Owl Have You Know

After building a career in enterprise risk management and rising to senior leadership in banking, Kenzel Fallen ’12 and her husband Tio turned a shared passion for specialty coffee into Three Keys Coffee — a roastery and cafe focused on sustainability, creativity and music. What started as a side project during COVID has since landed on the shelves of Trader Joe's and been named Food & Wine's...

Two Rice alums are shaking up the renewable energy world with Tierra Climate, an AI-powered energy storage platform that’s quietly reshaping how the power grid works. Co-founded by Jacob Mansfield (BA ’16) and Emma Konet (PMBA ’24), Tierra Climate is driven by a shared belief that the transition to clean power needs to happen faster. Both have been passionate about the energy space since early in...

When Pablo Coello began his medical training, he noticed a persistent gap in healthcare: clinicians and administrators often weren’t speaking the same language, and the result was inefficiency that directly affected patient care. That realization ultimately led him to pursue a dual MD/MBA through Baylor College of Medicine and Rice Business. Now an orthopedic surgery resident at UC Health, Pablo b...

Professor Jonathan Miles’ path to teaching organizational behavior at Rice Business is anything but conventional. Before entering academia, he earned a degree in computer science, worked in IT and even launched a comic book store — experiences that shaped his perspective on leadership, influence and human behavior. Today, Miles is known for challenging students to think differently about power, wo...

Following an upbringing as an expat in Jakarta, Indonesia, today’s guest is applying his unique worldview to the management consulting industry and helping clients solve complex business challenges with digital solutions.  David Aldrich, a Rice Business alum from the Professional MBA Class of 2015, serves on the Rice Business Alumni Association Board and is a practice lead at EPAM Systems, a manag...

Yan "Anthea" Zhang, the Fayez Sarofim Vanguard Chair of Strategic Management at Rice Business, has spent more than two decades researching the decisions that make or break organizations: CEO succession, corporate governance, and the gender dynamics shaping who rises to the top. On this special live episode, Zhang joins host Maya Pomroy '22 to share what her research reveals about the leap from fun...

When Professor Yael Hochberg made the decision to come to Rice, she had a vision for building an entrepreneurship program like no other — it would be one for the modern era that would set the pace for entrepreneurship education going forward.  Now, more than a decade later, Rice consistently ranks number one in the country for entrepreneurship and is leading the way in world-changing innovation th...

Bob Dittmar has big goals for the Virani Undergraduate School of Business. As the school’s associate dean and Houston Endowment Professor of Finance, he aims to increase Rice Business’ national footprint, making it a household name for top-tier business education from coast to coast.  Dittmar came to Rice in 2022 after teaching for nearly 20 years at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Bus...

Most companies think they're customer-focused. Many are wrong. Vikas Mittal, the J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Marketing at Rice Business and faculty director of the Center for Customer-Based Execution and Strategy, has spent his career helping CEOs, MBA students and others learn the difference between truly serving customers and simply appeasing them.  In this episode, Vikas joins host Brian Jacks...

Over the past decade, Rice Business has scaled with intention. MBA enrollment has doubled. Faculty ranks have grown. New MBA formats have launched. The Virani Undergraduate School of Business was established. And a new building will open soon, designed to further fuel collaboration, research and innovation. In this conversation, former dean Peter Rodriguez reflects on the strategy behind that mome...

Leveling up your game just got so much easier, thanks to the new cutting-edge technology from BeONE Sports — a startup that uses mobile motion-capture and AI to enhance athletic performance, prevent injuries, and support coaches and athletes at every level. Co-founded by former Division I athlete Scott Deans ’22, the idea for BeONE started right here at Rice Business. Scott has loved sports since...

Not every job will feel like the perfect fit, but for David Verbitsky ’10, every new position is an important stepping stone in your career, and an opportunity to learn and grow.  When David wanted to pivot his career from engineering to finance, the path led him straight to an MBA at Rice Business. His experience at Rice spring boarded him into a career in investment banking with a special focus...

When it comes to working in military intelligence, strong leadership skills and the ability to make quick decisions under pressure are key. Just as important to a mission’s success is being a good team player. Those were the lessons and skills Chris Stillwell ’24 carried into his two career pivots after his time working as a military intelligence officer for the U.S. Army. His first pivot landed h...

As a first-generation American from Saudi Arabia, Rzan Yunus ’17 learned from an early age what ambition and perseverance can lead to.  She credits her immigrant father’s determination to build a successful career and life for his family in the U.S. as inspiration for her own strong work ethic and drive. It was that drive that led her first to a career in insurance at American International Group...

Liam Morris ’23 manages one of the most complex corners of United Airlines — airport operations quality control across more than 80 stations spanning Latin America, Central America and the Southwest U.S. In this conversation, he shares how early travel experiences opened the door to a career in aviation, the path that led him from loading bags in El Paso to overseeing global safety audits, and wha...

As the youngest founder in her Rice MBA cohort, Allison Knight ’10 knows a thing or two about blazing a trail.  At just 24 years old, she co-founded Rebellion Photonics, which used cutting-edge technology to identify and quantify gas leaks on oil rigs, preventing catastrophic explosions. Knight went on to sell Rebellion Photonics to Honeywell in 2019, and is now codifying blue collar genius throug...

How does something as simple as a five-star rating system reveal subtle biases? When she’s not teaching MBA and undergraduate students at Rice Business, Sora Jun, Assistant Professor of Management – Organizational Behavior, studies the hidden forces that shape how we see and treat one another. Her work explores how our minds process inequality and how even small design choices, like switching from...

One year ago, the Virani family made a historic gift to Rice Business, establishing the Virani Undergraduate School of Business. To mark the occasion, Owl Have You Know welcomes Farid Virani — entrepreneur, philanthropist and proud Rice University parent. In 1999, Farid founded Prime Communications with a single storefront in Houston’s Baybrook Mall. Today, Prime Communications is the largest AT&a...

For Marian Villegas ’23, art can be found in everything — even petroleum engineering.  Raised in Tabasco, Mexico, Marian grew up inspired by her father’s work in oil and gas and her own lifelong love of painting. That dual passion led her to a career in petroleum engineering — and eventually to Rice Business, where her MBA helped her grow in both her role as a senior asset manager at EDP Renewable...

Al Danto, senior lecturer in entrepreneurship, has been a trusted mentor and beloved member of the Rice Business community for more than two decades. A serial entrepreneur, he launched his first company at the age of 23, growing it through multiple acquisitions before selling to a private equity-backed group. After earning his MBA at Rice Business, he returned to teach New Enterprise, Enterprise A...

After many successful years as a mechanical engineer for Baker Hughes, Sujeev Chittipolu ’21 thought it was time to invest in his leadership potential. That led him to Rice Business.     As part of Rice’s Professional MBA program, Sujeev formed invaluable connections through programs like CoachRICE and even joined the board of one of his classmate’s nonprofits — Amel Association Houston. Through A...

At a time when startups are primarily funded by private market investors, who you know has become a critical factor in gaining access to that venture capital. But how does the reliance on alumni and professional networks create barriers for startups from historically disadvantaged groups? Emmanuel Yimfor ’20 is a finance professor at Columbia Business School and holds a Ph. D. from Rice University...

After navigating a challenging endometriosis diagnosis, multiple surgeries, and a complex healthcare system, Andria “Monique” Pourkarimi ’25 decided to tackle a gap she experienced firsthand. While pursuing an online MBA at Rice, an idea born in the classroom grew into Dr. Clara, LLC — a women’s health startup focused on closing the communication gap between patients and providers. Just a year ear...

During their time at Rice Business, Mike Tatz ’14 and Corban Bates ’15 saw an opportunity to connect veterans with capital and the network needed to start a business. As veterans themselves, they understood how important it is to have the right connections and platform to pitch an idea. With that, the Veterans Business Battle was born.  But Mike and Corban’s story starts long before Rice. The two...

Like the discovery of penicillin, it started with an unexpected moment in the lab. Charlie Childs and Madeline Eiken didn’t set out to revolutionize drug testing — but a surprise breakthrough led them to create the world’s first lab-grown human intestine and win the 2025 Rice Business Plan Competition 's grand prize. Their startup, Intero Biosystems , could dramatically reduce clinical trial costs...