Paige Gardiner grew up on Lagoon Lane in Farmington. For years, she had a pass to the Lagoon Amusement Park where she loved to ride the classic, old roller coaster. Now, the Davis High School graduate is leading the Masters of Business Administration program at the Leavitt School of Business at Southern Utah University.

Gardener has worked at SUU for the last three years, teaching students the tools for digital and social media marketing. She’s excited to take on the challenge of this new role for a program that she said is improving lives.

“The SUU MBA is the largest MBA program in the state that’s publicly funded,” she said. “In the southern part of the state, there’s not really an MBA program, so as St. George grows, we really want to be the dominant program to help all the people in the south part of the state. The goal is to continue to create accessible higher education opportunities for students that are affordable.”

Gardiner originally studied law but changed to business school after meeting her (now) husband, Carl. She thought his business classes looked fun and she soon discovered a love for marketing. She appreciated the creative aspect and enjoyed working with customers, helping them understand the psychology behind why people purchase a product. 

With a bachelor’s degree and MBA from Brigham Young University and a doctorate from the University of Wyoming, Gardiner will bring loads of experience to her new role. She’s also been teaching marketing to higher education students for more than 15 years. Her work background includes being on marketing teams for Novell, TenFold and Mediconnect Global. 

The SUU MBA program is available online and can be completed in 1-2 years. More than 600 students in the program live in the Salt Lake or Davis County area. Gardiner said two of the biggest learning trends are business analytics and increased AI training.

“The students who are going to get the best jobs, and help us move forward, are students who have an understanding on how to use AI to write prompts, to increase our work productivity, to use AI to create videos and to use AI to create exams and documents,” she said. “We’re still on the frontier of AI. We don’t exactly know what that looks like, but we do know it’s important and we know our students need to have those skills.”

Gardiner looks forward to building the school’s MBA offerings, preparing students for careers and providing meaningful experiences during their time in the program. Flexibility and affordability are important to Gardiner as she wants to give students the best education that doesn’t break the bank. For more information about the program, visit suu.edu/academics.

“With the quality and growth of business in the state of Utah, the SUU MBA program is working to develop future business leaders that can continue developing economic growth for our state,” Gardiner said. “I want the best for my students. I want them to have big lives which begin with a strong educational foundation. As director, I am proud to oversee an MBA program that offers premium education opportunities in a format that is accessible to all students in the Western region. ”