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Randall Weisenburger, WG'87
By Robert Gunther
Randall Weisenburger, WG'87, has
always been in a hurry. After graduating from Wharton, he headed to First
Boston's mergers and acquisitions
group and then left with legendary
dealmaker Bruce Wasserstein to
found a new investment banking
firm, Wasserstein Perella. In 1993,
Weisenburger was appointed to lead
the firm's merchant banking subsidiary and, at 44, he is now Executive
Vice President and CFO of Omnicom
Group, Inc., the largest corporate
communication company in the world.
Omnicom, with more than 1,500 agencies in more
than 100 countries, includes top advertising agency
networks BBDO Worldwide, DDB Worldwide and
TBWA Worldwide. While Omnicom's agencies are best
known as the genius behind such campaigns as Pepsi's
"The Joy of Cola" or Budweiser's "Whassup," under
Weisenburger's leadership Omnicom also has attracted attention for its strong financial performance. Since
he joined in 1998, revenues have soared 76 percent
from $4.3 billion to $7.5 billion in 2002 and net income
has increased 93 percent, far outpacing Omnicom's
industry peers. Omnicom was ranked by The Wall
Street Journal as number one in its peer group for
ten-year average annual return to shareholders.
Wharton not only served Weisenburger as a stepping stone from accounting into investment banking,
but his interactions with students and faculty on campus also encouraged him to think more broadly. "Every
business situation is dynamic," Weisenburger says.
"Wharton gave me the opportunity to develop the
analytical tools and framework necessary to not only
evaluate issues but to understand them and to then be
able to develop a strategically appropriate response."
As a member of Wharton's Graduate Executive
Board, Weisenburger also has been on the fast track
in giving back to his alma mater. His Campaign for
Sustained Leadership commitments to Wharton
include major gifts to the Wharton Fund and a $2-million four-room cluster of spaces in the new Huntsman
Hall, which will carry the Weisenburger Family name.
To support communications education in the Wharton
MBA program, he established the Wharton-Omnicom
Communications Fellows Program, which will train students to serve as written and verbal communications
coaches to their peers.
"My view is that the value of the Wharton experience is what we make it," Weisenburger says. "It is the
right and the obligation of alumni to continue to assist
the School. That's why I stepped up. Wharton is a great
institution and the clear leader in business education,
but the only way it stays the leader is through the
involvement of its alumni. We all need to do what we
can to help make Wharton as strong as it can be. As
alumni our reputations are linked to the School, and
the School's reputation is linked to alumni."
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