The Favorite MBA Professors Of The Class of 2023

“I really appreciated having Professor Shana Carroll as my Personal Leadership Insights (PLI) professor. PLI is a 16-person course that uses small-group discussions and one-on-one coaching to help students understand where they’ve been and determine where they’re going in their careers and in life. Professor Carrol led each class with a calm and caring presence, encouraging each of us to reflect on our leadership style and the importance of defining and communicating our needs and wants with those we care about. Her willingness to be vulnerable with the class about her own leadership journey provided the gateway for others to feel comfortable enough to do the same.”
Aku Acquaye, Northwestern University (Kellogg)

“James Taylor, who took us for Analytics and somehow made it fun, even for those like me who had barely used Excel before coming to business school. He also annotated his slides with amazing, pertinent quotes – who knew quotes by Lady Gaga, Marx and Shakespeare could be relevant to statistics and regression?”
Katherine Dellar, University of Oxford (Said)

“My favorite MBA Professor is Professor Eleanor Putnam-Farr (Nell). Professor Nell is the assistant professor of marketing at Rice Business and an irreplaceable asset to my MBA experience. There have been countless times I’ve stopped by her office for a “quick question” that turned into a 30-minute conversation about how to conduct effective market insight surveys or how to get consumers to make decisions. I appreciate Professor Nell for always being willing to listen and provide constructive feedback, that I could later turn into action items.”
Daniel Petterway, Rice University (Jones)

“Farrokh Langdana. I was aware of his work before the MBA. Not only is he an accomplished economist and author, but he’s also a fantastic teacher. Langdana knows macroeconomics so well, he doesn’t need slides or lecture notes, just a dry-erase marker and a whiteboard. He weaves anecdotes from history and lessons on leadership into the lectures, always with a touch of humor. Langdana effortlessly includes the human condition in the lessons; he breathes emotion, feeling, and moral conflict into macroeconomic theory. And he deeply cares for his students.”
Sarah Ladyman, Rutgers Business School

“Helmuth Ludwig was my favorite MBA professor. He is a bright professor who puts high effort into his teaching and it shows. He challenges students to really think through problems and provides just enough guidance so that students can work through scenarios to understand business strategies. Almost on a weekly basis, Professor Ludwig provides extra opportunities for students to grow, utilizing his network for the class to gain face-to-face interactions with people from small start-ups to C-suite executives of Fortune 500 companies – all of which he hand-selects based on the interests and feedback of his students. I believe Professor Ludwig embodies what a top tier MBA program should be.”
Brent Schlagel, Southern Methodist University (Cox)

“Ranjith Raghunath has this unique way of developing those around him. He provides you with resources to digest, asks for your analysis, and then challenges it. Even if you’re providing him with the right answer, he wants to peel back the layers of your logic with the goal of making your argument even stronger. Then, he will put you in front of an industry professional who disrupts not only your way of thinking but his own way of thinking, too.

Note: this isn’t limited to business cases; he will do the same with your career aspirations. He’s able to recognize your potential and will challenge you to strive for bolder and more ambitious goals. For example, I told him how I wanted to be a senior director at a mid-sized technology firm. After shaking his head and asking me why not a bigger firm and a higher position, we discussed how my specific capabilities and areas of opportunities can be leveraged to reach those goals.”
Okechi Nwabara, Southern Methodist University (Cox)

“Roy Bahat because of his willingness to interrogate systemic problems within our business world. In the wake of COVID, we have seen massive union organizing campaigns at large “successful” companies like Starbucks, Apple, REI and Trader Joe’s. Through my time with Roy, especially in our labor unions class entitled “Leading an Organized Workforce”, we’ve been able to explore the importance of organized labor and how corporations can effectively support union efforts. I’ve come to admire Roy as well for his commitment to learning from actual experts and professionals in the organized labor world. In one class, Roy allowed us to chat with Starbucks Workers United’s Jaz Brisack, the lead organizer who successfully unionized the first Starbucks in the U.S.”
Afraz Khan, UC Berkeley (Haas)

“My favorite MBA professor was Chih-Ling Tsai. Professor Tsai teaches the Forecasting and Managerial Research Methods course, but also so much more. He was strict and passionate about students showing up on time, our commitment to be better managers, and conceptualizing our learnings into simple terms “that even grandma could understand.” He taught us how to lead with our hearts and to have grit in life. He taught us to be creative and to think critically about the information we are given. Even though our class was his last before retirement, he came to every lecture with more excitement and tenacity than I had ever seen in a professor. I feel immensely privileged to have met Professor Tsai and strive to be more like him.”
Lucas Haskins, UC Davis

“From the first time I met John Doggett, I knew I would like him. I had heard how incredible of a professor he was, so I asked to set up a Zoom with him to pick his brain on my company. The first five minutes spent with him consisted of Professor Doggett critiquing me for misspelling a word in my email. The lesson he was teaching me was that no investor would take a founder seriously if they didn’t take the time to proofread their own emails. This a valuable lesson I still think about daily.

From there, Professor Doggett started immediately breaking down my company while offering fresh perspectives and ideas. What started with a Zoom call developed into countless meetings where he provided feedback and never once asked for anything in return. His class, Opportunity Identification, was one of my favorites, and I could not recommend Professor Doggett or his class more.”
Kevin Long, University of Texas (McCombs)

“Professor Terry Kramer embodies true leadership and is an exceptional professor. I took his “Technology Immersion” class and “Technology and Society” class in my first year. I learned a lot about the technology industry, from disruptive technologies to the use of personal data, applications of technology in different spaces (education, healthcare…), and the impact (good and bad) of technology on society. His classes confirmed my interest for technology and desire to work in that space.

“I also loved Professor Kramer’s leadership and style of teaching. He challenges students to be very thorough and thoughtful in their analyses, collecting facts and data to develop a nuanced understanding of complex topics. He’s very demanding and straightforward, but he cares a lot about students and is very committed to providing the best teaching experience possible.”
Tiphaine Grosse, UCLA (Anderson)

“My favorite Marshall professor has been Peer Fiss, who taught my introductory strategy course during the Core in Term 1 as well as my advanced strategy course during my second year. Professor Fiss is one of those professors who isn’t afraid to cold call or call BS if he thinks you‘re wrong or you’re not making sense in the discussion. Despite being humbled multiple times during his class (or maybe because of it), I truly felt that I learned so much from him.”
Olivia Glick, USC (Marshall)

“Of all the professors I’ve had the honor of learning from, I can say with a high degree of confidence that I’ve learned the most from Professor Brian McCann.

McCann is an economics and strategy guy, through and through. He pushes back against student contentions, and he doesn’t balk when students push back against him in return. He structures his courses beautifully; we read a lot of cases in business school, but McCann knows how to balance reading, lecture, and response more meaningfully than any professor I’ve ever encountered.

During the first quarter of my second year, I took a Corporate Strategy class with McCann. After reading his feedback on my first individual case write-up, I sent him an email expressing a few concerns about my strategic and managerial decision-making capacities. (Were they unfounded? Maybe! Ask him!) McCann met with me over lunch two days later. Over the course of our conversation, he had the mind-blowingly brilliant insight to distill my worries into a single question: “What do you want to be when you grow up?” It’s a heartbreakingly simple thing to ask, but it’s not a question that I think a lot of MBA professors bother asking their students. I felt cared for, taken seriously, seen, heard, and understood. (And, McCann, if you’re reading this – I felt psychologically safe, too.).”
Taylor Rasmussen, Vanderbilt University (Owen)

“My favorite professor at Darden is Melissa Thomas-Hunt (MTH), who teaches Leading Organizations, a first-year Organizational Behavior course. Not only is she a leader in the business and academic world, but she is also a thought-provoking, people-centered mentor and role model for many students. She creates environments where everyone feels included, and she is doing a ton of work at Darden to make the school an even more special place. I’ve had the pleasure of connecting with MTH outside of the classroom, and she is nothing short of amazing. MTH leads with vulnerability and seeks to understand always. Whenever I leave a conversation with her, I feel affirmed and supported. I couldn’t be luckier to have her as a professor and mentor.”
Tyler Kelley, University of Virginia (Darden)

“My favorite would be John Colly, who teaches the strategy module. His ability to draw references from the industry every day and every moment is laudable. Irrespective of the topic being discussed, the way he builds his narrative in the class is something I used to look forward to every day.

Also, he is the only professor who would start his lecture with a 10-15 minutes discussion on any contemporary issue highlighted by The Financial Times that morning, and that topic may or may not be related to the curriculum planned for the day. In this way, he used to build up an ambience of intellectual curiosity in the lecture theatre before the start of the actual lecture itself. He impressed upon me that the art of teaching is equally important as the content being taught.”
Himanshu Shekhar Ojha, Warwick Business School

“Christopher Hrdlicka, who was my Investments professor during Spring quarter of my first year, played a crucial role in my successful conversion of my summer internship. Not having a finance background from my undergrad, Prof. Hrdlicka created an incredibly approachable and deeply informative environment to dive deeper into Finance. Building off concepts taught in our core Finance class, Prof. Hrdlicka brought finance to life, opening each class with this question, “So tell me what’s happening in the news?”. From there, he gave us a deep dive on the financial perspective of the latest headlines. Listening to him breakdown the news and apply concepts we were talking about in class to the real world was endlessly fascinating and set me up for success for my summer at Goldman Sachs.”
Catherine Sandstrom, University of Washington (Foster)

“My favorite MBA professor is Professor Michael Wall, a professor of practice in Marketing and entrepreneurship. He’s also the academic director for the marketing platform for Olin’s MBA program. As a student who completed the marketing platform, I took many classes with him in my first year, so I got to know him well. Professor Wall brings a lot of his industry experience into the classroom and is always looking for new and innovative ways to teach students the ins-and-outs of marketing. I went to Professor Wall to discuss my internship options, and his advice has helped me become a well-rounded brand manager and marketing professional. He also was a part of the Poets & Quants, Favorite Professors Class of 2021 and 2022, so there is hard data behind him being my favorite MBA professor.”
Allison Wise, Washington University (Olin)

“Nicolaj Siggelkow. I felt like Professor Siggelkow taught competitive advantage as though he was a stand-up comedian. He was very engaging, he walked around the room, making eye contact with each student, and he seemed to know what we were all involved in. His cold calls would make you reevaluate your life goals; it wasn’t enough to just have the right answer. He was involved in some of the cases, so he was really able to bring theory to life. Overall, he is very passionate about teaching, has a deep understanding of the subject matter (he is a Michael Porter prodigy), and possesses the modern skills and qualities needed to engage and inspire this particular group of students. Outside of the classroom, he is active in MBA life. Throughout Preterm, he has been to a pub several times and, honestly, whenever I bump into him he is always smirking about something. He is one of those individuals you don’t want to disappoint.”
Dempsey J. Simonis, Wharton School

“Fabio Gaertner is hands-down my favorite MBA professor for two reasons. The first is he proves that anyone can learn accounting and the process of learning can be fun. The second is he calls his exams celebrations. I will never forget walking into our midterm “celebration” and seeing balloons, cupcakes, party hats, and streamers. It was a blast!”
Alexis Parker, University of Wisconsin

“I had the pleasure of going to Uruguay this spring with Professor Lorenzo Caliendo as part of one of Yale SOM’s International Experience trips. I have never met someone who has as much energy and who cares as much about their students as Professor Caliendo does. Professor Caliendo grew up in Uruguay and was so excited to show me and the other 29 students his country, and he did everything in his power to ensure that we had an incredible, positive experience. Our days were packed with company visits, winery tours, visits to a school, and (of course) lots of delicious food, all to help us learn about the Uruguayan culture and economy. I am so grateful to Professor Caliendo for curating this amazing experience – and I’m excited to return to Uruguay in the near future!”
Caitlin Piccirillo-Stosser, Yale SOM

 

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