By Thomas Fiki, MBA Class of 2019
Lights, camera, action! When you hear those words you think of film, movies, glamour and of coarse Hollywood. When the idea of this conference arose, four members from the Class of 2020, along with myself, decided to jump on this opportunity. The Pulse Entertainment and Sports Conference is held annually by UCLA and gives great exposure to that industry. Being in central Pennsylvania we don’t necessarily get to be front and center of the entertainment. This year it was hosted by Paramount Pictures and simply we had to consider: where do we go from here?
We arrived Wednesday evening after flying from Philadelphia, and got treated to warmer weather of about 60 degrees. (It was a very nice break from -2 degrees in State College!) Thursday was the case competition and we competed with about 23 other teams from top universities all across the country. These schools included Cornell, Ohio State, UCLA, USC, NYU and many more. The day started with an outdoor Mexican style lunch on the patio of the Anderson School of Business at UCLA. The power of networking was evident yet again as one student from a competing team was mutual friends with a member of our 2020 MBA Class.
After an intense day of competing the day wasn’t over. We had a networking session which included cocktails and light dishes of our choice. Executives from Paramount Pictures were there as well. It was beneficial to hear their different stories in a relaxed environment. Many of the executives didn’t have a prior career in entertainment, but leveraged their networking to eventually end up at Paramount. Some had MBAs and some didn’t. The key from all of their messages was using networking to get ahead. This session was 3 hours long but the time flew, for people were very friendly and took the time to learn about each other.
The second day, Friday, was very rewarding, as it was the actual Pulse Conference. Some of the memorable key note speakers were from Youtube, Executive VPs for the “O” network, Executive VPs of Kevin Hart’s comedic production company, “Laugh Out Loud,” and the LA Sparks Chief Operations Officer. It was useful because each went through their day-to-day schedule and how it relates to business. One of the key takeaways was brand management. It was something each speaker talked about in some way; how to manage the brand of their big client and their organization. The building of the brand was key to continued success for their client. At the end of each panel, some questions were taken from the audience. After the panel we had lunch and closing remarks.
Friday ended with some of us taking a trip to the Hollywood sign and going through Beverly Hills. The famous Hollywood sign has a become a staple for Los Angeles, and it was a neat experience. Going through Beverly Hills to see where Beverly Hills Cop, 90210 and other famous shows were filmed was also fun. All in all, it was great to have exposure to the entertainment industry. This is a case competition that Smeal should put on the map for years to come.