For many decades, Japan’s corporate culture has been an enigma to many. Even more puzzling still was how a small, resource-poor nation grew at one point to become the world’s second largest economy. The Harbus met with HBS Professor Hirotaka Takeuchi to demystify what makes Japan unique and what lessons could be drawn. Maintaining a…
Trump, Leadership, and the Problem with Harvard Business School: An Interview with Larry Summers
Our interview with Larry Summers has not quite started according to plan. Half an hour after we are scheduled to meet in Klarman Hall, where Larry is speaking at a conference marking the 10th anniversary of the global financial crisis, he is still deep in conversation with an attendee while your interviewers hover awkwardly in…
11th Annual HBS Charity Fashion Show
The Retail and Luxury Goods Club successfully hosted their famous Annual Charity Fashion Show on October 25th at Boston’s Park Plaza Hotel. In the 2018 edition of the longstanding HBS tradition, the Fashion Show featured 35 RC and EC models, showcasing styles from top designers to raise money for the Greater Boston Food Bank. This…
Klarman Hall Opens After Years of Planning
On October 1, the southeastern corner of campus featured a flurry of events as HBS dedicated Klarman Hall, a brand-new venue that brings many new possibilities to the community. But that day was not the first time that an event was held in Klarman; it was the culmination of years of planning. The story of…
Simplifying Complexity
Beginnings are a good chance to think about objectives and plans, so let’s review what some of the big ideas here at HBS should be for you. For most of you those include learning to be a leader and critical thinker, meeting new friends, having new experiences, learning about yourself and perhaps positioning yourself for…
MBA Program Launches New Tutorial on Sexual Violence and Harassment
Every year, incoming RCs are required to complete a number of tasks on their “Prematriculation Checklist” before they arrive at HBS. This summer, the Class of 2020 had to complete an item not seen in previous years’ checklists: an online tutorial entitled “Sexual Violence and Harassment at HBS.” The purpose of this exercise, according to…
Unpacking the Gift of Global Talent with HBS Professor William Kerr
Immigration issues have been at the center of political debate, with the US seemingly becoming more insular and dialing back from the Obama-era policy of limited deportations to Trump’s “zero tolerance regime,” which threatens anyone in the US unlawfully with deportation. In the US, home to an estimated 11 million unauthorized immigrants, immigration has become…
Welcome Back to HBS from the Students’ Association
HBS Family, On behalf of the Student Association (SA), we are excited to welcome you to what will be a fantastic year at Harvard Business School. As you settle in on-campus and crack open your cases, we would like to share our vision and team for the school year. What is the SA? We work…
The Journey Begins
This column is addressed mostly to the class of 2018, but perhaps the class of 2019 might take a peek too. First, my congratulations for earning the right to be in perhaps the most admired, sought after and elite group in the business world. You very soon will be a graduate of Harvard Business School….
The Harbus Foundation Grants $60,000 to Boston Nonprofits at Annual Gala
The Harbus Foundation has announced a total of $60,000 in grant awards to Boston-based nonprofit organizations Empower Schools, Generations Incorporated, and GroundTruth. The recipients took home $20,000 each in the categories of Education, Literacy, and Journalism, respectively, following the Harbus Foundation’s annual gala. The K-12 education efforts of Empower Schools, the Education grant recipient, have…
Ten Years On, HBS Students Revive the Push for an MBA Oath
This year’s graduating MBA Class will re-enter the workforce ten years after the onset of the greatest economic recession in a generation. While the stock market has since recovered, business leaders today face an increasingly complex web of ethical and legal challenges amidst rising public scrutiny of their actions. As members of the MBA Class…
Interview with Michael Lynton, Chairman of Snapchat
From starting out licensing coloring books at the Walt Disney company, to Pearson’s Penguin group, AOL Europe, Time Warner International, and then running Sony Pictures, Michael Lynton (MBA ’87) is one of the most experienced executives in the media and entertainment industry. Most recently in 2017 Lynton stepped down as CEO and Chairman of Sony…
Exclusive: Interview with Carlyle Co-Founder David Rubenstein
The following is a Harbus exclusive interview with David Rubenstein, co-founder of The Carlyle Group, one of the world’s largest private equity and alternative asset management firms with $174 billion under management. Rubenstein, who is a member of the Harvard Corporation as of July 2017, addressed the community at Spangler Auditorium in an event co-hosted…
Social Impact and Fintech: The Prodigy Finance Story
Creating a global company with social impact at its heart doesn’t happen overnight. But, as Prodigy Finance demonstrates, it can definitely happen within a matter of years. Cameron Stevens, like any recently-accepted INSEAD candidate, was looking forward to his MBA experience in France. And, like most other grad students, began looking for the financing needed…
HBS Elects New SA Co-Presidents
Sana Mohammed (MBA ‘19) and Triston Francis (MBA ‘19) have been elected as the Harvard Business School Student Association Co-Presidents for 2018-2019. The co-presidency, elected at the end of February by the RC year, will begin after spring break. Sana and Triston campaigned under an overarching mission to “foster a more collaborative environment that enables…
Leadership at Harvard, through Change and through Storm
When Drew Faust announced her intention to step down as Harvard University’s 28th President at the end of this academic year, she invoked “Fair Harvard,” the university’s alma mater, in reflecting upon the resilience of an institution that has found purpose and progress “through change and through storm.” Faust concludes her 11 years at the…
How to Get or Refinance an International Student Loan
Securing educational financing as an international student is no easy feat. You might think getting into grad school is the tough part, but even securing a seat in a prestigious, competitive MBA program is likely to seem easier than finding the financing to accept it. And, it’s difficult to imagine affording an international MBA (or…
Why is Microsoft’s New Machine Reading Comprehension Dataset a Big Deal?
On March 1, 2018, Microsoft released the latest large-scale dataset for machine reading comprehension and question answering. You can access the public dataset, named MS MARCO, at //www.msmarco.org/. As human beings, we are so habituated to the daily routines of reading, writing, and conversing that we may deem it intuitive to transfer our language understanding…
Beware Social Media
Two billion people worldwide have enrolled in Facebook, and it is fair to say most of them have used the service. Many have integrated Facebook and its services deeply into their lives. While Facebook is the dominant social media product, there are other providers in America and around the world. But allow me to focus…
The U.S. Economy in 2017: Thanks, Obama?
In 2017, the U.S. economy had a solid year. Unemployment fell to a 17-year low, GDP growth picked up, and the stock market reached record highs. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Trump Administration was quick to take credit for these positive developments. “The President’s economic agenda of lower taxes, less regulation, and more opportunity for all is…
Enabling Ecosystems
Many powerful and influential men are being called out and finally being held to account for egregious behavior towards women that range from truly monstrous to profoundly stupid and wrong. This is long overdue. The history of mankind has a few enduring themes. Some are inspiring, and some are discouraging. The fact that men have…
Porter & Gehl on Politics: In Their Own Words
After the release of their much anticipated report – Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America – Harvard’s Michael Porter and business executive and political innovation activist Katherine Gehl sat down with Kenneth Zauderer (MBA ’18) to share a bit of color on their findings, what led them to take a business lens…
Perspectives, Part One: Five Forces, Politics and Porter & Gehl: “Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America”
Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America If our political system were an industry – the Political Industrial Complex – it would be valued at more than $16 billon. Furthermore, if you include the $3.6 trillion budget allocated by this apparatus at the federal and state level, it’s the biggest industry out there….
Perspectives, Part Two: Five Forces, Politics and Porter & Gehl: “Why Competition in the Politics Industry is Failing America”
Strategic thinking has been long been part of political analysis. From Thucydides to contemporary military and social science, people have deployed frameworks to understand and build models of prediction since time immemorial. Take the following: “If the dawn of democracy in a given country finds the decision makers divided into two parties, they may wish…
King of the Castle
Interview with Alan Horn (MBA ’71), Chairman of The Walt Disney Studios Alan Horn (HBS ’71) may be the humblest man in Hollywood. This might not be what you’d expect from one of the most influential figures in the film and television industry, and one of the individuals responsible for shaping much of what we’ve watched…
DACA And The Economics Of Immigration
President Trump defended his decision to rescind the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program as an effort to promote “safe communities, a robust middle class, and economic fairness for all Americans.” In his statement, the President painted his stance as simultaneously shrewd and compassionate. He pointed a finger at roughly 800,000 undocumented immigrants brought…
Manning Didn’t Deserve Rescinded Harvard Visiting Fellowship
Manning Invite Widened the Civilian-Military Divide at Harvard In honoring former US Army Specialist Chelsea Manning by naming her a Visiting Fellow, the Institute of Politics at Harvard Kennedy School opened wide a wound that leaders at Harvard have diligently worked to close in recent years: the civilian-military divide. There are few Rorschach Tests more…
A Social Mission At HBS: Why We Ought To Pay Attention To Terry’s Foundation
How the mission of one EC student sets an example for us all Why did you come to HBS? To switch careers, build your resume, or simply to push yourself outside of your comfort zone? For Rich Horgan (HBS ‘18) the answer is more complex: to further his goal of advancing research to commercialize treatments…
Burden Hall Should Not Be Demolished This Soon
The Issue Burden Hall was supposed to be demolished after Klarman Hall became fully operational in 2018. Over the Summer of 2017, the administration decided to advance this demolition to mid-October 2017. The student body was not consulted until months after the decision had been taken. The HBS Student Association Senate first came to know…
PRIMARY COLORS Bringing Clarity to Career Planning
The new year starts. For the class of 2019, the new, challenging, and hopefully rewarding world of HBS is coming into focus. For the class of 2018, the freedom, diversity, and enrichment of the EC year awaits. The question of career and first job choice is lurking somewhere in just about everyone’s psyche though as…