Helping Hands for Christmas

Several Wake Forest Schools of Business students are finding an opportunity to not just do good, but do well, through Santa’s Helper – an organization founded by Chip Rives (MBA ’89) in 1986.

Rives, who created the organization as an undergraduate at Wake Forest, founded Santa’s Helper as a way to provide toys to underprivileged children in Winston-Salem. Santa’s Helper recruits student-athletes and other volunteers to wrap gifts and then deliver them, dressed as Santa and elves. Rives, a former Wake Forest fullback, was featured in Sports Illustrated in 1987 in the “Sportsmen of the Year” issue for his work.

More than 100 Wake Forest student-athletes volunteered for this year’s Santa’s Helper – among those, Ryan Britt (’11), a Business and Enterprise Management major with a nonprofit concentration. Britt has been a volunteer for the past four years. Britt, who volunteered as a Santa, hopes to one day join a company that serves underprivileged children. He says Santa’s Helper is a good fit for him in his career pursuits.

“I had a professor tell me that it is important to make a difference in even one person’s life. I believe this and want to help others any way I can,” Britt said. “In any company I join in the future, I want that company to have a mission of doing ‘good’ in the community.”

Caitlin Crawford (’11), an Accountancy major, and a track and cross country runner, volunteered as an elf. “The experience has been great. Seeing all the little kids’ faces light up is the perfect experience to put you in the Christmas mood,” Crawford said. “Doing activities off campus that really make a difference help keep you in touch with the Pro Humanitate motto.”

Santa’s Helper raises about $15,000 each year. The families are selected based on a list provided by the local Salvation Army. This year, the program served about 170 families.

Click here to read an article about the event in the Winston-Salem Journal.

Winter at Wake

For the second time in less than a month, the campus at Wake Forest University has been blanketed in a thick cover of snow, giving the area a special feel. Not sure when the university last enjoyed a white holiday season, but this is a nice touch to reward the business school students who elected to stay in town during their winter break. We are including a few pictures from first-year full-time student Parag Shirsekar so you can see for yourself what we have been enjoying!

Wait Chapel in the wintertime.

Worrell Professional Center

Prelude to a snowball fight?

Wake Forest Makes Another Top 50 Ranking

Wake Forest University is once again ranked among the Top 50 Business Schools in the U.S. by Poets & Quants. The full-time MBA program ranked #41 this year, up four spots from last year. The Poets & Quants list is a composite of five major rankings including Financial Times, The Economist, Bloomberg, BusinessWeek, Forbes and U.S. News & World Report. It was founded by the former BusinessWeek.com editor-in-chief John Byrne.

"The ranking measures the overall quality and reputation of the flagship full-time MBA programs at the schools, rather than the schools themselves," Byrne said. Because Poets&Quants blends the rankings and tends to eliminate anomalies and other statistical distortions, Byrne considers it the most authoritative ranking of MBA programs.

Poets & Quants takes into account quantitative and qualitative data captured such as: surveys of corporate recruiters, MBA graduates and deans; faculty publication records; median GPA and GMAT scores for entering students; and salary and employment statistics from the latest graduating class.

“The Poets & Quants list is a good indicator that the Wake Forest University Schools of Business are consistently improving.  Recruiters, students, alumni, and peer schools are taking notice of the quality of our programs that challenge students to follow their personal passions while improving the world in which we live,” said Scott Shafer, Senior Associate Dean of Graduate Business Programs. 

Schools were ranked based on a combined index, weighting the BusinessWeek ranking 30%, the Forbes ranking 25%, the U.S. News & World Report rankings 20%, the Financial Times rankings 15%, and The Economist ranking 10%.

The Cost of Cutting Prices

As the recession drags on and money and job security are concerns, it’s not surprising that consumers continue to wait for sales before making a purchase.

In the short-run, the consumer “wins”— purchasing the item for less. But at what cost?

“When a brand goes on sale, it gives away part of the profit margin needed to invest in future innovation and quality,” says Sheri Bridges, associate professor of business at Wake Forest University and an expert in branding and consumer behavior.

“This affects the consumer’s satisfaction in the long run because the company cannot afford to develop the newer and better products we all want,” she adds.

In fact, Bridges says, firms that keep giving away margin will eventually have to reduce the quality of their goods and services.

“Too many brands think the only way to get and keep customers is by cutting prices,” Bridges says. “In reality, consumers are more interested in high value than low prices. Value is a function of the bundle of perceived benefits offered at a given price. Apple doesn’t discount its products, but it’s still one of the hottest electronics brands around.”

Continual price-cutting conditions consumers to wait for sales before making purchases and sends a message that, in the company’s eyes, the brand is not worth full price.

“Selling products at a discount is like paying someone to like you,” Bridges says. “Good marketers know that sales aren’t necessary, if you’re providing the right value to the right customer.”

By Kim McGrath, Office of Communications and External Relations

Alumni Update: Sheehan Named CFO at Healthcare Company

IntegraMed America Inc., a leader in developing, marketing and managing specialty healthcare facilities in the fertility and vein care markets, announced that John Hlywak, Jr. will retire as chief financial officer at yearend. Additionally, the Purchase, N.Y., company said that Timothy Sheehan, would serve as CFO on an interim basis.

“We are fortunate to have sufficient depth in our financial team to be able to transition the CFO role,” said Jay Higham, IntegraMed’s CEO, in a press release. “Tim has a strong, well-rounded finance and operational background with health care experience. … These factors, in addition to his significant public company experience, made us confident in his ability to handle the CFO function on an interim basis over the next few quarters.

Sheehan joined IntegraMed as vice president of finance in January, and in this role he managed the corporate accounting and finance functions. Tim previously served as the CFO of Scale Finance LLC, a Winston-Salem provider of outsourced CFO services to emerging growth companies.

His prior role was as vice president of corporate development at MINRAD International, an AMEX-traded manufacturer of medical devices and specialty pharmaceuticals where he managed the corporate development, product registration and customer service groups, in addition to his responsibility for investor relations, SEC reporting and capital raising.

Tim is a CPA and earned Bachelor of Science degrees in Finance and Accounting at Virginia Tech and an MBA with distinction from the Wake Forest University Schools of Business.

Alum Update: Bunn Joins SquareTwo Board

SquareTwo Financial, a leader in the asset recovery and management industry, announced earlier this week that Thomas Bunn, a former vice chairman at KeyCorp, has joined the SquareTwo Financial board.

Bunn, a 1978 alumnus of Wake Forest University and a member of the board of visitors, served as vice chairman at KeyCorp and president of Key National Banking from 2005 until 2008. In this role he was responsible for multiple lines of business, including corporate and investment banking; real estate banking; equipment finance; global treasury management; bank capital markets; and Victory Capital Management.

He joined the Cleveland bank in 2002 as president of Key Corporate and Investment Banking. During his tenure, Bunn was a member of the management committee and executive council, as well as a director of KeyBank, and Victory Capital Management. Prior to joining Key, he was the managing director and head of global debt capital markets at Bank of America, where he served for 24 years.

"Tom has extensive experience in the financial services industry and is universally respected by banking and finance professionals," said Paul Larkins, the president and CEO of SquareTwo. "He is our eighth board member, and we are fortunate to add yet another highly accomplished strategically-minded professional to our board."

"SquareTwo Financial is uniquely positioned for growth and excellence in the debt purchasing and asset management industry," Bunn said. "Paul Larkins has put together a solid executive leadership team, as well as an impressive core of directors, and I'm excited to be elected to help guide this innovative, growing company."

Bunn earned his bachelor's of science degree in business administration from Wake Forest University and his MBA in finance from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is a member of the Wake Forest University board of trustees and the Babcock School of Business board of visitors. He also serves on the board of Southern Weaving Company and is on the board of advisors for Sound Harbor Partners.

SquareTwo is based in Denver.

Marketing Summit Unveils Competing Schools

The 2011 Marketing Summit now has its list of competing schools!

In the graduate category, the following teams will compete for bragging rights and a $75,000 grand prize:

• University of Pennsylvania
• University of California – Berkeley
• The Ohio State University
• University of Notre Dame
• Boston College
• London Business School
• Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
• Wake Forest University

The undergraduate teams will consist of:

• University of Pennsylvania
• Emory University
• Northeastern University
• University of Maryland
• Brigham Young University
• Wake Forest University

Congratulations and good luck!