Business & Entrepreneurship

Rising seniors can start earning credits toward a Master of Science in Finance degree this July with the launch of a new Master of Finance Accelerated program from Olin Business School’s Specialized Masters Programs.

Olin Business School feted five of its top alumni during the 2013 Olin Distinguished Alumni Awards Dinner April 4 at the Ritz-Carlton in Clayton.

As Germany prepares to enact quotas that will mandate quotas for female participation on major corporate boards, the United States is feeling the pressure to improve board diversity, says Hillary A. Sale, JD, corporate governance expert and professor of law at Washington University School of Law. After years of little growth, the percentage of women directors on U.S. Boards remains at 12 percent.

Two degrees are better than one in the field of finance, especially when earned from two leading business schools – Washington University in St. Louis and Singapore Management University (SMU). The new Global Master of Finance Dual Degree program is designed to meet the needs of today’s global marketplace with specialized skills in finance and a unique opportunity to study U.S. and Asian markets firsthand.

Several new faculty members have joined the Brown School and the School of Law this academic year. Read more to learn further details about the new additions.

“Design Thinking and Innovation,” presented in cooperation with KC America’s Creative Crossroads, will be held from 7-9 a.m., Wednesday, April 24 at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts in Kansas City. The  interdisciplinary executive education seminar is taught by faculty members from Washington University in St. Louis’ Olin Business School and the College of Architecture.

It’s called Sketch-a-Song. It’s free and it’s designed to make music creation accessible to everyone — even people without formal musical training. WUSTL seniors Jacob Zax and Adam Segal are members of the team of seven high school friends who devoted last summer to creating the app.

Aramark Chef Shane Brassel has won the silver medal at the International Association of Conference Centres Copper Skillet Competition. Brassel is the Executive Chef at the Charles F. Knight Executive Education & Conference Center.

On Monday, April 15, President Obama signed legislation rolling back the disclosure requirements of the STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act, which would have required creation of a searchable, sortable database for the annual financial interest forms of 28,000 executive branch employees as well as highly paid Congressional staff. These forms contain detailed information about employees’ assets, outside income and gifts. Former national security officials raised security concerns about this publication requirement. Current employees filed a lawsuit, resulting in a federal court ruling that publishing such information on the web would violate employees’ right to privacy. “Both the court and the National Academy of Public Administration recognized that federal employees have a legitimate right to privacy regarding their personal financial information,” says Kathleen Clark, JD, government ethics expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.

On Thursday, April 11, the Senate voted to roll back the STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) Act, limiting the web-based publication of government employees’ personal financial information. This action comes in response to a federal court ruling that such publication violated employees’ right to privacy and a critical report by the National Academy of Public Administration. “The court recognized that the federal employees have a legitimate right to privacy regarding their personal financial information and ruled that the federal government failed to identify a compelling government interest that would justify posting that personal information on the internet,” says Kathleen Clark, JD, government ethics expert and professor of law at Washington University in St. Louis.