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For Metro Atlanta, that chance is at hand.

There’s a right place, right time scenario playing out in ATL. The environment is increasingly ripe with opportunities in real estate development and investment. It’s a towering chance for success illustrated by growing corporate interests and reimagined urban spaces for work and play.

While other areas of the country continue to move slowly after the Great Recession, Atlanta, true to its history, has emerged from the ashes stronger and in position for long-term gain.

Emory Business explores and examines the pieces coming together for Atlanta’s next epic rise.

For the past nine years, any talk of real estate or new development has usually been accompanied by shudders or, at the very least, sighs of disappointment. But thanks to the recent economic upswing and increased job creation, cities across the country are getting a facelift and a population boost.

Atlanta is no exception.

First, let’s look at the numbers.

The strengthening economy is both reflected in and in some ways driven by real estate. Commercial real estate is big business. More than 410 million square feet of commercial real estate was created in the United States in 2016, with the capacity to house 1.1 million workers.

“Demand for industrial space is currently white-hot in every region of the country,” says Cason Bufe 10WEMBA, vice president of industrial development for Rooker, a company that, in recent years, has developed and leased approximately 1.3 million square feet of industrial space in Atlanta. Bufe notes that for 26 consecutive quarters, US industrial supply has not kept up with demand. This demand is being driven, in part, by e-commerce growth. Every month, the US population is buying more goods online. Companies selling or delivering those goods need more industrial space to accommodate growth. As one example, since July 2016, Amazon has committed to lease 2.1 million square feet of new industrial space in Jacksonville, Florida, alone.

Real estate construction in 2016 also hit a new high with more than $1.1 billion spent—the most since 2008. Those numbers are projected to rise again in 2017 as the economy continues to grow.

So long suburbs

Healthy numbers in corporate development create an urge to return to the city. Urban development is ramping up as developers realize a growing segment of the population does not want a house in the suburbs. “Atlanta has become a vibrant business hub and as a result has attracted a very diverse—in age and culture—workforce,” says Nancy Miller 88WEMBA, president of the national net lease investment group at Bull Realty. She also cites the climate and close proximity to major transportation as big selling points for the city.

Atlanta paces ahead of the national average in overall population growth, boasting a 2.2 percent increase from 2016–17 against a 0.8 percent increase nationally. Metro Atlanta is one of just 11 major metropolitan areas growing at a pace of more than 1,000 persons per week.

“There’s a national trend of people moving back into cities. They want to be close to where they work,” says Rob Brawner 06MBA, executive director of the Atlanta BeltLine Partnership. “They want to spend less time in their cars. They want to be able to connect with their neighbors, not just pull into a garage and not interact with others in their community. It’s all driving the move back to cities, and cities have to build the infrastructure to support that.”

Of course, younger professionals are attracted to the city. Atlanta is a hot spot for millennials, and over the past five years, the city’s millennial population has grown 12.3 percent. The national average is just 2.6 percent.

Atlanta’s growth also comes while maintaining affordability.

In the past five years, the city has lagged slightly behind the national average in disposable income increases (3.2 to 4.2 percent), but it remains attractive to home buyers. The median home price of $190,937 is well below the national average of $243,425, according to a trend report from PricewaterhouseCoopers.

“We have matured as a real estate community. For many years, Atlantans didn’t live in high-rise buildings of any type,” notes A. J. Robinson 77BBA, president of Central Atlanta Progress, a private, nonprofit corporation that strives to create a robust economic climate for Downtown Atlanta. “You had office buildings, but most things were three- to four-story apartments or condos, and now we’re getting to be like most cities, where people live way up in the air. And we’re building high-rise towers as residential. We’re sprouting up everywhere. And that’s dramatic.”

For instance, in February 2016, Post Properties broke ground on a $96 million, 438-unit apartment building called Post Centennial Park in Downtown Atlanta. The design features luxury, walkability, easy access to transit, and greenspace—all elements in demand for today’s workers.

“What’s happened is the next generation of the American workforce is now in the position to make decisions, and they’re saying, ‘No, we don’t want to drive to the next stop on the highway,’” says Jim Irwin 07MBA, president of New City LLC. “We don’t want to battle two hours of traffic a day to go back and forth from work.”

“Millennials are very big into low maintenance,” adds Aty Biswese 14WEMBA, managing director of Third Story Capital in Washington, DC. “They’re always on the move, so they want homes that are low maintenance.”

All eyes on Atlanta

“Atlanta has reemerged as a center for significant job creation and employment growth,” says Randy Evans 79MBA, managing director of Eastdil Secured. “Of course, we always have fundamentally been a central location in the Southeast, strategic to serve that market.”

The proximity of Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport and a positive business climate has made the city highly attractive to companies like Mercedes-Benz, which relocated its headquarters from New Jersey, and State Farm, which is consolidating its regional operations on a new campus along Perimeter Center Parkway.

“Atlanta is a big service industry,” says Robinson. “We don’t make a lot of things in Atlanta. But we have a tremendous service economy, and we go all over the world both serving and being global companies. So the airport is critical to that.”

From 2010 to 2016 Atlanta has seen a 46.7 percent jump in tech-industry jobs. The number of high-tech service jobs in the US is expected to rise 56.4 percent by 2024, according to the Bureau of Labor and Statistics.

Clearly, businesses are following the workforce, and companies want to be in a place to attract good talent quickly and efficiently. Further, the City of Atlanta is making major improvements in the water and sewer program and investing in infrastructure. New taxes have been passed to improve roads and support mass transit.

Traffic disasters like the recent collapse of a portion of I-85 near Midtown and the buckling of a section of road on I-20 have exacerbated the need for improvements and increased the desire for expanded public transportation.

With Atlanta and Georgia already recognized as the healthcare IT capital of the nation, it wasn’t a surprise when a company like athenahealth Inc. expanded its operations in the city. The new home for this provider of cloud-based services for electronic health records was not a suburban office park, but Ponce City Market in the city.

Tech companies like athenahealth are leading patterns of real estate development. The desire for cool spaces has powered the preservation and redevelopment of historic properties throughout the city.

And the demand isn’t slowing.

Out with the new, in with the old

There is perhaps no better example of the new urban trends of adaptive reuse than the aforementioned Ponce City Market. The former City Hall East is a sprawling, two-million-square-foot structure that was once the Sears regional distribution center. Now it’s a mix of offices, retail stores, restaurants, and residential development.

The award-winning development project is not exactly unique. It was built by Jamestown Properties, which modeled it after New York’s Chelsea Market. Yet it is in many ways a perfect expression of Atlanta’s changing real estate market.

And an example of how timing is everything.

“If you had tried to do Ponce City Market ten years before, it wouldn’t have worked,” says Roy Black, director of the real estate program and a professor in the practice of finance at Goizueta. “People were still heading for the burbs, and we weren’t ready for it.”

Its success has spurred other developments, such as New City’s redevelopment of a Kroger shopping center just across the street from Ponce. Now called 725 Ponce, it will include the grocer and 360,000 square feet of office space. Like PonceCity Market, it will face out on the BeltLine, a redevelopment of a former rail bed that encircles the inner city.

“The new Kroger store has elected to raise the entire footprint to be level with the BeltLine and build a second direct connection,” explains Irwin. “It’s harder from an operational perspective to manage two entrances, but when you have north of two million people walking or biking in front of your store, that’s a material demographic you want to pay attention to.”

The BeltLine is one of the largest, most wide-ranging urban redevelopment programs active in the United States. Eventually it will connect 45 in-town neighborhoods by way of a 22-mile loop of multiuse trails, streetcars, and parks. It has spurred the adaptive reuse of historic industrial spaces, like the Atlanta Stoveworks. Long-neglected areas such as Krog Street have also become trendy sites for mixed-use development.

According to the Atlanta BeltLine website, one walkable development valued at $80 million is planned near Decatur Belt Railway and calls for a mix of residential, loft office, restaurant, and retail space, while another $1.1 billion worth of projects is estimated to be completed around the BeltLine in the next 18 to 24 months.

“The amount of development you’re seeing around the BeltLine, the number of cranes in the air, the cachet of the project . . .” says Brawner. “All of that is a clear sign that it’s a very attractive place to be developed.”

More than $3.7 billion of new, private development has sprung up within a half mile of the BeltLine since it was announced in 2005. In addition, about $450 million of public and private dollars have flowed into the creation of infrastructure, including parks and trails that now link Atlanta’s inner neighborhoods.

“People who work and live near the BeltLine are afforded the opportunity to live their lives in a way that more closely reflects their personal priorities,” observes Irwin. “It is actually possible today for someone in Atlanta to live without a car. Even ten years ago, you’d say that’s ridiculous.”

The popularity of the BeltLine is reflected in both the growing number of homes and residential units being built nearby and the millions who use it already.

“That’s what my students want overwhelmingly,” says Black. “I poll them every semester, just to see where their heads are in terms of what they want for jobs and where they want to live. The trend has been that they want to live in an urban environment, and they like the walkability concept. They like to live near a MARTA station or near a subway station in New York. Those are our two biggest markets, New York and Atlanta. That’s what they want.”

Lights, Camera, Atlanta

One of Atlanta’s most unexpected real estate development trends is the rapid growth of the state’s film and television production industry. When movie companies first began coming to the state, they desired scenic locations in the North Georgia Mountains.

The passage of Georgia’s film tax credit—coupled with other states repealing their own—has transformed Georgia into the third-biggest film capital in the nation after Hollywood and New York. The rush of productions has created a $2.2 billion industry (direct spend) in the state, but with an economic impact of $7 billion. This comes with the rapid growth of film studios, such as Tyler Perry’s facilities in South Atlanta and Pinewood Studios in Fayetteville. More studios are being built throughout the state in places like Covington and Savannah.

Lynn Hylden 16MEMBA, associate producer at Atlanta-based POPfilms, has seen that growth first-hand. “I think that the growing investment in infrastructure in terms of production stages, crew, available gear, and technology and the reputation of Atlanta as being a friendly and overall great place to bring production to, is really helping sell Georgia to the studios and big decision-makers in Los Angeles,” she told Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Her company has produced three television series and two movies in its 100,000-square-foot warehouse, which used to be a Staples distribution center.

Vibrant growth is mirrored in the high demand among Emory students to enroll in the Film and Media Management concentration, spearheaded by co-creators Andrea Hershatter, senior associate dean and director of the BBA Program, and Matthew Bernstein, the Goodrich C. White Professor of Film and Media Studies and chair of the Department of Film and Media Studies.

The program is open to BBA students and Emory College students majoring in film. Approximately 50 students are enrolled as juniors and seniors, and demand continues unabated.

“The growth of the media entertainment industry in Georgia has greatly enriched our instruction and programming,” notes Bernstein. “We had the Oscar-nominated cinematographer Roderigo Prieto speak to our students about his work after he completed shooting Passengers (starring Jennifer Lawrence and Chris Pratt) in early 2016. Gareth Unwin, one of the Oscar-winning producers of The King’s Speech, spoke to our students in December 2016 and even passed around his Academy Award to the students.”

Bernstein says the growth in the industry is bringing a rise in internship opportunities and creating the need to formalize the process. Graduates of the concentration are finding work in the industry and more than half of them take jobs outside of Georgia, which shows the depth of the coursework.

Says Bernstein: “From the film and media studies side, the concentration, combined with our offerings in screenwriting and filmmaking, within a liberal arts context (rather than a film school) is a tremendous draw— even to Los Angeles students whose parents are in ‘the industry.’”

Goizueta gets real (estate)

The extensive development of real estate in Metro Atlanta and the many companies that make it happen have produced an excellent training ground for Goizueta students.

“We’re switching more to an experiential-oriented education rather than strictly classroom,” says Black. “Atlanta is a super laboratory in which to do that. We have a base in excess of 300 Emory real estate alumni working in the industry in Atlanta and 300 professionals in New York.”

These practitioners come to campus for lectures and meetings with students and often provide opportunities for internships and employment. The vibrant alumni network has an affinity group that meets to share best practices and provide a forum that students can take advantage of.

Also providing insight and access to students are the industry insiders who teach in the program.

Marvin Banks, adjunct professor and president of M. Banks Realty Partners, feels strongly that many of his experiences are teachable. He says providing this knowledge at an earlier age in the students’ careers gives Goizueta students an edge to outperform their peers.

The experiences Banks brings include $8 billion of transactional experience in the private and public arena involving property acquisition, development, disposition, operations, finance, organizational infrastructure building, M&A, and more.

“Essentially my class is taught from the perspective of senior management,” he says. “I strive to impart the importance of thought, of curiosity, of not accepting conventional wisdom at face value. The decisions we make are all we can control. So how do we give ourselves a chance to make better-than-average decisions?”

Further, Banks says real estate has a lot of grays, and knowing how to navigate those areas is a big differentiator. Students also gain practical experience through working with a unique, student-run real estate private equity fund. Using money from the Emory University endowment fund, they make investments in publicly traded REITs (Real Estate Investment Trust).

The fund enables students to gain a better understanding of how private equity aligns with real estate development. By analyzing projects in depth and conducting market research, they gain an understanding of the value of a particular investment before making a decision.

“The students gain experience managing part of the Emory endowment,” explains Black. “[The student fund has] grown tenfold since we started four years ago. That’s a great talking point for the students when they go out to interview.”

For an alum like Meredith Farahmand 14BBA, a senior real estate investment analyst with PGIM Real Estate Finance in New York, the depth of programming continues to benefit her.

“I received an exceptionally strong foundation of key terms and valuation methods in my real estate classes at Goizueta,” says Farahmand. “This foundation was not only established through traditional lectures, homework, and exams, but also with hands-on projects that allowed me to apply my new skills and know-how in a real-world setting. I credit these simulations for giving me the confidence needed to be ‘day-one ready’ in my first position out of college.”

This type of career enhancement and preparedness is the backbone of the program. Just as Atlanta is attracting new workers and business by embracing a new landscape, the real estate program and Goizueta are equally poised to benefit from such a thriving and growing city and the industry professionals, alumni, and friends who invest in the future.

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Q: So, who came to Emory first?

Freeman: I worked for Joanna’s predecessor, Charlotte Johnson, in the Rich Building, before the first building named after Mr. Goizueta was built.

Green: James has been here nearly 25 years, while I arrived about 19 years ago, shortly after Dean Tom Robertson.

Q: As the school grew, which period proved the most challenging?

Green: Definitely the years leading up to the building of the Goizueta Foundation Center. We had so many people and no place to put them. Dean Robertson worked to raise the school’s research profile, start the PhD Program, and grow executive education, all requiring more faculty, staff, and space. And that means more money.

Freeman: I have moved so many people I’ve lost count, from the Rich Building to leased space near Lenox Mall, then to the first Goizueta building, then to leased space around campus, and back to the new West Wing.

Q: From erecting staging for an event to brewing coffee for the MBA Tuesday coffees, James is known for his willingness to handle any task. Was there ever a time he said no?

Green: Yes—when I asked him not to retire the first time. But he came back, didn’t he?

Freeman: I left for a minute and then came back.

Green: It was a painful minute! More like a year. Everyone got excited when James returned.

Q: James, you always seem to be here. What are your usual hours?

Freeman: I usually get to Goizueta at 5:30 a.m. But enjoyment of my work pushes me out of bed every morning.

Q: Do you go home and collapse after leaving at 2 p.m.?

Freeman: For a long time I ran a janitorial service, and I would clean churches in the Old National area. I’ve always had energy, so it was natural for me to leave one job and go to another.

Q: Joanna, you have three children; how did you juggle a demanding job with raising a family?

Green: I was lucky because my kids were pretty good. And James has children who have worked for Emory.

Freeman: My daughter Jamekia worked in IT services for Goizueta for a few years, and Kendra is a manager with Emory’s Department of Government and Community Affairs.

Q: What was your biggest laugh as a team?

Green: For the longest time it was James and I, with Roz Robinsson. Then we added Jonathan Yeomans, Tanya Cody, all got along, laughing the most about some of Roz’s or Mike’s shenanigans.

Q: What about when things were tense? How did you maintain the levity?

Green: We did some of our best work when under pressure. That’s part of what makes James (and the whole team) great. He’d help with anything. During the economic downturn, when we had to do as much with less, James would say, “Oh, I can take care of that.” And to be fair, everyone pitched in, rallying to get through those tough times and strengthening our community. That’s what I will miss the most.

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This classic leadership and communication styles assessment is intended to provide insights into the students and their partners, who have taken it as well. Equally importantly, the exercise is intended to give them insight into the program to which their significant others have devoted so much time and energy.

This is important to Topping, who believes self-awareness is essential in business and in life. “We help our students view leadership as being highly contextual.

“We help our students view leadership as being highly contextual. We frame the context as a three-legged stool,” he says. “First, you must accurately diagnose the situation you are in at the business, organization, and unit levels. Then, you need to understand your followers—you don’t lead everyone the same way. Finally, and most importantly, you need to have self awareness—to be comfortable in your own skin, recognizing your areas for growth while still being confident.” Topping, who has a

Topping, who has a PhD in adult and higher education, originally thought he wanted to become a college president. “Ultimately, I came to realize I didn’t want to be a college president, but I did love working at universities. I’ve been lucky to be able to do so for all of my career,” he says.

Topping spent three decades working in administration at four universities, finally landing a position as head of executive education at Goizueta in 1999 and becoming a full-time faculty member in 2006. He has worked with managers and executives in a range of industries, with stints as a visiting professor in leading business schools in France and Mexico.

Along with Professor Rick Gilkey and (retired) Lieutenant General Ken Keen, associate dean for leadership development, Topping helped create and guides the Delta Leadership Coaching Fellows Program for full-time and evening MBA students. (See story on gift naming on page 3.) “All of our MBA students have to work in study teams as they progress through the program. The Delta LCF Program trains selected second-year students to coach the first-year students’ study teams,” he says.

The study team experience is “the best lab that we have for leadership development in the full-time MBA program, because the students have to work as a team of peers, with no designated leader,” Topping says. “We help students build skills in working effectively with diverse teams under duress, which can be quite challenging.”

Leadership development, Topping says, occurs through the combination of classroom, extracurricular, and life experiences: “We don’t use the phrase ‘teaching leadership,’ but we can develop it.”

Topping enjoys spending time with his wife, Therese; adult children; and grandchildren. “We are empty nesters, with the emphasis on nesting,” he says. Two of their six children graduated from Emory: Jason in 2009 with a degree in English, and David in 2011 with a co-major in economics and mathematics.

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An avid reader and lover of bookstores, Mian consumes information from a variety of topics to stay up-to-date. He credits his ability to synthesize ideas from different disciplines as key to his success. Mian’s teaching plans are a blend of “academic rigor and real-world applications,” he explains. “One of the things I try and achieve in my classes is to get them to see how they impact value in their companies.”

Mian’s research follows a similar thread. Currently, he’s tracking corporate CFOs as they transition from one company

to another in an effort to better understand value creation, or, more broadly, how financial innovation and knowledge is transmitted across an organization. A separate project attempts to quantify the effect an operations background plays in developing top leadership talent: How much does it matter if a CEO has an operations background versus a background in finance—or marketing, or strategy?

Born in Pakistan, Mian’s career in finance almost didn’t happen. After earning a BS in mathematical economics at the London School of Economics in 1978, Mian made his way to the United States with the goal of earning his PhD in economics from the University of Rochester. But when he arrived, he found that the advisor he’d hoped to study under had taken a job at another university. Wondering what to do, he wandered into the business school and, by chance, met the dean of admissions. “He gave me a gift that day—three hours of his time,” says Mian. “He talked to me about the world of business and completely dazzled me.” Mian enrolled in the Simon Business School at the University

Mian enrolled in the Simon Business School at the University of Rochester, where he met Cliff Smith 69C, an authority on corporate finance and, like Mian after him, a professor en route to collecting dozens of teaching awards. Smith became Mian’s mentor. After Mian graduated with a PhD in corporate finance, he and Smith, who is from Georgia, continued to work together and published several research papers. “In a way, I feel like being at Emory is like coming home for me,” says Mian.

This type of luck continues to play a role in Mian’s life. After hearing a radio interview with famed photographer Annie Leibovitz—where she noted that every photograph she takes has a story behind it—Mian made a similar connection in finance. “Every income statement, every balance sheet, every cash flow statement has a story to tell. Numbers are important, but it’s the story behind the numbers that is critical,” he says. The interview also turned Mian into a Leibovitz fan (he traveled to Berlin, Germany, to see one of her photographic exhibits) and prompted him to take up photography.

Mian and his wife have three adult children and share a love of travel. He’s been to nearly every continent except South America, but he plans to visit soon. “It’s so close,” he says. “It’s something I need to do.”

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Freedom and mobility are two big motivators for this age group. As a result, many are apartment dwellers—either by choice or out of necessity.

“The big thing for me, and probably most millennials, when looking for a place to live is location,” says Zachary Reisner 14BBA, a commercial real estate investment analyst living in New York City. “People are looking for the urban lifestyle with lots of amenities in the building and close proximity to public transportation, restaurants, and other conveniences.”

While a certain percentage of millennials are returning home after college out of necessity, some like Jahi Villinger 14BBA, a senior consultant at EY, did so to add that extra money needed for a down payment.

“I bought a home my first year out of college,” says Villinger. “I was living at home, and I’d been saving for quite some time before that. Obviously not having to pay rent made it easier.”

Other economic factors are making home ownership more appealing. One of those is that after a rash of apartment building, rents for these units are rising at a rapid clip. Coupled with generally low mortgage rates, the appeal of owning a home is rising as well.

Justin Hershatter 15BBA, a project coordinator at Urjanet, bought his first home in 2014 in an up-and-coming urban neighborhood in Atlanta.

“The market was on the upswing, but still lower than it is now,” he explains. “The timing felt right, and also just knowing the growth that’s going on in Atlanta, I thought it would be a good time to start looking.”

Hershatter came into home ownership from an apartment in Midtown. He was used to living in a busy urban area and wanted to continue to have access to the amenities of the city.

“I was looking for something less traditional than many home buyers,” he says. “I wasn’t trying to find a quiet neighborhood or a lot of privacy. Instead, I was looking for walkability and access to restaurants and businesses and activities. I wanted to be at the geographical and driving center of things.”

Andrew K. Stein 11MBA, a consultant with Deloitte, seconds that idea. As one of the many millennials who telecommutes, Stein had more freedom in choosing where to live. He and his wife found the perfect home in Inman Park, right on the BeltLine.

“During the day we’ll bike to a coffee shop while our son is with the sitter, because my wife also works from home,” he says. “On the weekends we bike to farmers’ markets. We only have to get in our car a couple of times a week. That’s a lovely way to live in Atlanta.”

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“My parents left Iran to escape religious persecution. They came to this country with nothing and made it. Their story inspires me every day,” she says. “If they were able to succeed barely knowing English, having very few connections and very little understanding of how things work in the US, then I knew I could make it through any situation.”

She’s used this grit to manage her portfolio of work for Google, where she is a member of the central revenue team, and to overcome more than one obstacle. Her school years were hampered by the effects of a learning disability.

“I had a reading disability that actually went undiagnosed until I was a junior in high school,” Youshaei says. “I always worked really hard to compensate so nobody had any idea I was having difficulties.”

While her family provided the support and resources that allowed her to overcome her disability, she recognized the need for screening students without the same access to resources. In 2012, while at Goizueta, she started a nonprofit called We Are BOLD: Battling the Obstacles of Learning Disabilities.

“I recruited students from Emory and Northwestern to organize book drives and raise money. The goal of We Are BOLD is to help diagnose reading and writing disabilities at a young age in an effort to help kids get the support they need early on,” Youshaei says. “Working through a learning disability is critical not only for academic success but also for building self-confidence, which kids with learning disabilities often struggle with.”

The work continues, and she hopes to be more active with BOLD in the future. As for Google, Youshaei says working for the multinational technology company is as fulfilling as she imagined. “I always expected that there would be an amazing culture and amazing people, and that expectation has definitely been met,” says Youshaei, who’s been at the company for three years.

Now as a member of the central revenue team, she helps implement strategic initiatives for the sales teams at Google. Prior to this role, she worked in the marketing and sales department, helping small and medium-sized businesses with their Google advertising strategy through Google Search, YouTube, and other channels.

Her role requires plenty of team interaction with a variety of people, from engineers to sales reps, a skill she strengthened during her time at Goizueta and one she continues to perfect. When it’s time to relax, Youshaei attacks it with the same fervor that defines her life. She makes exercise a daily priority and either bikes across the Golden Gate Bridge or attends a variety of exercise classes like Pilates, barre, and spin.

“I live in the Bay Area and love San Francisco and exploring the city,” she says. “There is always so much to do!”

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Busse spent three years at Honeywell before making the jump to focus on his “natural interest” in finance. He pursued an MBA in finance and then accepted a position as a financial analyst at Ford Motor Company. But after a year at Ford, Busse says he knew it was time to make one more transition and went back to school to work on his PhD and eventually on to a post at Goizueta. A move to academia was just what he needed to give him the freedom to delve more deeply into the machinations of financial markets.

Today, he focuses his research efforts on trying to determine the best ways to gauge the skills of mutual fund managers and, in turn, help the average mutual fund investor. “Before studying finance, my interest in the stock market led me to invest in mutual funds,” Busse says. “So they were my first foray into the world of investing and a topic that I’ve thought a lot about over the years.” His research takes a more sophisticated approach to tease out the variables impacting the market in order to get a clearer picture of the fund manager.

Measuring fund manager performance

One line of research deals with finding a more reliable performance measure to test a fund manager’s skill. In a research paper titled “Double Adjusted Mutual Fund Performance,” Busse and coauthors Lei Jiang 11G and Yuehua Tang control for the passive effects associated with stock holding characteristics to measure a fund manager’s performance. “It’s admittedly very hard for the average investor to assess their performance,” he says. “You need to control for the risk the fund manager takes as well as the characteristics of the holdings, and you can’t just look at returns.”

Busse’s research also challenges some interpretations of the “efficient market hypothesis.” This investment theory contends that it’s impossible for investors to consistently outperform the overall market. In the paper titled “Trading Frequency and Fund Performance,” Busse and coauthors Lin Tong, Qing Tong 10PhD, and Zhe Zhang found a strong positive relationship between trading activity and performance among institutional investors. They note, “Institutions that trade more generate greater performance, on average, as their investments earn returns that more than offset the transaction costs associated with their trades.”

Exploring transaction costs

In another vein of research, Busse identifies ways to estimate mutual fund transaction costs more accurately. His findings contradict earlier research on larger funds and how their high transaction costs weigh down performance. In a paper titled “Mutual Fund Transaction Costs,” Busse; Tarun Chordia, a chaired professor of finance; Lei Jiang 11G; and Yuehua Tang found that larger funds realize lower transaction costs than previously predicted because the “larger funds hold and trade bigger, more liquid stocks and turn over their portfolio less frequently.” However, smaller funds can “offset the cost advantages of larger funds by earning a premium on less liquid stocks.” The effects offset one another, leading to indistinguishable performance between large and small funds.

Busse views his research and that of others in the field as critical to helping investors navigate the sometimes turbulent stock market. He points to the 2008 financial crisis as a prime example of anomalies in the market and what it can teach us. “Before the crisis, many hedge funds performed well,” he says. But were the fund managers good at picking stocks or taking a lot of risk? He contends that many of them were simply exploiting the market rally. In the process, hedge fund managers were taking on too much risk, which came to bear when the market crashed. “At the end of the day, it’s all about understanding how funds generate performance,” he concludes.

Finding fulfilling work

Given his passion for finance, it’s surprising that Busse didn’t start on his current path sooner. He admits, “When I was young, I simply wasn’t exposed to careers in finance.” His knowledge of financial markets and jobs in the field came much later. But the transition from engineering to academia was an easy one, he says. “I now know the difference between working for a paycheck and what it feels like to enjoy going to work every day.”

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The impact of economic prosperity on CEO ethics

Prior research suggests that economic booms are associated with overconfidence and risk-taking. In a new paper, Emily Bianchi, assistant professor of organization & management, and coauthor Aharon Mohliver (London Business School) build on that research by showing that prosperous times are also associated with more ethical lapses. The authors examined whether CEOs were more likely to backdate their stock options during prosperous economic times. Backdating stock options was relatively common during the late 1990s to early 2000s. It was also unethical. A backdating CEO would receive a stock option grant on one day but report that the options were assigned on an earlier date when the stock price was lower. This would allow the CEO to realize greater gains when he or she sold the stock. Also, it required lying to the SEC and came at the expense of company profits. To test their theory, Bianchi and Mohliver looked at the backdating patterns of 2,139 CEOs of US publically traded companies between 1996 and 2005. They found that CEOs were more likely to backdate in good economic times. They also found that “CEOs who began their careers in prosperous times were more likely to backdate stock option grants later in their careers.” The findings indicate that economic prosperity influences the likelihood of corporate misconduct. Organization Science (2016)

Markdown management and shopping behavior

Consumers face the trade-off of immediately paying tag price for an item or waiting for a time when it might be marked down but out of stock. In new research, Nikolay Osadchiy, assistant professor of information systems & operations management, Manel Baucells (U of Virginia), and Anton Ovchinnikov (Queen’s U) argue that retailers can better optimize markdowns by paying more attention to this particular type of consumer behavior. The researchers approach the consumer waitor-buy decision as a “multidimensional trade-off between the delay in getting an item, the likelihood of getting it, and the magnitude of the price discount.” Those dimensions need not be independent; for example, the consumer patience (or sensitivity to delay) could depend on the magnitude of markdown. By optimizing the model, they find that retailers can substantially increase revenues by offering larger markdowns than the current state of the art suggests. In the experiments involving business school students as well as Amazon Mturk participants, which is an on-demand, scalable workforce, the trio found that the expected revenue gains are between 1.5% and 2%. Operations Research (2016)

Dubious loan origination and the housing collapse

Gonzalo Maturana, assistant professor of finance, and coauthor John M. Griffin (U of Texas) argue that securitization was not the only factor in the recent housing crisis. Their new research indicates that questionable mortgage origination practices played a significant role in the distortions in the 2003 to 2012 real estate boom and bust. Specifically, the underreporting of the true risk profiles of borrowers, including the misreporting of second-liens, helped to drive housing demand and, ultimately, contributed to the crisis. They note, “The process of underreporting key loan attributes can have the by-product of facilitating credit to borrowers who have little ability to repay.” The researchers tested their theory by using county deed records, securitized loan information, house price statistics, and home loan application data from a number of reliable sources to detail the 2003 to 2006 run-up of housing prices and its subsequent 2007 to 2012 collapse. After controlling for securitization, they determined that “originator malfeasance” in certain areas also served to raise the credit supply. Maturana and Griffin concluded that dubious originator practices helped to cause house prices in certain zip codes to increase relative to other areas and eventually led to larger price crashes. Review of Financial Studies (2016)

The role of behavior in managing mergers

Despite corporate interest in M&As as a growth strategy, research indicates that financial returns on such deals often fall short of expectations. Corporate leaders spend considerable time looking at the financial and quantitative aspects of mergers and acquisitions; however, Sandy Jap, Sarah Beth Brown Professor of Marketing; A. Noel Gould (Texas State U); and Annie H. Liu (Texas State U) argue that factoring in people should also be a major consideration when it comes to a proposed deal. Their research indicates that better employee and customer management is especially critical to an organization’s M&A strategy and implementation success. The trio analyzed ANZ New Zealand’s horizontal merger with the National Bank of New Zealand to better understand the impact of employee and customer behavior on the deal. They contend that this brand and technology merger succeeded due to ANZ’s commitment to ensuring customer satisfaction and addressing employee concerns about the merger. ANZ New Zealand also focused on business efficiencies and rebranding efforts. Jap, Gould, and Liu note that collaboration became a big key to the success of the merger with ANZ’s financial, IT, marketing, and communications personnel working closely together to retain customers. Business Horizons (2017)

Financial covenant violations and private debt contracts

In new research, Edward Owens 03MBA, assistant professor of accounting, and Peter R. Demerjian (U of Washington) offer an improved methodology for predicting financial covenant violations in private debt contracts. A financial covenant is a condition on a commercial loan that requires a borrower to maintain certain financial ratios, and there are many covenants that exist in any one loan. Covenant violations often reflect the borrower’s riskiness or the degree of conflict between lender and borrower. Prior research has struggled to measure the probability of covenant violations. Although the preeminent database used in debt contracting research, Thomson Reuters’ DealScan, provides details about which financial covenants exist on a given loan, it does not provide specific measurement definitions of individual covenants. Owens and Demerjian use a subset of loans for which covenant definitions are available to determine standard covenant definitions that researchers can apply to broader loan samples. Further, Owens and Demerjian propose an intuitive, comprehensive measure of the probability of loan covenant violation that is more accurate than previously considered measures, which should open up additional avenues for researchers in the field of debt contracting. Journal of Accounting and Economics (2016)

Luxury retailers, customer experience, and brand desire

Consumers often complain that sales staff at luxury retailers ignore or reject average customers. Employees in the industry confirm that sales staff at luxury retailers do sometimes size up customers, choosing who to help and who to avoid based on what they wear. Conventional wisdom would suggest that the rejected consumer would choose not to buy the specific brand. Morgan Ward, assistant professor of marketing, and coauthor Darren W. Dahl (U of British Columbia) challenge this idea “by exploring how negative customer service experiences can, in some instances, facilitate more positive attitudes and customers’ desire for the brand.” The pair tested their theory by providing study participants with a variety of shopping scenarios involving being rejected versus receiving a neutral response from the salesperson while in a luxury retailer. Ward and Dahl discover that shoppers who “relate their self-concept to an aspirational brand” become more motivated to buy that luxury brand after a salesperson’s rejection, in order to be accepted by what they perceive as the in-crowd. Journal of Consumer Research (2014)

Social media mentions of television advertising

Television advertising is an expensive proposition, so media planners and advertisers are devoting considerable attention to social media mentions of their advertising and the real-time feedback it can provide. David A. Schweidel, associate professor of marketing, and coauthor Beth L. Fossen 16PhD (Indiana U) study this trend by using data from actual television advertising on the broadcast networks and brand and program mentions of those same ads on Twitter. The pair found that television advertising does impact the volume of online word-of-mouth for the advertised brand and the program showing the ad. Ad and brand characteristics played a huge role in creating social media “chatter.” For instance, movie advertisements generated the largest increase in online word-of-mouth. Ads for phones, computers, notebooks, and tablets also created substantial increases in social media mentions. In contrast, apparel, dental care, nonprofit ads, and PSAs benefited the least in terms of online brand chatter. Higher rated programs resulted in more online chatter for the ads shown, likely due to the fact that these programs draw larger viewing audiences. Marketing Science (2017)

Managers’ performance measures and their work behavior

Management accounting literature devotes considerable attention to the “controllability principle.” This principle stipulates that managers should only be held responsible for the results they directly control through their actions. The literature argues that the use of less controllable performance measures reduces managerial motivation and causes stress. However, Karl Schuhmacher, assistant professor of accounting; Michael Burkert (U Fribourg); Franz Fischer (independent researcher); and Florian Hoos (HC Paris) argue that there can also be positive effects associated with a lack of controllability. The researchers conducted a survey with 432 business managers, asking questions related to the measures used for their performance evaluations. They concluded that less controllable measures do create stress but also induce proactive work behaviors. In fact, the lack of controllability stimulates managers to cope with stress by interpreting their roles more flexibly and cooperating with peers to seek solutions for organizational problems they cannot control individually. The authors suggest further research to determine how organizations modulate between the positive and negative effects of disregarding the controllability principle. Accounting and Business Research (2017)

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“I think I was the last one to raise my hand,” Buenaventura laughs. “I was so scared of it.”

He got over that fear pretty quickly.

After earning his MBA and returning to Chile, Buenaventura saw an opportunity. His love for his homeland runs deep, and Chile’s natural, artistic, and culinary wonders stack up impressively against higher-profile South American destinations such as Argentina and Brazil. Buenaventura wanted to introduce Chile to the world, and in 2014 he figured out a way to do just that.

That year, Buenaventura launched VM Elite, a luxury travel company that delivers Chile’s treasures to a growing global clientele. VM Elite’s experiences transport affluent guests from the world’s driest desert to the glaciers of Patagonia in a day; deliver gourmet meals prepared by world-class chefs paired with award-winning Chilean wines; sponsor gallery tours that include the Chilean artists themselves; and much more. With so many options available, Buenaventura says the key to success is personalization.

“Travel is not about me showing you what I think is important,” says Buenaventura. “It’s about catering to a traveler’s interest and customizing the experience for them. We want this trip to be the best time of your life.”

From the age of 15, Buenaventura had a dream of earning an MBA abroad. When the time came to choose a school, he picked Goizueta because it offered “a classic American collegiate experience.” At that point, Buenaventura had been working in the US for a Chilean-based luxury travel company, so he knew the business. Still, prior to VM Elite’s launch, he invested two years in R&D. After creating a strategic commercial and operations plan, Buenaventura worked to form relationships with transportation providers, high-end resorts, culinary experts, civil servants, and dozens more Chilean cultural leaders. He got their support, and many of those early backers remain partners.

“I love building relationships,” says Buenaventura, whose easygoing charm is mixed with an intense attention to detail that makes him perfect for his chosen line of work. “I also love nature and the outdoors. The quality of life you have in the travel industry is unmatched. Sometimes it seems like you are working 24/7, but you get to see unique destinations of the country.”

When he’s not working 24/7, Buenaventura gets up early to ride his bike, taking in the beautiful landscapes he loves. “It’s my way to connect with nature and de-stress,” he says. He also makes time for his family—his wife, Olivia, and young daughter Julia.

Buenaventura has kept his ties with Goizueta. VM Elite’s nine-person staff of international employees includes a college intern, Jeremiah Washington, son of Vincent Washington 11EMBA, a classmate during Buenaventura’s time at Goizueta.

“Emory gave me the confidence to be an entrepreneur. It’s as simple as that,” Buenaventura says. “I might never have tried it had I not gone through Goizueta’s MBA program.”

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The presentation featured J4 Joint Logistics staff officers US Army Colonel Tom Rivard and US Navy Captain Pam Theorgood, who came to Goizueta from the Pentagon for the event.

“The Department of Defense runs one of the biggest logistics operations in the world,” said Nikolay Osadchiy, assistant professor of information systems & operations management. The lecture was for Osadchiy’s class, Supply Chain Management (BUS 553G), and he organized the event with the assistance of retired Army Lieutenant General Ken Keen, associate dean of leadership development.

“We wanted to give the class an inside perspective on what it takes for military logistics to succeed and how the approaches are similar or different compared with for-profit firms,” Osadchiy said.

Rivard and Theorgood’s lecture covered logistical challenges ranging from combating Ebola in West Africa to battling ISIS in the Middle East. “We have to decide between efficiency and effectiveness,” Rivard said. “For instance, if we have to prosecute a war, but we can only do it for seven days based on the amount of munitions we have, we have to figure out what to stockpile. What if we bought 50,000 of something that’s the best thing going, and the next year technology changes, making those weapons obsolete? We’ll have spent billions of dollars on something we’ll never use.”

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“It’s what employers are requesting, so that’s what we are preparing them for,” says Anna Hobby Gibbons, BBA advisement and academic programming director. “We want to give them the confidence to say, ‘I may be working at a marketing firm, and my job may be data analytics, but that doesn’t mean I can’t pull on something I learned in accounting or finance.’ We want to give them the confidence that they have a very strong business foundation and toolkit to access.”

Overseen by Charles Frame, assistant professor in the practice of marketing, the course requires students to complete two modules led by various professors. The following examples suggest the diversity of faculty offerings:

• Business law professor Allison Burdette directed a module asking students to explore water rights amid the Flint, Michigan, water crisis.

• Reshma Shah, associate professor in the practice of marketing, teamed up with a professor from Kennesaw State University to offer a creativity and innovation class that focused on idea formation.

• Tom Smith, assistant professor in the practice of finance, led a module on healthcare and hospital bed needs.

• In partnership with the Harlem Globetrotters, marketing professor Mike Lewis spearheaded a module asking students how a brand can remain relevant while staying true to its history.

• Deloitte, one of the industry firms involved, asked students how to reposition yesterday’s department store for success within today’s marketplace.

Students, who meet on Thursday evenings, are divided into groups and presented with a problem to resolve. On Friday morning, students return to continue their work. That evening, teams present their solutions to a council of professors, industry professionals, and peers.

As Gibbons explains, “All of this takes place in less than 24 hours, and that’s a major goal of the program. Our students are very comfortable with knowing at what point they must turn in a polished assignment. But what happens when you get that 4:00 p.m. phone call on Friday and your boss wants it by Monday? The capstone course is nontraditional, but it’s a really cool experience for the students.”

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