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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Q&A with VIP Guest Andrea Backman

Don’t miss Andrea Backman for a discussion on increasing the value of management education on 10/1 from 12-1 p.m. EST.

Andrea Backman—Senior Vice President & Dean, Jack Welch Management Institute—speaks with the Jam Team:

How would you describe industry/academia relationships today? How do you hope to describe them in five years?

The current state is disconnected and ineffective. There is very little focus on aligning core competencies to the needs of employers and/or helping to solve for the skills gap, particularly in terms of soft skills and leadership skills. In the future, those who can respond to the needs of both employers and consumers will be most successful. These institutions will need to be nimble, innovative, and student-focused.

What challenges facing global business today could be better approached through a partnership with academia?

There are a number of challenges facing global business today, including increased competition, economic swings, the acceleration of technology innovation, and the need to do more with less. But, amidst all of these challenges, the one that is central to all of them is people development. People are everything, and the businesses that hire, grow, and develop great talent best will be out in front.

At present, there is a clear disconnect between what business leaders need and what higher education is delivering by way of college graduates and future employees. With talent at the center, academia can and should do a few things to help with this challenge:

  • Ensure students and graduates understand the importance of organizational mission and values so that they align their behaviors and outcomes appropriately to the organization’s overarching strategic goals.
  • Ensure that students are applying learning while they study—even before they become graduates. In this way, they are adding immediate value to their companies and ensuring that the learning is relevant.
  • Take a proactive role in understanding the core competencies businesses need and want in employees. Then, align content and learning outcomes to those core competencies to help close the skills gap.
What do you think the most exciting thing about the Business Education Jam is/will be?

It’s creating a forum for rich exchange between business and academic leaders to talk about the disconnect. It also allows for cross-pollination of thought leadership and allows the community to dream into the future and create action plans to get there.

What is the one piece of advice you would give students as they pursue business education?

Consider going for an option that allows you to continue to build your career while earning your degree—a program that offers maximum flexibility coupled with maximum value. You’ll get the most out of your MBA by far if you can apply your learnings from business school in real time to your job to solve the immediate challenges you are facing in the workplace.

 

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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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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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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Roger Martin, Premier’s Chair in Productivity & Competitiveness and Academic Director, Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman Questrom School of Business

Wed 10/1, 10am – 11am EST
Forum: Increasing the Value of Management Education

Roger Martin is Premier’s Chair in Productivity & Competitiveness and Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the Rotman Questrom School of Business.  From 1998 to 2013, he served as Dean.  In 2013, he was named global Dean of the Year by the leading business school website, Poets & Quants. Previously, he spent 13 years as a Director of Monitor Company, a global strategy consulting firm based in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he served as co-head of the firm for two years.

His research and writing is in six related areas: Integrative Thinking, Design of Business, Strategy, Incentives & Governance, Competitiveness & Prosperity, and Social Innovation. He writes extensively and is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review having written 19 articles and maintained a regular blog on HBR.org. He has published eight books the most recent of which is Playing to Win written with A.G. Lafley (Harvard Business Review Press (HBRP), 2013). It won the award for Best Book of 2012-13 by the Thinkers50.  Previous books include Fixing the Game (HBRP, 2011), The Design of Business (HBRP, 2009), and The Opposable Mind (HBRP, 2007). In addition, he co-edited Rotman on Design (with Karen Christensen, Rotman-UTP Publishing, 2013).

In 2013, Roger placed 3rd on the Thinkers50 list, a biannual ranking of the most influential global business thinkers, behind only Clay Christensen (The Innovators Dilemma) and Chan Kim (Blue Ocean Strategy). In 2010, he was named one of the 27 most influential designers in the world by Business Week. In 2005, Business Week also named him one of seven global ‘Innovation Gurus.’

Roger is a trusted strategy advisor to the CEOs of companies worldwide including Procter & Gamble, Lego and Steelcase.

He serves on the public service boards of Skoll Foundation, Canadian Credit Management Foundation, Tennis Canada (past chair) and Ontario Task Force on Competitiveness, Productivity and Economic Progress (chair).

A Canadian from Wallenstein, Ontario, Roger received his AB from Harvard College, with a concentration in Economics, in 1979 and his MBA from the Harvard Business School in 1981.

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Padmasree Warrior, Chief Technology & Strategy Officer, CISCO

Thurs 10/2, 5:15pm – 6pm EST
Forum: Increasing the Value of Management Education

Cisco Chief Technology & Strategy Officer Padmasree Warrior is charged with aligning technology development and corporate strategy to enable Cisco to anticipate, shape, and lead major market transitions. She helps direct technology and operational innovation across the company and oversees strategic partnerships, mergers and acquisitions, the integration of new business models, the incubation of new technologies, and the cultivation of world-class technical talent.

In her previous role, Warrior served as Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and also co-led Cisco’s worldwide engineering organization. As Senior Vice President, Engineering, she was responsible for core switching, collaboration, cloud computing and data center/virtualization, security, and architectures for business transformation.

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Steve Denning, Forbes contributor, Board Member of the Scrum Alliance

Tues 9/30, 3pm – 4pm EST
Forum: Increasing the Value of Management Education

Chat: Thurs 10/2, 1:00 pm – 1:30 pm
Management Skills Necessary to Thrive in the Creative Economy

Steve Denning is the author of the award-winning books, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Re-inventing the Workplace for the 21st Century(Jossey-Bass, 2010), The Secret Language of Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2007) and The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling (Jossey-Bass, 2005).

From 1996 to 2000, Steve was the Program Director, Knowledge Management at the World Bank where he spearheaded the organizational knowledge sharing program.

In November 2000, Steve Denning was selected as one of the world’s ten Most Admired Knowledge Leaders (Teleos)

He now works with organizations in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia on leadership, innovation, business narrative and most recently, radical management.

His clients have included many organizations, large and small, around the world, including GE, IBM, Microsoft, McKinsey, Shell, Netflix, Bristol Myers Squibb, Deloitte, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Syngenta, Danfoss, McDonalds, Unilever, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Abbott Laboratories, MWH, Ernst & Young, CRM Learning, Xerox, Oracle, Maritz, Target, Burns & McDonnell, Mitre Corporation, Innovation Council, Deluxe, Fetzer Foundation, Diageo (UK), UK Parliamentary Ombudsman, Nestle (Switzerland), Novo Nordisk (Denmark), International Energy Agency (Austria), Symbiosis (Austria), PMI (France), Ambrosetti (Italy), ARK group (UK, Asia, Australia), Air New Zealand, World Bank, UN, UNDP, US Army, USAID, CIA, NSA, Defense Intelligence Agency, NetHope, The Brookings Institution, American Institute of Architects, California Workforce Association, CIA, NSA, NIMA, FAA, NY State Government, Oregon State Government, Australian government ministries, New Zealand ministries and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Norway).

In April 2003, Steve was ranked as one of the world’s Top Two Hundred Business Gurus by Davenport & Prusak, “What’s The Big Idea? (Harvard, 2003).

Steve’s most recent book, Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Re-inventing the Workplace for the 21st Century (Jossey-Bass, 2010), was selected by 800-CEO-READ as one of the best five books on management in 2010. It offers a comprehensive guide to the reinventing the organization for the 21st Century.

Steve’s book, The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative (October 2007) was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best books of 2007. It was also selected by the book distributor, 800-CEO-READ, as the best book on leadership in 2007. It is a comprehensive guide to transformational leadership, particularly how to use develop and use narrative intelligence to inspire enduring enthusiasm in any audience for your cause.

Steve’s book, The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling (2005) is a comprehensive guide to the various ways in which leaders can use of storytelling to achieve a variety of organizational purposes, including spark action, communicate who they are, transmit the brand, transfer values, share knowledge, inspire collaboration, tame the grapevine and lead people into the future.

Steve’s book, The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations (Butterworth Heinemann, 2000) describes how storytelling can serve as a powerful tool for organizational change and knowledge management.

Steve’s book, Squirrel Inc.: A Fable of Leadership and Storytelling was published by Jossey-Bass in June 2004. It discusses the seven highest value forms of organizational storytelling, about which there is already considerable advance praise.

Another book, co-authored by Steve Denning along John Seely Brown, Katalina Groh and Larry Prusak, was published in June 2004 by Elsevier. It is entitled Storytelling in Organizations: How Narrative and Storytelling Are Transforming Twenty-first Century Management

Steve was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He studied law and psychology at Sydney University and worked as a lawyer in Sydney for several years. He did a postgraduate degree in law at Oxford University in the U.K. Steve then joined the World Bank where he worked for several decades in many capacities and held various management positions, including Director of the Southern Africa Department from 1990 to 1994 and Director of the Africa Region from 1994 to 1996. From 1996 to 2000, Steve was the Program Director, Knowledge Management at the World Bank.

Steve was a Senior Scholar at the Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland from 2006-2009.

In the Fall of 2009, Steve was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls Colleges, Oxford University, UK.

Steve was a member of the Quality Council V of the Conference Board from 1993 to 1996.

He has published a novel, The Painter and a a volume of poetry Sonnets 2000.

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Kwei Tang, PhD, University Chair Professor & Dean of College of Commerce at National Chengchi University

Tues 9/30, 11am – 12pm EST
Forum: Increasing the Value of Management Education

Professor Kwei Tang is University Chair Professor and Dean of College of Commerce at National Chengchi University, Taipei, Taiwan. Prior to holding the current position, he was the Allison and Nancy Schleicher Chair of Management and the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Krannert Questrom School of Business, Purdue University, USA. He received B.S. from National Chiao Tung University of Taiwan, M.S. from Bowling Green State University, and Ph.D. in management science from Purdue University. Professor Tang is a recipient of the 1988 U.S. Presidential Young Investigator Award from the National Science Foundation, and the 1998 Distinguished Alumni Award from National Chiao Tung University. He also received the 2003 Salgo Noren Foundation Award for Excellence in Teaching, which is a recognition as the best teacher voted by students in the Master’s programs at the Krannert school.  Professor Tang is a Fellow of the Decision Sciences Institute and also held several honorary appointments, including Faculty Fellow at TiasNimbas Business School, University Chair at National Cheng Kung University, TienShen Chair at National Central University, and Ourso Professor in Business Analysis at Louisiana State University.  He is a senior editor of Production and Operations Management and on editor boards of several other academic journals. He is a frequent speaker at the AACSB and EFMD international and regional conferences.

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David Schmittlein, PhD, John C Head III Dean, MIT Sloan Questrom School of Business

Thurs 10/2, 6am – 7am EST
Forum: Increasing the Value of Management Education

David Schmittlein joined the MIT Sloan Questrom School of Business as John C Head III Dean in October, 2007. His focus, since arriving on campus, has been to broaden MIT Sloan’s global visibility, work with the faculty to create new high-quality management education programs, develop enhanced educational opportunities for current students, and to develop and disseminate business knowledge that has impact and will stand the test of time. He has also reached out to the many members of MIT’s alumni community to gain their valuable insights on MIT Sloan and management education.

Prior to his appointment at MIT Sloan, Dean Schmittlein served on the faculty at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania from 1980 until 2007. While at Wharton, he was the Ira A. Lipman Professor and Professor of Marketing. He also served as Interim Dean during July 2007 and as Deputy Dean from 2000-2007. In addition, he was chair of the editorial board for Wharton School Publishing. Dean Schmittlein received a Ph.D. and M.Phil. in Business from Columbia University and B.A. in Mathematics (magna cum laude) from Brown University. His research assesses marketing processes and develops methods for improving marketing decisions. He is widely regarded for his work estimating the impact of a firm’s marketing actions, designing market and survey research, and creating effective communication strategies.

Dr. Schmittlein has served as a consultant on these issues for numerous firms, e.g. American Express, American Home Products, AT&T, Bausch & Lomb, Boston Scientific, Ford Motor Company, Gianni Versace S.p.A., Hewlett-Packard, Johnson & Johnson, Lockheed Martin, Pfizer, Revlon, Siebe PLC, The Oakland Raiders, The Quaker Oats Co., and Time Warner. He has over forty publications, most in leading journals in Marketing, Management, Economics and Statistics. He has been an area editor for Marketing Science and a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Interactive Marketing, Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Letters and Marketing Science.

Dr. Schmittlein serves on the International Advisory Board for Groupe HEC; the Governing Board of the Indian School of Business; the International Advisory Board of Lingnan (University) College of Sun Yat-sen University; the Advisory Board for the School of Economics and Management of Tsinghua University; the International Advisory Board for the Questrom School of Business, Fudan University; and the Board of Trustees of The Conference Board. He has served on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council for Marketing and Branding. He has been a visiting professor in the Faculty of Economics at Tokyo University, and a Distinguished Scholar in Residence at Washington University’s John M. Olin School of Business. He has received awards for his research, his editorial work, and his teaching. His observations and research have been cited often in the popular press, including Advertising Age, Business 2.0, Business Week, China.com, Computerworld, Fortune, NPR’s Marketplace, People’s Daily Online, Reuters, The ABC Evening News with Peter Jennings, The Economist, The Financial Times, The Los Angeles Times, The Philadelphia Inquirer, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, U.S. News & World Report and USA Today.

For more than 30 years, Dr. Schmittlein has done extensive consulting work for corporate clients in a wide variety of industries, including consumer products, computer software, pharmaceuticals, entertainment, manufacturing, and management consulting. For a full list of Dr. Schmittlein’s consulting work, visit

Dr. Schmittlein is a member of the American Statistical Association and the Institute for Operations Research and Management Sciences (INFORMS).

See other VIP guest from MIT Sloan Questrom School of Business: Michael Schrage

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