On this episode of OneHaas, hear from alumna Sahar Kleinman – a global strategy and operational excellence executive at Amazon Advertising. 

Sahar, a first generation American, grew up in New York after her parents emigrated from Iran to further their education. The time she spent watching her mom work in finance on Wall Street and help run her uncle’s photo business had a significant impact on Sahar’s career path. 

She and host Sean Li chat about Sahar’s experience moving from brick and mortar to the e-commerce world, the importance of taking risks, and how Haas provided her with her own personal board of directors. 

*OneHaas Alumni Podcast is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

How her family’s photo business shaped her early on

“That was the first of my hard lessons to be learned as a child, to really learn what it takes to drive a business. And I'm talking about all the tasks that you can think of and having to earn my way to that spot where I could actually start working on developing photos for customers…and it started with grabbing that Windex bottle and wiping the windows outside of the studio.  And really learning really early on that it takes hard work to get to where you want to go.”

Why it feels like she gained a personal board of directors from Haas

“There's something about putting yourself in a room with a bunch of strangers who all of a sudden over time become family… And you get to know people and you share your stories, and you have this unbiased group of people who are just looking to help you unblock yourself oftentimes. And so maybe during the program things would come up that were work related and then you find yourself just having these go-to individuals that really help you think things through and hold you accountable to the things that you think of doing for yourself and the things that you haven't even thought of doing for yourself and for others.”

What keeps her engaged and motivated to stay connected to the Haas network

“I want to be able to create that same feeling of being in school and back in the program, even though we're not in the program anymore. I always want to feel that optimism that I felt in the classroom, that not only can I do anything and lead through anything and be anything, but I want others to feel the same thing. And so I want to create these opportunities in the forum for people to stay connected and be able to share what they've been thinking about that's inspiring to them and, you know, have a sandbox of network members to collaborate with to nurture and debate those kinds of thoughts.”

On what’s next for Sahar

“I'm just always out there thirsting for the next big challenge. Ideally, I want to share my knowledge and help lead the next generation to solve big problems and make a big impact. And even better if those next generation leaders come from Haas.”

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The OneHaas alumni podcast is honored to have Allan Spivack, philanthropist, community builder, and business leader, share his career path insights on today’s episode. 

Allan spent much of his childhood fascinated by how his dad ran their family home furnishings business. But he was also curious about how businesses could be used for social good. After getting his JD MBA from Haas, he combined his two passions into RGI Home which he led for more than 30 years. 

He and host Sean Li chat about Allan’s upbringing in New York, his unique business approach to RGI Home, and how a passion for community and social impact led him to study Middle Eastern politics and how that experience still influences his social entrepreneurship today. 

*OneHaas Alumni Podcast is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

On his relationship with his father

“I remember pretty vividly spending a lot of time with my dad when I was quite young…My dad was not just an engineer, but he was also an inventor. So I would sit in his work room with him and marvel at the mystery of the inventions that he was coming up with. Then he fought for a couple of patents and I didn't really know the content of what he was doing, but it looked so interesting and innovative. And that was my introduction to bringing a different point of view to product and his point of view as well.”

On his decision to get his JD MBA

“I've always been somebody who attempted to be a student always and this was a chance for me to catch up to what I missed when I was in undergrad.You know, having taken the kinds of classes that I thought would matter once I got into business the quantitative side of things. So, law was gonna teach me how to think one way, but I felt business school would teach me how to think a different way. And together, it would provide me with the best, most well-rounded education.”

Some of the challenges he faced running RGI Home

“How to run a business with no money. That was my first challenge. Along with that, running an international business by fax, no email. So you're faxing overseas or whatever, and you know, people who don't even speak your language and trying to figure out how to be able to integrate, you know, the various offices with the U.S. based offices.”

On his lasting legacy

“Since I was young, you know, I've always thought about transforming societies. I can never quite understand why people couldn't figure out how to connect with each other. And also I thought that somebody like myself who had a fortunate upbringing and also had the fortune to be really educated, to go to places like Haas, build the business, had a responsibility to do more. So when I went to build a business, it was not just about industry. It was also about the ability to be able to give back to the communities that I was working in.” 

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• RGI Home | History
• Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow
• Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap...And Others Don't by Jim Collins

It’s Veterans Month, and this episode of OneHaas welcomes a special guest and a special guest host. Last month’s guest, Cassandra Salcedo, MBA ‘21, speaks with her former classmate and military veteran Joseph Choi, an account executive at Amazon Ads.  

As the son of a Korean military vet, Joseph grew up always wanting to go into the service. After attending the Naval Academy, he landed one of the few and coveted spots with the Navy Seals and spent nine years in the service before enrolling at the Haas School of Business. 

He and Cassandra discuss his parents’ journey to America from Korea, the intensive training he went through with the Seals, lessons he brought from the military to business school, and his current role at Amazon. 

*OneHaas Alumni Podcast is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

Common misconceptions people have about military service members 

“One big misconception is that those who decide to join the military are very close minded, narrow minded, and not very intelligent people…Or sometimes that it’s troublemakers who decided to join the military.”

What inspired him to go to business school

“I'm going to be real honest here. A lot of military folks when they get out of the military have no idea what they want to do. And I was one of them. I had no idea what I wanted to do. However, thankfully, because of a lot of those ahead of me who got out were great mentors in this sense where a lot of them do go to business school. So it's not uncommon to see a lot of military folks go to business school.”

His advice to prospective business school students

“I think what's more important is, you know, instead of taking that depth and trying to dive into academics, use that time to get to know your classmates, to try new things, expand your reach, do things that you wouldn't have done normally because I think it's also a safe time to take risks.”

Insights he’s taken from the military and business school into his current job at Amazon Ads

“The job in itself is usually quite simple in comparison to people. People are the hardest. Human relations are the hardest thing to work with, to navigate around and deal with. And I think that is something across the board that I've seen consistent.  In the military, with my last role, with the current role, is that in anything and everything, humans are the most complicated, and hence that's why communication is so important, having empathy is so important.”

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Paul Rice, the CEO and founder of Fair Trade USA, has spent his career making a huge difference in the lives of farmers and growers. In this episode, he sits down with Bree Jenkins to share his learning journey dedicated to social change, which includes buying a one-way ticket to Nicaragua, where he started and led the country’s first fair trade co-op and ended up staying for 11 years. He discusses how sustainability and social responsibility are the real drivers of success, and he calls us to find any and all creative ways to bring purpose into business, what some call conscious capitalism.

On Fair Trade:

“And here's the secret sauce of fair trade. We require that brands and retailers pay more money back to the farm owner or the factory owner. We're not saying be more sustainable y'all, and the cost of that is your problem. That's not what we're saying. We're saying more sustainable. Treat your workers right. And take care of your environment, and the consumer is going to help pay for that through the retailers.”

On his experience with projects funded by international aid:

“I worked on a lot of really well-intentioned projects that were funded by international aid. And I'll tell you, I got really disillusioned with it. It wasn't really very effective, in my experience, in helping farmers develop their own capacity to solve their own problems and helping them to think about markets.”

On Social Change:

“I think about social change, not in terms of years, but in terms of decades. We're definitely playing the long game.”

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• Fair Trade Certified

Scott Kucirek has, hands down, the best job on Earth. He’s the CEO and co-founder of Ocho Candy, an organic (and seriously delicious) candy company based in Northern California. But Scott’s path to Ocho was a circuitous one. In this episode of the Crossroads Series, Scott sits down with Sophie Hoyt to discuss his journey from the Navy to Haas and beyond. He shares insights on how to stay the course when the going gets tough, how to know when it’s time to walk away, why consulting is just not his thing, and why Ocho is his sweetest job to date.

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• Buy Ocho Candy

On why building a company culture that prizes its people is important:

If they believed in the leadership and the vision, it didn't matter what they got paid. They were going to do it. I always felt that compensation, to a point, was not the main driver of that. Believing that you made a difference and that you had an impact was very valuable. Creating a culture that celebrated the people was important.

On his work commitment to OCHO Candy:

I'm not worried about failure. That's just going to happen. That's learning. You still learn, you still experience, and your life is about experiences, not stuff you get. It is more about doing something that looks interesting and has value, and there's a calling to it. There's no regret. I'm just moving forward.

If four years from now, I can go into any store and see people have a choice for better-tasting cleaner candy that's focused on what's inside counts, sustainability for workers and the planet, that's important to me like my values and purpose in life. That makes it worth doing.

In this episode, we chat with our special guest, Chase Roberts. Chase is an EWMBA class of 2019 and currently Principal at a venture capital firm, Vertex Ventures US.

Chase shares his journey from studying at Oklahoma University and starting his career in finance to his pivot to Sales in the Bay area at a company called Box. He then shares his decision to go to business school at Berkeley Haas and land a job at Segment, where he was involved in Business Development and launching a startup program. 

Throughout the course of his career, he has built a network of venture capitalists. He tells us how that network led him to pursue an earmarked career in venture capital at Vertex Ventures.

He also shares the investment focus of Vertex Ventures and his time spent on the data space, which led the conversation to the evolution of software tools and website development. Finally, Chase invites listeners to join his network and potentially build a partnership in the future.

On venturing into Sales - "At the time, I wasn't that excited about a job in sales because, for me, sales just carried a different connotation. I was like, I'm just going to use this as my way into the company and then see what happens from there. And so they took a bet on me, and I joined the company in an entry-level sales job. And it ended up being one of the most, the best, learning experiences of my life. You learn a lot about yourself when you're told no all the time."

Why he loves his job in Silicon Valley - "Part of the thing that gives me a lot of satisfaction in my job is I get to meet people who are the ultimate form of entrepreneurship in the software-based world. They have the opportunity to build these massive companies and not do so over 50 years but do it over five. And I'm amazed by the process of zero to one because it is incredibly hard to build something from nothing. I think it takes a lot of courage to do that. To meet with these people and, in some sense, subscribe to the belief system that motivates them to take a risk and take the hard path and try to build something great, I think it's remarkable."

How to succeed in Venture Capital - "I think that people who tend to thrive are the ones who are just curious about everything. It's not so much about going incredibly deep on a specific area, but it's getting through the surface and learning enough to be dangerous in a lot of areas."

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• The Innovator's Dillema

From her early days at Accenture to her current position at Amazon, Caroline Lee has centered her career around people. In this premiere episode of The Crossroads Series, she sits down with Sophie Hoyt to guide us through her life and imparts lessons we can all learn from. With a background in recruiting, Caroline shares with us the mantra that helped her unlock her own strengths, tells us how to ensure everyone knows about our own “superpowers,” and teaches us about the importance of setting up clear boundaries between professional and personal life. She even takes us through her journey to become *drum roll please* an American Ninja Warrior.

On Recruitment: "When you get the hire in, you're changing a life. I don't know if recruiters realize it or not because sometimes, you're just turning numbers. You've got requisitions, and it's not ever fast enough for the poor hiring manager, but at the end of the day, you're changing the life of someone. And I think that's very important and special."

One of Caroline's strengths: "I've come up with my list of three to four strengths, and one of them is creating order out of chaos. Taking the large complex problems, listening to all those, bringing it in, understanding it, and then breaking it down to what guiding principles are we going to follow. And then breaking it into manageable shades of tasks that just become defined deliverables."

What's next for Caroline: "I want to continue to inspire other people to be their best. So, if someone hears my story and says, ‘Hey, that motivated me to work out’, I'm happy. If I inspired someone to switch their jobs and gain confidence to negotiate a salary, I'm happy."

• LinkedIn
• How to Shape What People Say About You When You’re Not in the Room

In celebration of International Women's Month, Sean Li, together with special co-host Keitha Pansy, welcomes Emilie Cortes, a full-time MBA class of 2002. She is the Treasurer at Compton Foundation and the Chief Financial Officer at Toniic.

Emilie shares how being a "secret genius" paved the way for a finance career and how her love for mountaineering helped launch her entrepreneurial path.

She also talks about how she got into the global impact investing ecosystem when she joined Toniic, a nonprofit organization with a powerful mission aligned with her passion.

Emilie also explains the articles she co-wrote with fellow Haas alum Tracy Gray, which focused on community foundations and five action items that people can apply in their organizations, especially those focusing on gender equity or racial justice.

"Somebody calls me the secret genius because I don't look the stereotypical image of what a smart person looks like. I like that triple threat because people have low expectations, and then I get a chance to blow them away."

"The first issue we wanted to dismantle was the misconception that women and people of color as funded managers are more risky. I have not yet seen a single study that says less diversity is better, not one. And I've never seen or heard of a study that said polished presentations equals higher returns. So, this is really in the bias land because all the data is that women and people of color are less risky and perform better."

"If your goal is to help women and people of color and you're not helping your managers who are women and people of color, it's quite hypocritical."

• LinkedIn

• How Foundations Fail Diverse Fund Managers and How to Fix It 

• Goldman Sachs on Women and Mixed Gender

Today, Sean Li and guest co-host Kellie McElhaney, a popular Haas lecturer and founding Director of the Center for Equity, Gender and Leadership (EGAL), chat with our special guest, Monica Stevens. Monica is a full-time MBA class of 1996 and currently the Senior Vice President of Wells Fargo Merchant Services. She is the first black woman on the Haas board and the Chair and Founder of the Haas Alumni Diversity Council.

Monica takes us back to her early years growing up in a middle-class family, her exposure to many different cultures and mindsets, and her involvement in many international activities and government, particularly in school.

She also narrates her time at the Navy, her early career path, and why she joined and quit Haas the first time before coming back years later. She then became the first African-American to win the Raymond E. Miles Alumni Service Award for her community service to Haas.

Monica shares her thoughts on diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace and the community and across different cultures.

"When you're younger, go with what you need or what you want and not create this large, unwieldy construct of the why the how, or I'm not worthy. Just do it."

"Sometimes, women who get into the role of power opportunity forget that there are others around, behind, next, that are just like them and deserve the same opportunity."

"If we just let ourselves have that curiosity and ask from our hearts, you know, with good intentions and some education, but God, don't feel like you got to read a thousand books before you can be equity fluent."

"Do one thing different tomorrow and see how it feels. If it's uncomfortable, I would say push into that discomfort. But then, if it's comfortable and pleasing, do more of that. Either way, do more and then talk about it and see how it feels and try it on. If it doesn't feel right to you, that's okay. Decide whether you want to adopt it, but do something different, and that's outside and beyond yourself. That's what we're really asking people to do; go beyond."

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• Haas Alumni Diversity Council

We welcomed Keitha Pansy from the full-time MBA class of 2002. She is currently the Managing Director at the Women of the World Endowment. WoWE provides institutional financial support to accelerate gender lens investing and promote impact for women and girls.

Keitha takes us back to her background from studying accounting at Howard University to finance at Haas and why she decided to get her MBA. She also walks us through her 15 years of blended experience within financial services working with different big companies like JPMorgan and BlackRock.

Keitha also talks about the year she traveled to different places to reflect and enjoy life for a moment. Finally, she shares how she got into impact investing and co-founding WoWE.

Why she chose Haas - "When I stepped foot on the campus, it just felt right. I'm finding my tribe. It's just that easy for me. I had paired up with a first-year who took me up into the Berkeley Hills, and there was this beautiful view. And it's so vibrant in my mind, still to this day. You can see the Bay, and you can see the mountains, which was so beautiful to me. And I was like, this is my home. It just felt right."

On finding her true purpose and making an impact - "I believe those who know that they are called for a purpose while they exist here on earth were not meant to just be consumers. We are called to do something greater. I know there's more. I want to wake up knowing that I'm having an impact. I want to wake up knowing that what I do everyday matters."

On being part of the impact investing space - "I feel like this is a full circle and what I'm supposed to do with the second half of my life. The first half was a setup. It was the training ground for my purpose-driven life."

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• Women of the World Endowment

Today, in celebration of Black History Month, we chat with Jason Atwater from EMBA class of 2019. He is the Head of Inclusion & Diversity in Ancestry and co-founder of Black Roots, an employee resource group that champions black employees and customers to enhance Ancestry’s business. He also became the VP of Diversity and Inclusion for Berkeley Haas Executive MBA Program.

Jason walks us through his career from being a sales engineer to digital marketing before pivoting into inclusion and diversity, which is his true passion.

He lets us on the challenges he met while building Black Roots in Ancestry and offers advice on how other people can create a similar group within their companies. 

Jason also shares where to find helpful resources when starting a resource group and effectively position similar initiatives within a company.

On why he chose to go to Haas - "The positioning of the Haas program, the focus on leadership, the focus on ethical responsibility, and the pillars, all of that just really spoke to me. I think this is where I think I'm supposed to be to take me to the next level of where my journey is supposed to go. And I was right."

His advice on people who want to create a similar resource group like Black Roots - "Be clear about your mission statement and goals, what you want to do and who you are as a group. Find like-minded individuals who believe in your mission and willing to help. Finally, find at least one senior leadership person who can act as your guide or your sponsor."

On why he pivoted from marketing to diversion and inclusion - "I will always love marketing, but I had been doing it for a long time. I really wanted to help make the world a better place, and working in inclusion and diversity is my way of acting change in a positive way."

On being successful as a marketer - "I think my brief career in sales and the success I had were because I was good at relationship building. I was good at being genuine with my customers and really talking to them, trying to understand where they came from and what they needed, and not just trying to slam in a sale. It was the right thing to do."

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In this episode, we chat with Henry Chesbrough, who coined the term "open innovation." He is the educational director of the Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation at Berkeley Haas. He earned his BA in economics from Yale University, an MBA from Stanford, and a Ph.D. in business administration from Berkeley Haas. His research focuses on technology management and innovation strategy. 

Henry talks a little bit about his background from Michigan to Yale, then Harvard to Haas. 

He then explains the term "open innovation," a distributed innovation process that involves flows of knowledge into and out of organizations. He shares the three cycles that can lead open innovation to closed innovation and its risks and limitations.

"Open innovation is an entry point into the domain of corporate innovation. The idea is that not all the smart people work for you. In fact, most smart people work somewhere else. No matter how big you are, no matter how good you are, you can't do it all alone. It's better to be open, to collaborate, to share. It can involve bringing in knowledge from the outside for your innovation activities, the outside in, or allowing things you're not using to go outside for others to use in their innovation. And that would be the inside out."

"Corporate venture capital can be a very effective tool to innovate. You've got to still have a culture inside your own organization because once you find and acquire these things to bring them in, you got to keep the people, and you got to get them to do the new things that extend beyond what they've done before. And without that, you get the form but not the substance."

"Open innovation can be a mechanism to allow you to be more agile, to move more quickly. And you don't have to do it all yourself, or rather, you seek out collaborations with startups, universities, and other sources. As long as you can move relatively fast, you could get an edge in the marketplace."

• Faculty Profile
• LinkedIn
• Open Innovation Results: Going Beyond the Hype and Getting Down to Business

Today, we chat with Marco Gottini, a Berkeley Columbia Executive MBA class of 2011. He is an IT executive with more than years of international experience in IT strategy, IT operations, and management consulting. He is currently a Managing Partner at Bizal, portmanteau for Business (Biz) Alignment. He is also a board member of the Berkeley Haas Los Angeles chapter.

In this episode, Marco shares his younger years growing up in an Italian family who owns a winery, packing his belongings and moving to LA, his career in the IT industry, and deciding to go to business school as a challenge.

He also narrates starting Bizal, explains what business alignment is all about, and the importance of having a business framework and clear business goals.

On alumni engagement - "It was just so amazing to see happy people having great experiences. So, it wasn't just about the school. It wasn't just about allegiance. It was about having a good time with people that are technically your family."

On having clear business goals - "When you know where you're going, you can figure it out better, and you can put KPIs in place that are significant and meaningful."

The importance of human factor in technology and business - "People forget about people more than anybody else. They think that technology solves everything. There are phenomenal technologies out there. And then where everything fails most of the time is people using them. People not following the rules, people doing other things, people breaking what technology was. So, you also have to consider the human factor. It's absolutely important. It's probably the most important enabler out of all of that in a company."

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• Bizal
• Berkeley Haas Los Angeles

This month on the OneHaas podcast, we’re celebrating Filipino Heritage Month with Cassandra Salcedo, a Product Marketing Senior Lead at Salesforce. 

Cassandra is a first-generation Filipina American whose parents emigrated from the Philippines in search of the American dream. It was this story that propelled Cassandra's adventurous career path and ultimately led her to Haas. 

She and host Sean Li discuss what it was like growing up in a traditional Filipino household and her trips back to the Philippines, her diverse career path from accounting to commercial banking to social enterprise to tech product marketing, and how she made it her mission to meet and spend time with nearly every single one of her Haas classmates before graduation.  

*OneHaas Alumni Podcast is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

When she took the first big career transition 

“During my social impact fellowship, I had the opportunity to travel to the remote parts that most people in the world have not heard of in Ecuador and Peru and meet people from these regions and hear their stories about what they're using their loans for and how they're using it to propel them forward and got to tell those stories through different blogs, through different interviews that the organization I was working for could do.”

What it was like to visit the Philippines and reconnect with her family heritage

“They built up this whole community… It doesn't exist anymore today, but there's a family gas station that was called the Salcedo gas station. To see so many people in my family that I had never met before not really having a lot of things and enjoying life and just laughing with each other. That's when I think it sparked for me my appreciation for all the sacrifices that my parents had made.”

Why she was drawn to Haas over other business schools

“I remember very vividly at the first Haas info session I went to and there was a slide there that showed the career paths that people at Haas go into post graduation. And of course there was, you know, the traditional paths of banking, tech, but it was actually quite a linear graph across different industries. I felt like a lot of the other schools, it was primarily one, but that graph actually really stood out to me because I wanted a school that did that and I also wanted a school that was small enough to build a community.”

On her initial introduction to the Haas community

“I actually received a hundred percent response rate from all of the Haas alumni that I cold messaged on LinkedIn, which I thought was a telling sign of the community and people actually wanting to give back and share their experiences out of the goodness of their heart and just wanting to help.”

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In today's episode, our new host Kenny Vaughn chats with Stephanie Fujii, former Assistant Dean of the Berkeley Haas School of Business and former Executive Director of Admissions. She has spent her career in human capital and leadership development, with more than 12 years of experience in nonprofits and higher education, selecting and developing future leaders. 

First, Stephanie shares the impact of COVID, professionally and personally. She talks about the most significant things she learned about herself and how stepping away from her previous life led her to have faith in herself.

She also talks about her time as the Assistant Dean and Executive Director of Admissions for the MBA program, the Haas culture and why it's essential to embody all four defining principles, and why investing in culture is vital in any organization.

Steph then shares where her passion for people and their stories came from, her dream of becoming an actor, and acting in theatres in her college days.

Finally, she offers some words of wisdom and encouragement to the Haas community.

Lessons learned during the past year - "I'm still learning a lot, but this one, in particular, is the beauty of surrender. I think it's given us a time and a space to reflect on what's most important and how we want to show up in the world, and how we want to show up for each other. And for me to do that in a way that feels aligned with mind, body, spirit has meant I've had to let go of a lot of things. It was just about that surrender. So, I think I've learned that I have the ability to do that, that there's a beauty in it."

On walking away from her previous life - "The way that I described it at the time was leap of faith. It was opening up and trusting in the universe. And I think what this past year has taught me is it's absolutely a leap of faith, but a leap of faith in myself and trusting in myself. And man, that is something that I would love to bring to as many people as possible because I feel like it has changed everything for me. Liberation is coming through so clearly for me."

"The core of the work that I do now is that I think there is a need for us to see each other and be seen. That was such a kind of a guiding light for that work. And it was possible because of the strong culture at Haas. Culture matters because culture is a reflection of how we see the world, right? It's how we see the world around us. It's how we see our place in the world. And it provides these guidelines for how we behave and how we treat each other."

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In this episode of OneHaas alumni podcast, we chat with Rhonda Shrader. She is the Executive Director of the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program and the National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program for the Bay Area Node. Her previous experiences include founding and being an early stage member of startups in biotech, behavioral health, retail, non-profit, and AI.

Rhonda shared her story from Harvard to startups and then eventually to MBA. She also narrated her consulting career in healthcare.

Next, we talked about Lean Transfer, the class she teaches at Haas, her role as the Executive Director of the Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship Program and the I-Corps program, and how these programs can help startups.

Finally, she shared her advice on how to build and work with school or business partners.

On the importance of spending time with the school community - "It's important. It's not scalable, but people need to know that you care, and that's the way to build a community."

"As an entrepreneur, you need skills. You need someone to hold your feet to the fire. You need someone to hold you accountable so that you do not fall victim to confirmation bias. As entrepreneurs, the worst sin we can commit is believing what we want to believe and hearing what we hear."

"Don't feel like you have to start a company as a student. This is not the only chance you have for the rest your life. So, learn what you need to learn. And when the problem comes for you to solve it, you'll be ready."

"You want to have someone who is obsessed about the problem as you are but has a completely different skillset. Not completely different, but someone who makes up for the skills that you don't have. Those are the best kind of partnerships."

• LinkedIn
• Berkeley-Haas Entrepreneurship
• National Science Foundation’s I-Corps program 

In this OneHaas Undergrad episode, we are joined by Patrick Pan, a Fortune-100-bred and startup-tested leader in global strategy and consumer marketing. He is currently the Vice President of Stealth Venture, online education and media platform, and serves as the President of the Berkeley-Haas Alumni Network of Los Angeles.

Besides being a frequent speaker on international growth, e-commerce profitability, customer intelligence, and brand narratives, he is also a certified rescue diver who occasionally surveys coral reefs around the world on marine conservation projects.

Patrick talks about his MBA experience at London Business School, his passion for traveling, and his experience with early-stage start-ups and adapting to market shifts and trends. 

He also shares some of the most pivotal moments in his life that greatly impacted his career and what he loves about Berkeley.

"As globalized as we can become, it doesn't necessarily take away the uniqueness of each market. People don't behave the same way across the world. People do not think about things the same way. Any successful company right now that's looking to be globally-minded would need to be able to localize and think in that way."

"What I love about traveling really, and how it leads me to what I do in my career, is if I'm talking to somebody or contacts or even a prospect in some way, in a different market, from a different background, I can try to relate pretty quickly. And if not relate, at least understand because I've just been exposed to so many different types of people from different walks of life. And that, for me, is a blessing."

"I always feared not being able to meet and experience as many things as I can while I still can. I travel that much because it helps me expand myself and understand that my perspective is definitely not the only one. In fact, it's not even one out of a thousand; it's probably one out of millions."

"Whenever I give talks and discuss things in any level of exploration with people of different environments, it tends to center around the theme of just being open and understanding that the perspectives out there are equally as valid. And we should be able to consider different options even if sometimes data suggests otherwise."

• LinkedIn
• Berkeley-Haas Alumni Network - Los Angeles

On our third episode of the OneHaas Alumni High Impact Teaming (HIT) Series with Dr. Brandi Pearce, we have a conversation with Haas alumni Amy Fan. Amy completed the dual degree program with an MBA and MPH in 2019.

During her time at Haas, she also launched her start-up, TwentyEight Health, a women’s health platform to provide reproductive and sexual health care, with a focus on providing access to underserved communities.  

Amy’s experience growing up in Canada with public healthcare and her professional experience years working as a management consultant and for a start-up team providing direct consumer skincare, fostered a client centered and equity lens that she has brought to the design of TwentyEight Health.  

Listen to how she has leveraged her experiences to design and build her team with intention and lead during this challenging time.

Disclaimer: The views shared in this episode are Amy’s personal opinions and reflections and not necessarily those of her employer.

"Haas has created this ecosystem where there's a lot of a sense of psychological safety, even from a relationship perspective."

"We want to make sure that everyone feels supported and even though we might be working on different things, at the end of the day, we're working towards a bigger goal."

"Giving people that sense of ownership over their projects makes it a lot easier for them to also think through."

• LinkedIn
• TwentyEight Health
• Forbes article about TwentyEight Health 

In today's episode of OneHaas Undergrad series, we chat with Trae Guinn, Financial Planning and Analysis Manager at Sandler Partners. He is also the Chief Financial Officer at Shortstop Management, an organization geared towards professional baseball and fitness instruction. While here at Haas, he served as the VP of Human Resources and the president of the Haas Undergrad Black Business Association.

Trae talks about his family, which is heavily involved in sports, how he developed his interest in finance and his career path after Haas, and some of the defining moments that impacted his life.

He also shares his experience of being frequently stereotyped as an athlete and how he addressed stereotype issues when he became the Haas Undergrad Black Business Association president.

Lastly, he shares his professional experiences and some of the valuable skills and qualities to move up in an organization, his passion for music, and his favorite thing about Haas/Berkeley.

On breaking stereotypes - "Be present and be unapologetically you to show versatility and that you can be confident in your interest. You can pursue whatever you want to pursue. You don't have to conform to the standards that have been set for you."

On innovating within a company or organization - "You want to make sure that you can set yourself apart from your peers. Everyone's going to try to produce high-quality work, and it's really important. But the ability to innovate and bring something new to the table will set you apart and help you establish yourself from the rest."

What Trae likes about Haas/Berkeley - "There's more of a free speech mentality at Berkeley than there are at some other schools. And people are encouraged to express themselves in a lot of different ways. It was cool to be a part of that type of environment."

• LinkedIn
• Shortstop Management, LLC

Today, we have Robert Chatwani on our show. Robert was EWMBA student at Haas, class of '07. He was chief executive at eBay and Teespring before becoming the CMO of Atlassian, a collaboration software company that aims to unleash teams' power.

Robert started his career in management consulting before going into performance marketing and consumer branding. He is passionate about international trade economics and for building early-stage and large-scale consumer platforms.

He shares with us how he started Monkey Bin, an online marketplace that became a multi-party trading system for B2B barter, and how he eventually landed an entrepreneurial role at eBay where he stayed for 12 years.

Roberts narrates his time at Haas, including his personal story with his best friend and co-founder, Sameer Bhatia, who was diagnosed with leukemia and needed a bone marrow transplant. It paved the way for them to launch a national marrow registration drive. He also shares the impact of this project on his life and how it brought him clarity around the power of purpose and discovering his true North.

Finally, Robert tells us how to build more resilience into our lives, especially during these turbulent times that we're all in right now.

"I'm a big believer that the first few years of your career, or really anytime you make a pivot, it's really important to treat those as learning years because you're still in discovery mode of trying to understand what path you might go down or how you might harness your personal interests and connect that to things that you care about."

"I believe that the greatest careers are discovered, not planned. So, buckle up and embrace some of the uncertainty that comes with that. Open yourself up to the most growth opportunity."

"When I'm stuck in a decision, I catch myself to say, hold on, is this aligned with my why? There's no separation between your why and who you are and why you do it, what you do after a certain point. And I think that's when it becomes really powerful."

"Doing what you love, surrounding yourself with the right people and the right energy, and staying in good health, physically, mentally, and spiritually, help build resilience."

• LinkedIn
• The Golden Circle by Simon Sinek
• True North by Bill George
• The Pause Principle by Kevin Cashman
• Alchemist by Paulo Paolo

Today, we have Brandon White on the podcast. He's a full-time MBA, class of 2018. Brandon was assigned to the second infantry division in South Korea and served as a platoon leader and communications officer. He has also served the 11th signal brigade at Fort Hood, Texas, including two deployments to Afghanistan as an Executive Officer, Logistics Officer, and Company Commander. 

Brandon talks about his time in the army and all the leadership positions he had when he was there, what led him to Haas, and the impact of all the current global issues on his family and how they deal with it.

He also talks about the core values he shares with his children and how the pandemic didn't stop him from venturing into entrepreneurship. Lastly, he shares some parting words to the Haas community on fighting racism and other -isms and leaving this world a better place.

"You're not going to love everyone you meet. You're not going to love everyone you work with. Obviously, there are going to be challenges, but generally, this is an environment where people want to see what your limit is, what's the sky for you, and try to support you in getting there with wherever you struggle."

"I like to try to help people see a different perspective or think about their lives in the future. When I feel like I can provide insights, I can always try. I like to think about it, and I think it's challenging."

"Everything is founded on honesty and truth. If you want to be someone that provides value, is respected, is looked up to, is thought of in a positive light, it starts with honesty and truth." 

"Whatever you do, you have to sow a good seed to reap the harvest. And if you're not willing to do that, then don't expect it."

"If you're at Haas or you're associated with Haas, you have lots of privileges that others do not. And I feel like if we don't continue to try to use that privilege for good, to fight racism, to fight - there's a million -isms I could throw out there - find the -ism that you're passionate about and do use your privilege to fight that, to leave this world a better place."

• LinkedIn

On our second episode of the OneHaas Alumni High Impact Teaming (HIT) Series with Dr. Brandi Pearce, we chat with Haas alumni Nandita Batra. She is a Strategy & Operations member of the ChromeOS Chief of Staff team, supporting Product leadership to define strategy, translate strategy into C-level narratives for internal & external audiences, and run business operations while aligning Product & GTM organizations. Prior to that, she was at Shutterfly and the Boston Consulting Group.

We first hear about Nandita's unique background growing up in Australia and the US. And how having lived and worked in different places around the world have impacted her internal leadership and collaborative capabilities to build high impact cross-functional teams around the world.

Disclaimer: The views shared in this episode are Nandita's personal opinions and reflections and not necessarily those of her employer.

On growing up in two different countries – “Having spent my childhood between two countries shaped who I am as a person, how I see the world and my passion for other cultures.”

On her professional experience in Paris – “I grew a lot working in another country, in a system where you don’t have much of a support network. It helps you build grit and resilience. And it was also fun.”

On being an introverted leader – “It’s the ability to listen and truly listen, not just to what a person is saying, but to those conversations between people. Being an introvert also allows you to empathize with other introverts and help them find space to find their voice in their comfort zone.”

Her experience navigating a variety of cultures – “I learned so much about how to negotiate across cultures. Understanding how different cultures approach business sets you up to be more effective as a leader in a global business economy. It invites openness and curiosity about other people’s stories and other people’s journeys.”

• LinkedIn

In this episode, Bree and Sean chat with Om Chitale, full-time MBA '18. Om is currently the Director of Diversity Admissions at Haas. He is also the founder of Teachers of Oakland, a non-profit storytelling organization that amplifies teacher voice in the Oakland community.

Om shares with us his definition of self-permission and how it plays into people's professional journey. He talks about the concept of substitution that is critical to the idea of permitting yourself.

He also shares his passion for education and diversity inclusion, his current role at Haas, and Teachers of Oakland.

"Give yourself the permission to analyze. Are you still happy? Are you still on the path to the thing you want to do? And if you're not, give yourself permission to let go of that thing too."

On the concept of subsititution - "We can let go of something, but it's really hard to let go of something unless we have something else to then latch onto."

"We owe it to society to be the best version of ourselves and to be happy because then we can do the other things we want to do."

• LinkedIn
• Teachers of Oakland

Today, we chat with Hector Javier Preciado, EWMBA, class of 2011. He's a Sales, Strategy & Operations Executive who is deeply passionate about diversity, equity, inclusion & belonging. Currently, he works as the Chief Growth Officer in Alluma, a nonprofit organization that produces technical solutions for social problems.

Hector shares his humble upbringing from Mexico to the US, immigrating with his big family to have a better life, and living in a neighborhood like Boyle Heights.

Even though the opportunities weren't so great back then, education has always been a crucial part of Hector's life. With God-given gifts and talents, he took advantage of different programs that offered support for kids like him. He was able to pursue education and even had the experience of going to college campuses when he was 11 yrs old.

Hector also narrates his purpose-driven career, his reasons for pursuing a business degree, and his experiences in Haas, including becoming the first Latino president of the EWMBA association and being selected by his classmates as the graduation speaker.

Finally, he talks about leadership and why he loves being part of Alluma, his visions and missions, and his words of encouragement for people with similar backgrounds to pursue and develop their careers.

"Oftentimes when I'm talking to people who have a similar origin story as myself, I tell them that in many ways I'm nothing special. I like to remind them that if I did it, you could do it. And if anything, use me as a bar that is set to some heights and irrespective of where you place me, exceed that bar. Exceed what I've been able to do."

"From a leadership development standpoint, one of my biggest leaps was through humility and being humbled."

"My brand became, this is a leader. And I embrace that and I was humbled by that."

"Though I feel that I have been blessed by natural gifts and talents and drive and hunger and a passion, at the end of the day, I've seen through my walks in life people that have more talent, who are smarter, who are more gifted, who are more talented than I am, who have not had the opportunity to do what I have. So, I want to remind folks that you've got to think big. You gotta be proactive in developing your career because the world needs more people like us."

On being in the podcast - "You're giving me a platform to tell my story that reaches a community of people who are influential, who are leaders in their own rights, who are part of a global network as leaders, who are in these spaces, who have power and authority to make a huge impact in other people's lives. It's amazing for me and it's humbling."

• LinkedIn Profile
• Gentefied
• How Successful People Get Ish Done

OneHaas’ commemoration of Latinx Heritage Month continues with an interview with Adrien Lopez Lanusse, the former vice president of consumer insights at Netflix. 

Adrien’s intersectionality between being Latinx and gay gave him a certain kind of insight into the culture within corporations and the impact of those companies’ products on the consumer. 

He and host Sean Li delve into the art of consumer insights, how Adrien’s upbringing shaped his work ethic, and what it was like to watch Netflix grow into the behemoth company it is today. 

*OneHaas Alumni Podcast is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

Why he was drawn to a business career from an early age 

I was very curious. And in our household, being in a multicultural household, we consumed products and services very differently than my friends. And I was always curious as to why or how does culture drive or influence us as consumers?

On how to ensure consumer insights work is inclusive 

I think finding the level of granularity is part of what leads to some of the insightful ideas. So, for example, oftentimes, a company will talk about their consumer in a monolithic way. And by not looking at some of the nuances of the different segments, the different types of consumers, you're balancing things out and missing some of the opportunities.

How the Haas Thrive Fellows program is empowering future Latinx business leaders

Latinx representation in business, particularly in the executive ranks, is a challenge…They've created this program to help educate, prepare, and motivate folks from underrepresented groups to apply and succeed in business schools, hopefully, Haas. And we want to reverse the trend in declining applications from underrepresented ethnic and racial groups. So programs and efforts like these, I think, are really important to increase representation in the executive ranks.

On what his promotions have meant to him in his career 

The fact that someone recognized my value and decided to promote me was something I wouldn't have imagined earlier in my career. Growing up in a Latino household where we're taught to be humble, to be grateful for what we're given, I think, leads to a lot of us not being good at self-advocacy. And it's something we need to work on to increase our representation in the executive ranks. So, all the promotions that I've gotten, I never take them for granted, and I'm incredibly grateful for them.

• LinkedIn Profile
• Haas Thrive Fellows
• The Advantage: Why Organizational Health Trumps Everything Else In Business by Patrick Lencioni

In celebration with the Hispanic Heritage Month, we have Chris Cindy Cordova on the podcast today. She is a full-time MBA, class of 2020, fresh graduate, and alumni. Before Haas, she studied aeronautical aeronautical and astronautical engineering at Stanford and worked several years with Honeywell in various roles. She's currently a Sr. Product Manager at Amazon Web Services aside from being an awesome mother.

Chris talks about her struggles and successes growing up from an immigrant family from El Salvador. She shares her experience of going to a school that was 1-5 hrs away from her home so she could join a gifted program, the people in her life that made it possible for her to get the best education she could have given her circumstances, and how much her mother's sacrifices for her and her siblings gave her the motivation to succeed and accomplish her dreams.

She also talks about her career as an astronautical engineer, why she's passionate about it, and how it was to be the only woman or Latina in an industry that's dominated by white men.

Chris is also passionate about increasing the representation of women and minorities in tech and entrepreneurship. She aims to provide more funding and create more opportunities for people of color.

Lastly, she shares her experience being a mother of three daughters and balancing her time between that and being a career woman.

"One of the main things that I have learned and I try to teach my kids is not to be afraid, to stand up for yourself, and to pursue the passions that you have regardless of who's around you or who's not, what people are saying or what they're not."

"Find the mentors and the champions that will help you, even if they don't look like you, even if they can't relate. The people who don't look like you can also be champions for you and not being afraid to reach out to them and not being afraid to ask for help when you need it, I think that's been crucial for me."

"I want them to see the example that I saw in my mom of this hardworking woman who did not let any limitations hold her back. I want my kids to be able to see that and to see that there are no limitations for them, especially because they have so many more opportunities and advantages that I didn't have when I was growing up."

"We want them to recognize their privilege because despite being a minority, they are also privileged with having parents that are educated and having opportunities. And we want them to use that privilege for good and to be the voice for those who can't speak for themselves."

• LinkedIn Profile
• Berekely MBA Blog

Today, we have Dr. Maura O'Neill on our podcast. She is a lecturer and distinguished teaching fellow at the Haas school of business. In 2009, she was appointed by President Obama to be the first chief innovation officer of the US agency for international development, serving until 2013. She was responsible for inspiring and leading breakthrough innovations in foreign assistance and development worldwide. Above all, she is a Haas alum.

In this episode, Maura talks about her research on the notion of narrow-mindedness, her passion for living a life with no regrets and how others can do the same thing, and practicing deliberateness or intentionality.

She shares the importance of knowing what you want in life - your purpose and your passion and leaving a legacy behind.

She also has some excellent advice for students graduating during this time of uncertainty about seizing and creating opportunities until ultimately finding your passion.

"Ordinary people are capable of extraordinary things, and they're only capable of extraordinary things if they go in the direction of their unique gifts."

"Living a life of no mistakes, no regrets, is not no mistakes. We can make mistakes. The things that we regret in life, I think, are the things we do for other people. If we do it out of compassion and empathy, that's fabulous, but if we do it because we should, even though we don't want to, it isn't who we are, then that's probably the wrong reason."

"I've learned if I want to live a no regrets life to not only be generous with others, but to actually be generous with myself."

• LinkedIn Profile

On the first episode of OneHaas Alumni HIT Series, hosts Sean and Brandi chat with Haas alumni Dutta Satadip. He is the Global Head of Customer Operations at Pinterest. Before Pinterest, he was the Director of Customer Success for the Americas region at Google.

Dutta has more than 20 years of industry experience and has held various senior leadership roles in most key operating areas. He frequently speaks at major conferences, including TEDx, on management topics such as Change Management, Customer Success, Operations, Leadership, and Building diverse teams.

He talks about pushing yourself outside your comfort zone and creating a real need for change and innovation, especially now in a global pandemic, how to develop empathy and build relationships, and the impact of technology on empathy within teams and people.

He also shares the techniques and strategies he used or found to help build dynamics inside massive teams, particularly teams that are spanning boundaries across time and space and the globe.

"When you're working with teams, you need to cut them up into manageable bite-size problems. You need to enable everybody to work on those problems and eventually bring it back together to deliver the outcome for the business."

"I realized a lot of success that happens in the world is not just because of the knowledge you have. It is how you can translate that knowledge into value of some sort and translate that knowledge into value. It is both a function of competency but also others believing and moving forward with it."

"So, I'd been very mindful of introducing something around failure, something around learning, in these conversations. Because without that, as a leader, you're not setting the tone from the top that it is okay to fail. Failure is part of building something, and failure should yield in learning."

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In this episode of OneHaas Undergrad series, Ellen Chan talks with Sallie Jian. Sallie is a VC at SAP and the head of SAP.iO Foundry New York. SAP.iO is a corporate venture arm of SAP, which is a publicly-traded enterprise software company.

Sallie shares how she found her calling in investment banking out of college and how that became the launchpad for her discovery of technology and Silicon Valley and the startup world.

She also narrates what led her to the venture capital and growth equity space coming from the finance world and her career at SAP where there is a blend of operator experience plus venture capital experience.

On exploring other avenues - "I really encourage everyone who is still in school that you should explore as much as you can because college is one of the only times that you will be able to do this ever, ever again. Figure out what resonates with you and start looking at ways to pursue that."

When it comes to just career advice - "I think it is very important to step out of your comfort zone and be unafraid to explore. Be unafraid to go to that networking event, go to that happy hour, go to that conference, go to that trade show, whatever it is, because you never know who you're going to meet and the relationship and the opportunity that can come out of that."

On staying humble and coachable - "Stay humble no matter where you are in your career journey because people will respond better to someone who has that kind of trait."

LinkedIn Profile

Episode #54: Deepak Gupta, an advisor in startups and venture capital in the Career Management Group at Berkeley Haas, joins us today to talk about the Berkeley startup ecosystem. 

He shares how the startup ecosystem has evolved throughout the year, where students and alumni can find the resources they need and what they can do in order to build their startup companies, and Haas' mission as a leader in entrepreneurship.

He discusses cross-college collaboration as one of the key resources that students and alumni can tap into and also reaching out to other startup advisors and mentors via CMG/Entrepreneurship Center.

"The goal is to get the skills while you're at Haas that even 5 years down, 10 years down, when you're ready to start a company, you know where to come, you know what resources you have."

Show Links:

LinkedIn

Berkeley Begin

Career Management Group

Skydeck

CITRIS Foundry

House VC

LAUNCH

Berkeley Entrepreneurs Association

StEP

On this episode of OneHaas Undergrad series, we chat with Yifei Ding, a product manager at Instagram. She officially started her career at Deloitte and then transitioned to Facebook.

Yifei shares why she's passionate about product development and narrates her experience and the support system at a company like Facebook, the challenges of having multiple roles, and how to navigate and work with different teams.

Episode #53: Lisha Bell joins us today to discuss her career in the tech industry that span 20 years. She talks about her experiences in building mobile payments, digital money movement, and her passion for AI and how it could break various fraud patterns.

She also shares her initiative to launch a fund to provide capital to the underserved communities. She also provides some parting wisdom on how we can teach our children and expose them to different cultures and to love not only people but everything that we're given.

"If people had something, if you gave people a piece of the pie a little bit, if you gave people access to home ownership, they would have a stake. They would have equity. They would be rooted in and more confident about what they can do and who they could be."

"We have this kind of society that values your social economic status more than your actual talent and capabilities. And, how do we shift that?"

"Let's raise our children to be empathetic and have understanding and not be presumptive in who or what they think people are, their capabilities, because of what they look like.... And, just teach our children to love not only people, animals, our gardens nature, like love everything that we're given."

LinkedIn Profile

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lishabell/

Episode #52: Today, we chat with Jake Wamala, full-time MBA class of 2019, Certified USCF Chess Expert, and Public Equities Global Research Analyst at Aristotle Capital.

He shared with us why he's drawn to public markets, his ideas for diversity and inclusion in organizations, and his love of chess. He also talks about his passion for giving back not just to Haas and fellow alumni but also to the community at large.

On self-confidence - "I think it's immensely important for children of color to believe that they can do and achieve anything."

About putting in the proverbial 10,000 hours - "They say that’s a myth but I think there's truth to it in some ways. Practice makes perfect.”

On self-teaching - "It helps if you just put in a little bit of discipline and a lot in believing in yourself."

LinkedIn Profile

OneHaas Undergrad Series Episode #2: In this episode, we chat with Michelle Christina Hong about her identity as a Cambodian American figure skater and how her background prompted her to create the very first platform (coachmichellehong.com) dedicated to making skating accessible to everyone. She also talks about not following the ABCs of Haas, sticking with her true passion and making a career out of it as a savvy entrepreneur.

OneHaas Undergrad Series Episode #1: Today, we’re joined by Camilo Ossa, from the undergraduate class of 2017. He shares with us his journey to social impact consulting, and subsequently to social entrepreneurship. He also discusses how the community at Haas has motivated him to strive for excellence.

To celebrate Latinx Heritage Month, the OneHaas podcast welcomes Patty Juarez, the executive vice president and head of Hispanic and Latino Affairs at Wells Fargo Bank. 

Patty found her passion for finance and banking at an early age, growing up in Mexicali, Mexico, watching her father run his business. After moving to the U.S. at age 11, education became a top priority for Patty and her siblings. When it came time to apply for colleges, Patty knew Haas was the school for her. 

She and host Sean Li discuss her childhood in Mexico and how her life changed after moving to the U.S., the work she’s done at Wells Fargo to increase capital access for minority business owners, and how she got her nickname of “the people’s banker.” 

*OneHaas Alumni Podcast is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

What it was like to leave Mexico at a young age

As a sixth grader, I felt like it was the end of the world, like moving away from my birth country. Even if it was just across the border, really a few miles away, it just felt like a huge change. Of course, you know, you leave your friends behind and you start a whole new world in the U.S.

Where her passion for finance began

I always knew I wanted to be a banker. It's almost like since I was a kid, I was the bank. Monopoly, I was the bank. If we played like little store, I was always the bank. I always handled the cash. And I always had money. I would save my money from birthdays and things. I would lend my money if my grandmother was short or whatever, and then she would pay me back. And if I'd give her $20, she'd give me back $21 or $22. And she taught me about interest when I was a little girl.

On her idea to diversify commercial banking 

I just wondered how much more business we could get if we did it, right? If we actually came to clients in a culturally relevant way, if we recruited talent that looked like our client base, you know, how much more successful could we be? And that was the basis of me launching diverse segments, which really propelled my career to new heights at Wells Fargo.

How she hopes to make a difference for minority business owners 

My goal is to have no access to capital gap, right? So that any business owner can get the financing they need and there's no bias in the decisioning process that leads to them getting turned down for a loan. And that's not gonna be something that's maybe gonna be solved in my lifetime, but I'm damn gonna try really hard to help it along. 

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Episode #51: Nora Silver and my cohost, Bree Jenkins, joins us on the podcast today to have a conversation around building bridges for racial equity in our workplaces and organizations. Nora is the Founder, Faculty Director, and Adjunct Professor of the Center for Social Sector Leadership at Haas. She teaches Social Sector Solutions, Impact Investing Practicum, and Large Scale Social Change: Social Movements, for which she is an Aspen Pioneer Faculty Award winner.

Episode #50: We're joined by Kenny Vaughn, FTMBA '16, on our podcast today to hear about his life from West Point, to his career serving our country, and his journey since Haas.

We chat about everyone from why he chose Haas to our society at large and what he's doing with his Haas degree to make an even bigger impact.

Episode #49: Anna Roumiantseva, FTMBA '17, joins us on the podcast to share her journey after Haas. Having had successful careers in multiple disciplines and now applying those experiences at startups in stealth mode under Google's famous X Moonshot Factory, she shares us the importance of questioning the status quo on a daily basis.

Episode #48: Dr. Lisa Rawlings, EMBA '19, joins us on our podcast today to talk about her vision and goals as the new President and CEO of the National Urban Fellows (NUF) Organization.

National Urban Fellows is a rigorous, full-time graduate program comprised of two semesters of academic course work and a nine month mentorship, leading to a Master of Public Administration (MPA) degree from the City University of New York's Bernard M. Baruch College, School of Public Affairs.

Episode #47: In this episode, Sean chats with our very own, Dean Ann Harrison of the Haas School of Business. She's our 15th dean and a renowned economist who has dedicated her career to creating inclusive and sustainable policies in development economics, international trade, and global labor markets.

Dean Harrison talks about growing up between cultures and their influences in her career as an economist and lecturer around the world. Economics was not quite the typical background for somebody who wanted to make the world a better place, but this is where she started and continues to make her impact.

As an economist, she shares her thoughts on how we should continue opening up to global trade, while still protecting our most vulnerable. As our dean, she explains her vision for Haas, what she has been doing for the past year and a half, and her future plans.

Episode #46: Celebrating Pride Month on the OneHaas Podcast, we're honored to have Stacy Nathaniel Jackson join us on the show today. He is a fellow Haas alum from the class of 1990. Stacy talks about how being an over-achiever and solid performer helped him achieve a successful career in senior positions in corporate and nonprofit.

As an African American transgender artist-activist, he has served on various community boards including mayoral appointee of the San Francisco Transgender Civil Rights Implementation Task Force, UCSF Chancellor's GLBT Advisory Committee, San Francisco LGBT Community Center Project, and former board president of Fresh Meat Productions, a leading transgender and queer performing arts nonprofit.

Stacy has since retired and is now focused on being an author, artist, and activist.

Episode #45: Sean chats with Dr. Sahar Yousef, one of our faculty lecturers here at Haas. She teaches an extremely popular elective called Becoming Superhuman on the science of peak performance and productivity. Today, she shares with us some of those lessons on how to increase human performance and improve productivity - without using any kind of "limitless" pill.

Episode #44: Marco Lindsey, our Berkeley Haas Associate Director of Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, joins us today to talk about the importance of fighting anti-blackness not only in ourselves but in our future generation.

For those of you who may not understand Anti-Blackness, it was best explained in an article written by Kihana Miraya Ross, Northwestern University professor of African-American studies, as "the inability to recognize black humanity." She describes it as a "theoretical framework that illuminates society's inability to recognize our humanity - the disdain, disregard and disgust for our existence."

We hear about Marco's upbringing in East Oakland and how he wakes up every day to instill the right values in not only his children but also the youths in his community. He does so by walking his talk, serving as an active board member of the 100 Black Men of the Bay Area, and giving back to the community through his gratuitous actions.

Episode #43: We're joined by the one and only Haas Rap Legend Ace Patterson AKA Call Me Ace. He shares with us his journey through Haas and how he rebooted his passion for rap music his last semester of Haas while recruiting for consulting. Ace pursued a corporate career post-MBA from Deloitte to Facebook to YouTube to hone his business acumen while concurrently launching a successful music career. Check out his music everywhere under his rap name Call Me Ace.

Episode #42: We speak with Soh Kim, a PhD '13 alumna who did her research on Open Innovation Ecosystem: Chez Panisse Case which encompassed Food Innovation. She was guided under Henry Chesbrough through the Berkeley Haas Garwood Center for Corporate Innovation.

Our spotlight on first-generation alumni continues with a conversation with Cassidy Nolan, the co-founder and managing member of Mach 1 Hot Sauce. 

Growing up, Cassidy struggled in school. But joining the Marine Corps after high school helped him find his drive and discipline that ultimately led him to Haas.  

Cassidy and host Sean Li discuss his family roots in the kitchen, his military intelligence work for the Marines, how his education at Haas helped shape the idea for Mach 1 Hot Sauce, and why it’s the hot sauce that pairs well with anything. 

*OneHaas Alumni Podcast is a production of Haas School of Business and is produced by University FM.*

How his time in the military helped with school

Post-Marine Corps, I never found trouble in school. I learned how to study, I learned how to be disciplined. There weren't any distractions like what I used to have when I was younger. It was like, here's the work, and 50% of the job is just showing up, right? 30% of the job after that is participating in class, and then 20% is actually doing the homework and the test and the quizzes because if you do, if you show up and you ask questions, you're gonna learn and retain so much of it.

One of the things he loved most about Haas

If you made it to Haas, chances are you're curious, you're not afraid to ask questions. You're not afraid to go out on a limb and say, ‘Well, I think it's this.’ There weren't a lot of politics that got in the way. Like a lot of the time, we're just looking at brass tax…and I felt like the dumbest one in the room, and I loved it because it meant I had the most to gain, you know?

The push he gave himself towards Mach 1 Hot Sauce

Look, if you don't jump off on this hot sauce thing, you're never gonna do it. Because you've always been scared to do it. You know what I mean? Because you're married, you have kids, and if not now, when? And that's such a hard thing, I think, for a lot of entrepreneurs or people who wanna be entrepreneurs is that fear of failing. But I think I just got to a point in time where the fear of not trying was greater than the fear of failing.

What makes his hot sauce stand out

There's a dichotomy that exists between either it has flavor, but there's no heat, or it's just complete dry heat, and there's no flavor. And I really believe that we created a hot sauce that can pair with your food because it has a lot of flavor upfront. And then the heat rolls on in the back so you can still have your food and not have it be overpowered by the hot sauce.

• LinkedIn Profile
• Mach 1 Hot Sauce
• Steve Jobs’ 2005 Commencement Speech at Stanford University

Episode #41: Today, we're joined by Claire Veuthey, of the Executive MBA class of 2019. She shares with us her multinational background and influences that led her to pursue a career helping investors better integrate environmental, social, and corporate governance (ESG) factors into their decisions.

Episode highlights:

• Studied international relations in Geneva
• Went on to King's College in London for her Master's in War Studies and Conflict
• Transitioned into a career in Environmental, Social, and Governance consulting and investing in the private sector
• Shares why she came to Haas to move from corporate impact investing to venture impact investing
• She looks back at her favorite moment with her Executive MBA class

"Identities are not exclusive, there's a lot of and's and not necessarily a lot of or's." - Claire Veuthey

Episode #40: In this first episode of the OneHaas Alumni podcast, we are joined by Manish Chandra, Evening MBA ’95, who is the Founder & CEO of Poshmark. Prior to Poshmark, Manish founded and sold Kaboodle to Hearst Corporation in 2007. Prior to that, Manish held executive positions at Versant, Versata, and Sybase.

Episode #39: In this last episode of the OneHaas current student podcast, we're joined by our Here@Haas host Paulina Lee and OneHaas host Sean Li. This episode will mark the transition of the OneHaas podcast into the Alumni Podcast.