Economics & Strategy Podcast

Hussain Kazmi is a 2025 DePaul MBA graduate and is as humble as he is determined. He currently serves as Principal Solutions Consultant at Eightfold AI where he has a front row seat at seeing the impact AI is having in today's business operations. He joins us this month to discuss how he got here and deliver some fascinating stories about how his firm is helping usher in a paradigm shift in employ...

Yvonne Renard is an environmental economist with a gift for empirical research and a graduate of DePaul's MS‑EPA program . She specializes in climate risk and resilience at the global environmental services firm Anthesis Group . Yvonne helps clients identify and quantify their material exposure to risks emerging from today's rapidly changing environmental conditions. While the topic can be controv...

Pablo Martin is an engineer through and through who, after a few career years, decided he needed an MBA to know more about the business side of his work. A well-worn path for career advancement. After a short search, he found DePaul and the Business Strategy & Decision Making Program and hasn't looked back since. Since completing his MBA, he's been fortunate enough to find the perfect role, at the...

Alicia Hickey is an unapologetically smart, confident, and skilled women from DePaul's Department of Economics MS-EPA program. She joins us this month to talk about how she built a successful career and to give thanks to those who helped her fully embrace her abilities and intelligence. Alicia is currently Director of Commercial Operations, North America, at the European energy giant Uniper and ov...

This month we welcome Dr Brian Thompson , Clinical Professor of Economics at DePaul , and faculty member in the business strategy and decision making program . As the son of educators, he takes his role seriously and is very focused and intentional in his preparation and classroom goals. In this episode, we discuss the intersection of economics, business, and strategy and how he uses real-world ex...

What can a business strategy education do for your career? Dhruv Kavi is Manager of Client Delivery at the AI consulting firm Quantum Rise and he joins us on the Economics & Strategy Podcast to tell us what it's done for him. He tells us how he went from a task-oriented mindset to thinking three steps ahead. He describes how he applies strategy frameworks to analyze and understand the interactions...

Women can rule the world! Heidi Pearson is a great example of this truth. She is a mother, entrepreneur, creative writer, marketing expert, and DePaul MBA alumna from the Business Strategy and Decision-Making program . She shares wisdom from her business career and how her education in strategy informs her work. Heidi's career spans almost 25 years including the 2008 economic meltdown, many person...

Pat Petersen is a double demon, business strategy & decision making alum, and a Manager at the global consulting firm Avanade ; a position he has worked hard for. He joins us to talk about his journey in defining what he wanted as a career, and how he pursued that. His path has not always been easy and he's faced challenges in work and life that would test anyone's resolve. He passed every one usi...

Elliott Bulling has a dream job and an MS-EPA graduate degree from DePaul University . He currently works at the sports technology firm Hudl , as a product manager and joins us this month to discuss his work, his path, and how economics helps him in life and business. Economics, as a discipline, has the reputation of an academic field delivering cold, clinical explanations of our world. Elliott sh...

We are privileged to welcome back MBA alumna Jen Asplund for a Check In. Since our last visit Jen left a successful at career AT&T, to start her own leadership coaching business, Asplund Leadership Consulting . With significant leadership experience informed by two graduate programs, she is truly an expert. In business, no area gets more scrutiny than leadership. In this episode, Jen explains why...

Double Demon and Business Strategy & Decision Making alumna Lauren Coartney , has experienced wildly different organizational types in her career. Currently Program Lead – Global Digital Experience at the tech giant Uber, she started her career in the traditional healthcare space. We discuss how those differences showed up in her work and what challenged her to try something so radically different...

Joe Christie is a Business Strategy & Decision Making alumnus, manager at the building materials giant  Owens Corning , and a history buff. He joins us this month to discuss the value of a history degree in business, the opportunities his MBA provided him, and how B2B sales is a bit like a repeated game, where credibility is central to each party receiving their best outcome. Joe innately understa...

In this episode we're gonna talk about data science! Lots of data science. To help, we welcome double demon and professional in the field, Ian Burke . Ian works in consulting and has a front row seat helping a wide range of clients solve complex business problems using data science as his tool. Consultants often engage with clients across a variety of industries. In doing so, they can play an impo...

Say Hello to Winny Lucas . Winny is a long-time member of the DePaul community as a student, teacher, and staff member and works at Stanford University . She joins us this month for a conversation on immigration, curiosity, creativity in a technical world, and education; lots of education! As a young woman, Winny left Shanghai for a full-ride scholarship at DePaul and ended up being part of an imp...

This month we have 2020 MBA alumnus Anthony Wojtal , Budget Manager at Chicago Public Schools (CPS). Anthony leads the budget team for the country's third largest school district and after 12 years has a veteran's perspective to offer. CPS delivers a public good and, as such, must serve everyone in its district equally, without exclusion. For this reason, it's a fool's errand to compare them to pr...

Our February edition of the Economics & Strategy Podcast hosts 2020 strategy alumna Julia Weigard , Director of Network Transformation for NewGround International . NewGround is a design and build firm with a strong focus on retail financial institutions. One of the most tried and true strategies in business is to build strength in one space – whether geographic or product space – and expand slowl...

It's a cold January in Chicago but we're happy to have MBA alumnus Matt Robins on for a conversation on technology sales.   Matt works with NetApp's AWS Alliance team and has spent his entire career in technical sales. He tells us why " sales is hard " but also how his  business strategy & decision making concentration focused his efforts. Time is a finite resource, so using it more efficiently is...

For the holiday season we are joined by MBA alumnus Michael Kremer , Vice President of Marketing for the American Concrete Pipe Association . In this wide-ranging discussion, Michael shares knowledge gained over a 20+ year career in marketing, and how luck played a part in his story. The role of luck in life and business is often overlooked or underweighted. Many fall victim to this fallacy - myse...

This month, Marty Friel joins us for our second Check In episode in this podcast series . Marty is a MS-EPA graduate and veteran financial advisor with Ameriprise Financial and his original episode aired on 3/9/21. In that episode, Aaron Pagel hosted Marty for a great conversation on how and why he pursued this career and what strategy is responsible for his success. Here we take the chance to rev...

Edith Freeze is a Community Scientist at Northwestern University's Fienberg School of Medicine and a fierce champion of environmental rights. Her career is the product of endless curiosity, a thirst for education, and hustle. Her passion for environmental issues comes directly from her experiences growing up in Ecuador and a reverence for her Andean Indigenous roots. This double demon joins to exp...

Josh Dickey is an experienced finance professional, DePaul MS-EPA alumnus, veteran of the Federal Reserve in Washington DC and our guest this month. Josh has great stories to tell about his career, time at the Fed, and current work at the fuel cell manufacturer Hyzon Motors . Hyzon focuses on producing zero-emission heavy duty trucks; a nascent market with huge potential. Like many new markets, th...

Our guest this month is Nuna Becic . Nuna is the embodiment of resilience, effort, and passion! Qualities earned from life experience as an immigrant, mother, MBA, and marketing professional. She currently handles strategic alliances at Logitech and has an interesting story of getting there. This story includes terrific role models, some luck, and a lot of hard work. A LOT! Her current role uses h...

2024 summer break brings our first guest with a B.A. in Economics Ryan Polak . Ryan is Associate Director for Purchasing at Bell Flavors & Fragrances ; a developer and manufacturer of ingredients in many consumer products who sits in the upstream market of the consumer product makers. Clients rely on Bell's scientific expertise to be successful, and their food scientists rely on Ryan to deliver ra...

June is part 2 with Luke Balderson and a great discussion on leadership and organizational culture. We explore how Luke made the connection between these two interdependent concepts and how they create sustainable business success. The servant-based leadership model discussed here begins at the top and requires discipline to scale and maintain. However, done well, this model, of selflessly develop...

For May, we begin a two-part interview with Business Strategy & Decision Making alumnus Luke Balderson . This part 1, dives deep into Luke's multidecade career in the far reaching and fascinating  industrial gases industry. L uke is a composed, experienced, and highly capable executive in a sector that demands clear thinking and strategic insight. These skills were honed by a remarkable father, a...