Having recently overseen the move of Wharton’s West Coast facility into the Hills Brother Building on San Francisco’s Embarcadero, we asked COO of Wharton | San Francisco Bernadette Birt to tell us about the move and the new campus.

Q. Students experienced the new facility for the first time in early January. How have they reacted?

There have been a lot of ‘Wows!’ which are exactly what we want to hear.  They are thrilled with the quality of the classroom experience, the number of group study rooms, and having places to connect with each other during the day. For example, we have an incredible dining space with stunning views of the San Francisco Bay where our students love to gather with their laptops and iPads to collaborate and relax as the sun sets.

Get insights on the future of jobs from a top Wharton professor, learn more about our EMBA program from Philadelphia and San Francisco alumni, and see what our new campus looks like in San Francisco, then make sure to join us for a virtual reception on Mon., January 23 from 9:00pm-10:00pm EST / 6:00pm-7:00pm PST.

Hosted by Vice Dean Anjani Jain, the event will feature a presentation by renowned labor expert Prof. Peter Cappelli on how the global economy is impacting careers and what this means for the future of employee development. Prof. Cappelli, who teaches negotiations, also will share tips that may help you secure support for your MBA studies and career development.

Afterward, a panel of alumni from our Philadelphia and San Francisco EMBA programs will discuss how the Wharton MBA and network have shaped their careers.  You’ll have an opportunity to ask questions of both Prof. Cappelli and the panelists via your computer or mobile device.

In addition, West Coast COO Bernadette Birt will take participants on a virtual tour of our beautiful new San Francisco campus.  A 21st century learning environment, you’ll see how our technologically advanced facility was designed to provide the most cutting-edge and connected classrooms possible.

To register for this live webcast on Jan. 23, click here.

Phone chat tonight for women considering the MBA degree.  Wed., 1/4/12 6pm EST / 3pm PST

To hear the discussion:   1-270-400-2000* Access code 433559#

To pose questions before or during the chat:  email them to dsharp@wharton.upenn.edu or send them via Twitter using #WhartonEMBAchat

As a woman making your way forward in your career, you face a unique set of issues that require consideration.  Get clarification from an expert whose research has focused on these issues and reassurance from two Wharton alumnae who will share how the MBA degree has impacted them professionally and personally.

Panelists:
Prof. Monica McGrath - Wharton Adjunct Professor of Management
Cori Johnson, WG'09 - Sr. Global Platform Manager at Covidien
Rachel Cervantes, WG'11 - Director, Business Development at Merck
Cathy Molony - Director of Admissions, Wharton MBA Program for Executives
Kathy Lilygren - Director of Admissions, Wharton | San Francisco

After working for the government for 12 years, including positions at the White House and the National Security Council, Frank Lavin wanted to transition into the business world and saw an MBA from Wharton as the key to accomplishing that goal.

It didn’t take long, as he joined Citibank in Hong Kong immediately after graduating in 1996 from Wharton’s EMBA program. “Wharton’s MBA Exec program helped enormously because I wasn’t just changing jobs, but careers. I needed a new skillset to move into banking and Wharton provided those tools.”

Congratulations to Sumant Ramachandra, WG’09, who was recently named one of the 100 most inspiring people by Pharma Voice. With an MD and PhD already under his belt, he entered Wharton’s EMBA program to gain a business education and transition from technologist to business leader. We asked Sumant, who is now the chief scientific officer of Hospira Inc. in Lake Forest, Ill., to tell us more about how his Wharton education has impacted his career. Here’s what he had to say:

When Anne Libby entered Wharton’s East Coast executive MBA program in 1993, she knew she’d be in the minority as a female student. But what she wasn’t expecting was the supportive environment she found there. We asked Libby, who is now the owner of Anne Libby Management Consulting in New York City, to share her thoughts about her experiences at Wharton, her ongoing engagement with the School, and the value of the program for women. Here’s what she had to say:

Each year, second-year Wharton EMBA students spend a week abroad examining how businesses develop and implement strategy in a competitive global context. While that trip is the culmination of their International Seminar, it’s not uncommon for students to organize additional treks to gain further insight into the economic, political, social and cultural factors that influence business in other regions.

Last month, a group of 21 students from Wharton | San Francisco participated in a trek to Beijing and  Shanghai. We asked second-year student Hari Kannan, a technologist at VCE in the Silicon Valley, to share some highlights from the trip. Here’s what he had to say:

Before coming to Wharton’s EMBA program, Hanson Wong, a principal consultant at Risk Management Solutions in New Jersey, had never swum in the waters of Antarctica, hiked across a desert or summited a volcano. In fact, he had never even gone camping much less rappelled down mountains or zip lined   across steep chasms. However, during his two years at Wharton, he did all of these things through the Wharton Leadership Ventures Program.

“My first venture was to Antarctica, which most people only ever see from a cruise. We not only camped there, but a few of us also decided to jump in the water twice. How many people can say they did that?” says Wong, noting that he added on a week of hiking in Patagonia after that venture.

When Jim Smith entered Wharton’s executive MBA program in 2005, he also launched the Digital Network Group, an IT and management consulting firm with a mission to create economic and social value for local communities. Wanting to work with professors on his particular interests outside of the core classes, he sought out independent study projects that would help him develop his business. 

As a first-year EMBA student, his initial project was with Prof. Terry LaPier on leading social change through the application of information technology. “That experience provided me with an opportunity to develop a framework that effectively leverages the business, government, nonprofit and academic sectors in a cohesive, systematic and repeatable fashion,” he says. “Through that study, I came up with an idea to build a computer assisted mentoring system for students, as well as a platform to help nonprofits improve their own capacity to provide services – both of which are key elements of my business today.”

Divi Gupta graduated from Wharton’s executive MBA program in 2010, but he’s been a frequent visitor on the Philadelphia campus over the last few months. Taking advantage of the lifelong benefit that allows alumni to audit Wharton EMBA classes for free, Gupta explains that he’s been returning every other weekend for finance electives.

When Feng Deng applied to Wharton’s EMBA program in San Francisco, he was a successful entrepreneur running NetScreen Technologies in the Silicon Valley.  His company employed 1,000 people, but to eventually manage a larger team, he knew he needed a formal business education.

We proudly congratulate our newest Wharton MBA alumni!

They’ve accomplished so much in the last two years, balancing work, family, and the rigors of school. They commuted from near and far, many have gotten married, even more have expanded their families, and everyone has made life-long connections.

Coming from a diversity of backgrounds, the 96 students in our Wharton | San Francisco graduating class include successful entrepreneurs as well as executives working in fields like healthcare, technology, energy, consulting, and investment management.  During the program, four got married and 15 had babies with several more due this summer.

Most of these Wharton | San Francisco grads live in Silicon Valley, San Francisco and the greater Bay area, but many commuted from southern California as well as Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Kansas, Nevada, Texas, and Washington.  And just under 40% of the class was comprised of international students.

Graduating in a May 8th ceremony at Herbst Memorial Theater in San Francisco, their featured commencement speaker was Larry Baer, President and COO of the San Francisco Giants.  29 of those graduates also attended the MBA graduation ceremony in Philadelphia, held on May 15th at the University of Pennsylvania’s historic Franklin Field, with many gathering at the Inn at Penn for a special celebratory breakfast with friends and family.  The East Coast ceremony featured keynote speaker Vikram Pandit, CEO of Citigroup.

The Philadelphia based East Coast class of 114 graduating students also represents a wide variety of industries including consulting, financial services, healthcare, aerospace, and real estate.  Similar to the West Coast class, many students expanded their families during the EMBA program, with seven students who were married and nine babies born.

Most of the Philadelphia class came from Northeast Corridor – Massachusetts, Connecticut, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, and Washington, D.C., but several commuted from Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, Texas and even Ontario, Canada.  International students represented more than 35% of the class.

Graduation is an exciting and important achievement and we wish everyone the best of luck!   Please stay in touch!

Working as an associate vice president of “everyday banking” at TD Bank, headquartered in Toronto, Canada, Jason Thacker became interested in earning an MBA to sharpen his financial skills and become a stronger leader.  He also wanted exposure to the best possible business minds, which for him meant one school -- Wharton.

While you might think that most executive MBA students come from corporate environments, there are plenty of Wharton students who come from other backgrounds. Alumnus Stephen Tang is a good example.

After finishing his PhD in biotechnology, Tang started up a technology assessment consulting firm and became the assistant director of the Center for Molecular Bioscience at Lehigh University. However, he quickly realized that he was just as interested in the business of science as he was in the science itself. But to pursue a career path in business, he knew he would need “more seasoning” in business so he applied to and was accepted into Wharton’s EMBA program.

Before starting Wharton’s MBA for Executives Program in Philadelphia in 1995, Aris Chicles was on a general management track in industrial marketing at Owens Corning. However, during the program, he became very interested in corporate strategy and M&A and was able to transition into that area within his company. Subsequently, he worked in a similar role at American Standard Companies before joining ITT in 2006 as senior vice president of strategy and corporate development.

Frank Jimenez had a different path to both Wharton and ITT. Starting out as an attorney in Miami, he later worked for Governor Jeb Bush of Florida before moving to Washington, D.C. where he worked as chief of staff to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. By the time he started Wharton’s EMBA program in 2003, he was one of seven deputy general counsels for the U.S. Department of Defense. Later, he became general counsel of the U.S. Department of the Navy, serving through the first 100 days of President Obama’s administration. In 2009, he transitioned into the corporate sector, joining ITT as vice president and general counsel.

Ian Lombard was director of the technology products group at his computer products company when he decided that it was time for a change.  He wanted to transition into a different industry, but his undergraduate degree was in molecular biology, which limited his options.  His path forward turned out to be Wharton’s MBA Program for Executives in San Francisco.

Registrants from 30 states and 14 countries joined us last week for our first-ever Webcast event.  During the interactive presentation, streamed live from Philadelphia and San Francisco, participants heard from administrators, faculty, students, and alumni.  It was a great opportunity to learn more about Wharton’s MBA Program for Executives.  If you missed it, it’s not too late. You can watch the replay.

The interactive presentation began with Vice Dean Anjani Jain providing an overview of our program.  He was joined by Wharton Professors David Bell, Peggy Bishop Lane, and Witold Henisz who shared their experiences teaching in our program.  Students and alumni on both coasts then discussed the benefits of the Wharton MBA degree and how they handled the challenge of working while they earned it.

Although we covered a lot of topics during the Webcast, you still might have questions. If so, please contact us at either our San Francisco or Philadelphia Office. We’re looking forward to hearing from you!

Meet and interact with Wharton MBA for Executives professors, alumni, students and admissions staff during our first-ever webcast event, streaming live from both Philadelphia & San Francisco.

Thursday, January 20, 2011
7:00-8:00pm EST / 4:00-5:00pm PST
REGISTER FOR THE WEBCAST

Get a Taste of the Classroom Experience
Live from Philadelphia: Vice Dean Anjani Jain asks faculty about their experience teaching in the program, including current topics from recent classes. 

David Bell, Professor of Marketing
Peggy Bishop Lane, Professor of Accounting
Witold Henisz, Professor of Management 

Meet Admissions Staff
Live from San Francisco:  Vice Dean Anjani Jain introduces members of the Admissions Committee, including Bernadette Birt, COO of Wharton | San Francisco and Cathy Molony, Director of Admissions, Wharton MBA Program for Executives.

Interact with Students and Alumni
Live from both Philadelphia & San Francisco:  Alumni and students share their stories about the benefits, both personal and professional, of the Wharton MBA degree.

The webcast will include forums for posting questions as you watch.  We hope you'll join us!

When Emir Kiamilev entered Wharton’s MBA Program for Executives at Wharton | San Francisco in 2005, he was running a successful tea company in Uzbekistan with yearly revenue of $7 million.  His goal was to learn how to successfully expand the company into other regions not only to grow the business, but also to mitigate the risks of political instability in Uzbekistan.

At first, everything was going according to plan. He based his family in San Diego where his parents lived and commuted to Uzbekistan once a quarter to apply the knowledge he learned in school.  He even used the tea business as the subject of a consulting project in one of his classes.

But in his second year, the worst case scenario happened – he lost the company due to political instability.  “In those countries, it’s hard to finance anything so it was a cash-based business in which we reinvested all profits.  I was married with three kids, but had no income and we were really down to nothing.  I got loans for school, but our whole lifestyle changed overnight.”

The “up side” at the time, he says, was the fact that he was in school and could access Wharton’s extensive network and dedicated career management resources.    After meeting representatives from Mattel, Inc., he was offered a position as a finance manager.  “I was excited because I wanted to come into a consumer products company and learn how Fortune 500 companies do business in corporate America,” says Kiamilev.

Kiamilev and his wife shared an entrepreneurial spirit and also wanted to start up a business.  Attending several gourmet food shows, they decided their market niche would be in confectionaries so they took online classes on topics such as how to make chocolate and even flew to Paris for lessons from a high-end chocolatier.

Ultimately, they decided to focus on caramels and in 2009, with $50,000 from friends and family, they launched Amella.  Their artisan cocoa butter caramels are now in more than 200 stores and high-end hotels and the couple hopes to break even by the end of 2010.

Kiamilev says, “It would have been much harder to start over without my Wharton education.  I’ve seen other friends go through similar situations and they could not recover.  But because of Wharton, I have the tools, knowledge and network to one day be bigger than I was in Uzbekistan.  The executive MBA program opened a lot of doors and is helping me be a better businessman.”

Attorney Andrew Jackson was working as a senior counsel at Hewlett-Packard in Palo Alto, CA when he first started looking into executive MBA programs.  With a goal of stepping into a senior management position in the future, he felt that earning an MBA would be the best way to develop the necessary business skills for that type of role.

Jackson was particularly interested in Wharton’s EMBA Program and even considered flying every other weekend to Philadelphia, as Wharton | San Francisco had not yet launched.  Fortunately, the timing worked out and by the time he was ready to apply, Wharton | San Francisco was open and he was accepted into the West Coast program with sponsorship from HP.

In addition to the location, another consideration for Jackson was what the school’s environment would be like for him as an openly gay student. “I really wasn’t sure what to expect, but I hoped it wouldn’t be an issue since I would be with a more mature group of classmates,” he says.

Once he arrived, Jackson was pleased to find a “welcoming” environment. “I brought my partner to all of the events to which partners were invited and it was never an issue.  We did have a funny moment at a welcoming reception before school began where I introduced my partner to a fellow student and he asked what business we were in, but that was just confusion rather than intolerance.  I never felt any hostility and it certainly didn’t affect my ability to form meaningful relationships with my classmates.”

In fact, Jackson says that getting to know his classmates was one of the best parts of the program. “We were assigned study groups, but I would have picked each of those people out myself if I had been given a choice,” he says. “We really leaned on each other a lot in the program and still keep in touch.  And I met many folks in the program who have become significant professional contacts.  The relationships I made at Wharton have exceeded my expectations in every way.”

After he graduated in 2003, Jackson spent several years working his way up to more senior positions in HP’s legal department, focusing on an aggressive IT consolidation program that shaved 20% off of infrastructure costs and moved the company from more than 80 data centers down to five.  His work at HP brought him to the attention of a contact working in the U.S. Department of the Interior, which under the new administration had assessed its challenges and was looking for someone with Jackson’s background and consolidation skills.

“I was offered the job of deputy assistant secretary at the U.S. Department of the Interior and as much as I liked working at HP, it was a position I couldn’t turn down,” says Jackson, who was officially appointed to the new role in July of 2009. Some of the bigger pieces of what I do now include working on strategy for a $1 billion IT portfolio and overseeing the restructuring of the National Business Center, which is a shared services provider for the department and federal agencies.  That group processes 300,000 paychecks every two weeks among many other things,” he says.

Jackson says that while the knowledge he gained in Wharton’s exec MBA Program was very valuable to him at HP, it is “100% applicable” every day at the U.S. Department of the Interior. He explains, “Everything I do is about making a business case for the changes I’m trying to drive through the department.  I’m not coming in with a political agenda so much as an effectiveness agenda.  I think about what I learned in my strategy and leadership classes all the time even though it’s been almost 10 years.”

He adds, “I absolutely love what I’m doing now.  It’s been incredibly rewarding, but I know that without my Wharton education I wouldn’t be here today.  The ROI for me on the degree is incalculable in a very positive way.”