Columbia Business School: New Faculty and Electives Introduced for the 2019–2020 Academic Year

Columbia Business School states that their MBA program prepares students to “lead, build, and manage enterprises while instilling an awareness of the societal effects of business decisions.” The following are some of their new electives for 2019-2020.

At the Eugene M. Lang Entrepreneurship Center, students begin with a foundation in one of three tracks: innovation, entrepreneurship, or venture capital. New for this year is Melanie Brucks’ “Foundations of Innovation,” which focuses on customer-centric innovation, providing students with methodologies, strategies, and tools for opportunity identification, idea generation, design, prototyping and testing, and launch.

JP Kuehlwein’s marketing course “Premium Brand Strategy” focuses on strategies to elevate a brand so that it will be perceived as “peerless and priceless” by consumers. Students work in teams and develop a brand elevation strategy for a real product in a real-world situation.

Another marketing course, taught in conjunction with the School of Engineering and Applied Science, is “Innovate Using Design Thinking” (Gita Johar & Adam Royalty). Project-based and experiential, students partner with a client and develop a rough product prototype based on customer feedback.

“Residential Real Estate: Dirt, Debt, And Derivatives” (Brian Lancaster) looks at the US housing market, from development to valuation and financing, to investment. At the end of the semester, the class focuses on one foreign market (Fall 2019 focused on China).

The financial services industry is under the microscope in Charles Calomiris’ new course “Creative Destruction in Financial Services,” with the focus on both tech applications and demographic shifts that will continue to alter the way financial services are delivered.

Columbia also has an interesting Global Immersion Program (GIP) that brings together learning in the classroom with business practices in other countries, culminating in a 1-week visit to the focus country. While in-country, students meet with executives and government officials and work together on team projects. This year there are 2 new countries: Egypt, led by Marco Viola; and Japan, led by Pierre Yared.

Finally, Matthew Backus’ “Designing Markets: The Economics of Matching, Auctions, and Platforms” will focus on how online market platforms are increasingly “designed” by firms and policymakers instead of developing organically. Students will use economic tools to understand the decisions that affect those marketplaces.

Columbia has a lot going on for 2019-2020!

© 2020 Admitify