Resource Library – Online Global Leadership Programs

Carla Mashinski, Attributes to Land Yourself a Board Seat

Global Leadership MBA (GLEMBA) Alum Carla Mashinski presented Attributes to Land Yourself a Board Seat. Carla Mashinski is a global financial business leader, corporate director, experienced board member, industry spokesperson and author.

In today’s world, corporate boards are looking for a certain type of professional. And although our unique career paths lead to areas of discipline expertise, we pick up certain attributes along our journey that become essential to board service above all else. Carla discussed the personal & professional attributes required to secure a board seat.

Watch and learn more about what core attributes corporate boards are looking for in their board search, and how you can build upon these attributes throughout your career and MBA journey.

Immediately prior to Carla’s recent retirement, she served as the Chief Financial Officer & Administrative Officer of Cameron LNG where she assumed responsibility for financial, treasury, IT and HR related matters.

Additionally, Carla has extensive experience as a Board Member, currently serving as an Independent Board Director, Audit Committee Chair and Compensation Committee Member for Primoris Services Corporation, Audit Committee Chair and Nominating & Governance Committee Member of Ranger Energy Services and a Board Director of BKV Corporation.

As a sought-after industry spokesperson, Carla is the recipient of multiple awards and honors, including:

• 2019 Most Influential Corporate Board Directors award by WomenInc
• 2020 Breakthrough Award from Greater Houston Women’s Chamber of Commerce
• 2020 Top 50 Most Powerful Women in Oil and Gas by the National Diversity Council

Additionally, she is the author of “Five Attributes to a Successful Career” published in 2021, and “My Heels Got Stuck in the Career Ladder” published in 2023.

Below are links to purchase the books:

Air Date: 03/04/2024 | Time Slot: 1:00 p.m. ET

Keith Thurgood, Ph.D

Professor of Practice, Organizations, Strategy, and International Management at Jindal School of Management of The UT Dallas

Keith Thurgood is a Clinical Professor of Healthcare Leadership and Management at the Jindal School of Management at The University of Texas at Dallas, where he also leads the graduate program in Healthcare Leadership and Management. He is also an Adjunct Professor of Marketing and Entrepreneurship at UTD. In addition to his responsibilities at UT Dallas, Dr. Thurgood is a faculty member and senior advisor for the Thayer Leader Development Group (West Point, New York).

Dr. Thurgood brings a unique perspective on healthcare, operations management, and leadership, having served in senior-level leadership positions in for-profit and not-for-profit organizations.

Dr. Thurgood holds a BA in Political Science from Brigham Young University, an MS in Strategic Studies from the Army War College, an MS in Business Administration from Boston University, and a Ph.D. in Organizational Development and Leadership from Capella University. He is a frequent nationally recognized speaker on leadership and operations management.

Most recently Dr. Thurgood has returned to UTD following a 14-month sabbatical following an appointment by the Secretary of Defense Chief Management Officer to lead the largest global community services reform effort in a generation.

He was also President, Spend and Clinical Management, MedAssets, a healthcare performance improvement company. He also served as President and CEO of Overseas Military Sales Corporation and as the Senior Vice President of Operations for Sam™s Club. He also served as the CEO of The Exchange (formerly the Air Force Exchange Service (AAFES), the United States Department of Defense™s $10 billion global for-profit retail enterprise and he has also held executive positions with Frito-Lay and PepsiCo. In addition to his civilian job, he has over 28 years of Army service, both active and reserve.

Major General Thurgood served as the Deputy Commanding General and Chief of Staff, United States Army Reserve in Washington, D.C. His last assignment prior to his retirement was the Deputy, Business Transformation, Office of the Secretary of the Army.

Dr. Thurgood serves on numerous not-for-profit boards.

Global Leadership in VUCA Environment: Leading Dual Transformation
By: Dr. Keith Thurgood

We live in a dynamic and connected world.

One could argue that the global environment is more volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) than ever before. The rapid digitization and virtualization of the world, coupled with the increasing requirement to respond to multiple stakeholders, not just shareholders, underscores the importance of and need for adaptable and agile enterprise leaders that deliver results in the short term and create shared value in the long term.

These leaders not only leverage vertical or functional expertise to drive operational excellence but also understand that global dexterity and horizontal enterprise leadership matters from a performance and change leadership perspective. The practitioners of horizontal leadership enable radical collaboration and transformational change across the entire enterprise while simultaneously delivering results. In short, they are “market multipliers” delivering a “dual transformation.”

This type of transformation balances short-term outcomes but simultaneously enables the enterprise to thrive in a volatile environment in the long term by creating sustainable shared value (environmental, societal, economic, financial) for all stakeholders. The focus on transforming and simultaneously performing is described as “transformance™.”

Air Date: 08/31/2023 | Time Slot: 12:30 p.m. ET

Dr. Sarmann Kennedyd and Deb Flynn

Dr. Sarmann Kennedyd has more than 20 years of experience in business process reengineering, information technology systems development, managing complex projects, and data analysis. He has served as a strategic financial and business analyst, business consultant, and project manager with companies that include AOL, Fannie Mae, Charles E. Smith, Verizon, and USAC (Universal Service Administrative Company). Additionally, he has provided corporate training sessions in project, program, and agile management to professionals from all backgrounds in various countries.

Deb Flynn is a Senior Program Manager at Public Consulting Group LLC (PCG). PCG is a leading public sector solutions implementation and operations improvement firm that partners with health, education, and human services agencies to improve lives. Deb oversees the implementation of complex programs in the Education Practice Area and regularly represents the practice by providing advice and guidance on enterprise strategic initiatives.

Strategic Project Management Part 4 in the Global Leadership Series: Strategic Competitive Advantage

How do you develop a strategic competitive advantage in project management? In using the value chain as our framework, we will offer insights to help you gain tools in understanding and analyzing your company’s competitive advantage to deepen your strategic competencies through project management.

Subject matter experts from The University of Texas at Dallas Global Leadership MBA program will lead the panel discussion around marketing, operations, business analytics, finance, and leadership.

Watch this virtual event, the fourth of our five-panel discussions from Global Leadership Series: Strategic Competitive Advantage, as we highlight the importance of strategic project management in competitive advantage.

This event was led by our panelists, Sarmann Kennedyd, Ph.D., MBA, PMP, CMS and Associate Professor of Instruction, Operations Management at Jindal School of Management, University of Texas at Dallas and Debb Flynn, MBA, PMP, Senior Program Manager at Public Consulting Group LLC (PCG).

In this session, we focused on the importance of project management from a strategic standpoint.

You will also have a chance to:

• Deepen your understanding as to why any leader should have knowledge of all these topical areas,
• Understand how each of these areas will impact your company’s or business unit’s competitive advantage,
• Gain tools to help you analyze your company’s or business unit’s competitive advantage.

Air Date: 04/27/2023 | Time Slot: 12:30 p.m. ET

Russell Wiant and Dr. Ashwin Prakash

Russell Wiant is the Vice President of Engineering at TEZ Technology leading TEZ Technology’s development organization and managing its global development partners. His development teams are responsible for designing and building TEZ Technology’s suite of contactless and on-demand text-based solutions.

Russell is also a lecturer at the University of Texas at Dallas teaching a course on Information Technology strategy, data analytics, cloud computing, emerging technologies, and digital transformation for Executive MBA and Global Leadership MBA students.

Before joining TEZ Technology, Russell was Vice President of Product Management and Product Development at Nectar Service Corporation leading the development organization responsible for building unified communications solutions for Nectar’s managed service provider and enterprise customers. Russell also worked for Alcatel-Lucent, and three Dallas based startups, Netsocket, Chiaro Networks, and BrightLink Networks.

Russell received his Master of Business Administration from the University of Texas at Dallas, Master of Science in Systems Engineering from Southern Methodist University, and Bachelor of Science degrees in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science from Texas Tech University.

Dr. Ashwin Prakash is the Vice President of Clinical Data Science at Community Health Systems, one of the nation’s leading operators of general acute care hospitals. The organization’s affiliates own, operate or lease 85 hospitals in 16 states with approximately 15,000 licensed beds. As the Head of Clinical Data Science Ashwin is responsible for developing and driving execution of data and analytics strategy. He is passionate about artificial intelligence and machine learning, and how these technologies can be used within a healthcare context to drive innovation, reduce costs and improve healthcare outcomes. Ashwin earned a Global Leadership Executive MBA from The University of Texas at Dallas Naveen Jindal School of Management, has a PhD in Biomedical Sciences and is a trained Physician.

Global Leadership Series: Competitive Strategic Advantage Part 3
By: Russell Wiant and Dr. Ashwin Prakash

How do you develop a strategic competitive advantage? In using the value chain as our framework, we will offer insights to help you gain tools in understanding and analyzing your company’s competitive advantage to deepen your strategic competencies. Subject matter experts from The University of Texas at Dallas Global Leadership MBA program will lead the panel discussion around marketing, operations, business analytics, finance, and leadership.

Watch this virtual event, the third of our five-panel discussions from Global Leadership Series: Competitive Strategic Advantage, as we highlight the importance of using data/data analytics in competitive strategic advantage. This event was led by our panelists, Dr. Ashwin Prakash, Vice President Clinical Data Science at Community Health Systems, and Russell Wiant, Executive Vice President of Product and Technology, TEZ Technology. This discussion series covered one area leading toward a deeper understanding of strategic competitive advantage.

You will also have a chance to:

• Deepen your understanding as to why any leader should have knowledge of all these topical areas,
• Understand how each of these areas will impact your company’s or business unit’s competitive advantage,
• Gain tools to help you analyze your company’s or business unit’s competitive advantage.

Air Date: 02/22/2023 | Time Slot: 12:30 p.m. ET

Dr. Carolyn Reichert, Lauren Minch and Julie Lynch

Clinical Associate Professor, Naveen Jindal School of Management
Carolyn Reichert is a Clinical Associate Professor at UT Dallas in the Jindal School of Management. She has served as Chair on the Sustainability Committee, and her research interests include sustainability, corporate governance, and compensation. She is a graduate of The Pennsylvania State University (Ph.D.) and The Ohio State University (B.S. in Finance and B.A. in Mathematics).

Director of the Real Estate Center at the Naveen Jindal School of Management
Professor Julie Lynch is the chief talent officer and principal of LYNOUS Talent Management. Over the last 20 years, she has developed a distinguished reputation as a real estate professional and adjunct professor teaching for the top real estate programs in the United States. She has worked for well-known major national and regional companies in the real estate community, such as: Prudential Real Estate Investment Group, NationsBank, Provident Bank of Maryland, Spaulding & Slye (acquired by Jones Lang LaSalle), Oliver T. Carr Company (acquired by CarrAmerica), and REALM. In addition, Julie was a founding principal of her own real estate brokerage company in Maryland while teaching at Johns Hopkins University in the Master of Science in Real Estate and MBA programs before relocating to Dallas, Texas.

Adjunct Professor at the Naveen Jindal School of Management
Ms. Minch has spent over 22 years in various roles within the finance and accounting industries ranging from auditing to corporate finance to private wealth management to financial education. She is a member of the CFA Institute and is currently President of the CFA Society of Dallas/Fort Worth, a 1,700 member society located in one of the top financial services cities in the United States.

Ms. Minch is a member of the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) and currently serves as Chair of the Advanced Personal Financial Planning (PFP) Planning Committee. She also serves as an adjunct professor at the University of Dallas and at The University of Texas at Dallas.

Global Leadership Series: Elevate Strategic Competencies Part 2
By: Dr. Carolyn Reichert – Clinical Associate Professor at UTD
Lauren Minch – Adjunct Professor at UTD
Julie Lynch – Director of Real Estate Center at UTD

How do you develop strategic competitive advantage? In using the value chain as our framework, we will offer insights to help you gain tools in understanding and analyzing your company’s competitive advantage to deepen your strategic competencies. Subject matter experts from The University of Texas at Dallas Global Leadership MBA program will lead the panel discussion around marketing, operations, business analytics, finance, and leadership.

Watch this virtual event, second of our five panel discussions from Global Leadership Series: Elevate Strategic Competencies, as we highlight the value of finance with our panelists, Clinical Associate Professor – Dr. Carolyn Reichert, Director of Real Estate Center – Julie Lynch and Adjunct Professor – Lauren Minch, Naveen Jindal School of Management. This discussion series will cover one area of leading towards a deeper understanding of strategic competitive advantage.

You will also have a chance to:

• Deepen your understanding as to why any leader should have knowledge of all these topical areas,
• Understand how each of these areas will impact your company’s or business unit’s competitive advantage,
• Gain tools to help you analyze your company’s or business unit’s competitive advantage.

Air Date: 10/26/2022 | Time Slot: 12:30 p.m. ET

Nick Hassan and Maria Gomez Albrecht

Professor Hassan has been a part of the Global Leadership MBA and Executive MBA programs at The University of Texas at Dallas since 2001, teaching courses in operations and supply chain management, and managing strategy execution. He holds eight US patents and has authored numerous papers and articles. Professor Nick Hassan’s professional career of 33 years spans a number of leadership positions in technology and business organizations, as well as in academia.

While at Texas Instruments, Inc., from 1994 until his retirement in 2020, he held leadership roles in strategic programs, product development functions, product line departments, business units, and served as the general manager responsible for business strategy, execution, and P&L for multiple product lines. Before his retirement from TI, Nick was director of innovation and technology partnerships in TI’s CTO office. Prior to joining TI, he held leadership roles in the design and development of superconducting magnets at the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory for five years, including major assignments at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Fermilab.

Dr. Maria Gomez Albrecht is the Chief Marketing Officer at Alonos®, an international consulting firm specializing in products and services for human resources, leadership training, and business performance assessments. She is an accomplished and highly-skilled business professional leveraging 30 years of experience in all areas of marketing in multiple industries. Her specialties include strategic planning, loyalty and growth programs, advertising and promotional initiatives, project management, brand and digital marketing, new product launches, and multicultural marketing. Maria has launched campaigns in multiple languages (she speaks five) worldwide. Besides leading the company’s marketing practice, she is also a professor of marketing at The University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) for the Executive MBA and the Global Leadership MBA programs. Maria earned a Doctorate in Business Administration from Swiss Management Center University in Switzerland and a PhD from Universidad Central de Nicaragua. She also holds an MBA and is a PMP-certified candidate. For service to the profession and the community, Maria is a board officer and member of several organizations, including President of Prospanica’s DFW Chapter, as well as an active participant of the collegiate American Marketing Association. Maria is an author, global speaker, DEI champion, Dallas Cowboys fan, world traveler, and loves everything about culture and marketing!

Global Leadership Series: Elevate Strategic Competencies Part 1
By: Nick Hassan and Maria Gomez Albrecht

How do you develop strategic competitive advantage? In using the value chain as our framework, we will offer insights to help you gain tools in understanding and analyzing your company’s competitive advantage to deepen your strategic competencies. Subject matter experts from The University of Texas at Dallas Global Leadership MBA program will lead the panel discussion around marketing, operations, business analytics, finance and leadership.

Watch this virtual event, first of our five panel discussions from Global Leadership Series: Elevate Strategic Competencies, as we highlight the value of B2C and B2B marketing with our panelists, Dr. Maria Albrecht and Professor Nick Hassan. This discussion series will cover one area of leading towards a deeper understanding of strategic competitive advantage.

You will also have a chance to:

• deepen your understanding as to why any leader should have knowledge of All these topical areas,
• deepen your understanding as to why any leader should have knowledge of All these topical areas,
• gain tools to help you analyze your company’s or business unit’s competitive advantage.

Air Date: 07/14/2022 | Time Slot: 12:30 p.m. ET

Eileen Dowse

Eileen Dowse, Ph.D. is a recognized global leadership consultant and organizational psychologist specializing in organizational health and effectiveness through education, consulting, facilitation and executive coaching. She has extensive practical experience in the field of global communications, global leadership and cultural competency development. throughout North America, Europe, Australia, Africa, and Asia.

Eileen fosters productive relationships for organizations and strengthens employee commitment to ensure greater levels of collective impact. As a recognized professional speaker, corporate educator, executive coach, and award-winning author of “The Naked Manager, How to build open relationships at work”, her programs are thought-provoking, results-oriented, entertaining, and inspirational. She has also written, “The Agile Business Leader, The Four Roles of Successful Leaders” (translated into Chinese), which focuses on being responsive, adaptive, and effective in an era filled with confusion, contradictions, and corruption. Clients seek out Eileen because she has mastered the art of identifying the root of organizational issues and has implemented strategies that allow leaders, teams, and entire organizations to become more effective. Eileen is widely regarded as one of the thought-leaders in international facilitation as well as being a co-founder, and Chair Emeritus of the International Institute for Facilitation. She is also a member of the UN Peace Coalition to help develop leaders for promoting peace as well as a Lecturer with the Global Leadership MBA program at The University of Texas at Dallas.

Polarity Mapping, Working with Complexity and Chaos
By: Eileen Dowse, Ph.D.

In today’s increasingly globalized and competitive business world, leaders must function in a world of complexity, chaos, and ambiguity. They must be ready to move away from linear thinking systems and processes, to respond to the paradoxes, dilemmas, and tensions with new thinking. Polarity Mapping works with sets of opposites, harnessing and leveraging the energy between two poles to achieve goals faster, converting resistance into a resource. Instead of ‘either/or’ thinking, Polarity Mapping uses a ‘yes/and’ approach to use the best of both opposites while avoiding the limits of each.

Watch this webinar, led by Eileen Dowse Ph.D., Lecturer with the Global Leadership MBA Program, and you will learn:

• A simple model for addressing large and complex issues.
• An approach for transforming from a ‘yes-but’ thinking into “both-and” thinking.
• How to leverage the strength of polar opposites.
• Ways to collaboratively solve a problem with more than one right answer.
• A tool for successfully implementing change by seeing the whole picture.

Air Date: 04/21/2022 | Time Slot: 12:30 p.m. ET

Nick Hassan

Associate Professor of Practice, Executive Education

Professor Hassan has been a part of the Global Leadership MBA and Executive MBA programs at the University of Texas at Dallas since 2001, teaching courses in operations and supply chain management, and managing strategy execution. He holds eight US patents and has authored numerous papers and articles.

Professor Nick Hassan’s professional career of 33 years spans a number of leadership positions in technology and business organizations, as well as in academia.

While at Texas Instruments, Inc., from 1994 until his retirement in 2020, he held leadership roles in strategic programs, product development functions, product line departments, business units, and served as the general manager responsible for business strategy, execution, and P&L for multiple product lines. Before his retirement from TI, Nick was director of innovation and technology partnerships in TI’s CTO office. Prior to joining TI, he held leadership roles in the design and development of superconducting magnets at the Superconducting Super Collider Laboratory for five years, including major assignments at Brookhaven National Laboratory and Fermilab.

Technology Trends that Transform Supply Chain Management
By Nick Hassan

COVID-19 has made “supply chain” a household phrase. Nearly everyone across the globe has encountered the impact of supply chain disruptions in the last 20 months. All of us have better appreciation for how extensively daily life and business operations depend on smooth-functioning supply chains.

Numerous innovations and emerging technologies are having a transformative impact on supply chain operations. These innovations will help supply chains operate in the future with greater effectiveness and efficiency, while performing with greater flexibility and responsiveness.

This webinar led by Professor Nick Hassan as he discusses that while innovation and technological advancements enable considerable improvements, they also expose supply chains to new risks that need to be understood and mitigated. This presentation will also explore:

• key technology and innovation trend,
• their benefits in supply chain management,
• associated key risks that need to be mitigated for robust and resilient supply chain operations.

Air Date: 02/10/2022 | Time Slot: 12:30 p.m. ET

Ashok K. Jain

Retired Deloitte Principal

Ashok K. Jain has worked with two professional service firms, PriceWaterhouse and Deloitte, for over 25 years including the last 22 years at Deloitte, where he had been a Principal for nearly 17 years. Mr. Jain was a Deloitte U.S. Advisory Principal with a focus on providing Valuation and Modeling Advisory Services to Fortune 500 companies along with targeted middle market enterprises on a worldwide basis. He has also been a leader, both as a Coach and a Mentor, to numerous other Partners, Principals and Managing Directors along with both client service and non-client service management and staff. Mr. Jain’s approach, which is based on establishing a strong and impactful culture within both the organization and the individual, has resulted in meaningful financial and non-financial contributions.

Optimize the Value of your Personal Brand
By Ashok K. Jain

Career management and progression is becoming ever more complex and challenging given rapidly changing global, technology and workplace considerations along with evolving personal aspirations and expectations.

The establishment and application of your personal brand can be a long-term enabler of a compelling framework towards a successful career. The thoughtful, ongoing and long-term sustainable development, awareness and recognition of your brand takes on greater importance in this environment.

If done well, your brand will be foundational for future success and will lead to your brand being your “calling card”. Therefore, a strong orientation to key concepts and on how to establish, build and sustain your brand will provide you with both the theoretical and practical guidance to embrace your career through a novel and unique approach.

Objectives:

• Understand brand valuation concepts.
• Identify/Define your personal brand elements and benefits.
• Establish/Build/Sustain awareness, recognition and acceptance of your personal brand elements and benefits.
• Optimize your personal brand.

Air Date: 11/11/2021 | Time Slot: 12:30 p.m. ET

Anne Guevara

Senior Director of Program Excellence, BAE Systems

Anne Guevara is a Senior Director of Program Excellence at BAE Systems. Anne co-leads the Electronic Systems Program Excellence team, responsible for program management capability across the sector. Anne joined BAE Systems from Raytheon Systems, where she served in various Operations and Program Management roles, including two expat assignments to France in support of NATO efforts. Anne also served with the U.S. Army for 26 years on both Active Duty and in the Reserves.

Anne graduated with honors as a distinguished military graduate with a BA in public policy from Tulane University on an Army ROTC scholarship. She received her MBA in Global Leadership Business Administration (GLEMBA) from the University of Texas at Dallas and also serves on the Advisory Board for the University of Texas at Dallas (Executive Education). Currently, she is working on her Doctorate in Business Administration for Project/Programme Management from SKEMA Business School in Lille, France focusing on leveraging augmented intelligence to improve program design for executability.

Work from Home Retrospective: the Good, the Bad and the Ugly, and…the Art of the Possible!
By Anne Guevara

A year plus into the pandemic response finds a significant segment of the worlds’ workforce continuing to work from home. How have we survived? What have we learned? What will “return to work” look like? How will workplace practices and environments change as a result? What implications are there for homelife and education practices?

Key Observations from a seasoned citizen of the world:

• Hybrid work arrangement are here to stay: companies and employees both recognize benefits
• Remote work demands leaders step up their trust game and purposefully plan
• Remote work expects employees to be action oriented, effective communicators who can prioritize independently
• Working from home has further blurred and stressed the ever challenging “work/life management” continuum
• But…Necessity is the mother of invention!

Air Date: 06/10/2021 | Time Slot: 12:30 p.m. ET

Dale Albrecht

CEO, Principal Consultant, Alonos

Dr. Dale Albrecht is the CEO, Principal Consultant of Alonos a consulting firm with products and services in human resources, organizational performance and leadership. Dale has focused his career on maximizing human performance and practicing organizational effectiveness. He has held leadership roles as Chief Human Resources and Risk Officer. Along with an extensive career in human resources, he has experience in general management, technical operations, and field engineering. Dale has authored three Business Books: Organizational Design that Sticks!, Decide to Thrive: Improving Business Performance through Decision Effectiveness, and Incentives Drive Performance. He is an Adjunct Professor and Visiting Lecturer at three universities including The University of Texas at Dallas, Texas Woman’s University, and Fort Hays State University. Dale has worked in several industries including travel, retail, manufacturing, telecommunications, medical devices, construction, public safety, and Department of Defense.

Strategic Human Resources: A Business Imperative We Must Solve
By Dale Albrecht, PhD

People have been writing about the importance of a strategic human resources function for years. The business importance of ‘people being our greatest asset’ and ‘teamwork is one of the only competitive advantages’ is generally accepted. Yet, the strategic HR function remains elusive. Often, business leaders and educational professionals don’t understand what strategic HR means, the impact it has on a business, and how to develop the capability.

This session explains strategic human resources by looking at the context of capital management:

1) business imperative, 2) necessary capabilities, and 3) solving the capability gap.

“For HR leaders, it should no longer be about getting a seat at the table. It should be about keeping it and being ready-now successors to the CEO” says Dr. Albrecht.

Outcomes:

• Distinguish between Financial, Physical, and Human Capital
• Identify the performance impact of strategic human resources
• Identify the performance impact of strategic human resources
• Understand how to develop the skillset in HR professionals

Air Date: 05/13/2021 | Time Slot: 12:30 p.m. ET

Carolyn Reichert, PhD

Dr. Carolyn Reichert is a Clinical Associate Professor and Director, MS in Finance and Managerial Economics at The University of Texas at Dallas in the Naveen Jindal School of Management. She has served as Chair on the Sustainability Committee, and her research interests include sustainability, corporate governance, and compensation. Dr. Reichert is a graduate of The Pennsylvania State University (Ph.D.) and The Ohio State University (B.S. in Finance and B.A. in Mathematics).

Journey to Sustainability
By Carolyn Reichert, PhD

As sustainability becomes more important to investors and society, it is important to understand what it is and how to get there.

This webinar led by Dr. Carolyn Reichert, Clinical Associate Professor at The University of Texas at Dallas, explains the differences between Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR); Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) and Shared Values. These measures related to the 17 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDG), creating a framework for sustainability initiatives.

Every step forward to a more sustainable future is progress on these ambitious goals. You can begin your journey today.

Air Date: 02/25/2021 | Time Slot: 11:30 a.m. CDT

Armin Cruz

Vice President, Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport

Since 2005, Armin Cruz has served as vice president of the Dallas/Fort Worth (DFW) International Airport. He is responsible for DFW’s 24/7 intermodal transportation services with over 69 million annual customers, commercial and retail tenants. With over $224 million in annual gross revenues, these services represent DFW’s largest non-aeronautical revenue source and account for one-fourth of its operating revenues. Operating in a wide functionality spectrum and many management channels, his team is the largest employer for the world’s third-busiest airport. It synchronizes with federal and state agencies for critical strategic regional transportation integration that makes it the 116th largest firm in North Texas and an internationally recognized customer-centric leading-edge organization. Under Cruz’s leadership, the Business Unit is the first and the only airport worldwide (2018) to earn both the coveted International Parking & Mobility Institute’s “Accredited Parking Organization” designation and the National Parking Organization’s “Innovative Organization of the Year.”

Six Questions a 21st Century Leader MUST Ask Themselves
By Armin Cruz

“Knowing yourself is the beginning of all wisdom. ” — Aristotle

In today’s demanding business arena, leaders must fully leverage aspects of business management and business knowledge to achieve timely and sustainable success. This is only possible by leveraging yourself first and foremost. To accomplish this, you must first answer six crucial SWOT questions. SWOT Analysis guides you in identifying your Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats.

In this webinar, Armin Cruz shares how to apply these questions to own your leadership skills so that your abilities to motivate individuals and teams will grow and sharpen. A few of the questions we aim to answer together are:

• What is your strongest asset?
• What areas should you strive to improve?
• Is there untapped opportunity at your feet waiting to be leveraged?
• What potential challenges threaten your success today?

Air Date: 11/12/2019 | Time Slot: Noon CDT

Maria Gomez Albrecht

Lecturer, Executive MBA and Global Leadership MBA programs, Naveen Jindal School of Management, UT Dallas

Maria Gomez Albrecht is an executive partner at Alonos, a consulting firm specializing in organizational effectiveness, improved business performance and marketing strategies for leadership teams and executive management. She is a marketing lecturer at The University of Texas at Dallas for both the Executive MBA and the Global Leadership MBA programs. Albrecht is also the president of Prospanica DFW, a nonprofit organization established to empower and enable Hispanic professionals.

She is an accomplished and highly skilled business professional who leverages more than 25 years of experience in several industries, including retail, medical, nonprofit, environmental and education. She has extensive experience in e-commerce, sales operations, project management, data analytics, supply chain and vendor management. Albrecht earned her doctorate in business administration from Swiss Management Center University. She also has deep knowledge of multicultural marketing thanks to her fluency in Spanish and Portuguese, as well as business proficiency in French and Italian.

Why Marketing in 2020 is No Longer A Perfect Vision
By Maria Gomez Albrecht

2020 had long been anticipated by many marketers and business leaders as a great opportunity to redefine visions, set new goals, refresh campaigns or launch exciting initiatives. However, the appearance of COVID-19 worldwide has put a damper on the development, distribution and communication of plans. This presentation examines the impact of the disease on marketing efforts and imagines what recovery might look like for businesses to emerge successfully.

Air Date: 06/23/2020 | Time Slot: 7 p.m. CDT

Deepak Sachdeva

Vice President, Information Technology, Xome
Adjunct Faculty Member, Global Leadership MBA program, Naveen Jindal School of Management, UT Dallas

Deepak Sachdeva is a business-transformation and technology executive who has worked extensively on strategy enablement, business-process redesign, global operating models, mergers and acquisitions, partnerships, corporate development, investor relations, financial planning, lean operational excellence, supply chain optimization and corporate communications. He helped accelerate growth by optimizing every interaction throughout the customer lifecycle and increased revenue. He is a trusted leader and an advisor who is passionate about developing and empowering the next generation of executives.

Sachdeva created strategies and key performance metrics to drive predictable and measurable growth, increase efficiency and effectiveness of customer-facing teams, and improve visibility into sales activity and performance.

He has gained his experiences at Sabre, General Electric, PepsiCo, Cisco and UT Dallas.

He earned an Executive MBA from The University of Texas at Dallas in 2012 and a Bachelor of Engineering (civil) degree from Delhi University.

Global Finance: Impacts on the Economies
By Deepak Sachdeva

The goal of this discussion is to explain how finance across borders impacts economies, who benefits and who loses. We will unravel the complex web of financial centers and how they exert control and influence the financial markets.

Air Date: 02/19/2020 | Time Slot: 7 p.m. CDT

Recording: Not available at this time

Jackie Kimzey

Associate Professor of Practice, Organizations, Strategy and International Management, Naveen Jindal School of Management, UT Dallas

Since 2007, Jackie Kimzey has served on the faculties of Southern Methodist University and The University of Texas at Dallas, where he shares lessons about innovation and new ventures with enthusiastic young entrepreneurs. He previously served as executive director of the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship at UT Dallas and is a frequent speaker and lecturer on the topics of innovation, investment and management. Over his career, he has served on 19 boards, four of which were public companies. Kimzey continues his work with new ventures and is an active angel investor and advisor.

The Shelf Life of Sustainable Competitive Advantage: Disrupt or Be Disrupted
By Jackie Kimzey

Whether your organization is large or small, a for-profit business or a nonprofit, competitive advantage is volatile and often affected by innovative disruptors. Vision, awareness and a culture that is open to change are essential to keep businesses growing continuously.

Jackie Kimzey explains the four key pillars of staying competitive:

• Disruptive innovators are a threat to your organization.
• In a digital world, competitive advantage is transitory.
• Leadership matters.
• Organizations that embrace the multigenerational workforce will win in the innovation game.

Air Date: 04/02/2020 | Time Slot: Noon CDT

Cuneyt Gurcan Akcora

Assistant Professor of Computer Science and Statistics, University of Manitoba, Canada

Dr. Cuneyt Gurcan Akcora was a postdoctoral fellow in the Departments of Statistics and Computer Science at The University of Texas at Dallas. He has worked at Yahoo! Research in Barcelona, Qatar Computing Research Institute and Huawei Research in Istanbul. Akcora received his PhD from the University of Insubria, Italy, and his MS from State University of New York at Buffalo. His primary research interests are explainable artificial Intelligence, data science on complex networks and large-scale graph analysis, with applications in social, biological, Internet of Things and blockchain networks. Akcora is a Fulbright Scholarship recipient, and his research works have been published in leading conference proceedingss and journals, including Transactions on Knowledge and Data Engineering, the VLDB Journal, the International Conference on Data Mining and the International Conference on Data Engineering.

Sudhanva Purushotham

Erik Jonsson School of Engineering and Computer Science, UT Dallas

Sudhanva Purushotham has been a research assistant under the guidance of Dr. Yulia R. Gel, Dr. Cuneyt Akcora and Dr. Murat Kantarcioglu, helping to develop open-source technologies for compliance, anomaly detection and anti-money laundering technologies in banking and law enforcement.

Purushotham has interests in financial markets and data science.

Researchers:
Dr. Yulia Gel
Dr. Murat Kantarcioglu

A Holistic View of the Entire Blockchain Ecosystem with a Focus on Data Science for Blockchain
By Cuneyt Gurcan Akcora and Sudhanva Purushotham

Over the last couple of years, Bitcoin cryptocurrency and the blockchain technology that forms the basis of Bitcoin have gotten unprecedented attention.

Designed to facilitate a secure distributed platform without central regulation, blockchain is heralded as a novel paradigm that will be as powerful as big data, cloud computing and machine learning.

Blockchain technology garners the ever-increasing interest of researchers in various domains that benefit from scalable cooperation among trustless parties. As Blockchain applications proliferate, so do the complexity and volume of data stored by Blockchains.

Starting with the core components of Blockchain, I will detail the building blocks of Blockchains and describe Blockchain use cases in application domains such as Internet of Things, supply chains, trade and finance. This talk provides a holistic view on the entire Blockchain ecosystem with a focus on data science for Blockchains.

Air Date: 04/23/2020 | Time Slot: 11:30 a.m. CDT

Richard Bowen

Senior Lecturer, Accounting, Naveen Jindal School of Management, UT Dallas

Richard Bowen is a member of the Accounting Area faculty in the Jindal School at UT Dallas and a popular speaker in the field of business ethics. He has a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering from Texas Tech University and a Master of Business Administration from The University of Texas at Austin. He is also a Certified Public Accountant in the State of Texas and was named 2012 CPA of the Year by the Texas Society of CPAs. Bowen has been described in the news media, including the Wall Street Journal, CBS Evening News and 60 Minutes, as the Citigroup whistleblower who repeatedly warned Citi executive management, beginning in 2006, about risky business practices and potential losses related to mortgage sales and securitizations.

Ethics and the Financial Crisis
By Richard Bowen

The financial debacle of 2008 and the fallout it caused to our economic infrastructure have prompted increased concern about corporate moral and social responsibility and increased scrutiny of organizational behavior and the lack of ethical leadership exhibited by companies we previously held in high esteem.

There is zero tolerance for and societal concern about unethical behavior. Unethical behavior has a high cost: lack of trust on the part of customers, the public as well as employees. Diminishing loyalties mean fewer profits and less-engaged employees.

Based on Bowen’s own experience as the Citigroup Whistleblower and on client case studies, this no-holds-barred presentation focused on:

• The costs of unethical leadership and the steps an organization needs to take to instill guiding principles that become part of the corporate culture.
• The slippery slope that leads to a lack of ethical culture and how to prevent this from happening within an organization.
• The ethical conflicts many investment advisors face in their role in guiding customer’s investment decisions.

Air Date: 10/29/2020 | Time Slot: 11:30 a.m. CDT