Successful business leaders are insightful. They possess a profound understanding of how economies and institutions evolve as technology and global trends continue to advance and converge. In the current context, they also must attain the business acumen and the data-driven analytical skills necessary to gain insight and to effectively influence outcomes.

Yet acquiring these skills is not sufficient since the rapid adoption of technologies reduces the need for individuals to conduct routine and intellectually mechanical activities. Instead, the future will value human ingenuity, critical thinking, and creativity. As a result, individuals with creative insights regarding the future needs of consumers, firms, and societies and those who understand how to interact with others to unleash their creative spirits are essential for progress and success.

By accomplishing this goal, we will extend our legacy of educating business leaders by delivering a modern, experiential, action-based education that combines an analytical focus with creative insights and prepares students for the next generation of business.

Strategy 1

Infuse analytical programming broadly across the curriculum.

Strategy 2

Unleash the creative drive of our diverse student body where learners explore, experience, and develop their ability to achieve successful outcomes and demonstrate doing so before they graduate through curricular and co-curricular programming.

Strategy 3

Expand programs that develop the communication, teamwork, and collaboration skills needed to achieve success.

Strategy 4

Extend the classroom to create an immersive experiential environment for students by engaging our business partners in Atlanta and around the world.

Robinson has launched a multitude of new programs and initiatives and has since seen an increase in student engagement. New immersive programs include  Panthers Accelerated Career Experience (PACE), Panthers in the Valley and WomenLead. The Institute for Insight has grown to include a big data lab and STEM-based faculty, which paved the way for Robinson’s new Master of Science in Analytics. Additionally, the Institute has developed a fintech lab and a legal analytics lab.  Robinson’s newest academic department, the Entrepreneurship and Innovation Institute, has delivered a new minor in entrepreneurship which includes the U-Venture Challenge and E-House a living, learning community for students with an entrepreneurial spirit. Student placement and career opportunities have increased as well; the Career Expo last fall had record attendance (1,500+ students) and the new technology-oriented graduate student career fair hosted 28+ employers and over 300 students. Over the past two years, there has been a 38% increase in employers recruiting Robinson students.

Revolutionary technologies are profoundly impacting business and society. They are changing the functions of capital markets and sources of funds, redefining the nature of products and services, enhancing the fluidity of labor markets and transforming the education markets in which we work. These technologies are also changing the nature of organizations and how societies organize, communicate and progress. Boundless possibilities for innovation and wealth creation now exist.

To be a resource for business in this environment, we will emphasize the development of new analytical methods and tools while continuing to excel at fundamental business research. Leveraging our distinctive faculty base, we will establish a research environment that emphasizes the formation of academic alliances and partnerships with alumni, corporate entities and nonprofit organizations. Together we will create a culture and structure that facilitates high-impact research projects that uncover new insights. As a result, students and faculty will be positioned to invent the new institutional constructs that create value in a complex, global economy.

Strategy 1

Broaden our portfolio of faculty by recruiting and developing research-active faculty members who have strengths in methodological and computational capabilities as well as conducting fundamental research into business.

Strategy 2

Build and foster long-term relationships that facilitate mutually beneficial and high-impact applied research projects with business partners.

Strategy 3

Develop a research portfolio sponsored by government funding agencies, private foundations, and corporate entities to achieve socially relevant outcomes. These will include the well-being of individuals, the competitiveness of the workforce, and increased economic development.

Strategy 4

Design incentives and organizational structures that promote research and programming focused on exploring and solving what is most important to the future of business and society.

Robinson is making strides in business research. According to the University of Texas at Dallas Research Rankings, Robinson ranks No. 24 in the nation and No. 1 among business schools in Georgia. Additionally, we have attracted 34 new permanent faculty members, several with STEM-based degrees. In fall 2016, we established individual professional development budgets for all tenured, tenure-track and clinical faculty members. Over the past three years, Robinson appointed 13 faculty members to endowed positions. Lastly, sponsored funding totaled $5.2m over the past three years, which represents a 40% increase over the prior three-year time-period.

The opportunity for leaders to embrace new technologies to creatively and responsibly impact markets, society, and the environment is tremendous. We engage the members of our community to grow the productive capabilities of each individual so that they can positively impact Atlanta, the state of Georgia, the nation and the world.

Strategy 1

Provide programs to develop achievement-oriented business leaders who understand the need to engage both the market and societal context in which their firms operate.

Strategy 2

Empower the alumni base such that Robinson maintains a commanding position in networks that can contribute to the success of the college.

Strategy 3

Launch efforts that demonstrate how business leadership skills can be used to improve the Atlanta and global community.

Strategy 4

Improve our internal systems, execution capabilities, resource allocation, human capital, and transparency in striving for excellence.

Our values of Collaboration and Rigor and Relevance helped guide a group of faculty and staff to launch a year-long project with the American Red Cross involving two classes of graduate students: a group of MSA students who analyzed Red Cross date and our PMBA students who delivered business plans using the data analysis. The faculty team leading the First-Year Experience Program for pre-business majors was inspired by our values Collaboration and The Power of Markets to partner with Junior Achievement of Atlanta, and we were recognized for volunteers of the year in 2016-17. We have broadened participation on the college’s Executive Committee so that both faculty and professional staff leaders now consider the policy questions facing the college. Perhaps most significantly, we have raised $18.6m in development funding the last three years, an 89% increase relative to the prior three-year time-period, and the average size gift grew by 94%.