The council, comprising senior communications professionals and academics had met in October to share insights on trends, challenges and best practices in the real world of leadership communication. The inputs will be used to design the future of the Management Communication curriculum at the school, Jay Hodgkins, Editorial Director, said in an article in The Darden Report.

The meeting began with a panel discussion, ‘Leadership Communication Amidst Transformation and Disruption,’ in honour of the late Professor James Rubin, former head of Darden’s Management Communication area.

Rubin’s book ‘Reset: Business and Society in the New Social Landscape,’ was published posthumously with support from co-author Barie Carmichael. The discussions centred on how social media, digital communication and technology-enabled connection have created an era of radical, sometimes painful, transparency for businesses.

“Communication is a new core competency,” said panel moderator Eric McNulty, associate director of the National Preparedness Leadership Initiative at Harvard University and author of the upcoming book You’re It: Crisis, Change, and How to Lead When it Matters Most.

“When handled well, communication creates transformation. If not, you get chaos. If you think about the work we are doing with education for the next generation, we have to equip people to navigate turbulent times and communicate amid disruption, if they are going to be able to marshal organizations toward positive outcomes,” he added.

In such a situation, an organisation needs to be seen as authentic. If it claims to act sustainability, it needs to build into its core values.

Panel member Artemis Bakopoulos Hiss, Senior Director, Corporate Relations Alignment and Planning at McDonald’s Corporation, said, “We needed to understand the landscape and think about ways we can challenge ourselves.”

She said at McDonald’s, “We focused on using our scale for good, then we were able to rearticulate our commitment to society in a very meaningful way to stakeholders.”

Darden School Executive-in-Residence Steve Soltis, senior advisor with MAS Leadership Communication, a company he formed in 2017 with partners Ken Askew and Charles McNair, said he had been hired to work with a soon-to-be-launched agricultural business to help it build a purpose-driven story that would motivate employees and stakeholders to “buy in.”

The agribusiness settled around a narrative that it is “our mission to feed the world,” he said. Soltis pointed out that the claim would achieve authenticity through the business’ efforts to partner with non-profits and others to be more environment and climate-friendly than other large agribusinesses that are often the target of environmental groups.

Council members currently practising in the field said, in order to communicate successfully as leaders, the next generation of MBA graduates must be critical, creative and agile thinkers who are able to ask the right questions, operate with high emotional intelligence and continue to learn

White House Writers Group Managing Director Clark Judge noted that consumers and observers drive companies toward authentic actions that match communication from the leaders and marketing departments, The generational transition toward a millennial workforce was also putting increased focus on organizations communicating their purpose and meaningful values.

“Employees are seeking purpose. Purpose is an attraction for my company and all employers. That is what is driving the current wave of well-educated people coming into the workforce,” he added.

Council member Dean Foust, director of executive communications for UPS, said authentic commitment to and communication about issues impacting society was one of the only ways to build the trust needed in an era of transparency and disruption.

“In this age of social media when it’s possible to crush a brand in minutes, it’s critical to have that Hoover Dam of trust,” he pointed out.

The council concluded with a session focused on incubating the next generation of Management Communication (MC) curriculum at Darden.

Council members currently practising in the field said, in order to communicate successfully as leaders, the next generation of MBA graduates must be critical, creative and agile thinkers who are able to ask the right questions, operate with high emotional intelligence and continue to learn.

With so much focus on improving so-called “soft skills” in order to create better leaders and communicators, Soltis suggested the term “soft skills” itself might need to be rebranded as “leadership skills.”

This will be made possible with the unveiling of the new Batten Foundation Darden Worldwide Scholarship program on March 12, 2018. A $15 million gift from the Batten Foundation has unlocked a matching gift from UVA’s Bicentennial Scholars Fund.

This $30 million endowment will ultimately provide every student in Darden’s full-time MBA program a scholarship, according to University of Virginia’s blog UVA today.

Darden Worldwide courses are one- to two-week courses led by the school faculty outside the United States in January, March and May. Each course provides the opportunity to visit a different country and experience its business practices and cultures first-hand.

These include classes with practitioner presentations as well as onsite visits to companies, governmental agencies and cultural sites. Several Darden Worldwide courses include hands-on consulting with local businesses.

Recently, the courses have been held in Argentina, Brazil, China, India, Israel, Japan, South Africa, Spain, and Sweden. Darden alumni are sometimes invited to join in these excursions.

“Thanks to the Batten Foundation gift and matching funds from the UVA Bicentennial Scholars Fund, Darden will have the support to fulfil its aspiration for 100% of full-time MBA students to complete a significant global learning experience outside Charlottesville during their time at the School,”

“We are incredibly grateful to the Batten Foundation for enabling this game-changing opportunity,” Darden Dean Scott Beardsley said.

“This gift will have a major impact on Darden. It makes the school more affordable and global, and gives students the opportunity to explore the world in which they will be tomorrow’s leaders,” he added.

In recent years, Darden has significantly increased its offering of Darden Worldwide courses – faculty-led courses of typically seven to 10 days. Over the past two years, student participation in courses outside the U.S. has more than doubled.

This spring, students will have the option to choose from 14 courses on five continents, including courses exploring business in uncertain economic environments in Argentina, artificial intelligence and robotics in Germany, and government’s influence on business in China, among others.

During the courses, students visit local companies, educators and officials, gaining hands-on experiences in new business environments and cultures guided by a Darden faculty member.

“Thanks to the Batten Foundation gift and matching funds from the UVA Bicentennial Scholars Fund, Darden will have the support to fulfil its aspiration for 100% of full-time MBA students to complete a significant global learning experience outside Charlottesville during their time at the School,” Beardsley said.

The Batten Foundation Darden Worldwide Scholarships will have an immediate impact on the MBA Class of 2020, which will arrive in August. For these incoming students, the gift, combined with other philanthropy and Darden investment, will allow the School to award a scholarship to every student in the class that will cover fees for a Darden Worldwide course if it is not already funded.

When the Batten Foundation gift is fully funded in 2020, the scholarships will cover course fees and most travel costs for every Darden full-time MBA student to participate in a global experience.

The $15 million gift from the Batten Foundation, a Virginia-based private foundation, was matched 100% by the University’s Bicentennial Scholars Fund, a new giving initiative created through UVA’s Strategic Investment Fund. UVA’s Board of Visitors established the Bicentennial Scholars Fund to play a crucial role in making education accessible and affordable for students from all backgrounds, regardless of their financial situations.

The Foundation gift is equal to the largest match to date from the fund. UVA’s Board of Visitors allocated a total of $100 million toward the fund to match major gifts supporting student scholarships.

The gift is also the largest to the Darden School since the Batten family established the Batten Institute for Entrepreneurship and Innovation through a $60 million gift in 1999.

“With this inspired gift, thousands of Darden students will be able to personally experience and better understand the world. The Batten Foundation Darden Worldwide Scholarships will ensure that our students are prepared to serve as distinctive leaders defined by global sophistication, entrepreneurial orientation and action-based responsibility, in the workplace and beyond,” Beardsley said.

University of Virginia alumnus Krishnan Srinivasan is using his experience gained during his MBA at Darden School of Business to find safety solutions in a country that is building roads and adding motorists at a fast pace.

Srinivasan had graduated from UVA’s Darden School of Business in 2001 and then went on to work in Kazakhstan with the MBA Enterprise Corps (now MBAs Without Borders) on opening up the then Soviet style economy to a liberalised business regime.

“You need to have a data-centric approach, a very scientific approach in terms of treating it as a problem that can be solved very objectively, rather than thinking about it as something just involving new products, or seatbelt or helmet campaigns, and just thinking the problem will solve by itself,”

He brings to the table the experience gained in working in developing economies as also the expertise in transportation engineering gained through a master’s degree from the University of Cincinnati.

Srinivasan, talking to the campus magazine UAV Today, said he was busy introducing the best practices in road safety management and leadership approaches.

He has found an increasingly receptive audience in the government, in part by framing infrastructure improvement as a public health issue, noting the enormous sum India could save if it reduced the spending incurred as a result of health care related to accidents.

He is taking up the safety-centric approach as a management issue with coordination of stakeholders. Tracking of methods and working toward clearly outlined goals are more important than looking for quick fixes, he says.

“You need to have a data-centric approach, a very scientific approach in terms of treating it as a problem that can be solved very objectively, rather than thinking about it as something just involving new products, or seatbelt or helmet campaigns, and just thinking the problem will solve by itself,” Srinivasan said.

“The new approach most developed nations are taking, and now slowly in America, too, is a ‘safe system’ approach where you try to build an infrastructure that is safe, where even if you have an accident – say, hit a pole or something – you do not get killed,” he adds.

Some of the amendments he has helped draft to the Motor Vehicle Act in India set stricter penalties for speeding or dangerous driving.

The changes also include setting up a National Road Safety Board to advise the government on all aspects of road safety and traffic management; creating accountability for entities responsible for the safe design, construction or maintenance of the road; requiring crash testing for vehicles; and providing greater assistance to road accident victims.

For new roads, he says safety measures such as road signs, markings, sidewalks, crash barriers and pedestrian bridges or underpasses should be essential design elements rather than afterthoughts.

He says, initially, the work seemed overwhelming. However, by breaking things down into smaller pieces, collecting measurable data and gaining buy-in among a diverse group of stakeholders for life-saving safety countermeasures backed by analytical rigour, he was able to arrive at solutions.

“Darden has helped me in terms of instilling a can-do attitude, in terms of picking up a challenge and trying to scientifically solve it, and at the same time building consensus around various strategies and tactics,” he adds.

Working largely as a consultant for the World Bank, Srinivasan has now spent more than a decade helping to bring transportation solutions to his rapidly growing country and other Asian nations, playing key roles in new legislation and policy dictating safer roads and vehicles.(Image Source:flickr.com)

Consulting remains a big draw with 39% of the Class accepting offers from the sector followed by Finance/Accounting at 30% and General Management at 20%.

The Class of 2016 comprised 324 students with 29% international (born outside the U.S.). As many as 31 countries were represented by way of citizenship. Women formed 31% and Domestic minorities 16%.

Compensation-wise too, Consulting topped with an average base salary of $ 135,771 and average signing bonus of $ 26,927. Financial Services came next with average base salary of $ 121,546 and average signing bonus of $ 42,223. Within the Finance sector, Investment Banking offered an average base salary of $ 125,938 and average signing bonus of $ 48,177.

The Class of 2016 comprised 324 students with 29% international (born outside the U.S.). As many as 31 countries were represented by way of citizenship. Women formed 31% and Domestic minorities 16%.

The average age at entry was 27. The average GMAT score was 706 and GPA Mean 3.5.

In undergraduate majors, 35% were from Business, Engineering/Science/Math made up 27%, Humanities/Social Science 20% and Economics 18%.

In compensation by Geography, Southwest (9% students) topped with average base salary of $ 137,174 followed by Northwest (31%) with $124,496, Mid-Atlantic (19%) with $ 124,058, West (14%) with 123,181, Midwest (7%) with $122,894 and South (12%) with $ 121,001. International average base salary was pegged at $100,540.

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A total 88% students cited school facilitated activities as job source and 11% Graduate-facilitated activiies. These included 49% school-facilitated internships, 26% scheduled interviews on grounds, 5% job postings and 3% Alumni referrals.(Image Source:Wikipedia.org)