Launching Stanford Leadership Institute
Gifts to the Business School Fund power convenings that bring global leaders together. This past year, the school launched its new Stanford Leadership Institute with a forum for candid dialogue on the forces reshaping our world. That same spirit of convening drives conferences like Sustainable and Responsible Operations in the Age of AI, where academics and practitioners explore how AI can advance environmental and social good. Collectively, these events reflect how the GSB brings the world’s sharpest minds together to tackle complex challenges.
Powering Student-Led Initiatives
Donor support gives student clubs the resources to lead conferences at the forefront of their fields, from the Aerospace & Defense Club’s symposium on space infrastructure and AI-enabled hardware to the Sports Management Club’s conference on the business forces reshaping a multi-trillion-dollar industry.
Fueling the Infrastructure Behind Breakthrough Research
This year, GSB made its largest investment yet in the school’s research computing cluster, strengthening the infrastructure behind its most innovative faculty ideas. The new all-flash storage appliance, paired with an upgraded network, allows researchers to work with massive datasets without slowing down or crashing the system. Together with resources like Capital IQ Pro, Morningstar Direct, and Dewey Data, this infrastructure gives faculty and students the tools to turn unique data into groundbreaking research.
Deepening GSB’s Commitment to AI
Stanford GSB has deepened its commitment to AI across the curriculum, research, and programming. Faculty research drives this effort. Professor Mohsen Bayati studies applied machine learning in healthcare, examining how data-driven models can improve patient outcomes. Courses like AI and Data Science: Strategy, Management, and Entrepreneurship train students to apply AI and machine learning to real-world business challenges.
Building Tomorrow’s Startups Today
Donor support helps power the Grousbeck-Holloway Center for Entrepreneurial Studies and its hands-on programs for aspiring founders. Through Stanford Venture Studio, students connect with resources, expert guidance, and an interdisciplinary community to explore new venture ideas, while Startup Garage gives student teams an intensive, project-based setting to design and test real-world business concepts. The Entrepreneurial Summer Internship Program extends that experience beyond the classroom, placing students at early-stage companies to test their fit with entrepreneurship firsthand.
Business School Fund Fellowships
Over half of MBA students receive need-based financial aid. Last year, gifts to the Business School Fund helped fill the $2.2 million difference between student need and the endowment income from dedicated fellowship funds.
Building Stanford’s Investing Community
The Initiative for Investing serves as a hub for investing-related education, research, and community at Stanford GSB, with a focus on expanding access and exploring emerging areas like climate finance. In January, the initiative hosted its inaugural Investor Summit, bringing together nearly 700 alumni investment professionals, faculty, and students for a daylong convening on the future of investing. The initiative’s Summer Investing Bootcamp extends that momentum to incoming students, equipping those considering a pivot into investing after their MBA with foundational finance skills before the program even begins, which helps strengthen a more diverse pipeline into investing careers.
Investing in Student Well-Being
Students have access to dedicated, embedded counselors, Dr. Liz Chaney and Dr. Tom Ellis, who provide mental health services to roughly 25% of GSB students. By improving mental health outcomes, they help students become more effective and ethical leaders by strengthening self-awareness, emotional regulation, values alignment, relational capacity, conflict management, and empathy. Having two clinicians on staff enables the GSB to offer longer-term support, sometimes spanning an entire academic year. This approach has significantly reduced the need to refer students to external community resources.
Turning Classrooms into Action
Through the Action Learning Program, students combine classroom learning with hands-on experience, working in teams to address real business needs for partner organizations. Courses like Analysis and Measurement of Impact partner students with impact-focused organizations to measure social and economic outcomes, and the Real-Time Analysis & Investment Lab (RAIL) trains students on a trading-floor replica to prepare for careers in investing. Together, these programs give students the chance to build critical skills by tackling real challenges, not just studying them.
Amplifying Real-World Applications
Your gifts help Stanford GSB bring faculty research and teaching directly to a global audience through content like the If/Then podcast and Class Takeaways video series. On If/Then, faculty such as Douglas Guilbeault explore research on unconventional thinking and the limits of AI compared to human intelligence, while Class Takeaways distill classroom lessons into short videos, like Mohsen Bayati’s five principles for turning data into better decisions. Together, these platforms extend the reach of Stanford GSB’s ideas far beyond the classroom.
Lifelong Learning, Lifelong Connection
GSB Lifelong Learning gives alumni continued access to the school’s intellectual community long after graduation. In February, alumni were invited to a livestreamed talk on “The Political Economy of Tariffs” with Professor Ken Shotts, as part of the Insights and Bites Speaker Series — a program normally reserved for students on campus. Events like this keep alumni connected to new faculty research and the ideas shaping business and policy today.