Alumni Receive Prestigious Awards From WSB
In October, the Wisconsin School of Business honored six outstanding alumni with awards recognizing their talent, service, and ongoing commitment to the Badger community.
The Distinguished Business Alumni Award honors individuals with exceptional careers who have made far-reaching impacts in their community, their industry, and at UW–Madison.
The WSB Impact Award recognizes individuals who have volunteered their expertise, time, and talent to advance the Wisconsin School of Business, and have demonstrated service to the school.
“We are incredibly pleased to honor such accomplished and dedicated members of our Business Badger family,” says Vallabh “Samba” Sambamurthy, Albert O. Nicholas Dean of the Wisconsin School of Business. “On behalf of the entire WSB community, I congratulate each award recipient on this well-deserved recognition.”
Distinguished Business Alumni Award recipients
Dan Kelly (BBA ’84, MBA ’85)
Ricky Sandler (BBA ’91)
Cheryl Stallworth (MBA ’81)
Colin Welch (BBA ’92)
WSB Impact Award recipients
Sean Jacobsohn (BBA ’94)
Amy Jo Pedone (BBA ’96)
New Faculty Members Offer Unmatched Business Expertise
Six new faculty members joined the Wisconsin School of Business this fall, bringing research expertise and teaching talent in cutting-edge business topics like financial reporting, the sharing economy, and cybersecurity. These thought leaders will enhance the depth and scope of WSB’s strong reputation for academic excellence and dedicated commitment to the Wisconsin Idea. By academic department, the new faculty members are:
Accounting and Information Systems
Dain Donelson
Finance, Investment, and Banking
Jason Allen
Management and Human Resources
Shotaro Yamaguchi
Operations and Information Management
Kaitlin Daniels | Jinan Lin | Min-Seok Pang
WSB Ranks High on National Scale
WSB ranked #9 among public institutions and #18 overall in U.S. News & World Report’s 2024-25 annual rankings for best undergraduate business programs. Several academic programs ranked in the top 20:
Opportunities Abound for Students Pursuing Entrepreneurship
For the first time, undergraduate students have the opportunity to pursue WSB’s new, standalone entrepreneurship major. The in-demand major comes at a time of increased focus on entrepreneurship at UW–Madison, as laid out in Chancellor Jennifer Mnookin’s strategic priorities for the university.
The new major will help students develop mindsets characterized by curiosity, ambition, and creativity—key skills coveted by today’s top employers. “We’ve found that big companies are now valuing the entrepreneurial mindset so much more than they used to because they want the students, their future employees, to have that perspective,” says Dan Olszewski (BS ’87), Goldberg Family Director of the Weinert Center for Entrepreneurship at WSB. “They realize that they need to be an innovative company to survive in the future, so firms are seeking that out.”
Additionally, the major acts as a strong complement to other areas of study, allowing students to combine entrepreneurship with another functional expertise like marketing or finance. Students can also enroll in a brand-new class, Strategic Innovation and Corporate Entrepreneurship, designed by WSB faculty member Florence Honoré, and take advantage of the major’s experiential learning opportunities.
WSB Welcomes New Leadership to Knowledge Centers
The Wisconsin School of Business welcomed alum Alan Stoffer (MBA ’13) as the new director of the school’s Marketing Leadership Institute (MLI). Since 2022, Stoffer has served as the industry liaison for the Tech Marketing Hub within the MLI, where he mentored students and taught a popular digital marketing course. Stoffer brings a wealth of experience and knowledge from his time working in product marketing at Intuit and Facebook, as well as leading campaign and product launches at General Mills.
The school also appointed Jacques Gordon as the new director of the James A. Graaskamp Center for Real Estate. A distinguished leader in the real estate industry, Gordon served as the senior executive in residence at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Center for Real Estate and held the role of global head of research and strategy for LaSalle Investment Management for almost three decades. WSB is excited to leverage Gordon’s extensive experience, strong industry connections, and engaging leadership style.