About Prof O

Taught the way I wish I'd been taught.

I'm Steven Orpurt, PhD, known to my students as Prof O. I teach accounting at Arizona State University and build practical, research-backed courses for students and early-career professionals.

I've been fortunate to teach at other universities (and on three continents) including The University of Chicago Booth School of Business, Northwestern Kellogg School of Management, Boston University, Purdue University, Singapore Management University, and INSEAD (Singapore campus). I've taught undergraduate, Master's, MBA, and Executive MBA students on three continents, and developed Chicago Booth's first PreMBA preparation course for its Executive MBAs.

I've received teaching awards on all three continents. My approach is the same everywhere: filter out the noise, build intuition first, then develop research-backed analytic lessons that are intuitive. When math is needed, it is explained by referring to the intuitive analytics so that students can explain it as a story, and not a series of steps to be memorized. I have also made a formal study of metacognition learning research, and incorporate best learning approaches into all lessons. In short, I strive to build learning lessons based on intuition with an analytics mindset, using research-backed best learning approaches.

Before academia, I worked as a CPA auditor at KPMG, an equity portfolio manager at Franklin Resources, Inc. (the Franklin Templeton mutual funds), and a litigation consultant on JPMorgan's Enron class-action defense. I earned my MBA and PhD at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, have published in The Accounting Review, Accounting Horizons, and Strategic Finance, and have presented to the International Accounting Standards Board.