Business & Entrepreneurship

Michael Lewis, marketing professor at the Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis says the Obama brand was launched by a liberal and progressive web-based ‘net roots’ movement in the primaries, moved towards the center on some issues in the general election and now must figure out how it will it will position itself to govern.

Mark J. Brostoff will join the Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis as associate dean and director of the Weston Career Center effective Jan. 9, 2009. Brostoff is a retired commander in the United States Navy and a WUSTL alumnus with a master’s degree in Health Administration, earned in 1982. He graduated from Alfred University in 1980.

Hailing from Asia, Europe, South America and the St. Louis region, 112 students will graduate Saturday, Dec. 13, 2008 from the Executive MBA program at the Olin Business School, Washington University in St. Louis.

As President-elect Barack Obama continues to fill key cabinet positions from the ranks of D.C.-based public policy think tanks, a new book by longtime policy adviser Murray Weidenbaum examines how the nation’s top think tanks came to play such critical roles in U.S. politics.

You don’t have to look far these days to find examples of corporate scandals involving fraud. A new study finds that performance-based pay is to blame for fraudulent behavior and actually motivates people to “cook the books”. Judi McLean Parks, the Reuben C. and Anne Carpenter Taylor Professor of Organizational Behavior at Olin Business School at Washington University in St. Louis and co-author of the study believes the results have implications for CEO compensation plans and the financial difficulties many companies are experiencing today. “All I have to do is look at Enron, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac to know that this does happen. And now we’ve demonstrated the causal link to contingent pay.” Fraud uncovered at Fannie Mae alone from 1998-2004 has been estimated to be in excess of $10.6 billion.

As President-elect Barack Obama continues to fill key cabinet positions from the ranks of D.C.-based public policy think tanks, a new book by longtime policy adviser Murray Weidenbaum examines how the nation’s top think tanks came to play such critical roles in U.S. politics.

Entrepreneurial spirit is alive and well in this year’s Olin Cup competition with $70,000 in seed money at stake. A record-breaking 38 teams entered the annual business formation contest operated by the Skandalaris Center for Entrepreneurial Studies at Washington University in St. Louis. Five finalists are now in the final stage of the competition which concludes with business plan presentations in January; winners will be announced Feb. 5, 2009.

A groundbreaking ceremony for a new energy, environmental engineering and biomedical engineering building on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis was held Wednesday, Oct. 29, on the parking lot adjacent to Whitaker Hall, near the corner of Skinker Boulevard and Forest Park Parkway. The building, which will be named in honor of Stephen F. and Camilla T. Brauer, will be east of and adjoining to Whitaker Hall, home of the biomedical engineering department.

A groundbreaking ceremony for a new energy and environmental engineering building on the Danforth Campus of Washington University in St. Louis will be held Wednesday, Oct. 29, on the parking lot adjacent to Whitaker Hall, near the corner of Skinker Boulevard and Forest Park Parkway, according to Chancellor Mark S. Wrighton. The ceremony will begin at 1 p.m., with the groundbreaking scheduled for 1:45 p.m. The building, which will be named in honor of Stephen F. and Camilla T. Brauer, will be east of and adjoining to Whitaker Hall, home of the biomedical engineering department.

The recent meltdown in financial markets around the world, government rescue plans and the future of the global economy will be the focus of an international panel of economic experts Friday, Oct. 17, 2:30 p.m., at Washington University in St. Louis. Free and open to the public, the event will be held in the Lab Sciences Building, Room 300 on the Danforth Campus.