Matthew Brady
Matthew Brady, assistant teaching professor in Organizational Leadership and Information Analytics, arrived at Leeds in 2020. In just five years, he’s made a remarkable impact—designing three HumanCentered Technology courses, launching the Sustainability Hackathon (now the Colorado Sustainability Challenge), and co-founding the Boulder Founder Summit. He also manages to run a startup and balances it with family life as a devoted husband and father of three.
Tech and teaching the thoughtful way
Walk into Brady’s office and it feels like an oasis—clean, organized and lined with sound panels that look like a painting evoking impressionistic skies. That blend of form and function mirrors his teaching, bringing a sense of beauty to technology—something that on the surface may seem contradictory. His courses—Customer Success with Salesforce CRM, Low-Code for Citizen Developers, and AI & Automation for Tomorrow’s Societies—are built around the concept of embedding ethics and empathy into innovation—and Brady demonstrates that it's not only a goal—it's possible.
His passion lies in using tech to address real-world challenges like healthcare access, energy overuse and even loneliness. One example: He built a custom AI chatbot trained on his course materials to serve as a teaching assistant. “Students learn how to use the tool to elevate their work, not have it do the work for them,” he said.
His innovative approach earned him the David B. Balkin and Rosalind & Chester Barnow Endowed Innovation Teaching Award—presented at Commencement as his daughter, Alexandra Brady (MBusAn’25, Ebio’24), received her diploma. It was a milestone moment he’ll never forget, especially after their extended family missed being together for her earlier graduations due to the pandemic and other obligations.
“My goal is to push students to prepare for leadership,” he said. “Tech will play a major role, but we have to train both the hands and the heart.”
In the age of AI, that means asking: “How do you empathize with people whose jobs will be replaced? How do we upscale those members of our communities to do work that matters?”
“My goal is to push students to prepare for leadership. Tech will play a major role, but we have to train both the hands and the heart.”
Matthew Brady, assistant teaching professor
He encourages students to see themselves as changemakers. “I tell them the AI headlines shouldn't instill undue fear—because they’ll be the ones driving that AI and modernization.”
Brady sees Leeds students as uniquely prepared. “They’re entering internships or full-time roles with skills they can immediately apply,” he said. “And part of that maturity is knowing what you don’t know—and how to seek guidance and direction.”
“These are elite students,” he said, saying that Leeds brings in the country’s most talented students bar none. “They genuinely want to know how business can affect real problems in our society.”
Real-world lessons from a startup veteran
Brady brings teaching passion to the classroom, inspired in part by his mother, a teacher. He also brings deep entrepreneurial experience from five successful ventures. In 2020, after selling a company to private equity, Brady chose to "bet on himself" and founded Volley Solutions, a platform that helps companies optimize performance.
“My goal with Volley is to help organizations make better decisions using data and align people around maximizing outcomes,” he said. His startup launch was followed by a call for someone to teach a course on Salesforce at Leeds, and Brady knew he could share his insights in the classroom.
At Leeds, Brady helps students marry data science—finding patterns in large datasets—with decision science, which he emphasizes goes far beyond analytics.
He stresses that good decisions also rely on the intangible: gut feelings, emotional cues and human instincts. “You only have the information you have at the time,” he said. “Later, you gain more. So, how do you prove a decision was the best—even if it didn’t work out?”
That’s the kind of thinking he instills in students, encouraging them to bet on themselves, too. One team that did—FoodWise—started at the Sustainability Hackathon, won the New Venture Challenge and became a real business.
Brady also works to dispel the myth that business students aren’t technical. “Students think if they’re not in computer science or engineering, they must not be technical. No way,” he said. “Business school doesn’t mean you’re not technical—it means you use strategic business frameworks and playbooks to accelerate the impact of technology.”
Fail faster, learn faster
Brady’s own path wasn’t linear. He began at Purdue University intending to become an engineer but struggled through two years before switching majors. That pivot, he said, shaped his future.
“What I learned was that I’d rather fail quickly and get feedback early.” It’s a philosophy he brings to teaching, mirroring the iterative pace of the software development world—what he calls “plan, do, check, act.”
“You find out how things are going and course correct. That’s the ethos of Agile software development,” he said. Conversely, “you could spend six months building something only to learn the customer didn’t like your original design.”
“We have to think through the implications of any tool—whether it’s a hammer or AI. How can it be used to advance human flourishing?”
Matthew Brady, assistant teaching professor
He also wants students to understand their value. “I want them to know their capabilities, value and earning potential—not just salary-wise, but the hourly rate they should charge for things like building a website or app or AI agent.” That awareness helps them balance paid work with pro bono efforts, he said.
Brady regularly brings guest speakers into class to expand students’ perspectives and reinforce the importance of ethical tech. “We have to think through the implications of any tool—whether it’s a hammer or AI. How can it be used to advance human flourishing?”
Despite being an AI advocate, he challenges students to question the urgency around it. “It’s been in development for decades, but there are cautionary tales. We can’t let technology displace humans in leading decisions, organizations or even mentoring or counseling.”
To Brady, the goal is clear: “Let AI do the jobs we don’t want—like a robotic vacuum—so we can focus on being the creative human beings that we are—doing the things we’re uniquely capable of.”