Hong Kong Haas power! Travis Darrow supports the Annual Cal/Haas Banking and Finance event with alumni and MBA students

Dear Cal and Haas Banking and Finance Executives,

Happy new year 2010! For several years we've hosted a great event for our Banking and Finance executives in Hong Kong when the Berkeley Haas MBA students visit on their China trek company visits. This has ranged from a dinner talk by Waverly Ding, in 2007 at the Yellow Door, and happy hour at Armani Bar in 2008. Hong Kong Haas power gets stronger every year! : )

During their Hong Kong visit the University of California Berkeley, Haas School of Business MBA students this week are meeting with Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Fidelity, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan, Nomura, Deutsche Bank, Barclays, and Citi to discuss their internships in the summer and jobs after graduation. Their first day meetings was capped off by catching up with banking and finance alumni at this event!

On Jan 5 from 7pm - 9pm we rocked the Chater House, Armani Bar. Some of the (about 50) alumni guests from the HK Banking and Finance field included:
• Catherine Ho, Nomura
• Geetika Pannu, HSBC
• Kong Wong, China Everbright
• James Man, Director, Inter-Asia Venture Management
• Jake Turner, The Lawyer, Citi Asia
• Jiffiry Chandra, Partner CIO, Income Partners
• John Yu, Director, Keywise Capital
• Phil Tran, Private Equity
• Raymond Kei, MSCIBarra
• Stewart Ballard, MD, Sindicatum Private Equity
• Tricia Tran, AVP, Credit Suisse
• Winston Cheng, MD, Goldman Sachs
• Zhenzhen Qi, MSCIBarra
• 14 MBA students from Haas and Ainka Fulani from Career Services
• Travis Darrow, Berkeley Club of Hong Kong : )
• Conspicuously absent?  MBAs Freeman Ding and Bernie Murphy

We actually were not the only such party at this venue that night. NYU Stern had a big sign projected on the wall in the back lounge and a little sign in front of the entire bar entrance. Supposedly MIT was also having an event at Armani bar too. But both those sections were fairly empty compared to our display of Haas power. There were even reports of MIT and NYU students asking to join our event. However, I did not see or hear this first hand myself. No problem for us if they want to join. Berkeley is famous for having an open culture and confidence without attitude. Also the US top Universities alumni associations in Hong Kong have much love for each other here. Obviously the overall pool of US alumni here is smaller than in the US so it makes sense but also the alumni association culture seems to be more active with US Universities compared to other regions Universities. It’s an interesting phenomenon I should write about more..

After this week, their next stop is Shanghai which makes sense as I’ve written about the ShangKong finance connection in the past: http://travisdarrow.blogspot.com/2009/06/travis-darrow-attends-haas-alumni.html.

Along with the requests from companies to get in touch with these students about summer and post graduation employment their visit also reconnected me with them related to the Haas Asia Business Conference 2010 and working with one of this year’s organizers, Siong Ang.

Congratulations to the HAN-Hong Kong Organizing Committee: James Man, Fred Lam, Richard An, Amy Fung and Beidi Zheng.

Here is also a link to the event pix and many previous year's events.  Enjoy: http://www.flickr.com/photos/travisdarrow/sets/

Best regards and go bears!
-Travis Darrow

Berkeley Club of Hong Kong
External Relations Officer
M: +852-6718-1339
E: travis.darrow@gmail.com
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6997611237

Travis Darrow attends, Haas Alumni Network Shanghai with the Berkeley Shanghai Club

Big Names, Big Turnout

This month, I was lucky to be in town for some financial services and communications and media meetings and able to attend a great event in Shanghai with many Haas and Cal alumni and friends.

80 some attendees gathered at Haas alum Min Yoo’s famous Hong Kong and Shanghai Billards Club, Racks in Xintiandi which included the following special guests:

· Dean Rich Lyons, Haas School of Business, University of California Berkeley

· Professor Frank Schultz, Haas Economic Analysis and Policy Group

· Professor Paul Tiffany, Haas Business and Public Policy Group

· Jeanne HuangLi, Senior Development Director, Haas School of Business

· Bernie Murphy and Freeman Ding, Haas School of Business new admits

· 20 current students from Haas in China with Professor Schultz for a study tour

· Travis Darrow, Berkeley Club of Hong Kong : )

Haas Prof Shares Performance Insights

Despite the challenging task of speaking in a lively bar environment Haas Professor Schultz gave an excellent and actionable talk on "Deliberate Practice: Achieving Outstanding Performance for Individuals and Organizations."

Dr. Schultz’ research interests focus on the strategic decision making of CEOs and senior executives, the methods of balancing stakeholder interests and the manner in which the mental models of executives influence the evolution of firms and industries. Deliberate Practice is an emerging concept that strives to illuminate the secret ingredients of outstanding performance -- across all areas of life. As successful regional sales manager, basketball player and Berkeley Club of Hong Kong community leader I’ve always been focused on constant improvement and innovation so I definitely look forward to his book on the subject. http://www.haas.berkeley.edu/faculty/schultz.html.

Dean Rich Lyons, inspired us in his high level talk about things going on at the Haas School these days and it’s strategic focus on Asia. In outlining some of these Haas values I found they also really resonate with many Asian cultural and business values.

· Being part of a community and valuing diversity

· Adding value in team-based, collaborative ways

· Managing ambiguity and uncertainty (which is so common in the fast moving China market)

· and perhaps most important confidence without attitude

He closed with reaffirming the School’s commitment and focus on Asia and that while the term "American Century" was coined at the end of World War II by Time magazine founder Henry Booth-Luce, the current and future world we live will be strongly influenced by Asia.

ShangKong -- A New Partnership Strategy?

This also brings me to the question of this new concept of, ShangKong (Shanghai – Hong Kong), and what might it mean for an Asia strategy? ShangKong is this idea of an emerging new financial center of Asia, possibly the world: a partnership of Shanghai and Hong Kong. Part of this arose after China’s State Council announced on 25 March a decision to speed up Shanghai as an International Financial Center by 2020. Jeffrey Garten, former of the Clinton administration wrote about this ShangKong concept in the Financial Times, just last month. In his view enhanced ties between the two cities are underway, and combined with China's creditor status, the weakness of the dollar and other factors, we have the rise of ShangKong as a new world financial center. Of course it begs the question if Shanghai can be an “IFC” without full convertibility of currency and a more transparency regime. While Shanghai’s stock market PE ratios are high and there is liquidity, Hong Kong still leads on the big IPOs now and in the past like Bank of China, CITIC, and China Pacific Insurance of which I had a chance to work on, but the Shanghai Stock market is one of the best performing in the world in 2009.

From a Haas Berkeley Shanghai and Berkeley Club of Hong Kong perspective we are thinking about this trend. I connected with new leaders Justin and Rong, and reconnected with Ann and Louisa (who I had even worked with on the Haas Asia Business Conference when she was co-chair back in 2002!). So expect to hear more from us and our ShangKong connection in the future.

Congratulations to the HAN-Shanghai Organizing Committee: Ann, Justin, Rong, Louisa, Haibin, Sharon, and Zhaohui.

Thanks again to Dean Rich Lyons, Professor Frank Schultz, Professor Paul Tiffany, Jeanne HuangLi, Bernie Murphy and Freeman Ding for their special attendance you continue to inspire and support us so much.

Here’s to more ShangKong events in the future.

Best regards and go bears!

Travis Darrow

Berkeley Club of Hong Kong

http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6997611237

Annual Berkeley of Hong Kong Scholarship Ball 2009

http://my.berkeley.edu/site/Clubs?club_id=1181&sid=4120&pg=event

posted by Travis Darrow