ASPER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS SPRING Exploring the Future 2013 Asper MBA Goes Global p.6 of Business Education E Alumni Celebrate 75th ast year, the Asper School The business leaders of tomorrow p.14 of Business celebrated 75 need outstanding teachers, mentors years of excellence in busi- and role models. We cannot suc- L Entrepreneurs ness education. What an inspiring ceed without great faculty, which is in Action opportunity to explore the roots of why we’re working hard to attract T p.20 our community and take the full the best and brightest. One of measure of how far we’ve journeyed the surest signs that we’re already since the original Department of moving in the right direction is the Aboriginal Commerce launched in 1937. number of current faculty that Achievement As the pages of this year’s Update have been recognized this past year p.22 make clear, 2013 is the year of look- for dynamic teaching, research A ing forward: to broader horizons, and service, not only to the Asper to strengthening our community, community, but to the broader and to building a vibrant future for community. business education at our school. The business leaders of tomorrow This year, our commitment to need leading-edge facilities and tech- the future has led us to collectively nology. Last year we introduced ten develop a new strategic plan. We Bloomberg terminals to the School, have consulted broadly with faculty, D staff, students, alumni and the business community to ensure this plan charts a dynamic course for all members of the Asper community. Our focus is to build on our highly successful undergraduate program by enhancing our graduate pro- grams and world-class research, positioning Asper graduates to be the drivers of economic change, increasing our engagement with the business community, strengthening our national UP and international reputation, becoming a leader in Indigenous business education, and integrating experiential learning opportunities into every facet of our school. Together, we’ve already taken steps to make this plan a reality. 2 ASPER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS which have given our students and faculty an enormous advantage in This year, our commitment research. These terminals will soon find a new home in the Finance to the future has led us to Data Centre, now under con- struction in the Albert D. Cohen collectively develop a new Management Library. The Centre strategic plan. will provide students with access to the latest financial data and the ability to complete projects that This March the MBA class will opens doors – which is why I’m focus on real-life business decisions, travel to Brazil to experience especially pleased to report that this moving us beyond textbook business Latin American style. year we have created a new admis- teaching by bridging business Tomorrow’s business leaders sions category for First Nations, theory to practice. also need to be fearless innovators. Métis and Inuit students. We look The business leaders of tomorrow Under the direction of Stu forward to welcoming students must think globally. Our interna- Henrickson, the Stu Clark Centre under the new Canadian Aboriginal tional exchange and study-abroad for Entrepreneurship is creating Ancestry Admissions Category this programs continue to expand exciting new opportunities for coming September. as student interest and employer students at Asper and all across the Of course, the Asper School of demand for international experience U of M to develop and realize those Business can’t successfully move grow. The Asper MBA program big ideas that will change the world. forward without embracing the is developing a new curriculum Tomorrow’s business leaders business leaders of today. We are to give students the tools they are all around us, just waiting grateful to our alumni community need to meet the demands of an for the opportunity to make a for what they contribute to our increasingly global marketplace. difference. A successful future past, present and future. Our alumni are proud of their School and it shows. I had the pleasure of hearing it first-hand from many of them at 75th Anniversary alumni receptions across the country. This year, the student-organized Race for Space brought past and pres- ent students together to help build the Asper Student Legacy Fund. Alumni like Stu Clark (winner of this year’s IDEA) have donated not only money but time, energy, and the benefit of their experience to the future of business education at the Asper School. 2013 has only begun, but already it has proven one thing: no matter where we go from here, it is our sense of community that will In 2011, ten Bloomberg terminals were installed at continue to define the Asper School and set it apart. the Asper School. Since then, the terminals have provided In fact, in every way that counts, the future is already here – and unprecedented access to real-time financial data, we’re ready. giving our students and faculty a definite edge in course Michael Benarroch Dean, Asper School of Business and assignments, research and business competitions. CA Manitoba Chair in Business Leadership SPRING 2013 3 “As an Asper alumni, I am indebted to the Asper School for Asper’s Women providing me with an excellent academic education,” she says. “I feel motivated to give back to the Asper community by striving of Distinction to achieve my best in teaching, research and service.” Jaysa Nachtigall, a sper students, faculty and year and a half in a refugee camp, fourth-year Commerce grads often exemplify the where she was treated for tuber- student, was nominated highest virtue of leadership: culosis. At age seven, she arrived A for a Woman of community service. Not surprisingly, in Winnipeg with one focus: to Distinction Award in the three remarkable women from become a doctor. Her commitment Young Women of Distinction the Asper School were nominated to caring for others led her to work category while in her third year. for 2012 YMCA-YWCA Winnipeg as an emergency room physician As President of the Commerce Women of Distinction Awards at Health Sciences Centre and Students’ Association from 2011 to for enriching our community St. Boniface Hospital. 2012, she led the CSA to one of its with their creativity, compassion She says, “I knew from my first most successful years by rewriting and dedication. days in Winnipeg that I wanted outdated bylaws, overhauling the to give back to Canada and to the association’s organizational structure, Dr Chau Pham country of my birth. Throughout (left), Jaysa and increasing student engagement. my life here, I have been taught that Nachtigall (above), As a career mentor assistant, she Dr Usha Mittoo the secret to happiness is found in helped other students make positive (below) giving to others, and this blessing is career decisions by matching them what drives me each and every day.” with mentors in their field Dr Usha Mittoo, a professor of interest. in the Department of Accounting “I am extremely & Finance, was nominated for a honoured and Woman of Distinction Award in the thankful to have Education, Training & Mentorship been recognized category. She received her MBA among such an from Asper in 1981 and began inspiring group of work in 1988 as the U of M’s first women,” she says. Dr Chau Pham, an Asper MBA female finance professor. She was student studying Health Care the first woman appointed as the Administration, was honoured with Bank of Montreal Professor of the Woman of Distinction Award Finance in 2000. She now holds for Volunteerism, Advocacy and the Stuart Clark Professorship in Community Enhancement. The Financial Management. award recognized her dedication to As the first female Associate Canadians Helping Kids in Vietnam, Dean at the Asper School, she an organization she founded in was instrumental in getting the 1995 to build schools, provide School its AACSB accreditation. clinical services, and train medical She inspired many women to join personnel in Vietnam. finance through teaching and Dr Pham’s personal journey is as mentoring, and helped raise the inspiring as her work. At age five, number of women professors at she fled Vietnam and spent the next Asper from less than ten per cent in the 1990s to about 40 per cent in 2012. 4 ASPER SCHOOL OF BUSINESS growing number of men who “recognize the importance of style Suit Yourself and fit,” says Parkes. Fittings are often social events, he adds. “A lot of guys are surprised at how fun the process of getting the “ e’re not your dad’s “ Our backgrounds perfect suit actually is.” suit store.” and education at Since 2008, business has expanded That’s how Andrew W the Asper School to include fittings across the Prairies Parkes describes EPH Apparel, and Ontario. EPH plans to open a a men’s clothing company he provided a founda- swank retail location in downtown co-founded and operates along tion that we relied Winnipeg later this spring. But with fellow Asper BComm grads on from day one.” success doesn’t mean the boys have Alex Ethans and Maciek Hunek. grown too big for their britches. For one thing, they don’t have a In January, they gave back to the store – yet. Rather, the boys have Upon his return home, he worked Asper School by sponsoring the made a huge success out of an with Ethans and Maciek to put their Suit Yourself event, a competition innovative idea. The notion came idea in motion. They held their first that pitted Asper Co-op students to them shortly after graduating in suit fitting at the Winnipeg Winter against one another to produce the Left to right: 2008, when all three were hunting Club, and EPH Apparel was born.