Busting Harvard Business School Myths: A Candid Conversation

Chad Losee, Harvard Business School’s managing director of MBA admissions and financial aid, and Cyril Straughn-Turner, chief admissions ambassador, spoke recently in an intimate chat aimed at busting myths around the MBA admissions process and community.

Poets&Quants wrote about this here: 11 Myths About Getting Into Harvard Business School. Check out the video with Losee and Straughn-Turner here.

The first myth: “HBS is a competitive environment.”

“I will definitely say, I did kind of fall into the trap of this myth for a hot second,” Straughn-Turner says. “But I just have been so pleasantly surprised by how supportive this community is. This is probably one of the safest, most supporting communities I’ve ever existed in.

“There are a lot of different things that help to facilitate collaboration. Academically, you have a big MBA class, but it’s broken down into the sections. So you have this very family-like element that exists in your day-to-day life, people you take the same classes with and that you really grow a bond with. You spend a lot of time outside of the classroom getting to know them, their partners, their families, even their dogs! It just goes to show that it’s a very supportive environment. And it’s necessary, because the way that we teach is very much like a Socratic method, where you really do need to learn from each other as opposed to fighting for the right answer.”

Adds Losee: “There’s a tradition at HBS called MyTakes, where people share really personal things about their experiences, their life story, things that have become formative or defining for them. The fact that people took the time to share things that were personally important really helped us early on form a supportive network. I think that transparency and trust that people extend within the section and within the class experience really goes a long way in making it supportive rather than competitive.”

Read more here.

Cornell celebrates 10 notable alumni who have graduated within the past 10 years

A cyber risk and data security attorney who serves as a pro-bono attorney for domestic violence victims and at-risk children; an entrepreneur and managing partner in a seed-stage venture capital firm who was named one of Pitchbook’s 25 Black Founders and VCs to Watch three years running; a senior principal at Google who works on android partnerships for Android TV and Google TV and who volunteers with the Project Management Institute—these are just a few of the inaugural 10 Under 10 notable alumni honored this year by the Johnson Recent Alumni Council (JRAC).

“The 10 Under 10 finalists represent a diverse group of Johnson alumni who are having an impact in so many different ways, and I believe that is powerful,” said Shamis Pitts, MBA ’11, founder of Pitts Leadership Consulting and chair of JRAC’s alumni engagement committee. “They are all pretty fabulous and I am honored to call them fellow alumni.”

JRAC created 10 Under 10 to honor notable alumni of the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management who have graduated within the past ten years. “The idea for 10 Under 10 was born out of the insight that normally, alumni are recognized at the peak or end of their professional careers—but in order to effectively engage them, we should recognize them early and often,” said JRAC member Marques Zak, MBA ’10, director of cultural platforms at American Express, who pitched the 10 Under 10 idea.

Emlyon Business School becomes a benefit corporation, increasing focus on social and environmental responsibility

Emlyon business school, now officially a benefit corporation, is building its SER commitment into each of its initiatives: The school is making SDG 10-Reduced Inequalities the core focus of the coming academic year and launching a mandatory “climate action” course as part of the MSc in Management – Grande Ecole program.

As stated in its Confluences 2025 strategic plan, emlyon business school became a benefit corporation on July 26 after its Supervisory Board voted to approve the change. The school’s mission, now defined in its articles of incorporation, is “to provide lifelong training and support to enlightened people who effectively change organizations to build a society that is fairer, shows solidarity for others and respects the planet”.

Defined by all of the school’s stakeholders in a collaborative process, his purpose embodies emlyon’s core beliefs:

• Efficiency must be combined with responsibility and humility;
• The company and the economy must also produce social and environmental justice;
• The changes to be made call for knowledge, awareness and boldness;
• It is necessary to act and lead differently for the common good.

Cambridge University B-school has links to China’s Huawei: report

A top business school at the University of Cambridge has close ties with Chinese technology giant Huawei, with three out of five board members linked with the company, a U.K. newspaper reported on Monday.

Three out of four directors at the Cambridge Centre for Chinese Management (CCCM) have ties with Huawei, while its chief representative is a former Huawei senior vice president paid by the Chinese government, the Times newspaper reported on Monday.

Johnny Patterson, policy director of the U.K.-based rights group Hong Kong Watch called on the university to examine Huawei’s relationship with the CCCM, the report said.

The paper quoted former Conservative Party leader Ian Duncan Smith as saying that Cambridge was “one of the worst offenders” when it came to reliance on Chinese funding.

DON’T MISS FAKE DATA SCANDAL ENSNARES 2 HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFESSORS