Big 3 with Dean H. Rao Unnava: May 2024

• We just hosted the University of California’s Summer Institute for Emerging Leaders and Managers
• Poets&Quants has honored two of our MBAs among the Best & Brightest
• Why did Elon Musk recently fire Tesla’s Supercharger team?

Welcome to the May 2024 edition of the Big 3 video newsletter.

UC's Summer Institute for Emerging Managers and Leaders at UC Davis

The past two weeks we hosted a select group of 50 undergraduate students at this year’s Summer Institute for Emerging Managers and Leaders. Known as SIEML, the program was launched in 2012 and has the power of the University of California system behind it.

These talented underrepresented students came to UC Davis from 18 Hispanic Serving Institutions and 17 Historically Black Colleges and Universities. They are interested in pursuing graduate management education and invited to attend because of their leadership potential and markers of success.

Faculty and staff from the six UC business schools teamed up on this year’s 10-day program that featured lectures, workshops, activities, fun times and competitions. 

On a day trip to San Francisco, students visited the Chase Center, the home of the NBA’s Golden State Warriors, where they heard from a high-level panel on careers in sports management.

SIEML alumni who are admitted into a UC graduate business program are offered fellowships.

We hope to see some of these undergraduates back at UC Davis in the future to earn a master’s degree.

Poets&Quants Honors Two UC Davis MBAs among Best & Brightest 

We’re thrilled that two UC Davis Full-Time MBA students have been recognized among Poets&Quants’ 2024 Best & Brightest MBAs.

We congratulate Full-Time MBA students Ryan Wilson and Tess Sussman.

This is the first time that both our nominees have been included among the media company’s top 100 students at elite MBA programs worldwide.

A student-athlete, Tess graduated from Harvard where she played NCAA Women’s Basketball. As a UC Davis MBA she joined as captain of the UC Davis Aggies Women’s Basketball team and has excelled on and off the court.

Tess is passionate about healthcare management. She has taken advantage of our Biotechnology Industry Immersion experience. Last summer she interned as a Senior Associate at Clarion, a life sciences consultancy, in Boston, her home state.

Ryan is a U.S. Army veteran who served in Afghanistan. He serves as president of our student Veterans Association and is an advocate for veteran support.

Ryan interned as a Senior Financial Analyst for Intel.

Most recently he acquired a fleet services company and now serves as CEO of the newly formed WilsonTech Services, offering military-grade fleet management for the Sacramento Region

Now in its 10th year, Poets&Quants’ Best & Brightest MBAs recognition is highly competitive. They received 226 nominations from 74 U.S. and international business schools. Candidates were judged on their extracurricular leadership, personal excellence, and the insightfulness of their responses and recommendations.

Congratulations again to Tess and Ryan.

Elon Musk Fires Tesla's Supercharger Team. Crazy? But Why?

The electric vehicle market is fundamentally a platform business. A robust supercharger network is vital to convince customers to buy an electric vehicle. 

Tesla is the only EV-maker that implemented a smart charging network strategy, and Tesla's Supercharger network has been pivotal to its success in selling cars.

Distinguished Professor Hemant Bhargava has written extensively on the EV market. In Harvard Business Review, Hemant explained how Tesla’s charging stations left other manufacturers in the dust. Despite billions in investments, none of the major automakers seems to pose much of a threat to Tesla.

Hemant calls Tesla the number one gas station for the electric vehicle industry.

So when Tesla’s Elon Musk surprisingly fired the entire 500 member Supercharger team this month, it threatened California's plans to open up Tesla's Superchargers to all electric vehicles.

Hemant offered three ways to understand and rationalize Musk’s move:

• Musk is decisive and authoritative. Tesla has multiple ways it could execute on opening up its superchargers to rivals and needs new ideas.
• Musk is a mercurial leader. He fired this team one day, but he might bring some of them back! He did that at Twitter (X).
• Musk needs a new, more agile team with a different skill set.

Hemant sees merit to all three arguments but thinks number three is the strongest. 

Thank you for watching this month’s Big 3!