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Yale School of Management

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Yale School of Management 135 Prospect Street
New Haven, CT, 06520-8200
United States
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Demographic Information

Number of full-time MBA students (2011): 

216

Number of part-time MBA students (2011): 

0

Total duration of full-time MBA program: 

21 months

MBA faculty (Fall 2010): 

119

Females as percent of student body: 

34%
Who Are the Students? See what percentage of the 2010-2011 graduating class came to this MBA program from the private sector, the non-profit sector and government jobs
 
Private Sector (76%)
 
Non-profit (16%)
 
Government (8%)


Description of MBA Program: 

The mission of the Yale School of Management is to educate leaders for business and society. Throughout its history, Yale SOM has been known for its social and environmental commitments and its focus on ethical leadership.

 

Social, environmental, and ethical considerations are included in the overwhelming majority of courses in SOM’s innovative integrated MBA curriculum. In core classes, students have created proposals for redeveloping Governors Island near Manhattan, analyzed South Africa’s Black Economic Empowerment program, and studied General Electric’s Ecomagination initiative. Advanced electives, both at SOM and elsewhere at Yale, allow in-depth study of social and environmental topics. A student-managed elective on Global Social Enterprise pairs student consulting teams with nonprofit organizations in the developing world. The Global Social Entrepreneurship elective facilitates education and interaction between social entrepreneurs and SOM students both at Yale and in the entrepreneurs’ home countries.

 

Social and environmental scholarship is a hallmark of Yale SOM. Our faculty includes world-renowned experts in fields such as nonprofit management, development economics and microfinance, and environmental management. The school has also pioneered new multimedia “raw” cases, many of which include social and environmental considerations. SOM has created such cases for use by the Aspen Institute Center for Business Education’s Business Leadership Case Competition in 2008 and 2011. Yale SOM also partnered with the Aspen Institute in developing the “Giving Voice to Values” curriculum. Recent guest speakers at the school include Robin Chase, founder of ZipCar; Ezekiel Emanuel, former special health advisor to the director of the Office and Management and Budget; and Alex Counts, president and CEO of the Grameen Foundation.

 

The school’s Program on Social Enterprise supports scholars, students, alumni, and practitioners interested in exploring the ways in which business skills can be harnessed to achieve social objectives, facilitating work on nonprofit and public sector social entrepreneurship as well as initiatives in private sector social enterprise, including courses, research, publications and working with SOM students to sponsor conferences. The school’s Center for Business and the Environment at Yale, a partnership with the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, provides a focal point for research, education, and outreach to advance business solutions to global environmental problems. The Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance aims to be the leading research, teaching, and policy center for effective corporate governance, focusing on issues of corporate and shareholder accountability.

 

Students also pursue social aims through extracurricular and professional activities. Through SOM Outreach, students consult pro bono for nonprofit, public, and private organizations in the New Haven community. Yale SOM’s NetImpact Chapter is consistently one of the most active in the country. Every year, students plan, organize, and run conferences that promote discussion and action around social, ethical, and environmental themes. Three of the largest annual conferences at the school, each drawing hundreds of participants, are the Healthcare, Philanthropy, and Education conferences.

 

SOM provides unsurpassed resources for students and graduates pursuing careers in socially beneficial fields. The SOM Internship Fund unites the community in financial support for students who take summer internships with nonprofit organizations. In 1986, the school pioneered its Loan Forgiveness Program for graduates pursuing public or nonprofit careers, a model subsequently adopted by many business schools across the country.



How does the MBA program 'walk the talk' of social and environmental impact?: 

In spring 2010, students led the Yale SOM Sustainability Project, an initiative to reduce the consumption of resources and the waste produced at the school. The project, which included sifting through the contents of dumpsters to survey how much waste is thrown out at SOM, was undertaken as a for-credit independent study class with support by a grant from the Rocky Mountain Institute to the Yale Office of Sustainability. The project helped launch a school-wide program to address improved practices in four areas - energy, transportation, procurement, and waste – and, in January 2011, SOM was awarded Yale University’s highest certification level for developing green practices in the workplace.



Since 1986, the school has underscored its mission of educating leaders for business and society by providing support to qualified alumni working in the public or nonprofit sectors through a generous educational loan forgiveness program. The first program of its kind, it has provided a model for similar programs at business schools around the country since its establishment. Beginning with the Class of 2009, the program expanded to include qualified graduates who work in L3C organizations and certified B Corporations.



The Center for Business and the Environment supports student and faculty efforts to start environmentally oriented for-profit businesses with cash prizes totaling $25,000 awarded through the Sabin Environmental Venture Prize. The Sabin prize has been awarded annually since 2009 to the best Yale student and/or faculty ideas for a product, service, project, or program that advances a more environmentally sustainable way of life.



Yale SOM’s new 4.25 acre campus designed by Foster + Partners is currently under construction, slated to open in 2013. The new campus will incorporate the latest in “green construction” materials and practices. The school will pursue LEED certification for the new building.



The school prints all of it publications on at least 30% post-consumer waste recycled paper. The school’s magazine, Qn, is mailed in a corrugated cardboard mailer that is fully recyclable and made with 70% post-consumer waste recycled paper, and the greenhouse gas emission associated with its printing are offset through the purchase of renewable energy certificates.

Academic Department

Course Name: Corporate Governance: How It Failed Us and How the Crisis Will Change It
Instructor: Millstein, Ira

The financial crisis was fueled by an unrestrained capital market highly dependent on models based on the efficient market hypothesis and its progeny of other financial theories. Regulation was lax at all levels, on the theory that markets alone would correct any defects. This permissive financial environment paved the way for the development of debt instruments (e.g., mortgage backed securities, collateral debt obligations, credit default swaps) by a host of new market participants who, driven by the lure of profit, and/or poor historical analysis, didn't properly assess the risks involved. The credit rating agencies did not pick up on the risks either, offering generous grades to undeserving investments. The corporate governance of financial sector participants was just as tolerant, short term gains based on share price became widely accepted as the touchstone of corporate strategy and compensation. The non-financial sector followed suit and catered to the short term demands of the capital markets. The financial crisis has clearly exposed the faults of the efficient market hypotheses and its progeny: the lack of regulation which it spawned; and the lack of appropriate corporate governance it fostered.

Course Name: Creativity & Innovation
Instructor: Feinstein, Jonathan

This course focuses on the creative process and the management of this process. Students learn about the basic features of the creative process, come to appreciate a number of different psychological and cultural approaches to creativity. Students discuss the important issues involved in managing creativity effectively, including leadership, project management, creativity initiatives, and organizational response to change. A portion of the course identifies the impact of creativity on self-development and on social benefit. Discussion highlights the cultural evolution of creativity, its role in society, and its ability to improve organizations. Additionally, students are encouraged to explore the psychology of the self and how creativity enhances social good at an individual level.

Course Name: Crisis and Courage: Leading Through Adversity
Instructor: Sonnenfeld, Jeffrey, Kolditz, Tom

This course will examine the nature of adversity and how skilled leaders triumph perilous situations. We will examine a variety of high-risk settings including those where constituents feel their lives to be in danger as well as other high risk crisis situations where quick thinking, cross-functional analysis, clear-headed thinking in complex emotionally charged events requiring real urgency of response are essential and where the costs of failure are catastrophic. The examples will be drawn from financial services, healthcare (surgical/medical trauma teams), new media, transportation, consumer marketing, operations management, extreme sports, and military combat. The materials and class visitors will offer first hand perspectives of effective crisis management. We will look at current and classic cases, video portraits, individual profiles, as well as discussions with impressive class visitors who have led through crises. Learning will be drawn from studies of crisis communication, corporate ethics, personal values, post-traumatic stress, visionary leadership, group identity, rapid decision making, reputation management, and professional mastery. 1) Understanding the nature of adversity, 2) Identifying the barriers to overcoming adversity 3) Mapping paths for personal, professional, and institutional renewal. In addition, as an extension, Sonnenfeld runs the Yale CEO Leadership Summit which melds social, ethical, and environmental challenges that CEOs face.

Course Name: CSR: Social Venture Management
Instructor: Koppell, Jonathan

This course’s central question is how pursuit of profit is reconciled with non-financial goals. The method of answering this question is to be case analysis with each class focused on a different company. For example, how do “socially responsible” enterprises integrate social goals into their business plans? How do Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, two publicly-traded highly-profitable financial intermediaries, manage their twin goals of profitability and provision of financing for affordable housing. How do investors (including large pension funds) use their capital as a tool to promote social objectives? How do private contractors, such as prison companies, maximize shareholder return while satisfying government clients? Public-interest enterprises are those that integrate the concerns of corporate “stakeholders,” the wide range of people and communities affected by a company’s operations, as opposed to more narrow focus on shareholders. While American businesses have generally focused exclusively on return to shareholders, European and other non-US business cultures have traditionally embraced broader “stakeholder” considerations. What are the advantages and drawbacks of each approach? Does consideration of stakeholders imply a sacrifice of profitability? Can American companies adopt an approach that is generally alien in U.S. business culture? These questions will serve as the recurrent theme throughout the class. This class addresses this question focusing on management of social ventures, enterprises integrating profitability and social objectives, as they address specific challenges.

Course Name: Current Events
Instructor: Manson, Mark

Current Events explores the facts, immediate context and relevant history of significant events that are current when the course is taught, with the goal of extrapolating implications for the future. Students, the instructor and guest practitioners will select and research events according to their own interests and expertise, focusing on situations that contain management, business, investment or policy weight and complexity. Students will make presentations, leading to group discussion. Themes of past events chosen by students include the intersection of political and economic processes, health care, food, water and energy shortages, the credit crisis and the environment. Many presentations benefited from a global flavor. The objective of Current Events is to enhance the ability of students to incorporate change into their decision-making processes, in real time, and to make effective presentations. One activity that most practitioners share, regardless of their field, is a daily injection of news meshed with the need to respond – “Current Events” will endeavor to make that injection and response more productive.

Course Name: Customer
Instructor: Sudhir, K.

The Customer Perspective takes the viewpoint that a business’ objective to create and keep a customer is best achieved by a deep understanding of customer behavior and integration of that knowledge across the entire organization. A customer focused and market-driven company (profit or non-profit) should align the organization to sense and respond to the ever-changing needs of current and potential customers. This course explains why the emphasis on customer orientation requires the coordination of different functional areas - marketing, accounting, human resources, strategy and operations. It includes readings and discussions on eco-friendly branding, multicultural consumers, and cross-cultural marketing, and ethics related to how a company targets and treats its customers. The course includes a class that is solely dedicated to marketing to the bottom of the pyramid in a developing country, which utilizes a case on Unilever Brazil to raise sensibilities of MBA students on how they can sustainably meet the needs and wants of customers at the low end of the income pyramid. Additionally, included is a case on TIAA-CREF, which highlights the challenges of running a non-profit organization that targets providing financial services to “those who work for the greater good”. The professor ensures that at least 1-2 cases focus on social issues and previously included a case on Population Services Inc., a non-profit agency working in Bangladesh, which is dedicated to social marketing in a developing country.

Course Name: Decision Analysis
Instructor: Long, Elisa

This course covers foundational skills that apply to all sectors, but are particularly pertinent to sectors in which results are more difficult to quantify. When faced with a complex, uncertain problem, how does one make a good decision? As a normative science, decision analysis provides a logical framework for structuring and evaluating a decision scenario, with the goal of obtaining clarity of action. This framework involves formulating creative alternatives, characterizing uncertain events, and incorporating the decision-makers values and preferences. This course introduces a set of coherent tools used for framing problems and performing logical analyses, and provides a foundation for decision-analytic modeling in Excel. Course topics include prospect theory (which includes a discussion of ethics) and decision-making for the firm vs. individual.

Course Name: Designers Designing Design
Instructor: Drentell, William

This course offers students the opportunity to be design clients, and to acquire the skills and experience necessary to use design to shape and manage products, programs, initiatives, and campaigns. Two working designers will explore design as a methodology, a way of working in modern organizations — corporations, foundations, magazines, schools, even cities. Cases include corporate, retail and non-profit identity; content-rich media and editorial projects; and social and political initiatives. The final case in 2009 was Yale School of Management itself: where and how design contributes to the reputation, marketing and fundraising, even internal culture of a school. Cases include Teach for America: A Successful Non-Profit Ponders Expansion, poverty Foundation, the Clinton Foundation's Alliance for a Healthier Generation, The Polling Place Photo Project, and Ben and Jerry's truemajority.org. A class session is devoted to Design for Society.

Course Name: Developing Winning Strategies
Instructor: Barnett, William

Through vivid case experiences that are similar to those faced by executives in a range of different organizations, this course will help prepare students to address business strategy issues after graduation — whether they are doing assessments for senior executives at large institutions, working on a new assignment for a consulting firm, or making their own decisions as entrepreneurs. The course focuses on one important strategy tool - - how to manage uncertainty. Managing uncertainty well is critical, because most big strategy decisions must be made in the face of considerable uncertainty. The course also uses other strategy frameworks such as organizational vision and value proposition in the context of uncertainty management. Cases include those on the health care industry and on the local health care marketplace. Students are commonly asked to make ethical calls on tough questions during discussion.

Course Name: Distressed Investing & Restructuring Debt
Instructor: Paige, Michele

This course focuses on advanced distressed investing in the context of bankruptcy and restructuring cases. The course covers ethical and social issues as they pertain to the bankruptcy process and distressed investing. In particular, attention is paid to government intervention and assistance through the restructuring process, as well as bankruptcy abuse prevention.

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Type of Offering

PONPO Seminar Series
Date: September, 2010

The Program on NonProfit Organizations (PONPO) lecture series of leading researchers and practitioners exploring the role of international non-governmental organizations and the not-for-profit sector in developing countries. Their main objective continues to be to map current research in the field. Presentations will include both Yale and outside participants, scholars and practitioners. Seminars take place on the Yale School of Management campus in New Haven, CT, and are free and open to the public. This series recently included:

-Inderpal Grewal, Professor, Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies, Yale University: Aftermath of the NGO Boom in India: Relations between State and NGOs

- Mihir Bhatt, Fellow, Harvard Humanitarian Initiative; Founder & Director, All India Disaster Mitigation Institute

-Dean Karlan, Yale Professor of Economics; President & Founder, Innovations for Poverty Action

-Nava Ashraf, Associate Professor of Business Administration, Harvard Business School

-Maria Corina Machado, Yale World Fellow, Co-founder and Chairman of SUMATE

"Democratic Trappings for Autocratic Rule: A Manual of 21st Century Socialism in Venezuela"

-Yves Moury, CEO, Edge Finance: "Savings-linked Conditional Cash Transfer Programs: A New Policy Approach to Global Poverty Reduction"

-David Browning, SOM ’99, TechnoServe: “The East African Coffee Initiative: A Partnership Between the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and TechnoServe”

-Varun Guary, Economist, The World Bank: "Courting Social Justice: The Judicial Enforcement of Social and Economic Rights in the Developing World"

Connecticut Wind Working Group
Date: October, 2009

The formation of the Connecticut Wind Working Group gathers appropriate Stakeholders in a shared forum to move the intelligent development of wind power in Connecticut.

Corporate Governance and Performance: Causation?
Date: November, 2010

An academic conference in the Yale ECGI Oxford (YEO) series organized by the Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance, the European Corporate Governance Institute and the Said Business School, University of Oxford held at the Yale School of Management. Topics included:

-Law, Growth, and Governance: A Cross-Country Simultaneous Equations, Instrumental Variables Approach

-The Credit Crisis Around the Globe: Why did some banks perform better?

-Accounting Transparency, Tax Pressure and Access to Finance

-TARP Consequences: Lending and Risk Taking

-Unfulfilled Expectations? The Returns to International Hedge Fund Activism

-Corporate Governance in the 2007-2008 Financial Crisis – Evidence for Financial Institutions Worldwide

-Reputation Penalties for Poor Monitoring of Executive Pay: Evidence from Option Backdating

-Thirty Years of Shareholder Rights and Firm Valuation

-Firms’ Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Choices, Performance and Managerial Motivation

-Golden Parachutes and the Wealth of Shareholders

-US knows Us in the UK: On Director Networks and CEO Compensation

-Competition for Managers, Corporate Governance and Incentive Compensation

The Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance at the Yale School of Management sponsors research and discussions to explore how corporate governance can better enable the corporation to be competitive in its markets and to enhance society.

Student Career Treks

Student Career Treks: SOM students, with guidance from the CDO, organize a multitude of student career treks to various companies during each academic year. Social sector career treks in 2010 included the Economic Development Trek to D.C., the Arts& Culture trek to Philadelphia, the Education club trek to Boston, and the Social Enterprise group to New York. These informal visits to an organization’s offices allow students intimate access to senior management and knowledge of company culture from a first-hand experience. Typical treks are 1-2 days in length and include visits to over 5 companies during the trek.

Networking Nights

Networking Nights are industry-specific recruiting events organized by the CDO to allow students to network with employers within the social impact space. Fall 2010, CDO hosted an Education networking night as well as one focused on Energy & Environment. For Spring 2011, a broader ‘Social Sector’ networking night is planned. These events provide a structured environment for students to learn about MBA career paths within the various areas of the social impact world, as well as the opportunity to mingle directly with employees at the participating companies. These events attracted 20+ firms and 50+ MBA students, and resulted in numerous job opportunities for students.

Career Development Office (CDO)

The Yale School of Management Career Development Office (CDO) has a dedicated staff member who works with students pursuing intern and full-time positions with nonprofits, the public sector and socially responsible private sector organizations. The CDO also partners with the Net Impact Club, one of the largest student-run campus clubs with more than 180 members, and the Program on Social Enterprise (PSE), which supports scholars, students and alumni interested in the connection between society and business.

Together, the PSE, Net Impact Club and CDO host multiple conferences throughout the year focused on such topics as philanthropy, business and society, and economic development.

Additionally, the CDO identifies and invites numerous guest speakers and counselors to supplement its efforts to help SOM students secure intern/full-time job opportunities within the nonprofit and socially responsible sectors. Yale SOM continues to attract additional nonprofits and social enterprises to recruit at SOM, from fields such as Economic Development/Microfinance, Education, Environmental Services, Government and Nonprofit. A sampling of nonprofit employers hiring our graduates includes: Acumen Fund, The Bridgespan Group, Education Pioneers, The Center for Financial Services Innovation, Endeavor, International Finance Corporation, The Nature Conservancy.

Most significantly, Yale SOM established its signature Internship Fund in 1979, the first program of its kind among business schools, to provide financial support to students who pursue employment as summer associates in the nonprofit and public sectors, as well as social enterprises. The fund assists more than 30 students each year.

In accord with the School’s mission of educating leaders for business and society, the School of Management supports a very generous Loan Forgiveness Program for alumni working in the nonprofit and public sector. Beginning with the Class of 2009, the program has expanded to include qualified SOM graduates who work in L3C organizations and certified B Corporations, and provide pro-rated support to graduates working part-time. SOM is committed to raising the income level threshold annually in line with national cost-of-living increases.

Career Immersion

Career Immersion is an opportunity for SOM alumni, other professionals and the CDO to educate students about the myriad of career paths available for newly minted MBAs. The target audience is primarily first-year students, though a sizeable number of second-year students attend as well. Scheduled in the Fall, prior to the start of corporate presentations, the full day of alumni career panels on various industries and functions, includes panelists from social sector firms such as United Way, CCS Fundraising, Teach for America, Federal Reserve Bank of NYC and the IFC. Similar to the alumni panels of Career Immersion, the CDO hosts a day of career panels with second-year students serving as panelists for a first-year audience. Second-year students describe experiences and skills gained from their summer internships. In 2009 and 2010, multiple panels focused on nonprofit management, social impact, and the public sector as a result of the number of students interning in these sectors as well as the interest from the first-year audience. Panelists interned at Education Pioneers, Low Income Investment Fund, OPIC and Environmental Defense Fund.

Career Fairs

Career Fairs: The School of Management’s Career Development Office partners with other career offices at Yale to offer SOM students a variety of career fairs in the social sector. For instance, the CDO co-organized a graduate ‘Making a Difference’ Career Fair in 2010 and 2011, which attracted organizations and students interested in business, the environment, public health and international affairs. Career fairs organized by Yale’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies are available to SOM students, including the Duke/Yale Environmental Recruiting Fair, the All-Ivy Sustainable Development Career Fair. Federal Career Month at Yale is co-sponsored by the CDO, in collaboration with professional schools at Yale, to share resources in the public sector for the benefit of the broader Yale community. In October 2010, Federal Career Month at Yale included workshops, information sessions, alumni talks, informational interviews, an internship panel and a keynote talk, taking place across the university.

Career Services

Career Consultants with expertise in the social sector are retained by the Career Development Office to supplement counseling services offered to SOM students. The MBA Nonprofit Connection (MNC) provides phone counseling services for students interested in the nonprofit sector. MNC annually provides previously vetted job opportunities for Yale SOM students. In 2010, they posted 45+ summer internship jobs and 200+ full-time jobs for SOM students and alumni seeking nonprofit management careers. Commongood Careers conducts an information session on careers in social enterprise as well as mock interviews for students interested in nonprofit careers. Their Fall 2010 on-campus presentation was titled, “MBA Careers in Nonprofits and Socially Entrepreneurial Organizations.” Katie Kross, MBA career coach and author of “Profession and Purpose: A Resource Guide for MBA Careers in Sustainability,” presented on-campus regarding “green” career paths.

Career Services: Social and Environmental Sectors

Net Impact’s career development liaisons-in partnership with SOM’s Career Development Office-plan events and workshops for students to explore various career opportunities in the social and environmental sectors. Workshops in 2010 included nonprofit skills-based workshops such as “Nonprofit Finance Bootcamp,” and a “Nonprofit Development Pitch” workshop focusing on building skills to ask for money in either the non-profit or for-profit sector-as a social sector employee, a board member, or a venture capitalist. Events include Careers Brown Bag Lunch sessions with CDO’s relationship manager for the social sector, and cover letter/resume reviews for students interested in social sector careers.

MBA/MA International Relations
MBA/MD
MBA/MF
MBA/PhD
Four-year MBA/JD
MBA/MEM
MBA/MFA
MBA/MARCH
Three-year Accelerated Integrated MBA/JD
MBA/MPH

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