The ExecMBA Podcast

Boldly going where no Darden podcast episode has gone before. Our first podcast conversation with a Learning Team! In this episode, we catch up with five (of seven) second year students in the Executive MBA Class of 2023 who are on Learning Team 2 – Johnny Carpenter, John Grant, Catherine Kenney, Kuleen Mehta and Remington Roth. The students talk about how their team formed, set norms, developed their work approach and most importantly supported each other during the program. As is noted during the conversation, learning at Darden is a team sport. Did you know? All Darden students are assigned a 5-6 person Learning Team, and this team is an important academic resource, particularly during the core curriculum.

Big news! Welcome to our first podcast interview with two students from Darden’s newest MBA format – the Part-Time MBA. In this conversation we catch up with Parker Lapeyre and Max Godwin, first year students in UVA Darden’s Part-Time MBA Class of 2025 and co-Presidents of the Part-Time MBA Student Association (PSA). We talk with Parker and Max about their backgrounds, what led them to Darden, how things are going for their class, their goals for the PSA, their advice for prospective students and more. Essential listening!

In this special edition of the Darden Admissions podcast, we share a recent installment in our ongoing ‘Office Hours’ faculty spotlight series, a conversation with Professor Luca Cian. Cian is a member of the Marketing faculty at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business, and his research area is consumer behavior, with a focus on sensory marketing, aesthetics, and human-machine interaction. In this conversation, we talk with Cian about his background, his passion for teaching, his research in artificial intelligence, “word of machine” recommendations and more.

In this special edition of the podcast, we are excited to share another installment from our ongoing Women@Darden event series featuring Professor Mary Margaret Frank. Frank is the Senior Associate Dean for Faculty Development, the John Tyler Professor of Business Administration and the Institute for Business in Society Academic Director at the Darden School of Business. Her expertise is in the integration of business and public policy, including cross-sector collaborations. She is a former board member of Veru Inc., (formerly known as the Female Health Company), which works with public-private partnerships that empower women to fight HIV globally, especially in Africa. She is also an expert in regulated disclosure focusing on tax, financial accounting and patent reporting. During this conversation moderated by Senior Assistant Dean of Admissions Dawna Clarke, Frank reflects upon her background, how she helps prepare faculty to teach at Darden, her passion for her students, her experience leading Darden Worldwide Courses in Africa and more.

In this special edition of the Darden Admissions podcast, we share a recent installment in our ongoing ‘Office Hours’ faculty spotlight series, a conversation with Professor Pedro Matos. Matos is the academic director of the Richard A. Mayo Center for Asset Management and a member of the Finance faculty at the University of Virginia Darden School of Business. His research focuses on the growing importance of institutional investors in financial markets worldwide, and in this conversation, we talk with Matos about his background, his work with the Mayo Center, his role as advisor to Darden Capital Management, his passion for ESG (Environmental Social Governance) investing and more.

In this special edition of the Darden Admissions podcast, we share a recent installment in our ongoing ‘Office Hours’ faculty spotlight series, a conversation with Professor Yo-Jud Cheng. Cheng teaches in the Strategy, Ethics and Entrepreneurship area at Darden, and her research focuses on corporate governance and top executives in public companies. In this wide-ranging conversation, we talk with Cheng about her background, what led her to Darden, and what she enjoys about teaching Strategy in the first year core curriculum. She also shares insights about several recent corporate governance scandals as well as the important role corporate boards play in shaping a company’s strategic direction.

In this episode of the podcast, we catch up with John Grant and Carter Whitelow. John is a second year student in our Executive MBA Class of 2023, and Carter is a first year student in our Executive MBA Class of 2024. As you will learn from this conversation, John and Carter are friends outside of Darden, and this relationship played an important role in Carter’s MBA journey. We talk with John and Carter about their decision to pursue an MBA, what led them to Darden, the impact of the Executive MBA program and much more.

In this special edition of the podcast, we are excited to share a recent conversation between the Dean of the Darden School of Business Scott Beardsley and Senior Assistant Dean of Admissions Dawna Clarke about why it has never been a better time to be at Darden. Beardsley and Clarke share insights on a number of topics including the importance of financial accessibility and scholarships, Darden’s unique academic environment, updates on School priorities and how students can take a Darden MBA ‘from here to anywhere.’ This conversation was recorded on 2 November.

In this special edition of the podcast, we are excited to share another installment from our ongoing Women@Darden event series featuring Professor Melissa Thomas-Hunt. Thomas-Hunt is the John Forbes Distinguished Professor of Business Administration at the Darden School of Business and Professor of Public Policy at the Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, and she is also the former Head of Global Diversity and Belonging at Airbnb where she led the strategy and execution of our global internal diversity, inclusion, equity and belonging programs. For 25 years, she has taught MBAs and executives leadership, team dynamics, and negotiations and conducted research on the factors that unleash, leverage, and amplify the contributions made by individuals, particularly women, underrepresented individuals, and numerical minorities. During this wide-ranging conversation moderated by Senior Assistant Dean of Admissions Dawna Clarke, Thomas-Hunt touches upon her professional journey, what led her to Darden, her experience at Airbnb and more.

Did you know over half of our Executive MBA students identify as career switchers? True story. In this episode of the podcast, we catch up with Jim Collins. Jim is a Career Coach with UVA Darden’s Professional Degree Programs, and we talk with him about the career exploration process for working professional students. Jim also shares tips and insights for students seeking to leverage their Part-Time MBA or Executive MBA experience to facilitate a career change.