Columbia Bizcast

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Manuel Wiechers ECLA '17: Iluméxico Fights Energy Poverty Dec 03, 2018

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Through the startup Iluméxico, this graduate is bringing solar power to Mexicans who live off the grid. One in seven people worldwide lacks access to electricity, including some 3 million people in Manuel Wiechers' home country of Mexico. But he's slowly changing that. Through his startup Iluméxico, Wiechers has installed 13,000 solar power systems servicing 58,000 people in the deepest recesses of rural Mexico, including to homes only available by boat, donkey, and day-long trek. And now, with training from the Business School's 13-month Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness in Latin America (ECLA) program, which Wiechers completed in 2017, he is eyeing even more ambitious goals: To bring electricity to 50,000 homes by 2020 and to light up all of Mexico by 2025. On this episode of Columbia Bizcast, the Mexico City-native talks about why he launched Iluméxico in 2010, the challenges to convincing Mexicans to move away from pollutive diesel generators, and how he overhauled his company's operations during the ECLA program with mentorship from senior lecturer Alonso Martinez. "He worked with us for five months on developing our key initiatives for operational excellence," says Wiechers, whose business restructuring became the basis for a new Columbia CaseWorks study on supply chain strategy. "We formalized, standardized, and structured them in a much more efficient manner. That allowed us to be prepared for growth [and] get a very quick second investment round and boost what we were doing." A former Ashoka fellow, finalist for the Unilever Sustainable Living Young Entrepreneurs Awards, and participant in the Endeavor entrepreneurship program, Wiechers has also been featured in Forbes and Ideas and Insights. Iluméxico is a certified B Corporation, a designation for social responsibility and environmental sustainability. "I had more opportunities than the average Mexicans," says Wiechers. "I knew I had to give back."

Eat Offbeat: Helping Adventurous Eaters Find Refuge Nov 20, 2018

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The startup Eat Offbeat turns refugees into chefs who share their homeland's cuisines. It all began with a food craving. A native of Lebanon, Wissam Kahi '04 had been living in New York City for more than a decade when he and his sister, Manal Kahi SIPA '15, discovered a gaping hole in the US food market: the hummus was sub-par. Using their Syrian grandmother's recipe, they made their own hummus, shared it with friends to great reception, and immediately saw the commercial appeal of bringing home-cooked international cuisine to New Yorkers. The siblings soon launched the catering company Eat Offbeat with startup funding from the Center for Social Ventures at Columbia. Their business not only meets a consumer demand for authentic cultural dishes, but also has a social mission to integrate refugees from Syria and other countries by hiring them as chefs to share their homeland's recipes. "I'm having a hard time imagining how something like this could have happened without [my Business School] background," says Wissam, nodding to his foundational experience at Columbia. "At the end of the day, what will make the customer come back is because they really love the food and they found something different and super tasty and high quality," he says. "They may come to us first because they think, 'Okay. There's a social mission there. Hey, we should try out this company and support refugees.' They will not come back unless the food is amazing."

Anna Rawson '15: Beating Your Last Best Score Nov 12, 2018

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Why would a pro golfer want an MBA? On this episode of Columbia Bizcast, Anna Rawson '15 talks about her road to the Business School after winning a national golf championship at the University of Southern California and playing three years on the LPGA Tour. She combined her prowess on the pitch and her management skills learned from Columbia to transition to the business side of sports as marketing director for equipment company Parsons Xtreme Golf. More recently, Rawson co-founded the company SeedLyfe, which makes superfood supplements for women. A native of Australia and the daughter of a professional Australian football player, Rawson says she's brought lessons from the links to her post-MBA career. "At any point, you could have a hole-in-one," she says. "It's a good metaphor for life. You never know when something good is going to start happening. You have to just stick to your routine and stick to what you're doing, and just have faith that it will work out."

Ryan Jacobs '19: The Art of Speechwriting Nov 05, 2018

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"Good speeches, as a rule, generally push a single idea," says the former speechwriter for the Obama Administration. When the Democratic National Committee needed a volunteer speechwriter in 2012, Ryan Jacobs '19 was quick to put up his hand. The gig soon turned into a full-time job as a speechwriter within the Obama Administration. "I was an incredibly minor, minor, minor character in this administration," Jacobs says. "If the Obama Administration was a movie, I'd be like extra No. 1,846. But I was there. And it's a privilege to be there. You sort of feel like you're in the middle of something big." On this episode of Columbia Bizcast, Jacobs talks about how his career in speechwriting started with emulating a character from TV drama The West Wing and led to traveling around the country as chief speechwriter for former President Obama's secretary of transportation. Jacobs also explains why he wanted to learn "the language of business" from Columbia Business School. Now working toward his Executive MBA degree as a cross-country commuter based in Seattle, Jacobs is a senior speechwriter for the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. "Good speeches, as a rule, generally push a single idea," says Jacobs. "Bad speeches, as a rule, are like kitchen-sink speeches. Speeches that try to placate everybody. By saying everything, they say nothing."

Halle Morse '20: The Business of Broadway Oct 28, 2018

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For a Broadway performer, a vocal cord injury can be devastating. For Halle Morse '20, who starred in the mega-hit Mamma Mia!, a battle with pseudocysts was motivation to reassess her career and pursue a Columbia MBA with the goal of leading a nationally recognized theater. "To produce at such a high level requires a lot more intimate knowledge of the business world," says Morse, who attended the University of Cincinnati's award-winning College-Conservatory of Music. In the third season premiere of Columbia Bizcast, the first-year MBA candidate talks about her love for theater and how she plans to use her MBA to become one of the first executive directors of color for a regional theater. In addition to attending business school full time, Morse is currently the assistant director for the new rock musical Jagged Little Pill, which debuted this year at the American Repertory Theater in Boston.

Kesha Cash '10: Playing the Hand You're Dealt - The Road to Launching Impact America Fund May 29, 2018

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Growing up in a low-income household in Orange County had a big impact on the life work of Kesha Cash '10; she recalls using food stamps to buy groceries and scavenging for spare change from the couch cushions to make ends meet. Fast-forward to Columbia Business School, where she concentrated on social impact investing: upon graduating, she founded the minority-focused initiative Jalia Ventures, and then in 2013 she founded the lower-income-focused Impact America Fund, where she is currently the general partner. "I'm glad I attended business school as an older student, applying with a very clear vision in mind as to why I wanted to attend business school and what I wanted to get out of it," she says. In this episode, Cash talks about finding her identity (6:44), leaving Wall Street (19:05), earning an MBA (25:45), starting Impact America Fund (32:20), and investing in lower-income communities (43:00). It's all part of her mission today to transform the economic livelihoods of marginalized communities in America. "I really do feel like my purpose here is to figure out how to give more people access to upward mobility," says Cash, who was named by Essence magazine in 2017 as one of 50 Black Women Founders to Watch.

Clare Murray '17: The Growing Field of Impact Investing May 21, 2018

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Not many people can say their life was changed by a whale. Years before even thinking about Columbia Business School, Clare Murray '17 was on a family whale-watching trip when she bumped into the chief financial officer of The Metropolitan Museum of Art. At the time, Murray was an undergraduate majoring in art history. But the chance encounter pushed her in a new direction. "It was really memorable and transformative for me because it was the first time that I recognized that there's this combination of finance and art management," she says. "I thought, 'I'm going to follow her track and go the more traditional route of finance and then build a skill set that I could then use at a museum potentially at a later point.'" With that in mind, the native New Yorker joined Goldman Sachs and then BlackRock, soon transitioning to focus on sustainable investing. It happened to be just as the niche market was going mainstream. From 2012 to 2016, the portfolio of sustainable assets in the U.S. surged by 135 percent to $8.7 trillion. While at BlackRock, Murray also began taking the subway uptown on weekends to earn her Executive MBA. Upon graduating a year ago, she moved to Sydney to work in sustainable investing with LeagFrog, a private equity firm that targets socially responsible investments in Asia and Africa. She's since been named to Forbes' 30 Under 30 Asia list. In this episode, Murray explains the trends driving impact investing, gives an insider's view of what the sector is all about, and highlights how Columbia Business School deepened her understanding of the field. "Every investment has an impact," she says, "it's just positive or negative. So for me, I really wanted to work in sustainable investing to create products that had the financial return side where then institutions were able to invest and then also where it's doing good for society."

Matt Wilson '18: Make Bold Choices — Reflections of a Graduating Student May 07, 2018

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In a graduation-themed episode, Matt Wilson '18 discusses his journey to and through Columbia Business School: as a New Jersey kid who loved the creative freedom of punk rock to working in counter-terrorism and homeland security after 9/11, and then finding his path in Business School by going off script. "There is no template for how your career and how your life is supposed to go," Wilson says. "There is no specific set of steps that anyone has in mind when they look at you... I think that the biggest takeaway I've had is that there is no rule book. There's no way you must pursue your career. There's no way you must pursue your life — and frankly, often your life should take huge precedent over your career. I think a lot of times we forget that." At CBS Wilson served as the Student Government's VP for Careers. After graduation, he's heading back to consulting – armed with insights gleaned from CBS. "The ability to be vulnerable, to be humble, and to take the time to look inside and figure out what it is that truly drives me, that's the thing I've come to value more than anything," he says.

Brooke Jones-Chinetti '18: The Hard, Dirty Fight for Women's Equality Apr 30, 2018

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Brooke Jones-Chinetti '18 served in the military for six years with two deployments to the Middle East. In 2016, she started Your Sequel to bridge the gap between female veterans and industry leaders. She is currently Director Of Operations at Werk.co. In this episode, Jones-Chinetti talks about the importance of selfless leadership, the responsibility of having a platform, and looks back at her two-year journey through the EMBA program. "Every day I go to class, I'm humbled," she says. "I feel like I'm sitting next to the smartest people I ever met. And I'm proud of how we've evolved as a group. I'm proud of the diversity of thought. I'm proud of people's accomplishments. We've seen new jobs, promotions, marriages, babies. I'm proud of how we've celebrated each other and lifted each other up. I'm so proud of my class. I can't imagine having gone anywhere else."

Professor Sandra Matz: Creating Value Through Big Data Apr 23, 2018

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Professor Sandra Matz explores how companies can turn customer's personal data into a value proposition. As a Management Professor, Matz studies human behavior at the intersection of big data and social psychology. Her research has shown how just one click on Facebook can help marketers create psychological profiles and how money can buy us happiness. While Facebook has reported that "malicious actors" have taken advantage of search tools on its platform, making it possible for them to collect information on most of its users worldwide, Matz points out that the massive amounts of data companies collect can also lead to positive results. "I think it would be a real shame if we were to just ban those technologies all together," she tells Columbia Bizcast podcast host Fahad Ahmed '17. "There are so many opportunities that we have to use that technology in a way that helps people. But if we don't have that discussion, if people don't even know what's happening, we can't have the debate around what is it that we want to use it for." Companies, Matz says, should look to their customers for insight on how best to use their data to create value. "If companies really start thinking about their customer, instead of their product – I think there's so much value in that," Matz says. "If you really put the customer at the center of everything, not only will you be able to make your product a lot better, but you'll also kind of see which are the things, using data, that customers might value, and what are the things that customers might not necessarily want you to do."

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