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.

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The two big names in GLP-1 agonists are Ozempic and Wegovy, and both are a form of semaglutide. Another medication, tirzepatide, is sold as Mounjaro and Zepbound. It is also a glucose-dependent insulinotropic polypeptide (GIP) agonist as well as GLP-1.

Physicians have been prescribing semaglutide and tirzepatide with increasing frequency. However, both medications come with a host of side effects, including nausea and stomach pain, and are not suitable for every patient. Many clinics and physicians do not have immediate access to expert second opinions, as do the physicians at Emory Healthcare.

Creating a Digital Twin 

That lack of an expert is one of the reasons Karl Kuhnert, professor in the practice of organization and management at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, is using artificial intelligence to capture the expertise of physicians like Caroline Collins MD through the Tacit Object Modeler, or TOM. By using TOM, developed by Merlynn Intelligence Technologies, Kuhnert and Collins can create her “decision-making digital twin.” This allows Collins to reveal her expertise as a primary care physician with Emory Healthcare and an Assistant Professor at Emory School of Medicine, where she has been leading the field in integrating lifestyle medicine into clinical practices and education.

Traditional AI, like ChatGPT, uses massive amount of data points to predict outcomes using what’s known as explicit knowledge. But it isn’t necessarily learning as it goes. According to Kuhnert, TOM has been designed to learn how an expert, like Collins, decides whether or not to prescribe a drug like semaglutide to a patient. Wisdom or tacit knowledge is intuitive and rooted in experience and context. It is hard to communicate, and usually resides only in the expert’s mind. TOM’s ability to “peek into the expert’s mind makes it a compelling technology for accessing wisdom.”

“Objective or explicit knowledge is known and can be shared with others,” says Kuhnert.

For example, ChatGPT uses explicit knowledge in its answers. It’s not creating something new. It may be new to you as you read it, but somebody, somewhere, before you, has created it. It’s understood as coming from some source.

Karl Kuhnert

“Tacit knowledge is subjective wisdom. Experts offer this, and we use their tacit know-how, their implicit knowledge, to make their decisions. If it were objective, everyone could do it. This is why we hire experts: They see things and know things others don’t; they see around corners.”

Mimicking the Mind of a Medical Expert

Teaching TOM to see around the corners requires Collins to work with the AI over the course of a few days. “Essentially what I do is I sit down with, in this case, a physician, and ask them, ‘What are thinking about when you make this decision?'” says Kuhnert. “The layperson might think that there are hundreds of variables in making a medical decision like this. With the expert’s tacit knowledge and experience, it is usually between seven and twelve variables. They decide based on these critical variables,” he says.

These experts have so much experience, they can cut away a lot of the noise around a decision and get right to the point and ask, ‘What am I looking at?’

Karl Kuhnert

As TOM learns, it presents Collins with more and different scenarios for prescribing semaglutide. As she makes decisions, it remembers the variables present during her decision-making process. “Obviously, some variables are going to be more important than other variables. Certain combinations are going to be challenging,” says Collins. “Sometimes there are going to be some variables where I think, yes, this patient needs a GLP-1. Then there may be some variables where I think, no, this person really doesn’t need that. And which ones are going to win out? That’s really where TOM is valuable. It can say, okay, when in these difficult circumstances where there are conflicting variables, which one will ultimately be most important in making that decision?”

The Process: Trusting AI

After working with TOM for several hours, Collins will have reacted to enough scenarios for TOM to learn to make her decision. The Twin will need to demonstrate that it can replicate her decision-making with acceptable accuracy—high 90s to 100 percent. Once there, Collins’ Twin is ready to use.

“I think it’s important to have concordance between what I would say in a situation and then what my digital twin would say in a situation because that’s our ultimate goal is to have an AI algorithm that can duplicate what my recommendation would be given these circumstances for a patient,” Collins says. “So, someone, whether that be an insurance company, or a patient themselves or another provider, would be able to consult TOM, and in essence, me, and say, in this scenario, would you prescribe a GLP-1 or not given this specific patient’s situation?”

The patient’s current health and family history are critical when deciding whether or not to prescribe semaglutide. For example, according to Novo Nordisk, the makers of Ozempic, the drug should not be prescribed to patients with a history of problems with the pancreas or kidneys or with a family history of thyroid cancer. Those are just the start of a list of reasons why a patient may or may not be a good candidate for the medication.

Kuhnert says, “What we’re learning is that there are so many primary care physicians right now that if you come in with a BMI over 25 and are prediabetic, you’re going to get (a prescription). But there’s much more data around this to suggest that there are people who are health marginalized, and they can’t do this. They should not have this (medication). It’s got to be distributed to people who can tolerate it and are safe.”

Accessing the Digital Twin on TOM   

Collins’s digital twin could be available via something as easy to access as an iPhone app. “Part of my job is to provide the latest information to primary care physicians. Now, I can do this in a way that is very powerful for primary care physicians to go on their phones and put it in. It’s pretty remarkable, according to Colllins.”

It is also transparent and importantly sourced information.  

Any physician using a digital twin created with TOM will know exactly whose expertise they are accessing, so anyone asking for a second opinion from Colllins will know they are using an expert physician from Emory University.

In addition to patient safety, there are a number of ways TOM can be useful to the healthcare industry when prescribing medications like semaglutide. This includes interfacing with insurance companies and the prior approval process, often lengthy and handled by non-physician staff. “Why is a non-expert at an insurance company determining whether a patient needs a medication or not? Would it be better to have an expert?” says Collins. “I’m an expert in internal medicine and lifestyle medicine. So, I help people not only lose weight, but also help people change their behaviors to optimize their health. My take on GLP-1 medications is not that everyone needs them, it’s that they need to be utilized in a meaningful way, so patients will get benefit, given risks and benefits for these medications.”

The Power of a Second Opinion

Getting second, and sometimes third, opinions is a common practice among physicians and patients both. When a patient presents symptoms to their primary care physician, that physician may have studied the possible disease in school but isn’t necessarily an expert. In a community like Emory Healthcare, the experts are readily available, like Collins. She often serves as a second opinion for her colleagues and others around the country.

“What we’re providing folks is more of a second opinion. Because we want this actually to work alongside someone, you can look at this opinion that this expert gave, and now, based on sourced information, you can choose. This person may be one of the best in the country, if not the world, in making this decision. But we’re not replacing people here. We’re not dislocating people with this technology. We need people. We need today’s and tomorrow’s experts as well,” according to Kuhnert.

But also, you now have the ability to take an Emory physician’s diagnosing capabilities to physicians in rural areas and make use of this information, this knowledge, this decision, and how they make this decision. We have people here that could really help these small hospitals across the country.

Caroline Collin MD

Rural Americans have significant health disparities when compared to those living in urban centers. They are more likely to die from heart disease, cancer, injury, chronic respiratory disease, and stroke. Rural areas are finding primary care physicians in short supply, and patients in rural areas are 64 percent less likely to have access to medical specialists for needed referrals.

Smaller communities might not have immediate access to experts like a rheumatologist, for example. In addition, patients in more rural areas might not have the means of transportation to get to a specialist, nor have the financial means to pay for specialized visits for a diagnosis. Collins posits that internal medicine generalists might suspect a diagnosis but want to confirm before prescribing a course of treatment.

“If I have a patient for whom I am trying to answer a specific question, ‘Does this patient have lupus?’, for instance. I’m not going to be able to diagnose this person with lupus. I can suspect it, but I’m going to ask a rheumatologist. Let’s say I’m in a community where unfortunately, we don’t have a rheumatologist. The patient can’t see a rheumatologist. That’s a real scenario that’s happening in the United States right now. But now I can ask the digital twin acting as a rheumatologist, given these variables, ‘Does this patient have lupus?’ And the digital twin could give me a second opinion.”

Sometimes, those experts are incredibly busy and might not have the physical availability for a full consult. In this case, someone could use TOM to create the digital twin of that expert. This allows them to give advice and second opinions to a wider range of fellow physicians.

As Kuhnert says, TOM is not designed or intended to be a substitute for a physician. It should only work alongside one. Collins agreed, saying, “This doesn’t take the place of a provider in actual clinical decision-making. That’s where I think someone could use it inappropriately and could get patients into trouble. You still have to have a person there with clinical decision-making capacity to take on additional variables that TOM can’t yet do. And so that’s why it’s a second opinion.”

“We’re not there yet in AI says Collins. We have to be really careful about having AI make actual medical decisions for people without someone there to say, ‘Wait a minute, does this make sense?’”

AI Implications in the Classroom and Beyond

Because organizations use TOM to create digital twins of their experts, the public cannot use the twins to shop for willing doctors. “We don’t want gaming the system,” says Collins. “We don’t want doctor shopping. What we want is a person there who can utilize AI in a meaningful way – not in a dangerous way. I think we’ll eventually get there where we can have AI making clinical decisions. But I don’t think I’d feel comfortable with that yet.”

The implications of using decision-making digital twins in healthcare reach far beyond a second opinion for prescription drugs. Kuhnert sees it as an integral part of the future of medical school classrooms at Emory. In the past, teaching case studies have come from books, journals, and papers. Now, they could come alive in the classroom with AI simulation programs like TOM.

I think this would be great for teaching residents. Imagine that we could create a simulation and put this in a classroom, have (the students) do the simulation, and then have the physician come in and talk about how she makes her decisions.

Karl Kuhnert

“And then these residents could take this decision, and now it’s theirs. They can keep it with them. It would be awesome to have a library of critical health decisions made in Emory hospitals,” Kuhnert says.

Collins agreed. “We do a lot of case teaching in the medical school. I teach both residents and medical students at Emory School of Medicine. This would be a really great tool to say, okay, given these set of circumstances, what decision would you make for this patient? Then, you could see what the expert’s decision would have been. That could be a great way to see if you are actually in lockstep with the decision-making process that you’re supposed to be learning.”

Kuhnert sees decision-making twins moving beyond the healthcare system and into other arenas like the courtroom, public safety, and financial industries and has been working with other experts to digitize their knowledge in those fields.

The way to think about this is: say there is a subjective decision that gets made that has significant ramifications for that company and maybe for the community. What would it mean if I could digitize experts and make it available to other people who need an expert or an expert’s decision-making?

Karl Kuhnert

“You think about how many people aren’t available. Maybe you have a physician who’s not available. You have executives who are not available. Often expertise resides in the minds of just a few people in an organization,” says Kuhnert.

“Pursuing the use of technologies like TOM takes the concept of the digital human expert from simple task automation to subjective human decision-making support and will expand the idea of a digital expert into something beyond our current capabilities,” Kuhnert says. “I wanted to show that we could digitize very subjective decisions in such areas as ethical and clinical decision-making. In the near future, we will all learn from the wisdom codified in decision-making digital twins. Why not learn from the best? There is a lot of good work to do.”

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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Mason, assistant professor of orthopaedics and family medicine at Emory Healthcare, became medical director for USATF championship events in 2022. He coordinates medical coverage for USATF international teams, and national and local championship events.

In his new role, Mason now found himself leading medical operations, staffing, scheduling, budgeting, and human resources for all USATF championship events. However, nothing in medical school or his career had prepared him for this. Mason realized right away that to succeed in this new role, he would need the skills of an administrator.

“These kinds of directorship positions, especially for sporting entities, require a different set of skills. As I’ve progressed in my career, I haven’t had the opportunity to develop these skills,” he says. “Formalized training as a chief medical officer was something that I was lacking.”

Learning the Business of Healthcare

In November 2022, Mason enrolled in the first cohort of the Chief Medical Officer Program through Emory Executive Education. The program bridges clinical expertise and business acumen—filling an urgent need for medical practitioners who can lead in the C-suite.

Over nine to 12 months, the Chief Medical Officer program dives into the business of healthcare. Core modules cover health care leadership and business administration, team building, wellness, turning strategy into action, effective communication skills, DEI, and more. Electives in decision making and innovation provide further options.

For the core modules, participants watch weekly recorded lectures by faculty at a time convenient to them. They then gather online and over email to discuss the material as a group. Weekly online review sessions led by a teaching assistant offer a chance for students to further discuss the lecture material as a smaller group. Every other week, industry experts from around the globe give live online presentations. The presentations are followed by questions and comments with the cohort.

The elective in executive decision-making was particularly impactful. Mason says this course was exactly what he needed for his new role with USATF.

It was phenomenal. It really changed how I think and put things into practice.

R. Amadeus Mason

“I shared some of the things I was learning with my wife—who is a C-suite executive with degrees from Wharton and Kellogg—and she was impressed,” Mason says.

Practical Application: Reaching the Podium with Preventative Medicine

The core modules laid the foundation for Mason to develop the regional provider program at USATF. The goal was to provide injury prevention and mitigation. One of the biggest issues at USATF was that their elite athletes—potential medal winners—were showing up to high-stakes track meets nursing injuries. 

With no protocol in place to stay on top of their elite athletes’ condition, Mason says, “we were leaving potential medals on the table.” Athletes had injuries that prevented them from performing at their best or at all—injuries that should have been identified and treated earlier.   

Even though USATF is the national governing body for track and field, creating a program for injury surveillance, treatment, and prevention for their elite athlete population was a big task. Athletes live and train all over the country. Many potential medalists are still in college, and their schools conduct their own injury surveillance, treatment, and prevention. On top of all that, the more than 40 different disciplines within USATF all have vastly different support needs. 

USATF’s solution was to establish the regional medical provider program, a network of athletic trainers based in areas with a high concentration of USATF athletes. They travel to and regularly touch base with athletes in their region. This provides comprehensive yet specialized medical coverage for eligible athletes. Regular visits foster trust and familiarity, increasing the likelihood that athletes and coaches will use the medical services.

The regional medical providers report to a physician with oversight duties. That physician orders and reviews imaging studies and labs as indicated, arranges consultations, and visits training camps to do sports medicine wellness checks. The program also leverages relationships with local and regional medical systems. 

Putting New Tools to the Test

“I used the tools I learned in the Chief Medical Officer Program to think about and implement this program,” Mason says. “We had to make decisions about how the system would be set up and how it would be executed. Then we had to share it with the athletes and coaches and get their buy-in.”

The regional medical provider program was in place leading up to the World Championships last June, Mason notes, and Team USA was healthier than ever and performed better than it ever has in Europe.

Mason says he gained tools that help him communicate with more presence and clarity while in the Chief Medical Officer Program, which, as a result, have improved his decision making.

“The program has given me a lot more confidence as a communicator,” he says. “The way in which I communicate and I write emails has really changed. When I put out a request, I’m being a lot more intentional, a lot more available, and also a lot more in a hearing mode, so I can hear what is going on and incorporate that into my thinking moving forward, as opposed to trying to come up with things on my own.”

Mason says that others in his CMO program cohort reported similar results as they put theories learned into practice. He has already recommended the program to other physicians.

The program would benefit anyone seeking to lead effectively in health care, whether on a committee or in a division, department, or hospital system.

R. Amadeus Mason

“I was able to immediately and directly apply things we covered in the modules,” he says. “It made things so much easier.”

Are you a medical professional looking to level up your leadership skills? Learn how the Chief Medical Officer Program from Emory Executive Education can prepare you to advance your career and maximize your impact from the C-suite.

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Scholarship candidates are nominated from Goizueta’s Executive MBA, perhaps without their knowledge, which makes receiving a letter stating you won the scholarship all the sweeter.

“I was stunned to realize that I was nominated for the scholarship,” says this year’s recipient Anne Marie McKenzie-Brown MD 91R 25EMBA 91R. “I checked the email many times to make sure they had the right person.”

They certainly did: McKenzie-Brown is not only a dedicated student in the EMBA program, but she also carries a wealth of knowledge and experience in the healthcare field that began when she graduated from medical school in 1987.

Now, she’s a professor of anesthesiology and the vice chair of professional development for Emory’s Department of Anesthesiology.

A History in Healthcare

McKenzie-Brown comes from a family of hard workers—she learned her determination and work ethic by observing her parents. The family left Jamaica at the end of McKenzie-Brown’s time in high school. But her father left beyond even more—his anesthesiologist practice and the legacy he created as founder of the Jamaica Anesthetist Association.

When they arrived in Maryland, her father had to start all over. He became a resident again at the age of 56.

Though her mom was not in the medical field, she was the one who encouraged McKenzie-Brown to pursue her passion for pain management and helping others.

“She was my strength,” shares McKenzie-Brown.

Her mother started her career in America as a bank teller. Despite having no previous experience, she worked her way up to become vice president of human resources.

I am thankful for the many women throughout my career who encouraged me to try ‘one more time,’ who supported my career when I was filled with uncertainty.

Anne Marie McKenzie-Brown

While working as the director of the Grady Pain Clinic, McKenzie-Brown had two pregnancies and a miscarriage. She says her supervisor at the time was unsupportive about what she was going through. Because of these experiences, McKenzie-Brown now ensures she’s the kind of leader who supports working mothers. 

“We need leaders who are encouraging, who meet people where they are. We need to see them for who they are and help them achieve their highest potential,” she says.

McKenzie-Brown started her career directing the pain clinic at Grady. She then opened a satellite pain clinic in Fayette County. That move led her to become the clinical director of the Emory Pain Center. She then progressed to take on the role of pain division chief and program director for the Emory Pain Fellowship. As program director, she overhauled the fellowship curriculum—a controversial decision. However, that adjustment has led to collaboration across the university. One of the graduates is now the pain division chief.

“I am proud to have been involved in developing the careers of many female faculty, first in our division and now in the department.”

McKenzie-Brown’s current role is professor and vice chair of professional development at Emory University School of Medicine. She enjoys having the opportunity to inspire other faculty who may feel stuck in their careers as she once did. While McKenzie-Brown has now achieved full professorship, her path to that goal was long and full of challenges.

 “My desire is to give back the lessons that I have learned. I want to help clear the path for other women leaders,” she shares.

The Foreign Language of Finance

McKenzie-Brown admits that she has long dreamed of getting her MBA. However, she put off her return to the classroom until her two daughters were adults.

McKenzie-Brown first planted the seed of continuing education when she was a division chief in the Department of Anesthesiology. She struggled to understand the financial aspect of running the division. She soon realized that in order to achieve her leadership goals, she needed the continuing education to bridge the knowledge gap.

“While medicine is a service industry, I wanted to be fiscally responsible as a leader,” she says. “I also aspire to be a leader in our healthcare system. I would like to understand the thought process of the large-scale financial decisions and the strategy behind those decisions.”

In 2023, McKenzie-Brown earned her Business of Healthcare certificate from Goizueta. The program is designed for existing healthcare professionals and only requires four courses, often taken over the span of less than three months. Courses cover cost and performance measurements in healthcare, continuous operations improvements, and how to be a strategic leader. Students can also apply the credits toward the EMBA degree.

“We have encouraged a growth mindset in our children,” McKenzie-Brown shares. “I wanted my girls to see me living out this principle of life-long learning, even though it’s hard. The program is challenging, and I have loved every minute of it.”

If you’d like get involved with Executive Women of Goizueta, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or LinkedIn, or reach out to emoryexecwomen@gmail.com.

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We mark the official start of the new year with celebrations on January 1. New Year’s is a time for new beginnings and a chance to start fresh. We revel in the possibilities and opportunities the new year brings. Frequently, it is a time for goal setting. Perhaps you’ve even made a New Year’s resolution or two?

But New Year’s is also a time to pause, if only for the briefest of moments, before we return to work, school, or whatever regularly scheduled programming life has in store for us. It’s a chance to take a pulse on the current state of things. We reflect on the past year, bask in the glow of its high points, and appreciate lessons learned from the challenges we faced.

So, before we launch full steam ahead into the new year, let’s take a look back at some great stories you may have missed this past year on EmoryBusiness.com.

Students Write Notes to Themselves for the Future

Every August, the students in Goizueta Business School’s Full-Time MBA programs gather for Keystone. It’s a week of giving back through volunteering and catching up with classmates after a summer internship. Students take the opportunity to pause, reflect, and project. As part Keystone, they write a letter to their future self, not to be opened for at least five years. The letter-writing experience has been a Goizueta MBA tradition since 2012.

Emory Entrepreneurship Summit Features Renowned Shoe Designer Stuart Weitzman

Goizueta Business School hosted the 7th annual Emory Entrepreneurship Summit March 30-31. One of the highlight’s of this year’s was the keynote address from Stuart Weitzman. Known for his commitment to prioritizing function as an integral element of fashion, Weitzman encouraged those in attendance to pursue their passions. He shared insights with a packed room of aspiring entrepreneurs and innovators in the form of a number of his truisms—or as he prefers to call them, “Stu-isms.”

Goizueta Launches Graduate Business Degree for Veterans & Active-Duty Military

Emory University’s Goizueta Business School announced in July the launch of its new Master in Business for Veterans. The program is a fully accredited 11-month degree for active-duty military, veterans, National Guard, and Reserve personnel. Spearheaded by Retired U.S. Army Lieutenant General and Associate Dean for Leadership Ken Keen, as well as Faculty Lead Professor JB Kurish, the program will be guided by an advisory board of high-level business executives, several of whom are both retired military and graduates of Goizueta. The working professional program began accepting applications in August 2023 with the first cohort of veterans starting classes in May 2024.

Goizueta Business School Introduces New Master in Management Program for Recent Graduates

This past summer, Goizueta introduced its new Master in Management program. It’s designed specifically for graduates with a non-business major who are looking to level up their undergraduate degree. Experienced professors who are experts in their respective fields help students develop a foundation of with business knowledge and skills. Best of all, students can complete the Master in Management program in just ten months. This provides a fast-track option for students to gain a valuable business education and expand their career options.

Virtual Reality Revolutionizes Classroom Learning

Jill Perry-Smith is bringing an entirely new dimension to Goizueta’s Executive MBA program. Her focus: navigating difficult conversations and finding effective conflict resolution strategies. Through the use of virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI), Perry-Smith, senior associate dean for strategic initiatives and professor of organization and management, hopes to provide more students with experience in dealing with interpersonal conflict.

Goizueta Faculty Work to Help the LGBTQ+ Community Thrive

Emory University’s Goizueta Business School and the LGBTQ Institute at the National Center for Civil and Human Rights are partners in the second survey of LGBTQ+ Southerners, released in April 2023. The study is a follow up to the 2017-18 inaugural survey, which was conducted by the Institute and George State University. This newly released study aims to help fill a critical research gap, looking at an understudied group with a larger data set.

The Voice of Alexa: How Speech Characteristics Impact Consumer Decisions

Rajiv Garg is associate professor of Information Systems & Operations Management at Emory’s Goizueta Business School. Garg conducts research that explores the impact of artificial intelligence voices on consumer behavior and purchase intent, along with partners at HEC Paris and The University of Texas at Austin.

So, here’s the question: Can the voice of Samuel L. Jackson sell you an office chair? Read on to find out.

Playing Ball: How One Goizueta Graduate Has Scored Big in the NBA

Meet Lauren Cohen 00BBA, who recently entered her 24^th season with the National Basketball Association (NBA). But she doesn’t play basketball. She’s the vice president of partner management and operations lead for the NBA’s global partnerships group.

Cohen credits two things with the stability and tenure she’s enjoyed at the NBA: the people she works with and her opportunities to change roles every few years. But it all started with the strong foundation she build at Goizueta.

Preparing Workers of the Future

The future of work. What does it mean?

For Goizueta Business School graduates, the future of work is an exciting prospect, and they are ready for it. These workers of the future are embracing their passions and pursuing multiple careers. They are making business decisions for the betterment of society and leveraging technology to enhance their skills. On top of that, they are learning how to lead dispersed, remote teams.

Goizueta graduates don’t fear the future. They embrace it.

Talking about the Business of Healthcare

Healthcare is a business like many other industries, but instead of just making money, healthcare workers must also save lives. Navigating patient care and profitability is a unique challenge that neither business professionals nor doctors are able to address alone.

Goizueta helps bridge that gap. We teach clinicians the fundamentals of business and teach business professionals how to apply their knowledge specifically within the healthcare field.

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

The post The Best Stories of 2023 from Goizueta Business School appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Healthcare is a business like many other industries, but instead of just making money, healthcare workers must also save lives. Navigating patient care and profitability is a unique challenge that neither business professionals nor doctors are able to address alone. Goizueta helps bridge that gap, teaching clinicians the fundamentals of business and teaching business professionals how to apply their knowledge specifically within the healthcare field.

First and foremost, the chief medical officer must be a good physician, according to Gregory Esper MD 09EMBA, associate chief medical officer of Emory University Healthcare System.

There are no successful CMOs that are not first thought of as excellent clinicians. No physician body is going to follow a chief medical officer who they do not first trust clinically.

Gregory Esper MD 09EMBA, associate chief medical officer of Emory University Healthcare System

“You also have to have transparency and integrity―your ‘yes’ is yes and your ‘no’ is no―and that you are not rash in the decisions that you’re making. It’s important to weigh the gravity of situations and decisions that you need to make with great care,” Esper says.

Preparing Healthcare Leaders to Succeed in Business

It’s not often that medical schools teach budgeting, leadership, operations, and human resources. That’s why Emory University’s Goizueta Business School offers healthcare concentrations in its Full-time MBA, Evening MBA, and Executive MBA programs. Goizueta also offers its Chief Medical Officer Program within its Emory Executive Education department.

Nicola Barrett is Goizueta’s chief corporate learning officer and oversees Emory Executive Education. She says, “Healthcare leaders are facing so many new challenges. There’s the introduction of new technologies, changes in societal expectations, research that’s uncovering patient and population equity disparities, and burnout of clinical staff. And that’s just a few. Understanding these dynamics and leading others in a way that helps them feel valued and willing to embrace change is important.”

We’re helping to equip senior medical officers and healthcare leaders with the skills and knowledge to make good decisions for their patients, their people, and their organizations. We’re teaching them to be aware of the implications and opportunities afforded by the changing healthcare landscape, and to effectively contribute to the strategic direction and success of their enterprise.

Nicola Barrett, Goizueta’s chief corporate learning officer

Healthcare executives and doctors have been through many years of education as well as many years of experience in their field. They might wonder how an MBA or CMO certificate can help further an already established career.

Sarah Kier 20EMBA is vice president of enterprise access at Emory Healthcare. She says that learning with her cohort gave her a broader perspective on concepts that she already understood, but only from the perspective of her niche.

“When you’ve been in your industry for that long, you have a deep but fairly narrow understanding of the business world,” she says. “Gaining that kind of expansion, learning from people across industries, you start seeing things from a different chair or a perspective.”

Adapting to and Adopting New Technology

Goizueta alumni are leading the way in adopting developing technology, like artificial intelligence (AI), to create the healthcare systems of the future. They’re learning those skills at Goizueta.

There are many ways to integrate AI into the medical field. Some are already in use on a regular basis, including patient data analysis, maintaining records, and insurance and billing management. But the prospect of using AI as a diagnostic tool, and not just as an administrator, is expanding. The ability of AI to provide accurate diagnoses and assist in personalizing treatment means it is a viable tool to add to a patient’s treatment team. However, experts say it will never replace trained physicians.

“I like the approach of saying that today’s trainee is going to operate in 2050. What is their world going to be like then?” says Benn Konsynski, George S. Craft Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management.

The world they are entering now is going to be transformed radically, and they can be a part of that. They’re coming in with values that are different than their counterpart 20 years ago, and I think they will have more opportunities to shape that future than their predecessors.

Benn Konsynski, George S. Craft Professor of Information Systems & Operations Management

Embracing AI in Healthcare

Esper has already worked with AI tools like ChatGPT to make his job more efficient, using it recently with a colleague to help write a new policy. This task would have taken his team days, but with ChatGPT’s assistance it took mere minutes.

“AI will create efficiencies in the analysis of data, the ability to have predictive analytics, that are going to be considerable. Even pathologists and radiologists are now using AI to identify areas of abnormality on scans and pathology. At this point, it doesn’t substitute for human interpretation, but at some point, it may,” Esper says. AI is helpful but not quite perfect and may never be, which is where the element of human interaction is crucial.

“You have to be careful. You have to say, is this right? What could be wrong? How can I use this more effectively? What’s the appropriate use of this? If I use this in this circumstance, can someone get hurt? I think those are considerations for the use of AI in medicine,” says Kier.

We have to embrace it. Because if we don’t, we won’t be leveraging technology that can help our patients and our families―and frankly, our people—from an efficiency perspective.

Sarah Kier 20EMBA, vice president, enterprise access at Emory Healthcare

Kier knows the future of healthcare lies in technology. But she approaches it from a more patient-focused view than just data entry and predictive modeling. Most patient portal systems, including the recently launched EPIC system used by Emory Healthcare, can track data like patient no-show rates. But Kier wants to ask even more of AI than just data tracking and analysis.

“The important part for me is what else and where else? So many people suffer from loneliness. And so many people go undiagnosed with mental illness because they’re not speaking to anyone else. How can AI help with that? Could your toothbrush notice that you haven’t brushed your teeth in three days. That probably means you’re not in an OK headspace? How can we plug those things in and get a real 360-degree picture of the person?”

Building Financial Prowess

There’s another formidable challenge for physicians and healthcare executives moving into leadership position. They need a wide range of skills in addition to the ones honed in medical school, residency, and practice as a physician.

Healthcare executives, including CMOs, must be able to work with hospital boards of directors. They handle budgets upwards of hundreds of millions of dollars. These budgets cover not only actual medical care but also staffing, purchasing, general operations costs, and capital improvements. They must also make decisions about “non-funded” projects like free health screenings for the community.

Michael Sacks, is professor in the practice of organization and management at Goizueta. He teaches courses on leadership and organizational behavior in both the CMO program and the Executive MBA program.

It’s unusual for anyone to be equally skilled in distinct skills like finance, healthcare delivery, people management, and so many other topics. We try to build skills in each specific area, as well as teach our participants how to balance across these demands and communicate effectively to different audiences.

Michael Sacks, professor in the practice of organization and management

Any MBA graduate will tell you Excel is a key component of their training. But the Executive MBA program taught Esper so much more than just how to read a spreadsheet. “There are techniques you learn in operations that help you when you’re managing specific projects. When looking at data and analytics, it’s the ability to understand what data was pulled, and how. You ask ‘Is the data answering the most important question?’” he says. “Oftentimes I’ll have experience that I draw on from my case studies. I’m applying things I learned in business school to existing problems in healthcare.”

Handling the Staffing Crisis and Retaining Quality Professionals

Staffing issues have become a common problem in most healthcare and hospital systems. It’s an issue that all CMOs and healthcare executives have to face. The pandemic accelerated retirements of the baby boomer generation. That was expected to happen more slowly over the next 20 years. Burnout of medical staff from the intense and long workdays did not help. “Money is certainly part of the situation; however, it’s much more complicated than that” says Sacks. “Healthcare is a very demanding and challenging workplace where people literally make life or death decisions. Creating an environment where teams work well together, people feel psychologically safe to speak their minds, and support one another in difficult times is essential in healthcare.”

Healthcare workers are so much more than just their roles within an organization, according to Jaclyn Conner, associate dean of the Executive MBA program and Evening MBA. Goizueta graduates learn to work with healthcare workers as both people and employees. “Quality leaders acknowledge that there are people at the core of any operation. It is vital to have empathy, compassion, and consideration as a leader,” she says.

Challenging decisions have to be tackled daily, but strong organizations have a sense of community and core values. Our Executive MBA alumni profess strong values and implement them as leaders.

Jaclyn Conner, associate dean of the Executive MBA program and Evening MBA

One way to circumvent staffing gaps might actually be technology, according to Kier. “We do not have the human capital to do things the way we used to do them. So it’s an exciting moment for technology, because it can help. AI has so much promise in all the things that you’d think of it for. It can remove rote tasks. These are things that are mindless, that we currently pay humans to do because somebody has to push the buttons. AI will certainly be doing all those things.”

The Transformative Power of Executive Education

In the meantime, humans are still running the business of healthcare. Advancing knowledge through an executive education program is one way to keep up with the ever-changing business. Esper says says people ask him about Goizueta’s Executive MBA often. He says they should have a good reason to pursue such a degree. That’s the key success in the program.

“People ask me all the time, ‘I want to get an MBA. What do you think?’ I will tell people that it’s not just three letters behind your name, or behind an MD. That doesn’t mean much if you don’t know why you’re getting it and what you want to do with it.”

Education can be transformational, but you have to lean in and approach the process with purpose. That will be the real game changer.

Are you looking to level up your career? Learn more about Emory Executive Education, our top-ranked Executive MBA, and Goizueta Business School’s many other degree programs to chart your own path to success.

The post Talking About the Business of Healthcare appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Imagine what a “one-stop shop” practice model could do for patients living with dementia. Rather than a confusing, disjointed continuum of care often linked to unnecessary emergency department visits and poor outcomes, consider a patient-centered medical home that meets patients where they are and provides both memory care and primary care, all in the same place. 

Since 2015, Emory’s Integrated Memory Care Clinic (IMC Clinic) has done just that—and garnered national recognition as a viable model to provide nurse-led primary and dementia care to specialized populations. Indeed, the IMC Clinic is one of the only comprehensive dementia care models across the U.S. that has achieved financial sustainability. Access remains limited, though, as some patients and their caregivers find it difficult to access the clinic, especially in the more advanced stages of the patient’s dementia. 

Reimagining Nursing and Expanding Access to Care 

To increase access to this innovative care, an expanded program—called IMC in Community (IMCiC)—opened in 2022 in the group care settings where these patients typically reside. Initially supported by philanthropic seed funding, the initiative recently garnered concept support, as well as a $1.5 million Reimaging Nursing Initiative grant, from the American Nurses Foundation. The program provides dementia-sensitive primary care within participants’ senior living communities, incorporating occupational therapists and dementia care assistants who help participants maintain independence for as long as possible. The practice works as an integrated team and includes registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, and clinical social workers who support patients and their care partners.

That’s where the business comes in. This year, Goizueta Business School researchers will begin to evaluate the IMCiC program, documenting and quantifying the value of the initiative and assessing its long-term viability as a sustainable business model. Moving forward, the program will follow a subscription-based model, with the aim of being financially self-sustaining. Program support will also rely on direct reimbursement from payers—for example, Medicare and Medicaid—for healthcare services.

Karen Sedatole, the Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Accounting, serves as the evaluation lead for the IMCiC grant.

Healthcare has been in financial crisis for some time. As business leaders and business educators, we must start taking a more active role in solving some of these problems.

Karen Sedatole, Asa Griggs Candler Professor of Accounting

Sedatole says “We can take an active role by helping to document the value that nurses bring to the IMCiC and other new care models, providing the analysis and financial insights to inform how these care models should be structured.” 

Understanding Nurse-Led Transformation 

Alzheimer’s disease, which is the most common cause of dementia among older adults, is the seventh leading cause of death in the U.S., often due to aspiration pneumonia from difficulty with swallowing. As the U.S. population continues to age and the needs become even more dire, care models such as the IMC and IMCiC could play an important part in providing a solution to support this vulnerable population.

“Nurses are the largest workforce in healthcare, yet somehow we’re also the most invisible when it comes to conversations about who is leading change and making a change,” says Carolyn Clevenger, the clinical director of the IMC Clinic and a professor in Emory’s Nell Hodgson Woodruff School of Nursing. 

“This project brings in both the innovation and expertise of nurses and allows them to be visible and out front,” she says.

It also improves the broken financial model and solves multiple problems for a population that needs help. That’s what nurses do – provide real, practical solutions for people today.

Carolyn Clevenger, clinical director, IMC Clinic

Since January 2022, the IMC Clinic and IMCiC have grown from seven to 19 employees who serve hundreds of patients in the greater Atlanta area. Nurses serve as the primary caregivers to these patients. However, the value of nurses is not always recognized. 

“Nurses are often talked about as an expense center–and one of the biggest expenses,” Sedatole says. “In this care model, the IMCiC team is focused on capturing reimbursement driven by nurses and demonstrating that nurses can be a revenue-generating source.”  

Partnering with More Senior Living Communities, Doubling Patients Served 

The IMCiC program is now in active growth mode and adding formal agreements with senior living communities, where nurses and dementia care assistants provide on-site support. The team began the year with one senior living community collaboration and has grown to six agreements, with more to come this summer. They’re also aiming to double the number of patients and families enrolled in the program, with the capacity to add another 500 patients.  

As the program moves into the second year of the three-year grant, team leaders are also beginning to compile consistent data from the project’s initial phase to evaluate important metrics around patient visits, hospitalizations, and financials.

“It’s important to go through this process and demonstrate proof of concept, using financial analyses and documentation of what works and what doesn’t within the business model to show that other practices around the country can do this,” says Ewelina Forker 23PhD, a recently graduated Goizueta PhD student in accounting, who is conducting the program evaluation alongside Sedatole.

To be sustainable, we need real, practical solutions that can help the millions of people who are affected by this nationwide.

Ewelina Forker 23PhD

So far, partners at the senior living communities have voiced major support for the weekly visits—and many have requested twice-weekly visits, either immediately or in the near future. Clevenger has created the fee structure to make this possible in 2023, as well as a staff pipeline to accommodate increasing demands as the program grows. For instance, dementia care assistants are supported with scholarships for nursing school, and they can continue to work part-time as companions to patients in need. 

The research shows that this type of program works for the outcomes that matter, such as keeping patients out of the hospital and de-prescribing high-risk drugs. We can’t do that as effectively unless we take care of patients with primary care and memory care in one location.

Carolyn Clevenger

Clevenger says “what the research hasn’t explained is that the reason we can cover costs is because we’re doing all of the services in one place, and that’s the viability and sustainability we hope to demonstrate with this care model.” 

At Goizueta, we build strategic leaders ready to tackle the complex issues in healthcare through a focus on innovation, strategy, social enterprise, and experiential learning. By leveraging Emory University’s healthcare expertise, Atlanta’s rapidly growing healthcare ecosystem, and our team of world class educators specializing in the business of healthcare, Goizueta positions its graduates to step into strategic careers to create the healthcare of tomorrow. Find out more. 

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This April, ten multidisciplinary teams of students across Emory University were tasked with improving patient safety as part of this year’s 2040 Healthcare Futuring Competition. Organized by the Goizueta Healthcare Association under the direction of Renee Dye, associate professor of Organization & Management, the Healthcare Futuring Competition asked the student teams to consider five categories of medical harm that contribute to the majority of morbidity and mortality: medication errors, procedural/surgical safety problems, patient care (falls, pressure injuries, blood clots), infections, and diagnostic safety issues (wrong, missed, and delayed diagnosis).

The competition challenged students to use futuring, an advanced strategy tool that focuses on long-term outcomes, to envision a 2040 healthcare environment that would produce better patient safety outcomes. To prepare students, the Goizueta Healthcare Association provided data, resources, and workshops—and then students were off to the races.

Emory Students from Diverse Disciplines Deliver Game-Changing Insights

In April, four finalist teams presented their scenarios to a panel of judges, each of whom represented a different aspect of the healthcare industry. The winning team received a $1500 prize, and the runner up took home $1000.

“We had an intriguing mix of disciplines and schools in the competition this year – business, public health, math, and engineering—from across Emory and Georgia Tech,” noted Dye.

Healthcare faces challenges on multiple fronts, so the contributions from multiple fields are sure to advance our understanding and innovation potential. Notably, in this third year of the competition, each and every presentation featured AI-driven technology and digital solutions as game changers to improve patient outcomes.

Renee Dye, associate professor of Organization & Management

Team BioFuture, the winning team, featured LuisRene Mata Quinonez and Imran Shah, two Biomedical Engineering PhD students enrolled in a dual program between Georgia Tech and Emory University. The pair worked alongside Leonardo Molinari, a PhD student in Mathematics at Emory. “I’ve never taken a business class in my life. [The competition] helped us see what it would be like to take this technology to the actual clinic. It was an eye-opening experience,” explained Shah.

Team BioFuture’s 2040 healthcare scenario centered on integrated computational facilities (ICFs) that use clinical-based computational services to arrive at better patient outcomes. By using centralized data storage on site, ICFs can create “digital twins” for each patient, allowing for computational simulations and modeling that can lead to personalized treatment. Their scenario also included the use of wearable technology to enhance early detection of life-threatening conditions.

Stein Wang 24MBA and Stephanie Wong 24MBA, both students in Dye’s Innovation Strategy class this semester, took home the runner up prize. As Team Human Errors Medication Errors, their scenario addressed how to minimize mistakes and complications from medication errors. This included genetic sequencing to produce precise, personalized medicine, 3D printed medications that allow for customized dosages, and the use of biometric blockchain to enhance cyber security. “We were able to use tools we learned in Professor Dye’s class to identify pain points and create ways to solve those problems,” explained Wong. Wang noted that the team’s business background helped them use data to make their case.

Team Beyond Tomorrow, with members Manju Ramakrishnan, Rollins School of Public Health, Mina Milosavijevic, Emory School of Medicine and Tejas Mayekar 24MBA focused on how technology could be used to reduce medication errors and hospital-acquired infections. In its scenario, Team Foresight, comprised of Rollins School of Public Health students Hans Khoe, Gracie Landram, and Foster Ritchie, used AI-based patient safety measures and universal electronic medical records that allowed for real-time patient updates.

Competition organizer Richard Xie 23MBA and Goizueta Healthcare Association’s Executive Vice President, isn’t aware of any other MBA program with a similar competition.

“It sets Goizueta apart,” Xie said. Xie credits Dye with making the competition a success. “Her involvement has been immense,” Xie explained. “Without it, this competition wouldn’t exist.”

Swetha Rajagopalan 23MBA/MPH and Goizueta Healthcare Association President who helped lead one of the workshops, was glad to have been a part of the competition. “It was exciting to see the diversity of thought from the PhD students and the business students come together to develop a plan and a vision,” she said. Rishab Pradeep Padukone 23MBA, Goizueta Healthcare Association vice president of competitions, was impressed that “each team had a different vision of what AI could do in the future,” he said.

The panel of judges included Arujun Srinivasan, MD (CAPT, USPHS), associate director for healthcare-associated infection prevention programs, Division of Healthcare Quality Promotion, CDC’s National Center for Emerging and Zoonotic Infectious Diseases, Harry Gerard, manager, Lab2Launch and associate director, Biolocity, Emory School of Medicine, Natasha Rishi-Bohra, Healthcare Strategy and Transformation, Evolent Care Partners, and Steven Culler, associate professor, Rollins School of Public Health and affiliated associate professor, Goizueta Business School.

Find out more about the Goizueta Healthcare Association’s Healthcare Futuring Competition.

Check out how Goizueta is preparing principled leaders to solve the biggest challenges facing healthcare in the future.  

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In the middle of medical school at Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth, Ifeoma Kamalu 23MBA decided to press pause, move to Atlanta, and work her way through Goizueta’s One-Year MBA program.

“I really needed the knowledge and skills to become a clinical leader within the healthcare industry,” she says. “The healthcare system is rife with inefficiencies, and there are so many angles one can use to improve it.”

Before medical school, Kamalu was a senior regulatory affairs specialist for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center’s Cancer Clinical Trials Office. While managing her direct reports, Kamalu realized how valuable an MBA could be to her growth as a leader.

“I’ve always loved medicine—from a biological and chemical standpoint—but I also love that I’m able to interact with people in very vulnerable positions through medicine.”

At Goizueta, Kamalu gained different perspectives on the healthcare industry and created her own elective, where she explored the effects of private equity on stakeholders in the healthcare system.

Classes like global and macro-economics, operation strategy, and processes and systems management will help me better define and optimize the ill-defined and messy system that is healthcare.

Ifeoma Kamalu 23MBA

After graduation, Kamalu will return to her fourth and final year of medical school and begin applying for residencies to continue her goal of becoming an anesthesiologist. Her long-term career dream is to build a sustainable healthcare infrastructure in markets like Nigeria.

But Kamalu says it was her fellowship experiences that provided her with the most growth—as a leader and communicator. These roles also provided her with the opportunity to help peers along their professional development journey.

“Being a Delta Leadership Coaching Fellow and IMPACT Coaching Fellow reminded me about the pieces of medicine, leadership, and management I love so much,” she says. “The main piece is helping people who are going through a difficult time navigate to a place that’s more comfortable and ensure they learn something about themselves and how they interact with others.”

Congratulations to our Goizueta graduates! Learn more about the celebration and register for Goizueta’s Commencement activities.

Interested in pursuing your MBA? Learn more about the unique programs Goizueta has to offer.

The post This Goizueta Graduate Paused Medical School for a Year to Become a Better Leader appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Refai began his medical career as a physician on the grounds of Emory University back in 2010. After graduation, he plans to continue practicing medicine, but he will now be taking on a leadership role as the vice chair of clinical operations, freshly armed with the skills he’s learned during his time at Goizueta.

“The MBA, for me, was an opportunity to improve my understanding of business and hospital administration, and look at leadership as well as team building,” Refai says.

As a physician, we’re really good at the technical and clinical aspects of taking care of patients, but one of the big things that we lack is the ability to communicate on budgets and finances, especially in healthcare. The MBA gave me an opportunity to really organize my thoughts and develop the skill set to be able to be an active member of the healthcare administrative team.

Outside of the classroom, one of the Refai’s favorite learning opportunities from his time at Goizueta was a global immersion program, where he not only gained a broader business perspective, but he also had the opportunity to bond with his classmates. Those relationships continued to grow throughout his time in the program, culminating in a partnership in starting a company during an entrepreneurship class.

“I think the group of people that I’ve met are going to be lifelong friends,” Refai says. [This program is] a unique opportunity to be able to be with a group of people outside of what we would normally be associated with given work constraints. They’re just some of the most incredible people that I’ve met as an adult. I’m going to miss being with them every other weekend.”

This May, hundreds of Goizueta graduates will walk through our doors ready for the workforce. Learn more about the celebration and register for Goizueta’s Commencement activities. Continue to check out the stories of our amazing students all month long.

Are you an executive ready to take your career to the next level like Refai? Read more about Goizueta’s Executive MBA program.

The post From Neurosurgeon to Healthcare Leader: How One EMBA Student Balanced Life and Learning appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Undergraduate/BBA Courses

Decision Tools and Data Analytics (BUS 350)

Led by Associate Professor in the Practice of Information Systems & Operations Management Wen Gu, this new data analytics-focused course teaches undergraduate students how to manipulate and analyze data. Students learn how to gain managerial insights for decision-making in a business context, using real-world data from various industries. Students gain the knowledge and skills required to utilize various tech tools, such as Microsoft Excel and Python, that are commonly used in business analytics today.

Accounting: The Language of Business (ACT 200)

Referred to as “the language of business,” proper accounting helps companies measure, analyze, and report financial and nonfinancial information to plan, communicate, and implement strategic goals and evaluate and control performance. Students will use real data to learn how to identify and measure costs and benefits for decision-making, allocate economic resources, analyze business transactions, and interpret financial statements, among other skills. This course is taught by Allison Kays, assistant professor in the practice of accounting, and Jianxin (Donny) Zhao, assistant professor of Accounting.

Ideation (MKT 441)

Although Ideation isn’t a new class at Goizueta, it is being reimagined this fall. The course is taught by leaders at BrightHouse, a company founded by Joey Reiman, who has taught this course since it was created. The new team of instructors includes Cathy Carlisi, president; Dolly Meese 05MBA, managing director and chief strategy officer; and Ashley Grice 97MPH 03MBA, CEO and managing director. The course teaches students how to understand and uncover purpose, defined as the idea of why an organization exists in the world, as well as the positive impact it seeks to make. Students will examine the intersection of ideas and how they’re brought to life, as practiced in the world’s first ideation consulting company.

Full-Time MBA

Special Topics: Corporate Political Strategy (ACT 599R)

By electing politicians who appoint regulators, voters effectively set the “rules of the game” for all businesses. Recognizing this, firms invest in resources to gain information about future political developments and shape their disclosure practices to potentially influence political outcomes. In this class, Suhas Sridharan, associate professor of Accounting, teaches students how businesses leverage information dynamics to manage the risks and opportunities presented by political systems. Students examine government regulation of industry, activist and public interest groups, the role of lobbying and campaign contributions in the policymaking process, and ethical frameworks for corporate political strategy.

Special Topics: LedgerTech: Blockchain & Crypt (ACT 599R)

LedgerTech refers to the contemporary technologies, such as Blockchain, that are revolutionizing accounting. Associate Professor of Accounting, Matthew Lyle, will discuss the origins and evolution of double-entry ledgers and why they play such a critical role in today’s global economy. Students will learn why blockchain represents a disruptive technology in accounting and how this technology relates to and differs from traditional ledgers. The class will also dive into how crypto assets are connected to ledger technology, how LedgerTech is changing the audit process, and explore issues related to reporting crypto assets, regulation, and taxation.

Special Topics: Applied Machine Learning (ISOM 599R)

In this hands-on course, Panos Adamopoulos, assistant professor of Information Systems & Operations Management, delves into a number of emerging data analytics areas that are becoming increasingly important for modern organizations, such as machine learning, predictive modeling, text-mining, recommender systems, and cost-aware data analytics. At the course’s end, students will be able to view business problems from a machine-learning perspective and think systematically about how the techniques of extracting useful knowledge from data can improve business performance.

Special Topics: Applied Data Analytics with Coding (ISOM 599R)

To solve business problems in various domains, including marketing, finance, healthcare, and sports, students need expertise in coding with Python and data management skills using SQL. Led by Rajiv Garg, associate professor of Information Systems & Operations Management, students will gain data analysis and practical programming skills, including presenting using tools that are in high demand in the industry, such as SQL and Python. These skills will prepare students for a career in any data-intensive organization. No prior programming or analytics experience is required.

Master of Analytical Finance

Goizueta’s Master of Analytical Finance degree program launched this fall with an impressive, immersive Finance Lab as the program’s hub. As part of the accelerated, internship-style 10-month STEM degree, students are based in a professional trading environment, experiencing the pace of global markets in real time. This “on the job training” allows students to act as analysts, using real market data and trading platforms to model, trade, and collaborate with industry professionals in a “Wall Street” setting. The program is designed to prepare the next generation of finance careers in areas such as sales and trading, investment management, fintech, consulting, risk, and hedge funds.

Emory Executive Education Offerings

AI & Machine Learning for Business

Students build a foundational understanding of artificial intelligence and machine learning concepts through this non-technical, interactive course led by Jesse Bockstedt, professor of Information Systems & Operation Management.

Business of Healthcare Certificate

This certificate, which contains four courses, is designed for experienced healthcare professionals as well as professionals seeking to enter the healthcare industry. Applications are currently being accepted for the Spring 2023 offering.

Chief Medical Officer Program

Emory Executive Education and Emeritus, an online education platform, partnered to provide the Chief Medical Officer program. Applications are currently being accepted for a December 2022 start. The program is designed to help chief medical officers and senior medical leaders with the tools, frameworks, and insights to advance their careers in executive leadership and lead healthcare organizations.

Extended Learning Courses

These courses cover an array of topics and can go towards an MBA degree if you apply and are admitted to a Goizueta MBA program in the future. Earn a grade and official university transcript while working alongside current Evening and Executive MBA students. Participants actively contribute to class discussions, case studies, group projects, and all assignments. The next round of courses will be offered in Spring 2023.

Consistently ranked as a top-tier business school, Goizueta offers programs designed to challenge and transform the world of business.

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