Wharton Alumnus Gives School $7.5 Million Gift
Larry Robbins, ENG’92, W’92, has given The Wharton School of University of Pennsylvania and the School of Engineering and Applied Science a gift of $7.5 million. The funds will go to a full renovation of the historic building where the Jerome Fisher Program in Management and Technology will be located. The gift will also create a permanent endowment to support the buildings operations and maintenance.
The newly renovated Larry Robbins Building will provide an engaging environment in which M&T cohorts can interact academically and socially. Robbins’ gift will not only support essential restoration projects and building upgrades, it will also fund new, cutting-edge facilities, including a seminar room, student lounges and workrooms, computer stations, staff offices, a conference room and a reception area. Continue reading…
Wharton Business Plan Competition and Social Impact Prize Winners Announced
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania announced that the student team Slidejoy won the $30,000 Perlman Grand Prize in the Venture Finals of the 2014 Wharton Business Plan Competition (BPC).
The Venture Finals attracted over 300 venture capitalists, business leaders, faculty members and students. This year the year-long BPC had a record-setting 181 venture concepts submitted, involving 492 individual participants from across 9 Schools at the University of Pennsylvania.
Developed by Sanghoon Kwak MBA’14, Jaeho Chung, alumnus, Robert Seo MBA’12, Slidejoy is an Android app that pays users between $5-$15 per month to view ads every time they unlock their phones. Continue reading…
Financial Engines Rejoins Pension Research Council at Wharton as Senior Partner
The Pension Research Council at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania is pleased to announce that Financial Engines has rejoined the Council as a Senior Partner of the Council for 2014. Financial Engines first joined the PRC as an Institutional Member in 2007.
Jason Scott, Managing Director of the Retiree Research Center at Financial Engines said, “The Pension Research Council of the Wharton School has made significant contributions to understanding how people worldwide prepare for retirement, and we are delighted to support this effort. We look forward to working with our academic and business partners to advance research, explore policy issues, and develop innovative approaches to retirement in the United States and abroad.”
Olivia S. Mitchell, Professor of Insurance/Risk Management and Applied Economics/Policy, and Executive Director of the Wharton’s Pension Research Council at the University of Pennsylvania, said: “The Council is delighted to continue its close research relationship with Financial Engines. We look forward to expanding our work together on retirement security.” Continue reading…
CEOs of Lucky Brand, Warby Parker, Alice + Olivia and Triumph Motorcycles Are Among Speakers at Knowledge@Wharton’s Retail and Consumer Goods Summit
The Wharton School – University of Pennsylvania announced that Knowledge@Wharton’s Retail and Consumer Goods Summit will feature Wharton faculty and retail and consumer goods practitioners discussing growth strategies at established, emerging and start-up companies. Topics that will be addressed include innovation-fueled growth, digital strategy, assortment variety, disruptive business models, growth-oriented store associate planning, strategic brand extensions, collaborating with finance to achieve high performance, and effective talent management strategies. The conference will feature presentations, fireside chats, panels, and other interactive formats.
The summit is hosted by Knowledge@Wharton, the Wharton School’s online business research and analysis journal, in partnership with Wharton’s Jay H. Baker Retailing Center and Momentum. The NASDAQ and EY are the summit’s founding sponsors.The conference program will be held on April 28-29 at NASDAQ MarketSite and will feature Wharton faculty and retail and consumer goods leaders, including Carlos Alberini, Chief Executive Officer, Lucky Brand, Barry Calpino, Vice President, Breakthrough Innovation, Kraft Foods Group, George Calvert, Chief Supply Chain & R&D Officer, Amway, Vicki Cantrell, Senior Vice President, Communities, and Executive Director of Shop.org, National Retail Federation (NRF), Mukul Pandya, Editor-in-Chief, Knowledge@Wharton,
Mieke van der Loo, Chief Sales Officer, Bugaboo and Patti Williams, Wharton Associate Professor of Marketing
The conference is designed to be a unique learning and networking forum and may be of interest to people in senior-/mid-level positions at retail and consumer goods companies and related industries in a range of functions, including marketing, strategy, merchandising, customer service, sales, digital, IT, and finance. For more information, including details on how to register, please visit http://knowledge.whartonevents.com/growth.
Global Human Rights Group Wins Lipman Family Prize of the University of Pennsylvania and the Wharton School
The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania announced that the winner of the third annual Barry & Marie Lipman Family Prize is Breakthrough, a global human rights group working to drive the culture change necessary to make violence against women unacceptable, in part by engaging men as leaders and partners. Chosen from over 150 organizations worldwide that devote themselves to social impact and building sustainable solutions for social and economic challenges, Breakthrough will receive $125,000 and official recognition at an award ceremony to be held April 24, 2014 at the University of Pennsylvania.
Along with Breakthrough the other Prize finalists are Kickstart, a social enterprise designed to lift millions out of poverty quickly and in a sustainable way, and Not For Sale, a non-profit that equips and empowers survivors of human trafficking and vulnerable individuals through services of stability and restoration. All three finalists will profit from synergistic opportunities with Wharton and Penn. These opportunities take the form of student projects and site visits to each of the finalists organizations (to be held at the end of May), educational offerings at Wharton’s Aresty Institute of Executive Education, and many occasions to network within the larger Penn and Wharton academic and alumni communities.
“Breakthrough’s efforts to leverage the global allure of pop culture, technology, and media as instruments of empowerment are not only innovative but inspirational,” said Penn President Amy Gutmann. “Their work to reduce violence against women exemplifies the founding spirit of the Barry and Marie Lipman Family Prize. It is an honor to work with an organization so deeply committed to the ideal of universal human rights.”
The Wharton School Welcomes the Vanguard Group as Senior Partner on the Pension Research Council
The Pension Research Council at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania announced that the Vanguard Group, a PRC member since 1999, has rejoined the Council as a Senior Partner of the Council for 2014.
According to Stephen P. Utkus, Director of the Center for Retirement Research at the Vanguard Group, “The Pension Research Council of the Wharton School has made significant contributions to understanding how people worldwide prepare for retirement, and we are delighted to support this effort. We look forward to working with our academic and business partners to advance research, explore policy issues, and develop innovative approaches to retirement in the United States and abroad.”
Olivia S. Mitchell, Professor of Insurance/Risk Management and Applied Economics/Policy, and Executive Director of the Wharton’s Pension Research Council at the University of Pennsylvania, said: “The Council is delighted to continue its close research relationship with the Vanguard Group. We look forward to building new knowledge together on global retirement security.”
The Vanguard Group is one of the world’s largest investment management companies, with $2.5 trillion in U.S. mutual fund assets. Founder and former Chairman John C. Bogle, who, early in his career, attended classes at the University of Pennsylvania, is credited with the creation of the first index fund available to individual investors.
The Pension Research Council sponsors interdisciplinary research on private pension and social security programs, as well as related benefit plans in the United States and around the world. It supports scholarly research on global aging, successful retirement, and retirement income security while facilitating access to research and data critical to the investigation of retirement security. The council is committed to generating debate on key policy issues affecting pensions and other employee benefits.
