<p>No surprise to me. Great contacts as well as a good local connection for people who plan to stay in-state after college.</p>
<p>it also says in the article that ivy's represent 10% of CEO's... i'm sure the ivy's represent less than 1% of the college population.</p>
<p>(Barrons would be soooo proud of me ;) )</p>
<p>“Harvard and Wisconsin Tie in Turning Out the Most CEOs in U.S.”</p>
<p>That was the headline in the September 2004 issue of Bloomberg Markets magazine. The article showed the*** University of Wisconsin tied with Harvard for educating the most CEOs of S&P 500 companies.*** Both schools outranked Princeton, Stanford, Yale and other prestigious universities.</p>
<p>To most people, it probably came as no surprise that Harvard turned out a large number of corporate leaders. Harvard students often grow up in families with parents who lead businesses. Many move from prep school to Harvard Yard, all with the understanding that they, too, will one day lead an organization. </p>
<p>But Wisconsin? A public university perhaps known more for “beer, bicycles and Birkenstocks” and less for gold-plated pedigrees? Yes, Wisconsin was right up there with the best the Ivy League could offer when it came to CEO production. </p>
<p>So what is it about Wisconsin that seems to breed leadership? Why are Wisconsin alumni more apt to rise to the role of leader than graduates of other top schools? </p>
<p>Let’s come back to those questions. First, we need to consider what it takes to be a leader. Amazon.com lists more than 95,000 books on the subject of leadership. Nearly everyone has an opinion on how leaders are created. Some say charisma is key, others argue intelligence is most important. Some say education makes the difference, others argue the “school of hard knocks” creates the best leaders. Still others argue that while technical skills may be important, the most knowledgeable individuals do not necessarily make the best leaders.</p>
<p>The concept of leadership is very complex, and many people are struggling to find the magic recipe for creating a leader. Jack Welch, the renowned former CEO of GE, summed up leadership in a catchy phrase. According to Welch, leaders should exhibit four “E’s” wrapped in a “P” – Energy, Energize, Edge, Execute, all wrapped up in Passion. </p>
<p>Does the Harvard brand matter anymore?</p>
<p>1980 grads reflect on what they learned
By Greg Farrell
USA TODAY </p>
<p>Harvard. Just the name exudes superiority, if not smugness. From its “Veritas” coat of arms to the Georgian-era brick edifices that dot its campus, everything about this storied institution, founded in 1636, smacks of that most un-American trait, elitism.</p>
<p>As Harvard prepares to confer degrees on yet another batch of graduates Thursday, academic experts scratch their heads at how this institution maintains its reputational dominance in an era of academic parity. But a marketer would understand the Harvard aura in a nanosecond: It's the ultimate brand, at least in the academic world.</p>
<p>“There isn't any doubt that brand matters and that Harvard is the prestige brand,” says Stanley Katz, director of Princeton University's Center for Arts and Cultural Policy Studies. “It's the Gucci of higher education, the most selective place.”</p>
<p>Never mind the price tag (upward of $40,000 per year for tuition, room and board), or the fact that guides such as the U.S. News & World Report ranking of colleges and universities say the differences between Harvard and other top-ranked schools are microscopically small. The gulf that separates Harvard from the rest in terms of reputation remains enormous.</p>
<p>“It used to be the case that of students who were admitted to Harvard and Princeton or Harvard and Yale, seven of 10 would choose to go to Harvard,” Katz says. “It may be more now. There is a tendency for the academically best to skew even more to Harvard. We just get our socks beat off in those cases.”</p>
<p>A study by Spencer Stuart, the executive search firm, shows that as of 2004, Harvard no longer owns the No. 1 ranking as the university attended by the most CEOs of Standard & Poor's 500 companies (just under 4%). The school that caught up to it: the University of Wisconsin. </p>
<p>Harvard and Wisconsin Tie in Turning Out the Most CEOs in U.S.
<a href="http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=nifea&&sid=aIMI5Fx8d9sM%5B/url%5D">http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=nifea&&sid=aIMI5Fx8d9sM</a></p>
<p>July 30 (Bloomberg) -- Ryan Hertel, a student tour guide at the University of Wisconsin's Madison campus, pauses before the Old Red Gym, a former armory firebombed by Vietnam War protesters in 1970. That same year, homemade explosives killed a graduate student in physics working late into the night. </p>
<p>The article goes on to state:</p>
<p>Wisconsin's CEO honor roll, from all of its campuses, includes Carol Bartz, 55, CEO of Autodesk Inc., which makes software for architects and engineers; Thomas Falk, 46, who runs Kimberly-Clark Corp., the largest U.S. maker of disposable diapers; and Lee Raymond, 65, head of Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company. </p>
<p>Harvard alumni include Steve Ballmer, 48, CEO of Microsoft Corp., the world's largest software maker; Franklin Raines, 55, who heads Fannie Mae, the largest source of U.S. mortgage money; and Sumner Redstone, 81, CEO of Viacom Inc., the third-largest U.S. media company. </p>
<p>Harvard and Wisconsin outrank both Princeton University and Stanford University, two private institutions that tied for third place in educating the most CEOs. </p>
<p>State Universities </p>
<p>***Big state universities like Wisconsin outpace their private counterparts in educating CEOs. Chief executives are four times more likely to have earned their undergraduate degrees from a publicly funded university than from an Ivy League school. </p>
<p>The top 10 educators of CEOs also include the University of Texas, City University of New York and the University of North Carolina. </p>
<p>``There should be more respect for the kind of education you can get from a large public institution,'' says Sim Sitkin, founding director of the Center of Leadership and Ethics at the Fuqua School of Business, at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
``Senior executives in large companies need not only come from an isolated elite but need to be able to relate to a wide spectrum of people,'' he says. ***
Trying Harder
***The preponderance of CEOs educated at public universities may result from the schools' numerical advantage: Only 0.8 percent of the nation's estimated 7.5 million four-year college students attended the nation's eight Ivy League schools in 2001.
Wisconsin and other state schools may turn out more CEOs because their graduates have to try harder, says Maury Hanigan, founder of Hanigan Consulting Group, a New York-based consultant on human resources strategy. ***
``The kids who went to Harvard tend to be dynasty kids, fairly privileged, not the kids who scrap hard enough to work their way up to the top,'' Hanigan says.
`MBA is Preferred </p> <p>Michael Dell, 39, chairman and former CEO of Round Rock, Texas-based Dell Inc., the world's largest personal computer maker, left the University of Texas in 1984 after his freshman year. </p> <p>At least 16 current CEOs never got an undergraduate degree. Steve Jobs, 49, CEO of Apple Computer Inc., quit Reed College in Portland, Oregon, after one semester. </p> <p>Other dropout CEOs include James Cayne, 70, of Bear Stearns Cos., the seventh-biggest securities firm, who left Indiana's Purdue University, and Wayne Inouye, 51, CEO of PC maker Gateway Inc., who left the University of California, Berkeley, to join a blues band. </p> <p>For CEOs who did finish college, an MBA is the preferred graduate credential. More than a third of the 500 U.S. chief executives -- 37.5 percent -- earned their MBAs, and they were three times as likely to have gone to Harvard Business School in Boston than to any other school. </p> <p>Degree Importance Fades </p> <p>***By the time executives are considered for a CEO job, their degree often fades in importance, says Tom Neff, former chairman of executive search firm Spencer Stuart Inc. ``It's a rare occasion when a client says I want a graduate of an Ivy League school or Harvard,'' Neff says. ***
Track Record
David Nosal, head of CEO recruitment at Korn/Ferry International, the world's largest executive search firm, looks at a candidate's ethics and experience.
``A track record of success in building organizations, a record of leadership and delivering the highest level of results are far more important for a CEO than attending an Ivy League college,'' he says.
CEOs who graduated from public universities say working their way through school helped instill a strong work ethic.
``I think it's a very telling tale about an individual,'' says Terry Lundgren, 52-year-old CEO of Cincinnati-based Federated Department Stores Inc., who likes to hire graduates who also put themselves through school. </p>
<p>As a student at the University of Arizona, Lundgren cracked oysters and peeled shrimp at a Tucson restaurant, working his way up to manager. </p>
<p>For shareholders of S&P 500 companies, there may be an even better argument for a Wisconsin education. In the 12 months ended on June 30, stocks of companies led by Wisconsin grads returned 27.4 percent -- a little more than 2 percentage points better than companies led by Harvard grads.</p>
<p>The importance of degree fades in CEOs selection process, but gender matters a lot. Top schools have 50% female students but a small fraction end up in leadership positions. (There are only about 10 female CEOs among Fortune500 companies. Just shows that the education in top schools has little bearing on one's ability to become a CEO which is essentially a male bastion.)</p>
<p>Presumably very smart female students join top private schools. Would it have been better for them if they mostly joined public Univs where they probably could raise their collective profile more easily because they'd be be at the top of their classes? Just wondering...</p>
<p>Yeah, my dad went to a 2nd rate state university here.</p>
<p>This is why I'm fine going to Indiana. A prestigious school means very little.</p>
<p>Anne Mulcahy- CEO, Xerox - Marymount Manhattan</p>
<p>Brenda Barnes -Chief Executive Officer, Sara Lee -Augustana College in Illinois</p>
<p>Patricia Russo -Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Lucent Technology- Georgetwon University (political science and history)</p>
<p>Andrea Jung -President & CEO, Avon Products - Princeton</p>
<p>Meg Whitman President & CEO, eBay Technologies - Princeton</p>
<p>Shelly Lazarus -Chairman & CEO, Ogilvy & Mather - Smith College</p>
<p>Marjorie Scardino Business Executive (1997- CEO of Pearson, first woman to head a top 100 firm on the London Stock Exchange- Baylor</p>
<p>Judith Regan -Publisher (ReganBooks @ Harper Collins) Vassar</p>
<p>Muriel "Mickey" Siebert Stockbroker (1967 she became the first woman to purchase a seat on the New York Stock Exchange ) -Case Western</p>
<p>Claire Babrowski -Radio shack - University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign</p>