EXECUTIVE EDUCATION

Elizabeth Mannix’s research and teaching is focused on effective organizational performance and the factors that make individuals motivated, high-performing leaders and team members. Specific topics include authentic leadership, principled negotiation and influence, the role of emotional intelligence in business settings, organizational change, women in leadership, and diversity. She is certified in the MSCEIT emotional intelligence assessment. Professor Mannix is the author of over 50 peer-reviewed articles as well as the 15-volume book series “Research on Managing Groups and Teams.” Her work has been recognized by awards from organizations including the Academy of Management, Small Group Research, and the International Association for Conflict Management.

Professor Mannix teaches and consults with executives and organizations nationally and around the globe, with a special emphasis on the Middle East and Asia. She is a two-time Associate Editor of the Academy of Management Review as well as a Fellow of the American Psychological Society, the Society for Organizational Behavior, and the Academy of Management. Professor Mannix earned her Ph.D. degree in Social and Organizational Psychology from the University of Chicago. Prior to joining the faculty at Cornell, she was a faculty member at Columbia Business School and at the University of Chicago. Professor Mannix was also a visiting professor in the MBA program at the Sasin Graduate Institute of Business Administration at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, Thailand.

Karan Girotra, Professor of Operations, Technology and Information Management (OTIM), is the recipient of the Charles H. Dyson Family Professor of Management chair, for a 5-year term. This chair was given by Rob Dyson, MBA ’74 to support a founding faculty position for Johnson instruction at Cornell Tech, in honor of his father, the founder of the Dyson-Kissner-Moran Corporation.

Karan Girotra is a Professor at Cornell Tech and in the Johnson School at Cornell University. Karan collaborates with companies building new business models in the areas of urban living, smart transportation and e-commerce, helping them build rigorous research based solutions.

Karan’s research team has been recognized by multiple awards including the prestigious Wickham Skinner Early Career Research Award and multiple best paper awards. He has also won teaching awards for his teaching on entrepreneurship and new business models and was featured in the Poets and Quant’s Best 40 under 40 business professors lists.

In addition to his academic work, Karan was one of the founders of Terrapass Inc., which the New York Times identified as one of the most noteworthy ideas of 2005. Since then, TerraPass has helped businesses and individuals reduce over hundred million tons of carbon dioxide emissions.

Karan holds PhD and AM degrees from the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania, and a Bachelor degree from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Glen Dowell is an Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at the Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. He researches in the area of corporate sustainability, with a focus on firm environmental performance. Recent projects have investigated the effect of local demographic factors on changes in pollution levels, the role of corporate merger and acquisition in facilitating changes in facility environmental performance, and the relative influence of financial return and disruption on the commercial adoption of energy savings initiatives.

Professor Dowell’s research has been published in Management Science, Organization Studies, Advances in Strategic Management, Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Journal of Management, Industrial and Corporate Change, Journal of Business Ethics, and Administrative Science Quarterly. He is senior editor at Organization Science and co-editor of Strategic Organization, is on the editorial boards of Strategic Management Journal and Administrative Science Quarterly, and represents Cornell on the board of the Alliance for Research in Corporate Sustainability (ARCS). He is also the Division Chair for the Organizations and Natural Environment Division of the Academy of Management.

Professor Dowell teaches Sustainable Global Enterprise and Critical and Strategic Thinking. He is a faculty affiliate for the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise and a faculty fellow at the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future.

Neil Tarallo is a senior lecturer of entrepreneurship at the Cornell School of Hotel Administration. He currently serves as the director of the Cornell University Entrepreneurship Bootcamp for Disabled Veterans (EBV), which offers entrepreneurship education to post 9/11 veterans and as the director (interim) of the Leland C. and Mary M. Pillsbury Institute for Hospitality Entrepreneurship. He has also served as the curriculum lead and co-PI for the U.S. Small Business Administration, Office of Veteran Business Development’s boots2business program.

As an entrepreneur, Tarallo has owned and operated companies in the fields of photographic retail and quick printing. He has also purchased, rehabilitated, and sold numerous businesses. Tarallo currently has an active consulting practice as well a commercial real estate development and management company. He is also member of a venture capital partnership and an active angel investor.

A seasoned active entrepreneur, academic, and consultant with a proven track record of bringing real world experiences to students, veterans, and corporate/non-profit clients internationally in the classroom, online, and through seminars.

”I teach and have created a broad spectrum of entrepreneurship courses for delivery in the classroom and online with significant experience developing academic entrepreneurship programs, including centers and institutes, dating back to 1994. Teaching experiences in Djibouti (Africa), South Africa, Germany, Italy, South Korea, and Japan have given me the opportunity to observe entrepreneurship in cultures and economies outside of the United States. These experiences have broadened my entrepreneurial repertoire in the classroom and in consulting engagements.

These experiences have also helped me to understand the importance of aggregating theory and practice in the classroom. I have found that by designing a curriculum rich in experiential learning opportunities and engaging students in a real world application of knowledge, I am able to provide a more impactful learning experience that will also translate into their professional lives.

Along the way I have developed expertise in establishing entrepreneurial behavior, culture, mindset, and structure for existing corporations/organizations with over 20 years’ experience applying these skills in corporate and academic environments as an entrepreneur and consultant. When I am not teaching, I work with corporations and non-profits to help them create new markets through value proposition design, customer experience mapping, and business model evolution.”

Dan Hooker is a global retail and consumer packaged goods executive with broad experience across diverse business environments and formats, leading traditional food retail operations and merchandising, as well as product development, consumer and category analytics, sourcing and procurement, global trading, national sales, and e-commerce. An outstanding strategist and general manager, he has led the successful startup of multiple diverse businesses. Known for and recognized as one of the world’s leading authorities on retailers’ proprietary brands, Mr. Hooker has shaped clients’ programs across four continents and eight classes of trade. His passion is in helping companies recognize their unique DNA and positioning then creating actionable marketing and sales strategies essential for their success.

A graduate of the Johnson MBA program, Angela Noble-Grange is a Senior Lecturer of Management Communication at Cornell University’s Johnson Graduate School of Management. Professor Noble-Grange teaches Oral Communication and Management Writing. Her interests include persuasive speaking and writing as well as gender and race differences in message perception.

Professor Noble-Grange was the founding director of the Office for Women and Minorities in Business (now ODI) in 1999 and president of the Noble Economic Development Group, a micro-enterprise development consulting company, from June 1994 to January 1999. She has served on numerous boards and is currently a trustee for Paul Smith’s College in the Adirondacks. Professor Noble-Grange earned her B.A. in Communication Studies and Russian in 1983 and her MBA from Johnson in 1994.

Risa Mish is professor of practice of management at the Johnson Graduate School of Management. She designed and teaches the MBA Core course in Critical and Strategic Thinking, in addition to teaching courses in leadership and serving as faculty co-director of the Johnson Leadership Fellows program.

She has been the recipient of the MBA Core Faculty Teaching Award, selected by the residential program MBA class to honor the teacher who “best fosters learning through lecture, discussion and course work in the required core curriculum”; the Apple Award for Teaching Excellence, selected by the MBA graduating classes to honor a faculty member who “exemplifies outstanding leadership and enduring educational influence”; the “Best Teacher Award”, selected by the graduating class of the Cornell-Tsinghua dual degree MBA/FMBA program offered by Johnson at Cornell and the PBC School of Finance at Tsinghua University; the Stephen Russell Distinguished Teaching Award, selected by the five-year MBA reunion class to honor a faculty member whose “teaching and example have continued to influence graduates five years into their post-MBA careers”; and the Globe Award for Teaching Excellence, selected by the Executive MBA graduating class to honor a faculty member who “demonstrates a command of subject matter and also possesses the creativity, dedication, and enthusiasm essential to meet the unique challenges of an EMBA education.”

Mish serves as a keynote speaker and workshop leader at global, national, and regional conferences for corporations and trade associations in the consumer products, financial services, health care, high tech, media, and manufacturing industries, on a variety of topics, including critical thinking and problem solving, persuasion and influence, and motivating optimal employee performance. Before returning to Cornell, Mish was a partner in the New York City law firm of Collazo Carling & Mish LLP (now Collazo Florentino & Keil LLP), where she represented management clients on a wide range of labor and employment law matters, including defense of employment discrimination claims in federal and state courts and administrative agencies, and in labor arbitrations and negotiations under collective bargaining agreements. Prior to CC&M, Mish was a labor and employment law associate with Simpson Thacher & Bartlett in New York City, where she represented Fortune 500 clients in the financial services, consumer products, and manufacturing industries. She is admitted to practice before the U.S. Supreme Court and state and federal courts in New York and Massachusetts.

Mish is a member of the board of directors of SmithBucklin Corporation, the world’s largest trade association management company, headquartered in Chicago and TheraCare Corporation, headquartered in New York City. She formerly served as a Trustee of the Tompkins County Public Library, Vice Chair of the board of directors of the Community Foundation of Tompkins County, and member of the board of directors of the United Way of Tompkins County.

Gautam Ahuja serves as the Eleanora and George Landew Professor of Management and professor of management and organizations at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. He has also served at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan (2001-2017), University of Texas at Austin (1996-2001), and as visiting professor of business administration at Harvard Business School (2014-2015).

Ahuja’s research interests include competitive analysis, technology and innovation, globalization, and the use of inter-organizational arrangements such as mergers, acquisitions, and alliances in these contexts. His research on these issues has received many global awards and honors, most recently Fellow of the Strategic Management Society (2023), Fellow of the Academy of Management (2021), and TIM Distinguished Scholar for lifetime achievement in research (2019), the highest award given by the Technology and Innovation Management Division of the Academy of Management.

Ahuja’s research has received more than 30,000 citations from other scholars and various federal and international bodies. He has served as editor-in-chief of Organization Science, one of the premier journals in the field, and has also served as associate editor for Management Science and as a senior editor for Organization Science and Strategy Science.

Ahuja teaches strategy and competitive analysis. At Cornell, he has received the Cornell-Tech Best Professor Award as well as the Johnson School’s Apple Award given by the graduating class annually to the faculty member who has had the most impact on them in the classroom. In 2016, Ahuja received the BPS Wiley Outstanding Educator Award for his lifetime teaching contributions. This award is given to one faculty member across the world every year by the Strategy Division of the Academy of Management. In 2011, Bloomberg BusinessWeek ranked Ahuja number two in its listing of the Most Popular Professors in the United States in its Popularity Issue naming the market leaders in various business, product, and cultural categories. As a doctoral advisor, he has trained many students who are now faculty at some of the best institutions across the world.

Drew Pascarella is a lecturer of finance at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University, where he currently leads the Investment Banking Immersion program and is the faculty director of the Fintech Intensive. In addition, Mr. Pascarella has taught Core Finance, Mergers and Acquisitions (Executive MBA level), Investment Banking Essentials (undergraduate level), and Lectures in Finance. Mr. Pascarella is also heavily involved with executive education initiatives, working with global corporate clients on finance hard skills and Fintech training. Mr. Pascarella was the 2014 recipient of the Class of 1992 Apple Award for Teaching Excellence.

Prior to his arrival at Johnson in 2012, Mr. Pascarella spent 15 years working at bulge bracket investment banks. Mr. Pascarella has advised clients on over $35bn of merger and acquisition transactions and led equity, convertible, and debt financing transactions totaling over $9bn in proceeds. Most recently, Mr. Pascarella was a director in the Technology Investment Banking group at Citi. Notable transactions include the formation of Nokia Siemens Networks (largest JV in corporate history), Nokia’s $8.1bn acquisition of NAVTEQ (largest acquisition by a Finnish corporate) and associated €1.75bn debt IPO, Andrew Corporation’s $2.6bn sale to Commscope, Lucent’s $1.625bn convertible bond offering, and sale of multiple private businesses to Cisco. While at Citi, Mr. Pascarella was an active participant in the Investment Banking Associate Training Program, developing and delivering hard and soft skills courses. Prior to joining Citi, Mr. Pascarella was a technology project manager at Goldman Sachs, where he led the design, development, implementation, and support of global trading technology systems.

In addition to his duties at Johnson, Mr. Pascarella is managing director and head of East Coast Banking of Vista Point Advisors.

Mr. Pascarella holds an MBA from Cornell University and a BBA in computer information systems from James Madison University.

Michelle M. Duguid is Associate Dean of Diversity, Inclusion, and Belonging, and an associate professor of management and organizations at the S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. Professor Duguid’s primary area of research investigates the interplay of social status, power, politics, influence, and diversity in organizations, with a particular focus on the effect of social status, power, and inter- and intra-group relations on perceptions and interactions. She also performs research examining individual and group processes that affect creativity and the quality of decision making. Professor Duguid serves on the editorial board of Organization Science, the Academy of Management Journal, the Academy of Management Review, and Personnel Psychology. She received her M.S. and Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior from Cornell University. 

Allan Filipowicz is clinical professor of management and organizations at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management at Cornell University. Professor Filipowicz’s research focuses on how emotions drive or impede leadership effectiveness, at both the intrapersonal and interpersonal levels. Within this domain, he studies the relationship between emotions and risky decision making; the influence of humor on both leadership and negotiation effectiveness; the impact of emotional transitions in negotiations; and the relationship between genes, chronotype (morningness–eveningness) and performance. His work has been published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, Journal of Operations Management, International Journal of Forecasting, Creativity Research Journal, Journal of Circadian Rhythms, and Scientific Reports.

Professor Filipowicz teaches Managing and Leading Organizations (recently winning a Best Core Faculty Award), Negotiations, Executive Leadership and Development, Leading Teams, and Critical and Strategic Thinking. He has taught executives across the globe, from Singapore to Europe to the US, with recent clients including Medtronic, Bayer, Google, Pernod Ricard, and Harley-Davidson. Professor Filipowicz received his PhD from Harvard University. He holds an MBA from The Wharton School, an MA in International Affairs from the University of Pennsylvania, and degrees in electrical engineering (MEng, BS) and economics (BA) from Cornell University. His professional experience includes banking (Bankers Trust, New York) and consulting, including running his own boutique consulting firm and four years with The Boston Consulting Group in Paris.

Stephen Sauer’s research and teaching activities focus on issues of leadership, team processes, entrepreneurship, and status and diversity in management. His work has been published in a number of academic journals including Leadership Quarterly, Organization Science, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Human Resource Management. His research has also been featured in a variety of mainstream media outlets including The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Forbes.com, and USA Today, among others.

His teaching experience includes courses in Leadership, Strategy, Negotiations, and Organizational Behavior at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, and he has extensive experience leading executive education workshops and seminars for a number of major corporations. He is also an Entrepreneur in Residence at Cornell’s Center for Regional Economic Advancement and Rev: Ithaca Startup Works and is a member of the teaching team for the NSF Innovation Corps national program.

Dr. Sauer graduated with a PhD in Management and Organizational Behavior from Cornell University, where he also earned an MBA and a Master’s in Business and Policy Administration. He also holds a Bachelor’s degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Prior to embarking on an academic career, he worked as an organizational change consultant and as a plant manager, after serving for seven years as an armored cavalry officer in the US Army.

Dr. Theomary Karamanis is a multiple-award-winning communication professor and consultant with 25 years of global experience. She is a full-time Senior Lecturer of Management Communication at the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business and regularly delivers executive education programs in leadership communication, crisis communication, and strategic communication. Dr. Karamanis has held several professional leadership positions, including Chair of the Global Communication Certification Council, Chair of the International Association of Business Communicators (IABC) Academy, and Chair of the IABC Awards Committee.

Dr. Karamanis’s academic background includes a Ph.D. in Communication Studies, a Master of Arts in Mass Communication, and a post-graduate certificate in telecommunications, all from Northwestern University, as well as a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the Athens University of Economics and Business. She also holds professional certifications as a Strategic Communication Management Professional (SCMP), online facilitator, and executive program instructor.

Dr. Karamanis has been actively engaged in various industries (private, nonprofit, and government) and fields of expertise, including corporate communication, media and PR, higher education administration and teaching, and consulting. She has lived and worked in Canada, Greece, Trinidad and Tobago, the United Arab Emirates, and the United States of America.

Dr. Karamanis is the recipient of 40 professional communication awards, including 12 Platinum MarCom awards, seven Gold Quill awards, four Silver Quill awards, and a Comm Prix award. In 2020, she received the Award for Excellence in Communication Consulting by the Association of Professional Communication Consultants and the Association for Business Communication. Dr. Karamanis is the author of several books and academic papers on communication and regularly delivers presentations at international conferences and other business forums.

Andrew Quagliata is a Senior Lecturer in Management Communication at Cornell University’s Nolan School of Hotel Administration. Dr. Quagliata teaches courses in business writing, persuasive communication, entrepreneurial communication, and real estate communication. He engages with industry by speaking and delivering workshops on topics related to interpersonal communication, presentation skills, workplace writing, relationship building, storytelling, and influence. Professor Quagliata holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Communication from the University at Buffalo. Prior to his arrival at Cornell, he held professional positions in finance and higher education.

Laura Georgianna is a senior lecturer in Management and Organizations, executive director of Leadership Programs and the director of the Roy H. Park Leadership Fellows program at Johnson. Through these roles, Laura oversees the articulation of Johnson’s perspective on leadership and our strategy for building the leadership capability of each student within our MBA community. She teaches a wide variety of our leadership development experiences for students and used her training as an executive coach to provide one on one support to students throughout the MBA development journey.

Laura has spent her career working with leaders and their organizations to empower them to deliver results, grow the business, and achieve long-term goals. Most recently, she worked for Cornell’s ILR school designing and teaching programs in intrapreneurial leadership for companies around the globe.

Before Cornell, Laura was senior director, organization capability and development at Welch Allyn, Inc., where she led talent management, leadership development, performance management, and organizational development for the firm. Prior to that, she held roles in executive education, transformational change, and organizational development at Merck & Co. Inc. She also spent a number of years with Thomson Financial (now Thomson Reuters) in Account Services leadership roles.

Laura received an MBA with distinction from Johnson, where she was a Roy H. Park Leadership Fellow, and an MILR from Cornell’s ILR School. She holds a BA from the University of Rochester, where she graduated Summa Cum Laude.

Peter Jackson is a Professor in the School of Operations Research and Industrial Engineering. Born in Nipigon, Ontario, Canada, he received a B.A. in Economics with Mathematics in 1975 (University of Western Ontario), a M.Sc. in Statistics in 1978 (Stanford University), and a Ph.D. in Operations Research in 1980 (Stanford University). He has served at Cornell since 1980. He is Director of Graduate Studies for, and a former Director of, the Systems Engineering Program within the College of Engineering. He also serves as the Director of Undergraduate Studies for ORIE.

Jackson has published in IIE Transactions, Journal of Manufacturing and Operations Management, Management Science, Mathematical Programming, Mathematics of Operations Research, Naval Research Logistics Quarterly, and Operations Research. Professor Jackson has consulted with several companies in these areas, including Agco, PTC-Servigistics, General Motors, Cleveland Clinic, Xelus, Clopay Building Products, General Electric, Aeroquip, and Quaker Oats. He is the recipient of a General Motors Research and Development Innovation award in 2011 for a business process to optimize retail inventories.

Professor Jackson is also active in educational curriculum development for operations research and systems engineering. He is the recipient of several awards for curriculum innovation in addition to numerous student-voted awards for teaching excellence. He is the author of an introductory textbook to systems engineering, Getting Design Right: A Systems Approach.

Elena Belavina is an associate professor at the SC Johnson College of Business. She collaborates with startups, established companies, and public agencies to study issues of sustainable urban transportation, food waste, grocery retail, and supply chains. Her recent research has examined how the grocery industry’s structure and pricing policies influence food waste, the environmental impact of online grocery shopping, and the design of bike-share systems. Professor Belavina has also studied sustainable sourcing, relational contracts, and supply network design, including the role of supply chain intermediaries. Methodologically, her research involves holistic analysis of logistic and economic systems, as well as econometric analysis of large data sets to advise on system improvements and policies.

Prior to joining Johnson, Professor Belavina was on the faculty of the Booth School of Business at the University of Chicago and earned a Ph.D. from INSEAD as well as Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Applied Mathematics and Physics from the Moscow Institute of Physics and Technology.

Experienced upper manager and change agent with an outstanding track record of delivering organization development, business growth, and management at providers of technology, capital equipment, consumables, and support services at world-leading engineering focused organizations. Successfully managed the integration of teams following four acquisitions, performed a very successful business turn around, and drove seven years of dramatic growth at a start-up.

Formerly CEO of MiTeGen,  a small bio-tech manufacturing company.  Prior to that served as COO of AeroFarms LLC, a start-up company providing capital equipment for controlled environment agriculture; Business Manager of Service and Customer Support at Mettler Toledo Hi-Speed, North America’s leading manufacturer of checkweighers and integrated product inspection solutions; and as Vice President of Customer Support and Implementation at Moldflow Corp., the global leader in CAE for polymer processing, hot runner controllers, and related injection molding and production monitoring equipment.

Education

• Undergraduate Degrees, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University
• MBA in International Management, Baker College

Lin William Cong is the Rudd Family Professor of Management and Associate Professor of Finance at the Johnson Graduate School of Management, SC Johnson College of Business, Cornell University. Prior to joining Cornell, Professor Cong was an Assistant Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business and faculty member at the Center for East Asian Studies. He was also a doctoral fellow at the Stanford Institute for Innovation in Developing Economies and a George Shultz Scholar at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research. Professor Cong is currently a Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellow as well as one of Poets & Quants World’s Best 40 Under 40 MBA Professors. He serves as an associate editor for Management Science and the Journal of Banking and Finance, and he is a member of multiple professional organizations. Professor Cong earned a Ph.D. in Finance and an M.S. in Statistics from Stanford University, where he was recognized with the Lieberman Fellowship for outstanding contributions in research, teaching, and university service.

Derek Cabrera (Ph.D., Cornell) is a systems scientist, Professor, and social entrepreneur and is internationally known for his work in systems thinking, systems leadership, and systems modeling. He is currently a lecturer at Cornell University where he teaches systems thinking and organizational leadership and design. He is senior scientist at Cabrera Research Lab, and co-founder and Chief Science Officer of Plectica. He has given two TED Talks, written and produced a rap song, a children’s book on cognition, and authored numerous book chapters and peer-reviewed journal articles. His research has been profiled in peer-reviewed journals, trade magazines, and popular publications, and he is author of eight books including, Systems Thinking Made Simple: New Hope for Solving Wicked Problems (winner of the 2017 AECT outstanding book award), Thinking at Every Desk: Four Simple Skills to Transform Your Classroom, and Flock Not Clock: Align People, Processes, and Systems to Achieve your Vision. Credited with discovering the underlying rules of systems thinking, Cabrera is co-editor of the Routledge Handbook of Systems Thinking. His work in public schools was documented in the full-length documentary film, RE:Thinking. He was Research Fellow at the Santa Fe Institute (SFI) for the Study of Complex Systems and National Science Foundation IGERT Fellow in Nonlinear Systems in the Department of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics at Cornell University. As a National Science Foundation postdoctoral fellow, he developed new techniques to model systems approaches in the evaluation of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM). Cabrera was awarded the Association of American Colleges and Universities’ K. Patricia Cross Future Educational Leaders Award. He serves on the United States Military Academy at West Point’s Systems Engineering Advisory Board. His contributions to the field of systems thinking have been integrated into NSF, NIH, and USDA-NIFA programs, K-12, higher education, NGOs, federal agencies, corporations, and business schools. His systems models are used by many of Silicon Valley’s most innovative companies. Systems Thinking Made Simple is used as an introductory text for undergraduate and graduate students in numerous colleges and universities including Cornell University and West Point Military Academy. Cabrera has developed and patented a suite of systems thinking tools for use in academia, business, and beyond. Prior to becoming a scientist, Cabrera worked for fifteen years around the world as a mountain guide and experiential educator for Outward Bound and other organizations and has climbed many of the world’s highest mountains. He holds a Ph.D. from Cornell University and lives in Ithaca, NY, with his wife, Laura Cabrera, three children, and four dogs.

Laura is Plectica’s Chief Research Officer.

For over 15 years, Laura has conducted translational research to increase public understanding, application, and dissemination of systems science, including for USDA, the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine, HHS, and the Dept. of Justice.

She is also a senior researcher at Cabrera Research Lab, has authored five books on systems thinking and its applications, and is a member of the United States Military Academy at West Point’s Systems Engineering Advisory Board.

Laura holds a PhD in Policy Analysis and Management, a Master’s in Public Administration, and a B.A., all from Cornell.

Her family is her favorite system…

JR Keller is an Associate Professor of Human Resource Studies in the ILR School at Cornell University. His research focuses on how firms combine internal and external hiring to meet their human capital needs as well as the various ways individuals build careers within and across organizations. Professor Keller has explored the factors which lead firms to hire externally versus promote from within, supply chain approaches to talent management, and the use of nonstandard work arrangements. His work has appeared in the Administrative Science Quarterly, Academy of Management Journal, Academy of Management Review, ILR Review, and the Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, as well as a recent book on strategic talent management. Professor Keller earned his Ph.D. in Management from the Wharton School of Business and holds a Master’s in Adult Education from Indiana University along with undergraduate degrees in Finance and Computer Applications from the University of Notre Dame.

Helen Chun is an associate professor of services marketing and a consumer psychologist who creates behavioral insights into managing and enhancing consumer experiences. She is particularly passionate about studying the role of emotions, customer experience design, branding, and prosocial and sustainable behaviors. Professor Chun’s ongoing work examines consumer experiences in the context of emerging media and digital technology. Her research papers have been published in leading marketing and services journals, such as Journal of Marketing, Journal of Consumer Psychology, Journal of Service Research, and Service Science.

Professor Chun teaches Consumer Behavior and Marketing Management for Services. She has been honored with the Nolan School of Hotel Administration’s Teacher of the Year Award multiple times as well as the Ted Teng ’79 Dean’s Teaching Excellence Award. Professor Chun is also a Merrill Presidential Scholar Outstanding Educator Honoree at Cornell University.

Professor Chun previously taught at the Medill School of Journalism, Media, and Integrated Marketing Communications and at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University. She earned her Ph.D. in Business Administration (Marketing) from the Marshall School of Business at the University of Southern California.

Christopher Gaulke is a lecturer in food and beverage management at the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration. He teaches courses in restaurant management, purchasing and supply chain management, and new product development. Professor Gaulke realized his affinity for restaurants and foodservice at a young age and has since gained more than 20 years of practical experience working in a variety of different foodservice operations, including quick-service, casual, and upscale restaurants, as well as retail and institutional foodservice. In that time, he gained significant knowledge of both front- and back-of-house operations and held several top managerial positions, including general manager, executive chef, and foodservice manager.

While earning his MBA, Professor Gaulke realized his passion for teaching through instructing courses in food production, sanitation, beverage management, and global hospitality. Consequently, Professor Gaulke began his Ph.D. studies at Purdue University, where he focused his studies and research on foodservice operations, local food supply chains and regional food hubs, and food safety in farmers’ markets. During this time, he also taught courses in sanitation, quantity food production, and advanced restaurant management.

Professor Gaulke is a member of the National Restaurant Association, a Certified Chef de Cuisine, a Certified ServSafe Instructor, and a Registered ServSafe Examination Proctor for the National Restaurant Association.

Since coming to the Johnson Graduate School of Management in 1991, Robert J. Bloomfield has used laboratory experiments to study financial markets and investor behavior. He has also published in all major business disciplines, including finance, accounting, marketing, organizational behavior, and operations research. Professor Bloomfield served as director of the Financial Accounting Standards Research Initiative (FASRI), an activity of the Financial Accounting Standards Board, and is an editor of a special issue of Journal of Accounting Research dedicated to Registered Reports of empirical research. Professor Bloomfield has recently taken on editorship of Journal of Financial Reporting, which is pioneering an innovative editorial process intended to broaden the range of research methods used in accounting, improve the quality of research execution, and encourage the honest reporting of findings.

Chris Anderson is a professor at the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration. Prior to his appointment in 2006, he was on the faculty at the Ivey School of Business in London, Ontario, Canada. Professor Anderson’s main research focus is on revenue management and service pricing. He actively works in the application and development of revenue management across numerous industry types, including hotels, airlines, and rental car and tour companies, as well as numerous consumer packaged goods and financial services firms. Professor Anderson’s research has been funded by numerous governmental agencies and industrial partners. He serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Revenue and Pricing Management and is the regional editor for the International Journal of Revenue Management. At the Nolan School of Hotel Administration, Professor Anderson teaches courses in revenue management and service operations management.

Justin P. Johnson received his PhD from MIT and is currently a professor of economics at Cornell University’s Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. He teaches business strategy to the School’s MBA and Executive MBA students.

Professor Johnson is an active and globally renowned researcher in economics and strategy, and a past editor at both the Journal of Industrial Economics and the International Journal of Industrial Organization, top journals in his field. He uses analytic tools from economics and game theory to better understand how firms can succeed in challenging environments, and what strategies they can adopt to either achieve or maintain dominance in markets. Much of his research is motivated by events in high-tech markets, such as older work on open source software and recent work on the business and pricing strategies of web-based resellers of airline tickets, hotel rooms, and other products. More broadly, he is interested in markets where rapid change is taking place and in how firms can survive and thrive in the face of such change.

In addition to his research, academic talks, teaching, and involvement with executive development, Professor Johnson discusses his research and its relevance to current matters of interest with governmental bodies around the world, including the US Department of Justice, the US Federal Trade Commission, the EU Directorate General for Competition, and the UK Competition Authority.

Professor Tony Simons teaches organizational behavior, negotiation, and leadership at the Cornell Nolan School of Hotel Administration. His research examines trust: employee trust in leaders, executive team member trust, and trust in supply chain relationships. Professor Simons’s research has focused on how well people are seen as keeping their word by delivering on their promises and living espoused values. This simple perception has huge practical consequences and is challenging to maintain impeccably. Professor Simons’s research and consulting work supports managers in meeting this challenge. He speaks, trains, consults, and designs surveys for organizations both within and beyond the hospitality industry.

Mukti Khaire is Girish and Jaidev Reddy Professor of Practice at Cornell Tech and the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. Dr. Khaire received a Ph.D. in Management in 2006 from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business. Before that, she completed a Master’s in Management from Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) – Bombay, and a Master of Science in Environmental Science and a Bachelor of Science in Microbiology from the University of Pune, India. Prior to joining Cornell Tech in 2016, Dr. Khaire was on the faculty of Harvard Business School (Entrepreneurial Management Unit; 2005-2016) and spent a year as Visiting Faculty at Brown University (Sociology; 2015-2016).

Dr. Khaire’s research focuses on entrepreneurship in the creative industries, such as art, advertising, architecture and design, fashion, film, music, publishing, and theater. In particular, she is interested in understanding how entrepreneurs create markets for new categories of cultural goods by constructing their value, while also changing consumers’ beliefs about what attributes of cultural goods are appropriate and valuable. In this vein, Dr. Khaire studied the creation of a market for modern Indian art and the rise and establishment of the high-end fashion industry in India. Her work, which has been published in leading business and management journals, has shed light on the structure and functioning of creative industries as well as the business and societal implications of entrepreneurship in the cultural sector. Dr. Khaire has also authored 35 teaching cases on firms in the creative industries.

Ariel Avgar is an Associate Professor at the ILR School at Cornell University and Associate Director for Research and Student Engagement with the Scheinman Institute on Conflict Resolution. His research focuses on two primary areas within employment relations. First, he explores the role that employment relations factors play in the healthcare industry. As such, he examines the effects of a variety of workplace innovations, including new technology, delivery of care models, and innovative work practices, on patients, frontline employees, and organizational performance. Second, he studies conflict and its management in organizations with a focus on the strategic choices made by firms. He seeks to better understand the consequences of conflict for employees and employers. In addition, his research investigates the adoption and implementation of organizational level conflict management practices and systems. His research has been published in a number of journals including: Industrial and Labor Relations Review, Industrial Relations, British Journal of Industrial Relations, Ohio State Journal on Dispute Resolution, International Journal of Conflict Management, International Journal of Human Resource Management, Negotiation and Conflict Management Review, Advances in Industrial and Labor Relations, Health Services Research and Medical Care. He received the 2008 Best Dissertation Award and the 2013 John T. Dunlop Scholar Award, both from the Labor and Employment Relations Association and serves as the Editor-in-Chief for the association. His paper (with Eric J. Neuman) titled “Blind spots and mirages: A dyadic approach to the study of team conflict” received the 2012 Best Paper: New Directions Award from the Academy of Management Conflict Management Division. He received a Ph.D. in Industrial Relations from the ILR School at Cornell University and a B.A. in Sociology and an LL.B in Law from Hebrew University. He served as Law Clerk for the President of the Israeli National Labor Court before being admitted into the Israeli Bar. Prior to joining ILR, he was an associate professor (2014-2016) and assistant professor (2008-2014) at the School of Labor and Employment Relations at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Bradford S. Bell is the William J. Conaty Professor of Strategic Human Resources and Director of the Center for Advanced Human Resource Studies (CAHRS) in the ILR School at Cornell University. He received his B.A. in Psychology from the University of Maryland at College Park and his M.A. and Ph.D. in Industrial and Organizational Psychology from Michigan State University. Professor Bell’s research and teaching interests include talent management, team development and effectiveness, and virtual work. He is a former editor of Personnel Psychology and a fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology (SIOP) and the American Psychological Association (APA).

Rebecca Kehoe is an Associate Professor of Human Resource Studies in the ILR School at Cornell University. Her scholarship brings a strategic human resource management perspective to the interplay of human capital and the broader social and organizational contexts in which it is developed and employed. Professor Kehoe’s recent areas of focus have included star performers, alignment of HR systems and business strategy, and process-based perspectives of HR system design and implementation. Her research has appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, Strategic Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Journal of Management, Personnel Psychology, and ILR Review. Professor Kehoe has served as a representative-at-large and on the leadership track for the Strategic Human Capital Interest Group within the Strategic Management Society and on the executive committee for the HR Division of the Academy of Management. She is currently an Associate Editor at Personnel Psychology.

John Hausknecht is a Professor of Human Resource Studies at Cornell University. He earned his Ph.D. in 2003 from Penn State University with a major in industrial/organizational psychology and minor in management. He received the 2004 S. Rains Wallace Award for the best dissertation in the field of industrial/organizational psychology. Professor Hausknecht’s research primarily falls within the domain of staffing and has appeared in the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Personnel Psychology. Recent papers have examined applicant persistence in selection settings, reactions to company hiring practices, and predictors and consequences of collective-level absenteeism and turnover. He currently serves on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, and Personnel Psychology.

Professor Hausknecht teaches undergraduate and graduate-level courses on human resource management, staffing organizations, and HR analytics. He received the ILR School’s MacIntyre Award for exemplary teaching in 2008. Prior to academia, he worked as a consultant to Fortune 500 firms in the areas of leadership assessment, talent management, and organizational change. Professor Hausknecht is a member of the Academy of Management, American Psychological Association, Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology, and Society for Human Resource Management.

Christopher J. Collins is an Associate Professor of Human Resource Management and Director of CAHRS in the ILR School at Cornell University. He earned his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior and Human Resources from the Robert H. Smith School of Business at the University of Maryland.

Dr. Collins’ teaches, conducts research, and does consulting in the areas of strategic human resource management, the role of HR practices and leadership in driving employee engagement, and the role of HR in driving firm innovation and knowledge creation. His research has been accepted for publication in the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Human Resource Management Review, and Human Performance. In addition, Dr. Collins serves on the editorial boards of the Academy of Management Journal, Journal of Applied Psychology, the Journal of Management, and Personnel Psychology.

He currently teaches courses in Human Resource Management, Organizational Consulting, and Business Strategy to masters and undergraduate students in the ILR School at Cornell University. Dr. Collins has taught executive development programs at Cornell University and the Society of Human Resource Management. He has also worked as a private HR consultant or conducted executive development programs to multiple Fortune 500 organizations and several startup organizations. His consulting work has primarily focused on talent management, employee engagement, and strategic HR planning.

Dr. Collins is a member of the Academy of Management, Strategic Management Society, and Society for Human Resource Management.

Diane Burton is a professor in the ILR School at Cornell University. Her primary appointment is in human resource studies, with courtesy appointments in organizational behavior and sociology. Prior to joining the Cornell faculty in 2009, Professor Burton was a faculty member at the MIT Sloan School of Management. She began her academic career at the Harvard Business School teaching leadership and organizational behavior. Professor Burton earned her Ph.D. in sociology at Stanford University and served as a lecturer and researcher in organizational behavior and human resources management at the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Erica is a Cornellian (’03 PhD, Social Psychology). She was Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations at Yale University before returning to Ithaca to create and direct the Engineering Leadership Program in 2012. Erica teaches and consults worldwide on judgment and decision-making, negotiation, leadership, and coaching.

She has worked with groups as diverse as German engineers, Tibetan monks, female pharmaceutical scientists, and American sixth-graders. Her current research interests focus on individual psychological phenomena and leadership dynamics in high-risk occupations and sports.

Charles K. Whitehead specializes in the law relating to corporations, financial markets, and business transactions. After clerking for the Hon. Ellsworth A. Van Graafeiland, U.S. Court of Appeals (2nd Circuit), Professor Whitehead practiced in the United States, Europe, and Asia as outside counsel and general counsel for several multinational financial institutions. His practice included representation involving IPOs and other exempt and registered securities offerings (from startups to seasoned global issuers), acquisitions and other strategic transactions, derivatives and other complex financial instruments, and loan and other credit transactions.

Before joining Cornell, Professor Whitehead was on the faculty of the Boston University School of Law and he was a research fellow at Columbia Law School. His current scholarship focuses on the financial markets, financial regulation, and corporate governance.

Sean Nicholson is a professor in the Economics Department and Brooks School of Public Policy at Cornell University, the director of the Sloan Program in Health Administration, and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Prior to joining Cornell in 2004, Professor Nicholson was a faculty member in the Health Care Systems Department at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. He worked for four years as a management consultant with APM and taught high school for two years before enrolling in graduate school. Professor Nicholson received a B.A. from Dartmouth College in 1986 and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 1997.

Professor Manoj Thomas is a behavioral scientist who trains business executives to be customer-centric leaders and encourages them to build meaningful and purposeful connections with customers. Thomas has received the Apple Award and the Stephen Russell Family Teaching Award for excellence in teaching. Thomas is an expert on the psychology of price evaluations. He also studies how moral intuitions and political identity influence consumer behavior. His research has been published in marketing and psychology journals. He is the co-author of the book Why People (Don’t) Buy: GO and STOP signals. He is an associate editor for the Journal of Marketing Research and the Journal of Consumer Research.

Mark Milstein is Clinical Professor of Management and Director of the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management, Cornell University. He conducts applied research in and oversees the Center’s work on market and enterprise creation, business development, clean technology commercialization, and sustainable finance.

Dr. Milstein specializes in framing the world’s social and environmental challenges as unmet market needs which can be addressed effectively by the private sector through innovation and entrepreneurship, thereby allowing companies to achieve financial success by creatively addressing problems such as climate change, ecosystem degradation, and poverty. He has received funding from the National Science Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation the S.C. Johnson Foundation, SEvEN, the World Bank, the University of Queensland, and the Water Resources Institute. Over the past decade, Dr. Milstein has worked with more than 100 firms across a range of industries, including renewable energy and carbon markets, life sciences and sustainable agriculture, consumables, food and nutrition, healthcare, tourism and hospitality management, as well as finance and international development.

Dr. Milstein’s work and perspectives have been featured in The New York Times, MSNBC, CNBC, Forbes, The Guardian, and GreenBiz. He is a frequent speaker on the topics of strategy, organizational change, and innovation related to business and sustainability. He also consults with a number of multinational firms, small- and medium-sized enterprises, and NGOs. Dr. Milstein currently serves on the board of directors of Livelihood Basix International and as a board member for Johnson & Johnson’s Earthwards Program.

Murillo Campello is the Lewis H. Durland Professor of Management and professor of finance at the Samuel Curtis Johnson Graduate School of Management. An internationally recognized scholar of financial economics, Campello’s papers have dealt with such issues as the impact of market imperfections on companies, the limits of the firm, product markets, corporate capital structure, monetary policy transmission, financial crises, the economic implications of the COVID-19 pandemic, and econometrics. His work has been cited by prominent policy authorities, such as the Federal Reserve chairman, mentioned in Congressional hearings, described in the Economic Report of the President, and used to advise the US Supreme Court.

Campello has published extensively in top finance journals and has served as an associate editor at several leading outlets. He is currently the managing editor of The Journal of Financial Intermediation. He has received the Rising Star award and has been named Distinguished Referee by The Review of Financial Studies twice for his referee work. His papers were nominated twice for the distinguished Brattle Prize of the Journal of Finance, and received the Goldman Sachs Best Paper award by The Review of Finance.

He is a research associate of the National Bureau of Economic Research. He earned a PhD in finance from the University of Illinois in 2000, an MS in business administration from the Pontifical Catholic University of Rio de Janeiro in 1995, and a BS in economics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro in 1991.