Teaching Staff

Mr. Abhyankar is the Managing Partner and Founder of ExpandRight Transformations, a corporate strategic transformation consulting boutique firm based in Prague, Czech Republic. Mr. Abhyankar is also a Professor of Finance and Project Management at the City University of Seattleand also lectures at the MBA programs of the University of Finance and Administration, Prague,the University of Management, Slovakia , BHMS, Switzerland and IBS, Romania. His client roster includes DHL, OMD, Plastika, L&T, CreditInfoSolutions, PunjLloyd and others.

In his career spanning 25 years, Mr. Abhyankar has served in various senior positions in IBM Global Services, DHL, UBS and AT&T in the US, Europe and Asia and is on the Business Advisory board of multiple institutions. His core strenghts are Technology and Finance.

Mr. Abhyankar has multiple graduate degrees from University of South Carolina, George Washington University and Kellogg School of Management, Northwestern University.

email: ericabhyankar@hotmail.com 

Hana graduated from Silesian University Opava, Faculty of Business Studies, major in Economics, Marketing Management and Finance. During her university studies, she also studied abroad - at the University of Hull in the UK. In 2013, she earned her MBA - major in Global Management - at City University of Seattle. In addition, she is also holding Certificate in Marketing - CIMA A.

Hana brings various and rich professional background from the range of different industries and markets. Throughout her career up to now, she has been specializing mainly in Strategic International Marketing and General Management.  After the university, she has started to work for Tesco in the Czech Republic & Slovakia and later in Central European Region. Afterwards in 2004, she has moved to the Netherlands and joined Unilever N.V. in Rotterdam to work on a global project. After that, she has spent some time with Reebok EMEA in Amsterdam in Regional Trade Marketing and in 2009, she has relocated back to the Czech Republic. In Prague, she has joined NESTLÉ as a Country Business Manager for Czech Republic & Slovakia, responsible for their Out-Of-Home Business Unit. Her last position was the Marketing Director for Central & Southern Europe for Brown Forman, covering 20+ markets in Europe.

Currently Hana is visiting lecturer at City University of Seattle, teaching People and Systems in Organisations Course at the MBA Program. In her approach to lecturing this course, she strongly believes that is very important to support the business theory with number of case studies, “real-life” practical examples and business insights from various industries, markets and company cultures.

email: hanabosch@gmail.com

Doc. RNDr. Petr Budinský, CSc. graduated from the MFF UK in Prague, Probability and Mathematical Statistics, at the Charles University he obtained the degree of RNDr. and the scientific degree of CSc. Since 2014 he has been an associate professor in the field of Finance, the habilitation process was accomplished at the University of Economics.

He has been working at the University of Finance and Administration since 2001 where he is currently in a position of the Vice-Rector for Strategy and International Relations. He is a member of the preparatory committee of the international conference Financial Markets and is also a professional guarantor of the Financial and Investment Forum, and expert panels organized in the field of finance.

He is the author and co-author of numerous publications, mostly about modelling bond portfolio, Investment, Probability and Statistics and other topics from the area of finance.

Peter Cesnak studied optoelectronics at the Slovak Technical University and started his carrier working at the Slovak Academy of Sciences in the area of the development of infrared imaging devices. Later he entered the private sector running his first startup in Slovakia in the area of construction.

He extended his knowledge of business management with obtaining an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. Successively he started to work as a consultant and later as a project leader with The Boston Consulting Group in London, Munich and Vienna offices. His area of expertise has been focused on Financial services.

Peter followed his career with another two startups – internet auctions company OneTwoSold in Austria, Poland and Slovak republic and a used car marketplace AUTOVIA - where he gathered extensive experience in strategy management and marketing.

Since the year 2002 Mr.Cesnak teaches part time at various locations of the City University of Seattle and delivers classes in strategic management, marketing and finance.

Currently Peter resides in Malaga, Spain and runs two family businesses.

email: peter.cesnak@gmail.com

Dr. Owen Fernandes is the founder and principal trainer at the bridge2excell Academy. He has taught, trained and developed hundreds of Managers and Leaders at all levels of the corporate ladder. He holds a Ph.D. in Business Management. He is idea-driven and enthused by future possibilities, continuous improvement and works to introduce positive change in the work environment, in the form of innovation as well as by taking informed risks for the sake of exploring new possibilities.

As a professional certified Psychometric Analyst, he is able to use his deep understanding of Human Behavior and can offer an approach with holistic understanding of one’s personality and gifting. He offers psychometric assessments, mastermind study groups, workshops, seminars, boot camps and coaching sessions, aiding personal and professional growth.

Dr. Owen is also on the external teaching faculty of three Universities in Europe and specializes in teaching Global Leadership & Business Operation modules at the MBA level and is a certified member of THE JOHN MAXWELL TEAM, a world class team of leadership coaches that have served almost all the Fortune 500 companies in the world.
His vast experiences include, 25 years in senior management across five continents and 40 countries.

Dr. Owen Fernandes is a strict but fun and gentle person depending on the situation, and he strongly believes in the youth and the power of the next generation.
“Building Careers, Enabling Growth, Changing Lives...Helping You Win!”

email: ofernandes@vsm.sk

Jan Hebnar is a lecturer with extensive experience in fields of business and government relations. Beginning his career with the Czech Ministry of Industry and Trade, he soon became the director of the EU Market Department and led his team accomplish a series of important negotiations with the EU.

In 2009, Mr. Hebnar was transferred to the Czech Embassy in China, assuming position of deputy head of commercial section of the embassy with the mission to improve Czech-China trade relations.

With the ambition to dive deep into the Chinese business world, Jan returned to China in 2013 as the managing director of a well established European engineering group to lead its business presence in the Greater China area.

In his spare time, Jan continues with his passion of opening doors for western business to Chinese market through cooperating with the consulting firm Sinovia, and lectures at well established economic universities on topics concerning intercultural management, strategic management and international negotiation.
He is also an author of book “Doing business in China.”

email: hebnarjan@cityu.edu

Katerina graduated from the University of Economics, Prague, specialization in Finance and Accounting. Afterwards she improved her qualification through the studies at the CFA Institute, American association of investment professionals.

She started her career as the assistant of auditor in BDO. Later she worked in the Austrian investment company EPIC, where she was a member of the analytical team. Her assignment included participation in the M&A projects, analysis and monitoring of the energy sector, asset management projects as well as restructuring and development projects. Respectful companies such as EdF, E.ON, RWE or City of Prague belonged to the clients.

Currently Katerina works as a guest lecturer at the University of Finance and Administration and the City University of Seattle. She also lectures professional development seminars. She prefers interactive teaching style with many practical examples, which enables students to be actively involved in the teaching process. And last but not least, teaching must be fun, for students as well as lecturer!

email: kkalinova@cityu.edu

MA, International Affairs, The George Washington University 1990
BA, Political Science, California State University, Long Beach 1987
BA, History, California State University, Long Beach 1987

Mr. Kelly brings more than 30 years of international business management to VSFS. After putting himself through school via Disney and Commodore, he franchised and expanded his family Interior Design Business (in Beverly Hills) from a one site location to 19 sites all over the USA. After moving to Czech Republic, Mr. Kelly then entered the automotive industry, being the Sales, Operations and Marketing Director for AAA AUTO Group 1999 - 2010. He then spent three years with VW Group in business development for international markets for Skoda Auto. Mr. Kelly was the General Manager for ZEPTER CR/SK and he currently serves on Zepter Board of Advisors. Mr. Kelly is married, has 6 children and coaches (4 times CR National Champion) and referees American football in CR.

email: czkelly@yahoo.com

Eva Kostikov is a lecturer and researcher with comprehensive experience in the field of corporate finance, accounting and financial management, working with international teams of researchers, teachers and students all over the world. She is currently working as the assistant professor at Department of Finance at the Faculty of Economic Studies at the University of Finance and Administration in Prague, Czech Republic.

She graduated in Finance at The Department of Finance and Accounting at the Tomas Bata University in Zlin, where she defended her dissertation and acquired Ph.D. in the field of Finance with a topic of “Internal Ratings and Credit risk management in order to increase the Financial Performance of the Commercial Bank”.

As researcher, she focuses on many financial topics such as: financial instruments and their financial efficiency in small and medium-sized companies, financial markets and credit risk management of commercial banks. She is the co-author of two expert monographs and more than 20 publications which are indexed in the highly rated databases such as Web of Science and Scopus. She continuously focuses on her academic activities and teaching corporate finance management and financial mathematics at Czech Technical University, Tomas Bata University in Zlin and City University in Seattle.

Miroslav works at LINET Group SE as Chief Information Officer.

While reporting directly to CEO and being responsible for all IT activities he implements best practices in strategic and operational level in information technologies, responsible for implementing partnering approach to business leadership teams, driving IT to adopt opportunities supporting business priorities & strategy.

Miroslav joined LINET after several years working in different managing roles in ICT area for different industry verticals (Wholesale, IT Cloud consultancy, Retail and eCommerce, Manufacturing, Government). The latest assignments were Head of Business Development and PMO at Makro - Food Wholesaler, where he was responsible for midterm and long term business strategy, facilitated translation of the strategy to operational plans for multiple business channels and customer segments through a portfolio of business projects, including change of core IT systems as well as culture changes program. Before Makro Miroslav worked as Chief Operation Officer for  Netmail - IT cloud consultancy company, where he delivered Cloud based SaaS product to Romanian leading bank, lead a transformation project to evaluate and to deploy cutting edge cloud based Container Technology for a leading bank in Central Europe and lead a change and technology project to open the same bank to public through technology means (API). Before Netmail Miroslav worked as Chief Information Officer for a blue chip retail giant (Tesco) supporting businesses in the Czech Republic and Slovakia where Miroslav delivered several innovative solutions exploiting new processes and technology (Tesco Online, Self Checkout POS, ESEL).

Miroslav completed MBA at VŠFS in 2011. He is married and has 2 children.

email: mlapour@cityu.edu

Mariana Martišková joined City University of Seattle as a part-time instructor of Public International Law in 1999. At the time she was a fresh graduate of the Comenius University, Faculty of Law in Bratislava, earning her degree in the field of „International Relations and Approximation of Law“. Soon she started to teach other related courses at both Trenčín and Bratislava sites, ranging from Introductions to Political Science, International Relations, Legal Environment of Business to International Business and Introduction to European Union.

Mrs. Martišková has been teaching courses both in the English and Slovak programmes of CU of Seaatle for over 20 years now. Soon after opening the Slovak Program of the VŠM in Trenčín she was granted the honor to develop her own course in the Mgr. programme called „Negotiations and Conflict Management for Small and Middle Enterprises“.

Mrs. Martišková received her Mgr. Degree from the Comenius University in Bratislava in 1995. She studied  for her PhD. Degree at University of Žilina, earning the degree in the Civilian Crisis Management in 2013.

Mrs. Martišková lives in a small town of Bánovce nad Bebravou, Slovakia.

email: mmartiskova@vsm.sk

Mr. Andrej Mazan has specialized in Marketing & Sales Management for more than 24 years. He has managed marketing and sales operations for multinational companies such as Komerční banka, T-Mobile, Vodafone, European Directories or Sanoma Media Group.

Mr. Mazan has an extensive experience in Strategic Marketing, Sales Management, Partnerships, Product Development, CRM, Customer Experience and International Projects Management in a multi-cultural environment. He holds the MSc. degree in the International Business Management from the University of Economics and the MBA degree from the City University of Seattle, Washington state (USA).

As a teacher, Mr. Mazan has gained his first educational experience as a Teaching Assistant at the City University in Seattle during his stay in the USA. As the Adjunct Faculty member at the City University of Seattle, he has been teaching specialized marketing courses (e.g. Applied Marketing, Consumer Behavior) in the European MBA Program across Europe for several years.

He has also become a faculty member at the VŠFS Prague and since 2012 he has been teaching various marketing courses (e.g. CRM, Corporate Marketing Management, Marketing Techniques) at both Bachelor and Master level.

email: amazan@cityu.edu

Mirela Moldoveanu is a lecturer in psychology in marketing communication, advertising, project management and communication skills among other subjects, at the University of Finance and Administration, Prague.
 
Her educational background includes a Master degree in International Economic Relations, from the University of Economics, Bucharest in 2001, a Bachelor degree (Hons) in psychology from the Open University, UK, and a MSc degree in occupational psychology from the University of Leicester, UK. She is currently a member of the British Psychological Society and the European Mentoring and Coaching Council. 
 
Mirela Moldoveanu's work background involves eleven years in IT Project management and over six years in coaching, in addition to her teaching experience.
 
At the City University of Seattle, Mirela Moldoveanu teaches English Composition II, Ethics and Leadership, Organisational Behaviour and Leadership, Global Business Communications and Research.

email: moldoveanumirela@cityu.edu

Kristijan Smilevski completed Masters of Business Administration (MBA) from the University of New York in Prague. He is the professor in different Universities in CEE, lecturing Project Management, Business Strategies, Global Competition, and different Management subjects at both Bachelor and the Master degree programs. Mr. Smilevski is also a Professor of Project Management at the City University of Seattle, also lectures at the Masters programs of the Anglo American University Master degree in Prague as well as part of the committee of the State Final Examination.

In his career spanning more than 15 years, Mr. Smilevski has served in various senior positions, executive and managerial level positions in international global companies, international business organizations, small business corporations and consulting executive to international global companies. His core strengths are Consulting, Technology and Management.

email: ksmilevski@cityu.edu