SPEAKER BIOGRAPHIES
Jerry Nickelsburg joined the UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and The Anderson Forecast in 2006. Since 2017 he has been the Director of The Anderson Forecast. He teaches economics in the MBA program with a focus on Asian economies. As the Director of The Anderson Forecast he plays a key role in the economic modeling and forecasting of the National, and California economies. He has conducted research in the areas of labor economics, industrial organization, statistics, and international monetary economics, focusing on the development of new data and the application of economic theory and statistical methods to policy issues. His current academic research is on specific skills, structural unemployment, and on energy efficiency in transportation. He is a regular presenter at Economic Conferences and is cited in the national media including the Financial Times, Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Reuters. He received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of Minnesota in 1980 specializing in monetary economics and econometrics. He was formerly a professor of Economics at the University of Southern California and has held executive positions with McDonnell Douglas, FlightSafety International, and FlightSafety Boeing during a fifteen-year span in the aviation business. He also held a position with the Federal Reserve Board of Governors developing forecasting tools, and has advised banks, investors and financial institutions.
From 2000 to 2006, he was the Managing Principal of Deep Blue Economics, a consulting firm he founded. He has been the recipient of the Korda Fellowship, USC Outstanding Teacher, India Chamber of Commerce Jubilee Lecturer, and he is a Fulbright Scholar. He has published over 100 scholarly and popular articles on monetary economics, economic forecasting and analysis, labor economics, and industrial organization and he is the author of two books on monetary economics and exchange rates.
David Shulman is Distinguished Visiting Professor and a “Managing Director” at the Financial Leadership Program at Baruch College where he mentors students seeking front-office careers on Wall Street, and a Visiting Scholar/Senior Economist at the UCLA Anderson Forecast where he is responsible for U.S. Macro. In addition, he is currently Managing Member of his LLC where he is engaged in investment and litigation consulting. He comments on his blog, http://shulmaven.blogspot.com. In March 2005, he retired from Lehman Brothers where he was Managing Director and Head REIT analyst. From 2001-04 he was voted on the Institutional Investor All Star Teams including First Team in 2002. Prior to joining Lehman Brothers in 2000 he was a Member and Senior Vice President at Ulysses Management LLC (1998-99) an investment manager of a private investment partnership and an offshore corporation whose total investment capital approximated $1 billion at the end of 1999.
From 1986-1997, Mr. Shulman was employed by Salomon Brothers Inc in various capacities. He was Director of Real Estate Research from 1987-91 and Chief Equity Strategist from 1992-97. In the latter capacity he was responsible for developing the Firm’s overall equity market view and maintaining the Firm’s list of recommended stocks. Mr. Shulman was widely quoted in the print and electronic media and he coined the terms “Goldilocks Economy” and “New Paradigm Economy”. In 1991, he was named a Managing Director and in 1990 he won the first annual Graaskamp Award for Excellence in Real Estate Research from the Pension Real Estate Association.
Prior to joining Salomon Brothers Inc., he was Vice President and Director of Research Planning at TCW Realty Advisors in Los Angeles. Earlier in his career Mr. Shulman was an academic. He was an Associate Professor of Management and Economics at the University of California at Riverside and Financial Economist at the UCLA Business Forecasting Project. In 2017, the David Shulman Endowed Excellence in Teaching Award Fund was established by a former student of his.
A graduate of Baruch College (1964), Mr. Shulman received his Ph.D. (1975) with a specialization in Finance and a M.B.A. (1966) from the UCLA Graduate School of Management. He is married and has three grown children.
William Yu joined the UCLA Anderson Forecast in 2011 as an economist. At Forecast he focuses on the economic modeling, forecasting and Los Angeles economy. He also conducts research and forecast on China’s economy, and its relationship with the US economy. His research interests include a wide range of economic and financial issues, such as time series econometrics, data analytics, housing markets, human capital, and innovation. Meanwhile, he teaches business forecasting, predictive analytics, and data science courses at UCLA Anderson School of Management and UCLA Extension. In 2019, he received the distinguished instructor award for digital technology from UCLA Extension. He also serves as a faculty advisor for Applied Management Research Program at Anderson School. He has published over a dozen research articles in Journal of Forecasting, International Journal of Forecasting, Journal of International Money and Finance, etc. He also wrote op-ed articles in Los Angeles Times and other newspapers. He developed the City Human Capital Index, the Los Angeles City Employment Estimate, and wrote the quarterly US-China economic report. He has been cited in the local, national and overseas media frequently including Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, New York Times, Washington Post, Time, Bloomberg, CBS Money Watch, Al Jazeera, U-T San Diego, LA Daily News, LA Daily Breeze, Straits Times, NBC, ABC, CNBC, CNN, and NPR, as well as various Chinese and Korean media. He was invited as a speaker for various events, including the annual Woo Greater China Business Conference, Cathay Bank economic outlook luncheons, and National Association for Business Economics.
He received his bachelor’s degree in finance from National Taiwan University in 1995 and was an analyst in Fubon Financial Holding in Taipei from 1997 to 2000. In 2006, he received his Ph.D. degree in economics from the University of Washington where he was also an economics instructor and won two distinguished teaching awards. In 2006, he worked for the Frank Russell Investment Group for Treasury and corporate yields modeling and forecasting. From 2006 to 2011, he served as an assistant and an associate professor of economics at Winona State University where he taught courses including forecasting methods, managerial economics, international economics, and macroeconomics.
Edward Leamer is UCLA Anderson’s Chauncey J. Medberry Professor of Management and professor of economics, professor of statistics and director of the UCLA/Anderson Business Forecast Project. His philosophy on education is straightforward. After serving as assistant and associate professor at Harvard University, Leamer joined the UCLA faculty in 1975 as professor of economics. In 1990 he moved across campus to UCLA Anderson and was appointed to the Chauncey J. Medberry Chair. He is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, and a fellow of the Econometric Society. In 2014 he won the award for Outstanding Antitrust Litigation Achievement in Economics, awarded annually by the American Antitrust Institute.
Leamer’s work has been impactful beyond the classroom and his academic research. As director of the UCLA Anderson Forecast, business practitioners in every field value his opinions. For example, in his December 2000 forecast, the UCLA Anderson Forecast (http://www.uclaforecast.com/) stood virtually alone in predicting the 2001 recession. In a special release on September 12, 2001, the Forecast correctly analyzed the likely unimportance of 9/11 for the evolution of the recession. In June 2002, Leamer began warning about a momentum-driven overheated housing market that was sure to cause problems for the economy in the future. In August of 2007 at the annual Federal Reserve Jackson Hole Symposium, Leamer argued for special targeting of housing in a paper titled “Housing IS the Business Cycle.”
Leamer is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research and has been an occasional visiting scholar at the IMF and the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. He has served on the Councils of Economic Advisors or Governor Wilson, Governor Schwarzenegger and Mayor Garcetti. He has been on the Advisory Board of the Bureau of Economic Analysis. In 2005-2006 he chaired a panel of the National Academy of Sciences on outsourcing and delivered the report to Commerce and to Congress.
He has published over 120 articles and five books and reminds those interested to hurry to Amazon.com to purchase his most recent books: either Macroeconomic Patterns and Stories, or The Craft of Economics. His research papers in econometrics have been collected in Sturdy Econometrics, published in the Edward Elgar Series of Economists of the 20th Century. His research in international economics and econometric methodology has been discussed in New Horizons in Economic Thought: Appraisals of Leading Economists.
Adam Miller is the Founder & CEO of Cornerstone OnDemand (NASDAQ: CSOD). He started Cornerstone in 1999 in his one-bedroom apartment to help people realize their potential. Under his leadership, Cornerstone has grown to become a $500 million company and is one of the largest cloud computing companies in the world. Today, Cornerstone products are used by more than 3,350 organizations worldwide, reaching more than 37 million users in 192 countries. Mr. Miller is an active social entrepreneur. He is the chairman of the Cornerstone OnDemand Foundation, which helps people who help people, with a focus on education, workforce development and disaster relief. He is the current chairman of Team Rubicon, a leading veterans services organization providing humanitarian aid globally. He led the merger of FAAN and FAI to create FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education) and serves on FARE’s executive board. In addition to his work with FARE, he helped seed Aimmune Therapeutics and create the UCLA Food Allergy Center. He is the past-president and a current director of IKAR in Los Angeles. He also coaches his children’s AYSO and tournament soccer teams.
Mr. Miller is a frequent speaker and writer on entrepreneurship, philanthropy, technology and talent management.He co-authored Business Capital for Women and was a contributor to Talent Management. Most recently, he was named #5 in The SaaS Report’s list of Top CEOs for 2017, and #8 in Comparably’s list of Best CEOs in 2017. He was also awarded the 2017 Best Practices Institute CEO Award and was honored with the HR Tech World’s UNLEASH Award in 2017.
Prior to founding Cornerstone, Mr. Miller served time as an investment banker and consultant. He holds a BA from the University of Pennsylvania, a BS from its Wharton School of Business, a JD from the UCLA School of Law, an MBA from UCLA’s Anderson School of Business, and has both CPA and Series 7 certifications. But it was his two year trip around the world in his twenties that best prepared him to run a global business.
A graduate of UCLA (B.A., ’82) and Harvard Business School, Terry Kramer has extensive technology and leadership expertise in the domestic and international telecommunications industry. Since beginning his career at Harris Corporation and Booz Allen Hamilton, Kramer has held executive roles at AirTouch, PacTel and Vodafone globally. At Vodafone, he was the group strategy officer, group HR officer and chief of staff. He was also regional president of Vodafone Americas, with responsibilities for oversight of Vodafone’s 45% interest in Verizon Wireless and Vodafone’s venture capital activities. He also served on the Executive Committee at Vodafone Group Plc. During his tenure at Vodafone, he and his family moved no fewer than eight times to locations that included London, The Hague, Dallas, Phoenix and San Francisco. The benefit: “Living in so many different places, working in so many fundamentally different environments gave me a new appreciation of contextual leadership — how leaders must be adept at assessing the different context of each leadership role to ensure a dynamic nature to their style, achieving success for that unique environment.”
While serving as an entrepreneur in residence at the Harvard Business School between 2011 and 2013, Kramer was appointed by President Obama to serve as Ambassador, Head of U.S. Delegation for the World Conference on International Telecommunications in June 2012. This delegation formulated and communicated the U.S. policy regarding the criticality of a free and open Internet as well as an inclusive, multistakeholder governance, the need to proactively address cybersecurity threats and the need for liberalized, open markets that encouraged accelerated global broadband access. The conference was covered by CNBC, New York Times and Wall Street Journal.
No stranger to the field of academia (his parents were teachers), Kramer jumped at the opportunity to work at UCLA Anderson, as it provided “a chance to engage with the next generation of leaders.” An adjunct professor at UCLA Anderson since 2013, Kramer is a full-time faculty member, teaching the foundational technology management course, covering the impact of disruptive innovation on products, services, markets and competition, and another course on the evolution and innovation in the mobile communications industry and promising areas of innovation. He is also the Faculty Director of the Easton Technology Management Center. Kramer is the Board Chair of Skylo Technologies and Harvard Business School’s California Research Center. He also serves on the advisory boards of RapidSOS and Textpert and UCLA’s Economics Department Board of Visitors.
Originally from San Carlos, California, Kramer and his wife, Suzan, currently reside in the San Francisco Bay Area, from which he commutes to Los Angeles regularly. Together they have developed a family foundation focused on education, health and human services, which “reflects our views about the impact of youth and education on our collective future.”
Allen is Regional Director of Southern California leading driver operations, driver service and marketing for territories including Los Angeles, Orange County, San Diego, Inland Empire, Santa Barbara and Bakersfield. Prior to Lyft, Allen was the first LA-based General Manager of UberEATS, Uber’s food delivery operations, where he led the launch of Uber’s first standalone app in the US and expansion to Los Angeles, San Diego, Orange County, Palm Springs and the Inland Empire. Before joining Uber, Allen co-founded Ebyline, a content marketing start-up, in 2009 and served as Chief Operating Officer. Allen earned a BBA with Distinction from the University of Michigan and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. A long-time resident of Los Angeles, Allen has been actively involved in community-based volunteering, including formerly serving on the KIPP LA Board, and coaching baseball at Ladera Height Little League.
Marcos leads VamosVentures, an early-stage Venture Capital fund focused on driving innovation and transformation by investing in the best and brightest Latino/a tech entrepreneurs in the USA. Backed by leading foundations, family offices and national Hispanic business leaders, VamosVentures is the first US Latino owned venture capital fund with a mandate to specifically invest in early-stage Hispanic & diverse founders in the USA and drive wealth creation and economic social mobility. Marcos began his career at IBM and then joined the Boston Consulting Group after business school. After several years Marcos entered the private equity industry, most recently as a principal with Darby Private Equity in Washington DC. In between funds, Marcos co-founded a Boston-based tech company where he and his partners raised $10mm and later sold the company to a strategic investor.
The Alumni Society is well represented at VamosVentures as many of the fund’s partners, advisors and investors are Alumni Society members.
Marcos was born in Los Angeles to Mexican immigrant parents, graduated from Brown University, earned an MBA from Harvard, and now resides in Los Angeles. Marcos can be reached at Marcos@VamosVentures.com.
Maria S. Salinas is the President & CEO of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, the largest business association in Los Angeles County representing more than 1,600-member companies and serving the interests of more than 235,000 businesses across the Los Angeles region. Ms. Salinas took the helm of the organization in August of 2018 and became the first woman and Latina to lead the Chamber in its 130 year history. An accomplished business woman, entrepreneur and a stalwart community leader, Ms. Salinas’ business acumen and financial expertise provides her with the right experience to lead the L.A. Chamber. In her new role, Ms. Salinas is committed to amplify the voice of business in all aspects of public policy, growth in emerging sectors and global expansion. Under her leadership, the Chamber has focused on key strategic initiatives including expanding its advocacy for a business-friendly environment, promoting the spirit of innovation and entrepreneurship throughout the region, and expanding global influence.
Ms. Salinas represents the Los Angeles business community in state-wide policy initiatives with the Coalition of Regional Economic Association Leaders (R.E.A.L.), she is a member of the Board of Directors of Mobility 21, a regional transportation effort, and was appointed by Mayor Garcetti to the MEXLA Commission, a foreign policy initiative between Mexico and Los Angeles. She also serves on the Board of Directors of Pacific Council, Southern California Leadership Network, Unite-LA, Los Angeles Economic Development Corporation, Los Angeles County Business Federation and the Los Angeles Sports Council.
Prior to the L.A. Chamber, Ms. Salinas was an entrepreneur having founded Salinas Consulting, a finance and accounting consultancy firm. Previously, she held financial leadership roles with The Walt Disney Company, including responsibility for global financial reporting for the Consumer Products division. Ms. Salinas began her career in public accounting with the firms of Ernst & Young and Kenneth Leventhal & Company.
As a corporate director, Ms. Salinas is former Chairwoman of ProAmérica Bank, a community bank in Los Angeles, where she was a Founding Organizer and Director, serving since the bank’s inception in 2005. She held a variety of leadership roles on the Board including Chair of the Audit Committee prior to being appointed Chairwoman. Ms. Salinas led the merger transaction with Pacific Commerce Bank which successfully closed in 2016.
Ms. Salinas is a graduate of Loyola Marymount University (LMU), earning a Bachelor of Science in Accounting in 1987. She is currently Chair of the Board of Regents and member of the Board of Trustees at LMU, Board Chair of UnidosUS, and member of the founding Board of Directors of Kaiser Permanente School of Medicine. Over the years, she has served numerous esteemed civic and non-profit organization and has been recognized for her leadership and community service.
Ms. Salinas lives in Pasadena, California, with her husband Raul, a prominent Los Angeles attorney, and their four sons.