Kelley professor and student social entrepreneur to discuss making business a force for good

Posted on October 6, 2021 by George Vlahakis

Sankalp Sharma

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – What drives social entrepreneurs to make business a force for good?

An Indiana University Kelley School of Business professor who is one of the world’s leading researchers on social entrepreneurship will sit down for a conversation with a current Kelley student whose NGO focuses on sustainable development in 10 countries and involves about 9,500 “young changemakers.”

Sophie Bacq, associate professor of entrepreneurship and a faculty fellow in the Institute for Entrepreneurship & Competitive Enterprise, will speak with Sankalp Sharma, founder of the Sachh Foundation, an organization that has received the attention of the Obama Foundation and received many honors and awards

The live webinar – presented at 4 pm on Oct. 13 — is one of several events being held this fall at IU on the theme, “Business Doing Good.” After the discussion, Bacq and Sharma will take questions. Registration is free and open to the public.

Sophie Bacq

Bacq, who joined the Kelley faculty in 2019, is leading scholar in social entrepreneurship. In her research, she investigates and theorizes about entrepreneurial action aiming to solve intractable social and environmental problems, at the individual, organizational and civic levels of analysis. She has taught and conducted empirical research on the topic in Europe, the United States and South Africa and her research has been published in the top management and entrepreneurship journals.

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A lasting legacy: Kelley’s Full-Time MBA Program welcomes its 55th class of Consortium fellows

Posted on October 5, 2021 by George Vlahakis

Group photo of members of the 55th Class of Consortium Fellows

Kelley members of the 55th Class of Consortium Fellows

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – The Indiana University Kelley School of Business this fall welcomed 18 MBA students who are members of its 55^th class of Consortium for Graduate Study in Management fellows.

Better known as The Consortium, the national organization co-founded by the Kelley School in 1966 enhances diversity in business education through merit-based support and mentoring for African American, Hispanic and Native American students. It has encouraged more than 10,000 men and women of color to earn a graduate business degree, including more than 950 who have earned Kelley MBAs with support through the Consortium.

Natalia Corredor

Among the new students at Kelley this fall is Natalia Corredor, recipient of the Consortium’s 2021 Wallace L. Jones Fellowship, which is awarded to Consortium fellows with good character, who have demonstrated abilities toward future potential. She is the eighth Kelley MBA to be so honored since the fellowship was established in 1996 in recognition of the organization’s second director.

Corredor, a native of Colombia who came to the United States as a child and is also a Forté Foundation Fellow, said that receiving the Jones Fellowship served as validation that pursuing an MBA was the right decision.

“As a career switcher, I have a lot of insecurities when it comes to selling myself as the professional the MBA will help me become versus what I can contribute today,” she said. “Receiving the Wallace L. Jones Fellowship means that the Consortium sees ‘evidence of talent, achievement, and good character’ in me, and that gives me the extra confidence boost I needed to tackle both the MBA program and recruitment.

“My goal is to work for a technology-forward company that provides leadership opportunities and puts people before profit. I’m unsure about the specific function I’m targeting, but I’m interested in exploring business transformation roles, product management roles, and leadership development programs,” she added. “I know that the Kelley program plus my determination to excel equals a recipe for success.”

A Kelley graduate encourages other Consortium fellows to pay it forward

At the Consortium’s annual orientation in mid-June, Corredor was introduced to just one Kelley example of this recipe’s outcome. Darrell Farlough, a global procurement leader at a leading multinational energy company, was one of the presenters.

Darrell Farlough

A Louisiana native and the son of a carpenter and a stay-at-home mom, Farlough graduated from Kelley with an MBA in marketing and international business in 1993 and was a Consortium fellow. Before, he had been working as a business process control engineer at IBM and had earned a bachelor’s degree in physics from Dillard University, an HBCU based in New Orleans, and a bachelor’s degree in mechanical engineering from Columbia University.

“I started taking graduate business courses part-time after a year at IBM,” Farlough said. “Then I heard about the Consortium and I applied and was accepted. I’ll never forget that day.”

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Five Kelley School alumni being honored for their professional achievements on Oct. 9

Posted on September 30, 2021 by George Vlahakis

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Five alumni of the Indiana University Kelley School of Business will be honored for professional achievement during the 2021 Kelley Alumni Awards Ceremony on Oct. 9 at IU Bloomington.

“It is always an honor to recognize accomplished Kelley alumni who have left their marks in their communities and at their companies,” said Idalene “Idie” Kesner, dean of the Kelley School and the Frank P. Popoff Chair of Strategic Management.

“These five people have distinguished themselves in their careers through their personal talents and their professional achievements, and they have helped distinguish our school as well,” Kesner added. “Thanks to their various means of support, we are able to offer the best educational experience inside and outside the classroom and remain among the most innovative business schools in the world.”

Being named to the Kelley School of Business Academy of Alumni Fellows are: (more…)

Kelley professor to discuss ‘racial equity in a colorblind world’ at Equity Now event

Posted on September 28, 2021 by George Vlahakis

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Goldburn P. Maynard Jr., assistant professor of business law and ethics at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, will be the next presenter in Equity Now, a national online speaker series on race, gender, and how law and policy can facilitate equality, fairness and inclusion in organizations.

Goldburn Maynard

Maynard will lead a discussion on the topic, “Biden’s Push for Racial Equity in a Colorblind World,” which will begin at 6 p.m. (Eastern) on Tuesday, October 12.

The Kelley School of Business is co-sponsoring the Equity Now series along with the business schools at the University of Connecticut, Virginia Tech University, Temple University and the Academy of Legal Studies in Business. Registration is free and open to the public.

Speakers featured in the Equity Now series are esteemed business lawyers focused on legal and policy issues and how law and policy can promote diversity, equity and fairness in organizations and society.

On his first day in office President Joseph Biden issued an executive order to advance racial equity in communities through the federal government. As part of those efforts, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 directed the Department of Agriculture to implement a loan forgiveness program for farmers who had been harmed by decades of systematic discrimination.

Justice advocates applauded the move — which Maynard saw as major racial policy shift — but their hopes were quickly dashed when federal courts put a stop to the program.

“Despite the intent of the legislative and executive branches, courts have signaled that any race conscious efforts to remedy past injustices are on shaky ground,” said Maynard, who will discuss whether racial equity can be achieved with these limitations in place.

Maynard, who joined the Kelley faculty in 2020, teaches classes in business ethics. He previously served as an associate professor (untenured) at the University of Louisville Brandeis School of Law. He is a graduate of the University of Chicago Law School, and also received an LL.M. in Taxation from the Northwestern University School of Law. His research focuses on issues of wealth distribution and inequality, tax policy, and America’s aging population. He is also interested in how the brain works and how best to approach teaching.

He also has been a visiting assistant professor at Florida State University College of Law and Washington University School of Law. Before entering law teaching, he worked as an estate tax attorney for the Internal Revenue Service. He began his career as a tax associate at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, at its Chicago offices.

IU and Kelley honored for efforts to connect students with employers across China

Posted on September 24, 2021 by George Vlahakis

With a population of more than 24 million, Shanghai is China’s commercial center.

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – An international organization founded by leading universities worldwide and China’s leading recruitment platform has chosen Indiana University Bloomington as a winner of its 2021 China Career Development Award.

The honor designates IU as a Top 50 Professional Collaboration Support Global University.

In its announcement, the Global University Central Career Union said the award recognizes “outstanding work and achievement” by career services professionals at IU during 2020.

“As rough as it was, your continuous effort and collaboration with global employers, despite the volatile economy and social restrictions, guaranteed the active career performance of students,” said Crystal Kong, founder and chief executive officer of Lockin, a sponsor. “You have various world-leading subjects and disciplines, have a good reputation in China’s recruitment industry and are widely recognized by Chinese enterprises.”

Lockin provides employment solutions and career development for Chinese students earning college degrees in the U.S. and elsewhere abroad and others returning. Founded in 2016, the Global University Central Career Union – commonly known as GUCCU – includes a network of more than 60,000 employers and 1,600 global university partners.

Rebecca Cook

“We are very honored to receive this award from GUCCU. We have been a partner with GUCCU for the past four years and really support their mission of connecting students with employers in China,” said Rebecca Cook, executive director of undergraduate career services at the IU Kelley School of Business. “This is particularly important to us because employment in China has become a significant goal and destination for many of our students, including Chinese nationals and international and domestic students.

“Kelley, as well as IU as a whole, have spent a lot of time and energy building up their global relationships with alumni and companies, particularly in China and Southeast Asia. We have an influential, wonderful alumni base there and believe that this award is especially meaningful given how hard our alumni have worked to build the IU and Kelley brands in their home countries,” Cook added. “We hope to continue collaborating with GUCCU and our international alumni/partners to promote IU’s and Kelley’s institutional prestige, as well as our diverse, skilled students as leading global talents.”

IU’s Global Gateway in Beijing works closely with colleagues in the Office of International Services at IU Bloomington and IUPUI to build and maintain meaningful connections with businesses in China and to offer alumni access to all of the career services available. Having an in-country presence to connect students, parents, alumni, and international partner universities to IU has created a strong network that supports the global community.

Cook said the recognition is especially meaningful given that 2020 was a very tough year for the global employment market, Kelley students were not immune. “People were forced to cancel travel/study abroad plans and became more insular,” she said. “As global economies rebound, it is wonderful to see IU/Kelley recognized as a global partner.”

Research: Very low effective tax rates often do not reflect high levels of corporate tax avoidance

Posted on September 22, 2021 by George Vlahakis

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Companies’ low effective tax rates have drawn the ire of politicians, policymakers, the media and the public. As Congress begins debating changes to corporate taxes to partially fund a $3.5 trillion budget plan, the Biden administration is raising questions about how much corporations pay in taxes. But new research from the Indiana University Kelley School of Business and research colleagues elsewhere suggests very low effective tax rates often do not reflect high levels of tax avoidance.

Bridget Stomberg

Effective tax rates, or ETRs, are a measure of tax expense computed under U.S. Generally Accepted Accounting Principles as a percentage of pretax income. To better understand the scope of potential limitations of ETRs, the researchers created an “adjusted ETR” for nearly 15,800 company-year observations from 3,375 companies between 2008 and 2016 to remove items largely unrelated to tax avoidance.

The researchers defined tax avoidance as tax planning strategies managers use to reduce their company’s explicit tax burdens, such as claiming tax credits and shifting income to low-tax jurisdictions.

The study found that companies often report low ETRs not because of aggressive tax avoidance in the current year but rather because of changes in performance or favorable tax settlements with the IRS.

“Financial statement users often compare tax expense as a percentage of income to the statutory tax rate. When the ratio is lower, some may think the company is engaging in tax shenanigans, but our research finds that is often not the case,” said Bridget Stomberg, associate professor of accounting and a Weimer Faculty Fellow at the Kelley School of Business. “We find that many times, very low ETRs – those below 5% – can be attributed to changes in performance that affect the ETR because of rules under U.S. GAAP.”

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New collaboration between Kelley and a leading Greek university begins with student project

Posted on September 15, 2021 by George Vlahakis

Athens University of Economics and Business

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Forty-four students at the Indiana University Kelley School of Business and the Athens University of Economics and Business recently wrapped a joint case project studying a highly successful Greek business startup, e-satisfaction. The project – done virtually — was the inaugural activity of a new formal collaboration between the two business schools.

In May, Kelley and the Athens University of Economics and Business signed a Memorandum of Intent for Collaboration, which represents the first step toward further collaboration on education, academic programs and research. The two schools eventually intend to create student and faculty exchanges and pursue other joint programs.

Ash Soni

“This agreement is another example of how the Kelley School provides students with international opportunities that go far beyond cultural exchange to providing them with experience dealing with critical business issues, whether they are faced by firms in New York, Shanghai or – in this instance – Athens,” said Ash Soni, executive associate dean for academic programs, professor of operations and decision technologies and the SungKyunKwan Professor.

“While many understand the Greek economy to be dependent on tourism, it also is increasingly becoming more entrepreneurial in nature, with companies like the one our students worked with doing innovative things. That’s where we want to be,” Soni added.

Origins for the collaboration with AUEB can be traced to a Kelley course taught by Tatiana Kolovou, senior lecturer of business communication and a native of Greece. Over the last decade she has taken more than 300 Kelley School undergraduates and MBA students to Greece as part of immersion courses about the country, its economy and culture. Traditionally, they visit companies, meet with business professionals and do consulting projects for Greek companies.

Although IU study abroad courses were cancelled this year and last year because of Covid-19, the Kelley School has continued to pursue immersive, international experiences for students. In 2020, Kolovou was honored for her efforts with one of the annual Greek Tourism Awards sponsored by the Greek Ministry of Tourism. A year earlier, Kolovou was profiled in a major Greek publication and was called in the headline, “the Greek professor in the U.S. who teaches her students to love our country.”

Kennedy Day

As a result of the memorandum, 22 students in Kolovou’s “Business Culture of Greece” course pivoted and worked with 22 students at Athens School of Economics and Business to create a case study for e-satisfaction and its CEO. Teams were created with members from each school.

“Working with students from another university in Greece was exciting and rewarding. Learning about a different culture through a case taught me valuable lessons on how to communicate effectively with time barriers, differing work ethic strategies, and differing backgrounds,” said Kennedy Day, a junior majoring in marketing from Jasper, Indiana.

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Kelley alumnus named executive vice president and chief business innovation officer of Pfizer

Posted on August 27, 2021 by George Vlahakis

Aamir Malik

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Aamir Malik, an alumnus of the Indiana University Kelley School of Business, has been named executive vice president and chief business innovation officer of Pfizer Inc., a company known worldwide for its vaccines and for working to end the current COVID-19 pandemic.

Malik, who will be a member of Pfizer’s executive leadership team and report directly to the chairman and CEO, graduated from Kelley with a bachelor’s degree in finance in 1997 and today serves on the school’s Dean’s Council advisory board.

He comes to Pfizer after more than 24 years at McKinsey & Company, where he most recently served as the managing partner responsible for the firm’s U.S. operations. Previously, he led the firm’s global pharmaceuticals and medical products practice.

“We are living at a time of unprecedented scientific advancement, and Pfizer is a company that is unparalleled in its ambition to make a difference in patients’ lives,” Malik told the editor of biopharma news site Endpoints. “For me, there could be no professional opportunity greater than to leverage my diverse experiences across life-sciences to play a role in helping deliver on this aspiration, working alongside a leadership team for whom I have the deepest respect.”

Idalene “Idie” Kesner, dean of the Kelley School and the Frank P. Popoff Chair of Strategic Management, congratulated Malik and noted that his appointment reflects both Kelley’s traditional strengths in thought leadership in consulting and developing key decision makers in healthcare, the life sciences, and the pharmaceutical industry, especially at this time of unprecedented change.

“We’re proud of Aamir’s achievements. His path is just one example of how an innovative business education is valuable in many industries,” Kesner said. “His dedication also is testament to Kelley’s mission to be citizens of the world and to use our talents to affect positive change.”

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Indiana’s Census 2020 results: Metro areas and minority populations fuel state’s growth

Posted on August 12, 2021 by George Vlahakis

More than half of counties lose population, according to analysis by Kelley’s Indiana Business Research Center

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — Latest results from the 2020 Census show that Indiana’s population growth over the past decade largely was driven by gains in a handful of metropolitan areas and exclusively through gains among the state’s minority populations, according to analysis by the Indiana Business Research Center at Indiana University’s Kelley School of Business.

The 11-county Indianapolis-Carmel-Anderson metro lead the way by adding 223,163 residents between 2010 and 2020, an 11.8 percent increase. The Indy metro area’s numeric growth accounted for 74 percent of the state’s net population gain over this period.

With a population now at more than 2.1 million people, this central Indiana region’s share of the state’s total population increased from 29.1 percent in 2010 to 31.1 percent in 2020.

Other fast-growing metro areas in the state include Fort Wayne (7.6 percent growth), Columbus (7.1 percent), Lafayette (6.7 percent) and the Indiana portion of the Louisville metro (6.2 percent). The only Indiana metro areas to lose population over the decade are Muncie (-4.9 percent decline) and Terre Haute (-2.1 percent).

Matt Kinghorn

“While many Indiana metro areas continue to grow, large swaths of the state — including most mid-sized and rural communities — saw a population decline between 2010 and 2020,” said Matthew Kinghorn, senior demographer at the IBRC. “All told, 49 of Indiana’s 92 counties lost population over this period. This represents the largest number of Indiana counties to show a decline between censuses since the 1980s.”

The 44 Indiana counties that are part of a metropolitan statistical area combined to grow by 6.3 percent over the past decade. Meanwhile, the state’s 48 non-metro counties as a group declined by -0.9 percent over the same period.

For Indiana as a whole, the state added 301,726 residents since 2010 — a 4.7 percent increase — and was home to nearly 6.8 million residents as of April 1, 2020.

The latest Census Bureau release provides Indiana officials with the data needed to redraw congressional and legislative districts. The IBRC is part of a national network of State Data Centers and acts as the official state representative to the Census Bureau on matters relating to the census and population estimates, with funding support from the Indiana Department of Workforce Development.

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Kelley course offers real-world experience working with brand managers at top companies

Posted on August 4, 2021 by George Vlahakis

Kelley students are helping brands connect their products with consumers

BLOOMINGTON, Ind. – Because of non-disclosure agreements, there’s a lot that Kelly King and her students can’t say specifically about what they did in the Indiana University Kelley School of Business course, “M-355, Brand Management Practicum.”

But that’s part of the unique experience offered through an undergraduate Kelley School course that is geared toward students’ career interests in the creative side of marketing, working as a brand manager or as a creative service provider.

Students get real-world branding experience in the class as they work with brand managers at top consumer package good companies, who are bringing new products to market with millions in annual sales worldwide on the line.

“I can’t tell you much about the projects, because they were new product development projects, which is super exciting when you’re in the world of brand management,” said King, an adjunct lecturer at the Kelley School and the IU Media School. “But it’s the most exciting experience you can have in my mind because you’re launching or exploring new products.”

Samantha Loeffler

Students have worked with Samantha Loeffler, a brand manager at The Clorox Company and a Kelley graduate, who said she understands that excitement in her current professional role.

“These types of projects are extremely important because they give students the chance to exercise the knowledge they’ve gained in the classroom in a real-world project. There are many soft and hard skills that just need to be learned by doing,” said Loeffler, who earned a bachelor’s degree from Kelley in marketing and international business in 2013. “It also gives students a flavor for what this career is like on a daily basis and if it’s something they may be interested in pursuing.

“A critical lesson to learn when working at any company, but especially in the CPG industry, is that your decisions have to make sense for all stakeholders – the consumer, the retailer and the company,” she added. “Throughout the project. my students were challenged to think through their choices holistically and present a business case with rationale for all stakeholders.”

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More than half of counties lose population, according to analysis by Kelley’s Indiana Business Research Center

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