A Message from the Dean
Dear alumni and friends,
Innovation. For a business school to survive and thrive in the constantly evolving landscape of business — and society — it needs to be innovative.
Innovation is a recurring and unifying theme here in the School of Management. It’s evident in our faculty research, the way we teach our students and how we engage with the community. Innovation is also a critical component of our countless interdisciplinary collaborations, such as the new initiative on social innovation we’ve launched with the School of Social Work.
In this issue of Buffalo Business, you’ll find many examples of innovation woven throughout the stories, programs and profiles featured.
Innovation in our curriculum, including programs like LeaderCORE™ and Corporate Champions, helped the MBA program vault 13 spots in Bloomberg Businessweek’s ranking of best business schools.
Our cover story, “Management and the Machine,” highlights the business applications of artificial intelligence and taps into the expertise of our faculty and alumni to explain the promise and pitfalls.
In Startups, you’ll see how two students are taking advantage of UB’s burgeoning entrepreneurial ecosystem to develop their business, MemoryFox, and winning awards and recognition in the process. Also in that section, you can read about how we celebrated the innovative spirit of Candace Johnson, president and CEO of Roswell Park Cancer Institute, by honoring her as the Buffalo Niagara Executive of the Year.
The ability to innovate has been the key to success for many of our alumni, including those you’ll see featured in this issue from such companies as Microsoft, Intel, Amazon and Adobe.
Our faculty are thought leaders in management and their respective fields, adding new knowledge that impacts business worldwide. In Insights, you’ll find research by Professor Jim Lemoine on how a collaborative culture can empower women in male-dominated workplaces, a study by Professor Ram Bezawada about how social media engagement impacts consumer spending, and more.
As we move forward as a leading management school, we will continue to innovate so we can nimbly navigate the ever-changing waters of business. Stay tuned!
Sincerely,
Paul Tesluk
Dean