Forbes: Why MBA ROI Doesn’t Add Up For Small Biz Owners

Forbes: “Twenty-five years ago, after leaving his job as a Senate staffer, Alan Pentz spent two years earning an MBA from the McCombs School of Business at the University of Texas at Austin. He went on to build the Corner Alliance into a $35-million-in-revenue government consulting firm and recently stepped back from running it day-to-day to launch The Owner Institute, a coaching firm for other small business owners. Today, the 52-year-old Pentz offers this free advice to would-be entrepreneurs: Don’t waste time like I did, earning an MBA. The best business education, he insists, comes from actually running a business, learning from mistakes, managing cash flow and employees and getting advice from people who’ve been there.

Fellow McCombs MBA alumnus Liz Picarazzi, also 52, agrees the stuff she learned in class hasn’t helped much in her current business, CITIBIN, a Brooklyn-based maker of rat-proof outdoor trash bins, or at her previous startup, a handyman company, which she started in 2011 and sold in 2017 to focus on producing and marketing bins. She built the first enclosure herself in 2012 in her Brooklyn backyard because she wasn’t able to find anything on the market that was durable or decent-looking enough to satisfy her or her picky handyman clients. Today, CITIBIN has a line of products that serves everyone from home and apartment owners to major cities, with bins installed in Times Square and dozens of other New York City locations and in Baltimore, Boston, Chicago, Hoboken and Philadelphia. Now, Picarazzi is dealing with new challenges, like planning for tariffs on foreign made products.

Even if the MBA hasn’t been much help in her small business life, Picarazzi is still glad that four years after graduating with a B.A. in Russian and political science, she returned to school to get that business credential. Why? It opened the door for her to work corporate jobs for a decade, including more than six years at American Express. Those jobs, in turn, allowed her to pay off her student loans and realize that she wasn’t cut out for the corporate world. “I needed to go down that path to become an entrepreneur,” she explains.”

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DON’T MISS: ENTREPRENEURSHIP THROUGH ACQUISITION EXPLODING AT WASHU OLIN & OTHER B-SCHOOLS

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Harvard Business School Alumni Achievement Award Winners

Harvard Business School: “Harvard Business School (HBS) has announced that five distinguished graduates will receive the School’s highest honor, the Alumni Achievement Award. The award is given annually to recognize alumni who are leaders in their fields and who exemplify the mission, highest standards, and values of the School. As role models of outstanding leadership for HBS’s graduating students, the recipients will be honored at the School’s Commencement ceremony on Thursday, May 29.

The prestigious award is presented annually to alumni who have demonstrated exceptional professional achievements while upholding the highest standards of leadership and service. This year’s honorees have made significant contributions across government, finance, venture capital, telecommunications, and social enterprise.

The 2025 Alumni Achievement Award winners are:

• Bonnie R. Cohen (MBA 1967) – Trustee, DC Public Libraries; Chair, DC Public Library Foundation; former Under Secretary of State for Management

• Vittorio Colao (MBA 1990) – Vice Chairman, EMEA, General Atlantic; former Italian Minister for Innovation, Digital Transition, and Space

• Deborah A. Farrington (MBA 1976) – Managing Partner and Cofounder, StarVest Partners LP

• Jeremy Grantham (MBA 1966) – Cofounder and Chairman, GMO; Founder, Grantham Foundation for the Protection of the Environment

• John Rice (MBA 1992) – Founder and CEO, Management Leadership for Tomorrow

“These five remarkable leaders live the mission and embody the values of Harvard Business School,” said HBS Dean Srikant Datar. “Their varied career paths and significant achievements demonstrate the power of business as a force for good, and they serve as inspiring role models for our community. We are proud to recognize their contributions and celebrate their impact on business and society.”

To read about these contributors, click here.

DON’T MISS: MEET HARVARD BUSINESS SCHOOL’S MBA CLASS OF 2026

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Purdue University Breaks Ground on New Business Building

Inside Indiana Business: “After years of planning, Purdue University officials moved the first bits of dirt at the site of the new Mitch Daniels School of Business building during a groundbreaking ceremony Friday afternoon.

The 164,000-square-foot building will become the second-largest classroom facility on the West Lafayette campus and is expected to cost around $170 million.

“The building is student focused, so the whole concept was that we’ll provide more space for student services [and] more classroom space, because we don’t have enough right now,” Daniels School Dean James Bullard said. “We’ll also provide some services back to the rest of campus, so there are some really big classrooms that’s helping us in the in the overall plan for campus.”

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DON’T MISS: PURDUE’S DANIELS SCHOOL OF BUSINESS ANNOUNCES HISTORIC GIFT