New environmental branding has been installed around the school along with new banners throughout the Haas campus.
UC Berkeley Haas today unveiled a new strategic narrative campaign that builds on the school’s legacy of questioning the status quo and embraces the critical role of human leadership in the age of AI.
Over the past eight months, more than 500 students, faculty, alumni, employers, and staff shared their experiences and insights to help articulate what makes Haas distinctive.
“What we heard from our community was clear: It is our humanity and intellectual rigor that set us apart,” said Haas Dean Jenny Chatman, BA 81, PhD 88. “Breakthrough innovation requires what algorithms cannot provide—creativity, judgment, ethical reasoning, and authentic influence.”
The new brand narrative will guide how the school tells its story, positioning Haas at the human edge of innovation. Over the coming months, it will come to life in the school’s digital and social storytelling and beyond. Haas has also updated its logo to align with UC Berkeley’s initiative to create a more unified identity across the campus, and launched a new homepage.
Watch the video to see the strategic narrative come to life:
Building on the Haas Defining Leadership Principles
This new narrative builds on the school’s Defining Leadership Principles (DLPs), codified in 2010 by former Haas Dean Rich Lyons—now UC Berkeley chancellor. Lyons worked with Chatman, gathering broad community input to articulate the school’s distinctive culture in four DLPs: Question the Status Quo, Confidence Without Attitude, Students Always, and Beyond Yourself.
Just as the DLPs articulated a culture that had long existed at Haas, the new narrative captures what’s always been true about how we develop leaders who make business better, said Chief Marketing Officer Joey Schmit, who led the strategic narrative project.
“This is an opportunity to elevate our story and visual expression to speak to a new generation of students and alumni,” he said. “The video serves as a rousing call to action to future business students to become the Haas leaders society needs.”
Quantitative data and anecdotal insights from stakeholders across all of Haas helped guide the refreshed brand. A two-day pop-up around the Haas courtyard collected insights from those on campus.
A framework for storytelling
Founded in 1898 with a donation from Cora Jane Flood, Haas is the second-oldest business school in the U.S. and the first at a public university. It’s the only leading business school founded by a woman.
With the new campaign, Haas looks to the future in a time of great change in the business school landscape, the employment market, technology, and society. While the campaign brings the brand to life through refreshed visuals—new design elements, the brand video, updated colors and fonts, and the new logo aligned with UC Berkeley—it also provides a framework for storytelling that highlights what the Haas community stands for and achieves.
“Stories are how humans think,” Schmit said. “When someone considers Haas, they’re not just evaluating rankings and statistics. They’re asking themselves: ‘What’s the story I’ll be part of here? Who will I become?’ That’s why this couldn’t be a top-down approach. We needed to listen to hundreds of voices until the true narrative emerged.”
Haas community members mingle at a launch event for the strategic narrative project. A screen shows an example image from the campaign.
Brand rationale
The brand rationale is an explanation of our strategic narrative, which guides how we tell our story:
UC Berkeley Haas was not built to teach business as usual. It was built to question it.
In a world reshaped by AI, climate change, and global uncertainty, the future belongs to those who move with curiosity and purpose. Those who ask the best questions, think critically, and lead with principles, harnessing technology to build something better.
We develop leaders to have exponential impact—through the teams they build, the problems they solve, and the industries they grow. People who turn uncertainty into opportunity and launch ideas that transform business around the globe.
From day one, we’ve reimagined what business could be. Inspired by one another. By the brilliance of Berkeley. By the Bay Area’s visionaries, creators, and innovators. We’re moving business forward.
This messaging acknowledges the global scale of the problems Haas students and alumni tackle while illustrating the school’s essential role in reshaping future leaders to address AI’s disruption of business.
Brand pillars
The new narrative is built around four brand pillars:
Path-Bending Leaders: Haasies are a diverse community of leaders who challenge assumptions, reframe problems, and create entirely new possibilities, proactively building the next industries, ideas, and institutions that serve markets and society. We are not leaders who just adapt to change. We are leaders who anticipate change, bending the paths on our journeys, creating what never existed before.
Innovation Ecosystem: UC Berkeley Haas is where the entrepreneurial spirit converges with Berkeley’s public mission and excellence, the Bay Area’s innovation engine, and the West Coast’s spirit of possibility, as well as its gateway to global perspectives.
All-Encompassing Rigor: Academic excellence and analytical rigor are the foundation of a Berkeley Haas education. Our Defining Leadership Principles guide us, holding us to a higher standard that couples integrity with intellect. These critical-thinking skills last a lifetime, steering decisions throughout careers, no matter how business and technology change markets and industries.
Exponential Impact: Our community’s collective impact is exponentially greater than the impact of any one of us alone. Haasies show up for one another, which is core to the power of this global network for life. That power multiplies through our connection to UC Berkeley.
Guidance from thought partners
The thought leadership of Professor Emeritus David Aaker, considered the father of modern branding, was a key driver of the campaign. His influential work on brand equity and brand portfolio strategy provided a foundation for the project. “Branding has a lot of components, and you’ve got to make those work together,” Aaker said. He consulted with the team during the project, and insights drove the team to arrive at unified, distinct messaging that was uniquely Haas—and could be adapted across different degree programs.
Professor David Aaker met with Haas Marketing & Communications team members to discuss the fundamentals of branding.
Additionally, a group of Haas community members served as project advisors, including Frank Cooper III, BS 86, the CMO of Visa; professional faculty member Janet Brady, BS 74, MBA 76, the former CMO and CHRO of The Clorox Company; former Haas CMO Ute Frey; and Bill Pearce, the former CMO of Haas, Del Monte, and Taco Bell.