Emory University student Erica Evans 25MBA recently earned top honors at Startup Runway Foundation, Inc.’s 30th Showcase, taking home the prestigious EmpowerHER Award and a $10,000 prize for her work with Blood Rheology Solutions, a groundbreaking startup transforming the treatment landscape for patients with red blood cell disorders. 

Blood Rheology Solutions was founded by an Emory team of faculty and students: Vivien Sheehan, Wilbur Lam, Evelyn Kendall Williams and Evans. They aimed to address a critical gap in sickle cell disease (SCD) drug development: the reliance on subjective clinical endpoints instead of quantitative, functional biomarkers. SCD is a complex disorder where multiple red blood cell abnormalities contribute to disease severity.  

The Blood Rheology Solutions team has developed advanced technologies to measure functional improvements in red blood cells, offering a clearer, data-driven understanding of how new therapies impact patients. By integrating these technologies into clinical trials, they empower pharmaceutical companies to: 

• – Identify the right patients for treatment 
• – Track treatment effects in real time 
• – Refine clinical trial endpoints 

This innovative approach not only accelerates drug approvals but also ensures that life-changing therapies reach patients faster. 

Shaping Success Through Techstars and Startup Runway 

Evans a fellow at The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation (CEI) through Emory’s Goizueta Business School and a member of the 2025 Techstars Emory Founder Catalyst Program with the center and The Hatchery, Emory Center for Innovation. Those experiences have meant Evans has been instrumental in driving the business execution and growth of Blood Rheology Solutions.  

“The Emory Techstars Founder Catalyst Program provided us with a valuable platform to shape our company’s journey, from refining our business model to strengthening product-market fit,” she says. “We’ve gained essential tools to build a strong foundation and, more importantly, learned to think beyond the science — focusing on how we can deliver maximum value to our customers.” 

Competing at the Startup Runway Showcase was another pivotal moment for Evans and her team. As her first pitch competition — and her first time delivering a pitch — the experience allowed Evans to introduce Blood Rheology Solutions to the Atlanta startup ecosystem and connect with a supportive community of entrepreneurs and investors.  

“The feedback from investors, founders and industry leaders has been invaluable in shaping our business strategy and growth trajectory,” she says. “It has been exciting to see years of research — both my own and the decades of work from my co-founders — come to life in a way that has the potential to transform patient care in sickle cell disease.” 

Brian Cayce, managing director of The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation, praised Evans’ dedication and vision. 

“Erica’s ability to bridge the gap between science and business has been extraordinary,” he says. “Her work with Blood Rheology Solutions is a prime example of how Emory’s entrepreneurial ecosystem nurtures leaders who are driving meaningful change. Her success at Startup Runway is a testament to her strategic vision and commitment to improving patient outcomes.” 

Co-founder Lam, associate dean of innovation at Emory School of Medicine and vice provost of entrepreneurship at Emory University, highlighted the critical role Evans has played in advancing the company.

“Erica’s strategic insight and leadership have been essential in translating our scientific innovations into a scalable platform that has the potential to revolutionize patient care for sickle cell disease and beyond,” Lam says. “Her ability to communicate our mission effectively has been a driving force behind our progress.” 

Learn more about The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

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Alumnus Josh Luber’s lifelong passions for sneakers, sports cards, and toys — plus his love of data — led him to co-found successful businesses StockX, Fanatics Collectibles and ghostwrite while placing him at the forefront of the “hype economy.”

At the same time that a young Kobe Bryant was hooping it up for Lower Merion High School in the mid-1990s, Josh Luber 99BBA 06MBA 06L ran point guard for Harriton High — located just down the road in the Main Line suburbs west of Philadelphia. “All the really good athletes got recruited to play for Lower Merion,” Luber says. “I was 5’9” and slow, but skilled enough that I had the chance to start at Harriton. Lower Merion won a state championship. We won something like three games in two years. I never fooled myself into thinking I was going to be a star like Kobe.”

Still, Luber absolutely loved everything about basketball. “I wanted to play 24/7,” he says. He relished joining the streetball-style pickup games at Narberth Playground, marveled at Michael Jordan’s dominance in the NBA, and fully embraced the sport’s culture — especially the music and fashion. Like so many kids of that era he obsessed over basketball sneakers and desperately wanted to own a pair of Air Jordans. “But there was no way my mom was ever going to pay $100 or more for shoes back then,” he says. 

Now, some 30 years later, Luber boasts a closet full of some of the rarest and most expensive sneakers in the world (including a $310,000 pair of Air Jordans). He refers to this collection as his “sneaker portfolio,” because he firmly believes these shoes are no different than other valuable commodities — like sports cars and rare art or even stocks and gold — that are in high demand and can easily be bought, sold, or traded.

Sneakers became part of the new “hype economy” that formed over the past couple of decades. As Luber describes it, the hype economy is where culturally relevant goods have gained real value based on scarcity and buzz, often selling for much higher than original retail prices. In this market, limited-edition drops, celebrity endorsements, and social media hype can send shoe prices skyrocketing, turning everyday consumers into investors and serious collectors into market speculators.  

Luber recognized this trend early on and helped build not just one, but three successful businesses that capitalize on this dynamic. He’s become a leading force in the industry by proving that sneakers — and collectibles like sports cards and toys — aren’t just symbols of wealth or fashion statements, but legitimate financial assets.

CREATING A NEW KIND OF MARKETPLACE

This realization led Luber in 2016 to launch StockX, the stock market of things — mainly sneakers, streetwear, and collectibles — with business mogul Dan Gilbert, owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers and co-founder of Rocket Mortgage.  

“I was working at IBM but was doing a side project looking to create a buying guide for sneakers,” Luber says. “This startup was originally called Campless, and I spent months and months pulling shoe auction sales prices from eBay and cleaning massive amounts of Excel data.” 

The culture-savvy Gilbert heard about Luber’s work and met with him to see if together they could take this idea of a sneaker price guide to another level.

How? By building an online platform for not only selling basketball shoes, but also other high-demand, limited-edition products. 

Luber remembers a pivotal meeting in the early days of setting up StockX when he and Gilbert met with several industry leaders, including the founder of Under Armour, Kevin Plank. He felt nervous to have a literal seat at this exclusive table, but Luber was confident in his data.

Under Armour had recently released their first limited-market sneaker, the UA Curry 1 MVP — the signature shoe of basketball star Stephen Curry— which retailed in stores for $120 but in less than two months was reselling for more than $500 a pair on eBay. “It was Under Armour’s first cool shoe,” Luber says. “When I showed him this data, Plank was upset. He said that he knew they should have made more of the shoe.” 

But that’s when Luber gathered up the guts to tell Plank he was absolutely incorrect. “If you make too many, then the shoe won’t be cool anymore,” he explained to Plank. 

History proved Luber right. In subsequent iterations of the Curry MVP shoes, the company produced so many that they lost their luster with sneakerheads and wound up on clearance racks at discount stores across the country, he says. 

“Everything is priced wrong” is something of a mantra Luber frequently uses to explain his approach to business.

He believes too many goods and services come with fixed retail prices and that, instead, their real cost should be based on supply and demand. “Think Uber surge pricing or the way airlines charge for plane tickets,” he says. “These are efficient markets, and the same concept could be applied to virtually any hype economy good or service, like sneakers.”  

The goal for StockX was to set up a marketplace for collectible sneakers and other goods at the heart of the hype economy — streetwear, designer bags, watches, trading cards, and toys — that was both transparent and efficient, using a live bid/ask system that emulates a stock exchange. Buyers place bids (the highest price they’re willing to pay) and sellers set asks (the lowest price they’ll accept). When a bid and an ask match, the transaction happens automatically, ensuring fair, real-time pricing based on supply and demand. 

In fairly short order, Luber’s business philosophy was validated. The StockX buying and platform took off, reaching a peak market valuation of $8 billion in just five years — an achievement that brought him both industry recognition and personal financial success.

EMBRACING ENTREPRENEURSHIP

A serial entrepreneur and self-proclaimed hustler nearly all his life, Luber first got caught up in the thrill of making deals when he was a young kid. “I collected sports cards and was always on the hustle with my friends, negotiating and trading for the cards I really wanted,” he says. “I also used to sell candy at school. I hopped the fence behind my house to go to the store to buy Blow Pops and Bubbalicious and then sell them for a profit to my classmates. Trading cards and candy were the only two hustles available to a 10-year-old back in 1988, before the internet.” 

It’s no surprise that when Luber chose to go to college at Emory — he saw it as a top school and he had family living in the Atlanta area — he decided to study business. He did well in his classes, enjoyed collegiate life, and made tons of friends. After earning his undergraduate BBA degree from Goizueta Business School in 1999, he progressed through a number of jobs. “The first was working for my uncle’s furniture store business, literally selling couches and working on commission,” he says. “I worked my way up from sales to being a buyer and learned a lot about retail.” 

Unfortunately, his uncle’s business went into bankruptcy after a couple years and Luber was left collecting unemployment checks for six months. But it proved to be the perfect timing. He joined forces with a friend from Emory and in 2002 they launched an IT service, called Tech Experts. “It was like Best Buy’s Geek Squad before Geek Squad existed,” he says. “We’d go to people’s homes and fix their computers. We built it up, hired some employees, and ran the entire thing from our shared apartment. It was a small business but it paid the rent and gave me my first taste of being a real entrepreneur.” 

At the same time, however, Luber was considering going to graduate school and wound up selling his share of the business for $18,000. He returned to Emory in 2003 to pursue a joint JD/MBA degree from Emory Law School and Goizueta and thrived in the challenging environment. “I loved law school and soaked up a lot from faculty and classmates,” he says. “I thought my destiny was to be an attorney.”

After graduating, he landed a role as an associate at Alston & Bird, a prestigious Atlanta law firm. “I made good money and enjoyed it, but realized after eight months that I actually didn’t want to be a lawyer,” he says.  

Luber simply could not shake the call of entrepreneurship. 

He left and co-founded a restaurant staff-scheduling app called Servinity in 2007. “We found some investors and raised some money, but the economic crash of 2008 ultimately sealed our fate,” Luber says. “It was historically bad timing. But another one of my friends from business school reached out and recruited me to work as a management consultant at IBM in New York City. So I moved away from Atlanta after having lived there for 15 years and entered a new phase of my career, the one where everything finally clicked together.”

TAKING ON TRADING CARDS AND TOYS 

After Luber’s incredible success at StockX, he started to look for the next opportunity, the next challenge, the next hustle. As fate would have it, that opportunity came through another of his childhood passions — sports cards. 

In 2021, Luber joined another industry mover and shaker, Fanatics founder and CEO Michael Rubin, to start up a sports trading card and memorabilia business called Fanatics Collectibles. Serving as co-founder and chief vision officer, Luber helped negotiate exclusive-rights licensing deals with major sports leagues like the NBA, NFL, and MLB and oversaw the acquisition of legendary trading card company Topps.

“Trading cards, while they are cardboard and plastic, can be better protected over time than sneakers and can hold their value long term,” Luber says. For example, he notes that a 1952 Topps Mickey Mantle card can be worth millions of dollars, depending on its condition. “It’s mainly because people didn’t protect them back then and they are rare in that state,” he says. “Today, modern cards are much better taken care of by collectors.” 

And while they are mass produced at greater numbers than ever, Luber notes, the companies have built in limited-edition variations, as well as cards that contain autographs or pieces of game-used memorabilia that make them more unique and valuable. “In addition, they can be graded and put in protective slabs that are tamperproof and element-proof,” he adds. 

In the span of a year, Fanatics Collectibles became the industry market leader and was worth $10 billion. 

However, Luber realized he wanted a different experience. He wanted to build up his own company from scratch. So he left Fanatics in 2022 and founded ghostwrite, a toy company that makes collectible figures called “ghosts” — think Funko Pops but far more exclusive. Each limited-edition ghost has the same shape, a kind of “blank canvas” that can be customized with different skins. These skins range from the iconic anime character Astro Boy to the WNBA’s revolutionary star Caitlin Clark, who was featured in the company’s first collaboration with the league in December 2024.

What’s different — and perhaps most satisfying — at ghostwrite is that Luber designed the product himself. It took the company several months to design the toy and come up with a shape that was appealing. “And then, before we officially launched, we tried a number of different skins and customizations,” says Luber, who serves as the company’s CEO. “We made dozens of ghosts, including ones for Tiffany, for Adidas, for the NBA and MLB.” 

In addition to producing the toy figures, ghostwrite operates its own selling platform that uses a blind Dutch auction system. It’s a market-driven pricing model where buyers submit blind bids, indicating the highest amount they’re willing to pay for a limited-edition product. Once bidding closes, the platform ranks all bids from highest to lowest and determines the clearing price — the lowest successful bid that sells out the available supply, Luber explains. 

“All winning buyers pay this same final price, even if they originally bid higher, ensuring fairness and preventing overpayment while allowing true market demand to dictate value,” he says. 

For Luber, ghostwrite isn’t just another business venture — it’s a sort of homecoming, a chance to build something special with the people who’ve shaped his entrepreneurial journey. 

“When I left StockX, there were over 1,400 people working there,” Luber says. “Here it’s just 10 of us, most of them people like my brother whom I have worked with across different stages of my career. These are people I love and trust — these are people I want to work with, and they are all superstars. To have a company where we can do this together is really a dream come true. I couldn’t do it without them.”

Ready to lead the next revolution? Explore Goizueta’s innovative business programs and start shaping the future today.

Josh Luber recently joined Emory President Greg L. Fenves on the One Big Question podcast to share his journey from sneakerhead to startup visionary. Hear more of his story — along with conversations with other remarkable alumni, faculty, staff and special guests — at the One Big Question website — read more on Emory News Center.

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“The goal of the summit is to educate, connect and empower,” said Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education & Professor in the Practice of Organization and Management Andrea Hershatter. “To that end, the greatest thing we can do for our current students and the alumni who attended is to bring in these powerful role models to share their insights and stories.”

Kickoff Conversation: A Fireside Chat with David Glattstein

To open the summit, Hershatter sat down with Glattstein for a fireside chat-style conversation in front of approximately 200 attendees. After his earning his Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) at Goizueta, Glattstein immersed himself in the investment and private equity world, where he gained experience investing in and helping small businesses grow. Along the way, he earned an MBA from The Wharton School and in 2017, joined forces with David Bessler, VMD, to co-found VEG ER for Pets.

Glattstein and Bessler have reimagined the veterinary emergency business model. With a customer-centered approach, trained emergency veterinary staff, and rapid response times, each of VEG’s locations is open 24 hours, seven days a week, holidays included. VEG locations are open concept so that pet owners can “see everything and participate in” their pet’s care, notes the VEG website. “We want to provide mind-blowing customer experiences that people would never imagine,” Glattstein said.

Glattstein advised the students to think about the problem they’re solving for when they start a business. “For us, ER professionals—doctors and nurses—didn’t have a great place to build their careers, so we gave them that,” he said. To help existing veterinarians shift to emergency medicine, VEG provides a six-month fellowship program that offers mentorship and continuing education. VEG strives to create a culture that makes it “so obvious that that they would want to join us,” Glattstein said of employees, which are known as VEGgies. Glattstein admits that creating that environment took years.

Calling Glattstein amazing and “one of the kindest, most uplifting people I know,” Hershatter added that Glattstein is also “relentless and driven and expects his VEGgies to rise to the same level of commitment. He has built this into the incentive structure and into a culture of innovation.”

During his conversation with Hershatter, Glattstein also explained “IKIGAI,” the concept of combining one’s purpose and profession with one’s passion. “If I’m not going to be passionate about what I want to do and good at it, it’s going to be really hard to be successful,” said Glattstein. “You don’t just have to go into finance or banking or consulting to be successful.”

In addition to building a lasting, generational business and “genuinely doing something meaningful to drive positive impact,” Glattstein is committed to coaching and mentoring what he calls “the next generation of stars. I really want to be there for young people as they start their career and inspire them, help them, coach them,” he explained. “That’s something I really want to focus on.”

According to Glattstein, VEG ER for Pets’ revenues are growing 40% annually and are expected to top $1 billion in the next year. The company’s current investors include Fidelity Investors, Sequoia Heritage, and D1 Capital Partners.

Luminary Lessons: Breakout Sessions with Entrepreneurs

During two separate sessions on day two, after brief introductions, each of the luminary entrepreneurs went into breakouts with students to discuss pre-selected topics.

For the first session, Designing for the End User Experience, the entrepreneurs included Vanessa Jeswani 08BBA, co-founder of Nomad Lane; Adam King 09MBA, co-founder & CEO of 1587 Sneaker; Colin McIntosh 12BBA, founder & CEO of Sheets & Giggles; and Scott Roskind, Partner at R3 Venture Partners.

For the Venturing in Disruption & Technology discussion, the luminary entrepreneurs were Jeffrey Chernick 04BBA, the founder of several successful companies as well as an advisor and angel investor; Camerson “Cam” Duncan 17BBA, co-founder & CEO of Axle; David Gaspar 02BBA, co-founder & Head of Innovation at Gather; and Glen Surnamer, COO of Pensare LLC.

Students recorded their takeaways from their breakouts with the entrepreneurs. Those takeaways included: 

+ “A bad product with a good team can succeed but a great product with a bad team will never succeed.”

+ “You won’t change the status quo unless you ask why. Ask why five times to get the answer—then dig deeper.”

+ “If you want advice, ask for money. If you want money, ask for advice.”

“What these Luminaries share is a perpetual intellectual curiosity and cycle of continuous learning, an incredibly strong work ethic, resilience, and a strong desire to control their own paths and destiny,” explained Hershatter.

Pitch the Summit Competition

The Goizueta Emory Entrepreneurship summit concluded with the final rounds of the Pitch the Summit Competition, which provides Goizueta and Emory undergraduate and graduate students the opportunity to learn to pitch an idea for a new venture.

The student teams competed not only for funding for their businesses in the form of cash prizes, but for access to the Emory Venture Mentoring Community. “This year featured perhaps the most competitive group of student-founder-led ventures in the competition’s history, all of whom are also participants in the 2025 Techstars Emory Founder Catalyst program,” explained Brian Cayce, managing director of The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation. Cayce adds that the luminary entrepreneurs had committed to mentoring the student founders as well.

The top teams were:

Undergraduate

1^st place $7500: Subscription Intern

2^nd place $3500: Commonology AI

3^rd place $1500: Safe Squeeze Headgear

Graduate

1^st place $7500: Workforce IQ

2^nd place $3500: Corridor

3^rd place $1500: moji

“Our panel of Luminaries was notably impressed by the caliber of innovation and drive they witnessed,” said Cayce of the student Pitch the Summit teams. “It is a powerful reminder that with the right support, Emory entrepreneurs are truly poised to lead transformative ventures,” Cayce added.

Discover how The Roberto C. Goizueta Center for Entrepreneurship & Innovation is reshaping business and empowering the next generation of leaders.

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The Full-Time MBA climbed to 17^th in the nation up one spot from last year with the Part-time MBA ranking 14^th and rising six spots.  

Goizueta Full-time MBA Class of 2024 graduates garnered the highest median salary in school history at $175,000 with that number jumping to $205,000 when considering salary plus signing bonus. Nearly 80 percent of accepted job offers were facilitated through the school.

The latest U.S. News rankings also recognized Goizueta’s Executive MBA (the only program ranked in Georgia this year) as a top MBA program for working professionals ranking 17^th in the nation.

“We couldn’t be prouder of our Goizueta graduates and community,” said Gareth James, John H. Harland Dean. “Through your support, we continue to develop principled and impactful leaders and entrepreneurs, foster innovation for a data and technology driven world, and grow a global presence fueled by local synergies. I’m energized about the future of our school and students.”

U.S. News calculates the rankings for full-time programs based on placement success, including employment rates at graduation and three months post-graduation, mean starting salary and bonus; quality assessment which is based on feedback from peer institutions and corporate recruiters; and student selectivity which includes median GMAT and GRE scores, median undergraduate GPA, and acceptance rate.

Part-time or evening MBA programs are ranked based on peer assessment, part-time student ratio and total, GMAT and GRE scores, undergraduate GPA, and work experience for entering students. The Executive program is considered a specialty rank by U.S. News and ranked solely on peer scores.

About Emory University’s Goizueta Business School

Business education has been an integral part of Emory University’s identity since 1919. That kind of longevity and significance does not come without a culture built on success and service. Emory University’s Goizueta Business School offers a unique, community-oriented environment paired with the academic prestige and rigor of a major research institution. Goizueta develops business leaders of today and tomorrow with a Bachelor of Business Administration, Full-time MBA (Two-Year MBA & One-Year MBA), Evening MBA, Executive MBA, MS in Business Analytics, Master of Finance, Master in Management, Master in Business for Veterans, Doctoral degree, and a portfolio of non-degree Emory Executive Education courses. Together, the Goizueta community strives to solve the world’s most pressing business problems. The school is named for the late Roberto C. Goizueta, former Chairman and CEO of The Coca-Cola Company.

For more information, visit goizueta.emory.edu.

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The jump in both median base salary and median base salary plus signing bonus for the class of 2024 was impressive. For last year’s graduates, the median base salary rose to $175,000, with signing bonuses raising the median total compensation to $205,000, which is the highest median compensation in the school’s history. Notably, this class saw an impressive 175% increase in mean salary upon graduation compared to mean salary at the outset of the program.

“We are incredibly proud of the exceptional career success our MBA students have achieved once again this year,” says Brian Mitchell, associate dean of full-time MBA programs. “Their ability to secure some of the most coveted roles in dynamic and fast-growing sectors speaks volumes about the caliber of our highly engaged students, our remarkable faculty, and the dedication of our outstanding career services professionals. Even in a challenging year, these achievements highlight the value of Goizueta’s rigorous curriculum, expansive professional network, and the wealth of student-centered resources available to support our students.”

Diverse Career Paths Across Industries

Graduates from the Class of 2024 secured roles across a variety of functions, underscoring the program’s versatility in preparing graduates for success across industries. Employment by function includes:

• + 43% Consulting
• + 24% Finance
• + 14% Marketing/Sales
• + 13% General Management

Other fields, such as analytics, information technology, and real estate, also attracted Goizueta talent.

A Strong Network Drives Success

Goizueta’s collaborative culture and robust support systems continue to play a pivotal role in student success. Notably, 76% of accepted offers came from school-facilitated sources. The program’s continued success in facilitating internship and full-time employment offers reflects its dedication to providing resources and connections that empower students to secure meaningful roles aligned with their goals.

Mitchell is not alone in holding the Class of 2024 in high esteem. Maureen Manion-Leone, associate dean and executive director of the Graduate Career Management Center, shares her pride in the outgoing class.

“Our Goizueta students have demonstrated remarkable resiliency in the 2024 job market, securing diverse roles in various sectors,” says Manion-Leone. “We are pleased that job offers were strong for our students at the 3-month mark and jumped considerably at the 6-month mark. They have exhibited resilience in the face of market challenges, finding opportunities that align with their career goals. We are excited to interact with them as our newest alumni.”

Top Employers Recruiting Goizueta Talent

This year’s hiring companies represent a mix of global giants and industry leaders, including:

• + Amazon
• + American Express
• + Bain & Company
• + Bank of America
• + Boston Consulting Group (BCG)
• + Deloitte Consulting
• + Delta Air Lines
• + EY Consulting
• + JPMorgan Chase & Co
• + Lowe’s Companies
• + Microsoft Corporation
• + Morgan Stanley
• + PepsiCo
• + PwC
• + The Home Depot
• + TikTok
• + UPS
• + Walmart

These companies underscore the high caliber of Goizueta graduates and the value they bring to organizations worldwide.

Learn more about the only top-20 full-time MBA that delivers an intimate learning environment in a global U.S. city.

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Considering enrolling in an MBA as someone from a nontraditional student background? Find out three valuable lessons this former hospital nurse has learned during his MBA.

There are some careers where enrolling in a two-year business degree doesn’t seem like an obvious step to get ahead. While finance professionals and consultants often build an MBA into their plans, it’s less common for ballet dancers, for example.  

But, each year nontraditional students enroll in MBA programs seeking to enhance their professional opportunities. That was the case for hospital nurse, Joshua Copeland 25MBA.

After a six-year stint at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, where he rose to a leadership role in the intensive care unit, Copeland began considering his future. He participated in projects implemented across the entire hospital and had come to appreciate the impact he could have in a more strategic role.

I wanted to have a larger impact on healthcare and society, and not just on my patients, but also on clinicians as well.

Joshua Copeland 25MBA

Conversations with members of the hospital’s nursing leadership team led him to consider business school, and, in 2023, he made the decision to leave the hospital and enroll in an MBA program at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.

Now midway through his two-year program, and having recently completed an MBA internship with health solutions firm CVS Health, Copeland has identified three key lessons he’s learned as a nontraditional MBA student.

Lesson 1: You can gain valuable support by joining a wider community 

Expanding his network was a key reason behind Copeland’s decision to enroll in the Goizueta MBA. His professional community was composed of medical professionals, many of whom had undergone similar paths via nursing practitioner schools and specialist degrees.

“I wanted to take a different route, a route that could really open my network wider and give me more opportunities to do something unique and new,” he explains.

After arriving on campus, Copeland quickly immersed himself in MBA life, committing to interacting with people from a variety of backgrounds both inside and outside of the classroom.

I’ve been very diligent in connecting with my classmates. I know all my classmates by name, and while sometimes you can’t really remember where everyone goes for their internship, I know what industries they’re interested in.

Joshua Copeland 25MBA

As one of a number of nontraditional students—others within his class include a helicopter pilot and a physician—Copeland also notes the strong bonds he’s been able to form with those from diverse backgrounds.

One particular surprise: enrolling in the Goizueta MBA has even brought Copelanda into a community of former nurses studying MBAs across business schools in the United States.

“I’ve had other nursing students from other schools reach out to me and we’ve all connected,” he explains. “We’re just creating a large group of all these nurses at top MBA schools both to help keep a tight group and just support each other throughout the whole process.”

Lesson 2: You can expand your abilities with new experiences 

While Copeland’s primary objective in enrolling in an MBA was to enhance his generalist knowledge and business acumen, he feels the array of experiences available to him during the MBA has significantly impacted his professional development.

Like all Goizueta MBA students, Copeland has participated in the IMPACT module, a course focused on strategic problem-solving that involves working on real consulting projects for client companies.

As a student with an altogether different pre-MBA experience to many in his class, working in a practical environment has both enhanced his learning and showed him the value of different perspectives.

I did some structured problem-solving development in nursing school—we actually have our own process that we follow, and I did implement a little bit of this.

Joshua Copeland 25MBA

“It’s a bit different to how we do it in the business setting, but still similar to some degree, and that really was powerful,” he explains.

Through the program’s required internship, Copeland has also spent four-months working in strategy and operations within a leading health solutions corporation.

“I was using the skills and tools [I learned] to help me when I began my internship,” he says. “CVS Health, it’s a little different from nursing—the corporate setting—so I took those structured problem-solving skills and applied them from day one.”

Lesson 3: You can overcome personal challenges and unlock different opportunities 

Entering a cohort of students who largely hail from business backgrounds was initially daunting, Copeland admits. “Being a niche candidate. It can be a little nerve wracking in the beginning. Sometimes you can feel like you may not necessarily belong, but that’s not the case.”

Within the MBA environment, where participation is encouraged and students must collaborate and communicate during team-based projects and in-class discussions, Copeland feels he has overcome these doubts.

Being a nontraditional student, I’ve learned that I actually have a lot of knowledge and a lot of wealth to offer to the classroom setting.

Joshua Copeland 25MBA

Now more than halfway through his MBA, the experience has encouraged Copeland to search for post-MBA opportunities that harness the unique knowledge and perspective he can bring.

As he prepares for his next career steps, the combination of a specialist pre-business school background and MBA knowledge have already proved fruitful. With the help of the Goizueta MBA Career Management Center, he identified CVS Health as an internship opportunity where both clinical experience and business knowledge were highly valued.

“A lot of my goals lined up with their goals as a team and a company,” he explains. “They really valued that clinical experience and being able to take that and apply it in a business setting.”

Bringing diverse industry experience into the MBA classroom can make nontraditional students a unique and valuable member of the cohort. For Copeland, he feels it can make for an overwhelmingly positive journey.

“There are a lot of things that you will know that others will not know in terms of industry experience,” he says. “If you’re a nontraditional candidate, don’t be afraid to apply to an MBA. It can be something that can be really helpful and beneficial to you and your career.”

Interested in learning more? Find out how the Goizueta MBA takes students beyond business as usual. 

The post Meet Joshua Copeland: Three Valuable MBA Lessons I’ve Learned As A Nontraditional Student appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

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

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

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

Welcoming Impressive Inaugural Classes to Two New Programs

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

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

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

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

Experiential Learning Opportunities Abound

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

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

Team Building with Taste: Lessons in Leadership from the Kitchen

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

How HackATL Fosters Future Changemakers

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

Accomplished Alumni Create Meaningful Impact

Goizueta’s Veterans: Meet Matt Smith

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

Meet Marnie Harris: Building Hotels with Purpose

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

Holistic Health Starts at Home: Meet Kyle Brown

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

Groundbreaking Research from Goizueta’s Brightest Minds

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

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

Hiring More Nurses Generates Revenue for Hospitals

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

Training Innovative AI to Provide Expert Guidance on Prescription Medications

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

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

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

How Maya Dantzler’s MBA Prepared Her For A Career At A Fortune 500 Company

Back when Maya Dantzler 24MBA was knocking on North Carolina doors encouraging people to vote, she probably couldn’t have foreseen the direction her career would take. But that doesn’t mean her time as a canvasser went to waste.

“That was still, to this day, the hardest job I ever had,” she explains.

There are no days off when you’re campaigning. You also have to figure out ways to get people interested in your candidate when there’s a lot going against them. So that was incredible work experience.

Maya Dantzler 24MBA

Fast forward a few years, and Maya now leads brand strategy for a Fortune 500 company. BusinessBecause caught up with her to hear about her journey from political campaigning in North Carolina to earning an MBA degree, and how the Emory network helped her land a dream role at Lowe’s.

From Politics to Business School

Maya’s time as a campaigner sharpened her political instincts. This led to a role at the Senate Education Committee in Washington D.C. But the slow-moving nature of politics convinced her to pursue a different career avenue.

“I loved being in that space. However, I felt like there was a lot of red tape, a lot of bureaucracy,” she says.

I just wanted to feel the effects of what I was giving to the work. 

Maya Dantzler 24MBA

Seeking greater impact, she moved to New York City. She first landed at L’Oreal, where she led a corporate social responsibility program. Then she moved on to consulting firm Medici, where she leveraged Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion to drive innovation. 

Never one to stand still, after four years Maya decided she needed to take action to make the next leap up the career ladder.

I decided that I wanted to broaden my skill set. And so that’s how I came to the decision that I wanted to go to business school.

Maya Dantzler 24MBA

Opting to pursue an MBA, Maya considered a number of options, though her head was turned after a chat with a student at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School. She heard about the tight-knit nature of the school’s smaller cohort and liked the idea of getting a more personal experience. 

“He completely reframed how I thought about my business school experience,” she says.

A Crash Course in Business in the Goizueta MBA Program

The Goizueta MBA program turned out to be the perfect place for Maya to enhance her business skills. Her first semester introduced her to a wide range of business topics, with classes ranging from economics to data analytics and organizational management. 

Maya also undertook a number of career classes, allowing her to explore her career ambitions in addition to sharpening her business acumen. 

Alongside the course content, Maya enjoyed the Goizueta MBA program’s focus on practical, group-based learning, which helped develop her teamwork skills and allowed her to learn from others who came from different cultural and professional backgrounds. 

I had really just a phenomenal group of people who were excited to learn. They were excited to do the work, they wanted us to do well, and I learned from each of these individuals. 

Maya Dantzler 24MBA

After a summer internship with Accenture convinced Maya that consulting wasn’t the right path for her, a chat with a visiting executive proved to be the spark for the next stage of her career.

The Value of the Goizueta MBA Network

Marvin Ellison is the CEO of Fortune 500 company Lowe’s and a graduate of Goizueta’s Executive MBA program. When he returned to the school for a fireside chat, Maya was asked to welcome him to campus. At the end of his visit, Ellison struck up a conversation with Maya about her career goals. It proved to be life-changing. 

The very next day, Lowe’s VP of human resources got in touch about finding a role for her at the company. This helped her land a role as brand strategy manager for the firm. For Maya, it reaffirmed the value of a strong MBA network.

“It still blows my mind,” recalls Maya.

That’s something that people often talk about—that it’s your network that’s going to get you your next role.

Maya Dantzler 24MBA

But she maintains it wasn’t just the Goizueta connection that helped her progress into a new career path. Those early crash courses in business during her MBA program meant she was more than ready for a job at a Fortune 500 company.

“Emory and Goizueta prepared me for this role. I know how to put my slides together, how to present, and how to talk to executive leadership. Also, I know how to do the data analysis. I had no imposter syndrome,” Maya says.

How to Get the Most From Your MBA Experience

Although Maya’s chat with the CEO of Lowe’s seems like a chance encounter, it came about because of the work she had done during Goizueta’s IMPACT project—a strategic problem solving course requiring students to collaborate on consulting projects for real companies. 

Maya and her team worked with Lowe’s during the project. Their excellent performance ultimately resulted in her being selected as student liaison for Ellison’s visit. 

Maya feels this is an example of how being proactive is one of the best ways of maximizing your MBA experience.

Go to those sessions. Show up. Don’t just sit back and chill. Ask questions. Raise your hand. Talk to your professors. You can’t just expect things to land on your lap.

Maya Dantzler 24MBA

“How you land in a big company is that you’re a good student, you’re a good person, and you let people know what your intentions are. Just be very explicit about what you hope to achieve, and it’ll eventually follow you. You’ll get there.”

Interested in learning more? Find out how the Goizueta MBA takes students beyond business as usual. 

The post Knowledge, Network & New Experiences: Meet Maya Dantzler appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

From Pre-MBA Career to Goizueta: Pooja Bhatt’s Decision-Making Journey

For Pooja Bhatt 25MBA, her decision to enroll in Emory University’s Goizueta Business School in Atlanta, Georgia, was driven by her goal to expand her professional network and enhance her business skills. Before joining the Two-Year MBA program, Bhatt had a diverse background in science. She worked in forensic sciences and nanotechnology and later moved into the pharma sector. Bhatt transitioned into an executive sales role, combining her scientific background with sales and consulting. Inspired by her sales role, she wanted to gain a broader understanding of business to leverage alongside her scientific knowledge.

Feeling ready for the next step of her career, she decided to pursue an MBA. Goizueta’s emphasis on personalized education and data-driven leadership perfectly aligned with her aspirations. From the start of her admissions journey, she felt the experience was personal and engaging. She notes that the small cohort and internship opportunity made the program stand out for her.

I really felt that it was an authentic and genuine place, and that’s what really called me and attracted me to it.

Pooja Bhatt 25MBA

Goizueta offers various programs, including full-time and part-time MBA options, a One-Year and Two-Year MBA, an Evening MBA, and an Executive MBA. The MBA programs are known for their culture of support and collaborative learning environment, with personalized feedback from faculty and career coaches. 

The Two-Year MBA is a full-time, two-year, on-campus program. It boasts a 5:1 student-to-faculty ratio, providing an immersive and supportive experience. This close-knit academic setting fosters strong relationships, enabling more profound learning and growth.

A Dynamic and Inclusive Student Life

Student life at Goizueta is immersive, dynamic, and deeply collaborative, emphasizing inclusivity and engagement. Bhatt particularly enjoys the dynamic student life, where she can meet new people, socialize, and expand her network.

She also stresses the importance of interacting with students from various programs, which broadens perspectives and enriches discussions.

There is no limit to how much you can socialize and how much you can network and learn from other people. Not just in the MBA but also from other programs like the Executive MBA, Master’s in Management, Master’s in Finance, and tons of other programs with whom we get the opportunity to talk, meet, and discuss.

Pooja Bhatt 25MBA

One standout aspect of Goizueta’s community-building efforts is the social tradition called “KEGS,” an acronym that stands for “Keeping Everyone at Goizueta Social.” 

Every Thursday, we all meet. There’s food, music, dogs, kids, partners. Everyone is welcome to this really happy, socializing event.

Pooja Bhatt 25MBA

These events foster an inclusive and supportive atmosphere where students and their families feel welcome and connected. In addition, there are dinners with faculty and many other networking opportunities and social events.

There are also many extracurriculars available. Bhatt has taken on leadership roles, such as being elected president of the Graduate Business Association, which allows her to create impactful programming and support for her peers.

It was very surprising but very fortunate for me to get this opportunity to really practice my leadership.

Pooja Bhatt 25MBA

She is also actively involved in the Graduate Women in Business Association, which aims to create a supportive space for women to share their experiences and become better leaders. The association invites women business leaders to speak at their events, allowing for more networking opportunities. Bhatt is also a Social Enterprise Fellow. The fellowship is one of many ways Goizueta encourages students to balance their academic journey with personal growth.

She emphasizes how these opportunities allowed her to immerse herself in the local community and build skills beyond the classroom.

Internships and Real-World Learning at Goizueta

Goizueta strongly emphasizes experiential learning through internships and global immersion programs. Goizueta collaborates with top firms like Amazon, Bain & Company, McKinsey & Company, Microsoft, and Deloitte to help students secure internships (and ultimately full-time employment offers) that align with students’ career aspirations. 

Bhatt’s internship experience at Analytik Jena has been one of her highlights.

The internship that I had with Analytik-Jena, which is an Endress+Hauser company, over the summer, was truly an eye-opening experience.

Pooja Bhatt 25MBA

Goizueta offers more than just internship opportunities; it provides extensive career coaching and preparation to ensure students succeed.

This practical application of skills exemplifies the value of Goizueta’s immersive and hands-on approach to business education.

Career Prospects and Rankings

Goizueta Business School’s MBA program consistently ranks among the top in the nation. In 2024, Fortune ranked it 17^th for full-time MBA programs, and U.S. News & World Report ranked it 18^th among full-time MBA programs.

The school’s focus on preparing students for successful careers is evident in its employment outcome. 96% of the Class of 2023 received job offers within three months of graduation. Median salaries for these graduates reached $163,000, with the total compensation rising to $193,000, including signing bonuses​.

There were general interpersonal skills that I was able to develop throughout the process, including networking and recruiting, that were real golden keys for me that I could also use during my internship.

Pooja Bhatt 25MBA

With many Goizueta alumni in leading organizations, the school’s extensive network ensures graduates have the resources and connections necessary to excel in their careers. Additionally, Goizueta’s STEM-designated MBA program allows international students on an F-1 visa to gain extended work experience. This designation enhances the program’s appeal, especially for students aiming to work in the U.S. after graduation​.

Discover the Goizueta MBA Experience

Goizueta Business School offers a comprehensive MBA experience that blends academic rigor, real-world application, and global exposure. 

The school’s intimate learning environment and robust career support system create a unique professional growth platform. Pooja Bhatt’s journey is a testament to the program’s strengths, showcasing how a Goizueta MBA can provide the skills, network, and opportunities necessary to excel in today’s business world.

Explore more about Emory’s Goizueta Business School and connect with their student ambassadors.

The post Meet Pooja Bhatt: On Student Life and Success appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

With dreams of building a more accessible world, Harris helped found The Excel Program at Georgia Tech, a certificate program for students with intellectual disabilities. She and a student advisory board researched comparative programs, drafted a curriculum, and solicited buy-in from the University. In addition, the program focuses on finding internships that prepare students for their careers. When Harris graduated, she stayed on to welcome the first cohort of Excel students to Georgia Tech.

Discovering the Power of Business

But Harris soon came to believe that creating meaningful employment for this demographic must begin inside business, where the jobs are. Harris wanted to make that happen, so at the encouragement of one of her mentors, she started applying to business schools.

I realized business was really the way that change would happen. It will be the business community harnessing the value these individuals bring. 

Marnie Harris 20MBA

In choosing Goizueta Business School, where she earned an MBA in 2020, Harris found a flexible program that allowed her to pursue her natural impulse to innovate.

She spent a semester honing financial modeling skills working with coffee growers in Guatemala and another creating a marketing strategy for a wheelchair manufacturing entrepreneur in Uganda.

Harris received the Woodruff Scholarship, Emory’s most prestigious named scholarship, awarded to Emory applicants who want to make a positive social impact and leave a lasting imprint on the University through their leadership, academic performance, and lifelong relationships.

Launching the Shepherd Hotel

Though Harris is no longer an engineer, in many ways she still thinks like one, seeing opportunities to solve complex challenges. After graduation, a Goizueta classmate and fellow Woodruff scholar introduced her to Rich Davies, president of Pavilion Development Company, who together with Rick Hayduk, a long-time hospitality executive, was building a hotel in Clemson that prioritized employing staff with intellectual disabilities in collaboration with ClemsonLIFE, similar to the Excel program Harris had started at Georgia Tech.  

As part of the development team for the flagship Shepherd Hotel, Harris built the core of the brand and its marketing strategy, and structured a collaboration with Clemson University and ClemsonLIFE. Harris is now developing the Shepherd Hotels brand through franchising. She works with experienced developers and operators looking to bring a Shepherd Hotel to their university home. Harris supports these franchisees to build collaborations with universities and their Inclusive Postsecondary Certificate Programs, driving best practices toward processes, strategies and technology to employ a collective number of adults with intellectual disabilities in hospitality.

“One of the things that we decided very early on was that … local buy-in and ownership was really important,” Harris says.

I love getting to work with our partners and to see the concept become theirs. I know we’re successful when our partners talk about our Shepherd Hotel rather than your Shepherd Hotel.

Marnie Harris 20MBA

Eighty percent of people with intellectual disabilities are underemployed, Harris says.

“If you looked at that statistic across most other populations, it would be staggering. I think as we become staggered by that number, we see a massive population of people that have incredible potential that we’re leaving on the sideline.”

A Humanitarian Vision

The franchise effort has the energy of a startup in the humanitarian space—a priority for Harris.

It’s so fun. I like that it’s creative, and I like that it’s purposeful. We’re creating boutique hotel experiences where we target building teams that include 30 percent individuals with intellectual disabilities. I love the purpose-driven aspect of it.

Marnie Harris 20MBA

All the jobs are mission critical, and many involve customer interaction.

“People want purpose-driven experiences where they feel genuinely appreciated and valued when they stay somewhere,” she says. “I also think employees are just looking for better workplaces. We have tried to create a workplace with a grace-filled atmosphere where people with disabilities can be successful. Everyone benefits, including our non-disabled employees who work in an environment where they feel valued and purposeful in their work.”

Building Inclusive Workplaces

Harris says her background taught her how to “take these massive problems and turn them into solvable parts.” She envisions building a workplace at Shepherd that acknowledges the very full and busy lives employees have, so people can build their careers, their families, and their interests at the same time.

“We’re all people outside of work too, and there is a work-life integration that has to happen in order to make a more diverse and equitable work environment,” Harris says. “I am really hopeful that we can maintain the principles of integrity that we’ve been able to launch the Shepherd brand with, and carry that into growth, knowing some of the challenges that takes.”

Your support of scholarships helps us attract and retain top students and improve the diversity and talent of our student body. Our goal is to create equal access and opportunity for all students with the talent and abilities to drive business forward, regardless of their ability to pay. Support scholarships today!

The post Meet Marnie Harris: Building Hotels with Purpose appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

Join us in celebrating Veterans Day throughout the month of November, as we profile three remarkable veterans in the Goizueta community, each on a unique path but united by their shared commitment to excellence, both in service and beyond.

At Goizueta Business School, supporting veterans and active-duty military members has long been a core value, woven into the school’s identity. Goizueta welcomed its inaugural class of the new Master in Business for Veterans program earlier this year. The fully accredited 11-month program is designed for active-duty military, veterans, National Guard, and Reserve personnel. It provides tailored resources and experiences to help veterans transition into business leadership roles.

The new program is only the most recent testament to Goizueta’s enduring dedication to those who have served our country. This year, Goizueta also celebrates its largest cohort of veteran students across all programs.

Meet Matt Smith 01MBA

In February 2025, Matt Smith 01MBA will retire as a two-star major general for the U.S. Army.

After almost 32 years of service, Smith can relax—even though he’s not quite sure what that looks like just yet.

The Beginning

Smith’s story is unique because of its many twists and turns. He joined the Army in college because it provided him a four-year scholarship—the Navy only covered three years. Naively, he admits, he considered the Army the next step after being an eagle scout.

“It just seemed like a natural progression to me, but the story I tell young officers to this day is I had not realized the magnitude of the responsibility when I raised my right hand and got commissioned as an officer of the United States,” admits Smith.

As a brand-new platoon leader in 1994, Smith and his troops deployed with only eight hours’ notice after Saddam Hussein attempted to cross a border the U.S. had imposed.

Smith recalls doing very well during his training at then Fort Benning (now Fort Moore). However, it wasn’t until he landed in Kuwait and took in the scene—armored equipment and live ammunition—that the reality of his responsibilities sunk in.

A plane of his troops would soon arrive and look to his instruction and guidance to keep them safe.

I remember thinking to myself, after sailing through all these courses, “I should have studied harder when I was at Fort Benning,” because in that moment, it got very serious. This is not some advanced form of Boy Scouts. It’s a life and death endeavor.

Matt Smith 01MBA, Major General, U.S. Army

Luckily, the mission didn’t turn into a gunfight, recalls Smith, but that moment of crystallization, the magnitude of his role, informed every decision he has made moving forward.

“I think the units I was in at the times we got ordered to go overseas for both Iraq and Afghanistan, in some immeasurable way, benefited from that early experience.”

But before those future deployments, Smith left the Army and headed to the corporate world in Atlanta in the late 90s.

A Temporary Corporate Calling

Smith took a job as a financial advisor for Morgan Stanley and joined the Georgia National Guard to remain in some version of service, which required one weekend a month and two weeks in the summer. In an effort to help him move up the corporate ladder, Smith also enrolled in Goizueta Business School’s MBA program.

After graduating in 2001, he landed a job at IBM as a global marketing manager. In a review session in 2003, he asked about future leadership opportunities; Smith wanted to know when he’d be given more responsibility.

The answer: Maybe in five years.

For someone who had been responsible for dozens of people and millions of dollars of equipment in his early twenties, Smith realized that the military was where he was meant to be.

I’m not aware of another career, line of work, or professional environment where you can be responsible for so much at respectively young ages.

Matt Smith

“It’s not just the leadership; it’s the human interactions,” says Smith.

“There is no model. Not even artificial intelligence can calculate all the permutations or variables, so it was very exciting in that regard, and I think that’s what kept me going.”

A Career in Command

Smith remained active-duty for the Georgia National Guard from 2003 – 2019. Then, he resumed active duty for the Army and began working for the Department of Defense.

His first role was in the Pentagon as the deputy director of operations for the Army and later for the National Guard Bureau, a position that was perfectly suited for someone with such a robust background in service. For three years, he directed the global operations of both branches.

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.

For years, Smith feared that he wasn’t reaping any benefit from that long-ago MBA degree, but his wife, Laura Balser 94BBA 01MBA, insisted he was wrong. She said the value was how it transformed him as a leader.

In retrospect, I openly tell her she was right all those years. Looking back, I can see how my MBA experience made me different as a military leader.

Matt Smith

“As I became more senior, the benefits of the MBA became even more apparent,” shares Smith.

The knowledge of business and finance, an understanding of accounting: These skills allowed him to advise policy makers on significant decisions. It was the skills he gained from earning an MBA that set him apart as a military leader, most of whom don’t have backgrounds in business or economics.

Giving Voice to Goizueta’s Veterans

In 2003, Smith learned about Goizueta’s own Lieutenant General, Retired, Ken Keen. Keen’s son, who was in college at the time, was part of Smith’s company.

“There’s a saying in the military: Three beats two every day. When a three-star says to a two-star, ‘I’d like you to help me with this.’ You say, ‘Yes, sir.’”

Smith became involved with Goizueta when Keen, an associate professor in the Practice of Organization & Management and associate dean for leadership, joined the school. Smith participated in several Leadership Reaction Courses. Now he’s part of the advisory board for Goizueta’s new Master in Business for Veterans program.

The program is designed for veterans, helping them leverage their existing skills and experience for their transition into the civilian, corporate world. The advisory board provides suggestions for the future of the program, and Smith shares that the board has a diverse mix of backgrounds.

Smith praises the program for including the core of a traditional MBA, but “the beauty of the program is that it capitalizes on students’ years of prior service as a means of jump starting whatever their next thing is going to be,” explains Smith.

“Business is one of the major factors that shapes the way the world is, and it’s central to our country,” says Smith. “The Master in Business for Veterans program gives them a fundamental understanding of business.”

Experts in the Human Condition

Smith likes to say that service members have a PhD in the human condition, a phrase someone said to him about his own experience years ago.

Service members likely soak up more data points on the human condition than anyone else at the same respective age.

Matt Smith

“Most of these data points were in very, very stressful environments,” says Smith. “I think, in retrospect, I have developed an insight into the human condition that is valuable and priceless.”

Smith believes that knowledge and awareness of how humans interact is a skill that all service members acquire, often at a young age.

“There is an essence to what these service members bring to a civilian environment that is very unique and special—different than anybody else who works for a firm—and that is valuable. The trick, I think, for those of us senior veterans is to communicate that return on investment to the hiring entity,” says Smith.

So, while Smith may not have any immediate plans for his retirement, he already knows this: He will be spending his future advocating for fellow veterans—and the value they bring to the civilian world.

Goizueta Remembers and Honors this Veterans Day

Veterans Events in November

Veteran in Leadership Speaker Series
Nov 21, 6 – 9 p.m., Featuring Takiesha Waites-Thierry, Bank of America: Learn More

Master in Business for Veterans Information Session at Goizueta
Nov 23, 11 a.m.–1 p.m., online or in person: Register Now

Learn more about Goizueta’s new Master in Business for Veterans program.

Find out how the Goizueta MBA takes students beyond business as usual. 

The post Goizueta’s Veterans: Meet Matt Smith appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.

This Veterans Day and throughout November, join us in celebrating veterans as we profile three remarkable members of the Goizueta community, each on a unique path but united by their shared commitment to excellence, both in service and beyond.

At Goizueta Business School, supporting veterans and active-duty military members has long been a core value, woven into the school’s identity. Goizueta welcomed its inaugural class of the new Master in Business for Veterans program earlier this year. The fully accredited 11-month program is designed for active-duty military, veterans, National Guard, and Reserve personnel. It provides tailored resources and experiences to help veterans transition into business leadership roles.

The new program is only the most recent testament to Goizueta’s enduring dedication to those who have served our country. This year, Goizueta also celebrates its largest cohort of veteran students across all programs.

Meet Wyatt Smeltzer 25MBA

When Wyatt Smeltzer 25MBA reflects on his eight-year stint in the Army, his story is punctuated with a lot of crazy tales—of adventures he signed up for as additional training—from jumping out of helicopters and swimming to the shore with all his gear to roughing it in the jungles of the Philippines for three months.

Smeltzer jokes that, looking back, he cringes to think about rappelling 100 feet out of a helicopter and the other adrenaline-fueled activities that once filled his days. At the same time, he admits that those experiences were some of the reasons he stayed in the Army.

War is a terrible thing, but seeing the bigger picture—traveling to different countries—gives you a very humbling perspective. It made me a more well-rounded person.

Wyatt Smeltzer 25MBA

Now, Smeltzer, who left the Army as a captain, is taking on a new challenge—getting his MBA at Goizueta. He is now filling his time contributing to student organizations and finding ways to help other veterans, all before he graduates in May and begins a new career in the civilian world.

How It Started

Smeltzer grew up in Pennsylvania and joined the Pennsylvania Army National Guard after high school to pay for college. During his first month in college, he saw a poster for Army ROTC and, as the saying goes, the rest is history. After college, Smeltzer reported to Fort Lee, Virginia, the first of many stops on his journey.

While Smeltzer had planned on becoming a police officer or state trooper, the Army decided he’d excel in supply chain and logistics.

Leading Logistics in the Army

Though he had not taken any supply chain classes in college, the Army sent Smeltzer to leadership courses for training. Over the course of his Army career, Smeltzer’s charge grew from 55 to 75 soldiers. He held titles including regional transportation planner and logistics company commander.

The last title he held was supply management officer. In this role, he created and executed a $21 million project plan, which provided logistics to more than 5,000 U.S. and foreign military service members for 50 days across three Hawaiian Islands.

Whether it was moving people or equipment, Smeltzer tackled all aspects of supply chain management during his time in the Army—a transferrable and valuable skill set that would serve him well in the future.

Smeltzer served one deployment during his service, and it was in the middle of COVID-19. His job was to transport soldiers who operated and maintained the communications of air-to-surface missile launchers in the Middle East. Navigating the required quarantine for these individuals during this time added an extra challenge to the task at hand.

His largest strategic contribution overseas was removing equipment from Afghanistan. During this time, the leader of an Iranian group was killed, which resulted in retaliation on U.S. bases in Iraq.

“At the time, I wasn’t privy to all of this information. My mission was just to move this equipment to other places,” says Smeltzer. “After that happened, it felt good to play a part in moving the equipment that shot down those missiles so no U.S. soldiers were hurt or killed—I actually made an impact.”

Time to Go

One of Smeltzer’s final acts in the Army was a six-month long internship, a transition period, where he worked for the Department of Defense’s POW/MIA Accounting Agency. The group works to find the roughly 70,000 missing in action and prisoners of war, going all the way back to World War II. During his internship, Smeltzer assisted with nearly 200 cases, some of which are now being resolved.

“It was my proudest personal military achievement,” recalls Smeltzer.

It was a really awesome closure to my military experience, meeting the families who didn’t know what happened to their loved one for 60 or 70 years and getting to say, “Hey, we found them.”

Wyatt Smeltzer 25MBA

Smeltzer’s last station was in Hawaii, where he got to work alongside a diverse group of people. A large portion of his unit were U.S. ethnic minorities and a third were women.

“You get to learn about different cultures,” says Smeltzer, who also met several U.S. immigrants who joined the military as a path to citizenship. “It’s very interesting the things you learn and the stories of these people.”

Smeltzer admits he never pictured himself as a leader, but that is a skill he learned, honed, and refined during his service. Through the Army, Smeltzer says he was able to test his leadership skills and become a better version of himself.

The most rewarding part of being a leader in the Army was the tons of opportunities to help other people, like young soldiers who wanted to go to college.

Wyatt Smeltzer 25MBA

Smeltzer helped dozens of aspiring soldiers apply for and enroll in college. He also taught basic financial literacy courses.

Back to Business School

When he decided it was time to leave the Army, business school seemed like the next logical step. Several of his friends went to business school to help with the transition from military to civilian life, gaining the confidence to transfer the skills they’d learned and experiences they’d had to a corporate career.

“It’s really surprising how similar the work I was doing in the military is to the real world,” shares Smeltzer.

Smeltzer praises Professors Lynne Segall and Renée Dye as well as the IMPACT program, which provides students with a safe space to work with real clients on real problems.

IMPACT was the perfect transitional class for someone who is pivoting careers. It was a perfect practice run for my internship.

Wyatt Smeltzer 25MBA

He says the class taught him how to create frameworks for projects, communicate with executives, and produce high-quality work.

“A lot of people think that people in the military are rigid thinkers, but we have a lot of flexibility to think strategically.”

Smeltzer spent the summer working for Deloitte’s Enterprise Performing Practice, where he put his military supply chain and logistics skills to work—and where he’ll return after graduation. He hopes to find projects in the trucking or airline industries.

When Smeltzer isn’t in class, he’s found every possible way to give back. He helps fellow veterans apply to Goizueta, assisting them through the enrollment process as  a member of the MBA Veterans Club. He’s been a Delta Leadership Coaching fellow, president of the Goizueta Management & Operations Club, vice president of the Goizueta Technology Association, and vice president of communications for the Goizueta Business Association. He’s also served as a member of the Consulting Association and Nonprofit Consulting Club.

Through his role in the Nonprofit Consulting Club, Smeltzer has been able to give back to the greater Atlanta community, too. This experience included a project that helped a women’s shelter relocate and reorganize their transportation system.

“I love helping people out, and I love being around my peers. They’re so smart. You hear some horror stories of other business schools being super cut-throat, but it’s the exact opposite at Goizueta,” says Smeltzer. “I’ve built great friendships and that surprised me. I thought it would be more business and work relationships, but I genuinely know a lot of these people really well.”

“These friendships will last for a long time.”

Goizueta Remembers and Honors this Veterans Day

Veterans Events in November

Salute to Service at Goizueta: A Veteran Preview Event
November 7-8: Registration is now closed.

Veterans Salute to Service Dinner and Keynote Kyle Eberly
November 8, 5-8 p.m.: Registration is now closed.

Emory University Veterans Day Ceremony
Nov 11, 11 a.m.: Register Now

Emory University Veteran Day Alumni Event
Miller-Ward Alumni House, Nov 11, 6-8 p.m.: Register Now

Veteran in Leadership Speaker Series
Nov 21, 6 – 9 p.m., Featuring Takiesha Waites-Thierry, Bank of America: Learn More

Master in Business for Veterans Information Session at Goizueta
Nov 23, 11 a.m.–1 p.m., online or in person: Register Now

Learn more about Goizueta’s new Master in Business for Veterans program.

Find out how the Goizueta MBA takes students beyond business as usual. 

The post Goizueta’s Veterans: Meet Wyatt Smeltzer appeared first on EmoryBusiness.com.