Academic Associates

Stephen Cummings is Co-Director of The Atom/Te Kahu o Te Ao Innovation Space at Wellington School of Business and Government, as well as Professor of Strategy and Innovation. Stephen's doctorate is from the University of Warwick and his research examines alternative means of measuring the value of entrepreneurship, creating innovation, and developing and communicating strategies. He has authored many books and articles on innovation and management history including Creative Strategy (Wiley, 2010), Handbook of Management and Creativity (Edward Elgar, 2014), Strategy Builder (Wiley, 2015) and A New History of Management (Cambridge University Press, 2017).

Jesse Pirini is a Lecturer in Management and is Co-Director of The Atom/Te Kahu o Te Ao Innovation Space. He gained his doctorate from the Auckland University of Technology. Jesse is interested in how entrepreneurs identify the needs of their target markets and communities and then develop their ideas to serve these needs. Jesse is a lead-researcher on a project analysing the role of accelerators in this process, exploring how and in what ways entrepreneurs develop while participating in accelerators.

Sally Davenport is Professor of Management at Wellington School of Business and Government, Commissioner with the New Zealand Productivity Commission, and Director of the Science for Technological Innovatio” (SfTI) project within New Zealand’s National Science Challenge initiative. Sally is also an Emeritus Investigator at the MacDiarmid Institute for Advanced Materials and Nanotechnology, and a Principal Investigator with Te Punaha Matatini. With her extensive research and practical background in both science and management, Sally’s research focusses on research and technology policy and the effective commercialisation of science and technology.

Hongzhi Gao is Associate Professor in International Business. He gained his doctorate from the University of Otago. He has a particular interest in SME internationalisation, food innovation, China market entry, social media branding, international crisis management and an understanding of the impact of macro-environmental changes on firm’s international investment and business strategy. Hongzhi has published in a range of leading academic journals including Journal of International Marketing, Industrial Marketing Management, Journal of World Business, Long Range Planning, and Appetite.

Mohammad Saud Khan is a Senior Lecturer in the area of Strategic Innovation and Entrepreneurship. He gained his doctorate from University of Klagenfurt in Austria. He has a particular interest in Team Entrepreneurship, management of high-tech innovations (e.g big data, artificial intelligence) and investigating entrepreneurship within varied contexts. Saud has published in a range of leading journals including Management Decision, Creativity and Innovation Management, Journal of Global Information Management, British Food Journal and Journal of Business Venturing Insights.

Michael Keefe is Senior Lecturer in Corporate Finance. He gained his doctorate from the University of Texas at Dallas. Michael has a particular interest in early stage financing for entrepreneurs, and how start-ups and SME’s can ‘stay-up’ through effective financial and capital management and an understanding of information asymmetries. He has published in a range of leading academic journals including Journal of Corporate Finance, Accounting & Finance, Emerging Markets Review and the Journal of Neuroscience, Psychology, and Economics.

Jessica C Lai is Senior Lecturer of Commercial Law. She completed her PhD at the University of Lucerne, Switzerland. Jessica's research focus is on intellectual property, especially patent law. She has published numerous articles, chapters and books on these topics and is the co-author of Patent Law and Policy (with Susy Frankel, LexisNexis 2016). She teaches intellectual property, focusing on commercialisation and marketing. In 2019, Jessica and Susy Frankel were awarded a Marsden Fund research grant to develop their research on innovation in the pharmaceutical industry.

Ben Walker is a Lecturer in the School of Management. He completed his PhD at The University of New South Wales as an Australian Postgraduate Award Scholar. Ben's research focuses on the psychological side of work and organisations. He is particularly interested in how entrepreneurs and their ventures evolve as a result of participating in entrepreneurial development programmes. Ben is currently completing longitudinal research on this topic with various Wellington-based accelerator programmes.