BCEMBA06

First – I’d like to thank my fellow classmates for the tremendous honor to stand before you all today to deliver this farewell address…. and also for the privilege to share the stage with such distinguished and accomplished faculty and university leadership – as well as such an esteemed business leader as Bill Campbell – to all thank you for being here. Dean Campbell, on behalf of my entire Class, welcome back!

In your absence, Dr. Lyons, with his passionate and zealous commitment to improving the program and our experiences as students not only filled your shoes, he actually made the shoes bigger – by a couple of sizes. So, we all – as alumni, look forward to the both of you working together building upon your significant contributions to the university.

As some of you know, I was a bit anxious (given everything else that was due this week) to also craft a farewell address that was meaningful, funny, poignant, touching and memorable….

Then it was pointed out to me, by a certain fellow student, that given the fact that there is approximately 14 ½ minutes before we all walk out those doors as free women and free men, having accomplished one of the most significant challenges in our lives, I could be up here using sign language in Urdu and you’d still have these large sunny smiles on your faces nodding approvingly…. So no pressure here… I’m amongst friends.

I’d like to start off this farewell address actually by saying hello:

Hello Kelley
Hello Addison
Hello Mom
Hello Diana and Marty
Hello Jen
Hello Steve & Kristan

In fact, although this is a farewell address where we will be acknowledging the ending of our time here, we can also acknowledge that it’s a start, a beginning of a process of saying hello to the many things that we’ve had to put to the side, in some respects, for what seems to be a very long time.

As this chapter of our lives ends and we do bid our goodbyes, what many of us are looking forward to are the many “hellos” that we’ll be voicing shortly. As we’ve been “underground” for nearly 600 days, we have out of necessity – shut down many parts of our lives.

So we should look forward to re-introducing ourselves (albeit a smarter, wiser and infinitely more marketable versions of ourselves) to the people in our lives that have support us and enabled us to achieve what we have - to our wives and husbands, our partners, our boyfriends/girlfriends – to our sons and our daughters, friends, neighbors, the UPS guy and your favorite Starbucks counter person. And as we “re-emerge” into our normal lives… we can also now once again say:

• Hello to weekends.
• Hello to the Sunday Times.
• Hello to Brunch – anyone remember a guiltless brunch?
• Hello to reading books that don’t weigh more than a newborn baby
• Hello to going to these very large dark rooms where they project celluloid images up on the big screen and people eat popcorn… that will be fun
• We can say hello again to our friends who are at this point fed up of hearing the reason you can’t attend (fill in the blank… housewarming, birthday, wedding, bar mitzvah, Mongolian meat festival, Festivus celebrations)

Knowing the literary bent of our sophisticated class, I searched diligently for a quote that could capture the essence of what we are feeling right now, a poem, a sonnet a quip if you will that brings our collective view into sharp focus…. We’ll I did find what I think does the job: So, with your permission:

School's out for summer
School's out forever
No more pencils
No more books
No more teacher's dirty looks

I can’t say definitively if Alice Cooper was making reference to completing a master’s degree in business but he does capture the freedom that comes from no longer being a student… but enough of high-handed poetry – we’re business people so let’s get down to it….

This is a farewell address so what are we saying farewell to?:

• We are saying farewell to being students here at Berkeley and Columbia – but we should not say farewell to being students in life – always learning always attempting new things
• We’re saying goodbye to the cloud of obligations, commitments and deliverables that have been shadowing and haunting our daily existence – 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the past 19 months.
• Say so long to the conf. call shuffle with back-to-back study group calls after putting in a full day’s work
• We’re saying goodbye to having our backs suffer the strain of hauling 30-40 pounds of books in those cool nifty blue backpacks with the double-mesh bottle holders and MP3 player pocket.
• We’re saying goodbye to having BOLD be one of our most visited Internet site on the web
• For many of us, a certain bar on 54th and Seventh … although will never leave our hearts, probably won’t make the list of places to visit when we travel to New York City – and if we did – it simply won’t be the same.
• One goodbye that for many of us will not be extremely painful is to the Woody - although we tested its patience many many times, ultimately it’s been our home away from home during this program but alas probably never again.
• We can say goodbye to pushing our experienced, executive bodies to the edge of endurance, testing the physical boundaries of what is humanely possible at times surpassing what even undergraduates are capable of.
• Say goodbye to sleep deprivation, exhaustion, distraction, struggle and overall stress that is a by-product of managing your life, your family, your career while simultaneously attending a world-class masters program FULL-TIME.

To all that we say buh-bye…

But I don’t think that there anyone of us here who would argue that it hasn’t been worth it. Despite the tremendous pressure and strain, we all have emerged from a trial that has tested almost every aspect of our lives - our intellectual capabilities, our emotional intelligence, our ability to endure imbalance but still maintain composure. And what we’ve have to show for it is a body of knowledge, an intimate perspective of the mechanics of business derived from some of the most influential thinkers on the subject delivered by some of the best teachers of the subject.

Think of the whom we’ve become intimate with:

Porter, Cialini, Friedman, Drucker and Aaker, Black and Sholes, Solow and Phillips,

We’ve been taught by world class faculty – instructors, teachers, professors who are actively shaping and impacting today’s business world.

To wax nostalgic for a moment, forgetting that for some of us our last class was only 18 hours ago…. we’ve learned quite a bit….
• We learned about cram-downs and gobble-ups.
• Alphas and Betas
• WACCs, DCF, IRR and regressions
• Hetero-skadass-ticity is now a word that is part of our vocabulary – although to be honest – I think that I mentioned it just now for the very last time ever in my entire life.
• We can talk now about Phillips curves and congruence models, queuing theory, franchise customers
• We learned that if you ever make a mistake – just hit the F and the Clean-EX – and everything will be OK
• We’ve learned when to anchor and when to frame, to avoid hold-ups and look out for slack
• We’ve learned about CSR, NGOs, that even playing a game can have a theory
• We built Solow models, Phillips curves and Nash equilibriums,
• And we know about buyers remorse, winner’s curses, prisoner’s dilemmas,

But we’ve learned so much from each other as well:

• We learned to never bring just a knife to a gun fight
• We learned that we should be very careful when we open-up our Kimonos…. (sorry Ed, I know there’s a whole treasure chest but I only got ten minutes here)

• We’ve watched and learned how to sleep during class, eye closed, mouth slightly agape, yet somehow not incur the wrath of the lecturing professor.
• I’ve learned that Crystal balls really do exist and they can truly help us through very complicated problems – but I’m also convinced you still have to be a freak of nature to know how to use one.
• I’ve learned that you can party like a maniac and still be a black belt.
• We’ve also learned the universal MBA salute… which is when talking about anything related to business, just hold your hand out like this…. Separate your fingers about three inches and then as your talking, hold up your hand as if you intend to grab someone’s throat with your two fingers and then talk about deltas, leveraging, scaling.
• And of course, there’s so much more – do the math - 62 smart accomplished people locked in a room with smart accomplished teachers for a nearly 700 hours will produce a lot of learning.

For many of us – we’ve managed to do this while managing significant jobs with significant responsibilities – we have practicing attorneys, physicians, engineers, founders, VPs and CEOs. The E in the EMBA program is there because we truly have seasoned executives both learning and teaching each other.

Although the E is highly accurate it that it does signify the unique and powerful difference from the full-time MBAs. We all know that there’s a spirited and healthy debate as to what to do with the E in EMBA…. Does it go in front of the MBA or behind as in MBA for Executives? Or does one even mention it at all?

Now having completed the program, and have had the incredible good fortune to complete it with each of you as my class, I offer-up a few alternatives to what the E represents to me:

Given the age, wisdom and skills that this class has …. The E could stand for “Experienced”. It seemed inevitable that no matter what company came up in our case discussions, someone from our class either had worked at the company or with the company or had them as a customer, or new something about the company that even the professor wasn’t aware of…. considering that there is over 600 years of collective business practice amongst us, the word Experienced is almost inadequate to describe what our class has. Plus, the Experienced MBA has a bit of a ring to it….

Given the passion and willingness to help each other, given the lengths some of you went to ensure that who ever needed help could get it from those with knowledge in certain areas and were so generous with their time that Encouragement, Energy and Enthusiasm I think are appropriate E’s

Given the success that many, if not all, of us will have in the future – no doubt more likely because of completing this program – perhaps we should think, and this one’s for you Deans – perhaps we should consider ENDOWMENT as part of the lexicon of this EMBA program.

Given the fact that perceived value is a real factor in people’s assessments of quality, and the fact that many of us will be having a very long very personal affair with a certain Sallie Mae. The word Expensive would not be a word that would be inappropriate to consider as a potential substitute for Executive.

Exceptional
Enlightened
Our mix of personalities, backgrounds and industries - Eclectic
To toss in a 10-cent word……Elu-CUE-bration is extremely relevant (for all you kids out there - it means to work long into the night)
Especially today - Euphoria Exuberance and Exaltation are appropriate

But I submit that the one word that I feel is appropriate as a descriptor for each one of you as students, partners and friends, as well as a word that captures the single essential most significant attribute of the class is simply the word - EXCELLENCE..

I’ve felt humbled at times working with such a group that truly strives for excellence in what you do. And each of you have demonstrated your excellence in your own way… the commitment to quality, the drive to excel and to put forth as much as you can despite the fact that there are only so many hours in a day, or that your families need you – despite the constant compromises we’ve had to make – the takeaway that will resonate with me for a very long time is simply that you’ve all demonstrated excellence and being around excellence is motivating, inspiring and transforming.

And there’s no question that there existed excellence in the teaching of the courses we took… with talented dynamic faculty introducing new concepts, frameworks and methodologies that will further our capabilities to excel at our endeavors.

But before we put the concluding period on the end of this 565 day sentence we started last May 25th, let us breathe in this moment, to truly acknowledge ourselves and each other for what we’ve accomplished… because in our non-stop, always-on world, where time is money and “what have you done for me today” is the driving mantra – it’s easy to pass over these milestones with just a nod and a wink. We, at times, can take what we’ve accomplished for granted but let’s not let that happen today. As we’re surrounded with the most important people in our lives, let us respect the sacrifices we’ve made and they’ve made both personally and professionally to get to this moment. Let us appreciate in what our hard work, our diligence, perseverance, tenacity, our excellence has brought forth to us today and what it will bring to us tomorrow.

So in a moment and for the last time – let’s give ourselves a hand and as we walk through those doors as master’s of business – remember…. It’s a beginning of our collective relationship as alumni, as fellow entrepreneurs, corporate executives and influencers of businesses around the world. Never have I been part of such a high-caliber group where I’ve been as proud to call myself a member.

That now the net tangible product of this investment we’ve made is our relationships. And although we may not all be close personal friends with each other, or that we may not all agree on our respective politics, religion or favorite Top Dog, as we build our lives, our business and our success, this network of 62 individuals is an incredibly precious asset that I will truly value for the rest of my life….

Congratulations to all. Job well done. Lions and Bears OH MY!

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