Harvard MBA students help New Orleans develop econ strategy

New Orleans CityBusiness, Jan 26, 2006 by Tommy Santora

An 84-page report outlining the needs of eight industry sectors, small business and work force development will be released Friday by the Bring New Orleans Back Commission economic development committee and presented to Mayor C. Ray Nagin.The plan will be publicly unveiled at 1 p.m. at the New Orleans downtown Sheraton hotel.

The report will also be posted Friday afternoon at www.bringneworleansback.org.We will detail ways to rebuild the New Orleans economy sector by sector, like tourism, maritime, oil and gas, and so forth; that's where the beef of the report will be, said Bill Hines, co-chair of the economic development committee with Dan Packer. It's not just a list of post-Katrina-related things we have to get done. Some of the things we will talk about stem back to pre- Katrina and are crucial to improving our industries. The question will be when we try to implement these things, 'Do we have the political will to slay these dragons?'Hines said the report was edited and signed off on by a team of five senior faculty members and business school students from the Harvard Business School. During winter break, Harvard MBA students spent about two weeks in New Orleans, helping on a variety of projects ranging from education to real estate to economic development.A team of 12 students from the MBA program sent a recommendation proposal to the BNOBC committee Jan. 12, outlining the need for a nonprofit New Orleans Development Corp. to coordinate with the city government and serve as the primary vehicle for economic growth.The overarching goal of the economic development plan is to attract and nurture investment that will in turn create high-quality jobs and further economic growth, said Brendan Kennealey, a Harvard student who wrote the proposal. In the immediate future, the NODC and its neighborhood satellites will work closely with local businesses to retain firms already located in New Orleans and assist small business owners in rebuilding their enterprises.Over the coming years, it will promote entrepreneurship on both a city and neighborhood level and attract outside industries to New Orleans.Hines said the proposal was considered and incorporated into the overall, 84-page report.We can use all the outside help we can get, and these were students and faculty members who volunteered their time to give us an outside perspective on what other cities have done to foster economic development, Hines said.