Rice Business expands operations management, recruits top scholar

Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business is expanding its operations management program due to increased demand from students and industry. The school has also recruited Tolga Tezcan, a leading scholar in business analytics and operations management.

Successful business operations strategies are the foundation for growing and distributing a company’s products, services and profits in a post-pandemic world, school leaders said.

Joining Rice Business from the London School of Business, Tezcan has conducted extensive research on designing and managing service systems in customer service and healthcare systems. He has been published in Management Science, Operations Research, Manufacturing and Service Operations Management, Annals of Applied Probability and other academic journals.

Tezcan and Amit Pazgal, the Friedkin Chair in Management and professor of marketing and operations management at Rice Business, will be the first two faculty in the new operations group, with three additional faculty expected to be hired in the next year to further expand the areas of focus.

Pazgal is the academic director of operations management, a leadership role in operations management curriculum design across all Rice Business programs. His research has been published in leading marketing, management, operations and economic journals.

“Our operational management faculty aim to deliver a deeper understanding of a company’s competencies rather than a technical engineering view of operations,” said Jeff Fleming, deputy dean of academic affairs at JGSB. “Tolga and Amit’s work will elevate Rice Business’ current offerings and pave the way for innovation in an expanding industry.”