Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness Programs » About » Faculty

Faculty

The classes offered in the ECLA Program are taught by Columbia Business School's world-renowned faculty. To date, more than 40 professors have taught ECLA students. Here are some of the faculty members that contribute to the ECLA Program. 

Nelson Fraiman
Professor of Professional Practice, Decision, Risk and Operations; Faculty Director of the ECLA Program

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Following a 17-year career at International Paper Company, Fraiman joined Columbia Business School in 1995 as a professor in the Decision, Risk, and Operations division. As the director of the Deming Center, he has steered the center’s programs to connect theory with practice in the area of operations. His research explores institutionalizing quality improvement, specializing in the retailing, consulting, and process industries. Fraiman is the faculty director of Entrepreneurship and Competitiveness in Latin America (ECLA), a program designed for Latin American entrepreneurs who aim to be successful across borders. In addition, he has conducted executive education programs in Asia, Europe, Latin America, the Middle East, and the US. He received all his degrees—BS in industrial engineering, MS, MBA, and PhD—from Columbia University.

Omar Besbes
Vikram S. Pandit Professor of Business, Decision, Risk and Operations

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Omar Besbes's primary research interests are in the area of data-driven decision-making with a focus on applications in e-commerce, pricing and revenue management, online advertising, operations management and general service systems. His research has been recognized by multiple prizes, including the 2019 Frederick W. Lanchester Prize, the 2017 M&SOM society Young Scholar Prize, the 2013 M&SOM best paper award and the 2012 INFORMS Revenue Management and Pricing Section prize. He serves on the editorial boards of Management Science and Operations Research.
He has taught core MBA courses in Operations Management and Business Analytics, an MBA elective on advanced Business Analytics, as well as various Ph.D. seminars on stochastic models, revenue management and data-driven decision-making. He is a recipient of the Dean's award for teaching excellence in the core at Columbia Business School.
Omar is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique (France) and received a M.Sc. from Stanford University in 2000 and a Ph.D. from Columbia University in 2008. Before joining Columbia, he was on the faculty at the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

Peter Kolesar
Special Lecturer, Decision, Risk and Operations

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Professor Kolesar studies quality management and statistical quality control as well as applications of operations research and statistics, particularly in relation to the management of production and service systems. His recent research includes building models for the analysis and design of service systems with random cyclic customer demand patterns, accelerating the implementation and effectiveness of total quality management systems and optimizing credit-screening procedures. He was awarded the 1975 Lanchester Prize--the highest award in operations research--for work on the logistics of such emergency services as police and fire departments and for contributions to the design of the New York City Fire Department’s Computerized Control System. Kolesar was twice the examiner for the Malcolm Baldridge National Quality Award, and is an associate editor for Interfaces and the Quality Management Journal, and also a consultant to numerous firms and government agencies. Professor Kolesar leads the Problem Definition classes during Module I.

Alonso Martinez
Senior Lecturer, Marketing

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Professor Martinez is a Senior Lecturer at Columbia Business School. He combines teaching and research with extensive global experience doing strategy consulting, with particular expertise in emerging markets. He gives the Catching Growth Waves in Emerging Markets course in both the MBA and EMBA programs and the Defining and Developing wining Strategic Capabilities course to the MBAs. He has also given the EMBA immersion course on Opportunities in India and led the Global Immersion Program to Brazil for several years. From 2008 to 2012 he directed a project at the Wharton School’s Lauder Institute on “Consumption Patterns in Emerging Markets: Catching Growth Waves and Anticipating Transitions”, including field research with a team of students across major countries. He has developed some unique insights into how business opportunities evolve in emerging markets and the capabilities required to capture them, which he leverages in his classes. Professor Martinez is a former Senior Vice President at Booz, Allen & Hamilton, having joined in Brazil in 1982 and subsequently opened and/or managed the firm’s offices in every major Latin American country. He moved to the United States in the year 2000 with global responsibility for major client relationships. Mr. Martinez has worked with many of the world's largest multinationals and leading local groups in the consumer products, media, steel and construction materials industries. His focus has been growth related strategies in emerging markets, including international expansion, mergers and acquisitions and go to market strategies. In ECLA, Professor Martinez teaches Strategy.

Medini Singh
Senior Lecturer in Discipline in Business, Decision, Risk and Operations

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Professor Singh comes to Columbia from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth. At Tuck, Singh taught the MBA core course in operations management. He has also taught MBA electives on time-based competition and simulation modeling. Singh has also taught in the Department of Industrial and Operations Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, where he won the 1991 Teacher of the Year Award. His research interests are in the areas of modeling, analysis and optimization of manufacturing and service systems. Professor Singh has participated in many ways in the ECLA program. He helped with the design of the program, and taught several sessions, always getting the highest evaluations. He was also an advisor for the process improvement project for five companies.

Marco Viola
Adjunct Professor of Business, Marketing

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Marco Viola is a Managing Partner and founder of Nexus Partners, a US investor, general partner and manager of a portfolio of companies with over 5000 employees and company value in excess of $500MM. Current portfolio companies include investments in retailing, health care services, education, telecommunications, water treatment, food service, media and industrial laundry. Prior, Marco was Managing Director of Bank of America heading the principal investment unit for Latin America (Banc of America Equity Partners - Latin America). Mr. Viola performed the sourcing, screening, valuation, investment decision and management of portfolio companies in Latin America. Since 1995, Marco managed and exited over 30 transactions and made equity investments of nearly $1B in Latin America and the US. Prior, he was a Principal at Booz-Allen & Hamilton's Financial Services Group where he was active in a variety of valuation, joint venture, merger, and turnaround projects for his clients, including assignments in the financial services, manufacturing, engineering, and pharmaceutical sectors. Before joining Booz-Allen, Mr. Viola worked in budgeting and planning for Banco Roberts (acquired by HSBC) in Argentina and as an internal consultant for Aeroterra S.A., a satellite technology and image processing company. In ECLA, he teaches classes on growth.

In addition to the faculty above, over 40 faculty members have taught in the program and advised ECLA companies. Below are some of the faculty who contribute to the program.

Tim Baldenius
Paul M. Montrone Professor of Private Enterprise in the Faculty of Business, Accounting

Santiago Balseiro
Daniel W. Stanton Associate Professor of Business; Decision, Risk, and Operations

Ann Bartel
Merrill Lynch Professor of Workforce Transformation, Economics

Robert Bontempo
Faculty of Executive Education

Joel Brockner
Phillip Hettleman Professor of Business, Management

Carri Chan
Associate Professor of Business; Decision, Risk, and Operations

Jing Dong
Regina Pitaro Associate Professor of Business; Decision, Risk, and Operations

Bill Duggan
Senior Lecturer in Business, Management

Awi Federgruen
Charles E. Exley Professor of Management; Chair of Decision, Risk, and Operations

Adam Galinsky
Paul Calello Professor of Leadership and Ethics, Management

Jorge A. Guzman
Assistant Professor of Business, Management

Paul Ingram
Kravis Professor of Business, Management

Sheena Iyengar
S. T. Lee Professor of Business, Management

Kamel Jedidi
John A. Howard Professor of Business, Marketing

Gita Johar
Vice Dean for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, Dean's Office; Meyer Feldberg Professor of Business, Marketing

Amit Khandelwal
Jerome A. Chazen Professor of Global Business, Economics

Sandra Matz
Daniel W. Zalaznick Associate Professor of Business, Management

Robert J. Morais
Lecturer in Business, Marketing

Oded Netzer
Arthur J. Samberg Professor of Business, Marketing

Robert L. Phillips
Director of Marketplace Optimization Sciences, Uber

Daniela Saban
Assistant Professor of Operations, Information & Technology, Graduate School of Business, Stanford University

Gus Stuart
Adjunct Professor of Business, Decision, Risk, and Operations

Aurelie Thiele
Associate Professor in Engineering Management, Information and Systems; Faculty Senate President for 2020-2021, Southern Methodist University

Laura Veldkamp
Leon G. Cooperman Professor of Finance & Economics, Finance

Natalia Yankovic
Associate Professor, ESE Business School, Universidad de los Andes, Chile

Assaf Zeevi
Kravis Professor of Business, Decision, Risk and Operations

Amir Ziv
Professor of Professional Practice, Accounting