OneHaas

As part Hispanic Heritage Month celebration, we're featuring Jaime Raul Zepeda, a graduate of EWMBA 2019. Through grit and hard work, he moved alone to America at 17, took classes during the day, and mopped floors in the evening. His family in Mexico developed his passion for business and civic leadership. His dad runs a small business, while his mom actively serves the community by feeding the prisoners, giving free haircuts to the homeless, and teaching adults to read and write. Jaime continues helping others by mentoring first-generation college students, youth starting their careers, and social impact entrepreneurs.

Jaime served as VP of Partnership and Programs in Great Place to Work and Customer Success Regional Manager at LinkedIn. He currently helps fresh graduates land career opportunities as SVP of Customer and People Success at Hive Diversity, a virtual recruitment platform. 

Listen to this episode to know what inspired Jaime to serve the community as he runs for State Senate in California's 10th District.

Your family has a small business in Mexico, why did you choose a very uncomfortable life as a teenager in America?

 [00:02:26] "My dad set this example for me to just always dream, always chase what you want. Hustle for what you're looking for, like work hard. And my mom, very same way, same things. But she also added this layer of always serving the community."

On the role of the community as he pursued education and career independently

[00:05:45] "I'd relied a lot on the people that were there once I got there. I relied on the family. I was going to high school during the day because I was on my own. I had a full-time job after that. So, I had a very different experience. But teachers at high school knew about that. Eventually, they knew that I was my own guardian. They would just come in and say, you know, 'Do you need some help, Jaime? I know that you got a lot. You can do that homework tomorrow.'

And it was just awesome because it was like those little moments that just taught me to appreciate the community that I had around me at all times. And I still bring that to this day. I still believe educators are amazing nation builders. My wife is an educator, and I think they're amazing, but I had some community that helped me out."

Having a lot of experience in business, what led you to enter politics?

[00:24:54] "Politics and business have always just been super fascinating for me because in politics, if you do it really well, and if you do it for the right intentions, it is to empower people. It is to move the levers of government through laws, policies, and movements so that more people get more power. To get elected is not to get power, but to give power, as I always think about it.

Business is very similar in many ways too. If business is done really well, it is to create a sustainable positive agent of change in society. And that's largely why I've only worked at organizations where I believe in what they do. Not just because it's a good paycheck, but because I believe they're actually doing good to society and are able to sustain that because of the business model they have."

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• Zepeda for Senate Official Website

Equity in education ensures that every student has access to quality learning resources regardless of race, gender, and social status. Our featured Haas alum for the celebration of Hispanic Heritage Month is Guadalupe Nickell. She understands that students need specialized support to succeed in school and life. Guadalupe’s experiences as a student with a biracial heritage motivated her to address challenges in the public education system. She is a graduate of Berkeley Columbia EMBA at Haas School of Business. After establishing a career in the nonprofit sector, she went back to UC Berkeley as Assistant Dean for Development and External Relations at the Graduate School of Education.

Listen to this conversation on aligning professional experience in philanthropic work and leadership to address the barriers to equitable education.

What drives you to support fair access to quality education for students?

[00:01:59] "Growing up in Oakland, my parents always really drove home the importance of education. And I think all parents want the best for their kids. From an early age, the message was always, “Education is something that no one can ever take away.” 

On working in the public education space

[00:16:45] "I've always been very curious about Berkeley as an engine of social mobility. The California public university system is a jewel and not many other states have invested in this way. And as someone who started my non-profit career, I really hit my stride when I started to align both my professional experience in philanthropy and in leadership, but then also drawing on that personal motivation and inspiration around the opportunity that education can provide and the doors that it can open. I found myself getting more and more drawn to that space. 

The opportunity to work at this kind of scale within the public education system at the graduate school of education, where we are producing teachers and principals and researchers and policymakers, was just a really exciting opportunity to continue working in a space, but from a very different place."

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• Berkeley Haas

Our guest in this episode shows a persistent attitude when it comes to technology and business. 

Orion Parrott innovated the mortgage industry by providing a digital solution to the arduous financial documentation process, then he went on to co-found a luxury real estate firm. Orion touches on the lessons he learned as a serial entrepreneur and EMBA 2014 alum at Haas School of Business.

In this episode, Orion reveals how he dealt with challenges in his startup ventures. Leveraging technology, he does everything in his power to make acquiring real estate possible for more people.

With a successful career as an engineer, what motivated you to start your own business?

"I feel like it was something that was always a part of me in a way. The reason changed throughout the years. Originally, probably because I saw my father starting businesses. And later, as an engineer, I noticed I wanted to have more influence and control over the way things get directed and decided. And I could see that things were happening at the business level and not at the engineering level in some cases."

Why is passion essential to entrepreneurship?

"I started this business called Lendsnap, looking for something that I could grow as a scalable startup. In the end, it was not a great fit. I had a hard time keeping my passion for that. As a startup, it's really important to find something that you're very passionate about. And I think I was probably a little challenged in that area at the time because it really comes down to mindset. And I think you need to believe that you can have it all, including being passionate about what you're working on.

I wanted to start a very practical business because I thought that I had more chance of success. But the chances of success were farmed somewhat because it wasn't something that I could stay as passionate about."

• LinkedIn
• Twitter
• Berkeley Haas
• Shared Estates Asset Fund - Kemble Bershires Project

Today at the OneHaas Podcast, we have the pleasure to chat with Eric Alessi, EWMBA class of 2020 and a member of the Blue cohort. Eric recently transitioned from Pinterest to Masterclass as an Insights Manager.

Eric grew up in New York but spent some time in Italy, originally where his father was from. He studied History and Legal Studies at Washington University in St. Louis.

In this episode, Eric shares his career experiences from being a contractor at Facebook, an Ops Specialist and Insights Lead at Pinterest, and now an Insights Manager at Masterclass. He tells us some fascinating details about being part of the insights team and what it's like to be on the other side of the table.

Eric also talks about what led him to get an MBA, what he's excited about in his new role in Masterclass, and his favorite masterclasses.

His decision to get an MBA

"My primary motivation for starting the part-time MBA program was really around knowledge. I'd never really taken a marketing class or a strategy class, obviously, our core to an MBA. I just felt like those were huge gaps in knowledge myself. And it actually ended up being very helpful for transitioning on the insight side and move into a more business-focused role."

How does an Insights Team utilize data?

"We try to do a kind of a broad read of an audience or a topic to really find different insights that would be relevant to different industries. And so, that's more of an open-ended process. It takes a lot of time because you need to start with tons of unfiltered data and insights, and when you're really trying to look for those meaningful nuggets of information that are insights and not just random pieces of data, but things that tie together, things that illustrate a larger trend, are statistically significant, you get very excited when you find those and they're really compelling, but it takes a lot of time."

What's exciting about his new role at Masterclass

"What really got me excited about this role was that, in just talking to people at the company, using it myself, there was such strong overlap between what I enjoyed about Pinterest of like people using the service to explore their passions and having a positive feeling about what they're doing.

It's entertaining, but you're learning something new. You're exploring something that you're interested in. I find that very much like a compelling value proposition."

• LinkedIn
• Gordon Ramsay Teaches Cooking
• Chris Voss Teaches the Art of Negotiation
• Werner Herzog Teaches Filmmaking
• Jimmy Chin Teaches Adventure Photography

Sean’s lively conversation with Digital Wellness Coach Sini Ninkovic centers on enjoying the beauty of life without constantly depending on our smartphones.

Early on, Sini learned the role of adaptability to a new environment when his family fled Former Yugoslavia and found refuge in Austria. Later, he would earn an MBA at Haas School of Business and work with BMW, Lucid Motors, and Apple. He teaches how one can adapt to technology without being dictated by their devices in his book Untethered.

In this episode, Sini promotes being a responsible tech user by intentionally reframing habits to overcome distractions.

On choosing Haas for his MBA

[00:02:53] I really wanted to be in Silicon Valley and experience the culture there. I always had this passion for future technologies and how they can enhance our lives. As a young kid, I was just fascinated by what we were doing out in Silicon Valley, and that fascination just kept on going. As I was working on electric cars, it became pretty clear to me that the core business of cars was endangered to be taken over by Silicon Valley. I decided that I really wanted to be part of that movement, whatever was happening on the west coast. And so, I decided to apply to Haas. I was so welcomed by the people there I immediately had this feeling of home. And so, it was pretty clear to me that I made the right choice being there.

How do you have a healthy relationship with your digital devices?

[00:18:48] in my book, the first step is focused on awareness. The second is focused very much on yourself. And then the last part is focused on changing the device.

Over time, we're capable of developing a healthy relationship with most humans. It takes some years in many cases to get there. And I think we're in a similar situation right now with the smartphone. During the past decade, many of us had a pretty toxic relationship with our smartphones, kind of codependent. But in any toxic or codependent relationship, there is a breaking point. I think we are at that breaking point where a lot of people are gaining awareness of what's going on. We have the awareness now. The second step is working on ourselves to get to a stage where we can have a healthy relationship with a digital device. That's why the core of my book focuses on that self-development. And then the third part is very focused on the tools. What can you do to your smartphone to make it a better partner?

• LinkedIn
• Website
• Berkeley Haas
• Untethered: Overcome Distraction, Build Healthy Digital Habits, and Use Tech to Create a Life You Love

Chris and Sean chat with Lo Toney, an MBA alum and Founding Managing Partner of Plexo Capital. Plexo Capital is an institutional investment firm Lo incubated and spun out from GV (Google Ventures).

In this episode, Lo tells us more about Plexo Capital and its goals. Plexo is a Portuguese word that means intricate vascular network, which is what the company is trying to build.

He also shares a bit of his origin, a rundown of his career post-Haas, and how he became a venture capitalist.

We also hear about Plexo's initiative, the GPx program. It provides free video-based self-learning content to teach great investors a new set of skills necessary to transition into great fund managers.

On becoming a venture capitalist

"It wasn't something that was on my radar, but I immediately gravitated towards it because I think that's actually more interesting being on the front end of the process, as opposed to the back end of the process."

Giving free access to GPx

"We feel that charging for it presents yet another barrier for the type of diverse general partners that we're looking to back. So, this is our way of giving back to the community - by providing the content, training, and feedback to make that transition from being a great investor to a great fund manager."

• LinkedIn
• Plexo Capital
• GPx

On this episode of the OneHaas Podcast, host Sean chats with Andrew MacNeil, Executive MBA class of 2017. Andrew is currently the Global Head of Enablement at Flexport. He is also a Coach, Advisor, and Mentor for the UC Berkeley Executive Education program.

Andrew shares his background growing up in a military family and his time as a US Army Special Forces Officer. He also talks about why he ended up at Haas after leaving the military and how his career in the tech space took off after he graduated.

Andrew also tells us about his time in Afghanistan, where he met an Afghan Army Special Forces Soldier who eventually became his friend. Amid the current situation in the country, Andrew started a fundraiser to help his friend and his family attempt to escape Taliban persecution and land safely in the United States. 

What a business school acceptance can do to jumpstart your career

“It's actually very hard to get someone in technology to hire you out of the military. I struggled very much trying to get an interview, and the funniest thing about it was as soon as I got the Berkeley acceptance, I popped that thing on my resume and got an interview. No one was giving me the time of day before that. It was just a testament to that. Once Berkeley's willing to sign off on you, you have the street cred. Some of my friends call it the technology stink. I was able to get into the program and hadn't learned anything really yet, but all of a sudden, everyone's taking my calls and took me seriously.”

How you can extend your help to the people of Afghanistan

“You can support in two ways. One, keep asking these questions of what's the plan? You can secure an airport all you want, but if people can't get to it, that's not a great solution. And it's not just about America. It's about tens of thousands of people that helped us along the way. And if you think about our ability to have a strong level of national security on the global scale, who's going to want to partner with us after this? Who's going to trust that they're going to be taken care of when they help us? We need to fix it. So, that's one part of it.

The second part of it is continuing to look for nonprofit organizations that are raising money to get people out of there, to support them after they land. There's a lot of opportunities out there to help these organizations.”

• LinkedIn Profile
• Gofundme Mirwais
• Gofundme: Emergency Afghan Rescue Mission

Today's episode is all about diversity, equity, and inclusion. Bree had the pleasure to chat with Nicole Sanchez, full-time MBA, class of 2012. She is the founder and CEO of Vaya Consulting, which offers best-in-class DEI, leadership, and culture consulting services for companies shaping the 21st century, primarily in technology and media.

Nicole has been doing DEI professionally for more than 20 years. In this episode, she shared her definition of diversity, equity, and inclusion and why creating DEI in the workplace became her passion.

This passion ultimately led Nicole to found Vaya Consulting. She started her own consulting company where she could go and do DEI on her terms and rules.

Furthermore, Nicole shared the challenges she faced when she began Vaya and gave us insights on how they carefully choose their clients. She also let us in on how they address wellness and mental health in their workplace, which is essential during this time.

Her definition of DEI in a nutshell

"Diversity is you get a bunch of different people together, and you focus a lot on race. Equity is how we disperse resources and make decisions that ultimately are fair and point us towards outcomes we want. Inclusion is how do people feel when they're inside. It's about shaping your cultural norms around the actual shape of the people who make up your company."

Why psychological safety is currently her favorite entry point into DEI

"The most fundamental thing we need in a group is psychological safety. All people from all backgrounds want to feel safe. So, I start everything that was psychological safety. It fundamentally means that you're able to take risks without fear of repercussions, that you can say things and try things and point out problems without fear of the floor dropping out from under you. That's what it means in the workplace."

What people can do/change to create DEI in the workplace

"No matter what organization you're in and what your background is, no matter how involved or not involved you've been, there is a group of people of color in your company who is talking about this, whether it's been formalized or not. Get connected to that group and find out what's up. It's the same thing as any community organizing. Somebody else is already doing this work and has a good lay of the land and connect with them to see what they've tried, what they need support with, and what you can do to help."

• LinkedIn
• Vaya Consulting

In today’s episode, we chat with award-winning lecturer Holly Schroth who leads classes in Negotiations, Influence, and Communications.

Holly tells us a little about her history and what brought her to Haas nearly three decades ago to teach Negotiations.

She also speaks about what makes a good negotiator, her research on Gen Z negotiations, and leaves listeners with some parting wisdom.

What makes a good negotiation?

"What makes a good negotiation is that both sides walk away satisfied."

Holly's definition of negotiation

"My definition is sharing information in order to problem-solve to reach mutually satisfying agreements. I'm not here to talk you into anything, but I'm here to help you think a different way and come to the conclusion yourself that this direction may or may not be best for you."

How to influence someone in a positive way

"The best way to influence someone positively is to ask good questions to get them to think differently. You have to understand their thinking so that you can work with that and understand if that's not based on factual information or there's some other information that could be helpful for the person to understand, and then you can work through it. But if you never find out what someone is thinking or why they hold the position they do, then you really cannot influence the person."

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• Haas Website
• LinkedIn
• Twitter

What is machine learning, and why does it matter? Sang Lee, co-founder, and CEO of Qeexo, Co., answers this question for us in this latest episode. Qeexo is the first company to automate end-to-end machine learning for edge devices.

Sang opens up about his multicultural background - growing up in Australia and then coming back to Korea to attend college in a very elite university before going to the US to get his MBA at Haas and experience the Western culture.

Sang also shares his extensive career in the mobile industry. He joined Samsung right after college as a Product Planner, then transferred to SK Telecom and worked as an OEM Partnership Development, eventually moving to HTC to become Technology Program Manager.

We also hear about his company, Qeexo. Sang tells us its early beginnings, how they scaled the business and explains what machine learning is all about.

Finally, Sang tells us the good and bad in managing a company and the challenges and things he learned as a CEO. We also get a tip on how you can tell that you are hiring the right people for your team!

His decision to get an MBA

"One thing that gave me the thirst to come to the US for MBA was not having that business education background. Going to this department where most people have a business background, and you're one of the few people with an engineering background, you get to question all the decisions you make. Are those people making those decisions because they got that education from school, or they may have learned something different from school that I never learned? You always have this question about your own decision. And I hated that.

I wanted to step up, and Haas really opened my eyes. I believe that it was worth every penny, for me at least, because I've started my own company, and I don't think I would've been able to do it without the Haas experience."

Realizing what his role is as the CEO of the company

"At first, when I was starting the company, I thought my role was going to be product management and sales and maybe strategy. But when we first started, we already knew what product we wanted to launch, so there was no strategy work that I needed to do. But as we grew, I started to learn about what the role of a CEO needs to be to make this business successful. And the thing that I learned is that I'm not a star talent in all of the roles. I'm not a star talent in sales. I'm not a star talent in strategy. I'm probably not the best star talent in product management either. My role is to make sure that I find the star talent and make sure that they perform at their best and work efficiently and effectively as possible."

On finding innovation through diversity

"We want diversity. That's one thing that I picked up from Haas. One of the class professors was talking about where the innovation comes from, or one of the ways to find innovation is when people coming from diverse backgrounds or diverse disciplines intersecting, and during that intersection, you find innovation.

And I thought that was a great way to approach finding innovation because when you're running the company, you actually have the power to find people coming from diverse disciplines and putting them in the same spot. I won't be able to, by myself, get experience in different disciplines and find innovation within myself. But I can find people with different disciplines coming together."

• LinkedIn Profile
• Qeexo