Creating Excitement Around Economics 

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Dr. Orgul Ozturk, Department Chair, Economics & Director, Economic Policy Innovation Center

Dr. Orgul Ozturk is the department chair and professor of economics in the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Her academic research interests are in applied microeconomics fields, specifically labor economics and health economics. Ozturk has written articles on the effects of labor market regulations and minimum wages on female employment, effectiveness of supported employment programs for developmentally disabled, the relationship between occupation choice and welfare independence, and the effects of maternal employment and welfare use on children’s cognitive outcomes. 

Orgul has been a frequent guest on Moore Impact, where she has discussed her research, the research review and publication process and the Economic Policy Innovation Center. Dr. Ozturk’s last appearance was following the Cradle to Career Conference last October. 

Topics Include: 

• Lengthy academic hiring process
• Creating specialty course offerings and matching catalog course offerings
• Scholars program as compliment to in classroom education 
• Dr. Ozturk’s research proposals based on Cradle to Career conference
• Plans for event in the spring to connect PhD students to community network
• Looking at workforce dynamics 
• Fields of need with low return on investment 
• Translating economic research into a digestible form 
• Reassessing education requirements for specified jobs 
• Exposing want- to- be entrepreneurs to needed businesses instead of new products
• Simplifying economics to make others recognize how present it is in daily life 
• What to expect from EPIC in the spring 

To learn more about the Economic Policy Innovation Center, click here.

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business, click here.

Photo Courtesy: CartoonStock

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Discussing the Legality of Academic Freedom 

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor

In this finals-week solo episode of Moore Impact, Kasie Whitener explores academic freedom through insights from a December 3rd Faculty Senate presentation by USC law professor Scott Bauries, focusing on what it is, how it’s protected, and where legal boundaries apply.

Link to December 3rd Faculty Senate Meeting and Slidedeck, here. 

Topics include:

• SC controversy in Clemson after comments made by faculty member about assasination of Charlie Kirk 
• Four essential Academic Freedoms
• How academic freedom enables faculty participation without fear of retaliation
• The role of the First Amendment in academic freedom cases at public universities
• University of South Carolina’s academic freedom policy 
• Shared governance of our university helps us stay true to our mission 
• Individual academic freedom protects work of academic workers 
• Caller question about tenured professors having more leeway with their work 
• Benefits of tenure system 
• New knowledge created by faculty through research
• Second caller question highlighting importance of peer review and source checking in expert credibility 
• Why academic freedom protects academic work but not all speech equally

Photo Courtesy: The Daily Northwestern

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Building an AI-Ready Workforce at the Darla Moore School of Business

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Dr. Audrey Korsgaard, Senior Associate Dean for Research and Academics and Professor of Management

Dr. Audrey Korsgaard is the Senior Associate Dean for Research and Academics and a professor of management and organizational behavior at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina, where she has served on the faculty since 1991. She earned her bachelor’s degree in psychology from Rutgers University and completed both her master’s and doctoral degrees in psychology at New York University, and she has also held a visiting professorship at Tulane University’s A.B. Freeman School of Business. Korsgaard teaches across doctoral, master’s, and undergraduate programs in organizational behavior, organizational development, and training. Her research examines trust, prosocial values, and organizational justice as central explanations for interpersonal and intragroup cooperation, with recent work extending these perspectives to issues related to artificial intelligence.

Topics include:

• New certificate programs in AI education at undergraduate and graduate levels 
• Adjustments to learning experiences and assessments in current courses 
• Emphasis on fundamental human centered skills in classroom like communication, influence, negotiation and curiosity
• Building up faculty expertise in AI with new faculty hires
• AI helping to foster relevance and impact in university research
• Research can get to market faster in easier to use format with help of AI
• Garnet AI Foundry library resources for AI research
• Darla Moore’s university visit igniting motivation to adjust to AI centered world 
• Helping alumni stay current in workforce with continuing education resources 
• AI Summit to be held in April 
• New KPI’s: Can students use AI to make their skillset better? 
• Having clear valuable proposition with new methods of teaching 

To learn more about Darla Moore School of Business, click here.

To learn more about Garnet AI Foundry, click here.

Photo Courtesy: Training Industry

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Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Building a Resilient Future Through Sustainable Growth

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Dr. Kealy Carter, Director, Center for Sustainable Growth 

Dr. Kealy Carter is the Marketing Department Chair, a Clinical Associate Professor, and Director of the Sustainable Growth Center at the Darla Moore School of Business. She holds a bachelor’s degree in International Studies from American University in Washington, D.C., and an International Master of Business Administration from the University of South Carolina. Her research and teaching interests focus on sustainability and marketing strategy.

The Center for Sustainable Growth promotes economically sound, socially and environmentally responsible business through global perspectives, innovation, and collaboration. Its goals are to prepare future business leaders to operate sustainable enterprises and to serve as a hub for thought leadership that helps organizations create value through sustainability.

Some topics include:

• Usable definition for sustainability 
• Investing money in educating people on sustainable marketing products
• Companies selling on environmental contentious momentum 
• Forecasting where regulations will go 
• Risk management and cost reduction benefits in efficiency 
• Sustainability as efficiency, risk management, and innovation technology at its core
• Leveraging sustainability as a market driver 
• Looking at recycling challenges in product development 
• Businesses reliance on grids and energy 
• Center for Sustainable Growth in connecting companies to university resources to interpret “sciencey” research
• Preparing local businesses for policy changes due to federal energy investments in SC 
• Sustainability concentration and class offerings at the Moore School 

Learn more about the Center for Sustainable Growth, here.

Learn more about the Darla Moore School, here.

Photo Courtesy: Darla Moore School of Business

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Previewing 2025’s Economic Outlook Conference

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Dr. Joseph Von Nessen, Research Economist, Division of Research Darla Moore School of Business

Joseph Von Nessen serves as a research economist in the Division of Research at the Darla Moore School of Business, where he concentrates on regional economic analysis, forecasting and housing market trends. His work includes producing economic impact studies, feasibility assessments and market evaluations for a broad range of public- and private-sector partners.

He leads the development of the University of South Carolina’s annual economic outlook for the state and advises the South Carolina Board of Economic Advisors. Von Nessen also provides regular briefings to the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond and is a frequent presenter at major national conferences on topics related to regional and state economic performance.

This is Dr. Von Nessen’s first appearance on Moore Impact. Today’s episode discusses the upcoming Economic Outlook Conference on December 11, 2025. 

Topics include:

• "So what?" economics
• Importance of economics in navigating business landscapes
• SC’s economic growth driven by export oriented manufacturing
• SC’s competitive advantage in infrastructure and workforce development
• Population growth predicted in southeast
• Economic Outlook Conference topics of discussion
• Tariffs prevention in predicting costs and the market environment for business
• United States’s slowed economic growth in 2025
• Business trying to shield consumers from tariff price increases
• Current bifurcated market between goods and services
• Consumer’s lost purchasing power since 2020
• Overall theme of uncertainty
• FED’s unique challenge of needing to balance both labor market and inflation

To learn more about The Economic Outlook Conference, click here.

To learn more about Dr. Joseph Von Nessen, click here.

Photo Courtesy: Darla Moore School of Business

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Entrepreneurship at Work with Tim Wise

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Tim Wise, Advisory Council Member, Faber Entrepreneurship Center

Tim Wise is a serial entrepreneur, USC alumnus, and founding member of the Advisory Council for the Faber Entrepreneurship Center at the Darla Moore School of Business. A third-generation Gamecock with degrees in Finance, Real Estate, and Law, Tim began his career at Nelson Mullins before launching into entrepreneurship. In 2001, he co-founded Advocate, a technology business management firm built through disciplined bootstrapping, customer focus, and sustainable growth, leading to successful exits first to private equity and later to Accenture. Now devoted to giving back, Tim leverages his decades of entrepreneurial experience to inspire and guide USC students, encouraging them to embrace risk, resilience, and creativity as they pursue their own entrepreneurial journeys.

Topics include:

• Entrepreneurial spirit of finding something you can do better
• Avoiding risk with a continuous consumer market
• Getting to dollar one as fast as you can
• Bootstrapping allows for ability to listen and react to market
• Keeping yourself ahead of debt
• Tim’s companies V shaped dip during financial crisis of 2008
• Process of selling developed company
• Rebranding company for a position of sale & exiting strategy
• Offering opportunity and experience in Faber Entrepreneurship Center
• Getting students to consider themselves entrepreneurs
• Connection between liberty and entrepreneurship

To learn more about Tim Wise, click here.

To learn more about the Faber Entrepreneurship Center, click here.

Photo Courtesy: Dreamix

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Faber Fellows Shaping Student Entrepreneurship

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Elisha Wilson & Nishita Patel, Faber Fellows, Faber Entrepreneurship Center

Elisha Wilson, Finance and Management Entrepreneurship student, and Nishita Patel, Supply Chain and Management Entrepreneurship student at the Darla Moore School of Business, are the Faber Center’s first fellows. As pioneers in this new student role, they are setting a foundation for future participants and contributing to the development of student engagement within the center. Their involvement represents an important step in expanding opportunities for hands-on learning and leadership within the entrepreneurship program.

The Faber Entrepreneurship Center at the Darla Moore School of Business fosters experiential learning through consulting projects and research initiatives that connect students with real-world business challenges. The center partners with organizations such as the South Carolina Research Authority, Department of Commerce, and Chamber of Commerce to help bring innovative technologies and inventions into the marketplace. This semester, the center has hosted several events, including its ongoing Speaker Series featuring industry professionals, the Gridlock event, and the “Scary Good Branding” workshop, all designed to inspire and equip students with entrepreneurial skills and professional insight.

Topics include:

• Meeting Faber Entrepreneurship Center’s student Fellows
• Student’s questions ability to change dynamics in conversations with guest speakers
• Elisha’s experience with Boyd Innovation Center as a participant in Startup Sprints & Cola Starts 
• Elisha’s financial literacy business development 
• Creating (MVPs) minimum viable products with AI 
• Elisha & Nishita’s new role in Faber Center
• Reflecting on the structure of recent Gridlock event hosted by the Faber Center
• Open ended pedagogy style of events pushes for creativity 
• Student reactions to lack of guidance or instruction in brainstorming process
• Moore School’s focus on renewable energy with rise to its importance politically 
• Entrepreneurial opportunities in renewable energy space 
• Federal government’s investment in SC for grid resilience with SC Nexus

To learn more about the Faber Entrepreneurship Center, click here.

To learn more about Darla Moore School of Business, click here.

Photo Courtesy: Faber Entrepreneurship Center LinkedIn

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

China’s Global Rise with Phil Chritton

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Phillip Chritton, Executive in Residence, Folks Center for International Business

With more than 30 years of international legal experience, Phil Chritton has guided global business leaders in managing enterprise risk and navigating complex regulatory environments. Having spent much of his career in East Asia, he brings deep insight into the region’s legal, political, and cultural dynamics.

Now serving as the Sonoco Visiting Fellow Executive in Residence at the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business, Phil shares his global perspective and passion for mentorship with future business and legal professionals. A former senior legal executive at UPS, he led a global team supporting the company’s international growth. Based in North Carolina, he also serves as a councilor of the International Law Section of the North Carolina Bar Association.

Topics include:

• China’s economic transformation in allowing private ownership of companies
• Western investment comes to China in late nineties
• Joint ventures and tech agreements required for foreign international companies
• China’s strategic learning in the process of producing 
• Chinese direct investment with the 2013 Belt and Road Initiative 
• China’s pride points 
• One child policy and lacking social safety net in China
• China’s progress in building up key industries 
• Status of rare earth standoff between China & the United States
• Comparisons to Soviet Union
• China’s great abilities in production & hard work 
• Avoiding misunderstanding between China and the United States
• Trade’s benefit in preventing conflict around the world 

To learn more about Sonoco Visiting Fellows Program, click here.

To learn more about Phillip Chritton, click here.

Photo Courtesy: Reuters

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Inside the Cradle to Career Conference

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Dr. Orgul Ozturk, Department Chair, Economics & Director, Economic Policy Innovation Center

Dr. Orgul Demet Ozturk is the department chair and professor of economics in the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Her academic research interests are in applied microeconomics fields, specifically labor economics and health economics. Ozturk has written articles on the effects of labor market regulations and minimum wages on female employment, effectiveness of supported employment programs for developmentally disabled, the relationship between occupation choice and welfare independence, and the effects of maternal employment and welfare use on children’s cognitive outcomes. 

Orgul has been a frequent guest on  Moore Impact, where she has discussed her research, the research review and publication process and the Economic Policy Innovation Center.

Today’s episode recaps the October 3rd Cradle to Career Conference, hosted by the Moore School’s Economic Policy Innovation Center (EPIC). This academic gathering brought together researchers, industry partners, policymakers, and public officials from across South Carolina to explore data-driven ways to strengthen the state’s human capital; from early education through career readiness.

Topics Include: 

• Balancing affordable childcare options and higher wages for childcare workers
• Early childhood education impact on long term success
• Is it worth it to separate subject teachers earlier in the K-12 system?
• How does positive change compare to the cost to achieve it? 
• Georgia Policy Labs as model for South Carolina
• Skills & education adjustment for technologically advancing labor markets
• Research on school transfers in higher education
• Outcomes of cutting back requirements in occupational licensing 
• SC’s struggle to fill skills gaps 
• Identifying and addressing needs with policies 
• Analyzing point at which technology suppresses student learning 
• Pushing away from higher education when it doesn’t fit 
• Building up transferable skills 
• Research’s role in predictive analysis

To learn more about the Economic Policy Innovation Center, click here.

To learn more about the Cradle to Career Conference, click here

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Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

From Classroom to Career: Mastering the Job Search 

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Kacie Ingram, Undergraduate Career Coach, Office of Career Management 

Kacie Ingram is the Undergraduate Career Services Manager in the Office of Career Management at the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business, where she coaches management and marketing students. With over a decade of retail management experience, as well as entrepreneurial and teaching roles, she founded Complete Confidence in 2012 as a career coaching and personal branding business. Since 2014, she has taught Business Careers in a Global Economy and is active in the Professional Association of Résumé Writers & Career Coaches and the National Association of Colleges and Employers. Ingram holds B.S. and master’s degrees in retail from the University of South Carolina. 

The Office of Career Management (OCM) connects employers with this talent, supporting campus visits, classroom engagements, information sessions, and registration for the Spring and Fall Business EXPO career fairs. For students, the OCM offers career counseling, résumé reviews, interview preparation, and other resources to guide their transition from student to professional

Topics include:

• Business Careers in the Global Economy one credit class requirement 
• Software programs & resources offered to Moore School students 
• Resume and Linkedin profile as foundation for job search 
• Common frustrations in the job search process 
• AI’s positive impact for application efficiency 
• Incorporating job description keywords into resume 
• Personality test aid in realistic self assessment and job fit 
• Application quality over application quantity’s greater return on time investment 
• Tools for finding recruiter contact information 
• Tracking & recording submitted applications 
• Importance of continued follow up 
• Career resources for community listeners

To learn more about the Office of Career Management, click here.

To learn more about Darla Moore School of Business, click here.

Photo Courtesy: Office of Career Management

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Center for Sales Success Creating Student Success

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Chris Pardi, Assistant Director, Center for Sales Success

Lecturer

Christopher Pardi is a marketing alumnus of the Darla Moore School of Business. After 28 years of experience in marketing and sales, he returned to the Moore School as a lecturer and Assistant Director for the Center for Sales Success. During his career with Fisher-Price and Mattel, Pardi led both global brand marketing and national sales teams. He spent 22 years in marketing, driving growth for iconic brands such as Power Wheels and Imaginext, where he developed global strategies, managed multimillion-dollar budgets, and delivered record-breaking results. He later transitioned into sales, managing major national accounts and ultimately leading the Fisher-Price sales team responsible for Walmart. Pardi also holds an MBA from The Ohio State University Fisher College of Business.

This is Chris Pardi’s first appearance on the Moore Impact Podcast. 

Topics include:

• Chris Pardi’s goal to come back to Darla Moore to teach
• Sales Concentration’s 4 classes
• More active learning activities in the classroom
• Using headlines/ current events in the classroom
• Teaching students how to sell themselves
• Highlighting hidden talents and accomplishments
• Positioning solutions to fit objections
• Student participation in sales competitions
• Symbiotic relationship between sales classes and corporate partners

To learn more about the Center for Sales Success, click here.

To learn more about Darla Moore School of Business, click here.

Photo Courtesy: Center for Sales Success.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Foreign Direct Investment with Visiting Fellow Ellen Lenny- Pessagno

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Ellen Lenny-Pessagno, Sonoco Visiting Fellow, Folks Center for International Business

Ellen Lenny-Pessagno was hosted in September as a Sonoco Visiting Fellow by the Folks Center for International Business. A former U.S. diplomat and Albemarle executive, she recently joined Veracity Worldwide, a leading global risk advisory firm specializing in critical minerals, the energy transition, and advanced technology.

With over 20 years of experience across Latin America and Europe, Ellen has deep expertise in international trade policy, sustainability, and government engagement. At Albemarle, she served as Global Vice President for External Affairs and Sustainability and as part of the Energy Storage (Lithium) leadership team, following her role as Country Manager in Chile.

A frequent speaker at international forums such as the UN Global Compact Leadership Summit, she was named one of the “100 Global Inspirational Women in Mining” (2020) and Executive of the Year by Chile’s Antofagasta Industrial Association (2021).

Topics include:

• South Carolina fifth ranked state for Foreign Direct Investment 
• Governments critical role in protecting and facilitating flourishing economy 
• Government layoffs in crucial areas of knowledge needs 
• International relationships large role in commerce 
• Who’s looking out for overseas investments? 
• Regular citizens 401ks and IRAs in foreign investments 
• Necessity in understanding social and geopolitical contexts for long term investment projects 
• USC’s student representation in Chile 
• Importance of critical minerals
• Entrepreneurial opportunities in renewable energy space 
• Current administrations investment in equity of MP materials 
• Modern technology’s dependence on lithium batteries and critical minerals

To learn more about Sonoco Visiting Fellows Program, click here.

To learn more about Ellen Lenny-Pessagno, click here. 

Photo Courtesy: Folks Center

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Unpacking Darla Moore’s Visit to the Moore School

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Keven Cohen, Radio Talk Host and Owner at 100.7 Make The Point Radio

This week's episode features Kasie’s weekday morning radio cohost Kevin Cohen at Make the Point Radio recapping September 15th’s special visit to the Moore School from namesake, Ms. Darla Moore. 

Kasie is joined by her weekday morning cohost, Kevin Cohen, from Make the Point Radio, to recap a special September 15th visit to the Darla Moore School of Business by none other than its namesake, Darla Moore.

During her visit on Monday, September 15, 2025, Ms. Moore participated in a fireside chat with students, faculty, and Ph.D. candidates, where she highlighted the transformative role of artificial intelligence and the importance of process-based learning in shaping the next generation of business leaders.

Topics include:

• Need to be ready for AI driven world
• Getting local business community involved with Moore School
• Improvements to business efficiency
• Choices about your business your own 
• What does Darla Moore expect out of her business school? 
• Reputation, relevance and financial factors of a successful business school 
• Philanthropy for the sake of investment 
• How do we learn to properly prompt AI? 
• How do we keep classroom settings relevant? 
• Consumption culture in preventing engagement 
• Trifecta in foundation of a successful life 

To learn more about Darla Moore, click here.

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business, click here.

Visit MakethePointRadio.com

Photo Courtesy: LinkedIn

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Built @ Darla Moore Vision with Dean Verma

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Dr. Rohit Verma, Dean, Darla Moore School of Business

Rohit Verma is the Dean and USC Educational Foundation Distinguished Professor at the Darla Moore School of Business since August 1st 2023. He holds a Ph.D. in Business Administration and an M.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Utah, and a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. Previously, he served as Founding Provost of VinUniversity in Vietnam, and held leadership roles at Cornell University, including Dean of External Relations and Executive Director of multiple research centers. Recognized as a Fellow of both the Production and Operations Management Society and the Decision Sciences Institute, Verma has received numerous awards for leadership, research, and teaching excellence. His work has been honored with top research paper awards, industry recognition, and lifetime achievement distinctions in service operations.
 

Dean Verma previously appeared on Moore Impact in October 2024. After completing his first year as Dean of the Darla Moore School of Business, he shared reflections on his experience, his vision for the school’s future, and how to build on its history of success.

Some topics include:

• Stronger reputational brand for the whole school 
• Darla Moore Alumni features 
• Developing leadership certificate program 
• Formalizing leadership training in the classroom 
• Learning to be a follower, team member and peer in leadership initiatives
• Creating pathways for USC students outside of business school to gain business knowledge 
• Cross college partnerships in bringing diversity to the classroom 
• Progress in new faculty hires 
• Dean Verma’s own research developing index for aging society

Learn more about Dean Rohit Verma here

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Photo Courtesy: LinkedIn

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Translating Military Research into Corporate Impact

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Paul Bilese, Professor of Management
  • and Department Chair

Dr. Paul D. Bliese is the Jeff B. Bates Professor of Management and Chair of the Management Department at the Darla Moore School of Business. A former U.S. Army Colonel and research psychologist, he spent 22 years at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research, where he directed studies on stress, leadership, and soldier well-being, including oversight of the Army’s Mental Health Advisory Team program in Iraq and Afghanistan. His academic work bridges military and corporate contexts, advancing organizational research, leadership development, and statistical methods, and he currently serves as the incoming Editor-in-Chief of Organizational Research Methods.

This is Paul’s first appearance on the Moore Impact Podcast. 

Topics include:

• Data transparency and speedy application in military setting
• Feedback decision making in military
• Should academic research be operating faster? 
• Using research data sets for instructional method 
• Understanding engagement data as early warning sign for turnover 
• Parallels between military research and corporate research when looking at group dynamics 
• How much of an individual's morale is influenced by a group? 
• Toxic individuals effect in workplace
• Emerging leaders versus intentional leaders in corporate setting 
• Developing undergraduate leadership skills 
• Social aspect of work performance 

To learn more about Paul Bilese, click here.

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business, click here.

Photo Courtesy: Babbel

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Dr. Orgul Ozturk, Department Chair, Economics

Dr. Orgul Demet Ozturk is the department chair and professor of economics in the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Her academic research interests are in applied microeconomics fields, specifically labor economics and health economics. Ozturk has written articles on the effects of labor market regulations and minimum wages on female employment, effectiveness of supported employment programs for developmentally disabled, the relationship between occupation choice and welfare independence, and the effects of maternal employment and welfare use on children’s cognitive outcomes. 

Orgul was on Season 2 Episode 1 to talk about long term impact of teacher incentive pay programs. In this visit, she focused on the two recent papers she had accepted for publication. But first, we talked about the academic structure of approved research, methodologies, submission for publication, peer review, and the importance of the structure. 

Topics include:

• Where data comes from and how research is designed
• The Review & Resubmit (R&R) process in academic research
• What academic journals are and what their business model consists of
• Peer Reviewers and what their incentives are
• Community Eligibility Provision (free school lunch) and recent findings
• The connections between free school lunch and community food banks
• The Economic Policy Center’s purpose and products
• Baby-friendly certified hospitals and the outcomes therein.

To learn more about Centers at the Darla Moore School, click here.

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business, click here.

Photo Courtesy: University of South Carolina 

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act and Recent International Business Changes Associated with it

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Dr. Chris Yenkey, Associate Professor, International Business

Chris Yenkey is an associate professor in the Sonoco International Business Department at the Univ. of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business and a core faculty member of the Rule of Law Collaborative at the Univ. of South Carolina School of Law. Prior to joining the Moore School in 2016, Prof. Yenkey was an assistant professor of organizations and markets at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business from 2011-2016, where he was the John E. Jueck Faculty Fellow from 2015-2016 and held courtesy appointments in the departments of Sociology and African Studies.
 

Chris appeared on Moore Impact Season 2 Episode 6 when we talked about government interference in markets and corruption in African nations. In this episode, Dr. Yenkey revisits some of the corruption symptoms but we start with neoliberalism and how the policies of Reagan and Thatcher shaped the globalism that blossomed in the 1990s and early 2000s. 

Some topics include:

• Global trade fueled by neoliberalism
• The Corrupt Foreign Practices Act
• The Blanche memo and how the Justice Department will now address the Corrupt Foreign Practices Act
• Challenges for businesses given the administration’s new stance
• Expectations in international markets
• Consequences of international businesses changing their behavior
• The World Bank and the International Monetary Fund
• China’s approach to international lending and how it has changed the global lending landscape.

Learn more about Dr. Chris Yenkey here

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Photo Credit: Corporate Compliance Insights

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Qatalyst Health and other Startups Fostered into Fruition at the Moore School

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Brandon Mendez, Clinical Assistant Professor, Finance

Brandon Mendez is a clinical assistant professor of finance at the Darla Moore School of Business. He teaches courses in corporate finance and investments. His professional experience includes time in financial services, internal auditing, controllership, and management consulting. He has previously served in the U.S. Navy as a naval flight officer.

Brandon earned his Ph.D in finance from Florida State University. His research interests are in corporate and labor finance. He has a particular interest in the art market and its function. Brandon teaches courses in corporate finance and investments.

We discussed SOS eCharging and I couldn’t remember the partner’s name, only Mac Whittle. Don Mills is the business partner and Founder and President of SOS eCharging. Watch the demo video here.

Some topics include:

• Brandon’s involvement with Qatalyst and the challenge posed by Jeff Savage
• The evolution of Qatalyst through contest wins and grant funding
• The future for Qatalyst and the opportunity for DMSB to stay engaged
• SOS eCharging and the evolution through project work of that idea
• Comparable businesses and how companies get off the ground
• SC Nexus and energy grid infrastructure
• The business model for SOS eCharging and the possibilities

To learn more about Qatalyst Health click here

To learn more about SOS eCharging click here

To learn more about the Faber Center for Entrepreneurship click here.

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Photo Credit: KMS Software

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

What is the Fed? with Jason DeBacker

• Host
• Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
• Dr. Jason DeBacker, Associate Professor, Economics

When last we had him on Moore Impact, Jason DeBacker helped us understand the On Big Beautiful Bill’s positives and negatives. He also talked about the impact of protectionist policies on trade. In this episode, we ask him to explain the Federal Reserve and its role in economic policy.

Jason M. DeBacker is an associate professor in the Department of Economics at the Darla Moore School of Business. His research interests lie in the areas of public finance and macroeconomics. He has published papers on these topics in the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Law and Economics, the Journal of Public Economics, the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity and other outlets. From 2009 to 2012, he worked as a financial economist in the Office of Tax Analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Topics in this discussion include:

• What is the Federal Reserve
• The Federal Reserve’s mandate and the tools it uses to fulfill it
• Treasury bonds and interest rates
• The 2008 economic crisis and the Fed’s response
• COVID and the Fed’s behavior
• How the consumer is affected by the Fed’s behaviors
• The structure of the Federal Reserve
• Jason’s newest book project on the economics of longer lifespans

To learn more about Jason DeBacker click here.

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Episode picture courtesy TheBalance.com

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Case Competitions, Study Abroad, and other ways the Moore School prepares Graduates for their Future Careers

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Grantland Rogers, recent alum from DMSB

The Moore School experience was covered in Episode Season 2 Episode 17 with Laurel and Trey, both Real Estate majors with some entrepreneurship coursework. Here we hear from Grantland Rogers, a recent graduate of the Moore School’s International Business program with a major in Finance and also the South Carolina Honors College. The general business principles are easily accessible across the Moore School but the application of those principles varies widely depending on the coursework, the activities, and the careers our students choose.

Topics in this discussion include:

• Finding his way to the Moore School with some help from former Dean, Dr. Peter Brews
• The Honors College connection and special courses
• The liberal arts education and its value
• Study abroad and the opportunities and challenges therewith
• Case competitions and how they complement the academic experience
• How the general principles of business are applied across a spectrum of opportunities at the Moore School
• Grantland’s Honors thesis work on implementing AI in small financial advisory firms
• Software implementations and how firms can approach AI projects
• Grantland’s new job in consulting with EY
• Technical and case study interviews and how the Moore School prepares students for them

To learn more about the International Business major at the Moore School click here.

To meet Grantland Rogers on LinkedIn click here.

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Entrepreneurship and the Export of Education

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Dr. Geoffrey Graybeal, Executive Director, Faber Entrepreneurship Center

The Faber Entrepreneurship Center promotes experiential learning through in-depth consulting projects as part of student course work. For its research programs and commercialization projects, the center works in conjunction with the South Carolina Research Authority, the South Carolina Department of Commerce, the South Carolina Chamber of Commerce, various schools and colleges at South Carolina and a broad range of other entities to bring inventions and innovative technologies developed at the university and throughout South Carolina into the marketplace.

New Executive Director Dr. Geoffrey Graybeal joins Moore Impact to talk about how the Entrepreneurship Center and management curriculum is exporting education. It’s the third episode in a series on tariffs and trade policy.

Topics in this discussion include:

• Faber Center roles and mission
• Education as an export specifically in entrepreneurship
• US trade surplus in services in innovation and entrepreneurship
• Faber and other programming for international students
• The spectrum of entrepreneurship in DMSB education
• The universality of entrepreneurship
• The impact of international students on the academic environment
• Intellectual property as competitive advantage
• What are the risks of sharing knowledge and education overseas?
• The role of education in international relations and soft power

To learn more about Geoffrey Graybeal click here.

To learn more about the Faber Entrepreneurship Center click here.

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Photo credit from this website International Trade Administration

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Taxes and Tariffs with Jason DeBacker

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Dr. Jason DeBacker, Associate Professor, Economics

When last we had him on Moore Impact, Jason DeBacker helped us understand the South Carolina drive to 0% income tax. Now that the general assembly session has ended, we get an update from Jason on South Carolina tax policy, the One Big Beautiful Bill, and a macro view of tariffs. It’s part two in the Trade Policy series on Moore Impact.

Jason M. DeBacker is an associate professor in the Department of Economics at the Darla Moore School of Business. His research interests lie in the areas of public finance and macroeconomics. He has published papers on these topics in the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Law and Economics, the Journal of Public Economics, the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity and other outlets. From 2009 to 2012, he worked as a financial economist in the Office of Tax Analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Topics in this discussion include:

• Reconciliation bills and the One Big Beautiful Bill
• Rules around debt, deficit, and budget nerds
• OBBB positives like expensing business investment and incentivizing R&D
• OBBB negatives like added complexity and reduced funding to meet the needs of that complexity
• What is economic trade and why is it useful?
• Other protectionist policies that impact trade
• Education as an export

To learn more about Jason DeBacker click here.

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Photo credit Home Furnishings Association's blog

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Tariffs and Trade Policy with Dr. Bill Hauk

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Dr. Bill Hauk, Assistant Professor, Economics

The news is full of economic policy these days as the One Big Beautiful Bill was signed into law on July 4th and tariffs received another delay shortly thereafter. In this episode from June 17, 2025, Dr. Bill Hauk discusses trade deficits, tariffs, and who is really benefitting from the economic shuffleboard happening right now.

William R. Hauk, Jr. is an assistant professor in the Department of Economics at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina, where he arrived after receiving a Ph.D. from the Graduate School of Business at Stanford University in California and a B.S. from the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University in Washington, D.C. He has taught international trade, intermediate macroeconomics, principles of macroeconomics and government policy toward business at the undergraduate levels and regularly teaches an international trade course for the doctoral program.

Topics in this discussion include:

• Bill’s professional and academic journey and expertise in global economic policy
• Foreign Direct Investment and South Carolina as a recipient thereof
• The Trump perspective and resulting trade policy
• The impact of tariffs on South Carolina trade
• The growth of global supply chains and trade deficits
• The role of automation and other factors in trade deficits
• Who really pays tariffs
• Smoot Hawley and what history has taught us about tariffs
• Trade deficit as a security risk

To learn more about Bill Hauk click here.

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Episode photo courtesy Wilson Center blog "Tariffs 101"

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

The Degree Gets More Valuable with Alumni Success

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • David Looper, two-time Moore School alum and owner of Furniture Services
  • Dylan Chewning, Moore School alum and founder of HG Wealth Advisors

The Alumni network at the Moore School of business has been strengthened over the years by the work of the Young Alumni Board. In this episode, we speak with David Looper, one of the earliest members of the Board, and Dillon Chewning, a recent member of the Board, about the work the organization is doing. Both David and Dillon are business owners and we talk about the skills the Moore School gave them that made business ownership possible. We also talk about the value of the Moore School degree as our school’s alumni go out, take big swings, and get big wins.

Topics in this discussion include:

• David’s journey through the Moore School and into business ownership
• Dillon’s journey through the Moore School and into business ownership
• The value of the Moore School experience and knowledge gained
• The realities of business ownership and learning in real time
• Moore School interns and new hires and how valuable they are
• Moore School mentoring program and being involved
• The Moore School alumni network and the value of the degree.

To learn more about the Moore School mentoring click here.

To learn more about the Moore School’s alumni networking and events click here.

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Episode art 

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Corporate Relations and Training Leaders at the Moore School

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Dr. Patrick Wright, Associate Dean for Corporate Relations

Universities have relationships with corporate partners that span multiple disciplines and schools. Coordinating those relationships takes transparency and leadership. In his new role as Associate Dean of Corporate Relations, Dr. Pat Wright is representing the Moore School in a campus-wide effort to get on the same page with our corporate partners. In this episode of Moore Impact, we discuss the role, the responsibilities, and the opportunities presented by moving the Moore School forward.

We also look at the newly adopted Leadership Framework at the Moore School, the elements and the various ways we’re using classroom and non-classroom engagements to help our students grow competencies in it. Lastly, we touch on Wright’s upcoming paper about DEI in companies and what’s really going on there.

Patrick Wright is the Associate Dean for Corporate Relations, management department chair, Thomas C. Vandiver Bicentennial Chair and professor of management at the University of South Carolina. He is also founder and former faculty director of the Center for Executive Succession at the Moore School. He teaches, conducts research and consults in the area of strategic human resource management. In particular, his research focuses on how firms use people as a source of competitive advantage, changing nature of the chief HR officer role and CEO succession processes. Each year he conducts a survey of Fortune 500 CHROs which gains insights on issues and challenges from the top of the HR house. Wright has published over 70 research articles in journals, over 20 chapters in books and edited volumes and has co-authored two textbooks and two books on HR practice. He has also served a 3-year term as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Management. 

Topics in this discussion include:

• The Corporate Relations role
• How coordination benefits the Moore School and our students
• The Leadership Framework and how we’re delivering qualified students
• How the Leadership Framework was developed and set to be implemented
• What’s next in Leadership training at the Moore School
• Wright’s research on DEI and what companies are reporting on the topic

To learn more about Patrick Wright click here

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Picture courtesy this link

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Short Term Rentals Get the Academic Treatment in Charleston Event

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Dr. Mark Ferguson, Dewey H. Johnson Professor of Management Science

The South Carolina legislature is considering taking action on short-term rentals and several local county councils and city councils have already done so. In this episode, we hear from Dr. Mark Ferguson from the DMSB Management Science department who, in collaboration with colleagues in the School of Hospitality, Retail, and Sports Management recently hosted a scholars event to focus on short-term rentals.

Ferguson's research interests involve many areas of supply chain management including supply chain design for sustainable operations, contracts that improve overall supply chain efficiency, pricing and revenue management, and the operations/marketing interface. His 2012 paper on the environmental impact of product leasing won the best operations management paper award for papers published between 2012 and 2014 in Management Science. Another two of his papers have won best paper awards from the Production and Operations Management Society (POMS), and three of his research projects have been funded by the National Science Foundation. He is the coauthor of the books Segmentation, Revenue Management and Pricing Analytics and Pricing Segmentation and Analytics and coeditor of the book Closed Loop Supply Chains: New Developments to Improve the Sustainability of Business Practices. He has served as the president of the INFORMS Manufacturing and Services Operations Management Society, the president of the POMS College of Supply Chain Management and the INFORMS Revenue Management and Pricing Section. 

Topics in this discussion include:

• What are short term rentals and where did the market come from
• What communities and companies are affected by short term rentals
• What are some of the restrictions being considered and enacted
• The event design and the data made available
• What the scholarship teams looked into and the results they found
• Suggestions for future research

To learn more about Mark Ferguson click here

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Photo credit: Mad River Valley Real Estate blog

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Freshly Minted Alumni Share their Excitement for the Future

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Laurel Ray Treadway, recent graduate
  • Trey DeTurris, recent graduate

Trey and Laurel are recent graduates (like from a week ago) from the Darla Moore School of business and joined Dr. Whitener in the studio to cut up about the experience they had on campus. They share the changes they went through, the studies they enjoyed, and advice for rising seniors.

Topics in this discussion include:

• How did they each select USC and why  
• What they majored in and what they hope to do now
• What the school did to support their success
• How the Moore School supported their efforts and ensured their success
• Th bittersweetness of being alumni and how connecting with the Alumni Association will be a critical first step  

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

What we know about remote work with Anthony Nyberg

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Dr. Anthony Nyberg, J. Henry Fellers Professor of Management, Faculty Director for the Center for Executive Succession

There’s a trend in workforce dynamics right now to return to office, or end remote work arrangements. To respond to that, we brought Dr. Anthony Nyberg, a human resources researcher to talk about compensation, incentives, succession planning, and competitive advantage through personnel.

Nyberg’s research focuses on how organizations compete through people, specifically the strategic role of pay in their attraction, emergence, retention and motivation, including those in the C-suite. Nyberg’s work has been published in top academic journals. He serves as an associate editor for the Academy of Management Journal and on the editorial boards of other prestigious management journals. Nyberg has received numerous awards for teaching, reviews and research including awards for best dissertation, best published manuscript (twice) and career success, including being named a Featured Scholar and a Breakthrough Rising Star by the University of South Carolina. He also received the Early Career Achievement award from the Academy of Management. His research has been highlighted in major international media outlets, including Business Week, Time Magazine, National Public Radio, US News & World Report, Harvard Business Review and CNBC.

Topics in this discussion include:

• What compensation is and who decides what it should be
• Work from home as a retention incentive
• What the data shows about COVID working conditions
• Differences in the people and differences in the task affect remote work and management thereof
• The mixed-modality workforce and challenges therein
• The role of research in organizational management 
• The biggest reason companies are issuing return-to-work mandates

To learn more about Anthony Nyberg click here

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Photo credit: VioletaStoimenova / E+ / Getty Images pulled from this site.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Global Interconnectedness Through Business

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Dr. Jason DeBacker, Associate Professor of Economics, Darla Moore School of Business

It’s like the tax Super Bowl in April 2025 as income tax is waffling between expirations and renewals, South Carolina is looking at moving toward a flat tax, and the President is hiking tariffs across a spectrum of international markets. Moore School economist Jason DeBacker came back into the studio to talk about why it’s a great time to be a tax researcher.

Jason M. DeBacker is an associate professor in the Department of Economics at the Darla Moore School of Business. His research interests lie in the areas of public finance and macroeconomics. He has published papers on these topics in the Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Law and Economics, the Journal of Public Economics, the Brookings Papers on Economic Activity and other outlets. From 2009 to 2012, he worked as a financial economist in the Office of Tax Analysis at the U.S. Department of the Treasury.

Topics in this discussion include:

• Why it’s a great time to be a tax researcher
• The complexity of the US tax code
• The real burden of tax season in the United States
• What the tax code is really for: raising revenue, spending, incentivizing
• How the tax code directs behavior through incentives
• Business tax rates as a competitive advantage for SC
• Tariffs as taxes on foreign imports.

To learn more about Jason DeBacker click here

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Global Interconnectedness Through Business

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Dr. Christina Ahmadjian, Visiting Scholar at the Folks Center

Americans are invested overseas, many times through their own 401k or pension fund. That investment creates an interdependence, a reliance on international businesses for one’s own investment security and growth. Those businesses are governed by Boards of Directors, boards that include scholars like Christina Ahmadjian. 

Christina Ahmadjian is Professor Emeritus at Hitotsubashi University and former Dean of the Hitotsubashi Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy. She is a visiting scholar with the Folks Center for International Business at the University of South Carolina’s Darla Moore School of Business. 

Dr. Ahmadjian visited Moore Impact to discuss her experience living and working in Japan, where her scholarship has led her, and the engagement with corporate boards that brought her to Columbia. 

Some topics include:

• Christina’s journey through undergraduate and desiring an international career
• Working in Japan as a young woman
• Pursuing a graduate degree at Stanford and UC Berkeley
• Corporate governance as an area of academic study
• The changing landscape of international business
• Interdependence among international business

To learn more about Christina Ahmadjian click here

To learn more about the Folks Center for International Business click here

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Slow Scholarship but Super Fast Start-Ups

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Brandon Mendez, Clinical Assistant Professor, Finance

Brandon Mendez is a clinical assistant professor of finance at the Darla Moore School of Business. He teaches courses in corporate finance and investments. His professional experience includes time in financial services, internal auditing, controllership, and management consulting. He has previously served in the U.S. Navy as a naval flight officer (P3s see picture).

Brandon earned his Ph.D in finance from Florida State University. His research interests are in corporate and labor finance. He has a particular interest in the art market and its function. Brandon teaches courses in corporate finance and investments.

Some topics include:

• Brandon’s journey through his PhD study, completion, and placement at USC
• Art valuation as one of Brandon’s papers
• Kansas City, the NFL, and favorable calls as one of Brandon’s papers
• SC Quantum and what is quantum computing
• Proving Ground winner Qatalyst Health and how they’re progressing

To learn more about Qatalyst Health click here

To learn more about SC Quantum click here

To learn more about the Faber Center for Entrepreneurship click here.

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Changing the World Through Business

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Dean Kress, Director of the Faber Entrepreneurship Center, retired

Dean Kress brought his entrepreneurial journey through fast food restaurant chains, graduate school, and the Small Business Development Center to the Moore School in and only recently retired. In this episode, he takes us through the history of entrepreneurship education at USC and how start-ups like the Faber Center and Proving Ground got their foundations and grew into their current status. 

Topics include:

• Dean’s journey
• How we teach business vs. how business really is
• Current classroom experiences in entrepreneurship
• Competitions and taking risks
• Can you teach entrepreneurship?
• Critical skills for entrepreneurs
• How the Moore School is making entrepreneurship accessible to everyone

To learn more about the Faber Center for Entrepreneurship click here.

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Photo Credit: Mountain Top Web Design

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Emergency Center Wait Times and Other BIG Healthcare Economy Questions

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Dr. Orgul Ozturk, James A. Morris Professor of Economics, Executive Director, Economic Policy Center (EPiC)

Dr. Orgul Demet Ozturk is the department chair and professor of economics in the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Her academic research interests are in applied microeconomics fields, specifically labor economics and health economics. Dr. Ozturk was honored recently with the Endowed Chair James A. Morris Professor of Economics and her investiture was attended by over thirty colleagues glad to celebrate her accomplishments and share her celebration.

In this episode, Dr. Ozturk speaks a little about the investiture but mostly shares the EPiC monthly newsletter and in it, Dr. Lindsay Woodworth’s research on hospital emergency room overcrowding.

Topics include:

• What is investiture and how academia recognizes professional achievement
• The EPiC newsletter and its purpose
• Lindsay’s research on Emergency rooms
• The bigger questions around access to healthcare in the United States and South Carolina

Learn more about Dr. Ozturk here

Learn more about Dr. Woodworth here

Learn more about EPiC here

Learn more about the Darla Moore School here

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Amy Thomson, Executive Director, Folks Center 

Amy Thomson’s career spans the South Carolina Department of Commerce, the US Department of Commerce, and offices in China, Taiwan, Korea, India, Germany, and Japan. She is the Executive Director of the Darla Moore School’s Folks Center for International Business and she came on Moore Impact to preview the American Power and Global Disruption event happening on March 26, 2025.

Topics include:

• Amy’s career in international commerce
• Examples of South Carolina companies that are international
• The impact of policy and tariffs on South Carolina businesses
• Opportunities to engage with the Folks Center for business owners
• Student experiences with the Folks Center
• Upcoming event on American Power and Global Disruption
• Incoming fellow and future guest Christina Ahmadjian

Learn more about Amy Thomson here.

Learn more about the Folks Center here.

Learn more about the Moore School here.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host: Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management Department, Moore School of Business
• Guest: Mark Richter, Senior Director of Development, Moore School of Business
• Guest: Baylee Shipes, Director of Annual Giving, Moore School of Business 

On Wednesday, March 26, 2025 and Thursday, March 27th, the University of South Carolina will host its annual Give4Garnet event, a 1 day, 8 hours, and 1 minute (1801) event to demonstrate the power of engagement with USC. Leading the effort at the Darla Moore School are Baylee Shipes, Director of Annual Giving, and March Richter, Senior Director of Development. In this episode of Moore Impact, the two visited the studio for a live radio session discussing the event and the value and impact of philanthropic support to the Moore School and to USC as a whole.

Topics for discussion include:

• Baylee’s journey to her 13-year career in development at USC
• Mark’s path from Yale to USC
• The role of philanthropy in the financial life of the university
• Types of giving
• The impact of giving: scholarships, programs, speakers, events, and more
• Darla Moore’s transformational gift and the mandate she delivered to USC
• Give4Garnet events and ways to be involved.

To learn more about Give4Garnet click here.

To learn more about investing in the Moore School click here.

To learn more about the Moore School of Business click here.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host: Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management Department, Moore School of Business
• Guest: Dr. Gerald McDermott, Department Chair and Professor of International Business at the Darla Moore School of Business

Dr. Gerald A. McDermott, “Gerry,” is the department chair and a professor of international business at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Prior to joining the Moore School, he was an assistant professor of multinational management at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania for seven years and held a secondary appointment in the Department of Political Science. He specializes in international business and political economy. 

Topics for discussion include:

• Gerry’s experience in post-Soviet Eastern Europe
• Globalization promises and delivery
• How to build prosperity in an emerging market
• What South Carolina has that makes it a great bet
• Who our real competitors are and how we can learn from them
• What federal policies are doing to hurt or help our investments
• Whether BMW is a model to follow for the Scout Motors investment
• What SC will have to do to support Scout Motors

To learn more about Dr. McDermott here.

To learn more about investing in the Moore School click here.

To learn more about the Moore School of Business click here.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host: 

• Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management

Guest:

• Dr. Geoffrey Graybeal, Clinical Associate Professor, Management

Dr. Geoffrey Graybeal teaches entrepreneurship in the Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina and is generally interested in all things entrepreneurial. His areas of study include online and mobile media strategy, youth audiences, new business models, micropayments, marketing, and entrepreneurship on the Social Web. Dr. Graybeal is the 2024-25 Programs Director for the Faber Entrepreneurship Center. Dr. Graybeal has prior experience as a journalist, reporter, editor and entrepreneur. He has designed research and recommended strategy for multinational firms, single media outlets and small start-up companies.

Topics include:

• Dr. Graybeal’s journey from one Carolina to another
• USASBE and the work of conferences and professional associations
• Name, Image, and Likeness Entrepreneurship
• Using AI in the classroom and the academic conversations around it
• Management 479 consulting class projects underway

To learn more about Dr. Graybeal click here.

To learn more about the Faber Entrepreneurship Center at USC click here.

To learn more about Proving Ground visit this site.

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business visit this site.

To be a guest or suggest a topic for our podcast, click here.

Episode photo courtesy SC.edu/athletics

This has been Moore Impact. When you learn more, you know more, and when you know more, you do more. Thanks for listening.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management Department
• Guest
  • Dr. Chris Yenkey, Associate Professor, International Business

Let’s talk about corruption. What are the symptoms of a corrupt government? Are we seeing them in our own U.S. government? Dr. Chris Yenkey shares his research on the topic.

Chris Yenkey is an associate professor in the Sonoco International Business Department at the Univ. of South Carolina Darla Moore School of Business and a core faculty member of the Rule of Law Collaborative at the Univ. of South Carolina School of Law. Prior to joining the Moore School in 2016, Prof. Yenkey was an assistant professor of organizations and markets at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business from 2011-2016, where he was the John E. Jueck Faculty Fellow from 2015-2016 and held courtesy appointments in the departments of Sociology and African Studies.

While earning his Ph.D. in Economic Sociology at Cornell University, Prof. Yenkey was a visiting scholar in 2008 at the Institute for Economic Affairs in Nairobi, Kenya, and served as associate director of the Center for the Study of Economy and Society at Cornell University from 2010-2011. Prior to his graduate studies, Yenkey received a B.A. in Economics from the University of Texas, Austin, in 2001 and served as a research associate in the Department of Economic Research at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City from 2001 to 2003.

Topics in this episode include:

• Studying fraud, misconduct, and corruption in international markets
• What is the academic definition of and the indicators of corruption
• Principal/Agent conflicts in government agencies
• Injunctive norms and descriptive norms
• Petty corruption versus grand corruption
• Campaign finance laws and access corruption
• What voters need to do to rescue our country from corruption.

To learn more about the Moore School, click here.

This has been Moore Impact. When you learn more, you know more, and when you know more, you do more. Thanks for listening.

Episode art from istock via undp.org

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host
  • Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management Department
• Guest
  • Dr. Lois Miller, Assistant Professor, Economics Department

Let’s talk about college tuition. How it’s gone up, how students and their parents pay for it, and what state legislatures are doing to try to reign it in.

Lois Miller is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Economics in the Darla Moore School of Business. She received her PhD in Economics from the University of Wisconsin - Madison in 2024. She is an applied microeconomist with interests in labor economics, public economics, and the economics of education. She mostly researches topics in higher education, with a focus on how access to, and resources within, postsecondary education can affect inequality and social mobility.

Topics in this episode include:

• Reasons students transfer from two-year to four-year colleges
• Policies that help students make better higher ed choices
• Policies that seek to reign in college tuition pricing
• How colleges respond to those policies
• The difference between sticker price and net price in college tuition

To learn more about the Moore School, click here.

This has been Moore Impact. When you learn more, you know more, and when you know more, you do more. Thanks for listening.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management Department
• Guest
  • Caroline Crowder, Executive Director of The Boyd Innovation Center Powered by GrowCo

Caroline Crowder is a two-time alum of the Moore School and now an instructor in the Management Department teaching entrepreneurship. Her journey is one of discovery far and wide and recognition of unique opportunities to learn, grow, and teach. In this episode she shares her story and the mission and vision of the Boyd Innovation Center Powered by GrowCo.

When we first heard from Caroline in Episode 18, we learned of the origin of the Boyd Innovation Center and how Caroline has been its shepherd, captain, and cat-herder. In this episode, she shares the specifics of the programming and some of the choices she’s made to let the Center evolve into what the ecosystem needs.

Topics include:

• Upcoming programming at the BIC
• Leaving Tech Beans behind and starting Coffee Talk sessions
• Including students in the community work
• Innovating in the entrepreneurship classroom
• The power of a community to support entrepreneurial initiatives
• Revenue streams and sustainability for a non-profit Entrepreneur Support Organization (ESO)

To learn more about the “BIC” and its upcoming events, click here. 

To learn more about the Moore School, click here.

This has been Moore Impact. When you learn more, you know more, and when you know more, you do more. Thanks for listening.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host: Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management Department, Moore School of Business
• Guest: Lisa W. Burgess, Class of ‘99, MBA ‘01, Senior Relationship Manager, Commercial Banking, Regions Bank
• Guest: Briana Reckling, Class of ‘22, Associate Sales Representative, Smith & Nephew Sports Medicine

On Thursday, February 6, 2025, the Moore School will host Business of the Game at Williams Brice Stadium in part to introduce a number of Moore School student athletes to potential employers. The organizing committee included a who’s-who of Gamecock athletics including Grayson Greiner, baseball, class of 2015, and Ryan Succop, football, class of 2009. The event was previewed in this episode of Moore Impact when panelists Lisa Burgess and Briana Reckling talked about the skills they learned in competition that have helped them in their business careers. 

Topics include:

• Both Bri and Lisa’s journeys from student athlete to career professionals
• Critical skills learned in competitive athletics and how they’ve applied them in their roles
• Most important lessons learned from athletics and how those lessons have manifested in careers
• What student athletes have to offer as potential candidates for employers
• What it’s like to transition from student athlete to independent professional

To learn more about Business of the Game click here.

To learn more about the Moore School’s Alumni network click here.

To learn more about the Moore School of Business click here.

Photo credit: Gamecock Athletics link here

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host: Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management Department,Darla Moore School of Business 
• Guest: Jamie Peebles, Employer Relations Manager at the Darla Moore School of Business Office of Career Management

The Moore School’s Office of Career Management focuses on the critical metric of job placement and assists our constituents in several critical ways. In this episode, Jamie Peebles, Employer Relations Manager, talks about the way OCM identifies right-fit companies to partner with and encourages those firms to participate in a variety of activities.

Among the OCM activities:

• Topic panels - an assembly of employers with a job-function commonality such as the upcoming financial crimes panel
• Partner focus days - in conjunction with the South Carolina Manufacturers’ Alliance for Manufacturing Day at the Moore School
• Business Expo - employers fill the Convention Center and meet students to begin conversations that may lead to interviews, internships, and even jobs.

Jamie is a lifelong Gamecock whose grandfather worked in the physics department, he’s an alum of Carolina who was glad to come back seven years ago and help students get connected with potential employers. If you’re a business who wants to get connected with the Moore School through OCM, email Jamie at recruit@moore.sc.edu.

To learn more about the Office of Career Management at the Moore School of Business click here.

To learn more about the Moore School click here.

Episode photo credit: Photo by Polina Zimmerman on Pexels.com

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Dr. Orgul Ozturk, Department Chair, Economics

Dr. Orgul Demet Ozturk is the department chair and professor of economics in the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Her academic research interests are in applied microeconomics fields, specifically labor economics and health economics. Ozturk has written articles on the effects of labor market regulations and minimum wages on female employment, effectiveness of supported employment programs for developmentally disabled, the relationship between occupation choice and welfare independence, and the effects of maternal employment and welfare use on children’s cognitive outcomes. 

Her latest published work is in collaboration with scholars Sarah R. Cohodes of University of Michigan and Ozkan Eren of University of California Riverside. It examines the long term outcomes of the Teacher Advancement Program (TAP), introduced in South Carolina in 2007. The program is a national model of teacher performance pay, which embeds incentives for teacher performance alongside professional development, the potential for career advancement, observations of teacher performance, and test-score based accountability.

The goal of TAP is to improve overall education outcomes. Some differentiators between TAP and other monetary-incentive programs include:

1. Teachers’ bonus allocation hinges on both their own students’ achievement gains as well as the school’s overall achievement growth,
2. Bonuses are substantial and sufficiently differentiated to cause changes in the behavior of educators, and
3. Teachers have the opportunity to earn bonuses based on their observed performance in the classroom and the resulting performance of their students. 

Where can I read more about the study and its significant findings?

The National Council on Teacher Quality reports findings in their blog post titled, “What are the long-term effects of teacher performance pay on student outcomes?” The Fordham Institute reported on the paper with a post titled, “Look beyond test scores to gauge the impact of teacher performance pay.” and NewsNationNow.com reported on the effect of federal grants to fund these state-level implementations of TAP in “Performance Pay for Teachers Could Have Long-term Benefits.”

The conversation also includes discussion around the role of the Economic Policy Center (EPiC) at the Moore School in informing policy makers as to the efficacy of the programs they enact. 

Art for this episode borrowed from this link.

To learn more about Centers at the Darla Moore School, click here.

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business, click here.

This has been Moore Impact; when you learn more you know more and when you know more you do more. Thanks for listening.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Corey Mikels, Director of Alumni Engagement

The extensive Moore School Alumni Network is seeded in undergrad and leveraged by the Office of Career Management (see episode 19) but it’s primary care giver is the Office of Alumni Engagement and in this episode, we talk with Director of Alumni Engagement Corey Mikels whose affection for the Moore School and its alumni community is innate and expressive. Corey oversees the mentorship program, a differentiator for undergrads and graduate students alike.

Topics include:

• The people and roles in the Office of Alumni Engagement
• Alumni meet-up road trips
• Core cities - concentration of alumni, hiring partner companies, visit twice a year
• Alumni mentor network - how it works, who is eligible, how it got started
• Moore School Mentor Program began in February 2020 and has its legs in virtual interactions
• Six week program offered once in the fall and once in the spring
• Weekly resources are offered for conversation starters and topics to prompt the interactions
• How to get started with the program and engage as a participant

To learn more about the Moore School Mentor Program click here

To connect with Corey Mikels click here

To learn more about the Moore School click here

When you learn Moore, you know more and when you know more, you do more. Thanks for listening.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Guest
  • Kacie Ingram, Senior Career Coach at the Darla Moore Office of Career Management

The Office of Career Management at the Moore School is a strategic competitive advantage for our students. As 10-year career coach Kacie Ingram shares, if you name a career “need”, OCM can meet it. Kacie is also a Carolina alumna with experience in corporate retail who found a passion for coaching and, specifically, career coaching. Through the OCM and the Moore School’s supplemental classes (BADM 301), Kacie and her colleagues are setting Moore School students up for success from resume to interview to onboarding and first career choices.

Topics include:

• Kacie’s background as alumna of the Retail merchandising program, teaching sections of University 101 the Moore School program for Freshmen and BADM 301 for sophomores
• OCM advantages for Moore School students: Each student has a career coach based on major, they each get 1 on 1 attention from assigned career coach
• Professional development in the classroom: personal brand, networking, exercises and practicing the skills they need to market themselves
• Use of technology to simulate and practice interview techniques, AI-generated feedback to help the students prepare
• OCM activities (classes and coaching) cover skillsets like: Communication - written and verbal; Problem solving - assignments and activities to challenge them to solve problems that may be encountered in the workplace; Personal introductions, elevator pitches, what they have to offer to the other students in the class
• U101 is smaller classes, get to know one another and establish some initial relationships in the business school, but also on campus
• Business Expo: always happens in the first 8 weeks of the semester, BADM prepares them in the class to be ready for the Business Expo experience; 131 companies at the last one, and 1700+ students attended
• OCM is the bridge to campus between the students, alumni, and companies.

To learn more about the Office of Career Management at the Moore School of Business click here.

To learn more about Kacie Ingram click here.

To learn more about the Moore School click here.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest
  • Caroline Crowder, Moore School alumna and Director of the Boyd Innovation Center powered by GrowCo

If you’re doing entrepreneurship in Columbia, you’re going to hear Caroline Crowder’s name. She’s been hanging around startups since undergrad and after achieving her graduate degree and gaining hands-on experience in Singapore, she was tapped to lead the Boyd Foundation’s investment in the entrepreneurial ecosystem of Columbia.

Topics include:

• Undergrad at the Moore School, never intended to work with startups
• The Boyd Center doesn’t pick favorites, the incubator model isn’t what we’re doing at BIC
• Being mission driven as a non profit participant is amazing
• Masters in International business - how do we affect tech startups and scale them globally
• The BIC introduced its government and university agnostic model in Columbia
• Founder mentality for Caroline’s career path
• Third Thursday - blending the tech and arts community together for these collaborative events,our creative minds bring balance to the community
• Tulsa, OK - a comparable city to Columbia and while different, also quite similar in demographics and economic indicators; what was the recipe they used to produce a strong investment community
• Start up communities are complex ecosystems, new ideas and connections and insights are great but we can’t just replicate those things here
• We’ve tried a bunch of things that have failed and that’s okay
• The vision for Columbia: we support tech start ups with scalable growth potential
• What we’re really trying to do here is inspire new founders  we have a ramps and pathways to bring people into founderhood, make the possibility look realizable
• We support researchers, inventors, everybody who has a new idea has the opportunity to participate in our programming

To learn more about the “BIC” and its upcoming events, click here.

To learn more about Caroline Crowder, click here.

To learn more about the Moore School, click here.

This has been Moore Impact. When you learn more, you know more, and when you know more, you do more. Thanks for listening.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor
• Guest:
  • Dr. Orgul Ozturk, Department Chair, Economics

Orgul Demet Ozturk is the department chair and professor of economics in the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Her academic research interests are in applied microeconomics fields, specifically labor economics and health economics. Ozturk has written articles on the effects of labor market regulations and minimum wages on female employment, effectiveness of supported employment programs for developmentally disabled, the relationship between occupation choice and welfare independence, and the effects of maternal employment and welfare use on children’s cognitive outcomes. 

Her latest undertaking is “EPIC” or the Economic Policy Innovation Center, an opportunity to move research into implementation. First discussed on Episode 9 with Dr. Ozturk’s colleague Dr. Jason DeBacker, EPIC launched in fall 2024 with a specific purpose. Dr. Orgul explains.

Conversation topics include:

• Dr.Ozturk’s intermediate micro theory course - how decisions are made from an economist’s perspective, how the best decisions take place, and how people choose the best options for themselves
• Options for economics majors — so many; economics is about skills and a way of thinking about things; what do graduates from economics do? Grad school is an option, research and consulting also options
• Research in economics - mostly policy research: labor, health, and education
• Dr. Ozturk works mostly with South Carolina data for example, the impact of education policy on short term education outcomes and long term life outcomes. For example, looking at the Teacher Advancement Program - TAP - studying the South Carolina version and comparing it to other programs for outcomes and efficacy: Does the program achieve the goal? Incentivize teachers? Get better outcomes for their students? In South Carolina, the program is working quite well.
• A lot of academic work doesn’t translate into policy impact - this one is an exception
• It got attention from national media and some groups in DC to get more funding for these programs. A lot of efforts to retain teachers and keep U.S. education at the top of the world’s economy
• Research can be a long slow process. We see the need in SC for policy work to be translated: work 80-page papers into usable formats - events, white papers, a newsletter, to constantly communicate our research across the state.Whenever someone is trying to understand the pros and cons of a program, or determine how it will fare in SC, we want to be the analysts who figure out the answers to those questions.

To learn more about Centers at the Darla Moore School, click here.

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business, click here.

This has been Moore Impact; when you learn more you know more and when you know more you do more. Thanks for listening.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management

Guest:

• Dr. Sanjay Ahire, Michael J. Mungo Distinguished Professor, Co-Director, Operations and Supply Chain Center

The operations and supply chain undergrad program at the Moore School retained its No. 3 Gartner ranking, and moved up to No. 5 in graduate ranking in 2024. This marks the first Top 5 ranking for the graduate program. The ranking comes two months after the management science department was awarded the industry-renowned UPS George D. Smith Prize from INFORMS, the largest professional association for the decision and data sciences.

Dr. Sanjay L. Ahire is a Professor of Operations and Supply Chain Management at the Darla Moore School of Business, University of South Carolina (USC). Dr. Ahire holds a Ph.D. in management science from the University of Alabama (1992). He also holds a master’s degree in management studies (1985) and a bachelor’s degree in chemical engineering (1982), both from the University of Bombay (India). Dr. Ahire is the Co-Director of the USC-Operations and Supply Chain Center. He heads the unique industry-validated Sonoco-USC Lean Six Sigma Green Belt Certification initiative that has graduated more than 1,600 students with this valuable certification before graduation. Dr. Ahire has been at the Darla Moore School since 2006 and was named the Carolina Trustees Professor of the Year in 2023.

Dr. Ahire came from University of Dayton where he’d created a program similar to this and launched our program in 2007. In the 2024 Gartner rankings, we’re ranked #3 in Undergraduate Supply Chain Programs and ranked in the Top 5 for our graduate program. Many of the brightest students major in international business, where we’re #1 for the 26th year in a row and IB requires a secondary major. Operations and Supply Chain Management has become a good go-to. But over the years, people are applying and coming specifically for the Operations and Supply Chain Management major. The pandemic really brought the field to the front of people’s consciousness and that’s become more interesting. The attraction to the field is that it’s what creates value for organizations. 

Topics include:

• What’s the reason students choose this major? 
• The mission: produce graduates who not only know but who have also practiced the operations side of the business.
• Kinds of careers supply chain majors can expect: 1) leading manufacturing firms - companies like 3M and BMW, Tesla; 2) consumer products - J&J, PNG; also high tech firms like Intel, Meta, Google, LinkedIn; 3) leading consulting firms - Accenture, BCG, etc.; retailers and services - WalMart, Target, but also 4) insurance companies and hospital systems, airlines
• The nature of an applied program – we’ve integrated experiential learning through the capstone project that comes at the end of the project – learning 2 competences – the operations side and also the logistics side.
• The Business Process Perspective – look at the existing process and make it better with frameworks they’ve learned to deconstruct a process and then build it back.
• Center projects are faculty driven. More than 360 projects over the last 15 years.
• Sonoco Lean Six Sigma certification for students to earn through the project experience.
• The INFORMS UPS George D. Smith Prize - This award is given to the best program in the world that prepares their students for the application of management science to the supply chain field.
• INFORMS prize event December 5th and 6th: Two-day event inviting the UPS leadership, INFORMS leadership, alumni, and community members.

To learn more about the Operations and Supply Chain Center, click here.

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business visit this site.

To be a guest or suggest a topic for our podcast, click here.

Episode photo credit Tom Fisk on Pexels.com

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

• Host:
  • Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management
• Interviewer:
  • Dr. Jeff Savage, Director of the Faber Entrepreneurship Center
  • Caroline Byrd, USC Alum ‘23
• Guests:
  • Aaron & Candice Hark, USC Alumni and founders of Maxient

USC Alumni Aaron and Candice Hark visited the Faber Entrepreneurship Center in the fall semester of 2022 as part of the Faber Speaker Series. Together, they gave the Maxient story. (Original audio from September 26, 2022.)

Maxient is conduct software providing a place to easily manage records of student conduct and well-being. By improving communication and collaboration across colleges and universities, Maxient helps to identify students in need of assistance and coordinate the efforts of departments to provide follow-up.

Aaron and Candice met at Carolina and have continued to support entrepreneurship at the Moore School through sponsorship of the Faber Entrepreneurship Center’s annual Proving Ground contest. In this interview borrowed from the Faber library, Moore Impact listeners are treated to faculty interviewer Dr. Jeff Savage, student interviewer Caroline Byrd, and a live listening audience responding to Candice and Aaron’s candid take on being married, being founders, and finding balance between the two.

Topics include:

• What is conduct software?
• How did Maxint get started?
• How was Maxient funded?
• What was the impact of the Moore School on Maxient?
• What’s it like being married to your co-founder?
• How do the Harks strike a balance between work and home?

The Faber Speaker Series happens every semester on campus at the Moore School. Events are free and open to the public. To see a full line-up of visiting speakers, visit the Faber Center’s website on sc.edu.

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business visit this site.

To be a guest or suggest a topic for our podcast, click here.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host:

• Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management

Guest:

• Dr. Audrey Korsgaard, Senior Associate Dean for Academics and Research, Darla Moore School of Business

M. Audrey Korsgaard is the Senior Associate Dean for Research and Academics, and a professor of management and organizational behavior at the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. Dr. Korsgaard arrived in 1991 and has taught in almost every program in the Moore School: undergraduate, IMBA, PMBA, one year MBA, and the PhD program. She served as Department Chair, Chair of the Faculty Senate, and is currently Senior Associate Dean for Academics and Research. More of her bio here.

Here are the topics of the discussion:

• The role of service in an academic career
• Priorities in the role of Associate Dean: attract and retain the best talent, recognition and reward programs, elevate the research that we’re doing and enable that research to help companies to make better decisions.
• The role of Centers in enhancing curricula and providing students with hands-on experience
• The benefit of the Centers’ connections with corporate partners for skill building and student experience
• Trends in hiring and retention practices for faculty: Helping faculty to find the right path to keep them highly engaged and maximize the contributions they can make to our school, also promoting from within 
• Why should students consider the Moore School? Outstanding faculty of thought leaders
• Why should researchers consider employment at the Moore School? Fantastic colleagues, really outstanding scholars and a culture of collegiality; a lot of resources to enable people to be successful scholars

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business visit this site.

To be a guest or suggest a topic for our podcast, click here.

Episode art Photo by Noelle Otto on Pexels.com

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host:

• Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management

Guest:

• Dr. Deb Hazzard, Associate Dean for the Office of Access, Opportunity, and Engagement

Deborah Hazzard, DBA, MBA, CDE®,  serves as Associate Dean of Access, Opportunity and Community Engagement at the Darla Moore School of Business. A native of Columbia, South Carolina, Hazzard holds a professional doctorate from Georgia State University, an Executive MBA from Winthrop University and a bachelor’s degree in business management from North Carolina State University. She also earned a Diversity and Inclusion Professional certificate from Cornell University and holds a Certified Diversity Executive (CDE) credential. Read more of her bio here.

The Moore School and the Office of Access, Opportunity, and Community Engagement prioritize respect for every individual and embrace varied perspectives as the cornerstones of collaboration. Our faculty, staff and students bring a wealth of experiences, making them invaluable assets to our community. The Moore School strives to create an environment where everyone is not just valued but has equal opportunities to succeed, including providing opportunities specifically for South Carolinians. Learn more about the office here.

Topics of conversation:

• Dr. Hazzard’s journey 
• The mission to engage resident South Carolina students
• SC Chamber of Commerce Business Week
• Business Success Academy and the scholarship opportunities it presents
• How the Office of Access, Opportunity, and Community Engagement functions
• The Lake City and Florence District Three connections
• Power Forward through Richland One, Richland Two, and now Florence Three
• Power Forward kickoff event at Pastides Alumni Center
• What the summer work is like for the Office
• Rising Scholars program and success-focused programming for current DMSB students
• How to engage the Office for more information, to support or participate in programming

To engage the Office of Access, Opportunity, and Community engagement email engagement@moore.sc.edu with any inquiry and someone will respond.

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business visit this site.

To be a guest or suggest a topic for our podcast, click here.

Photo courtesy RDNE Stock project on Pexels.com

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host:

• Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management

Guest:

• Dr. Rohit Verma, Dean, Darla Moore School of Business

Dr. Rohit Verma came to the Darla Moore School as its new dean in August of 2023. On the occasion of his one year anniversary, he joined the Moore Impact podcast to talk about what the first year has been like, his vision for the future of the school, the primary audiences for the school, and how to leverage historical success – including the 50 years of international business – into future triumphs.

Some of Dean Verma’s bio is below but the rest can be found at this link.

Rohit Verma is the Dean, USC Educational Foundation Distinguished Professor and Professor of Management Science at the Darla Moore School of Business. He received his Ph.D. in Business Administration from the David Eccles School of Business, University of Utah. He also holds an M.S. in Metallurgical Engineering from the University of Utah and a B.Tech. from the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur (India).

Topics of conversation:

• What the first year has been like
• The vision for the second year - take a look at all our strengths and say how can we enhance them further
• Three facets of education today:
• Potential students, current students and past students
• Why should students attend university when they can get basic knowledge online?
• How does the Moore School plan to differentiate itself?
• Experiential learning, classroom innovation, and creation of new knowledge
• American universities have three missions: education or delivery of knowledge, research or creating new knowledge and third translating that knowledge into the world to make impact
• Structure and achievements of the Moore School
• New initiatives in 2024-2025

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business visit this site.

To be a guest or suggest a topic for our podcast, click here.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host

• Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management

Guest

• Dr. Joel Wooten, Associate Professor of Management Science

Dr. Joel Wooten wants to know “What makes a good idea?” His research focuses on innovation and entrepreneurship, and his classroom experience includes courses in innovation and design, web-based products and services, business analytics, and statistics. He holds doctoral and master's degrees from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and a bachelor's degree from Georgia Tech. 

His recent projects include work with innovation tournaments and recommendation systems as well as research partnerships with XPRIZE and Merck. With a history of entrepreneurial involvement, he has helped companies ranging from Fortune 500 firms to a local barbecue restaurant chain. Prior to returning to academia, he spent three years as a strategy consultant for Bain & Company.

Conversation Topics:

• Innovation topics and innovation contests: How can companies engineer better solutions to things?
• Tools we can use versus innate creativity for problem solving
• Is it better to have more ideas? Or better to have crazier ideas?
• Classes Joel teaches: business analytics, innovation and design, qualitative analysis: sports analytics
• Using data to show that NBA referees are betting on games, or how home field advantage actually works
• Why should someone study management science?
• Lots of important questions revealed during COVID about how do businesses actually get things done?
• The Moore School has a hands-on approach, experiential learning, and a focus on making learning more fun
• What kind of work can the students be expecting to do? - real, tactical stuff
• Companies tend to think they know what the problem is, but they often don’t. In the class we spend a lot of time exploring and observing and asking, “Is this really a problem?”
• No tests, no exams, no textbook, just practical work that applies what we’re learning to real outcomes
• PMBA class in innovation and design - students have a unique perspective on the business world
• New class Music analytics - sports was changed by Moneyball, the music industry is a little behind but seeing something similar: Taking the same approach as the sports class and answer questions for an upcoming band
• What sorts of jobs to Management Science majors get when they leave the Moore School?

To learn more about Joel Wooten visit this site.

To learn more about the Management Science major at DMSB, click here.

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business visit this site.

To be a guest or suggest a topic for our podcast, click here.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host

• Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor

Guest

• Dr. Mazen Aziz, Managing Director, Master of Human Resources Program

Dr. Maz Aziz has been Managing Director of the MHR program at the Moore School for three years and with the University of South Carolina for 11 years. He earned his undergraduate and PhD degrees from the University of South Carolina and a Masters of Human Resource Development from Clemson University. 

The Master of Human Resources program is a 16-month program that includes early onboarding and a cohort structure that fully engages students to ensure success. The program leverages business partner companies - many of whom hire Moore School graduates - to provide students an experiential learning environment. Moore School MHR graduates are known for their professionalism and that is a designed feature of the program.

Conversation topics:

• Students usually enter the MHR program directly from undergraduate studies
• Fully residential onsite program classes are usually during the day
• Fully supported: assigned a second year student buddy, a faculty mentor, and a group project mentor
• Mostly business students but take students from any discipline
• Current alumni and graduate assistants communicate what’s expected when we say “professionalism”
• Behavioral interviews, resume building, and other onboarding skills worked on after admission
• Information sessions held weekly with partner companies looking to hire
• Project teams change up and the diversity is a huge advantage
• Business partners trust were producing high quality professionals
• Companies are saying soft skills are most important
• MHR program’s critical skills include resiliency, time management, managing generational differences in the workforce
• Key stats:
  • 40-46 students admitted every year
  • Acceptance rate about 46%
  • 70% female
  • 30% underrepresented
  • 100% placement within 3 months

To learn more about the Masters in Human Resources program visit this site.

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business visit this site.

To be a guest or suggest a topic for our podcast, click here.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host

• Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor

Guest

• Dr. Jason DeBacker, Associate Professor, Economics

Dr. DeBacker’s route to academia went through Washington, D.C. After an undergraduate degree at University of Georgia and graduate school at the University of Texas, Dr. DeBacker worked at the Department of Treasury for the federal government. Public finance economics is his specialty and it was at Treasury that Dr. DeBacker recognized the importance of academic research in policy making. After a post at Middle Tennessee State, Dr. DeBacker joined the Darla Moore School, an R1 institution, where he continues to contribute to policy-influential research.

As a classroom Professor, Dr. DeBacker teaches Macroeconomics, a required class for undergraduates in Economics, and this year will teach a Political Economy undergraduate course. Dr. DeBacker’s classroom is focused on connecting the news students read each day with the mathematical practices that influence political initiatives. Dr. DeBacker is a contributor to the Policy Simulation Library, a non-profit open-source software hub for economic modeling. Dr. DeBacker’s research interests include environmental economics, tax code incentives, and game theory.

Conversation topics:

• Empirical analysis of public policy and tangible questions
• Policy Simulation Library - open source policy center
• Look at public policy and do it in a transparent way, make the knowledge available to the public
• Honors section of intermediate macro that will engage these tools
• Build up a macroeconomic model from scratch
• Two areas of research using IRS audit data: 1) how taxes affect business decisions and how do we administer the tax code and how compliant are people? 2) higher marginal rate encourage people to comply more or less?
• Economics major is a strong foundation for business students
• Human behavior and how humans respond to incentives
• The tools to understand the world through incentives
• Economic Policy and Innovation Center “EPIC” bringing the important questions to bear the research in the department and the students who are motivated to transfer this knowledge to the State House

To learn more about the Policy Simulation Library visit this site.

To learn more about studying Economics at the Darla Moore School visit this site.

To learn more about the Darla Moore School of Business visit this site.

To be a guest or suggest a topic for our podcast, click here.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host

Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor

Guest

Dr. Eric Powers, Associate Professor, Finance Department Chair

Dr. Powers’s research focuses on fixed-income policies of corporations as well as corporate capital investment policy and corporate restructuring and has appeared in leading peer-reviewed academic journals such as the Journal of Finance, Journal of Financial Economics and Journal of Corporate Finance. 

The finance major is the largest at the Darla Moore School making up one-third of the 1500 students in any given cohort. In this episode, Dr. Powers talks about the wide range of opportunity in undergraduate studies including the Finance Scholars program, what’s exciting about studying finance, and what’s on the horizon for the 2024-25 school year. Finance graduates go on to work in a variety of fields including investment banking, commercial banking, corporate finance, investment management, and consulting.

Conversation topics:

• The attraction of finance: very fast moving, very large scale (1:31)
• Start out as an analyst - mergers and acquisitions, buy-side (buy companies) or sell-side (get bought) - a whole lot of valuation involved (3:41)
• Looking at the financial statements, making forecasts, figure out what they’re going to generate in terms of cash flows, trying to come up with the story the company is telling (3:58)
• Four year business program - freshmen come in and take accounting, statistics, and economics, all as prerequisites as gateways into the major but sophomore year, then they’ll take their core class (6:15)
• Finance Scholars is the specialty honors program in the finance department (9:21)
• 100 applications, 32 selected this past year
• Includes a set of classes - first pair FIN 365 and two other classes - case study based class, teams of two, focus on some aspect of valuation
• 1 credit hour practicums - alumni bring a company they’ve done the valuation process for, provide financials and tell the story, and the students develop a pitch deck motivating why it’s an attractive company for sale, class culminates in a presentation in front of investment bankers (14:01)
• Faculty mix: a good group focused on financial institution research, Allen Berger among the most cited researchers; some others focus on family banking and family financial decisions, home finance focus; skill set in risk management and insurance; corporate finance (24:00)
• Eric’s research - the impact of some regulations out of the financial crisis - Dodd-Frank legislation (25:51)
• Researchers are keeping their skillsets current by reading the research to make them more effective in the classroom, how AI helps that (34:04)
• Upcoming experimental classes (34:44) - 1) private capital markets, 2) foundations of institutional investing - being taught by members of the SC Retirement System, they manage $25B in assets and will be talking about that; 3) real estate law; 4) 1-credit course on personal investing for the graduating senior - investment advisors from Columbia to offer that class in the fall; the idea came from Elizabeth Babb’s honors thesis
• Further out (37:20) - a course on AI and its application in finance; right now AI can do a pretty good pro forma already, so how do we harness that? Also, quantum computing a collaborative effort with math, physics, and engineering, $15M from state budget to fund SC Quantum (Joe Queenan) - living within the Boyd Foundation

To learn more about studying finance at the Moore School visit this link.

To learn more about the Finance Scholars honors program visit this link.

To learn more about the Moore School in general visit this link.

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host:

Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor

Guest:

Elena Arecco Bridgmon, co-founder of LUMO and “MIBS” alum

This episode’s guest is an accomplished alum of the Darla Moore School of Business Masters in International Business or “MIBS” program. Elena Arecco Bridgmon had a distinguished career with Bank of America before setting out on her entrepreneurial journey with LUMO. In this episode, we discuss how the Moore School influenced Elena’s career, how it set her up for success, why she decided to strike out on her own, and what she hopes to do through LUMO.

Elena said you need three things to get into graduate school: 1) to have done well in undergrad, 2) GMAT scores are high, and 3) you need business experience. Her graduate school experience propelled her into a career in coaching that has flourished with LUMO. Real-life practical experience gives students the ability to contribute in a real meaningful way and Elena’s MIBS classmates also had real world experience, some of them from other countries meaning individuals could speak to the impact of business on the culture and economy.

Conversation topics:

• The richness of the MIBS experience (3:30)
• Coaching is a legitimate field and occupation (15:00)
• Coach Training & Certification - learned about it 2013, enrolled in 2017 (18:59)
• Started training in 2017, didn’t leave full time employment until 2021 (20:46)
• Named the company Epic Life Coaching inspired by a University of South Carolina Law School alum and SC Court of Appeals judge, the late Tanya Gee (24:59)
• Capacity is constrained; coaching + business development = too much time, needed to leave BofA to focus on Epic Life (26:02)
• Luscious Mother - bestie Sarah Olin had been doing her own thing and Elena worked with Sarah on Luscious Mother retreats, decide to collaborate and forma deeper bench of coaches working together
• Pivoted in 2021 to be a B2B organization where companies hire Luscious Mother to coach their employees; Changed to LUMO (32:03)
• Women want to thrive in their life and their career (33:30)
• Manager training program - oftentimes promoted because they were good at what they did, but don’t have the manager skill set (33:35)
• LUMO’s philosophies around coaching, meeting clients where they are and being in conversation with you and very interactive small groups of 25 - cohorts with three coaches
• The myth of the work-life balance (38:00)
• Be in a relationship with your direct reports (41:10)
• Tools that enable organization and structure: EOS

To learn more about LUMO visit LUMOleadership.com

To learn more about the Darla Moore School’s International Business Masters Degree click here

To learn more about the Darla Moore School visit sc.edu/moore

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host:

Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management

Guest:

Mara Zepeda, Entrepreneur in Residence at the Faber Entrepreneurship Center

Nobody asks better questions than Mara Zepeda. After a decade of enterprise creation, Mara has come to believe that it isn't the organization but rather the interconnections and relationships between people that enact effective change and progress. (credit Jennifer Brandel's work on the Interstitium, https://www.the-interstitium.com/) Considering herself an "interstitionary" not an organizational leader, Mara embarked on a journey of place-based projects to create, in the words of Margaret Wheatley, "islands of sanity."

Locally, Mara serves Cola Love and Made With Cola Love, an economic and community development network that is building from a place of love in Columbia, South Carolina. She is also an Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the Darla Moore School of Business, building bridges between the institution and its legendary namesake.

Mara remains engaged with the organization she founded, Zebras Unite, as a board member. Zebras Unite was recently adopted as part of the economic strategy for the country of Japan, the third largest economy in the world.

In this episode, Mara and Kasie talk about the recently concluded first-ever domestic onsite Maymester through the Honors College, a class dedicated to examining the economic model in place in Lake City, South Carolina under the stewardship of philanthropist and business school namesake, Darla Moore. 

Here are the topics for the conversation:

• Mara’s background in a community of renaissance people - artist entrepreneurs (1:00)
• The Columbia entrepreneurial ecosystem and Mara’s place in it (3:40)
• Cola Love - dreamed up with Mara, Nell Fuller, and Julie Tuttle; connecting the spaces, time, energy, and opportunities (5:40)
• Various pop-ups “The Liberation is Lit” bookstore on Rosewood; Spring Supper pop-up in the space next to Mr. Friendly’s (6:20)
• Santa Fe Institute - studies complexity science; Darla Moore is on the board of the The Santa Fe Institute; SFI came and led a delegation to Lake City to observe what was happening in Lake City (8:50)
• Curious about reciprocity between DMSB and Lake City (10:00)
• The building of the Maymester class (11:05)
• The timing of Artfields - what we were able to see and hear (16:20)
• A small town living laboratory of complex systems (17:20)
• The history of Artfields - 12 Southeastern states, juried prizes, 500+ pieces of art; 9 days, visual art, displays are across the businesses in Lake City, using a lottery system, the businesses are able to choose the art (seen in a picture) they want to display (23:00)
• The art is in the businesses, so you enter the retail, services, spaces to view fine visual art (24:20)
• It’s been 12 years and they want to brand themselves as a year-round art town to have sustained economic impact through art and artists (25:00)
• Lake City’s assets (according to Darla Moore): 1) an entrepreneurial backbone, 2) proximity to Florence (a much bigger town), 3) “we are cute” - they had not demolished the Main Street buildings and the original architecture could be renovated to get the 1910’s vibe of old-timey downtown spaces. (28:00)
• Market towns, agriculture, and seasonal “pops” of activity (29:00)
• Moore Farms and Botanical Gardens (31:00) testing plants for S.C. ecosystem
• Non-profits, foundations, and philanthropic work require revenue (33:30)
• Liberatory technology and local ecosystems - sustainability indicators “what can the local community provide for itself?” (35:00)
• The long term relationship between the Darla Moore School and the Lake City experiment (38:00)
• What does the 2025 Lake City Maymester class look like? (39:00)
• Takeaway: people have a desire for community, novelty, and momentum (41:45) and when pedagogy can create opportunities for those things, it’s a quality experience.

Learn more about Artfields at this link

Learn more about the Moore School of Business at this link

Learn more about the South Carolina Honors College here

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host:

Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management

Guests:

Reagan Gonzalez, Center Manager for Center for Executive Succession

Alantis Seckal, Center Manager for Smart State Center for Innovation + Commercialization

Artfields is the 10-day annual event that transforms Lake City, South Carolina into an art town. In 2024, the Moore School sent a bunch of faculty and staff to experience Artfields as not only is Lake City our school namesake, Darla Moore’s hometown, but Artfields is spearheaded by the Moore Foundation and is the entrepreneurial effort of a coalition of Lake City leaders. In visiting Artfields, our Moore School faculty and staff hoped to get a glimpse into the event’s breadth and depth.

This episode is an interview with two staff members, Reagan Gonzalez, Center Manager for Center for Executive Succession, and Alantis Seckal, Center Manager for Smart State Center for Innovation + Commercialization. Their perspectives on the art they saw and the way Artfields consumed Lake City, are testaments to the power of the event. In its twelfth year, Artfields welcomed ~80,000 people to Lake City to browse local shops, businesses, and restaurants, all transformed into galleries with nearly 400 pieces on public display, many for the first time.

Winners of the Lake City Artfields 2024 grand prizes can be found here.

Conversation topics:

• Being inspired by kid art
• Hanging Cherry Trees and interpreting artists’ intentions
• Shopping and Arting
• How Artfields works
• Specific pieces’ interpretations and impacts
• Expectations of Artfields
• The expansion of Lake City via Artfields
• The connections between Lake City, Artfields, and our student experience at the Darla Moore School of Business in Columbia

This has been Moore Impact. When you learn Moore, you know more, and when you know Moore, you do more. Thanks for listening.

Learn more about Artfields at this link

Learn more about the Moore School of Business at this link

Learn more about the Center Manager for Center for Executive Succession

Learn more about the Center Manager for Smart State Center for Innovation + Commercialization

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host:

Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management

Guest:

Dr. Geoffrey Graybeal, Clinical Associate Professor, Management

Conversation topics:

• UN sustainable development goals
  • College accreditation around those goals
  • Classes working in teams to tackle the SDGs
  • Look at a global problem with a local perspective
• DoSomething.org - social campaigns (energy consumption for example)
• SEC pitch competition and the levels of competitors
• Boyd Innovation Center resource links
• Hipster, a hustler, and a hacker (business and IT)
• Research-based discussion around failure and learning from setbacks
  • Timing (also in literature) might be the barrier
  • Do something they’ve never done before, do something where they try to ge rejected
  • These entrepreneurial skills can serve you elsewhere in life
  • The entrepreneur education is resilience, being comfortable with ambiguity, risk tolerance
  • The mindset is what’s valuable
• The Columbia, S.C. ecosystem and its current status as an emerging supportive network

When you learn more, you know Moore. And when you know Moore, you do more.

Thanks for listening!

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host:

Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management

Guest:

Dr. Kealy Carter, Clinical Associate Professor, Marketing

episode photo courtesy of Colorado State at this link.

Conversation topics:

• Applied research: what are the big issues facing businesses today?
  • Sustainability - growth in sustainably marketing products  
• Is sustainability a corporate buzzword?
  • No, companies have been engaging on this for 35 or 40 years
  • The word itself has just seen exponential use in media and policy
• UN sustainable development goals
  • Environmental, Social, Economic
• Sustainability is a global problem and requires attention and action across multiple categories of stakeholders
  • Corporate
  • NGOs
  • Governments
• Scope 1, Scope 2, Scope 3 emissions and companies addressing their own environmental impact
  • Value chain impacts: how to we influence suppliers and consumers
  • 1 - the emissions of your specific activities (i.e. manufacturing)
  • 2 - the emissions of your suppliers as you accessed their products (i.e. energy production and consumption)
  • 3 - all the emissions throughout your value chain - from raw material growth and transport, to product disposal - much harder to affect but where many companies are focused now
• In the classroom: what businesses are we studying? What conversations are we having?
  • The business case for these focused activities
  • This is not philanthropy or altruism, it’s strategy.
• The triple bottom line: People, Planet, Profit
  • A lot of these companies have been on this journey for decades
  • Investment community started paying attention to ESG performance
• The tension between short term gains and long term investments and where sustainability lives therein
• The sustainability concentration: a 12-credit sequence that can be added on to any major in the Moore School
  • Lifecycle recognition and analysis
  • Carbon footprint metrics and analysis
  • Reporting frameworks and their strengths and weaknesses
• Collaborative efforts in South Carolina including SC Nexus for Advanced Resilient Energy
• The functional skillset and the bigger picture understanding of sustainability: an interdisciplinary concept that requires understanding outside of the traditional business education - get the science, get the engineering, get the added components to provide a full understanding and accessible skillset.

When you learn Moore, you know more, and when you know Moore, you do more.

Thanks for listening!

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host:

Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management

Guests:

Dr. Dirk Brown, Faculty Director, McNair Institute for Entrepreneurism and Free Enterprise

Conversation topics:

• McNair Institute origins, mission, and accomplishments
• Intercampus Alliance as a SC Department of Commerce-funded initiative
• Entrepreneurship as a vehicle for enhancing education
• Entrepreneurship programs that bridge campus to the community
• Alumni and allies that strengthen the efforts of McNair, Faber, and other entrepreneurial efforts on campus
• The benefits to USC students of an entrepreneurial effort across the USC system.

When you learn more, you know Moore. And when you know Moore, you do more.

Thanks for listening!

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore

Host: 

• Dr. Kasie Whitener, Clinical Assistant Professor, Management

Guests:

• Jake Shriver – business school senior in management
• Lucas Sevathian – business school exchange student from France

Conversation topics:

• Both apps encourage the user to make changes off the screen.
• Both apps have a mental health / individual confidence essence.
• Both apps will have access to some valuable data.
• How do the app businesses hope to monetize and support the effort?
• How will the experience of the pitch competition Proving Ground affect the development of the business?
• What will you do with the business when you graduate?

When you learn more, you know Moore. And when you know Moore, you do more.

Thanks for listening!

Moore Impact is a product of the Darla Moore School of Business at the University of South Carolina. For episodes, notes, and links visit sc.edu/moore