Stanford MBAs 25 Years Later: Where They Are & Life’s Core Lessons

NO LAPTOPS, CELLPHONES OR INTERNET FOR THE CLASS OF 1990

To date myself and my classmates even further, when we went to school, laptops, cellphones, the Internet as we know it, texting, and social media didn’t exist. (And we used to have to walk 10 miles to school with no shoes, uphill both ways.) So we were struck by the fact that there were so many outlets and descending microphones in the classrooms, and even a four-floor library that has no physical books in it! (During our second year we had no access to our analog library because it had been hit by the Loma Prieta earthquake, and bookcases had collapsed on each other.)

While we might seem like old fogeys, what I learned through classmates’ TED-like talks, panel discussions, conversations over meals, wine tasting, and other activities is that many of us are working at the leading edge in our respective fields to create a better future; and many of us have been inspired to innovate in our own lives, radically reinventing our careers over the years.

Perhaps this is because we really were a social experiment, also referred to as “the grand experiment.” It’s been an urban legend/joke amongst us that we were an unusual selection of admits, and the school was studying us to see how that might turn out. We certainly had our share of characters and unlikely MBA aspirants. A non-traditional candidate who took a somewhat unorthodox approach to part of my application, I’d considered that I’d gotten in only because the outgoing admissions director, Bruce Paton, was the type of person who wore Birkenstocks to work.

WHAT THE CLASS OF 1990 IS UP TO

My classmates were engaged in many fascinating endeavors, but what stood out most for me were two things. First, how many of them were embodying the GSB’s tagline, “Change Lives, Change Organizations, Change the World.” Second, how many of them were following their passions, even if that involved significant risk, including notable changes in income or security. In many cases, these two themes overlapped. Consider a few of them here.

David Trautenberg started off in teaching, but circumstances redirected him to Wall Street, where he pursued a career in private wealth management. However, his passion for education was rekindled when he heard Harlem Children’s Zone’s founder, Geoffrey Canada, speak at his son’s graduation from Penn. Canada was urging the graduates to enter the field of education; little did he know he was convincing some parents to as well. Interested in giving all kids an equal chance at success, David got back on his original track, enrolling in Penn’s mid-career educational-leadership doctoral program two years ago. Upon graduation, he hopes to significantly improve urban and rural K-12 school districts by managing and aligning resources that improve students’ educational and career outcomes, and he’s been getting his feet wet as the CFO of Aurora Public Schools in Colorado.

MOVING OUT OF TYPICAL MBA JOBS AND INTO EDUCATION

David is one of numerous classmates who have moved into the education sector. Another, Simon Newman, was seeking more meaning in his work. After a career in management consulting and private equity (and thanks to the urging of his wife), he’s now applying his business expertise in higher education as head of Mount St. Mary’s University. After two decades of leading health-related organizations, Anne Doyle is now president of Lasell Village, an innovative senior-care organization that offers intergenerational education opportunities. Craig Carnaroli is almost an old-timer, having spent his last 15 years at Penn, where he’s executive vice president. And at least two classmates are teaching math at the middle school and high school levels as second (or third or fourth) careers and loving it!

Aaron Finch and Scott Kleinman have also taken up the charge of preparing the next generation—in this case, entrepreneurs and social-sector leaders. Aaron was unable to attend the reunion because he was still finishing his tour of duty with SEED (Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies) in West Africa. He’s been working closely with African companies—including two tech firms, a fast-moving consumer-goods business, and a poultry farm—to formulate growth goals, and to develop and help implement strategies that will enable clients to become industry leaders and job creators. After a five-year stint at Net Impact, a nonprofit that helps students and professionals use their careers to drive transformational change in the workplace and the world, Scott recently moved to New Sector Alliance, which works to strengthen the social sector by enriching its talent pipeline through intensive fellowship programs. He’s overseeing the development initiative funding the organization’s national expansion.

Several classmates are tackling environmentally related issues. For example, Joyce Dickerson made the case for sustainable IT at Stanford University in the late 2000s and proceeded to direct their initiative. Google then snatched her up in 2012, and now she heads up their Global Datacenter Sustainability program. Drawing on his experience in satellite technology and renewable energy, and seeing a gap in the market, Philip Father launched Scepter Inc., earlier this year. Scepter harnesses sensor technology (including microsatellites), nanoscience research, and the power of Big Data to provide actionable and highly localized air-pollution information to businesses, consumers, and government agencies. Active in the facilitation and responsible conducting of global trade, Firth Griffith is launching an NGO that will, amongst other things, develop protocols and procedures for integrating environmental, labor, and other standards into digitally validated chains of custody to ensure supply-chain integrity.

HELPING ARGENTINA TO BECOME A MODERN DEMOCRATIC NATION

While many people—even well-educated ones with a decent amount of power—throw up their hands when it comes to trying to improve government, we have a few intrepid classmates who remain undaunted. Jens Molbak is one of them. Along with classmates Dan Gerrity and Aaron Finch, Jens founded Coinstar, the ubiquitous coin-collecting kiosks, shortly after graduation. Even then, Jens and his partners were looking for a multi-stakeholder win-win. Users effortlessly convert that huge, useless pile of change in a jar into cash or gift cards; charities benefit as users can direct some funds to them; and the U.S. Mint recovers coins that had gone out of circulation. At the reunion, Jens announced he’s going for something bigger—creating a win-win society that serves citizens. Essentially, he wants to create a public-private-nonprofit collaboration that radically improves the delivery of public goods and services (e.g., getting a drivers’ license, making it easier to vote, getting potholes fixed, increasing recycling). Its name: WinWin. Still in the early stages, Jens announced he was looking for partners and capital to get this rolling.

In 2001, Argentina was weathering a major crisis, with the economy in tatters after the exchange rate policy implemented to counter hyperinflation had increased debt levels, unemployment, and poverty while reducing competitiveness and GDP per capita. The country had just gone through five presidents in two weeks. Frustrated by government gridlock and inefficiencies, Alan Clutterbuck and several other business leaders co-founded Fundación RAP, a pluralist, non-partisan foundation engaged in promoting the development of a new political leadership. Their goals: to achieve a genuinely democratic country with strong institutions and to foster the development of a less confrontational political culture that is open to consensus building. Foundational to their work is helping politicians, NGO leaders, and business leaders build trusting relationships, what they call “civic friendships.”

To date, RAP has enrolled almost 170 politicians to participate in this endeavor. Through its efforts, there have been changes in electoral systems and in laws that favor philanthropy and the education system. As Argentina approaches its 200th birthday, the organization is also hard at work helping shape the vision for the nation’s next 100 years. Toward this end, it has established diverse groups of politicians who are engaging with academics, think tanks, NGO leaders, and citizens to establish goals in the domains of education, institutional infrastructure, sustainable development, social inclusion, federalism, and foreign policy.