Keynote Speaker
Daniel P. Amos
Chairman and Chief Executive Officer
Aflac Incorporated
Dan Amos is chairman and chief executive officer of Aflac Incorporated. He is one of the longest-serving CEOs in the Fortune 200, and his innovative leadership style has led to astounding annual revenue growth from $2.7 billion in 1990 to $22.1 billion in 2020. Today, Aflac is a Fortune 500 company, helping provide protection to more than 50 million people through its subsidiaries in Japan and the U.S., where it is a leading supplemental insurer. In Japan, Aflac is the leading provider of medical and cancer insurance in Japan and insures one in four households.
In January 2000, Dan launched the popular Aflac Duck advertising campaign, transforming Aflac from a successful supplemental insurance company to a top international brand recognized by Fortune magazine as one of the World’s Most Admired Companies for 20 consecutive years. His commitment to ethical business practices has led the Ethisphere Institute to recognize Aflac Incorporated as a World's Most Ethical Company for 15 consecutive years, making Aflac the only insurance company in the world to appear on this list every year since the inception of the award in 2007. Dan has also appeared five times on Institutional Investor magazine’s lists of America’s Best CEOs for the insurance category, and he has been recognized as one of the 100 Best-Performing CEOs in the World by the Harvard Business Review five times. Most recently, under Dan’s leadership, Aflac Incorporated was included in the Bloomberg Gender-Equality Index, which tracks the financial performance of public companies committed to supporting gender equality through policy development, representation and transparency for the second consecutive year in 2021.
In 1995, Dan inspired Aflac’s decades-long commitment to helping families of children diagnosed with cancer. The company and its independent sales associates have contributed more than $133 million to this cause, including funding for the Aflac Cancer and Blood Disorders Center of Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta, which has become a leading childhood cancer facility in the United States as rated by U.S. News and World Report. In taking this commitment to the next level, Dan has been a driving force behind the introduction of My Special Aflac Duck, the company’s social robot that uses medical play, lifelike movement and emotions to engage and help comfort kids during their cancer care. In December 2018, TIME magazine named My Special Aflac Duck as one of the “Best Inventions of 2018.”
In 2013, Dan proudly accepted the Salute to Greatness Award from the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Atlanta, joining a distinguished list of past recipients, including Ambassador Andrew J. Young, U.S. Poet Laureate Maya Angelou, Ervin "Magic" Johnson, and musicians Bono and Stevie Wonder. He has also received the Anti-Defamation League's Torch of Liberty Award.
A past member of the board of trustees of Children's Healthcare of Atlanta, Dan serves on the board of the House of Mercy in Columbus, Georgia. He is former chairman of the board of the Japan America Society of Georgia and the University of Georgia Foundation.
Dan joined Aflac in 1973, working in sales for 10 years. In 1983, he was named president of Aflac and was later promoted to chief operating officer in 1987. He became chief executive officer of Aflac Incorporated in 1990 and chair of the board of directors in 2001. He holds a bachelor's degree in insurance and risk management from the University of Georgia.
Don Addison
Donald (Don) P. Addison III is a lecturer for the Institute for Leadership Advancement. He is a practitioner-scholar with experience providing both applied and research-focused organizational development & change management services ranging from qualitative and/or quantitative studies to onsite organizational interventions. His consulting expertise has been shared across a variety of clients ranging from middle-market service providers to global manufacturers. His original research has been recognized by a variety of organizations from the Academy of Management to Treasury Management International. Addison has 25 plus years of applied experience in the business realm at the small, mid-market, and large corporate (domestic and international) levels with a focus on mergers and acquisition (planning and driving social-side integration); change management; strategic planning, and organization design and development. Over the course of 15 years, he planned and managed multiple large-scale projects with an emphasis on leading large populations through significant change. Projects/Change events have included: acquisition integration, shifts in business and organizational models, and enterprise-wide technological deployments.
He holds a bachelor's degree from Columbia Union College, a master's from the University of South Florida, and a doctorate in management from Case Western Reserve University.
Susan Brown
Susan Brown is the Director of the Executive and Professional MBA Programs at the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business. She serves on the Terry College Diversity Advisory Board and is a faculty instructor for the EMBA, PMBA and Full-Time MBA programs at Terry.
Prior to joining UGA, she spent over 28 years in the corporate business world at Cox Communications, Verizon Wireless, and Daimler Chrysler focused on operations, strategic partnerships, and technology solutions combining business expertise and collaborative relationships to deliver results in highly competitive environments. While at Cox, Susan was a program chair on the Atlanta Regional Diversity Council.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from Niagara University and an MBA from the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business.
Rodney D. Bullard
Rodney Bullard leads Chick-fil-A’s community engagement, philanthropic and sustainability strategy as Vice President of Corporate Social Responsibility and Executive Director of the Chick-fil-A Foundation. Before coming to Chick-fil-A, Rodney served as an Assistant United States Attorney prosecuting complex criminal cases. For his service, the United States Attorney General presented him with the Department of Justice Director’s Award. Prior to this role, Rodney was selected as a White House Fellow, the nation’s most prestigious public-service Fellowship. As a White House Fellow, Rodney was placed at NASA working directly for the NASA Administrator. Rodney also previously served at the Pentagon as a Congressional Legislative Liaison in the Office of the Secretary of the Air Force.
Rodney has received numerous awards, including Duke Law Young Alumnus of the Year (2016); The Most Admired Atlanta Non-Profit CEO (2017); one of the 500 Most Influential Atlantans (2018); and bestowed the lifetime-honor of an "Outstanding Georgian" by the Georgia Senate (2019).
He is an alumnus of the Air Force Academy, Duke Law School, the University of Georgia’s Terry College of Business and Harvard Business School’s Advanced Management Program. He recently released his first book, Heroes Wanted: Why the World Needs You to Live Your Heart Out.
Santanu Chatterjee
Dr. Santanu Chatterjee is the Associate Dean for Diversity, International and Master's Programs and a Josiah Meigs Professor of Economics at the University of Georgia's Terry College of Business. He also serves as the Director of the Full-Time MBA & MS Business Analytics programs. Prior to joining UGA's Economics Department in 2001, he earned his PhD from the University of Washington. Dr. Chatterjee is a three-time winner of the Economics Department's George P. Swift Teaching Award, the Hugh O. Nourse MBA Teacher of the Year Award, the Outstanding Faculty Award for Teaching from the Terry College of Business, and the Josiah Meigs Distinguished Teaching Professorship from the University of Georgia. He has been a visiting scholar at the International Monetary Fund, the University of California at Berkeley, and the University of Hamburg in Germany, and is currently serving on the Editorial Boards for Economic Inquiry and the Journal of Macroeconomics.
Christopher Cornwell
Chris Cornwell is a Professor of Economics and the Simon S. Selig Jr. Chair for Economic Growth in the Terry College of Business, and currently serves as the head of the Economics Department. He is also a senior fellow in UGA’s Institute of Higher Education and holds a courtesy appointment in the Department of Public Administration and Policy in the School of Public and International Affairs. Cornwell has a PhD in Economics from Michigan State University and a BA in Economics from the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, where he graduated summa cum laude. He began his career at UGA in 1988, and since then has been a visiting professor at Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg in Nürnberg, Germany; Monash University in Melbourne, Australia; Universite Jean Moulin in Lyon, France; and Central European University in Budapest, Hungary. He has also served as a visiting scholar at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. Cornwell's research interests include applied econometrics, labor economics and the economics of education. His papers have been published in Journal of Business and Economic Statistics, Journal of Econometrics, International Economic Review, Review of Economics and Statistics, Journal of Labor Economics, Journal of Human Resources and Management Science.
William (Bill) Faulkner
Bill Faulkner has spent over 25 years as a leadership educator and higher education administrator leading his own teams of professional and graduate level staff along with mentoring hundreds of emerging influences. He has developed leadership development experiences for undergraduate, graduate, and working professional populations across a variety of disciplines. Bill founded and serves as the principal consultant of Out Loud Strategies, Inc. which provides leadership/organization training and coaching for corporate, higher education, and professional association clients. Currently, Bill serves as the primary career and leadership resource for Executive MBA cohorts at the UNC Kenan-Flagler Business School.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Student Andrews University and both a master's and doctorate in education from the University of Georgia.
Troy Montgomery
Dr. Troy A. Montgomery is a performance improvement professional focused on solving problems, improving operations, and working with executive leaders to implement solutions for change. He is currently a full-time faculty member in the Terry College of Business where he teaches undergraduate and graduate Operations Management, Supply Chain Management, Lean Six Sigma, and Project Management.
Troy is also a Managing Partner at SC&E Partners, an advisory firm focused on helping organizations succeed in strategic change and execution. He has more than 15 years of experience working with large organizations across multiple industries including General Electric, Bank of America, and Humana. Troy is also an experienced researcher, former adjunct professor, and dissertation chair to doctoral candidates at the University of South Florida. Outside of teaching and advising organizations, he enjoys spending time with his wife, son and daughter.
Laura Sawyer
Associate Professor Laura Phillips Sawyer joined the UGA School of Law faculty in the fall of 2021. Previously, she was an assistant professor at Harvard Business School in the Business, Government, and International Economy unit, where she taught in the first-year required curriculum. Her research focuses on antitrust law and policy in both historical and contemporary contexts. She has extensive publications in antitrust law and policy, including a monograph with Cambridge University Press on the formative era of antitrust law, multiple peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, and several HBS cases and teaching notes.
At UGA, she teaches antitrust law at the law school as well as international political economy courses at the Terry College of Business and the Morehead Honors College. In May 2021, she received the Hugh O. Nourse outstanding teaching award for the MBA elective curriculum for her course entitled "Business, Government, and International Economy."
Patrick Waite
Patrick Waite is Vice President of Assurance & Advisory Services for Cox Enterprises, where he is focused on assessing and mitigating risk across the Cox family of business and driving business changes to support the overall organization. Prior to his current role, he served as Vice President of Supply Chain Operations, Planning, and Logistics. Before joining Cox, Patrick held numerous business transformation roles within the Fortune 1000: AGCO, Brambles, Linde and EY. Patrick holds a bachelor of science in operations and statistics from Miami University, a master of business administration from the University of Florida, and a Six Sigma Master Black Belt. In his spare time, he enjoys time with his wife and two daughters, along with teaching part-time at the University of Georgia.
Richard Watson
Richard Watson is a Regents Professor and the J. Rex Fuqua Distinguished Chair for Internet Strategy at the University of Georgia Terry College of Business. He was Research Director for the Advanced Practices Council of the Society of Information Management for nearly a decade and is a former President of the Association for Information Systems. In 2011, he received the Association for Information Systems' LEO award, which is given for exceptional lifetime achievement in Information Systems. As a visiting researcher at the Research Institute of Sweden (RISE) Viktoria in Gothenburg, he is engaged in establishing and applying Maritime Informatics to the shipping industry. The University of Liechtenstein has established with government support a Center for Digital Capital Creation based on the ideas in his recent book, Capital, Systems, and Objects. Dr. Watson is a senior visiting professor at the Southern University of Science and Technology (SUSTech) in Shenzhen, China. Professor Watson has published over 180 journal articles and written books on electronic commerce, data management, and energy informatics. His work has been accepted by leading academic and practitioner journals and has been translated into several languages. He has given over 300 invited presentations to practitioners and academics in more than 30 countries, including keynotes on six continents.
