Meet The Texas McCombs MBA Class Of 2023

Via Centers and Initiatives at McCombs

The Center for Analytics and Transformative Technologies (CATT) at McCombs serves as a forum to initiate dialogue and exchange ideas between academia and industry, foster collaborations on research, and develop applied projects for students, faculty, and industry. CATT hosts an annual Global Analytics Summit which explores best practices and current research on effective, interpretable, and explainable AI.

The Blockchain Initiative at McCombs aims to support faculty and graduate student research on blockchain across colleges at UT Austin, to teach students the main concepts related to blockchain, cryptocurrency, and digital payments, and to be the hub of knowledge for external relations with industry practitioners, policymakers, and media. The Blockchain Initiative also supports the Fintech Research Lab, a cutting-edge laboratory where UT faculty and students explore the latest innovations in finance, from payments to decentralized finance protocols. The mission of the lab is to advance knowledge in the Fintech sector and train the next generation of leaders in finance.

Via University of Texas Initiatives

The National Science Foundation selected The University of Texas at Austin to lead the NSF AI Institute for Foundations of Machine Learning, bolstering the university’s existing strengths in this emerging field. UT Austin is simultaneously establishing a permanent base for campus-wide machine learning research called the Machine Learning Laboratory, which will house the new AI institute and support interdisciplinary projects. Industry partners include Facebook, Netflix, YouTube, Dell Technologies, and the city of Austin.”

P&Q:  What have you learned during the pandemic and the shift to hybrid or remote learning and how will they impact the MBA experience going forward?

Mabley: “Communication, collaboration, and community have always been integral to the Full-Time MBA experience. As we ran a remote and hybrid program in 2020-2021, we worked to find new and creative ways to deliver on those principles and to reinforce the McCombs culture across students, faculty, and staff, despite learning, teaching, and working in different places and formats.

Throughout all of the challenges of the past year, the resilience, flexibility, and care demonstrated by our community was uplifting and inspiring: how faculty adjusted to support students through different methods of interaction; how students came together to help one another through a pandemic and an unprecedented winter storm in February 2021 that left many without electricity or water; how staff members worked tirelessly in service of student success and well-being.

Prior to the pandemic, we had had piloted Microsoft Teams as an official channel for the Full-Time MBA program, which allowed for a nimbleness around communication and collaboration. Already having that infrastructure and behavior in place served as a connective tissue, while we were apart physically, leading to more seamless integration when we came back together in person.

Taking classes virtually and working with remote study teams during the pandemic served as a way to provide “future of work” experiences and practice for our students, who will graduate into new workplace environments and the expectation of being able to lead dispersed teams.

We will keep learning and testing different ways of connecting to make us stronger as a community. As we have come back together on-campus this year, we continue to build on existing points of connectivity and are finding ways to optimize the “best-of” both in-person and virtual offerings to engage and support our students.”

P&Q: The McCombs MBA is part of the University of Texas – one of America’s top public research universities – and the larger McCombs School of Business, which includes one of the country’s top undergraduate business schools. How does the MBA program draw from these resources to enrich the learning experience of its MBA students? By the same token, how has McCombs partnered with leading companies and emerging startups in the Austin ecosystem to enhance learning and career opportunities for MBAs?

Mabley: “Our students have the unique opportunity to take advantage of the breadth and depth of academic resources at UT Austin by taking elective courses outside of the business school that count toward MBA elective requirement. They can pursue one of over 10 Dual Degree programs alongside their MBA (such as a JD from the UT School of Law, MD from the Dell Medical School, or Master of Public Affairs from the LBJ School of Public Policy) or engage with one of the many interdisciplinary research centers, institutes, and initiatives across the university. A few examples of interdisciplinary programs that are leveraged by McCombs students include:

* Jon Brumley Texas Venture Labs (JBTVL), which is a campus-wide initiative to accelerate startups in taking their innovations to market and to transform graduate students into entrepreneurs and business leaders. The TVL Practicum is a cross-campus elective course that teaches graduate students how to work with and consult with startups. The TVL Accelerator provides an opportunity for Texas startups to take their ventures to the next level with the unique benefit of leveraging UT resources and talent. The TVL Investment Competition (TVLIC) mimics the real-world process of raising venture capital for student startups.

* Kendra Scott Women’s Entrepreneurial Leadership (WEL) Institute, which works to strengthen the next generation of courageous, creative women leaders who will change the world in business and beyond through coursework, programming, leadership training and mentorship, community-building, speaker series, and funding opportunities. The WEL Institute was founded by Kendra Scott in partnership with UT Austin and is a joint initiative among the McCombs School of Business, the College of Natural Sciences, and the College of Fine Arts.

* Global Sustainability Leadership Institute (GSLI) is UT Austin’s hub for innovation in social and environmental impact. The Institute is managed by the McCombs School of Business and is built in partnership with the Moody College of Communication. GSLI’s work focuses on corporate sustainability, sustainable finance, impact innovation and infrastructure, and sustainability communications. Through GSLI, MBA students have access to experiential learning programs, courses, community events, career support, and research.

* Having several programs as part of the business school portfolio (including undergraduate, specialized Master’s degrees, PhD programs, Executive Education, and Full-Time, Working Professional, and Executive MBA) allows McCombs to have a large faculty, whose members teach across degree programs and provide more areas of research, industry experience, and expertise available to our MBA students.

* McCombs Career Management & Corporate Relations partners closely with leading companies & startups in the Austin ecosystem for career education as well as hiring opportunities. Some examples include:

* Tech & Startup Night – Bi-annual event that brings Austin area alumni in tech and startups together with current MBA students. The fall event typically focuses on alumni and industry professionals at tech companies in Austin (e.g., Dell, Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft) and the spring event focuses on early stage and mid-size startups and creates opportunities for students to secure internships with startups in a more just-in-time manner.

* Range of experiential opportunities given proximity to a vibrant and friendly startup ecosystem. Students can access a wealth of resources and relationships across UT Austin as well as the Austin community. For example, three first year MBAs were able to gain hands-on marketing experience working with a marketing consulting firm to launch a new good-for-you US snack brand in Austin.

* Partnership with the Austin Chamber of Commerce on what growing companies in Austin are looking for regarding hiring needs and talent development. In partnership with the Austin Chamber, we co-hosted a panel with PIMCO, Amazon, The Home Depot Technology Center, and Baylor Scott & White Health and a networking event with a variety of growing companies in Austin looking to hire talent.

Through the McCombs+ experiential learning program’s MBA+ micro-consulting projects, we partnered with several companies and startups in the Austin ecosystem in 2020-2021, such as Dimensional Fund Advisors, LOHAS Advisors, Taskhuman, Zilker Brewing Company, Strangeworks, Sunsign, Yukon Ventures, Amplify Snacks, NXP Semiconductors, Cloud Nerd, and Dell Technologies.

P&Q: What are McCombs’ two most popular elective courses? What makes them so attractive to students and what are a couple of the big takeaways from them?

Mabley: Two popular MBA elective courses at McCombs include Financial Statement Analysis and Innovation and Leadership.

Financial Statement Analysis 

About the Professor: Dr. Patrick Badolato is an award-winning Senior Lecturer with the Department of Accounting, who has been teaching at McCombs for almost 12 years.

About the Course: Financial Statement Analysis is focused on using an array of financial information to best determine the why behind past and current performance, combining quantitative and qualitative factors to understand drivers of performance and to tell the story of the firm.  FSA is an applied, case-based and interdisciplinary class that differs greatly from Financial Accounting as well as highly formulaic or generic offerings in other areas. The class focuses on moving past mindless mechanics and misused summary metrics to best understand the business, a timeless, yet still uncommon, idea from Benjamin Graham.

From a Student: “This is more of a business strategy class that helps us understand how businesses operate at their core and how to not get tricked into making assumptions based on financials. Professor Badolato basically gives a TED Talk every class.”

Next Page: Profiles of 12 members of the Class of 2023