Each week we collect all the MBA news that’s fit to print and provide a quick overview of the latest trending topics from top business schools around the world.

Here’s your MBA News You Need digest for the week of May 6, 2019.

Meet the HBS Latino Student Organization (LASO)

Harvard Business School‘s Latinx Student Organization (LASO) supports and promotes various initiatives geared toward Latinx students. From MBA admissions to career development and alumni support, LASO’s goal is to empower the Latinx community on campus and beyond by representing a wide range of backgrounds, experiences, heritage, and interests.

Next year marks the 20th anniversary of LASO, and to commemorate this exciting milestone, the organization will host a year-long celebration. It all begins on October 5th with the annual Latinx professional conference, which invites current and future Latinx leaders to campus to talk about the struggles and victories within the Latinx community.  Second, LASO will place a more significant emphasis on encouraging more Latinx students to apply to the HBS MBA program. Finally, LASO plans to build broader ties across the Harvard Latinx community.

Learn more about LSAO and meet the leadership team by reading the HBS blog.

CMU Tepper Energy Business MBA Track

At CMU Tepper, MBA students have a unique opportunity to participate in optional “tracks” that help to focus their curriculum toward a specific field or career path.

One of the most popular tracks is the Energy Business MBA Track, which offers courses on energy finance, energy engineering, energy policy, and risk analysis. The capstone is a semester-long project that addresses a current business problem faced by a real-world energy leader.

This year, MBA students worked with greentech energy company Fluence to investigate solar-plus-storage-based power plants. Their goal was to determine if the idea was economically viable by analyzing data from hundreds of natural gas units around the U.S.  One key takeaway was, “when revenue from all ancillary services are included in the models, solar-plus-storage facilities can mimic mid-merit plants in four of the five regions reviewed, as well as three of the six clusters for the New England Region.”

The investigation yielded a student white paper, which was picked up by crucial energy industry publications such as Energy Storage News, pv magazine, and Renew Economy.

Read the full results on the CMU website here.

Takeaways from the Wharton Global Forum in Shanghai

The Wharton Global Forum is a regular event dedicated to transforming business. With over 1,000 attendees including Wharton alumni, faculty, industry leaders, and CEOs/founders, the event brings together some of the best and brightest in the world to incubate new ideas and reinvent decision-making.

In March, the Global Forum took place in Shanghai and left attendees with many big ideas from the keynotes to the fireside chats.

Here are few of the key takeaways:

• Successful entrepreneurs spearhead growth in today’s market
• Data scientists and other tech-focused practitioners are more essential now than ever and companies must invest in data infrastructure if they want to compete
• To compete in today’s data-heavy market, you have to grab people’s attention quickly
• CEOs who fail have the most valuable insight and reflection

Read more about the Wharton Global Forum in Shanghai here.

Stanford GSB Names Assistant Dean and Director of the Career Management Center

Jamie Schein is the new assistant dean and director of the Career Management Center at Stanford GSB. Schein’s new role will require her to oversee and direct the CMC, which is home to more than 25 alumni career programs and offers a wide range of support to help students develop their careers.

As a 1991 MBA alumna, Schein brings an in-depth understanding of the student experience to her role. As the previous director of strategy and curriculum support at Stanford GSB, she will be able to provide crucial insight that will support students in their post-graduate careers.

Prior to her work at Stanford, Schein held management roles at several technology companies including CMO at Model N, Inc.

“Jamie’s deep and varied professional history gives her a strong foundation to lead the CMC in the coming years,” said Stanford GSB Dean Jonathan Levin. “Her collaborative spirit will be important to working across the school and with external partners in this dynamic environment for career management and advising services.”

Learn more about Jamie Schein on the Stanford GSB website here.

The Importance of Diversity in Business

Last week, leaders from various industries testified before Congress about the importance of diversity and inclusion in business.

Spearheaded by Democratic Representative Joyce Beatty, the hearing “Good for the Bottom Line: A Review of the Business Case for Diversity and Inclusion” explained how companies that embrace diversity and inclusion will be more likely to prosper.  The hearing referenced 2015 and 2018 studies by McKinsey & Company, which reveal the competitive advantage that diversity and inclusion offers companies.

According to the reports, while progress is slow when it comes to diversity and inclusion, it is happening, and it’s a business imperative. For example, companies in the top quartile for the executive team are 21 percent more likely to experience above-average profitability. However, this is not an easy thing to do.

“Creating an effective inclusion and diversity strategy is no small effort and requires strong, sustained and inclusive leadership,” the report concludes.

The key to success is not only workforce participation by ethically and gender diverse talent, but bringing that talent into the management level. Read more about the testimony on Forbes.