The Stern Opportunity

Only a few months left in the semester! For those of you who are graduating and facing the real world in May, you have my deepest sympathies. Stern has been a great shield from the crazy, volatile economy, but alas, it will soon be time to go. Can you believe that first half classes are nearly complete? Winter Break seems like it was just yesterday; I still have fond memories snow on the ground, cold weather, biting winds, messed up travel plans…oh wait.

Name: Catherine Beal & Sean Kelley Club Affiliation: Luxury & Retail Club Position Held: Co-Presidents Club Mission: To educate club members about the luxury & retail field and help them make meaningful connections within the industry. Major: Marketing & Strategy Favorite Classes/Electives: Managing Growing Companies Summer Experience What company did you work in this summer? We both worked at Coach. We were both in Corporate Merchandising, Catherine worked on a new brand extension and Sean worked on the men's Japan business.

"Oh, my God! She's fashion roadkill!" - Stanford Blatch, Sex and the City Let me tell you, although Stern's Social Enterprise Association (SEA) and Luxury & Retail Club (LRC) put on a killer event, there was NO fashion roadkill this past Friday night at Think Social Drink Local 2009 (TDSL). TSDL was a fantastic, blowout event complete with organic and locally produced beverages and a fashion show of eco-friendly/socially responsible designs.

In the spirit of Social Enterprise, we met with Raj Thakkar, founder and owner of Charter School Business Management (CSBM), a provider of education business services. Prior to CSBM, Mr. Thakkar was the Chief Financial Officer of Explore Charter School where he discovered that day to day business matters distract educators from their primary goal of focusing on student achievement. CSBM's mission is to support the charter school movement by instilling a strong foundation of finance, operations, human resources and compliance at each of the schools it works with. CSBM was recently honored with the 2009 Blue Ribbon Small Business Award from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. A few of CSBM's many clients include: Harlem Success Academy Charter School, South Bronx Classical Charter School and New Leaders for New Schools.

As we saw in the last article, carbon profitability is not something easy to achieve. Of the two companies we looked at, one delisted from the Alternative Investment Market (AIM) at the London Stock Exchange, and the other is still struggling to turn revenues into profits.

Ok, I'm no longer a Sternie in Shanghai. But in February, this Sternie went back to Asia to race her 12th Ironman (2.4-mile swim, 112-mile bike, 26.2-mile run), this one in Malaysia. The choice of Malaysia as my qualifying race (for the Ironman World Championship) was strategic.

The MPSIF Economic Strategy team maintains a particularly negative outlook for the US economy. Our view differs from those analysts surveyed by Bloomberg as they are fairly optimistic on the state of the US economy, seeing a pick-up in growth by the third quarter of 2009.

Part 1 of Three Thoughts on Africa: Finance, New Media and Culture, Where to go this year and next year. This is the first piece of a column I will be managing (contributions most welcome - especially from those going on spring break treks!) While your friends in North American-focused alternative investments may be weeping over the woeful returns in 2008, check with their African counterparts and they will quickly remind you of what a killing they are making from investments in Nigerian banks and Namibian mining companies.

"One ____ to rule them all, One ____ to find them, One ____ to bring them all and in the darkness bind them" For those of you that have seen or read the Lord of the Rings trilogy, you will be familiar with this quote and will no doubt recognize what should go in the blanks -- financial system. If you are a little rusty, basically this is when Gandolf is speaking to Frodo on the deep interconnectivity of Middle Earth's markets and the fact that decoupling does not actually exist.

Hello my fellow classmates and avid readers of the "politically incorrect" column. Maybe it is the financial meltdown, or the fact that this will be the last semester to some of us prior to waking up from this "dream," but it appears that peoples are partying as hard as they can (including those Salsa Mondays, French Tuesdays and Felix Sundays.

It's tempting to think when starting out that you need a whole array of belts, straps, gloves, and suits to begin strength training, especially if you see a lot of folks in the gym all decked out like medieval cyborgs. Well, the truth is that you don't. Here's what you need and what you can do without.