In Memoriam: Paul Purcell
Martijn Cremers
Monday, 2 March 2020Women's Investing Summit
Martijn Cremers
Monday, 24 February 2020One of the key promises of our imperative to “grow the good in business” is building a community of mutual advancement, and this includes a renewed focus on diversity and inclusion.
Two weeks ago, the College hosted a very successful 23rd annual Notre Dame Ethics Week titled “Women Lead.” The event featured speakers and panel discussions exploring the various challenges and opportunities women experience in the classroom and workplace. (See more information about Ethics Week below.)
This week, the Notre Dame Institute for Global Investing (NDIGI) is hosting another important event, the second annual Women’s Investing Summit (WIS), which takes place on Friday, Feb. 28, from 8 a.m.-4 p.m. in the Dahnke Ballroom in the Duncan Student Center. The Summit is open to women and men in the Notre Dame community.
WIS is distinctive and important to Mendoza and to the larger finance industry because all of the speakers are senior women in investment management. This makes it a rare event, because the percentage of women in leadership positions is extremely low — less than 10 percent. NDIGI managing director Erin Bellissimo, who has been at the forefront of many efforts to encourage young women to enter careers in investing, organized the Summit to give attendees the insider’s perspective on current market trends and future job and investment opportunities.
Speakers include Wendy Cromwell, the vice chair and senior managing director and partner at Wellington Management; Katie Koch (ND '02), the co-head of Fundamental Equity at Goldman Sachs; and Kathy Murphy, president of personal investing at Fidelity Investments. Students also have the opportunity to network with investment professionals during lunch.
Mendoza faculty and staff members are welcome to attend WIS. To register, email Tess Swain at tswain@nd.edu. You’re also welcome to attend NDIGI’s Student Stock Pitch Competition 5-6:30 p.m. on Feb. 27 in the Jordan Auditorium.
My thanks to the NDIGI staff and faculty who have put so much thought and effort into organizing the Women’s Investing Summit 2020 and the student stock pitch competition — Erin, Tess, Mark Dumich and Shane Corwin.
In Notre Dame,
Martijn
A New Way to Work Together
Martijn Cremers
Monday, 17 February 2020Since last summer, we have been reconsidering how we might best realign the organizational structure of our graduate programs to support the larger strategic vision for the College. In many ways, the current structure is a legacy structure that was established at a time when we offered fewer and more homogeneous graduate programs. As we’ve added graduate programs and redesigned aspects of our offerings, we have made alterations to the structure. We now have the opportunity to comprehensively reimagine the structure to better serve our current graduate students across our many different graduate programs.
In this reorganization process, our goal has been to holistically re-examine graduate student needs and larger trends in order to build an organization that will enable the College to thrive and to be responsive to innovations and disruptions in the graduate business school landscape. Perhaps most importantly, the new structure is an opportunity to continue elevating all of our graduate programs.
I’m excited to introduce a new organizational model for staff members who directly support our graduate business program operations. This is the outcome of a collaborative process where many of our staff and faculty provided great feedback and were willing to share their concerns and ideas. We are very grateful for all of your engagement, which has been led by Kara Palmer through conducting a series of focus groups and meetings with graduate business program staff and key stakeholders.
While the graduate programs staff members have had the opportunity to learn about the model during informational meetings, I want to provide an overview for all of the Mendoza faculty and staff, as the scope of change across the College is extensive. You can view a chart depicting the high level organizational structure here.
As you will see, the model organizes staff members both by function (e.g., admissions and marketing, student services and operations, career services, experiential learning and alumni relations), and by program group (e.g., Executive Education, MBA and Specialized Master’s). The result is a matrix model where dual reporting fosters:
- Functional excellence through the direct reporting relationships (solid lines) and
- Academic excellence through accountability to the programs and ultimately the graduate students and faculty (dotted reporting lines).
A few details to note:
- Staff members will report directly to functional directors (solid line) and are accountable to meeting program-specific goals and requirements (dotted line).
- Our current organizational structure of Graduate Business Programs (GBP), Nonprofit Professional Development (NPD) and Executive Education will transition to a model that aligns and differentiates by student profiles and experiences under the following structure: Executive Education, MBA and Specialized Master’s Programs.
- Certificate programs (non-degree), both executive and nonprofit, will be part of Executive Education.
- Each program group will be overseen by an associate dean and have a designated academic faculty or program staff director.
- Functional directors as well as the chief marketing and graduate enrollment officer will report directly to the dean with accountability to the associate deans.
In addition to elevating all of our graduate programs, this new organizational structure is intended to help facilitate:
- Sharing functional knowledge and overcoming information silos for staff and faculty both across functions by program and across programs by function,
- Encouraging collaboration between faculty and staff members, and
- Providing greater strategic clarity for those working within a program.
The new organizational model is still very high level. Our next steps include identifying how our existing staff positions can be best allocated across all of our functions and programs. This involves identifying roles and responsibilities, creating new position descriptions, determining budget strategies, posting open positions internally and filling any unfilled positions. I anticipate our transition to continue through the next few months with an ambitious goal to have our new structure in place by mid-summer.
I want to emphasize that the goal of the reorganization is not to reduce staffing, cut costs or address performance issues. In fact, I hope that we will be able to add staff positions. Rather, the impetus for change is to implement a new structure providing greater collaboration across functions and programs, as well as more flexibility and agility, with the goal of elevating all of our graduate programs.
I acknowledge that this level of change is disruptive for many people across the College and that continued transparency is very important. We want to be intentional as we put the model into place and involve all the relevant stakeholders. I will continue to share news as the structure develops. Your input is critically important. Please continue to provide feedback via this form or directly by meeting with Kara Palmer, the associate deans or myself. Also, please think of me as always available to meet in person. I will have open office hours later this semester again, and you can always email Beth directly to schedule a meeting with me.
I’m grateful to the many people at Mendoza who have devoted a great deal of time and thought to designing and implementing this new organizational structure, including the associate deans, chairs, directors, staff members and others who participated in the focus groups. Special thanks to Kara and associate deans Kristen Collett-Schmitt, Mike Mannor and Walt Clements for their leadership and providing thoughtful and candid feedback along the way.
In Notre Dame,
Martijn
MBA/Exec Ed Integration
Martijn Cremers
Monday, 10 February 2020- To more intensively and intentionally use our most beautiful building.
- To create positive interactions between these two important student groups—perhaps especially for MBA students who can learn about professionalism first-hand through the example set by our executive students/learners, but also to facilitate mentoring by EMBA students (who have greater career experience) of MBA students.
- To provide our growing specialized master’s programs with more space in the main Mendoza building.
- Offering five MBA classes in Stayer during Mod 3 (our current mod).
- Continuing to scale up the number in Mod 4 so that by fall 2020, all of the MBA core courses that meet on Monday and Wednesday will be located in the Stayer Center.
- Constructing a joint MBA-Exec Ed student/learner lounge on the third floor that will encompass the existing Executive Lounge, the common space outside of it and a recently renovated area on the south side.
Ethics Week: Women Lead
Martijn Cremers
Monday, 3 February 2020The 23rd annual Notre Dame Ethics Week kicks off next Monday (Feb. 10) with the theme of “Women Lead.” The four-day conference will present a comprehensive discussion of gender diversity and inclusion, which is a critical topic as women continue to be underrepresented within both Mendoza and corporate leadership.
The speakers include many of our faculty members and students who have meaningful insights and are making contributions toward more inclusive workplaces:
♦ Feb. 10, 5-6 p.m.: Panel discussion featuring current Notre Dame MBA students and moderated by M&O teaching professor Joe Holt; “Rising Together: Gender Equity in Business.”
♦ Feb. 11, 5-6 p.m.: Carolyn Y. Woo, former dean of Mendoza College of Business and former CEO of Catholic Relief Services; “Growing into Authentic Leadership.”
♦ Feb. 12, 5-6 p.m.: Cathy David, former executive vice president of merchandising for Pier 1 Imports; “Memoir in Progress: Stories and Souvenirs from the First Half.”
♦ Feb. 13, 12:30-1:30 p.m.: Erin Bellissimo, managing director of the Notre Dame Institute for Global Investing and board member for Girls Who Invest; “Women in Investing.”
♦ Feb. 14, 12:30-1:30 p.m.: Panel discussion “Women and the Workplace” featuring the following Mendoza College of Business faculty and staff members:
- Robin Kistler, director of non-degree programs for the Stayer Center for Executive Education (moderator).
- Angela Logan, St. Andre Bessette Director of Nonprofit Professional Development and associate teaching professor.
- Amanda McKendree, Arthur F. and Mary J. O’Neil Director of the Fanning Center for Business Communication and Management & Organization associate teaching professor.
- Cindy Muir, Management & Organization associate professor and leadership researcher.
- Alice Obermiller, director of experiential learning and leadership development for Mendoza’s Graduate Business Programs.
The talks take place in the Stayer Center’s Commons C in the lower level. Please consider attending as your schedule allows and encourage your students to participate as well.
Notre Dame Ethics Week, which is sponsored by the Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership, is organized by a Mendoza cross-collaborative team. My thanks to Brian Levey, Ken Milani, Jessica McManus Warnell, Brett Beasley, Chris Adkins, Scott Nestler, Deb Coch, Zara Osterman and Carol Elliott.
In Notre Dame,
Martijn