Innovation Newsletter February 2009 - Lester Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation

Complete Program Directory

February 2009

[browse previous issues]

Headlines:

Lester Center #6 in Financial Times Ranking of Entrepreneurship Programs

Venturing into the VC World

Business Plan Competitions Thriving at Haas

Jerry Engel to Give Keynote at 3rd Annual Conference on Urban Clusters

Faculty Feature: Lecturer Peter Molloy

Remembering Jay Morrison

Upcoming Events:

   Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series: Financial Modeling & Management:
      Tuesday, February 17, 2009 [location change]

   Berkeley Entrepreneurs Forum - Earth, Wind, & Fire:
      The Clean Tech Opportunity Today, Thursday, February 26, 2009

Lester Center #6 in Financial Times Ranking of Entrepreneurship Programs

The Lester Center has been ranked as the #6 entrepreneurship program in the world by The Financial Times in its January 2009 rankings. We are proud of this recognition. It is another indication of the excitement our students are bringing into their careers when they leave Haas, and the caliber of work done by our corps of tenured and professional faculty who teach them.

Congratulations also go to our colleagues in the Haas Corporate Social Responsibility program, which ranked #5 worldwide. Together, we were the top two ranked academic programs at Haas. The school overall ranked 31st in the world, although Haas did better in other specific categories, e.g., #2 top salaries in IT, #7 in faculty research and #8 top salaries in consulting. Complete results can be found at http://www.ft.com/businesseducation/globalmba2009.

Venturing into the VC World

The Lester Center and the Entrepreneurs Association proudly co-hosted the 2009 Venture Capital Investment Competition (VCIC) here at Haas last week. In essence, a “reverse business plan competition,” VCIC teams assumed the role of venture capitalists for a day when they evaluated and “funded” investment opportunities. After an intense day of competition, the Karnak Capital team of Josh Ewing, Sean Dalziel, Rei Kasai, Victoria Liang and Jacob Rios emerged as winners of the UC Berkeley 2009 Venture Capital Investment Competition
VCIC
The competition is a great opportunity for students with a strong interest in the venture capital industry to develop and test the skills they are gaining in related courses such as venture finance and entrepreneurship. During the intensive one day competition, teams evaluated pitches and business plans from five real entrepreneurs who are currently seeking funding, while being evaluated by a panel of seasoned venture capitalists from renowned Bay Area firms.

The winning team from Berkeley will go on to compete in the VCIC Regional Finals at USC in March and hopefully go on to represent the region at the international finals at the University of North Carolina (UNC) in April. Now in its 12th year, the UNC competition attracts over 800 MBA students from more than 50 business schools worldwide. A UC Berkeley team won top honors in 2005, and here's hoping that 2009 brings another prestigious victory.

Business Plan Competitions Thriving at Haas

This year the 2009 UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition received a record number of entries – over one hundred in total! Pulling from the broad student and alumni communities of the University of California, Berkeley and the University of California, San Francisco, the entries spanned a wide variety of industries. These included alternative energy, cutting edge biotechnology, internet enterprise-based solutions, and even fresh ideas for financial services, to name a few. We could not be more excited to see the entrepreneurial spirit not only alive, but thriving, during these uncertain times. We are eager to begin the next step of the competition, where the plans are submitted to our esteemed venture capital partners (available at http://bplan.berkeley.edu), where they will be evaluated and culled into a semi-finalist pool. We would like to thank them in advance for their enduring commitment of time and resources to the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition.

The Global Social Venture Competition received over 300 entries, up 20% from last year. About 170 of these entries came from overseas, and more than 80 of those from the Lester Center's outreach partners. Haas will host the west/mid-west regional semi-finals on March 20. Twenty-two of 65 semifinalists in this region have been selected, representing Haas/UCB, Santa Clara University, Kellogg/Northwestern, Rosss/Michigan and Colorado State University.

Four other regions will hold their regional semi-final rounds in March (Columbia Business School, London Business School, Thammasat University in Thailand, Indian School of Business), hosting approximately 100 entrants.

Jerry Engel to Give Keynote at 3rd Annual Conference on Urban Clusters

The Lester Center’s Executive Director Jerry Engel has been invited to give the keynote address at the 3rd Annual Conference on Urban Clusters this week in Barcelona, Spain. Engel’s talk, entitled “Clusters of Innovation and Their Implications for Regional Economic Development and Innovation Diffusion in the Global Economy” will focus on the role of innovation in society, particularly clusters of innovation.

Lester Center Executive Director Jerry Engel

Clusters of Innovation are regions where the formation of new, high potential, and often technology based businesses have a distinct advantage. In such clusters the emergence of not just new ventures in similar businesses, but new industries, new markets and new business models is the very essence of the business process and advantage. These emerging Clusters of Innovation will be an increasingly important force in the 21st century. Engel’s talk directly correlates with the Lester Center’s goal of education for venture creation which seeks to build an ecosystem of innovation which is based on the strong fundamental value of linkages to the University community, the Bay Area, and indeed, the world.

Faculty Feature: Lecturer Peter Molloy

The Lester Center is pleased to launch a new feature of INNOVATION on our entrepreneurship faculty. We begin with Peter Molloy who has been a Lecturer at the Haas School of Business teaching Entrepreneurship and Ecommerce Marketing for the last 10 years, at the undergraduate level.

Jerry Engel, the Lester Center’s Executive Director, sums up Peter's contributions: "Peter Molloy brings a special combination of practice and theory to our Haas entrepreneurship program. His experience spinning out a consumer brand from a major corporation, funding the operation, rebranding/positioning it, and ultimately selling it providing a superb return to all stakeholders put him in the driver's seat of a key entrepreneurial cycle. Peter’s ability in the classroom to derive the lessons from this experience, and to go beyond it -- makes his course an engaging and powerful learning experience. Peter is also active outside the classroom, an supporter and advisor to YEAH / Young Entrepreneurs at Haas, and mentor to young student-entrepreneurs. Peter is a great member of our entrepreneurship leadership team here at Haas."

Peter Molloy

Formerly, Peter was President and principal owner of the Farmhouse Foods Company, a rice and pasta foods company, based in Union City, California. He bought the company from Nestle in 1991 and sold it to General Mills in 1999. In 2006, as a consultant, he led the sale of another food company, Mozzarella Fresca to a large cheese company in France.

Peter has over 30 years experience in marketing and general management in consumer goods products. Prior to founding Farmhouse, he was with Nestle for 21 years in England, Canada and USA, where he spearheaded the growth of several major businesses and successfully introduced a variety of new products. Additionally, he was a member of Vistage (an International Organization for CEO’s) for 11 years and he is currently consulting to a number of small businesses. Peter has a business degree from Thames Valley University in England and the Institute of Marketing Diploma.

Remembering Jay Morrison

We regret to note the passing of our colleague and friend Jay Morrison, a long time supporter of Entrepreneurship@Berkeley. Jay lost his brave battle with cancer last month and “will be missed by all of us very much,” says Jerry Engel, the Lester Center’s Executive Director.

Jay Morrison

As founder and general partner of Newbury Ventures, Jay spent more than 25 years in the venture capital industry. At Newbury, he focused on investments in communications systems, semiconductor devices, and software. Jay was a Senior Research Fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research and was an active speaker and advisor to the Berkeley Entrepreneurs Forum here at the Lester Center for many years. Jay earned BIE and M.Sc. degrees in Operations Research from Ohio State and a Ph.D. in Management Sciences from the Haas School of Business.

The Lester Center presented Jay with a special award at our 2008 annual dinner for his contribution to the field of entrepreneurship. Jerry recalls that “Jay was true golden blue. He was a consistent and solid friend of the Lester Center and in an inspiration to generations of students.”

UPCOMING EVENTS

Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series: Financial Modeling & Management
Tuesday, February 17, 2009, 6:30 pm to 8:30 pm
Andersen Auditorium [location change]
(more info on BPS series)

Please join us for the Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series next week with a session on Financial Modeling/Financial Management. Whether you are new to financial modeling, or a seasoned numbers cruncher, you will want to come hear how to create financials that will impress your future investors. You will learn what is necessary and what not to do when creating the financial model that will accompany your business plan and use to obtain capital. This workshop will provide you with what you need to know about the financial side of a business plan and starting a company.

Featured Speaker Anthony Nassar is the Founder & Principal of Venture Momentum, Inc. As a consulting CFO, he helps startup entrepreneurs put together the pieces of their financial puzzle by providing a solid foundation from which to raise capital, manage growth and achieve liquidity. Anthony brings to Venture Momentum's clients 20+ years of financial management experience. He has assisted startups on various matters including angel and venture financings, acquisitions, due diligence, financial reporting and internal controls. Prior to launching Venture Momentum 14 years ago, Anthony held senior management positions in finance and planning with Nexcom Technology, Inc., Fair Isaac Corporation and a consulting group in France. Anthony holds an MBA in Finance from New York University, an MS in Electrical Engineering from Columbia University and a Diplôme d'Ingénieur from Ecole Centrale de Paris in France.

Anthony Nassar

The Entrepreneurial Best Practices Series is held in conjunction with the UC Berkeley Business Plan Competition and the Global Social Venture Competition. The Best Practices Series invites experts from Berkeley and the Silicon Valley to speak about practical aspects of entrepreneurship. Each session begins with pizza and networking at 6:30pm, followed by the session at 7:00pm. The event is free and no registration is required. For more information, visit the Best Practices website or contact the Lester Center at 510-642-4255 or lester@haas.berkeley.edu.

Berkeley Entrepreneurs Forum
Earth, Wind & Fire: The Clean Tech Opportunity Today
Thursday, February 26, 2009 6:30 - 8:30 pm
Andersen Auditorium

(more info)