Executives-In-Residence: Filling A Business School Education Gap

U.C. Berkeley Haas School of Business executive-in-residence David Riemer

“We’re like that friendly uncle who can give you some advice, who’s lived a little bit,” says U.C. Berkeley Haas School exec-in-residence David Riemer, a former Yahoo executive, company founder, and startup adviser. “People who have actually been professionals their whole lives can add a lot of value.”

FORMER YAHOO MARKETING EXEC AND ENTREPRENEUR GIVES BACK

Riemer’s professional work has evolved in parallel with the interests of students he mentors as one of the school’s three execs-in-residence. Seven years ago when he started at Haas, Riemer was fresh off six years as Yahoo’s VP of marketing. At the time, his high-flying history in one of the world’s largest technology companies made Riemer, to students, a veritable god among mortals. Now, however, students are less captivated by big, established companies and are more interested in innovation. Fortunately for Haas and its students, the same can be said for Riemer.

Since he left Yahoo, he’s started two companies – Box Out Industries consulting, and Spiral Staircase theater productions – and advised a number of startups and emerging companies, including software firm DeviceVM (now Splashtop), and Timebridge, which makes a meeting-scheduling app. Since he left Yahoo in 2008, interest among MBA students in entrepreneurship, startups, innovation, and emerging companies has skyrocketed.

“Most (students) know that the marketplace has changed and that they don’t have to go work at a big giant accounting or consulting firm,” Riemer says. “They don’t even have to go into a big tech company if they want to go into tech.”

And while students have caught the startup bug, it’s not a case of Founder Fever: very few MBA candidates are looking to hatch a unicorn and bank a billion, Riemer says. A “small percentage” want to launch their own ventures, but many more are looking toward jobs in startups and emerging companies, Riemer says.

“They have options, they want to understand the options, and business schools are playing catch-up for them to understand those options,” Riemer says. “I become a bridge. I’ve definitely been putting a lot more of my focus on the emerging companies and the startups in terms of where I can provide guidance.”

SITTING DOWN WITH DECADES OF EXPERIENCE

When Riemer went to business school – he’s an ’85 Columbia MBA – there were executives-in-residence, he remembers, “but you could never find them.” Riemer holds office hours for three hours a week, meeting students for a minimum of 30 minutes of career coaching or discussion of innovation ideas.

Getting students to realize that their careers don’t have to follow a linear track is his toughest job, he says. “Students are so directed, MBAs particularly,” he says. “There’s this sort of sense that their career needs to be a straight line. They need the absolute perfect job on the way to that straight line. Big company or small? Business development or corporate development? There isn’t a single right path. That’s just a hard thing for young people to get.”

For a student struggling to choose between pursuing a job at, say, Google, or in a startup, he helps sort out the pros and cons, and helps “let them know that at some point in their career they’ll probably do both, and that will probably be a good thing.”

One thing Riemer won’t do when advising students is give a definitive answer to a major career question. “I sometimes get the sense they just want me to tell them ‘What should I do here?’” Riemer says. “They’re all adults, and they need to be self-aware enough to understand who they are and where they’ll thrive.”