This story is part of our special anniversary issue of Rice Business Wisdom on artificial intelligence.

There’s a farmer in Honduras who can’t sleep. He has newborn piglets, and he’s trying to decide when the best time to sell them would be. A week? A month? A year? The animals will grow in size and value over time, of course. But they need to be fed and cared for, and the risk of unforeseen complications will rise. A buyer may offer less than he expects. The pigs may get sick. He lies awake with the dilemma: How long should he wait? How much uncertainty can he afford? 

For microentrepreneurs like this farmer, every decision is a question of making the right move at the right time. He may never have used words like liquidity, margins, cash flow or risk tolerance, but he’s weighing all of them. He knows his animals, his buyers, his costs. And he reads them the same way all business owners do, with a restricted view of the future and under the everyday pressures of making a living. 

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What he doesn’t have is something larger businesses take for granted — someone to help him strategize. He doesn’t need to be coached on raising livestock or connecting with buyers. He needs someone to think through the timing with him, weigh his assumptions and surface any concerns he might have missed. 

Marcela Aguilar (Ph.D. ’26) is testing whether that someone could be an AI chatbot. As part of her doctoral research in accounting at Rice Business, she built Mia (short for mentora con inteligencia artificial), a generative AI mentor that operates through WhatsApp, a platform already familiar to microentrepreneurs across Latin America. The goal: to make business guidance more accessible to people on their farms or in their shops, or wherever they’re deciding the next move. 

The Professor’s Gambit 

Long before accounting gave Aguilar a field of study, chess gave her a way to think. She started playing at 13 — late by competitive standards — as a student in El Salvador who struggled with math. She quickly became obsessed with the game, sitting at the board after school “like from 2 p.m. to 8 p.m. every day,” she says.

On weekends she played tournaments where a single game could stretch to five hours. By 18, she had become El Salvador’s national chess champion. 

As she got better at chess, she got better at math. And math, she points out, is the base of economics, of econometrics — of everything that she would build in the years to come. “Chess helps you with logic, with considering options,” Aguilar says. “You’re always thinking: What else? What’s an alternative way to solve this? You have to be ready for the next move, to plan ahead. I think every school should teach chess.” 

That analytical habit of mind — being able to hold several futures at once, weighing what each choice sets in motion — carried her from economics to public policy as a Chevening Scholar at the University of York, into the vast world of Central America’s microenterprises, and eventually to a Ph.D. at Rice. 

“Chess helps you with logic, with considering options,” Aguilar says. “You’re always thinking: What else? What’s an alternative way to solve this? You have to be ready for the next move, to plan ahead. I think every school should teach chess.” 

Years ago, while working at the International Labour Organization (ILO), Aguilar partnered with the chambers of commerce across Central America to understand the region’s informal economy — the ecosystem of tiny, often family-run retailers, manufacturers, street vendors, farmers and service providers that operate outside government records. The scale of that world is easy to underestimate. According to a 2025 report from the International Finance Corporation, micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) make up roughly 90% of all businesses worldwide, employing more than 70% of workers and generating half of global GDP. Aguilar’s job was to help such businesses grow and become more productive, to the point where formalizing with the government could become a beneficial option, opening pathways to credit and further growth. She had no immediate plans to pursue a Ph.D., much less one in accounting. 

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But then her friend Daniela De la Parra (Ph.D. ’21) — herself a former chess champion in Mexico — put Aguilar in touch with K. Ramesh, Rice Business’ Herbert S. Autrey Professor of Accounting and a 2026 recipient of the school’s Ph.D. Student Mentoring Award. At the time, Professor Ramesh was directing De la Parra’s dissertation. (She’s now an assistant professor of accounting at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Kenan-Flagler Business School.) 

Ramesh and Aguilar connected over Zoom. The conversation stretched to 45 minutes, Ramesh generating idea after idea about the questions accounting research could help Aguilar ask of informal economies around the world: How do entrepreneurs who have never seen a financial statement understand their costs, margins and profits? Why do so many run entirely on cash flow? It occurred to Aguilar that she had been engaging in accounting research all along. By the end of the call, Ramesh was urging her to apply to Rice’s Ph.D. program, with only days until the deadline. His energy and enthusiasm for her interests helped her decide. It was the only doctoral program she applied to.

Developing the Pieces

A strong research Ph.D. program is less about learning to answer hard questions than to discover new ones. The right question will reveal what a field has been missing and open new territory that other scholars can then explore. “We’re developing scholars who can identify a rich research question,” Ramesh says, “and who can position themselves to study it and understand the dozens of steps that it will take to do so. When that works, the whole field inherits new questions to pursue. And over time, the findings make their way into organizations and society.” 

Aguilar’s experience shows how that works in practice. She began with a question broad enough to hold an entire career: What role does accounting play in the informal economy? (It’s also the title of a paper forthcoming in the Journal of Accounting and Economics she’s co-authored with Ramesh and Gary Lind, Ph.D. ’19.) And inside that question she found a sharper one: Could an AI mentor put practical business knowledge in the hands of the world’s smallest enterprises? 

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To answer this, she would need to accumulate tools outside the standard accounting curriculum. “The main challenge is the lack of data — and that’s the exciting part as well,” Aguilar says. “These businesses are informal; the government has no record of them. If you want to understand them, you have to go to the field and collect the data yourself.” 

Field experiments, which randomize real people into groups in real-world settings so that outcomes can be traced to causes, remain uncommon in accounting research, and rarer still in developing economies. So Aguilar built her training to match. On top of the Rice accounting program’s core in econometrics, statistics and causal analysis, she supplemented with courses in mathematics, statistics and economics. And when what she needed wasn’t at Rice, Ramesh pointed her outward to a field-experiment summer school at Michigan State University and to another led in part by John List, the University of Chicago economist widely regarded as the most influential field experimentalist working today. Along the way, she connected with other accounting scholars who are running field experiments around the world. 

From there, it took nearly two years to turn Aguilar’s question into a working experiment: a memorandum of understanding between Rice and the ILO; university research approvals; a preregistered analysis plan filed before the first results came in; and near-daily calls with the local chamber of commerce. Only then could the real work begin of finding out what happens when microenterprise owners start chatting with a trained gen AI mentor.

Like other generative AI tools, Mia is meant to support human judgment, not replace it. “At the end of the day, it has to be the entrepreneur making the decisions,” she says.

A Strategy for Scale

Aguilar’s experiment with her WhatsApp LLM Mia unfolded in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, the country’s capital and largest city. Local microentrepreneurs — mostly women, many around age 50 and more than half with less than a secondary education — were randomly assigned to one of three groups. Randomizing the groups meant they looked alike, on average, in terms of education, experience, business category, etc. “It’s something really simple, but it changes everything,” Aguilar says. “Then you can talk about causality, not just correlation.”

All three groups were given the same ILO business curriculum. What varied was the teacher. Group 1 met with a human trainer in a classroom, the way the local chamber of commerce had taught for years. Group 2 got a version of Aguilar’s Mia that taught the same ILO material in a traditional way of siloing topics: a unit on marketing, another on accounting, etc. Group 3 got a version of Mia that treated accounting as the language of business — a thread that integrates into every decision microentrepreneurs make about pricing, suppliers, discounts, timing and beyond. 

Participants could send questions to Mia as voice notes and photos, and Mia could answer with voice notes back. “A lot of people said it felt like a friend,” Aguilar says. “Someone they could just talk to easily.” With in-person trainings, she notes, social pressure can keep people from asking questions. Someone who never finished primary school might sit next to someone with a master’s degree, and in that context might hesitate to ask questions out of fear of seeming uneducated. But with Mia, every question gets a judgment-free answer. 

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The study allowed Aguilar to test two comparisons at once: AI-based versus human-led training; and accounting woven into business decisions versus taught as a stand-alone subject. (The experiment did not measure changes in sales or profits, outcomes that can be difficult to measure over such a limited period.) 

The entrepreneurs took to Mia quickly. According to Chicago Booth Review, which reported on Aguilar’s research in April 2026, 173 business owners sent Mia more than 30,000 text messages, some 3,000 voice notes and 1,500 images over the month the program ran — asking questions about pricing, inventory, customers and costs at whatever hour they arose. 

The first finding? Microentrepreneurs who trained with Mia performed about as well as those taught by a human trainer at roughly 3% of the cost. While it’s true that chatbots cannot replicate the virtues of in-person training — relationship building, organic storytelling, lesson sharing — AI training holds its quality at scale in a way that armies of human trainers cannot. According to a 2020 report by the World Bank Group, governments and NGOs spend more than $1 billion annually training 4 million to 5 million potential and existing entrepreneurs in developing countries. 

The second finding mattered even more to Aguilar. Most entrepreneurs don’t come looking to learn accounting, Aguilar notes. They want marketing and sales. But Group 3, which used the version of Mia that integrated accounting into every decision, outperformed both other groups. These entrepreneurs generated 78% more conversations combining financial reasoning with other areas of their businesses, such as marketing and strategy. They also were significantly more likely to articulate concrete, growth-oriented plans. “It’s like when we’re in school and someone is teaching us math, and we don’t know how to apply it,” she says. “But if you teach mathematics for making decisions, in your specific context — how many piglets you have multiplied by how much feed you’ll need over such and such a period — you transfer that knowledge from the classroom to the real world.” 

While it’s true that chatbots cannot replicate the virtues of in-person training — relationship building, organic storytelling, lesson sharing — AI training holds its quality at scale in a way that armies of human trainers cannot.

The results have outlived the study. Aguilar says about 30% of the participating businesses have since begun to formalize by registering with the government — a first step toward bank credit, legal protection and growth. And the chamber of commerce in Tegucigalpa, convinced by what it saw, kept Mia on as a regular service for its microentrepreneurs. 

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In the academic world, Aguilar’s studies have also gained notice. This past year, she had the rare distinction of having research presented and discussed at the two most prestigious accounting conferences in the same academic year — the Ray Ball Journal of Accounting Research Conference and the Journal of Accounting and Economics Conference. In 2025, Aguilar and Ramesh also hosted the first conference on the role of accounting in microenterprises, where Aguilar presented her findings on Mia. It was attended by leading scholars from the U.S. and across the globe.

Making the Next Move

Aguilar is already working toward another experimental deployment of Mia in both Honduras and Costa Rica, testing a hybrid model in which human mentors work alongside the AI. “In the ideal world, you have both working together,” she says. “You have training in a classroom but can ask questions at any moment to the AI. That way you’re not missing out on much-needed human interaction but getting the accessibility of the LLM.” 

She’s clear-eyed about the risks of the technology, especially AI hallucinations and the danger of microbusiness owners trusting the machine too completely. Like other generative AI tools, Mia is meant to support human judgment, not replace it. “At the end of the day, it has to be the entrepreneur making the decisions,” she says. 

But Aguilar also sees why accounting researchers cannot stand aside. AI is not only changing the kinds of questions researchers can ask, but also transforming the evidence they can use to answer them. Her experiment produced thousands of recorded conversations, creating a real-time archive of how microentrepreneurs think, worry and learn. It gives the kind of insight no survey ever fully could. 

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One thing AI has not changed is the reason Aguilar is doing the work she does. “Since I started economics at 18, I always wanted to help make a positive change,” she says. “There are so many things we can do to improve quality of life for people.” For her, that has meant bringing accounting as the language of business closer to the people who could use it to think through what comes next for themselves and their microenterprises. 

This fall, Aguilar happens to be taking her own major next step. Having graduated from Rice, she’s making a move from Houston to Chicago to join the tenure-track faculty at the second-oldest business school in the United States — the University of Chicago Booth School of Business — as an assistant professor of accounting.

Written by Scott Pett

If you’re researching MBA programs in 2026, you’ll find plenty of options: full-time, in-person programs; part-time formats designed for working professionals; and fully online degrees. Each offers a different approach to balancing graduate education with your personal and professional commitments.

You might also come across satellite programs housed in offices around the city, or you might be considering a remote education due to the fact that employers have become increasingly accepting of online MBA programs. But these formats, while beneficial for some, can pose a significant disadvantage to your MBA experience. Being on a real campus creates opportunities for face-to-face learning, professional connections and community involvement that can be harder to develop remotely.

Recognizing the value of forming in-person connections with faculty and other students, even Rice Business’ Online MBA program requires at least one on-campus immersion. So what does studying on campus add to your MBA experience? Here are five benefits to consider:

Hands-on Learning From Top Faculty With Deep Ties to Houston

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An MBA is an inherently collaborative degree. Students learn from faculty, but they also learn from one another, bringing different professional experiences and perspectives to discussions of complex business challenges. 

In-person classes allow students to ask immediate questions, challenge arguments and learn to communicate ideas in real time. At Rice Business, you’ll study with faculty who are embedded in the community and bring both deep research expertise and real-world experience to the classroom. Our faculty have deep ties to our city, its businesses and our community — they’re not just visiting to lecture over the weekend.

That collaboration continues outside the classroom. Working face-to-face with your cohort deepens group projects, presentations and case competitions, and it gives you opportunities to practice communicating, negotiation and leading teams. Informal conversations between classes or over coffee with a professor can be just as valuable as scheduled instruction.

These interactions also help develop interpersonal skills that are difficult to practice in isolation, from reading body language and navigating disagreements to presenting ideas persuasively and building your professional presence.

Whether you pursue the Full-Time MBA or one of Rice Business’ Professional MBA formats, the opportunity to learn alongside other professionals adds an important dimension to the academic experience.

Personalized Career Support and Employer Access

An MBA can open new career opportunities, but navigating a career transition or advancing into leadership takes more than classroom knowledge. It also requires guidance, preparation and access to employers.

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At Rice Business, students have direct access to the Career Development Office (CDO), which provides career coaching and resources across programs. Being on campus makes it easier to build relationships with dedicated career advisers, whether you’re looking for help with your resume, preparing for an interview or thinking through your next career move.

Rice MBA students also have opportunities to connect directly with recruiters and hiring organizations. More than 300 employers engage with Rice Business annually through networking events, mock interviews, career fairs and other activities. The CDO also brings successful Rice Business alumni and industry professionals to campus to share their experiences and connect with students exploring different career paths. The fall Industry Weeks series, for example, gives students opportunities to hear from employers across energy, healthcare, technology and real estate.

For students considering a career change, these conversations can provide a clearer picture of an industry and connections that may prove valuable during a job search.

Professional Networking That Lasts Beyond Graduation

Some of the most valuable professional relationships develop gradually and organically, through repeated interactions and shared experiences. Between classes, student events, panel discussions, conferences and competitions, you’ll regularly encounter classmates, alumni, faculty and business leaders. 

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Your classmates, in particular, become an important part of your professional network. They bring experience from different industries and functions, and many will go on to leadership positions across the business world. At Rice Business, that network can also translate into tangible career moves: More than 70% of Full-Time MBA students accept positions through the Rice Business community. 

And the relationships don’t end at graduation. As a Rice Business alum, you’ll join a network of more than 10,000 Rice Business alumni who can offer professional connections, industry knowledge and support throughout your career.

For working professionals pursuing a part-time MBA, the opportunity to connect with peers from different programs, backgrounds and experience levels can be especially valuable — which is something you won’t find at most satellite schools. Those relationships can broaden your perspective and introduce you to people working across industries. 

If you’re wondering how to balance a full-time career with graduate school, read our tips for managing work and a part-time MBA.

Education Beyond the Classroom

An in-person MBA experience extends beyond classes and career preparation. Student organizations, campus events and shared traditions give you opportunities to develop leadership skills, explore interests and become part of a community.

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At Rice Business, students can join a variety of clubs, including professional associations, student government organizations, affinity groups and social clubs such as the Rice Business Women’s Organization and the Cork & Cask Club.

These organizations give students opportunities to put classroom concepts into practice. Members take on leadership roles, organize programming, manage budgets, coordinate events and work with classmates to bring projects to life. Some activities, including student-led conferences and networking events, also connect students with business leaders and professionals outside the school. 

Participating in campus life also gives you a chance to interact with students beyond your immediate cohort. Those relationships can broaden your perspective, strengthen your sense of community and make the MBA experience more rewarding. 

Access to University Resources

One advantage of pursuing an MBA at Rice Business is becoming part of a larger, vibrant university community. Stepping out of a corporate office environment and onto a university campus, especially one like Rice University’s beautiful, tree-lined campus, brings a distinct kind of transformation — one that enables you to step back, shift your perspective, and think differently.

Rice University brings together researchers, students and professionals across disciplines, creating opportunities to encounter new ideas and engage with industries that are particularly important to Houston, including energy, technology and healthcare. Students can take full advantage of university resources beyond the business school, including state-of-the-art research libraries, campus dining and a full calendar of lectures, cultural events and other activities.
 

At Rice Business, the addition of Virani Hall has further expanded the spaces available for students to study, collaborate and connect. The building includes Audrey’s Cafe and a dining hall, making it easier to meet classmates over coffee, grab a meal between classes or find a place to work on a group project. (Explore Virani Hall in person or continue reading about how it enhances student life.)

Having these resources at hand makes campus life more convenient while giving students meaningful ways to step away from the daily grind and engage with the broader university community.

Experience Rice Business for Yourself

Choosing an MBA format is ultimately a decision about how you want to learn, work and build relationships during graduate school. Online programs offer flexibility, particularly for students balancing demanding professional and personal commitments. An on-campus experience, meanwhile, gives you regular opportunities for face-to-face collaboration, direct career support and deeper involvement in a professional community. 

The best way to understand what that experience looks like is to see it for yourself. Join us for an upcoming admissions event to explore the Rice Business campus, meet members of the community and learn more about our MBA programs. You can also connect with a Rice Business recruiter to discuss which format is right for you.

Explore Our Rice MBA 
 
 

Rice Business is known for many things — rigorous academic programs, world-class faculty, global rankings and a vibrant campus environment. But what truly sets us apart is our close-knit community, where exceptional faculty know students by name, take a genuine interest in their success and are deeply invested in their growth.

Meet Ben Lansford, director of the Master of Accounting program and professor in the practice of accounting. Since 2014, he has overseen the Rice MAcc program, mentoring students, facilitating employer relations and cultivating a tight-knit community.

Lansford discusses what brought him to Rice, why a MAcc is a strong fit for students of all backgrounds, and how the Rice Business program offers unmatched career opportunities.

About You

1. Tell us about your background and what brought you to Rice.

I wasn’t an accounting major in college. I discovered accounting later and became interested in the way it helps you understand how businesses work. That interest ultimately led me to earn a Ph.D. in accounting and pursue an academic career.

From 2010 to 2014, I directed Penn State University’s Master of Accounting program. In 2014, I joined Rice to help Professor K. Ramesh launch the university’s Master of Accounting program, and I’ve served as its director ever since. Having helped build the program from the ground up, I take particular pride in what it’s become.

2. What do you enjoy most about teaching accounting, and how has teaching influenced your approach to leading the MAcc program?

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I often tell students that accounting is the language of business. If you understand the language, you don’t have to depend on someone else to translate what a company’s financial statements or business decisions are telling you.

That’s what I enjoy most about teaching accounting. Whether I’m teaching undergraduate, MBA or MAcc students, I can give them knowledge that helps them better understand businesses. I also try to connect what we’re learning to real companies and current events so students can see why the material matters.

That carries over to how I think about the MAcc program. We want our students to develop strong technical accounting knowledge, but that’s only part of what they need. They also need to be able to analyze unfamiliar problems, determine what information matters, exercise sound judgment and explain their conclusions clearly.

The MAcc Experience

3. For those who are unfamiliar with the MAcc, how would you explain what it is and what it can do for a student’s career?

The Rice MAcc is a 10-month professional graduate program that prepares students to begin an accounting-based career.

Students develop a strong understanding of the major areas of accounting, including financial accounting, tax, auditing and managerial accounting, along with related areas, such as business law and finance. They also gain experience using data analytics, technology and AI in an accounting setting.

Just as importantly, the program develops the professional skills students need when they enter the workforce. Our students graduate prepared to sit for the CPA exam and ready to begin their careers with skills they can use immediately. 

4. Who should consider pursuing a Master of Accounting?

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There’s a stereotype that accounting is mostly about working with numbers by yourself. In reality, successful accountants spend a large part of their day working with clients, colleagues, executives and other professionals. You need to be comfortable with numbers, but you also need to communicate clearly and work well with other people.

So, I think the program is a good fit for someone who’s curious about how businesses work, likes solving problems, and values both analytical work and interaction with people. The program gives students immediate opportunities for success but also sets them up for long-term opportunities later in their careers.

5. Do you need an accounting background to pursue a Rice MAcc?

One of the hallmarks of the Rice MAcc is that we welcome students from all undergraduate majors, including those who didn’t study business or accounting.

For students who majored in accounting, the Rice MAcc builds on that foundation with greater technical depth. It also places more emphasis on critical thinking, professional judgment, communication, technology and other business skills.

Students who didn’t major in accounting complete prerequisite courses before beginning the program. Once they enter the MAcc, everyone moves through the curriculum together. By graduation, our goal is for every student, regardless of undergraduate major, to be prepared for the CPA exam and for an accounting-based career.

6. How is the curriculum designed to prepare students for the changing accounting profession, including technology, data and AI?

Technology is infused throughout the Rice MAcc curriculum.

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We have courses in information systems, data analytics and AI for professional accountants that directly teach students how to use technology and AI in an accounting context. Students also use these tools in other courses throughout the program.

Our focus isn’t simply on teaching students how to use AI to complete work more efficiently. We also emphasize that accountants need enough technical knowledge and professional judgment to evaluate the output.

AI can make an accountant more productive, but it doesn’t eliminate the need to understand accounting. In many ways, it makes that understanding even more important because someone still has to know whether the answer makes sense.

Why Rice?

7. What makes the Rice MAcc different from other Master of Accounting programs?

One thing that sets the Rice MAcc apart is its intentionally small size. A typical cohort has about 30 to 40 students.

Students take the same core courses together, work together frequently on group projects and participate in activities outside the classroom. That creates a strong sense of community. Students get to know one another well, and the faculty get to know the students well, too. 

Another distinguishing feature is the fact that we welcome students from all undergraduate majors. Every year, we have students from a wide range of academic backgrounds. We’ve even had students who majored in areas as far removed from accounting as music performance.

8. How does being part of Rice Business and the Houston business community shape the student experience?

Rice Business has a cooperative, tight-knit environment, and that carries over to the MAcc program.

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The program is challenging and moves quickly, but our students tend to be very supportive of one another. They study together, work together on projects, help each other with recruiting and form relationships that continue after they graduate.

Being in Houston connects Rice MAcc students to a large and diverse business community with opportunities in public accounting, energy, healthcare, professional services, technology and many other industries. Our location gives students access to a wide range of employers and professionals while they’re still in the program.

In addition, Houston is simply a great place to live. It’s a growing, vibrant city with an excellent food scene.

9. What do you think students gain from the Rice MAcc that they might not get from an undergraduate accounting degree alone?

For students with an undergraduate accounting degree, the MAcc offers greater technical depth, but I think the bigger difference is the transition from learning accounting primarily as an academic subject to learning how to operate as an accounting professional. For those who studied other subjects, the program provides a pathway into a career they may not have considered when they began college.

In both cases, the goal is to prepare students for the realities of working in accounting. While the CPA exam is an important milestone, success in the profession also requires the ability to analyze difficult problems, communicate conclusions, make presentations, exercise professional judgment and work effectively with others. The Rice MAcc gives students opportunities to develop and apply those skills before they enter the workforce.

Careers and Value

10. What career paths do Rice MAcc graduates pursue, and how does the program prepare them for those opportunities?

Most of our graduates begin their careers with public accounting firms, often one of the Big Four, in audit or tax.

I think public accounting is an excellent place to start a business career. You receive a great deal of training, work with talented people, and are exposed to many different companies and business issues early in your career.

Other graduates go into corporate accounting, consulting, finance or related areas. We want students to leave Rice with the technical knowledge, communication skills, judgment and professional confidence they need to succeed in their first job, but also with a foundation that will allow them to move into broader roles later in their careers.

Hear where the Rice MAcc took alumnus Will Eldridge ’17:

11. For a student wondering whether a graduate accounting degree is worth the investment, how would you describe the value and return on investment of a Rice MAcc?

I think the value of the MAcc should be considered over an entire career, not just in terms of a student’s first job after graduation.

Earning a CPA license can provide benefits throughout your working life. The CPA exam is difficult, and earning a Master of Accounting degree is an effective way to develop the technical knowledge needed to pass it.

But the Rice MAcc is much more than CPA preparation. Students also develop professional and critical thinking skills that will serve them throughout their careers, and build relationships with classmates, faculty, alumni, and employers that can remain valuable for many years. For someone who wants to build a career in accounting and business, I think that combination provides a strong return on the investment.

If you’re considering a career in public accounting, Rice’s Houston-based Master of Accounting could be the perfect fit for you. Explore program details below or reach out to Professor Lansford today.

Explore the Rice MAcc

Owl Have You Know

After many years in the mortgage industry, Todd Jones ’23 took a leap into entrepreneurship with a mission shaped by his own experience as a veteran and homeowner. Now the founder and CEO of Salute Mortgage, he’s working to help veterans make the most of their VA loan benefits and make the homebuying process easier for everyone.

In this episode of Owl Have You Know, Todd joins his cousin and co-host Brian Jackson ’21 to reflect on the leadership lessons he learned at West Point, what inspired him to build his own company, and how his Rice Business Executive MBA helped him see new possibilities. He also shares how AI and other emerging technologies could change the homebuying experience, the story behind a landmark $8.75 million VA loan with no down payment, and the personal values that continue to guide him as an entrepreneur.
 

Subscribe to Owl Have You Know on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube or wherever you find your favorite podcasts.

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For much of the 20th century, companies could shape their reputations more deliberately, with more time to respond to emerging issues and greater control over how information reached the public. Traditional media served as gatekeepers, and crises unfolded over days or weeks in newspapers and media broadcasts.

Those days are over. With the rise of social media, artificial intelligence and online polarization, the traditional levers of reputation management have fragmented. Organizations are expected to manage relationships with shareholders, customers, employees, suppliers, the media, regulators and the public more quickly and directly than ever. At the same time, intangible assets like patents, trademarks, copyrights, branding, software, proprietary data, customer relationships, trade secrets and goodwill have risen in value, now accounting for over 90% of the market value of S&P 500 companies, up from 17% in 1975.

Rice Business professor Anastasiya Zavyalova studies how these forces are shaping “organizational social evaluations” — the collective judgments that audiences form about a company — into a core strategic concern. She recently co-edited the new Oxford Handbook of Organisational Social Evaluations, a 720-page volume that brings together cross-disciplinary research and practitioner experience and provides critical insight for business managers and executives.

Congratulations on the release of the new Oxford Handbook. Can you tell us about it?

The project came out of conversations at the University of Oxford’s Centre for Corporate Reputation, where I’m an international fellow. It brings together scholars from different disciplines, but the center also invites practitioners. We meet once a year for a reputation symposium.

At one of those meetings, we were talking about research on what we now call social evaluations of organizations. Really, what that means is: How do people form judgments about companies and organizations? How do companies build relationships with stakeholders? How do they manage the way stakeholders think about them, especially in the age of social media and AI?

In the 1970s, top companies’ market value came from tangible assets: factories, equipment, machinery — everything you physically owned. But in the past 25 years or so, company valuation has become increasingly intangible, including just the public’s belief in the company’s future earnings. What do investors think? What do shareholders believe they will get out of this company? Can you deliver on the promise? A big part of that is reputation, or what people believe about your organization and your leadership.

You can see it in acquisitions, because that is one of the rare moments when someone actually puts a dollar amount on what they believe a company is worth. When Facebook bought WhatsApp for $19 billion, for example, most of the purchase price was goodwill. It wasn’t the servers or the physical things they owned. It was, essentially, belief that the company would provide value in the future. From a practitioner perspective, that is why this area is important. Do stakeholders trust your company to deliver value?

We realized that this research has just skyrocketed. The research has proliferated over the last two decades, but there was not one go-to source. The ambition of the book was to put scholarly and practitioner minds together in one place.

It sounds like the speed of our communications is one of the primary challenges leaders face today.

Years ago, companies had more breathing room. In the 1980s when an oil spill happened, company leadership had time to figure out a communications strategy and what they were going to say. Now, if a major oil spill happens, the news can spread all over the world in a matter of seconds. As a leader, you have to be ready to deliver your message.

Companies that want to be prepared have strategies in place for different scenarios. Some have what they call war rooms. They practice: If this happens, what is the message? For a large company, inevitably something will happen, so you need to be ready.

But this is where the fundamentals still matter. If you actually do what you do well, you can withstand a crisis that is brewing on social media. Your underlying business should be strong. And you have to be consistent, both across stakeholders and over time. You cannot communicate one thing to employees and something else to the public because the internal message can also become public. If you are consistent, you can build a strong reputation, and that becomes a safety net when a crisis hits.

Social media seems to make company scandals easier to learn about but somehow also easier to forget about. Is that the case?

I think social media and now AI have contributed to two countervailing forces. On one hand, news cycles have sped up so much that when something new happens, we often forget what happened only a week or so ago. Very few stories keep going in the media for long.

On the other hand, digital technology has preserved an archive of everything companies have said or done. When a company does something today, it’s easy to go back and hold it accountable for actions in the past. Even if you erase something from your website, someone may have taken a screenshot. The digital history of each company is now preserved forever.

That makes social evaluations more challenging to manage, because you can be held accountable for past deeds even as information about a new crisis is spreading almost instantly.

If stakeholder perceptions are that impactful, doesn’t that encourage companies to focus on looking good instead of actually performing well?

Some companies do that, but I think that strategy will backfire, and quite quickly, especially in the era of social media. It’s more and more costly to be inauthentic. Employees will sense it right away. They are often the first stakeholders who know that what you are saying diverges completely from what you are actually doing.

Eventually, that gap can backfire publicly. Employees can leak information confidentially or anonymously. Then investors may start asking: Is turnover going to increase? Are the most valuable employees going to competitors? It all trickles down. Enron was a great example of this.

In some of the research, we refer to this as the reputation-identity gap. Identity is who you truly are. Reputation is what others believe you are. The larger the gap, the more troubling it is, the more like a house of cards your company becomes. If the goal is sustainable competitive advantage, you want your words to match your actions.

One way to close that gap is to make fewer rosy public declarations. Another, and I think the one many leaders aspire to, is to make the internal workings of the company as good as what they publicly declare them to be. That is more sustainable.

Does polarization make that harder to do? How should a company think about taking public positions when it knows it cannot please everyone?

You can see evidence of how much more polarized the United States has become in polling on where Democrats and Republicans stand on different issues. If you look back to the 1990s, the means of those distributions were much closer together. Now they are much farther apart. On many issues, the two sides have become much more divided.

I think there are two views on this question, and there is no right or wrong answer. Ultimately, each CEO or manager decides what feels right.

One view is: These are my values. I am going to stand by them. If I lose customers or investors, so be it. Patagonia is a good example. Chick-fil-A is another. You know an issue will be polarizing, but you are willing to have a smaller group of loyal followers.

The other view is: I am not going to take stances. I am going to make a product and run a good company. In recent years, I have had students say, why would I care what the company thinks about every social issue? I want a paycheck, a good salary, a stable work environment and decent co-workers.

I think some leaders are being prudent and deciding not to take stances regardless of their personal beliefs. But it is a conundrum. On one hand, you want to please more polarized stakeholders. On the other hand, you want as many customers and investors as possible. That is the landscape companies are in.

Where does AI fit into this now? Is it changing reputation management or mostly accelerating what was already happening?

I think everyone is still figuring this out. If we stay in the realm of social perceptions about companies, what AI has enabled is the production of content, lots of information about companies. What matters is that some of that information could be fake, and it can be produced very quickly.

People attend to emotional messages about companies and organizations they care about. So fake emotional content can spread very quickly online. You can be damaged for things you have not done. AI has also enabled deepfakes, where a company leader can appear to say something they never said. From a reputation management perspective, that fake information can have true, tangible consequences.

And it is not difficult to imagine how it spreads. You can tweak the emotionality, insert an issue you already know is polarizing and make it sound plausible. Just plausible enough.

Like any technology, there are pros and cons, and it can be used by bad actors. But in another forthcoming article, my co-authors and I argue that AI can be a very useful technology, but it has to co-evolve with human input. If we step in now and have a strong hand in how the technology is used, I think it could have more benefits than costs to society. But that is a big if.

This interview originally appeared in Rice Business Wisdom and was lightly edited for Rice News.

• Full-time MBA programs can facilitate significant career pivots through intensive immersion and networking, while part-time programs support upward mobility within your current industry. 
• You should select a full-time program if you want an accelerated timeline, or choose a part-time format to maintain your salary and job continuity. 
• Financial planning involves balancing the opportunity cost of leaving the workforce against the benefits of continued income or employer sponsorship. 
• Both MBA formats offer identical long-term alumni benefits and career returns, so your choice depends on your personal financial and professional circumstances.

What’s the Difference Between a Full-Time and Part-Time MBA? 

Choosing between a full-time and a part-time MBA depends on your career goals, finances and lifestyle.

A traditional full-time MBA demands complete academic immersion. You leave the workforce for roughly two years, attend classes during the day and dedicate your evenings to study groups, networking events and career recruitment preparation. 

Part-time MBA formats, including Rice’s Professional MBAs, prioritize flexibility. These programs deliver the same curriculum through evening, weekend or hybrid schedules, which often benefits working professionals. Continuing your current employment, you’ll maintain your salary while attending classes outside of standard business hours — allowing you to integrate classroom theories directly into your role. 

Here are a few differences you’ll find across these MBA formats.

The typical duration of either a full-time or part-time MBA is about two years. In some cases, part-time MBA programs enable students to take longer to complete the MBA to accommodate work schedules. However, at Rice Business, both the Full-Time and Professional MBA programs take 22 months to complete. Review the Rice Full-Time MBA and Rice Professional MBA program pages for more information. 

What Are the Key Benefits of a Part-Time MBA? 

Many working professionals hesitate to pause their careers just as they begin building serious momentum — but a flexible business degree offers a practical solution. The benefits of a part-time MBA go far beyond convenience, and can offer a new edge to your everyday performance and long-term growth, such as: 

• Immediate Professional Application: Apply new frameworks from your lectures at your office the next day — demonstrating immediate value to your employer. 
• Continuous Financial Stability: Keeping your job means you continue earning a salary and avoid the opportunity cost associated with leaving the workforce for two years. 
• Employer Sponsorship Opportunities: Many employers offer tuition reimbursement programs for employees who pursue advanced degrees while working. Learn how to ask for employer sponsorship for your MBA. 
• Uninterrupted Career Progression: Continue building your resume and work experience, which may help you to compete for internal promotions even before you finish the degree. 

Why Choose a Full-Time MBA Program? 

Stepping away from daily professional obligations allows you to dedicate yourself entirely to transformation, networking and rigorous academics. Below are a few core full-time MBA advantages. 

• Summer Internships: Full-time MBA programs largely include internships over the summer, along with the support to find and complete one. If you want to leverage an MBA to pivot into industries like product management or investment banking, a summer internship with top employers is a bridge to prove your capability in a new industry.* 
• Immersive Experiences: Without a demanding full-time job, you have the bandwidth to lead student organizations, participate in case competitions, and engage deeply with visiting executives, alumni and employers. 
• Dedicated On-Campus Recruiting: Full-time programs may offer more time for structured recruitment opportunities. Rice’s Career Development Office connects MBAs with top employers at consulting firms, investment banks, tech companies and more. 

*The internship is a requirement in our Full-Time MBA program. Internships aren’t required in our Professional MBA programs (Evening, Weekend and Hybrid), since students work full-time and many advance without one. That said, Rice is one of the few programs that allows Professional MBA students the opportunity to pursue an internship if they choose. Our Career Development Office supports your goals either way, so speak with Admissions to navigate schedule trade-offs and to find the right format for you.

Understanding Costs and Financial Obligations 

When evaluating your MBA options, it is essential to consider the financial investment required for each pathway. Pursuing a graduate business degree represents a significant commitment, and understanding the total program costs helps you plan your journey. For example, review costs and financial information for some Rice MBA programs.
 

Hear finance professor James Weston explain why an MBA from Rice is a strong investment: 
 

Fortunately, several financial resources can help ease these costs. For part-time students, leveraging employer tuition sponsorship is a highly effective way to reduce out-of-pocket expenses. Full-time students, on the other hand, benefit from robust access to financial aid and scholarships, with 96% of Rice Full-Time students receiving scholarship support to help fund their education. 

How Do Career Outcomes and ROI Compare? 

Both a full-time and a part-time MBA offer a great financial payoff in the long run, but what your career looks like right after graduation will vary depending on what you choose. 

If you want to make a total career switch, a full-time program may be your best fit. Pivoting often requires dedicated time, hands-on internship experience and direct access to campus recruiters. Though you’ll be stepping away from consistent pay, the Full-Time MBA at Rice often pays off with a significant salary increase, especially in fields like consulting or finance. 

On the other hand, if you’re looking to climb the ladder in your current field, a part-time format can help maximize your ROI. Many working professionals use their new skills to land promotions, negotiate a raise or jump to a better role at a competing company while still completing the MBA. 

Ultimately, the true value of an MBA grows over time, no matter how you take your classes. Graduates from both tracks get the exact same access to Rice’s tight-knit alumni network. That means you’ll have a lifelong community for mentorship, partnership opportunities and career growth long after you finish your degree. 

How To Decide Which Program Fits Your Goals 

Making your final business school decision requires a thorough self-assessment. Review the following part time vs full time mba factors to determine your ideal format. 

• Evaluate your transition timeline: Do you need to change industries immediately, or are you looking to steadily climb the corporate ladder within your current field? 
• Assess your financial risk tolerance: Can you sustain your lifestyle for two years without a salary, or do you need continuous income to meet family and personal needs? 
• Review your professional tenure: Do you have the typical 3-5 years of experience suited for a full-time cohort, or does your extensive background align better with more established part-time peers? 
• Analyze your geographic flexibility: Are you willing to relocate to a new city for an immersive two-year program, or do you need a local part-time program near your current residence? 
• Determine your daily capacity: Do you possess the discipline to balance 40 hours of corporate work with 15 to 20 hours of rigorous weekly academic study? Read our guide for balancing full-time work with a part-time MBA. 

Next Steps: Researching Schools and Job Outcomes 

The best way to decide is to look past the marketing materials and talk to people actually in the programs. Reach out to current students or alumni from the programs you’re interested in for an honest look at what the day-to-day is really like. Connect with a Rice Business student ambassador to learn about our community and programs. 

Also, take a close look at the official employment reports for any school you’re considering. These reports give you a clear picture of what graduates achieve. You can use them to verify potential job outcomes, and you’ll find helpful data on average starting salaries and the industries that are currently hiring. 

Finally, map out your own timeline and look at your finances. When you know your career stage and financial situation match up with what a program offers, you’ll feel much more confident in your decision. Continue reading about how to fund a part-time MBA. 

Whether you choose a Full-Time MBA or an evening, hybrid or weekend program, you’ll get a transformative education that prepares you for what’s next. The best choice depends on your schedule, budget and career goals. 

Ready to find your MBA? Take our quiz and explore Rice MBA admissions today.

Explore Our Rice MBA 
 
 

Based on research by Vikas Mittal (Rice Business), Sonam Singh (University of South Florida) and Ashwin Malshe (UT – San Antonio)

Key takeaways:

• Among all known measures — brand equity, net promoter, customer experience, service quality or referrals — customer satisfaction is the only known metric that predicts 12 different outcomes.
• Many CEOs have consistently grown sales, margins and stock price by improving customer satisfaction. 
• Executives should systematically measure customer satisfaction to identify strategy drivers and create their strategic plan. 

When the president and CEO of Houston-based ITI Manufacturing dug into the factors driving customer value at his company, he found neither cutting prices nor refining his sales process — the approaches his marketing team and brand advisor advocated — made a real impact. Tracing back to specific attributes in each strategic area showed that providing weekly customer updates and resolving issues to customers’ satisfaction had the highest lift in customer satisfaction.

CEO Joshua Robinson, Rice MBA ’21, fully committed to excelling on those two drivers. Within two quarters, all of ITI’s customers got weekly updates and every issue was completely resolved with fidelity. The results: Four years later, ITI’s stock had climbed by 115%, three times faster than the S&P 500, after tracking virtually parallel with the index in years prior.

ITI’s success story is not an isolated one. A new paper co-authored by Rice Business Professor Vikas Mittal, “Customer satisfaction: A multi-level framework,” shows the power of customer satisfaction at scale. In a study of more than 285 million ratings across 1,126 brands, researchers link customer satisfaction to 12 financial and non-financial outcomes, including sales, profit margin, purchase intent, cash flow and stock returns. 

“Many of today’s CEOs and senior executives are using gut feelings, intuition and intuitive leaps to come up with their business strategy,” Mittal says. “Their strategy may be the latest industry trend, or what a competitor is doing, or what they learned from a conference or AI. But that leads to strategy clutter. Focusing on customer satisfaction is a way to directly link science-driven strategy to customer outcomes, and a way to prioritize. It tells you what actually matters for strategy and what doesn’t.”

Research evidence: Better returns with happier customers

The authors provide strong evidence for their claim.

First, they summarize three separate research reviews that together cover more than 250 studies on customer satisfaction conducted over the past 50 years. The summary clearly showed that companies with more satisfied customers saw higher customer retention, more positive word of mouth, stronger sales and profit, higher cash flow, lower stock volatility and better stock returns.

Second, they combined customer satisfaction ratings from YouGov January 2007 to June 2023, and firm financial information from Compustat and the Center for Research in Security Prices. 

The data included a sample of 17,001 firm-year-quarter observations based on customer satisfaction scores from more than 285 million ratings across 1,126 brands from 458 publicly listed firms — the most comprehensive and largest set of data on customer satisfaction and its outcomes to date.

They showed the pattern held up. Companies with higher satisfaction had customers who were more likely to recommend them and purchase again. They also had higher sales, larger profit margins, better returns on assets, stronger cash flow, better enterprise value and higher stock returns in addition to less volatile cash flow and stock prices. 

Companies with more satisfied customers saw higher customer retention, more positive word of mouth, stronger sales and profit, higher cash flow, lower stock volatility and better stock returns.

Applying these findings to iconic companies, they estimated that a one percentage point increase in customer satisfaction would yield an additional $17.8 billion in Apple’s market value and $7.26 billion in additional sales for Walmart.

“There’s only one metric that can predict so many outcomes for an organization,” Mittal says. “Customer satisfaction is the best measure of customer value, and it’s something that more companies should be using as the basis of their strategic planning process.”

A systematic strategy, rooted in science and logic

The lesson for CEOs and other executive leaders is to not base their strategy on guesswork. Instead, organizations should identify the specific levers that matter most for satisfaction, and then invest in excelling on those.

The framework isn’t limited to for-profit companies, Mittal says. It applies to places like schools and non-profits, too. “We recently worked with two small school districts in Greater Houston to apply this framework. Both increased student retention, academic outcomes, and parent engagement. Every organization has customers, and every one of them benefits from maximizing the value it creates for them.” 

Regulators and policymakers have a stake as well. Regulators could use satisfaction trends to weigh the costs and benefits of proposed mergers and help forecast consumer spending as part of broader economic policy. The same data, Mittal argues, could extend even further, to how companies treat their most vulnerable customers, or how responsibly they operate.

But the core argument, he says, centers on the companies themselves. “Customer satisfaction has to be the strategic basis for all companies,” says Mittal. “Sure, try to be innovative, use AI, you may need to do that. But those things themselves can’t be the strategy unless they’re creating value for the customer.”

Written by Deborah Lynn Blumberg

“Customer Satisfaction: A Multi-Level Framework.” Journal of the Academy of Marketing Science (2026).

Student-led Texas Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition conference highlights Rice’s longstanding role in preparing entrepreneurs to acquire, operate and grow established businesses

Entrepreneurship doesn’t always begin with a new idea; it can start with an established business ready for its next chapter and an entrepreneur who sees ways to strengthen it.

That model, known as entrepreneurship through acquisition (ETA), has deep roots at Rice University. Rice began teaching ETA in 1979 with Ed Williams, and Rice Business continues to build on that legacy through academic programming, student organizations, industry partnerships and a growing network of alumni and investors.

The annual Texas ETA Conference, organized by Rice MBA students and hosted by Rice Business, brought together aspiring entrepreneurs, investors, business owners and advisers to discuss the opportunities and challenges of acquiring small businesses. The conference explored the full acquisition journey, from identifying prospective sellers and evaluating companies to structuring deals, securing financing and creating value after a purchase. Its conversations reflected both the growing interest in ETA and the practical knowledge required to make an acquisition successful.

For aspiring entrepreneurs, buying an existing company offers an alternative to starting a business from scratch. Rather than developing a product, finding customers and building operations from the ground up, an acquirer takes over an established enterprise and looks for ways to improve its performance. That may mean expanding sales, professionalizing operations, improving pricing or introducing technology and systems that the company has never had.

Al Danto, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship, spoke about Williams’ class in his opening remarks welcoming the audience to McNair Hall as well as the new Asha and Farid Virani Hall.

“[Williams] said that the greatest opportunity for a Rice MBA was to acquire an unsophisticated business and add sophistication to it,” Danto said. “I don’t think in nearly 50 years that concept has changed.”

Rice’s entrepreneurship ecosystem helps students explore that path before committing to it. Coursework introduces the mechanics of acquisition, while the Rice ETA Club and internship opportunities connect students with practitioners and real-world experiences. The university’s entrepreneurship resources, alumni relationships and investor networks provide additional opportunities to learn from people who have pursued acquisitions themselves.

The conference extended that community, giving participants an opportunity to compare approaches and hear candid perspectives on the realities of searching for and running a company. The conference included a keynote from Robert Graham, a founding partner at SIG Partners, and founder and CEO of Pillar Health Group, as well as panels on navigating a deal, investor perspectives and the next steps after an acquisition. The conference also featured a valuation workshop.
 

“Buying a business is only the beginning,” said Jeff Fleming, interim dean of Rice Business. “Entrepreneurs need to know how to run it, improve it and grow it. By bringing aspiring entrepreneurs together with investors, business owners and advisers, our students have created a forum for practical conversations about what it takes to acquire and lead a company.”

One major theme was the increasingly competitive market for acquisitions. Speakers described a field that has expanded significantly as more business schools introduce ETA programming, more searchers enter the market and more investors pursue opportunities. For buyers, that means finding promising companies requires more than monitoring listings or relying on brokers.

Building relationships directly with business owners remains essential. Panelists encouraged searchers to make consistent outreach, follow up thoughtfully and treat the process as a long-term relationship-building effort. Artificial intelligence and other technology can improve research and efficiency, but they do not replace the trust required to persuade an owner to sell a business to a new leader.

Evaluating a company also requires looking beyond its obvious strengths and weaknesses. A business without a formal sales team, a marketing budget or standardized operating procedures may offer substantial opportunities for improvement. At the same time, buyers must understand risks such as dependence on the owner, customer concentration, industry cycles and changing regulations.

The discussion underscored that ETA is not a single formula. Aspiring buyers may pursue traditional search funds, self-funded searches or newer models that combine elements of both. Attendees were encouraged to research the options, speak with entrepreneurs who have taken different paths and identify a strategy suited to their circumstances.

Yet the fundamentals of successful ownership remain consistent: understand the business, identify realistic opportunities to improve it, build strong relationships and prepare for the work of operating a company after the deal closes.

That emphasis on practical experience is central to Rice’s approach. The university’s longstanding engagement with ETA gives students access to a field shaped not only by finance and dealmaking but also by leadership, operational judgment and the responsibility of sustaining businesses and the jobs they support.