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Apply to Work with UCLA Anderson Consulting Teams

 

We are now accepting applications for our 2024 SMR program. The application deadline is October 31, 2023

Anderson’s Strategic Management Research program gives organizations in the U.S. and worldwide the opportunity to engage a management consulting team of five experienced professionals in their final year of study for the Executive MBA. The Executive MBA Field Study is led and administered by world-renowned faculty who have extensive experience managing field study programs in both academic and professional settings.

The executive MBA team represents a cross-section of business functions and specialties, such as marketing, finance, technology, and operations. Each of these individual professionals brings, on average, 15 years of work experience to your project.

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Introduce Yourself

A Program With Real Benefits

 
The UCLA Anderson Executive MBA Field Study Program pairs companies with dynamic teams. These teams work to create investment-quality, strategic recommendations to key business/industry issues with financial projections using state-of-the-art management frameworks and analysis techniques. Companies gain access to the school’s extensive resources, including a network of professionals and a comprehensive business and industry database.
Partner with Diverse Professionals
On average, UCLA Anderson Executive MBA students are 39 years old, fully employed, multi-talented and have an average of 15 years of professional experience.
Develop the Research Plan and Project Scope
Meet with students at UCLA Anderson for two days to evaluate the current strategic plan, corporate growth strategies and market opportunities to define the depth of the project.
Conduct and Analyze the Research
Each UCLA Anderson Executive MBA Field Study team will conduct approximately 100 personal interviews with customers, experts, distributors/resellers, and consultants.
Embark On Your New Strategic Plan
Executives return to UCLA to receive a comprehensive business plan and observe the teams’ findings as they are presented to a panel of expert judges.

Global Reach of Our Recent Projects

 
San Francisco • Los Angeles • New York • Washington, D.C. • Bogota • São Paulo
Frankfurt • Tel Aviv • Bengaluru • Bangkok • Singapore • Shanghai • Melbourne
View Class Profile

Typical Project Industries

 
Financial Services
Health Care
Entertainment
Technology
Telecommunications
Food Services
Social Impact
Legal

Past Participating Organizations

 
Grid of company logos

Field Study Faculty Advisors

 
Paulo de Rezende
Paulo de Rezende

Faculty Director

Strategic Research Programs

Paulo de Rezende

paulo.de.rezende@anderson.ucla.edu

Paulo de Rezende has over fifteen years of experience in investment management, both in Venture Capital and Private Equity, having worked sourced, negotiated and managed deals in both United States and Brazil.

Bill Seeger
Senior Faculty Advisor

Bill Seeger

bill.seeger@gmail.com

Bill Seeger developed his global financial experience at TRW, where he spent 30 years in the automotive, aerospace, energy and electronics sectors. Seeger held positions as division CFO, corporate treasurer, VP finance – automotive, VP finance – aerospace and VP planning and analysis. He has lived in the U.K. for the past seven years and is currently on the board of directors of Smiths Group and Spectris, U.K. engineering and industrial companies.

Marci Arena-Richard
Marci Arena-Richard
Faculty Advisor

Marci Arena-Richard

marci.arena-richard@anderson.ucla.edu

Marci Arena-Richard is a Los Angeles based sales Executive with over twenty-six years of experience at a Fortune 500 technology company where she most recently was Client Director for large Media and Entertainment clients including Comcast/NBCU and Disney. Her responsibilities included leading strategic initiatives focused on cognitive data and analytics strategies, global consulting and business development and management of complex solutions.

Prior to the M&E industry roles, she drove business development and innovations in the Healthcare Industry, led large West region competitive sales teams, onboarded, mentored, and educated new talent and sales enablement on programs, campaigns, and exploration of depth and breadth of investment funding and tools across the company.
 

Her strongest attributes are in relationship building at the C suite and executive levels, leading and motivating teams, project management and alignment of resources to ensure successful and synergistic environments.
 

As well as her professional contributions, she has continued her business education with certifications and classes from Wharton School of Business, Master Dealmaker Program, Harvard Executive Professional Education and Boston University School of Management.  She recently completed her Diversity and Inclusion certification with Cornell University. Marci resides in Redondo Beach, California and is involved in animal advocacy and dog rescue.

Mitch Feinman
Mitch Feinman
Faculty Advisor

Mitch Feinman

mitch.feinman@anderson.ucla.edu

A leading voice at the intersection of media, technology and data with over 25 years of experience in online, mobile, connected TV and AI, Mitch Feinman’s accomplishments have ranged from running the American Idol text-message voting program to launching the first websites for ABCNEWS, The Academy Awards and Oprah Winfrey. Currently Mitch oversees Strategy and Business Development for The Weather Company, part of IBM Watson, including partnerships with companies such as Samsung, Apple and Google that drive traffic, revenue and branding.

Before IBM/Weather, Mitch oversaw business development for a “big data” company founded by the inventor of Google AdSense that offers places/location data to Facebook, Apple, and Uber and that was acquired in spring 2020 by Foursquare.

Prior Mitch was part of a global partnerships team at Google that distributed YouTube optimized

for mobile and OTT devices globally, growing TV from 0 to 100M daily views in 5 years. Before Google, Mitch was a Senior Vice President at News Corp., including founding and running Fox Mobile Entertainment. In addition to the American Idol text-message voting initiative, he launched FOX in Flight on JetBlue and oversaw development of what are still some of the best-selling mobile games including for The Simpsons, Family Guy and Ice Age.

Prior as a Vice President at Disney’s ABC TV division, Mitch launched the first web sites for ABCNEWS.com as well as for ABC TV partners The Academy of Motion Pictures Arts and Sciences and Harpo Productions the first web sites for the Oscars and The Oprah Winfrey Show,

respectively.

Subsequent to business school, Mitch was a senior consultant at Regis McKenna, a 50-year-old+, boutique marketing strategy consulting firm based in Silicon Valley that helped launch the MacIntosh computer. While there Mitch launched the first consumer electronic travel reservations service for a US airline and its partner British Airways as well as advised the Electronic Frontier Foundation on its anti-censorship, purple-ribbon campaign.

Mitch is a regular speaker/moderator at industry events and conferences such as Digital Hollywood and has served on the Boards of the Mobile Marketing Association (MMA) and USC’s Communications & Technology Management Institute. Mitch graduated magna cum laude with a BA from the University of Pennsylvania and also earned an MBA from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.

Mitch lives in Brentwood with his wife Abby, a trusts and estates partner at a national law firm with an office in Century City, they have 2 college-age sons and a Golden Cavapoo named Max.

George Ingersoll
Faculty Advisor

George Ingersoll

george.ingersoll@anderson.ucla.edu

George Ingersoll is the associate dean of master’s and professional education at the USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences. In this role, Ingersoll helps expand the college’s footprint in non-doctoral graduate education, including online and certificate programs. Previously, he was the associate dean of hybrid learning and executive MBA programs at the UCLA Anderson School of Management. In addition to being a current UCLA Anderson faculty adviser, Ingersoll has also worked with UCLA faculty colleagues to expand the use of media and instructional technology across the curriculum.

Paul Park
Paul Park
Senior Faculty Advisor

Paul Park

paul.park@anderson.ucla.edu

Paul Park is a lecturer at the UCLA Anderson School of Management, where he serves as a faculty advisor for the Strategic Management Research program, the Applied Management Research program and the Global Access Program. Park’s field research projects have focused on international and social impact clients with a variety of business objectives, including venture initiation, market entry, marketing strategy and supply chain management. He is also a lecturer at the UCLA International Institute, where he teaches courses on social entrepreneurship and international business.

Company Commitment

 

Organization Selection Criteria

The Organization:

  • Employs six or more employees (not including board members), has been operating at least one year, and is financially stable
  • Provides at least one dedicated project manager who will work with the team approximately two hours per week or more
  • Designates an alternate liaison in case the primary liaison becomes unavailable during the course of the project
  • Participates in the project launch weekend and attends the final deliverable presentation
  • Provides full access to relevant strategic and financial data, which will be protected under the confidentiality agreement

Our Rates

We apply 60% of your fee directly back into your project’s research.

  • Large Enterprises (Non-U.S. focused project) - $20,000
  • Large Enterprises (U.S.-focused project) - $17,500
  • Small-to-Medium Enterprises - $15,000
  • Non-Profit Organization - $7,500

Program Schedule for 2023

 
Application Deadline
October 31, 2023
Project Launch
January 5-7, 2024
Deliverable Date
June 1, 2023
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