The MBA Insider's Blog

Bloomberg Businessweek's Q&A with UCLA Anderson's Rob Weiler

Rob Weiler, interim director of MBA admissions at UCLA Anderson, is featured in Bloomberg Businessweek this week describing the qualities that sets Anderson and our students apart from other programs and providing valuable insight into the MBA application process. 

Rob has many ties to Anderson.  In addition to his admissions role, Rob is also the assistant dean of the Parker Career Management Center, and thus brings a wealth of knowledge on the ways Anderson prepares students to successfully manage their career search.  As an alumnus of the program, he also has some great stories to share about his time here as a student. 

To read Rob's full interview, click here. 

UCLA Anderson Spotlight: MBA Program Helps Platoon Commander Transition from Military to Consulting

As a platoon commander in the U.S. Marine Corps for four years, leadership was a big part of Jonathan Um’s day-to-day job. Heading his platoon both in the U.S. and in Iraq, he analyzed intelligence reports, acted on limited information, and worked with parties having different agendas. During that time, he became increasingly interested in gaining a more formal understanding of the management process and challenges of leadership. So when his military service ended in 2009, pursuing an MBA was the next logical step in his career path.

“UCLA Anderson was a great fit not only because my wife and I wanted to stay in southern California, but because it has such a strong focus on management and leadership principles,” he says. “I already had a law degree, but being a lawyer is very different from being an executive and I knew when I finished my military service that I wanted to go into management. The lessons I learned in the military have turned out to be very applicable to the MBA program where we work with data and facts to support business cases and projects. I’ve found a lot of commonalities between what I did in Iraq and in the military in general and business.”

Um, a native of New York, adds that he’s found UCLA to have a very military-friendly campus. “There are quite a few veterans in the MBA program and one student is actually still on active duty in the U.S. Airforce. The administration really supports veterans with things like the Yellow Ribbon Program and a special boot camp for veteran entrepreneurs in the summer. Plus, there’s a pretty big veteran military community in southern California so we have a big network.”

As for the transition from military life to school, Um says that the rigor of the first year was very challenging. “I was surprised because there is a conception about business school that it’s all about networking and transitioning into your next career. It is about those things, but UCLA Anderson gives you much more. We learned so many concrete tools through the curriculum that even after the first year, I felt like I was thinking differently and approaching problems differently.”

He notes that a highlight of his second year has been working on an independent study project with Prof. Jeffrey Dubin for the Mayor’s Office of Los Angeles. “We studied the market for electric vehicles in LA, conducting a survey, collecting data, and presenting our results to the client. It’s been a great learning experience using the actual tools we learned from the curriculum, building models, and applying techniques for real-life business issues.”

Um, who plans to work for McKinsey as a consultant after graduation, credits his UCLA Anderson education with opening the door to the business world. “Without UCLA Anderson, I wouldn’t have built this network or had these learning and business opportunities. I’ve really boosted my career here – there was no better place I could have gone to start this next phase of my career,” he says.

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MBA Admissions and Financial Aid

UCLA Anderson MBA Attracts New Recruiters for Interns and Grads

The school recently announced new leadership in its Parker Career Management Center for MBA students. Parker's interim director, Rob Weiler, a UCLA Anderson MBA grad and former Wall Street investment banker, has been appointed Assistant Dean of the career center. He is joined by Regina Regazzi, a UCLA Anderson MBA grad from New York with extensive finance and head hunting experience, as the new Executive Director of Corporate Relations for the career center.

Regina will devote her energies to supporting existing relations with corporate recruiters who hire UClA Anderson MBA grads, as well as forging new recruiter relationships. She will build on the achievements of the Parker Center that have occurred during Rob's tenure. In particular, she will build upon Rob's successes in creating new relationships with companies who have had not traditionally recruited UCLA Anderson students, as well as re-establishing relationships with firms that had been on hiatus with the school. 

New UCLA Anderson MBA recruiters include: 

• American Express
• Banco Santader
• OneWest Bank
• American Airlines
• PG&E
• FedEx
• Symantec
• Neutrogena
• Dole Foods
• Under Armour
• Bloomberg
• Harris Williams
• Credit Suisse-NY

We welcome our new recruiters. And we welcome prospective students to get to know us better. We are an MBA program on the move. As we begin our year-long celebration of our 75th Anniversary, we invite you to learn how our students, alumni and faculty engage in Business Beyond Usual: for careers in which they not only achieve traditional monetary and personal success, but have spheres of impact that shape both business and the communities in which they live and work.

50 Ways to Measure Diversity

Second year MBA student Sreesha Vaman shares his perspective on diversity, which was shaped by his summer internship at Harrah's Entertainment. Read his post on the UCLA Anderson MBA Student Voice blog.

UCLA Anderson Announces New MBA Career Center Leadership

After a national search, we are delighted to announce the appointment of two outstanding professionals to leadership roles in the Parker Career Management Center (PCMC).  Both are also leaders in the UCLA Anderson alumni community.

Rob Weiler, Anderson Class of 1991, who has been serving as Interim Director of the Center, will be appointed as Assistant Dean, PCMC, leading the Center’s strategy and operations. He will assume the position held earlier by Eric Mokover, now Associate Dean, External Affairs and Executive Director, Alumni Relations.  We are grateful to Eric for the dedicated leadership he provided for nearly seven years to the PCMC.

Regina Regazzi, Anderson Class of 1997, was recruited into a new position, becoming the Center’s Executive Director, Corporate Relations.  She will oversee the outreach efforts of the PCMC, and the attraction of employers to recruit at the school.

Rob Weiler has spent over 16 years in the financial sector.  Starting his career in sales and trading with Goldman Sachs, he later worked in Private Banking at Union Bank of Switzerland and then led a team in the Private Client Services Group at TCW.  Over the course of his career in financial services, Rob developed, serviced and nurtured relationships with high net worth individuals, foundations, endowments and fund-of-funds, while advancing his expertise in asset allocation, equities, fixed income and alternative investments.  In September 2007, he joined the PCMC as an Executive-in-Residence focused on the financial sector and on preparing students for that industry.

Rob earned a BA in economics from the University of Virginia and, in 2004, served as the President of UCLA Anderson's Alumni Board of Directors.

Regina Regazzi founded Artume LLC, an executive recruiting and career-consulting firm based in New York. Her executive recruiting career began at Spencer Stuart, an international executive search firm and continued at Prince Goldsmith, a New York-based boutique firm.  With both companies, she concentrated on financial services recruiting.  Prior to executive recruiting, Regina worked in originations for Bank of America's Leasing and Capital Group and for Greenwich Associates, a financial services market research and consulting firm.

Throughout her professional life, Regina has provided career counseling to diverse populations, from recent college graduates to high-level executives.

Regina has been involved in UCLA Anderson alumni activities since she graduated, including terms as president of the Bay Area chapter and as alumni board chair of chapter presidents.  She served as President of UCLA Anderson's Alumni Board of Directors between 2008 and 2010.  She has also collaborated with admissions and development.  She received the UCLA Anderson Outstanding Alumni Service Award in 2005.

Regina received a Bachelor of Arts in Philosophy from Colgate University and served on Colgate's Alumni Corporation Board of Directors.  She received the Ann Yao Memorial Young Alumni Award and a Maroon Citation for her service to the school.

Rob and Regina will work closely with our students, faculty and recruiting partners to enhance the employment preparedness and opportunities of our students.  We are especially excited about the energy and ideas Rob and Regina bring to their roles. Please join us in welcoming them into their new positions. 

UCLA Anderson Career Fair welcomes MBA recruiters to campus

Last Friday, April 30, 2010, UCLA Anderson held its second annual career fair. The fair attracted over 35 companies and more than 80 recruiters. This is one of the many resources that our Parker Career Management Center offers to our students during their MBA years.

We plan to add more video content on our blog to showcase some of the different people and programs at UCLA Anderson over the coming months to help you get a better perspective on our school.

Adrian Aguirre
Associate Director of MBA Admissions
UCLA Anderson School of Management

MBA Grads Engage in Global Development Organizations

UCLA Anderson alumnus, Tim Elliott, (Full-Time MBA ’04) was featured in a BusinessWeek piece today about the increasing number of MBA graduates who are opting to participate in global development organizations, such as MBAs Without Borders. 

MBA Sports Business Association Hosts Annual Career Tonight

The UCLA Anderson MBA Sports Business Association (SBA) is hosting its annual career night this evening. Keynote speaker is Kelly Perdew, CEO of Rotohog, former US intelligence officer and manager at Deloitte Consulting. Guest panelists include an impressive list of professionals, including Gibby McCaleb, CEO and Co-founder of sports forecasting company Accuscore; Ryan Spillers, Marketing Manager of Anaheim Ducks and Honda Center; Tara Weldon, Senior Marketing Manager of Club Deportivo Chivas USA; Richard Colback, CEO of Epicstates strategy and business intelligence firm; and Sean Woodle, Senior Director of Multicultural Business Development at ESPN, and others. MBAs can, indeed, turn their avocations into a vocations.

MBA Students and Internships in a Tough Job Market

UCLA Anderson MBA student, Alejandro Tinajero, posted a journal article in Business Week on his search for an internship this year. As with many MBA students, his initial goal was to follow the well-worn path to investment banking, only to find it was not the "logical" choice for him. Read Alejandro's article here...