Prof. Melodena Stephens’ areas of research and consultancy are in strategy, focusing on agile government, crisis management, entrepreneurship, AI ethics, and brands. She has close to 30 years of experience in industry, government, and academia at senior levels. Before joining MBRSG, where she heads the Master in Innovation Management program, she was the first female Indian Dean of a university in Germany. Before that, she spent over a decade at the University of Wollongong in Dubai (UAE), one of the first private universities in the UAE, where she undertook the roles of Deputy Dean and MBA Program Director. She has actively managesaccreditation and accreditation committees (UAE, Germany) and institutional outreach. Before her Ph.D., she worked in India for the Tata Group. She has lived in the UAE, the USA, India, Taiwan, and Germany. Prof. Stephens is on several advisory boards and is active in AI ethics, volunteering at IEEE SA. Her active approach to teaching has been to facilitate an inter-disciplinary, co-created problem-solving competency with a global mindset. She has won several teaching and research awards, including two UAE National Research Foundation Grants, and recently was recognized as one of the 100 Admired People in Education in 2021 by Excelligent. She is passionate about emerging markets, especially the MENA region, and is frequently invited to panels and discussion forums. Prof. Stephens has published extensively – 11 books, close to 200 chapters, articles and journal publications. The most recent books are AI Smart Kit - Agile Decision Making on AI, Business With Purpose: Advancing Social Enterprise, and Agile Government. She is the founder of the Academy of International Business – the Middle East North Africa Chapter (AIBMENA), which has published cases on this region for local and international consumption. Since 2010, through this book project, she has captured organizational memories of a neglected region in international business studies to further our understanding of context. AIBMENA, a nonprofit social initiative founded in 2009, now under MBRSG, is a self-financing volunteer organization. The purpose of the organization is to act as an ambassador and champion for the MENA region by fostering research and teaching in the field of international business and policy. AIBMENA was awarded the ‘Dubai Brand Ambassador Status’ by Dubai Conventions & Events Bureau, Department of Tourism and Commerce Marketing in 2012 and jointly won the bid to host the AIB annual conference in 2017.

 

Prof. Melodena Stephens Publications ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7933-2750