Geoffrey Jones, Brian Silverman, and Others: The Use and Abuse of Historical Study to Management

Thursday, April 3, 2014, 3:30 - 5:30 p.m.

This event is part of the Rotman School of Management's Business History Experts Speaker Series. Panelists include Geoffrey Jones (Faculty Chair - Business History Initiative, Harvard Business School), Brian Silverman (former School Committees co-chair of the Harvard Club of Toronto), Kent Womack and Christopher Kobrak.

Event Details:
Cost: none, but preregistration is mandatory by noon of April 3.
Location: Fleck Atrium (ground floor, north building)
Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto
105 St. George Street
Toronto
M5S 3E6
Schedule: 3:00-3:30 p.m. registration; 3:30-5:30 p.m. panel discussion and Q&A

Further Information:
To register and see further information, visit the Rotman School of Management event listing.

About the Speakers:
Geoffrey Jones is the Isidor Straus Professor of Business History, and Faculty Chair of Harvard Business School’s Business History Initiative. He holds degrees of BA, MA and PhD from Cambridge University, UK, and an honorary Doctorate in Economics and Business Administration from Copenhagen Business School. He taught previously at the London School of Economics, and Cambridge and Reading Universities in the UK, and has held Visiting Professorships at Gakushuin University, Tokyo, Erasmus University, Rotterdam, and Universidad de los Andes, Bogota. Elsewhere at Harvard, he serves on the faculty committee of the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies, and on the Policy Committee of the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies.

Brian Silverman is the J.R.S. Prichard and Ann Wilson Chair in Management, and Professor of Strategic Management at Rotman. His research focuses on the interaction between a firm’s competitive strategy and organizational structure to affect its performance – in particular, its ability to access and exploit technological capabilities. He studies diverse industries including biotechnology, information processing, consumer electronics, and transportation. He currently serves as Series Editor for Advances in Strategic Management, editorial board member for Organization Science, Research Policy, and Strategic Organization, and Chair of the Strategy Research Initiative’s Executive Board.

Kent Womack is a Professor of Finance and Integrative Thinking. He was previously a Professor of Finance at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. Kent was Vice President in the Equities Division at Goldman, Sachs & Co., working directly with portfolio managers and security analysts. Earlier, he worked as a CPA at Price Waterhouse. His research interests focus on the value of security analysis, security analysts' conflicts of interest, and underwriting of IPOs. He teaches MBA courses in Capital Markets & Valuation and Foundations of Integrative Thinking.

Christopher Kobrak is a professor of finance at ESCP Europe, Paris and of business and financial history at Rotman School of Management, University of Toronto. An International Fellow at the Centre for Corporate Reputation, Oxford University, he serves on the editorial boards of several business history journals. A CPA, Chris worked in the pharmaceutical industry for nearly ten years in a variety of capacities, including Treasury Director for Europe and Africa and Deputy General Manager for Japan at Sterling Drug Inc.