David Tan, a faculty member at the Foster School of Business, was recently recognized as one of Poets & Quants’ Best 40 under 40 MBA Professors. Tan, originally from Southern California, entered the PhD program at Emory University at the age of 19 and later served as an assistant professor of strategy at Georgetown University. His research interests focus on the social impact of business and complex strategic decisions, which led him to study prescription opioid marketing, the influence of secrecy on the prescription opioid industry, and firms’ attempts to shape US Dietary Guidelines.
Tan highlights the importance of active learning in his MBA classes, specifically encouraging forward reasoning and cognitive surprise to counteract oversimplified learning. His teaching style is highly interactive, focusing on the analysis of real case studies. By creating a dynamic and engaging classroom experience, he aims to cultivate students’ ability to think strategically and grapple with complex business scenarios.
Outside the classroom, Tan extends his mentorship to students participating in competitions, such as the PNC case competition. Moreover, he brings real-world insights from his interactions with managers from top tech companies into his course content.
Tan advises incoming MBA students to brush up on basic economic concepts and avoid consuming business jargon-heavy literature. He also emphasizes mental engagement during class as the most crucial factor to succeed in his course, as it enables students to internalize complex concepts effectively.
By the end of his course, students are expected to have a firm understanding of strategic analysis at multiple levels, alongside a broader and more fundamental way of strategic thinking. The skills acquired in his classroom are particularly beneficial for careers in product management and consulting, where decision-structuring skills and the ability to consider broader, less obvious implications of decisions are highly valued.
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