Professor of the Year, Who’s the ‘Hot School,’ Job Interview Tips — What to Read Now

Read a collection of the top stories on The Darden Report in January for the latest news from the University of Virginia Darden School of Business.

The latest issue of The Darden Report magazine also dropped in January. Read the issue online for features on Professor Luca Cian, new methods of learning leadership, Darden alumni “Turnaround Titans” and how design thinking is helping leaders tackle mammoth societal challenges.

Lalin Anik Named MBA Professor of the Year; Vivian Riefberg Joins Darden as Professor of Practice

Darden Professor Lalin Anik

Poets & Quants named Professor Lalin Anik its MBA Professor of the Year.

A professor in the Marketing area, Anik joined Darden ahead of the 2015–16 academic year and quickly became an integral member of the community. For many students at Darden, Anik has become more than a professor, serving as an informal confidant, adviser, and even teammate on basketball and soccer teams.

“I try to teach my students that marketing is about empathy,” she told Poets & Quants. “It’s about empathy with your customer and the same is true of teaching. It’s not only about you. It’s about the other people in the room. How can you contribute to their learning and their experience? How can you make their life better? So it is always shifting your focus from yourself to others.”

Meanwhile, McKinsey & Co. Senior Partner Vivian Riefberg will join Darden’s academic faculty as a professor of practice starting in August 2020. In this role, she will hold a David C. Walentas Jefferson Scholars Foundation Professorship chair.

A global thought leader in the areas of health care and women’s leadership, Riefberg will bring to the UVA and Darden communities over three decades of experience and in-depth applied knowledge. A speaker, writer and convener in the health care field — notably in health care services and the interplay between business and government — she is also a leader in work on the economic benefits of gender parity in business and society.

Is UVA Darden Today’s ‘It’ School in the US?

Poets & Quants posed the question in a feature on the latest Financial Times ranking of global business schools. Based on Darden’s rise from No. 35 in the ranking three years ago to No. 18 this year, plus its rise to No. 5 in the world in the latest Bloomberg Businessweek ranking of MBA programs, the publication called Darden “the hot U.S. school right now.”

In this year’s Financial Times ranking, Darden advanced another five places to rank 18th, its highest FT rank, moving the school into the Top 20 in the world. No less important, however, this latest improvement comes on top of a nine-place gain the previous year. Just three years ago, Darden finished in 35th place in 2017. Darden’s position — which now puts the school 12th best in the U.S. — was partly enhanced by the addition of last years’ new FT metric on corporate social responsibility in the ranking. Darden came out first last year and second in 2020 behind only IESE Business School for having a substantial amount of teaching on the subject in its core curriculum.

From Pack Line to the Bottom Line: UVA Basketball Provides Lessons in Darden-Led Exec Ed Program

Darden Executive Education led a leadership development program for civil construction company Allan Myers that included lessons from UVA basketball coaches and former players.

After adding to his considerable coaching legacy by leading the Virginia Cavaliers to the 2019 NCAA men’s basketball championship, Tony Bennett’s patented Pack Line defense and Five Pillars of the Cavalier program are the envy of the college basketball world.

They’re also a source of inspiration and emulation for the corporate world.

For 20 years, civil construction company Allan Myers has hosted a leadership development program (LDP), which for the first time this year included a business leadership component led by Darden Executive Education. Executive Education helped put the 24-member cohort of the Allan Myers LDP on the court in John Paul Jones Arena, home of the Cavaliers, with coaches and former players to learn about the program’s foundational pillars and trademark defense.

10 Essential Tips for Interview Success, According to UVA Darden Career Coaches

Casey Floyd, senior director with Darden’s Career Development Center, helps a student prepare for internship recruiting.

From January through mid-February, 82 companies will descend on Darden to interview First Year students from their MBA summer internships. With the help of the School’s Career Development Center, those companies will field more than 4,200 applications and facilitate nearly 2,000 interviews with students in Darden’s full-time MBA Class of 2021.

With a plethora of qualified candidates and recruiters with packed schedules conducting interviews at top business schools across the United States, how can one stand out in the interview process? Seven Darden career coaches offered their best tips to achieve success during the interview process.

From practicing mock interviews to sending a post-interview thank you note, click here to read all 10 tips.

Baseball, Ticket Sales, Prepared Foods, Army Finance: Oh, the Places Darden Alumni Go

The Darden Report featured a bevy of alumni profiles in January, with each grad’s story showcasing a purpose-driven career powered by their Darden experience.

• Washington Nationals Executive Vice President of Business Operations Jake Burns (MBA ’07) is overseeing the game day experience for the World Series champions.
• Curtis Monk (MBA ’76) put up $300,000 of his own finances and battled through heart transplant surgery to bring a documentary on the UVA baseball team’s 2015 run to a national championship to life.
• Jonathan Moak (MSBA ’19) is now the principal deputy assistant secretary (financial management and comptroller) of the U.S. Army (essentially, the Army’s CFO) after earning his master’s of business analytics in August.
• Bobby Ukrop (MBA ’72) and his son-in-law Scott Aronson (MBA ’99) are transforming the Ukrop’s Homestyle Foods business that is a household name in Richmond, Virginia. They are just two of the many members of the Ukrop family to have earned Darden MBAs.
• After a successful tenure building the Walmart eCommerce business, Arnie Katz (MBA ’09) is now the chief product and technology officer at StubHub, where he is solving problems by listening to customers.