Professor J.B. Kurish Brings Real-World Application into the Finance Classroom

As a finance professor who previously worked as a Wall Street investment banker, Professor J.B. Kurish knows the importance of bringing real-world application into the classroom. Brian Ramenda, Two-Year 09MBA says that Professor Kurish was instrumental in providing opportunities for finance students to learn directly from Duff & Phelps, a leading provider of financial advisory and investment banking services, about the actual day-to-day valuation work that the company performs.

Professor Kurish, along with the Goizueta Finance Club, arranged for Aaron Gilcreast, Managing Director of the Atlanta office of Duff & Phelps and a Goizueta MBA alumnus, and others from the company to deliver a special seminar on market comparable valuation methods, "which was an excellent way to see how some of the theory that we were studying in finance class was used in practice," Brian says.

Additionally, Brian's most beneficial experience was a case based upon a recent real world acquisition created by Gilcreast and Syed Ally, also a Goizueta alumnus. This case allowed students to have the experience of working through a valuation assignment. This piqued Brian's interest in the company and he later participated in the on-campus interview process for Duff & Phelps, leading to a summer internship with the company in Atlanta.

Professor Kurish sums up the benefits of bringing real world application in the classroom, "Aaron and I, standing together for two class sessions and one due diligence meeting, created a class capstone experience that certainly illustrated the relevance of the core course material to the real work and better prepared Briand and others for summer success."

About Emory University’s Goizueta Business School

Emory University’s Goizueta Business School is home to an Undergraduate degree program, a Two-Year Full-Time MBA, a One-Year MBA, an Evening MBA, the W. Cliff Oxford Executive MBA (Weekend and Modular formats), a Doctoral degree and a portfolio of non-degree Emory Executive Education courses.