Gary is a global leader who applies business sector skills in collaboration with the public and nonprofit sectors to advance progress on challenging health and social problems.  As a result of his leadership, immunization programs are safer for children, health workers are better protected from occupational injuries, health systems capacity is stronger in sub-Saharan Africa, national governments are combatting sexual violence against children, diverse stakeholders are mobilizing to combat antimicrobial resistance, and innovation is advancing to reduce the burden of maternal and newborn mortality.

Gary is CEO and cofounder of Maternal Newborn Health Innovations (MNHI), a Public Benefit Corporation focused on innovating to improve maternal and newborn health outcomes worldwide.  MNHI is developing the OdonAssist™ inflatable device for assisted vaginal birth, designed to safely assist the delivery of newborns during circumstances of prolonged, difficult second-stage labor in childbirth.  Approximately 2.4 million newborns and 287,000 mothers died from childbirth-related causes in 2020, an additional ten million women and girls experience serious pregnancy-related complications annually, and there are 2 million stillbirths.

Gary also serves as chair of the Corporate/CDC Roundtable on Global Health Threats, board chair and founder of Together for Girls https://www.togetherforgirls.org/, and founder of the Rutgers Institute for Corporate Social Innovation https://ricsi.business.rutgers.edu/.

Gary previously had a 37-year career at BD (Becton, Dickinson and Company) including 25 years as an executive officer of the company.  He also served as a UN Commissioner on Life Saving Commodities for Women and Children, as board chair of the CDC Foundation, as board director of UNICEF USA, as board director of the Accordia Global Health Foundation, and on the Scientific Advisory Board of Grand Challenges Canada.  He has been as an expert speaker at the United Nations, Vatican, World Bank, World Health Assembly, U.S. Department of State and World Economic Forum-Davos.  He holds B.A. and an M.B.A. degrees from Rutgers University.  In 2016, he was named a Rutgers 250 Fellow in association with the university’s 250th anniversary.

Keith Banks is Vice Chair and Chief Investment Officer of the Pension and Benefits plan at Bank of America. Banks is responsible for all investment related matters for the pension, and defined contribution and deferred compensation plans. 

Banks is a member of Bank of America’s Chief Executive Officer’s Management Committee. Previously, he was a member of the Environmental, Social and Governance (ESG) Committee, the Global Diversity & Inclusion Council and a member of the Bank of America’s Charitable Foundation Board.

Most recently, he was head of the Investment Solutions Group for four years, which supports Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, Bank of America Private Bank, Retirement & Personal Wealth Solutions, and Consumer Investments encompassing $4.2 trillion in client balances. Prior to being named Vice Chair in 2017, Banks served as president of U.S. Trust for nine years.

During his career at Bank of America, he has also served as president of the Global Wealth & Investment Management division and president and CIO of Columbia Management. He joined Bank of America in 2004, following FleetBoston Financial’s merger with the company. Prior to this, Banks held the roles of CIO and CEO of FleetBoston Financial’s asset management organization.

Before joining FleetBoston in 2000, Banks was a managing director and head of U.S. equity for JP Morgan Investment Management, during his 16 years at JP Morgan, Banks served as global head of equity research, head of U.S. equity research and as a portfolio manager and equity research analyst for the chemical and textile industries. Banks began his investment career as an equity analyst at Home Insurance in 1981.

Banks earned his bachelor’s degree in economics from Rutgers University. He graduated with high honors and was elected to Phi Beta Kappa. In 2019, he was inducted into the Rutgers Hall of Distinguished Alumni. Banks also earned his MBA in finance from Columbia Business School. He is a Chartered Financial Analyst.

Banks is a member of Board of Advisors of Columbia University Irving Medical Center and Columbia Business School Board of Overseers. He is Vice Chair of the Hackensack Meridian Health Board of Trustees and is also on the Board of Directors of Lincoln Center and Red Apple Group Board. Previously, he was a member of the Rutgers Board of Governors.

He is a frequent commentator on CNBC, Fox Business and Bloomberg.

Matusik is a distinguished scholar and teacher whose professional expertise spans strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurship. As an academic leader, she has a strong record of accomplishment in critical areas, including student success; diversity, equity, and inclusion; and community engagement.

A first-generation college student, Matusik earned a Bachelor of Arts in economics and English with honors from Colby College. She earned a PhD in strategic management from the University of Washington School of Business Administration.

Matusik initially pursued a successful career in consulting. She joined the Jones Graduate School of Management at Rice University as an assistant professor after completing her PhD. In 2004, she moved to the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado Boulder as an assistant professor, later rising to full professor of strategy and entrepreneurship. She became the 14th dean of the Leeds School in 2017.

At the Leeds School, Matusik served in a number of leadership roles, including academic director of the Deming Center for Entrepreneurship and senior associate dean for faculty and research. As dean of Leeds, she launched critical initiatives, including an innovative partnership between Leeds and the College of Engineering Applied Science; the End the Gap program, aimed at achieving gender parity; and Career Impact, designed to align the student experience with skills needed for long-term career success. Her term as Leeds dean saw substantial increases in student achievement, diversity of the faculty, fundraising, and community engagement.

Matusik’s research has been published in top academic journals and is frequently cited in the management field. Her teaching and research areas of expertise include strategy, innovation, entrepreneurship, and knowledge assets. Matusik has received multiple awards for research, teaching, and service to her profession, including the Excellence in Leadership Award from the University of Colorado four-campus system. She has served on several nonprofit boards, including a current appointment with the Strategic Management Society.

 

Paul Almeida is dean and William R. Berkley Chair at Georgetown University’s McDonough School of Business. A member of the Georgetown community for more than two decades, Almeida has served Georgetown McDonough in a number of positions, including most recently as deputy dean for executive education and innovation and, prior to that, as senior associate dean for executive education. He also serves as a professor of strategy and international business.

Almeida’s strategy research focuses on innovation, knowledge management, alliances, and informal collaborations across organizations and countries. He is interested in understanding how knowledge builds across people and organizations and how this affects performance. He has published in and served on, the editorial boards of several leading journals. Almeida also previously was chair of the Technology and Innovation Management Division of the Academy of Management. He has received Georgetown’s Faculty Research Award and the Dean’s Service Award.

Almeida has taught students at all levels at Georgetown McDonough in the areas of strategy, international business, technology, and knowledge management. He has won the Joseph LeMoine Award for Graduate and Undergraduate Teaching Excellence, Best Professor Award for Executive Programs at Georgetown University, and is a seven-time winner of the Best Professor Award for Georgetown’s Executive MBA program.

Almeida received a Ph.D. in international business and strategy and an M.A. in applied economics and managerial science from The Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, a PGDM (MBA) from the Indian Institute of Management, and a B.E. in electrical engineering from the University of Poona, India. He is also the parent of two Georgetown graduates.

Matthew J. Slaughter is the Paul Danos Dean of the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth, where in addition he is the Earl C. Daum 1924 Professor of International Business. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, a life member of the Council on Foreign Relations, a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, a member of the Aspen Institute’s Economic Strategy Group, and an academic advisor to the McKinsey Global Institute.

Lillian F. Mills is Dean of the McCombs School of Business at The University of Texas at Austin. She is a committed strategic leader, a top policy-relevant tax scholar, and an award-winning educator. Following her BS and MS at the University of Florida, she served Deloitte and PwC from 1981 to 1989. After her PhD at the University of Michigan, Mills served The University of Arizona from 1997 to 2005. She was the 2005 Surrey Fellow in the US Office of Tax Analysis and consulted to the IRS for two decades. She chaired the Accounting Department, ranked #1 by US News for more than 15 years, and served as an Editor for both The Accounting Review and Contemporary Accounting Research. She received the prestigious 2023 Outstanding Accounting Educator Award, Deloitte Wildman Medal, and American Taxation Association 2014 EY Sommerfeld Outstanding Educator Award from the American Accounting Association; McCombs’ Career Research Award; and McCombs’ Undergraduate Amplify Award for Inclusive Classrooms. Lillian and Jim enjoy visiting their children and grandchildren in MI, NJ, OH and Mexico.

Ann Olazábal is a professor of Business Law and currently serving as Interim Dean at Miami Herbert Business School at the University of Miami in Miami, Florida.

With over two decades of experience at the university, she has made significant contributions to teaching, research, and leadership. Dean Olazábal's primary scholarly expertise is doctrine related to securities fraud liability; her work has been published in the nation's top law reviews as well as industry-specific journals. In addition to her administrative roles, serving as Vice Dean of Lifelong Learning & Executive Education in 2022, Vice Dean of Undergraduate Business Education from 2011 to 2021, and Chair of the Business Law Department from 2017 to 2021, she continues to teach both graduate and undergraduate students, typically in courses that explore the legal and ethical dimensions of business decision making.

Professor Olazábal earned her JD from the University of Notre Dame Law School and, a decade later, an MBA from the University of Miami.

Anil K. Makhija serves as dean and John W. Berry, Sr. Chair in Business of the Max M. Fisher College of Business. Makhija is recognized as an expert in the field of finance, particularly capital structure, corporate governance and valuation, and has more than 20 years of experience in academic leadership roles.

Prior to his appointment to dean in October 2014, Makhija served as senior associate dean at Fisher. He has served on the faculty of the business college since 1998 and has held the Dean's Distinguished Professorship and the David A. Rismiller Professorship in Finance. He chaired Fisher's Department of Finance and served as an associate dean of executive education programs, where he was responsible for the development of Fisher's top-ranked Executive MBA program.

Makhija has led consulting and executive development programs for dozens of leading companies in the U.S. and around the world. He has held visiting faculty appointments at respected institutions in Chile, the Czech Republic, Ecuador, Hong Kong, India and Korea.

Makhija is a respected and widely published researcher. He is also the winner of numerous teaching awards, including the Alumni Award for Distinguished Teaching and the Pace Setters Daniel Westerbeck Teaching Excellence Award — the highest teaching honors bestowed by, respectively, Ohio State and Fisher College of Business.

Makhija has been a featured expert in media outlets such as The Wall Street Journal, The Economist, The New York Times, Financial Times and Bloomberg Businessweek, among many others.

He has a PhD from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, an MBA from Tulane University, and a Bachelor of Technology from the Indian Institute of Technology, New Delhi.

Vallabh “Samba” Sambamurthy is the Albert O. Nicholas Dean of the Wisconsin School of Business (WSB) at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, a role he’s held since August 2019. A leading global expert on how businesses compete in the digital economy, his work has been featured in top academic journals and books on digital transformation.

At WSB, Sambamurthy has led a significant strategic vision to transform the school’s portfolio of program offerings, enhance progress in diversity, equity, and inclusion, and expand and enrich faculty intellectual expertise. Under his leadership, WSB has launched a new hybrid professional MBA and several one-year master’s programs, redesigned its executive MBA, elevated the full-time MBA, and grown the undergraduate program. In addition, during Sambamurthy’s tenure, WSB has hired more than 30 new faculty members with expertise in emerging and in-demand fields, grown the diversity of its student body, and reached all-time highs in student career placement.

Prior to his arrival at WSB, Sambamurthy served as the Eli Broad Professor at the Broad College of Business at Michigan State University, in addition to leadership roles including the associate dean of the MBA and professional master’s programs, associate dean for outreach and engagement, and chair of the accounting and information systems department. Additionally, he held faculty appointments at the University of Maryland and Florida State University.

Sambamurthy has served on the editorial boards of premier academic journals, including two terms as editor-in-chief of Information Systems Research and leadership roles in professional associations. He has garnered several recognitions for his significant contributions to teaching, research, outreach, and mentoring, including the LEO Lifetime Achievement Award from the Association of Information Systems.

Sambamurthy received his PhD from the University of Minnesota, his MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, and his B.E. from the National Institute of Technology (Tiruchirappalli, India).

Mike joined the Wisconsin Foundation and Alumni Association as president and chief executive officer in 2010 after eight years as dean of the Wisconsin School of Business. Prior to joining UW–Madison in 2002, he was associate dean and professor of international economics in the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. He also served as senior staff economist for the Council of Economic Advisers for former presidents George H. W. Bush and Bill Clinton. Mike serves on the boards of American Family Insurance and Neuberger Berman Funds, where he chairs the Finance Committee and Investment Performance Committee, respectively. At WFAA, Mike has led a variety of initiatives to support the advancement of UW–Madison, most recently, the completion of the $4.2 billion All Ways Forward campaign. Mike completed his undergraduate studies in economics and mathematics at the University of Wisconsin–Eau Claire and his PhD in economics at Stanford University.