Haley Robison

MBA 2014

Hometown: Southlake, Texas
Pre-MBA: Senior Associate Consultant at Bain & Company

Haley Robison

Post Graduation Goals:

To work in the field of experiential education or health and wellness. I would like to pursue something entrepreneurial.

Favorite GSB Memory So Far:

Summiting Mt. Whitney at sunrise with 11 of my classmates.

Tuesday

07:15am

Roll out of bed and get dressed. Oatmeal. Bike to school.

08:00am

Supply Chain Management bright and early. Still dreaming of sunny Napa from Monday’s mini vacation (yes, I’m including that photo because it’s better than a picture of me at an 8 am class!), but Professor Whang makes the early class bearable. He is more enthusiastic about information systems than anyone I’ve ever known.

10:00am

Finance with Professor Perez. We call him FPG. Discuss CAPM, field a cold call, catch up with James and Saul.

11:45am

Grab a quick lunch and sit down in Arbuckle to send out some emails. Run into Katy. Love that girl.

12:45pm

Team meeting to prepare for Steve Blank’s Lean Launch Pad class, taught “across the street” [that’s how we refer to Stanford University]. The class is well-known at the GSB; in it, teams explore start-up ideas. My team, Team Pyka: Collin, Saul, and Katka is working on a start-up in the outdoor space. The class uses a ‘flipped’ model, where we watch lectures outside of class and then use class time to present our progress and provide other groups with feedback. The class is a ton of work, but has changed how I think about entrepreneurship and how I will approach any start-up.

03:00pm

Run home to grab a snack and get ready for class. Leave to pick up my team.

04:00pm

Lean Launch Pad class at the Engineering building across campus. Our team got some tough feedback – we will need to push hard this next week.

07:00pm

Grab a quick dinner with my team at Spice Kit on California Ave. to debrief class and game plan for the week. Coconut juice makes my night.

08:00pm

Listen to Alex Tarzy and Javi Hernandez share their stories at TALK. TALK is a long-standing tradition at the GSB where our classmates share their stories with a packed room of people! As a TALK coach, I help my classmates prepare their TALKs. I look forward to every Monday!

10:30pm

Meet with Peter, Hiro, and Eduardo to complete our group SCM assignment. We were asked to develop a recommendation for a company system architecture.

11:30pm

Bike home.

11:45pm

Finish up an application for the Outdoor Adventure Club leadership team.

12:00am

Respond to emails. Prep for tomorrow’s classes.

01:00am

Lights out!

Wednesday

07:00am

Up!

08:00am

Bike to d.school [Institute of Design at Stanford]. I love my trusty white and neon green Huffy. I bought it off Craig’s List my first week of school for $30, and it’s only failed me once (shredded tires on the way to class…).

08:15am

Meet my d.leadership partner Thomas to prep our board for Design Review 2. Thomas and I are working with a team from Comvita, a New Zealand-based natural health products company to help them develop innovative solutions for entering the U.S. market. We are currently designing for diabetes patients.

10:00am

Design Review begins. Representatives from 11 partner organizations fill the room to hear updates on everyone’s design projects.

12:00pm

Celebrating our project milestone!

12:15pm

Debrief with my Comvita team. All the design teams are mingling for lunch; we share our prototype with the co-founder of Man Crates.

01:00pm

Bike home.

01:15pm

Eat lunch and work on LLP. Gameplan with Saul on the phone about Team Pyka work.

02:00pm

TALK coaching session with Bryon Jansen, helping him think through what he wants to say. Bryon’s TALK is about living better stories. And he’s so tall!

04:00pm

Work. Attempt to catch-up on emails and prep a bit for class tomorrow.

06:00pm

Head to CIB (Christians in Business) dinner at Arillaga. Can’t find parking. Find parking! Then realize dinner’s been moved.

06:45pm

Decide tea from Starbucks is much needed. Go pick up my friend Caitrin and get tea.

07:15pm

Pick up my roommate Patti from school and take her to her <SURPRISE!> birthday at Hannah’s apartment in downtown PA.

08:30pm

Go with Sabrina and Caitrin to check out a house for next year. Most MBA2s live off campus.

09:15pm

TALK coaching session with Jasper at the Nuthouse.

10:30pm

Meet Team Pyka for a quick LLP brainstorm session. Wondering if we should pivot, explore a new idea or expand our existing idea? Whiteboard like crazy. Decide how to proceed to maximize our learning with the weeks remaining.

12:00am

It has been a long day. Asleep fast.

Friday

06:45am

Wake up and bike to GSBfit. GSBfit is a bi-weekly group workout that my classmate Jamie and I lead outside next to Schwab. It’s open to anyone who wants to come. We write a different workout for each session. Mix of cardio and strength. We love it!

07:15am

Sweat time.

08:15am

Bike home, eat grapefruit (my fav!) and chat quickly with my Aunt Karen (also a fav!)

09:00am

Meet my d.leadership partner Thomas at the Tressider Starbucks to prep for our 10 a.m. design session with Team Comvita.

09:45am

See our Comvita team getting coffee at Starbucks, they join us, and we do the first part of our session there. Learned about each other – and Comvita’s organization – using an unconventional technique called Animal Dynamics (thank you IDEO). Tons of laughter. Tons of insight.