PUC Appoints Anthony Cadavid as MBA Director

Pacific Union College is happy to introduce Anthony Cadavid as the new MBA Program Director and Professor of Business Administration. Between teaching and supporting students and faculty, he develops partnerships to strengthen the department and support graduates, and ensures the program is on track to meet PUC’s vision.

“PUC is an institution I have respected for decades,” said Cadavid. “I was genuinely happy to join the PUC family and have the opportunity to contribute to the important work the college is already doing. It also brought together things that matter deeply to me: education, leadership, faith, service, and helping people grow into responsibilities they may not yet realize they are capable of taking on.”

When accepting this position, Cadavid was also drawn to PUC’s MBA Program's Christian mission, small class sizes for getting to know students on a personal level, and the flexibility to teach working students. “What excited me most was the opportunity to help shape the program around those needs and bring together exceptional faculty who could make that vision real,” said Cadavid. “I also found people already connected to the program who care deeply about our students, believe in what we can build, and have been incredibly supportive of that vision. That combination of mission, people, and possibility made joining PUC especially meaningful to me.”

From Cali, Colombia, but resides in Los Angeles, CA, Cadavid earned his MBA from La Sierra University in 2001 and received his EdD in Organizational Change and Leadership from the University of Southern California this year. Before coming to PUC, he held various positions in business, consulting, research, and higher education. At the beginning of his career, he had the incredible opportunity to work with Dow Jones & Company in New York, home of The Wall Street Journal, which exposed him to the worlds of business and finance. He then moved on to marketing and helped businesses thrive before starting his own consulting company and later accepting a long-term position at East Los Angeles College, where he taught for over 20 years.

Throughout his career, he has become passionate about educational equity and expanding access to selective colleges and universities for high-achieving students from low-income communities. With this mission, Cadavid and his wife, Jankel, established a nonprofit organization, College Metropolis, to direct working-class families through the college admissions process. “Although my career has taken me through business, consulting, teaching, research, and nonprofit work, the common thread has been helping people and organizations realize more of what they are capable of becoming,” he shared.

Now, at PUC, Cadavid looks forward to strengthening the MBA program and developing an integrated leadership experience for students. “My top priority is ensuring that students graduate not only knowing more about business, but being more capable leaders because of what they experienced here,” he said. “That means helping students learn to understand organizations, diagnose complex problems, make sound decisions, lead people through change, translate strategy into implementation, use technology responsibly, and sustain results. We are also strengthening applied learning, change leadership, responsible AI integration, and the connections students make across their courses. I want students to be able to look back at their MBA and say, ‘At PUC, I learned to think better and make better decisions. PUC made me a better leader.’”

Although the MBA program is offered online, Cadavid wants students to know that he is “extremely accessible” and will stay connected with them regularly through advising, daily check-ins, and conversations to find out what is working for them and what is not. Cadavid doesn’t want to wait until there is a problem to talk to his students—he wants to help them succeed every day and reach their ultimate goal.

“Online education can become impersonal very quickly if we allow it to. I want students to know who their professors are and to know that there are real people behind the program who care about them and are paying attention to their experience,” he said. “That expectation extends across our faculty as well. We want our instructors to be present, accessible, and engaged with students throughout their courses. My job is not simply to administer an MBA program. I want to know our students, understand where they are trying to go, and help them get there.”

As director, Cadavid wants PUC’s MBA program to be known for integrity, curiosity, service, ethical judgment, human dignity, intellectual responsibility, and practical leadership. “I also want us to be known as a place where faculty genuinely care about students,” he added. “Business education should prepare people to perform at a very high level, but leadership is ultimately about responsibility. The decisions our graduates make will affect employees, families, customers, communities, and organizations. I want that responsibility to be taken seriously.

Success matters, but so does the kind of leader you become while pursuing it.”

PUC is as enthusiastic as Cadavid is to begin the school year, and looks forward to seeing him lead the program and its students.