Management Division Other Affiliates

Brad Aspel teaches MBA courses on Leadership Communication and is one of the Executive Coaches for the Executive Education program's Columbia Management Institute (CMI). He also teaches workshops on Communication & Presentation skills. Brad started his career as an actor (including five Broadway shows) and theatrical director with a particular focus on developing talent. He worked in Media & Entertainment for multiple companies with a focus on Children's Entertainment products.

Doug Bauer, Executive Director of the Clark Foundation:

From 2002 to 2024, Melissa Berman served as the founding President and CEO of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors, Inc., an innovative nonprofit philanthropy service launched by the Rockefeller family.

Professor Bontempo studies international comparative management, including international negotiations and cultural differences in decision making. His current research involves cultural factors in international negotiations and international differences in risk perception. The winner of the 1994 Singhvi Prize for Scholarship in the Classroom, Bontempo teaches the core course Leadership and the elective Managerial Negotiations. He is a consulting editor for the Journal of Cross-Cultural Psychology.

Brendan Burns has spent over 20 years at leading technology, graphic arts and financial institutions including Culture.tech, 1000|Museums, Moody’s Investors Service, Salomon Brothers, and AdOne, an Internet software pioneer. For the past 10 years Burns has managed consulting, advisory and strategic growth assignments under Stepping Stone Capital Partners and Stepstone Art Resources.

Professor Cramer spent more than 25 years in the healthcare, pharmaceutical, and financial services sectors. He was Managing Director at Merrill Lynch in the Global Healthcare Investment Banking Group, and Managing Director at JPMorgan in the Corporate Finance Group providing M&A services and financing to global healthcare enterprises. Earlier, Prof. Cramer was Vice President, Corporate Planning & Development for Merck & Co., Inc. with worldwide responsibilities for strategic planning and business development.

Bruce Craven teaches across the portfolio for executive education, including serving as Faculty Director and running leadership development programs. His teaching focuses on resilience, emotional intelligence, leadership communication and flexible thinking. He also teaches his popular graduate school management elective Leadership Through Fiction. Craven has taught leadership to global audiences of business executives for twenty years.  

Robert Essner is the retired chairman and CEO of Wyeth, which was one of the world's leading research-based pharmaceutical companies. He led the transformation of Wyeth into a science-based industry leader with strong positions in drugs, biotechnology, vaccines, nonprescription products and animal health. During his more than 30 years in the industry, Mr. Essner served as chairman of both U.S. and global pharmaceutical organizations.

Enrico Forti is an Adjunct Professor at CBS and an Assistant Professor of Strategy in the O’Malley School of Business, Department of Management & Marketing at Manhattan College.

Carlos Gila is an Adjunct Professor of Management at Columbia Business School.  He also teaches MBA courses on Management and Entrepreneurship at IE Business School in Spain.

Jeffrey Golde is a management and strategy consultant in the arts and non-profit world. His background as an actor, director, teacher, founder and executive inform his teaching style helping Columbia Business School students with their communication skills. He also coaches and teaches senior executives in the Columbia Advanced Management Program. His varied career includes working in programming and production for non-profit arts producer UMS (University Musical Society) and providing administrative and financial consulting support to the Aquila Theatre.

David B. Haber is a member of the Tech Group and the M&A and Corporate Finance Practice Group. Mr. Haber has extensive experience in mergers and acquisitions and venture capital transactions, with an emphasis on buying and selling venture-backed companies. During his career, he has played a significant role in over $10 billion worth of transactions, with a concentration on transactions in the technology and life sciences sectors. Mr.

Amy Houston runs the Thompson Family Foundation, which funds historic preservation, arts and culture, medical research and social services in New York City.  Founded by Wade Thompson in 1986, the foundation was instrumental in the revitalization of the Park Avenue Armory. 

Daniel Isenberg has been a thought and practice leader in entrepreneurship and entrepreneurship ecosystems since the 1980s and has taught, practiced, and invested in entrepreneurship since then.

Dr. Klepper joined Columbia Business School in 1996 after over thirty years as a general manager in higher education.  He is a management professor who teaches Executive Leadership in the EMBA program and serves as the Faculty Director of the partnership with the Financial Times/Outstanding Directors Exchange on corporate governance. His teaching and research interest are in the areas of Executive Learning, Strategic Leadership and Corporate Governance.

Dave was appointed Director of Entrepreneurship at Columbia University in 2013. In his years with Columbia Entrepreneurship he’s helped launch the Columbia Startup Lab, the Columbia Design Studio, Startup Law Studio, CTech and a host of new tech programs and curricula throughout the university’s many schools.

Professor Low is an experienced entrepreneur and a leading authority on entrepreneurship in independent, corporate and not-for-profit settings. As the founder of the Columbia Entrepreneurship Program, he has worked to make entrepreneurship a viable career option for MBA graduates. As the Co-Director of IE@Columbia, he has worked with faculty, students and staff across the University to spread innovation and entrepreneurship. He has also lead initiatives to improve business education in developing countries, particularly in Africa.

Neal Masia is an Adjunct Professor of Business and Economics at Columbia University and serves as a consultant and advisor to a variety of healthcare companies and healthcare-focused investment firms.  Neal spent nearly 18 years rising through the ranks at Pfizer Inc, most recently as Chief Economist and Vice President of Patient and Health Impact.

Professor McDonald earned her Ph.D. at the University of Queensland, Australia. Her research examines social psychological influences on sustainable behavior and responses to environmental issues like climate change.

Jack McGourty Ph.D. is an adjunct professor of business teaching applied topics in entrepreneurship and innovation. He is the founder of Venture for All®, a global entrepreneurship program offering world-class learning experiences to students and professionals seeking to innovate and thrive by applying entrepreneurial thinking and contemporary innovation practices.

Sandra Navalli, OAM, is an adjunct faculty and Managing Director of the Tamer Institute for Social Enterprise and Climate Change at Columbia Business School, which educates leaders to use business knowledge, entrepreneurial skills, and management tools to address social and environmental challenges. The Institute offers courses, experiential learning programs, research, and community-focused initiatives, including the Tamer Fund for Social Ventures which provides seed grants for social and environmental ventures.

William J. ("Bill") O'Farrell has been starting and running tech companies for longer than he'd like to admit. He was most recently co-founder and CEO of Body Labs, a computer vision and AI company focused on providing the human body as a digital platform for a broad range of markets, including online apparel sales, gaming, health and fitness and AR/VR applications. Amazon purchased Body Labs in September, 2017.

Federica Pinelli is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the Management Division at Columbia Business School. She holds a Ph.D. in Psychology and MBA from Columbia, an MSc in Economics from University of London, Birkbeck College, London, UK and a bachelor’s degree in law from Universita’ Cattolica in Milan, Italy. Prior to her Ph.D. Federica started her career at Hewlett Packard in Milan where she trained as both a private and corporate lawyer before joining Goldman Sachs where she worked for thirteen years.

Florencio is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the Management Division at Columbia Business School. He studies issues at the intersection of business and society, focusing on social and environmental sustainability. Florencio applies a broad range of methods to answer timely questions in this domain that are relevant to researchers and practitioners. Moreover, he frequently collaborates with for-profit and non-profit organizations in designing, implementing, and evaluating social and environmental impact initiatives, including corporate volunteering programs.

Sandra Portocarrero is a Postdoctoral Research Scholar in the Management Division at Columbia Business School. She is an organizational ethnographer and qualitative field researcher who studies the dynamics of diversity, equity, and inclusion in relation to the maintenance of exclusion and inequality. Sandra examines the organizational lives of workers and how organizations continue to exclude people from minoritized racial groups and disadvantaged socioeconomic backgrounds despite their intentions to build an inclusive climate.

Valerie Purdie-Greenaway serves as Director for the Laboratory of Intergroup Relations and the Social Mind (LIRSM). She is an associate professor in the Department of Psychology at Columbia University, core faculty for the Robert Wood Johnson Health & Society Scholars Program (RWJ Columbia-site), and research fellow at the Institute for Research on African-American Studies (IRAAS) at Columbia.

Jeff Schwartz is the Vice President of Insights and Impact at Gloat. Prior to joining Gloat, Jeff was a principal with Deloitte Consulting LLP for 20 years, most recently as the U.S. Leader for the future of work and as a senior partner in the firm’s Global Human Capital executive since 2003. His leadership roles have included global and U.S. marketing, eminence, and brand, leading the organization, change, and talent practices, and growing the firm’s global delivery capabilities in India.

Len Sherman brings over thirty years of business experience and academic research on growth strategy, innovation and entrepreneurship to Columbia Business School. At CBS, Professor Sherman teaches “Strategy for Long-Term Growth” and "Entrepreneurship in Large Enterprises to MBA and EMBA students, earning the Dean’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2013.

Leadership Development Strategist and Executive Coach on a mission to help business leaders realize their full potential and achieve their business goals through impactful individual and team leadership development experiences.

In her current Leadership Development role at Johnson & Johnson, Natasha draws on strong academic foundations in Organizational Psychology and a successful business background in the pharmaceutical industry to deliver relevant, practical and effective accelerated development solutions to high potential leaders globally. 

Hitendra Wadhwa is an Adjunct Professor of Business at Columbia Business School and founder of the Mentora Institute. He teaches Columbia's most popular MBA leadership class on Personal Leadership & Success. He also teaches MBA and Executive Education programs on Driving Strategic Impact and Leading from the Inside Out, and has received the Executive-MBA Commitment to Excellence Award, the Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence, the Lear Award for Service to Students, and the Columbia Marketing Association Award for the Most Dynamic and Engaging Professor.

C. Scott Wo, Ph.D. is an Owner / Executive of C. S. Wo & Sons. He is a 1983 graduate of Punahou School, and received his Bachelors of Science in Economics from the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, his MBA in Finance, Accounting, and International Business from Columbia Business School, and his PhD in finance from UCLA. Dr.

Geraldine Wu teaches the Introduction to Venturing course in the MBA and EMBA programs. Before joining Columbia, she taught entrepreneurship and strategy at NYU Stern for ten years. She also teaches international entrepreneurship at Yale. Professor Wu’s research interests include entrepreneurship, technological innovation, startup financing, and knowledge transfer. She is currently exploring when and how startups and growing ventures should pivot. Her past work has focused on financing and innovation in healthcare and technology startups.

Stephen Zagor is a New York City based Consultant and Educator, focusing on restaurants and food businesses. He has developed an extensive knowledge of the culinary industry, specializing in the business side of food enterprises.

As a consultant Steve has provided comprehensive support to a wide variety of clients including entrepreneurs starting restaurants, food retail businesses and food products. His clients have included large public companies, investment funds, government agencies, lawyers, large restaurant groups and small food business owners.