Leadership & management

Buying a company is just the beginning. UVA Darden’s Les Alexander and alumni CEOs share what separates post-acquisition success from failure.

Effective leadership demands integrity, vision and ethics — as well as the ability to inspire these qualities in others. Confucianism, an ancient Chinese philosophy, offers timeless insight for cultivating these virtues. In a new technical note, Darden Professor Ming-Jer Chen presents a practical guide for applying Confucian thinking to modern business.

New research from UVA Darden’s Kimberly A. Whitler finds that underpaying your CMO relative to the CFO could stunt the firm’s revenue growth. When CMOs feel undervalued, their performance falters — and so does revenue. The fix? Pay your marketing chief on par with finance.

The Savannah Bananas have turned baseball upside down with a culture that prizes innovation — and accepts failure. A new case by Darden's Professor Les Alexander explores how owners Jesse and Emily Cole disrupted the sport by building a fans-first brand. What comes next for the Bananas and the modified game of baseball they invented, Banana Ball?

Writing for The Conversation, Christoph Herpfer, an assistant professor of finance at UVA Darden, and colleagues, explore the enduring effects a government shutdown would have on the federal workforce, 

From impoverished orphan immigrant to America’s first secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton combined bold vision with fatal flaws. Darden professor Scott C. Miller delves into the founding father’s varied career and distills timeless lessons on leadership and the dangers of hubris.

The chief marketing officer is often blamed for poor growth performance. But new research from UVA Darden’s Kimberly A. Whitler suggests that the fault could lie in the design of the CMO role.

Impostor syndrome has become a go-to explanation for why smart, capable people doubt themselves at work. A new integrative review, co-authored by UVA Darden Professor Sean Martin, challenges many of our assumptions about impostor syndrome — and offers a more productive way forward.

Entrepreneurship Through Acquisition (ETA) offers MBAs a path to business ownership. UVA Darden’s Professor Les Alexander breaks down four key funding models — Traditional, Self-Funded, Accelerator and Sponsored — highlighting trade-offs in control, risk and equity.

In today’s volatile global business environment, CEOs face unprecedented complexity and scrutiny. Here are 10 strategic imperatives for the modern CEO, drawn from UVA Darden's faculty research, timely case studies and external partnerships.