Derrick Bolton gets once-in-a-lifetime opportunity
Kathy Lipscomb and Wes Hawk
Issue date: 10/15/01 Section: Features
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After a long and exhaustive search for a new Director of Admissions, the GSB announced this summer the appointment of Derrick Bolton to the position. Derrick graduated from the GSB and was obviously ecstatic to return to Stanford in this capacity. We caught up with Derrick this summer at the Cool CafĂ© at the Cantor Arts Center. As we ordered lunch we could detect an ever so slight accent, giving us the first clue that he didn’t grow up around the Bay Area.
Reporter: Where did you grow up?
DB: Fort Worth, Texas, the capital of the universe. A great place to be from - I lived in the same room in the same house and went to the same school for pretty much my entire life. Most of my lower school teachers were at my upper school graduation.
Reporter: What was it like growing up in the capital of the universe?
DB: It was a great city. When I smell fresh-cut grass or feel a warm breeze blow by in the evening, it still takes me back to Fort Worth. It was an ideal place to grow up. It was small enough that your parents didn’t worry about you, but big enough that you wouldn’t go crazy for lack of stimulation
Reporter: Why did you decide to apply for your current position? What lured you away from a very prestigious (and probably higher paying) job at Goldman?
It’s funny. The hours are about the same (or worse, with the commute from SF), but they make up for it by paying me a lot less.
I almost didn’t apply. Marie prodded me for a few months about it. A very good friend had applied for the job, and I thought he’d be terrific at it, so I didn’t even want to apply. Then, he didn’t get it, so I got more serious about it. The way I thought about it, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This position comes up every 5 or 10 years. I thought there was a very slight chance that it could be offered to me again, but if it was difficult to walk away from VP, what would it be like in 5 years, when, instead of being up for VP it would have been up for MD. I asked myself, honestly, would I be more likely to accept then and I figured it was now or never.
Reporter: What was the interview process like? Just as tough as for your previous jobs at Goldman and McKinsey?
DB: Well, it was interesting. I had a first round with Allison Davis in MBA Admissions and with Sharon. I got to read a few files, make recommendations, and talk to them about the Program, etc. It was the second round that was grueling. I had to come here and spend the full day. I met with alumni, students, faculty, staff, and the Deans. I was supposed to have two breaks and lunch, but I went straight through. When I finished up my day at 6, I was completely energized. I thought, if that’s anything like the actual job, I’d love it. Then, I didn’t get a decision for like six weeks while they debated it. But they kept calling me back with like mini-interviews.
Reporter: How did you find out that you had been chosen?
DB: I had heard nothing from the GSB for weeks, except to tell me that I was a finalist and that they had no news for me. I had convinced myself that I hadn’t gotten the position. I found out from Sharon after coming back from a closing dinner on the night before the July 4th holiday. And I had to decide by July 6th because the runner up had to accept another job by that time. The folks at Goldman were not pleased. I ran recruiting for the West Coast, I had just committed to fill in for the Business Unit Manager of our group doing staffing, and from their perspective, this came out of nowhere. It was also the battle of the Parkers because Dean Parker’s son Geoff (‘90) is an Managing Director at Goldman in SF, and one of the folks with whom I worked (I had a couple of biotech clients, and Geoff covers healthcare). So Geoff was torn because he didn’t want me to leave, but he knew it would be a unique opportunity at Stanford. I spent two days on non-stop calls with folks there. Some (those who knew me best) said this was a great opportunity, but most said I was crazy to leave just before making VP. Jeff Barnett (’95) was the one who really convinced me to do it. But I stayed at Goldman for a full month after I accepted the Admissions position to make sure that I transitioned all my teams, etc. I’m paying for that now, because I would really have appreciated more than five days of time off between the two positions. Coming to the GSB was the right decision, by the way.
Reporter: When you first came here, not working in education but having an education degree where and how did you first begin to prepare for the task that lay ahead of you?
DB: It’s interesting – there’s not a training manual or anything like that for a Director of Admissions. I have attended almost every information session since I got here, and I’ve conducted a lot of those myself. I do lots of thinking. I refer to my textbooks on marketing, operations, etc. all the time to help me frame situations that I encounter. And I do have a hotline to Marie’s office. I call her or email her at least once a day. I have read the files of each of the admitted students. I read the viable waitlist files and made decisions on those from the time I arrived. I also read some of the denied files, just for calibration. I met with lots of people – the admissions staff, the deans, general counsel, faculty, alumni, my counterparts in the Law School and Undergrad Admissions – trying to soak in all the information that I need. And my counterparts at HBS, Kellogg, Columbia, and Chicago have been extremely helpful in answering questions on how they do things.
Reporter: We notice that you are here in the office from about 7am to 9pm daily. That must mean there are changes coming. What are some changes that you plan to implement in the admissions department?
DB: Nothing that will impact the selection criteria, but I’m asking questions about everything. The challenge will be figuring out what the top two or three priorities are from a huge list of things that we could do. We’re trying to look at the entire process from the applicant’s perspective and ask if we’re being as helpful as we can. We’re looking at where in the process we focus our limited resources (alumni contact, student contact, money, Admissions Officer time, etc.) to see if we should think about placing emphases elsewhere. We’re looking at how our office is set up, and the systems we have in place for training Admissions Officers and readers. We’re looking at our evaluation process – the alumni interviews were piloted last year, and we’re going to roll them out more aggressively this year, but the details on that have to be figured out. We’re looking at what our applicants are asking for, and trying to see if we can leverage technology to meet their needs. I also need to institutionalize a lot of things that have been done here for years. Because Marie and Sharon and Allison were all here for a decade, they didn’t need some of the things we need now. We’ve looked at the folks who should be applying to business school and are not. We’re looking at metrics to gauge success. And I need to get back up to speed on lots of things at the GSB. For example, when I was here as a student, SMIF was student-supported, there were no second-year seminars, etc. And, given we’re going to try to enroll a few exceptional younger students, we’ve got to rebuild ties with undergrad advisors all over the US to get the best applicants.
Reporter: What are some of the main hurdles/challenges you see for yourself and the Admissions office?
DB: As Dave Kreps told me a couple of weeks ago, my goal this year should be to survive.
I think diversifying our applicant pool will continue to challenge us. We hit a peak of 40% women in the class a year ago. This year, every business school tried to do the same thing, so competition increased dramatically. We’ve got to continue expanding the pool of applicants. We need to get more students who’ve had manufacturing experience, P&L responsibility, etc. It’s harder to find people from non-traditional paths who’ll be great at Stanford without finding them one-by-one. We have to determine how to do that efficiently - whether we can use technology to aid us in that effort.
Another hurdle is that people assume that everyone else recognizes what a special place Stanford is. They should, but they don’t understand the unique opportunity that the GSB offers. We are strongly associated with Silicon Valley and technology, but we’re a general management program. I knew that when I applied – it’s one of the primary reasons that the GSB was attractive to me. But at every information session, prospective applicants question whether the GSB will be able to withstand the tech bust. They are surprised when I tell them that we are a general management program and that we have leading faculty in all the key disciplines, from finance to human resources to operations to organizational behavior. That’s a concern to me.
I’m also concerned that everyone says this will be a blockbuster year for apps. I worry that good people won’t apply because they think numbers are going to be high, so we won’t even get the chance to see some folks. I think applicants may assess the likelihood of being admitted to the GSB as very low (even with normal applications) and decide not to put in the effort to apply. We don’t know what will happen with applications this year. Personally, I worry about having to tell lots and lots of alumni and current students that the applicants they’ve recommended are not being admitted. But with a class of 365, that’s going to be the case in the vast majority of cases.
Reporter: There has been talk about us actively seeking to accept more college seniors. Is this true and what proportion of the incoming class are you shooting for?
DB: On the college seniors question, I understand that people are concerned. I’d say a couple of things. First, I’ve spoken with Bob Joss about this. There is no “quota” or “target” for folks who’ve been working 0-3 years (“young professionals”). You’ll see from looking around our community that the numbers are small. I don’t think young professionals will come to represent a substantial percentage of the class, but it is a group that we will target. If there is an exceptional candidate for the Program, we will consider him/her. Our pool is exceptional, but we will continue to work to improve it.
Second, we use the same admission criteria for young professionals as for any other applicants: academic aptitude, demonstrated managerial potential, and diversity within the class. I’ve got to state this a little more harshly than I would normally to make a point. The GSB is not an experience tailor-made for 26 year olds. 4.7 years of work experience was not carved in stone on a tablet and carried down from Mt. Sinai. Students will contribute to and learn from this experience at any age. Business schools have lost some exceptional candidates over the last decade or so because our doors have been completely closed to admitting college seniors. So we are looking for exceptional young professionals. You have to have some faith in the Admissions office that we will maintain the quality of the admitted students.
Reporter: Was McKinsey your first job out of college?
DB: My first job after undergrad and my first real job, period, and my only job before business school.
Reporter: What led you to you choose McKinsey?
DB: I think McKinsey sort of found me. In spring of my junior year, the TA for one of my required general education classes – I believe it was Earthquakes and Volcanos or “shake and bake” as we called it – had a sister who was a BA at McKinsey in Dallas. About seven or eight weeks into the semester, I was talking with the TA after class and she said, “Have you ever thought about consulting? I think you’d be a great fit for McKinsey. I want you to meet my sister who works there.” I said “OK.” I knew nothing about management consulting, but I sat down with her sister, and I really liked her. Over the next year, she introduced me to practically the entire Dallas office. I really liked the people I met at McKinsey, and they seemed to love what were doing, so I went there when I got my offer.
Reporter: What are some of the main lessons you took away from your experience there?
DB: I learned things applicable to business and things about myself. On the business front, I saw how much people really impacted the success of an organization. For me, it was a great chance to see in practice what I’d been studying in undergrad: how companies were set up, which ones did well, what I could glean that was shared by those that performed well.
On the personal front, “build your own McKinsey” was the biggest one. That is, there are so many opportunities available, but you are responsible for tailoring your experience. That served me well once I got to the GSB, and it’s really applicable to all areas of your life.
Another thing I learned was that I had really high expectations. I liked being around smart people and doing things that made a difference. I also figured out that I liked being in a service business.
Reporter: Why did you decide to go to the GSB?
DB: Well, at that point, you didn’t get promoted straight to Associate at McKinsey. I knew I didn’t want to be a third-year BA. I had seen so much in the past couple of years, but I was really struggling to understand exactly what I was doing. I spent most of my first year at the GSB having epiphanies, “Oh, that’s what I was doing.” Why did I choose Stanford once I decided management education was the right thing? Number one, I wanted a general management education, and I felt like there were only a couple of schools that did a good job at that (based on my extensive knowledge as a 24 year old). Number two, I wanted a chance to work with faculty who did significant research. I loved the fact that Stanford faculty invented the CAPM and that we had Nobel Laureates on the faculty. My viewbook from 1996 was so torn up by the time I was admitted that I don’t think I actually threw it away – it just kind of dissolved. I knew which electives I wanted to take, I knew which clubs I was going to be involved in. If the GSB had been a person, you would have called me a stalker. Number three, I chose based on the people – like every other decision I’ve made. McKinsey was this incredible laboratory for a business school experiment: there were MBAs from Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg, Columbia, and Stanford. I looked around and, with two or three exceptions, all the folks whom I most admired – for intellectual contributions as well as personality – were from Stanford. They all spoke so highly of the GSB experience that I was sold. So when I say that our alumni are the single biggest marketing weapon, that’s what I mean. I think many applicants have made up their minds about which schools are right based on what they’ve seen of our alumni. I think that’s a big part of our success.
Reporter: Is it true that you had to messenger your application in on the last hour of the last day of the last round?
DB: Absolutely true – no exaggeration. I had been working on my application since July of the previous year, but I had never felt that I was ready to submit it. I had applied to and been accepted by another school already, but I decided I would rather wait to go to Stanford than to go anywhere else. MBA Admissions had announced that 1996 was the last year that the Admissions Officers would provide feedback to denied applicants. So I figured, “I’ll turn in my application. When I don’t get in, I’ll get a 30 minute appointment with an Admissions Officer, I’ll make it better for next year, and I’ll turn it in first round.” So that was my mindset. The third round deadline was approaching fast, but I was on an engagement out of town. When I finally got back in town on the day of the deadline (because Eleanor Manson ’95 arranged for me to get back to finish it – another reason I liked Stanford MBAs), I was sitting at my desk typing away when our receptionist called to say that the courier was at the reception desk waiting to drive the application to American Airlines at DFW (another courier would pick it up from American at SFO and deliver it to the GSB). I sprinted up to reception and handed off my life. I called and got confirmation that it was received at MBA Admissions at 4:45pm.
Reporter: What was you experience like at the GSB?
DB: My experience was phenomenal – not perfect, but pretty close. It wasn’t perfect because of me more than anything else. I didn’t know as much as I thought I knew about what I wanted to do after graduation, so I had lots of soul-searching with Uta while I was here. I spent my summer with Goldman in New York. It was an absolutely amazing experience. I had heard so much about the culture – all of the former Goldman analysts in my class raved about the place – and I wanted to try living out East. I learned a ton, really liked the folks that I worked with, and somehow emerged with an offer. That was when the program was really small, so we just got beaten up for the summer. The Goldman people were actually worried that they’d worked us too hard and that nobody would come back. During the summer, I realized that I had just seen a small portion of the world of investment banking. I was intrigued and wanted to see more, but the lifestyle was a concern. Then, when I got back to campus, I forgot how hard I had worked, and all I remembered was how great the people were there. So I went back to Goldman in New York after graduation.
Outside the classroom, I was an Orientation leader, I headed up Admit Day (that’s when I told Marie that I wanted her job someday), I was a Senator, I was a student rep on the Board of Trustees, and I was the Arbuckle complaints guy. This was way back before there were skylights, etc. in Arbuckle. Then, the setting was terrible so that made the food seem even worse. So I set up this little committee to work with Marvin, the manager on improving things, with an email address for Arbuckle suggestions (that was cutting edge back then). I was also pretty busy trying to wrap up the Ed School degree, as I exempted no core classes. Oh, and I think I was involved in the latest stages in the design of Schwab. I know I did tours of Schwab when it was still under construction, but I don’t remember if I actually had input on the design of the little stuff in the rooms there.
Reporter: Looking back with 20/20 vision, what do you wish you would have done while at the GSB?
DB: Like every alum, I wish I would have spent more time with my classmates. It was such an amazing group, and I wish I’d had the opportunity to just hang out more with people.
I wish I had taken more classes from Mary Barth and Jim Van Horne. They were absolutely phenomenal teachers. I took every Barth and Van Horne class I could, but I didn’t take all of them because of schedule conflicts. I would also have done a 390 with Mary, building on our group project on the write-off of in-process R&D in merger transactions. I still think that’s a really interesting topic. Oh, and I would have paid even more attention in Information Economics, which was a mini-course Dave Kreps was teaching. It was so useful to me post-MBA. I actually went back to storage to get my lecture notes from that class a few times.
Reporter: What drove you to get an AM in Education along with your MBA?
DB: I wrote in my GSB essays that I thought my long-term goal would be in education. I said I wanted to be president or dean of a university. I actually called one of the GSB alumni listed in the viewbook for that year (Father Al Diulio, who was then president of Marquette University) and asked him how he thought his Stanford MBA had helped him. He spoke positively about the program’s benefit to him in his position, and I was extremely impressed that he took the time to speak with me simply because I had an interest in Stanford. Again, the alumni are so important to admissions.
As far as deciding to do the AM in education, I started off just taking classes in education Across the Street. I liked having to think a different way – writing 30 page papers was really a challenge after a year of PowerPoint presentations. I was getting up to my 16-unit max, and I wanted to do a bit of follow-up work based on a class on student life at universities. I figured I’d have to take at least one class that wouldn’t count for my MBA, so why not get the second degree? It was a two-for-one deal. How could I pass that up?
Reporter: You must have been here during the whole Internet craze, did you ever get caught up in it and think about starting your own dot.com?
DB: That never appealed to me. Things were just starting to go haywire when I was a second year, and I remember folks telling me that I was crazy to go to an investment bank. The High Tech Club was the biggest club at the GSB. I went to a couple of their meetings, but I just didn’t get it. The techies were evangelists, though. They kept trying to convert the masses, to let us know that we were missing the boat. I knew that I hadn’t come to the GSB to be a techie, and I didn’t want to be swayed just because everyone else was doing it. So I leaned against the wind, and I think I made the right decision - for me.
Reporter: Why did you decide to go with an “old economy” firm like Goldman?
DB: One answer: people and culture, culture and people. I always said that if Goldman had made widgets, I would still have loved working there because the Firm was so great. I worked there as a summer associate and had a blast. My summer was crazy. I had only half a day off work – the 4th of July, when I flew down to DC in the morning and had to be back in the office that night – and I loved it. At the end of the summer, once I had a chance to sleep, I figured it would be a great opportunity.
I was in Investment Banking, in Mergers & Strategic Advisory, and before that Corporate Finance. I wanted to get a generalist experience – I had clients in retail/consumer, industrial, natural resources, financial institutions, tech, communications, and transportation. I executed mergers and equity and debt financings. I thought, rightfully so, that I would learn more by seeing lots of different industries and problems. I had a great experience.
Reporter: I know that you worked in NY for a while, why did you choose to go back there after living here?
DB: I was in New York for my first two years because when I graduated, if you wanted to work at Goldman, you worked in New York. I thought I would endure it for a year and then move out west, but I absolutely loved it. I thought the subway was like TV: everyday, one extra person would squeeze on the train and step on a foot or a toe, and then it was ON. For the next three stops, the only thing you’d hear on the train would be these two arguing. I loved the diversity of the city. You walk down the street and hear different languages, and people just do their own thing. No judgments. I lived on the Upper East side and I used to walk home from downtown on weekends. We’d have dinner in Tribeca, then hit a bar in the Village, then another bar in Midtown, then walk the rest of the way. I had a progressive every weekend.
Reporter: While at Goldman, did you recruit on this campus?
DB: I recruited here in 1999 (~10 people), tried unsuccessfully to recruit here in 2000 (I think ~3 people), and recruited here again in 2001 (~12 people). I also interviewed candidates from Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg, UCLA, and Columbia. I think our students are the smartest, and the nicest, of any business school. So the comments about the bad attitudes really grated on me. That’s the community effect, though, right – your actions impact not just you, but also everyone else in the community.
Reporter: As an alum and a former recruiter do you think that this school is gaining a “party school” rep like some people have suggested?
DB: I didn’t really see that as a recruiter. But if we have a party school rep, it comes from our alumni. I’m guilty, too. Once you’ve been out a couple of years, you forget that you worked so hard in your classes. You remember the frameworks and the realizations from your classes. You remember the friendships, the evenings on the driving range, the weekends in Tahoe, the GSB Show, the late-night conversations. Those memories are much easier to share with others than your research project on the write-off of in-process R&D in merger transactions (unless you’re at investment banking cocktail parties). You forget that the reason you had the late-night conversation in the first place was that you were studying for your finance class after finishing your marketing project group meeting, and you still had your strategy case to prepare. The weird thing is that the GSB is a party school, but it’s the ultimate work hard/party hard school. The work hard part is forgotten after graduation – but I remember working pretty hard here.
Reporter: What is some good advice you can give 1st and 2nd years about the recruiting process, being that you have been on the other side of the table?
DB: Be aware that your actions impact not just you, but every other person at the GSB. For example, we came to Stanford to do some sessions on investment banking for the students. We, the recruiters, had to convince people to come to the event. At Wharton, they’d beat down the doors. That can be perceived as arrogance Another piece of advice: get to know yourself, and spend some time with Uta.
Reporter: Where did you grow up?
DB: Fort Worth, Texas, the capital of the universe. A great place to be from - I lived in the same room in the same house and went to the same school for pretty much my entire life. Most of my lower school teachers were at my upper school graduation.
Reporter: What was it like growing up in the capital of the universe?
DB: It was a great city. When I smell fresh-cut grass or feel a warm breeze blow by in the evening, it still takes me back to Fort Worth. It was an ideal place to grow up. It was small enough that your parents didn’t worry about you, but big enough that you wouldn’t go crazy for lack of stimulation
Reporter: Why did you decide to apply for your current position? What lured you away from a very prestigious (and probably higher paying) job at Goldman?
It’s funny. The hours are about the same (or worse, with the commute from SF), but they make up for it by paying me a lot less.
I almost didn’t apply. Marie prodded me for a few months about it. A very good friend had applied for the job, and I thought he’d be terrific at it, so I didn’t even want to apply. Then, he didn’t get it, so I got more serious about it. The way I thought about it, this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. This position comes up every 5 or 10 years. I thought there was a very slight chance that it could be offered to me again, but if it was difficult to walk away from VP, what would it be like in 5 years, when, instead of being up for VP it would have been up for MD. I asked myself, honestly, would I be more likely to accept then and I figured it was now or never.
Reporter: What was the interview process like? Just as tough as for your previous jobs at Goldman and McKinsey?
DB: Well, it was interesting. I had a first round with Allison Davis in MBA Admissions and with Sharon. I got to read a few files, make recommendations, and talk to them about the Program, etc. It was the second round that was grueling. I had to come here and spend the full day. I met with alumni, students, faculty, staff, and the Deans. I was supposed to have two breaks and lunch, but I went straight through. When I finished up my day at 6, I was completely energized. I thought, if that’s anything like the actual job, I’d love it. Then, I didn’t get a decision for like six weeks while they debated it. But they kept calling me back with like mini-interviews.
Reporter: How did you find out that you had been chosen?
DB: I had heard nothing from the GSB for weeks, except to tell me that I was a finalist and that they had no news for me. I had convinced myself that I hadn’t gotten the position. I found out from Sharon after coming back from a closing dinner on the night before the July 4th holiday. And I had to decide by July 6th because the runner up had to accept another job by that time. The folks at Goldman were not pleased. I ran recruiting for the West Coast, I had just committed to fill in for the Business Unit Manager of our group doing staffing, and from their perspective, this came out of nowhere. It was also the battle of the Parkers because Dean Parker’s son Geoff (‘90) is an Managing Director at Goldman in SF, and one of the folks with whom I worked (I had a couple of biotech clients, and Geoff covers healthcare). So Geoff was torn because he didn’t want me to leave, but he knew it would be a unique opportunity at Stanford. I spent two days on non-stop calls with folks there. Some (those who knew me best) said this was a great opportunity, but most said I was crazy to leave just before making VP. Jeff Barnett (’95) was the one who really convinced me to do it. But I stayed at Goldman for a full month after I accepted the Admissions position to make sure that I transitioned all my teams, etc. I’m paying for that now, because I would really have appreciated more than five days of time off between the two positions. Coming to the GSB was the right decision, by the way.
Reporter: When you first came here, not working in education but having an education degree where and how did you first begin to prepare for the task that lay ahead of you?
DB: It’s interesting – there’s not a training manual or anything like that for a Director of Admissions. I have attended almost every information session since I got here, and I’ve conducted a lot of those myself. I do lots of thinking. I refer to my textbooks on marketing, operations, etc. all the time to help me frame situations that I encounter. And I do have a hotline to Marie’s office. I call her or email her at least once a day. I have read the files of each of the admitted students. I read the viable waitlist files and made decisions on those from the time I arrived. I also read some of the denied files, just for calibration. I met with lots of people – the admissions staff, the deans, general counsel, faculty, alumni, my counterparts in the Law School and Undergrad Admissions – trying to soak in all the information that I need. And my counterparts at HBS, Kellogg, Columbia, and Chicago have been extremely helpful in answering questions on how they do things.
Reporter: We notice that you are here in the office from about 7am to 9pm daily. That must mean there are changes coming. What are some changes that you plan to implement in the admissions department?
DB: Nothing that will impact the selection criteria, but I’m asking questions about everything. The challenge will be figuring out what the top two or three priorities are from a huge list of things that we could do. We’re trying to look at the entire process from the applicant’s perspective and ask if we’re being as helpful as we can. We’re looking at where in the process we focus our limited resources (alumni contact, student contact, money, Admissions Officer time, etc.) to see if we should think about placing emphases elsewhere. We’re looking at how our office is set up, and the systems we have in place for training Admissions Officers and readers. We’re looking at our evaluation process – the alumni interviews were piloted last year, and we’re going to roll them out more aggressively this year, but the details on that have to be figured out. We’re looking at what our applicants are asking for, and trying to see if we can leverage technology to meet their needs. I also need to institutionalize a lot of things that have been done here for years. Because Marie and Sharon and Allison were all here for a decade, they didn’t need some of the things we need now. We’ve looked at the folks who should be applying to business school and are not. We’re looking at metrics to gauge success. And I need to get back up to speed on lots of things at the GSB. For example, when I was here as a student, SMIF was student-supported, there were no second-year seminars, etc. And, given we’re going to try to enroll a few exceptional younger students, we’ve got to rebuild ties with undergrad advisors all over the US to get the best applicants.
Reporter: What are some of the main hurdles/challenges you see for yourself and the Admissions office?
DB: As Dave Kreps told me a couple of weeks ago, my goal this year should be to survive.
I think diversifying our applicant pool will continue to challenge us. We hit a peak of 40% women in the class a year ago. This year, every business school tried to do the same thing, so competition increased dramatically. We’ve got to continue expanding the pool of applicants. We need to get more students who’ve had manufacturing experience, P&L responsibility, etc. It’s harder to find people from non-traditional paths who’ll be great at Stanford without finding them one-by-one. We have to determine how to do that efficiently - whether we can use technology to aid us in that effort.
Another hurdle is that people assume that everyone else recognizes what a special place Stanford is. They should, but they don’t understand the unique opportunity that the GSB offers. We are strongly associated with Silicon Valley and technology, but we’re a general management program. I knew that when I applied – it’s one of the primary reasons that the GSB was attractive to me. But at every information session, prospective applicants question whether the GSB will be able to withstand the tech bust. They are surprised when I tell them that we are a general management program and that we have leading faculty in all the key disciplines, from finance to human resources to operations to organizational behavior. That’s a concern to me.
I’m also concerned that everyone says this will be a blockbuster year for apps. I worry that good people won’t apply because they think numbers are going to be high, so we won’t even get the chance to see some folks. I think applicants may assess the likelihood of being admitted to the GSB as very low (even with normal applications) and decide not to put in the effort to apply. We don’t know what will happen with applications this year. Personally, I worry about having to tell lots and lots of alumni and current students that the applicants they’ve recommended are not being admitted. But with a class of 365, that’s going to be the case in the vast majority of cases.
Reporter: There has been talk about us actively seeking to accept more college seniors. Is this true and what proportion of the incoming class are you shooting for?
DB: On the college seniors question, I understand that people are concerned. I’d say a couple of things. First, I’ve spoken with Bob Joss about this. There is no “quota” or “target” for folks who’ve been working 0-3 years (“young professionals”). You’ll see from looking around our community that the numbers are small. I don’t think young professionals will come to represent a substantial percentage of the class, but it is a group that we will target. If there is an exceptional candidate for the Program, we will consider him/her. Our pool is exceptional, but we will continue to work to improve it.
Second, we use the same admission criteria for young professionals as for any other applicants: academic aptitude, demonstrated managerial potential, and diversity within the class. I’ve got to state this a little more harshly than I would normally to make a point. The GSB is not an experience tailor-made for 26 year olds. 4.7 years of work experience was not carved in stone on a tablet and carried down from Mt. Sinai. Students will contribute to and learn from this experience at any age. Business schools have lost some exceptional candidates over the last decade or so because our doors have been completely closed to admitting college seniors. So we are looking for exceptional young professionals. You have to have some faith in the Admissions office that we will maintain the quality of the admitted students.
Reporter: Was McKinsey your first job out of college?
DB: My first job after undergrad and my first real job, period, and my only job before business school.
Reporter: What led you to you choose McKinsey?
DB: I think McKinsey sort of found me. In spring of my junior year, the TA for one of my required general education classes – I believe it was Earthquakes and Volcanos or “shake and bake” as we called it – had a sister who was a BA at McKinsey in Dallas. About seven or eight weeks into the semester, I was talking with the TA after class and she said, “Have you ever thought about consulting? I think you’d be a great fit for McKinsey. I want you to meet my sister who works there.” I said “OK.” I knew nothing about management consulting, but I sat down with her sister, and I really liked her. Over the next year, she introduced me to practically the entire Dallas office. I really liked the people I met at McKinsey, and they seemed to love what were doing, so I went there when I got my offer.
Reporter: What are some of the main lessons you took away from your experience there?
DB: I learned things applicable to business and things about myself. On the business front, I saw how much people really impacted the success of an organization. For me, it was a great chance to see in practice what I’d been studying in undergrad: how companies were set up, which ones did well, what I could glean that was shared by those that performed well.
On the personal front, “build your own McKinsey” was the biggest one. That is, there are so many opportunities available, but you are responsible for tailoring your experience. That served me well once I got to the GSB, and it’s really applicable to all areas of your life.
Another thing I learned was that I had really high expectations. I liked being around smart people and doing things that made a difference. I also figured out that I liked being in a service business.
Reporter: Why did you decide to go to the GSB?
DB: Well, at that point, you didn’t get promoted straight to Associate at McKinsey. I knew I didn’t want to be a third-year BA. I had seen so much in the past couple of years, but I was really struggling to understand exactly what I was doing. I spent most of my first year at the GSB having epiphanies, “Oh, that’s what I was doing.” Why did I choose Stanford once I decided management education was the right thing? Number one, I wanted a general management education, and I felt like there were only a couple of schools that did a good job at that (based on my extensive knowledge as a 24 year old). Number two, I wanted a chance to work with faculty who did significant research. I loved the fact that Stanford faculty invented the CAPM and that we had Nobel Laureates on the faculty. My viewbook from 1996 was so torn up by the time I was admitted that I don’t think I actually threw it away – it just kind of dissolved. I knew which electives I wanted to take, I knew which clubs I was going to be involved in. If the GSB had been a person, you would have called me a stalker. Number three, I chose based on the people – like every other decision I’ve made. McKinsey was this incredible laboratory for a business school experiment: there were MBAs from Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg, Columbia, and Stanford. I looked around and, with two or three exceptions, all the folks whom I most admired – for intellectual contributions as well as personality – were from Stanford. They all spoke so highly of the GSB experience that I was sold. So when I say that our alumni are the single biggest marketing weapon, that’s what I mean. I think many applicants have made up their minds about which schools are right based on what they’ve seen of our alumni. I think that’s a big part of our success.
Reporter: Is it true that you had to messenger your application in on the last hour of the last day of the last round?
DB: Absolutely true – no exaggeration. I had been working on my application since July of the previous year, but I had never felt that I was ready to submit it. I had applied to and been accepted by another school already, but I decided I would rather wait to go to Stanford than to go anywhere else. MBA Admissions had announced that 1996 was the last year that the Admissions Officers would provide feedback to denied applicants. So I figured, “I’ll turn in my application. When I don’t get in, I’ll get a 30 minute appointment with an Admissions Officer, I’ll make it better for next year, and I’ll turn it in first round.” So that was my mindset. The third round deadline was approaching fast, but I was on an engagement out of town. When I finally got back in town on the day of the deadline (because Eleanor Manson ’95 arranged for me to get back to finish it – another reason I liked Stanford MBAs), I was sitting at my desk typing away when our receptionist called to say that the courier was at the reception desk waiting to drive the application to American Airlines at DFW (another courier would pick it up from American at SFO and deliver it to the GSB). I sprinted up to reception and handed off my life. I called and got confirmation that it was received at MBA Admissions at 4:45pm.
Reporter: What was you experience like at the GSB?
DB: My experience was phenomenal – not perfect, but pretty close. It wasn’t perfect because of me more than anything else. I didn’t know as much as I thought I knew about what I wanted to do after graduation, so I had lots of soul-searching with Uta while I was here. I spent my summer with Goldman in New York. It was an absolutely amazing experience. I had heard so much about the culture – all of the former Goldman analysts in my class raved about the place – and I wanted to try living out East. I learned a ton, really liked the folks that I worked with, and somehow emerged with an offer. That was when the program was really small, so we just got beaten up for the summer. The Goldman people were actually worried that they’d worked us too hard and that nobody would come back. During the summer, I realized that I had just seen a small portion of the world of investment banking. I was intrigued and wanted to see more, but the lifestyle was a concern. Then, when I got back to campus, I forgot how hard I had worked, and all I remembered was how great the people were there. So I went back to Goldman in New York after graduation.
Outside the classroom, I was an Orientation leader, I headed up Admit Day (that’s when I told Marie that I wanted her job someday), I was a Senator, I was a student rep on the Board of Trustees, and I was the Arbuckle complaints guy. This was way back before there were skylights, etc. in Arbuckle. Then, the setting was terrible so that made the food seem even worse. So I set up this little committee to work with Marvin, the manager on improving things, with an email address for Arbuckle suggestions (that was cutting edge back then). I was also pretty busy trying to wrap up the Ed School degree, as I exempted no core classes. Oh, and I think I was involved in the latest stages in the design of Schwab. I know I did tours of Schwab when it was still under construction, but I don’t remember if I actually had input on the design of the little stuff in the rooms there.
Reporter: Looking back with 20/20 vision, what do you wish you would have done while at the GSB?
DB: Like every alum, I wish I would have spent more time with my classmates. It was such an amazing group, and I wish I’d had the opportunity to just hang out more with people.
I wish I had taken more classes from Mary Barth and Jim Van Horne. They were absolutely phenomenal teachers. I took every Barth and Van Horne class I could, but I didn’t take all of them because of schedule conflicts. I would also have done a 390 with Mary, building on our group project on the write-off of in-process R&D in merger transactions. I still think that’s a really interesting topic. Oh, and I would have paid even more attention in Information Economics, which was a mini-course Dave Kreps was teaching. It was so useful to me post-MBA. I actually went back to storage to get my lecture notes from that class a few times.
Reporter: What drove you to get an AM in Education along with your MBA?
DB: I wrote in my GSB essays that I thought my long-term goal would be in education. I said I wanted to be president or dean of a university. I actually called one of the GSB alumni listed in the viewbook for that year (Father Al Diulio, who was then president of Marquette University) and asked him how he thought his Stanford MBA had helped him. He spoke positively about the program’s benefit to him in his position, and I was extremely impressed that he took the time to speak with me simply because I had an interest in Stanford. Again, the alumni are so important to admissions.
As far as deciding to do the AM in education, I started off just taking classes in education Across the Street. I liked having to think a different way – writing 30 page papers was really a challenge after a year of PowerPoint presentations. I was getting up to my 16-unit max, and I wanted to do a bit of follow-up work based on a class on student life at universities. I figured I’d have to take at least one class that wouldn’t count for my MBA, so why not get the second degree? It was a two-for-one deal. How could I pass that up?
Reporter: You must have been here during the whole Internet craze, did you ever get caught up in it and think about starting your own dot.com?
DB: That never appealed to me. Things were just starting to go haywire when I was a second year, and I remember folks telling me that I was crazy to go to an investment bank. The High Tech Club was the biggest club at the GSB. I went to a couple of their meetings, but I just didn’t get it. The techies were evangelists, though. They kept trying to convert the masses, to let us know that we were missing the boat. I knew that I hadn’t come to the GSB to be a techie, and I didn’t want to be swayed just because everyone else was doing it. So I leaned against the wind, and I think I made the right decision - for me.
Reporter: Why did you decide to go with an “old economy” firm like Goldman?
DB: One answer: people and culture, culture and people. I always said that if Goldman had made widgets, I would still have loved working there because the Firm was so great. I worked there as a summer associate and had a blast. My summer was crazy. I had only half a day off work – the 4th of July, when I flew down to DC in the morning and had to be back in the office that night – and I loved it. At the end of the summer, once I had a chance to sleep, I figured it would be a great opportunity.
I was in Investment Banking, in Mergers & Strategic Advisory, and before that Corporate Finance. I wanted to get a generalist experience – I had clients in retail/consumer, industrial, natural resources, financial institutions, tech, communications, and transportation. I executed mergers and equity and debt financings. I thought, rightfully so, that I would learn more by seeing lots of different industries and problems. I had a great experience.
Reporter: I know that you worked in NY for a while, why did you choose to go back there after living here?
DB: I was in New York for my first two years because when I graduated, if you wanted to work at Goldman, you worked in New York. I thought I would endure it for a year and then move out west, but I absolutely loved it. I thought the subway was like TV: everyday, one extra person would squeeze on the train and step on a foot or a toe, and then it was ON. For the next three stops, the only thing you’d hear on the train would be these two arguing. I loved the diversity of the city. You walk down the street and hear different languages, and people just do their own thing. No judgments. I lived on the Upper East side and I used to walk home from downtown on weekends. We’d have dinner in Tribeca, then hit a bar in the Village, then another bar in Midtown, then walk the rest of the way. I had a progressive every weekend.
Reporter: While at Goldman, did you recruit on this campus?
DB: I recruited here in 1999 (~10 people), tried unsuccessfully to recruit here in 2000 (I think ~3 people), and recruited here again in 2001 (~12 people). I also interviewed candidates from Harvard, Wharton, Kellogg, UCLA, and Columbia. I think our students are the smartest, and the nicest, of any business school. So the comments about the bad attitudes really grated on me. That’s the community effect, though, right – your actions impact not just you, but also everyone else in the community.
Reporter: As an alum and a former recruiter do you think that this school is gaining a “party school” rep like some people have suggested?
DB: I didn’t really see that as a recruiter. But if we have a party school rep, it comes from our alumni. I’m guilty, too. Once you’ve been out a couple of years, you forget that you worked so hard in your classes. You remember the frameworks and the realizations from your classes. You remember the friendships, the evenings on the driving range, the weekends in Tahoe, the GSB Show, the late-night conversations. Those memories are much easier to share with others than your research project on the write-off of in-process R&D in merger transactions (unless you’re at investment banking cocktail parties). You forget that the reason you had the late-night conversation in the first place was that you were studying for your finance class after finishing your marketing project group meeting, and you still had your strategy case to prepare. The weird thing is that the GSB is a party school, but it’s the ultimate work hard/party hard school. The work hard part is forgotten after graduation – but I remember working pretty hard here.
Reporter: What is some good advice you can give 1st and 2nd years about the recruiting process, being that you have been on the other side of the table?
DB: Be aware that your actions impact not just you, but every other person at the GSB. For example, we came to Stanford to do some sessions on investment banking for the students. We, the recruiters, had to convince people to come to the event. At Wharton, they’d beat down the doors. That can be perceived as arrogance Another piece of advice: get to know yourself, and spend some time with Uta.