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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: Doing Business in the Developing World
Instructor: Mobarak, A. Mushfiq

This course examines the challenges faced by for profit firms and non-profits operating in the developing world. The first part of the course focuses on conducting business in environments with weak or deficient institutions, including corruption, political risk, and poor investor protection. The second part of the course explores the role of the private sector in development, including both the contributions to and the costs imposed by multi-nationals, non-profits, and NGOs in developing countries. Relevant topics include analysis of low wages, labor rights, environmental protection, natural resource depletion, trade of environmental goods (e.g. waste and pollution), and microfinance’s role in filling gaps created by credit market failures.

Course Name: Economics and Financing of Journalism
Instructor: Taylor, Steve

While the first purveyors of journalism in the U.S. were many and their audiences small, the second half of the 20th century saw the consolidation of news businesses into a finite number of media companies enjoying substantial profits. Print and broadcast companies devoted substantial resources to the pursuit of quality journalism, hiring graduate school-educated men and women as reporters and supporting them with fact-checking, editing, peer review and production expertise. Early in the 21st century, it is already apparent that the most successful media companies of the last 100 years face serious financial troubles. Audiences have become fragmented and much less captive, driving down the value of traditional media to advertisers. Vast revenue streams that once paid the bills for quality journalism (such as classified advertising in newspapers & advertising on network television) have been substantially reduced or diverted to companies not pursuing journalism at all. The course will explore how future journalists, editors, and producers (in new or traditional media) will find meaningful economic backing to do their jobs well. Is true editorial independence and review, which inevitably are labor intensive, essential to the health of the “Fourth Estate” and its role in a democracy? If so, how will media companies afford the cost of quality assurance, however “quality” is defined? Will journalism and the dissemination of news be supported primarily by advertising, subscription revenue, or in some other way? Project groups within the class will research and present existing business models in media, both in readings and by interaction with executives currently active in media and journalism. The course explores the financing of newspapers in terms of ethics, and also explores the importance of the newspaper industry as a whole in terms of social importance.

Course Name: Emerging Markets
Instructor: Chen, Zhiwu

The course discusses several outstanding problems of emerging market investing in the context of ethical and social impact management, including corporate governance, market institutional development, political risk, speculative crazes, and performance measurement. Case studies typically used in this course include rural credit cooperatives in India, Gazprom in Russia, and an aluminum smelter project in Mozambique.

Course Name: Emotional Intelligence at Work
Instructor: Brooks, Heidi

Popular media has touted emotional intelligence (EI) as a critical factor for success in the workplace. This course takes students beyond popular accounts, carefully exploring the insights and contributions of the EI literature, to allow students to effectively consume and utilize this framework for success. Students examine the aspects and levels of emotional intelligence -- “reading” people and ensuring they can “read” you; understanding how emotions influence thinking; and emotional management of self and other. Participants also look at applications of EI in decision-making, job satisfaction, leadership, team and group dynamics, negotiation, interviewing. The course relies on multiple teaching methods including experiential exercises, assessment of self and other, guest lectures, readings, case studies, and discussion.

Course Name: Employee
Instructor: Baron, Jim, Kahn, Lisa

Leadership influence on employees is at least threefold: an impact on the employees who are brought into and retained in the organization; a strong role in shaping the context in which employees act (culture, rewards, etc.); and a personal relationship with those whom you manage, which can profoundly influence subordinates’ values, beliefs, and behaviors. The course concludes by discussing how employment relationships are shaped by values and ethics—those of the manager, as well as those of the larger organization. Students describe this course to foster development of interpersonally effective managers across sectors, with emphasis on commitment to personal and/or company values. Case examples are drawn from non-profit, public, and private sectors. Topics include motivation (intrinsic and extrinsic); incentives power and authority; negotiations; unions; employee rights, screening and signaling; culture, values, and diversity; and organizational culture.

Course Name: Endowment Management
Instructor: Takahashi, Dean, Ammon, Peter

The seminar focuses on investment policy and portfolio management of tax-exempt institutional funds, with an emphasis on endowments. The class will discuss asset allocation, risk, the role of active management, incentive structures, governance, and manager selection and evaluation. Guest speakers will include chief investment officers from a variety of institutions.

Course Name: Energy Markets Strategy
Instructor: Campbell, Arthur, Mansur, Erin

In the past 30 years, energy markets have changed from quiet, often heavily regulated, areas of the business landscape to some of the most dynamic markets in the world economy. Regulation of oil, natural gas, motor fuel, and electricity markets has been reduced dramatically in the U.S. and in many other countries. Electricity deregulation swept the industrialized and developing world, but it is now associated with the 2000-2001 California electricity crisis and the 2001-2002 Enron scandal. Drawing on the tools of economics, this course studies the business and public policy issues that these changes have raised. Topics include the political economy of deregulation, competition in wholesale electricity markets, market power and antitrust, and the transportation of energy commodities. We examine the economic determinants of industry structure and evolution of competition among firms in these industries, investigate successful and unsuccessful strategies for entering new markets and competing in existing markets, and analyze the rationale for and effects of public policies in energy markets. Social, ethical, and environmental management topics include public policy, sustainability/extraction of scarce resources, and greenhouse gas emissions.

Course Name: Energy Systems Analysis
Instructor: Grubler, Arnulf, Koomey, Jonathan

This course, cross-listed with Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, offers a systems analysis approach to describe and explain the basics of energy systems, including all forms of energy (fossil and renewable), all sectors/activities of energy production/conversion, and all end-uses, irrespective of the form of market transaction (commercial or noncommercial) or form of technology (traditional as well as novel advanced concepts) deployed. Students gain a comprehensive theoretical and empirical knowledge base from which to analyze energy-environmental issues, as well as to participate effectively in policy debates. Special attention is given to introducing students to formal methods used to analyze energy systems or individual energy projects and also to discuss traditionally less-researched elements of energy systems (e.g. energy use in developing countries; energy densities and urban energy use; income, gender, and lifestyle differences in energy end-use patterns) in addition to currently dominant energy issues such as climate change.

Course Name: Entrepreneurial Business Planning
Instructor: Cromwell, David, Burke, Maureen

Entrepreneurship is all about starting and running one's own business. In order to focus thinking and to help assemble the needed people and financial resources, many entrepreneurs write a business plan for their new venture. One of the best ways to learn how to write a business plan is to learn by doing -- a real plan for a real new venture. This course is for six teams of five students each who want to write a business plan for their own real startup company. These business plans are often for a green or social business idea - past examples include green weddings, biochar as fertizilizer, and a new kind of wheelchair. Students will enter their plans in the Yale Y50K Business Plan Contest as well as potentially in additional state or national business plan competitions. The scope of the work will include doing in-depth market, product and competitor research; creating a strategy for a sustainable business; and writing and presenting a professional quality plan (including a financial model and deal structure).

Course Name: Entrepreneurship and Management Clinic
Instructor: Judson, Bruce

This course is the part of an initiative at the Management School to provide opportunities through learning by participating in "hands-on" experiences. It is likely to be of particular interest to students with interests in entrepreneurship, consulting, Internet businesses, and marketing. We will become involved (in a positive way) with a specific business problem or product launch potentially involving for-profit companies, nonprofits, Yale affiliated entities or SOM initiatives. Some, but not all of these efforts, will involve Internet business problems. Our goal will be to develop practical solutions that make a difference to the entities involved, and to share the ideas, problems and frustrations associated with this effort. In essence, the class will involve the application of classroom theory to real world problems. The course will involve hands on development of a business plan, analysis, consulting, experiments for proposed solutions we can implement and assess, and to the maximum extent possible involvement in implementation of recommended solutions in line with each client's specific needs. A team of three to four students will each work throughout the semester with a client entity on a specific problem. The goal of each team will be to develop specific solutions to the client's problems that can be implemented, using the resources presently available to the client. The goal of the course is to teach particular approaches to entrepreneurship and consulting -- by working in real-time with actual clients - combined with extensive class-room discussions and some lectures. The clients have been carefully screened by the Instructor to ensure they present situations that combine the opportunity for our work to make a real difference, and the opportunity for substantial student learning.

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Type of Offering

MBA/MD
The Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance
Business School Housing? Yes
Number of Faculty: 17
Contact Name: Michele Grammatico
Contact Email: michele.grammatico@yale.edu

The Millstein Center for Corporate Governance and Performance (MCCGP) at the Yale School of Management sponsors multidisciplinary research and discussions to explore how corporate governance can better enable the corporation to be competitive in its markets and to enhance society. The Center is founded on the premise that society grants corporations the right to exist to the extent that their existence serves society. Corporations strive to improve the welfare of their constituents - primarily shareholders, as well as employees, suppliers, and customers - and thus contribute to the aggregate welfare of the broader community. The Center explores the various means by which corporations can meet these complex expectations. While based at Yale’s business school, the Center also draws together scholars from Yale Law School and a variety of disciplines at Yale and other universities; facilitates the interaction of these scholars with policymakers and business leaders; promotes the dissemination of ideas and research that are relevant to improving the ability of the corporation to serve society; and looks globally for models of governance that combine return to shareholders and social benefit.

Program on Social Enterprise
Business School Housing? No
Number of Faculty: 3
Contact Name: Tony Sheldon
Contact Email: anthony.sheldon@yale.edu

The Program on Social Enterprise (PSE) supports scholars, students, alumni, and practitioners interested in exploring the ways in which business skills and market disciplines can be harnessed to most effectively and efficiently achieve social objectives. PSE facilitates work on nonprofit and public sector social entrepreneurship as well as initiatives in private sector social enterprise. Our activities span courses, research, conferences, and publications. In addition to these formal activities, the PSE also serves as a focal point for social enterprise-related activities at SOM, facilitating, advising, and drawing connections among students, faculty, the Yale community, and the broader network in the US and internationally of interested practitioners and institutions.

International Center for Finance
Business School Housing? Yes
Number of Faculty: 47
Contact Name: Leigh Clark
Contact Email: leigh.clark@yale.edu

The International Center for Finance at the Yale School of Management (ICF) provides active support for research in Financial Economics by its fellows and disseminates their work to the world's academic and professional communities. The Center's fellowship is comprised of leading scholars in and outside of the Yale School of Management who work on key empirical and theoretical problems in financial economics. The Center has become a leader in behavioral finance and behavioral economics. These relatively new fields try to understand why people often fail to make fully rational decisions and this can have important consequences for markets, firms, and individuals. Behavioral research can help explain phenomena from why people don’t save enough money for retirement to how stock market bubbles are created – and perhaps, help people avoid making mistakes.

Center for Business and the Environment at Yale
Business School Housing? No
Number of Faculty: 6
Contact Name: Bryan Garcia
Contact Email: bryan.garcia@yale.edu

The Yale Center for Business and the Environment provides a focal point for education, research and outreach to advance business solutions to global environmental problems. Bringing together the strengths of the Yale School of Management and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, the Center serves as the administrative home for the MBA-Environment joint-degree program. Started in 1982, the joint MBA-Environment degree program is the longest standing professional degree of its kind in the world. The graduates of the program have made significant contributions to fields such as environment-related finance, natural resources management, and corporate sustainability. The Center offers a bridge for joint-degree students, helping them integrate their studies at the Yale School of Management, where they receive a Master of Business Administration, and the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, where they earn a master’s degree in either environment or forestry. In partnership with faculty, students, and other centers across the university and throughout the world, the Center supports cutting-edge research and facilitates interdisciplinary collaboration. Focus areas include energy, climate change, industrial ecology, water, forestry, and land use. Research by faculty and students has included work on corporate environmental management and strategy, innovation, green marketing, environmental economics, corporate social responsibility, and environmental markets and finance.

Yale Center for Customer Insights
Business School Housing? Yes
Number of Faculty: 28
Contact Name: David Nemiah
Contact Email: david.nemiah@yale.edu

The Yale Center for Customer Insights (YCCI), located at the Yale School of Management, provides superior insight and understanding of customers to enhance business and society. YCCI integrates initiatives of leading marketing executives with academic scholars from the Yale School of Management’s unique multidisciplinary and global perspective to deliver valuable customer understandings. The Center fellows include experts in economics, psychology, marketing, and finance. Current research studies examine consumer understanding of green products, perceptions of quality of green products and consumer tradeoffs between environmental and other values; the effects of marketing activities on the demand for prescription drugs, the benefits of allowing patients to be active participants in the choice between medically feasible options, particularly for the treatment of chronic illnesses; and the link between customer satisfaction and purchase behavior. The China-India Consumer Insights program studies how rising incomes and urbanization affect cultural attitudes and social structures, and patterns of investing and consumption.

Internship Fund Club

The first of its kind among the nation's management programs, the Internship Fund provides financial support to students who pursue summer internships in the public or nonprofit sector between their first and second years of study. Since the inception of the Fund, approximately 20% of each class has received funding. The Internship Fund has a commitment to ensure that students who wish to apply their skills in public and nonprofit organizations for the summer can do so without regard for financial constraints. By awarding stipends for low-paying summer internships, the Fund not only nurtures SOM students' education within the public and nonprofit sectors, but also strengthens the management of all sectors. The Fund embodies SOM's mission - to train individuals for management careers in multiple fields and sectors - and personifies SOM's spirit of cooperation and social responsibility.

Economic Development

The Economic Development Club exists to encourage and fulfill student interest in topics that contribute to economic security, justice and prosperity both within the U.S. and internationally. Topics include education and workforce development, community space development, environmental and economic balancing, and others. We are supported by a broad base of alums who have professional and leadership interests in these and other topics.

Women in Management

Women in Management Club (WIM) works to support the development of female leaders, cultivate a diverse community of women, and advance the dialogue about women in business and society.

WIM is both a professional and social organization that engages its members through speakers, workshops, leadership opportunities, networking events, and collaborations with outside organizations. Our programming is complemented by partnerships with other professional clubs, providing members and the SOM community at large with opportunities to discuss issues such as diversity in the workplace and the specific challenges facing women in business. WIM supports the further development of its members by facilitating events with alumnae, prospective students, and SOM faculty and staff to advance the dialogue on women in leadership. Each year we tailor efforts and events to the interests and needs of the women at SOM. We involve those invested in the SOM community and those interested in addressing issues specific to women in business. We offer leadership opportunities each year to both first and second year students.

Business and the Environment Club (BATEC)

The purpose of the Business and the Environment Club (BATEC) is to support students interested in the intersection of competitive business organization and sustainable environmental practice. Within this arena, BATEC actively promotes a professional and social network designed to provide enhanced access to SOM alumni, corporations, non-profits and NGO’s committed to environmental sustainability. Recognizing that all of SOM’s professional and social activities have an environmental component, BATEC acts primarily as a partner/resource for other SOM clubs and organizations and seeks to support the inclusion of environmental factors in their decision-making processes. BATEC sponsors and co-sponsors a number of activities throughout the year, including alumni and guest speakers, roundtable lunch discussions and professional and social activities.

Energy Club

The mission of the Yale School of Management Energy Club is to keep its members abreast of economic, policy, technology and societal issues in the energy sector. The club introduces Yale students to careers in the energy sector and provides networking opportunities for students and alumni.

Global Social Enterprise

Global Social Enterprise (GSE) provides pro-bono consulting services to internationally focused non-profit, public and private sector organizations with the goal of making a positive social impact. By forming partnerships and assisting these organizations, the group aims to strengthen Yale SOM’s ties to the global community. Through these relationships students will encounter enriching learning opportunities that allow them to apply their management skills towards the support of an international social purpose. GSE heads up an annual Spring break trip to work with NGOs and SMEs in a developing country.

Arts & Culture

The Arts & Culture Club was founded to initiate participation in the arts community, both professionally and socially. Its purpose is to provide opportunities for SOM students to learn about career opportunities in arts management through speakers, alumni, and site visits; to inform SOM students about cultural events taking place in and around New Haven; to organize activities centered on the arts for SOM students to attend; and to hold an arts event for the graduate school community to attend each year.

Education Club

The Education Club's mission is to promote the interests of SOM students in the education sector. The Club will do this by providing opportunities for students to volunteer in local education organizations, supporting the career searches of students in the education industry, hosting an annual conference with speakers who work in the education sector, and supporting other events that address topics at the intersection of business and education.

Healthcare Club

The mission of YHLC is to provide Yale students with the opportunities they need to become leaders in the healthcare and life sciences sector. We do this by providing education, leadership, and career development opportunities for students. YHLC sponsors networking opportunities, hosts healthcare events, and provides career search assistance. We are committed to expanding the reputation of SOM and Yale students in the healthcare and life sciences industry.

Community Service Club

The Community Service Club seeks to build a culture of service at SOM by getting students, faculty, and staff involved in community service events. The group will arrange a school-wide community service event in both the fall and spring semesters. Members will also be notified of regular volunteer opportunities within New Haven and will have the opportunity to do smaller service activities that the Club coordinates.

SOM Outreach

SOM Outreach provides business and management advice to New Haven area organizations that are unable to afford comparable services elsewhere. In doing so, we hope to foster a close relationship between the students of Yale School of Management and the greater New Haven area. We expect to broaden our learning experience through the useful application of management skills while expressing the community values we believe to be integral to our school.

Food for Thought

Food For Thought is a not-for-profit volunteer-run café within the Yale School of Management. The mission of Food For Thought is twofold. First, the proceeds generated through the sale of foodstuffs (including high quality coffee, teas, and baked goods) go to support the Internship Fund, which provides funding to students who pursue summer internships in the public or nonprofit sector between their first and second years of study. Additionally, Food For Thought contributes to the broader SOM community through providing a comfortable and desirable social gathering place for study groups and club meetings. We invite all members of the SOM community to volunteer to work a shift.

NonProfit Board Fellows

The purpose of Nonprofit Board Fellows is to create opportunities for SOM students to serve on nonprofit boards in and around New Haven. The Club will recruit and screen nonprofits that can provide a worthwhile leadership opportunity for students and select students with a high motivation to serve on the boards. Nonprofit Board Fellows will provide training and support for students during the term of their service.

SOM Net Impact Club

The SOM Net Impact Club provides education, events and career guidance for SOM students pursuing careers in non-profit management, public management, and socially responsible business. The Club also functions as an umbrella organization, coordinating activities relating to social enterprise and socially responsible careers with faculty, staff, and other clubs on campus.

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