Olivier Rubel

Professor

Headshot of Olivier Rubel

Professor Olivier Rubel is fascinated by two related questions: How can firms make better decisions in highly competitive environments? And what are the optimal strategies for implementing these decisions over time?

Rubel’s research examines how companies can best determine and allocate resources to marketing activities when facing a realistic chance of encountering a product harm crisis such as the SUV rollover controversy faced by Ford and Firestone in 2000 or the many product recalls Mattel was forced to make in 2007. His findings point to no single, simple answer to invest less or invest more. Rather, each firm’s best solution depends on the characteristics of the crisis, including its likelihood, its impacts on sales and on the effectiveness of marketing instruments.

Colleen O. Zern

Lecturer

Portrait of Colleen Zern

J.D., Saint Louis University School of Law
Bachelor of Science (B.S.) Washington University in St. Louis

Andrew B. Hargadon

Professor

Andrew B. Hargadon

Ph.D., Stanford University

Research Expertise
The effective management of innovation and entrepreneurship, particularly in the development and commercialization of sustainable technologies

Professor Andrew B. Hargadon has written extensively on innovation and entrepreneurship, particularly the commercialization science and technology and the management of research and development. He has published numerous articles and chapters in leading scholarly and applied publications.

Hargadon is at the forefront of teaching, research and practice in cross-disciplinary entrepreneurship, and is founding director of two key centers at UC Davis—the Mike and Renee Child Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Energy Efficiency Center. These centers are dedicated to promoting entrepreneurship and innovation through educational programs bridging science, engineering and business. They provide a successful framework for university scientists and engineers to move their ideas out of the lab and into the world.

Hargadon received the 2009 Olympus Emerging Educational Leader Award in recognition for his strong entrepreneurship curriculum and success with the two centers.

Prior to his academic appointment, Hargadon worked as a product designer at Apple Computer and taught in the Product Design program at Stanford University.

A senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation, Hargadon is the author of How Breakthroughs Happen: The Surprising Truth About How Companies Innovate (Harvard Business School Press, 2003).

His most recent book is Sustainable Innovation: Build Your Company’s Capacity to Change the World (Stanford University Press, 2015).

Hargadon received his Ph.D. from Stanford University’s School of Engineering, where he was named Boeing Fellow and Sloan Foundation Future Professor of Manufacturing. He received his M.S. in mechanical engineering and B.S. in engineering from Stanford University’s Product Design Program.

  • AlwaysOn 2012 Power Players in Greentech: The University Players.
  • Charles M. Soderquist Chair in Entrepreneurship, UC Davis Graduate School of Management, 2010-present.
  • Olympus Emerging Educational Leader Award, National Collegiate Inventors and Innovators Alliance, 2009.
  • Chancellor’s Fellow, UC Davis, 2005-present.
  • Vanguard Award for the Energy Efficiency Center, Comstock’s Magazine, 2006.
  • Professors of Manufacturing Fellow, Stanford Integrated Manufacturing Association.
  • Boeing Fellow, Future Professors of Manufacturing, Stanford Integrated Manufacturing Association.

Conrad M. Davis

Visiting Faculty

Portrait of Conrad Davis

Master of Science (M.S.), Taxation, Golden Gate University, California

Conrad Davis is the Partner-in-Charge of the Firm’s Sacramento, CaliforniaTax Practice. He has more than 28 years of experience providing tax compliance and consulting services to closely held business, their owners in the food and food production related businesses. He works closely with his clients to understand their business and goals. He coordinates with Crowe auditors to effectively and efficiently provide tax services to jointly served clients.

Kay Peters

Visiting Professor

Portrait of Kay Peters

Ph.D., Christian-Albrechts-University, Kiel, Germany

Courses Taught 
New Product Development (Startups), Digital Marketing, International Marketing

Kay Peters is the SVI-endowed Chair of Dialog Marketing and Professor of Marketing at Hamburg University, Germany. He holds a visiting position at the University of California Davis since 2010.

Jason Perez

Visiting Faculty

Jason Perez

J.D., UC Davis
Master of Business Administration (MBA), UC Davis

Jason Perez began his career in the United States Navy as a military police officer. He served approximately one and a half years in Bahrain and two years in New Jersey leading teams of police officers responding to emergency 911 calls. Perez was also given the opportunity to attend military detainee operations school, where upon completion, he worked for approximately one and a half years at Guantanamo Bay in Cuba as a prison guard.

Brett Saraniti

Lecturer

Brett Saraniti

Ph.D., Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University

Brett Saraniti received his Ph.D. in managerial economics and decision sciences from the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University in 1997. His dissertation chair was Roger Myerson, Nobel Laureate 2007. Saraniti is currently a visiting professor of managerial economics and decision sciences at Kellogg and a lecturer at Stanford in the Department of Economics.

Mike Palazzolo

Associate Professor of Marketing

Mike Palazzolo

Ph.D., University of Michigan

Research Expertise
Choice, causal inference, retail, nutrition

Mike Palazzolo's research lies at the intersection of marketing and policy. Recently he has been focused on consumer nutrition, in an effort to learn how marketers can encourage healthier food selection. 

Palazzolo teaches courses on causal inference and marketing analytics for the GSM's MBA programs.

Ashwin Aravindakshan Nair

Associate Professor

Headshot of Ashwin Aravindakshan

Associate Professor Ashwin Aravindakshan’s research interests center on learning how brands can better allocate their advertising resources (e.g., budgets, creatives, etc.) across different regions and/or multiple media over time. In addition to studying such dynamic advertising models, his research also investigates the dynamics of customer behavior and loyalty to help managers devise better communication and targeting policies in order to optimize their marketing mix at the individual level.

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