Speaker Profile

Professor Yael Grushka-Cockayne is Vice Dean and Senior Associate Dean for the Full-Time MBA program at Darden,  she is the Landmark Communication Professor of Business Administration and the Academic Co-director LaCross Institute for AI.  Yael’s research and teaching activities focus on decision analysis, data science, business analytics, forecasting, forecast aggregation, and project management.  Yael is an award-winning teacher.  At Darden Yael teaches courses on Decision Analysis, Project Management, and Data Science in Business. Yael's "Fundamentals of Project Planning and Management" Coursera MOOC had over 350,000 enrolled and her "Data Science for Business" Harvard Online course, launched in 2021, has taught hundreds of learners around the world. While visiting Harvard Business School, Yael taught the required Technology and Operations Management course and an elective course on Applied Business Analytics. Before starting her academic career, Yael worked in San Francisco as a marketing director of an ERP company. As an expert in the areas of decision analysis, critical thinking, project management, and digital transformation, she has served as a consultant to international firms in the ed-tech, aerospace and pharma industries, such as Merck Serono, Pfizer, Eli Lilly, 2U, Heathrow Airport,  Eurocontrol, Network Rail UK, NFL Teams, Dunlop Aerospace and the Department for Transport UK. Yael is an Associate Editor at Management Science, Operation Research, and Decision Analysis.

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