Welcome back to our Professor Profiles! In this series, we spotlight two standout professors from each of the M7 business schools, exploring their research, careers, and the ideas that define their work.
In this article, we’re taking a look at two professors from Columbia Business School: Sheena Lyengar and Bruce Greenwald.
Sheena Iyengar
Columbia’s Business School’s Sheena Iyengar holds the position of inaugural S.T. Lee Professor of Business in the Management Division.
Iyengar is known for teaching her groundbreaking course, “Think Bigger.” The course teaches students how to apply, via a six-step method, the lessons of cognitive science to their own thinking, enabling them to generate genuinely innovative ideas. The method posits creativity not as an innate talent, but as something teachable. Iyengar’s explores the courses’ teachings in her 2022 book of the same name.
Alongside this course, Iyengar teaches the “Innovation Salon,” which addresses the issues of industry today via a forum of students, alumni, faculty, and Innovation Fellows.
Iyengar’s Research
Her reputation as an expert on choice and decision-making is global. She began her research in the field as an undergraduate at Wharton, and continued into her social psychology PhD dissertation “Choice and its Discontents” at Stanford. For this, Iyengar won the Best Dissertation Award, shortly followed by the Presidential Early Career Award. In 2012, Columbia Business School awarded her the Dean’s Award for Outstanding Core Teaching.
Her awards are numerous: the Financial Times and Goldman Sachs Business named her book, “The Art of Choosing,” Book of the Year 2010; the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and The Economist regularly cite her research; the Today Show, the Daily Show, and Fareed Zakaria’s GPS on CNN have featured appearances from her; and more than four million people have watched her TED Talks.
Throughout her courses, Iyengar’s teaching style prioritizes practical application and interdisciplinary thinking. She draws on her expertise in psychology to design classes that prompt students to apply their learnings to real-world entrepreneurial problems.
The student reviews that Sheena Iyengar receives for her Think Bigger course speak for themselves:
- “[This is] one of the most impactful courses because every lecture about the Think Bigger Method allowed me to view the world in a different lens.”
- “The Choice Map is a powerful tool that allowed me to transform from an average minded person to a creative one.”
- “A must-take course before graduating from Columbia. A course that will have great impacts on your creative mind. The Think Bigger method is a magical tool you will always find handy in the future. Overall, be prepared to get amazed by every lecture.”
Sheena Iyengar can be found on LinkedIn, X, and Google Scholar.
Bruce Greenwald
Bruce Greenwald is the Robert Heilbrunn Professor Emeritus of Finance and Asset Management in Columbia Business School’s Accounting Division. He has been a part of Columbia faculty since 1991, is the academic Director of the school’s Heilbrunn Center for Graham & Dodd Investing, and teaches courses that include:
- Economics of Strategic Behavior
- Value Investing
- Value Investing with Legend
- Globalization and Markets and the Changing Economic Landscape
- Globalization of Markets
- Strategic Management of Media
Prior to his appointment at Columbia Business School, Greenwald received a BS in electrical engineering from MIT in 1967, an MS in electrical engineering and MPA from Princeton University in 1969, and a PhD from MIT in economics in 1978. He also served as a research economist at Bell Laboratories and as an assistant professor at Harvard Business School.
Greenwald’s Research
Bruce Greenwald’s expertise lies in value investing, competitive advantage, and the economics of information. In particular, he researches the extent to which these fields influence the potential of a business to expand, and the value which it intrinsically holds. His in-depth knowledge has earned him a reputation as a leading authority amongst MBAs and hedge fund managers alike; the New York Times even described him as “a guru to Wall Street’s gurus.” His books on the topic include “Value Investing: From Graham to Buffett and Beyond” and “Competition Demystified.”
Bruce Greenwald is famed for his ability to make the complex simple; to turn the murky details of valuation and competitive analysis into concise, actionable insight for investors. This talent for clarity makes him a popular teacher: Columbia has awarded him with the Columbia University Presidential Teaching Award, and students jostle for spots in his oversubscribed classes. One former student explained Bruce’s popularity as coming down to his “ability to make something complex seem simple and easy to understand.”
Bruce Greenwald can be found on LinkedIn and Google Scholar.
