel prize, he was led to do what he thought right—making personal loans to villagers near where he worked and taught.  He sought no personal gain or publicity.  What began as a sense of empathy for those around led him to create Grameen Bank, a $4.7 billion institution employing over 11,500 people and specializing in “micro-loans” to men and women in developing countries.

I am often asked who is leading in the business world now?  Who are the people who will set the standards for tomorrow, people who are changing the world around them? Many are among us today.

Owen will be recognizing members of our community as World Shapers in our upcoming annual report as well as in our various brochures and online marketing activities.  Some are students, some are faculty, many are recent graduates; others are older alums, more established in their careers.  I admire all of these individuals—and thousands of others who are part of our community—for their vision, their unwillingness to accept the status quo, their perseverance in shaping their worlds in ways that meet personal, professional and societal goals. (If you want to read a few of these stories for yourself, visit www.owenworldshapers.com)

Life’s lesson is that it is never too early or too late to lead.  Change is never easy but those who do it well make it look easy.

 

What are YOU reading?

I often find it interesting to learn what people are reading. In addition to the WSJ, The Economist and the New Yorker magazines, I enjoy a great variety of reading material. I have recently finished reading A World Lit Only By Fire: The Medieval Mind and the Renaissance: Portrait of an Age by William Manchester; The Bayeux Tapestry by David Mackenzie Wilson, a history of the medieval tapestry depicting Battle of Hastings in 1066; Their Eyes Were Watching God by Zora Neale Hurston, a 1937 work by this important African American writer which follows the lives of poor African Americans as a hurricane envelopes southern Florida in the early 20^th century, causing great destruction and death; The First Crusade: A New History: The Roots of Conflict between Christianity and Islam by Thomas Asbridge; Managerial Economics by our own Luke Froeb, and MP Equity Valuation and Analysis with eVal by Richard Sloan and Russell Lundholm. I am currently reading Competing for the Future by Gary Hamel, one of the great living business strategist; Brothers Karamazov by Fyodor Dostoevsky; Speechless by our very own Bruce Barry; The Essays of Warren Buffett: Lessons for Corporate America by Warren Buffett and, to top it all off, A Tale of Two Cities by Charles Dickens.

Why not just business books? My experience is that reading great authors, history, and literature about the human condition expands my ability to deal with the myriad problems, people and issues I face daily. It helps me understand other people’s values, historical perspective, religion, and why people think the way they do. Reading one subject is not only boring, it makes me pretty narrow as an individual. For those of you who are parents (or even if you are not), I recommend a children’s classic entitled Bread and Jam for Francis by Russell and Lillian Hoban. It is a great life lesson about why diversity is interesting.

Favorite authors of all time: Wallace Stegner, E.B. White and William Barry. Oh yes, and Peter Drucker on the business side. While business school may overload you with reading, I encourage you to develop a habit of continuous learning and exploration. Ask people what they read. It might help you understand their perspective. By the way, I also like to read cookbooks… but that is a whole other story.

Your MBA Education: Go Broad or Specialize?

One of the important decisions to be made early in a MBA education is whether to seek a very broad general business education or specialize. The ubiquitous answer to all business questions such as this is, of course, “It depends”.

The very purpose of an MBA education is to provide you with a broad business background and understand how all the pieces fit. If you are starting your own company or running a family business, you may choose to stop there. My advice however, would be to “go deeper”.

Employers often tell me the reason they are willing to pay an MBA graduate a six-figure salary is that they expect that person to have the ability to immediately contribute to their organization. To do so, they want someone who has both a broad business education and a high degree of specialization in one or more subjects.

Everyone graduating from B-school must be very competent in accounting, finance and statistics; they must have the ability to do the analytical analysis. Those abilities are the order qualifiers. The order winners are often a high degree of specialization in your chosen area of expertise. Perhaps that is investment banking, real estate finance, brand management, or health care.  The new career and industry specializations that Owen provides in these (and other) areas are designed to give you that high level of knowledge, skills and abilities.

In addition, employers seek out those individuals who have learned how to lead and to develop others, to work in ambiguous environments and within a global setting. Our Leadership Development Program is designed to give you these abilities and experience. Successful candidates who exhibit these abilities and can communicate well will have a leg up.

CREDIT CRUNCH

What started as a subprime lending debacle, this Wall Street self-inflicted wound has now infected world credit markets. Despite liquidity infusions, a rate cut and comforting words from the Federal Reserve, the credit crunch is proving more difficult to corral than first anticipated.

For those who’ve had the pleasure of taking Luke Froeb’s micro-economics course, you are watching, in spades, the wrong incentives driving the wrong conduct. Mortgage brokers have been incentivized to sell sub-prime instruments without the accountability of their actions. Credit departments have difficulty saying “no”. Real estate speculators are driving up the price of properties in hot markets. There is too much liquidity chasing too few deals. All of these factors are combining to create the perfect storm. As these deals are syndicated and questionable mortgaged-backed securities sold, another portion of the play is unfolding in the M&A market. Balance sheets are being stacked to 6- to 9-times leverage to finance the latest acquisition. The stage is set for disaster. The slightest market hiccup or slowdown will trigger market reactions, such as the ones we have witnessed the last several weeks.

How might this affect the job market for Finance MBAs this hiring season? We’ve already seen the demise of several hedge funds, major cash infusions at others, and layoffs at sales and trading desks at a few major banks. More broadly, it has affected each and every person and institution investing in world security markets. Despite the fact that many companies are turning in excellent earnings, these events have already impacted and will continue to impact hiring this year – not uniformly for sure – making this year more difficult than last. My advice is to start early, be persistent, be geographically broad in your approach and don’t get discouraged. Your credentials and education position you well for the future. These events and cycles are common over time and do not mean you will have to forego that perfect job you want. You may have to look for it a little harder. While start-ups are finding funding sources more difficult to access, deals will get financed and transactions closed.

P.S. This hot-off-the-wire report indicates that the Fed sees the current crunch as having limited impact on the economy; this is not what I am hearing from my friends on Wall Street and I, like you, will stay tuned.

http://www.forbes.com/topstories/home/feeds/ap/2007/09/05/ap4084897.html