If you’re interested in becoming an effective leader and making a positive difference in the world, then participating in a class with one of our top scholars is your next step. We’ve set a high bar. Best students. Best faculty. Rice and Houston are ripe for that. We hope you are, too.
If you’re interested in becoming an effective leader and making a positive difference in the world, then participating in a class with one of our top scholars is your next step. We’ve set a high bar. Best students. Best faculty. Rice Business and Houston are ripe for that. We hope you are, too.
Competition is tough at the top of the business school market. Hiring high-caliber faculty to match enrollment growth is one of the biggest challenges we face as a school. This year, a record 10 new faculty members joined our business school to meet the challenge and bump our number of tenured and tenure-track professors to 63, an increase of nearly 50% over the last 10 years.
These kinds of numbers give us momentum and make the business school a place where other top faculty want to be, which translates to more expertise and deeper insights for students, the university and the city.
This year, the strong scholars hired to support our growing programs range from highly published and tenured to fresh out of Ph.D. programs at Harvard Business School, Stanford, Northwestern and London Business School with research under their belts. Their research spans finance, operations management, organizational behavior, strategy and marketing, and they will teach across all programs.
Daan van Knippenberg, Houston Endowment Professor of Management, is a highly published researcher focused on organizational behavior whose expertise also includes leadership, diversity and inclusion, team performance, and creativity and innovation. He has been a professor at Drexel University, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the University of Amsterdam and Leiden University in the Netherlands, where he also received his Ph.D.
Nicola Secomandi, Houston Endowment Professor of Management, focuses on operations management and the energy industry, with the energy transition of specific interest. Prior to Rice, Secomandi was the head of the Ph.D. program at Carnegie Mellon University’s Tepper School of Business. He earned an undergraduate degree from Ca’ Foscari University of Venice and a master’s in computer science and Ph.D. in operations research and statistics from the University of Houston.
Robert Dittmar, professor of finance, joins Rice Business after serving at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business and Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business. His research focuses on theoretical and empirical issues in the pricing of fixed income securities and how different assets affect a firms’ equity. He earned his Ph.D. in finance from University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and a bachelor’s in finance from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.
Jung Youn Lee, assistant professor of marketing, focuses on how firm or governmental policy affects distribution or efficiency. Her research aims to understand how consumer data, fairness constraints and consumers’ privacy preferences shape credit market outcomes. Lee received her Ph.D. in marketing from Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management and completed her bachelor’s in economics at Rice.
Tommy Pan Fang, assistant professor of strategic management, received a Ph.D. in business administration from Harvard Business School and bachelor’s degrees in economics and computer science from the University of Pennsylvania. His research interests include the economics of digitization and entrepreneurship — how digital platforms affect growth and performance.
Yiangos Papanastasiou, associate professor in management, focuses on operations management and has made significant contributions to the understanding of online platform and marketplace operations. He will teach MBA courses on business analytics, data analysis and statistics. In addition to operations management, his research interests include pricing and revenue management and business analytics. Papanastasiou completed his undergraduate degree at the University of Cambridge, where he also earned a master’s degree in computer and information engineering. He completed his Ph.D. in management science and operations at the London Business School.
David Zhang, assistant professor of finance, focuses on real estate and household finance. He graduated with a Ph.D. in business economics from Harvard Business School and a bachelor’s in economics and mathematics from Amherst College. Before starting graduate school, Zhang was a research assistant at the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston’s Consumer Payments Research Center.
Sora Jun, assistant professor of management, focuses on organizational behavior and teaches the Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Business course in Rice’s MBA program. Her research employs psychological perspectives to study social hierarchies and inequality, workplace discrimination and intergroup relations. Jun’s research also investigates when and why leadership fails to recognize racial discrimination and sexual harassment. She received a Ph.D. in organizational behavior from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business and a Bachelor of Commerce and Finance degree from the University of Toronto.
Süleyman Kerimov, assistant professor of management, focuses his research on operations management as well as market design, matching theory and applied probability. He holds a Ph.D. in operations research from Stanford University and a bachelor’s in mathematics from Bilkent University in Turkey.
Amy K. Dittmar, provost and professor of economics and finance, is a distinguished scholar of corporate finance, governance and gender economics. She served as senior vice provost for academic and budgetary affairs and professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan. Dittmar earned her B.S. in finance and business economics from Indiana University and Ph.D. in finance from the University of North Carolina.
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.
Bruce Xu ’24 came to Rice to study in the Shepherd School of Music but he’s since switched to the new undergraduate business major from the Jones Graduate School of Business. Performing at The Woodlands Community Presbyterian Church helps him not only maintain his musical talent, but also play his part in the Greater Houston community.
Avery Ruxer Franklin
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Bruce Xu
It’s a long drive, but a business major at Rice doesn’t mind hitting the road every week to play the organ at a church in The Woodlands.
Bruce Xu ’24 came to Rice to study in the Shepherd School of Music but he’s since switched to the new undergraduate business major from the Jones Graduate School of Business. Performing at The Woodlands Community Presbyterian Church helps him not only maintain his musical talent, but also play his part in the Greater Houston community.
“Everybody knows that Rice students — the organists — are top-notch, and so that’s usually the first place I go when I’m looking for someone to fill in,” said Jonathan Aigner, director of music at the church, who chose Xu from a group of musicians who auditioned. The church’s full-time organist is nearing retirement.
“I was expecting a really good freshman organist, and what I heard was a very capable, sensitive musician that plays way beyond his years,” he said.
Xu, who has won 15 international and national competitions -- including two just this past summer -- said playing at the church “allows him to get out of the hedges on a regular basis.”
“It’s been a pleasure getting to know some of the members here,” Xu said. “I feel like this church really prides itself in its community outreach efforts. Certainly, I think it has a great effect on me and makes me improve my character as well, and my levels of empathy and altruism.”
Pipe organ players are a dying breed as more churches move to ensembles, said Pastor David Jones.
“That’s a gift,” he said. “And I hope we hold onto it as long as possible.”
"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.
Based on research by professors Kerry Back and Kevin Crotty
Testing Option-Based Forecasting
Scholars and finance professionals have spent decades trying to develop tools to predict the ups and downs of the stock market.
Rice Business professors and a PhD student evaluated one of these tools, which has to do with option prices, and documented an important drawback.
There is still potential to develop better predictive tools, but prediction will always be a risky endeavor. The stock market has always been hard, if not impossible, to forecast.
When Rice Business finance professor Kevin Crotty asks his MBA students this question, the answers are all over the map. Some students expect the overall return on the stock market to be 10%, while others predict a loss of 20%.
This guessing game is closer to real life than many people realize. Experienced investors, people who have watched the stock market ebb and flow for many years, know that making predictions is a risky business. “Many money managers are more confident choosing individual stocks than trying to time the market,” says finance professor Kevin Crotty.
For most of the past century, academics have applied their power of analysis to understanding and predicting the stock market. Recently, some finance researchers have taken a closer look at option prices—the price paid for the right to buy or sell a security (like a stock or bond) at a specified price in the future. Combining economic theory with high-frequency options price data, they argued that they could estimate the expected return on the market in real-time, which would represent a tremendous development for finance practitioners and academics alike.
Crotty teamed up with Kerry Back, a fellow Rice Business professor, and Seyed Mohammad Kazempour, a finance Ph.D. student at the Jones Graduate School of Business, to evaluate whether the new predictors based on option prices really are a valuable forecasting tool. “Options are essentially a forward-looking contract, so it’s possible that they could be used to create a forward-looking measure of expected returns,” says Kazempour.
Economic theory suggests that the new predictors might systematically underestimate expected returns. The team set out to test if this may be the case, and if so, whether the predictors are useful as a forecasting tool. In their paper, “Validity, Tightness, and Forecasting Power of Risk Premium Bounds,” the Rice Business researchers ran the predictors through a more rigorous set of statistical tests that provide more power to detect whether the predictors systematically underestimate expected returns. The statistical tests used in previous research on the topic were less stringent, leading to conclusions that the predictors do not underestimate expected returns.
In short, the new predictors didn’t pass the more stringent tests. The researchers found that forecasts built on stock options consistently underestimated market returns. Moreover, the predictors are enough of an underestimate that they are not very useful as forecasts of market returns.
The results were somewhat anticlimatic, the researchers admit. If the option-based predictors had panned out, it could have become an innovative new tool for thinking about market timing for asset managers as well as investment decision-making for corporate finance projects. “Trying to estimate expected market returns is closely related to whether corporations decide to invest in projects,” notes Crotty. “The expected market return is an input in estimating the cost of capital when evaluating projects, and I explain in my MBA courses that we don’t have very precise estimates for this input. During this research project, I kept thinking about how cool it would be if we really had a better estimate,” he says.
Their research doesn’t end here. Crotty and Back have already begun brainstorming ways to potentially improve the option-based forecasting tool so that it can become more accurate.
At best, though, using option prices as a forecasting tool will only be one ingredient out of many that investors use to make decisions. “This tool may inform money management, but it will never drive it,” says Back.
For now, at least, the Rice researchers believe that trying to predict the stock market is still a very risky game.
Kerry Back is the J. Howard Creekmore Professor of Finance at Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.
Kevin Crotty is an associate professor of finance at Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.
Seyed Mohammad Kazempour is a Ph. D. student at Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University.
To learn more, please see: Back, K., Crotty, K., & Kazempour, S.M. Validity, Tightness, and Forecasting (2020). Power of Risk Premium Bounds. Journal of Financial Economics, vol. 144, issue 3, 732-760.
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Corporate Social Activism | Peer-Reviewed Research
"It’s exciting to see the growth in entrepreneurship and innovation on campus, at all levels – MBA, undergraduate, graduate and even at the faculty level,” said Professor Yael Hochberg, who is head of the entrepreneurship initiative at Rice University and academic director of the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship.
The Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, fondly referred to as Lilie, is home to experiential learning and co-curricular activities on the Rice campus. Programs offered through Lilie continue to grow and new ones are added every year, including Rice Innovation Fellows, which supports Ph.D. students from engineering and the sciences who want to commercialize their research.
Craig Lindberg ’04 has a plan to create affordable housing communities that can stand up to tough Texas weather.
Craig Lindberg ’04 has a plan to create affordable housing communities that can stand up to tough Texas weather.
Helping people who are less fortunate has always been a priority for Craig Lindberg ’04. Nearly a decade ago, a family in need came to his church for help. What they needed, more than food, was basic hygiene supplies. That got him thinking: How many other people are in dire need of toiletries?
“Very quickly it became apparent that there are a ton of people who have good access to food, through food banks and federal nutrition programs, but not to toiletry items,” he says. “If you’re trying to learn in school, or trying to get a job, having the ability to brush your teeth, shower and have clean clothes can be as important as food.”
In 2013, Lindberg, the former president of Houston-based Shipley Do-Nuts, now the managing director of the Shipley family office, founded the 501(c)(3) nonprofit My Body and Soul, which has provided thousands of people a year with toiletries and school supplies that can’t be purchased with a Lone Star Card (formerly known as SNAP benefits or food stamps).
Then, in 2017, Hurricane Harvey hit. Many of the people Lindberg had helped had been barely holding on to housing before. The hurricane knocked them down.
“I remember visiting a mobile home [where a client of My Body and Soul lived] in a trailer park that was like a slum. I walked in and it was dark inside, almost like a planetarium because of the holes in the walls and roof. Why was it dark? The whole house is powered off an extension cord plugged into a contractor’s box, so you can only power one thing, maybe two, at a time. So if the light’s on, you can’t cook,” he recalls. “I’m walking around noticing rotting wood everywhere. You can’t get on the roof or even lean a ladder on the home, because it’d collapse. It wasn’t just damage from Harvey — it was like this before.”
The rest of the homes in the mobile home park were in similar condition. And although FEMA came to the aid of many Houston homeowners after Harvey, the residents of the park were renters who had no resources to repair the hurricane damage — let alone fix the preexisting problems.
“Once we started looking, we thought, we could do something about this,” Lindberg says. “There was so much overlap with what we did with toiletries. So much of your life is affected if you don’t have the ability to be clean. The same is true, and so much worse, if you don’t have shelter or are in really low-quality shelter.”
So Lindberg expanded the mission of My Body and Soul into a new nonprofit, First Priority Housing, with the goal of creating high-quality, energy-efficient homes that wouldn’t require ongoing subsidies to make the rent affordable. And he identified a way to create low-cost housing that’s durable and efficient even on the storm-battered Gulf Coast: using shipping containers, which are made to hold up in rough weather.
“They’re designed to go on ships, where they’ll be splashed by saltwater. They’re made of corten steel that’s self-healing, so they don’t rust or corrode,” he says. “Another benefit is how well insulated we make them. Out in the Texas sun, that’ll help keep the utility costs down.”
But while the containers themselves are affordable, the cost of land in the Houston area has skyrocketed post-Harvey. A plot of land in Galveston County — big enough for two or three homes — that would have sold for $8,000 to $10,000 before Harvey is now selling for six or seven times that much. That put a dent in First Priority’s plans, since the goal was not to build homes in isolation.
“We really wanted to build communities, rather than just a random house here or there,” Lindberg says.
“Folks who need affordable housing have a lot of related needs. With a larger piece of land, you can create solutions for all these needs in the same place. You can have a playground, a community center, a washateria.”
Instead of giving up on the goal, First Priority has partnered with another group, Everybody’s Place, a nonprofit with a similar mission to create affordable, supportive housing for people experiencing homelessness. Together, the two nonprofits are now working to build a village of 100 or more shipping container homes on a 20-acre parcel of land in unincorporated Galveston County. Working with architects, Lindberg and Paul Clines, the founder of Everybody’s Place, have designed one-, two- and three-bedroom container homes that are efficient, comfortable and attractive. Residents, who can expect to pay a fair, affordable rent, will also have access to a community center that will offer services to meet their needs, including playgrounds, vocational training, substance abuse treatment, GED tutoring, chapel and child care.
“It’s pretty exciting,” Lindberg says. “The goal is to give people the experience and benefits of individual home ownership, versus being in a high-rise apartment building, let alone a slum, because there are benefits, especially to kids. You have a porch, and a place to put a grill; you have some privacy. But you also have a supportive community around you. When it comes to the children, high-quality housing is like a vaccine against bad results.”
Jing Zhou, the Mary Gibbs Jones Professor of Management and Psychology, assumed the role of deputy dean of academic affairs for Rice Business July 1. She is the first woman to hold the position.
A highly accomplished scholar whose research has been cited more than 40,000 times — ranking among the top 1% of influential researchers in business and management — Zhou researches creativity and innovation, and creativity in entrepreneurship. She has been teaching courses on leadership, innovation, negotiation and organizational behavior at the undergraduate, MBA, executive MBA and Ph.D. levels at Rice Business since 2003. Zhou is the area coordinator for organizational behavior, director of Ph.D. program and director for Asian management research and education at Rice Business. She is a fellow of the Academy of Management, the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science and the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
“Beyond these prestigious recognitions, we all know Jing as a generous colleague and as an honest and trusted friend and supporter of Rice Business and Rice University,” Dean Peter Rodriguez said. “We are fortunate to have in Jing an eminent scholar and a colleague of the utmost integrity to serve as our next deputy dean.”
In addition to her contributions at Rice, Zhou has served as president of the International Association for Chinese Management Research, as associate editor of the Journal of Applied Psychology and on the editorial boards for many other journals, including the Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, the Journal of Business Venturing, the Journal of Management, Leadership Quarterly, Management and Organization Review, Organizational Psychology Review and the Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal. She has also served as a consultant to organizations on issues related to leading innovation and negotiation.
Zhou succeeds Jeff Fleming, Fayez Sarofim Vanguard Professor of Finance, who completed a seven-year term as deputy dean on June 30.
To learn more about Zhou’s “Intellectual Contributions”, “Media Mentions” and peer-reviewed research, visit this website page: https://business.rice.edu/person/jing-zhou.
Winners' Circle
42 startups competed for more than $2 million in prizes at the 22nd annual RBPC
A startup that aims to increase production in the semiconductor industry took home the $350,000 grand prize at the 2022 Rice Business Plan Competition.
The winning team — Lidrotec, a student startup from RWTH Aachen University in Germany — says its technology can eliminate material waste during semiconductor manufacturing, saving money and increasing productivity.
The competition, hosted annually by the Rice Alliance for Technology and Entrepreneurship and Rice Business, is the world’s largest and richest student startup competition. Now in its 22nd year, the competition saw 42 startups competing for more than $2 million in prizes in April. They were chosen from more than 400 applicants to compete in one of five categories: energy, clean tech and sustainability; life sciences and health care solutions; consumer products and services; hard tech; and digital enterprise.
The RBPC’s more than 250 judges act as early-stage investors evaluating the startups’ potential. Teams pitch their businesses to investors, entrepreneurs, corporate executives and ecosystem partners during the event, then network and receive real-time feedback, advice and mentorship.
Alexander Kanitz of Lidrotec presenting in the Shell Auditorium
From left: Neethu Pottackal, third-year Ph.D. in materials science and nanoengineering, and Aasha Zinke, Rice ’24 majoring in materials science and nanoengineering, take the prize for EpiFresh.
This year’s top prizes included:
$350,000 GOOSE Capital Investment Grand Prize — Lidrotec, RWTH Aachen.
$155,000 The OWL Investment Prize — Hoth Intelligence, University of Pittsburgh.
$65,000 The OWL Investment Prize — Mallard Bay Outdoors, Louisiana State University.
$50,000 The OWL Investment Prize — TransCrypts, University of Toronto and Harvard University.
$125,000 Softeq Venture Studio Prizes (two prizes) — Mallard Bay Outdoors, Louisiana State University; Lidrotec, RWTH Aachen University.
$100,000 Jon Finger and Finger Interests, David Anderson and the Anderson Family Fund, Greg Novak and Tracy Druce Second-Place Investment Prize — Hoth Intelligence, University of Pittsburgh.
$50,000 Jon Finger and Finger Interests, David Anderson and the Anderson Family Fund, Greg Novak and Tracy Druce Third-Place Investment Prize — Invitris, Technical University of Munich.
$100,000 Houston Angel Network Investment Prize — Hoth Intelligence, University of Pittsburgh.
$100,000 TiE Houston Angel Group Investment Prize — LIDROTEC, RWTH Aachen University.
Rice Business Dean Peter Rodriguez joined former Rice President David Leebron and Houston city officials, along with civic and business leaders from the Greater Houston Partnership, in the City of Lights this summer to celebrate the opening of the university’s Paris Center. The June 29 launch ceremony was held at a historic 16th-century building that will house the new center. When it is complete in January, it will be home to student programs and international conferences organized through Rice.
It will also serve as a hub for European research activity, giving researchers from Rice Business and other Rice schools greater access to European partners.
“Rice University’s mission statement commits us not only to pathbreaking research and unsurpassed teaching, but also to the betterment of our world,” said Rice President Reginald DesRoches, who began his tenure on July 1. “We’re eager to extend that mission internationally, and the opening of the Rice University Paris Center demonstrates that commitment.”
The Center is located in Le Marais, a neighborhood in the historic center of the city famed for its narrow cobblestone streets, art galleries and sidewalk cafés. It is housed in a historic building known as the Hotel de La Faye, built in the early 1500s. The grand townhouse edifice — with four levels, a courtyard and a private garden — was listed as a historic monument in 1966.
Rice Business celebrated the Class of 2022 with an Investiture ceremony in May. The ceremony, which formally “invests” grads with their degrees, was held in Tudor Fieldhouse. It marked the largest number of graduates in school history, with more than 500 degrees awarded, bringing the total number of Rice Business alumni worldwide to more than 8,000.
Click the buttons to view photo albums from the festivities.
Thomas Benford, the president and COO of Coca-Cola Beverages Florida, was appointed to the Rice Business Board of Advisors in April. He will serve for three years.
Benford, who has an MBA from Harvard Business School and undergraduate degrees in economics and computational and applied mathematics from Rice, leads an organization of more than 4,600 associates who serve 21 million consumers and deliver 114 million cases of Coca-Cola products annually. Benford’s career also includes other executive roles at Coke Florida and positions at Halliburton and J.P. Morgan Chase.
“We are so fortunate to have Thomas’ deep experience on our board,” said Dean Peter Rodriguez.
If You Can Make It There...
Rice Business is expanding its experiential learning portfolio to New York City this fall through an innovative alliance with Columbia University Law School and its Center for Public Research and Leadership.
The center immerses graduate students in the theory and practice of managing, governing and transforming public school systems and organizations. The other business school partners are Dartmouth Tuck, NYU Stern, Wharton and Yale.
Through an intensive application process, Columbia Law School selected Cayden Lei ’23, a full-time MBA, to be our inaugural candidate. A native of Shenzhen, China, Lei is the only MBA from all the partner schools in this year’s session, which launched in September.
“We are so pleased to begin our partnership with Rice, an institution that shares our commitment to improving public institutions, particularly [in our case] public pre-K-12 schools,” said Elizabeth Chu, executive director of the Center for Public Research and Leadership at Columbia Law School.
In a joint interview, Abbey Hartgrove, director of global programs and experiential learning, and Adam Herman, executive director of the office of academic programs and student experience, explained how the affiliation will work.
What does equity-focused leadership development mean to Rice Business? We want to make sure that we are creating impact, and think equity is going to be a foundation. When we’re working with companies, we’re helping them shift out of this corporate model into working with communities and organizations that don’t have as many resources. That’s the student we’re looking for—the student who wants to make an impact, who is wanting to change the world, who is wanting to make things better.
What is the program structure? Each section of the three-course, 12-credit program—“Structural Change in Public Education: Immersive Off-Site”—will host about 30 to 35 students. Students are getting credit and making an impact, so it checks a lot of boxes for us. Policy consultants work with the students guiding the consultant projects, so they get to come in and take their MBA knowledge, apply it in this New York City public sector context and get expert guidance.
How do accountability and ethics factor into our participation? What we like about the courses we run are the components of accountability and ethics built in. You’re being held accountable for your performance to the client, in this case, your peers from other well-known schools, and also to the communities you have been selected to help. That’s the foundation of experiential learning at Rice because we are connecting with these external partners. You’re representing yourself professionally and Rice Business.
To learn more about the Center for Public Research and Leadership, visit: cprl.law.columbia.edu/.
Hall of Famers
Jasmine Johnson ’22 and Takeya Green ’22 were honored for their entrepreneurial talent and leadership skills at the 2022 Texas Business Hall of Fame Foundation Awards.
Jasmine Johnson
Takeya Green
Johnson, who won the foundation’s T.T. & W.F. Chao Award, serves as the CEO and founder of Sparrow Energy, an energy efficiency consultation and implementation company. Green, who won the AT&T Future Executive Leader of Distinction Award, is a Chicago native who began her career as an investment banking associate with Citi, working in sectors including oil and gas and the clean energy transition.
The foundation honors outstanding business leaders in the state by celebrating their impact in business and the community. Johnson and Green will be honored at the foundation’s 2022 annual induction dinner Nov. 3. They join about 800 leaders who have been recognized by the Texas Business Hall of Fame over the last 40 years.
A New Chief Business Officer
Christian Rafidi
Christian Rafidi is chief business officer, a new position at Rice Business, and oversees critical business and financial operations of the school. He has experience in higher education — including serving as chief administrative officer at the University of Michigan and as assistant dean for finance and administration at the University of Texas at Austin. Rafidi earned a B.A. in sociology from New York University and an M.Ed. from Northeastern University. He serves as an adviser to Dean Peter Rodriguez and the leadership team on business strategy; management and risk; and leading, managing and representing the financial, administrative and operational components of the school. Rafidi also oversees building operations, space management, the Business Information Center and the administration of human resource functions.
Belonging and Engagement
Fireside Chat At a recent Fireside Chat, we recognized and celebrated influencers who are championing efforts in their organizations.
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Inaugural speaker Janet Pope, vice president of Corporate Social Responsibility at Capgemini and moderator professor Doug Schuler
Diversity, Equity & Inclusion Lab Course The DEI lab is an experiential learning class that gives students the opportunity to work on a corporate/nonprofit partner challenge and apply the lessons and framework from Rice Business courses. The initial pilot had three projects for three different organizations; one was a nonprofit. The students had impactful recommendations, some of which have already been implemented at the client organizations.
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Donuts and Community Regina Edwards hosted an event introduce the Everyday Inclusion app to staff. The Office of Belonging and Engagement launched the app for Rice Business faculty, students and staff. The easy-to-navigate phone app is a resource for learning and has fun features to use with teams and colleagues.
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Senior Leadership Appointments at Rice University
This year, Rice welcomed a new president, Reginald DesRoches, and several new administrators for specialized operations. Here’s a look at the new executives and their roles:
Amy Dittmar is provost and a professor of economics (social sciences) and a professor of finance (business). She has an extensive background in economics, finance and university administration. Dittmar previously served as senior vice provost for academic and budgetary affairs and professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan. Dittmar earned her B.S. in finance and business economics from Indiana University and Ph.D. in finance from the University of North Carolina.
Paul Padley, a professor of physics and astronomy and director of the Bonner Nuclear Laboratory, is vice president for information technology and chief information officer. The office is the university’s central technology provider and supports research, academic and administrative systems, other core applications; and voice, network and computing infrastructure for the Rice community. Padley holds a Ph.D. and master’s degree in physics from the University of Toronto and a bachelor’s in physics from York University and serves on faculty advisory committees on information technology issues.
Omar Syed, an attorney with 15 years of experience in higher education, is vice president and general counsel. Syed guides the university on the best legal course to successfully execute its mission, including the unique legal challenges Rice will face while expanding its research programs. Syed previously served as associate vice chancellor and deputy general counsel for the University of Texas System. Syed earned his Bachelor of Arts degree with special honors in public policy studies from the University of Chicago and his law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School.
Kelly Fox is vice president for finance and administration and will supervise financial planning and policies, financial reporting, debt and cash management, financial systems, nonacademic budgeting, compliance, capital markets, accounting and audit, construction, facilities, security, housing and food, and human resources. A senior executive with more than 20 years of experience in higher education, Fox previously served as executive vice president and chief budget officer at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Fox earned her Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Colorado Denver and her Bachelor of Science in psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Ramamoorthy Ramesh, a condensed matter physicist and materials scientist with more than 25 years in academia, industry, national labs and government service, is vice president for research. He will oversee internal and external research ventures and will partner with senior leadership to bolster the research infrastructure and propel productivity and impact to new heights. He was previously the Purnendu Chatterjee Chair in Energy Technologies and a professor of physics and materials science and engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Ramesh earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Madras University, a bachelor’s degree in metallurgy from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and a master’s and Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from UC Berkeley.
Paul Cherukuri is the university’s first vice president for innovation. The primary areas of focus for the office will be technology translation, startup creation, commercialization, and entrepreneurship training. Cherukuri will also oversee engagement with the Ion, including programs in the innovation district. Cherukuri, who was previously the executive director of the Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering, is a physicist, chemist and medtech entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience in academia and the pharmaceutical industry. He earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Kentucky and his Ph.D. in physical chemistry under Nobel laureate Richard Smalley at Rice.
Welcome, President Reggie DesRoches! We are so excited to be part of a community with an eager, prolific, passionate leader and we know that President DesRoches will continue the hard work from his predecessor, President Leebron, to build and develop Rice University. pic.twitter.com/SeXksU83Yq
"I don’t think there’s a simple solution to a complex problem," says @Rice_Biz's @ScottSonenshein. "I think what it really comes down to is individual supervisors, and what kind of training and programs that help them reduce some of the biases they have."https://t.co/C5eUcqYXM8
As a CEO, it’s only natural to want to take credit for unexpected positive outcomes — especially if your compensation is tied to self-reported updates on company performance. But in a recent study, the authors, including Sung Hun (Brian) Chung, a Ph.D. candidate at the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University, find a hidden cost. Their analysis of 23,000 media articles showed that when CEOs credit their strategic decisions for unexpected positive earnings, they are more likely to be blamed for negative results in the future (and more likely to be fired as a result). Conversely, when leaders are humble and take less credit for positive outcomes, they are less likely to be blamed or removed from their positions when earnings fall.
May 31, 2022 | Nandini Rajagopalan, Sun Hyun Park and Sung Hun (Brian) Chung
Inflation is ugly. For consumers, it is painful in ways big and small. People’s wages aren’t keeping up with rising prices, meaning some are having to make important cutbacks to stay afloat. Beyond everyday items, having inflation on the brain is likely making people think more about prices than they normally would, explains Utpal Dholakia, a professor of marketing at Rice University’s business school. “Consumers’ knowledge of prices is generally really bad. By and large, in normal conditions, most of us don’t know prices of most of the regular things that we buy,” he says. “What inflation has done is it has made people pay more attention as a general rule.”
As if restaurants didn't already have enough challenges due to the pandemic and supply shortages, they now face yet another challenge — rising food costs. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has only exacerbated the issue by skyrocketing the price of fuel, and as gas prices increase, that in turn drives up the cost of food supplies, said Peter Rodriguez, dean of the Jones Graduate School of Business. Even before Russia invaded Ukraine in February, supply chain issues had already caused an increase in the cost of food. “We are seeing some of the fastest wage rises in decades in the United States, but it’s unlikely that they will completely offset the rises in the core consumables and in other goods and services,” Rodriguez said.
Omair Tariq, founder and CEO of Cart.com, which helps retailers manage and process their online sales, already counts among his clients such giants as Dollar General and GNC. On one hand, the e-commerce start-up operates in an entirely different universe from the scrappy upstarts at the flea market and yet Tariq marveled at the parallels. If ever there were a place where entrepreneurs should thrive, it’s Houston. “The founders of Houston came in through the port and saw this boring, flat, hot, humid piece of land and decided it would be a great city for business,” said Rafael Alvarez, a faculty member at Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business and inductee of the national Immigrant Entrepreneur Hall of Fame. “It doesn’t matter where you come from and what you look like. There was no old money here, no old families. If you had a great idea and were willing to work, this was a place you could make it happen.”
Not only is consulting one of the most sought-after career paths—it’s also one of the most lucrative for MBA graduates. Top consulting firms, including McKinsey & Co., Bain & Co., and Boston Consulting Group shell out $175,000 starting base salaries. While attending a top-ranked MBA program can certainly give candidates a leg up, there’s no guarantee of landing a job at one of the elite consulting firms. Fortune sat down with Adriana Crespo, McKinsey’s manager of recruiting operations, who said, “we hired our biggest summer internship class ever at about 500 just for MBAs across all U.S. schools. It could vary anywhere from places like Booth, HBS, Kellogg, Wharton, Stanford—to Rice, CMU, UT Austin, Notre Dame. We’re also expanding our reach to a lot of the HBCUs. We’re excited about those opportunities.”
In trying to appear neutral on some current hot-button issues, experts say, Houston-based Exxon Mobil has done the opposite. The company will not allow social-rights flags — like those used by LGBTQ and Black Lives Matter supporters that are not tied to Exxon workers groups — to be flown at company buildings, though last year some Exxon offices flew the well-known rainbow flag during LGBTQ pride month in June. “It’s hard to think of any good reason that they (Exxon Mobil) would backtrack on this issue,” said Doug Schuler, associate professor at Rice Business. Schuler adds that it sends a message to employees that management was never committed to this cause.
Samsung is considering building 11 new chipmaking facilities in the Austin area over the next two decades, a move that could lead to nearly $200 billion in new investment and create more than 10,000 jobs. Samsung is proposing nine new fabs on its property in Taylor, where it has already started site work on its previously announced $17 billion chipmaking plant. Peter Rodriguez, dean of the Jones Graduate School of Business, called Samsung’s expansion plans a “historically large and significant investment into the U.S. economy and certainly into the Texas economy. It has few if any peers in terms of scale and strategic significance.” The location of the plants in Central Texas would further elevate the region’s standing on the worldwide tech stage and will serve as a major employment driver, he said.
The president of the Houston World Cup bid committee, Chris Canetti, says that Houston will likely host five to six of the matches. He says it’s like having five to six Super Bowls in the span of a month. The event is four years away, but planning is already underway. The games will be played at NRG Stadium. Canetti says this will be the largest World Cup in history with 48 nations competing and 16 host cities across three countries. Rice Business Dean Peter Rodriguez said it’s key to be smart about spending for the event. “Building things Houstonians need and use every day, that’s the easy money and the great way to leverage this opportunity for us.”
Subha Barry ’85
Subha and Jim Barry ‘84 have been married 36 years this May, and they spend their days following the sun: summer and fall in Long Beach Island, New Jersey, New York City and New Hope, Pennsylvania, and winter and spring in Naples, Florida. Their oldest, Tara Maya Barry ’10, just got accepted into a transplant surgery fellowship and is getting married in January.
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Barry
1997
Steven Ebel ’97
Steven joined Quantix Supply Chain Solutions as SVP of its 3PL Division.
Mark Williamson ’97
Mark is currently engaged full time in the development, advisement and funding of a producer of green hydrogen using their own patented technology. He created an investment fund to aggregate capital and manage investors.
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Williamson
2001
Sean Ferguson ’01
Sean recently moved to Boston after spending the last nine years in Hong Kong and Malaysia. On Sept. 1, he joined Bentley University as vice president of strategy and innovation.
2002
Ted Dimitry ’02
Ted was listed in Insurance Business America’s Hot 100 List for 2022.
2007
Karl Johnson ’07
There was a gathering of Rice 2007 EMBAs recently at Hungry’s, and they celebrated Lina Bell who brought them all together in 2005.
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Johnson
2009
Tony Oguamanam ’09
Tony has a new job as chief financial officer at Harris County Universal Services.
2010
John Davies ’10
John was promoted in April to a global sales leadership role at Amazon Web Services.
Jeff Frey ’10
Jeff has been named vice president of innovation and business development at the Dallas campus of Abilene Christian University.
2012
Vikram Dasa-Rao ’12
Vikram and his wife are excited to announce the birth of their son Naveen Rao, born May 29 at 10:01 a.m., weighing 6 lbs., 6 oz. and measuring 19 inches.
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Dasa-Rao
2014
Nael Ashour ’14
Nael has started a new role as CFO of NINE dot ARTS in Denver, that leverages the power of original art to transform ordinary places into one-of-a-kind experiences.
Patrick Livesay ’14
Patrick and wife Brittney welcomed Caleb Jackson Livesay to their family June 22. The older siblings (Madeleine and Cooper) are already enjoying their little brother.
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Livesay
Jennifer Rossi ’14
In June of this year, Jennifer’s small business, The Cause Urban Winery, had its first wine sales. By day, Jennifer works as a management consultant for Sendero Consulting. She makes and sells Texas wine as her side hustle.
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Rossi
2016
Lindsay Hernandez ’16
After five years at Nalco Water, an Ecolab Company, Lindsay closed that chapter of her career and joined Westlake in May 2022.
Andy and Kristen Zagoren ’16
Andy and Kristen welcomed a daughter, Sloane Elizabeth, into the world March 13.
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Zagoren
2017
Kyle Scott ’17
After a career spanning education and small business ownership, Kyle has entered the public arena as a candidate for Harris County treasurer. He will be on the ballot this November.
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Scott
Gregory Surabian ’17
Gregory got married to the love of his life, Lily, July 3, 2022, in Los Angeles, California. They wanted to thank all the Rice Business friends who were able to attend!
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Surabian
2018
Daniel Barvin ’18
Hana Joy Barvin was born on July 29, 2022. She is welcomed by her older brother, Kai. Her parents, Kaori and Daniel, are thrilled with her arrival!
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Barvin
Darrell Morris ’18
After acquiring Well Done Cooking Classes following graduation in 2018, Darrell will be relocating the 10-year-old company to Spring Branch!
Kirk Waltz ’18
Kirk and his wife, Tessa, welcomed their second child, Kevin Charles Waltz, to the world May 29, 2022.
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Waltz
2019
Alan Becerril ’19
Gaby Orozco ’18 and Alan Becerril ‘19 were married in Mexico City May 21, 2022.
Debnil Chowdhury ’19
Owls Partners, a private capital network, celebrated its four-year anniversary since its creation by members of the Rice EMBA Class of 2019 during their second year.
Grace Grundy ’19
Everett Nottingham Grundy was born June 17, 2022. He is a joy to his family, and his big brother, Hobbs, couldn’t be prouder of his protege!
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Grundy
Paul Minor ’19
In February 2022, Paul opened Kids Garden, a Montessori and Reggio Emilia-based learning center located in West University.
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Minor
2020
Ariel Chen ’20
Baby girl number two has arrived! She loves to see all the happy baby faces on Instagram. Ariel hopes we will have a family-style reunion soon.
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Chen
Siva Madduri ’20
Siva was fortunate to travel and celebrate her little one’s first birthday in Mexico with no travel restrictions.
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Madduri
Patrick Ray ’20
Patrick Ray and Sophie Randolph ‘22 were married June 11 in a wedding at Sophie’s parents’ home in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts.
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Ray
2021
Nate Churchwell ’21
Nate and his wife Lauren, welcomed their first child, Emilia Catherine Churchwell on May 7, 2022.
Robert Godinez ’21
Robert will be relocating from West Texas to the Denver area for a new position. He is moving on from being a facilities engineer at Chevron to a senior project engineer at Carbon America, a small carbon capture start-up.
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Godinez
Sam Martinez ’21
Sam has successfully pivoted from a corporate senior project manager with Chevron Phillips Chemical to senior management consultant with Kalypso.
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Martinez
Ryan Newcomb ’21
Ryan recently joined North Highland Consulting as director of new business growth in the Energy & Utilities practice for the U.S. He is currently operating out of the Houston office.
Tony Topcu ’21
Tony and Aisha welcomed their first baby girl, Ada Eliz, into the world June 17.
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Topcu
Julia Vollmer ’21
Julia Vollmer and her husband, Justin, welcomed their first child, Charlotte Erin, in the summer of 2022.
2022
Brett Harmeling ’22
Brett joined DLP Capital as the director of elite relationships. This is a powerful collaboration where doing good and making a positive impact in the world intersect.
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Harmeling
Kelly Lavergne ’22
Kelly (McGrath) Lavergne, FTMBA, married Alex Lavergne, ’21 PMBA, June 25, 2022 in Cape Cod, Massachusetts.
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Lavergne
Sophie Lin ’22
Sophie moved out of Houston for the first time to start her medical residency at Emory! Sophie also got engaged to her boyfriend, whom she met in medical school at Baylor College of Medicine.
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Lin
Anna Mihova ’22
Anna is Ukrainian, and her parents and brother still live in Ukraine. She is grateful for the support and accommodations she received during her last semester at Rice. It’s been a few months since she started her career as a OneFinance Rotational Business Analyst at LyondellBasell. She said it’s incredible how much knowledge she learned in the Master of Accounting program and is using at her job. Furthermore, she said graduation from multiple Doerr Institute for New Leaders programs taught her invaluable skills that are helping in her personal and professional life. Anna has signed up to be a mentor for a few students and is excited for their new journeys at Rice.
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Mihova
Caroline Yuki ’22
Caroline launched a real estate passive income site boldmillionaire.com. In addition, she teamed up with Justin Sheu ‘22 and David Liu ‘20 to build a commercial real estate investment team.
"The first year of the program has been transformational."
Krissy White '23 Executive MBA
"The first year of the program has been transformational. The impostor syndrome that plagued me throughout my career is replaced by a humble confidence. Going through this challenging time has illustrated to me that my strengths are unique, valuable and sought after in the world. This realization has empowered me to be a more self-assured, patient and empathetic wife, mother, daughter and businessperson."
After eight years in roles within The Ritz-Carlton and Jumeirah International Hotel Group in Dubai, White took herself off “the GM track” and moved back to Houston to pursue more fulfilling goals. In the five years after, she and her husband, Otto Sanchez, welcomed two children and opened Magnol French Baking. Magnol gained national attention from publications such as Food & Wine Magazine. At the same time, White ascended to director of operations at LegalEASE, a voluntary HR benefit company that matches members with local attorneys. To maximize the potential of the bakery, and add value to LegalEASE, she decided to get a formal entrepreneurship education and was thrilled to learn that the best Executive MBA program was in her backyard.
Aquib Yacoob '24 Full-Time MBA
"I’m coming to Rice to (un)learn, skill up and build community to help meet the urgent and growing global demand for change. The past few years have demonstrated the need for a stronger social impact sector. I’m coming to Rice to better understand the financial systems that shape social impact work — from the inside. We need to reimagine and build a sustainable model of social change work: one where our communities can neutralize threats and meet urgent needs while driving the structural changes required to uproot inequity."
Yacoob is a community organizer, strategist and “fixer,” utilizing the arts and culture as vehicles to reclaim power in communities oppressed by difference. He has developed human rights campaigns, trained organizers with Amnesty International, joined the Women’s March and helped lead a gun violence solution to the White House. Yacoob says the nonprofit model alone cannot create the structural, root-level changes communities need and founded a social impact consulting firm, The BROWNMANRUNNING Agency. He is also the director of special projects at Women’s March.
Liam Morris '23 MBA@Rice
"The pandemic changed the way we work. While the airline industry is back stronger than ever, we had to rethink the way we approach everything. Rice Business provides an education that fosters the mindset of approaching each challenge with innovative and out-of-the box thinking. Working as an operations leader, my schedule can be rough. MBA@Rice provides the highest quality education, the flexibility to work with my schedule and the resources to succeed. The best part is that I literally can apply the thoughts and knowledge shared by my professor and peers at the office the morning after class."
Morris’ career started while he was attending the University of Texas at El Paso and working at the local airport for different airlines. At the end of his sophomore year, he was selected for an internship as an analyst with United Airlines in New Jersey and ultimately earned a full-time role as an operational supervisor. He then transferred to Rutgers University, where he graduated summa cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration. In January 2022, he was promoted to assistant manager of airport operations customer service in Houston, where he helps to oversee one of United’s largest hubs.
Sara Moghaddam '23 MBA@Rice
"As the pandemic disrupted the way we live, work and conduct business, I saw leaders scrambling to manage the fallout. This was a wake-up call, and I saw the need to get more training with a more comprehensive understanding of business strategy and operations, to have better vision to take calculated risks, to learn how to deal with uncertainty, and to be more effective in leading and resolving organizational problems. I chose to join the MBA program to build these competencies, and it has been an exciting journey so far."
As a Ph.D. in chemistry with years of experience in conducting research in academia and industry, Moghaddam has developed the skills to channel her expertise to make a difference. Being more involved in strategic decision-making processes, she learned that there is a gap in her knowledge of translating technology to successful business outcomes. The MBA@Rice program was the best way to accelerate her understanding of critical business skills.
Jennifer Rogers '24 Executive MBA
"My purpose in life is to be an unrelenting advocate for the potential that exists in others, and I am focused on emerging technology and innovation as a “people accelerator” in an age of disruption and exponential change. I’m honored to be a part of the Rice ecosystem because it provides me with an amazing network of talented and passionate individuals all working in service of humanity to transform the world around us. I cherish the family-oriented aspect of the Rice community and the opportunities that it provides to support and grow alongside one another as we explore and expand our horizons far beyond our current reach."
Rogers is an experienced learning and talent development executive with a demonstrated history of strategic workforce transformation and capability development. She specializes in workforce optimization and acceleration utilizing a unique combination of emerging technologies and data analytics and has led large strategic initiatives in several complex global organizations and industries, including oil and gas, mining, aviation and financial services. Rogers is VP of learning and development at RPM Living, a rapid-growth-stage real estate firm.
CJ Holderread '23 Full-Time MBA
"Given the changes taking place around the world, there is a need for everyone to adjust to new roles. Rice Business has helped me navigate this dynamic landscape by equipping me with the skills to tackle modern business challenges. There have also been opportunities to apply these skills to real-world scenarios. I traveled to Portugal to participate in the Global Field Experience program and worked with a local fintech company, advising them on a strategy to expand to North America. The project required my team to adapt to an unfamiliar business context and prepared us to become future business leaders."
Holderread is from Kingwood and earned his B.B.A. in energy commerce from Texas Tech University. He holds leadership positions in the Rice Energy Finance Summit Committee and Finance Association. Before Rice Business, Holderread worked for Equinor as a land representative, partnering with landowners and regulatory agencies to secure the right to explore for and develop minerals and other energy sources. He aspires to leverage his experience to begin a career in investment banking.
Amy Dittmar is provost and a professor of economics (social sciences) and a professor of finance (business). She has an extensive background in economics, finance and university administration. Dittmar previously served as senior vice provost for academic and budgetary affairs and professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan. Dittmar earned her B.S. in finance and business economics from Indiana University and Ph.D. in finance from the University of North Carolina.
Paul Padley, a professor of physics and astronomy and director of the Bonner Nuclear Laboratory, is vice president for information technology and chief information officer. The office is the university’s central technology provider and supports research, academic and administrative systems, other core applications; and voice, network and computing infrastructure for the Rice community. Padley holds a Ph.D. and master’s degree in physics from the University of Toronto and a bachelor’s in physics from York University and serves on faculty advisory committees on information technology issues.
Omar Syed, an attorney with 15 years of experience in higher education, is vice president and general counsel. Syed guides the university on the best legal course to successfully execute its mission, including the unique legal challenges Rice will face while expanding its research programs. Syed previously served as associate vice chancellor and deputy general counsel for the University of Texas System. Syed earned his Bachelor of Arts degree with special honors in public policy studies from the University of Chicago and his law degree from the University of Minnesota Law School.
Kelly Fox is vice president for finance and administration and will supervise financial planning and policies, financial reporting, debt and cash management, financial systems, nonacademic budgeting, compliance, capital markets, accounting and audit, construction, facilities, security, housing and food, and human resources. A senior executive with more than 20 years of experience in higher education, Fox previously served as executive vice president and chief budget officer at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Fox earned her Master of Public Administration degree from the University of Colorado Denver and her Bachelor of Science in psychology from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.
Ramamoorthy Ramesh, a condensed matter physicist and materials scientist with more than 25 years in academia, industry, national labs and government service, is vice president for research. He will oversee internal and external research ventures and will partner with senior leadership to bolster the research infrastructure and propel productivity and impact to new heights. He was previously the Purnendu Chatterjee Chair in Energy Technologies and a professor of physics and materials science and engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Ramesh earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry from Madras University, a bachelor’s degree in metallurgy from the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore, and a master’s and Ph.D. in materials science and engineering from UC Berkeley.
Paul Cherukuri is the university’s first vice president for innovation. The primary areas of focus for the office will be technology translation, startup creation, commercialization, and entrepreneurship training. Cherukuri will also oversee engagement with the Ion, including programs in the innovation district. Cherukuri, who was previously the executive director of the Institute of Biosciences and Bioengineering, is a physicist, chemist and medtech entrepreneur with more than 15 years of experience in academia and the pharmaceutical industry. He earned his bachelor’s degree in physics from the University of Kentucky and his Ph.D. in physical chemistry under Nobel laureate Richard Smalley at Rice.
Krissy White 
Aquib Yacoob '24 
Liam Morris '23 
Sara Moghaddam '23 
Jennifer Rogers '24 
CJ Holderread '23 
