INDIANAPOLIS – The Indiana University Kelley School of Business at IUPUI welcomes five new full-time faculty members this fall.
“Our new faculty bring with them a variety of expertise and passions that will enhance the school’s scholarship and teaching,” said Ken Carow, executive associate dean for faculty and research in Indianapolis and professor of finance at the Kelley School. “They build on the passion of Kelley faculty to engage students in participatory learning, leading from moment to momentum. Their excellence ensures Kelley will continue to be recognized as a top business school providing quality graduate and undergraduate student experiences.”
Danette (Danny) Cagnet joins the Kelley School as a senior lecturer in management. Her areas of expertise include change leadership, team dynamics, organizational development, business communications and conflict resolution. Cagnet most recently served as the director and chairperson of the School of Business at Rochester University in Michigan. During her time there, Cagnet taught management, strategic leadership theory, business communication, conflict resolution, leadership research and decision-making and organizational behavior, among other topics. She will teach courses at Kelley in the team dynamics and leadership integrated experience, as well as the course titled “Developing Employee Skills.”
Cagnet received her MBA in leadership and organizational management from Harding University. She is currently pursuing a Doctor of Education in organizational leadership with a concentration in conflict management and resolution. She is focusing her doctoral work on change leadership and sustainable community development through a micro-look at a village in Uganda. Cagnet serves on the Board of Trustees for the non-profit KIBO Group in Uganda, which empowers communities in the Busoga region of Uganda by improving access to water, encouraging sanitary behaviors and developing educational and critical thinking skills.
“I am honored to join the Kelley School of Business team,” said Cagnet. “I am passionate about student success both inside and outside the classroom. I look forward to engaging students in practical and thought-provoking activities to encourage the development of communication, interpersonal, leadership and conflict-resolution skillsets.”
Sara Coers joins the faculty as a lecturer in real estate and as the associate director of the IU Center for Real Estate Studies. She previously held a visiting position with the school. Coers has led the IU real estate program’s efforts on the IUPUI campus for the past year. She has 15 years of experience in commercial real estate appraisal with a specialty in expert witness testimony. Coers most recently served as senior vice president at Pillar Valuation Group, Inc., and before that, she was the managing director at Valbridge Property Advisors.
Coers received the MAI designation from the Appraisal Institute in 2009. She holds a certified general real estate appraiser license in Indiana, and she received a master’s in technical and scientific communication from Miami University in Ohio. She was an instructor and program vice chair for the Institute for Professionals in Taxation’s Real Property Tax School from 2013 to 2018, and she was named Instructor of the Year in 2015. Coers has spent time as an adjunct professor at the University of Indianapolis and has worked with real estate classes through the Kelley School since 2015.
“I am excited to continue working with Kelley real estate students at IUPUI and looking for opportunities to build on our accomplishments from the first year of the real estate co-major,” said Coers. “Our inaugural class of real estate co-majors graduated this year, and we anticipate our graduates to double or triple in 2022. Our declared co-majors have increased 61% since the end of last school year, and our workshop enrollment has increased 125%. The real estate program has so much momentum right now, and I am thrilled to be part of it.”
Ricardo Guimarães joins the faculty as a lecturer in management.
He previously held a visiting position with the school. Guimarães’ areas of expertise include business development, strategy crafting and execution, international business and P&L accountability and management. Before coming to academia, he spent more than 30 years as an executive with Dow AgroSciences. Among his roles, Guimarães served as Global Integrated Business Planning Leader and Global Business Leader based in Indianapolis Global Headquarters; Regional Leader for Northern Latin America based in Guadalajara, Mexico; Sales and Marketing Director in San Paulo, Brazil and Commercial Manager in Caracas, Venezuela. He began his career as a production engineer for Dow AgroSciences in Brazil.
Guimarães is a chemical engineer and has a Master of Science in economics and corporate finance, an MBA from Fundação Getulio Vargas in Brazil, and an Executive MBA from Babson College in Boston. He will primarily teach BUS-J 411: Analysis of Business Decisions and BUS-J 401: Administrative Policy at the Kelley School at IUPUI.
“I am most looking forward to bringing hands-on business management experience to the classroom,” said Guimarães. “My business responsibilities took me to several places around the world, culminating in a multitude of experiences in strategy, contracts, general management, ethics and compliance—all under the influence of corporate and local cultural scrutiny and regional macroeconomic trends. I am eager to share and discuss the best practices and my own learnings with students.”
Russell Rhoads joins the faculty as associate clinical professor of financial management. His areas of expertise include behavioral finance, derivatives, market volatility, financial markets and bitcoin and cryptocurrencies. Rhoads most recently was a clinical professor of finance and director of the Master of Science in Finance Program at Loyola University in Chicago, where he taught corporate finance, investments, derivatives, investment banking and financial ethics, among other topics. He also has worked as the head of research and consulting at EQDerivatives; Head of Derivative Research at TABB Group; Director of Education at Cboe Global Markets and as a portfolio manager, equity option trader and equity analyst at a number of companies.
Rhoads is pursuing his PhD in strategic management through Oklahoma State University, where his dissertation topic is: The Impact of Firm Reputation and Visibility on Portfolio Manager Decision Making. He has a Master of Science in finance from the University of Memphis. He also has published several books on investments and option trading, and he published articles in the International Journal of Economics, Business and Management Research and the Journal of Global Business Management. For the Kelley School, Rhoads will teach intermediate investments, financial management and fixed income and equity evaluation.
“I am honored to join the faculty at the Kelley School of Business at IUPUI,” said Rhoads. “I look forward to meeting students as we start the school year. At the graduate level, I find experienced students are a great resource for matching coursework with practical applications. Undergraduate students are a constant inspiration to me, as many are still trying to determine their career paths. I feel my years of experience in the industry complement experienced students, and also give me the ability to guide students who have yet to enter the professional workforce.”
Ryan Umbeck joins the faculty as a senior lecturer in finance. His areas of interest include corporate finance, international finance and trading strategies. He’s taught finance classes at Purdue University since 2014, including financial management, mergers and acquisitions, international finance and corporate finance, among others. He also taught marketing and economics at Ivy Tech and served as a faculty advisor and Program Chair of Social Sciences. He was named to the Outstanding and Distinguished Instructor List at Purdue multiple years in a row and was nominated for teaching excellence at Ivy Tech.
Umbeck is pursuing a PhD in consumer science from Purdue University. His dissertation focuses on the information content of inside trades and the behavior of institutional investors around inside traders. He has a Master of Science in finance and a Master of Science in economics from the Krannert Graduate School of Management at Purdue.
“I am eager to start teaching at IUPUI,” said Umbeck. “I love teaching and really look forward to interacting with the students. I feel that no matter what a student does, a knowledge of finance will be helpful, and I really enjoy tailoring classes to connect the material to students’ interests. I am also excited about giving the students a chance to apply what they’ve learned by working with local companies.”
About the Kelley School of Business on the IUPUI Campus
The Indiana University Kelley School of Business has been a leader in American business education since 1920. With more than 117,000 living alumni and an enrollment exceeding 12,000 students across two campuses and online, the Kelley School is among the premier business schools in the country. The Kelley School at IUPUI is home to a full-time undergraduate program and five graduate programs, including a graduate certificate for healthcare professionals, master’s programs in accounting and taxation, the Physician MBA and the Evening MBA, which is ranked tenth in the country by U.S. News & World Report. Learn more at kelley.iupui.edu.
Posted by: Teresa Mackin, tmackin@iu.edu
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