“Thank you for your generous support of Columbia Business School during the 2025—2026 academic year.”
Costis Maglaras
Dean and the David and Lyn Silfen Professor of Business
Thank you for your generous support of Columbia Business School during the 2025–2026 academic year. Your commitment enables us to educate the innovative leaders needed to address today's complex global challenges, and your philanthropy ensures we can attract the most talented students, regardless of their financial circumstances.
With your help, we continue to advance key strategic priorities that shape the future of business:
- Integrating AI throughout the curriculum through a new core course and 21 specialized electives.
- Maintaining strong career outcomes for our students, with 92% of the Class of 2025 receiving full-time employment offers within three months of graduation.
- Fostering an entrepreneurial community linked to the success of 26 'unicorn' startups.
- Expanding the reach of faculty research, generating 21 million social media impressions and 476,000 article views to share CBS insights with a global audience.
As we look ahead, we are energized by the opportunities before us. CBS’s location in New York City provides unparalleled opportunities for our students and faculty to engage with the ideas and industries shaping the future. At the same time, we are investing in AI capabilities across teaching, research, and operations to ensure CBS remains at the forefront of business education and thought leadership.
Central to these efforts is our commitment to attracting the most talented students, regardless of financial circumstances. Your philanthropic support plays a critical role in opening doors for future students and fostering the vibrant intellectual community that defines the Columbia experience.
On behalf of our faculty, students, and staff, thank you for your partnership. Your dedication strengthens our mission today and ensures our impact for generations to come.
All the best,
Costis Maglaras
Dean and the David and Lyn Silfen Professor of Business
Your support is opening doors, transforming lives, and sustaining Columbia Business School in lasting ways. Every gift—regardless of size or designation—helps further our mission to educate principled leaders, generate new ideas, and prepare graduates who will shape business and society. Because of your partnership, talented students can pursue a Columbia education, faculty can tackle urgent global questions through research, and forward-looking programs continue to evolve with the needs of a changing world.
The impact of your philanthropy can be seen across our community—in expanded access to financial aid, dynamic teaching and learning, pioneering research, and experiences that prepare students to lead with purpose.
Thank you for investing in the people and ideas that will shape the future of business.
Total Gifts
$51.7M
Total Donors
4,280
Help Tell the Story
The Columbia Business School story is written every day by the students, faculty, alumni, donors, and partners who make our community exceptional. If your Columbia experience has been shaped by philanthropy—or you've seen firsthand how giving changes what's possible—we invite you to share your story.
Your Annual Fund support helped create opportunities that transformed lives:
- Opening doors through scholarships,
- Supporting veterans through the Yellow Ribbon Program, and
- Fueling faculty research.
Your gift provided the flexibility to invest where it mattered most, empowering Columbia Business School to seize new opportunities, support exceptional students and faculty, and carry ideas forward that shape the future of business and society. Together, this commitment created a lasting impact across the School and beyond.
Thank you for making this work possible.
9.1M
Total Unrestricted Gifts
% Unrestricted Donors by giving level
- <$100
- $101–$9999
- $10K+ (Hermes Society)
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The Columbia Business School Annual Fund is built on the steadfast commitment of members of the Hermes Leadership Society. As the backbone of the Annual Fund, their leadership-level investments provide the flexible resources that allow the School to respond to its greatest priorities and pursue new opportunities. Their support expands scholarships, advances faculty research, enriches the student experience, and ensures Columbia Business School has the resources to invest boldly in its future.
Supporting Veterans through the Yellow Ribbon Program
Columbia Business School is proud to welcome those who have served our country by expanding access to a CBS education through the Yellow Ribbon Program. In partnership with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, this Annual Fund program provides financial assistance to military veterans pursuing their MBAs. Veterans enrich the CBS community with resilience, global perspective, and a deep sense of service, and we are honored to welcome them into our classrooms and community. Your continued support ensures that these exceptional individuals can thrive at CBS and beyond, deepening our mission to educate leaders who make a difference in the world.
Behind every scholarship awarded, every research discovery, and every new opportunity is a community of people whose lives have been changed by philanthropy. Your support empowers exceptional students to pursue bold goals, helps faculty generate ideas that influence business and society, and connects alumni through experiences that keep the CBS community vibrant.
The stories shared here reflect the meaningful impact of your support. Together, we are opening doors, creating opportunity, and helping the next generation of leaders make a difference. Thank you for believing in the promise of Columbia Business School.
Our Students
At Columbia Business School, exceptional talent comes from every background and every corner of the world. Your philanthropy helps ensure that promising students can pursue a transformative education, regardless of financial circumstances, and fully engage in the academic, professional, and personal opportunities that define CBS.
Jessica Weiss, MBA Class of 2026
“This award made attending CBS (and fully engaging once here) possible. I come from a working-class background, where financial instability shaped every decision. The aid gave me the freedom to leave my job on Wall Street and pivot toward a mission-driven career in economic policy. I've been able to take courses like Bridging the American Divide, intern at the Federal Reserve, and speak openly in class about my lived experiences. That kind of full participation would not have been possible without this support.”
Quamid Francis, EMBA Class of 2027
“The Yellow Ribbon funding has been deeply impactful for my Columbia Business School experience—both practically and personally. As a Marine Corps veteran, I have always viewed education as a form of national service: a way to translate discipline, leadership, and resilience from the battlefield to the boardroom. The Yellow Ribbon Program has made that translation possible, ensuring that my pursuit of an Executive MBA at Columbia is grounded not in financial anxiety, but in purpose, focus, and long-term commitment to impact. From a financial standpoint, the Yellow Ribbon funding has been liberating.”
Huajian Wu, MBAxMS Class of 2026
“Financial aid has significantly enriched my CBS experience by allowing me to fully commit to my MBAxMS journey. The program challenges me to think with two hats—combining hands-on engineering coursework in AI and machine learning with CBS's strategic business and management curriculum. It's pushed me to bridge technical depth with business leadership in every decision. Beyond academics, I've found a tight-knit community of dual degree classmates, many of whom hold leadership roles across CBS clubs. We constantly support and inspire each other, creating a powerful environment of shared growth, collaboration, and purpose.”
Mark Perez Clanton, PhD Class of 2028
“I have long been interested in how public policy shapes households’ financial decisions, but during my undergraduate studies I felt I lacked the tools to address these questions rigorously. Pursuing a PhD in Finance at Columbia Business School has given me the chance to build the quantitative and computational skills needed to study them in depth. Since starting the program, I have explored topics such as how student loan repayment plans affect borrowing and how homeowners respond to climate-related disasters. All in all, I have found Columbia to be a very supportive environment, where faculty are deeply invested in their students' growth.”
$30.5M
Financial Aid – MBA
% Financial Aid – MBA by source
- Endowed Scholarship Funds — 39%
- Current Use Funds — 23%
- Operating Funds — 39%
Our Faculty
World-class faculty are at the heart of Columbia Business School's impact. Your philanthropy empowers our professors to pursue high-impact research, explore emerging challenges, and bring new ideas into the classroom. By investing in faculty excellence, you help generate insights that influence business practice, inform public policy, and prepare students to navigate an ever more complex and interconnected world.
Graduating from business school has always meant understanding the moment and being prepared to thrive in a changing world. For Columbia Business School’s Class of 2026, that challenge is shaped by AI, climate change, and a fast-paced world. We asked Columbia Business School faculty to share the advice they most wanted this year’s graduates to carry forward. Below are a few examples of their responses.
"You are entering the workforce at the exact moment the entry-level job—the one that was supposed to teach you everything—is disappearing. That is frightening, and it is also, if you are paying attention, an opening."
The practitioners closest to this technology are unanimous on one thing that should reorient how you think about the next five years: AI makes domain expertise more valuable, not less. You can learn to prompt-engineer in a week. You cannot learn to read a balance sheet, understand a credit cycle, or know when a deal smells wrong in a week. The returns to going genuinely deep in something—an industry, a function, a problem—are rising, precisely because AI is commoditizing the surface.
That is your real competitive asset: Not the tools on your resume, but your willingness to interrogate the output, sit with the uncomfortable answer, and know enough to recognize when the machine is confidently wrong.
The career ladder you were promised may not exist in the form you expected. Build the expertise anyway. Go deep. Stay curious. And when the AI gives you an answer, be the person in the room who knows whether to believe it.
Shivaram Rajgopal
Roy Bernard Kester and T.W. Byrnes Professor of Accounting and Auditing, Accounting Division
"As you step into a rapidly changing world shaped by technological breakthroughs, you have an exciting future ahead—one in which your capabilities will be amplified by AI and other emerging innovations."
The greatest value of your time at Columbia Business School may not lie in the specific skills you've acquired, but in the deeper capacity you've developed: the ability to learn, unlearn, and relearn. Stay curious. Question your assumptions. Seek out perspectives that challenge you. Treat every new tool, idea, or disruption not as a threat, but as an opportunity to grow.
You don't need to have everything figured out. What matters is your ability to adapt, to think critically, and to keep moving forward even when the path is uncertain.
The future belongs to those who remain lifelong learners.
Lori Yue
Associate Professor of Business, Management Division
"Even with everything going on in the world, there's still so much reason for hope, optimism, excitement, and joy. What I wish for all of our students is that they be present for as many moments in life as possible."
What can tend to happen is that we all can look into the future and think, "Once I arrive, or once I achieve this or that, then I will enjoy life." Don't put off joy for tomorrow.
There can be so many good moments in a day, and relishing those moments matters.
Adina Sterling
Katherine W. Phillips Associate Professor of Business, Management Division
Read more advice from CBS faculty here.
Share your story and give your own advice to CBS students.
Our Alumni
The impact of a Columbia Business School education extends far beyond graduation. Our alumni lead organizations, launch ventures, shape industries, and serve communities around the world, carrying the values and knowledge of CBS into every field. Your gifts strengthen this community by supporting meaningful engagement, lifelong learning, and opportunities for alumni to connect, mentor, and inspire the next generation of business leaders.
Annual Awards Dinner
The 48th Annual Awards Dinner was a wonderful event recognizing the achievements of exceptional figures in business. This year, we were delighted to present our inaugural Distinguished Innovator Award and Distinguished Leadership in Business Award.
The event was co-chaired by Maria L. Chrin ’89, CEO and Managing Partner of Circle Wealth Management, and Shankh Mitra ’09, CEO of Welltower Inc. It was our great pleasure to celebrate the School, support its future through the Annual Fund, and recognize this year’s honorees.
Co-founder & CEO
K Health
Distinguished Innovator Award
Chairman & CEO
Gilead Sciences
Distinguished Leadership in Business Award
View More on the Annual Awards Dinner→
The Ultimate ROI: Forty-Five Years of Love and Lessons
For many alumni, Columbia Business School is the foundation of a career, but for Sandy and Teri, it was also the foundation of a lifetime together. What began as a brief flirtation on college walk right in front of Alma Mater, eventually led to forty-five years of love. Today, they remain dedicated to each other and to CBS, the place where it all began. Their story serves as a beautiful reminder that the best investments we make are often in people.
Each person’s path to Columbia Business School is different.
The reasons and ways they give back are just as unique.
"Ahead of Her Time"
Frances W. Miller '40BC '42BUS was a woman ahead of her time.
When she proposed her graduate thesis topic to Columbia Business School (CBS), Frances chose something close to her heart: marketing her hometown team, the Brooklyn Dodgers, to women to bolster attendance at baseball games.
Her topic was rejected.
Nevertheless, she graduated from CBS with a master's degree, a life partner, Jerome Miller '42BUS—whom she met on the steps of Low Library during their first year of business school—and a lifelong affection for Columbia.
Frances W. Miller
'40BC '42BUS
"Part of My Family for 50 Years"
During her lifetime, Susan Alexion '79BUS called Columbia her "second home."
Susan began her Columbia career in the offices of the Engineering School (today, the FU Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science). After that, she went to work at the School of Nursing, where she became assistant dean to Mary Crawford.
When Dean Crawford encouraged her to pursue a degree in business, Susan went on to earn an Executive MBA from Columbia Business School (CBS) where, she said, she "gained more in self-confidence than in book learning."
"Columbia has been part of my family for more than 50 years, both as a staff member and as an alumna," she said.
Susan Alexion
'79BUS
Thoughtful gift planning donors are crucial to the financial health of Columbia Business School. With many different gift planning options, you can make an important investment in Columbia’s future and leave a legacy that fits your philanthropic goals. In addition, these gifts can provide significant benefits, including sizeable income, gift, and estate tax deductions; favorable capital gains tax treatment, and income for you and your family.
The future of business demands new ideas, new approaches, and graduates prepared to navigate constant change. Your philanthropy gives Columbia Business School the flexibility to evolve—enriching our curriculum, expanding research, and creating experiences that prepare students to lead with insight and purpose.
Through your support, CBS continues to push the boundaries of business education, equipping students with the knowledge, skills, and perspective to lead in an ever more complex world. At the same time, our faculty bring new thinking to the questions shaping business and society. Thank you for helping ensure that Columbia Business School remains at the forefront of innovation and thought leadership.
In the age of AI, the MBA must go ‘one level deeper’
At The MBA Transformed? AI and Beyond symposium, Columbia Business School convened top academics to explore 3 ways AI reshapes business education.
Learn more
Teaching the leadership skill AI can’t replace
At Columbia Business School, “Leadership Intelligence in the AI Era” teaches managers to carry human judgment into data-saturated organizations.
Read more
Why speaking to AI may be better for brainstorming
At Columbia Business School, students debate CAiSEY, an AI adversary, by voice or text.
Read more
Markets learn the most when executives are forced to improvise
A new study using a language-based model finds that “curveball questions” can force executives off script, revealing signals investors quickly seize on.
Read more
‘NYC is part of the program whether it’s on the syllabus or not’
Three new Columbia Business School graduates reflect on the skills, experiences, and mindsets shaping what comes next.
Read moreCenters, Programs, and Institutes
Columbia Business School's centers, programs, and institutes are taking on some of the most critical business challenges of our time. Translating academic theory into real-world practice, each of these (more than a dozen) vital hubs tackles a different area of societal impact, from healthcare and climate change to entrepreneurship and state-of-the-art AI technology, through an interdisciplinary lens. Their impactful curricular, research, and programming initiatives are designed to offer a variety of resources, opportunities, and fresh insights to the entire CBS community, on and off Columbia's campuses.
Helped CBS offer 21 AI-related course electives, with seven new classes introduced in Spring 2026, and launched five executive education programs focused on AI and emerging technologies.
Faculty adoption of AI-enabled teaching tools continues to grow. In 2025-2026, CAiSEY (a voice-based AI learning platform created by CBS Professor Dan Wang) engaged more than 4,100 students across 27 MBA, MS, and EMBA sections.
Awarded Loan Assistance Program funding to 33 CBS alumni and supported 450+ Fair Chance Futures program fellows.
"The Loan Assistance Program gives me the space to focus on work that matters deeply to me and to the people it serves, reducing the financial pressure that often pulls people away from public interest careers."
— A Member of the Class of 2024
"The hardest thing about returning home from prison was figuring out what to do with my life that could actually provide meaning. Fair Chance Futures helped me bridge the gap between incarceration and moving forward in a way where I could meaningfully contribute to society."
— A Former FCF Fellow Who Is Now a Columbia Undergraduate Student
Its CBS Startups Week brought together more than 1,000 students, alumni, founders, and investors for a special celebration of entrepreneurship and innovation.
"The Lang Center's Columbia Build Lab enables founders to create tangible results in as little as one semester."
— A Member of the Class of 2025
Celebrating its 35th anniversary in 2026, it hosted 11 Study Tours and 12 Global Immersion Programs, while 53 second-year MBA students studied abroad at leading business schools around the world.
"This Chazen Institute-organized trip has been a highlight of my CBS experience!"
— A Member of the Class of 2026
Thank You!
Thank you for your partnership and your belief in Columbia Business School. Your support creates opportunities, fuels discovery, and prepares the next generation of leaders to make a lasting impact on business and society. Together, we are building a stronger, more innovative, and more accessible future, and we are deeply grateful to have you as part of this community.