Frontline IB: Conversations With International Business Scholars

Karl Sauvant

Karl P. Sauvant is Resident Senior Fellow at the Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment (CCSI), a joint center of Columbia Law School and the Earth Institute at Columbia University; Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia Law School (where he teaches a seminar on FDI and public policy); Fellow, Academy of International Business; and Honorary Fellow, European International Business Academy. He is a national of Germany, married to Silvana F. da Silva, a national of Brazil. 
Dr. Sauvant launched, in 2015, a proposal for an international support program to facilitate sustainable investment; structured discussions on a multilateral Investment Facilitation Framework for Development began in the WTO in 2018, and were upgraded to negotiations in 2020. He has advocated, since 2004, the establishment of an Advisory Center on International Investment Law, a proposal that was put on the agenda of the United Nations Commission on Trade Law (UNCITRAL) in October 2019. Since 1998, he has championed the establishment of a facility that helps developing countries negotiate large-scale contracts with international investors; the proposal was put on the G7 agenda in 2014, under the name of “CONNEX”, and was implemented by Germany in 2017, when it established the CONNEX Support Unit in Berlin. In January 2006, Sauvant established the Columbia Program on International Investment (today the CCSI), serving as its Executive Director until February 2012. As Chief of the Research Section of the United Nations Centre on Transnational Corporations, he created the World Investment Report and was its lead author until 2004, at UNCTAD; he also founded the journal Transnational Corporations, serving as its editor until 2005. 
Dr. Sauvant received a Ph.D. degree from the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia. He joined the United Nations in 1973 and, as of 1975, has focused his work on matters related to FDI. He rose to Director of the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development's (UNCTAD’s) Investment Division. He has published extensively on issues related to economic development and various aspects of foreign direct investment. 
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/karl-sauvant/ for the original video interview.

Christopher Bartlett

Professor Christopher Bartlett is the Thomas D. Casserly Professor of Business Administration, Emeritus, at Harvard Business School. He received a B.Econ. degree from the University of Queensland and both an MBA and DBA from Harvard University.
Prior to his academic career, he worked as a marketing manager with Alcoa in Australia, a management consultant in McKinsey's London office, and general manager of Baxter Laboratories' subsidiary in France.
He joined the faculty of Harvard Business School in 1979 where his research focused on the management challenges facing large, complex, global corporations. His eight books include (co-authored with the late Sumantra Ghoshal) Managing Across Borders: The Transnational Solution (named by the Financial Times as one of the 20th century’s 50 most influential business books) and The Individualized Corporation (named by Strategy + Business magazine as one of the best business books of the new millennium). Both books have been translated into more than ten languages.
He has authored or co-authored over 50 book chapters and articles and written over 100 case studies which collectively have sold more than seven million copies worldwide, making him the best-selling case author in the history of HBS.
During his three decades at HBS, he chaired the School’s General Management Unit, ran the International Senior Management Program, headed the Program for Global Leadership, and led the Humanitarian Leadership Program.
Professor Bartlett is a Fellow of the Academy of Management, the Academy of International Business, and the Strategic Management Society. In 2001, the Academy Management’s International Division honoured him with its Distinguished Scholar Award.
He has served on the board of six public companies and five non-profits.
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/christopher-bartlett/ for the original video interview.

Lemma Senbet

Lemma W. Senbet is the William Mayer Chair Professor of Finance at the University of Maryland and a former ED/CEO of African Economic Research Consortium, the oldest and largest economic research and training network in Africa. Prior to Maryland and AERC, he held endowed chaired professorship at University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Prof Senbet has achieved global recognition for his widely cited contributions to corporate finance, international finance, and finance in a public domain. He has received numerous recognitions for his impact on the profession. He has been elected twice as Director of the American Finance Association and is a past President of the Western Finance Association. In 2000, he was inducted into the Financial Economists Roundtable, a distinguished group of world-wide financial economists. In 2006, he was inducted Fellow of the Financial Management Association. In 2005, he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Addis Ababa University (Ethiopia). In 2022 he was inducted AIB Fellow.
Prof Senbet has been editor and associate editor at over a dozen journals, including JF and JIBS. Moreover, he has supervised numerous doctoral students and placed them at leading institutions. He has also advised World Bank, IMF, UN, and other agencies globally on financial sector reforms and development. He is a member of:  Brookings AGI Distinguished Advisory Group; Advisory Panel of the G20 Compact with Africa; Independent Council of Economic Advisors (appointed by the Prime Minister of Ethiopia).  Regarding his role in the US financial industry, Prof Senbet was a Director of Fortis Funds and has been an independent Director for the Hartford Funds. 
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/lemma-senbet/ for the original video interview.

Jan-Erik Vahlne

Jan-Erik Vahlne is an award-winning international business scholar whose distinctions include:
Journal of International Business Studies, Decade Award, 1987 and 2019
International Marketing Review, Best Paper Award 1990
International Business Review, Best Paper Award 2012
Over the course of his career, Dr. Vahlne has served in variety of professional positions, including:
1978-83: Secretary, Governmental Committee on Foreign Direct Investment
1986-88: Associate Dean, Graduate School of Business, Lahore University of Management Sciences, Pakistan
1988-1995: Professor, Stockholm School of Economics
1993-1995: President, Stockholm School of Economics in Riga, Latvia
1996-2011: Professor, Gothenburg University
2011-Present: Professor Emeritus, Gothenburg University
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/jan-erik-vahlne/ for the original video interview.

Ingmar Björkman

Ingmar Björkman is Rector (President) of Hanken School of Economics in Helsinki, Finland. Before joining Hanken, Björkman was Dean (2012-19) as well as Professor (2020-22) at Aalto University School of Business in Finland.
Ingmar’s research interests focus on people management issues in international organizations. Ingmar is a winner of the JIBS Decade Award (with D. Minbaeva, T. Pedersen, C. Fey & H-J. Park). His most recent article is: Zeng, R., Grøgaard, B. & Björkman, I (2023): Navigating MNE Control and Coordination: A Critical Review and Directions for Future Research. Journal of International Business Studies, doi.org/10.1057/s41267-023-00600-7. His latest book is Global Challenge: Managing People across Borders (fourth edition, 2023), co-authored with Vladimir Pucik, Paul Evans, and Günter Stahl.
Ingmar has received best/outstanding teacher awards in three different business schools across two continents and the International Educator (Dean) of the Year Award from the Academy of International Business (AIB) in 2019.
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/ingmar-bjorkman/ for the original video interview.

Ilan Vertinsky

Ilan Vertinsky is Vinod Sood Professor of International Business Studies, Strategy and Business Economics in the Sauder School of Business at the University of British Columbia (UBC). He is also an associate of the Peter Wall Institute of Advanced Studies and a former Distinguished Scholar in Residence of the Institute. He previously served as director of the Center for international Business studies, Associate director of the Institute Asian Research, director of the Maurice Young Entrepreneurship & Venture Capital Research Centre and Director of the Forest Economics and Policy Analysis unit. He was also a member of the faculty of the Institute of Resource Ecology.
Ilan received his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley, School of Business specializing in Operations Research. Prior to joining the faculty at UBC he served on the faculty of Northwestern University.
He has published over 300 refereed journal articles, book chapters and books. His publications include journals such as The Journal of International Business Studies, the Journal of international Economics, Review of Economic Studies, Strategic Management Journal, Management Science, Operations Research, Administrative Science Quarterly, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, and the Journal of Marketing. His research awards include the University’s Killam Research prize, the Sauder’s Professional Research Excellence Prize, AGSM’s Outstanding Scholarship Award and the Seagram Senior Faculty Award. Ilan is a former area editor of The Journal of International Business Studies (JIBS) and currently serves as a consulting editor of the journal.
Ilan’s current research focuses on the following areas: (1) transfers of knowledge in international joint ventures; (2) risk management and resilience development related to climate change, (3) competitive learning in domestic and cross- border alliances, patent litigation and innovation, and (4) the implications of the ongoing USA-China technology rivalry.
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/ilan-vertinsky/ for the original video interview.

Philip Kotler

Philip Kotler is the S. C. Johnson Distinguished Professor of International Marketing (Emeritus) at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.  He has been honored as one of the world’s leading marketing thinkers and has been called The Father of Modern Marketing.  He received his M.A. degree in economics (1953) from the University of Chicago and his Ph.D. degree in economics (1956) from the M.I.T.
He has received honorary degrees from 22 foreign universities. He is the author of Marketing Management, first published in 1967 and now in its 16th edition.  Kotler has published over 90 books and 170 journal articles, including Confronting Capitalism, Democracy in Decline, and Advancing the Common Good.  He has consulted IBM, Merck, GE, AT&T, Bank of America, Motorola, Ford, and others.  He has spoken all over the world and runs the World Marketing Summits.
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/philip-kotler/ for the original video interview.

Noel Capon

Noel Capon is R.C. Kopf Professor of international Marketing, Columbia Business School, New York, Educated in England and the United States, Professor Capon holds both a B.Sc. Special, First Class Honors and Ph.D. degrees in chemistry from University College, London University, a business diploma from Manchester Business School, and MBA and Ph.D. degrees from Harvard and Columbia Business Schools, respectively.
In addition to Columbia Business School (Marketing Chair), Professor Capon served on the faculties at Harvard Business School, UCLA (Marketing Chair), INSEAD (France), and China European International Business School (CEIBS). Capon teaches on Columbia’s MBA, EMBA, and Executive Programs. Courses include Advanced Market Strategy, Strategic Sales Management, and Key/Strategic and Global Account Management.
Professor Capon has published more than 80 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters, and in excess of 40 books. Titles include The Marketing Mavens, Managing Marketing in the 21stCentury, Capon’s Marketing Framework, Capon’s Marketing Essentials, The Virgin Marketer, Sales Eats First, The Front-Line Sales Manager, Key Account Management and Planning, Managing Global Accounts. Local versions of Professor Capon’s books have been published in Asia Pacific, Brazil (Portuguese), China (Mandarin), Russia, Spanish Latin America (Spanish), Western Europe, Middle East. Professor Capon’s most recent book is Customers Win, Suppliers Win: Lessons from One of IBM’s Most Successful Strategic Account Managers.
Professor Capon founded and serves as board chair of Wessex Press, board chair of LunaCap Foundation, and is a longtime board member of the Strategic Account Management Association (SAMA).
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/noel-capon/ for the original video interview.
 

Glenn Hoetker

Glenn Hoetker joined Melbourne Business School in 2018. He completed his PhD in international business at the University of Michigan.
Prior to joining MBS, he was Dean’s Council Distinguished Scholar and Professor in the Department of Management of Arizona State University’s W. P. Carey school of business, where he also held a courtesy appointment in the Department of Supply Chain Management. He was also an affiliate professor at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law and a Senior Sustainability Scholar at the Julie Ann Wrigley Global Institute of Sustainability, an affiliation he still holds. Prior to joining ASU, he spent 10 years at the University of Illinois, where he was a member of both the strategy and international business groups in the College of Business, with additional appointments in the College of Law and the Institute for Genomic Biology, where he was part of the BioBEL (Business, Economic and Legal Aspects of Biotechnology) research group.
He is an Associate Editor for the Strategic Management Journal and the Strategic Management Society’s new journal, Strategic Management Review. He serves on the Editorial Review Boards of Organization Science, Strategic Organization and Strategy Science.
His research, teaching and outreach interests are at the confluence of strategy, innovation, and globalization. Much of his recent work has explored these issues in the context of sustainability, particularly clean energy.
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/glenn-hoetker/ for the original video interview.
 

Maria Alejandra Gonzalez-Perez

Maria Alejandra Gonzalez-Perez (Ph.D., MBS, Psy.) is Full Professor of Management, Head of the Masters in Sustainability, and Coordinator of Ethics, Social Responsibility, and Sustainability at Universidad EAFIT (Colombia). Maria Alejandra is a member of the global council of Sustainable Development Goal number 1 (SDG 1: End Poverty) of the World Government Summit (WGS) (2018-2020, 2021-2024). Alejandra was the Vice-President of Administration at the Academy of International Business (AIB) (2015-2018), the regional chapter chair for Latin America and the Caribbean (AIB-LAC) (2018-2021), and a board member of the AIB Shared Interest Group (SIG) on Emerging Markets from 2022. In addition, Alejandra is on the editorial team of the Journal of International Business Policy (JIBP), Area Editor of the Cross-Cultural and Strategic Management (CCSM) Journal, Associate Editor of Transnational Corporations; and Editor-in-Chief of the business journal AD-minister.
Prof. Gonzalez-Perez did her Ph.D. and Masters at the University of Galway in Ireland. Dr. Gonzalez-Perez has published 17 books, 79 academic peer-reviewed papers, and several book chapters on the internationalisation of emerging markets firms, sustainability, corporate social responsibility, and international migration. She is a Forbes columnist and regular contributor to Latin American business media. Her research results have been presented at over 200 international academic conferences on all continents. She was also trained as a clinical psychologist at the Universidad Pontificia Bolivariana (UPB) in Colombia. Maria-Alejandra has lived, studied, or worked in the UK, USA, Ireland, France, Spain, and Colombia and has traveled to 97 countries.
Visit https://www.aib.world/frontline-ib/maria-alejandra-gonzalez-perez/ for the original video interview.