Get to Know UVA Darden Professor Mike Lenox

- All I'll say is there's a story about the lawn

and a tradition on the lawn.

That is quite a story that I could tell,

but I'm not gonna share that one.

(upbeat music)

I am what we affectionately call a Double Hoo.

I have two degrees from UVA,

a bachelor's and master's in systems engineering.

Met my wife here.

Got married in the chapel.

Proposed on the steps of The Rotunda.

Our son is a fourth year now at UVA.

We are a huge UVA fandom.

I love the outdoors.

Probably my favorite is going, you know, for walks

with my wife and kids and our two dogs.

We have two labs.

Gus is an idiot but the most lovable dog you'll ever see.

And Sadie's our smart dog.

I have multiple areas of interest,

but usually what I talk about

are the intersection of three things.

Very interested in technology and innovation

and how markets evolve.

Very interested in business strategy.

And then last but not least,

I'm very interested in public policy.

So a lot of my work is really

at the interface of business strategy and public policy,

including a lot of work that I do

on issues around sustainability.

When I started my academic journey, the environmental piece,

the sustainability piece was actually the main motivator.

But as I started to go through my studies,

and I worked with a number of different research groups,

really became fascinated at this interface

between what business does

and the possibility of maybe even addressing

some of these critical challenges we face,

like climate change.

Don't get me started on electric vehicles

and the joys of them.

I think there are a lot of just performance advantages

that maybe the average person doesn't understand.

My favorite feature

is what we call regenerative braking

'cause you almost never have to use the brake.

You just lay off the gas,

and the car naturally slows down

to go around corners and things like that.

You can absolutely gamify it

by, like, trying to get to a stoplight

or stop sign without ever hitting the brake.

With sustainability, I think there's this interest

that students come in and like,

"I wanna do a sustainability job."

And what I often, you know, coach them on is

what exactly is a sustainability job?

It could be everything from being a consultant.

It could be an I-Banker who are working with companies

who have a sustainability initiative.

So there really are many vehicles

for you to kind of have an impact in the world

in the sustainability side, let' say.

I am a Section B loyalist.

I have taught in our Section B for 15 years.

And Section B is amazing

because it has a whole bunch of wonderful traditions,

including the Bird, which is this little stuffed bird

that makes its appearance quite frequently in class

and also around the world.

You start the class,

and you start the discussion with setting the scenario.

So one of the things I tend to do

to kind of put it in the moment of the case

is whatever time period it is,

is to figure out what was, like, the number one song

in either the country or the country

where the case is being set.

Which is always a lot of fun to kind of just remember,

you know, what was the number one hit in 2012?

I think Darden is a place that really caress

about what we call kind of rigor and relevance.

They care about speaking to the world of practice.

We think really strongly about that impact in the classroom

that you have on students,

but it's really about building lifelong relationships

and you know, keeping in touch with my former students

who are now alumni.

It's about writing books

and having impact in the broader world.

Not every school celebrates that,

and I think Darden really cultivates that

and encourages that amongst its faculty.

(upbeat music)