2025 Best 40-Under-40 MBA Professors: Ryan Krause, Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University

Ryan Krause
Neeley School of Business, Texas Christian University

“Dr. Krause is the ideal teacher. He takes great care to make his classes practical and engaging, yet deeply rooted in management research. He’s also a Renaissance man, so he’s just as likely to reference poetry or philosophy as business research when explaining material. Additionally, he spends hours and hours of prep time whether teaching a new course or one he’s taught for years. This results in a variety of innovative and up-to-date pedagogies that students love! For this reason, he also excels no matter the level of student (undergraduate, graduate, or executive) or the modality (in person, hybrid or Zoom). I really have no idea how he does it all, particularly when combined with his research productivity.” – Dr. Abbie Shipp 

Ryan Krause, 38, is Professor of Strategy and Duncan Faculty Fellow in the Neeley School of Business at Texas Christian University. He received his Ph.D. in strategic management and organization theory from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University. Ryan conducts research primarily on boards of directors and strategic leadership. He has developed a global reputation as one of the leading experts on board leadership.

His research has appeared in premier academic journals across multiple business disciplines, including Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Management, Journal of Marketing, and Journal of Operations Management.

His research has also been covered in the popular business press in outlets such as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, USA Today, Fortune, Businessweek, and Fox Business Network. He previously served as an associate editor of the Journal of Management, and currently serves on the editorial boards of Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, and Organizational Research Methods.

Krause is the 2020 recipient of the Emerging Scholar Award from the Strategic Management Society. The award is given once a year to an early career scholar whose work is likely to make fundamental contributions to the way we think about achieving durable organizational success. At TCU, Ryan received the Deans’ Research and Creativity Award in 2019 and the Rob Rhodes Professor of the Year Award in 2025.

In Fall 2025, Ryan will join the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa as the C. Woody Thompson Professor of Management.

BACKGROUND

At current institution since what year? 2013

Education: Indiana University (BS, 2009; PhD, 2013)

List of MBA courses you currently teach: Strategy Formulation, Strategy Implementation, Business Ethics

TELL US ABOUT LIFE AS A BUSINESS SCHOOL PROFESSOR

I knew I wanted to be a business school professor when… I realized that I enjoyed learning the material in business school more than I enjoyed putting it into practice.

What are you currently researching and what is the most significant discovery you’ve made from it? I research what makes boards of directors effective—or maybe more often ineffective. The most significant discovery I have made is that boards are at their best when they soften the worst excesses of CEOs’ decision-making biases, while refraining from taking over the whole decision-making process themselves.

If I weren’t a business school professor… I would study literature. I’m a life-long student.

What do you think makes you stand out as a professor? I always strive to make my class value-added. If I’m going to ask my students to spend their precious time and money taking my class, the content and the experience need to be worthwhile. I try to hold myself and the material I cover to that standard.

One word that describes my first time teaching: Chastening

TEACHING MBA STUDENTS

What do you enjoy most about teaching business students? I love when students bring insights from their own work experience into class discussion and into their assignments. I find that both the students and I gain so much more from the class when they can draw on their existing foundation of knowledge and experience.

What is most challenging? Students are busy with school, work, family, life. Paring down materials so that the students have enough time to prepare for class requires figuring out what is truly essential.

In one word, describe your favorite type of student: Curious

In one word, describe your least favorite type of student: Dismissive

When it comes to grading, I think students would describe me as… Fair

LIFE OUTSIDE OF THE CLASSROOM

What are your hobbies? I am learning Yiddish.

How will you spend your summer? Preparing to start my new position on the faculty of the Tippie College of Business at the University of Iowa.

Favorite place(s) to vacation: Paris, New York, Copenhagen, Vienna, New Orleans

Favorite book(s): With the caveat that there are about 100 titles I could put on this list:

Fiction: 1984 by George Orwell

Poetry: The Bridge by Hart Crane

Non-Fiction: The Rebel by Albert Camus

Scholarship: Administrative Behavior by Herbert Simon

What is currently your favorite movie and/or show and what is it about the film or program that you enjoy so much?  In terms of current programming, it would have to be Severance. For someone interested in both the fundamental philosophical questions of life and the complexities of modern business, it’s ideal viewing.

What is your favorite type of music or artist(s) and why? I enjoy many types of music. However, as my wife is a world-class opera singer, I would have to say my favorite artist is Rainelle Krause, famous for her performance of The Queen of the Night in Mozart’s The Magic Flute.

THOUGHTS AND REFLECTIONS

If I had my way, the business school of the future would have much more of this… integrated engagement with other disciplines in accordance with student interests. Business schools should be hubs within the university, where the future business leaders of tomorrow have an opportunity to develop their minds as deeply as possible via engagement with non-business fields. I would love to see programs that engage computer science to get ahead of artificial intelligence’s inevitable dominance of business activity, rather than playing catch-up. Similarly, I would love to see programs that engage the humanities to enhance management and marketing, for example, with as much humanity and empathy as literature and art can provide.

In my opinion, companies and organizations today need to do a better job at… creating social circumstances that foster frankness and kindness simultaneously. Academics call such an environment “psychological safety.” Many organizations can manage frankness or kindness, but achieving both is difficult.

I’m grateful for… the many people in my life with whom I can celebrate life’s ups and downs.

DON’T MISS: THE ENTIRE 2025 ROSTER OF THE WORLD’S BEST 40-UNDER-40 MBA PROFESSORS