New UVA Darden Professors Spotlight What’s Trending

One of the perks of boasting the best B-school faculty in the world is access to those on the forefront of emerging business frontiers or industries undergoing massive change.

Les Alexander focuses on the Finance and Strategy, Ethics & Entrepreneurship areas at Darden.

The venture capital industry grows and evolves much like the entrepreneurial companies it supports.

Although the record highs from prior periods were not likely repeated in 2022, the overall VC industry generally remains active in terms of fundraising and deployment.

Declining public market valuations, particularly in the technology industry, have reduced valuations for VC portfolio companies.

While the traditional regions of San Francisco, Boston and New York remain active hubs for venture capital, other cities such as Seattle, Austin, Denver, Miami and Washington, D.C., are seeing meaningful investment into early and later-stage private companies in their respective communities.

There is greater attention to recruiting, developing and retaining talented employees, which means that the pendulum has shifted toward the worker, so to speak, as firms fiercely compete for talent.

While overwork norms and tournament-like atmospheres still define the highest-paid industries , Darden students have an unprecedented opportunity to ask themselves, “What does a good life mean to me?” Perhaps the pursuit of a traditional promotional track in an established industry is what is right; others may forge their own path instead or even use experience in an established industry to pivot in the future.

In both public and private markets, considering environmental and social outcomes and risks has become one of the latest hot-button issues in the financial sector.

I expect the public and political conversation around ESG and impact investing to continue, and I will be watching closely to see how values play a role in what we consider what is — and is not — sustainable in the world of business.

What does it take to be a good ally in the workplace? Until recently, scholars and managers assumed that one simply had to try.

In essence, we are beginning to understand that to advance diversity, equity and inclusion in the workplace, it is not enough to try.

Visiting Professor Eric Siegel is a leading consultant and former Columbia University professor who focuses on machine learning.

Currently, the overall track record of this highly visible technology is compromised: the realized value doesn’t match the excitement…yet.

Machine learning’s popularity exploded because of its great potential business value and sheer scientific clout — learning from data to predict impresses the best of us.

As Darden’s inaugural Bodily Bicentennial Professor in Analytics, I am spending this one-year appointment developing guidance and curricula to help future graduates run machine learning projects that successfully deploy.

Darden’s graduate degree programs and Executive Education & Lifelong Learning programs offered by the Darden School Foundation set the stage for a lifetime of career advancement and impact.

…Read the full story