STR 2023 Irwin Outstanding Educator Award
The Irwin Outstanding Educator Award recognizes an established strategy scholar who has demonstrated outstanding commitment to Ph.D. and doctoral education, and ongoing development of junior colleagues. The award recipient's contributions include dedication to PhD student development and curricula, involvement in dissertation committees, participation in doctoral consortia and workshops, and mentorship of junior faculty.
The 2023 Irwin Outstanding Educator Award for Excellence in PhD Mentoring goes to Aks Zaheer!
Aks Zaheer is Professor and Curtis L. Carlson Chair in Strategic Management at the Carlson School of Management, University of Minnesota. He earned his Ph.D. from the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He has an undergraduate degree in Economics from St. Stephen's College, Delhi, and a Masters in Business from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. Aks has conducted research on a number of issues around strategic management and has published numerous articles in the top strategy journals. Aks teaches courses in Strategic Management to Executive MBA and MBA students at the Carlson School, Minnesota, and for the Carlson School in Guangzhou, China. Over the last three decades, Aks has advised numerous doctoral students who have been placed at top schools, including Wharton, Carnegie Mellon, Darden, and INSEAD. Aks has received numerous awards for both his research and teaching. He is an elected Fellow of the Strategic Management Society (since 2014) and served as Dean of the Fellows (2020-22). Aks was named one of the World's 50 Best B-School Professors by Poets and Quants in 2012.
The Awards Committee recognized Aks for his mentoring of PhD students, many of whom have also become top scholars themselves. Aks has been the primary advisor of 15 PhD students (Bill McEvily, Shawn Lofstrom, Xavier Castaner, David Souder, Remzi Gozubuyuk, Exequiel Hernandez, Darcy Fudge Kamal, Ramin Vandaie, Ri Bu Ga Kang, Pankaj Kumar, Paul Nary, Dennie Kim, Michael Park, Sohyun Park, and Usha Ramanathan). In addition has served as a committee member on a further 27 dissertation committees (Swanand Deodhar, Rena Rasch, Taekyu Kim, R. Isil Yavuz, Youngeun Chu, Devaki Rau, David Deephouse, Annette Berger, Gerald McNamara, Geoff Bell, Mrinal Ghosh, Amy Cox, Humaira Mahi, Harrison McKnight, Nancy Havir, Joe Bonner, Susan Rosen, Steve Carson, Dirk De Clerck, Chris Papenhausen, Julia Storberg, LuAnne Johnson, Maggie Schomaker, Jared Harris, Shalini Manrakhan, and Qinlei Huang).
Aks' students were very enthusiastic in nominating him for this award. In support of the award, one of Aks' students wrote that Aks works with PhD students "by focusing on the whole individual." Another commented that "It is hard for me to overstate how much of an impact Aks has had on my career." Across the nominations, Aks' students reflected on his huge investment in their development, providing valuable feedback and guidance across the range of dissertation topics he has supervised. Aks' students were unanimous in their appreciation of Aks' commitment to them; spending hours supporting and advising them not only as scholars, but also as a mentor and friend. One student commented: "When Aks signs up to mentor you, it's for life!"
The STR Division congratulates Aks Zaheer on being selected as the 2023 Irwin Outstanding Educator Award. We will be celebrating Aks at the August conference in Boston and we hope that you will participate in the award session celebrating Aks!
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Marie Louise Mors
Professor
Copenhagen Business School
Frederiksberg
+4538154262
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