Professor Vikas Mittal shares the difference between truly serving customers and simply appeasing them, why legacy strategy is holding companies back, and an inside look at his sought-after Executive Education course, Strategic Growth Through Customer Focus.
Most companies think they're customer-focused. Many are wrong.
Vikas Mittal, the J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Marketing at Rice Business and faculty director of the Center for Customer-Based Execution and Strategy, has spent his career helping CEOs, MBA students and others learn the difference between truly serving customers and simply appeasing them.
In this episode, Vikas joins host Brian Jackson ’21 to explain why so many corporate strategies fail: the buzzwords, shiny-object initiatives, and mission-statement retreats that produce 50 priorities and zero focus. He shows what it looks like when organizations commit to the one or two things that genuinely create customer value — and stay the course.
He also shares how this approach comes to life through his Executive Education course, Strategic Growth Through Customer Focus, and the Center for Customer-Based Execution and Strategy, which produced a landmark report – interviewing over 3,000 customers to reveal what actually drives value across industries and what doesn't.
Plus: his famous sneaker collection and why he thinks everyone should write with fountain pens.
Subscribe to Owl Have You Know on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.
[00:00]Brian Jackson: Welcome to Owl Have You Know, a podcast from Rice Business. This episode is part of our Up Next series, where faculty researchers and alumni weigh in on the trends currently shaping the world of business.
Today's episode features Professor Vikas Mittal, the J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Marketing at Rice Business and faculty director of the Center for Customer-Based Execution and Strategy. Professor Mittal is one of the leading voices in customer-based strategy with more than 100 publications and outlets like Harvard Business Review, Management Science, and the Journal of Marketing. His research focuses on how organizations create value for customers, employees, and shareholders, and he brings that work directly into the boardroom, advising CEOs across industries on executing strategy.
In this conversation, we talk about what leaders often misunderstand about customer focus, why many strategies fail during execution, and how science-driven strategy can help organizations make better decisions.
Professor, thank you very much for joining me on Owl Have You Know.
[01:08]Vikas Mittal: Oh, you're welcome. It's my pleasure.
[01:10]Brian Jackson: Well, your career's so interesting. You've moved between academia and real-world strategy. I want to know, what first pulled you into studying customers and decision-making?
[01:21]Vikas Mittal: You know, before I moved to the U.S., I worked in my family business. So, I saw firsthand how being customer-focused mattered a lot to my family, to my dad, my grandpa, you know, my uncle, who were all part of the business, and me and my cousins used to work at the business. It was a clothing business, multiple stores, very successful.
And so, then, when I moved here into the business school, I learned a lot of things, which I loved, but they always felt very theoretical to me. Then I started working in a marketing research company, which did all kinds of research for many different companies, the automotive companies like GM, Ford, Toyota, and I saw how companies use customer research to develop strategy.
I think that's when I figured I wanted to take a deeper dive. And after I finished my undergraduate from Michigan, and my boss at the research company also encouraged me, I just, you know, applied to Temple because my old marketing professor from Michigan was also a professor at Temple. He is like, "Vikas, just come over."
And that's how I ended up getting my Ph.D. Surprisingly, a lot of the work I ended up doing with CEOs and companies came from CEOs at different companies reading my research published in academic journals, you know, which is completely the opposite of what a lot of people think, that if you publish in academic journals, people don't read it. I was blown away, you know, how many times I got contacted by companies saying, we’ve got such and such paper of yours, can you come and help us?
That was great. I mean, I did work with large banks, I did work with software companies, large retailers, and multiple, multiple small companies, and then at the medical school at Pittsburgh. Then I moved here to Rice because one fine day somebody from Rice called me and said, "We want to hire you." And my wife is like, "Okay, it's a warmer climate, let's go." And that's how it was. You know, and then I moved here in 2007, and that's it.
[03:27]Brian Jackson: So, when you're talking to CEOs and you're trying to understand their issues, what's the first question that you ask to assess whether they truly understand their customer?
[03:38]Vikas Mittal: So, every time you ask a CEO, they're, "Oh, you know, Vikas, we understand what our customers want, we get it." And my question to them is, "How do you figure out what your customers want?" And then, invariably, they launch into what I call legacy strategy stuff. “Oh, we listen to our customers, we have customer advisory boards, you know, we take our customers out to lunch and ask them what they want, what are their pain points, this, that, and whatnot.”
And I take some time to explain this in my class. None of that is helpful. It's like asking people who want to rent an apartment, "What would you like? You know, would you want a gym in the apartment?" Yes. Research shows about 80% of the people say they want a gym in the apartment. Guess what percent actually use it?
[04:24]Brian Jackson: Five?
[04:25]Vikas Mittal: Like, it's about 20% actually use it. But what people cannot tell you, and if you actually do it correctly using statistics and stuff, you would find out that the thing that creates the most value for people living in apartments is not the gym. The first and the biggest driver of value for people is how well the apartment fixes problems.
[04:50]Brian Jackson: Hmm.
[04:50]Vikas Mittal: You know, when people have a problem with the apartment, you know, whether it's fixing a faucet, replacing a dishwasher, or this… That's the biggest driver of value. And so, the biggest learning is, by asking customers, "What do you want? What are your pain points? What can we do better?" It's never, it's never the right way to figure out if you are customer-focused. All you are doing with that sort of strategy is you are just being appeasement-focused. You're just appeasing customers.
[05:20]Brian Jackson: Interesting. So, then how do you explain it and actually take a customer-based strategy to the C-suite?
[05:27]Vikas Mittal: Oh. It's a process. And it's not a pretty process because there's an entire spectrum. I've had this conversation with a few CEOs in Houston. I won't name the companies, and I won't name the industries because they get very defensive.
And they're like, "Vikas, we get everything… What our customers, you know, care about. We understand this. We have regular meetings, we have advisories, we do these key account management things, and this, that, and whatnot, and we are some of the best companies." I just, for the sake of it, I just plotted these companies' financial performance against the S&P and showed it to the CEOs.
So, in the last 20 years, just to give you a sense, the S&P has gone up by about 300%, but if you'd invested whatever in the S&P, it would've gone up about three. So, these companies as a whole have declined by 78%. So, the gap between the S&P and these companies is nearly 400 percentage points. That cannot happen by chance. That takes special effort.
What you find is these companies, on average, are 60 to 70% misaligned with what creates value for their customers. So, they're all heavy on technology, they're all heavy on digitalization, sustainability, and this, that, and whatnot. But when you see what brings value to the customer, for one company, the only thing that this company's customers care about is on-site service. That's all. Because they won't do that, but they'll tell you, we have, like, digital this, digital monitoring, digital that, you know, we have, like, sustainability. Here's our sustainability report.
[07:04]Brian Jackson: Everything but the one thing they want.
[07:06]Vikas Mittal: Everything but the one thing.
[07:07]Brian Jackson: So, I mean, are they relying on, I guess, like, myths or misconceptions?
[07:12]Vikas Mittal: Yeah. So, this is the second problem you encounter in these companies, right? Which I call industry trend spotting. So, basically, CEOs and senior officials doing what they think... Like you'll go to some, you know, like, AI conference and everybody's talking about AI and this and that, and you come back to your company and say, "What are we doing about AI?" We need AI strategy.
Pretty soon, they'll have an AI task force and, you know, this, that, and whatnot, and they'll throw a few million dollars at AI, and that beast becomes its own thing, right? But yet this company has not hired even five people to provide on-site services because they feel that a chatbot can do all of that.
[07:53]Brian Jackson: Hmm.
[07:54]Vikas Mittal: So, companies like this, not only do they get into customer appeasement, but they also get into executive appeasement. Basically, you know, doing pet projects for executives, customer value goes out of the window. The unfortunate consequence of all of this is the frontline employees are overburdened.
So, I would tell you, like, Brian, I know your job is to actually do X, Y, and Z, but really, you're now part of the AI team, so I need you to create an AI strategy, and this, that, and you say, "Well, Vikas, but I have to do my day job." I said, "Well, you should do it at your house after 5:00." But really, if you wanted to have a promotion, if you wanted to show us your leadership credentials, what we really would like for you to do is not your day job. What we would love for you to do is strategic stuff.
And this is what goes on in these companies. And you see company after company, their performance is basically average or below average. But they're trigger-happy, doing legacy strategy, which is basically dreaming up useless initiatives, justifying them based on, “One customer told me this, we've got to do this," right? And just like on and on and on.
[09:08]Brian Jackson: I mean, they're forgetting the customer focus, right? I feel like they've moved past it for the pet project and what's in vogue in a headline or something they've heard.
[09:18]Vikas Mittal: They're cloaking their personal stuff under the customer value umbrella. The reason we are doing AI is because I went to this conference where some consulting company told me that doing AI is the same thing as customer focus. You see this again and again, again and again, right?
The CEO of Walmart and the CEO of Target were both hired at the same time. Target is a $50 billion company. Walmart is a trillion-dollar company, right? And if you look at what the CEO of Walmart was able to do, he was not appeasing customers. They knew customers care about low price, customers care about convenience, and customers care about variety. And they just kept pushing only on those three things.
Whereas Target, there's not one thing they could say no to. "Oh, we are going to jump into groceries. Oh, we are going to jump into Canada. We are going to, like, you know, do, like, 1,000 points of light for employees. We are going to do this, we're going to do this." Everything except how to give low prices, how to give convenience, and how to give exceptional variety. That's the thing.
Company after company, if you go to Apple, they're only focused on what creates value for their customers, beautiful product, a well-functioning ecosystem that syncs seamlessly, complete safety and privacy, and finally, extremely high prices. But if you're not customer-focused, you know, I call this, like, radical pivots. Every time a new CEO comes, they come up with some new stuff.
[10:48]Brian Jackson: Yeah, to make their mark.
[10:49]Vikas Mittal: To make their mark. But employees are very smart. They just wait the CEO out, right? Then the CEO gets fired. Another one comes, and they have their own thing. We got to do this, we got to do this. At my previous company, I did this, and sales went up 15%.
Imagine this is akin, like, you go to a doctor, Brian, and you say, "Doctor, I have a stomach ache." Doctor says, "Well, yesterday a patient came, they also had a stomach ache. We removed their appendix. Let's remove yours." That's the same thing that these CEOs are doing. They're not customer-focused. They're just trying to leave their mark. They're just trying to do their thing. They don't care about customers, nor do they care about employees. Of course, shareholders suffer.
[11:29]Brian Jackson: Yeah, and I know you and I have traded the word customer focus a few times. I want to make sure it doesn't go out to the world that that just means the customer's always right. That's not the case, right?
[11:41]Vikas Mittal: In fact, that is exactly the point of customer focus. Customer focus means using science to figure out what creates value for customers, which is very different than just asking the customer what would you want and believing that whatever the customer tells you is right and just doing it.
So, the second thing is customer appeasement. If you wanted to believe that the customer is always right and you just wanted to appease customers, my wife, who's a medical doctor, she would end up prescribing painkillers all day long because that's what customers believe they need. I need more painkillers, I need more antibiotics. But what creates value for customers is something she has to determine using science. "What's your diagnosis? What's the correct medication? What do you need, and what do you not need?"
And that is a huge issue that is plaguing corporations. They confuse customer appeasement, which is the same thing as thinking the customer knows, and the customer is always right.
[12:46]Brian Jackson: And then, I mean, of course, there's new products and new things, and you're trying to anticipate what customers want before they even know that it could be a thing or an item they may need. How do you strike that balance between trying to listen to the customer and connect with what they need, but also leading them forward into something unknown?
[13:07]Vikas Mittal: So, new ideas are fine, but it doesn't mean that you just have to listen to whatever customers want and just do it. You have to design these things. Amazon, for example, has the patent on 1-click shopping. People don't know that.
[13:22]Brian Jackson: And 1-click is just click and buy.
[13:24]Vikas Mittal: Amazon invented that not because there was some techie wanting to do this, but because Jeff Bezos understood that the value that Amazon creates for customers is online shopping. And you want to make the online shopping process seamless and painless for customers. And this is just one little thing in that. So, the company's happy to spend millions of dollars perfecting that.
But if we just go and ask customers, most customers could not interpret that for you. Think about Walmart, right? So, Walmart delisted from the Dow Jones and has enlisted itself on Nasdaq, because Walmart wants to be valued like a technology company.
If you go back and read Doug McMillon, who's the CEO, who just retired, voluntarily, I may add, he said, "Look, I see where Amazon is going, and I see that our value proposition of convenience is now changing. Convenience is no longer people coming to our store, parking the car," and this, that, and whatnot, but we need to develop all of this.
And there's a subtlety here. Whereas Amazon was going gangbusters on what I call non-perishables, Walmart understood that there was this huge market of perishables that it can differentiate, right? So, Walmart decided, like, to do this correctly, we need to get this to the customer, like the perishables, like the groceries, and the milk, and this and that.
So, they created this thing called Project Spark, and it's amazing to read about this. Project Spark is at least 200 technology projects. For example, they developed their own GIS system for their drivers that can literally guide the driver of a Walmart car from a store to the customer's house based on traffic conditions. And they did not want to rely on Google Maps because it also, you know, has private data on, like, if you're making four deliveries, what's the best way to do it.
They recruited drivers from Uber and all of those companies, and trained them, and spent money equipping their cars and compartmentalizing them so the drivers did not deliver the wrong groceries to the wrong customers. How to help them put, like, refrigerators or, like, refrigerate parts in their car to deliver those groceries. Every little thing they just tested, like the first experiment and the second big experiment. They're testing it, like the store in Plano. Drone deliveries.
When you say customer-focused, these companies are running long marathons. They're not just doing, like, flavor-of-the-day things, which is what customer-appeasing companies do. Whatever is the flavor of the day, we're jumping. People should be shocked to learn that Apple has not jumped on the AI bandwagon. Yes, they have collaborated with Google, whatever the thing is.
[16:24]Brian Jackson: Yep. Gemini.
[16:25]Vikas Mittal: Right? But they haven't jumped on the bandwagon. All weak companies have jumped on the bandwagon. Like, you can literally go to all mediocre companies, and you can talk to their CEOs. What is the first thing they will tell you? This year's, you know, shiny object is AI. For five years, the shiny object was sustainability. For five years before, the shiny object was safety. And I'm talking about Houston companies, right? Five years before, the shiny object was what they call globalization. You couldn't get a promotion in any Houston company unless you had been an expat. That's the difference.
So, new product and customer focus are completely compatible, but new product is not what people think it is. It is dogged work. It is slowly and slowly figuring out what creates value and just making sure you invent it and you bake it into the process. You literally bake it into the process. So, when Apple came out with the idea of having a camera in the phone, it was revolutionary in some ways. But they haven't come up with anything innovative since then. But they make sure that they perfect it.
Focus literally means focus, right? Like, you try to figure it out, and you use science to figure out the two things or the three things you're going to be exceptional in and you just keep marching.
[17:47]Brian Jackson: Tell me about the Center for Customer-Based Execution & Strategy. You've created it. What gap led you to see this as an opportunity, something that was needed?
[17:57]Vikas Mittal: Thank you for asking that question. And, you know, I'm going to start by first thanking a lot of people at Rice University. I'll start with Peter, Peter Rodriguez, our dean, because when I asked him about the idea, he was extremely supportive. Then I want to thank many people in the central administration, you know, our provost, Amy Dittmar, our president, Reggie, and then Ramesh, who was the, you know, vice president of research, and he helped me start it.
So, what led to that is, you see, like, first of all, business schools don't have too many centers. And if you look around to business schools, a lot of the centers are focused on sales or, like, finance. So, my point was to create a center that actually advanced the science of strategy by incorporating customer focus into it, right?
So, I will tell everybody to, you know, go and visit the center website, and you can see a lot of the events we have there that we have done. We have done a bunch of events for CEOs. We've done a bunch of events for, like, school leaders. That's one of the stated missions. We don't want the center just to be focused on for-profit companies. We also want it to help nonprofits. And then the third thing is we are, like, you know, doing research and putting it out.
So, one of the reports we have on the center website, which we did last year, was actually to the question you keep asking, what drives value for customers? Like, what are the top drivers, and what does not drive value for customers?
So, we did this for 18 different sectors, and that report is available freely on the website of the center. Anybody can download it. Day in and day out, like, you know, a lot of people say, "I had no idea, like, we've been focusing on the wrong thing.” I encourage CEOs. It covers everything from groceries to police, to healthcare, college education, K-12 education, retail cars, fuel, you know, like, which neighborhood to live in. And you can go there and find out what is the driver of value. So, it's equally useful for customers, even more useful for companies.
[20:05]Brian Jackson: The report you had, what, over 3,000?
[20:08]Vikas Mittal: Yeah, it's a pretty expensive report. Like, if a company had to produce it, they would've had to spend a lot of money. You know, so we were able to interview about 3,000 customers, and, like, each customer gave us data for three industries. So, we have a total of 9,000 ratings, and then, you know, a bunch of statistical analysis to figure out the lift that you can get in value from each of the drivers.
Everybody wants good quality, right? Like when you go to buy a car, everybody wants good quality. Everybody wants a safe car. Everybody wants a car that has good features. Everybody wants a car that's reliable. Everybody wants a car that's affordable. Everybody wants a car that will retain its value.
Those things literally account for almost 80, 85% of customer value. The remaining stuff, 5, 10, 15%, could be all these other things that get played up in the media as if they drive all the value for customers. And CEOs also buy into that hype, and they redirect their entire companies into that. You can see company after company that keeps missing the mark because they just go after the trendy stuff.
[21:20]Brian Jackson: You talked about quality, and it made me think. Your Executive Education course, and you teach Strategic Growth Through Customer Focus, and this brings in C-suite execs, it's mid-level managers. They're already successful, right? What's the hardest idea that you find for them to unlearn when they walk into your classroom?
[21:40]Vikas Mittal: Yes. Just as it's very hard to learn about this idea that customer focus and customer value are not the same thing as customer appeasement, the second thing that people find hard to unlearn is what I call legacy strategy. Legacy strategy is this idea – how people have thought strategy is done/should be done in companies. And I'll say something unpopular and highly controversial because when I say this to executives, then people tell me, “Vikas, you know, The first two days is we just feel unscrambled. Like our brain is just unscrambled completely."
So, imagine this, and I'll give you an idea, right? Like, people are taught that if you want strategy, you need to start by having a mission, vision, and values. And I'm not saying that mission, vision, and values are unimportant. Yes, they have a role to play. So, for example, you know, your values are, kind of, your guardrails. If you say, like in medicine, the core value is do no harm, it's really a guardrail of what you should absolutely never do. Companies have values like integrity, right? Which is absolutely you cannot cheat, or whatever those things are, right?
But value is not strategy. And you've seen this company after company. They'll hire some consulting type who will have a two-day retreat. And then people will come up with all kinds of phraseology and ideas and this and that. And then they'll put them all on sticky notes. And they'll sort out the sticky notes, color code them, and then they'll have laborious conversations, should we call it innovation, or should we call it, like, innovativeness, and this and that?
And then they'll come up with some sort of a mission statement and a vision statement and a, you know, whatever statement. And then they say, "We've come up with our strategy." So, what is the way to implement that strategy? “Oh, obviously, now we have to come up with innovation-related initiatives, right?”
So, then they come up with innovation-related initiatives and say, you know, like, "Oh, another value of ours is, you know, safety." Now we have to come up with safety initiatives. Like, another value is community orientation. So, now we want to come up with all those initiatives, right? And you hire some branding company that will do all that nonsense for you, and this and that. And pretty soon, what you have created is 50 initiatives, you know, like, 89, 90 metrics.
And then you say, "Okay, Brian, since you have nothing to do, you know, why don't you take over this initiative? And then you create a metrics dashboard and this and that. And then we'll do quarterly business review meetings, and a monthly standing meeting, and a weekly made-up meeting." Right now, we have, like, a strategy plan, right? And people do this day in and day out, and that's what they think strategy is.
So, the hardest part for people is to unlearn that. Strategy is the way it is done in companies. And I repeat this all the time, it's the ultimate dark art. Nobody knows why we are doing it, but everybody believes we have to do it just because my predecessor told me this is how we should do it. And you ask the predecessor, "Why are you doing it?" Well, my predecessor told me this is how we do it, right?
And it's the ultimate dark art, and people just keep doing it. But these are not the things that help you figure out what are the one or two things that are going to make you absolutely the best in terms of serving your customers.
We come up with all this phraseology, competitive advantage, capabilities, and this and that, and nobody knows what this means. But everybody has some definition, right? Because it's only cover to just keep doing whatever you say. "Why are you doing AI?" "Oh, well, it's going to give us a competitive advantage." "How do you know about that?" We don't know, but, you know, it's a capability that'll add to differentiation. "What is differentiation?" We don't know what differentiation is, but it's a competitive advantage.
"What is competitive advantage?" Competitive advantage is something that's based on differentiation. "And what is differentiation?" Well, differentiation comes from competitive advantage. "How do you develop all of this?" Because you have to have a capability. "What is the capability?" It's a unique resource that nobody else has, right? But everybody has AI. Everybody has taken 12 accounts to ChatGPT, and everybody has subscribed to Gemini. Oh, but we'll create our own little chatbot that nobody else has.
[26:07]Brian Jackson: Well, for any listener playing corporate buzzword bingo, you probably have all your boxes filled in. All of those words, differentiation. What does it mean? It comes up, and it's just repeated and repeated. We parrot it. So, you're scrambling brains in these courses, and folks at Fortune 500 companies are even bringing you into their entire executive suite.
[26:29]Vikas Mittal: No, they get it. One of the participants last year, they found it extremely useful. And, you know, I want to point out to people, that's one of the things that we should be so proud of, like Rice at the forefront of this.
So, companies get it. I think they also realize that strategy is not like a two-day retreat or, like, drawing a box and arrow diagram and making it look pretty. It's all about alignment. They also realize that this is not a one-quarter thing, right? Like, Walmart did not become a trillion-dollar company through initiatives that lasted a quarter.
[27:05]Brian Jackson: So, when you're sitting with a leadership team building out a program that's actually useful for folks of different mandates of delivery, operations, origination, et cetera, I'm curious about how the program could then be applicable to each of them.
[27:23]Vikas Mittal: Yeah. So, when you start doing things like this, and you try to create value, everything doesn't touch everybody in the same way. So, you have to see which employee does it touch more and which employees does it touch less, right? So, people who are not touched as much, you don't tell them your job is meaningless. You say it's just as important. Keep doing it and stay focused. The promise you make to those people is just because it's not part of what we need to be excellent at, it doesn't mean that we are going to burden you with useless initiatives. You just leave them unburdened.
So, I'll give you an example, right? Like, there is a company called Swagelok Southeast Texas, right? So, this is a distribution company, and they distribute these valves and fittings and such things to a lot of companies in Houston, right? So, they were doing a lot of legacy strategy, right? But then, you know, the CEO, Chris Jones, he's like, "I want to really make this company customer-focused."
And so, working with them, they figured out the one thing that created the most value for their customers was the actual process of getting a quote from this company. So, it doesn't mean that the company stopped doing everything else. They said, "No, we are going to keep doing everything else, but this is the one thing we are going to become excellent at." So, now think about the Apple analogy, right? Where they say we are going to keep doing everything else for our phones, but the camera and the aesthetics and the interface, these are the two, three things we're going to become excellent at. You see my point?
[29:00]Brian Jackson: I do.
[29:00]Vikas Mittal: They're still doing everything else, and they're still very good at it. They're very good at many things, but they're excellent at a few things. So, when this company started its march, they said, "We have to fix the quoting process." The first thing they found out, and this is not by asking customers, this is through science, that within the quoting process, what customers wanted is faster quoting. They want the quote to be given to them faster.
So, at some point in time, the average time it took for them to quote was about 17 hours, which is, however you do the math, it's roughly about three days. Guess what? The quoting time today is less than three hours. 85, 90% of their quotes are delivered in less than three hours, and customers were happy with same day, but they're like, "We are not going to stop at same day."
The point I want to make is to achieve that, they had to go back inside the company and look at many different things. So, they had to retrain, you know, their staff, HR. They had to update their computer system. They had to buy a new server and do a bunch of other things. Finance, they had to refigure and reconfigure how the interaction between the sales team and the quoting people went, touching sales, you had to re-figure out, like, are the parts numbers all correct, and are they all updated? Supply chain and warehousing?
But this was the singular focus of this company. And, you know, I say this because I bring Chris Jones, the CEO, I bring him to my class, this executive program that you're talking about. People can hear firsthand from him, and the reason he is there, because his director of IT and finance was a student at Rice, and he took my Executive course.
[30:52]Brian Jackson: Wow.
[30:53]Vikas Mittal: So, I want people to understand that what we do at Rice, all of this is, how deep the impact of all of this is.
[31:00]Brian Jackson: That's fantastic. One of the things I wanted to touch on, too, was the science of customer-based strategy, and wanted to get really science-based. What does it actually mean in practice?
[31:12]Vikas Mittal: Yeah. So, science-based, it means in practice is first understanding what science is not. What science is not is this current practice. We'll go and talk to five customers. We'll ask them to tell your pain points, and then we'll summarize all of this in a, you know, big binder, and just cherry-pick quotes to paint a picture or, you know, we will create what they call them customer personas. You know, we have a customer persona called Brian, and then we just make stuff up.
That is not science, but it's easy because you can pay some, you know, branding company or some kind of company a few thousand dollars and get something that makes you feel comfortable.
But if you want to use science, it involves a lot of statistical analysis. It involves very careful data collection. It involves a lot of interpretation of the data to arrive at the right drivers of value. It involves taking each driver and then figuring out which is the biggest one, and then mapping it onto an execution plan that typically will last three to five quarters, then coaching the CEO how to stick with it using the right principles of accountability. And that is a lot of work.
[32:29]Brian Jackson: Professor, we’re going to pivot a little here because we can’t have this episode and not talk about your sneakers. How did that begin?
[32:37]Vikas Mittal: You know, the sneaker story is, it has changed my life. You know, when I had just moved to Houston, my daughter and I were shopping one day at Academy Store, and I was, like, looking for shoes for myself, and she's like, "Dad, don't go into that aisle." I'm like, "Why?" She's like, "That is like the sneaker aisle, and you are so boring. You would never wear any of those shoes, so why are you wasting your time?" I'm like, "No, I think I could wear them." She's like, "No, you just always buy those like $30 shoes, drab and boring, and then you just buy the next $30 shoes."
I said, "Okay, fine. You pick the shoes that you think I absolutely would never wear, and if I wear them, I'm going to take it out of your pocket." And she's like, "Done." She's like a very smart kid, by the way, a Rice graduate as well. You know, she used to tutor kids in the neighborhood, and she really had a lot of money then. So, she bought me some pair of shoes that were so colorful. These were the initial Gel-Noosa shoes, which are literally like, if you had like a Jackson Pollock of the shoes with, like, neon colors.
So, we bought them, and then I wore them, and then I left home that day. And I, you know, I always have a route. I live in Bellaire, and I take Bissonnet. So, my first stop used to be the Einstein Bagel on Bissonnet and Wesleyan. I go in there, and so many people come up running to me. "Man, those shoes are awesome."
You know, these Episcopal High School kids just came running. They're like, you know, "Sir, can we take a picture with those shoes?" And then I go to teach my class that day, and, like, students are like, you know, "Vikas, those are the most awesome shoes we've ever seen." And the next day, I had to go to my daughter's parent-teacher meeting. And then I wore those shoes, and the principal comes running. He's like, "Oh, I have to see these shoes that all the students are talking about."
It was a Montessori school. He said, "This is exactly what we teach in Montessori, that people should be able to express whatever, whoever they are, and they should not be ashamed of it," and this and that. And, “Vikas, I'm going to put a picture of these on the Montessori school website.” And the next day, he called me. He said, "You wouldn't imagine how many likes we got." "How many likes?" "Like thousands of likes." And I'm like, "How many do you usually get?" "Like, you know, five or 10." And it completely changed me.
You know, growing up in India with a drab personality and all of that, I never thought that this could be a thing. And then it just like, you know, it's like now a family thing, right? Like, we look for shoes that are quite off the charts. It has changed me as a person that I could be whatever it is. And if some people feel that it's, like, too outlandish, that's fine. But the majority of the people, they just take to it.
And then, you know, I started collecting these shoes in the house because I would wear them like 15, 20 times, and I'd get bored, and I'd just leave them in some closet, and then I'd buy new shoes. And then she's like, "Dad, like, look at all these shoes. They're just like sitting there. You are a hoarder." I'm like, "Yeah, but they're my shoes." And she's like, "You really should get rid of them." I'm like, "No." And I'm just clinging to them.
She's like, "Dad, this is not right." She's like, "You're having separation anxiety." And so, she took five pairs of shoes. So, we took them from my closet and just left them in the living room and left them there for seven days. Then, take them and put them closer to the garage, left them in the mudroom, and said, "Put them in the garage, left them there," and then finally said, "Put them in the car and just drive around with them when they're ready."
And then, you know what? After about a month, month and a half, I was ready, and I just dropped them at the Goodwill store. And she's like, "Dad, look, these are beautiful shoes. They're virtually brand new. And imagine how much joy somebody will get out of wearing them."
So, now I have, you know, I love them, but I also am reasonably detached. Like, so one fine day I'll say, "Well, you know, these 10 pairs, I'm not going to wear them, and I'll just take them to Goodwill." So, the shoes really did change me in so many ways, right, as a person.
[36:31]Brian Jackson: Well, even as you're trying to get rid of some, people are giving them to you as gifts. The Executive MBA class of 2025 gave you three pairs.
[36:40]Vikas Mittal: Yes. I love my classes, all of them. And then students are also just appreciative. Like, if I run into a student somewhere, they're like, "Let me see your shoes," because sometimes, like, I'll go to, like, some company, and the first thing is, "Well, let's see your shoes." So, this company where I did the thing for the CFOs, so that post is on my LinkedIn account. So, the first thing we did is, like, take a picture of the shoes.
[37:04]Brian Jackson: Do you have a favorite pair, is what I need to know.
[37:08]Vikas Mittal: No. They're like my children, all of them.
[37:12]Brian Jackson: You love all of them. They're all equal?
[37:13]Vikas Mittal: Yes, they're all equal, right? You know, comfort, of course, is the main factor before I buy anything because that's just what it is. But they're all unique in some different way.
[37:25]Brian Jackson: The other thing I know you love: fountain pens. When did that begin?
[37:29]Vikas Mittal: Oh, fountain pens, you know, like back home, that’s what we wrote with, like after you went into sixth grade, we just wrote with fountain pens, and I used to write with them. But I'll be honest, like, I never realized the joy of fountain pens till I moved to Houston. I'm so grateful for that.
So, everybody who's listening to the podcast, like if you've never been, the store to go is called Dromgoole's, it is, right? So, people should even be more surprised to learn there are not that many physical fountain pen stores left, even in the U.S., and we are lucky to have one, right?
So, I used to go there, and sometimes I was sheepish. But, you know, Larry, who's the owner, and his wife, Christine, they're just such kind people that you just go there, and if you just want to write with things and try them out and have no intention to buy, you could be there, like, for hours, and they would, like, show you everything. And that's what I used to do. And slowly and slowly, it just became a thing for me. And now I have, I think I have a collection of almost, at least 1,000 fountain pens. It's probably an underestimation.
[38:39]Brian Jackson: It would take you three years to use them all.
[38:42]Vikas Mittal: I use them, and here it is, right? So, I have my thing.
[38:46]Brian Jackson: I have been to Dromgoole's. My friend Chad Ricchio, who I'm trying to get to go to Rice, so I'm hoping by saying his name on this podcast, he may consider, sent me there to get refills for his pen. And exactly right, I was playing with every single different type, and I picked a few favorites, and maybe I'll go back and purchase.
[39:07]Vikas Mittal: Yeah. You know, there is just a joy, like fountain pens are, it's like Harry Potter's, the wand picks the wizard, right? So, the pen picks the person, right? And then the ink picks the pen. It's a whole thing, right? So, there are, like, at least 200 colors of blue ink that you could try.
The right blue is not just the right blue because it's the right blue because it's the kind of nib you like, extra fine or thick. It's the kind of paper you like, right? Like, you know, like a thick paper or a thin paper. Do you like a cream-colored paper or, like, a bright white paper? So, it's a whole thing, and you never can figure it out unless you've spent hours trying everything and figuring it out, right? And there's a joy in that discovery.
And I sometimes feel sad, like all this emphasis on typing, and now typing even is a lost art. And now it's just you can, like, talk, and it'll type it. So, the tactility of all of this, I hope that it comes back. I mean, my dream is where we require all MBAs in every class to use fountain pen and paper to take notes.
[40:17]Brian Jackson: It is a lost art. And you know what? There could be a renaissance, and this could be the starting of it.
[40:23]Vikas Mittal: Yeah. It has been a renaissance. You would imagine, like, since COVID, the fountain pen and paper industry has taken off like you can't imagine.
[40:32]Brian Jackson: Really?
[40:32]Vikas Mittal: Yeah, because I think COVID isolated a lot of people, and, like, writing must have been one of the... This is my conjecture. I don't have any data on it. You know, but you talk to a lot of fountain pen owners, and I talk to a lot of people in the U.S. who make custom fountain pens for you, and they all tell me that since COVID, this industry just took off like a rocketship.
[40:53]Brian Jackson: This has been a really great conversation, and I know our listeners are going to love it. But what do you hope our listeners will take back to their work, to their life, you know, their takeaway from this.
[41:03]Vikas Mittal: I think what listeners can and should take away from all of this is education is very important, right? But, like, enriching life with science is a thing. Like, all the education that you get at Rice, the business school and everything, if you truly start thinking about it more deeply and applying it, developing this appreciation of about, like, the science parts of that, I think it can be a game-changer for people.
Ten years, I was in the department of psychiatry at Pitt. How do you come up with your focus? How do you come up with focus for your company based on your customers? In your personal life, you have customers, right? Your spouse, your partner, your children. Really thinking about that, what truly creates value for them and then working toward that really is a game-changer, even at a personal level.
[41:57]Brian Jackson: That is fantastic. Well, Professor, I can't thank you enough for joining me today on Owl Have You Know. It has been a sincere pleasure.
[42:04]Vikas Mittal: Thank you, Brian. Thank you so much for your time and effort. And I know at Rice Business, we are so grateful to alums like you.
[42:16]Brian Jackson: Thanks for listening. This has been Owl Have You Know, a production of Rice Business. You can find more information about our guests, hosts, and announcements on our website, business.rice.edu. Please subscribe and leave a rating wherever you find your favorite podcast. We'd love to hear what you think. The hosts of Owl Have You Know are myself, Brian Jackson, and Maya Pomroy.
Professor Vikas Mittal shares the difference between truly serving customers and simply appeasing them, why legacy strategy is holding companies back, and an inside look at his sought-after Executive Education course, Strategic Growth Through Customer Focus.
Dean Peter Rodriguez reflects on a decade of transformation at Rice Business, sharing the lessons he’s learned guiding a rapidly growing business school, his take on AI and the evolving energy landscape, and details on the school’s new building.
Sora discusses her research on the hidden bias of gig worker ratings and what she loves most about teaching at Rice.
Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business has been ranked among the world’s leading online MBA programs in the Financial Times Global Online MBA Rankings, placing No. 13 globally (tied with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University) and No. 6 in the United States.
Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business has been ranked among the world’s leading online MBA programs in the Financial Times Global Online MBA Rankings, placing No. 13 globally (tied with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University) and No. 6 in the United States.
This is the first year Rice Business has been included in the Financial Times online MBA ranking, marking a significant milestone for the school.
“This recognition reflects the momentum we’ve built at Rice Business,” said Peter Rodriguez, the Houston Endowment Dean of Rice Business, which includes the Jones Graduate School and the Virani Undergraduate School of Business. “Our online MBA combines the rigor of a Rice education with a format designed for working professionals, and we’re proud to see that approach recognized among the top programs in the world.”
Rice Business launched its online MBA program to give working professionals access to the same faculty expertise, collaborative culture and rigorous curriculum found in the school’s on-campus programs. The program combines live, interactive online classes with in-person residential experiences designed to strengthen leadership skills and professional networks. The program serves professionals across industries and geographies who are seeking a flexible path to advance their leadership and business expertise.
The Financial Times Online MBA Rankings are widely regarded as one of the most influential global assessments of graduate business education. The rankings evaluate programs based on multiple criteria, including alumni career outcomes, salary progression, faculty research productivity, diversity and the overall learning experience reported by graduates.
The Jones Graduate School of Business is internationally recognized for its strengths in entrepreneurship, innovation and leadership development. In addition to the online MBA, the school offers full-time, professional, executive and hybrid MBA programs as well as a doctoral program, a Master of Accounting and undergraduate business education through the Virani School.
Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business has been ranked among the world’s leading online MBA programs in the Financial Times Global Online MBA Rankings, placing No. 13 globally (tied with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University) and No. 6 in the United States.
Congratulations to Lauren Jackson '25 and the business she co-founded, SubSpark, for being selected as one of Poets&Quants' Most Disruptive MBA Startups 2025.
Rice University’s Virani Undergraduate School of Business is introducing the Moody Business Scholars Program, a highly selective, cohort-based undergraduate experience designed to prepare high-achieving business students for careers in competitive industries.
Congratulations to Lauren Jackson '25 and the business she co-founded, SubSpark, for being selected as one of Poets&Quants' Most Disruptive MBA Startups 2025.
Curious how new federal aid changes will affect you? Read about how MBA programs are impacted — and why our students are finding smarter, more competitive ways to fund their futures.
With new federal legislation taking effect July 1, 2026, prospective students may be seeing headlines about student loan limits and the elimination of the Graduate PLUS loan. If you’re considering an MBA, it’s natural to wonder what this means for you.
We spoke with Bethany Denton, director of student financial services at Rice Business, to break it down. The good news for prospective Rice MBA students is that these changes are manageable and, in many ways, already familiar to our community.
Beginning July 1, 2026, the federal Graduate PLUS loan will no longer be available to new borrowers.
There is a legacy provision: Current students who already borrowed a Graduate PLUS loan before July 1, 2026, and are continuing in the same program, may be able to borrow for up to three additional academic years (or the remainder of their program, whichever comes first).
For students starting their MBA after July 1, the PLUS loan will not be an option.
The Federal Direct Unsubsidized Loan is not going away. The annual borrowing limits have not changed for Rice MBA students, and remain:
Prospective students planning to enroll part-time in the Online MBA may receive eligibility for prorated federal loans.
Though unsubsidized loan borrowing limits haven’t changed, we encourage all future Owls to plan intentionally across a variety of funding sources no matter which Rice MBA program you pursue.
So, what does this really mean if you’re applying to an MBA program at Rice Business?
First, your primary federal option will be the Graduate Unsubsidized Loan, with the limit depending on your MBA program format. Second, you’ll want to think holistically about your funding plan — which is something our student financial services advisors already encourage students to do.
Most importantly: These changes don’t fundamentally alter how most Rice MBA students finance their degree.
Many Rice MBA students have been choosing private educational loans for years, even when the Graduate PLUS loan was available. In fact, we currently have more private loan borrowers than federal loan borrowers.
Why? In recent years, federal PLUS loan interest rates were above 8–9% and included origination fees over 4%. Students with strong credit often found more competitive options through private lenders, some even hovering around 2–3%.
While some schools may be adjusting to the elimination of PLUS loans, prospective Rice Business students can rest easy knowing our team is prepared to help you navigate private options.
Federal loans are standardized. Private loans are more flexible. They give students more control over:
When selecting a lender, there are many things to consider, including graduation and performance-based bonuses. For example, some lenders offer a small interest rate discount or cash back if a student maintains a certain GPA, while another lender may offer a principal reduction or cash bonus for graduating.
You may also choose a loan for safety net features, like: forbearance policy, grace periods, and death and disability discharge. Many lenders allow you to preview your rate based on estimates and repayment decisions before you lock in with a credit check.
Prospective students can refer to Rice Business’ historical list of lenders commonly used by Rice MBA students. As a reminder, you are not limited to this list or obligated to borrow from any specific lender.
It’s less about replacing federal aid — and more about building a funding strategy that fits your goals and financial profile.
If you’re planning to stay with your employer during your MBA, we strongly recommend exploring tuition assistance. Many employers are open to supporting professional development — especially when it aligns with long-term growth.
Here are some tips to guide a conversation with your employer. Once you come to an agreement, be sure to clarify if tuition will be paid upfront or if you will be reimbursed after paying the school. That distinction matters when planning around billing deadlines.
Change in federal policy can feel unsettling, especially when you’re making a big investment in your future. But for prospective Rice MBA students, the 2026 financial aid updates are not cause for alarm.
The best part is, our Student Financial Services team works closely with Rice Business students throughout their MBA to help them build a funding plan that works best for them. Stay up-to-date with federal aid updates from Rice University and reach out to our team with any questions.
Our financial services team guides you on the best financing options for your MBA degree.
Our financial services team explains the pros and cons of federal and private loans to finance your MBA.
Rice Business is committed to helping you accelerate your career at any stage and supporting your professional growth long after graduation. The earnings potential shows investing in an MBA is well worth it.
Rice University’s Virani Undergraduate School of Business is introducing the Moody Business Scholars Program, a highly selective, cohort-based undergraduate experience designed to prepare high-achieving business students for careers in competitive industries.
Rice University’s Virani Undergraduate School of Business is introducing the Moody Business Scholars Program, a highly selective, cohort-based undergraduate experience designed to prepare high-achieving business students for careers in competitive industries.
The program, funded by The Robert L. Moody, Sr. Fund for Undergraduate Business Students, supports co-curricular programming for undergraduate business majors, including an industry speaker series, immersive career preparation and networking programs, industry treks, case competitions and other experiential learning initiatives. Approximately 30 students per year will be selected across concentration-based tracks in finance and management. A third track in marketing is expected to launch in 2028.
Each track is designed around a small, highly motivated cohort and around experiences that extend beyond the traditional curriculum.
Finance scholars who want to pursue high-profile careers in finance will participate in new opportunities, such as a Wall Street career trek, a dedicated industry speaker series and a capstone experience.
Management scholars will pursue pathways in consulting or academic research, supported by hands-on consulting projects and interview training, as well as relationships with national and global firms, a consulting bootcamp, travel to case competitions and professional conferences, faculty-mentored research opportunities and leadership roles in Rice Business’ behavioral research lab.
Across both tracks, students will receive professional development programming focused on interviewing, networking, personal branding and career strategy.
“This program allows us to identify students with exceptional potential and prepare them with the skills and experience that top firms and top doctoral programs expect,” said Robert Dittmar, associate dean of the Virani School and the Houston Endowment Professor of Finance. “From technical training and career treks to faculty-mentored research and the management of real investment capital, the experience is intentionally designed to give our students a decisive advantage.”
In 2021, the Moody Foundation made a $100 million commitment to Rice — the largest single gift toward the student experience in the university’s history — to build a transformative student center and to create 12 endowments supporting student opportunity and success in schools across the university. Collectively these opportunities are called the “Moody Experience.” This investment has helped create structured, career-relevant pathways for undergraduates, connecting students to top employers, graduate programs and research opportunities. In the process, Rice integrates faculty mentorship, alumni engagement and industry partnerships into a cohort experience to accelerate career readiness among undergraduate business students and to deepen student-faculty collaboration.
“The Moody Business Scholars Program represents the next step in the evolution of undergraduate business at Rice,” said Peter Rodriguez, Houston Endowment Dean of Rice Business, which includes the Jones Graduate School of Business and Virani Undergraduate School of Business. “We are creating a model that connects our students earlier and more intentionally to the industries, alumni and ideas that define the future of business. It reflects both the scale of opportunity in Houston and our ambition to continue to position Rice Business as a national leader in undergraduate business education.”
The finance concentration will begin accepting applications from rising sophomores and rising juniors in March 2026 with the first cohort starting in fall 2026. The management concentration will open its application process to current juniors in fall 2026, with the first cohort starting in the spring of 2027, aligning with students’ academic progression into advanced coursework.
Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business has been ranked among the world’s leading online MBA programs in the Financial Times Global Online MBA Rankings, placing No. 13 globally (tied with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University) and No. 6 in the United States.
Congratulations to Lauren Jackson '25 and the business she co-founded, SubSpark, for being selected as one of Poets&Quants' Most Disruptive MBA Startups 2025.
Rice University’s Virani Undergraduate School of Business is introducing the Moody Business Scholars Program, a highly selective, cohort-based undergraduate experience designed to prepare high-achieving business students for careers in competitive industries.
The 26th annual Women in Leadership Conference (WILC) welcomed hundreds of women to Rice Business’ McNair Hall for a day of networking, learning and inspiration for climbing the ladder in their careers. This year’s theme was “Pass the Torch: Together, We Will Carry the Flame.”
The 26th annual Women in Leadership Conference (WILC) welcomed hundreds of women to Rice Business’ McNair Hall for a day of networking, learning and inspiration for climbing the ladder in their careers. This year’s theme was “Pass the Torch: Together, We Will Carry the Flame.”
In panel discussions and interactive workshops, attendees heard from leaders across industries, explored various approaches to leadership and discussed future opportunities for success. WILC’s goal every year is to provide present and future leaders with a unique forum to exchange ideas and professional development important to women in today’s workforce.
“Not only is this one of the best student-run conferences, it’s one of the best at Rice Business,” said Constance Elise Porter, senior associate dean for belonging and engagement, in her welcome speech.
“I want to start off by saying that we know that there's been progress, but the progress is not over,” Porter said. “In the corporate sphere, in the political sphere, in the higher education sphere. From where we sit today, under representation seems to be problematic. In the corporate world, we have about 11% (female) CEOs of Fortune 500 companies. So that's far from parity in the C-suite.”
Only about half of companies prioritize investment in women’s careers, Porter explained. This lack of gender balance affects organizational resilience. Fewer trainings, mentors and pipelines dedicated to women leads to a “broken rung” on the leadership ladder, she said.
“We’ve talked about the broken rung at this conference before,” she said. “It’s still broken as women try to move up the career ladder. The sponsorship gap is part of that problem, because sponsorship leads to faster promotions — people who are sponsored are promoted at twice the rate of those who are not. Many women are also pushed onto what we call the ‘glass cliff,’ ascending to leadership during a crisis and then being pushed off once the crisis resolves. What isn’t always on the slide is that they’re often replaced by men once things stabilize. Getting to the top is difficult, but staying there can be just as hard.”
“Our job is to train you to solve tougher and tougher problems — the challenges that arise at the intersection of people, markets, technology and the broader world,” said Peter Rodriguez, dean of Rice Business. “Those problems are incredibly complex and deeply human-centered. They’re difficult to solve alone. Our goal is to prepare leaders who can tackle those challenges effectively, seize opportunities for the future and make a meaningful impact.”
Isamar Lopez-Veracruz, the 2026 WILC president, said she wasn’t sure she was “MBA material” until she visited Rice Business.
“In 2023, I attended WILC as a prospective student, a mom of two daughters, a wife and a K-12 educator, wondering if I was ready for more,” she said. “I wasn't sure I was MBA material. I wasn't sure I could do this at this stage in my life. But in this room, surrounded by women who had built careers, raised families and pivoted paths, I found a community that believed in me before I fully believe in myself. I realized the question wasn't whether I was capable, it was whether I was willing to bet on myself. So I took the lead. I applied to Rice and I am now graduating this May and stepping into consulting.”
Panels at WILC included “Why Mentorship Matters,” “Nonlinear Career Stories,” “The Visual Resume: Branding and Personal Style for Impact” and “Negotiate to Yes.” Each of these workshops was spearheaded by female corporate leaders from businesses such as Houston Methodist, ExxonMobil, Hewlett Packard Inc., Baker Hughes and NASA who shared personal stories of career struggles or successes.
Keynote speaker Kathleen Barron, executive vice president and senior advisor to the CEO at Constellation Energy, noted that one way women can stand up for each other in a corporate environment is to help women speak up in meetings.
“I have absolutely found the best way to do that is to just call on people,” she said. “Yes, you have to do the coaching ahead of the meeting and yes, you have to do skill development – but in the meeting you've got to get people to speak up. You call their name and they wow people. You know, it's just because you know not everyone's going to do that, you have to do it.”
Another opportunity for women interested in leadership education at Rice Business includes a spring and a fall session, Empowering Women to Lead with Confidence and Impact, which equips women not only with the unique challenges that executive level work includes, but the additional hurdles that exist for women in environments shaped by traditional, masculine models of leadership.
Rice Business has programs every year that support all leaders. Later this month begins “Manager Courses to Advance Your Career,” an inter-modular group coaching session that will help participants create and implement effective corporate strategies to become a change agent in organizations. In April, “Tools for Leading Transformation,” provides actionable skills and strategies needed to lead organizational change with confidence at any level through a hands-on, action-based learning approach.
For those looking to become a strategy-centric executive, “Enhancing Strategic Planning & Execution to Create Value for Customers, Employees, and Shareholders” helps leaders whose organizations focus on customers, sales or stakeholders by focusing on bridging six strategy gaps.
Executive Education at Rice Business has programs designed for a deeper learning experience with real-world case studies, award-winning faculty and a community deeply connected to the Houston business sphere. Learn more here.
Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business has been ranked among the world’s leading online MBA programs in the Financial Times Global Online MBA Rankings, placing No. 13 globally (tied with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University) and No. 6 in the United States.
Congratulations to Lauren Jackson '25 and the business she co-founded, SubSpark, for being selected as one of Poets&Quants' Most Disruptive MBA Startups 2025.
Rice University’s Virani Undergraduate School of Business is introducing the Moody Business Scholars Program, a highly selective, cohort-based undergraduate experience designed to prepare high-achieving business students for careers in competitive industries.
Now in its 26th year, the Women in Leadership Conference has long been one of the defining gatherings at Rice Business. This year, it welcomed more than 600 attendees, fifteen sponsoring companies and endless advice on leadership.
The Women in Leadership Conference has long been one of the defining gatherings at Rice Business. This year, the momentum was unmistakable, with more than 600 attendees filling the venue and tickets selling out in just five weeks. Fifteen companies supported the event through sponsorships across multiple tiers, reinforcing the conference’s reputation as both a professional forum and a community investment.
Now in its 26th year, the conference has matured into something far more enduring than a day of panels. It has become an institution that offers professionals a rare setting for candid conversations about ambition, failure, doubt and growth.
Ideas travel across industries and career stages, linking one generation of leaders to the next, much like the long chain of knowledge that binds readers across time. The result is a gathering that balances practical insight with personal reflection, leaving attendees with something more durable than a list of takeaways. It offers perspective.
What makes the conference particularly distinctive is the way it is built.
The Women in Leadership Conference at Rice is entirely student-led. Each year a new cohort of MBA students inherits the responsibility of building the event from the ground up. This year, 32 students worked across multiple teams under the guidance of seven executive chairs.
Their work extended well beyond coordinating speakers or managing logistics. They secured sponsorships that support the education of future female leaders and designed the experience with the precision of architects drafting a blueprint — from the tone of the first email to the signage and visual design that guided them through the space; the networking areas where conversations unfolded between sessions; even the swag bags were assembled with the understanding that, weeks later, they would serve as small reminders of the ideas exchanged inside those rooms.
The day began with a keynote from Kathleen Barron, executive vice president and senior advisor to the CEO at Constellation, whose reflections established the tone for the conversations that followed, and it ended with a keynote from Madeline Haydon, founder of nutpods, who left us with introspective questions and the courage to lead.
Here are some insights from the day’s conversations.
The conference opened with Kathleen Barron’s keynote, where she spoke about how careers are not linear ladders that must be climbed step by step. They resemble open landscapes, where leaders occasionally pause and reconsider the direction they wish to take.
A similar sentiment emerged later in the panel “It Wasn’t a Straight Line.” Panelist Melissa Mohr reflected on how early in her career she assumed each year had to bring advancement. “Your career does not have to be the most important thing every year,” she said.
Together, the speakers reframed career progression as something closer to a series of seasons than a single upward climb.
Another theme that surfaced repeatedly was the tension between ambition and readiness.
During “Power in the Crossover,” one panelist offered a simple rule: If you meet every qualification listed for a role, you may already be aiming too low. One panelist, Brooke Grammier, described how she approaches leaders whose roles she hopes to grow into. “I want to do your job one day,” she said. “So teach me how to do it.”
The panel also explored subtler signals of authority. Sadie Rucker, president and founding principal at Horizon International Group, LLC, noted that tone alone can shape how ideas are received. A steady voice in a room often carries more influence than credentials alone.
The session “Negotiate to Yes” turned the conversation toward a practical strategy.
NASA chief science officer Judith Hayes encouraged attendees to keep a written record of accomplishments and positive feedback throughout the year. “Write down what you’ve achieved,” she said. “Otherwise, there is no proof for yourself and others.”
Another speaker emphasized that negotiation rarely begins in the meeting itself. Knowing the relevant data, understanding organizational constraints, and entering the conversation with composure can reshape the outcome.
One of the most personal moments of the day came during “Unfiltered Resume.” Panelist Jessica Bolaños spoke candidly about experiencing discrimination. Eventually, she stopped searching for organizations where those problems did not exist. Instead, she built one.
By founding her own company, she created the environment she had spent years hoping to find.
The session “AI But Make It Work for You” explored how artificial intelligence is reshaping professional environments. The panelists encouraged attendees to view AI less as a replacement for human work and more as a tool that amplifies productivity. Yet the conversation returned repeatedly to a simple conclusion: the qualities that define leadership remain distinctly human.
Empathy. Judgment. The ability to translate complexity into clarity. Those skills are unlikely to be automated anytime soon. The session ended with laughter when one speaker joked about using AI to generate conversation prompts for discussions with teenagers. Some negotiations, it seems, still require human intuition.
Across every session, the conversations returned to the same underlying idea. Leadership rarely follows the tidy path people imagine at the start of their careers. It develops through curiosity, resilience, mentorship, and the willingness to adapt as the world changes.
For many attendees, the conference served as a reminder that leadership is not a solo act. It develops within communities willing to share experience, challenge assumptions, and create opportunities for the next generation.
After 26 years, the Women in Leadership Conference continues to do exactly that.
Written by Lipi Gandhi, marketing chair for the 2026 Women in Leadership Conference. Insights collected by marketing committee members Ali Dupnick, Lipi Gandhi and Muskaan Dua.
Now in its 26th year, the Women in Leadership Conference has long been one of the defining gatherings at Rice Business. This year, it welcomed more than 600 attendees, fifteen sponsoring companies and endless advice on leadership.
Rice Business clubs reflect professional pathways, cultural backgrounds, shared experiences and a variety of hobbies. Continue reading about why MBA clubs and organizations are so important to our community and how to get involved.
Discover how Rice Business MBA students are supported through personalized academics, career coaching, community culture and deep connections in Houston.
Research from Rice Business professors John Barry, Bruce Carlin, and Alan Crane shows how firms use hurdle rates differently in practice than finance theory predicts.
If you’ve taken a corporate finance class, you’re familiar with the logic behind investment decisions: A project creates value only if it earns more than the firm’s cost of capital.
To put that logic into practice, firms rely on a “hurdle rate” — the minimum return a project must clear to receive approval. If a firm’s hurdle rate is set at 15%, for example, a proposed investment expected to earn 14% may be rejected outright during evaluation.
According to new research, however, firms rarely use hurdle rates as neutral tools for making investment decisions. Rather, these rates are often set well above the cost of capital and play a more active role in how deals are negotiated, shaped and ultimately approved.
A new study published in the Journal of Financial Economics, co-authored by Rice Business professors John Barry, Bruce Carlin and Alan Crane along with Duke professor John Graham, draws a sharp distinction between project evaluation and development — a separation that rarely appears in finance models.
In the finance classroom, costs and returns are often treated as fixed inputs, and the hurdle rate is used to evaluate whether a project is in or out. In practice, however, many investments take shape through negotiation. Prices, terms and even project scope are often still in flux as managers work with suppliers, customers or acquisition targets. In that setting, the hurdle rate is no longer just a screening threshold; it becomes a constraint that shapes the bargaining process.
“The hurdle rate becomes a line in the sand,” Barry said. “Managers can point to it and say, ‘If we can’t clear this, we can’t do the project.’”
Consider a firm developing a new production facility. In a textbook capital budgeting exercise, land, materials and construction are treated as fixed costs, and managers use a hurdle rate to evaluate whether the expected cash flows can justify them. In practice, however, those costs are not a given — they’re negotiated. When managers approach suppliers and landowners with a firmwide hurdle rate in hand, the return threshold becomes a hard constraint; unless prices fall or terms improve, the project will not move forward. The hurdle rate, in other words, shapes the negotiation long before any spreadsheet delivers a final yes or no.
To test this idea systematically, the researchers draw on multiple sources of evidence. Using surveys of chief financial officers, investment outcomes and merger data, they show that elevated hurdle rates are not simply a conservative bias or a deviation from textbook finance. Instead, high hurdle rates function as an internal commitment, shaping how firms negotiate with suppliers, partners and acquisition targets and often improving the firm’s share of value in the deals it pursues.
Taken together, the approach allows the researchers to connect what firms say about their investment rules, how managers act on those rules inside the firm and what outcomes materialize in negotiation.
While much of the academic literature treats elevated hurdle rates as a distortion to be explained, this study, forthcoming in the Journal of Financial Economics, focuses on how they function as a strategic commitment with real consequences for bargaining.
“What we teach in finance classes is really only step one,” Barry said. “The next step in being a great finance practitioner is thinking beyond the spreadsheet — not that the models we teach are wrong, but rather how the assumptions and methods we use shape decisions and incentives both within and outside the organization.”
For students, the lesson is not to abandon the textbook framework but to recognize that it is not rigid. Understanding how these analytical tools operate within organizations — and how they guide choices long before a deal is ever signed — is part of what turns financial analysis into effective managerial practice.
This article originally appeared in Rice Business Wisdom and was lightly edited for Rice News.
Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business has been ranked among the world’s leading online MBA programs in the Financial Times Global Online MBA Rankings, placing No. 13 globally (tied with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University) and No. 6 in the United States.
Congratulations to Lauren Jackson '25 and the business she co-founded, SubSpark, for being selected as one of Poets&Quants' Most Disruptive MBA Startups 2025.
Rice University’s Virani Undergraduate School of Business is introducing the Moody Business Scholars Program, a highly selective, cohort-based undergraduate experience designed to prepare high-achieving business students for careers in competitive industries.
When companies break loan terms, boards adjust CEO pay to focus on stabilizing finances.
Based on research by Brian Akins (Rice Business), Jonathan Bitting (Appalachian State), David De Angelis (University of Houston), and Maclean Gaulin (University of Utah)
Key takeaways:
It’s a valid concern. But it assumes companies operate under stable conditions.
A new study by Brian Akins of Rice Business and his co-authors, published in Contemporary Accounting Research, suggests the story is more complicated. When a company violates the terms of a loan — by taking on too much debt or missing promised earnings — the bank gains leverage and can demand changes, raise interest rates or even require early payment.
When that happens, the board turns its attention from long-term growth to stabilizing the company’s finances. That often means rethinking how the CEO is paid. “This is about more than cost-cutting,” Akins says. “It tells creditors the CEO is focused on keeping the company solvent.”
To see how boards respond when debt covenants are breached, the researchers looked at 1,268 loan agreements from 186 companies from 2007 through 2018. They used a research design that compares firms that just violated a loan covenant with those that narrowly avoided doing so, allowing them to isolate what changes at the moment of the breach.
By focusing on firms just above and just below the threshold, the study isolates the effect of the violation itself. When firms violated those conditions, boards adjusted CEO pay in consistent ways.
First, they shortened the timeline for earning performance-based compensation. On average, the vesting period shrank by roughly six months — a decline of about 26% to 30% compared with typical incentive structures. That change compresses accountability, making executives feel the consequences of their decisions sooner.
Boards also increased the weight placed on short-term accounting targets, such as annual earnings goals. The share of pay tied to those measures rose by 47% to 87%. In practical terms, that shift ties executive rewards more directly to financial metrics that affect whether the company can meet its debt obligations rather than to longer-term stock performance.
Importantly, total pay did not decline. What changed was the timing and emphasis of those incentives.
“It’s easy to say long-term is always better,” Akins notes. “But when a company is facing pressure from its lenders, shifting the CEO’s focus to immediate results can protect both the company and its investors.”
The researchers also looked at how markets reacted when companies disclosed these revised pay structures. If shorter incentive timelines reduce default risk, creditors should respond.
The evidence suggests they did.
Around the time firms disclosed new pay contracts after breaching loan terms, bond prices rose. At the same time, credit default swap (CDS) spreads — a market-based measure of default risk — declined. When CDS spreads fall, it signals that investors see a lower likelihood the company will miss its debt payments.
The effect was strongest for short-term debt. One-year CDS spreads fell by roughly 4%, suggesting that creditors with the most immediate repayment concerns viewed the compensation changes as meaningful.
Equity markets, by contrast, showed little reaction. Stock prices did not decline in response to shorter incentive horizons, suggesting shareholders did not see the shift as harmful to long-term value.
Taken together, the market response suggests the change was not merely symbolic. Bond investors treated the change as a sign of lower repayment risk, while equity investors showed no sign of concern.
That response, however, was strongest when default risk was most immediate — when loans were nearing maturity or cash reserves were thin. In those cases, aligning the CEO’s incentives with creditors’ short time horizon appeared to matter most.
The study’s design strengthens that interpretation. By comparing firms that violated loan thresholds with those that narrowly avoided doing so, the researchers isolate the effect of the breach itself rather than broader financial distress. Within that setting, the pattern is consistent: shorter incentive timelines follow covenant violations, and credit markets respond.
That does not mean shorter incentive horizons are always desirable. Under stable conditions, they can encourage the very myopia critics warn about. But when debt pressure rises and lenders gain leverage, shortening the horizon may serve a different purpose — stabilizing the firm and reducing repayment risk.
The debate over CEO pay, in other words, may be less about long-term versus short-term, and more about context. “It’s easy to say long-term is always better,” Akins notes. “But when a company is facing pressure from its lenders, shifting the CEO’s focus to immediate results can protect both the company and its investors.”
Written by Seb Murray
Akins, et al (2025). “CEO Short-Term Incentives and the Agency Cost of Debt,” Contemporary Accounting Research.
At the second annual Innovation and AI Summit, Rice Business faculty led conversational panels on how artificial intelligence will affect digital transformation, finance and human capital.
As artificial intelligence moves from buzzword to boardroom priority, Houston’s business community is wrestling with a question that has less to do with technology than leadership. At the second annual Innovation and AI Summit, Rice Business faculty led conversational panels on how artificial intelligence will affect digital transformation, finance and human capital.
The summit was a chance for corporate leaders, startup founders and anyone interested in the future of AI in business to learn, connect and be inspired. More than 400 people packed into the Ion, Houston’s innovation hub powered by Rice University, to glean insights from executives at Microsoft, Houston Methodist, Hewlett-Packard Enterprises, Dell Technologies and more.
Anup Sharma, managing partner at ASynapse and chief growth officer at ARTIS Magi, welcomed the audience and asked for a show of hands from CEOs and C-suite executives in attendance. More than half raised their hand.
“It is your responsibility to frame the ‘art of the possible,’ because this is no longer a technology capability. It is a leadership transformation, and my view is you have to be the one to create an environment that encourages novel ideas, reduces the fear of retaliation, of failure,” Sharma said. “Because when you start to create that environment and create a bold vision about what this can do for your business, for your nonprofit, that is when the magic starts.”
AI’s ability to interact through natural language, he explained, levels the playing field in ways previous technologies never could. “Talent is everywhere in the world, but unfortunately, opportunity is not,” he said, adding that by meeting people where they are with their own language and context, AI has the potential to unlock innovation, expand entrepreneurship, accelerate medical discovery and reshape industries.
So how do leaders manage change? Alex Barretto, senior vice president at Dell Technologies, said that structural change becomes real structure.
“If we think about our companies — it doesn’t matter if it’s a government, a nonprofit, corporate America — we are basically a system with functions and finance, accounting, marketing services,” Barretto said. “It’s a collection of systems. Humans organized in certain ways deliver a certain value. And that system has a fabric, it has a DNA that it operates. We call that thing culture.”
Dr. Evan Collins, innovator-in-residency and chief of the Hand and Upper Extremity Center at Houston Methodist, shared a similar systems-focused approach with health care. “Technology has been and will continue to be central to health care innovations, and AI can be used to provide specialist data to patients who might ordinarily have to wait six months for an available specialist appointment. Ensuring AI uses correct data is important,” he said.
People are an important part of the implementation of AI, too. Marie Myers, executive vice president and CFO of Hewlett-Packard Enterprise, shared that “reskilling” the organization with structured programs is key.
“You really need to keep your skills fresh and modern,” Myers said. “But you need to equip folks with a host of tools. Now, some of those are personal productivity tools and others are more developing an understanding of workflows and business processes, but we’ve been very intentional about reskilling and education. And I believe that’s probably one of the tools for success for all of us.”
AI has been pitched to take care of tasks that would otherwise be handled by an entry-level employee. However, entry-level roles give young employees an insight into the nuances of business. As some organizations have decided to replace jobs with AI, others have ramped up their learning opportunities for fresh graduates. Myers noted that she has encouraged multiple internship cohorts each year at Hewlett-Packard.
“It’s those young people that are going to learn and drive the change as well,” she said. “They are actually some of the fastest learners in companies, so I think you need to look at it as a change agent role too.”
At Rice, conversations about AI have been happening in classrooms and research labs for years. The university has steadily woven AI into its curriculum — even a major — to ensure students graduate with the skills and perspective to lead in any industry. That commitment spans disciplines. For example, Professor Fred Oswald received support from the National Science Foundation to examine how AI is shaping hiring practices and how it can impact fairness and equity in the process.
The conversation continues this spring at Rice Business. On April 30, business leaders from across industries are invited to a virtual webinar focused on AI’s practical impact — from streamlining decision-making to improving communication and generating real-time, actionable insights. The goal: helping leaders move from curiosity to confident implementation.
And this summer, that hands-on approach deepens. Haiyang Li, the H. Joe Nelson III Professor of Management, will lead “Driving Growth Through AI and Digital Transformation,” an immersive June 1-3 program through Rice Business Executive Education. Designed for executives and senior leaders, the course explores how AI and machine learning can power sustainable growth and guide organizations through digital transformation.
The 2026 Innovation and AI Summit was co-sponsored by Rice Business Executive Education, the Ion, Rice Alliance, MAGI, Aligned Automation and CenterPoint Energy. For future Ion events, visit iondistrict.com/events.
Rice University’s Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business has been ranked among the world’s leading online MBA programs in the Financial Times Global Online MBA Rankings, placing No. 13 globally (tied with the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University) and No. 6 in the United States.
Congratulations to Lauren Jackson '25 and the business she co-founded, SubSpark, for being selected as one of Poets&Quants' Most Disruptive MBA Startups 2025.
Rice University’s Virani Undergraduate School of Business is introducing the Moody Business Scholars Program, a highly selective, cohort-based undergraduate experience designed to prepare high-achieving business students for careers in competitive industries.
