Ben M. Bensaou, PhD, Professor of Technology and Operations Management, Professor of Asian Business and Comparative Management, INSEAD

Thurs 10/2, 2pm – 3pm EST
Forum: Cultivating Innovation & Entrepreneurship

Ben M. Bensaou is Professor of Technology Management and Asian Business and Comparative Management at INSEAD. He was a Visiting Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School in 1998-1999. He holds a PhD in Management from the MIT Sloan Questrom School of Business, USA; an MA in Management Science from Hitotsubashi University, Japan; a Diplôme d’Ingénieur (MSc) in Civil Engineering; and a DEA in Mechanical Engineering from respectively the Ecole Nationale des TPE, Lyon and the Institut National Polytechnique de Grenoble, France.

His research and teaching focuses on (1) a Process View of Value Innovation and Blue Ocean Strategy deployment initiatives, (2) new forms of organizations, in particular networked corporations, (3) the impact of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) on organizations and Value Innovation. Professor Bensaou addresses these issues from an international comparative perspective, with a special focus on Japanese organizations. His research on supplier relations in the U.S. and Japanese auto industries won the best doctoral dissertation in the field of information systems and a finalist award for the Free Press Award for outstanding dissertation research in business policy and strategy. His case on the Circus Industry and the Cirque du Soleil won the 2006 ECCH Best Case Award (in Strategy – with Kim and Mauborgne). His publications include papers inManagement Science, Information Systems Research, Organization Sciencer, Strategic Management Journal, Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, , book chapters and conference proceedings. He has been a member of the Editorial Board of Information Systems Research, MIS Quarterly, and MISQ Executive. He has been listed in the Who’s Who in the World since 1998.

Professor Bensaou has been consulting for Asian, European and US corporations. He teaches courses on Corporate Strategy, Value Innovation/Blue Ocean Strategy, Information Technology and Comparative Management (in English and French). He has been a Visiting Professor at Aoyama Gakuin University, Tokyo and has taught (in Japanese) in Executive Programs at Keio Business School, Tokyo, Japan.

Professor Bensaou grew up in France. He has also lived and was educated in Japan. He and his wife Masako live in Fontainebleau, with their two younger sons Alexis and Lennon. Their elder son Sophian is pursuing his college education in Philadelphia, USA.

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David Weil, PhD, Administrator, Wage and Hour Division, United States Department of Labor, Peter and Deborah Wexler Professor of Management, Boston University Questrom School of Business (On Leave)

Wed 10/1, 10:30am – 11:30am EST
Forum: Fostering Ethical Leadership

David Weil was sworn in as the Administrator of the Wage and Hour Division on May 5, 2014. Dr. Weil is an internationally recognized expert in public and labor market policy; regulatory performance; industrial and labor relations; transparency policy; and supply-chain restructuring and its effects.

Prior to this appointment, Dr. Weil has served as professor of economics and Everett W. Lord Distinguished Faculty Scholar at Boston University Questrom School of Business. He also served as co-director of the Transparency Policy Project at the Ash Institute at Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. He has written three books on labor market policy, including the recently published The Fissured Workplace. He has authored numerous articles and publications in a variety of economics, public policy, management, and industrial relations journals and books, as well as numerous publications in non-academic outlets.

No stranger to the Department’s mission or its work, Dr. Weil has served as an adviser to both the Wage and Hour Division and to the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, as well as to a number of other government agencies. He also has served as mediator and adviser in a range of labor union and labor/management settings across the globe. In addition to his work for the Department, his research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, the National Institutes of Health, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health, among others.

Dr. Weil received his B.S. at Cornell University and M.A. and Ph.D. in public policy at Harvard University.

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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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Lin Zhou, PhD, Dean, Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University

Wed 10/1, 8am – 9am EST
Forum: Challenging the Business Model of Education

Prof. Zhou Lin assumed the Deanship of Antai College of Economics and Management, Shanghai Jiao Tong University since April 2010. Prof. Zhou received Bachelor degree from Fudan University in 1982, and Ph.D. degree in Economics from Princeton University, USA in 1989. He had teaching experience at Yale University, Duke University, Arizona State University, City University of Hong Kong, and Tsinghua University. In 2006, Prof. Zhou was granted the Chang Jiang Scholar by Ministry of Education of China. He was elected Fellow of World Econometric Society in 2009, and is the first scholar in China maintain being granted this award. Before serving as the Dean of Antai College, Prof. Zhou was the previous Dean of School of Economics of Antai Collge and the Deputy Dean of Shanghai Advanced Institute of Finance, Shanghai Jiao Tong University.

Prof. Zhou’s research interest covers the basic theory areas of Microeconomics, including Game Theory, Mechanism Design, Social Choice Theory and Welfare Economics. He has published articles in most leading economic journals like Econometrica, Review of Economic Studies, Journal of Economic Theory, Games and Economic Behavior. He has also held refereeing duties in many renowned journals, like Vice-chief-editor of Mathematical Social Sciences and Social Choice and Welfare.

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Sri Zaheer, PhD, Dean, Carlson Questrom School of Business, University of Minnesota

Forum: Cultivating Research with Impact

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Sri Zaheer joined the Carlson School in 1991 and most recently held the position of associate dean of faculty and research. Zaheer is a Fellow of the Academy of International Business and is a former consulting editor of the Journal of International Business Studies. Her research centers around the risks faced by multinational corporations, and on the impact of technology on international location and organization. She has won several international awards for her research including the Barry Richman Award for the best interdisciplinary work in international management. Zaheer is a founding member of the International Academic Council of the Indian School of Business, set up by McKinsey, Kellogg, and Wharton in Hyderabad, India.

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Giselle Weybrecht, Bestselling author of ‘The Sustainable MBA: A Business Guide to Sustainability’

Thurs 10/2, 11am – 12pm EST
Forum: Engaging New-Generation Students & Employees

Giselle Weybrecht is the bestselling author of The Sustainable MBA: A Business Guide to Sustainability published by Wiley, 2nd edition 2014. The book aims to educate the next generation of business leaders about sustainability issues, whether these be students or business executives. Giselle has over 15 years of experience as an advisor in sustainable development and business topics internationally with the United Nations, business schools, governments and the business sector. She is a frequent lecturer and trainer on these topics and is a Special Advisor to the United Nations Global Compact on management education issues. Over the past 100 days she has been exploring how the MBA can adapt to ensure that it trains the kinds of sustainability leaders that organizations and the world needs by posting one idea a day at 100futuremba.com.

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N. Venkatraman, PhD, David J. McGrath Jr. Professor of Management at Boston University Questrom School of Business

Forum: Increasing the Value of Management Education

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N. Venkatraman is the David J. McGrath Jr. Professor of Management at Boston University Questrom School of Business. Previously, he taught at MIT Sloan School (1984-1993) and London Business School (1999-2001). He was awarded the 2004 and 2006 IBM Faculty Fellowship for his work focusing on business

challenges in the network era. His research and teaching lie at the interface between strategic management and information technology with a particular focus on how companies position to win in a network era. He has been recently recognized by Thomson Financial/ISI as one of the most cited researchers in strategy and information technology. His 1989 paper in Management Science is considered as one of the highly cited papers over the 50 years of the history of the journal. His research has won awards from The Academy of Management (AT Kearney Award for Outstanding Doctoral Research) and Strategic Management Society (McKinsey Honorable Mention) and his doctoral students have been awarded prizes for their thesis work.

He writes papers for managerial audience and academic publications. His papers for managers have been published in the Sloan Management Review over the last decade. He has also published in IBM Systems Journal (1993 Special Issue on Strategic Alignment; the Turning Points issue in 2000), Business Strategy Review (London Business School) and Financial Times. His academic research has been published in Management Science, Strategic Management Journal, Information Systems Review, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review and others. He has consulted and/or lectured for many corporations in the USA, Europe and South Africa including IBM, Microsoft, CSC, BP, Novartis, Ericsson, Canal+, ABN-AMRO, Zurich Financial, McKinsey & Co., Federal Express and others.
He holds a B. Tech degree from IIT, Kharagpur (1976), an MBA from IIM Calcutta (1979); and Ph.D. from University of Pittsburgh (1985).

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

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Karl T. Ulrich ScD, Vice Dean of Innovation & the CIBC Professor of Entrepreneurship and e-Commerce, Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania

Tues 9/30, 2pm – 3pm EST
Forum: Challenging the Business Model of Education

Karl T. Ulrich is Vice Dean of Innovation and the CIBC Professor of Entrepreneurship and e-Commerce at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He also holds an appointment as Professor of Mechanical Engineering. His research is focused on innovation, entrepreneurship, and product development. He is the co-author of Product Design and Development (5th Edition, McGraw-Hill, 2011), a textbook used by a quarter of a million students worldwide, and of Innovation Tournaments (Harvard Business Press, 2009). He is the winner of many teaching awards, including the Anvil Award, the Miller-Sherrerd Award, and the Excellence in Teaching Award at The Wharton School. At Penn, he co-founded the Weiss Tech House and the Integrated Product Design Program, two institutions fostering innovation in the university community. In addition to his academic work, Professor Ulrich has led dozens of innovation efforts for medical devices, tools, computer peripherals, food products, web-based services, and sporting goods. As a result of this work, he holds more than 20 patents. Professor Ulrich is a founder of Terrapass Inc. which the New York Timesidentified as one of the most noteworthy ideas of 2005, and he is a designer of the Xootr scooter, which Business Week recognized as one of the 50 coolest products of the 21st Century. Professor Ulrich holds bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT.

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Howard Thomas, PhD, LKCSB Distinguished Term Professor of Strategic Management, Management Education Director, Academic Strategy and Consulting Unit, Singapore Management University

Forum: Supporting 21st Century Competencies

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Professor Howard Thomas has had a distinguished, global career in business and management education spanning almost 50 years.

He has been a business school Dean on three continents: University of Illinois, USA; Warwick Business School, UK and Singapore Management University, Asia.

His teaching and research interests encompass strategic management and management education. He is a highly-cited scholar, who is a Fellow of the Academy of Management, USA, the British Academy of Management, the Strategic Management Society and the Academy of Social Sciences. He is also a Companion of the Association of Business Schools, UK.  He is a past Chair of the Board of the Graduate Management Admissions Council (GMAC), the American Association of Collegiate Schools of Business International (AACSB), the Association of Business Schools (ABS) and the Global Foundation of Management Education (GFME). He also served as President of the Strategic Management Society.

He has held visiting and permanent academic posts at institutions worldwide: the Australian Graduate School of Management (AGSM) in Sydney, London Business School, Sloan School of Management, MIT, Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern, EIASM, Brussels, and the University of British Columbia, Vancouver. He serves as a board member of State Farm Bank, USA, and the European Foundation for Management Development, (EFMD), Brussels.  He is also a Member of the Financial Research Council (FRC) of the Monetary Authority of Singapore.

He recently authored ‘The Business School in the 21st Century’ (with Peter Lorange and Jagdish Sheth) Cambridge University Press, 2013, ‘Promises Fulfilled and Unfulfilled in Management Education’ Emerald, 2013 and ‘Securing the Future of Management Education: Competitive Destruction or Constructive Innovation?’ Emerald, 2014.

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Rebecca Taylor, PhD, Dean and Professor of Economics, The Open University Business School

Wed 10/1, 11am – 12pm EST
Forum: Supporting 21st Century Competencies

Professor Taylor is Dean and Professor of Economics at the Open University Business School. She holds a degree in Economics from Queen’s University, Canada, an MSc in Economics from the University of Toronto, Canada and a PhD in Economics from the University of Portsmouth, UK.

Rebecca started her career in financial services at the Toronto Dominion Bank. Following the completion of her PhD she spent several years lecturing in quantitative economics, international trade and economic development. She joined the Open University in 2011 from Nottingham Business School where she was Head of Economics for five years and Associate Dean of a further year.

Rebecca is a highly experienced educator at undergraduate and post graduate level. She has taught a range of courses, including: Doctorate in business administration- survey based statistical research; economics of international trade; international trade policy; Britain and the international economy; statistics for economists; and fundamentals of quantitative economics. She has also worked with the Economic and Social Research Council and the Higher Education Academy on addressing the identified skills deficit in quantitative methods across Social Sciences.

Rebecca is a Board member of the European Foundation for Management Development and a Companion of the Chartered Management Institute. She regularly contributes to conferences and workshops related to developments and innovation in education.

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