The 34th Annual Whitney M. Young, Jr. Memorial Conference

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Panel Descriptions

Building a Business from the Ground Up: Starting from a Good Foundation Means Knowing the Basics

Business schools may impart important concepts and frameworks related to creating and managing business, but what about the practical advice of what you should before, during and after implementation of your startup? What should you do to prepare before plunging in? What are the do�s and don�ts during the critical early periods? As African-American business owners, are there particular steps to one must take and pitfalls one must avoid to help ensure lasting success?

For budding African-American entrepreneurs, nothing substitutes practical advice and answers to these key questions from highly successful African-American entrepreneurs.

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The State of P.E. during the Current Debt Crisis: Where Will This Leave Minority Professionals?

With the credit markets in turmoil, this limits the ability of private equity companies to effectively finance their deals. The purpose of the panel is to analyze how the current debt situation may effect the ability of minorities in private equity to raise capital and execute deals.

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Gold Rush or Fool's Gold: Making Money in a Changing Real Estate Market

Sub-prime mortgage meltdown...foreclosures on the rise...falling home price...�2 million empty homes...REITs down 16% YTD...is there still money to be made in real estate? With the recent turmoil in the real estate markets, investors need to carefully evaluate the opportunities that exist today. From passive investments in REITs and mortgage instruments to active investments in real property and development, this panel seeks to explore the trends and opportunities that exist in today's market and what real estate players should be considering as they evaluate investments.

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Sports & Entertainment: Starring Beyond the Spotlight

The intent of this panel is to highlight opportunities to display leadership and excellence in capacities away from the camera and off of the field. Panelists will give insight into the crucial problems facing their respective industries and the typical (or atypical) functions that are available to MBA hires to address these issues. The panel will also touch on potential strategies for breaking into these industries and methods for applicants to differentiate themselves from the competition.

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Rising to the Top: What Does It Take to Climb the Ladder?

As demand increases for corporations to hire more diverse candidates for senior management position, these roles have become increasingly more competitive to obtain. Today, African American candidates and current senior managers are expected to outperform their counterparts and differentiate themselves from the masses in order to obtain and/or hold these powerful positions. This panel will focus on current and emerging African American business leaders within Fortune 500 companies who have been able to successfully uphold these heavy expectations. The panel will share with attendees their experiences and give insightful perspective about the career decisions they made to get them to where they are today. On this panel, we hope to provide attendees with knowledge of how these seasoned professionals deal with serious issues such as race and prejudice, networking, globalization, work/life balance, and even relationships while maintaining successful careers in their respective industries.

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Investing in a New Reality: Driving Social Returns in Our Community

Businesses have always focused on innovative thinking as a catalyst for change. Increasingly, that same innovative thinking is being used to drive social returns in our communities. Business leaders are leveraging their expertise to not only foster economic development, but also to change the minds, attitudes and futures of community residents. Whether by promoting entrepreneurship, directing capital to underserved areas and institutions, or advising non-profit entities, featured panelists are successfully executing on their organizations� goals of having a positive business and social impact.

What are achievable social returns? What obstacles are faced by organizations and individuals interested in driving social returns? How does a for-profit organization balance its fiduciary duty to shareholders and its moral obligations to the community? What drawbacks, if any, result from this approach? This panel will attempt to explore these issues and many more that are emerging at the intersection of business and social good.

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The MBA Value Proposition

This panel for prospective students aims to address the obstacles and misperceptions keeping minorities from pursuing an MBA. The panelists will explore topics such as the merits of an MBA, preparing for the application process (including the GMAT exam), and financing an MBA. The goal of the panel is to foster an open dialogue that will address common misperceptions, while encouraging more underrepresented minorities to apply to MBA programs.

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Emerging Markets Panel: The challenge of leading the Investment and capital markets development in new continents while preserving business standards and ethics

Developing opportunities and leading investment efforts in emerging markets like Africa and the Caribbean is increasingly popular. As the Return on Investments in these markets continue to outperform those of other markets, investors� desire to be engaged in these markets continues to grow. What factors continue to drive the increasing surge of Foreign Direct Investments by Investment banks, private equity firms and hedge funds in these markets? What have been the benefits and drawbacks of investing in these emerging markets and what improvements � environmental, infrastructure, political etc, would further increase interest in these regions? How do investment professionals perceive the risk associated with preserving business standards and ethics in emerging markets given the tighter money supply environment?

The global market place continues to inspire the emergence of new markets seeking investors� capital. Africa, the Caribbean, Brazil, China, Russia, India etc, are economies with growing investment opportunities. Local entrepreneurs, confident in their abilities to generate wealth, are building capable organizations with access to continental and global markets, crossing local boundaries. What does it take to identify, manage and succeed in these new markets today? Panelists will share their experience in building their successful emerging markets ventures.

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Global Health Partnerships: Pharmaceutical Companies, NGOs, and Selling Medicines across Borders

Access to adequate healthcare and to necessary medicines is an issue disproportionately affecting Africans and African-Americans the world over. On this panel, we will focus on public health partnerships, which draw upon resources of large corporations, and enable the proliferation of these resources at a local level. We will consider how effective this has been, and will analyze how these partnerships benefit both the interests of business and non-profit partners to not only increase social impact, but also to deliver results that will help the bottom line.

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The Whitney M. Young, Jr. Memorial Conference is produced and administered by the African American MBA Association, a student-run organization of The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania.