How Many Fortune 500 CEOs Have MBAs? The Answer May Surprise You

From Fortune: Since 1999, David Kang has pursued a peculiar hobby. That year, after Fortune released its annual Fortune 500 issue, Kang began to wonder about where chief executives of companies on the list had attended college. To keep track, the college professor did some research and manually entered their alma maters into a spreadsheet. After completing the task, Kang, then a professor at Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business, was shocked by what the data revealed.

“The results were stunning,” he told Fortune. “Like everyone else, I thought Ivy Leagues would dominate. But the largest place they had gone to was no college at all.”

Of the 500 CEOs on the list, seven or eight had no undergraduate degree, more than the combined degrees from any other college in the pool, according to Kang, who is now a professor of international relations and business at the University of Southern California. He presented the results to his Dartmouth graduate students, who tried to explain away the Ivy League’s lack of dominance, he said. But the numbers told all: A fancy degree isn’t required for business success, and top-tier corporate executives usually don’t have elite educations.

Of the 2023 Fortune 100 CEOs, only 11.8% attended an Ivy as undergrads, and only 9.8% hold an Ivy League MBA. Doug McMillon, CEO of Walmart, the top company on Fortune’s list, got his undergraduate degree from the University of Arkansas and his MBA from the University of Tulsa. Exxon CEO Darren Woods attended Texas A&M University and Northwestern University, and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella went to India’s Manipal Institute of Technology and the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. Of the 20 CEOs at the nation’s biggest companies by revenue, only one attended an Ivy as an undergrad—Amazon’s Andy Jassy, an alum of Harvard University.

Read more

---

Indiana Kelley teams with the WNBA union to offer players graduate business education

From Bloomington, Indiana: The Indiana University Kelley School of Business has teamed up with the Women’s National Basketball Players Association, which represents the current WNBA players, to offer players the chance to pursue a graduate education. This partnership will equip them with the knowledge and skills necessary for successful careers beyond basketball.

Drawing from previous successful collaborations for the National Football League and Major League Soccer, this partnership will offer current and former WNBA players the opportunity to attain a master’s degree or professional certificate.

“Through our degree programs and many other initiatives, the Kelley School has long been committed to empowering women to accelerate their careers and become influential business leaders,” said Ash Soni, dean of the Kelley School and the Sungkyunkwan Professor. “Through this partnership, we are providing another highly competitive group of women with the resources they will need for lasting success — in this instance, off the court.”

“Each season, over 95% of the W draft class graduates with their undergraduate degree, and some have even started graduate programs,” said Terri Jackson, executive director of the WNBPA. “Our members know all too well that the career span of a professional athlete is not very long and view an academic partnership with Kelley as a significant pathway to further their education and achieve economic empowerment.”

Read more

---

A new online MBA deep in the heart of Texas 

From El Paso, Texas: The Woody L. Hunt College of Business at The University of Texas at El Paso has launched a new, online Master of Business Administration program.

“We are thrilled to introduce our online MBA program, which combines the academic rigor of our on-campus programs with the flexibility and accessibility of online learning,” says James Payne, dean of the Woody L. Hunt College of Business. “This program empowers aspiring business leaders to advance their careers, gain practical skills, and make a lasting impact in their respective industries.”

Students enrolled in the 16-month online MBA program will have access to interactive course materials, virtual classrooms, multimedia resources and real-time collaboration tools.

“This dynamic learning environment fosters peer-to-peer engagement, networking opportunities, and collaborative problem-solving, mirroring the on-campus classroom experience,” Payne says.

Read more

DON’T MISS MBA VENTURES: MORE THAN $1.75M IN PRIZE MONEY AWARDED AT 2 MAJOR COMPETITIONS