Dr. Ari Betof - Motivations for an Executive MBA Beyond Grades

Dr. Ari Betof guides Organizational Sustainability Consulting, LLC, and provides nonprofits, private educational institutions, and corporate clients with pathways toward financial sustainability. Reflecting his status as a Cornell Executive MBA candidate, Dr. Ari Betof appeared recently on the Koinos Podcast, which brings together entrepreneurial voices from various executive MBA programs.

Speaking about his motivation in pursuing an MBA, with a graduate degree and significant consulting experience already behind him, Dr. Betof emphasized that his academic work is grounded in self-motivation. With a top-tier program like Cornell’s, which attracts students with established leadership records, he asks, "How much are you going to care about things like grades?”

The approach that Dr. Betof has taken is one of focusing on outcomes, with practical skills that he has defined from the outset as being worth attaining. Having focused on math and physics in his undergraduate studies, he is now exploring content areas that he taught himself during the economic upheaval of the 2008 Great Recession as he was completing his doctoral research on organizational stewardship and financial sustainability..

This basis of the MBA in personal experience informs his rigorous approach to understanding the dynamics that drive contemporary organizational and business decisions. As Dr. Betof puts it, the MBA is a way of “committing [a] career to a deepening understanding and engagement with [an] area of expertise.”

To access the full Koinos Podcast transcript, visit https://medium.com/org-sustainability-insights-by-ari-betof/transcript-koinos-podcast-interview-d3f88edbe345