Executive Education

The Selected Opportunities teams will attend a 2-week intensive executive education course designed by Emory University that will focus on the development of investment-grade commercial opportunities in the life sciences space.  The course will be presented in South Africa and all participants will receive a certificate of completion from Emory University.

Selected Faculty:

Michael Sacks, Ph.D

Professor Michael Sacks has been a faculty member at the Goizueta Business School for the past eight years, joining Goizueta in August, 2000 after completing his Ph.D. in Organization Behavior and Sociology at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University.  His research investigates how social relationships impact dispute resolution and negotiation outcomes. He has presented papers at national conferences and has published his research in several international outlets including the Financial Times, Negotiation Journal, American Behavioral Scientist, and Research in the Sociology of Organizations.  In addition, his work has been supported by grants from the Dispute Resolution Research Center, the Heizer Center for Entrepreneurship, and the MacArthur Foundation.

Professor Sacks has taught extensively in Goizueta’s executive education programs. He currently serves as Faculty Director for the Managerial Leadership program and for the Negotiations open enrollment program.  The high quality of his teaching has been formally recognized via several teaching awards including the Doctoral Teaching Award at Kellogg, the Robert Winch Memorial Teaching Award in the Sociology Department, and the Teacher of the Year Award at Northwestern University.  He served as a fellow in the Searle Center for Teaching Excellence at Northwestern where he helped teach effective classroom teaching techniques to new instructors, and he currently mentors new teachers at Goizueta towards mastering teaching effectiveness.

In addition to his teaching responsibilities, Professor Sacks has developed many executive education programs for specific business clients.  He has conducted workshops on such topics as managerial leadership, negotiations, workplace conflict resolution, managing teams, diversity in organizations, and effective interpersonal communications.  His previous clients include Microsoft, Delta Airlines, Coca Cola Enterprises, Bayer Pharmaceuticals, Intercontinental Hotels Group, Alston & Bird, KPMG, The Arthur M. Blank Family Foundation, Bard, Brighthouse, Pearl Protected, Georgia Quickstart, Hanson Brick, HEC Business School (France), Helsinki School of Economics (Finland), Market Source, Productivity Point, and Sigvaris.

Kristin L. Towry, Ph.D.

Kristy L. Towry is an associate professor of accounting at Emory University’s Goizueta Business School.  Dr. Towry joined the Goizueta Business School faculty in 2002, after receiving her Ph.D. from The University of Texas at Austin. She has extensive experience in managerial accounting and finance, including a number of positions at Exxon Company, USA and Compaq Computer Corp. Through these experiences, she has gained expertise in managerial control systems, financial and operational forecasting, internal auditing, and financial analysis for planning and decision making.

Dr. Towry's research relates to the use of accounting information for managerial decision making, with a focus on managerial control systems and financial incentives.  Her research, based on the experimental method, blends theory from economics, psychology, and other social sciences to provide insights into accounting issues.  She has published in The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, and other accounting and economics journals.  Dr. Towry sits on the editorial boards of The Accounting Review, Contemporary Accounting Research, Journal of Management Accounting Research, and Behavioral Research in Accounting.  She has recently been recognized as the Best Early Career Researcher in Management Accounting by the American Accounting Association, the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants, the Chartered Institute of Management Accountants in the United Kingdom, and the Society of Management Accountants (CMA Canada).  Her research has also received recognition through the Goizueta Business School Alumni Award for Excellence in Research, the Glen McLaughlin Award for Research in Accounting Ethics, and the American Accounting Association Management Accounting Section and Institute of Managerial Accountants Best Dissertation Award. 

Dr. Towry is also an accomplished teacher.  Her teaching applies theory and insights from various social sciences decision-making issues in accounting and finance.  She has taught courses on managerial accounting and control at the undergraduate, master’s, and doctoral levels, and has received a number of teaching awards.  These include the Adler Teaching Prize and the MBA Full-time Program Teaching Award at Emory University, and the Fred Moore Award for Teaching Excellence at The University of Texas.

Steve Walton, Ph.D.

Steve Walton is Associate Professor in the Practice of Decision and Information Analysis at Goizueta Business School. He has been at Emory since 1996. He has also served on the faculty at Baylor University and NC A&T State University. Prior to coming to Goizueta, Steve worked for IBM and consulted for a national technology consultancy. He earned his Ph.D. in Business Administration/Operations from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 1993. He earned his MS and BS at Clemson University.

Steve teaches Six Sigma, Decision Science, Operations Management and Sustainable Operations at Goizueta and has been recognized with seven teaching awards, including the university-wide Emory Williams Distinguished Teaching Award and the Marc Adler Prize for Teaching Excellence. Steve also designs and teaches such innovative classes as his new Sports, Management and the Atlanta Falcons, which is being co-taught by Steve and members of the Falcons’ executive team.

His research interests include the application of Six Sigma to service operations, business-to-business electronic commerce and managing supply chains for both operational and environmental improvements. Steve’s research has been published in various operations management journals. Steve’s first book, “Successful Service Operations Management” which he wrote with several colleagues, is in its second edition, and he is working on his second book, “Data-Driven Decision Making.”

Steve’s consulting clients include the U.S. State Department, The U.S. Commerce Department, The Home Depot, Delta Air Lines, McKesson Information Solutions, KPMG, Siemens Medical Systems, Solvay Pharmaceuticals, The Institute of Nuclear Power Operations, ORBIS, The Arthur M. Blank Family Office, Usher’s New Look Foundation, Manhattan Associates, Sigvaris, Synovus, Crawford & Company, ZC Sterling, Great American Insurance Company, Atlanta Casualty Company, Kurt Salmon Associates, Emory University, Crawford Long Hospital, MarketSource, and others.