Even Business Schools are Slamming Amazon’s HQ2 “Contest”
Less than a week after rumors spilled out about the upcoming locations of its HQ2 headquarters were confirmed, the reality of the Amazon’s move to East coast isn’t going over well.
Clark Atlanta Announces New Dean, and More – Atlanta News
It’s time for a newsflash! Let’s take a look some of the biggest business school and MBA news coming out of Atlanta metro this week.
Silvanus J. Udoka Named Dean of Clark Atlanta University’s School of Business — Clark Atlanta News
According to a press release issued by the school, Clark Atlanta University President Ronald A. Johnson announced the selection of Silvanus J. Udoka, Ph.D., as dean of the university’s School of Business Administration. The current professor and chair of the Department of Management will enter his new role on June 1, 2018.
“I am honored to have been selected to serve as dean of Clark Atlanta University’s School of Business Administration,” Udoka said. “The history of the institution and the storied reputation of the School of Business Administration is palpable and the opportunities to create a transformative, innovative learning environment — attributes that first compelled me to pursue this assignment — align with my own mission to produce business and industry leaders who will not only compete successfully within the contemporary business environment, but apply critical thought, analysis and creativity to develop new market paradigms across vast sectors of the global economy. We are going to do great and exciting new things at Clark Atlanta.”
You can read more about Udoka’s promotion here.
25 Alumni Recognized During Emory Entrepreneur Awards — Emory Business News
Last month, the Emory Entrepreneur Network and Emory Alumni Association recognized 25 entrepreneurs Emory University alumni at the second annual Emory Entrepreneur Awards. According to the school, the awards celebrate alumni entrepreneurs who have innovated in their start and industry.
Several of the recent Emory entrepreneur honorees pose during last month’s event / Photo via emorybusiness.com.
“As you’ll see tonight, we’ve got a really good diversity of different folks from different industries and different business that they’ve created,” Steve Greenfield, co-president of the Emory Entrepreneur Network said. “Thankfully, with the support of folks like the Emory Alumni Association and Goizueta, we’ve finally gotten some momentum behind this.”
You can see the list of honorees here.
New Mentoring Program Pairs MBA, Master’s Students With Professionals — Georgia State University Newshub
The J. Mack Robinson College of Business recently launched a graduate mentoring program that helps MBAs build relationships with seasoned industry veterans. The new six-month program matches mentors using an algorithm that examines factors such as industry, years of experience, career goals, and expected outcomes.
“We are employing the latest technologies to ensure our new graduate mentoring program is another way in which we deliver on our vision that ‘no one gets closer to business than Robinson,’” dean Richard Phillips said.
Learn more about the mentoring program here.
These are the Top 5 Contenders for Amazon’s HQ2, According to Bank of America – Business Insider
In non-school news, a handful of Bank of America industry insiders believe that Atlanta can very well be the final destination for HQ2, Amazon‘s much publicized soon-to-be second headquarters.
“Bank of America considered two factors in choosing the cities: how closely each city mirrors Seattle (the site of Amazon’s current headquarters), and how attractive the city’s financial, employment, education, business, housing, transportation, and innovation sectors are.”
Amazon’s Seattle headquarters / Photo via Elaine Thompson/Associated Press.
The company has not yet released details of its pending final selection. You can read more about the industry expert’s predictions here.
Here Are the Front Runners For Amazon’s New HQ2 Campus
Last week, 20 cities in the United States and Canada were informed by Amazon that their bid to host the tech giant’s second headquarters, HQ2, was still being considered. Continue reading…
Why Amazon Keeps Hiring MBAs
Editors Note: This article on Amazon hiring MBA students is an updated version of the original.
When thinking about the largest tech sector companies in the world, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Google, and Amazon are sure to top the list. Not only are these companies on the forefront of technological advancement in business and consumer electronics, they are also major players in the MBA job market.
Of all these notable heavyweights, Amazon is the biggest employer of graduates from elite business schools. According to the U.S. News & World Report’s top 20 rankings (from schools that release company-level hiring statistics), the e-commerce powerhouse hired more than twice as many top MBAs in 2016 as Microsoft, the next biggest tech employer. And with the upcoming development of HQ2, the company’s second headquarters, demand for MBA-level talent is sure to increase at the ever-expanding ecommerce giant.
Amazon—a company that offers online retail, cloud computing, mobile devices and media streaming services—has plenty of workforce needs. According to its annual report, Amazon has 230,800 full- and part-time employees. According to QZ, the company currently lists almost 17,000 open jobs among its corporate positions.
Why Is Amazon Hiring MBA Students?
Across all industries, Amazon is the fifth-largest employer of graduating MBAs, according to data on more than 200 full-time MBA programs collected by Bloomberg Businessweek. Amazon is also No. 4 on the 2013 Universum list of most popular MBA employers, up from No. 8 in 2011 and No. 6 in 2012.
Why the focus on hiring top MBA talent? Miriam Park, director of university programs at Amazon, told the Financial Times:
Miriam Park
“The Amazon recruitment process is designed to ensure we hire top candidates with high-growth potential whatever their background may be. As part of this we recruit current MBA students and MBA alumni for permanent and internship opportunities worldwide and see MBAs as an important part of our leadership development. We value people who can balance long-term strategic thinking with tactical execution, and who have the ability to make data-driven decisions.”
She added:
“We value MBAs for, in many cases, the global approach that they can bring to the business with many candidates having worked and studied in more than one country. Their range of experience and variety of backgrounds is invaluable in bringing a different way of looking at our business. We also value the analytical skills that they develop through their MBA. In fact, many of our senior leaders started at Amazon after completing MBAs.”
Which Potential Paths Leads to Employment at Amazon?
The best way that an MBA can get in with Amazon and end up with a job is to apply for an internship. Amazon also offers an MBA program that intends to create a pipeline from top business schools to actual jobs within the organization. Amazon offers several full-time opportunities to MBA interns. Each role lasts 11 to 12 weeks and provides students the opportunity to complete function-specific projects.
The company also offers a robust 8 to 12-week summer MBA internship that gives participants the opportunity to hone their decision-making ability in real-life consumer, finance, HR, technology businesses and operations environments. According to CNNMoney, Amazon’s summer internships host more than 170 interns from more than two dozen business schools each year.
What Kind of Jobs Can I Get at Amazon with an MBA?
As CNNMoney outlines, MBAs at Amazon may end up in any number of roles, whether it’s launching new products, finding ways to optimize the customer experience or evaluating the company’s future business investments.
Park discussed specific jobs that are offered to MBAs with the Financial Times. In terms of potential career options for MBAs at Amazon, she outlined participation in the Consumer Leadership Development (CLD) program, Pathways program for operations managers and Senior Financial Analyst (SFA) development program, as well as the role of senior product manager.
CLD is a three-year leadership development program in which MBAs rotate through two different roles from a choice of areas such as vendor management, in-stock management, marketing management, merchant management and/or retail product management. The goal of the program is to provide MBAs with a path to leadership roles at Amazon. Participants develop an understanding of the key roles within retail and become effective managers.
Pathways is a three-year, field-based program based out of warehousing and shipping centers for merchant goods and customer service sites. This is a position in which MBAs will have to develop leadership ability to complete fulfillment center and customer service operations.
SFA is a three-year leadership development program in which senior financial analysts are expected to evaluate and quantify new business ideas and perform data-intensive analyses to improve the way Amazon serves its customers.
Senior product managers work with technology teams to drive ideas from conception to execution, develop business models and marketing plans, define and analyze success metrics, manage strategic projects and own the product end to end. This job offers an inside track to future roles as general managers responsible for running large business segments.
20 Cities Survive Amazon HQ2 Shortlist
Four months after Amazon announced plans to construct a second headquarters, North American cities have been making grandstanding pleas in order to court the ecommerce behemoth. New York City’s mayoral office lit up the Empire State building with Amazon’s glowing orange hue in a symbolic gesture, while certain cities like Chicago went the more extreme route, proposing laws that could funnel income taxes directly back to the company. After much speculation, here is the official Amazon HQ2 shortlist:
- Atlanta
- Austin
- Boston
- Chicago
- Columbus, Ohio
- Dallas
- Denver
- Indianapolis
- Los Angeles
- Miami
- Montgomery County, Md.
- Nashville
- Newark
- New York
- Northern Virginia
- Philadelphia
- Pittsburgh
- Raleigh, N.C.
- Toronto
- Washington, D.C.
Unsurprisingly, most of the cities that made the cut were among the largest in North America, with only one Canadian city—Toronto—left standing. Over 230 cities from the U.S., Canada, and Mexico made official bids for the company’s second headquarters, with Amazon prioritizing tech-centric metros of populations larger than 500,000. In fact, only four of the 20 metro areas—Miami, Nashville, Newark, and Pittsburgh—have a population of less than half a million, with Newark being the smallest of the entrants. Notably, Newark offered perhaps the largest financial incentive to the company, proposing upwards of $7 billion in tax incentives.
How the Amazon HQ2 shortlist was formed is not totally known, according to the New York Times:
“According to people briefed on the process who would speak only anonymously because the deliberations were private, the process was conducted by a team of about a dozen people within Amazon, including economists, human resources managers and executives who oversee real estate. Jeff Bezos, Amazon’s chief executive who was the mastermind behind turning the search into a public process and coined the term “HQ2,” was also involved, the people said.”
At the time of the initial announcement, Amazon released a stream of positive economic statistics about its impact in Seattle, home to the original headquarters. The company stated (although these statistics are still not yet verified by any source outside of Amazon) that it added $38 billion USD to the value of the city from 2010-16 alone, due to its investments and rapidly expanding workforce. Detractors argue that the financial value added to the city did not positively impact the quality of life, however, with more than 51 percent of Seattle residents making less than $50,000 per year and more than quarter of city residents earn less than $25,000 per year. The influx of high-level employment also contributed to rapidly rising housing costs and poorer traffic.
Experts from CNBC believe that Raleigh might be the front-runner of the remaining entrants, which matches the initial bid criteria the most. Although some speculate that Austin most aligns up with Amazon’s future. The company declined to announce when the final decision will be made.
What Amazon Means For MBA Students
Not so secretly, Amazon has become one of the world’s largest MBA recruiters, hiring students from top schools all over the world. We’ve previously outlined the details of why it has become such an attractive destination for business school students.
The company creates a direct pipeline from its MBA internship program to full-time employment, which should rapidly increase with the creation of HQ2. In a previous interview with the Financial Times, Miriam Park, the Amazon Director of University Programs, highlighted the company’s recruitment strategy:
“The Amazon recruitment process is designed to ensure we hire top candidates with high-growth potential whatever their background may be. As part of this we recruit current MBA students and MBA alumni for permanent and internship opportunities worldwide and see MBAs as an important part of our leadership development. We value people who can balance long-term strategic thinking with tactical execution, and who have the ability to make data-driven decisions.”
Stay tuned for more information about the second headquarters and more potential MBA employment opportunities with MetroMBA.
New Amazon Headquarters Bidding Race Begins, with 50,000 New Jobs on the Line
By October 19, bids for the newest Amazon headquarters (dubbed HQ2) will close. For the eCommerce giant, it’s another benchmark for an already historic year.
Following its outward commitment to more hiring and the landmark purchase of grocery store chain Whole Foods earlier this summer, Amazon just announced it will be establishing a new non-satellite headquarters outside of Seattle for the first time, which is expected to bring 50,000 jobs to a select city that bids for hosting duties. With the announcement, Amazon notes, “We are looking for a location with strong local and regional talent—particularly in software development and related fields—as well as a stable and business-friendly environment to continue hiring and innovating on behalf of our customers.”
In the six-page Request for Proposal form, which can be read here, Amazon notes a preference for North American cities that have the following:
- “Metropolitan areas with more than one million people.”
- “A stable and business-friendly environment.”
- “Urban or suburban locations with the potential to attract and retain strong technical talent.”
- “Communities that think big and creatively when considering locations and real estate options.”
Assuming Amazon does elect to build in a city with those population restrictions, there are only nine possible U.S. locations: New York City, Los Angeles, Chicago, Houston, Philadelphia, Phoenix, San Antonio, and Dallas. Three Canadian cities—Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver—also hit the qualifying population figure.
In Philadelphia, Mayor Jim Kenney quickly announced the city’s intent to enter the bidding war. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel also seems to be close to the effort. However, there may be reason to believe that Texas will be the eventually landing spot for HQ2, where 53-year old CEO Jeff Bezos spent much of his youth.
In a statement, Bezos said, “We expect HQ2 to be a full equal to our Seattle headquarters. Amazon HQ2 will bring billions of dollars in upfront and ongoing investments, and tens of thousands of high-paying jobs. We’re excited to find a second home.”
Local Economic Growth
Amazon notes that the host city will receive a boon beyond more lucrative job opportunities. In its announcement, the company, which employs nearly 400,000 people worldwide (not including short-term seasonal employees), detailed its financial impact in Seattle, which “resulted in an additional $38 billion to the city’s economy–every dollar invested by Amazon in Seattle generated an additional $1.40 for the city’s economy overall.”
As well, the company created more than 40,000 direct jobs in the Emerald City, and 53,000 additional jobs “as a result of Amazon’s direct investments,” according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. In the Request for Proposal form, the company promises it “will hire as many as fifty thousand (50,000) new full-time employees with an average annual total compensation exceeding one hundred thousand dollars ($100,000) over the next ten to fifteen years, following commencement of operations.”
According to Wall Street firm Needham & Co., Amazon is expected to control 50 percent of all U.S. online sales by 2021. The ever-increasing market dominance has earned Amazon a fairly negative reputation, but has done little to deter growth.
Via Fortune
Seattle has also been witness to years of skyrocketing housing costs due to the immense economic growth. The Seattle Times notes “the median price hit $730,000, up nearly 17 percent from a year ago” for houses. Amazon and the rest of the Seattle corporate community may not be the only players responsible for the unusually high prices, but it is an inescapable part of the equation.
In a recent interview, Columbia Business School professor Rita McGrath said that Amazon may be looking for a location with less staggering housing costs.
“It’s hard to attract people if they can’t afford the housing available locally,” she said.
The Amazon MBA Impact
Last year, we highlighted Amazon’s massive effect on the MBA job market. The company creates a direct pipeline from its MBA internship program to full-time employment, which should rapidly increase with the creation of HQ2. In a previous interview with the Financial Times, Miriam Park, the Amazon Director of University Programs, highlighted the company’s recruitment strategy:
“The Amazon recruitment process is designed to ensure we hire top candidates with high-growth potential whatever their background may be. As part of this we recruit current MBA students and MBA alumni for permanent and internship opportunities worldwide and see MBAs as an important part of our leadership development. We value people who can balance long-term strategic thinking with tactical execution, and who have the ability to make data-driven decisions.”
The internship programs open opportunities for MBAs to join the company as senior product managers, operations analysts, and more. Throughout the Request for Proposal form, Amazon frequently reiterates its desire to build in a location that has a strong academic culture, writing, “a highly educated labor pool is critical and a strong university system is required.”
Amazon will formally announce where it will build HQ2 next year.
