Meet Columbia Business School’s MBA Class Of 2024

An Interview with Clare Norton, Senior Associate Dean of Enrollment Management

P&Q: What are the two most exciting developments at your program in the past year and how will they enrich the MBA experience for current and future MBAs?

Norton: “Two exciting developments over the past year have been the School’s move to two new buildings on the University’s Manhattanville campus and joining the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management.

After proudly calling Uris Hall on Columbia’s Morningside campus home for more than half a century, we’re excited to embark on a whole new era. In January 2022, we moved to our new home on our Manhattanville campus. Two buildings, encompassing 492,000 square feet, more than doubling our previous space, incorporate a layer-cake design and are filled with light, leading technology, and open spaces that integrate faculty, students, and staff in a way the cultivates relationships and the open exchange of ideas. With an emphasis on idea generation, knowledge delivery, interdisciplinary learning, and deep connections between scholarship and industry, our new facilities reaffirm the School’s mission of educating and developing leaders and builders of enterprises who advance business and create value for stakeholders and society.

Columbia Business School is a proud member of the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, an alliance of leading American business schools and some of our country’s top corporations. The Consortium’s mission is to enhance diversity and inclusion in global business education and leadership by striving to reduce the significant underrepresentation of African Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Native Americans in both member schools’ enrollments and in the ranks of global management. This fall, we welcomed our first class from the Consortium- Sixty-six students.

P&Q: If you were giving a campus tour, what is the first place you’d take an MBA applicant? Why is that so important to the MBA experience?

Norton: “We are excited about our two state-of-the-art buildings, Henry R. Kravis Hall and David Geffen Hall, located on Columbia University’s Manhattanville campus. Our new space encompasses 492,000 square feet, more than doubling our previous spaces. The structures feature state-of-the art learning facilities, study rooms and dedicated spaces for events, meetings, recruiting activities and networking. Each building features a unique stair system called “The Network”, which acts as the connective tissue of the school, linking all levels of each building, joining a myriad of intimate lounges, classrooms, study rooms, and informal hang-out spaces. In addition, the space includes an Innovation Lab, dedicated space for nurturing new business ventures conceived of and led by members of the Columbia community, student screening room, student game room, fitness room, dining hall, and café. Connecting the buildings is an underground Link, which houses a variety of shared service groups and amenities, allowing our new space to truly function as one unit on our new campus. Explore our campus by taking our student-led tour and/or virtual tour.”

P&Q: What is the most innovative thing you have introduced into the MBA program in recent years? How has it been a game changer for your program?

Norton: “At Columbia Business School, we continually retool how we educate students to meet contemporary business needs. Ten years ago, we began expanding our curriculum with classes focused on areas such as algorithmic decision-making, machine learning, and the coding platform Python. Our curriculum now contains courses that include tech fundamentals, applied AI, digital product management, blockchain, crypto, and climate tech, among others. Today, more than 88% of our students take an elective in data, tech, or analytics and ~67% take two or more electives in this space.

CBS faculty members are leading the way in cutting-edge research in data, tech, analytics, and more. For example, Assaf Zeevi’s work on machine learning and its integration in the healthcare industry is highly innovative, Dan Russo’s research on AI, particularly in reinforcement learning, has far-reaching applications in developing large-scale recommendation systems and Bo Cowgill’s research on labor markets offers valuable insights into the impact of automation in the workforce. More research can be found here.

Last year we established the Digital Future Initiative. Our goal is to work more closely with businesses, organizations, governments, and communities in an effort to optimize and accelerate technological advance. In January, we launched four new research labs to bring together students, business practitioners, and leading faculty from across Columbia University to promote research and curriculum development in the areas of the algorithmic economy, digital finance, humans in the digital economy, and media and technology.”

P&Q: What have MBAs told you is the most memorable, signature experience they’ve had in your program? Why did it resonate so much with them?

Norton: “Introduced in 2011 by Andres Small ’12, CBS Matters is a signature experience that provides students an opportunity to share what matters personally to them. Presenters speak about their lives and passions in a safe, supportive space. Students use the time to be incredibly vulnerable, often sharing their life story (where and how they grew up) and intimate details about their family, relationships, mental and/or physical health (battling cancer or a tragic event), and more. Topics truly run the gamut.  This community forum has become a tradition and assists in forging connections between students that might otherwise be missed and is unique to Columbia.”

P&Q: Columbia Business School is associated with thought leadership, with graduates talking about how they were taught by tenured faculty and adjuncts who’d authored books they read or companies they admired. Give our readers some examples of these professors and the kind of value they bring to MBA students.

Norton: “We value all our professors, full-time and adjuncts, and are grateful for their research, subject matter expertise and passion they bring and share with our students.  Below is a sample list.

Climate Change and Sustainability

• Vanessa Burbano: climate, labor markets, strategy
• Geoffrey Heal: climate, corporate governance, microeconomics
• Eric Johnson: director, Center for Decision Sciences; climate change, consumer behavior, decision making and negotiations, marketing; author of The Elements of Choice: Why The Way We Decide Matters
• Shivaram Rajgopal: climate, corporate finance, corporate governance, financial accounting and auditing, fundamental investment analysis, managerial accounting
• Bruce Usher: co-director, Tamer Center for Social Enterprise; climate change; author of Investing in the Era of Climate Change
• Gernot Wagner: climate risks, climate policy, author of Geoengineering: the Gamble

Digital Future

• Omar Besbes: AI and business analytics, marketplace design, operations and supply chain management
• Daniel Guetta: director, Center for Pricing and Revenue Management and Business Analytics Initiative; AI and business analytics, operations and supply chain management
• Ciamac Moallemi: faculty director, Digital Future Initiative; AI and business analytics, asset management, financial engineering, financial institutions

• Oded Netzer: vice dean of research; AI and business analytics, marketing; author of Decisions Over Decimals

21st Century Finance

• Tania Babina: AI and business analytics, corporate finance, entrepreneurship and innovation, labor markets
• Abby Joseph Cohen: globalization, macroeconomics; former Federal Reserve Board economist and senior investment strategist at Goldman Sachs; named to Barron’slist of 100 Most Influential Women in U.S. Finance
• Donna Hitscherich: director, Private Equity Program; corporate finance
• Glenn Hubbard: dean emeritus; former chairman of U.S. Council of Economic Advisors; corporate finance, corporate governance, entrepreneurship and innovation, financial institutions, globalization, macroeconomics, microeconomics; author of The Wall and the Bridge
• Tano Santos: director, Heilbrunn Center for Graham and Dodd Investing; asset management, financial engineering, financial institutions, fundamental investment analysis
• Laura Veldkamp: macroeconomics, data economy, value of data as an asset

Entrepreneurship and Innovation

• Melanie Brucks: consumer behavior, entrepreneurship and innovation, marketing
• Jorge Guzman: entrepreneurship and innovation, leadership and organizational behavior; strategy
• Angela Lee: faculty director, Eugene Lang Entrepreneurship Center; decision making and negotiations, entrepreneurship and innovation, leadership and organizational behavior
• Sandra Matz: climate, consumer behavior, decision making and negotiations, leadership and organizational behavior, media
• Dan Wang: co-director of the Tamer Center for Social Enterprise; entrepreneurship and innovation, strategy

Business and Society

• Modupe Akinola: faculty director, Sanford C. Bernstein & Co. Center for Leadership and Ethics; leadership and organizational behavior
• Adam Galinsky: vice dean for diversity, equity, and inclusion; decision making and negotiations, leadership and organizational behavior; author of Friend & Foe
• Todd Jick, faculty director, Reuben Mark Initiative for Organizational Character and Leadership; leadership and organizational behavior

Healthcare

• Carri Chan: faculty director, Healthcare and Pharmaceutical Management Program; AI and business analytics, healthcare, operations and supply chain management
• Jing Dong: AI and business analytics, healthcare, operations and supply chain management
• Frank Lichtenberg: healthcare, macroeconomics, microeconomics

Real Estate

• Christopher Mayer: co-director, Paul Milstein Center for Real Estate; real estate, financial markets
• Tomasz Piskorski: real estate, securities and mortgage markets, financial intermediation and banking, market structure and regulation
• Stijn Van Nieuwerburgh: real estate, asset pricing, macroeconomics

P&Q: What types of programming or services does your business school offer that make it welcoming and advantageous to women? Underrepresented minorities? International students?

Norton: “Columbia Business School is affiliated with a number of diversity focused programs and associations, including the Consortium for Graduate Study in Management, Management Leadership for Tomorrow, the National Black MBA Association, the National Society for Hispanic MBAs, the Riordan Fellows Program, Sponsors for Educational Opportunity, the Forté Foundation, Goldman Sachs’ 10,000 Women, Reaching Out MBA, CHecK uS Out (a multi-school admissions event for LGBT prospective students that takes place in New York City and San Francisco each fall), the Yellow Ribbon Program, and the Ten School Diversity Alliance, a joint effort by the nation’s leading business schools to affect and influence the diversity of MBA campuses, organization, and the global community.

The Phillips Pathway for Inclusive Leadership (PPIL) is a co-curricular program aimed at equipping students with the skills and strategies necessary to lead in an inclusive and ethical manner across industries. The program is inspired by the work of the late professor Katherine W. Phillips, a beloved member of the Columbia Business School community from 2011 to 2020 and a world-renowned expert on diversity in the workplace. Designed by two graduates from the class of 2020 in collaboration with the DEI Initiative, PPIL includes a combination of reflections, surveys, workshops, and programmatic endeavors that help hone and develop students’ inclusive leadership skills throughout their educational journey at Columbia Business School. Each student population will experience PPIL as a required component, featuring structured programming based on student population needs.

Over 100 student organizations are available to join ranging from affinity (Columbia Women in Business, Black Business Student Association, Hispanic Business Association), athletic, career and professional, international (Africa Business Club, Greater China Society, Japan Business Club, Korean Business Association, Latin American Business Association, South Asia Business Association, Southeast Asian Business Association, Middle East and North Africa Club), and social clubs as well as community service organizations, student government and leadership groups.

To enhance support for student affinity groups, additional programming includes Heritage and Awareness Month recognition and celebrations that bring together students, staff, faculty, and keynote speakers for critical discussions and offers other community-wide programming opportunities. Key months celebrated include Black History Month, Women’s History Month, AAPI Awareness Month, and Jewish-American Heritage Month. The programming incorporates a digital campaign that includes a monthly newsletter sent to the Business School community outlining the history of the month, key events, and resources for learning. It also includes showcasing the diversity of the community through digital profiles on display throughout the month featuring students, staff, and faculty.

CBS has a robust Career Management Center (CMC) that offers a range of resources to aid in searches for internships and full-time employment. The center offers one-on-one sessions with our expert career advisors as well as workshops and events that provide tactical advice. In addition, the Center has a dedicated team for international students. As a graduate, you have access to a career coach for the duration of your career, as well as an extensive Columbia alumni network that spans the globe.”

P&Q: What is the most underrated part of your program that you wish students knew more about? How does that make your graduates more valuable to prospective employers?

Norton: “Our 365-day a year internship opportunities. One of the most extraordinary parts of our location is our ability to connect and engage with companies and leaders throughout the year, not just during the summer.

Our Columbia Business School Executives in Residence (EIR) program, the oldest and largest program of its kind, has gained renown for providing MBA students with unparalleled access to C-level executives who help to bridge theory and practice at the very center of business

Lastly, our diverse and global community ensures that our students have exposure to individuals with a variety of backgrounds and experiences.”