Eccles Business Buzz Podcast

S8E8: Investing in Future Leaders: The Strategic Role of Quantitative Skills

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Season 8 continues with our conversations about the new strategic direction at the David Eccles School of Business with a particular focus on the third pillar of the new strategic plan: reputation and legacy.

Scott Schaefer is a chair and professor in the division of Quantitative Analysis of Markets and Organizations (QAMO) at the Marriner S Eccles Institute for Economics and Quantitative Analysis.

Frances and Scott discuss the legacy of Mariner S. Eccles, the goals of the Institute, and the importance of quantitative skills in business education. Scott elaborates on how the QAMO major equips students with analytical, strategic, and market understanding, preparing them for diverse career paths. Scott also touches upon the societal impact of the institute, the crucial role of faculty research, and the aspirations to position the David Eccles School of Business among the top 10 public business schools by the year 2030.

Episode Quotes

3 focal points of the QAMO program

[03:55] What we focus on in our program is taking the parts of economics that are really applicable to business decision-making and showing those to undergraduate students and giving them those skills. We like to say we focus on three things in that program. We focus on how markets work. We focus on how to think strategically and how to analyze data.

The importance of having quantitative skills

[11:57] Frances Johnson: Do you think that sometimes quantitative skills get a little de-emphasized, and why are those skills just as important? Talk about the package and why these quantitative skills have to be as much a part of a successful business education.

[13:54] Scott Schaefer: If you’re going to rise and lead and really understand all the pieces of an organization, you’ve got to have the whole package. Not that everybody needs to be [a] calculus genius, but if you don’t have quantitative skills enough to understand what the quantitative people in your organization are saying to you, then you know they’re going to mislead you for their own purposes, and you’re going to run that train right off the tracks. So, I think that the people I’ve met tend to be incredibly well-rounded. They don’t have to be great at everything, but they have to be good enough at everything. It’s a very complicated skill set needed to run a business effectively. And I think we should hold business decision-making in higher regard because it’s incredibly complicated and also important.

How the Marriner S. Eccles Institute is shaping the reputation and legacy of our school

[18:04] You know, one of the ways that students could become, for example, the CEO of an S&P 500 company would be to start a career in consulting, transition at some point to that client, and then work their way up through that company. And so, it would be great to have alumni in positions like that, you know, leading the largest companies in the United States. We’ve had alumni have that career trajectory before. Would be great to have more, to give those opportunities to students. And I think that will increase the prominence of our institution. That’s the kind of thing that top 10 public business schools do. And I think we’re on the path to getting there. With regard to the reputation of the place, more broadly, outside of just what our alumni do, you know, we’ve hired outstanding faculty as part of the Marriner S. Eccles Institute. That’s a big part of what the original gift was designed to do—to help us build a faculty. And our professors are doing really outstanding economics research that’s building our reputation within academia. And so, we have our target set firmly on the top public business schools. You know, we look at a place like Berkeley or Michigan or Indiana or UCLA, and we’re looking at who their faculty are and what kind of research they’re producing and the societal impact of that research. That’s what we’re after. And we’re really in the process of hitting that mark. Our faculty has really hit their stride over the last few years. And we’re very excited for the future.

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