David Pyke's Blog

Al Carey, CEO of PepsiCo Americas Beverages, presenting to USD students

In his visit to USD this week, Al Carey, CEO of PepsiCo Americas Beverages, gave students a look into the future of the beverage industry. On the thirst-quenching horizon: LRB (keep reading), sustainability and an advertising revolution.

With sales declining for cola drinks, the Liquid Refreshment Beverage category is the beverage tsunami of the future. LRB includes such products (owned by PepsiCo) as Mountain Dew and Kickstart; Gatorade – this …Read Full Article

Irwin Jacobs, Malin Burnham and Ernest Rady speak at 17th Annual Real Estate Conference

On Friday, I attended the 17th Annual Real Estate Conference hosted by the Burnham-Moores Center for Real Estate here at the USD School of Business. There were about 700 people in attendance, so the energy in the room was high.  The first keynote was an inspiring panel discussion by Malin Burnham, Irwin Jacobs, and Ernest Rady.

These three superb businessmen and philanthropists have been deeply involved in …Read Full Article

Poster for Fertitta and Breitling presentation at USD School of Business

Yesterday I saw what could be the future for some of our current USD School of Business students. I wasn’t looking into a crystal ball; I was looking at a friendship formed 25 years ago at USD that crystallized into an extremely successful business relationship.

Lorenzo Fertitta (BBA ’91) and Tom Breitling (BA ’91) were roommates at USD; today, Lorenzo is Chairman and CEO of Zuffa, LLC (which owns and …Read Full Article

Diego Torero helps Prof. Mike Lawless and Dean Pyke spread the word about the USD V2 competition

Pitch your idea at the USD Venture Vetting (V2) competition and you could win up to $25,000 in prize money from angel investors.

I even had a photo-shoot with USD mascot, Diego Torero, this week to make sure all of our students know that this is a campus-wide entrepreneurship event. Great new business ideas can come from USD undergraduate or graduate students in any …Read Full Article

Chris Crane, CEO, Edify Inc.

USD hosted a TEDx AshokaU event at the historic Balboa Theatre in downtown San Diego on Friday night.  This event is patterned after the famous TED events – short presentations of new and innovative ideas.  An audience of about 1,000 students, faculty and guests filled the theatre to listen to seven speakers.  USD is an AshokaU Changemaker Campus, and this event was the culmination of three days of AshokaU Exchange activities at the university.

The first …Read Full Article