"Respected Throughout the Entire World"

The world came to Chicago for Chicago GSB’s Alumni Weekend 2005, with almost 800 alumni and friends from 18 countries gathering at Chicago’s Millennium Park on Friday for dinner and dancing at the 10th Annual Alumni Celebration. The GSB community also celebrated this year’s winners of the Distinguished Alumni Awards, and the university’s global impact was a recurring theme.

Noting that two of the four winners have made their careers outside of the United States, Jaime Chico Pardo, ’74, said, “This confirms once again the importance the university has had in forming people that have had an influence in world affairs.” Chico Pardo, vice chairman and CEO of Telmex in Mexico City, received the Corporate Alumni Award.

In accepting the Public Service Alumni Award, Kateryna Yushchenko, ’86, first lady of Ukraine, said she felt particularly honored to be recognized by the University of Chicago. “I’ve noted that it’s an institution respected throughout the entire world,” she said. “It’s had an impact in its research, in its science—in everything its done—worldwide.”

Yushchenko urged her fellow alumni to continue that tradition. “I hope that whether you are in business or medicine or science or the arts, you will consider working in other countries and promoting the kind of success that you’ve achieved here in Chicago, in the United States, in Europe, in Mexico—that you will consider sharing that with the world.” Yushchenko heads the humanitarian foundation Ukraine 3000.

The evening’s other honorees were Kathryn Gould, ’78, cofounder and general partner of Foundation Capital, who received the Entrepreneurial Alumni Award, and Thomas Ricketts, AB ’87, MBA ’93, founder, chairman, and CEO of Incapital, LLC, who won the Young Alumni Award. The winners were chosen by a selection committee of more than 80 alumni from around the world who consider nominations from the GSB community.

Following the award presentation, Richard Thaler, Ralph and Dorothy Keller Distinguished Service Professor of Behavioral Science and Economics, shared his research on overconfidence versus market efficiency in the NFL draft. Thaler found that NFL teams overestimate the value of picking early in the draft and that top-picked players are likely to be overpaid. When Thaler asked if any alumni in attendance had taken his class on decision making, applause filled the room.

—Anthony Ruth