A Look Back at 2012-13: MBA 11s at Work

This week, Haas Achieves takes a look back at the year. First up, how 2011 grads put their MBAs to work–in consulting, gaming, finance, and cleantech entrepreneurship.

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• Hrishika Vuppala, MBA 11, works as an associate at McKinsey & Company. “Fellow students were instrumental in helping me build confidence to do well in interviews.”
• Nan Duan, MBA 11, is international publishing manager for Riot Games. “Gaming is rising, so…I feel I’m helping Haas establish a footprint in this industry.”
• Hallie Marshall, MBA 11 joined Dodge & Cox as a portfolio manager. “I am proud to be part of an investment team that remains committed to integrity and client focus.”
• Brooks Kincaid, MBA 11, co-founded Imprint Energy. “I’m already doing business with a fellow alum–never underestimate the value of strategic connections!”
• Kitty Sullivan, MBA 11, has joined Bain & Company Amsterdam as a consultant. On rotation in private equity, she likes “seeing deals I’ve worked on in the headlines.” 

MBA 11s at Work: Riot Games

Welcome to MBA 11s at Work, a periodic series on the career launches—in consulting, finance, tech, entrepreneurship, and more—of the Berkeley MBA class of 2011.

Nan Duan (front and center) From MBA glee to Riot Games gig

Grad: Nan Duan, MBA 11

Working as: International Publishing Manager at Riot Games, a Santa Monica-based video game developer. Riot is known for  League of Legends, which has over 32 million registered users worldwide.  “My main responsibility is working with Asian publishers who operate our game in Mainland China, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia.”

Riot because: “It’s one of the most dynamic companies in the video games industry right now.” In his second year, Duan narrowed an interest in consumer tech down to gaming. “Riot emerged as attractive due to its combination of a free-to-play business model with a ‘hardcore’ video game, as well as its aggressive expansion in Asia, which fit well with my international student background.”

Inside Riot: “We have adopted many of the techniques used in social games and applied them to a really competitive, hardcore title,” says Duan. The company organizes development around a highly rapid and iterative cycle. “This is not common at all for traditional core gaming, where studios spend two years and multi-million dollar budgets before the game is launched.”

Networked: “Haas has great presence in some of the leading areas in gaming—during my job search I interacted with alumni at Zynga and EA.” Duan observes that gaming has not been a typical sector for MBAs (He thinks he is the first fresh MBA grad hired at Riot), but says this is rapidly changing with recent social/mobile gaming trends. “Gaming is rising as a heavyweight component within the broad entertainment sector so, in this sense, I feel I’m helping Haas establish a footprint in this industry.”

Best career search strategies: Taking advantage of every event to socialize and know more people in the industry. “The opportunity at Riot came up after two Rioters were invited to speak at Haas.”

Classroom lessons in action: Duan is a big fan of Reza Mozzami’s strategy courses on IT, Media, and Wireless. “They have really shaped how I think about the technology industry and are a must for anyone interested in the sector.”

Living the So-Cal life: It’s Santa Monica—beaches and the weather to enjoy them are a top draw, along with “an amazing selection of Asian food.” 

Businessweek Covers Berkeley MBAs on Blue Ice

Polar Vision in the Yukon, spring break 2011

When Alan Lock and Andrew Jensen, both MBA 11, hit the ice in Antarctica this winter, Businessweek.com readers will follow along. The team will send dispatches tracking their progress as they trek more than 500 miles across the continent, from the coast to the South Pole.

Businessweek coverage began with a Sept. 21 article, MBAs Trek to the End of the Earth, covering their spring break training expedition in the Arctic, their fundraising efforts, applicable lessons from b-school (Tuck MBA Richard Smith is also on the expedition team), and Lock’s highly personal reasons for embarking upon the venture. Lock, who has been diagnosed with a form of macular degeneration, would break records as the first visually impaired person to make such a crossing. The team also aims to raise awareness for visual impairment and funds for two sight charities, Guide Dogs for the Blind and Sightsavers International, under the auspices of  of a non-profit they’ve founded called Polar Vision.

The team flies to Chile in November to begin the trek. “We’re trying to be cautious,” Jensen told Businessweek about his confidence in the undertaking. “We can do the best planning in the world, but there will be things you can’t plan for. Stoves are going to blow up. Clothes are going to rip. Skis are going to break. We have good tents, we have good equipment. Those will help you survive, but what makes it bearable are the people with you. If you aren’t drawing strength from the people around you, you aren’t going to make it. This is a strong team, and because of that, I think we’re going to be just fine.”

Pomp, Circumstance, and Celebration

Graduates of the Full-time MBA Program Kim Trout and Liz Callahan

Graduate of the Evening & Weekend MBA Program Kristina France

Graduate of the Evening & Weekend MBA Program Doy Charnsupharindr

Graduates of the Full-time MBA Program Prashant Gulati and Begna Gebreyes

Stay tuned: More MBA commencement photos will soon be posted on the Haas alumni event photo pages.

Who makes you proud to be Berkeley-Haas? Tell us in the comments below or share your stories with vgilbert@haas.berkeley.edu.

The Heartbeat of Berkeley-Haas

A Look Back at The Berkeley MBA Year

At the heart of Berkeley-Haas are four defining principles: Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself. These principles were in full evidence in the Berkeley MBA Program this past year. Take a look:

Who makes you proud to be Berkeley-Haas? Tell us in the comments below or share your stories with vgilbert@haas.berkeley.edu.

Making Lunch, Making Time (Magazine)

MBA 06s Kristin Groos Richmond and Kirsten Tobey, top education activists

Haas Alumnae Make Time’s List of 11 Education Activists for 2011

Kristin Groos Richmond and Kirsten Tobey, both MBA 06, co-founders of Revolution Foods, and 2007 winners of the Global Social Venture Competition, were recently named among 11 Education Activists for 2011 by Time magazine. As Time noted: “They’re not the first people to try to improve the quality of school lunches, but the Kristin/Kirsten duo is the first to successfully couple good intentions with a serious and sustainable business model… Even in this economy, a company that sits at the intersection of three hot issues—education reform, child nutrition and sustainable and local agriculture—is a good bet.”

Groos Richmond says the enterprise now serves 60,000 healthy, fresh meals per day in Northern and Southern California, Denver and Washington DC and has created over 450 jobs since inception. Of the duo’s time at Berkeley-Haas, she notes, “We often reflect on how grateful we are for the world class MBA education that Haas provided. Within this program, the Lester Center (for Entrepreneurship and Innovation) served as an incubator for our and other classmates’ ideas, cultivating an engaging, creative and innovation-rich environment.”

“Another sign of the company’s growing cachet?” notes Time: President Obama has appointed Richmond to his White House Council on Community Solutions, which is tasked with mobilizing local resources to solve social problems.

Who makes you proud to be Berkeley-Haas? Share your stories with vgilbert@haas.berkeley.edu.

Clean Energy for All

Impact Carbon, a Haas MBA Success Story

The shared ambition of Cindy Chen, MBA 10, Matt Evans, MBA 08, and Evan Haigler, MS 08 (Environmental Health Sciences), is quite simply, “clean energy for all.” They are the force behind Impact Carbon. This nonprofit facilitates the use of cleaner cook stoves in developing countries, sells the resulting carbon offsets, and puts the money back into those same communities to expand clean energy efforts.

Evans and Haigler spun off Impact Carbon from a research center within UC Berkeley’s School of Public Health. Evans now serves as managing director, Haigler is the nonprofit’s executive director, and Chen is a consultant. The team’s efforts received a boost when they were one of three UC Berkeley teams to win $10,000 in the 2010 Dow Sustainability Innovation Student Challenge, held in October.