Tyra Banks Is Now a Professor at Stanford Business School
Tyra Banks has done it all: Strutted runways, acted in movies, hosted a talk show, published a young adult novel, launched a business, and taught a generation of aspiring models to “smize." Now, Banks will be sharing her expertise in business and self-branding with students at Stanford Business School.
Fortune reports that, beginning in May, Banks will co-teach a class called “Project You: Building and Extending your Personal Brand.” Along with management professor and television producer Allison Kluger, Banks will instruct 25 students on how to shape their personal brands using both social and traditional media.
According to the online course description, the class will “help each student realize: What is a personal brand and how can it be unleashed as a valuable, competitive advantage? Why do you need a personal brand? How do you differentiate yourself and create a brand identity and strategy?”
While this is Banks’s first time lecturing at a university, she already has plenty of teaching experience under her belt: On America’s Next Top Model, which aired from 2003 to 2015, Banks not only judged the competition, but provided mentoring and career advice to aspiring models. It’s easy to imagine her employing the same tough love approach that worked so well on TV in the classroom. And, in fact, Banks told The Wall Street Journal she wasn’t planning on going easy on her students. “If I see somebody not paying attention,” she explained, “I’m gonna call on them.”
[h/t Fortune]