# Owen Graduate School of Management

The Vanderbilt University Owen Graduate School of Management is the graduate business school of Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee, United States. Founded in 1969, Owen offers six degrees: a standard 2-year Master of Business Administration (MBA), an Executive MBA, Master of Finance, Master of Accountancy, Master of Accountancy-Valuation, and Master of Management in Health Care, as well as a variety of joint professional and MBA degree programs. Owen also offers non-degree programs for undergraduates and professionals.
The student to faculty ratio is about 9 to 1, with 577 students and 49 full-time faculty members.
The school is named for Ralph “Peck” Owen and his wife, Lulu Hampton Owen. Ralph Owen, a Vanderbilt alumnus (’28), was a founder of Equitable Securities Corporation in Nashville, and he became the chairman of the American Express Company.

## History

In 1881, Vanderbilt's Board of Trust submitted its first proposal for a business education program, calling it the Commercial College Department. However, it wasn't until the mid-1950s that a business administration program was offered in the Department of Economics.
The Board of Trust passed the school's founding resolution on May 5, 1967, and operations as the Graduate School of Management began in September 1969 with twelve faculty members and six students. Classes met in a renovated funeral home, a gift from Mr. and Mrs. David K. Wilson. The building was named Alexander Hall in honor of Henry Clay Alexander, a Vanderbilt alum and president of J.P. Morgan.
It was under Dean Samuel B. Richmond, that the school was named for Ralph and Lulu Owen. Following the deaths of both Mr. and Mrs. Owen, their estates gave $33.5 million to The Owen School, said to be the largest gift to a U.S. business school at that time. That sum raised the total of their gifts to more than $62 million.
The Owen School moved from Alexander Hall to Management Hall in 1982. Management Hall is connected to Mechanical Engineering Hall, which is home to the Executive MBA program. Management Hall also houses the Walker Library collection of more than 50,000 volumes, more than 900 periodical titles, reference works, and electronic databases. The library was named in honor of Anne Marie and Thomas B. Walker, Jr.
At present, about 25% of the student body are international students, and 33% are women. Finance was the most popular area for Vanderbilt MBA students in 2007–8; 43 percent accepted jobs in that field. Eight percent of faculty members have owned a business.
In July 2023, Thomas Steenburgh became the Ralph Owen Dean and Professor of Marketing. He began his academic career at Harvard Business School.

## Programs

The Owen Graduate School of Management is accredited by the AACSB International (The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business) and is a full member of the Executive MBA Council (EMBAC).
The Owen Graduate School's programs are organized by students' career progression and interest. The classifications are: Young Professional Programs, Early Career Programs, Executive Programs, and Health Care Programs.
* MS Finance
* MAcc with possible specialization in two fields- Assurance and Valuation
* Master of Marketing, a degree which requires the completion of 32 credit hours. Twelve credit hours are required for a marketing concentration; twenty credit hours are required for brand management specialization.
* Accelerator Summer Business Institute, a four-week program where students in teams take classes and serve as consultants for real businesses.
* MBA The Owen School's MBA degree program takes two years to complete and requires a minimum of 62 credit hours.
* Executive MBA (EMBA) Most students who pursue the Executive MBA have prior work experience. The program requires 24 months. In 2009, incoming students began following an alternating Saturday schedule and two summer sessions. The first EMBA class graduated in the spring of 1980.
* Americas MBA for Executives (AMBA) was designed with a more global focus. The second year of the program consists of four 10-day residencies in Brazil, Canada, Mexico, and the United States. Upon completion of the program, students earn both the Vanderbilt MBA and the Americas MBA Alliance Certificate.
* Executive Development Institute The Owen School offers several programs for working professionals that cover topics such as: management fundamentals, leadership, health care, and banking Courses are typically 2-3 days and completing several may earn a certificate.
* The Health Care MBA began in 2005, and may include on-site experience. Focus areas include finance, accounting, general management, human and organizational performance, information technology, marketing, operations, or strategy.
* Master of Management in Health Care is a one-year degree aimed at healthcare workers; all candidates must have at least five years of work experience in their fields.

## Rankings and recognition

In 2024, Owen was ranked #20 in U.S. News & World Report's rankings. Bloomberg Businessweek ranked the full-time MBA program #34 in 2015 and the Executive MBA #35 in 2014 In 2017 the Financial Times (US) ranked the MBA as #40 and the Executive MBA at #15. Most recently, the Economist "Which MBA?" ranked the MBA program at #26.
The Owen School was one of two winners of the 2008 TeamMBA Award, which was presented by the Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC).
Bruce Cooil, Dean Samuel B. and Evelyn R. Richmond Professor of Management, was awarded the 2007 Marketing Science Institute/H. Paul Root Award. Michael A. Lapré, E. Bronson Ingram Professor in Operations Management, has received the Shingo Research Prize. Professor Nancy Hyer and Urban Wemmerlov's book Reorganizing the Factory: Competing through Cellular Manufacturing, won the 2003 Shingo Prize for Research in Manufacturing

## Centers

* Financial Markets Research Center (FMRC): Directed by Professor Hans Stoll, the FMRC was founded in 1987 to research financial markets and institutions. It hosts an annual conference; speakers in the spring of 2009 included Paul Volcker, Stephen Axilrod, and William Dudley). Co-director of the FMRC is Robert E. Whaley.
* Turner Family Center for Social Ventures: funded by a nearly $1.2 donation, Mario Avila, MBA'12, became the director of the center in July 2015.
* Owen Entrepreneurship Center: The Nashville Capital Network's director is Germain Böer, Professor of Management.
* Cal Turner Program for Moral Leadership in the Professions: this program focuses on moral leadership among professionals. It is named for the late CEO of Dollar General Cal Turner. Bart Victor is the executive director.
* Vanderbilt Center for Environmental Management Studies: a joint initiative by the School of Engineering, the Owen Graduate School of Management, and the Law School. Its activities focus on environmental business, management, and technologies.
* Center for Healthcare Markets Innovation: it was launched in 2016.

## Alumni
### Academia

* Marjorie K. Eastman, MBA'12 – author of The Frontline Generation
* Eric L. Harry, MBA'83 – American author best known for his novels Arc Light and Invasion
* C. Turney Stevens, Jr., MBA'81 – Dean of the College of Business at Lipscomb University
* Craig Fleisher, MBA – scholar and author in the fields ofpublic affairs, competitive intelligence and analysis
* Millicent Lownes-Jackson, MBA – founder, The World Institute for Sustainable Education and Research (The WISER Group)

### Business

* Anu Aiyengar, MBA'99 – Head of Mergers and Acquisitions at JPMorgan Chase & Co
* Jim Beavers, MBA '96 – Director of Marketing for Capitol Records
* David Farr, MBA'81 – Chairman and CEO of Emerson Electric
* Adena Friedman, MBA'93 – President and CEO of NASDAQ
* Mahni Ghorashi, MBA '12 – co-founder of Clear Labs
* David Bronson Ingram, MBA'89 – Chairman and CEO of Ingram Entertainment
* John R. Ingram, MBA'86 – Chairman of Ingram Content Group and Ingram Industries
* Prashant Khemka, MBA'98 – CIO of Global Emerging Markets equity at Goldman Sachs, founder of White Oak Capital Management
* Doug Parker, MBA'86 – Chairman and CEO of American Airlines Group
* James C. Tsai, MBA'98 – President, New York Eye and Ear Infirmary of Mount Sinai
* Philip C. Wolf, MBA '80 – founder and CEO of PhoCusWright

### Government

* Megan Barry, MBA'93 – Mayor of Nashville
* Jim Bryson, MBA'85 – member of the Tennessee State Senate
* John Cooper, MBA '85 – Mayor of Nashville; former Global Head of Technology Investment Banking at Lehman Brothers
* Steven Reed, MBA'04 – first African-American Mayor of Montgomery, Alabama
* Tom Tait, MBA'85 – Mayor of Anaheim, California
* Bruce Heyman, MBA'80 – 30th United States Ambassador to Canada, former Vice President of Goldman Sachs
* Francis Guess, MBM'74 – member of the Tennessee Commission on Civil Rights
* Jonathan Jordan MBA '92 – member of the North Carolina House of Representatives
* Paul C. Ney Jr., JD, MBA'84 – General Counsel of the Department of Defense of the United States, appointed by President Trump
* Ihor Petrashko, MBA '01 – Minister of Economic Development and Trade of Ukraine