Members of the new cohort for UMSL’s DBA program met for the first time in November. (Photo courtesy of UMSL’s DBA program)
Ask all 12 members of the new cohort for the Doctor of Business Administration program for the specific reason they chose the University of Missouri–St. Louis, and you’ll almost certainly get 12 unique answers. Those answers, though, will all have the same theme: UMSL’s program fits exactly what they need as they continue their professional journeys.
Ronnie Matthew, for example, has been working in market insights and strategy for more than 17 years, including the past decade with Nestlé Purina in St. Louis. He has a pair of master’s degrees, including one in strategic communications from the University of Missouri–Columbia that he completed in 2007. He’s long been intrigued by the idea of getting another degree, but during his time in grad school he worried about the disconnect between the real/corporate world and a traditional business PhD program.
When he first heard about UMSL’s DBA program while listening to NPR, he was intrigued, and the more research he did, the more he realized it matched almost exactly with the type of program he felt would be most beneficial to him and others in a similar career position.
“There is a need for people in corporate fields to be able to understand and take all this theory and apply it to what they do, to find solutions to business problems and be better framers of the problem,” Matthew said. “If you frame the problem correctly, you can really try to understand it.”
UMSL’s cohort-based program, which began in 2017 under the guidance of Founding Director Ekin Pellegrini, is Missouri’s first and only AACSB-accredited DBA program offering research concentrations in all areas of business administration. UMSL is also a member of the Executive DBA Council; Pellegrini is the president of that international organization of universities with executive-format doctoral degrees. UMSL’s program, which has annually been recognized as a premier global DBA program by CEO Magazine, offers a flexible format with two weekend trips to campus per semester for face-to-face interactions with faculty and fellow students.
This Class of 2027 cohort first met in November and had another weekend interaction in early December. The connection between the students happened quickly.
“It’s been very nice. Everybody’s been welcoming, and there’s a warm feeling about being here in general, so it helps,” said Tarab Kumar, who has been a tax manager at MetLife since 2017. “We have very diverse backgrounds, so that also kind of helps. I don’t feel out of place, which is a big deal for me because I come from a very different cultural background, so I really appreciate that.”
That sense of community is essential to the DBA program Pellegrini strives to develop, and a big reason she used the resource-based theory as the theoretical foundation. A cohort that advances through the program together, she’s found, will stick together after graduation.
“The most special moment is seeing them meet each other and form their cohort the first day of the program,” Pellegrini said. “Every DBA cohort instantly develops a unique bond, and each one of our cohorts since program launch quickly developed a distinct character. While all DBA students share curiosity and a passion for informing issues they care about, some cohorts are studious, others are think-tanks, and some are playful, which is quite fulfilling to observe as it unfolds.”
Kumar’s first exposure to UMSL was through her husband, Abhay, who finished his PMBA program in 2019. Tarab was in the midst of a stressful online accounting master’s program through another university, and she admits she was a bit envious of how her husband’s UMSL program was structured in a way aimed at fostering student success. That was a factor as she considered options for another degree, and that, combined with the flexibility of the type of research students are allowed to do – quantitative and qualitative – was a deciding factor.
Flexibility was huge for Seth Kirchoff, too. He’s using UMSL’s DBA program to launch what he fondly points out is basically his fifth career. Kirchoff joined the Army two days after 9/11 and served for a decade. He spent time as a high school teacher – that’s where he found his passion, even if he might have started on that path with skepticism – and started a furniture-making business that he loved but found too inconsistent as a single parent.
He works at Washington University in St. Louis as an associate director of graduate admissions at the Olin Business School, and he strongly considered WashU’s DBA program as his next challenge to conquer. But after a conversation with Michael Elliott, the former interim dean of UMSL’s College of Business Administration and objectively looking at his options, he chose UMSL, largely because of the opportunity to chart his own research path.
As he had been mulling over his decision, he sat in on a leadership panel at WashU. One of the speakers said something that resonated: “Find what it is that ignites you and fuels you and do that.”
Kirchoff knew exactly what he was supposed to do. He wants to create new programs to teach leadership development to students in high schools and universities across the country.
“With 25 years of leadership experience in corporate America and business ownership, in the Army and most importantly, as a father, it’s become very apparent to me much of the leadership development that exists for high school and college kids is kind of ad hoc,” he said. “You have opportunities to serve in leadership positions as a team captain on sports or a club president, or a team leader in a class or something like that, but there’s no curriculum associated with it.
“No one teaches them what it means to be a leader or how to be a leader, despite the fact that all of the research says leadership is a learned skill, not an inherited trait. We treat it as an inherited trait when it comes to leadership opportunities. That’s not what science tells us. Leadership development was baked into all of my curriculum as a teacher. That was what I enjoyed the most.”
Val Joyner joined the UMSL DBA program after a string of non-related events caused her to reprioritize her true interests. She was in a graduate program at Saint Louis University in 2021 when she went on a horseback riding experience on a beach with her daughter. During the ride, someone’s Great Dane got loose and spooked her horse, which shot off down the beach.
“I could hear people saying, ‘Don’t let go!’ but the next thing I remember was waking up in the ambulance,” she said. “I was very confused about where I was and what was going on. I remember someone telling me I would have temporary amnesia, and when he said that, that’s when the fight began. It was like when Dorothy wakes up in the Wizard of Oz, and she’s looking around saying, ‘And you were there! And you were there! I remember you!’”
Joyner suffered an intracranial hemorrhage (brain bleed) and needed to recuperate.
“In that same time frame, my mother was diagnosed with cancer, then the horseback accident, then someone very dear to me was murdered by her husband, so I became a surrogate mother to her child,” Joyner said. “All of those things, plus I was working in law enforcement as a public relations officer for the major case squad at the time, where I’m seeing homicides and robberies, you name it, it’s coming across my desk every day. I had to tap out.”
After Joyner, who is now director of communications for the St. Louis Housing Authority, had recovered from her injuries and was considering her educational options, she happened across this interview on NPR with Pellegrini, Cindy Goodwin-Sak, Scott Morris and Eboni Valentine from UMSL Business. Pellegrini told the story of the time one of the DBA students was starting his dissertation journey; because he and his wife both held leadership positions at their jobs and had young kids to ferry around on Saturdays, Sunday was really his only time to work on his dissertation and he needed Pellegrini’s help with the process. She opened her home to him for a few Sundays in a row, and they worked together at her kitchen table to get to the point he could move forward on his own.
“That did it,” Joyner said with a smile. “That did it because to offer that level of support to your students, I know you are dedicated to their advancement. That sealed the deal for me.”
