Steve Ellis, CPCU

Steve Ellis, MBA, CPCU, AIC, has been teaching at The University of Olivet since 2017, and he previously earned his Master of Business Administration in Insurance from the College. Steve is a 30-year insurance industry veteran with broad experience in multiple roles, including front line claim handling, management, training, operations, data & analytics, claims technology, and leading large organizations in executive roles.

“Teaching has always been a passion. I call myself a lifelong learner,” Professor Ellis said. “I continue to learn with every class I teach, which fits into my philosophy. I thrive in an environment where I can share perspectives and collaborate, interact with other people, hear their perspectives, engage in dialogue and then upload assignments based on that collaboration.

“I teach Quantitative Analysis and Decision Making for Management, Ethics and Leadership and Advanced Spreadsheets and Databases.

“The Quantitative Analysis and Decision Making for Management is especially important because I believe you can’t understand something until you can describe it with numbers. I teach it from a theoretical perspective. As a manager, I’ve never been asked to perform quantitative analysis myself, but I have been asked to make decisions based on the analysis presented to me. If I don’t understand the analysis, I might make a poor decision. I teach students the strengths and weaknesses of the various analytic approaches and help them become more confident in decision making.”

“I always aim real-life examples around academic lessons. Hopefully, I give students a perspective of how certain topics manifest themselves in the real world after reading about it theoretically. Secondly, I always encourage students to get connected and stay connected. I love that this role allows me to connect with and stay in touch with so many industry professionals across the nation, and I get most excited when former students reach back out after they graduate to share how the program impacted them.

“I want students considering OC’s MBA program to know that continuous education is the key to improving yourself. Many professionals are anxious about the time investment. You’ll be surprised about what you can accomplish if you just start.”