1. Faculty
  2. Endowed Chairs and Professorships

Endowed Chairs and Professorships

Endowed professorships are among the most significant contributions to a higher education institution. Such generous gifts to learning date back to ancient times and serve to provide organizations with the resources to recruit established faculty members capable of diffusing both practical and theoretical dimensions in their teaching. Endowed professorships are among AUC’s most effective tools to sustain the University’s portfolio of tenured faculty members and to support them fully in their professional growth. Not only are they honored for a current professor, but supporting these positions also helps the University attract and retain academic leaders. Endowed professorships at the AUC School of Business commenced in 1989. The school currently holds five such chairs.

British Petroleum Chair of Management (1989)

The Amoco Chair of Management marked the establishment of the first endowed professorship at AUC. It was later renamed BP Chair of Management following British Petroleum's merger with Amoco in 1998.

The position is currently held by Hamed Shamma, associate professor and BP Amoco Chair of Management. Professor Shamma holds a PhD in marketing from George Washington University in 2007, an MBA from AUC in 2002 and a BA in business administration from AUC in 1999.

Previous BP Chairs of Management include:

  • 1991-1992           Lincoln Deihl
  • 1994-1995           Dean Ford
  • 1995-1997           Kenneth Jones
  • 2009-2012           Eskandar Tooma
     

Abdul Latif Jameel Chair of Entrepreneurship (1993)

This chair is in honor of the late Sheikh Abdul Latif Jameel of Saudi Arabia, one of AUC’s most important benefactors.  Leadership, innovation, and entrepreneurship are the hallmarks of AUC’s School of Business, and this chair further reinforces the school's commitment to the development of entrepreneurs in Egypt and the region.

The position is held by Ayman Ismail, assistant professor, Abdul Latif Jameel Chair of Entrepreneurship, and faculty adviser for the School of Business Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program since 2011. Professor Ismail holds a PhD in international economic development from MIT in 2009, a master's in city planning from MIT in 1999, an MBA from AUC in 1997 and a BSc in engineering from AUC in 1995.

Willard W. Brown Chair of International Business Leadership (2001)

The chair aims to draw on a wealth of experience in researching methods for the solution of the problems of multinational business organizations, with particular emphasis on leadership in international trade, finance and marketing, and with a demonstrated understanding of the increasing importance of cross-cultural and international friendship and goodwill. Previous Willard W. Brown Chairs of International Business Leadership include:

  • 2009 -2010          Maha ElShinnawy
  • 2010-2011           Ossama Hassanein
  • 2011-2014           Kevin B. O'Connell
  • 2014-2015           Khaled Ismail
  • 2015-2017           Dina Sherif

The Willard W. Brown International Business Leadership Seminar Series kicked off in September 2018, it serves as a platform for renowned international and local business thought leaders to share a wealth of technical knowledge, business acumen, market and/or scholarly expertise with the AUC community and the local business community at large.  Seminars and other related activities will focus on an array of business, innovation and entrepreneurship-related areas such as leadership, finance, marketing, organizational behavior, strategy, international business, trade, emerging business and financial models, the shared economy, organizational dynamics, governance, business intelligence, artificial intelligence, and the next disruption.

For more information on the Willard Brown International Business Leadership Seminar Series  Click here.

Abraaj Group Chair of Private Equity (2012)

The chair forms the nucleus of a private equity knowledge repository introducing students to the foundation of private equity investment. It also represents a cornerstone to the Masters of Science in financial management, launched in Fall 2012.  As part of the professorship, an endowment fund was also created to further strengthen academic research activities in the field of private equity, venture capital, and investment management. 
Previous Abraaj Group Chairs of Management include:

  • 2012-2013        Eskandar Tooma
  • 2013-2015        Charllaos Mertzanis
  • 2016-2017        Islam Azzam

CIB Chair of Banking (2013)

The professorship, which commenced in Fall 2014, exposes students to multiple perspectives on retail banking (including concepts of retail banking, types of accounts, mortgages, personal loans, debit/credit cards, etc.), challenging their thinking and encouraging new practices that result in superior business leadership. 

The position is currently held by Noah Farhadi, professor of practice, department of management. Noah Farhadi has more than 27 years of experience in the automotive manufacturing and consumer goods sectors and in global mergers and acquisitions (M&A) and strategy consulting firms. As a strategy director at a US-based manufacturer of durable consumer goods, he focused on international ecosystems of distribution partners in over 60 countries in Europe, the Middle East and Africa region. He also advised Fortune Global 500 automotive original equipment manufacturers on cross-border M&A divestitures, carve-outs, and post-merger integration in 36 countries. Farhadi holds a Doctor of Business Administration (DBA) from Henley Business School, University of Reading in the United Kingdom, and MBA degrees from Henley Business School and Frankfurt School of Finance and Management in Germany. He is a frequent author of peer-reviewed publications and books. Farhadi is a professor of practice in finance and a Commercial International Bank (CIB) endowed chair at the American University in Cairo.

  • 2014-2017        Ahmed El-Shahat
  • 2018-2019        Aliaa Bassiouny
  • 2019-2022        Donald Angus Blair

Charles J. Hedlund Distinguished Visiting Professorship (DVP) in Business and Computer Science

Established in 1986, by multiple donors in honor of the late Mr. Charles J. Hedlund Hon LHD, former chairman of AUC's Board of Trustees, to support a DVP in the departments of management and computer science to support any relevant subject in these fields.