From the Dean
@DeanEricJohnson
It is hard to comprehend that since I last wrote this column, the Owen community twice has been tragically touched by terrorism. In March, Taylor Force, a first-year MBA student, was killed while on an immersion trip to Israel to learn about global entrepreneurship. Taylor was exactly the kind of quietly confident and highly accomplished […]
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Speed still matters (and other topics)
Joseph D. Blackburn, BE’63, had a much better idea. Blackburn, the James A. Speyer Professor of Production Management, Emeritus, declined to draft the content of a last lecture (he said it sounded too much like writing his own obituary) but offered to give Vanderbilt Business a transcript of what he’d say in a presentation similar […]
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American Business 101
Photos by Daniel Dubois, Brett Israel and Harkirat Sareen DOWNTOWN AT THE WILDHORSE Two weeks before their U.S. classmates arrived at Vanderbilt, a bus full of incoming students from China, Mexico, India, Peru, Vietnam, Germany, and several other countries pulled up to the curb on Second Avenue in downtown Nashville. The students nervously stepped off […]
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People person
Belinda Grant-Anderson, BE’83, MBA’90, earned a Vanderbilt School of Engineering degree and is in leadership at one of the world’s largest telecommunications companies. So what does the engineer say is her company’s top advantage? People. “People are the greatest asset we have,” she says, “and diversity makes us a stronger, more competitive company. Research has […]
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Maria Renz, MBA ’96
In 1957 a high school counselor told Maria Renz’s mother that her ambition to be a nurse was too lofty. “As a result, my mom always said—with so much conviction—that you can be whatever you want to be,” says Renz, MBA’96. “And I believed it.” Today Renz holds a coveted job in the business world. […]
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On the shoulders of giants
To learn how one of the most influential business leaders thought, worked and strategized, you could read Bruce D. Henderson’s books. You could engage a business consultant in the firm he founded, Boston Consulting Group. Or you could have lunch with his widow, Bess Henderson, who was at BCG in its early days and who […]
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Where the grads are
Like the stock market and the world economy, the marketplace for MBA talent is in constant flux. For Vanderbilt and its students, preparing for the future means keeping a constant eye on hiring trends, technological developments and geographical shifts, among a dozen other parameters. With employment figures in for the Class of 2015, Vanderbilt Business […]
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Secrets of the tech sector
Former Apple executive Mike Janes, MBA’84, still remembers the message Sam Richmond, former dean of Vanderbilt’s Owen Graduate School of Management, delivered to students on their first day of classes. “You’re going to work really hard and you’re going to learn a lot of stuff—and within five years it’ll all be obsolete,” Richmond told the […]
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Analyzing the analysts
Once a quarter, the top management of nearly every publicly traded company in the U.S. gathers around a speakerphone or webcam in a conference room and talks to brokerage firm analysts about earnings. The calls begin with prepared remarks that provide an overview of last quarter’s performance, followed by a question-and-answer session. The ritual started […]
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