Leadership Spotlight

C. Donna Chapman-Wilson WG'85

Though Donna Chapman-Wilson has been back to Philadelphia regularly for recruiting trips and the annual Whitney M. Young Conference, she had not stepped foot in Jon M. Huntsman Hall before the African-American Alumni reception held there on May 14th.

"When you're here for two years, Wharton is your whole world, but coming back gives you perspective," she said. "Seeing these study rooms, the computers—I'm just amazed. When I was a student, we had Vance Hall. There was really no technology to speak of. We typed our papers on typewriters. I have to keep asking, 'Where am I?'"

Before applying for her MBA, Chapman-Wilson got her undergraduate degree at Hampton University in Hampton, VA, and worked at the Federal Reserve. "I was probably pretty naïve going into it, but the school's diversity of students—both in terms of geography and interests—opened me up to a whole new world."

Partner and head of product management for structured products in the U.S. at Invesco in New York, Chapman- Wilson credits her success in the corporate world to the MBA program. "Its academic rigor prepared me to juggle the high-volume demands of my job," she said.

At the same time, she's found that the management lessons she learned at Wharton have been invaluable throughout her career. "After a few years, the quantitative lessons go away and what stays with you are the life lessons. Some of the classes I quote most often have nothing to do with my discipline, but have more to do with working with people." She recalls a five-day management class taught over the winter break that was known as an easy way to get a course credit. "That class was supposed to be a quick pass, but in fact, it had a tremendous lasting effect on me. I learned about people skills, negotiation, shareholder value—all of which help me now in my work with clients."

After graduation, Chapman-Wilson joined JP Morgan in securities sales and later moved into investment management. Over the years she has been active in recruiting Wharton students and she believes that today's students who enter Wharton with a greater degree of work experience are more attractive to employers when they graduate. The younger generation she's seen is also more versatile. Chapman-Wilson remembers that 20 years ago, most of her classmates were drawn to accounting and finance. "When I was at Wharton, you got a job on Wall Street or as a consultant, or if you were in marketing you looked for a big powerhouse firm. Today it seems there is more of an emphasis on other industries, and there are many more entrepreneurs coming out of the program."

Chapman-Wilson, who is married and has one son, initially helped organize the reception with the hope of bringing together her former classmates. "I started calling people to come simply because we'd lost contact with each other. I noticed that the African American MBA Association (AAMBAA) started an online network, and since most of my classmates were not yet in it, I wanted to help them reconnect." The reception grew to include all the African-American alumni attending the 2005 reunion, and Chapman-Wilson hopes that the reception will become an annual event.

s It may look different these days, but Wharton is still an important part of Chapman-Wilson's life. "Everybody I talked to over the weekend said that this school changed them. At Wharton everything just expands—your relationships, your knowledge, your outlook."

Assaf Tarnopolsky WG'00

Only five years out of Wharton, Assaf Tarnopolsky's memories are of a recent vintage. Even so, he has enough distance to offer an historical perspective on the way Wharton was back during the heady era of the dot-com boom. "It was a crazy time to be at Wharton. Businesses were growing at an unbelievable rate and it was exciting to be at this incredible school alongside bright, motivated people."

Tarnopolsky has stayed actively involved with those bright, motivated people; he was one of the organizers of his five-year reunion during Alumni Weekend. At the reunion, Tarnopolsky attended his Saturday-night class dinner, met with several hundred of his classmates and even got a chance to relive his graduate student days by eating pancakes and sausage at Little Pete's at 5 a.m. In his view, the school hasn't changed all that much in half a decade. "I think it was world class when we were here, and it's world class now," he said.

As an undergraduate, Tarnopolsky studied law and society at University of California—Santa Barbara. He then got a high-ranking job at an Israeli-based startup, but found he lacked the business knowledge he needed to feel confident in that role. Fortunately, Wharton's core curriculum brought him up to speed. "For someone like me who came from a nontraditional background, Wharton offered a solid base of fundamentals. I had never encountered statistics before, and I came away with the ability to perform complicated analysis."

Tarnopolsky's memories of learning at Wharton are not entirely rose-tinted. In fact, he failed an accounting class early on. "I had not taken math since high school, and I struggled mightily with the quantitative coursework. I had to retake accounting the next semester. The silver lining was that I got a second chance to learn the material and developed a good relationship with the professor."

At Wharton, Tarnoposky met his future wife, Natalie Poon Tarnopolsky, WG'00, now a vice president in strategy at Wells Fargo. They live in San Francisco with their 1-year-old son, Max, and they are expecting a second child. After graduating, Tarnopolsky worked as director of international development at The Industry Standard, and when the magazine folded three years ago, he started his own business, Metro Crepes. As an entrepreneur, Tarnopolsky has been able to use his negotiation, marketing—and yes—accounting classes on a daily basis. He is now considering a return to the corporate world, possibly in media with an international focus.