Newswise — Adlai Wertman, a leading social entrepreneur and policy advocate who led a groundbreaking Los Angeles homeless-services agency the past seven years after a lengthy investment-banking career, has joined the USC Marshall School of Business in a newly created role spearheading all social responsibility initiatives.
"Adlai's hiring is part of a broader effort by USC Marshall to examine and understand the role and relevance of business in society," said USC Marshall Dean James G. Ellis. "He brings a unique combination of business acumen, non-profit entrepreneurship and thoughtful policymaking to our school. His experience, relationships and innovative approaches to some of the most challenging problems facing society and business will be invaluable to our students, our faculty and our programs."
In 2001, Wertman became CEO and president of Chrysalis, a Los Angeles non-profit dedicated to helping the homeless and poor change their lives through jobs. Under Wertman's leadership, the organization grew to three offices " in Los Angeles' Skid Row and Pacoima neighborhoods and in Santa Monica " serving nearly 2,500 clients a year, with a 93-percent success rate. The organization runs two social enterprises that provide transitional work opportunities to nearly 1,000 Chrysalis clients a year, while generating more than $4 million in annual revenues.
The organization and Wertman have been spotlighted repeatedly in national business publications such as Forbes, Worth and BusinessWeek for their innovative approaches to transitioning the poor and homeless to more stable and sustainable life situations. Wertman will now bring that experience to bear on USC Marshall as an assistant professor of clinical entrepreneurship.
"USC Marshall, like USC as a whole, has long been heavily involved in neighboring communities and in a variety of social-responsibility areas such as corporate governance, business ethics, community service and financial reporting," Wertman said. "My job will be to pull together those and other Marshall programs in a more coherent and focused way, especially for students who are more aware than ever of how vital this is and who want to incorporate it more directly into their business careers."
Wertman will teach a class on corporate social responsibility beginning in January. More broadly, he will create curriculum on how businesses can participate in social change beyond philanthropy, tightly integrating a philosophy of social improvement into their business practices. He plans an incubator program for innovative social entrepreneurs and their ideas from around the country. Wertman also will convene a series of symposia with academic, government and business leaders to discuss social responsibility issues.
Wertman has been a lecturer and senior fellow at the UCLA School of Public Affairs since 2005, teaching three graduate-level courses on issues facing non-profits, including management, strategic planning, finance, fund-raising and models for self-sustaining organizations. He is also a fellow with the Wexner Heritage Foundation.
Wertman serves on a number of committees focused on homeless issues, for organizations such as the Central City Association, Los Angeles City Council District 11 and the Los Angeles Workforce Investment Board. He is a founding board member of Rock the Classroom and The Bridge Program.
Previously, Wertman was an investment banker, most prominently during an 11-year stint with Prudential Securities in New York and Los Angeles, where he ascended to the role of managing director, co-managing the firm's National Public Finance Department, managing the West Coast region, and overseeing public financing offerings in more than 40 states. Overall, Wertman spent 18 years in investment banking, also working for Chase Securities, Bear Stearns & Co., E.C. Farnsworth & Co., and Laidlaw, Adams & Peck.
Wertman has an M.B.A. in finance and public policy management from the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor's of Arts degree in economics from the State University of New York in Stony Brook.
About the USC Marshall School of Business Based at the crossroads of the Pacific Rim, in Los Angeles at the University of Southern California, the USC Marshall School of Business is dedicated to training global leaders to make a difference. USC Marshall is the best place to learn the art and science of business.
The school's complete array of programs annually serve about 5,700 undergraduate, graduate, professional and executive-education students, who attend classes at the main University Park campus in Los Angeles, and in satellite facilities in Irvine and North San Diego County.
In conjunction with Jiao Tong University in Shanghai, USC Marshall also operates a Global Executive MBA program in China. Marshall's many highly ranked programs and centers of excellence include the Leventhal School of Accounting. For more information, go to http://www.marshall.usc.edu
RSS