Ambi M.G. Parameswaran, PhD, Advisor, FCB Ulka Advertising

Tues 9/30, 10am – 11am EST
Forum: Engaging New-Generation Students & Employees

Ambi as he is known, is a Chemical Engineer from IIT Madras (Indian Institute of Technology) and a Management Graduate from IIM Calcutta (Indian Institute of Management).  In a career spanning three decades he has handled assignments in marketing, sales and advertising with companies like Rediffusion DY&R, Boots Company and UDI Yellow Pages before dropping anchor at FCB Ulka Advertising over two decades ago.  He has had a key role in the transformation of Ulka Advertising into FCB Ulka Group, one of India’s top three marketing communication group, with interests in advertising, media, consulting, digital, and healthcare. He has worked on numerous brands including Digene, Brufen, Santoor Soap, Sundrop Cooking Oil, TCS, ICICI Bank, Wipro, Tata Indica Cars, Zee TV among others, covering diverse categories such as automotives, healthcare, telecom, FMCG, corporate etc.

Ambi has been contributing articles to premier business publications, has conducted seminars and branding workshops for Indian/ MNC organizations and industry bodies. He has been a speaker at international forums including the Kellogg India Conference at Northwestern University and Cornell University; he has also been a guest faculty at several business schools including Indian School of Business and his alma mater, IIMC. He has also presented papers at international conferences of Association for Consumer Research and INFORMS.

Ambi now has seven books to his credit including: “FCB-Ulka Brand Building Advertising – Concepts and Cases”; “Building Brand Value – Five Steps to Building Powerful Brands” (Winner of 2007 NTPC – DMA Book Prize), and “For God’s Sake – An adman on the Business of Religion” (the last book was inspired by his research on “Religion and Consumer Behaviour”)

Ambi is involved in several industry organizations such as CII, IAA and has served as the President of Advertising Club Bombay. He successfully completed his PhD from Mumbai University in 2012, and the Advanced Management Programme from Harvard Business School in 2014. He was inducted into the Board of Governors of IIMC in 2007 and he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Madras in April 2009. Ambi was elected as the President of the apex advertising industry body, the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) in July 2014.

Back to VIP Guests

Jamie P. Merisotis, President and CEO, Lumina Foundation

Wed 10/1 4pm – 5pm EST
Forum: Supporting 21st Century Competencies

Jamie P. Merisotis is president and CEO of Lumina Foundation, the nation’s largest private foundation committed solely to enrolling and graduating more students from college.  Under his leadership, Lumina employs a strategic, outcomes-based approach in pursuing the Foundation’s mission of expanding college access and success particularly among low-income, minority and other historically underrepresented populations.  Lumina’s goal is to ensure that, by 2025, 60 percent of Americans hold high quality degrees, certificates and other credentials—up from the current level of less than 40 percent.

Before joining Lumina in 2008, Merisotis founded and served 15 years as president of the Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Higher Education Policy, one of the world’s premier education research and policy centers.  He previously served as executive director of the National Commission on Responsibilities for Financing Postsecondary Education, a bipartisan commission appointed by the U.S. president and congressional leaders. Merisotis also helped create the Corporation for National and Community Service (AmeriCorps), and serves on numerous national and international boards of directors, including Bates College in Maine, Anatolia College in Greece, the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, and The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.

Back to VIP Guests

John A. Byrne, President, Editor in Chief, Poets & Quants

Thurs 10/2, 10am – 11am EST
Forum: Challenging the Business Model of Education

Thurs 10/2, 3pm – 4pm EST
Forum: Evaluating Policy & Rankings

John A. Byrne is chairman and editor-in-chief of C-Change Media Inc., a digital media startup that is launching a network of websites for the global business community. C-Change currently has two highly successful sites, Poets&Quants.com and Poets&QuantsforExecs.com. Little more than two years old, P&Q generates more than one million monthly page views and boasts a book imprint division which published its first title in 2012. Byrne is also the author of “World Changers: 25 Entrepreneurs Who Changed Business As We Knew It,” his first book in ten years since the publication of his collaboration with General Electric Chairman Jack Welch. That book, “Straight from the Gut,” was a New York Times bestseller for 26 consecutive weeks.

Byrne’s collaboration with Mort Mandel, a self-made billionaire and highly successful entrepreneur in both the for-profit and non-profit worlds, will be published in December of 2012 by Jossey-Bass as part of its Warren Bennis leadership series. The book is entitled “It’s All About Who You Hire, How They Lead…and Other Essential Advice from a Self-Made Leader.”

Until Nov. of 2009, Byrne had been executive editor and editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek.com. He led BusinessWeek.com to record levels of reader engagement and traffic, oversaw the redesign of the site, and launched extensive new areas of coverage on management and lifestyle. Mr. Byrne initiated the site’s twice-daily executive news summary, weekly interactive case studies, multi-media classroom videos, as well as new blogs and podcasts. He helped to develop and launch a major Web 2.0 initiative called the Business Exchange, an innovative product utilizing social media and news aggregation.

Under his leadership, BusinessWeek.com won two consecutive National Magazine Awards, the most prestigious recognition in magazine publishing, an EPpy for Best Business Website with over one million unique visitors (over The Wall Street Journal), and second place honors as the Best Website of the Year for news and business by the Magazine Publishers Association. In 2008 alone, BW.com captured an unprecedented 21 awards and nominations for journalism excellence. His weekly podcast on Business Week’s cover story has been downloaded nearly 10 million times. Mr. Byrne’s views on the future of journalism have made him a popular speaker and essayist. In the past two years, he has spoken at more than a dozen conferences, has been frequently interviewed about the new world of journalism, and has been published by Harvard University’s Nieman Reports, The Christian Science Monitor, and MediaWeek magazine.

Prior to role at BusinessWeek.com, he was the executive editor for the print publication since 2005, during which he began three new annual franchises, including the highly successful Customer Service Champions and the Best Places to Launch a Career, and recruited to the magazine such popular weekly columnists as Jack and Suzy Welch, Maria Bartiromo, and renown wine critic Robert Parker.

Previously, Mr. Byrne was editor-in-chief of Fast Company magazine. He joined Fast Company in April 2003, succeeding founding editors Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, where he worked to reinvent the business magazine. Under his leadership, Fast Company won many coveted journalism awards, including its first Gerald Loeb award, the highest honor in business journalism. Mr. Byrne also made Fast Company the first business brand to launch an online blog and created, through a partnership with Monitor Group, an annual award competition for social entrepreneurs. More importantly, Mr. Byrne found and cultivated a buyer for the magazine, resulting in a $35 million purchase that saved the publication from an almost certain closure.

Before joining Fast Company, he worked for BusinessWeek for nearly 18 years, most recently holding the position of Senior Writer and authoring a record 57 cover stories for the magazine. His articles have explored the fairness of executive pay, the folly of management fads, and the governance of major corporations. Mr. Byrne’s magazine writing has won numerous awards and has been republished in collections of the best writing on business. He was named a National Magazine Award finalist as well as a Gerald Loeb award finalist twice. Among his more widely recognized cover stories are “Philip Morris: Inside America’s Most Reviled Company,” a provocative exploration of the men who ran the largest tobacco corporation in the world, “The Fall of a Dot-Com,” an investigative story on how big-name investors, blinded by Net fever, poured millions into a dot-com that fell into bankruptcy, “Joe Berardino’s Fall from Grace,” a narrative of how Arthur Andersen’s CEO presided over the demise of his legendary firm, “The Man Who Invented Management,” a reflective essay on why management guru Peter Drucker’s ideas still matter, and “Are CEOs Paid Too Much?,” an early examination (1992) of why executive compensation was out-of-control.

Mr. Byrne developed the idea of a monthly best-sellers list, launched the industry-leading business school rankings, established and managed the magazine’s ranking of the best and worst corporate boards, and created its annual list of the most generous philanthropists. He also built out the business education franchise online in the mid-1990s, setting the stage for a highly regarded online community and one that has reaped tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue for BusinessWeek. He has been a frequent commentator on television, having appeared on CNN’s Moneyline and CNBC’s Squawk Box and Business Center.

Mr. Byrne is the author or co-author of more than ten books on business, leadership, and management, including two national bestsellers. World Changers, to be published by Penguin Books’ Portfolio imprint, is his first book in ten years. His previous book, published Sept. 11, 2001 by Warner Books, was Jack: Straight from the Gut, the highly anticipated collaboration with former General Electric Co. CEO Jack Welch. The book debuted at the very top of The New York Times bestseller list and remained on the list for 26 consecutive weeks. Mr. Byrne has written or co-authored seven other books, including Chainsaw (HarperCollins, 1999), the behind-the-scenes story of Al Dunlap’s rise and fall as a business celebrity. The book received widespread acclaim. Publishers Weekly called the book a “blistering saga” and a “sizzling tale.” The Street.com said Chainsaw “should be required reading in all business and accounting schools.”

Mr. Byrne’s other books include: Informed Consent (McGraw-Hill, 1995); The Headhunters (MacMillan, 1986); Odyssey (Harper & Row, 1987), the business biography of former Apple Computer chairman John Sculley; and The Whiz Kids (Currency/Doubleday, 1993), which explored the life and times of ten Army Air Force officers who helped to remake the Ford Motor Co. in the post-war period. Managment guru Tom Peters called The Whiz Kids “an important milestone in American management analysis. Warren Bennis has said the book is “the best history of American business from World War II to the present.” Mr. Byrne also wrote BusinessWeek’s Guide to the Best Business Schools (McGraw-Hill, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995, and 1997) and co-wrote BusinessWeek’s Guide to the Best Executive Education Programs (McGraw-Hill, 1992).

As part of a new book imprint division at Poets&Quants, Byrne also is the co-author of “Handicapping Your MBA Odds: Profiles of 101 Applicants & Their Odds of Getting Into a Top Business School.” The book was published in the summer of 2012.

Back to VIP Guests

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.

Back to VIP Guests

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.

Back to VIP Guests

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.

Back to VIP Guests

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

Forum: Cultivating Research with Impact

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

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.

Back to VIP Guests

Michael Wright, Global Chief Information Officer, McKinsey & Co.

Wed 10/1, 1pm – 2pm EST
Forum: Fostering Ethical Leadership

Mike Wright is the Global Chief Information Officer for McKinsey and Company, the international management consultancy. Previously he has held similar roles for Man Group plc; for Fidelity International; and for the Willis Group Ltd. All four roles have spanned multiple international locations, with genuinely global remits. At Willis, he worked closely with the private equity firm, KKR, to take the company private and then return to a public listing on the NYSE.

In addition to these CIO roles, Mike has seen the financial services industry and IT function from a number of other vantage points. Between 1984 and 1997, he worked as a consultant at both Accenture and McKinsey on various IT and general business assignments; he founded and ran a software products company for four years, and was also a non executive director of another software start up specializing in digital rights management.

In 2008, 2010 & 2011, he was voted one of the top 50 CIO’s in the UK in a survey by Silicon.com. He has been a CIO advisor for HP; part of the Accenture panel of Global CIO’s and worked with Boston University to forecast the strategic direction for offshoring and outsourcing.

Mike graduated from Oxford University with an MA in Biochemistry after doing research into Parkinson’s disease. Outside work, Mike enjoys his family, sport and travel. He is also actively involved with charity work in different roles.

Back to VIP Guests

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.

Back to VIP Guests

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

Forum: Increasing the Value of Management Education

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

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

Back to VIP Guests