Team

Prof. Dr. Sriram Bhagut Mathe has over 44 years of experience as an architect, teacher and educationist as well as a national/international consultant. He is currently the Chairperson of Nepal Education Foundation – Consortium Colleges, Nepal (NEF-CCN), and Executive Chairperson of Asian Institute of Technology and Management (AITM). He has extensive experience in the management of education institutions, including as the Dean of Institute of Engineering (IOE), Tribhuvan University, the Founder Principal of St. Xavier’s College, Assistant Dean/Campus Chief of the Central Pulchowk Campus of IOE, Founder Chairperson of Nepal Education Foundation and Xavier Academy. He also has held leadership positions as an international consultant and team leader of various ADB and WB development and investment projects in South-East Asia and Eastern Africa.

He has held the following positions and affiliations: Member of Education Commission & UNESCO-UIA Validation Council, International Union of Architects (UIA), Chairman of Advisory Board of Society of Nepalese Architects, member of high level Task Force on Education, member of National Development Council, the Secretary-General of Nepal Engineers’ Association (1985-1991), Secretary General of Federation of Institutions of South and Central Asia (FEISCA) (1987-1991), President of Society of Nepalese Architects (1993-1995), Secretary (1996-97) and Vice-President (1997-1998) of Rotary Club of Kathmandu-Midtown.

Prof. Mathe has a Ph. D. in Building Science (University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, UK, 1983); Bachelor of Architecture (with distinction) (Maharajah Sayajirao University of Baroda, India, 1974), and Intermediate Science (Board 5th, distinction in Mathematics and Chemistry) (Amrit Science College, Tribhuvan University, 1968).

Dr. Arun Joshi worked at the World Bank, Washington D.C. for over two decades. His experience spans education policy reform and program development in a diverse range of countries in the Middle East, Africa, and South Asia. He is currently the Director of the Center for Human Assets at the Institute for Integrated Development Studies (IIDS), Kathmandu, Nepal and an Adjunct Professor at George Washington University, Washington D.C. He has a master’s degree in international education policy and a doctorate in human development from Harvard University.

Dr. Marito Garcia is the Co-Founder of Leadership Academy Nepal. He also serves as Fellow and Adjunct Faculty at Center for Global Initiatives at the Darden School of Business, University of Virginia, USA. He is adviser to the World Bank and Asian Development Bank in education technology and online learning, and digital credentialing employing blockchain technology. As a former World Bank Sector Manager for Education in Latin America and the Caribbean Region, he was responsible for a $2.8 billion portfolio of education programs in 32 countries, covering K-12 education, skills and workforce development, and higher education. In addition, he spearheaded program innovations in skills and workforce development as Lead Economist and Manager for the New Economy Skills for Africa Program, which introduced online learning and MOOCs for training, business process outsourcing (BPOs) and online outsourcing. Marito is author of several books in consumer economics, conditional cash transfers, and education technology. He holds a PhD in Development Studies from the Institute of Social Studies, Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands and completed an Executive Program at the Harvard Business School.

Jayendra Rimal has diverse experience in the field of management and capacity development for the past 30 years having worked in the semi-government, non-governmental and the private sectors in Nepal. He has worked in projects funded by UNDP, IDRC, Canada and other organisations. He has work experiences related to helping organizations in areas like HRM, HRD, Project Management, Stakeholder Engagement and Organizational Development. He provides management consulting, training and development in soft skills in addition to teaching HRM related subjects to graduate students. He has engineering and MBA degrees.

Suman Neupane is versatile, analytical, proactive C-Level Executive and Start-Up expert with over 30 years of hands-on experience in the banking and finance industry, renewable energy and infrastructure sector whose knowledge and capabilities have led to innovative and groundbreaking introductions and solutions.

He is an outgoing leader comfortable communicating with people from diverse backgrounds, occupations and cultures and is adept at working in high pressure situations to consistently meet deadlines and multiple deliverables while managing customer centric operations as well as ensuring customer satisfaction.

Ravi has lived, studied and worked in the US and Asia, and brings an intimate experience of both the corporate and social sectors – as an organizational consultant, executive coach, entrepreneur and social activist. He is a student and practitioner in the Vajrayana tradition as well as in yoga. After moving back to Asia, he is now focused on introducing to schools and colleges innovative programs on mindfulness based emotional skills and conversational intelligence. He hopes to publish a book on this subject by the summer of 2016.  Making Bangkok his base, he intends to collaborate with a US based group to develop master trainers in Asia.  

Mr. Pravakar Pradhan holds two Master degrees: one in Urban Environmental Management (UEM) from Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand in 2003, and another in Physical Chemistry from Central Department of Chemistry, Tribhuvan University, Nepal in 1991. Mr. Pradhan completed his Bachelor degree in Science (Physics, Chemistry and Mathematics) from Tri-Chandra Multiple Campus, Kathmandu, Nepal in 1988.

Mr. Pradhan joined AITM as a Research Fellow in Center for Climate Change, Energy and Environment in May 2013. After ward, he worked as a Research Faculty in Civil Engineering Department of AITM. He has an extensive experience in managing research projects. Before joining AITM, he worked in an internationally reputed educational institute AIT as a Project Associate in Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) funded project (2006-2010), and Research Associate in joint AIT– French Environment and Energy Management Agency (ADEME) supported “Low Carbon City Project” (2010-2013). Prior to joining AIT, he worked in various NGOs to conduct different community development activities in Nepal (1992-2001).

Mr. Pravakar has also attended and organized international conferences, and presented & published number of research papers. His areas of interest include urban land management, urban disaster/risk management, GIS applications in urban planning and urban climate change adaptation and mitigation.

Ms. Alina Khadka holds Master Degree from School of Management, Asian Institute of Technology (AIT), Thailand in 2019 and completed her Bachelor Degree in B. Com (Honors) from Kirorimal College, Delhi University in 2016. She has a good knowledge in the filed of marketing, banking and event management.

Mr. Artiom Uprety is the Founder and CEO, Art of Management. He is an experienced strategy, business transformation and leadership coach who specializes in supporting CEOs and their senior teams in developing and executing winning strategies to create competitive advantage in the changing business environment. Art brings with him over 25 years of business experience, including 17 years with top management consulting firms in UK, Western Europe, Asia, Middle East and the CIS region. Art was a Partner and Managing Director at the Boston Consulting Group (BCG), where he worked with leading companies around the world in developing and implementing winning strategies, and coaching senior leadership teams in transforming their businesses. Art has extensive experience of working with the companies and government institutions on the topics relating to strategy, performance improvement, business transformation, corporate governance and regulatory management in the Power, Oil and Gas, Utilities, and Petrochemical sectors. Having lived and worked in many different countries, Art has developed strong appreciation and understanding of various cultures and adapts his consulting and coaching style to best suit the cultural and organizational context of his clients. Art holds MBA degree from IMD, Switzerland, Masters in Electrical Engineering from Moscow Power Engineering Institute and has completed Executive Coaching course from European Mentoring and Coaching Council. He is passionate about leadership development and is currently pursuing PhD on the topic at IE Business School, Madrid.

Ms. Sabina Bade holds an MBA degree in International Business from Panyapiwat Institute of Management, Thailand along with the exchange program from Duale Hochschule Baden-Württemberg, Germany. She also holds a post graduate degree in Counseling Psychology from Tribhuvan University. She has also been working as a Teaching assistant for King’s College affiliated to Westcliff University. Passionate about psychology and education, she has experience of one-on-one tutoring and group instruction of English as a Second Language. 

Professor Brent Smith, Ph.D. is currently Senior Associate Dean of the Jones Graduate School of Business at Rice University. Prior to his current academic appointments, he was a member of the faculty at London Business School and Cornell University where he taught in the School of Industrial and Labor Relations and the Johnson Graduate School of Management. He has also taught for shorter periods at the University of California at Berkeley, Oxford University, the Danish Technical University and the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad and has conducted executive programs around the world for companies such as Shell, IBM, HSBC, Credit Suisse, Barclays, KPMG, ExxonMobil, BP, ADCO, Lufthansa, DeBeers, Schneider Electric, Microsoft, El Paso Energy, Veritas, Dynegy, ONGC, CGG Inc., Marathon Oil, Citibank, RedBull, Phillip Morris International, NationalOilwellVarco, Swedbank, Ulster Bank, RBS, and TOTAL. His teaching interests focus primarily on leadership and management development. Dr. Smith’s executive programs include Leading and Managing Change, Talent Development and Coaching, and Leading and Managing High Performance Teams. Dr. Smith has served as leadership faculty in the corporate universities of TOTAL, Lufthansa, Tenaris, NationalOilwellVarco, and Cooper Industries. Dr. Smith has a special interest in non-profit academic and educational institutions. He co-developed the non-degree programming for Rice’s award-winning Educational Entrepreneurship Program dedicated to training primary and secondary school administrators to be more holistic leaders. Additionally, he has worked extensively with the Houston Independent School District and advised HISD’s Board of Trustees. In 2006, Dr. Smith developed a program to train senior staff and faculty leaders at Rice University. In its 10th year, Dr. Smith has trained over 200 current and future leaders at Rice. Currently, Dr. Smith has turned his interest to academic medical institutions and the unique challenges in health care. His clients include M.D. Anderson Cancer Center, Methodist Hospital, Memorial Hermann Hospital, and Texas Children’s Hospital. Dr. Smith has twice received the Scholarly Achievement Award from the Academy of Management (1998, 2004) and the Outstanding Publication in Organizational Behavior Award (2004) for his research on personality, organizational culture, and employee attitudes. His research has been published in the Journal of Applied Psychology, Personnel Psychology, Human Performance, Journal of Business Ethics, and Leadership Quarterly. He is a co-editor of the book Personality and Organizations and The People make the Place. Dr. Smith’s early research focused on identifying methods of redressing adverse impact and differential treatment of protected classes in employee selection and promotion. More recently, his research interests focus broadly on personality issues in work organizations including response dynamics in personality measurement; the personality correlates of effective work performance and the relationship between personality and organizational culture. He is deeply interested in the integration of trait and social-cognitive models of personality. Dr. Smith is a founding partner of PeopleSmith, a firm specializing the enhancing organizational effectiveness through research-grounded interventions.

Michael Koenig joined the business school as associate dean for innovation initiatives and executive director of executive education. His innovation position is a new role at Rice Business and will bring technology and transformative business education together, both internally and externally. His role in executive education will drive program and business model innovation with a focus on continuing to build a technology-enhanced portfolio of net revenue generating programs with local, national and global impact and stature.

He was formerly senior assistant dean for degree programs and the first executive director of program innovation at University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.

As an entrepreneur, Michael has business startup experience as employee No. 4 at Logictier Inc., a Silicon Valley-based Internet infrastructure company, leading the planning and implementation of a national staffing effort that took the company from four employees to 220 employees in 20 months. Before joining Logictier, he was senior manager for professional education at the Stanford Center for Professional Development.

Michael received a bachelor’s in political science from Miami University of Ohio and a master’s in international political affairs from the University of Kentucky. He has a passion for the beautiful game (soccer) and after a college career playing division I soccer in the Midwest for Miami University, he focused that passion on coaching youth soccer for the past 30 years. He and his wife, Jacqui, and children Connor (15) and Elsa (12) moved to Houston from Charlottesville.

Balaji Koka is an associate professor in the area of strategic management. He joined the Jones School in 2008 from the W.P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University. He teaches in the Executive MBA and Full-time MBA programs and received the Teaching Excellence Award from the EMBA program in 2014. Professor Koka received his BE from Madurai Kamaraj University in India, his MBA from Indian Institute of Management in India and his PhD in strategic management from the University of Pittsburgh.

Sharad Borle has been a marketing professor with Rice University since 2003. He received an M.S. and Ph.D. in marketing from Carnegie Mellon University, an MBA from XLRI Institute of Management in India and a B.Tech in electronics engineering from Banaras Hindu University also in India. Prior to his academic career Professor Borle worked in India in the Department for International Development, Suzuki Motor Corporation and Network Limited.

Marcus W. Dickson is Professor of Organizational Psychology, holding appointments at Wayne State University in Detroit, Rice University (adjunct), and Baruch College -CUNY (adjunct). Dr. Dickson’s research interests focus on leadership, especially in a cross-cultural context, and he served as Co-Principal Investigator on Project GLOBE, the largest cross-cultural study of leadership conducted to date. His work has appeared in major research outlets, including Journal of Applied Psychology, The Leadership Quarterly, Advances in Global Leadership, Sex Roles, and Applied Psychology: An International Review, among others, and has been cited over 12,000 times. A noted teacher, he has been recognized numerous times for teaching excellence, including both university and national professional society awards. He has taught at the undergraduate, master’s, executive master’s, and doctoral levels in the US, as well as internationally. An active organizational consultant, Dr. Dickson has generally focused on issues of leadership development, culture assessment, and bias and adverse impact reduction. Dr. Dickson and his wife, Heather, have one son, Michael.

Megan Gossett has been at Rice for twelve years. She joined the Jones Graduate School of Business as healthcare program manager in December 2016. In this role, she is responsible for the various healthcare offerings at Rice Business, spanning the degree programs, executive education as well as the broader healthcare community within and around Houston.

Prior to joining Rice, Megan was a professional ballet dancer. She holds a BA in psychology and a master’s in social work from the University of Houston. Megan enjoys being outdoors and spending time with her two sons.