Filip Abraham obtained a Ph.D. in economics at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, USA in 1987 after completing undergraduate and masters’ studies at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (KU Leuven) in Belgium.

His academic career is linked to his position as full professor in international economics and European integration at KU Leuven and the Vlerick Business School.  His research focuses on the relation between international competitiveness, international trade and labor markets.  He published several books and many articles in international journals.  He is also professor in international business at the Rochester-Bern Executive MBA Program in Switzerland.  He has taught in various programs in the Netherlands, the Kiel Institute for the World Economy and the University of Vienna.

Filip Abraham is actively involved in economic policy research and policy advice. He held a temporary position at the International Monetary Fund and worked as an expert for the European Commission and the European Court of Auditors.  He is the author of many policy reports for the government and business organizations of his home country, Belgium.  He writes newspaper columns and gives interviews on radio and TV.

Over the years, Filip Abraham has built up substantial management experience. Currently, he is vice-president and member of the board of directors at KU Leuven, responsible for economics and business, law, social sciences and humanities.  Previously he was the dean of the faculty of Economics and Business.  He is chairman or member of the board of several organizations and institutions.  He advises companies, public and private institutions.

Filip Abraham's full CV

David Arnold holds adjunct professorial positions at several of the world’s leading business schools, and has won several teaching awards, both in the Rochester-Bern Executive MBA program and elsewhere. He obtained his doctorate at Harvard Business School, following earlier undergraduate and masters’ studies in London.

His academic career developed from his last managerial position, as the Marketing Manager of Ashridge Business School in the UK.  His doctoral research at Harvard developed a new framework in organizational economics for studying international marketing, and as a faculty member he was in charge of that area in the school.  He was one of the first academics to emphasize the importance of emerging economies as markets, rather than production centres, and published in both managerial and academic journals, as well as authoring two books.  To underpin this international expertise, David undertook brief visiting assignments at leading business schools in all parts of the world.

As a marketing strategist, Arnold has built up considerable experience as a consultant to a wide variety of companies, mostly advising on the development of strategies to address changing marketplace dynamics.  More recently, this work has featured mentoring chief marketing officers, or guiding start-up companies, in a range of industries from pharmaceuticals to advertising.

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Robert Boute is Professor at Vlerick Business School and the University KULeuven in Belgium.  He obtained a Ph.D.  in applied economics in 2006.

He teaches Operations and Supply Chain Management in the MBA programs, as well as in executive education and customised programmes.  Robert was visiting professor at Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern University), and taught in the International MBA programs at Beijing University (BiMBA) and Sint Petersburg (International School of Management).  Since 2010 he is the program director of the Masters in General Management (MGM) at Vlerick Business School.

In his research Robert focuses on managing volatility in global supply chains.  His expertise lies in supply chain dynamics (the bullwhip effect), inventory management and production smoothing models.  In 2008 he received the best paper award in production planning & control for his paper on a win-win solution for the bullwhip problem. 

Robert has worked with many companies, both large organizations and medium-sized enterprises, on various education and research projects, and serves frequently as a trainer in executive education programs.  He is active as Board member of PICS Belgium (the Production Inventory and Control Society), the Belgian chapter of the APICS society.

Robert Boute's full CV

Aymo Brunetti is Full Professor for Economic Policy and Regional Economics at the Department of Economics of the University of Bern. He is also Director of the Center for Regional Economic Development (CRED) at the University of Bern.

He studied economics at the University of Basel where he was awarded a doctorate in 1992 and qualified for teaching as a university professor in 1996. From 1994 to 1995 he spent a year as visiting scholar at the Department of Economics at Harvard University. From 1997 to 1999 Mr Brunetti was visiting professor at the University of Saarland in Saarbrücken, Germany. He also did consultancy work for the World Bank and the International Finance Corporation.

In 1999 Mr Brunetti joined the Swiss Federal Department of Economic Affairs where he first headed the Economic Policy Division of the Federal Office of Economic Development and Labour. In the same year he became member of the board of the newly founded State Secretariat for Economic Affairs (SECO) and headed its Economic Analysis Division. From 2003 to 2012 he was head of the Economic Policy Directorate at SECO. In February 2012 he took up his current position at the University of Bern.

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Professor Caeldries obtained his PhD in strategic management from Purdue University (Krannert School of Management).  In addition, he studied international comparative antitrust law at New York University Law School. 

Professor Caeldries has extensive experience as a trainer and instructor in strategic management programs for various corporations in Europe and the US.  He regularly facilitates strategy development workshops with executive boards.  At Tilburg University, he is the Associate Dean Company-specific Programs.  In this capacity, he holds academic responsibility for all company-specific executive development programs.  He has directed and/or taught in programs for clients such as ING, Bekaert, Barco, Canon, Capgemini, CSM, Gambro, Randstad, Rabobank, Royal Haskoning/DHV, Nestlé, Norske Skog, and Abbott. 

He previously taught at New York University (Stern School of Business).  He was also a visiting professor at the Helsinki School of Economics and the Swedish Management Institute (IFL).  From 1992 to 1999, he was a member of the editorial board of the Strategic Management Journal.  From 2006-2008, he was a member of the Advisory Board of CSC (Netherlands). 

Professor Caeldries’ research and teaching interests focus on strategic management (competitive strategy and strategic change), organization development, and competition in transition markets.  His research has been published in Advances in Strategic Management, the Journal of Product Innovation Management, and the Journal of Socio-Economics.  He is a co-author of the book Financial Services Marketing.

He has received the Best Teaching Award in the Rochester-Bern Executive MBA program four times.

Filip Caeldries' full CV

Marc Gruber is full professor at the College of Management of Technology at EPFL where he holds the Chair of Entrepreneurship and Technology Commercialization (ENTC). 

Marc Gruber joined EPFL in the fall of 2005 coming from the Munich School of Management, University of Munich, where he was the vice-director of the Institute of Innovation Research, Technology Management and Entrepreneurship (INNOtec) and manager of the ODEON Center for Entrepreneurship.  He has held several visiting scholar posts at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania, where he conducts research on technology commercialization and entrepreneurial marketing.

Prof. Gruber has published his research on entrepreneurship in several leading journals such as the Academy of Management Journal, Management Science, Organization Science, the Journal of Business Venturing, and Entrepreneurship Theory & Practice.  In addition, he is the co-editor of a textbook on entrepreneurship and was a regular contributor to a weekly column on entrepreneurship in the "Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung".  Marc Gruber's teaching has won high praise at several institutions of higher education and executive education programs such as the University of Munich, the Vienna University of Economics and Business Administration, the University of St.  Gallen and the Collège des Ingénieurs (Paris).

Marc Gruber graduated in management from the University of St.  Gallen in 1995 and received a PhD in management from the same university in 2000.  In spring 2005, he received a venia legendi from the Munich School of Management for his habilitation thesis on marketing in new ventures.

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Claudio Loderer is the founder and Academic Director of Rochester-Bern Executive Programs, Head of the Institut für Finanzmanagement at the Universität Bern, and Managing Director of the Swiss Finance Institute.  Before assuming his position at the Universität Bern, Claudio Loderer served on the faculty of Purdue University in Indiana from 1983 to 1990, and during the 1985–1986 academic year, he was a visiting assistant professor of finance at the University of Chicago.  In 2008, he spent a semester as a visiting professor at the Stern School of Business, New York University.

Loderer is the principal author of Handbuch der Bewertung (NZZ Verlag) and has contributed to different journals, among them Financial Management, Journal of Financial Economics, the Journal of Finance, the Journal of Business, and the Journal of Accounting and Economics.  He has served on the editorial boards of European Financial Management, the Journal of Banking and Finance, the Journal of Corporate Finance, and the Journal of Empirical Finance.  Furthermore, he has been a member of the executive board of the European Finance Association.

Claudio Loderer has research and teaching interests in topics involving corporate finance, risk management, corporate governance, and compensation policies.  He has written expert opinions, consulted to financial and nonfinancial institutions, and sits on the boards of directors of various corporations.

Claudio Loderer's full CV

Filip Roodhooft earned a PhD in economics at the University of Antwerp in 1994.  He is now professor of accounting at the faculty of economics and business at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven.  He is research dean and professor in accounting at the Vlerick Business School. 

He has taught in executive development programs at several business schools, including the London Business School, the Rochester-Bern Executive MBA Program, the Vlerick Leuven Ghent Management School, the University of Antwerp Management School, and Leti-Lovanium Sint Petersburg.  He received several best teacher awards. 

He has worked as a trainer and advisor for many organizations, including Siemens, Umicore, Alcatel, VF Europe, Accenture, Eli Lilly, BNP Paribas, ING, Bekaert, Suez, Belgacom, and the Belgian federal government.  He is on the board of directors of Realdolmen and chairs the audit committee.  He is also board member of the European institute for advanced studies in management and the Financial executives institute of Belgium.  He chairs the examination committee of the Belgian institute for accountants.

His research interests include the application of case study research and experimental research in cost and management accounting and the use of financial accounting databases in business economics.  His research has been published in Accounting, Organisations and Society; Journal of Accounting Research; Journal of Operations Management; Journal of Management Accounting Research; Journal of Cost Management; Accounting and Business Research; Journal of Business Finance and Accounting; Harvard Business Review; Abacus; European Journal of Operational Research; Journal of the Operational Research Society; Health Policy; and the Journal of Supply Chain Management, among others.

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Karl Schmedders has been a Professor of Quantitative Business Administration in the Faculty of Economics, Business Administration and Information Technology at the University in Zurich since 2008.  In addition, he is a visiting associate professor at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University and an adjunct professor of managerial data analysis and forecasting in the Rochester-Bern EMBA Program in Switzerland.  He is also the Head of the Knowledge Center of the Swiss Finance Institute, a private foundation in Switzerland supporting and advancing research, doctoral training and executive education in banking and finance.

Karl Schmedders received a Ph.D. in operations research from Stanford University in 1996.  After a two-year post-doc at the Hoover Institution, a think tank on the Stanford campus, he became an assistant professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at the Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.  He was promoted to associate professor in 2001 and received tenure at Kellogg in 2005.  He continued to work at Kellogg until his departure to Zurich.

His research focuses on computational economics and finance.  He applies numerical solution techniques to complex economic and financial models shedding light on relevant practical problems.  He has published numerous research articles in international academic journals such as Econometrica, The Review of Economic Studies, The Journal of Finance, and The Review of Financial Studies, among others.

Karl Schmedders has received teaching awards at Stanford, Kellogg and WHU, most recently the Best Professor Awards of the Kellogg-WHU EMBA Program (2008, 2009, 2011, 2012) and the Kellogg Miami EMBA Program (2011, 2012). 

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Ronald M. Schmidt’s teaching areas include economics, statistics, marketing,  organizations, and corporate strategy.  He has received several Superior Teaching Awards from regular and executive MBA classes.  He has served as a consultant to Eastman Kodak Company, Xerox Corporation, Bausch & Lomb, Schlegel  Corporation, Croon Electrotechniek, and several other corporations.

Schmidt’s current research activities include an examination of the relationship  between pay and performance for CEOs and an investigation of the impact of  contractual provisions on the performance of major-league baseball players.  His  publications include papers on pricing, regulation, and management  compensation.

Ronald Schmidt's full CV

Abraham Seidmann, Ph.D., is the Xerox Professor of Computers and Information Systems, Operations Management, and Electronic Commerce.  He is also the Area Coordinator for Computers and Information Systems, Operations Management, and Electronic Commerce, and Management Science at the W E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Rochester. 

Professor Seidmann is the author of numerous research articles and for eight years has been the Department Editor on Interdisciplinary Management Research and Applications in the prestigious Management Science journal.  He is an associate editor of several other primary scientific journals in the areas of Operations Management and Information Systems. 

A native of Israel he completed his undergraduate studies in Industrial Engineering & Management, and graduate studies in Operations Research at the Technion in Haifa, Israel.  Following a distinguished career in commercial banking he moved to the United States and received his Ph.D. from Texas Tech University in Operations Research.  Professor Seidmann has lectured and consulted on five continents to senior executives in the finance, healthcare, and manufacturing sectors. 

He has done extensive research in the areas of corporate information systems, service strategy and management, medical systems strategy, computerized clinical operations, health care management and the development of advanced financial trading information systems. 

He has won several records for superior executive and MBA teaching, and his research has been awarded several prestigious prizes for an outstanding scholarly contribution.  In October 2012 Professor Seidmann was named a “Distinguished Fellow” by the Institute of Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) and the Information Systems Society of INFORMS.  The award was given to Seidmann, in recognition of his contributions to the information systems discipline.  Seidmann is the first faculty member at the University of Rochester to win that honor. 

Abraham Seidmann's full CV

Luc Sels is Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business of KU Leuven. He joined the Faculty in 1996 as an assistant professor, became full professor in 2004, was elected Dean in 2008 and re-elected for a second four-year mandate in 2013. Luc Sels obtained a Ph.D. in Sociology at KU Leuven in 1995.

He participates in the Research Centre of Organisation Studies (Faculty of Economics and Business). He is teaching courses on HRM, HR flows and Organisation design. His primary substantive research interests center around labour market projections, active ageing and (corporate) demography, talent management, the relationship between HR investments and firm performance and features of strong HRM systems. His research has been published in leading scholarly journals such as the Journal of Management, the Journal of Applied Psychology, the Journal of Organizational Behavior, Human Resource Management Journal. 

He is also research fellow at the Vlerick Business School and part-time professor at the Simon School of the University of Rochester, where he teaches in the Rochester-Bern Executive MBA.

Luc Sels is actively involved in labour market policy research and policy advice. He serves on the Belgian High Council for Employment as a representative of the Federal Minister of Employment and is director of the Policy Research Centre for Work and Social Economy which advices the Flemish government on labour market policies. He is also member of the Board of Directors of the Research Institute for Work and Society.

Daniel Perrin’s research fields are media linguistics, text production, writing methodology, editorial quality management, and professional writing.  He is the author of scientific and popular books and journal articles (see www.danielperrin.net) and has extensive experience as a trainer and instructor in communications for various companies in Switzerland, among them broadcasting and insurance companies as well as banks.

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Chris Pallaris is the Director and Principal Consultant of i-intelligence, a commercial intelligence consultancy based in Switzerland. He leads and coordinates the company’s research, training and advisory activities in Europe and beyond.

Chris helps staff and senior managers in public and private sector institutions generate the intelligence they need to improve strategy and decision-making, as well as identify, monitor and exploit threats, challenges and opportunities to their business.

In addition to his formal duties, Chris serves on the board of the European Open Source Intelligence (EUROSINT) Forum, where he chairs a working group on best practices in intelligence. He is also an Associated Professor of Intelligence Studies at Mercyhurst University’s institute for Intelligence Studies, and a lecturer in competitive intelligence at the ZHAW’s School of Management and Law.

Chris has a degree in International History from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and an MBA from the Open University.

Daniel Perrin’s research fields are media linguistics, text production, writing methodology, editorial quality management, and professional writing.  He is the author of scientific and popular books and journal articles (see www.danielperrin.net) and has extensive experience as a trainer and instructor in communications for various companies in Switzerland, among them broadcasting and insurance companies as well as banks.

Daniel Perrin's full CV

David Schaeppi studied food science at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zurich (ETH).  In 1998, he started working for Givaudan in Dübendorf, Switzerland, leading the sensory science department for Europe, Africa, and Middle East (EAME).  In 2002, he completed the Rochester-Bern Executive MBA program.  

In 2004, he moved on to being marketing manager for dairy and ice cream in Europe.  Between 2007 and 2012, he was heading the marketing services department (EAME) where he led the introduction of the ByNature^TM Brand for natural flavors during 2008.  

Since 2012, Schaeppi is Head of Consumer Understanding & Marketing Services.  He is part of the local Zurich Givaudan Management team and the Givaudan sustainability team EAME.

David Schaeppi's full CV

Martin Schwab finished a commercial apprenticeship in a building construction company in 1985.  He then had various accounting and IT related positions in small and medium sized entreprises in the Canton Bern and obtained a degree as "Betriebswirtschafter HF" in 1989.  During his tenure as Finance director of a medical laboratory he obtained a degree as “Swiss certified expert in accounting and controlling” in 1998 with the best exam of that year.

In 1999 Martin Schwab took on the Finance Director position at Selecta Switzerland. Selecta Switzerland is the biggest provider of vending services with more than 20’000 points of sales in Switzerland.  Schwab was leading four departments with 45 employees and was responsible for Finance/Controlling, IT and General Administration.

Just a few months after graduation of the Rochester-Bern Executive MBA Program, Martin Schwab moved to London where he joined Compass Group PLC which had taken over Selecta Group in Spring 2001.  In London he was responsible for the development of group controlling and was leading various projects among them the introduction of a group-wide financial consolidation software; he also acted as interim Finance Director for North and Central Europe.

Schwab moved back to Switzerland in 2004 and acted as Finance Director and Deputy Managing Director accountable for 2’500 employees and a turnover of Euro 175 million at the Swiss division of Compass Group.

In 2005, he moved to Zug as CFO of Selecta Group, the European market leader in vending with CHF 1 billion of sales.  During that time Martin Schwab has managed the financial aspects of the sale of Selecta Group from Compass to a Private Equity investor and as part of the new financial structure has been managing a syndicated loan of Euro 950 million.

In 2010, he moved on to be the CFO of Axpo, the leading energy utility in Switzerland with CHF 7 billion of sales.

Martin Schwab's full CV

Jonas Zeller, born in 1982, studied finance and economics at the Universität Bern.  After an internship in the Economic Reserach Department at Credit Suisse, Zürich, he joined the Institut für Finanzmanagement in 2006 where he currently works as a doctoral student and teaching assistant.  In 2009 he spent a semester at the Simon Graduate School of Business, University of Rochester, New York.

Zeller has research and teaching interests in corporate governance, capital markets, and corporate finance.  His PhD thesis investigates the effect of corporate aging on firm performance.  Zeller has won an award for the best Masters Degree at the Business, Economics and Social Sicence Faculty at the Universität Bern in 2008.

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