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Professor Profiles: Baba Shiv, Stanford Graduate School of Business

Many MBA applicants feel that they are purchasing a brand when they choose a business school. However, the educational experience you will have is what is crucial to your future, and no one will affect your education more than your professors. Today, we profile Baba Shiv from the Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB).

“Baba Shiv is a legend,” said a first-year GSB student with whom we spoke. Baba Shiv, the Sanwa Bank, Limited, Professor of Marketing who also teaches in the executive MBA program, received his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management and his PhD from Duke University before joining the Stanford GSB faculty in 2005. Shiv was also the Amman Mineral Faculty Fellow for the 2020–2021 academic year. Shiv’s research concentration is in the area of neuroeconomics, and he focuses his studies on the systems of the brain that lead individuals to like and want things and how those systems shape people’s decisions. His work explores self-control and why people make certain choices, even when logic tells them that those choices may not be in their best interest. During the 2020–2021 academic year, Shiv taught the elective course “Designing Solutions by Leveraging the Frinky Science of the Human Mind.”

A GSB alumni magazine article once described Shiv as “a favorite uncle who is always interested in your life and eager to talk about new, exciting ideas,” and Dan Ariely, a colleague of Shiv’s and a professor at Duke Fuqua, noted in the same article, “Shiv’s mere presence makes everything around him seem better.” A second year and Marketing Club officer told mbaMission that Shiv “tries to be a career resource for people who want to pursue marketing careers” and is “engaging and exciting to listen to. He is one of the favorite members of the whole faculty; people love him.”

For more information about the Stanford GSB and 16 other top-ranked business schools, check out our free mbaMission Insider’s Guides.



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