Costello College of Business News

George Mason University announced today that the Center for Retail Transformation at the university’s School of Business has entered into a partnership with TruRating, a customer experience and insights company with offices in London, Atlanta, and Sydney.

By the time Enayah Smith stepped on George Mason University’s campus for the first time as an enrolled student this fall, she was already more than a third done with her four-year degree.

In her 2021 PhD dissertation, Ashley Yuckenberg, a trained journalist and assistant professor of business communications at Mason, plumbs the ethical quandaries of crisis coverage—and provides a framework for guiding journalists through them.

Molly Gimmel’s career has long been dedicated to helping other women become outstanding leaders. For more than two decades, she has served as the CEO and co-founder of Design To Delivery Inc, a federal government contractor helping organizations manage acquisitions, contracts, and projects. Recently, she founded the Vellamo Leadership Institute, an online community where women can support and mentor each other. And in April her book, Master Your Mindset: How Women Leaders Step Up was released, revealing the attitudes of effective female leaders across industry to show the reader how she too can reach her full potential.

While most students were taking a break from their studies this summer, the student managers of Patriot Real Estate Funds raised $1.25 million for the second student-managed real estate investment fund at George Mason University. The Center for Real Estate Entrepreneurship (CREE) at the School of Business established the initial student-managed real estate investment fund in 2018 to provide students of the Masters in Real Estate Development (MRED) program  a unique experiential learning opportunity. With real money raised from outside investors, this is one of only a few similar programs offered at universities across the country, and allows students the chance to study, recommend, and manage investments in commercial real estate properties in the metropolitan Washington, D.C. area.

Ajay Vinzé, the new dean of George Mason University’s School of Business, recently sat down for an interview, discussing his vision for the school, his background, his thoughts on education and his Instagram account for his dog. He joined Mason July 1.

On the afternoon of Tuesday, July 19, members of the School of Business Alumni Chapter, joined by Dean Ajay Vinzé, took time out of their busy schedules to give back to the local community. At the Food for Others warehouse in Fairfax, the group assembled hundreds of power packs of food for students facing food insecurity.

Long before COVID was a household word, Dr. Ajay Vinzé, now dean of Mason’s business school, helped pioneer a collaboration with public-health officials in Maricopa County, Arizona, to help predict possible outcomes of various interventions as part of research on pandemic response. Vinzé calls this nearly decade-long partnership “a major part of my research and professional journey.”

Alumni share their advice to fellow alumni.

Brian Ngac and Nirup Menon, from the information systems and operations management area at the School of Business, were recently awarded a $100,000 grant from the Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) located in Arlington, Virginia. This Commonwealth Cyber Initiative Grant was awarded for their proposal to develop a new experiential learning program that will engage students and companies from the Commonwealth.