Owl Have You Know

During this year's alumni reunion Partio, we caught up with some alums right on campus. One of those alumni was Daniel Barvin ‘18. Daniel has held many different roles, in both financial advising and oil and gas sectors, and eventually earned an MBA from Rice Business in 2018. But in December of that same year that he tested positive for the C9orf72 gene expansion, which means may develop ALS late...

In another installment of Owl Have You Know’s Flight Path Series, where guests share their career journeys and Rice insights, we speak to three innovators connected to the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship.  The Liu Idea Lab is a hub for entrepreneurship and innovation at Rice University. Its director of strategic innovations is Hesam Panahi, who has a Ph. D. in management informati...

In another installment of our live Owl Have You Know recording series, we invited Ben Clemenceau ‘21 back to McNair Hall to discuss his career in market research, and how earning his MBA at Rice catapulted his pivot into consulting. In December of 2022, Ben received an accelerated promotion from senior strategy consultant to business strategy manager at Accenture.  When he reflects on his time at...

Many of us watch developments in the war in Ukraine on TV, and we get updates on Twitter. But for Radu Filip, who grew up behind the iron curtain in Romania, the conflict resonates deeper. So much so that he boarded a plane in late December 2022 to head into the war zone and help with relief efforts near Kharkiv with the nonprofit Elevate Ukraine . Radu immigrated to the U.S. in 2005, and soon aft...

When she joined Rice Business in 2017, Jillian Fink was in the process of founding OcciGuide, the first device used in the emergency care setting to treat migraines, a neurological condition that disproportionately impacts women.  In her role as CEO, Jillian navigated the complexities of the healthcare system to get her medical device approved by the FDA, including designing clinical trials using...

We’re back with another live edition of Owl Have You Know! And this time, we welcomed two leadership experts to the show, Ruth Reitmeier, director of coaching at Rice Business, and Brent Smith, the senior associate dean for executive education and associate professor of management and psychology at Rice Business. Certain topics, like cryptocurrency, AI, political polarization, and Jennifer Coolidg...

Dan Purvis says his passion for working for himself started in junior high when he began selling pieces of gum to classmates. Six companies later, it is safe to say Dan is a certified serial entrepreneur.  Dan graduated with honors in electrical engineering and an undergraduate fellowship from Texas A&M and was a Jones Scholar at Rice Business, where he earned an EMBA in 2005. His career began...

These days, you don't often find someone who's been with their job for maybe 5 or 10 years. Well, Amanda Stewart has been at Constellation for 15 years now and is still committed to helping the company grow. Amanda earned a BBA from UT Austin in 2002, with a concentration in marketing, and an MBA from Rice Business in 2008. She is the vice president of retail operations for Constellation, the nati...

Every March, South By Southwest brings together innovators, changemakers, and leaders from all over the world to Texas. To celebrate, this month we are revisiting episodes from The Index , a podcast collaboration between Texas Monthly and Rice Business at the 2019 South by Southwest festival, where the two entities co-hosted a pop-up experience in an Austin storefront. We sat down with Professor U...

Joanna Nathan has been pretty busy since earning her MBA 2019. A biomedical engineer by trade, visionary, and serial entrepreneur, Joanna most recently became the CEO of Prana Thoracic, a Houston-based medical device startup dedicated to developing solutions for the detection and intervention of early-stage lung cancer.  She was formerly the manager of new ventures at the Johnson & Johnson Cen...

Every March, South By Southwest brings together innovators, changemakers, and leaders from all over the world to Texas. To celebrate, this month we are revisiting episodes from The Index , a podcast collaboration between Texas Monthly and Rice Business at the 2019 South by Southwest festival, where the two entities co-hosted a pop-up experience in an Austin storefront. In the first episode of this...

From the moment Takeya Green stepped off the plane to visit Rice, she knew Houston was the city for her. The Chicago native earned a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. After getting her undergraduate degree in 2014, she joined Dow, in Freeport, TX, as a lead production engineer. She then joined Olin as a site logistics engineer in 2017, wher...

They say all you have in business is your reputation. But in today's rapidly evolving world with social media lending everyone a microphone, who truly controls it? On Monday, October 24th, 2022, we hosted our first live podcast taping at Rice Business with host Maya Pomroy ‘22, and Rice Business Associate Professor of Strategic Management, Anastasiya Zavyalova.  Anastasiya is an associate professo...

While most high school graduates spend the summer hanging out with friends or working at local amusement parks, Danielle Conkling was interning in downtown San Francisco with the PR and events team at Robertson Stephens. And she’s been working in the banking industry ever since. Danielle is the director of corporate social responsibility and ESG (environmental, social, and governance) and serves a...

Mike Narvaez describes himself as a “husband, father, manager, student and volunteer trying to make more right decisions than wrong.”  Right out of undergrad, Mike was a system safety engineer at the GHG Corporation, identifying hazards affecting the International Space Station (ISS) and astronauts by providing real-time support at Mission Control. He spent time as a manager of safety and risk at...

From grandparents to parents, brothers and uncles, it seems like almost everyone in the Yates family has attended Rice, some even multiple times! That includes our guest today Chuck Yates, who earned a B.A. in political science from Rice in 1991, graduating magna cum laude, and later returned to earn his MBA from Rice in 1994. Chuck Yates is an investor and former managing partner at Kayne Anderso...

Growing up, Mike Dey had a passion for planes. So it was only fitting that when he got older, he would pursue a career doing what he was good at (mechanics) in the field he loved (aerospace engineering). Mike is a Houston native and Rice Business Class of 2020 online MBA graduate. He received a BS in aerospace engineering from the University of Colorado Boulder and began his career as an engineer...

When Natalie Smith first came to Rice as a full-time MBA student, she was under the impression that she would end up being an investment banker. But through her time in the program, and learning from different perspectives, she found a new calling in mergers & acquisitions.  After graduating in 2017, Natalie joined EY as a senior consultant for transaction advisory services, progressing to dir...

It was Jackie’s kids who finally got her to pursue her MBA. She realized she was at a loss for how to explain what she did for a living to her kids, when their friends could easily describe how their parents were teachers, or worked at Target. It was time for her to pursue something different in her career. Jackie earned her MBA from Rice Business, graduating in 2021. But tragically, during her ti...

During the pandemic, the hybrid MBA model wasn’t considered hybrid anymore, it became the normal way to work and learn. While Jeffrey Moseley ‘21 was in Rice Business’ online MBA program, he was also living in Santiago, Chile, balancing a full-time job, two kids with cabin fever and coursework.  Jeff took on his current role of strategy and operations manager for the U.S. Department of Defense in...

Lauren Miller started her first business as a student at Rice, and she hasn't slown down since! While getting her MBA at Rice Business, Lauren started and led a venture-funded company named A-76 Technologies (later relaunched as Aidant Brands) with a teammate (Tim Aramil) from a Technology Entrepreneurship course. After developing a business and commercialization plan for A-76, the company came in...

Caroline Goodner is truly the intersection of her parents. Growing up, her father was a geneticist and her mother was an entrepreneur. Now, Caroline is a serial entrepreneur who has founded and led multiple companies in the healthcare space.  She is the co-founder and CEO of OrganiCare, a startup company that provides highly effective, all-natural, over-the-counter healthcare products to consumers...

Starting an MBA program in the middle of a global pandemic is difficult already. But when Pierre Aristide was diagnosed with cancer during his program, the flexibility and remote options offered to him made it possible to graduate on time with the rest of his cohort and beat the disease. In fact, Pierre says if it weren't for his cohort, he may have had a totally different health outcome.  Pierre...

Growing up in New York City, Brandy Hays Morrison (‘05) had never heard of Rice Business School. But in the mid 90s, when there was a push for more women and minorities to enter the field of engineering, someone told Brandy she should check it out, and it was off to Houston she went. In her words, Brandy says she “took a leap of faith, and it all worked out.” Brandy is actually a two-time Owl, ear...

Robert Lesnick got his MBA from Rice Business in 2000, where he was part of the school’s first Executive MBA cohort and was honored as a Jones Scholar. At this point in time, the program was mostly from the energy sector but from roles all over the industry. Robert is now an executive advisor to the highest levels of governments and businesses seeking to develop policy and projects in the energy s...