Owl Have You Know

When Pablo Coello began his medical training, he noticed a persistent gap in healthcare: clinicians and administrators often weren’t speaking the same language, and the result was inefficiency that directly affected patient care. That realization ultimately led him to pursue a dual MD/MBA through Baylor College of Medicine and Rice Business.

Now an orthopedic surgery resident at UC Health, Pablo brings a dual perspective to medicine — one grounded in clinical practice and another shaped by business training. That combination allows him to think not only about individual patient outcomes, but also about system-wide decisions that affect hospitals and communities.

In this episode of Owl Have You Know, hosted by Maya Pomroy '22, Pablo shares why more physicians need business fluency, how teamwork at Rice reshaped the way he practices medicine and what it means to look beyond the exam room to the health of an entire community.

Episode Guide:

00:00 Meet Pablo Coello

01:14 Why Pursue an MBA Alongside an MD

03:26 Early Path to Medicine

04:13 Harvard Research Summers

06:33 OR Inefficiencies Spark Change

11:00 Inside the Rice MD MBA

13:28 Biggest MBA Takeaways

17:01 Advice for Med Students

22:16 Defining Success Long Term

25:33 Closing Thoughts

The Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

Why a hospital is an entity in a community

17:51: Medicine is so much more than just what you do in a clinic, in the OR, in the hospital in general. A hospital is an entity in a community. It's not just a place you go. I've noticed this even…especially now that I'm actively practicing and training. There are people that actively need your help. And if you broaden your skills, eventually your level of impact is not just going to be on a patient-to-patient basis. It's on a community as a whole. And that's why I got my MBA, and that's why I would argue as any med student in the Houston area, any med student in general that has access to a business school, especially one as good as Rice, in their backyard or anywhere close, should ideally, if it's financially possible and the timeline works out, get an MBA so that they can have that impact in their community eventually.

Medicine is a team sport

14:02: Medicine is a team sport. You hear that all the time because we interact with other teams all day, every day. As an orthopedic surgery resident, our field is very specialized. So as a result, we get called by a lot of people, and we have to also call a lot of other people to help us manage things that we simply do not know how to manage. And I think having learned what I learned in the MBA helped a lot in terms of managing a lot of different things at once, different voices, if you will, in the clinical setting, which I did not really expect, to tell you the truth. But it helped because I learned also to not rely on myself as much.

On fixing the structures that fail patients

08:53: The supportive structures around the OR and other clinical aspects are simply not where they should be; we are failing the patient, and we are doing that over and over and over and over again. And it's affecting the overall health of the community. It's affecting the overall opinion of the community on the healthcare system, and it's costing the hospital—whatever hospital—thousands of dollars a day, every day for eternity. So I'm not going to sit here and tell you that I got this MBA because I wanted to be like this knight in shining armor, and I was going to solve all the problems, because I'm not. That's unrealistic, and I get it. But I want to be part of the solution, if you will.

Show Links: 

• Transcript

Guest Profile:

• Pablo Coello | LinkedIn

Professor Jonathan Miles’ path to teaching organizational behavior at Rice Business is anything but conventional. Before entering academia, he earned a degree in computer science, worked in IT and even launched a comic book store — experiences that shaped his perspective on leadership, influence and human behavior.

Today, Miles is known for challenging students to think differently about power, workplace dynamics and ethical decision-making. A co-adviser at the Virani Undergraduate School of Business and voted “Teacher of the Year” by our undergraduate business students, he has built courses that push both MBAs and undergraduates to confront uncomfortable truths about what it really takes to lead and succeed.

In this episode, Miles joins host Maya Pomroy ‘22 to discuss why so many talented people struggle to advocate for themselves, what his comic book store taught him about entrepreneurship, and why influence is often misunderstood. He also shares his perspective on AI’s growing impact on the workplace, the future of Rice Business and his hope for bringing undergrads and graduate students together in ways no business school has done before.

Episode Guide:

0:00  Introduction & Teacher of the Year Award

2:29  Growing Up: Family, Influences, and Early Life

4:40  The Winding Path: Journalism to Engineering to Computer Science

7:40  The Value of Exploring Outside Your Major

9:57  From IT to Teaching: Discovering a Calling

15:56  Teaching Power & Influence at Rice

17:55  The Biggest Misconception About Influence at Work

22:15  Professionalism & Ethics: Why People Break Their Own Moral Frameworks

25:04  AI in the Workplace: Hype, Risk, and the Road Ahead

30:19  What Jon Hopes Students Take Away

32:27  The Comic Book Store: Lessons in Entrepreneurship

37:46  The Future of Rice Business & the New Building

40:50  Closing and Conclusion

The Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

Why hard work alone won’t get you promoted

20:24: I find it interesting that, in the eight years I've been teaching it here at Rice, I don't think I've ever had a class where the majority of people in the class, when I talk about the things that hold them back from power, won't raise their hands and say, "Yeah, at least one of those affects me." And, you know, things like—we call it the just world hypothesis—the idea of like, oh, well, you know, merit exists, and if I do a really good job, I will rise in the organization because people will notice. And we talk about the fact that our research is pretty clear that that's not true. We have years of research on this that says your boss doesn't have any idea what you do, and your boss's boss certainly doesn't. And so this idea of you have to advocate for yourself, even though it doesn't feel great to you. 

Leaders vs. bad managers

36:09: What I told my students is, "I'm not here to make you into great leaders. Some of you will be great leaders because you have that natural piece, and I'm going to teach you this, and if you follow and do this information, you'll become a great leader. But I guarantee you, if you just follow what I say, you won't be a bad manager. You won't be a bad leader." And I've had enough bad leaders over the years that my crusade is to get rid of them, to try and, try and teach people so that we don't have them. And I'm hoping that the people who come out of here with Rice MBAs, and even our Rice undergrad degrees, have the understanding of how to be a manager that does the right things.

What Jonathan hopes for the future of Rice Business

45:19: I hope that we can maintain doing that because we could provide our undergrads with a tremendous ability to get a great education, and one that they're not going to get in an undergrad program elsewhere, from people who really know what they're talking about and are good at teaching it.

Show Links: 

• Transcript

Guest Profile:

• Jonathan Miles | Rice Business
• Jonathan Miles | LinkedIn

Following an upbringing as an expat in Jakarta, Indonesia, today’s guest is applying his unique worldview to the management consulting industry and helping clients solve complex business challenges with digital solutions. 

David Aldrich, a Rice Business alum from the Professional MBA Class of 2015, serves on the Rice Business Alumni Association Board and is a practice lead at EPAM Systems, a management consulting firm where he focuses on energy and AI. 

David joins co-host Brian Jackson ’21 to discuss his journey of growing up abroad and how the Rice MBA helped him pivot into consulting. They also explore how AI is reshaping the consulting industry and how Rice Business became not just his alma mater, but a lifelong community and support system. 

Episode Guide:

00:00 Meet David Aldrich

02:00 Growing up in Jakarta

05:27 Landing in a Philosophy Major

07:38 Venturing Into Startup Sales at FlightAware

12:00 Pivoting to Consulting Through a Rice Professional MBA

18:09 Life at EPAM Systems

21:47 Finding Digital Solutions for Clients Through AI

28:55 What Makes a Good Consultant

31:36 The Ukraine War’s Impact on EPAM

37:09 Life Outside of Work

39:38 Giving Back to Rice

41:12 Alumni Breakfast Series

42:59 Future of AI Consulting

46:39 Closing

The Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

An advice for students who want to get into consulting

17:12: My advice to students that want to go into consulting is you need to get really good at the AI piece, right? Study right now and get proficient with tools like Anthropic, tools like, you know, ChatGPT’s Codex, tools like, you know, Gemini’s Nano Banana, and, like, PaperBanana, the new one that they just announced. You have to be proficient in this space and be certified in this space, too. Like, Claude just announced a certification program. You can go get certified as, like, an Anthropic Claude architect. It’s free. You can do it. Like, these are things that I think you need to have on your resume to position yourself for value, regardless of what strategy you take. If you want to go into strategy consulting or Big Four or technology, having those new skills on how to create agent capabilities for clients is going to be the table stakes to separating yourself from, I think, other people who are also looking to go into consulting.

Adapting to AI with caution

26:15: I don’t think you should stop AI adoption because of that potential, but I think it’s important to understand that there’s things that you can do right now to enhance productivity by using these tool sets. There’s other things that require, I think, a little bit more due diligence, and is it the right decision to completely re-architect the way we work with agents? Because what’s good for Anthropic and how they might not be the best thing for your company long term.

What makes a good consultant

29:10: A good consultant is not afraid to ask questions, to push clients, and, kind of, challenge thinking. I think there’s an art to being able to do that without offending and pissing clients off, and understanding when you have the opportunity to, kind of, push hard to get clients thinking in a different way. I think the other key part is being able to be hungry for any opportunity and not scared to learn any new topic, right? Because the nature of consulting is that you’re being thrown into a bunch of different businesses, and no matter how much you’ve worked in a specific industry or at, like, businesses, there’s always going to be something new that they’re doing, whether it’s from a technology that they’re using, a process that they’re following, the nomenclature that they’re using.

Show Links: 

• Learn more about EPAM
• Transcript

Guest Profile:

• David Aldrich | Rice Business
• David Aldrich | LinkedIn

Yan "Anthea" Zhang, the Fayez Sarofim Vanguard Chair of Strategic Management at Rice Business, has spent more than two decades researching the decisions that make or break organizations: CEO succession, corporate governance, and the gender dynamics shaping who rises to the top.

On this special live episode, Zhang joins host Maya Pomroy '22 to share what her research reveals about the leap from functional roles to the C-suite, and why taking risks is non-negotiable for career advancement (especially for women). She also opens up about her origin story — from being part of the first-ever cohort at Nanjing University's business school to building a life and career in Houston — and why, after 25 years, Rice still feels like home.

Plus: her latest research on AI-powered customer service, advice from her "Last Lecture" and how Rice Business Executive Education’s Executive Leadership for Women program is giving women the tools and community to rise.

Episode Guide:

00:00 Welcome and Guest Intro

03:19 Professor Zhang’s Origin Story

05:09 Hong Kong and USC

07:46 Why Rice Feels Different

12:32 CEO Succession Insights

17:45 Executive Leadership for Women Program

19:04 Challenges Women Still Face

24:54 Teaching Global Strategy

30:06 Managing Uncertainty & Frameworks For Risk

36:25 How AI is Transforming Online Sales

38:47 Advice to Students 

The Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

On creating a safe space for women to grow in the workplace

19:58: For people who want to move up the career ladder, we need mentors. But a lot of times, people in more senior positions are still men, right? So, that's why both male and female mentors are all important. Because there are still so few women in senior leadership positions, right? That's why if you only rely on more senior female leaders to champion for you, to mentor you, that's not sufficient. You really need mentoring from both male and female leaders. So, I think that is why one benefit of our program is that we really target women who already have some leadership experiences. We create a safe space for them to share their concerns, challenges, and also allow them to share best practices with each other in a safe space. So, we really needed that.

Why asking is important for women

17:15: [Anthea Zhang] Dare to ask, dare to take risks, dare to get into areas, functions you are not comfortable with, you are not familiar with, which are those factors that are really key. And you have to show your track record instead of saying, "I want to," having a plan or having ambition is not sufficient. You have to show the track record.

Higher leadership role means greater responsibility

14:35: For people who already made it to top management team positions but still focus on more function-based roles, if you want to make it to the overall leadership role like a CEO, you have to take profit and loss responsibility. You have to expand the responsibility of your position. You know, of course, we see some people transition from CFO to CEO, but what is required for a CEO position is way more, it is way broader than, like, the CFO or chief marketing officer. 

Show Links: 

• Executive Leadership for Women | Rice Business
• Energy Transition Strategy | Rice Business
• Executive Education | Rice Business
• Transcript
  
  

Guest Profile:

• Professor Yan "Anthea" Zhang | Rice Business
• LinkedIn Profile

When Professor Yael Hochberg made the decision to come to Rice, she had a vision for building an entrepreneurship program like no other — it would be one for the modern era that would set the pace for entrepreneurship education going forward. 

Now, more than a decade later, Rice consistently ranks number one in the country for entrepreneurship and is leading the way in world-changing innovation through hubs like the Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship (Lilie), which offers experiential learning opportunities and co-curricular activities.

In this episode, Professor Hochberg, head of the Rice Entrepreneurship Initiative and Lilie, joins co-host Brian Jackson ’21 to discuss how she brought her vision for a modern entrepreneurship program to life at Rice, the incredible innovation that has come from Lilie over the last 10 years and what the future holds for entrepreneurship education in the age of AI. 

Episode Guide:

00:00 Introduction to Professor Yael Hochberg

00:37 Her “Accidental” Entrepreneurship Origins

05:50 Why She Chose Rice & Her Vision for Better Entrepreneurship Education

09:18 Inside the Liu Idea Lab

16:22 Student Startup Wins

19:53 Alumni Network Power

22:59 Research-Driven Teaching 

30:32 AI and Entrepreneurship

35:02 What's Next for Lilie

41:47 The Most Rewarding Moments

The Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

On the entrepreneurial spirit at Rice

39:31: [Brian Jackson] When I think about the entrepreneurial spirit that's present at Rice, I think a big driver pulling that in is the recognition we consistently get, be it Princeton Review ranking us as a, you know, the nation's top graduate school for entrepreneurship seven years in a row. When you think about that success, what do you think is the biggest driver behind it? What's making that possible?

39:54: [Yael Hochberg] I think it's a combination of many things. It's our students, our amazing students who come in with the drive to create things. It's our alumni who are willing to stand behind us and support us. It's people like Frank Liu who were willing to see the resources that were necessary here on campus to, to truly support entrepreneurial ventures. It's the amazing staff and faculty at Lilie who, you know, give 90 to a hundred-hour weeks, 365 days a year to make sure that our students have the support that they need, that our faculty have the support that they need.

Entrepreneurship can be taught if there’s a drive

04:43: People always ask me, what do you mean you can teach entrepreneurship? Why do you guys even bother with entrepreneurship programs? People are either born as entrepreneurs or they're not. They either have that entrepreneurial drive or they don't. I think there's something to that, and that it is true that I can't take someone without the drive and turn them into an entrepreneur. But I can take someone who has that latent drive and who is interested, and I can give them tools and frameworks that will help them be successful if they pursue entrepreneurship. I happen to be one of these people who has that drive. I like to build, I don't like sitting still. When I see problems, I don't like to simply say, “Hmm, that's really annoying.” I try to solve them.

AI is changing how fast you can build and test ideas

31:02: The tools that are available today really do change how you think about things, because the tools offer you an opportunity to build things faster than you could ever imagined before, to test things faster than you could ever imagined before. We have classes where nearly all of our classes are experiential. The students are actually building something. They're doing something, they're walking through the process, and they're getting it in the wraps, right? And it may be on something stupid like Uber for cats, I don't care. I want them to learn the process and actually go out and experience it. And when the right idea comes along, they'll already know how to actually do it.

Show Links: 

• The Liu Idea Lab for Innovation and Entrepreneurship
• Transcript

Guest Profile:

• Yael Hochberg | Rice Business
• Yael Hochberg’s Website
• Yael Hochberg on LinkedIn

Bob Dittmar has big goals for the Virani Undergraduate School of Business. As the school’s associate dean and Houston Endowment Professor of Finance, he aims to increase Rice Business’ national footprint, making it a household name for top-tier business education from coast to coast. 

Dittmar came to Rice in 2022 after teaching for nearly 20 years at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business. He’s taught finance courses across Rice Business’ degree programs, including in the undergraduate and MBA programs.

On this episode, Dittmar joins co-host Maya Pomroy ’22 to share what sets the Virani Undergraduate School of Business apart from other undergraduate business programs — and his advice for prospective students who are trying to decide if Rice Business is the right fit for them. He also delves into his fascinating research on options and how to assess risk more clearly, especially when the signals aren’t obvious.

Episode Guide:

00:00 Introduction to Professor Robert Dittmar, Associate Dean of the Virani School of Business

01:09 Early Influences and Academic Journey

02:22 Discovering a Passion for Finance

04:10 College Years and Mentorship

07:45 Research on Options and Market Psychology

13:07 Role as Associate Dean at Rice Business

15:31 Teaching Finance and Real-World Applications

18:07 The Psychology of Investment Decisions

22:26 Understanding Risk and Uncertainty

25:37 AI's Role in Education and Work

29:43 The Unique Culture of Rice University

33:16 Future Vision for the Virani Undergraduate School of Business

35:53 Final Thoughts and Advice for Prospective Students

The Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

Taking the Rice beyond Houston

38:03: My goal at Virani is really largely to try to expand Rice’s national footprint to some extent. So I think, you know, if you grew up in Houston, you know a lot about Rice, and you know, Rice is a great institution. Rice is a great institution and really hard to get into. Yeah, absolutely. You know, I mean, look, you know, our median student is, you know, in the right tail, basically, of most students across the country. But look, when I was growing up in Chicago, Rice really was not on my radar. There were a few liberal arts schools in the Midwest that I kind of thought about, but Rice never kind of came up. But I do think that Rice needs a little bit more visibility on the coasts. And that is especially important in business and finance in particular, where New York is so much the center of activity.

How do you know if Rice is for you?

41:01: If you want to be at a place that is truly collaborative, that has a rigorous education and provides opportunity and really cares about its students, then I think Rice is the right place for you. Think about Rice as a whole institution and how you feel on campus, and compare that to how you feel on the campuses of these other universities. And again, this is a little weird to say, because I am a finance guy. I am supposed to be cold and rational about all these things, but how you feel about these kinds of things, I think, is usually a pretty good indication of what actually is right for you and what is going to suit you.

Why Rice is a special place to get your business degree

34:29: At the business school at Rice, you get a lot of what I think makes Rice as an institution special. Which, you know, our students are a little quirkier maybe, but they are also a little nicer and less, you know, maybe not quite so cutthroat, I guess, maybe is what I would some ways, much more collaborative. And so I think that, combined with the fact that Rice has this STEM focus that it always has, so it is grounded in a really rigorous way of, kind of, approaching things, really combines together to make this a very special place to get your business degree.

Show Links: 

• Transcript
  
  

Guest Profile:

• Robert Dittmar | Rice Business
• Professional Website
• LinkedIn Profile

Most companies think they're customer-focused. Many are wrong.

Vikas Mittal, the J. Hugh Liedtke Professor of Marketing at Rice Business and faculty director of the Center for Customer-Based Execution and Strategy, has spent his career helping CEOs, MBA students and others learn the difference between truly serving customers and simply appeasing them. 

In this episode, Vikas joins host Brian Jackson ’21 to explain why so many corporate strategies fail: the buzzwords, shiny-object initiatives, and mission-statement retreats that produce 50 priorities and zero focus. He shows what it looks like when organizations commit to the one or two things that genuinely create customer value — and stay the course.

He also shares how this approach comes to life through his Executive Education course, Strategic Growth Through Customer Focus, and the Center for Customer-Based Execution and Strategy, which produced a landmark report – interviewing over 3,000 customers to reveal what actually drives value across industries and what doesn't.

Plus: his famous sneaker collection and why he thinks everyone should write with fountain pens.

Episode Guide:

00:00 Guest Introduction: Meet Professor Vikas Mittal

01:09 From Family Business to PhD

03:26 Why Most CEOs Don’t Actually Know What Their Customers Want

05:21 Trend Chasing and Misalignment

11:28 The Science of Customer Focus

17:45 Building The Center for Customer-Based Execution and Strategy

21:20 Executives Unlearning Legacy Strategy

32:29 How Colorful Sneakers Changed His Life

40:52 Final Focus Takeaways

The Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

Strategy is an ultimate dark art

26:10: Strategy is the way it is done in companies. And I repeat this all the time, it's the ultimate dark art. Nobody knows why we are doing it, but everybody believes we have to do it just because my predecessor told me this is how we should do it. And you ask the predecessor, why are you doing it? Well, my predecessor told me this is how we do it. Right? And it's the ultimate dark art and people just keep doing it.

Defining customer focus

11:36: Customer focus means using science to figure out what creates value for customers, which is very different than just asking the customer what would you want? And believing that whatever the customer tells you is right and just doing it. 

When academic research calls the CEO

01:40: Surprisingly, a lot of the work I ended up doing with CEOs and companies came from CEOs at different companies reading my research, published in academic journals, you know, which is completely the opposite of what a lot of people think, that if you publish in academic journals, people don't read it. I was blown away, how many times I got contacted by companies say, we've got such and such paper of yours, can you come and help us? 

Show Links: 

• The Center for Customer-Based Execution & Strategy
• Rice Business Executive Education
• Strategic Growth Through Customer Focus Program
• The Center for Customer-Based Execution & Strategy’s Customer Value Report
  
  

Guest Profile:

• Vikas Mittal | Rice Business
• Vikas Mittal | LinkedIn

Over the past decade, Rice Business has scaled with intention.

MBA enrollment has doubled. Faculty ranks have grown. New MBA formats have launched. The Virani Undergraduate School of Business was established. And a new building will open soon, designed to further fuel collaboration, research and innovation.

In this conversation, former dean Peter Rodriguez reflects on the strategy behind that momentum — from championing the Online MBA to building one of the nation’s strongest entrepreneurship ecosystems in the heart of Houston. He discusses AI’s impact on business education, the evolving energy landscape, and the leadership lessons that come with guiding a school through rapid transformation, all while shaping the next chapter for Rice Business.

Episode Guide:

00:00 Meet Dean Peter Rodriguez

01:21 Online MBA Origins and Vision for Growth

07:50 Virtual Campus Advantage

09:42 From Space Crunch to Expansion: Designing the New Building

16:06 Launching the Virani Undergraduate School of Business

19:45 AI and Business Education

26:46 Why Rice Ranks High & Houston’s Entrepreneurship Advantage

33:45 What Deans Learn on the Job

40:21 Next 50 Years Vision

45:02 Closing

The Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

On Rice MBA’s Growth over the decade

01:37: If there was one overarching theme of the last decade, I think growth is it. The question is always like, well, why growth? Or growth for what? And of course, clearly want growth for the good outcomes, and that good outcomes all start with pursuing the mission.
We have a mission to create and disseminate knowledge at the vanguard of business and the business disciplines. And so that is what we really do. And when I was really looking at the job almost exactly 10 years ago and thinking about where Rice was and where it needed to be, one of the first conclusions that was easy to draw was that it needed to be about twice as big as it was, at least, you know, and, and it is not that growth is all good, but why would I say that? And the thinking was, you know, in order to advance that mission, we needed more tenure track faculty. And there the foundation on which more or less everything else proceeds.

How does the Rice Business navigate AI? 

22:19: On the basic part of our mission, which is delivering an education, we have to do two things. We have to prepare people to think really critically and to be able to assess them as individuals without this incredible, unprecedented tool. That is to say, what can Peter do of his own accord? What does he know? And then I have to train him very aggressively to make sure that with the tool, he is also highly capable, far more capable to do some things, and as capable as anybody in any university in the country is using the tool. So there's sort of almost sounds like martial arts mastery. You know, you have to sort of, wax on, wax off, you know, learn these sort of things that are apart from the tool, and then you are sort of empowered. That's where we are, is trying to do that.

Houston loves risk takers

30:59: Houston loves risk takers. It is part of the environment, it is part of a Texas thing too, but, you know, it is going to space, drilling out in the Permian Basin or deep in the ocean, putting in an artificial heart, whatever it is. I think there is a real admiration for trying hard things and picking yourself up if you fail and not being discouraged because things did not go right the first time.

Show Links: 

• Rice Business New Building Plans
• Transcript
  
  

Guest Profile:

• Peter Rodriguez | Rice Business
• LinkedIn 

Leveling up your game just got so much easier, thanks to the new cutting-edge technology from BeONE Sports — a startup that uses mobile motion-capture and AI to enhance athletic performance, prevent injuries, and support coaches and athletes at every level.

Co-founded by former Division I athlete Scott Deans ’22, the idea for BeONE started right here at Rice Business. Scott has loved sports since his days playing football, and through the EMBA program, he found a way to bring his passion and business acumen together.

He joins co-host Brian Jackson ’21 to discuss his early career journey through architecture, the 12 years he spent at bp and what ultimately led him to Rice Business. They also dive deep into the exciting technology being used at BeONE and how the company’s partnership with Rice Athletics is helping student athletes optimize their performance and prevent injuries.

Episode Guide:

00:00 Introduction to Scott Deans and BeONE Sports

01:02 Scott's Athletic Journey and Transition to Architecture

05:55 From Architecture to Analytics at BP

12:56 Pursuing an MBA at Rice University

16:21 Founding BeONE Sports and Its Technology

28:12 Partnerships and Applications of BeONE Sports

37:33 Challenges and Advice for Entrepreneurs

41:49 Conclusion and Final Thoughts

The Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

On building company your passionate about

19:35: I sometimes imagine if I had chosen the other, one of the other companies, and I was like, there is no way I would be here after four years, grinding through the trenches, as they say, on something that did not matter to me. So, yeah, I think that is a huge, huge point in any entrepreneurial journey, that it has to matter to you; otherwise, you are not willing to compromise and go through all the pain in order to make it successful.

How the Rice program helped Scott build his business

28:30: So another big piece of the program at Rice was really focused on, like, building a team. And I have been a coach for a long time. I have been part of teams and built teams, so teams are, in my opinion, the linchpin, really the basis for product and a business and all those things. But part of that process is everybody's recognizing what they are good at and what they are not good at, and then where you have gaps. You need to find people who are strong in those areas. So, recognize really quickly the areas that I am not strong at and, Jason, basically from a business side and many other sides, filled those perfectly.

The importance of asking better questions

09:55: Always try to ask better questions, and this has been a mantra of mine since I was a little kid. I think. Because, you know, there are always going to be answers. You can always find a solution. But is the solution the right one? And is there a better question we could be asking to, you know, a lot of rework or pivoting and changing. And so it creates a mindset of constant flux, like you are in constant change. And that is not an easy mindset for many people.

Show Links: 

• BeONE Sports 
• “Rice partners with BeONE Sports to transform athlete performance with AI technology” | Rice Business
• Transcript
  
  

Guest Profile:

• Scott Deans | LinkedIn

Not every job will feel like the perfect fit, but for David Verbitsky ’10, every new position is an important stepping stone in your career, and an opportunity to learn and grow. 

When David wanted to pivot his career from engineering to finance, the path led him straight to an MBA at Rice Business. His experience at Rice spring boarded him into a career in investment banking with a special focus on agriculture and food. Over the past 15 years, he’s worked as the global head of agriculture and nutrition investment banking at Goldman Sachs, as the global head of AgTech and sustainable food investment banking at Nomura Greentech, and as a member of the global chemicals and agriculture investment banking team at Barclays.

Now, David is applying all of his industry expertise to his own investment banking firm, Verbitsky Capital. In this episode, he chats with co-host Maya Pomroy ’22 about how Rice Business prepared him for a successful career in finance, what he learned through every job change and where he thinks innovation in the agriculture sector is heading next.

Episode Guide:

00:00 Introduction and Guest Welcome

00:55 David’s Early Career in Engineering

02:56 Transition to Business School and Finance

05:03 Investment Banking Journey

09:21 Shift to Agriculture Sector

17:54 Navigating the VC Fund Experience

21:23 Exciting Deals in AgTech

23:08 Challenges and Lessons Learned

25:44 Building and Leading a Team with Verbitsky Capital

30:52 Future of AgTech

33:51 Career Advice and Final Thoughts

The Owl Have You Know Podcast is a production of Rice Business and is produced by University FM.

Episode Quotes:

The importance of judgment in every leader

31:19: [Maya Pomroy]: What do you look for in leaders?

31:26: [David Verbitsky] I do not really know if you can quantify or measure it, but it is judgment. The only way you can really see that is seeing people in action, right? It is seeing, okay, when you are in a difficult situation, or maybe it is not even difficult, but when you have to make decisions. And take responsibility for things. And some of it is, could be very easy, like simple things who just, we are in the middle of a deal and you gotta just decide on what, how you move forward. Right. How do you take decisions? How do you move forward? How do you take accountability? How do you, in certain circumstances, decide not to do something? Which is probably more important in many different ways.

On networking and constant learning

36:16: [Maya Pomroy]:What would you say to someone that is sort of considering maybe an MBA to really pivot their own career.

36:25: [David Verbitsky]  So first and foremost, I would say it is all about relationships. And her ability to, to maintain them. Right. That, that is part networking, but it is also just part effort of just people you already do know. Maintaining those relationships. Do you think that is first and foremost is the most important thing? Do not burn any bridges. Right? Keep them, keep them all active and then building off of that just sees opportunities when they present themselves, be open to things. Because they might be the wrong choice, but. You should learn something from every new step you take.

From missteps to momentum

37:04: Going to Goldman Sachs and switching a hundred percent into agriculture was a big opportunity, which I was like, I do not know, but let us try it out. Right? Those things worked out incredibly well. And then I had a bunch of missteps of like trying, trying to go and do startup or VC fund that just was not the right fit, or go into a place that was good for a while, then was not, and then just, it leads you here. So like. Realize when an opportunity presents itself and do not be afraid to take it. Which is the right piece of advice. Just be aware and realize this is an opportunity. Maybe it is not the right one, but be, I think, very mindful.

Show Links: 

• Transcript
  
  

Guest Profile:

• David Verbitsky | LinkedIn
• Verbitsky Capital