Lots of new things are happening at UVA’s Commerce School—and the fall semester promises to bring many exciting firsts.
To start, McIntire will welcome its inaugural group of second-year students to its newly expanded three-year undergraduate program, with the support of the freshly launched COMMence program. The 2025-2026 semester will also be the first time the McIntire community will learn, study, and experience all the benefits of the School’s impressive cutting-edge classrooms and collaborative spaces that define the recently opened Shumway Hall and renovated Cobb Hall, the twin jewels of McIntire’s expansive new footprint on Breeden Commerce Grounds on the southeast corner of UVA’s Lawn.
Helping to usher in this new era are six faculty members, each bringing with them expertise and enthusiasm to support McIntire’s mission of delivering a globally renowned business education.
Nathan Allred, Assistant Professor of Commerce
Professor Nathan Allred comes to McIntire from Texas Tech University’s Rawls College of Business, where he taught undergraduate courses in Consumer Behavior and International Marketing for the last two years as Assistant Professor of Marketing. Previously, he taught Consumer Behavior in the Department of Marketing for Pennsylvania State University’s Smeal College of Business, where he earned his Ph.D. and won the school’s Ossian R. Mackenzie Teaching Award for demonstrating a high degree of promise toward making significant teaching contributions in business administration.
Allred brings research knowledge in consumer behavior and aims to understand the reasons behind widely held beliefs, what influences those beliefs to change, and the influence on our views impacting behaviors and decision-making. Specifically, he studies conspiracy theories and how their influence on society can be mitigated. Secondarily, he studies how our beliefs influence sustainable consumption. His work “Conspiracy Beliefs and Consumption: The Role of Scientific Literacy” was published in the Journal of Consumer Research.
Andrew Bennett, Assistant Professor of Commerce, General Faculty
Teaching courses that include Project and Product Management in the General Business Minor, Professor Andrew Bennett joins the Commerce School with the insightful knowledge and experience he has amassed in a 25-year global career in the private and public sectors. Having worked to implement product management approaches for organizations such as Anthem, the FDIC, Freddie Mac, Marriott, SWIFT, the U.S. Marine Corps, and Walmart, he has also managed large programs and launched products in space systems, healthcare data analytics, metrology, and fintech.
While his early career research was focused on coherent laser radar theory and practice, charged device models of electrostatic discharge, and failure modes of microelectronic components, Bennett’s interest has shifted over the past 15 years to examining the effectiveness of lean and agile systems implementation, impact of employee engagement, collaborative vs. top-down organizational structures, and effective organizational change management methods.
Bennett holds a Doctor of Engineering in Systems Engineering and Engineering Management and an M.B.A. from The George Washington University, as well as a B.S. in Physics from James Madison University.
Abby Fifer Mandell, Director, The Galant Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship; Senior Lecturer of Commerce, General Faculty
Professor Abby Fifer Mandell joins the McIntire faculty after 17 years at the University of Southern California’s Marshall School of Business. An expert in user-centered design and strategy, aging, and social entrepreneurship, she directed USC Marshall’s Brittingham Social Enterprise Lab and co-taught the Min Family Challenge with the Technology Innovation and Entrepreneurship group at the USC Viterbi School of Engineering. In addition to serving as the Senior Lecturer in Entrepreneurship, Fifer Mandell co-produced the Aging is Now | Aging Is the Future Entrepreneurship Symposium, and produced the USC Social Venture Coaching Competition (SVCC).
In 2018, she won the Academy of Management Innovation in Entrepreneurship Pedagogy Award, received a 2023 USC Mentoring Award for Faculty Mentoring Undergraduate Students, and was honored with a 2025 USC Marshall Golden Apple Award.
Fifer Mandell is a Wexner Heritage Fellow and sits on the advisory boards of United Parents and Students and Seismic Capital. She earned a B.A. in American Studies and a B.A. in Religious Studies at UVA, and an M.A. in Education and a B.Lit. in Hebrew Letters from American Jewish University in Los Angeles, where she also served as Director of Admissions and Lecturer in Education.
Nickolay Gantchev, Connaughton Professor of Commerce in Alternative Investing
Professor Nickolay Gantchev joins the McIntire faculty from the University of Warwick in the UK, where he served as Professor of Finance for five years, teaching courses at the postgraduate and undergraduate levels in Financial Management, Corporate Finance, and Mergers and Acquisitions. Gantchev was recognized with the Award for Outstanding Contribution to Postgraduate Teaching for four successive years and two similar awards for his contributions to Undergraduate Teaching.
His research in empirical corporate finance, with a focus on hedge fund activism, institutional investors, and sustainable finance has offered important contributions to scholarship in the areas of alternative investments and corporate governance. Gantchev’s paper “Sustainability or Performance? Ratings and Fund Managers’ Incentives” published in the Journal of Financial Economics won the Best Paper Award, 2022 China International Conference in Finance, and Semifinalist for the Best Paper Award, 2021 FMA Conference.
In addition to serving as an Associate Editor of the Journal of Corporate Finance and his extensive history as a conference presenter and panel speaker, Gantchev is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR), an independent, non‐partisan, pan‐European nonprofit organization that aims to enhance the quality of policy decisions. He is also a Research Member at the European Corporate Governance Institute (ECGI), an international nonprofit membership organization that provides a platform for debate and dialogue on the subject.
Gantchev earned his Ph.D. in Finance from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School and an M.B.A. and an M.S. in Finance from the Carroll School of Management at Boston College.
Larry Kochard, Lecturer of Commerce, General Faculty
An investment management business veteran of nearly 25 years, Professor Larry Kochard comes to McIntire after a successful tenure as the Chief Investment Officer and a Partner at multi-asset class investment firm Makena Capital Management. Before his time at Makena, he served as CEO and CIO of the University of Virginia Investment Management Company (UVIMCO) for seven years, which was preceded by work as Managing Director of Equity and Hedge Fund Investments at the Virginia Retirement System.
Over the course of 19 years, Kochard taught Finance classes an adjunct professor and full-time faculty member at the UVA and Georgetown University. In addition to earning his CFA designation, Kochard is a double Hoo, having earned his M.A. and Ph.D. in Economics from UVA, as well as an M.B.A. from the University of Rochester Simon School of Business and a B.A. in Economics from the College of William & Mary.
With expertise in investment management, endowment management, and pensions, Kochard continues to share his knowledge with numerous boards and committees. These include chairing the investment advisory committee for the Virginia Retirement System, serving on the board of directors of Makena Capital, sitting on the foundation board and chairing the investment committee for the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, serving on the board of Virginia Commonwealth University Investment Management Company, as well as the investment advisory committee of Eighteen48 Partners.
Virginia Stewart, Visiting Professor of Commerce
Professor Virginia Stewart teaches Organizational Behavior in Blocks 5 and 6 of McIntire’s Integrated Core. Stewart taught Management classes in leadership, ethical decision-making, teamwork, and negotiations at the University College Dublin for 11 years and was honored with College of Business Teaching Awards in 2017 and 2018 and the Dean’s List of Outstanding Teachers in 2024.
With longstanding research interests in the building, sustaining, and reconfiguring of work relationships, and the well-being of groups in organizational settings, Stewart is currently a primary investigator in a large-scale research project to understand how best to introduce AI into advanced manufacturing teams. She also maintains an enduring interest in effectively resolving interpersonal conflict in the workplace and was selected as a 2024-2026 Teaching Fellow of the Negotiations and Team Resources Institute, an organization promoting the teaching of negotiation, conflict management, and teamwork. Her research has appeared in the Journal of Business Ethics; Human Resource Management; Small Group Research; Academy of Management Journal; Journal of Positive Psychology; and Organizational Psychology Review.
A UVA graduate who earned her B.A. in Economics and Spanish, Stewart attained her Ph.D. in Business Administration from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Keenan Flagler Business School.
