Justin Tortorich (MBA ’26), vice president of information technology with M.S. Rau, credits the Freeman School with giving him the framework to understand how to safely and strategically implement AI initiatives at the gallery.
Are you in the market for a $950,000 Burma sapphire ring? Perhaps an original by Picasso, Monet or Matisse? Maybe you’re seeking something off the beaten path, like a silver punch set made for Tsar Alexander III or Abraham Lincoln’s law office desk.
You can find those treasures and many more at M.S. Rau, the family-owned gallery in the heart of the French Quarter that’s been selling fine arts, antiques and high-end jewelry since 1912.
Justin Tortorich (MBA ’26) is the man responsible for making those treasures available to collectors worldwide. As M.S. Rau’s vice president of information technology, Tortorich oversees the company’s website and online storefront as well as the increasingly sophisticated tools it uses to manage acquisitions, sales and customer relationships.
“As I’ve progressed up the ladder, a lot of my time is now spent sitting with executive leaders and trying to convey certain visions of technology to them,” Tortorich says. “That’s really the hardest part of my job — trying to convey that vision to non-techy executives.”
To gain the executive-level thinking he needed as a member of the company’s leadership team, Tortorich enrolled in the Freeman School’s Executive MBA program, but in addition to high-level content in finance, marketing, strategic management and data analytics, Tortorich found himself drawn to another key focus of the program: artificial intelligence.
In Entrepreneurship, Tortorich learned how to use AI to bring a business idea he developed — a social learning platform — from concept to fully realized prototype in eight days. In Data Analytics, he leveraged AI to generate on-the-fly
dashboards to glean insights from large data sets. He and his classmates met and interacted with guest lecturers like Andy Quick, former Chief AI Officer of Entergy, and France Hoang, founder and CEO of the AI startup BoodleBox.
The experience helped inspire Tortorich to initiate a pair of AI pilot programs at M.S. Rau. Under Tortorich’s direction, the company launched Bill Jr., an AI model that scours international jewelry markets and delivers weekly recommendations for purchases based on the taste and preferences of company owner Bill Rau and his acquisitions team, and Lotus, an AI tool that enables the company to search international auction and collectables markets for customer requests and get notifications when items become available. Most recently, in September 2026, M.S. Rau launched a business-tier ChatGPT account to give the company’s 104 employees access to AI in a secure, collaborative setting.
While Tortorich was already knowledgeable about AI before starting the EMBA program, he credits Freeman with giving him the framework to understand its advantages, risks and opportunities.
“AI can do the bulk of creative work, so humans need to focus their efforts on being high-level preparers and high-level reviewers,” Tortorich says. “As basic as that sounds, it’s absolutely essential. The most sought-after skills in the decades to come are going to be people skills — how to prepare, how to manage, first-principles thinking, and the ability to take a concept back to basics, where it’s just you and the drawing board.”
Looking back on his experience in the EMBA, Tortorich says Freeman is on the right path to preparing students for an AI-powered workplace. His cohort was introduced to AI early in the program, and he estimates that 70% of his classes involved the use of AI in a substantive way. He especially liked the collaborative features of Freeman’s AI platform, which enable student teams to work together on AI-assisted projects and instructors to review and comment on their prompts and results.
“It should be a requirement at all schools for students to share their chats with their instructors,” Tortorich says. “Not just to ensure integrity, but because the instructor can examine those prompts and gauge the student’s level of thinking and understanding and how they’re using the tool.”
