Experience Stern | News & Events

Three teams of MBA students went head-to-head, pitching their ideas for future business endeavors in the finals of Amazon’s Innovation Competition. Student teams competed for prizes ranging from a Kindle Fire to a job interview at Amazon’s Seattle headquarters by writing proposals that answer the question, “If I were at Amazon I would totally …”

Hosted by EEX, the competition gives MBA2 student teams three weeks to create an actionable product or service for Amazon. Written submissions will be reviewed by Amazon management, and finalists will pitch their ideas to Amazon executives at an on-campus event on Friday, October 5.

On October 5, the Luxury & Retail Club will host their sixth annual conference, themed, "Knowing the New Consumer: Retail’s Response to Changing Demographics." Featured speakers include Jean-Marc Plisson, CEO, Fresh; Farooq Kathwari, CEO, Ethan Allen; Jeffry Aronsson, CEO, Aronsson Group and former CEO, Oscar de la Renta, DKNY and Marc Jacobs; Jennifer Hyman, CEO and Co-Founder, Rent the Runway; and Deborah McWhinney, COO, Citi Global Enterprise Payments.

Excerpt from Outsource Magazine -- "In today’s global services outsourcing arena, increasing numbers of companies adopt “multisourcing”; that is, they select and combine information technology (IT) and business services from multiple providers. The decrease in deal size, well-documented by the Global TPI Index, is one indicator that buyers are dividing their business among multiple providers."

Excerpt from HuffPost Live -- "My point of view is that especially with "Golden Dawn" in Greece right now, this is a reaction by significant parts of the population to the fact that the police doesn't do its job right, there is much more violence in Greece than you expect and the middle class does not want to tolerate. There has been widespread distribution of drugs by immigrants and widespread prostitution by immigrants in middle class neighborhoods and a lot of people are very upset and that has given rise, to some extent, to the Golden Dawn."

Excerpt from Forbes -- "...health care is just going to carry on getting more expensive. That’s the very gloomy headline lesson from William Baumol’s new book. Given that it is Baumol’s Cost Disease, one of Professor Baumol’s contributions to economic theory, that tells us that health care is just going to keep getting more expensive he’s probably a very good guy for us to be listening to on the point."

As part of NYU Stern’s Block Lunch event series, hosted by Dean Peter Henry, former chairman of the Republican National Committee Ken Mehlman, head of Global Public Affairs at Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co., engaged with more than 100 MBA students. Based on his experience in politics and, more recently, private equity, he shared some professional advice.

Excerpt from The Saturday Evening Post -- "The problem is not just limited to politicians. Technology and changing residential patterns have allowed each of us to isolate ourselves within cocoons of like-minded individuals. In 1976, only 27 percent of Americans lived in 'landslide counties'—counties that voted either Democratic or Republican by a margin of 20 percent or more. But the number has risen steadily; in 2008, 48 percent of Americans lived in a landslide county. Our counties and towns are becoming increasingly segregated into 'lifestyle enclaves,' in which ways of voting, eating, working, and worshipping are increasingly aligned."

The Foundation for Social Change, the United Nations Office for Partnerships and the NYU Stern School of Business are teaming up to host the third annual Global Conference for Social Change: Making the Business Care for Sustainability. This year’s event will recognize the annual Leader of Change award – organizations committed to FSC’s mission of building a business case for environmental sustainability.

Excerpt from Forbes -- "'I use the analogy of the atrium that Steve Jobs built at Pixar Studios,' Williams said. 'Jobs came in, scrapped the idea of designing offices in three separate buildings, said ‘we’re going to have one building,’ and put a giant atrium in the middle, because he wanted everyone and their ideas to mix. But he knew that it wasn’t enough just to have the physical space where people could mix, he had to force people to mix. So he put the mailboxes, the cafeteria, the gift shop, and the only set of bathrooms in the building down there. I think the Berkley Center plays that role. It has to be a virtual atrium of some sort. It has to be the reason and the catalyst for this mixing to happen.'"

Excerpt from ABC News -- "Lindsey recently met with her mentor, business man and Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg, and his Chief Service Officer, Diahann Billings-Burford. They discussed Lindsey’s strengths and weaknesses, as well as the importance of corporate social responsibility, and explored the areas that Lindsey might be able to make the most impact."

The conference brought together marketing leaders and top academics to explore the increasingly complex path-to-purchase, and the customer experience at the pre-purchase, at-purchase and post-purchase phases. Participants connected to learn best practices along the path-to-purchase in measurement, digital, social and mobile, and heard from the experts who are driving the new consumer journey. Steve Frenda, Path to Purchase Institute, and Jeff Swearingen, Frito-Lay, delivered keynote talks.

Excerpt from Huffington Post Italy -- (Translated from Italian with Google Translate) "What are the reasons for this failure? In this short post I argue that one of the main reasons there is the adoption of the so-called consultation, which is the mechanism by which the government discusses the merits of a reform with representatives of the social partners, seeking a staunchly unanimous assent of the same."

Excerpt from Financial Times -- "Paul Volcker was chairman of the Fed from 1979 to 1987. His foe was inflation – the opposite of the high unemployment fought by Ben Bernanke today. But the pressures on the two men from purist academics and interfering politicians are eerily similar. That makes this fine new biography especially timely. William Silber’s theme is the tension between monetary and fiscal policy, between the ascetic central bankers and the wilful politicians, and how one must check the other."

Excerpt from Forbes -- "The biggest change will be the extension of the breadth and scope possible. One of the interesting things at NYU is that, if you look at where start-ups come from, they come from everywhere and every school."

WIN is a Social Networks Summit intended to foster collaboration and to build community.  The purpose of WIN is to bring together leading researchers studying ‘information in networks’ – its distribution, its diffusion, its value, and its influence on social and economic outcomes – in order to lay the foundation for ongoing relationships and to build a lasting multidisciplinary research community.

On September 28th-29th 2012, the NYU C.V. Starr Center for Applied Economics will host a conference to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the publication of Professor William Baumol’s seminal paper “The transactions demand for cash: an inventory theoretic approach."

Excerpt from Bloomberg Businessweek -- "Some statesmen blossom late in life; others bloom early and disappear. Paul Volcker did both. ... William Silber, a financial historian and professor at the Stern School of Business at New York University, has the challenge of fitting this lopsided story—his subject, who turned 85 last month, enjoyed his most fruitful years before age 60—into a coherent narrative. He succeeds admirably in Volcker: The Triumph of Persistence."

Excerpt from The Atlantic Magazine's Quartz -- "The trend towards HFT is part of a broader change on Wall Street, says Joel Hasbrouck, a professor of finance at NYU’s Stern School of Business. It is a move from markets run by a network of New York traders to a global, electronic network with near-perfect information. In the old days, market specialists would often hail from the same family, and friendships and dinners would be rewarded with preference on the floor. Now quotes are much more accessible. 'It’s not that high-frequency trading is very new, it’s that they have speeded up strategies that have been there for a very long time,' Hasbrouck explains. 'The world of high frequency trading is a lot more open.'"

Excerpt from CFO Magazine -- "'Almost everything we know about corporate investment at the micro level is based on evidence from public firms, which number only a few thousand, yet private firms form a substantial part of the U.S. economy,' wrote study co-authors Farre-Mensa; John Asker, associate professor of economics at New York University’s Stern School of Business; and Alexander Ljungqvist, NYU professor of finance and entrepreneurship. The study also found that, on average, stock market–listed companies are 'significantly and substantially less responsive to changes in their investment opportunities, despite their relatively easier access to capital.'"

Excerpt from The Economist -- "Healthcare expenditure in America is growing at a disturbing rate: in 1960 it was just over 5% of GDP, in 2011 almost 18%. By 2105 the number could reach 60%, according to William Baumol of New York University’s Stern School of Business. Incredible? It is simply the result of extrapolating the impact of a phenomenon Mr Baumol has become famous for identifying: 'cost disease'. His new book gives a nuanced diagnosis, offerings both a vision of a high-cost future and a large dose of optimism. The cost disease may be incurable, but it is also survivable—if treated correctly."

New York University Stern School of Business has announced the creation of a Center for Business Analytics headed by Information Systems Professors Vasant Dhar and Anindya Ghose. This new Center will foster collaborative inquiry in the field of Business Analytics across the Stern School, New York University, and the global research community.

Excerpt from Forbes -- "The NYU Entrepreneur Challenge provides $200,000 to be disbursed between new ventures, social entrepreneurs, and technology startups. The challenge began on Monday with the team match and goes through May when the winners are announced. Participants in the past have included Dennis Crowley of Foursquare and Ben Silbermann of Pinterest."

Excerpt from NPR -- "Sinan Aral is a scientist who teaches at New York University's Stern School of Business. He speaks about his specialty, influence and susceptibility in social networks, often. 'Typically in talks I ask people to raise their hand if they follow Ashton Kutcher on Twitter or know who Ashton Kutcher is,' Aral says. 'Everyone raises their hand. I have them put their hands down and then I ask, 'Who in the room has ever done anything Ashton Kutcher asked them to do?' And typically one sheepish person will raise their hand.'"

Excerpt from NPR -- "...they will be followed less by Wall Street and investors because they're not in the Dow."