NEWS@MITSLOAN

News@MITSloan

Volume XVII • Issue 26 • April 28, 2008 http://mitsloan.mit.edu/newsatmitsloan/

Schoolwide News

Shooting Hoops MBA Student Plays Varsity Basketball for MIT By Sarah Foote

In This Issue: 1

Shooting Hoops

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Roberts Awarded Monosson Prize

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Did You Know... Eliana Runyon?

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SWIM’s Annual Event

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Movies: There Will Be Blood

We welcome story ideas, photos, suggestions, and comments from students, faculty, and staff. Please send items to: Sarah Foote, Editor, [email protected]. Deadline: 12 p.m. Thursday for publication the following week.

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rowing up in the Chicago suburbs, Samia Mahjub, MBA ’09, and her family were all devoted Chicago Bulls fans. They made the time to watch every game together, and at halftime her family would go outside for a quick game of two on two. During her sophomore year at MIT, Samia was playing a pickup basketball game, when she was approached by the women’s varsity basketball coach. Samia Samia Mahjub, MBA ’09 (Photo by Dave Templeton) was offered a position on the team and as no surprise to anyone in her family, selected #23, Michael Jordan’s uniform number, for her own. Even though Samia did not play varsity basketball in high school, she developed great skills by playing against her two older brothers and by watching Michael Jordan and emulating his moves—always striving for excellence. “When I was younger, I always had a basketball in my hands. I’ve always made fitness and athletics a priority in my life. Once I’ve had my workout, it helps me focus on my schoolwork, and it’s a good way to diversify my day. Basketball has always been a passion of my mine. I never imagined playing on a college team because I was always focused on academics in high school,” Samia said. Samia studied electrical and computer engineering as an MIT undergraduate. After graduating she worked for Teradyne as an Account Manager. She stayed in touch with her MIT Coach who had then started coaching at Emerson College in Boston. Samia offered to help and she became the Assistant Coach for Emerson’s women’s basketball team for three seasons. “It has been an interesting experience to go from player, to coach, to player again. The girls on the MIT team this year were great. They had respect for me, and looked up to me in more than one way because I had already been through what they are

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going through with balancing schoolwork and playing on the team. I really enjoyed being a mentor,” she said. Since Samia did not play basketball during her freshman year, she still had one year of eligibility left when she came to MIT Sloan. Division III sports allowed her to complete her four years of eligibility as long as she was playing for the same school. Even with the demands of her Core classes last fall, Samia was able to balance school and time with the team as well. MIT athletics allows for just two hours of practice a day and most of the teams the basketball team played were in the Boston area, while other games were held on the weekends making the time to devote to each a bit easier. “The Core was challenging and I had to prioritize my social activities fairly well. It’s all about balance, and I don’t feel like I gave up anything to be on the team, because I would still have gone to the gym anyhow. I think it’s important to keep your body and your mind healthy. That couple of hours a day to play basketball actually worked out perfectly because it gave me the energy to stay up later to study when I needed to,” she said. Samia said there are correlations between being a student at MIT Sloan and her basketball game—she strives for excellence in both and has noticed that many of her classmates do the same. “I’ve always treated academics the same as sports— you work hard, do well, and you win. But it’s also important to enjoy the learning experience and have fun in the meantime.”

Going through the Core with great classmates also helped Samia to balance priorities. Some of her classmates and her team’s Pilot attended a few of her basketball games to cheer her on. “People got really excited to hear that I was on the team and they came to see us play. To have their support was really nice,” said the 5’ 9” forward. This year the basketball team did well enough to make to the playoffs, unfortunately they had to play the number one seed in the first round and lost to Wheaton College. Samia said that team was still in good spirits despite the loss, and on the bus ride home her teammates expressed their gratitude and thanked her for playing another year. The women’s basketball team finished the season with a respectable 12-14 record reaching the playoffs for the first time in five years. “We had a lot of fun playing and we played well. We had a great coach [Coach DeMarco] come in at the start of the season as interim for this year. We had some big wins and some close games. In a great game we beat Coast Guard, 47-45, and they were the number one seed at the time,” she said.

(Photo by Wes Fornero)

During the first week of January, Samia was named the “New England Women’s and Men’s Athletic Conference Player of the Week” after scoring a game high 16 points, with eight rebounds and four assists, in a 61-40 win over Caltech. “It was a pleasant surprise because I didn’t expect it all. For me, it was just was exciting to be back in a uniform. Thanks to my teammates, I was able to get a strong individual performance, but to also help get the team a win,” she said. Samia said the decision to come back to MIT for her MBA was not a hard one because she loved her undergraduate experience here so much. She said the energy level at MIT and MIT Sloan is unparalleled, as are the numerous opportunities available to students here. “The diversity of the people here is unbeatable and to be able to jump back into that environment again was great. I’m having a blast. I have nothing but good things to say about MIT Sloan. I’m very interested in everything I’m learning,” she said, adding that one day she may start her own sports related business. Continued on page 3

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While basketball and schoolwork took up a large part of her time, Samia was also a member of the Entertainment, Media, and Sports Club where she helped plan the highly successful Sports Conference held earlier this semester. She also participated in the Marketing Club’s MarketLab, where she became the project manager on a project for Reebok, the Canton, MA, based athletic apparel outfitter. She and her MarketLab teammates worked on a project where customers can go to Reebok’s website and design their own unique pair of kicks. She said the project is aimed at the culture of sneaker loving people called “Sneaker Heads.” The group worked on strategies to draw more customers to the website. “It was a great project to work on and I got a lot more out of it than I thought I would. We provided them with some social networking ideas they may implement,” said Samia. At press time Samia is waiting to hear back about a possible sports-related summer internship in New York City. She says her future career will be in a sports field— whether it is for a professional team, a company like Reebok, or a sports startup, she hopes to always have a pulse on the athletic world because it’s one of her passions. Samia said that a better understanding of the distributed leadership model she has studied at MIT Sloan has helped her on the basketball court. She even invited a teammate to an IAP class on leadership, to help her understand that it’s not one leader assigned to do everything that gives a team success, rather, it’s the idea of each member of the team contributing in different ways that will help it succeed. “Regardless of who makes the winning shot, everyone on the team is involved and everyone deserves credit. It’s the idea of ‘team’ that counts. I tried to develop the team aspect on the basketball court and even with my Core team members. I think I showed the basketball team that you can be a quiet leader and still lead by example, and that it’s important to recognize each team member’s contributions,” she said.

MVP by the players and coaches at recent awards ceremony. “She is a terrific player and she had a great season. She helped the team in every way possible. I wish I had the opportunity to coach her when she played for MIT as an undergraduate, and I’m so grateful that she decided to play again this year. Sammy did a great job of balancing her schedule as a graduate student and building her career at the same time. The team had one of its more successful years and Sammy was certainly a part of that,” said Coach DeMarco. “The players loved having her on the team. Sammy is a quiet leader and lets her game speak for herself. She does things very subtly and people follow her lead on the court. Her teammates knew that they could count on her as a player.” Now that the basketball season has ended, Samia is spending some of her free time planning the next AdMIT Weekend for the MBA Class of 2010. At the end of this summer she plans to become a Pilot in an effort to reach out to the incoming class, and she also plans to become a TA in the fall as well. Samia said that one thing she brought from the basketball court to MIT Sloan was inspiring some of her classmates to become more active and go to the gym—together. “It’s fun to compare and contrast teamwork on the basketball court with teamwork in the classroom or on a class project. It’s fun to have more opportunities to be a part of team—it’s a great learning tool. I can look back at a close basketball win to figure out how we beat a great team, and then transfer that to doing a job well and getting it done on time,” Samia said.

Quote of the Week “The entrepreneur in us sees opportunities everywhere we look, but many people see only problems everywhere they look. The entrepreneur in us is more concerned with discriminating between opportunities than he or she is with failing to see the opportunities.” —Michael Gerber

Her leadership and hard work this season paid off, said Samia’s coach, Cecelia DeMarco. Samia was named team Co-

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Professor Edward B. Roberts Awarded Monosson Prize for Entrepreneurship Mentoring By Tricia Favreau, MIT Sloan Media Relations Office

Edward B. Roberts, the Sarnoff Professor of Management of Technology at MIT Sloan, is the fourth recipient of the annual Adolf F. Monosson Prize for Entrepreneurship Mentoring. He was presented this prestigious award by Kenneth P. Morse, Managing Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center, at the April 17 reception for CEOs of the MIT Entrepreneurship Laboratory (E-Lab) host companies. Roberts was awarded for his extensive mentoring of aspiring entrepreneurs in the classroom and seasoned entrepreneurs active in the business world. Roberts has been part of the MIT community since entering as a freshman in 1953, earning four degrees and moving through the academic ranks to become a full professor, former Chair of the MIT Management of Technological Innovation & Entrepreneurship Group, and Founder/Chair of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center. Earlier at MIT, Roberts co-founded the MIT Enterprise Forum, which has nurtured hundreds of new companies in the Greater Boston area. Roberts’s latest academic achievement has been the launch of MIT Sloan’s new Entrepreneurship & Innovation (E&I) initiative, which has attracted more than 25 percent of each MBA class since being launched two years ago. Many aspiring entrepreneurs have said they selected MIT Sloan because of its special commitment to entrepreneurship and innovation through the E&I program. Pictured from L-R: Charles Johnson, Chair of Choate Hall & Stewart LLP’s Business & Technology Group; Ken Morse, Managing Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center; and Professor Edward B. Roberts.

Outside of his academic work, Roberts has been a founder, investor, director, and advisor/ mentor of a large number of early stage technology-based companies. He co-founded PughRoberts Associates, Medical Information Technology (Meditech), SOHU.com (Beijing), Zero Stage Capital Funds, CommonAngels, Visible Measures, and Dyno-Media (Beijing). Over the years Roberts has also served as a Director of Advanced Magnetics, EdTech Networks, HighPoint Systems, Interactive Supercomputing, InTouch Systems, Inverness Medical Technologies, Laser Sciences, NETsilicon, Pegasystems, and PR Restaurants, among others. Twenty years ago Roberts co-founded and chaired Technion Entrepreneurial Associates to nurture early-stage Israeli high-tech companies. Adolf “Sonny” Monosson, MIT Class of 1948, was a serial entrepreneur, Founder and CEO of more than 10 businesses in the finance, publishing, computer and leasing industries. He was deeply committed to investing time and capital to help other would-be entrepreneurs. Established by MIT Sloan in 2004, the Monosson Prize for Entrepreneurship Mentoring recognizes those who support and guide business pioneers who are blazing new pathways in entrepreneurship. The Monosson Prize was initiated and made possible by a major gift to MIT by Monosson’s partner, William S. Grinker, MIT Class of 1956, and his wife Ilene.

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MIT Sloan Wins Venture Capital Contest for Second Time MIT Sloan won the International Venture Capital Investment Competition for the second year in a row. It is the first time in that competition that a school has done so. During the competition students from business schools across the country form venture capital partnerships, and then make investment decisions based on a set of criteria they are given. The winning team all from the MBA Class of 2008 included Gaetan Bonhomme, Bob Meese, Nikhil Garg, Eric Varma, and Sim Blaustein. All five are members of the first E&I initiative as well.

Did you Know…

Victorious! From L-R: Nikhil Garg, Sim Blaustein, Eric Varma, Brent Ratz, Gaetan Bonhomme, and Bob Meese.

That Eliana Marques Runyon speaks three languages and helps out the Boston Brazilian community in her spare time? This past winter Eliana started as a Senior Administrative Assistant and Office Manager in MIT Sloan’s Office of External Relations. Prior to coming to MIT Sloan, she worked for nearly seven years at the Consulate General of Brazil in Boston. Born in São Paulo, Brazil, Eliana immigrated to the United States with her parents – ordained ministers for the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel (ICFG) – in 1992. The family moved here to start more churches in the U.S. Brazilian community. In the 1980s, as more Brazilians moved to the States, they wanted to worship in their native Portuguese language, so Eliana’s family moved here to start new Portuguese speaking churches.

Eliana Marques Runyon

Eliana is also an ordained minister in the church, and she and her husband, John, have started a multi-ethnic church in Lynn, where they live with their two-year-old son, Christopher. She and John are Co-Pastors, and they alternate giving sermons on Sundays. “It’s been growing slowly, because we both work full-time,” she says of starting a church from scratch. Eliana also runs a mothers’ group open to Lynn residents and North Shore mothers. The multi-lingual group is something that Eliana is especially proud of. “It’s a community building thing,” she says. “We (moms) are not alone in this awesome task. We share our tips, joys, sadness, challenges, and we encourage and support each other.” Continued on page 6

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Eventually, she’d like to open a community center in Lynn, where the congregation could also meet. Her role at the Consulate General in Boston evolved. In the beginning, she was active with the academic relations, and she contacted Brazilian students all over New England who needed help with documentation. She also assisted student groups in their interaction with the Brazilian government, but everything changed with the terrorist attacks of 9/11. The demand for documentation became so high that many Brazilians f locked to the Consulate to update their Brazilian documents. The system was inconvenient and inefficient, so Eliana worked closely with one Brazilian ambassador to streamline the process to just one hour. “It made all the difference, because the growth of demand has continued,” she said. Eliana continues to volunteer in the Brazilian community where she interprets for leadership training seminars, offers document translation, and mentors youth. She also works with families to help bridge the gap between the older generations who may not speak English well, and their Americanized offspring who often rebel against their parents’ traditions. “Somehow, parents lose out a little bit…when their kids speak the language here, and they don’t. So they feel like they lose control and sometimes there is tension in the relationship.” As an immigrant, Eliana understands some of these feelings. “Moving here is a huge adjustment,” she says. “Finding your way around takes a little while, and I think there is always an identity issue that is present for most immigrants.” When Eliana gets homesick for her native country, she enjoys going to local churrascarias – which feature all-you-can-eat Brazilian barbecue (churrasco). She recommends Midwest Grill in Cambridge and Saugus. In addition to a large buffet of salads and side dishes, waiters bring skewers of grilled meat which they will slice onto your plate until you tell them to stop. “It’s really remarkable – especially if you can eat a lot. Everyone who wants to experience Brazilian food should start there,” she says. Eliana is also a notary public and is looking forward to helping out the MIT Sloan community in many ways. —Amy MacMillan

CLUB NEWS

Fifth Annual MIT Sloan Private Equity Symposium Held Attendees at this year’s Private Equity Symposium explored the current evolution of the private equity industry driven by the increasing globalization of investment opportunities, investor pressure for higher rates of capital deployment, and the recent restrictions to liquidity and credit access. This year’s symposium panels included: • Distressed Investing and Turnarounds • Future of the Leveraged Buy-Out • European Private Equity and Emerging Markets Landscape • Growth Equity Investments • Opportunities in the Middle Market • Portfolio Value Creation by Improving Businesses • The Role of the Public Markets for Private Equity and Hedge Funds There were almost 400 attendees at this year’s symposium which included keynote speakers Gary Loveman, Chairman, CEO & President, Harrah’s Entertainment, Inc., and Amedeo Carassai, Partner, Apax Partners.

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2008 Sloan Women in Management Fashion Forward Event SWIM invites you to their biggest event of the year! Fashion Forward promotes positive business images for women. Attendees will get tips on how to look both professional and fashionable, while enjoying a delicious plated brunch at the Ritz-Carlton (a $32 value), followed by a fabulous Ann Taylor fashion show starring fellow Sloanies. Raff le prizes and workshops featuring an image consultant, beauty product demonstrations, and private wardrobe sessions are also on the agenda. This event takes place Sunday, May 4, 10:00 a.m. – 1:30 p.m., at the Ritz-Carlton in Boston. Tickets: $20 members/$25 non-members. Please drop off ticket checks (payable to Sloan Women in Management) to Long Lin’s mail folder in E52 to reserve your spot. For more information e-mail Long Lin, [email protected].

CAMPUS CORNER Last Research Lunch Seminar of the Spring Semester “The Connection between the Stock Market and Productivity: Measuring the Value of Information Technology” Adam Saunders – Speaker, PhD candidate, Information Technology group at MIT Sloan Adam’s paper analyzes the connection between the market value of a firm’s capital and the productivity of its inputs. It tests the hypothesis that the securities markets may provide a reliable way to measure the value of information technology. It compares the returns from ordinary capital to those of IT capital, and examines whether the securities markets have bid up the value of IT assets by investors in search of higher returns. Adam is a deputized Census Bureau researcher and has been working with Professor Erik Brynjolfsson on a micro-level Census data project to study organizational changes that are associated with technology investments. His research attempts to quantify technology-related intangible assets that are playing a greater role in generating market value and productivity. Please RSVP by Tuesday, April 29, by sending an e-mail to [email protected]. The webcast will take place Wednesday, April 30, 11:45 a.m. - 1:00 p.m., in NE20-336, 3 Cambridge Center. If you are planning to attend by web cast, please see the instructions below. Webcast ParticipantsYou will receive further instructions via e-mail once you confirm your attendance. If there are any issues, please notify [email protected]. Web participants will see the presentation slides on screen via the web and hear the presentation by telephone.

It’s finally spring in Boston. (Photo by Sarah Foote)

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MOVIES

NOW PLAY ING ON CAMPUS... There Will Be Blood (2007) Writer-director Paul Thomas Anderson steps outside his contemporary world of dysfunctional Angelenos to explore a very different dysfunctional man—an oil pioneer whose trailblazing spirit is equaled only by his murderous ambition. There Will Be Blood is Anderson’s loose adaptation of the novel Oil! by Upton Sinclair, and it focuses on Daniel Plainview (Daniel Day-Lewis), a failed silver miner who happens upon black gold during a disastrous excavation that ends in a broken leg. Pulling himself up from the bowels of the earth, both literally and metaphorically, Plainview embarks on a systematic and steadfast approach to mastering the oil business. Using plain-spoken and straightforward language, and accompanied by his young son, H.W. (Dillon Freasier), Plainview launches a campaign to convince small-town property owners they should let him drill their land. He builds an empire this way—and gradually becomes obsessed with the intrinsic value of power, growing increasingly irascible and paranoid in the process. Plainview meets his match in Eli Sunday (Paul Dano), a teenage preacher in the small California town of Little Boston, whose brother tipped Plainview off to the town’s plentiful supply of untapped oil. To fully reap the benefits of the land, Plainview must suffer the opposing whims of this “prophet,” whose legitimacy is questionable at best. There Will Be Blood features an anachronistic percussive soundtrack by Radiohead’s Jonny Greenwood, and it was shot in the same town where the James Dean epic Giant was filmed. (Photo courtesy of Google Images)

Showing on May 2, at 6:30 and 10:00 p.m. in 26-100 and again on May 4, at 6:30 p.m. in 26100. From the Lecture Series Committee website. All movies are just $3.

The Sustainability C-Function held last week was a huge success. Shown here are Deborah Schapira, MBA ’09, and Captain Planet, aka Chad Lovell, MBA ’09). (Photo by Jeremy Gilbert, MBA ’08)

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