News Releases

Faculty Profile - Laura Poppo

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

BY WAYNE LARSON

Professor and Fred Ball Faculty Fellow in Business Laura Poppo has been a part of the KU School of Business since fall 2007. She was recently promoted to Full Professor in September 2009. "I feel my promotion is on the level of achievement at one of the best universities in the world," said Poppo. "When you get to this level it means you have consistently made focused contributions to your area of study for a long period of time."

Poppo has been working to achieve full professorship since her last promotion to Associate Professor. Her determination for upward movement is spurred by her passion for research and teaching. Her teaching interests include business-level and corporate-level strategy and leadership, which she has taught to undergraduates, managers and executives and for which she has won teaching awards.

Her academic life has been prestigious, but she admits she would not be the person she is today if she did not continually focus on staying balanced. Poppo places a high emphasis on maintaining a personal identity outside of work. She loves being a mom, hanging out with her husband, and carves out time to do out-of-doors recreation, such as biking, rollerblading, skiing, rowing and gardening.

When Poppo received the news about her promotion, her family was the first to know. "The first thing I did was call my husband I and told him I couldn't have done it without him," she said. She also credits her success in her career to her mother. "My mom supplied my sisters and me with unbelievable confidence, and I have applied that to everything I do."

"I knew I wanted to do something that made a difference, but it was just a question of what," said Poppo when recollecting on her childhood career aspirations. She jokes that her broad childhood professional goals pale in comparison to those of her young daughter. "Right now I think she wants to be a rock star, judge, architect and a CIA agent."

"KU is human," said Poppo, and that is a key reason she chose to work at the School of Business. "It was clear the School of Business wanted to know if I was a nice person. I could see they didn't want a one-sided, arrogant partner."

In addition to KU's friendly qualities, she was very intrigued by what School of Business Dean William L. Fuerst was doing at the School when she came to KU. "I think the Dean has been a visionary both in the past and for the future. He knows how to translate his visions into tactical steps," said Poppo. "I would not be teaching at the School if he hadn't done the things he has accomplished in the past five years."


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