Educators

Belinda Allen

Having started her professional life as a psychologist, Belinda has always been passionate about understanding what makes people tick. She is particularly interested in understanding the working lives and careers of individuals and collaborating with individuals to make work a more satisfying and productive experience. Since earning her degree in psychology Belinda has gone on to also earn degrees in human resource management and organisational behaviour. In addition to Melbourne University, Belinda has also worked at Queensland University of Technology, Monash University and the University of Western Australia. Belinda’s expertise covers leadership, stress management, teams and high performance work practices.

Simon Bell

Professor Simon Bell is Head of School of MSPACE, the University of Melbourne’s School of Professional and Continuing Education. MSPACE aims to become a global leader in industry-focused educational offerings tailored to meet the needs of individuals and organisations and accessible through different modes of delivery, including face-to-face, online and intensive programs.

Simon is also a professor of marketing in the Faculty of Business & Economics. He studies how firms can become a more effective organisations by engaging with customers more meaningfully. He focuses on how frontline employees interact with customers to create value for the customer, the firm, and themselves. He also studies how regional clusters can sustain performance of individual firms and create conditions for innovation. Behind all his research is the idea that by recasting how firms connect with others, whether that is their customers, staff, or other firms, they can improve their performance.

Simon has worked extensively with industry in a research, consulting, and executive education capacity. He has worked with organisations locally and abroad including PWC, Honda, Ailo, Salesforce.com, Unilever, Agricultural Bank of China, and IBM. He has also delivered executive education courses for Cambridge University and Duke Corporate Education.

Michael Carrington

Michal Carrington is an Associate Professor in Marketing at the University of Melbourne, Program Director for the Master of Professional Management, and Academic Program Co-Director for the Unilever Indonesia Business Academy. Michal has teaching and research expertise in managerial and marketing ethics, artificial intelligence in organisations, marketing and retail strategy, omnichannel retail, ethical consumption and consumer culture. Her work is published in top international management, marketing and consumer research journals, and has contributed to policy development. Michal holds a BEng (Hons) in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Melbourne, and a PhD in Marketing also from the University of Melbourne. Prior to entering academia, Michal worked for Unilever in Australia and the UK.

Carole Comerton-Forde

Carole Comerton-Forde is Professor of Finance. Her research in market structure examines how the mechanics of the market, such as regulation and technology, impact prices, liquidity and trader behaviour. Her research focuses on equities markets but spans many geographies including Europe, US, Canada, Hong Kong and Australia. Her current research interests include fragmentation, dark pools and the connection between the cost of raising capital and secondary market liquidity. Her research has been published in leading academic journals including the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Financial Economics and the Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis.

Carole has previously held academic positions at UNSW, the Australian National University and University of Sydney, and visiting positions at New York University and the London School of Economics and Political Science. She was also Visiting Economist at the New York Stock Exchange. She has acted as a consultant for a number of stock exchanges and market regulators around the world. She is currently an economic consultant for the Australian Securities and Investments Commission, an Academic Advisor to the Plato Partnership and a Research Fellow at the Centre for Economic Policy Research.

Michael Davern

Professor Michael Davern, BCom (Hons), PhD, FCPA, is the Chair of Accounting and Business Information Systems at The University of Melbourne. For over 30 years, both in Australia and internationally (New York University), he has led industry engaged research projects in data analytics, business intelligence, financial reporting, risk management, data governance and ethics. His work has included collaborations with the Australian Accounting Standards Board, CPA Australia, EY, Microsoft, NAB, and PETRONAS, among others and led to over 50 published academic papers and industry reports.

With substantial board level experience with several privately held entities and in the not-for-profit sector, Michael is a sought-after speaker for executive education and industry forums. Michael is a member of CPA Australia’s Centre of Excellence in Digital Transformation, Michael’s extensive academic career builds on prior professional experience with PwC and Rio Tinto, and combines expertise in accounting, Information Technology, and decision sciences.

Peter Gahan

Peter Gahan is Professor of Management and Associate Dean (Teaching & Learning) in the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne, where he was previously Foundation Director of the Centre for Workplace Leadership (2012 to 2017). He has previously held academic and visiting positions at UNSW, Monash, University of South California, The European University Institute, Cardiff Business School, New York University and Stockholm Business School. Professor Gahan has also worked as senior public servant as Director of Workplace Innovation in the Victorian Department of Industry, Innovation and Regional Development. Over the last 30 years, Professor Gahan has published widely on conflict and negotiations, employment relations and collective bargaining, high performance workplaces, labour markets and the future of work, and the consequences of labour market regulation. He has undertaken commissioned research for both state and commonwealth governments on areas related to employment relations, regulatory arrangements to support workplace innovation, and the consequences of various regulatory labour market reforms. His current research focuses on two major drivers of change at work: workforce ageing and how technology is transforming the nature of jobs.

Niharika Garud

Dr. Niharika Garud is a Senior Lecturer in Management at Department of Management and Marketing, Faculty of Business & Economics at University of Melbourne. She is also a Research Fellow at Centre for Asian Business & Economics and Change Management Theme Coordinator at the Building CRC 4.0 initiative. Prior to Melbourne, Niharika worked as a faculty member at Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota and Xavier School of Management. Before academia, Niharika worked as an electrical engineer at a Fortune 500 firm in Washington DC area. Her interests for research, teaching, executive education, industry engagement, and collaborations are in the areas of technology and innovation management, organizational psychology, judgment, decision-making, creativity, entrepreneurship, behavioral strategy, operations, R&D management (management of scientists, product development teams, innovation labs) and engineering management. For executive education offerings, she teaches a variety of subjects in management, innovation, entrepreneurship, leadership, organizational behavior, organizational psychology (Business Analysis & Decision-Making, Analytics, New Value Creation, Innovation Management, Product Development, R&D Management, Design Thinking, Team Management, Leadership, HR Analytics, Talent and Competency Management, Entrepreneurial Leadership and Teams, Engineering Management, Digital Transformation, Project Management, Supply Chain Management). She has an extensive track-record of invited presentations and speaking engagements at academic conferences and industry events. Niharika’s research has been published in top management journals, such as Harvard Business Review, Journal of Management, Journal of Organizational Behavior, Personnel Psychology, IEEE Transactions on Engineering Management, Entrepreneurship & Regional Development among other outlets. She has won numerous awards, grants and fellowships for research, teaching, engagement in USA, Asia, Australia. Niharika conducts interdisciplinary research, engagement, consulting projects, executive education offerings for private and public sector firms, startups, non-profits and government agencies. Her industry partners and collaborations include multiple Fortune 500 firms, government departments and agencies, research laboratories (such as CSIRO), industry associations, startups, small & medium enterprises in many industry sectors, such as technology, hitech, manufacturing, real-estate, mining and software IT sectors among others.

Gerda Gemser

Gerda Gemser is Full Professor and Chair of (Corporate) Entrepreneurship in the Department of Management and Marketing at the University of Melbourne. She received her PhD in Management at the Rotterdam School of Management (Erasmus University, the Netherlands). Gerda was a visiting scholar at The Wharton School (University of Pennsylvania) and UBC Sauder School of Business (University of British Columbia). Previously she was Full (Research) Professor of Business & Design at the Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology. In addition, Gerda has held (assistant and associate) professorships at several Dutch universities, including Erasmus University, Delft University of Technology, and the University of Groningen. She collaborates with government, professional associations, and industry on various research projects investigating creativity, (corporate) entrepreneurship, and innovation. She teaches courses and gives seminars in these areas and is author or co-author of over forty research articles, appearing in leading academic journals such as Academy of Management Journal, Organization Science, Organization Studies, Journal of Management, Long Range Planning, and Journal of Product Innovation Management. She is co-author of two books: Strategic Design: Eight Essential Practices Every Strategic Designer Must Master (2nd edition, 2016 BIS Publishers) and Design Leadership Ignited: Elevating Design at Scale (2022, Stanford University Press).

Tangerine Holt

Associate Professor Tangerine Holt is the Academic Program Director (Business and Economics) at the Melbourne School Professional and Continuing Education (MSPACE) and a member of the Governance team for the Unilever Indonesia Business Academy. She is the Program Director of the Masters in Applied Data Analytics and leads on B2C and B2B opportunities on leadership development for the faculty. She has co-led the development and delivery of the university’s flagship leadership series on Managing Teams and Adaptive Leadership Melbourne MicroCerts with FBE Faculty. She has also led the design, development and delivery of innovative leadership programs for commercial organisations, both in Australia and globally.

With over 20 years' tertiary education industry experience in academic and senior leadership positions she has a proven track record in building and expanding education programs in the Middle East in medical and health professional education.

Tangerine is passionate about building capacity, skills development, and knowledge translation through strategic partnership programs. Her extensive knowledge and innovative experiences in teaching, learning, research, scholarship exchange and knowledge translation resulted in key outcomes for KPMG, Markets & Growth; the Australian-American Fulbright Commission, Monash University and the University of Louisville, Kentucky, across domestic and international engagement.

She is a solution-first thinker with a strong service mindset who is focused on enhancing the student experience, academic quality, and excellence. Her strong commercial and research capability related to various strategic and international initiatives and preparation of analyses, reports and presentations have led to significant funding, strategic partnerships and engagement globally.

She has served on a number of health, community and education Boards across Australia and the USA and now serves on the board of the Heart Research Centre, Melbourne, Australia.

Erik Mooi

Erik Mooi is professor of Marketing at the University of Melbourne. Erik is an expert on the topic of B2B marketing and market research techniques. Erik has authored several dozens of papers on B2B topics, including technology licensing, how to organize complex exchanges between firms, and innovation. Erik has also authored four books on market research techniques, selling about 300,000 copies over the last decade. He has worked with many companies, including ANZ, KLM, Phillips Electronics, Unilever, and others.

Ben Neville

Ben Neville is an Associate Professor in the Department of Management & Marketing, Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne in Australia. Ben researches and teaches in the area of sustainable business, including corporate social responsibility, business ethics, ethical consumption and social entrepreneurship. His work investigates how business can be a force for both harm and good, including from strategic, ethical, political and critical perspectives.

At the University, Ben is a Deputy Director of Melbourne Climate Futures, the University’s interdisciplinary initiative to accelerate the pathway to a positive climate future. Ben is also the Gourlay Fellow of Ethics in Business, the Sustainability in the Curriculum Fellow for the Faculty of Business and Economics, Coordinator of the Governance, Policy and Markets Stream in the Master of Environment, and Program Director of the new Graduate Certificate in Sustainable Business.

Internationally, Ben is a past Section Editor of the Corporate Responsibility (Theory and Qualitative) section of the leading international academic Journal of Business Ethics, an Editorial Board member for the international academic journal Business and Society, and a Representative-at-Large for the International Association of Business and Society.

Jesse Olsen

Jesse Olsen is a Senior Lecturer of Management in the Department of Management and Marketing and a Research Associate at the Centre for Asian Business and Economics. He earned his PhD in organisational behaviour from the Scheller College of Business at the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, USA.

His research focuses on improvisation in organisations, diversity management, international/cross-cultural management, and leadership.

Jesse's work has been presented in such top-tier management journals as the Journal of Applied Psychology and Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and has been featured in such media outlets as SBS World News, The Guardian, Forbes, and The Conversation. He has also presented his research at numerous academic and professional conferences and worked with organisations such as Perpetual, the Australian Workplace Gender Equality Agency, McDonald's, the Queensland Government, and the Asian Development Bank.

Jesse's professional experience includes his position as international exchange coordinator at Kwansei Gakuin University in Nishinomiya, Japan. He was also employed as a business project manager in the Merger Integration Office and Corporate Strategies Group of SunTrust Bank in Atlanta. Before coming to The University of Melbourne, Jesse conducted research and taught courses in the US, South Korea, and Japan. Jesse has also received improvisation and comedy writing training from the Laugh Masters Academy (Melbourne) and the Second City (Chicago, USA).

Ari Pramono

Ari Pramono is a Teaching Specialist in the Department of Management and Marketing University of Melbourne and Research Fellow in the Department of Marketing Monash University. Ari teaches Quantitative Analytics both in Traditional and Digital marketing subjects. His academic research focuses on modelling of consumer behaviour especially in a Spatial context.

Prior to working in academia, Ari worked in Marketing Intelligence role for one of the largest oil and gas company in Southeast Asia.

Ari received his PhD from Monash University, MBA from University of Montreal Canada and Bachelor of Engineering from Bandung Institute of Technology Indonesia.

Danny Samson

Professor Danny Samson has degrees in chemical engineering and a PhD in decision sciences/ management, both from UNSW/ AGSM. After a short career in a multinational chemical company, he moved to the USA as a researcher, lecturer and consultant. He has taught in executive programs and MBA programs for over three decades, having been professor at University of Melbourne since 1988, in Melbourne Business School and the Department of Management and Marketing. He Designed and directed the university’s Master of Supply Chain Management and Master of Enterprise degrees, for 15 years. In executive education, he has designed, directed and taught dozens of successful programs, on business strategy, operations management, innovation management, sustainability/ ESG, decision sciences, project management and a host of other topics, in five continents. He led the design and delivery of the university’s programs in PETRONAS, Malaysia, over 12 years, to 2000 managers. He has recently been designing and conducting professional development programs for clinicians and hospital executives, and for other professional groups such as engineers. He has been consultant to senior executives in most industries, from banking to automotive, and extensively in government. Danny has written over a dozen books, and 100 research articles in top journals.

Victor Sojo

Dr Victor Sojo is a Senior Lecturer in Leadership at the University of Melbourne. He is also a Visiting Senior Research Fellow at the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership, King’s College London and the Australian National University, an Associate Editor of the Australian Journal of Social Issues and a Board Director at Our Watch (a national leader in the primary prevention of violence against women and their children in Australia). Dr Sojo’s research focuses on four areas: (i) factors that facilitate and hinder gender equality in occupational and sport contexts, such as incivility, gender and sexual harassment, work-family conflict, and unconscious bias in talent management; (ii) the design, implementation and impact of diversity management/social and economic inclusion strategies, for example, anonymous applicant procedures and Indigenous preferential procurement; (iii) leadership development in the public sector; and (iv) the impact of gender inequality on public health outcomes. Victor lectures in Managing Behaviour in Organisations, Diversity Management, and Advanced HRM. He works with government and private sector organisations to develop evidence-based policies and practices. His research and insights have been published in top-tier journals such as the Leadership Quarterly, Social Issues and Policy Review, Psychology of Women Quarterly, British Journal of Sport Medicine, The Lancet, and Harvard Business Review.

Jonathan Thong

Dr Jonathan Thong is a Lecturer (Teaching Specialist) in the Department of Economics at the University of Melbourne and Tutor in the Masters of Business Analytics program at the Melbourne Business School. He obtained his PhD in Economics from the New York University in 2011. His teaching interests are in the fields of Applied Macroeconomics, Data Analytics, Finance, Time Series and Financial Econometrics. Prior to joining the University of Melbourne he was a Lecturer in the Department of Finance at the University of Sydney Business School.

Jonathan is a passionate educator with over a decade of experience in the design and delivery of economics, finance and data analytics courses. His teaching expertise spans the entire gamut of the business and economics education space, ranging from large undergraduate cohorts with over 1000 enrolments to intimate, specialised post graduate seminars and short online courses. In addition to his teaching commitments, he has previously supported the Faculty of Business and Economics at the University of Melbourne as the co-ordinator of the faculty Tutor Training Program. He has been recognised with an Outstanding Teaching Award from the College of Arts and Sciences at New York University.

Franz Wohlgezogen

Franz Wohlgezogen is a senior lecturer of leadership and strategy at the University of Melbourne. He writes and consults on issues related to collaboration, governance, organization design, and responsible leadership. He has worked with corporate clients on six continents and across a variety of industries for the purposes of research, consulting and executive education. He has also worked with non-profit, philanthropic, and public sector organizations, including the Victorian Leadership Academy in Australia and the Lal Bahadur Shastri National Academy of Administration in India. Currently, his work is focused on supporting sustainable business practices and climate action through research and teaching.

Franz's research has been published in leading journals, including the Harvard Business Review, Academy of Management Annals, Organization Science, and Organisation & Environment.

Before joining the University of Melbourne, Franz taught at the Kellogg School of Management and Northwestern Law School in Chicago, Bocconi University in Milan, and at the SDA Bocconi Asia Center in Mumbai. Franz is actively involved in teaching innovation and in supporting teaching excellence in management education. He has received multiple awards and grants for his teaching from the University of Melbourne, Bocconi University, and from the Rotman School of Management.