Lecturers
LECTURERS TYPICALLY INCLUDE:
Esperanza Duran, PhD
Esperanza Duran holds a BA from El Colegio de México, an MA from Stanford University, and a PhD from Oxford University. She has taught at the Royal Institute of International Affairs (Chatham House), London School of Economics, Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies, El Colegio de Mexico, and University College, Dublin. She has published in peer-reviewed journals and written and edited books. She was senior economist in the IMF and World Gold Council, country officer and economist in the World Bank, and founding executive director of the Agency of International Trade Information and Cooperation.
Ritsa Panagiotou, DPhil
Ritsa Panagiotou holds an MPhil and a DPhil in international relations from Oxford University. She is senior research fellow at the Centre of Planning and Economic Research in Athens and a visiting professor at the International Centre for Hellenic and Mediterranean Studies. She was a research associate at the European Business School in France, a visiting professor at the Athens University of Economics and Business and University of Athens, and a visiting research fellow at the European University Institute. She has published in journals including Contemporary Southeast Europe, Southeast European and Black Sea Studies, and the Journal of Balkan and Near Eastern Studies. Ritsa lectures at the College Year Athens.
Aimee Placas, PhD
Aimee Placas holds a PhD in anthropology from Rice University in Houston, Texas. She has presented and published on issues related to the anthropology of money, consumerism, kinship, gender and sexuality, and Europeanization. She’s currently writing a book on the story of consumer credit’s emergence in Greece over the past 20 years, from the first credit cards to the first personal bankruptcies. She is also conducting a new research project on the lives of individuals in Greece who have passed through bankruptcy during the financial crisis. Aimee is lecturing at the College Year Athens.
Michael Akerib, PhD
Michael Akerib is a consultant with extensive experience in both large groups and SMEs. He has been active as an academic and professional trainer. He has held a variety of positions (lecturer, program director, dean, rector, and managing director of a business school) both in Switzerland and abroad. He developed the first MBA programs franchised abroad by a Swiss university and directed the programs. His international experience as an educator covers Afghanistan, Albania, Bahrain, China, the Czech Republic, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Iran, Italy, Macedonia, and Sweden. He has published extensively on transformative thinking, geo-strategy, and post-humanity. His hobbies include short story writing.
Attila Shelley, PhD
Attila Shelley teaches courses in financial and strategic management, Islamic finance, and general management and leadership. He received his BSc in applied physics from Princeton University and his MBA and PhD from Stanford University. He has 30 years’ teaching experience in the U.S., the Middle East, and Europe, including the Stanford Graduate School of Business Executive Program, the Central European University Business School, the University of Jordan in Amman, Webster University, and Geneva Business School. He has worked in management and consulting positions at companies including The Boston Consulting Group, Credit Suisse, HSBC, Barclays Bank. He is a management and financial consultant and workshop leader to companies in various fields, especially in the Middle East.
Muktar Djumaliev, PhD
Muktar Djumaliev is ambassador extraordinary and plenipotentiary of the Kyrgyz Republic to EU, Benelux, and France with the residence in Brussels. He has 25 years of experience serving the Kyrgyz Republic internationally as ambassador and domestically in senior leadership positions. He served as extraordinary and plenipotentiary ambassador to U.S. and Canada (2010–2015) and ambassador to Switzerland (2004–2010). He represented his country as a chief of the mission in the United Nations office in Geneva and the World Trade Organization. In 2001–2003, as the first deputy minister of economy of the Kyrgyz Republic, he was involved in the policy development of the country related to the international trade and multilateral trading system. Ambassador Djumaliev has extensive expertise in building consensus through diplomacy, conciliation, and stakeholder buy-in on diverse tasks, including parliamentary capacity-building initiatives. He has a proven record in promoting transparency, good governance, and oversight through public website enhancements and other creative approaches designed to publicize government functions and encourage civil society participation in and feedback on government service delivery.
Nicoleta Acatrinei
Nicoleta Acatrinei is an economist who started her career in banking. She received her PhD in 2014 from Swiss Graduate School of Public Administration, Switzerland. By combining behavioral economics with work motivation, she shows that intrinsic and extrinsic motivations may coexist simultaneously and that both types of motivation may foster pro-social and altruistic behavior at work. She designed a mindfulness protocol and an economic measurement model for spiritual growth to be implemented in companies and organizations to increase employees engagement, pro-sociality, well-being and ethical behavior, as well as their capacity for problem-solving and coping with stress.
Olivia Bennaim-Selvi
Olivia Bennaim-Selvi is the head legal and compliance officer for a banking establishment in Geneva, where she also works as a trust officer. After passing the lawyer’s bar exam in Geneva, she obtained her master’s degree in international law at New York University (NYU) and a diploma in business and law from the NYU Stern School of Business. She simultaneously works as a lawyer within her own law firm, specializing in the banking and financial law, with a special focus on compliance issues.