November 15 KAZI Book Review Features Author of TOO BIG TO SAVE?: How to Fix the U.S. Financial System

Robert Pozen, author of  TOO BIG TO SAVE?: How to Fix the U.S. Financial System is the November 15 guest on KAZI Book Review on KAZI 88.7 FM, 12:30 p.m. – 1p.m. You can listen to the interview live on the web at http://www.live365.com/profiles/kazifm.

Widely recognized for his leadership in both finance and economic policy, Pozen takes federal policymakers to task for spending huge sums of money with too few benefits for America’s taxpayers. Instead, he urges our government to rein in its bailouts, stop buying toxic assets, and provide more incentives for the private sector to regulate itself.  Pozen argues that:   

• The key to our economy’s recovery is the revival of loan securitization
• Broad-based legislative restrictions on executive compensation tend to backfire
• Fair value accounting did not cause the financial crisis and should mostly be retained
•  International cooperation won’t do much to prevent future financial crises
• Regulatory gaps should be closed without creating omnibus agencies

Within a sweeping analysis, TOO BIG TO SAVE? chronicles the collapse of our financial system, one domino at a time from mortgage-backed securities to stock markets, from money market funds to recapitalized banks, and from the SEC’s mistakes to international protectionism. Pozen then suggests how the securitization process should be reformed, assesses the impact of the financial crisis on the stock and bond markets, and evaluates the federal bailout of financial institutions by buying their stock and toxic assets.

Robert Pozen

 Pozen is Chairman of MFS Investment Management, which manages over $150 billion in assets for more than five million investors worldwide.  He was formerly vice chairman of Fidelity Investments and president of Fidelity

Management & Research Company, the investment advisor to the Fidelity mutual funds.  He served on President Bush’s Commission to Strengthen Social Security and as Secretary of Economic Affairs for Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney.  He is a senior lecturer at Harvard Business School and has contributed numerous articles to the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and the Financial Times.

How Today’s Smartest Businesses From Facebook to Twitter Grow Themselves Focus of November 16 Economic Perspectives

Adam Penneberg, author of Viral Loop: From Facebook to Twitter, How Today’s Smartest Businesses Grow Themselves, will be the November 16 guest on Economic Perspectives on KAZI 88.7 FM, 5:30- 6 p.m.  You can listen to the interview live on the web at http://www.live365.com/profiles/kazifm.

“Here’s something you may not know about today’s Internet. Simply by designing your product the right way, you can build a flourishing business from scratch. No advertising or marketing budget, no need for a sales force, and venture capitalists will flock to throw money at you,” explains Pennenberg.

Many of the most successful Web 2.0 companies, including MySpace, YouTube, eBay, and rising stars like Twitter and Flickr, are prime examples of what journalist Penenberg calls a “viral loop”–to use it, you have to spread it. After all, what’s the sense of being on Facebook if none of your friends are? The result: Never before has there been the potential to create wealth this fast, on this scale, and starting with so little.

In this game-changing must-read, Penenberg tells the fascinating story of the entrepreneurs who first harnessed the unprecedented potential of viral loops to create the successful online businesses–some worth billions of dollars–that we have all grown to rely on. The trick is that they created something people really want, so much so that their customers happily spread the word about their product for them.

Adam Pennenberg

All kinds of businesses–from the smallest start-ups to nonprofit organizations to the biggest multinational corporations–can use the paradigm-busting power of viral loops to enable their business through technology. Viral Loop is a must-read for any entrepreneur or business interested in uncorking viral loops to benefit their bottom line.

Penenberg is a journalism professor and assistant director of the Business and Economic Program at New York University. A contributing writer to Fast Company, he has also written for Inc., Forbes, the New York Times, Slate, Wired, The Economist, Playboy and Mother Jones. A former senior editor at Forbes and reporter for Forbes.com, he garnered national attention in 1998 for unmasking serial fabricator Stephen Glass of The New Republic. Penenberg’s story was a watershed for online investigative journalism.

Strategies for Career Success Focus of October 26 Economic Perspectives

In this time of economic and job insecurity, people need to make their mark and prove that they are essential and indispensable to their company. According to Carla Harris, a twenty year veteran of Wall Street, knowledge and diligence simply aren’t enough to successfully climb the corporate ladder in today’s competitive work environment.  The October 26 edition of Economic Perspectives on KAZI 88.7 FM features an interview with Harris, author of EXPECT TO WIN: Proven Strategies for Success from a Wall Street Vet.   In her book Carla looks closely at her own ascent to the top and offers strategies that will ensure career advancement and success in any industry.

During her twenty-year career on Wall Street, Harris she’s executed the IPO’s for UPS, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, and Redback, as well as the $3.2 billion common stock transaction for Immunex, one of the largest biotechnology offerings in United States History. While climbing the competitive corporate ladder, Harris sought guidance from her mentors and superiors, but found some of their career advice too general. As her own career advanced, Harris built her “key survival tools” or “pearls,” and vowed when she reached upper management and people looked to her for advice, she would provide them with what they needed to do to fulfill their true career potential.

In EXPECT TO WIN is Harris offers advice in an easy-to-read format using “Carla’s Pearls.” Her proven strategies of success include:

• You Are the Captain of Your Career: The 90 Day Rule
• Leveraging Your Voice: Articulate Your Views and Expectations
• Power in the Network: Competitive Advantage
• Expect to Win: Show Up With Your Best Self Every Day

Carla Harris

Carla Harris is currently a managing director for Morgan Stanley and has spent over seventeen years of her career in capital markets. She has been the recipient of numerous honors and awards, including Black Enterprise’s “75 Most Powerful Women in Business” (2006), Black Enterprise’s “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” (2006), Fortune’s “The Most Influential List” (2005), Ebony Magazine’s “15 Corporate Women at the Top” (2004), Essence Magazine’s list of “The 50 Women Who Are Shaping the World” (2003), and Fortune’s list of “The 50 Most Powerful Black Executives in America” (2002).

Developing a Better Business Model Focus of October 5 Economic Perspectives

If the founders of Google, PayPal, or Starbucks had stuck to their original business plans, we’d likely never have heard of them. Instead, they made radical changes to their initial models, became household names, and delivered huge returns for investors. How did they get from their Plan A to a business model that worked?  Why did they succeed when most new ventures crash and burn?  How can entrepreneurs avoid the risk of today’s high-risk economy?

John Mullins, co-author of GETTING TO PLAN B: Breaking Through to a Better Business Model, will be the October 5 guest on Economic Perspectives on KAZI 88.7 FM.  In the book, Mullins and co-author Randy Komisar argue that the startup process, largely driven by poorly conceived business plans based on untested assumptions, is seriously flawed. But there is a better way to launch new ideas—without wasting years of your time and loads of investors’ money.

In GETTING TO PLAN B, Mullins and Komisar present a field-tested process for rigorously stress-testing your initial business idea, and using the evidence you uncover to make swift corrections that tip the business equation in your favor. Focusing on five elements that determine any business model’s economic viability— its revenue, gross margin, operating, working capital, and investment models—the authors’ approach significantly reduces your risk of failure by:

• Comparing your idea with existing models to steal what works and avoid what doesn’t
• Identifying “leaps of faith”: the as-yet-untested questions you bank your business on
• Conducting fast, inexpensive, data-driven experiments to test your assumptions
• Using this data to make smart strategic changes and course correct before it’s too late

Through examples from their firsthand experience and research in large businesses around the world like Skype, Ryanair, and Costco, and smaller startups like Silverglide Surgical Technology and the African Leadership Academy, Mullins and Komisar reveal how companies have used such systematic experimentation to transform their current business into a viable Plan B.

John Mullins is the author of the definitive book on assessing new venture opportunities, The New Business Road Test and an Associate Professor of Management Practice at London Business School.

Self Employment Opportunity Summit Focus of September 28 Economic Perspectives

Stacy Dukes-Rhone, Executive Director of BiGAUSTIN, will be the September 28 guest on Economic Perspectives on KAZI 88.7 FM.  She will be discussing BiGAUSTIN’s Self-Employment Opportunity Summit being held October 1, 12 p.m. – 8 p.m. at Palmer Events Center in Austin, Texas.

The Self-Employment Opportunity Summit facilitates an environment to evaluate, examine, gather information and provide assistance to our small business community. It provides of an avenue for training providers, small business services providers, and lending institutions to outreach and effectively impact our community.  The Summit will provide  several session tracks where aspiring and existing entrepreneurs can learn and uncover opportunities. The session tracks are:

• Exploring Entrepreneurship “Is Entrepreneurship Right for You”, 
• Funding Opportunities “Need Credit, Need Money, Need Help…”
• Business Opportunities “What should I do?”
• Small Business in a Green Economy “What is a Green Economy?”

BiGAUSTIN provides entrepreneurial education, tailored business counseling and flexible loans for small businesses in Central Texas.

“Missing in Action: Black Women in the Boardroom” Focus of September 21 Economic Perspectives

Dr. Wendy Johnson, author of Missing in Action: Black Women in the Boardroom, will be the September 21 guest on Economic Perspectives, 5:30 p.m. – 6 p.m. on KAZI 88.7 FM.  Dr. Cornel West, a Professor of Religion and African American Studies at Princeton University, describes Missing in Action as “a powerful intervention into our public discourse about the American business world. It is a courageous-and badly needed-book that lays bare the ways in which the grand talent and genius of Black women remain relatively untapped. Don’t miss this book!”

Dr. Johnson, originally from Milwaukee, Wisconsin has over 20 years of business experience, a BS in Accounting/Economics from Lakeland College, an MBA from LeTourneau University and a PhD in Applied Management and Decision Sciences from Walden University.

She is the President of Emerge Consulting Group, LLC, a management consulting firm and the parent company of Dr. Wendy and Emerge Publishing.  Dr. Johnson is also president of the Houston chapter of the National Black MBA Association.

New Leader of U.S. Minority Business Development Agency Will Be September 14 Guest on Economic Perspectives

David Hinson

David Hinson, National Director of the U.S. Department of Commerce Minority Business Development Agency (MBDA), will be the September 14 guest on Economic Perpectives on KAZI 88.7 FM in Austin, Texas.  Hinson, who was appointed to the position by the Obama Administration on July 15, 2009, will be a keynote speaker at the PeopleFund Conference on Economic Opportunity on October 24 in Austin.

MBDA’s Mission is to foster the growth and global competitiveness of U.S. businesses that are minority-owned.  MBDA, through its network of 48 minority business centers throughout the country, provides one-on-one workshops and business consulting services for minority businesses to help educate them about federal opportunities, including those related to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act.  It’s strategic goals are to:

1. Increase the number of businesses that are minority-owned at the $1billion level
2. Establish MBDA as the agency of choice for businesses that are minority-owned, policymakers, and the private sector
3. Implement operational efficiencies throughout MBDA

Before his appointment to lead MBDA, Hinson was President and CEO of Wealth Management Network, Inc., a multi-million dollar independent, financial advisory boutique for 7 years. Prior to launching Wealth Management Network, David managed a 10-state sales region as Director of Advisory Services for Envestnet Asset Management, a $70 billion financial advisory firm.

Hinson received an MBA in Finance from The University of Pennsylvania Wharton School, and a bachelor’s degree in Insurance and Finance with honors from Howard University in Washington, D.C. In addition, he completed a fellowship in International Finance with honors from the Stockholm School of Economics and completed graduate-level studies in French with honors at the University of Abidjan, in the Ivory Coast West Africa.

Marketing of Consumer Debt to America Focus of September 7 Economic Perspectives

Charles Geisst, author of COLLATERAL DAMAGED: The Marketing of Consumer Debt to America, will be the September 7 guest on Economic Perspectives.  Geisst believes today’s credit crisis  is the result of Wall Street’s orchestrated maneuvers to fuel what he calls “cannibal consumption.” In COLLATERAL DAMAGED Geisst explains how a nation of savers became a nation of consumers and how Wall Street turned Americans addiction to spending into the toxic securities that have crippled the global economy. A thorough and penetrating analysis of how the marketing of consumer debt has radically transformed global economics, COLLATERAL DAMAGED connects the dots from consumer spending, to credit cards, to home equity loans, and beyond.

Geisst is a professor of finance at Manhattan College and author of eighteen books on finance and economics.  His books include Wall Street: A History, Wheels of Fortune: The History of Speculation from Scandal to Respectability, and Undue Influence: How the Wall Street Elite Put the Financial System at Risk.  His books have been on the Wall Street Journal, BusinessWeek, and New York Times best-seller lists.

How the Best Leaders Inspire Their Teams Focus of August 17 Economic Perspectives

John Zenger, coauthor of The Inspiring Leader: Unlocking the Secrets of How Extraordinary Leaders Motivate, will be the guest on the August 17 edition of Economic Perspectives on KAZI 88.7 FM. In their bestselling work The Extraordinary Leader, performance thought leaders John Zenger and Joseph Folkman revealed the 16 key competencies that separate the top 10 percent of leaders from the rest. Since that book’s publication, they and coauthor Scott Edinger discovered, through an extensive study conducted over four years, that leaders who possessed the ability to inspire and motivate outperformed all others.

The authors found that the impact of inspiring and motivating others is consistent across different kinds of organizations and within different cultures. The Inspiring Leader reveals the authors’ newest proprietary research on how top leaders inspire teams to greatness. It discusses the behaviors exhibited by the most successful leaders and includes advice on how to implement them.

John H. Zenger, D.B.A., is the  CEO of Zenger Folkman, a firm that brings empirical research, innovative development methods, and software tools to leadership development. He is a member of the HRD Hall of Fame and has authored or coauthored eight books and 50 articles on leadership, productivity, and teams.

Entrepreneurial Artist Focus of August 10 Economic Perspectives

The Bydee Art Gallery has been a fixture in the Austin art scene almost continuously since 1990-with a one year detour from 2005-2006 when the owner moved to Philadelphia.  Spawned from the unique vision of Trinidadian artist Brian Joseph, Joseph has successfully fused the spirit of the artist with the cold hard reality of business.  Brian Joseph will discuss his experience as an entrepreneur and artist on the August 10th edition of Economic Perspectives on KAZI 88.7FM.

Brian Joseph and his art

Joseph started painting in 1986 with no formal training.  His style of painting promotes education and diversity through the fictitious colorful Bydee People which reminds one of  life in the Carribean.  Joseph is  a poet, motivational speaker, and is also the author of four books: Color Me Bydee, Happy Calypso Clowns, People Come In All Colors and Words of Bydee.  He has provided commissioned art for a number of significant institutions including  Auburn University, City of Austin, National Education Agency, Texas A & M University, and the University of Texas at Austin.

Joseph has a bachelors degree in sociology and anthropology from Tougaloo University and a masters degree in urban studies from Trinity University.  Currently he is writing his fifth book titled From Brian Joseph to the Bydee Man.