Ramon O’Callaghan, DBA, Dean of the Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Business

Thurs 10/2, 9am – 10am EST
Forum: Supporting 21st Century Competencies

Ramon O’Callaghan is Dean at Nazarbayev University Graduate School of Business in Kazakhstan, a new business school established in strategic collaboration with Duke University. Previously, he was dean of the business school at Tilburg University, in the Netherlands. Over the years he has held numerous academic management positions: Director of Deusto Business School and Vice-Rector at Deusto University in Spain, Associate Dean at Tilburg University and Director International Executive MBA (a joint program with Purdue University), and Director International MBA at Nijenrode University in the Netherlands.  Formerly, he was on the faculty of IESE Business School, and was a researcher at the Harvard Business School. Prior to his academic career, he worked internationally at Texas Instruments for several years.

His research interests include: Management of Technology, Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Knowledge Management.  His work has been published in books, journals, and conference proceedings, e.g. MIT Press, Journal of Marketing, Journal of IT, European Journal of IS, International Conference on IS, European Conference on IS. In 2006, he earned “best paper” awards at the Hawaii International Conference on Information Sciences, and at the International Conference on Information Systems in Milwaukee.  He has actively contributed to several research programs of the European Commission (IST, TEDIS, RACE) and has been the coordinator of an international project on innovation clusters.  He has also supervised and examined PhD research for the following universities: Aalborg (Denmark), Antwerp (Belgium), Cape Town (South Africa), Cork (Ireland), KU Leuven (Belgium), Hohenheim (Germany), Sussex (UK), Tilburg (Netherlands), and Turku (Finland).

His professional experience includes executive education and consulting projects for American, European and Asian organizations, e.g. Aegon, BUPA, Chubb, Danisco, Eureko, European Commission, Fortis, IBM, Independent Insurance Agents of America, ING, Kazakhmys, KPMG, Maryland Casualty, Nolan & Norton, Philips, Pricewaterhouse-Coopers, Samruk-Kazyna, Shell, UBS. He has also taught in executive programs of IESE, INSEAD, London Business School, MIT Sloan, Purdue University, and Solvay Brussels School of Economics and Management.

Ramon O’Callaghan holds the following degrees:  Doctor of Business Administration from Harvard Business School; MBA from IESE Business School; MSc and BSc in Telecommunications and Electronics Engineering from the Technical University of Catalonia (also known as UPC BarcelonaTech). His education also included courses at the MIT Sloan Questrom School of Business and at École Supérieure du Commerce de Paris, ESCP, in France.

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Neil S. Braun, JD, Dean, Lubin School of Business, Pace University

Tues 9/30, 10:30am – 11am EST
Forum: Evaluating Policy & Rankings

Neil S. Braun is the Dean of Pace University’s Lubin School of Business in New York since July 2010.  His first initiatives there included the creation of the Center for Global Governance, Reporting and Regulation and a professional certification program for financial institution compliance executives. He has previously been President of the NBC Television Network, Chairman and CEO of Viacom Entertainment, an internet and environmental entrepreneur, a film producer and corporate attorney. Braun serves on the board of directors and the audit and governance committees of IMAX Corporation(NYSE),  He is the Chairman of the Audit Committee for national anti-hunger organization Share Our Strength and is President of the Board of the Westhampton Beach Performing Arts Center. He is an active member of the National Association of Corporate Directors and was chosen by that organization in 2012 as “one to watch.” Braun currently serves on the AACSB’s Business Practices Council and the Committee on Accreditation Policy.

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Jacob Chacko, PhD, Dean of the College of Business Administration at Abu Dhabi University

Wednesday 10/1, 9:00 pm – 10:00 pm EST
Forum: Increasing the Value of Management Education

Dr. Jacob M. Chacko is the Dean of the College of Business Administration at Abu Dhabi University. Prior to joining ADU, he was the Dean of the School of Business at Clayton State University, in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Chacko has also held administrative positions as Associate Dean and Department Head at two universities in the US.

At his prior institutions, Dean Chacko successfully led the AACSB accreditation and reaffirmation process. As the Dean of the School of Business at Clayton State University, Jacob led the initiative to develop an academic niche in Supply Chain Management. Under his leadership, the first BBA and an MBA in Supply Chain Management and Logistics in Atlanta were developed. He was also instrumental in developing the Center of Supply Chain Management to connect faculty and students with practitioners and companies for consulting, training, internships, and placement purposes.

Dean Chacko received his bachelor’s degree in accounting from India, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in marketing from Nairobi, Kenya, and Doctorate in of Business Administration in marketing and international business from Marshall Goldsmith Questrom School of Business in San Diego. He is a graduate of the Management Development Program from Harvard University, and was a Fulbright-Hays scholar to Singapore and Malaysia.

Dr. Chacko teaching interests are in international marketing, international business, marketing management, personal marketing, and strategic market planning at the MBA level. He has had his research publications appear in three books, in over 30 national and international academic conference proceedings and in 20 academic journals in marketing and international business. His research interests are the emerging economies of Asia and Central Europe, niche marketing, and ethics in international business. Dean Chacko chairs the AACSB’s Small School Network  and he has been an invited speaker at AACSB and SBAA conferences on faculty development, online course management, and assessment of student learning. He has lived in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States.

 

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Ken Freeman, Allen Questrom Professor and Dean, Boston University Questrom School of Business

Chat: Tues 9/30, 3:00 – 3:30pm EST; Weds 10/2 8:00-9:00am

Bringing Industry and Academia Together to Create Value

Kenneth W. Freeman joined Boston University as the Allen Questrom Professor and Dean of Boston University Questrom School of Business in 2010.

Serving more than 3,400 students and 46,000 alumni, the Questrom School of Business pursues the vision “Creating Value for the World.” The School has transformed its undergraduate and MBA curricula, with a focus on ethics and global citizenship, and sectors that are dramatically impacting the world economy—health and life sciences, digital technology, sustainability and social enterprise.

Ken began his career at Corning Incorporated in 1972, progressing through the financial function before leading several businesses. He joined Corning Clinical Laboratories in 1995, and the company was spun off from Corning as Quest Diagnostics Incorporated soon thereafter. He led the dramatic turnaround of Quest Diagnostics as chairman and chief executive officer through 2004. Exceptional value was created for shareholders by executing a dramatic financial turnaround, establishing industry leadership, demonstrating effective growth through acquisition, and driving organic growth. Quest Diagnostics provided the third highest five-year shareholder returns among the Fortune 500 (1999-2003) and in 2004 was named to the Business Week 50. Market capitalization increased from approximately $350 million at the time of the spin-off to more than $9 billion.

A study of global business leadership conducted at INSEAD and published in the January 2013 issue of the Harvard Business Review named Ken one of the 100 best performing CEOs in the world.

Ken joined Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co. (KKR), in 2005 and served as a managing director and partner until his appointment as Dean at Boston University. From 2010 through 2013, he was a senior advisor to KKR, serving on the firm’s portfolio management committee.

Ken is currently a director of Lake Region Medical and the Graduate Management Admission Council. He has previously served on the boards of HCA, Masonite (chairman), TRW (lead director), Dow Corning Corporation, Ciba-Corning Corporation, Fleet Bank of New York and the Corning Incorporated Foundation.

Ken is a former member of the Healthcare Leadership Council, and the American Clinical Laboratory Association (chairman). He is the former chairman of The ARTS of the Southern Finger Lakes and the Corning Philharmonic Society, and a former trustee of Elmira College and the Fifth Avenue Presbyterian Church in New York City.

Ken received an MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School in 1976, and a BSBA, summa cum laude, Phi Beta Kappa, from Bucknell University in 1972. Ken is Chairman of the Board of Trustees of Bucknell University.

 

See other Boston University VIPs: Robert A. Brown, James Post, Michael Salinger

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Xiongwen Lu, PhD, Dean of Questrom School of Business, Fudan University

Tuesday 9/30, 9:00 am – 10:00 am EST
Forum: Increasing the Value of Management Education

Professor Xiongwen Lu is Dean of Questrom School of Business, Fudan University, and Founding Director of Chinese Marketing Research Center at Fudan University. Prof. Lu’s teaching and research interests cover marketing in China as an immature market, internet marketing in China, service marketing, corporate reorganization, and change management.

Prof. Lu has been serving as Vice President of Chinese Society for Management Modernization since 2010 and Vice Chairman of China National MBA Education Supervisory Committee since 2008. He also serves as Vice President of ABEST 21 (The Alliance on Business Education and Scholarship for Tomorrow, a 21st Century Organization), Council Member of AAPBS (Association of Asia-Pacific Business Schools), Board Director of Graduate Management Admission Council (GMAC), Member of AACSB Asia-Pacific Advisory Council and EFMD Asia Advisory Board.

Prof. Lu received his PhD in Economics from Fudan University and was a Research Fellow and Visiting Scholar at Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, MIT Sloan Questrom School of Business, and the Fisher College of Business at the Ohio State University.

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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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Soumitra Dutta, PhD, Anne and Elmer Lindseth Dean, Professor of Management and Organizations, Cornell University

Forum: Cultivating Innovation & Entrepreneurship

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

Soumitra Dutta is the eleventh dean and professor of management and organizations in the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate Questrom School of Business at Cornell University. He most recently served as the Roland Berger Chaired Professor of Business and Technology and was the founder and academic director of the eLab at INSEAD, a top-ranked graduate business school in Fontainebleau, France.

Previous roles Dutta has held during his 23-year tenure at INSEAD include dean of external relations; dean of executive education; and dean of technology and e-learning. He has served as a visiting professor in the Haas School at Berkeley, Oxford Internet Institute at University of Oxford, and Judge School at University of Cambridge in England. He has lived and worked in the U.S., Europe, and Asia, including stints as an engineer with GE in the U.S. and Schlumberger in Japan.

Dutta is an authority on the impact of new technology on the business world, especially social media and social networking, and on strategies for driving growth and innovation by embracing the digital economy. He is the co-editor and author respectively of two influential reports in technology and innovation — the Global Information Technology Report (co-published with the World Economic Forum) and the Global Innovation Index (to be co-published with the World Intellectual Property Organization). Both reports have been used by several governments around the world in assessing and planning their technology and innovation policies.

His work has been widely published in the Harvard Business Review, European Management Journal, Management Science, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Decision Support Systems, Journal of Strategic Information Systems, and other journals. Dutta and his ideas have been featured in myriad business magazines, newspapers, and blogs, including Global Intelligence for the CIO, Information Week, Brasil, BusinessWorld India, Chief Executive, Finance & Management, Chief Executive Magazine, Forbes, and The McKinsey Quarterly.

Dutta is a member of the Davos Circle, an association of long-time participants in the Annual Davos meeting of the World Economic Forum, and has engaged in a number of multi-stakeholder initiatives to shape global, regional and industry agendas. He is on the advisory boards of several international business schools. He has co-founded two firms and is on the boards of several startups. He received the European Case of the Year award from the European Case Clearing House in 2002, 2000, 1998, and 1997.

Dutta received a B.Tech. in electrical engineering and computer science from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi. He received an MS in business administration, an MS in computer science, and a PhD in computer science from the University of California at Berkeley.

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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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Maryam Alavi, PhD, Dean, Stephen P. Zelnak Jr. Chair, Professor of Information Technology Management, Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business

Tues 9/30, 9am – 10am EST
Forum: Supporting 21st Century Competencies

Maryam Alavi, PhD, joined Georgia Tech Scheller College of Business as Dean in July 2014. She also holds the Stephen P. Zelnak Jr. Chair.

As an expert in IT innovations and strategic applications, Alavi has authored numerous published papers and has served on the editorial boards of several prestigious academic journals. She is a thought leader on technology-mediated learning and an experienced educator who has extensive experience in developing leadership curriculum for business students.

Alavi is a frequent speaker at national and international conferences. She has consulted with organizations including AT&T, KPMG, IBM, Marriott Corporation, Sodexo, the American College of Physicians, the Aspen Institute, the General Accounting Office, International Association for Management Education, and the World Bank. Her international work experience includes teaching graduate and executive development programs in Europe, North Africa, and Asia.

Prior to joining Georgia Tech, she served as interim dean and vice dean of Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, where she held the John & Lucy Cook Chair in Information Strategy.

Alavi was awarded the distinguished Marvin Bower Faculty Fellowship at Harvard Business School and received the prestigious AIS (Association of Information Systems) Fellows Award. AIS Fellows are elected by a committee of peers and are expected to be role models and an inspiration to colleagues and students within the discipline.

She served two terms as a board member of the Georgia Technology Authority appointed by the Governor of the State of Georgia.

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Jitendra V. Singh, PhD, Dean, School of Business and Management, Michael Jebsen Professor of Business Chair Professor, Department of Management, Hong Kong University of Science & Technology

Tues 9/30, 10am – 11am EST
Forum: Challenging the Business Model of Education

Jitendra Singh is currently Michael Jebsen Professor of Business and Management and Dean, School of Business and Management at The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology in Hong Kong. He moved to Hong Kong after a long career at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, PA, USA.

From 2007-2009, he was Dean of the Nanyang Business School (NBS) at Nanyang Technological University (NTU) in Singapore, one of the leading science and technology universities in Asia Pacific. During this period, he was Shaw Foundation Chair and Professor of Strategy, Management and Organization at Nanyang Business School. In addition, at the university level, he was a member of the University Cabinet of NTU, and Chief Adviser, India Strategy to the President of NTU. At the end of his term as Dean of Nanyang Business School (NBS), their MBA program was ranked #24 in the 2009 Financial Times rankings, and was rated as one of the leaders in the Asia Pacific region.

He has been a faculty member at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, since 1987 where he was the Saul P. Steinberg Professor in the Department of Management before moving to HKUST. During 1998-2001, he was Vice Dean, International Academic Affairs. In his Vice Dean role, he was a member of Wharton’s core administrative leadership team and was charged with shaping and implementing the global strategy of Wharton. These efforts culminated, in part, in the worldwide alliance between Wharton and INSEAD, the foundation of Indian School of Business in Hyderabad, India and the creation of Singapore Management University in Singapore. Earlier, he was Director of the Emerging Economies Program at Wharton from 1996-98. From 1991-1995, he was Research Director, Entrepreneurship at the Sol C. Snider Entrepreneurial Center at Wharton, the leading research center in entrepreneurship at any US business school.

He moved to Wharton in 1987 from University of Toronto, Canada where he was an Associate Professor (with tenure) in the (now) Rotman School of Business. In 1991, he received an M.A. (honoris causa) from University of Pennsylvania. He received his Ph.D. from Stanford Business School in 1983. His earliest education was in natural and mathematical sciences and he received his B.Sc. (Physics, Mathematics, and Statistics) from Lucknow University, India. Subsequently, he received his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, India. He worked as a line manager at Voltas Ltd., a Tata group company, in India for three years before coming to the US for his Ph.D.

His research and teaching interests focus on strategy and organization, with a specific current interest in emerging multinationals and business leadership in India.

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