Overview & Distinctions
One of the largest and most distinguished business schools in the country, the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin is dedicated to educating the business leaders of tomorrow while creating knowledge of critical significance for industry and society.
Particular distinctions include:
- National academic leadership in all major fields of business education with top 20 rankings in all nine of U.S. News & World Report's business specialty areas.
- The MBA Investment Fund, L.L.C., the first legally constituted, private investment company entirely managed by students.
- Moot Corp®, the world's original and still most lucrative student business plan competition.
- Market-driven specializations responding to evolving industry needs in energy finance, private equity, real estate finance, customer insight, supply chain management, and other areas.
- Collaboration with business through 19 research centers including the Center for Research in Electronic Commerce, the Herb Kelleher Center for Entrepreneurship, and the Center for Customer Insight.
- The Plus Program, an innovative series of MBA seminars focusing on the soft skills of communication, leadership, and teamwork.
- A tradition of educating leaders since 1922 that continues today: More current S&P 500 CEOs graduated from McCombs than from any other public business school (Bloomberg News, 7/04), and McCombs is tied with the University of Chicago as the number one business school source of Fortune 1000 CEOs hired in 2004-2005 (USA Today, 4/05). More recent numbers are not available at this time.
- Diversity, with the highest percentage of African American professors of any top business school and a No. 4 ranking for Hispanic business students.
- Austin, one of the world's "creative capitals" and great educational cities, and a premier setting for business education.
McCombs educates more than 6000 students each year, creating one of the largest cumulative impacts of any business school in the world. Approximately two thousand professionals also participate each year in programs designed for working executives and their firms.
The school has more than 80,000 alumni. Among many distinguished graduates, a few prominent names include:
- The president and CEO of ConocoPhillips, James Mulva.
- The chairman, president and CEO of AMR Corporation (parent company of American Airlines), Gerard Arpey.
- The chairman and CEO of Temple-Inland Inc., Kenneth Jastrow.
- The chairman, president and CEO of the H.J. Heinz Co., William Johnson.
- The former U.S. Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans.
- The vice chairman and CEO of Southwest Airlines Co., Gary Kelly.
- The president and CEO of BMC Software, Robert E. Beauchamp.
- The president and CEO of TXU Corp, John Wilder.
- The president and CEO of the Hispanic Scholarship Fund, Sara Martinez-Tucker.
- The CEO of Zachry Construction Corporation, John B. Zachry
Historically regarded as the strongest business school in the Southwest and now becoming more nationally recognized, the school, under Dean George W. Gau, has set a goal of becoming the top public business school in the nation.
