Ulrich Hommel PhD, Director of Research & Surveys, Senior Advisor in the Quality Services Department, EFMD

Wed 10/1, 9am – 10am EST
Forum: Producing Research with Impact

Ulrich Hommel is Full Professor of Finance in the Department of Finance & Accounting at EBS Business School. He heads the Endowed Chair of Corporate Finance & Higher Education Finance and is the Director of the Strategic Finance Institute. Ulrich Hommel holds a Ph.D. in Economics from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, and has been awarded his Habilitation in Business Administration at the WHU, Germany. His current research focuses on corporate risk management as well as higher education management and financing.

Before joining EBS, he was an Assistant Professor of Finance at the WHU from 1994 to 1999. Ulrich Hommel has been Dean from 2000 to 2002 and has subsequently held the position of Rector and Managing Director from 2003 to 2006 of the European Business School (predecessor of EBS Business School). In the past, he has held visiting appointments at Stockholm Business School (Stockholm University), Stephen M. Ross School of Business (University of Michigan), Krannert Questrom School of Business (Purdue University) and Bordeaux Business School.

Next to his academic work, Ulrich Hommel is the Director of Research & Surveys at the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) in Brussels. He is also a Senior Advisor in the Quality Services Department of EFMD and, in that role, a member of the management team for the EQUIS and EPAS accreditation systems.

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Jeanette Horan, Managing Director, IBM Corp.

Thurs 10/2, 12:30pm – 1:30pm EST
Forum: Engaging New-Generation Students & Employees

Ms. Horan was appointed to the role of Managing Director for Bank of America account in July 2014. In this role she is responsible for IBM’s business with Bank, bringing IBM innovations to help the Bank in their ongoing transformation.

Previously Ms. Horan was the Chief Information Officer of IBM where she led the development and implementation of a technology strategy in close partnership with the business. Her emphasis was on the confluence of social, mobile, cloud and analytics; and how to use these technologies securely to personalize and enhance employee and client experiences.

Prior to her CIO position, Ms. Horan was the vice president of Enterprise Business Transformation, leading IBM’s transformation program for key back office processes to accelerate IBM’s leadership as a globally integrated enterprise.

Ms. Horan joined IBM in 1998, and has held leadership positions within the Lotus brand, Information Management and IBM Software Group Strategy. Prior to joining the CIO office in 2006, Ms. Horan was responsible for worldwide product development for the Information Management business in Software Group, and was the General Manager of IBM’s Silicon Valley Laboratory.

Prior to joining Lotus, Ms. Horan spent four years with Digital Equipment Corporation where she was vice president of development for the AltaVista business, bringing the Web search engine and suite of intranet products to market. She has more than 30 years experience in development and management roles in the computer industry.

As part of her business and personal involvement in the advancement of technology and service to the community, Ms. Horan serves on the board of Microvision Inc., an innovative display and imaging solutions company. She also serves as a director on the board of Jane Do No More Inc., an organization committed to improving the way society responds to victims of sexual assault.

A native of the United Kingdom, Ms. Horan earned a bachelors degree.

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Mel Horwitch, PhD, Dean & University Professor, Central European University Business School

Thursday 10/2, 10 am – 11 am EST
Forum: Cultivating Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Mel Horwitch is Dean and University Professor at Central European University Business School, located in Budapest, Hungary.  He is an acknowledged expert on entrepreneurship and innovation management. He has written extensively on technology strategy, particularly with reference to knowledge-intensive sectors (e.g. services, media, information technology, and telecommunications), and global innovation. Most recently, he has focused his research and teaching on cleantech and sustainability management, innovation in emerging economies, the professionalization and globalization of entrepreneurship and nurturing innovation ecosystems.

Previously, at the Polytechnic Institute of New York University, he served as Professor of Technology Management, Director of the Institute for Technology and Enterprise, Chair of the Department of Technology Management, Founding Director of the Othmer Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies, and faculty director of the CleantechExecs Executive Program.

Professor Horwitch was Visiting Professor at London Business School, Professor and Founding Dean of Management at Theseus Institute in Sophia Antipolis, France, the John M. Olin Distinguished Fellow at Templeton College, Oxford University and Visiting Professor at the University of Paris-Dauphine. He has served on the MIT-Sloan School and Harvard Business School faculties. He received his AB from Princeton University and MBA and Doctorate from Harvard Business School. He was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand.

His publications include Technology in the Modern Corporation: A Strategic Perspective (editor and contributor), Clipped Wings: The American SST Conflict, contributor to Energy Future: Report of the Energy Project at the Harvard Business School (contributor), articles published in such journals as Management Science, Policy Science, Sloan Management Review, Technology in Society, Journal of Engineering and Technology Management, and Business Strategy International, and several print and Web-based multimedia cases.

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Martha Josephson, Partner, Digital Media Global Practice Leader, Egon Zehnder

Tues 9/30, 8pm – 9pm EST
Forum: Supporting 21st Century Competencies

Martha has been a partner at Egon Zehnder for 16 years, and is industry recognized as a trusted advisor to many of the world’s most admired organizations. She leads the firm’s Global Digital Practice, which she founded in 1997 as the first purely digital practice in any global executive search firm; now the industry leader.  She also co-leads the Global Media Practice. She is one of the most sought after and reputed talent consultants in the Silicon Valley, and from her base in Palo Alto operates locally and  globally to secure, retain and develop exceptional C-level and Board talent for the world’s leading e-based and media centric organizations. She leads the Firm’s significant relationship with Google handling more than 300 executive searches as their primary partner over the course of the last ten plus years.

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Ashwini Kakkar, PhD, Vice Chairman, Mercury Travels, Chairman of Via.com, Ambit Corporation and the Fight Hunger Foundation

Wed 10/1, 7am – 8am EST
Forum: Supporting 21st Century Competencies

Mr. Ashwini Kakkar is an Entrepreneur, Vice Chairman of Mercury Travels and Chairman of Via.com, Ambit Corporation and the Fight Hunger Foundation.

He is a Mechanical Engineer with a Post-Graduate from IIM Kolkata,  MBA from INSEAD France, and a Law Education from the Government Law College Mumbai.

A past President of Bombay Chamber of Commerce and Industry, also of Travel Agents Association of India, Chairman of World Travel and Tourism Council, he is a board Director of many companies including Pramerica, Europ Assistance India, Jai Medica and Himalayan Exploration.

A distinguished fellow of the Institute of Directors London, Kakkar was knighted by the French Government in 2007 with the “Chevalier De L’Ordre Merite”.

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Sherif Kamel, PhD, Former Dean, School of Business at the American University in Cairo

Tues 9/30, 12pm – 1pm EST
Forum: Cultivating Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Kamel led a major repositioning of the school by adopting a multi-tier thematic approach that included entrepreneurship, innovation, leadership and responsible business.  During his tenure, he initiated the process for EQUIS, AMBA and ACCET accreditations and got the school reaccredited by AACSB in 2011.  The school became ACCET accredited in 2011; AMBA and EQUIS accredited in 2014 joining only 70 business school in the world that are triple-crowned.  In addition, the MBA program ranked top by Forbes ME in 2012 and executive education open enrolment ranked 68th by the FT in 2014.  He helped establish the Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation investing in Egypt’s young promising entrepreneurs through supporting startups, business plan competitions, bootcamps, and mentorship becoming the country’s leading educational partner in the entrepreneurship ecosystem.  He also established the university’s Venture Lab becoming Egypt’s primary university-based incubator.  Kamel has a long experience as an academic leader investing in human capital, building and managing executive development institutions addressing management, governance, entrepreneurial, and leadership issues.  He was associate dean for executive education (2008-2009); director of the Management Center (2002-2008) and director of the Institute of Management Development (2002-2006).  Before joining AUC, he was director of the Regional IT Institute (1992-2001) and helped establish and manage the training department of the Cabinet of Egypt Information and Decision Support Center (1989-1992).  Kamel is an advocate of diversity, empowerment, inclusion and using a bottom-up leadership approach.  Kamel holds a PhD in Information Systems from London School of Economics and Political Science (1994), an MBA (1990), a BA in Business Administration (1987) and an MA in Islamic Art and Architecture (2013) from the American University in Cairo.  His research and teaching interests include management of information technology, information technology transfer to developing nations, electronic business and decision support systems.  His work is broadly published in IS and management journals.  He is the associate editor of the Journal of IT for Development and the Journal of Cases on Information Technology.  Kamel is an Eisenhower Fellow (2005).  He is the executive VP of the American Chamber of Commerce in Egypt (2012-present); board member of the Egyptian American Enterprise Fund (2012-present); and RISE Egypt (2013-present).  He is a member of the Institute of Corporate Directors Canada (2014-present) and Egypt-US Business Council (2013-present).  He is a founding member of the Internet Society of Egypt.

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Assylbeck Kozhakhmetov, DBA, Rector of International Business Academy

Wed 10/1, 9am – 10am EST
Forum: Increasing the Value of Management Education

One of the founders of the first business school in Kazakhstan – Almaty Questrom School of Business, created in 1988, and later transformed into International Academy of Business. In 2011 received the degree of Doctor of Business Administration at the Graduate Questrom School of Business of the National Research University “Higher School of Economics” (Moscow, Russia). His teaching career started at the Continuum Mechanics department  at Kazakh State University named after S.M. Kirov (now known as al-Farabi Kazakh National University). Later Kozhakhmetov taught at the School of managers under the Kazakh Republican Association “Soyuz”. He underwent a specialized management training in training centers in Germany, France, UK, Belgium, Holland, Hungary and Estonia. Dr. Kozhakhmetov combines his professional career with public work. He is currently a member of a Working group responsible for revising Education law; member of the Expert Council of the Academy of Public Administration under the President of the Republic of Kazakhstan, Deputy Chairman of the Public Council of National Democratic Party “Nur – Otan” on consideration and resolution of social conflicts. He is the author of more than 60 works on management and education development. He received the “Excellence in Education of the Ministry of Education and Science of Kazakhstan” award (1998), the “Torch of Birmingham” award from the international organization “People to People International”, USA (1997), and was decorated with the Jubilee Medal “20 years of Independence of the Republic of Kazakhstan” (2011). In December 2013 Dr. Assylbek Kozhakhmetov holds the highest state award – the Order of Kurmet of the Republic of Kazakhstan.

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Paul LeBlanc, PhD, President, Southern New Hampshire University

Thurs 10/2, 9am – 10am EST
Forum: Harnessing Digital Technology

Dr. Paul J. LeBlanc is President of Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU).  Under the ten years of Paul’s direction, SNHU has more than quadrupled in size and is the largest provider of online higher education in New England, one of the five largest in the country, and the first to have a full competency-based degree program untethered to the credit hour or classes  approved by a regional accreditor and the US Department of Education.  In 2012 the university was #12 on Fast Company magazine’s “World’s Fifty Most Innovative Companies” list and was the only university included.  Paul won a New England Higher Education Excellence Award in 2012 and had repeatedly been named one of “New Hampshire’s Most Influential People” by New Hampshire Business Review.  In 2012 Forbes Magazine listed him as one of its 15 “Classroom Revolutionaries,” he was featured on Bloomberg TV’s “Innovators” series, and Fast Company included him in its “1000 Most Creative People” List.  He speaks frequently to industry, IHEs, associations, and other higher education stakeholders and often appears in the media.

Paul immigrated to the United States as a child, was the first person in his extended family to attend college, and is a graduate of Framingham State University (BA), Boston College (MA), and the University of Massachusetts (PhD).  From 1993 to 1996 he directed a technology start up for Houghton Mifflin Publishing Company, was President of Marlboro College (VT) from 1996 to 2003, and became President of SNHU in 2003.  His wife Patricia is an attorney and their daughter Emma is a Rhodes Scholar completing a D.Phil at Oxford University.  Younger daughter Hannah is completing her PhD at Stanford University.  Annie, their black Labrador Retriever, studies sleeping on the couch and ways to steal food from the counter tops.

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Dan LeClair, PhD, Executive Vice President & Chief Operating Officer, AACSB

Forum: Evaluating Policy & Rankings

*Forum Hosts engage throughout the 60 hours at unscheduled times.

As executive vice president and chief operating officer, Dan LeClair provides leadership for AACSB’s efforts to advance quality management education worldwide through a wide range of data, education, research, and communication services. LeClair was the principal architect of AACSB’s Knowledge Services, which assists business school leaders worldwide to plan and make decisions using comparable data and information about trends and effective practices. He leads the research teams of AACSB and the Global Foundation for Management Education (GFME), a think tank joint venture of AACSB and the European Foundation for Management Development (EFMD) and serves on the steering committee of the UN Global Compact’s Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). Dan has served on numerous industry-wide committees and task forces for organizations, such as GMAC®, EMBA Council, Association of Business Schools, and Aspen Institute Business & Society Program. In the Tampa Bay community, Dan serves on the Board of the Economic Development Corporation and its Life Sciences Task Force.

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Joe LiPuma, DBA, Author, Educator, Commentator

Chat: Wed 10/1, 9:00am – 9:30am
Management Education in a Global Setting

Dr. Joseph LiPuma is an associate professor at EMLYON Business School in France and directed EMLYON’s ranked International MBA program. He has been interviewed in the international press regarding perspectives on management education and has spoken at industry conferences. Joe’s research on international entrepreneurship has been published in leading academic journals including Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice, Small Business Economics, the Journal of Business Research, and the International Small Business Journal. His coauthored book, Unlocking the Ivory Tower: How Management Research Can Transform Your Business, makes academic research accessible to managers and businesspeople. Joe has more than 25 years of business experience, much of it in information technology consulting with government agencies, SMEs, and multinationals in the United States, Europe, and the Middle East, prior to his current academic career. He has started businesses in the United States, United Kingdom, Italy, and Saudi Arabia and has held executive management and board-level roles at SMEs and large enterprises. He holds an MBA from SUNY Buffalo and a DBA in strategy and policy from Boston University; he has taught at both of these schools, as well as at Drexel University and St. Joseph’s University prior to his position in Lyon, France.

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