Favorite Professors Of Best & Brightest MBAs

Natalya Vinokurova, Wharton School

ā€œI aspire to Professor Natalya Vinokurovaā€™s (Managing Established Enterprises) sharp wit, ability to promote critical thinking, and deep commitment to mentorship. In class, her navigation of the management strategy cases pushed me to think critically about the real challenges leaders face, while exploring the type of leader I wanted to be. Outside class, her open-door policy created conversations where I walked away with more clarity and resources for my personal development goals.ā€

Prathama K. Nabi, Wharton School

ā€œIt is hard to narrow down, but I would pick Professor Greg Dobson, who taught us Operations Management and Process Improvement. He had immense mastery over the subject matter, was passionate about teaching, and made learning extremely interactive and fun. Professor Dobson taught some of the complex topics in operations with very simple experiments. For our assignments, we were baking popcorn, dissolving aspirin, using an xpult, or designing a toy factory. It was a great learning experience.ā€

Shahbaaz Mubeen Mamadapur, University of Rochester (Simon)

ā€œI have had a myriad of wonderful professors, but my greatest lessons came from Professor Sarah Biggerstaff. She teaches a phenomenal course on leadership that helped me restructure my thinking around personal prioritization, effective coaching, and cultivating leadership in others so that their own strengths may shine and be recognized. Sarah is genuine, kind, and truly invested in her students. She empowers them to take the wonderful opportunities theyā€™ve been given and to find a way to ā€œpay it forward.ā€ I am so grateful for her insight and compassion!ā€

Heather A. Harrison, Yale SOM

ā€œMy favorite MBA professor is Professor Jimmy Anklesaria, who teaches Strategic Cost Management at Rady. He is one of the worldā€™s most sought-after speakers and advisors on the subject. He is the founder of the Anklesaria Group, which is involved in consulting and mentoring of companies and institutions in efficiently and sustainably managing their costs. He is also the author of the book, Aim & Drive, and co-author of Zero Base Pricing. Professor Anklesariaā€™s class is the perfect mix of lecture and case-based learning. Most of his teachings are available as digital catalogues where complex textbook concepts are broken down and made more palatable through everyday use cases and illustrations. The best part of his course, though, is our ability to connect and network with the guest speakers he invites each session. These are industry veterans speaking to us about the potential impacts and value creation of blockchain and cryptocurrency disrupting the supply chain across industries. I have been able to apply these learnings in identifying market segments where Ciscoā€™s IoT solutions might create value in the future.ā€

Thoshna Arasappa, U.C.-San Diego (Rady)

University of Toronto’s Nouman Ashraf

ā€œProfessor Nouman Ashraf, who teaches the Leading Social Innovation elective and is the faculty advisor for Access to Success. He provided the Access to Success team and I with the tools to structure our way of thinking and our goals ā€“ things that I knew and understood instinctively but not formally. His guidance was absolutely invaluable in gaining clarity and precision that we envisioned for Access to Success, and a roadmap for getting there. If that werenā€™t enough, his inimitable personality, boundless energy, crackling sense of humour, and love for good food make him someone with whom Iā€™d always get along well.ā€

Varun Chandak, University of Toronto (Rotman)

ā€œIn my 63 units at Marshall, Iā€™ve had some truly excellent professors. If I had to choose just one, Iā€™d say Dr. Diane Badame impressed me the most. The amount of preparation that went into every lecture, her responsiveness at every hour of the day and night ā€“ and her dedication to developing marketers ā€“ set her apart from a sea of outstanding faculty. I took Dr. Badameā€™s Fashion, Luxury, and Lifestyle Marketing class, as well as CMO on Shareholder Value. Not only does Dr. Badame put rigorous thought into each lecture, she brings in some incredible guest speakers.ā€

Richard Baynes, USC (Marshall)Ā 

MIT Sloan’s Ben Shields

ā€œBen Shields, my professor for Communication for Leaders. Communications was a class that I didnā€™t think was going to be particularly interesting, but Ben quickly won me over. Ben is an excellent professor who has a true talent for engaging an audience and clearly making and emphasizing his point. As a communications professor, it is no surprise that Ben is able to concisely articulate his thoughts. However, his genuine passion for the subject, as well as his poise and professionalism, adds a persuasiveness that cannot be taught. In addition, Ben is very generous with his time, providing comprehensive and practical feedback on all tasks or assignments, no matter how small, and making sure students know his door is always open.ā€

Isabelle Cox, MIT (Sloan)

ā€œMy favorite MBA professor at Kelley is Professor Rockney Walters, who teaches both Pricing Strategy and Market Based Analysis ā€“ two classes required for all students majoring in marketing. His engaging personality and wealth of knowledge gained from experience in both academia and corporate create an unmatchable learning environment. I constantly found myself referring to notes from his classes during my summer internship and truly believe that he was a large reason for my success over those 12 weeks. His dedication to the success of his students is not limited to the classroom. He has been more than willing to serve as ā€œcounselā€ to case competition teams that I have been a part of, the Elite 8 Brand Management Case Competition being the most recent. Professor Walters is one of the many shining examples of how professors at Kelley demonstrate the Kelley values: Leadership, Collaboration, Professionalism, and Excellence.ā€

Tyler Whitsett, Indiana University (Kelley)

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