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 “Everyone That I Work with Strives for Something Great”

Meet some of the dedicated staff who exemplify the spirit of Stanford GSB.

written by Michael McDowell

Arthel Coleman Jr. was born at Stanford Hospital. His father worked at Stanford for 25 years, and Arthel has been a member of the staff at Stanford GSB for nearly two decades. Today you’ll find him at the Schwab Residential Center, where he welcomes new students every fall with a smile and one of more than 150 signature bowties.

“I know everyone that I work with strives for something great,” says Arthel, director of hospitality services. “And that’s the thing that I don’t want to see ever change about Stanford business school: that we’re always striving for something great.”

This sense of shared purpose unites the school’s staff. “If you just can change a little bit of the world, that’s all you really need to do,” says Nancy Gross, an operations manager in the MBA and MSx programs. “And I just feel that every day here.”

On this episode of GSB at 100, you’ll hear from the dedicated and accomplished staff members who work behind the scenes to make Stanford GSB a community unlike anywhere else in the world.

Full Transcript

Note: This transcript was generated by an automated system and has been lightly edited for clarity. It may contain errors or omissions.

Courtney Payne: Stanford Graduate School of Business, this is Courtney. How may I help you?

Kevin Cool: Meet Courtney Payne. Today, she’s the director of student support for the MBA and MSX programs.

Courtney Payne: So my first job at the GSB was as the front desk receptionist for the school.

Kevin Cool: This was about 30 years ago, when the GSB was housed in a single building and still had a front desk.

Courtney Payne: I especially enjoyed it when there was an alum who would tell a story like, “Well, I ran into a classmate and it occurred to me that I’ve moved,” or, “I changed a job,” or whatever, “And perhaps you all might want to know.”

Kevin Cool: At the time, updating this contact information was a bit of a challenge, which meant Courtney had to improvise.

Courtney Payne: This is the mid-’90s, right? So it was not the beautiful user interfaces that we had now. I had to keep the warm on the line while I navigated sometimes 10 screens into the correct screen and find their alumni record. So I had sort of a narrative of questions that I would ask them to keep them talking, “Well, gosh, it looks like you’re 17 years out now from your time as a student here, are there courses that you still draw upon today?”

Kevin Cool: Years later, a few themes from these conversations have stayed with her.

Courtney Payne: One, the continuing bonds that they had with their classmates and how not only did they remain, but they deepened over time as those relationships were tested with the different slings and arrows of life that can happen as you move through your late-20s and 30s and 40s and so on. And two the way, and I remember an alum explained this to me, the way what they learned in the classroom and in the materials also deepened over time. An alum said, “It turns out that the education at the GSB was like fine wine, and I didn’t realize it at the time. I was sipping it when I was there and it was good, but I didn’t realize how much I was bottling up for later,” and that’s part of what led me to want to get closer into the student experience because as someone who thought of themselves as an educator and was interested in the educational process, I wanted to learn more about that and be part of it.

Kevin Cool: Thirty years later, Courtney is an important part of that experience, including its finale.

Courtney Payne: If you’ve ever watched our graduation ceremony or the webcast, and if you see a white-haired woman silently nodding her head every six seconds, that’s me. I’m cueing the name reading while I’m watching the movement of the graduates and the handling of the diploma cases by the deans and the moving down the lines of names to read by our name readers and making sure it’s all flowing correctly and staying on time, it also means that I am standing next to a graduate as their name is called, and it’s really fun.

I tell them in line up beforehand, I say, “Okay, here’s what’s going to happen, I’m going to be standing next to you. I’m so concentrated on everything else other than the person next to me, it’s not a great time to talk to me. Please do not distract me because I don’t want to mess it up for you.” But some of them just can’t resist and it’s actually very, very sweet. They’ll give me a little tap on the shoulder or whisper like, “Thank you so much, Courtney.” And it’s one of the most cup-filling days that I get to be part of every year.

Kevin Cool: The GSB may be best known for its faculty and for its ideas, but it’s also the staff who help give the school its distinctive character. They are capable and accomplished. They are leaders and strategists and they keep this place running as if it was on rails. Perhaps more importantly, these men and women exemplify the school’s spirit. They also happen to have a lot of great stories, a few of which we’ll share with you today.

On this second episode of GSB at 100, you’ll get a view from the inside and hear from a few of those men and women whose day-to-day efforts power an institution that changes lives, organizations and the world. This is GSB at 100, I’m your host, Kevin Cool.

Kevin Cool: Change lives, change organizations, change the world. You’ve heard that motto a few times on this podcast. Now we’re going to tell you where it came from.

Barbara Buell: My name is Barbara Buell, and I was director of communications at Stanford GSB for a number of years, from the mid-’90s to 2015.

Kevin Cool: Barbara was responsible for telling the school’s story.

Barbara Buell: Around 2002, the director of admissions and the senior associate dean for operations and others really wanted to try to capture what was special about the GSB and what would it mean to come here and get a degree. And so I was charged with trying to develop a tagline.

Kevin Cool: Distilling what’s special about the GSB in a few words wouldn’t be easy.

Barbara Buell: The first thing I did was to consult with the admissions director, then Derrick Bolton, who suggested that I talk with Jim Coulter.

Kevin Cool: Jim Coulter, an alum (MBA Class of 1986), was a member of the Dean’s Advisory Council. That’s a group of leaders who provide strategic guidance, perspective, and support to the dean, who at that time was Robert Joss.

Barbara Buell: And so he came back with the idea that it was about change and about impact, and he gave me a lot of different phrases and ideas about that, but really it honed in on change and impact.

Kevin Cool: What happened next was a great example of how this place works.

Barbara Buell: We threw it around for a while and then I brought together a group of staff who represented all areas of the school, executive education, development (that’s fundraising), admissions, some of the centers where programs are held, of course people from marketing and news and publications. And it was around 2002, and so basically I got everyone in the room, I basically locked them in with some donuts and said, “we’re not leaving until we come out of here with a tagline.”

And we finally came out with this three sentence imperative, which was, “change lives, change organizations, change the world.”

It was chosen because it had energy. It implied that there was a lot of thought at GSB that actually translated into action in the real world. So changed lives was about changing the lives of our students and changing the organizations they go into and then making change in the world whether you were in a large organization, a bank say, or whether you were in an entrepreneurial startup or whether you were in a non-profit. So it was just felt that this was an emotional call to action that kind of brought the GSB to life.

Kevin Cool: Across campus, this phrase comes to life every day. At the GSB Residences, one person has helped thousands of students find a home away from home for nearly 20 years.

Arthel Coleman: My first name is Arthel, my middle name is D’Antoine, last name is Coleman, and I am a junior. My father worked here on campus for 25 years. His name is Arthel too, hence the junior. And you can find me over at the Schwab Residential Center, aka the GSB Residences, but more specifically the Schwab Residential Center Tower Lobby where my office is stationed behind the front desk.

Kevin Cool: Arthel and his team manage about 480 rooms. This involves everything from move-ins and maintenance to caring for the students who live there.

Arthel Coleman: Whether you’re a part of the MBA, whether you’re a part of the MSX, PhD program, whether you’re an Executive Education participant, I view this all as a living and learning environment, a home away from home.

Kevin Cool: And sometimes that means going off script.

Arthel Coleman: There was a student who came into our office one day and clearly was just in an emotional state. She had gone through a breakup and she was sad and it was just, your heart went out to her because clearly it was an emotional moment for her and it was raining outside and I thought a fun thing to do to cheer her up would be to go dance in the rain.

And so I take off outside, I get on the picnic table and we’re dancing, I’m dancing, we’re dancing. It’s fun, I’m laughing, she’s laughing. And there was a moment of euphoria there where it felt like despite all of the stress and things that are going on that it’s okay. It’s going to be okay.

Kevin Cool: Year after year, the work and warmth of people like Arthel sustain the rhythm of life at the GSB.

Nancy Gross: If you just can change a little bit of the world, that’s all you really need to do, and I just feel that every day here.

Kevin Cool: Nancy Gross is an operations manager in the MBA and MSX office.

Nancy Gross: I am the first point of contact for the students who have already matriculated to the GSB. The first time they meet me is during orientation and they’re brought in and somebody has told them that Nancy Gross knows all the answers. I then correct that and say, “I may not know all the answers, but I promise you I will try to get all the answers.” And that’s what I do. They come to my desk, they can ask me about academics, they can ask me about personal issues, they can ask me anything they want and I make it friendly. I always have a smile because they bring a smile. It’s not a fake smile, I’m so happy to meet them and I always have candy.

Kevin Cool: For 25 years, Nancy has contributed to the intangibles that define the GSB: culture, community, and spirit. She hopes her work, and how she goes about it have a lasting impact, influencing what students do and how they contribute to business, government, and society.

Nancy Gross: If I encouraged them while they were here to do their projects, to go forward with what they wanted to do, then I felt that I was part of that.

Kevin Cool: Nancy hopes the values she cherishes endure even a hundred years from now.

Nancy Gross: I hope they’re looking back on the fact that Stanford knew what people needed and it grew with it, and it encouraged the best faculty in the world to come and stay here and educate people to the best of their ability. I think that the people that graduate from the GSB and from Stanford will make the world a better place.

Kevin Cool: That bright future depends on the students who pass through the GSB, the faculty who teach them, and the staff who support this work.

Su Elliott: My name is Susan Elliott. You can call me Su.

Kevin Cool: Su is the director of faculty support services, which means she works with professors on everything from refining syllabi to big picture projects, and this behind the scenes work has given Su a front row seat to what happens in the classroom itself. For years, she worked with Professor of Finance, Amit Seru.

Su Elliott: I had the privilege for close to three years sitting in on his class, and it was amazing to watch and it made me realize what I’m actually sharing in and what a privilege that is to be a part of education that actually does change lives.

I watch the faculty as they’re teaching these classrooms and because they’re so engaged with the students, you can see the difference it makes on their faces. They are staring at that professor, at their very… Every word means so much to them and engaging after class to speak with them, it literally would bring tears to my eyes just watching it take place.

Kevin Cool: Outside of the classroom, Su has seen the GSB itself evolve. Before the school moved to its current campus, the Knight Management Center, its faculty, students, and staff shared much cozier quarters, including in a building called Littlefield.

Su Elliott: We had one coffee room and we all shared it and we went to the coffee lounge and we would get to know the faculty quite well, and we would bring in remote control cars and we would be up on the third floor of Littlefield and we would start racing the cars and we’d have George Parker come out and he would drive it and another faculty would come out and they would remote control the car and try and take it down the steps. And that part I do miss about Littlefield.

We were, I guess, fledglings growing as a school and building this beautiful, beautiful school. Littlefield was something very special, very, very special to all of us, I think.

Kevin Cool: Su also remembers longtime GSB lecturer, Bill Meehan, who died in 2023.

Su Elliott: He was such a genuine human being. I just, thinking of him, it brings a lot of emotion to my mind because he cared so much about everyone that he worked with.

Kevin Cool: Bill, a longtime McKinsey executive, taught several courses at the GSB for more than two decades. He recruited Su for a project that brought some of his former staff to the school, and their dedication left an impression.

Su Elliott: We would sit down and we would work endlessly for hours on how we wanted to present things. Finally, I asked them, I said, “You all are doing this for free, why do you do this? You’re here day in and day out, hours, and on the weekend, I mean, I’m working with you so I know you’re working.” And they said, “We could never pay Bill back for what he did for us.” And it wasn’t monetary, it was what he gave them in that company and how he put himself into that, which immediately made me realize that’s exactly what he’s doing here on our campus and what he’s giving our students.

Kevin Cool:  That same dedication flows throughout the GSB.

Diane Le, the assistant dean for the PhD program, is both strategist and steward, shaping the future of the program and supporting the scholars it produces.

Diane Le: I can remember exact moments when certain students have just found their research identity. You can see it in them. They talk differently. I remember them for specific students. It’s really that rewarding.

Kevin Cool: Diane and her team begin working with PhD students before they’re even admitted to the GSB and after they graduate, as they enter the job market.

Diane Le: You see someone who has been a consumer of knowledge for a very long time, has learned what they needed to learn, transform into a producer of knowledge and adding to literature and people’s understanding of organizations and business and management and government. And from there, they go on to become faculty at other business schools or other departments, or they join these organizations like the Fed or the World Bank, and they contribute to the world in really meaningful ways afterwards as experts.

Kevin Cool: As experts and as teachers. Diane remembers Professor of Economics Michael Ostrovsky when she worked at another school and he was a student there. This year, he was recognized for his work with students at the GSB.

Diane Le: He was awarded the 2025 PhD Distinguished Mentorship award, service award here. And to see him become faculty and then become an amazing scholar as well as a mentor to PhD students, that’s incredible.

Kevin Cool: It’s a reminder that the GSB is a community where teaching, learning, and mentoring build on each other over time, creating new knowledge.

Diane Le: So you see the full circle. And then, I’m so proud of some of the junior faculty as well because I’m like, “Oh, they were PhD students and now they’re junior faculty.” And then you see them become senior faculty and they take on leadership roles in their faculty positions. And it’s great that way. And I think Centennial allows you to reflect on the beginnings and ends in the continuation of all of this.

Kevin Cool: As the GSB marks its centennial, it also recalls its most recent milestone 75. Among those at the celebration in the year 2000 was Marlen Wells, someone whose acquaintance with the GSB spans nearly half of the school’s history.

Marlen Wells: 25 years ago I was younger, my husband was younger. We’re like, “Hey, let’s go party.” So it was nice. It was a big party and it was so much fun.

Kevin Cool: Marlen is a system administrator in digital solutions, the GSB’s IT department.

Marlen Wells: I was born in Cuba and my parents brought us here for a better life and my mom and dad worked four or five jobs to be able to give my sister and I education and all the things that they didn’t have. And we are very lucky to be where we are today because of all the struggles that they went through. So I really appreciate that.

Kevin Cool: Learning an emerging technology would ultimately lead Marlen to the GSB.

Marlen Wells: So I started in the athletic department. I started working in the mail room with my cousin, Ondina. She brought me in, I was 18 years old. I was loving working in the mail room with her. And then the athletic department decided to get something called a word processor, which way back then was really modern and they put it in a room and nobody knew how to use it.

Kevin Cool: This was back in 1979.

Marlen Wells: And I started using it and learned it. And I’m like, “I can do this. It’s no big deal.” And that’s how I got to the business school.

Kevin Cool: In her decades at the GSB, Marlen has watched up close as technology reshapes the way the school works.

Marlen Wells: You think about 45 years, it’s a long time, but technology has changed so much in that time that people will look back on what things were like in 1980 and it’s like dinosaur age, basically. If you saw a word processor right now, you’d go, “What is that? Is that a huge desk? And what’s that little slot on the side? I have no idea.” You wouldn’t even know that it’s a word processor. It would just look like a monitor on top of a desk. That’s the thing with the business school, we’ve always been ahead of the game.

Kevin Cool: Forty-five years later, we ask her what she hopes never changes about the GSB.

Marlen Wells: I hope that the camaraderie, the way people treat each other at the business school doesn’t change. You know, that kind of stuff, you know, and how we help each other and how we care about each other. I hope that doesn’t change.

Kevin Cool: Arthel Coleman, who we heard earlier, reminds us that while history and tradition matter, so too, does the constant push to aim higher.

Arthel Coleman: Based on my experience, I feel that people attend the business school because they are looking to transform themselves into something that is somewhat different from who they were before they got here. And you can only do that if you create an environment that allows for a certain level of innovation and growth. And I love the history of the school. I think that the history allows for the values to still stay intact while the innovating factor can still grow and continue. And so you still have the essence of what this school was built upon and those traditional foundational values of why the business school became what it became. But there’s the other side of always looking to be the best. I know everyone here that I work with strives for something great. And that’s the thing that I don’t want to see ever change about Stanford Business School, that we’re always striving for something great.

Kevin Cool: Courtney Payne points to a well-known work of art created by Peter Wegner.

Courtney Payne: It’s the cornerstone of the GSB, the things that haven’t happened yet and the people who are about to dream them up. At some point, I will eventually retire from this place, but I’m still going to be in my head and my heart part of it, and I know I can always look to the GSB to understand what’s coming next.

Kevin Cool: Which brings us back to Marlen Wells who has embraced change throughout her career.

Marlen Wells: It’s been a blast working at the GSB. I’ve had at least 12 jobs here, or roles, I guess, and they’ve all been great. If they haven’t been great, I’ve made them great.

Kevin Cool: A committed team of thinkers, doers, and dreamers make the GSB the place it is. Their stories remind us that the school’s history is written in ideas, achievements, and the day-to-day tenacity of the people who make it all possible.

As we look ahead to the next a hundred years, it’s this collective effort and community of shared values that will ensure the GSB continues to change lives, organizations, and the world.

On our next episode, we’re going inside the classroom for a look at what it means to learn at the GSB.

David Bradford: We had one student who said, “I could have gone to many business schools. I could have learned a lot about leadership, but I came to Stanford to learn to be a better human being, and because of that, I know I’ll be a better leader.”

Kevin Cool: A special thanks to all the people who made this podcast possible. And thank you for listening.

Marlen Wells: The laptop is probably something that is not something people will continue using. Definitely not in 20 years — my thought. “They carried these things around.” It’s like, “Wow, that’s so barbaric.”

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