HBS Gets $10 Million To Explore Ways To Drive Down Health Care Costs

Harvard Business School has received a $10 million gift from philanthropist and alumnus Howard Cox to support the school’s Health Care Initiative with the goal of improving the quality and driving down the cost of health care in the United States.

Cox, a venture capitalist who earned his MBA from Harvard in 1969, has been active in health care innovation in the U.S. for over five decades. He believes that, through its interactions with business and government leaders, HBS is uniquely positioned to drive innovation in health care, creating substantive change that will greatly improve the quality and value of health care delivery.

“The U.S. spent close to 20% of its gross domestic product on health care in 2020, the highest by far among developed countries,” Cox says. “Health care also has doubled as a share of total government expenditures in the last three decades. Improving health care in the U.S. should be a team effort, with doctors focused on improved outcomes and managers focused on improved efficiencies with the goal of reducing health care costs as a percentage of GDP. I hope that my gift will inspire other alumni to contribute to the Health Care Initiative to further magnify its impact.”

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HEC Paris & foundation launch ‘Imagine Fellows’ scholarship for students from countries in conflict

The HEC Foundation and HEC Paris have created “HEC Imagine Fellows,” a scholarship program intended for students from war-torn countries. The program was launched with a donation from Adrien Nussenbaum, co-founder and joint-CEO of Mirakl and graduate of HEC Paris, and will welcome its first students to the school’s campus at the beginning of the 2022 academic year.

With Europe horrified at the realization that war has broken out once more on its doorstep, HEC Paris underlines its aim to build bridges between cultures by promoting peace and tolerance not just on its campus — home to over 100 nationalities — but also within wider society. HEC Paris is convinced that by encouraging diversity, inter-cultural understanding and tolerance among its students, it will be in a position to contribute to dialogue between peoples and create a little more peace in the world.

“HEC Imagine Fellows” was founded in October 2021 following Adrien Nussenbaum’s commitment to fund studies at HEC Paris for talented students from countries in conflict. Scholarship students are selected not just according to their excellent academic profiles, but also based on the interest they show in inter-cultural understanding and their commitment to promoting peace. Beneficiaries are outstanding students in their home countries and will act as Business & Peace ambassadors on the HEC Paris campus. They will lead practical initiatives, such as setting up voluntary associations and organizing conferences on the theme.

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Vanderbilt announces 2022 commencement speaker: GM CFO Paul Jacobson

Eric Johnson, dean of the Vanderbilt Owen Graduate School of Management, announced that Paul Jacobson (MBA’97), executive vice president and CFO of General Motors Co., will speak at the school’s 2022 commencement on May 13.

Jacobson joined GM in December of 2020 after serving as CFO of Delta Air Lines, Inc., where he was named best airline industry CFO eight times by Institutional Investor magazine’s poll of Wall Street analysts and investors. Jacobson helped transform Delta into one of Fortune magazine’s Top 50 Most Admired Companies for six consecutive years.

Along with his traditional duties as CFO, Jacobson is a key player in GM’s historic shift to electric vehicles. “GM is becoming a platform innovator, and in doing so, we will change the growth trajectory of our business,” Jacobson wrote in a reflection on his first year at GM.

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