News & Stories
In other news: June 2025
Thought leaders
- The Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost has awarded a University Distinguished Professorship to Dean Mary Margaret Frank (BSBA ’92, MAC ’92, PhD ’99). She received the Alumni Distinguished Professorship, which is especially meaningful to her as a triple Tar Heel.
- Professor LaChaun Banks (MBA ’17) offered words of wisdom to the Class of 2025, encouraging them to embrace their feelings and to take advantage of the University’s alumni network.
- Professor Jay Swaminathan received the best department editor award for the Production and Operations Management Journal during their annual conference.
- The UNC Kenan-Flagler Family Enterprise Center launched a podcast, Family Business Matters. In each episode, you’ll hear from successful family business leaders, Carolina faculty and top experts as they share what it really takes to lead, grow and sustain a family business.
- Professor Kristopher Keller’s research paper “Consequences of Bottle Bills: How Bottle Deposit Return Schemes Affect Retail Prices and Lead Consumers to Larger Package Sizes” has been accepted for publication in the Journal of Marketing.
Recognizing excellence
UNC Kenan-Flagler faculty and staff came together to celebrate the 2025 Weatherspoon Awards, an event designed to honor excellence in teaching, research and service.
Staff winners included Nathan Gusler, Whitney Corbett, Natalie Albertson and Andi Della Flora. Faculty winners included Daniel Ringel, Tanja Snively, Seyed Emadi, Elad Sherf, Vinayak Deshpande and Christian Lundblad.
This event and its recognitions are made possible through the generous support of Roy W. Holsten and the late Kay and Van Weatherspoon (BSBA ’54).
The winners show off their awards alongside Dean Mary Margaret Frank at the Blue Zone.
Standout students and alumni
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Blair Liu (PhD ’26) holds her UNC Latané Outstanding Student Teaching Award.
Business Administration was the most popular major of Carolina’s 4,358 undergraduates in the Class of 2025.
- Al Dea (MBA ’15) was named one of the top 100 influencers in HR tech by HR Executive.
- Kathy Arcano (MBA ’10) was named chief financial officer of Second Front Systems.
- Blair Liu (PhD ’26) received the UNC Latané Outstanding Student Teaching Award for her instruction in BUSI 403: Operations Management. The award recognizes exceptional teaching by a PhD student, based on students’ written feedback in course evaluations.
- Jimmy Goodmon (MBA ’25) was named CEO of Capitol Broadcasting Company with brands including WRAL, Mix 101.5, the Durham Bulls and more.
Spotted on social
- The Kenan Institute of Private Enterprise at UNC Kenan-Flagler is celebrating 40 years of impact. Since 1985, they have been a driving force in uniting business, government and academia to serve the public good.
- David Bardin (BSBA ’06, MAC ’07) was celebrated on LinkedIn for his new role as director of tax at Strathmore Capital Advisors.
- Courtney Knoll, associate dean of UNC Kenan-Flagler’s Master of Accounting and Master of Science in Management programs, met with Senator Ted Budd to advocate for the Accounting STEM Pursuit Act. The North Carolina Association of CPAs shared a video of Knoll explaining the importance of the act.
- At the UNC Tax Center’s annual Tax Symposium, Professor Yuqian Xu joined a panel on tax and trade policy changes moderated by Professor John Gallemore (BSBA ’05, MBA ’09, PhD ’14). KPMG highlighted the discussion on LinkedIn.