Modupe Akinola

Modupe Akinola is the Barbara and David Zalaznick Professor of Business and the Faculty Director of the Bernstein Center for Leadership and Ethics at Columbia Business School. Her research examines how organizational environments engender stress, and how this stress influences individual and organizational performance. She also studies workforce diversity, including the biases that affect the recruitment and retention of women and people of color in organizations. Akinola has published on these topics in leading scholarly and practitioner-oriented journals such as Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Psychological Science, Academy of Management Journal, and Harvard Business Review. Her research has been widely covered in media outlets such as The New York Times, NPR, The Wall Street Journal, Scientific American, The Financial Times, and The Economist

Akinola is one of the most highly rated business school professors at Columbia Business School and received the School's Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2015. She co-heads and teaches the required first-year leadership course in the Columbia Business School MBA program, and chairs two executive offerings: Developing Black Leaders in Financial Services and Advancing Racial Equity. She teaches extensively in executive programs such as the Advanced Management Program and the Senior Leaders Program for Nonprofit Professionals. 

Akinola received her PhD from Harvard University in Organizational Behavior, where she was awarded Harvard Business School’s Wyss Award for Excellence in Doctoral Research. She holds a BA, magna cum laude, and an MA in psychology from Harvard University. She also holds an MBA from Harvard Business School.

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