Page Text: About Me
About Me
I am an Associate Professor of Marketing at Radford University, an AACSB-accredited medium size state university (9,000 undergraduates) in the Appalachian southwest corner of Virginia.
I like to say that I am a third-career professor…
After finishing my undergraduate degree in Math from Miami University (Ohio) and an MS in Finance from Carnegie Mellon I went to work in finance and the new derivatives markets in Chicago. In the IMM Marketing Department of the Chicago Mercantile Exchange I helped launch a series of new financial derivatives including Eurodollar futures and options, S&P futures, and currency options. I next joined a Wall Street firm in a group focused on research and marketing financial derivatives.
The capstone of my first career was as CEO of an Asian subsidiary in Singapore, managing a multicultural sales and trading team selling bonds and derivatives to institutional accounts throughout Asia. Clients included the Central Banks and large institutions of China, Taiwan, India, Indonesia, Australia, Malaysia and New Zealand.
After 5 years in Asia I returned to Chicago in the midst of the “dot.com” (or dot.bomb) Internet bubble. I worked in – or consulted to – a succession of Internet start-ups, focused on online trading opportunities. I assumed the role of CMO, VP Sales or VP Business Development in a number of firms that were Engineering-dominated. The experience was amazing, but none of my option packages hit big.
Years earlier I had been in a PhD program in Finance (Carnegie Mellon). I was now teaching MBA classes at the University of Illinois at Chicago. With (1) the winding down of the dot.com craze, (2) deep reflections on the meaning of life after 40 people I knew perished at the World Trade Center , and (3) my good feelings from being an adjunct, I decided to pursue a Ph.D. in Marketing at UIC and an academic position.
I love to do research and teaching in areas that relate to my previous business experience:
Innovation,