By Cheechee Lin
Today marked the kickoff of this year’s Applied Management Research program. The AMR program provides second-year MBA candidates the opportunity to work closely with companies to deliver professional-grade consulting reports. This year there are 56 student groups for the fall/winter period and five groups scheduled to work on projects in the spring. They will be collaborating with companies from all over the world spanning various industries, including sports, entertainment, technology and nonprofits. This year marked a record 117 companies applying to take part in AMR.
The UCLA Anderson AMR program is the world’s inaugural MBA field-study program. MBA candidates choose to either participate in the AMR program or the Business Creation Option as their thesis project. Students form groups in the spring of their first year and select their project during the summer. In addition to the 56 AMR project groups, nine student groups opted for the BCO entrepreneurship program. Final presentations will be held on March 13, 2015.
Dean Judy Olian gave a warm welcome to the participating students and companies. She emphasized the importance of AMR as an "integrated experience that would help the students develop functional expertise," and told the story of PanAmSat, a successful AMR project that was later sold for $5 billion. WWE senior director of talent development and Anderson alumnus Canyon Ceman (’05) shared that his company is returning for a second year in the program because of the value the students bring to WWE. He complimented Anderson students on their “out of the box creative ideas, open-minded optimism and pro-active positivity.”
Michael Peck (’15) said he and his team are very enthusiastic about being partnered with Riot Games. “We’re particularly excited to be working with a growing company that has a global reach and a true passion for the product,” he said.
For more on AMR, head to their homepage.
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