Against a backdrop of rapid technological transformation, a changing economic landscape, and evolving student and employer expectations, Goizueta fostered a collective space for business school leaders to discuss how their schools are innovating and changing to best prepare students for a world that is writing new job titles and forging new industries.

“Universities have the capacity to change in real time, if we seize this critical moment to share expertise and think creatively to respond to these challenges,” shared James. “I enjoyed hearing the perspectives of my business school counterparts from across the Southeast and learning how we can work together to serve our students even better.”

Fireside Chat with Truist Chairman and CEO Bill Rogers

What will tomorrow’s business school look like? This question remained at the forefront of conversation as participants moved between a rigorous agenda featuring panel discussions, institutional showcases, and a headline fireside chat with Truist Chairman and Chief Executive Officer William H. “Bill” Rogers Jr.

As a native of North Carolina with degrees from UNC Chapel Hill and Georgia State, Rogers has strong Southern roots. He has a deep commitment to purpose and believes purpose is key to performance. His commitment to the community is demonstrated by his participation on several boards, including the Emory University Board of Trustees. The conversation with Dean James offered a window into the intersection of academic innovation and industry leadership.

“Hosting Bill Rogers was both a pleasure and an incredibly insightful opportunity for those of us in educational leadership. Bill was able to offer us practical wisdom regarding how the industry is shifting, and what kinds of hires he sees thriving,” shared James.

Rogers and James engaged in a candid conversation around future-forward topics such as artificial intelligence (AI) in the workplace, strategic leadership in times of change, and the evolving expectations companies have for graduates.

During the session, Rogers emphasized the importance of deeper industry–academic partnerships to ensure students are prepared for modern workforce demands. Rogers also noted that when paired with an MBA, a hybrid skillset that includes technical skills like logistics or engineering gives students a competitive edge. He challenged deans to “think backwards from the client”—in this case, students and employers—to design more relevant, agile curricula. The conversation also explored opportunities for faculty research collaborations, industry-funded initiatives, and co-developed programming aimed at bridging the skills gap.

Throughout the day, the deans exchanged ideas on topics ranging from student preparation and curricular innovation to how business schools can support a data-driven economy. Sessions on AI integration, cross-sector partnerships, and new program formats highlighted the deans’ shared commitment to reinvention.

Goizueta’s Part to Play

Goizueta’s own AI initiatives were spotlighted in a dedicated session, showcasing how the school is embedding emerging technologies into both pedagogy and practice—solidifying its role as a hub for applied innovation in management education.

Goizueta has also already begun refreshing its program curricula. Developed through a faculty-led design thinking process that incorporated feedback from current students, alumni, and corporate recruiters, the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) Program was recently redesigned to better prepare students for a data-driven world with complex business challenges. The MBA program is undergoing a similar treatment this year, with an emphasis on day-one career readiness. New developments are projected to include increased student agency in tailoring coursework, a quantitative data and AI bootcamp, Networking Fridays, a technology course that will update every year to capitalize on the moment’s biggest trends, and many other initiatives.

By convening this diverse and influential group of academic leaders, Goizueta demonstrated a timely vision: to lead not only in academic excellence, but in reimagining what business education can—and must—become in a rapidly evolving global landscape.

As Dean James noted in his closing remarks, “If we want to remain relevant, we have to stop solving yesterday’s challenges and start building tomorrow’s solutions—together.”

The post Goizueta Hosts Southeast Deans to Champion the Next Era of Business Education appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

The study identifies the world’s leading researchers and encompasses standardized data on citations, h-index, and a wide range of bibliometric indicators. Researchers are classified into 22 scientific fields and 174 sub-fields, drawing from Scopus data provided by Elsevier through ICSR Lab.

“Our faculty are more than educators – they are pioneering thought leaders shaping industries and redefining the future of business,” shared Gareth James, John H. Harland Dean of Goizueta Business School. “They tackle today’s most pressing challenges and uncover tomorrow’s greatest opportunities, driving positive impact throughout industry and the world.”

Introducing the World’s Top 2% Scientists

EmoryBusiness.com is proud to recognize these distinguished Goizueta faculty members among the top two percent of scholars in the world:

• Anandhi Bharadwaj, Goizueta Endowed Chair in Electronic Commerce and Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management

• Tarun Chordia, R. Howard Dobbs, Jr. Chaired Professor of Finance

• Ilia Dichev, Goizueta Foundation Chair in Financial Reporting, Professor of Accounting, and Director and Associate Dean of PhD Program

• Gareth James, John H. Harland Dean of Goizueta Business School and Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management

• Sandy Jap, Sarah Beth Brown Professor of Marketing

• Narasimhan Jegadeesh, Dean’s Distinguished Chair of Finance

• Wei Jiang, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Finance and Vice Dean for Faculty and Research

• Jay Shanken, Professor Emeritus (2024) in Finance

• Jagdish Sheth, Charles H. Kellstadt Chaired Professor of Business

Insights from Goizueta’s Distinguished Faculty

As leaders in their respective fields, our distinguished faculty members bring a wealth of knowledge, experience, and passion to Goizueta. Their journeys to academic excellence and global recognition are a testament to the school’s impact on both personal and professional growth.

EmoryBusiness.com connected with these professors to discuss their motivations, experiences, and the pivotal moments that have shaped their success.

Anandhi Bharadwaj

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: When I joined Emory in 1994, the business school was not yet named Goizueta—it was simply Emory Business School. At that time, Professor Benn Konsynski was the only other faculty member in my field, Information Systems, and it was his invitation and vision that initially drew me here. Professor Konsynski’s forward-thinking perspective on digital technology and its transformative role in the business world deeply resonated with me. His guiding vision not only inspired me to join the school but also fostered an environment that has kept me motivated to contribute to Goizueta’s growth and evolution over the years. The school’s commitment to innovation and excellence has only solidified my decision to remain a part of this vibrant community.

Q: How did Goizueta support your journey to becoming part of the top 2% of scholars worldwide?

A: Goizueta has been an incredible source of support throughout my academic career, providing both tangible and intangible resources that have significantly contributed to my success. On a tangible level, the school’s commitment to fostering a research-driven ecosystem has been invaluable—offering resources such as summer salary support, access to specialized databases, funding for conference travel, and more. On an intangible level, the vibrant academic community at Goizueta has been a constant source of inspiration. The flourishing PhD program has allowed me to collaborate with some of the brightest doctoral students, while the broader Emory network and the research ecosystem in Atlanta, with its concentration of world-class scholars across universities, have undoubtedly enriched my research journey.

Tarun Chordia

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: I moved from Vanderbilt University to Emory as an assistant professor in summer 2000. At the time Tom Robertson was the Dean and Goizueta was transitioning from a teaching to a research school while still maintaining great teaching. One of Dean Robertson’s goals was to improve the reputation of the finance area. I had a ring-side seat to what was happening in the finance department and in the school in terms of increasing the research focus of the faculty (by starting a doctoral program and subscribing to all the standard datasets). With the support of the Dean as well as the leadership in the university we were able to strategically hire senior people in the finance department such that today we are amongst the top finance departments.

Ilia Dichev

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: It was a combination of things: great university and business school, great group of faculty in my academic area (Accounting), the attraction of Atlanta as a growing, business-oriented city, which is very green and with warm weather year-round. Being appointed to the distinguished position of the Goizueta Foundation Chair of Financial Reporting was definitely a big factor (so, big thanks to The Goizueta Foundation!). Plus, the personal involvement of some key Goizueta people made it happen. Perhaps most importantly, on some gut level it just felt right.

Q: How did Goizueta support your journey to becoming part of the top 2% of scholars worldwide?

A: My most successful research project after arriving at Goizueta relied on personal access to CFOs of top companies. The dean and the alumni office at the time made most of these contacts possible. Plus, the school has top-notch working conditions all around. I am very grateful to Goizueta for the incredible opportunities to do quality work!

Gareth James

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: Goizueta Business School stood out to me as a premier institution with a compelling combination of strengths. As a Top 20 business school within a Top 20 university, Goizueta offers a world-class environment for both research and teaching. The school has built an exceptional research community, where faculty members not only produce groundbreaking work but also make a tangible impact on the business world.

Beyond the intellectual vibrancy, Goizueta provides strong financial resources that support high-caliber research, including access to top-tier data acquisition, research funding, and a rigorous PhD program. This commitment to advancing knowledge and fostering innovation makes it an ideal place for scholars who seek to push the boundaries of their fields.

Sandy Jap

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: I came to Goizueta 24 years ago after having been on the faculty at MIT. While MIT is an amazing place in and of itself, what attracted me to Goizueta was the possibility of being in a faculty group that really valued and understood the research that I wanted to do. I’m also not a big fan of winter. 

Q: How did Goizueta support your journey to becoming part of the top 2% of scholars worldwide?

A: While I have had opportunities to leave (I visited Wharton for a year), I have remained at Goizueta because it is less bureaucratic than larger schools and provides important summer and research support that many schools do. Goizueta is an entrepreneurial environment that allows me to take on new initiatives and directions as needed to advance my research. There is also a very supportive alumni base which is always willing to speak in my classes and connect me to the decision makers in their organization who would be willing to support my research with data. 

Jegadeesh Narasimhan

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: I was drawn to Goizueta because of its ambitious vision to become a leader in the field. At the time I joined, the school was making strategic hires of top scholars, strengthening its focus on rigor and academic excellence. Its growing reputation was gaining well-deserved recognition, and the school’s proposed launch of the PhD program underscored a strong commitment to long-term academic leadership. These factors offered an exciting and intellectually stimulating environment—an ideal place not only to advance my research and teaching but also to contribute to Goizueta’s progress toward its ambitious vision.

Q: How did Goizueta support your journey to becoming part of the top 2% of scholars worldwide?

A: Goizueta’s strong culture of academic excellence provided an ideal environment for impactful research. I had the privilege of working alongside colleagues who are thought leaders in the profession, engaging in stimulating intellectual exchanges. The school’s regular academic seminars brought in leading scholars, fostering a dynamic and enriching research atmosphere. The launch of the PhD program further strengthened this environment, attracting bright students and promoting vibrant research activity.

Additionally, because my research focuses on rigorous empirical testing of theory, Goizueta’s generous financial support for data and research assistance was invaluable in enabling high-quality studies. Importantly, all of us—faculty and students—collectively contributed to enhancing Goizueta’s reputation as a place of excellence. At the same time, we all benefited from its growing visibility, which expanded opportunities for collaboration and increased our scholarly impact.

Wei Jiang

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: It was a privilege to join a finance department already with three Top 2% scholars worldwide, reflecting a strong research environment and an intellectually vibrant community. I valued the opportunity to work alongside faculty whose seminal research I had studied extensively as a PhD student and cited as foundational to my own work. Being part of a department where groundbreaking ideas are developed and advanced was both inspiring and motivating.

Jay Shanken

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: The school, led by Tom Robertson, was committed to taking the (already very good) finance group to the next level and Professor Jegadeesh and I were recruited at the same time. The commitment to faculty research was backed up by a low teaching load for chaired faculty and they made me an aggressive offer. I always enjoyed working with PhD students and the fact that the school would soon be starting a PhD program in finance was definitely a consideration as well. Although Rochester’s Simon School was very strong in those days, Atlanta seemed like it would be a better place to live at that point in my life. All of these factors together resulted in my decision to move to Emory and I enjoyed my many years there. 

Q: How did Goizueta support your journey to becoming part of the top 2% of scholars worldwide?

A: It was the excellent overall academic environment and colleagues. Specifics like the low teaching load mentioned above and the nice view from my office helped.

Jagdish Sheth

Q: What inspired you to choose Goizueta?

A: There were three specific reasons. First, I wanted to move to the East Coast from the West Coast and in a moderate climate. Second, I did not want commute and wanted to have housing nearby. Finally, Emory University provided opportunities to grow the marketing area with new and innovative programs and recruit young faculty. For example, we focused on Relationship Marketing and became among the top ten marketing departments in the country.

Q: How did Goizueta support your journey to becoming part of the top 2% of scholars worldwide?

A: When I joined the Goizueta in 1991, we were an “up and coming” business school. Both President James Laney and Dean John Robson were committed to invest in professional schools and their graduate programs including the MBA and the Executive MBA programs. They had already recruited senior faculty in Finance and Management and they wanted me to lead the Marketing discipline. Over the past 30 years, Goizueta gave me opportunities both at the Goizueta and the university level to be on several committees including the Personnel Committee and Emory’s inaugural Presidential Advisory Committee (PAC). My professional growth and recognition came from the silent language of Emory culture that states that you belong here. Finally, Atlanta was emerging as a global hub city and many large companies such as Coca-Cola, Delta, UPS and Home Depot were headquartered here. Atlanta is also the capital of Georgia. This allowed me to contribute to policy work especially for the telecommunications industry.

Goizueta faculty are eminent in their respective fields, advancing global knowledge and inspiring further research. Learn more about the research projects driven by our esteemed Goizueta faculty.

The post Goizueta Business School Faculty Rank in the Top Two Percent of Scholars Worldwide appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

The start of a new year is a symbolic clean slate. It’s a chance to embrace fresh opportunities, set ambitious goals, and imagine what lies ahead.

It’s also a great time to pause for a moment of reflection. Before diving headfirst into the demands of work, school, or life’s daily rhythm, we can appreciate the journey we’ve traveled over the past year. It’s a chance to celebrate our achievements, reflect on the lessons learned and challenges faced, and carry forward the wisdom we’ve gained.

So, before we launch full steam ahead into the new year, let’s take a look back at some of the most compelling and memorable stories that defined 2024 on EmoryBusiness.com.

Welcoming Impressive Inaugural Classes to Two New Programs

Meet the Inaugural Cohort of Goizueta’s New Master in Management Program

One of Goizueta Business School’s newest additions is the Master in Management degree, a program for recent college graduates with liberal arts and science majors. Spanning 10 months, the program acts as a “fast track” option for students to gain business skills to complement their undergraduate work. Among the inaugural cohort, 38% graduated from an Emory University program, with a total of 84% of the class graduating from their undergraduate programs in 2024.

Meet the First Cohort of Goizueta’s New Master in Business for Veterans

Goizueta Business School launched a new graduate degree last year, and the first cohort of students started in May. The Master in Business for Veterans program is led by Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General and Associate Dean for Leadership Ken Keen. The inaugural cohort of this working professional program includes 31 students. Among them are two Air Force, 19 Army, five Marines, and five Navy veterans and active duty service members. These men and women have decorated and accomplished backgrounds, including several careers of service to the United States.

Experiential Learning Opportunities Abound

MBA Students Explore Denmark’s Model for Work and Well-being

This summer, more than 25 MBA students from Goizueta Business School ventured out of the classroom and across the globe, traveling to Copenhagen, Denmark to explore how the Danes approach their short work week (standard 37 hours), while having some of the most productive companies in the world. The immersive experience is part of a new course at Goizueta, Life Design for the Modern MBA, focused on helping Goizueta students—who are passionate, ambitious, and often working in overdrive—to find meaning and fulfillment in both career and life.

Team Building with Taste: Lessons in Leadership from the Kitchen

At first, Yaqi Liu 26BBA wasn’t keen about getting up early on a Saturday to cook. But over the course of the day, Liu changed his mind. “It was a really good experience,” he says. That experience is called “Team Building with Taste.” It’s a cooking competition in the style of Bravo network’s “Top Chef,” except with the ultimate goal of improving team dynamics. The challenge is a part of the undergraduate BBA program’s Team Dynamics and Leadership class. Over multiple weekends this fall, student teams were given a $50 budget, a set time to plan and shop, and one hour to cook and plate their meals. The teams then presented their dishes to a panel of judges.

How HackATL Fosters Future Changemakers

A lot can happen in 48 hours. For Selina Kao 27BBA, that was the turnaround time afforded her team at this October’s HackATL competition. Their mission? Transform a fledgling business idea into an actionable plan. Hosted by The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, this year’s event—powered by a dynamic collaboration between InnovATL, the City of Atlanta and the center—brought together more than 300 students from across the Southeast. After two days of frenetic brainstorming, building, and pitching transformative start-up initiatives to a panel of judges, the top teams took home over $13K in prizes.

Accomplished Alumni Create Meaningful Impact

Goizueta’s Veterans: Meet Matt Smith

In February 2025, Matt Smith 01MBA will retire as a two-star major general for the U.S. Army. His story is unique because of its many twists and turns. Smith joined the Army in college, before heading to the corporate world in Atlanta in the late 90s and enrolling in Goizueta Business School’s MBA program. However, it wasn’t long before Smith realized that the military was where he was meant to be. He resumed active duty for the Army in 2019, and in December 2022, he stepped into his current role as commander of the Joint Task Force – North. His team has helped federal agencies with interdepartmental coordination and assisted U.S. Border Patrol when they needed additional observation help. Smith says the skills he gained from earning an MBA have helped set him apart as a military leader. Now he’s he’s giving voice to Goizueta’s veterans as part of the advisory board for the new Master in Business for Veterans program.

Meet Marnie Harris: Building Hotels with Purpose

When Marnie Harris 20MBA was an undergraduate biomedical engineering student, she dreamed of building a more accessible world. Harris helped found The Excel Program at Georgia Tech, a certificate program for students with intellectual disabilities. When Harris graduated, she stayed on to welcome the first cohort of Excel students. But she soon came to believe that creating meaningful employment for this demographic must begin inside business, where the jobs are. So, Harris enrolled in Goizueta Business School’s MBA program, where she received the Woodruff Scholarship, Emory’s most prestigious named scholarship, awarded to Emory applicants who want to make a positive social impact. Now, Harris serves as the director of business and marketing strategy at Pavilion Development Company. There, she’s developing and franchising the Shepherd Hotels brand, which focuses on employing staff with intellectual disabilities.

Holistic Health Starts at Home: Meet Kyle Brown

After enrolling in the One-Year MBA program at Emory’s Goizueta Business School, Kyle Brown 20MBA became interested in holistic living and the various ways cannabidiol (CBD) could improve one’s health. Brown soon teamed up with his aunt, an expert gardener and advocate of natural medicine, who had long been growing her own herbs for healthful teas. The duo developed a series of CBD tea formulas, and ultimately launched their brick-and-mortar cannabis bar Bookstore Gallery. While its products assist in pain management on an individual level, Bookstore Gallery leads the charge of healing on a community level. Brown’s holistic healing mission comes to life through diverse events, including therapy-focused happy hours, game nights, tailgates, spoken word poetry, men’s mental health meetups, and creative outlets like “Puff and Paint.”

Groundbreaking Research from Goizueta’s Brightest Minds

Mitigating Bias in AI: Sharing the Burden of Bias When it Counts Most

From directions on Google Maps to job recommendations on LinkedIn, by now, we’ve all grown accustomed to AI systems’ integration in nearly every aspect of our daily lives. But are AI systems fair? The answer to this question, in short—not completely. Fortunately, some dedicated data scientists are working around the clock to tackle this big issue. One of those data scientists is Gareth James, who also serves as the Dean of Goizueta Business School as his day job. In a recent paper titled “A Burden Shared is a Burden Halved: A Fairness-Adjusted Approach to Classification” Dean James—along with coauthors Bradley Rava, Wenguang Sun, and Xin Tong—have proposed a new framework to help ensure AI decision-making is as fair as possible in high-stakes decisions where certain individuals—for example, racial minority groups and other protected groups—may be more prone to AI bias, even without our realizing it. 

Hiring More Nurses Generates Revenue for Hospitals

Underfunding is driving an acute shortage of trained nurses in hospitals and care facilities in the United States. American nurses are quitting in droves, and that’s bad news for patient outcomes. For beleaguered administrators looking to sustain quality of care while minimizing costs (and maximizing profits), hiring and retaining nursing staff has arguably become something of a zero-sum game in the U.S. But could there be potential financial losses attached to nurse understaffing that administrators should factor into their hiring and remuneration decisions? Research by Goizueta Professors Diwas KC and Donald Lee, as well as recent Goizueta PhD graduates Hao Ding 24PhD (Auburn University) and Sokol Tushe 23PhD (Muma College of Business), would suggest there are.

Training Innovative AI to Provide Expert Guidance on Prescription Medications

A new wave of medications meant to treat Type II diabetes is grabbing headlines around the world for their ability to help people lose a significant amount of weight. The two big names that come to mind are Ozempic and Wegovy. However, both medications come with a host of side effects, and are not suitable for every patient. Many clinics and physicians—particularly in smaller communities—do not have immediate access to expert second opinions needed to make decisions about prescription medications such as these. That’s one of the reasons Karl Kuhnert is using artificial intelligence to capture the expertise of physicians like Caroline Collins MD through the Tacit Object Modeler, or TOM. By using TOM, Kuhnert and Collins can create her “decision-making digital twin.” Though there are a number of ways TOM could be useful to the healthcare industry when prescribing medications, not least among them is the potential to expand access to the expert opinions of medical specialists to rural areas experiencing significant health disparities.

Help keep the great Goizueta stories coming with a gift of support to Emory’s 2O36 campaign.

The post The Best Stories of 2024 from Goizueta Business School appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Goizueta Community –

As we enter this holiday season, I find myself reflecting on a year that has reminded us of the importance of community and connection.

I am deeply grateful for each of you—our students, faculty, staff, and alumni—who continue to inspire us, shaping Goizueta into a place where ideas flourish, cultures converge, and connections endure. Together, we have achieved so much to be proud of. Thank you!

Please enjoy this special message from our team, sharing the winter and holiday traditions that bring us warmth, love, and joy.

Wishing you and your loved ones peace, joy, and meaningful connection this holiday season.

Warm regards,
Gareth

The post A Message from Dean Gareth James: Happy Holidays from Goizueta appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

As artificial intelligence (AI) rapidly reshapes the business world, we at Goizueta Business School are intently studying its implications for our many stakeholders. Given the equally rapid pace of change in the AI field, this will be an ongoing and urgent investigation for many years. However, some lessons have already become clear during the early years of this new revolution in technology. We will describe a few of these lessons, and how they are already impacting our strategic initiatives at the school.

A Powerful Tool in the Right Hands

A first lesson is that, despite widespread fears, AI does not have to be a job killer but can instead be a productivity enhancer. When entrepreneurs can rapidly draft contracts and write code, many business opportunities will be created. When researchers can quickly gain insights into consumer behavior, new market segments will be created. In general, when employees need less time for rote tasks and can spend more time on higher-level thinking, that only makes them more valuable, and also makes their time at work more fulfilling. From this perspective, AI could be yet another form of technological progress that ultimately unlocks greater economic growth and a more satisfying career experience.

However, this perspective assumes that workers and managers will know how and when to use AI technology. For them to be in that position, there will be tremendous value in obtaining early career exposure to cutting-edge applications of AI across all domains. Indeed, it seems safe to say that future careers will revolve around recognizing and pursuing opportunities to deploy existing AI technologies to achieve solutions in new settings. This requires creativity, critical thinking, and leadership, all fundamentally human traits that cannot themselves be automated. Higher education is devoted to cultivating all these traits in our students, and our role will be more important than ever as AI literacy becomes a critical skill to future careers throughout the economy.

The Importance of Human Oversight

A second lesson is that, while generative AI is astonishingly fast at producing a solid first draft of any task, it cannot be trusted on its own to achieve production-quality output, cite sources, or explain its reasoning. Organizations that blindly deploy AI-generated content will be quickly noticed by their customers, employees, and other stakeholders, to the detriment of their brands. This means that, while the future of work will include heavy uses of generative AI to get started on difficult tasks, it will also involve extensive checking on the quality of their output, coaching and improving them to perform better, and anticipating the situations in which they can be deployed safely. Professionals will need deep awareness of how these models learn, the mistakes and biases they exhibit, and what nudges might improve their performance.

With these insights in mind, Goizueta Business School is rapidly rolling out a broad array of teaching, research, and administration initiatives that will strategically integrate AI technology into our curriculum and operations.

Building AI Fluency through Experiential Learning

At Goizueta, we have created four dimensions to enhance AI fluency through our curriculum: Foundational knowledge of AI, business applications of AI, technical application development with AI, and societal and ethical implications of AI. We have been reimagining business education to provide fluency in these dimensions with courses across all academic areas. Beyond the classroom, we focus on giving our students hands-on opportunities to utilize AI tools for their daily tasks, recognizing that some skills are best learned through experience and interaction. Our philosophy is that AI must be ubiquitous during the student experience to prepare them for a career in which it will be commonplace. We have to prepare our graduates to be fluent in the use of AI tools for generation or automation, preparing them for their first jobs upon graduation and enabling them to adapt to inevitable future AI developments.

AI as a Teaching Assistant

As one prominent example of our efforts, we have developed a platform for deploying Retrieval Augmented Generation (RAG) based chatbots as virtual teaching assistants for any given course. The system is designed to be agnostic about the course in question: Faculty provide it with the materials that they are willing to share, and it quickly builds a knowledge base that it can use for discussions with students. This system is being rolled out across multiple courses in the fall, with plans for a broader rollout to all interested faculty by the spring semester. In our early testing, the system is remarkably adept at explaining complex concepts, walking through exercises and reviewing problems, and translating course material into foreign languages. Intended future developments include personalizing responses based on students’ level of understanding and using the virtual teaching assistant to follow up on classroom discussions.

With around-the-clock help from a virtual TA available at the push of a button, students will be able to progress more quickly through the foundational material of the course and arrive sooner at the frontier of knowledge where they must grapple with deeper and unsettled questions in their field. At this frontier, chatbots themselves struggle to provide correct answers, and start to exhibit characteristic overconfidence in unreliable answers. This too will be part of the learning experience for students, as we critically examine AI-generated output, and understand why it can exhibit shortcomings when the same tools excel at more basic tasks. In the end, the virtual TA is a way to help students with their knowledge of not only the course material itself, but also the promises and perils of applying AI to that same material.

AI in the Classroom: Grading, Coding and More

We are building AI into the classroom experience along other dimensions as well. A team of Goizueta faculty is piloting an AI grading system this fall. The goal is not for AI to generate the ultimate grades, but rather to give students immediate, preliminary feedback on their projects, highlighting any significant issues that they might want to revisit before submitting. This tool amplifies the student learning experience by allowing students to stretch the limits of their own knowledge and develop deeper insights that will be reliable and robust for decision-making. This is a natural use case for AI in the real world of business, and we feel that it should be embraced in the classroom as well.

Similarly, classes that feature heavy coding will also use AI in the classroom to rapidly prototype code and focus on the concepts being illustrated, rather than the details of syntax or function definitions. Variations on an initial idea can be spun up in moments and constraints on the process can easily be imposed. Students will still need to study and learn the exact syntax behind in-class examples, but this can be done outside of class, again with the help of an AI such as the chatbots described above. While AI-assisted coding cannot replace the programmer, it can serve as a layer of abstraction between the programmer and the hardware, much like a programming language itself. As with all new tools, the future will belong to developers who know when and how to use this new layer of abstraction to their benefit.

Innovators in Business Education

The common theme with these ideas is that AI can allow students and faculty to avoid frustration and pain points and refocus our attention on the engaging and fulfilling work that brought us together in the first place. An equally important theme is that one cannot simply accept AI-generated answers uncritically but must apply critical thinking about its suggestions in order to be effective. This calls for human operators who are more knowledgeable about their fields than ever, making AI a productivity enhancer rather than a job killer.

At Goizueta, we have created many more such initiatives to transform business education and prepare our future workforce for a world in which AI is commoditized. Under the leadership of Dean Gareth James, these opportunities are being explored by a diverse task force of researchers, teachers, and administrators, with members including Rajiv Garg (Information Systems and Operations Management), Wen Gu (Information Systems and Operations Management), Allison Kays (Accounting), William Mann (Finance), Abraham Oshotse (Organizations and Management), David Schweidel (Marketing), Stephanie Adams (Academic Affairs and Instructional Design), and Pam Tipton (Executive Education)

The growth of AI technology has only begun, and the most important applications are yet to be seen. One safe prediction is that our current state of knowledge will be less important in the long run than the ability to study and react to the new ideas arriving over the next few years. We at Goizueta are hungry to know what the future will bring and will continue to position ourselves at the forefront of these impactful emerging trends.

Goizueta faculty apply their expertise and knowledge to solving problems that society—and the world—face. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta.

The post The Future of Artificial Intelligence in Business Education appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

But are AI systems fair? The answer to this question, in short—not completely. Further complicating the matter is the fact that today’s AI systems are far from transparent.  

Think about it: The uncomfortable truth is that generative AI tools like ChatGPT—based on sophisticated architectures such as deep learning or large language models—are fed vast amounts of training data which then interact in unpredictable ways. And while the principles of how these methods operate are well-understood (at least by those who created them), ChatGPT’s decisions are likened to an airplane’s black box: They are not easy to penetrate.

So, how can we determine if “black box AI” is fair? Some dedicated data scientists are working around the clock to tackle this big issue.

One of those data scientists is Gareth James, who also serves as the Dean of Goizueta Business School as his day job. In a recent paper titled “A Burden Shared is a Burden Halved: A Fairness-Adjusted Approach to Classification” Dean James—along with coauthors Bradley Rava, Wenguang Sun, and Xin Tong—have proposed a new framework to help ensure AI decision-making is as fair as possible in high-stakes decisions where certain individuals—for example, racial minority groups and other protected groups—may be more prone to AI bias, even without our realizing it. 

In other words, their new approach to fairness makes adjustments that work out better when some are getting the short shrift of AI. 

Unpacking Bias in High-Stakes Scenarios

Dean James and his coauthors set their sights on high-stakes decisions in their work. What counts as high stakes? Examples include hospitals’ medical diagnoses, banks’ credit-worthiness assessments, and state justice systems’ bail and sentencing decisions. On the one hand, these areas are ripe for AI-interventions, with ample data available. On the other hand, biased decision-making here has the potential to negatively impact a person’s life in a significant way. 

In the case of justice systems, in the United States, there’s a data-driven, decision-support tool known as COMPAS (which stands for Correctional Offender Management Profiling for Alternative Sanctions) in active use. The idea behind COMPAS is to crunch available data (including age, sex, and criminal history) to help determine a criminal-court defendant’s likelihood of committing a crime as they await trial. Supporters of COMPAS note that statistical predictions are helping courts make better decisions about bail than humans did on their own. At the same time, detractors have argued that COMPAS is better at predicting recidivism for some racial groups than for others. And since we can’t control which group we belong to, that bias needs to be corrected. It’s high time for guardrails.

A Step Toward Fairer AI Decisions

Enter Dean James and colleagues’ algorithm. Designed to make the outputs of AI decisions fairer, even without having to know the AI model’s inner workings, they call it “fairness-adjusted selective inference” (FASI). It works to flag specific decisions that would be better handled by a human being in order to avoid systemic bias. That is to say, if the AI cannot yield an acceptably clear (1/0 or binary) answer, a human review is recommended. 

To test the results for their “fairness-adjusted selective inference,” the researchers turn to both simulated and real data. For the real data, the COMPAS dataset enabled a look at predicted and actual recidivism rates for two minority groups, as seen in the chart below. 

In the figures above, the researchers set an “acceptable level of mistakes” – seen as the dotted line – at 0.25 (25%). They then compared “minority group 1” and “minority group 2” results before and after applying their FASI framework. Especially if you were born into “minority group 2,” which graph seems fairer to you?

Professional ethicists will note there is a slight dip to overall accuracy, as seen in the green “all groups” category. And yet the treatment between the two groups is fairer. That is why the researchers titled their paper “a burden shared is a burdened halved.” 

Practical Applications for the Greater Social Good

“To be honest, I was surprised by how well our framework worked without sacrificing much overall accuracy,” Dean James notes. By selecting cases where human beings should review a criminal history – or credit history or medical charts – AI discrimination that would have significant quality-of-life consequences can be reduced. 

Reducing protected groups’ burden of bias is also a matter of following the laws. For example, in the financial industry, the United States’ Equal Credit Opportunity Act (ECOA) makes it “illegal for a company to use a biased algorithm that results in credit discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, national origin, sex, marital status, age, or because a person receives public assistance,” as the Federal Trade Commission explains on its website. If AI-powered programs fail to correct for AI bias, the company utilizing it can run into trouble with the law. In these cases, human reviews are well worth the extra effort for all stakeholders.

The paper grew from Dean James’ ongoing work as a data scientist when time allows. “Many of us data scientists are worried about bias in AI and we’re trying to improve the output,” he notes. And as new versions of ChatGPT continue to roll out, “new guardrails are being added – some better than others.” 

“I’m optimistic about AI,” Dean James says. “And one thing that makes me optimistic is the fact that AI will learn and learn – there’s no going back. In education, we think a lot about formal training and lifelong learning. But then that learning journey has to end,” Dean James notes. “With AI, it never ends.”

Goizueta faculty apply their expertise and knowledge to solving problems that society—and the world—face. Learn more about faculty research at Goizueta. 

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This year’s festivities took place at the Gas South District, just outside of Atlanta. Gregory L. Fenves, president of Emory University, says the decision was made to relocate to address safety and security concerns in light of the numerous protests sweeping campuses across the country.

The Courage of the Class of 2024

Robert Franklin, the James T. and Berta R. Laney Professor in Moral Leadership at the Candler School of Theology, acknowledged the change of venue for this year’s events when he welcomed undergraduates in the Class of 2024 to the university ceremony on Monday morning.

Franklin reflected on the unique challenges faced by this class, who graduated high school amid the COVID-19 pandemic, and the courage with which they’ve faced it all.

“When the history books are written, those headlines will tell only a part of the story. What they will not capture is the depth of your resilience, your humanity, your thoughtfulness. They will not capture your countless daily efforts to lift others up and, even when it’s painful, to hear the perspectives of others, especially those with whom you disagree,” said Franklin.

Gareth James, John H. Harland Dean of Goizueta Business School echoed Franklin’s sentiments. “Our commencement festivities this year may look a little different. However, our commitment to honoring the immense achievements of this graduating class remains unchanged. I want to recognize our students, faculty, and staff who have continued to persevere.”

Graduate and Undergraduate Programs Celebrate in Diploma Ceremonies

Goizueta Business School’s graduate programs kicked off the celebration of commencement weekend with a diploma ceremony on Friday, May 10. James commended the graduates of the Evening MBA, Executive MBA, One-Year MBA, Two-Year MBA, M.S. in Business Analytics, Master of Analytical Finance, as well as those securing dual degrees for their dedication and resilience.

During his remarks, James focused on the students and their accomplishments. “In our newest graduating class, I see enormously talented and principled leaders. You are ready to solve the biggest challenges of our future,” James said. “I cannot wait to see where you go next, the ways you will continue to thrive, and how you will leave your mark on the world around us.”

Tiffany Willis 15EMBA, vice president and head of investor relations and ESG Engagement, Starbucks, delivered the keynote address during Friday’s diploma ceremony. “Over the next 10 minutes, I hope to pour into you, the same way Emory has poured into me when I was here for my graduate degree,” shared Willis. As graduates embark on their next chapter, Willis encouraged them “embrace the hustle, maintain the momentum, own your narrative, remember your why, and yield to your wildest dreams.”

The undergraduate Bachelor of Business Administration diploma ceremony took place on Monday, May 13. During the ceremony, James shared, “As I look at our graduating BBA class, I am filled with tremendous pride, gratitude, and optimism. You are the toughest group of students we have ever graduated.”

Andrea Hershatter, associate dean of undergraduate education at Goizueta, recognized legatees and kicked off the diploma ceremony. “One of the most gratifying moments at commencement is celebrating the continuation of family legacies. It is a great moment when a parent, grandparent, or sibling passes the Emory torch to another family member. This creates a deep bond between the university and that family.” Hershatter then recognized the full lineup of new graduates as they crossed the stage.

Emory University Commencement Keynote Address Delivered by Valerie Montgomery Rice, MD

Valerie Montgomery Rice MD, president and CEO of Morehouse School of Medicine, served as Emory’s 2024 Commencement speaker. Montgomery Rice is a groundbreaking physician-scientist and university leader. She has worked tirelessly to foster diversity within the medical profession and the scientific workforce. “She wants to hold the door open so that others can follow and find success in their career and lives,” explained Fenves. During Montgomery Rice’s time as president and CEO, the Morehouse School of Medicine has solidified its reputation as a “powerhouse in the advancement of health equity,” he added.

Montgomery Rice has strong ties to Emory, having completed her medical training at the School of Medicine. She began her remarks by reflecting on her experience studying at Emory. She trained at both Emory University Hospital and Grady Memorial Hospital—two facilities with quite different patient populations. However, during her training, she witnessed her professor treat patients at both hospitals with the same expertise and respect. This experience helped set the foundation for her commitment to health equity.

Advice for the “School of Life”

Speaking to students who mostly began their Emory careers in fall 2020, Montgomery Rice noted this was the first educational milestone many were able to celebrate in person. And while their time as Emory students ended that morning, she explained, their time in the “school of life” was just beginning.

Getting here is a great accomplishment. But having traveled this road, I can only imagine that for some of you, it wasn’t easy.

Keynote speaker Valerie Montgomery Rice MD

“Maybe you had to work two or three jobs. Perhaps you struggled to get passing grades. Or maybe you had to change directions when you figured out the career path you thought you wanted no longer fit for your future,” she said.

On this “first day in the school of life,” she left students with a homework assignment: to hug the people in their support systems and share how grateful they are. After all, nobody got here alone.

“Many of you will do great things. However, to graduate from the school of life with a cum laude degree, all you have to do is one thing,” Montgomery Rice said. “That is to do the best you can with what you have. And remember to listen, learn, include, and grow.”

“The world may not be ready for you, but I am confident you are ready for the world.”

During the ceremony, Montgomery Rice received an honorary degree. Emory also awarded honorary degrees to violin virtuoso Robert McDuffie and the president of the National Academy of Medicine, Victor J. Dzau MD.

Onward and Upward for the Class of 2024

As faculty, staff, students, parents, and loved ones cheered on the Class of 2024, they celebrated the graduates’ bright futures ahead.

President Fenves encouraged graduates to take a moment and bask in the glow of their achievements. He reminded the Class of 2024 that they were surrounded by those they love the most. “Enjoy this moment of accomplishment. In the years ahead, you will strive to achieve new goals. But right now, take one more look around at your friends and your family. Appreciate this experience. You have reached a milestone in your life. It is you who did this. You made it happen. Savor it, enjoy it, celebrate it.”

Dean James shared his enthusiasm with the graduates as well, now the newest alumni of the school’s dynamic network. “Ultimately, Goizueta will be judged based on the graduates we produce. I’m incredibly proud to lead your school. A major reason for that is all of you sitting out there. You are ready to go out to prove, yet again, what an amazing school we have. You now have the honor and privilege to call yourselves Emory Goizueta alums. Congratulations to the graduates of the Class of 2024!”

Congratulations to our Goizueta graduates! Read more stories from commencement here.

Enjoy even more images from this year’s commencement festivities below.

The post Goizueta Celebrates the Class of 2024 appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Emory University’s Goizueta Business School offers insights into why and how we can use artificial intelligence to deliver educational content.

• + Early technological interventions can improve student outcomes, as long as human instructors are also involved.
• + Material that is delivered by AI tools can be quickly and easily updated. It also can be customized to provide more personalized learning experiences.
• + Many professors aren’t familiar with AI tools—and students are. So, schools need to encourage collaboration and provide support to faculty who want to experiment with the technology.

How would business education change if all instructors were assisted by avatars—virtual doppelgängers that look and sound just like them? More broadly, how would it affect student learning if every classroom included an artificial intelligence (AI) component?

The possibilities seem endless. When AI instructors are part of the classroom experience, it opens doors to many possibilities. Schools can deliver content in multiple languages, create hyper-personalized learning experiences, and easily update program materials. But how does an avatar’s communication of material compare to that of a human instructor?

To answer that question, Goizueta Business School at Emory University in Atlanta is exploring the best ways to deliver education through avatars, AI, and other developing technologies. Driven by curiosity, faculty and staff members are building on lessons learned during COVID-19, when curricula had to be adapted for online learning.

“In four or five years, AI technology will exponentially change. So, it’s up to us to embrace a more collaborative, technology-enabled education model,” says Gareth James, the John H. Harland Dean of Goizueta Business School and an expert on statistical and machine learning methodologies. He notes that faculty who use AI are not merely standing at the front of the classroom, presenting knowledge. They’re also learning from students, “because many students are independently learning about this technology.”

Through these collaborative efforts, Goizueta’s faculty and staff have developed five key insights about why and how to use AI in the classroom.

1. AI Can Improve Student Outcomes

Rajiv Garg wondered how the presence of human and AI instructors might affect student performance—whether separate or in some combination. An associate professor of information systems and operations management, Garg worked with student researchers to set up a small study. He and his team assigned 40 students to classes taught by a human, an AI system, or both.

The students who performed best on the final exam had learned with human-generated course content guided by an AI voice/avatar. The second-best performers learned from the completely human-generated course. Those in the completely AI-generated course did less well. The poorest-performing students were those in the AI-generated course led by a human voice/avatar.

Garg and his students are expanding this small-scale experiment this semester. So far, it suggests that a faculty expert still does a better job of generating a course than an AI system does. But an AI assistant or avatar can deliver content successfully. This means schools can save both time and money by having human experts generate new content and avatars deliver it. James says, “You could certainly imagine getting the best of both worlds: great research and great presentation skills.”

To create AI assistants, professors first design avatars that are similar to themselves in appearances, voices, accents, and mannerisms. After professors feed scripts to the AI system, their avatars deliver the content in the form of videos. They can then use this content to supplement classroom teaching.

A faculty expert still does a better job of generating a course than an AI system does. But an AI assistant or avatar can deliver content successfully.

Garg encourages academics to be thoughtful in the material they provide to their virtual assistants. That’s because the AI is learning from all the content it consumes, and better inputs lead to more useful outputs. He also suggests that professors continually tweak the material the AI is using. Otherwise, both the avatar and the content could become stale and ineffective.

Creating an AI assistant is “not just a switch that you flip,” he warns. “You may be innovating content a dozen times in a semester to make sure the content is achieving the task of teaching students.”

2. AI Enables Quick Course Updates

AI is raising societal expectations that all deliverables—just like Amazon boxes—will arrive immediately. With the help of AI, faculty can swiftly create new material that reflects breaking changes across industries, explains Pam Tipton, Goizueta Business School’s senior director of custom executive education programs.

This flexibility is particularly useful for schools that offer customized education courses. Such programs often are delivered on demand to C-suite leaders in industries that are rapidly changing—sometimes because of AI itself. Many of Goizueta’s executive education participants come from Atlanta, a metro area of 5 million people that is home to 17 Fortune 500 company headquarters. AI allows professors to swiftly create and incorporate “new case studies, especially from within an executive’s own company,” Tipton says.

Her advice to professors who are unfamiliar with AI: Try a small experiment with free tools. “Set up free accounts and see what the output looks and feels like,” Tipton advises. “Play around in small ways to integrate AI into your classroom. When you experiment, you’ll find the AI tools that work for you and your clients.”

3. Faculty Need Support to Try AI

Stephanie Adams initially gulped at the disruption posed by AI. As the senior associate director of academic affairs and instructional design at Goizueta Business School, she supports faculty and students by helping them optimize their working relationships. While she knows AI presents growth opportunities in educational applications, she realizes that the learning curve can be steep for professors unfamiliar with the technology. She recommends that administrators provide accessible paths that encourage professors to try AI.

“We have folks who embrace innovation and technologies and folks who are more fearful, skeptical,” she says. “It’s important to build a space where they feel comfortable learning new things, comfortable exploring, and okay when something doesn’t work.”

Goizueta faculty have learned to use AI to develop slide decks, organize syllabi and course content, generate ideas, and comb through data. They also have discovered that some AI tools are better for text, while others are better for images or data. “When faculty feel empowered, it impacts learners in a positive way,” says Adams.

AI presents growth opportunities in educational applications, but the learning curve can be steep for professors unfamiliar with the technology.

The school held a gathering that allowed faculty and staff to share their AI experiences and teaching strategies. Adams particularly likes the scavenger hunt that a faculty member created using free AI tools. “There is an online link with a small prompt that helps professors learn to use the tool in a very basic way,” she says. “A scavenger hunt can be a brilliant, low-stakes way to learn and build confidence with AI.”

She adds, “Adapting to AI is a lot about teaching and learning with curiosity, because we’re never going to dip our toes in the water and learn something new if we let our fears hold us back.”

4. Students Must Learn the Ethics of AI

While faculty might find it difficult to master AI, many learners are already familiar with it. However, it’s often up to the school to ensure that students use the new technology in an ethical fashion.

“We don’t want students to violate the honor code. We want to uphold the integrity of our work,” says Adams. She believes it’s essential for the business school community to discuss its standards and agree upon best practices and guidelines for using AI.

“Rather than saying, ‘This AI tool is banned in my class,’ faculty could consider saying, ‘Let’s use this tool and really explore it,’” Adams suggests. Professors could have AI respond to a problem, then ask students to analyze its responses. What did it get right? Where did it go wrong? Students will learn not only how to use AI language models, Adams emphasizes, but also how to think critically.

Karl Kuhnert is one of the Goizueta professors who is exploring how AI can support ethical decision-making in the classroom and beyond. Using sophisticated AI software, he is “cloning” leading experts. To do this, he uses their judgment, intuition, and experience to create their digital twins. The resulting tools help individuals learn how to make subjective, time-critical, high-consequence decisions. It’s particularly useful in complex industries such as healthcare and insurance. For instance, doctors can use AI tools to determine whether or not to prescribe new weight-loss drugs such as Ozempic.

5. Be Strategic—But Have Fun.

Tinkering has its roots in play, and Goizueta Business School channeled some whimsy—and generated some buzz—by creating an avatar of its top leader. “Digi-Dean” stars in a brief social media video about how the school’s leadership is applying AI to business education.

“Emory may no longer need my services,” laments James, who is originally from New Zealand, in a post about his digital alter ego. “Anyone need a slightly used dean with an exotic accent?”

AI gives business schools another tool to expand their global reach, drive meaningful classroom exchanges with students, and respond to daily market changes.

More seriously, Goizueta faculty and administrators identify many benefits of using AI in the classroom:

• + Avatars allow schools to provide highly personalized education at a lower cost per student. For instance, faculty can use avatars to deliver content in any language to students from anywhere in the world.
• + Using AI, schools can customize core business courses for specific industries such as finance, real estate, healthcare, and technology.
• + If a professor leaves an institution, the school can use an avatar service to easily re-edit and rerecord supplemental materials.

Preparing for the Future

Today’s business schools are constantly seeking to expand their global reach, drive meaningful classroom exchanges with students, and respond to daily market changes. AI gives them another tool to achieve these goals.

In addition, when schools incorporate AI into the classroom, they are preparing students for the future. Goizueta’s namesake, former Coca-Cola CEO Robert C. Goizueta, put it this way: “Business schools today cannot just reflect business the way it is. They must teach business the way it will be.”

It’s clear that businesses will be relying heavily on new technology to support their future planning and growth. Business schools must adapt their educational approaches accordingly.

Goizueta’s teaching innovations have transformed the traditional classroom into a dynamic digital ecosystem with virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), artificial intelligence (AI), and holographic capabilities. Learn more about our unparalleled educational experience with unparalleled results.

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Lanzone joined John H. Harland Dean of Goizueta Business School Gareth James earlier this month for a sit-down discussion as part of Learning & Leading: Goizueta’s Distinguished Speaker Series. Dean James poked fun at Lanzone’s “New York Formal” look. But his casual appearance didn’t stop him from captivating a room (and two overflow rooms) full of students, faculty, and staff with the story of his unconventional career path.

Lanzone’s work experience started with an internship with Information America. The company shared public records with lawyers and businesses via dial-up. He had no credentials other than, “I use the internet a lot,” he said with a laugh. Lanzone started from square one, learning how to build a website. The experience would later help him launch a start-up with two classmates at Goizueta.

He and his classmates started a company called eTour, a provider of information and cost-per-lead services. The company was eventually acquired by Ask Jeeves. With that purchase, Lanzone became the product manager and eventually the senior vice president and general manager of Ask.com.

The Road to Yahoo

Lanzone went on to serve as CEO of both CBS Interactive and Tinder. Having been a part of many turnarounds in his career, however, Yahoo just seemed to be in the cards for him.

“I always had my eye on Yahoo. Pretty much from the minute they flicked the lights on for Google to be the search engine on Yahoo, which happened in June of 2000.” The company spent the next 17 years “trying to figure out… what its purpose was, how could it survive. It was a hard time,” Lanzone said.

But his path to Yahoo was an unusual trajectory. “I didn’t plan out anything I did in my career,” he said. “Really, as I’ve gone along, I’ve just jumped from thing to thing along the way. But what ended up happening is, for 25 years, I’ve worked solely in consumer internet companies. I was a part of the search wars, the streaming wars… and at Yahoo there’s almost no division of what we do that I haven’t already run before.”

By the time Lanzone became CEO, Yahoo had been through a lot. “To me, this was the best possible turnaround that had amazing bones to work with,” he said. Despite its highs and notable lows over the years, Yahoo still competes with the best. It has been a top-five Internet property every month since its inception 29 years ago. “We’re No.1 in finance, No. 2 in sports, No.1 in news, this is by total traffic, No. 2 in email… [and] we’re still No. 3 in search, believe it or not,” Lanzone said. Yahoo now boasts hundreds of millions of viewers every month. So, it’s hard to believe Verizon purchased Yahoo for only $5 billion in 2021 shortly before Lanzone became CEO. 

Moving Yahoo Forward

Having been a part of company turnarounds before, Lanzone knew what the blueprint looked like. “It was almost exactly what I expected but at a different scale,” he said. Restructuring, parting ways with a lot of people, and bringing in a new team while trying to promote from within paved the way for Yahoo.

The most important thing any of us can do as managers… is hire well. For this company, that meant bringing in people who were product leaders first to run every division… If you have that, they will adjust to the changing landscape.

Jim Lanzone 98JD/MBA

While some still think of Yahoo as a relic web guide from the 90s, Lanzone sees the Yahoo of 2024 as something else entirely. “Today, it’s about goal achievement. You come here when you need to get something done,” he posited. “Having a single pane of glass that is personalized to you… You don’t even have to know what Yahoo used to be to know how useful that is.” He went on to add, “[We will] be that trusted guide to help you achieve your goals, no matter how big or small… We can just focus on doing that really, really well and know that we don’t have to be the trillion-dollar company to win big here.”

Dean James concluded his interview by asking Lanzone to advise his 22-year-old self. The Yahoo CEO shared “I don’t know [if] I could have done it any other way.” The one thing he seemed most sure about was his gap year in Barcelona, but he spoke highly of his time getting a JD/MBA. “Coming here… it was like seeing in color… everything made sense,” he shared.

Throughout the talk, Lanzone urged students to follow their passion. He encouraged them to try a startup rather than seeking a more traditional employment opportunity. He gave the same advice to his son who found he was much happier than his peers who took more conventional routes. The key takeaway from Lanzone’s career seems to be that if you follow your passions, the path will make itself clear. You don’t have to have everything set in stone when you’re fresh out of undergrad.

Ready to start your own success story? Learn more about Emory’s MBA programs.

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