"Before entering the teaching profession I spent over twenty years as a manager and mentor in the private sector. Thus, my approach is pragmatically oriented and student-centered. In my experience, finance departments were notoriously poor at training and developing their human capital. I vowed in my first year to be different.

I kept that promise as I advanced and had many professionals reporting to me. Helping a subordinate develop his or her skills and move up through the ranks had always given me great joy.

I am fortunate to have had a varied professional background from Controller to Financial Analyst to Mergers and Acquisitions at several well-known, multinational companies, (along with a healthy involvement in Management Information Systems), to draw from as examples that illuminate financial theory.

Additionally, my experience in China has been with an equally diverse set of cohorts. My students ranged from freshmen through post-graduate school with backgrounds from all over the world. In addition to the Chinese students, many of my classes are comprised of exclusively foreign students from Russia, Africa, The Middle East and Europe among others.

This diversity has taught me to be flexible in my methods, understanding in my communications and highly vigilant in assessing the comprehension of subject matter" less...