International Advisory Board

Dr. Ilan Alon (Ph.D., Kent State University, USA) is Professor of Strategy and International Marketing at the University of Agder. Prior to that he also had research positions in Harvard University, Georgetown University (USA) and University of International Business and Economics (China). Alon is a researcher in the field of international business with a focus on internationalization, modes of entry, political risk, cultural intelligence and emerging markets. Ilan Alon's publications have appeared in the Harvard Business Review, Management International Review, International Business Review, Journal of International Marketing, International Marketing Review and others.  His books were published by Palgrave, Routledge, McGraw-Hill among other imprints. In addition to being a professor, Alon is the Head of International Affairs for the School of Business and Law at the University of Agder, and leader of the Emerging Markets research group.  He is also Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Emerging Markets and the European Journal of International Management. Ilan Alon has worked with government bodies, non-profit organizations, multinational companies and international associations on various projects ranging from capacity development at the macro level to international business development at the firm or project level. Clients include USAID, illy, Darden, Disney, and others. Ilan Alon has been a frequent speaker on various international networks including National Public Radio (USA), Voice of America (USA), RTV (Russia), Dagens Næringsliv (Norway).

Dr. Diederich Bakker studied Business Administration, majoring in International Management, and holds a PhD in Marketing. His professional background lies in marketing communications and market research. Dr. Bakker has worked in the USA, Australia, Germany, France and the Netherlands. His personal research interests focus on international business, SMEs, market entry strategies, private label branding and Asian branding strategies. Dr. Bakker teaches marketing at the International Business School, Hanze University of Applied Sciences, Groningen, where he has worked since 2002. He is an elected leadership member of the European Association for International Education (EAIE) and sits on the Board of Directors of NIBS, the Network of International Business Schools. In 2016, he was appointed Professor of International Business at Hanze UAS.

Dr. rer. pol. Harald J. Bolsinger is Professor of Business Ethics and Economics at the University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt (FHWS). Würzburg-based business ethicist Harald Bolsinger has gained considerable practical experience in corporate customer service and distribution in the cooperative banking sector as well as a business promoter for the City of Nuremberg. He is actively involved in numerous initiatives to promote ethics and Christian values in business life. He has taught at various universities and is currently the Dean of the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration at FHWS.

Dr. Lourdes Casanova is currently a Senior Lecturer, and the Director of the Emerging Markets Institute at Johnson School of Management, Cornell University. She was formerly at INSEAD, specializing in international business with a focus on emerging markets multinationals. She was awarded in 2014 and 2015 as one of the 50 most influential Iberoamerican intellectuals by Esglobal. She is a Faculty Fellow at the Atkinson Center for a Sustainable Future. She has been a Fulbright Scholar with a Master's degree from the University of Southern California and a PhD from the University of Barcelona. She has had visiting professorships at Haas School of Business, University of California at Berkeley: Judge Business School, University of Cambridge and the Latin American Centre, University of Oxford; University of Zurich, and Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona. She was a consultant at the Inter-American Development Bank. Dr. Casanova has taught, and directed executive programs at INSEAD for senior managers including Telefónica, BBVA and Cemex and Brazilian Confederation of Industries. She is a member of the Latin America Global Agenda Council and the Competitiveness in Latin America taskforce of the World Economic Forum, the B20 Task Force on ICT and Innovation in G20 summit, Los Cabos (2012). She is responsible at INSEAD of Goldman Sachs 10,000 women initiative. Dr. Casanova is a board member of Boyce Tompson Institute, start-up Documenta, a founding Board Member of the Societé des Amis du Chateau de Fontainebleau and a member of the Advisory Council of the Tompkins Public Library. She is also a founding board member Emerging Multinationals Research Network and co-founder of the Ithaca Hub of Global Shapers.

Dr. Sencer Imer was born in Ankara in 1942. After the completion of his earlier education, he was sent to Germany under a Turkish state scholarship in 1960 to do his higher education. He graduated from the Technical University of Berlin in 1968 as a metallurgical engineer with a diploma. In 1973 he received his PhD in the field of metallurgy at the same university. Between 1974 and 1982 he was a member of the faculty as a researcher and as a lecturer at the Technical University of Berlin. He then first worked as an expert at the UN, as an advisor at the State Planning Organization and as an advisor to various ministers between 1982 and 1988. In the following period, he was in the top management of various privately-owned or state-owned large heavy-industry companies such as Erdemir, the Turkish Iron and Steel Works, Sivas Iron and Steel Works etc. as a general manager, head of board of directors, board member etc. Since 1992, he has been a faculty member of various universities such as Ankara, Hacettepe, TOBB ETU, Aksaray, Ufuk and Antalya AKEV. He is currently working as a professor at Hacettepe and Ufuk Universities. He teaches economics and comparative economics courses in international relations departments of various universities. Professor Dr. Sencer Imer has also been a founding member of the board of directors of the Turkish-German vocational education foundation since 1995.

Dr. Shou Wang Kuo, also known as Tony Kuo, has been serving as the Dean of International Affairs Office of Shih Chien University, Taipei, Taiwan since 2011.  Meanwhile, in promoting the internationalization of the higher education in Taiwan and the university, he serves as the Chairman of the International Business Department of the university. The International Business Department has recently established experimental programmes which are taught fully in English. Dr.. Kuo is devoted to promoting his educational belief “learning by doing”, thus other than his academic works, he serves as the senior advisor of the Ministry of Youth Affairs, which is now the Youth Development Bureau of the Taiwanese Ministry of Education. He is also the Chief Executive Director of Zypher Foundation, a non-profit organization for international affairs to offer students or young people international opportunities.
Dr. Kuo was invited as a visiting fellow to the Sigur Center of George Washington University, the Stimson Center and the University of Texas, Austin. He is dedicated to research and studies of Cross-Cultural Communications, International Affairs, Area Studies, US-China Relation and Cross-Straits Relations. His specialty in the youth affairs and global issues helps him to win the recognition for the political arena as he was appointed as the Chairman of the National Development Institute, the think-tank of the ruling party during the Ma Administration. Before serving as the Dean of International Affairs, Dr. Kuo was the Chairman of the Applied Foreign Languages Department and the Director of Languages Center. Dr. Kuo is also a newspaper columnist in Mandarin Chinese. He has also published several articles on global issues in academic journals and a book entitled “US Think Tank and Its Influence in Cross Strait Relations”.

Dr. Coşkun Küçüközmen is a professor at the International Trade and Finance Department of the Izmir University of Economics. He did his MSc degree in banking with a focus on deposit insurance at Loughborough University under a Jean Monnet scholarship; and his PhD at Exeter University under scholarships extended by the Central Bank of Turkey and Exeter University with a focus on distribution of equity returns and implications for value-at-risk (VaR). He started his career at the Central Bank of Turkey in 1986. He then joined to the Banking Regulation and Supervision Authority, the supervisory body for Turkish banking system in 2000, shortly after its establishment and worked there as a deputy head of the department of risk management. While he was with BRSA he taught as a part-time instructor at the Financial Mathematics Department of the Institute of Applied Mathematics at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara, and also at the FSI of BIS. He teaches courses on financial time series analysis, regulation and supervision of financial risks and energy trade and risk management. His research interests include all aspects of empirical finance and financial econometrics, financial risk measurement, Basel-II and validation of internal models, market risk, hedge funds and energy risk management as well as political risk.

Dr. Kari Liuhto started his academic career at Turku School of Economics in 1991. He shifted to Lappeenranta University of Technology in 1997 where he was nominated as a professor. Six years later Liuhto was invited to be the professor of Russian trade and the director of the Pan-European Institute at Turku School of Economics. Since 2011 he has also been the director of the Centrum Balticum foundation. During his career, Liuhto has acted as the responsible leader of several projects related to East-Europe and Baltic Sea region. These projects have been funded, among others, by the Prime Minister’s Office of Finland, the Parliament of Finland, several Finnish ministries, the European Commission, the European Parliament, the World Bank and the United Nations.

Dr. Rattanavalee Maisak holds a DIT (a doctoral degree in Information Technology), an MSc in Information Technology and also a BBA in marketing. She is currently Head of the International Business Department, Rajamangala University of Technology Phra Nakhon, Thailand. She is also Head of the Knowledge Management Department. She has taught web programming, JAVA application and, management information system. Her research interests focus on web accessibility, the Internet of Things (IoT) and, business analytics. Her latest research is funded by the Thai government. The project involves the IoT and STEM education in higher education.

Dr. Paul is a full professor of marketing and international business with the graduate school of business University of PR, San Juan, PR, USA. He is known as an author/co-author of text books titled – Business Environment,  Services Marketing, International Marketing, International Business (6th edition) and Export-Import Management (2nd edition)  by McGraw-Hill, Pearson & Oxford University Press respectively out of which two books have turned out to be best sellers. He has served as a full time faculty member with the University of Washington, Nagoya University of Commerce & Business- Japan, prior to his position with the University of Puerto Rico, USA as a full professor at age 40. He is on the editorial board of Journal of Academy of Marketing Science and a Guest Editor for International Business Review, Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Small Business Economics, Journal of World Business, Journal of Promotion Management, The International Trade Journal etc. He is also serving as a Senior / Associate Editor of Journal of International Management, European Journal of International Management and the International Journal of Emerging Markets. He served as Department Chairperson at South Asia’s premier business school, Indian Institute of Management (IIM), at age 30 and has taught full courses at Vienna University of Economics & Business, Aarhus University-Denmark, Grenoble Eco le de Management-France, Universite De Versailles-France, ISM University-Lithuania, SP Jain-Dubai and Warsaw School of Economics-Poland. He has also published over 40 research papers in reputed journals and four case studies with Ivey & Harvard. He has edited special issues for two journals.

Dr. Pinar is Professor of Marketing and also Paul H. Brandt Professor of Business at the College of Business Administration of Valparaiso University in the US. Prior to that he had other positions at universities and institutions such as Pittsburg State University, the Turkish Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Affairs, the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Mississippi State University.
Musa Pinar often focuses his research on his native country, Turkey. He partners with Turkish professors to study the country’s business environment, honing in on sectors like hospitality, banking, sales, and the television industry. His most recent research brings a global perspective on the challenges of university branding. He has also conducted research on political parties, marketing and particularly branding.

Dr. Jaya Prakash Pradhan is an associate professor at the Centre for Studies in Economics & Planning, School of Social Sciences, Central University of Gujarat in India. Dr. Pradhan has a long experience of researching and publishing in the fields of internationalization, foreign direct investment and multinational corporations. He earlier served on the faculties of leading academic institutions in India including the Central University of Karnataka (Gulbarga), Sardar Patel Institute of Economic & Social Research (Ahmedabad), the Institute for Studies in Industrial Development (New Delhi), Gujarat Institute of Development Research (Ahmadabad), and worked as a consultant to the Research and Information System for Developing Countries (New Delhi). He has been involved in research studies for UNCTAD, the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research under the Ministry of Science and Technology (Government of India), and the Indian Council for Social Science Research under the Ministry of Human Resource Development (Government of India).

Dr. Saginova is Professor of Entrepreneurship and Logistics at Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. She is author of over 100 research papers and books on marketing, entrepreneurship and education management. She is also a certified tutor of the Chartered Institute of Marketing, member of the European Marketing Academy (EMAC) and the Russian Marketing Guild. Professor Saginova teaches courses in Cross-cultural Marketing, Entrepreneurship and International Business in Russia, USA, Germany, Finland and other countries. She has participated in several international research projects, among which “Hidden champions in CEE and Turkey”.

Dr. Nataliia Stukalo is Dean of International Economics Faculty at Dnipro National University (Ukraine) and also Academic Manager for Research at University of Roehampton (London) Online. She has completed Harvard Summer School (the USA), Council of Europe Summer University for Democracy (Strasbourg, France) and conducted a number of international research projects in cooperation with colleagues from Free University of Brussels, Corvinus University of Budapest, and other European Universities. Dr.Stukalo had some curriculum  development and study tours to University of Amsterdam, Catholic University of Leuven, Bologna University and others. Nataliia Stukalo is Editor-in-Chief of Journal of International Economy and International Economic Relations and member of Editorial Board of European Journal of Management Issues and other scientific journals. She is author and co-author of more then 100 scientific papers and books on international economics, financial globalization, global sustainable development.

Dr. Szambowski is currently the Chief Executive Officer of the International College of Management, Sydney (ICMS). He has held student life and academic positions at State University of New York, the University Centre César Ritz, Brig, Switzerland, the Institute Hotelier César Ritz, Le Bouveret, Switzerland, and Paul Smith’s College, Paul Smiths, New York, USA.  Dr. Szambowski is an international education management leader and has held senior management roles in educational institutions in Australia, Malaysia, Switzerland and the USA. He encourages a culture of continual improvement and recognition of scholarship through academic development, research and participation with industry. His leadership roles focused on developing career-focused educational programs with industry and building student enrolment growth. In his capacity as Vice Chancellor of BERJAYA University College of Hospitality in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, Dominic launched the BERJAYA Business School and built the profile of its postgraduate and professional development programs.  Other previous leadership roles in Malaysia include President/CEO of INTI International College, Subang, Malaysia and Executive Dean, Hospitality, Culinary Arts and Tourism, providing hospitality education across the INTI group in Malaysia. At the Blue Mountains International Hospitality Management Sydney group, Dr. Szambowski established systemised academic rigor and faculty professionalism measures, while boosting quality assurance practices.

Dr. Andrius Tamošiūnas has been an associate professor since 2004 at the Department of Management of the Faculty of Business Management at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University. His research interests are focused on measures for management of processes pertaining to corporate strategic changes aimed at sustainable development of private and public sectors. He has also research interest in the trends of climate change and renewable energy. Since 1998, he has been involved in public investments management, restructuring public organizations for funding facilities of the European Union (e.g. Horizon 2020 Framework Programme, FP7-SME-2007-3) and other international financial institutions (IBRD, EIB, NIB, and also Scandinavian state agencies DEPA, DEA, FINNIDA) at state and municipal levels. His professional involvement in such project tasks has been in energy efficiency, water, and wastewater, solid waste and street lighting, IT broadband network development, health and social care sectors institutional modernization, and public buildings renovation. He also has been providing advisory & intermediary services related to carbon markets and evaluation of investment projects subject to European Structural and Investment Funds (ESIF) to private and public entities since 2005.