What is your role in the Club and how long have you been involved in the Club?
I am currently the VP of Communications (emails, webmaster, events posting, liaising with other clubs) and I am on the Board of Directors.  As of September, I will be a Co-President with John Combs as well.  I got involved in the more actively in a leadership role in 2001 when I headed up a SIG for small, entrepreneurial businesses.  Since then I have served on the Executive Committee and on the Board in a variety of positions including VP Membership, Vice President, and President.

What is your present job/career?
I started a strategy consulting firm with a few others, including a fellow classmate, from HBS in 1999 called Net Results Strategic Partners.  Basically we are a boutique consulting firm with more of a strategic focus than an industry focus.  A lot of my work is in development of business plans and helping businesses get started up and grow.

What is your most memorable Club experience so far?
There are so many.  But, I suppose, if I had to choose it would be pulling off a Peter Drucker event a couple of days after our long-time Club Administrator died suddenly.  I remember standing there and being so exhausted that I thought I was going to just fall over and faint.  Unfortunately, the next couple of months included a lot of those kinds of moments as we sought to recreate all of the lost data and knowledge.

Why do you volunteer your time as a Club officer?
I originally got involved when one of my HBS classmates was President and he asked me to get involved.  One of the reasons I stay in involved is to help ensure diversity.  I was at an event on private equity and I was just sitting there during the networking and noticing it was pretty much all men.  And the networking with men is rather different than networking with women as it is tends to be a little more business focused and what can we do for each other.  Since I was there in my capacity as Vice President I was really more just watching it as a bystander.  I realized that we really needed to broaden the range of activities and become more inclusive.  Since then we have added women’s only events which not only have good turnout on their own but have also brought women back to the regular club events.  We do more cultural events now as well that bring in people that had long shunned our typical club events.

How have the alumni in Southern California benefited from the Club?
I know that as webmaster and in my roles in leadership that I talk to a lot of people, whether they know it or not.  When people say they are looking for a type of job or a person to network with I am usually able to get them in touch with the right people because I have over the years met so many people.  So I would say primarily networking.  I would guess that most of the events that we do could be gotten elsewhere but not with the networking component.  That is something I see when I go to other BSchool events in LA and other schools’ alumni always tell us.  We actually build networking time with food and refreshments into our events – while it seems obvious not all of the schools do it.

What do you miss most about HBS?
Huh?  Parking tickets?  Winter?  I miss the intellectual stimulation and getting exposed to so many new ideas by both the Professors and all the guest speakers.  I wish we were closer to Boston where we could get a steadier stream of Professors out here.  Whenever we do it is always so wonderful as it is like being back at school.  I’m not sure the virtual experiences quite recreate that but we will see!