David Eccles School of Business faculty are some of the most acclaimed business thinkers in the world. During the program, you will learn about cutting-edge business research, giving your company the chance to prepare for future challenges – ahead of the competition.

Abe Bakhsheshy, Ph.D.

Titles: Professor (Lecturer), Entrepreneurship and Strategy Department and Professor and Director of Daniels Fund Ethics Initiative
Education: Ph.D. in Ed. Administration and Human Resources Management, University of Utah

Dr. Abe Bakhsheshy is director and professor of the Daniel Fund Ethics Initiative and professor (lecturer) in the entrepreneurship and strategy department at the David Eccles School of Business. He has worked in management positions for 35 years and has seven years of executive-level experience working with multinational corporations overseas. He has taught and researched various topics, including human resource management, leadership and effective management, conflict and quality management, and effective health care system delivery. He has been recognized for his teaching value with over 15 awards, including the Executive MBA Distinguished Teaching Award. He was awarded the Presidential Distinguished Leader Award, recognizing service and leadership to the university.

Jeff Brazell, Ph.D.

Titles: Professor (Lecturer) of Marketing and Director of the Center for Strategic Analytics
Education: Ph.D. in Marketing, University of Sydney

In 1999, Dr. Brazell founded The Modellers, an advanced analytics, predictive modeling, and software company. He served as CEO and built the company until it was sold to Omnicom, a $15.1 billion marketing and communications company, in 2010. Seed investors made 41x and late investors 40% IRR. When sold, the company had offices in London, Salt Lake City, New York, Los Angeles, Princeton, and Chicago. The company commercialized new theory, methodologies, and models by working both directly with Fortune 500 companies and indirectly through marketing research firms such as Nielsen, Kantar, and JD Power, and management consulting companies such as McKinsey and Bain.

Over the past 20 years, Jeff has led relationships with hundreds of the world’s best companies including American Express, Microsoft, Pfizer, J&J, Boeing, P&G, GM, LG, AT&T, Audi, Adobe, Disney, Barclays, Hilton, Levi’s, Pepsi, Toyota, Coke, FedEx, NFL, NBA, Pixar, Capital One, Canon, Burger King, Sony, Citi, IBM, Nordstrom, PayPal, US Dept of Defense, Facebook, and others.

Dr. Brazell is a well-connected thought leader in the market research industry with a track record of translating analytics-based research into practical insights. He loves to improve industry practice, and help people, teams, and companies grow to their full potential.

Jennifer Brown, Ph.D.

Titles: Professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategy
Education: Ph.D. in Economics, University of California – Berkeley

Jen Brown is a Professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategy at the David Eccles School of Business. She is an economist with a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research interests include industrial organization and personnel economics, as well as questions as the intersection of labor and finance. Her recent empirical work has studied competitors’ incentives and strategies in tournaments and contests, job seekers’ behavior during the Great Recession, and the consequences of consumer protection laws. Her research has been published in the Journal of Political Economy, Quarterly Journal of Economics, and Journal of Finance. Along with courses in managerial economics, she has taught competitive and corporate strategy to MBA students in the United States, Canada, and abroad. Prior to joining the University of Utah, she held appointments at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management and UBC’s Sauder School of Business.

Brian Cadman, Ph.D.

Titles: Associate Professor, Accounting Department and David Eccles Faculty Fellow
Education: Ph.D. in Accounting, University of Oregon

Dr. Brian Cadman is an associate professor in the accounting department and David Eccles faculty fellow. Cadman, a Harvard alumnus, has experience teaching at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania and the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. The focus of his research is on the use and implications of accounting information on compensation design and the role of external monitors and other governance mechanisms. Additionally, in a recent ruling, the SEC cited his research on CEO pay and compensation consultants. Cadman was awarded the Executive MBA Teaching Award, Masters of Teaching Excellence Award, and the Brady Award for Teaching Excellence, among many other awards, by the David Eccles School of Business.

Samuel Chun, Ph.D.

Titles: Professor of Management at the Olin Business School
Education: Ph.D. in Business Administration, Washington University

Samuel Chun is a visiting professor from the Olin Business School. He has taught graduate-level courses in Sales & Marketing, Negotiation, Business Analytics, Strategy, Innovation, Decisions & Values, General Management & International Business, and others. Prior to Washington University, he served as an Assistant Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School from 1995-2000. At Olin, Sam managed corporate education for almost two decades, serving as the Assistant Dean and Director of Executive Development until 2022.

Past appointments include the US Department of Labor (economist), American Express (region director), InterMarkets (president & CEO), and the Saint Louis Ballet (board vice chairman). Sam has authored a variety of Harvard Business School case studies and notes.

Jennifer Cummings, Ph.D.

Title: Associate Professor (Lecturer), Management Department
Education: Ph.D. in Communication, University of Utah

Dr. Jennifer Cummings is an associate professor (lecturer) in the David Eccles School of Business management department and is a certified conflict mediator and emotional intelligence consultant. Cummings’ research areas include interpersonal and professional communication, leadership, conflict management, team relations, and public speaking, among others. Her papers have won several top paper awards from the Western States Communication Association and the National Communication Association. She has been recognized at the David Eccles School of Business with the Daniels Fund Leadership in Ethics Education Award and the Brady Faculty Superior Teaching Award.

Tina Diekmann, Ph.D.

Title: Professor, Management Department; Angus T. Shearer Professor of Ethics
Education: Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior, Northwestern University

Dr. Tina Diekmann is a David Eccles professor of business ethics and professor in the management department. Dr. Diekmann’s research studies individual’s behavior in the workplace, focusing on negotiations, social perceptions, fairness and ethics, impression management, and gender issues. She has published articles in several refereed journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Applied Psychology, American Sociological Review, and Organization Science. She has taught executive seminars at the University of Utah, University of Notre Dame, and Kellogg Graduate School of Management and is the recipient of several teaching awards.

Manu Goyal, Ph.D.

Title: Associate Professor, Operations Management
Education: Ph.D. The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania

Manu Goyal is an Associate Professor in Operations Management. Dr. Goyal received his Ph.D. from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Before joining the David Eccles School of Business, he was a faculty at the Robert H. Smith School of Business, University of Maryland. Dr. Goyal’s research spans the areas of Operations / Supply Chain Management. His current research interests include Ethics in Business, Contracts, Information Flows in Supply Chains, and Operational Flexibility. He teaches courses in supply chain management, operations management, and spreadsheet modeling.

Glen Kreiner, Ph.D.

Titles: Professor, Chair of the Department of Management, L.S. Skaggs Presidential Chair in Business Ethics Management
Education: Ph.D. in Business Administration,  Arizona State University | M.S. in Organizational Behavior, Brigham Young University

Professor Glen Kreiner is the L.S. Skaggs Presidential Chair in Business Ethics at the University of Utah. He received his Master’s in Organizational Behavior from Brigham Young University and his Ph.D. in Business Administration from Arizona State University. He has taught courses and workshops on topics such as mindfulness, leadership skills, authenticity, identity-based leadership, work-life balance, and teamwork. Professor Kreiner has won multiple awards for his research, which focuses on topics such as stigma, mental health, workers with intellectual and developmental disabilities, identity, mindfulness, work-nonwork dynamics, and ethics. Outside of work, he enjoys traveling, cooking, and theatre, especially when he can do those things with his wife and three children.

Karl Lins, Ph.D.

Titles: Spencer Fox Eccles Endowed Chair in Banking and Professor, Finance Department
Education: Ph.D. in Finance, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Dr. Karl Lins is a Spencer Fox Eccles endowed chair in banking and professor in the finance department, and he is a visiting professor at the London Business School. He has focused his research on international corporate governance and capital markets. He has published his research in The Journal of Finance, Financial Management, The Journal of Financial and Quantitative Analysis, and The Journal of Accounting Research. Lins has been recognized with several awards for research and teaching, including the European Corporate Governance Institute Standard Life Best Paper Award, Eccles School of Business Faculty Outstanding Publication Award, and Brady Faculty Superior Teaching Award.

Edward Owens, Ph.D.

Titles: Associate Professor; Director, Accounting Ph.D. Program
Education: Ph.D. in Accounting, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill | MBA, Finance, Emory University

Dr. Owens completed his Ph.D. in Accounting at University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2010. Prior to joining the faculty at the University of Utah in January 2019, Dr. Owens held faculty positions at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School, the University of Rochester’s Simon Business School, and industry positions at General Motors Acceptance Corporation Financial Services and American Financial Group. Dr. Owens’ research examines how accounting information resolves (or exacerbates) information asymmetry in capital markets, and spans three core areas: debt markets, financial analysts, and methodological issues. Dr. Owens has been published in Journal of Accounting and Economics, The Accounting Review, Review of Accounting Studies, and the Journal of Business Finance and Accounting. Dr. Owens teaches Business Valuation at the master’s level, and the Contracting Role of Accounting at the doctoral level.

Matthew Ringgenberg, Ph.D.

Titles: Associate Professor, Finance Department
Education: Ph.D. in Finance, University of North Carolina | M.S. in Economics, University of North Carolina

Dr. Matthew Ringgenberg’s research focuses on equity lending, short selling, ETFs, volatility, and the economics of information. He has specifically studied the causes and results of short sale constraints in opaque markets and the impact of information arrival on the volatility of asset prices.

Professor Ringgenberg’s research has been published in the Journal of Finance and the Journal of Financial Economics and has been cited in Business Insider, The New York Times, Bloomberg, and The New Yorker.

Scott Schaefer, Ph.D.

Titles: Kendall D. Garff Chair in Business Administration and Professor, Finance Department
Education: Ph.D. in Economic Analysis and Policy, Stanford University

Dr. Scott Schaefer is a professor of finance and Kendall D. Garff chair in business administration at the David Eccles School of Business. Schaefer previously served as the associate dean at the School of Business and is currently a visiting professor of management and strategy at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. He is a co-author of Roadside MBA: Backroad Lessons for Executives, Entrepreneurs, and Small Business Owners and the leading textbook Economics of Strategy. He has been awarded the Executive MBA Teaching Excellence Award, Brady Superior Teaching Award, and Master’s Teaching Excellence Award from the David Eccles School of Business.

Harris Sondak, Ph.D.

Titles: Professor, Management Department
Education:  Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior, Northwestern University | M.S. in Organizational Behavior, Northwestern University

Dr. Harris Sondak is David Eccles Professor of Business and Ethics and Professor of Management at the David Eccles School of Business. His research investigates the psychology of allocation decisions, group process and decisions, procedural justice and ethics, and organizational aesthetics. His research has been published in Business Ethics Quarterly, Group Decision and Negotiation, the Journal of Economic Psychology, the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, the Neue Zürcher Zeitung, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Social Justice Research, and other outlets. His teaching includes courses on groups, negotiations, creating and maintaining business relationships, managing conflict in organizations, competitive strategy, managing diversity, organizational behavior, consulting to non-profits, social science, business ethics, culture, and leadership. He has taught these subjects to executives, Ph.D. candidates, MBA students, and undergraduates worldwide. Dr. Sondak has received numerous teaching awards, including the University of Utah’s highest teaching honor.

Brad Vierig

Brad Vierig, MBA

Titles: Associate Dean, MBA Programs and Executive Education and Associate Professor (Lecturer)
Education: Executive Masters of Business Administration (EMBA), University of Utah | Certified Public Accountant

Brad Vierig is the associate dean of MBA Programs and Executive Education. He has been with the David Eccles School of Business at the University of Utah since 2000. During his tenure, the Executive MBA program has grown each year to its present enrollment of over 130 students. The program is currently ranked in the top 40 Executive MBA programs in the USA and the top 80 programs in the world by the Financial Times of London. In addition, the Professional MBA program has expanded to over 300 students. It is ranked #50 in the country by Bloomberg Businessweek, and enrollment in corporate programs has increased to over 400 new students per year. Brad also teaches both the Corporate Finance and International Field Study courses in the Executive MBA program. He has organized and led over a dozen trips overseas, visiting all parts of the globe with hundreds of executives and faculty members.

Don Wardell, Ph.D.

Titles: Francis A. Madsen Scholar and Professor of Operations and Information Systems (OIS)
Education: Ph.D in Management Science, Purdue University

Dr. Don G. Wardell has taught at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, including teaching classes in Spanish at INCAE in Costa Rica. He has been honored with the University of Utah’s Calvin S. and JeNeal N. Hatch Prize in Teaching, the U’s Distinguished Teaching Award, the Eccles School’s Masters Teaching Excellence Award, the Brady Superior Teaching Award, and the Marvin J. Ashton Award for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching.

His research interests are mainly in the area of quality management, and especially statistical process control. He has also done recent work in service operations management. He has served as an associate editor for Technometrics and as a member of the editorial review boards of Production and Operations Management and IIE Transactions on Quality and Reliability.

Todd Zenger, Ph.D.

Titles: Presidential Professor, Entrepreneurship and Strategy Department; Chair, Entrepreneurship and Strategy Department; Executive Director, Goff Strategic Leadership Center; and N. Eldon Tanner Chair in Strategy and Strategic Leadership
Education: Ph.D. Organization and Strategic Studies, University of California at Los Angeles

Dr. Todd Zenger is a presidential professor and chair of the entrepreneurship and strategy department, N. Eldon Tanner chair in strategy and strategic development, and executive director of the Goff Strategic Leadership Center. Zenger has lectured at some of the leading business schools around the world on the topics of organization design, corporate strategy, and strategic leadership. As a consultant, he has worked with a variety of companies, including Boeing, Edward Jones, and Hewlett Packard. He has published in top-tier journals, including the Strategic Management Journal, Organization Science, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Management Science, and he has published an award-winning book Beyond Competitive Advantage: How to Solve the Puzzle of Sustaining Growth While Creating Value.