Earning their MBAs while working

UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School celebrated the graduation of 333 working professionals from its evening, weekend and online MBA programs on Nov. 9, 2019, at the Dean E. Smith Center.

“By earning their MBAs, these business leaders can celebrate their wise investment in themselves, both professionally and personally,” said Bradley Staats, associate dean of MBA Programs and an operations professor. “They studied – learning from each other as well as their professors – and took those lessons back to work to benefit their organizations. The strong bonds they built with their classmates now extend to an even wider network of more than 38,000 alumni in 50 states and 85 countries who are passionate about UNC Kenan-Flagler.”

Graduates of the Evening Executive MBA Program are from the Triangle, while graduates of the Weekend Executive MBA Program come from as far away as California, Rhode Island, New York, Tennessee and Georgia. Graduates of the online program, MBA@UNC, live across the U.S. and in Canada and Italy.

They work in diverse industries and for small first to multinational organizations. Some of the organizations for which they work include Bank of America, Blue Cross Blue Shield, BP, GE Aviation, IBM, JP Morgan Chase, Lenovo, MITRE Corporation, Red Hat, UNC School of Medicine, U.S. Army and U.S. Marine Corps.

Stephen Cumbie (MBA ’73), chief executive officer and principal of NVCommercial Inc., NVRetail Inc. and Metro Management Services LLC, gave the keynote address. He is a recipient of the 2017 Business School Leadership Award.

Teaching excellence awards were presented to Hugh O’Neill, professor of strategy and entrepreneurship and Edward M. O’Herron, Jr. Distinguished Scholar; Christian Lundblad, Richard “Dick” Levin Distinguished Professor of Finance; and Amanda Thompson, clinical assistant professor of finance.