Season 1, Episode 6 Runsi Sen ’04 talks about her transition out of the corporate world and the life circumstances that led her to found an ovarian cancer non-profit foundation, Ovarcome.
Owl Have You Know
Season 1, Episode 6
Runsi Sen ’04 talks about her transition out of the corporate world and the life circumstances that led her to found an ovarian cancer non-profit foundation, Ovarcome.
Becky chats about traveling the world with Disney on Ice and founding a business that works with local law enforcement and veterans to make private security more accessible.
Michelle talks about her journey — from the arts to executive leadership, why soft skills matter more than you think and how failing fast and smart can shape a resilient career.
Shai chats about her pivots from law to music and back again, the invaluable lessons she’s learned along the way, what led her to pursue an Executive MBA at Rice and how she’s already putting insights from the program to use.
Yan “Anthea” Zhang, the Fayez Sarofim Vanguard Professor of Management at Rice Business, is the new president-elect of the Strategic Management Society (SMS). The SMS consists of over 3,000 members from more than 80 countries including academics, business practitioners and consultants.
Avery Ruxer Franklin
Yan “Anthea” Zhang, the Fayez Sarofim Vanguard Professor of Management at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business, is the new president-elect of the Strategic Management Society (SMS).
The SMS consists of over 3,000 members from more than 80 countries including academics, business practitioners and consultants. Members work on developing and sharing strategic management insights around the world.
“I seek to both expand SMS’s presence on a global scale and increase the diversity and inclusivity of our community,” Zhang wrote in her nomination statement.
From my own experience, I understand the career hurdles that are sometimes faced by junior, female and international scholars, and I want to see SMS play a critical role in fostering an inclusive academic community for strategy scholars from all backgrounds.
Yan “Anthea” Zhang
Fayez Sarofim Vanguard Professor of Management
The organization is governed by a 14-member board of directors, who elect presidents for a six-year term. Zhang will serve as president-elect for two years, starting Jan. 1. She will be president the following two years and past-president for the last two.
Zhang aims to increase SMS’s international reach, further engage practitioners and leverage the diversity of SMS membership. She has previously served the society as associate editor of its Strategic Management Journal, representative-at-large for its Global Strategy Interest Group and representative-at-large for its Corporate Strategy and Corporate Governance Interest Group.
“I am honored to have been part of SMS for the past two decades. … I intend to work closely with all members to make SMS a more inclusive and impactful society,” Zhang wrote.
"Rice was the only school I seriously considered. As a Houstonian, I wanted to root myself locally while still learning from one of the best programs in the country. Rice’s reputation, combined with its values and community, made it the clear choice."
On April 14, Rice made history by hosting its inaugural Rice Day at the Capitol. More than 50 students, faculty and staff traveled to Austin for a full day of advocacy, education and celebration. The event served as a showcase of the university’s statewide impact in areas ranging from innovation to the arts and sciences.
Season 1, Episode 5
Sean O. Ferguson '01, former associate dean of Rice Business, catches up with host David Droogleever. Sean covers his career path from electrical engineering to pursuing a doctorate in global education and his current work as the associate dean of the Asia School of Business in Kuala Lumpur.
Owl Have You Know
Season 1, Episode 5
Sean O. Ferguson ’01, former associate dean of Rice Business, catches up with host David Droogleever. Sean covers his career path from electrical engineering to pursuing a doctorate in global education and his current work as the associate dean of the Asia School of Business in Kuala Lumpur.
Becky chats about traveling the world with Disney on Ice and founding a business that works with local law enforcement and veterans to make private security more accessible.
Michelle talks about her journey — from the arts to executive leadership, why soft skills matter more than you think and how failing fast and smart can shape a resilient career.
Shai chats about her pivots from law to music and back again, the invaluable lessons she’s learned along the way, what led her to pursue an Executive MBA at Rice and how she’s already putting insights from the program to use.
Congrats to Samantha Lewis ’17, who recently joined the Houston-based Mercury Fund as principal. Formerly a director at GOOSE Capital, her passion for entrepreneurship and proven experience will serve her well. Good luck in this next chapter, Samantha!
“Employers are interested in attracting the best talent to their organizations. The delivery method of the program is less important than the level of talent that it graduates,” says Philip Heavilin, executive director of the Career Development Office.
Rice Business placed in the top 10 of five categories in The Princeton Review’s latest rankings of the Best Business Schools for 2021, including the number 6 spot for our newest program, MBA@Rice.
Avery Ruxer Franklin
Rice University’s Jones Graduate School of Business placed in the top 10 of five categories in The Princeton Review’s latest rankings of the Best Business Schools for 2021, including the No. 6 spot for its newest program, MBA@Rice.
Rice Business ranked highly in both the On-Campus MBA and Online MBA classifications. MBA@Rice graduated its first cohort this past May, making it eligible to be ranked.
The Princeton Review rankings are based on data from its surveys of nearly 24,000 students enrolled in MBA programs at 369 schools and of administrators at those schools. Among the factors assessed were career outcomes, technological infrastructure, academic rigor and affordability.
Rice Business was in the top 10 in the following categories:
“All courses at Rice Business are taught by a team of dedicated, nationally recognized faculty who integrate insights from their own rigorous, peer-reviewed research to help students understand topics in accounting, finance, marketing, organizational behavior and strategy in the context of today’s business landscape,” said Rice Business Dean Peter Rodriguez.
Today’s rankings are a reflection of the school’s commitment to excellence in teaching and serving our students.
Intero Biosystems — a life science company that has developed the first cell-derived human “mini gut” replicating cell types, spatial structure and function of the human intestine — took home the grand prize at the 2025 Rice Business Plan Competition.
Rice University continues to stand out for its academic excellence with several graduate programs earning high marks in the latest edition of U.S. News & World Report’s “Best Graduate Schools” rankings.
While a strong test score is very often still a marker of a strong application at full-time MBAs, online programs increasingly offer generous test waivers, allowing students to forgo the GMAT or GRE in lieu of work experience or strong academic credentials.
Rice Business alum Duncan Dickerson helps advise the world’s biggest oil companies on how to navigate the great carbon transition as the vice president of investment banking at Lazard in Houston.
Rice Business now has a third cohort in its full-time MBA program — a response to Houston's growth as a global business hub. Rice Business Dean Peter Rodriguez explains why the Rice Business Community is now a bigger pond with more fish.
Updated from original post that was published on 12/02/2020.
Why Rice Business is Growing
Q and A with Dean Peter Rodriguez
As one of the top MBA programs, Rice Business has always been intentionally small and selective. It’s an educational approach that has launched the careers of thousands of top-tier, versatile business people able to solve some of the biggest organizational challenges.
We recognize the tremendous advantages of getting an MBA. Our programs are designed to meet the increasing demands of today's industries and equip our students with the skills necessary for leadership roles. This year, Rice Business has for the first time added a third cohort to its full-time MBA program. It’s a response to the demand for top business school graduates – especially within Houston, where waves of new residents, innovators and Fortune 1000 businesses create an ecosystem full of opportunities for MBAs.
Houston needs top caliber MBAs. Rice Business is accommodating the demand
Here, Rice Business Dean Peter Rodriguez explains why the Rice Business community is now a bigger pond with more fish.
Q: COVID-19, economic uncertainty and visa challenges have all made 2020 a unique year in higher education. Yet despite – and sometimes because – of these obstacles, MBA applications at top programs have actually leaped upward. In addition to its new fulltime MBA cohort, Rice Business has fielded more applications in the past cycle; expanded all its MBA campus programs, adding an overall 137 more MBA students; and increased its cohorts at MBA@Rice, the school’s popular online MBA.Why are MBAs at top schools in demand right now?
PR:The MBA is the most successful post-graduate degree program in history, largely because it directly addresses the knowledge and skills that translate into leadership opportunities. Leading in organizations, whether established or being created, is challenging, multi-dimensional work. It requires far more than discipline in one specific skill delivered by one individual. It demands accountability for others and the skills to shape and influence their work as individuals and teams.
No undergraduate degree and few graduate degrees prepare one for that, or for understanding how to sustain and grow an organization in competitive markets. The MBA does this like no other degree, and in that sense, it’s the pathway degree for growth in one’s career across many fields.
Now the onset of a COVID-induced recession is prompting more and more potential applicants to invest in their education to expand their career options. The larger trend of growth, though, is in the same direction -- and extends beyond this unforeseen event.
Rice Business is uniquely suited to meet this demand, offering the best MBA program in Houston. Its entrepreneurship program recently ranked #1 nationally for excellence for the fourth year in a row. The faculty is top-notch, known for both classroom teaching and groundbreaking research, and the rigorous curriculum is STEM certified and ranked #5 in Finance. In addition to top academics, Rice Business also emphasizes leadership and communications training, with a careful mix of coursework, action learning projects, and the expectation that students take on leadership roles at major conferences such as Houston’s Women In Leadership Conference, Diversity And Inclusion Conference and Rice Energy Finance Summit.
Finally, one of the program’s most distinctive strengths is its culture of entrepreneurship. At Rice Business we believe that an entrepreneurial mindset is critical whatever you do in business: whether launching a startup, acquiring a company or making changes in an existing organization.
Q: What does the growth of Rice Business student mean for professionals considering an MBA here?
PR: Having more students to study with at Rice Business enrichesthe classroom experience and brings a wider perspective to conversations about careers and how best to pursue one’s professional aspirations. Today’s growth will also result in a deeper and more diverse network of fellow Rice alumni – which in turn sustain the value of a Rice MBA for years into the future. We’ve managed to grow while still retaining the balance and personal touch that larger programs can’t match: a hallmark benefit of studying at Rice Business.
Q: What are the practical reasons for investing in a top-quality business school?
PR: You only get an MBA once. Some people mistakenly analogize choosing an MBA program to large consumer purchase decisions, but it’s quite different. You get a redo on most consumer decisions, even if it’s as large as a home purchase. You choose your university degree once and so you must choose the highest quality available to you.
Quality endures, and it’s even more evident in a top-quality education than in any other choice. It’s sometimes easier to see why quality is so essential if you ask someone what kindergarten they’d choose for their 5-year-old, or how carefully they’d consider the choice of an eye surgeon. It may seem different, but choosing a top-quality MBA program is similar in that it’s a highly-consequential choice that matters for the long run.
That’s why at Rice, as our degree programs have become more and more favorably recognized, and our format options have grown, applications have increased.
Q:What role does the city of Houston play for Rice Business students before and after graduation?
PR: Houston’s economic size, concentration of top firms, youth and diversity make it a hotbed of career opportunities for those students who choose to stay in Houston. It’s the fourth largest city in the country, site of the second largest number of Fortune 1000 companies, the most diverse U.S. city – and a national center of innovation.
Any successful city and region is a magnet for talent. Houston is no exception. Our industries and young, innovative firms attract the best and brightest from around the state, nation and world. Their differences and creativity fuel the innovations that keep our city thriving. In turn, they attract the investments in healthcare, energy, and renewables that keep Houston in the lead in these fields.
Coupled with the opportunities for study at a top business school and the density of Rice graduates throughout the city, the career prospects here are as good -- or better -- than in any city in the nation.
Bringing students from around the nation and world into our MBA programs are part of this virtuous cycle of attraction between talent, investment and the career opportunities that follow. What we have to offer is rare and special: a highly-ranked business school in a diverse, large, economically robust and welcoming city where you can afford to live well and be ready for the future too. That’s why some of our students end up choosing to stay in Houston.
What makes the Executive MBA so valuable? Learn how this flexible, high-impact degree empowers experienced professionals to lead or pivot — and go further in their careers.
If you’re thinking about advancing your education while continuing to build your career and impact, a hybrid MBA might be just what you’re looking for.
Season 1, Episode 4 Julianne Katz ’21 talks about her decision to switch from a career in fine arts in NYC to a graduate degree in business. She also discusses what it was like to have to shift from in-person classes to virtual learning during a global pandemic.
Owl Have You Know
SEASON 1, EPISODE 4
Julianne Katz ’21 talks about her decision to switch from a career in fine arts in NYC to a graduate degree in business. She also discusses what it was like to have to shift from in-person classes to virtual learning during a global pandemic.
Becky chats about traveling the world with Disney on Ice and founding a business that works with local law enforcement and veterans to make private security more accessible.
Michelle talks about her journey — from the arts to executive leadership, why soft skills matter more than you think and how failing fast and smart can shape a resilient career.
Shai chats about her pivots from law to music and back again, the invaluable lessons she’s learned along the way, what led her to pursue an Executive MBA at Rice and how she’s already putting insights from the program to use.
In recent years, activist investors have been voicing their wishes – and changing corporate governance – with growing vigor. Most research, however, tracks the way these investors shape these companies in order to increase shareholder wealth. In a groundbreaking new study, Rice Business professor Kunal Sachdeva has shown that activist investors can also change a company’s environmental choices – leading to lower toxic emissions, greenhouse gases, and pollution in the neighborhoods around specific facilities.
“The Real Effects of Environmental Activist Investing,” a working paper co-written by Sachdeva with professor Lakshmi Naaraayanan and doctoral student Varun Sharma of London Business School, recently won the Moskowitz Prize from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management. The prize honors work that shows how shareholders can positively influence a company’s environmental impact. Here, Sachdeva explains his findings.
RBW: What drew you to this topic?
KS: People are increasingly interested in investments that align with social mandates. One of these mandates is addressing climate change and the environment. Traditionally, investors express this concern through divestment campaigns: selling or not investing in fossil fuel companies or utility companies that are large polluters. However, if you do that, you lose a seat at the table. You can’t use your voice within these firms because you are not an owner.
Our question was: Can investors use traditional tools such as activism to demand that firms improve practices such as environmental behaviors?
RBW: What was the answer?
KS: The answer was yes. We approached this by studying the New York City Pensions System, which instituted an activist campaign called the Boardroom Accountability Project (BAP). The project gave pensioners a long-term voice in the companies where they invest, and one of their key mandates was addressing companies’ effect on the environment. To get our answers, we looked at firms that the Project targeted over environmental issues. We specifically wanted to know how these firms responded, how local economies were affected and what the financial implications were for the firms involved.
RBW: What challenges did you encounter in this research?
KS: Our main challenge was accurately measuring and linking the change in a firm’s environmental performance to the activism campaign. For example, a firm may have already been in the process of improving its environmental practices. If this were the case, our study could overstate the impact of the activism. So we needed to find a setting that let us precisely measure the effects of investor activism.
Studying the Boardroom Accountability Project allowed us to compare facilities that had been targeted with facilities that had not been targeted. We then used data from the EPA to understand the exact changes that each company was enacting.
RBW: What outcomes did you see for the targeted companies?
KS: On average, the plants targeted by the BAP reduced toxic emissions by 13 percent. We also saw a significant drop in greenhouse gas emissions.
When we looked beyond the plant level to the neighborhoods around the facilities, we saw a marked improvement in air quality.
We also tested whether the targeted firms were shifting their pollution output to offsite plants. There was no evidence of this. Nor was there any drop in production. What we did see was a striking increase in company’s abatement efforts and capital spending related to these plant-level efforts.
Finally, we wanted to understand how this activism related to stock prices. We found a slight decline in financial performance, but we are cautious when interpreting these results. Our study looked at a window of about three years. It may take more time than that for companies to see all of the financial benefits of investing in pollution-fighting technologies.
RBW: What’s the takeaway for investors who prioritize company environmental policy?
KS: This research shows that it’s possible to change company environmental practices through investing. There has been research about hedge fund activists demanding that firms change operations, but the main goal in these cases has been to increase stockholder wealth. There’s been a dearth of research showing that we can also use activism to influence company environmental policies. Climate change is one of the biggest challenges in our lifetimes. We think this research shows one exciting tool for addressing it.
Kunal Sachdeva was an Assistant Professor of Finance with the Jesse H. Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.
Google search trends can forecast retail sales up to three quarters ahead — giving investors, analysts and policymakers an early glimpse into consumer demand.
