Spring 2023 Graduation

First Class of Graduates Reflect on EMBA's Leadership Lessons

Anonymous — Thu, 11 May 2023 15:12:56 +0000

First Class of Graduates Reflect on EMBA's Leadership Lessons Anonymous (not verified) Thu, 05/11/2023 - 09:12

Global experiences, a thoughtful program design and emphasis on DEI helped students forge tight bonds while reflecting on their aspirations as leaders.

Students in the Executive MBA program pose for a group shot during their retreat to Vail. Graduates completed six one-week residences during their two years at Leeds, including visits to campus, the mountains, London and Lisbon. Pictured below are Max Perez Maryel Barron.

Ask the students, and they’ll tell you it’s more than the convenience of a hybrid structure, the high level of support or the picturesque retreat locations.

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New award recognizes professor whose innovations tamed one of Leeds' most difficult courses.

What stands out most to the first graduating class of the Executive MBA program at the Leeds School of Business are the people.

“I did not expect my relationships to develop to such depths,” said Max Perez (EMBA’23), who is graduating this spring. “The relationships I built with my team, my cohort and the faculty are something I expect to carry with me for the rest of my career.”

Making meaningful connections with an accomplished group of leaders is a hallmark of the EMBA at Leeds. In designing the program, Lori Seward, professor and faculty director of MBA programs, felt strongly that it provide “rich opportunities for exceptional professionals—from a variety of industries, functions and fields—to make lifelong relationships.” She understood that these powerful contacts would help advance careers, launch new endeavors and facilitate impact at organizations.

Perez agreed. Now vice president of strategic initiatives at a cutting-edge quantum technology company, he directly attributed his current role to his EMBA experience.

“I had classmates working in finance, energy, mining, sales, operations, medicine, small business and so on,” he said. “Everyone brings a distinct perspective to the coursework and discussions. This will be my network beyond my core tech industry for the next phase of my career, and I hope it will enable the kind of cross-collaborations that I really enjoy.

“Ultimately, business is about people—and that is at the heart of the Leeds EMBA.”

Maryel Barron (EMBA’23) valued her cohort’s rich diversity, as well. “The program's emphasis on global perspectives and diverse industry experiences provided exposure to different viewpoints,” she said. “It was precious in broadening my understanding of various business practices and cultures, which is essential in developing effective strategies for managing diverse teams and addressing systemic gaps.”

When the program started, Barron worked at Boulder County Public Health. Thanks to her Leeds EMBA, she was able to transition into a financial controller role at Salud Family Health, where she’s working to create equitable access for vulnerable populations.

A special format

Soon after Leeds launched the EMBA in 2021, Executive MBA—the global trade magazine for EMBA programs—celebrated the program for its innovative, hybrid structure.

Even more importantly, that structure has been a hit with students.

“The Leeds EMBA is ready-made for a working professional,” said Dr. Brad Fehrenbach (EMBA’23), a radiologist who is graduating this May. “They’ve got all the logistics down. And I like our class size, because you get to know each other very well.”

“Ultimately, business is about people—and that is at the heart of the Leeds EMBA.”

Max Perez (EMBA’23)

Those logistics include three one-week, in-person residencies each year—in the mountains, on the Boulder campus and abroad—that allow professionals to escape outside distractions while applying new skills, working in teams, and building relationships with their classmates and instructors. Between residencies, they build their business knowledge through high-quality online instruction, which provides the flexibility needed to continue meeting the demands of their careers and personal lives.

Over the course of the two-year program, the EMBA Class of 2023 visited international destinations, including Lisbon and London, that featured visits to innovative companies like the Techstars London Accelerator and Disney. The trip also allowed time for absorbing the culture—whether at Lisbon’s oldest winery or London’s historic theater district.

“The international residency brought together all the relationships built over the course of two years through teamwork and local residencies, and extended that engagement to the wider international community,” Perez said. “It was truly life-changing.”

Emily Ryan (EMBA’23), chief client officer for Valuize and the winner of Leeds’ first Executive MBA Student Excellence Award, also said the bonds between students are a crucial feature of the program.

“The thing that stands out to me the most, beyond the stellar faculty and care that was taken in developing our cohort, is the thoughtful design of the program itself,” she said.

A hallmark

That design includes special emphasis on diversity, equity and inclusion—crucial leadership skills that are nonetheless nascent concepts in most business curricula. One year after the program began, Executive Connections again praised Leeds’ EMBA program, this time for its emphasis on DEI. The publication extolled Leeds for the intentional curriculum of the program, which is based on three interwoven pillars considered critical for leadership: inclusion, innovation and leadership. The program’s emphasis ensures DEI goes further than ensuring student teams are adequately represented—it emphasizes that each team member feels heard and appreciated.

In addition to business fundamentals, leadership and innovation, the curriculum focuses on inclusive leadership, which challenges students to explore their unconscious biases around gender, race, class and sexual orientation. Given Leeds' expertise in this area, program designers decided DEI was just as important to integrate into the curriculum as fundamental business disciplines.

The emphasis on DEI is what motivated Barron, a self-described Latina leader, to apply.

“As someone who has faced systemic barriers and discrimination in my career, I appreciated the program's focus on understanding and addressing issues of diversity and inclusion in the workplace,” she said, “and developing leaders equipped to lead diverse teams.”

Why Leeds Executive MBA Program Graduate Business Programs

As they head to new roles and promotions, graduates explain why the Leeds program was the right fit for them.

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Classroom Flip Offers Students Tighter Grip on Business Analytics

Anonymous — Tue, 09 May 2023 20:29:19 +0000

Classroom Flip Offers Students Tighter Grip on Business Analytics Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 05/09/2023 - 14:29

To prepare students to take on technical challenges at work, Kai Larsen sought an innovation of his own. That earned him Leeds’ first award for teaching innovation.

Kai Larsen in the atrium of the Rustandy Building. He was selected as the first winner of a Leeds teaching innovation award designed to both improve student learning and share new ideas among business faculty. Larsen and a teaching assistant created a tool, website and other materials to improve his Business Analytics course. Below are Peter Kinder, Larsen’s TA, and David Balkin, who funded the award.

Ask someone who’s both taken and helped taught it: The Business Analytics course has a reputation for being among the most difficult at the Leeds School of Business.

Graduation 2023

Complete coverage of the commencement ceremonies for the Class of 2023 at Leeds.
Teamwork, tomorrows the themes at graduation ceremonies.
When it comes to impact, the Class of 2023 is just getting started.
At graduation, the first class of executive MBA students reflects on lessons learned at Leeds.
David Drake honored as a top teacher with Frascona Award.

For instance, a culminating experiences in the course involves sitting for the Alteryx Core Certification Test, administered to industry professionals who are seeking licensing on the Alteryx platform. Only about one in four students in the class passed the exam on their first try.

Professor Kai Larsen, who was teaching the course, saw an opportunity to innovate—and to involve his students in that process.

“Kai goes above and beyond in order to help his students succeed,” said Peter Kinder (Fin, InfoMgmt; Math, Stat’23), who took the course and helped administer it as a teaching assistant. “To pass the core certification, you really had to be a go getter, someone willing to find materials on your own and understand that. Kai wanted to build something that could make it easier for students to understand the material and be successful.”

Larsen and Kinder’s success in re-envisioning the course to make it more accessible—and how they increased the pass rate for that industry exam to 80 percent, without teaching to the test—is why Larsen became the first winner of the David B. Balkin and Rosalind and Chester Barnow Endowed Innovative Teaching Award.

An emphasis on teaching

When you consider everything a business school professor has to do in the course of his or her work—service appointments, research and publications, mentorship, conferences, and so on—teaching can sometimes feel like an afterthought, and it’s uncommon for faculty to discuss best practices or develop new ideas to master their craft, said David Balkin, a professor of management at Leeds, who funded the award.

“Teaching is something we do by ourselves, that we know a lot about, but don’t share with anyone,” he said.

“Being able to encourage and reward innovations in teaching is not only beneficial to faculty, but also to students, who are able to learn in a more engaging way.”

Professor David Balkin

That was the impetus behind creating the endowed award, which encourages and rewards teaching innovation—and requires winners and finalists to present their innovative methods to the rest of the Leeds faculty “and encourage them to use it in their own courses,” Balkin said.

A focus on teaching innovation

Teaching innovation is regularly celebrated in medical and engineering schools, but less so in business education, and there are few requirements for broadly sharing innovative methods, he said: “Being able to encourage and reward innovations in teaching is not only beneficial to faculty, but also to students, who are able to learn in a more engaging way.”

Student engagement was at the core of the innovation that got Larsen the award. A celebrated thought leader in analytics, Larsen said it’s a challenge to present technical material to business students.

“A lot of analytics comes out of math,” Larsen said. “And you learn math by doing lots of problems. One of the realizations I had is that there isn’t enough time in the classroom for students to learn analytics at a deeper level.”

If all Larsen did was flip his classroom so that students did analytics problems at home, then devoted class periods to enrichment and application, that would be notable, but not exactly innovative. What he did instead was work with Kinder to build a tool, called Simplyx, from scratch. It’s essentially a version of the Alteryx platform, modified to allow students to work on and submit problems—individually or in groups—and chart their progress while providing feedback in instances where they got the wrong answers.

MORE: Meet the first college student to win global Alteryx Grand Prix

And because it’s a self-guided experience for students, Larsen and Kinder had to ensure there was a degree of logic baked in to when new tools are introduced, tested and mastered.

“We developed this set of roughly 150 problems, ranging from easy to advanced, and organized them into a belt system, if you picture karate belts,” Larsen said. “So the white belt is the easier set of problems to solve, with a simpler set of tools that you have to understand before you can move on to the yellow belt, which incorporates the knowledge earned in the white belt, and so on.”

The whole class is organized around this belt system, where the procedural knowledge of how to do a task precedes the conceptual and theoretical knowledge.

Along with Simplyx, there’s a website Larsen and Kinder created to track student progress through real-time analytics and the Simplyx Check software that allows students to upload completed problems to the cloud for evaluation. They also wrote a guidebook to help users master Simplyx, and have enlisted graduates of the course to hold office hours for students seeking help.

Improved student outcomes

“The idea here is not just that we’re improving student learning,” Larsen said. “As a professor tracks the students’ progress, he or she can see where students are struggling, and re-evaluate the class structure and their own methods to help them become better teachers.”

“That’s something I like about how we developed this system,” Balkin said. “Kai and I may work in different areas, but I know there’s something in his approach that can make me a better teacher, too, and I look forward to learning what that might be.”

The teaching award is designated for faculty only—so Kinder cannot be an official winner, though Larsen plans to share the cash prize with his protégé, as “I could have done none of this without him.” A share of the cash prize will be helpful to Kinder as he begins his graduate studies—but more than that, the experience gave him some direction for his future plans.

“Having the experience of working with Kai and building this software has really warmed me to the idea of starting my own business,” Kinder said. “This project has been a valuable small-business experiment, as we’ve reached out to other professors and, hopefully, might expand this to other universities.”

Why Leeds Faculty research MS in Business Analytics

Is there a way to make one of Leeds’ difficult analytics classes more accessible? For Kai Larsen, the answer was analytics.

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For Frascona Winner, Inspiring Students is ‘The Greatest Feeling’

Anonymous — Mon, 08 May 2023 06:00:00 +0000

For Frascona Winner, Inspiring Students is ‘The Greatest Feeling’ Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/08/2023 - 00:00

Drake leans on his industry experience to find effective ways to connect with students who take different paths to Leeds’ MBA classes.

Students will present David Drake with the Frascona Teaching Excellence Award at graduation this week. At MBA Last Lecture, in downtown Boulder, Drake gave a short talk to the graduates, encouraging them to maintain a sense of curiosity as they take their skills out into the world.

When he was a director at Random House, David Drake led a project team responsible for initiatives across the organization. And as you might expect from a publications empire, the company’s makeup could make that challenging.

“You had some division leaders who were very business-minded, MBA trained, always focused on the bottom line,” Drake said. “But you had other leaders who came up through editorial roles and who were more artistically trained. And since we needed buy in from everyone to move ahead, I had to learn how to present ideas to a wide variety of audiences with different skills.”

That, he said, has proven invaluable in his role as a teacher.

Different styles for different students

“Each student has their own learning style and different strengths, and my job, is to find a way to present material in a way that is accessible to each of them,” he said. “I really think that makes a difference in helping people learn.”

Graduation 2023

Complete coverage of the commencement ceremonies for the Class of 2023 at Leeds.
Teamwork, tomorrows the themes at graduation ceremonies.
When it comes to impact, the Class of 2023 is just getting started.
At graduation, the first class of executive MBA students reflects on lessons learned at Leeds.
New award recognizes professor whose innovations tamed one of Leeds' most difficult courses.

That commitment to his craft—and to the MBA students he teaches—is why Drake will be honored at commencement with the Joseph L. Frascona Teaching Excellence Award, presented annually by students to a Leeds professor who is a strong mentor, who encourages intellectual development and who creates lasting impact beyond the classroom.

For Drake, teaching excellence is about living up to the professors who inspired him as a student. He completed his undergraduate and MBA degrees from Vanderbilt, then headed to INSEAD for his PhD after six years working in industry.

“I think I’m like a lot of faculty in that I chose this career because I was inspired by those who taught me,” he said. “When you’re in the classroom, and you sense that students are really dialed in and engaged, that’s the greatest feeling. And then, when you have a chance to truly make a difference for a student—help them grasp something that they may have been struggling with and you see that ‘aha,’ or when you are able to make a connection for them that helps them land a job or internship—those moments stay with you, as a professor.”

Drake uses the case method in teaching his MBA classes, in which students take on the role of leaders who faced difficult choices in guiding their businesses.

“When you have a chance to truly make a difference for a student ... those moments stay with you, as a professor.”

Professor David Drake

That’s not an unusual approach for graduate classes, but Drake said he appreciated it because it’s the best way to get students to bring their own perspectives and experiences to classroom discussions.

“I teach that way because there’s so much talent in that classroom that’s not necessarily at the podium,” he said. “Case discussions allow all students to benefit and learn from that collective talent.”

That can lend a degree of authenticity to Drake’s classes.

‘You have to stay real’

“When you’re teaching MBAs, sometimes there’s a dose of healthy skepticism—it’s not antagonistic, but it’s like, ‘How can I use this?,’ or ‘That isn’t my experience, why do you say that?’” he said. “You have to stay real. You can’t just present this abstract theory, you have to be able to connect the dots and bring it back to what’s practical and pragmatic.”

Just because MBAs are seeking practical skills for leadership doesn’t mean they don’t need to be reminded to bring perspective to their lives. Drake shared some of that during a meaningful, teachable moment at MBA Last Lecture, a Leeds tradition in which graduating MBA students enjoy a life lesson from one of their professors over drinks in a Boulder restaurant.

In his talk, Drake mentioned wonder and confidence as two values he hoped the graduates would continue to harness throughout their lives. He shared the story of rushing with his son, then 2, to day care on a fall day.

“I was running a bit late and, rather than being in the moment, I was in that zone, thinking about teaching and what was ahead for my day, when I notice my son had suddenly stopped and was just staring at the sky,” Drake told the students. When he looked up to see what his son was watching, he saw brightly colored leaves dancing across the sky in a beam of sunlight.

“Look at the world with the wonder of a toddler,” Drake said. “They go out into the world looking for what will amaze them.

“When you look for wonder, you find it. Be in that moment, be present wherever you are. Curiosity does not have an expiration date.”

Why Leeds Faculty research Leeds MBA programs

Students nominated David Drake for the award, given annually to a Leeds professor who mentors and challenges in ways that extend beyond the classroom.

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Class of 2023 Caps Off College Experiences, Prepares for a Lifetime of Impact

Anonymous — Fri, 05 May 2023 15:49:10 +0000

Class of 2023 Caps Off College Experiences, Prepares for a Lifetime of Impact Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 05/05/2023 - 09:49

Amid countless challenges, Leeds grads transformed the school, campus and world through their work. And they’re just getting started.

What started as a project in Olivia McKeen’s marketing class—an online resource for victims of the Marshall Fire—became an impactful guide to the Boulder County community in the wake of the disaster. McKeen was inspired to create the guide after her own home burned down during the December 2021 fire.

College graduates this spring confronted their share of challenges along the way—especially the pandemic and resulting economic uncertainty. For Boulder’s Class of 2023, though, another defining disaster was the December 2021 Marshall Fire, which burned more than 6,000 acres near the CU Boulder campus and destroyed more than 1,000 homes.

Graduation 2023

Complete coverage of the commencement ceremonies for the Class of 2023 at Leeds.
Teamwork, tomorrows the themes at graduation ceremonies.
At graduation, the first class of executive MBA students reflects on lessons learned at Leeds.
David Drake honored as a top teacher with Frascona Award.
New award recognizes professor whose innovations tamed one of Leeds' most difficult courses.

Olivia McKeen was among those who lost her home in the fire, but instead of being consumed by shock, she rallied to build a community resource—the Marshall Fire Resource Guide—that become a relied-upon, one-stop shop for fire victims unsure of where to turn for donations, rebuilding resources, updates on lost pets and more. It also helped volunteers find useful ways to help.

Now that she’s graduating, McKeen—who will start work as an assistant social media planner at Sterling-Rice Group—hopes those marketing and branding skills she learned at Leeds, and that she used to build the website, will help her create impact throughout her career.

“I wanted to come out of Leeds with a meaningful degree and a meaningful job,” she said. “I would love to use my degree do something that helps people.”

McKeen is just one of many graduates of the Leeds School of Business who have already created impact at school and are hungry to do more. Here are some of their stories.

Chasing the dream—literally

Wes Weber’s original plan was to work a few years after completing his bachelor’s degree before retuning for a master’s. But continuing directly to his master’s degree meant a fifth year with the Ralphie handler program.

Chasing a buffalo during football games definitely involves physical stamina and courage—but for Weber (Mktg, BA’22; MSBA’23) and other runners, the program also teaches leadership, communication, improvisation, confidence and resilience—all vital business skills. He’ll now bring that unique package of skills to CapTech, where he’s been hired as a data analyst consultant.

“You walk out of Leeds feeling prepared for anything,” Wes said. “My professors have given me the confidence and preparedness to help me feel I can do this. And it goes hand in hand with the Ralphie program of being a leader, being able to use my voice and believing in myself to get the job done, whatever it may be.”

‘Making people feel part of the Leeds community’

Anya Aidun (InfoMgmt’23) is no stranger to leadership, having held key roles at organizations such as Leeds Student Government and the Delta Sigma Pi business fraternity. So it’s no wonder she was named among CU Boulder’s Student Leaders of the Year for 2023.

“The award means so much to me because I think it was not about the executive positions I was in, but rather, about making people feel part of the Leeds community,” she said.

Aidun also worked to be a leader in organizations where she didn’t have the title, like Leeds’ student consulting club, which prepared her for an internship with McKinsey that led to a full-time offer as a business analyst.

“Leeds taught me how to quickly take in information and be able to make rapid decisions,” she said. “That’s the key to success in consulting, because you have to be constantly learning.”

The head of her class

Christina Heese (Strat&Entrep, PolSci’23) always thought she’d end her career as a teacher, as a way of giving back to those who inspired her as a student.

But then—why wait?

“There’s so much you can do as a teacher, so much you can give back to a community, especially at a time when there are such shortages out there,” she said.

That’s why Heese is off to Teach for America, where she’ll be teaching math in Washington as she prepares for law school—and maybe a future counseling startups and entrepreneurs on how to create impact through their discoveries.

“I don’t think I’m an entrepreneur—I don’t always have the tolerance for risk—but I’ve found I really like working in these startup ecosystems, and I think I could help support those people who do have great ideas and plans,” she said.

Seeking ‘the opportunity to change the world’

Effective analysts understand that data isn’t about numbers. It’s about how data tells a story that informs a strategy.

Colton Marschik (BA, OpsMgmt’23) found an unusual outlet to practice his talents as a storyteller—“The Future of Thought,” a podcast he started and hosts. On the show, he interviews thought leaders for open conversations that explore the growing divide in a polarized society.

“Ultimately, the goal was to understand people from all perspectives in the hope of bridging that gap,” he said.

Marschik interned with Lockheed Martin’s space division. He’s now headed to the company’s Rotary and Mission Systems office as a data analyst.

A fashionable side gig

Who launches her business the same week as final exams?

“I love the chaos,” said Holly Henderson (MBA’23), who created the Free Takeout fashion brand in the fall alongside two of her classmates.

Henderson plans to continue with Free Takeout on the side after graduation—she’s currently interviewing at several places—as it unlocked a passion while serving as a proving ground for the lessons she was absorbing in class. Even more than her classes, though, Henderson appreciated how Leeds challenged her to explore her passion for business. That’s reflected in Free Takeout’s brand, which is centered around the people in your life, not just the journey.

“At Leeds, I found the path for myself and had a self-exploration journey that helped me create something truly meaningful,” she said. “I couldn't have done it without the friendships I made through my MBA.”

Mentorship matters

As she explored possible career paths in real estate, Kyla Thomas (RE, Fin’23) said she benefited from incredible mentorship opportunities that were made possible through the Inclusive City Builder Fellowship, a new rotational program that gave her insights into the industry “from start to finish.”

It also gave her a truly unique set of mentors.

“The biggest part is not only the learning, but the network and connections,” Thomas said. “We learned from the leaders at these companies because they really want to help students break into the real estate industry, and share a mission of encouraging diversity.”

While she remains intrigued about the opportunities to work in urban mixed-use development, Thomas is eager to work as an alternative analyst at BlackRock’s asset management team.

‘It hasn’t always been easy’

For Sandip Bisui (PhD’23), the challenges of doctoral-level study and research were compounded by the difficulty in navigating a new home and culture.

“The past five years haven’t always been easy,” he said. “Moving over 8,000 miles away from home was quite the culture shock, but Boulder quickly became my second home.”

Bisui studied mathematics and scientific computing at Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur, before heading to Colorado for his doctoral work. He credited his advisors and Leeds faculty for making him a strong researcher and preparing him for his role as an assistant professor at Purdue University.

“My journey here wasn’t just about academic growth,” he said. “I’ve also gained valuable life lessons, such as learning the importance of community, friendship and inclusivity. And it’s hard to find a community as welcoming as the one at CU Boulder.”

Why Leeds Undergraduate experience Graduate experience

In the face of countless challenges, Leeds graduates transformed the school, campus and world through their work. Here’s what’s next for the Class of 2023.

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