School News: McLaren School of Management

Financial Times Notes McLaren School Alumni Top Earners

In an article about US business schools, the Financial Times listed the highest earning and lowest debt incurring US undergraduate business alumni. The University of San Francisco McLaren School of Management alumni appear sixth on the list. 

SOM Among Top 15 School for Alumni Launching Local Businesses

Switch On Business, a site dedicated to entrepreneurship, lists the School of Management among the top 15 colleges whose graduates create local businesses. The research found that 33.13% of University of San Francisco entrepreneurs launched a local business.

Undergraduates Win Award from NASA, Launch Startup to Predict Wildfires

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Andrew Saah, Arts ’25 and Owen Sordillo, Business ’24, met as sophomores, randomly assigned suitemates in Lone Mountain East. Today, they are working with NASA — and a $100,000 grant from the space agency — on a startup that will use satellite and lidar data to predict wildfires.

Water Conservation Team Wins at Business Ethics Competition

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Sophomores Cooper Zee, Lily Fairbank-Bermejo, and Lucy Ploof earned top honors at the 2024 International Business Ethics and Sustainability Case Competition in April. This hybrid competition, which was held online and in-person at Loyola Marymount University, drew 51 teams from 33 universities from 8 countries. 

The stated aim of the competition is to help students explore the moral imperatives of sustainable development, with business-related topics that have an ethical component related to at least one of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. The teams are charged with presenting their chosen business problem, an analysis of the ethical, sustainable, legal and financial aspects of a problem, and a viable solution on all fronts. 

McLaren school team, which called themselves Ripple Effect, made a case for an AI irrigation system to save water and money in California’s San Joaquin Agricultural region. 

Ripple Effect competed and won in each of the competition’s categories:

• The 25-Minute Competition, in which teams will presented their chosen business problem, an analysis of the ethical, sustainable, legal and financial aspects of a problem, and a viable solution on all fronts;
• The 10-Minute Competition, in which teams will incorporate the suggestions from judges during the 25-minute presentation in a 10-minute presentation expanding on the ethical aspect of the problem; amd 
• The 90-Second Competition, in which teams gave an elevator pitch explaining the importance of the sustainability component of the problem.

"Bringing AI Irrigation to San Joaquin Agriculture, proposes a solution to mitigate the water crisis in the San Joaquin Valley. Winning the 25-minute, 10-minute, and 90-second presentations was a testament to our months of research, dedication, and team spirit,” said Fairbank-Bermejo.

Students Place 16 Out of 600 in the Global Women In Data Science Datathon

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This spring, a team of three USF undergraduate business analytics students placed 16th out of 600 teams, worldwide, in the Women in Data Science Datathon, hosted by Stanford University. The challenge focused on equity in healthcare. Coached by professors JC Sanders and Shivani Shukla, the team entered the datathon as part of USF's business analytics immersion class.

Jocelyn Luciani: "My team and I applied our knowledge from classes, such as Business Analytics Immersion with Professor Sanders and Intermediate Business Applications of Analytics with Professor Shukla, to address real-world challenges like equity in healthcare. We explored machine learning techniques to develop a model predicting if patients received a metastatic cancer diagnosis within 90 days of screening."

Meg Hoshino: "Working on the WiDS datathon with my team was a great learning experience. I was able to think critically about the demands of our project and apply the data analytics skills I learned over my four years at USF to build a machine learning model to gain insights on a meaningful, real-life issue."

Raphael Caleb Yao: "This project taught me more than ensemble methods and data exploration: I learned lessons in understanding women’s health, explaining concepts in simple ways to strengthen team dynamics, and the flexibility to change game plans on the fly.“

Hospitality Students Take Over for Annual Dean's Dinner

Each year as part of their curriculum, senior hospitality students prepare, cook, and serve at the annual Dean’s Dinner. Under the guidance of Executive Chef Jean-Marc Fullsack and Adjunct Professor Jeff Scharosch, these students gain experience of planning and executing a themed farm-to-table dinner for the Dean’s Circle Advisory Board Members, alumni, University Trustees, President Paul Fitzgerald, associate deans, and deans awards recipients. This year’s theme was the Year of the Dragon and University's Star Route Farms provided the produce.

A Summer Supporting the Chamber of Commerce

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Marketing students Jane Kang and Chole Lenguyen, along with management student Georgette Arroyo served as San Francisco Chamber of Commerce fellows this past summer. They worked on projects that involved event management, branding, and social media awareness. Their experience included contributing to special projects, attending educational programs, and connecting with small business owners and community members across the city.

McLaren Graduates in Demand — 2023 Career Placements

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SOM Outcomes (65% knowledge rate)

• Working (80%)
• Continuing Education (12%)
• Working/Continuing Education Simultaneously (2%)
• Still Looking (6%)
• 76% participated in internships. Average student did 2 internships. 

SOM Salary Data

• Average Salary $70,412 
• Accounting $77,165 
• Business Administration $78,250
• Finance $75,810 
• Management $68,167
• Marketing $64,410