International Keynote Speaker, Tech-Futurist, FEMBApalooza Fan: Meet Dwight Holcomb ’11

UCLA Anderson Dean Judy Olian–when introducing Dwight Holcomb at the 2016 GEMBA commencement ceremony–used these words: “Dwight has been the model alumnus-for-life and we love him.”

It’s my pleasure to share this Drive Time podcast interview of Dwight Holcomb, GEMBA 2011, President of the UCLA Anderson Board of Directors, and President & CEO of HC Development, Inc.

• International Keynote Speaker
• Tech-Futurist
• Author of “The Lean CMO”
• Multi-FEMBApalooza attendee
• Super-interesting UCLA Anderson alum

In this podcast, you’ll hear how UCLA Anderson Professor Chris Erickson recruited Dwight from an encounter at Ralph’s in Pasadena! Dwight gives you an insiders view of the UCLA Anderson Board of Directors to hire Anderson (Shout-out to Alum Frank Herrera who’s hired over 50 Anderson grads!), promote Anderson, and tell the stories of Anderson. We cover the Anderson CEO Forum (a la Vistage). You’ll also learn about a great opportunity every year, the UCLA Anderson Golf Tournament. And we end the podcast with some great, great productivity hacks that you can use today.

Dwight is a great servant-leader and I know you’ll enjoy this interview. As Dwight states at 26:43-28:22, “…You can’t out-give Anderson…Anderson completely changed my life…I thought the pinnacle had been reached when I was handed that diploma, but that was just the beginning. When I started in this network, that’s when things really took off…”

Rebranding, The Power of No, Leaning In, Good-to-Great, & Hamilton! Meet Amber Jackson ’15

• Causing a career to go from “Good to Great”
• Practicing the Power of No
• Leaning In
• Rebranding through B-school
• Transforming “GAP anxiety” into “A Promotion for Me”
• Using the best professional productivity tips
• Loving Hamilton in all its intrinsic American-ness and modern storytelling impact, and more!

Meet marketing wonder Amber Jackson, FEMBA 2015, and Senior Manager, Marketing Strategy at The Walt Disney Studios. Amber grew up back east, attended Carnegie-Mellon, and entered the work world with Johnson & Johnson. She then came west, landing at KPMG initially before moving to Warner Bros., both career moves prior to UCLA Anderson, FEMBA and now Disney.

For this Drive Time interview, Amber was back on campus supporting one of our Women’s Breakfasts and she generously donated another hour for us to record this interview. It was her first time back on campus in the 18 months since she’d graduated.

Amber’s story is definitely a good-to-great UCLA Anderson outcome. Her career outcomes are exactly the type you’d expect from your MBA investment.

Learn about specific faculty who taught her here (including Professors Shapiro, Sussman and Ullmen), enjoy some of her productivity tips for professional success, and lastly, her love of Hamilton, a great American story that we love to hear.

Enjoy!

Be Authentic, Be Yourself – Meet Grace Chang ’13

From FEMBA Council President to Anderson Alumni Board to Winning at TechCrunch Disrupt, we catch up with Grace Chang, FEMBA 2013 to hear about her very busy career trajectory post-graduation.

Grace launched Events Sorbet during FEMBA with two fellow FEMBA Council leaders, quickly growing from 3 to 26 people with operations in Los Angeles, San Francisco and New York before they brokered off the business. Grace then went to a mobile chat company, getting her feet wet in a more seasoned start-up and successfully riding through an acquisition, ending up with 6 different offers.

UnifyID was the most intriguing of the 6 offers Grace was considering and she signed with UnifyID as both their first-ever product manager and their first non-technical hire. Launched at TechCrunch Disrupt, UnifyID won battlefield runner-up winner (#2 out of 1,000 start-ups competing).

Coincidentally, Phillip Chang 17, Head of Information Security at Boingo Wireless, and Drive Time podcast editor, was attending the RSA Conference last month where UnifyID was again one of ten finalists in an innovation competition and won the “RSAC Most Innovative Startup 2017”!). Today, 3/10/17, as we post, Grace’s whole team is headed to SXSW!

Back during FEMBA, as FEMBA Council President, Grace was the organizer of the first ever “Opportunity/Enterpreneurship/Club Zone” at the very ever first FEMBApalooza in the summer of 2012. She reflects on taking on leadership roles during FEMBAs that were not offered at work, and how she grew from the opportunity.

Learn about all of this and more from Grace Chang ’13 in this episode of our Drive Time podcast.