Meet the Faculty

Jennifer Gregory Davis (Jen) is a leadership development educator and coach, dedicated to partnering with university students and young professionals in their career portfolio and personal development.

With more than three decades of experience in the San Francisco Bay Area—focusing on non-profit executive organizational leadership, strategic planning and coaching—Jennifer is skilled at helping individuals and organizations become who they are inspired to be.

Deeply committed to working alongside students as they prepare to lead in our complex, interconnected world, Jennifer is excited to support visiting BHGAP students within the Berkeley ecosystem.

Jennifer is a doctoral candidate in leadership studies at Gonzaga University, exploring the cultivation of globally minded emerging leaders.

Read more about Jennifer.

Timothy M. Dayonot has served three governors, first as an aide to Governor Jerry Brown, then as the director of the CA Department of Community Services for Governor Davis, a post he also held for two years under Governor Schwarzenegger. During his six years as director, he administered nearly $1 billion in state and federal funds.

Since 1998, he has taught negotiations at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business, also teaches at UC Berkeley's Goldman School of Public Policy and has taught at UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall Law School. He served as the government relations manager for the United Way of the Bay Area, government and community relations representative for UCSF and government affairs manager for the SFPUC. Read more about Timothy.

Andrew Isaacs is a successful scientist, business executive, entrepreneur and educator. He is passionate about mentoring the next generation of technology business leaders and has a strong track record of helping young entrepreneurs launch their careers. Andrew has worked at the crossroads of advanced technology and business innovation for 25 years.

Andrew has been teaching at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business for almost 20 years for classes such as Opportunity Recognition: Technology and Entrepreneurship in Silicon Valley; Marketing for High-Tech Entrepreneurs; the Business of Nanotechnology; and Energy, Sustainability and Business Innovation.

In addition to being a lecturer, Andrew is also Haas School of Business' Director of New Management of Technology Programs, Director of Mayfield Fellows Program and Executive Director at the Center for Energy and Environmental Innovation. In addition, he is also President of California Technology International Inc. Read more about Andrew.

Elizabeth Kovats is a faculty member at the Berkeley Haas School of Business and UC Berkeley's College of Engineering. Her areas of focus include innovation, technology management, entrepreneurship and philosophy. In addition to her teaching of undergraduate and graduate students, she regularly collaborates with innovation executives working in Silicon Valley. She has partnered with big tech firms as well as numerous innovation labs across a variety of industries involving Fortune 500 companies. Thanks to these collaborations, her view of innovation is continually growing. Prior to her work in the academy, she helped scale operations for a start-up in the high technology industry, from start-up through to IPO. Elizabeth studied creative writing at the University of Arizona and University of Iowa, and holds an MTS from the Jesuit School of Theology, with a focus on ethics. Read more about Elizabeth.

Gregory La Blanc received his J.D. from George Mason University and his LLM from UC Berkeley's Boalt Hall School of Law. He has been teaching at Haas School of Business since 2005, teaching such classes as New Venture Finance, Strategic Leadership, Behavioral Finance, Corporate Financial Management, Financial Strategy and more. Greg has been awarded the UC Berkeley Presidential Teaching Fellow, a Haas EWMBA Core Graduate Instructor of the Year and a John Olin Fellow from Boalt Hall School of Law.

His current interests include data and analytics strategy, business model innovation, alternative investment strategies, evolutionary decision theory, behavioral law and economics, behavioral corporate finance, complex adaptive systems and information in organizations. Read more about Gregory.

Darcelle Lahr serves as lecturer in both the Goldman School of Public Policy and the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, and as professor of Business Practice in the Lorry I. Lokey School of Business and Public Policy at Mills College. Dr. Lahr teaches leadership and ethics, social impact consulting, social entrepreneurship, business and society, strategic management, and innovation and entrepreneurship for sustainability.

In 2018, Dr. Lahr led the re-envisioning and relaunch of the Mills College Center for Transformative Action, creating a hub for social justice research, activity and community action for students, faculty, staff and alumni. Most recently, Dr. Lahr serves as co-chair of the Mills Black Faculty/Staff Association, co-lead of the Black Action Forum and chair of the Racial Incident Response Subcommittee of the Intersectional Antiracist Team. Dr. Lahr is also president and CEO of Integral Consulting Group, a Black woman–owned management consulting practice; the founder and executive director of L.C. and Lillie Cox Haven of Hope, a nonprofit supporting socially minded entrepreneurs and small-business owners in delivering valuable services to vulnerable communities; and the founder and executive director of the Women's Social Entrepreneurship Center, supporting socially minded women entrepreneurs of color.

Vince Law is a faculty member at Berkeley Haas, focusing on M.B.A. courses in innovation and design, with specific expertise in product development and product management. He is also an Adjunct Professor at California College of the Art's Design Strategy M.B.A. program, with a teaching focus on innovation. Read more about Vince.

Aaron McDaniel is a serial entrepreneur, corporate manager, real estate investor, adviser, author, teacher and professional speaker. He is currently a partner and Chief Marketing Officer of IP Shark, an online brand-protection service that helps brands eliminate counterfeits, stop unauthorized sellers and better control their e-commerce channels.

He also teaches entrepreneurship at UC Berkeley's Haas School of Business and is managing director and founding partner at Velocity Capital Group, a real-estate private equity fund investing in multi-family properties across the U.S. Previously, Aaron was the co-founder and CEO of Access Invest, the nation's largest mobile aggregator of private investments and co-founded Tycoon, the first real-estate crowdfunding platform to be acquired and Pong360 (acquired in 2012).

Learn more about Aaron.

Jon Metzler is a lecturer at Berkeley Haas, where he teaches on competitive advantage in technology markets and on international business at the undergraduate and M.B.A. levels. He is also associated faculty for the UC Berkeley for Center for Japanese Studies. He has received grant funding from the UC Berkeley Center for Japanese Studies and from the UC Berkeley Center for Long-Term Cybersecurity. Metzler is also faculty mentor at Berkeley Skydeck, an accelerator for Berkeley-affiliated startups. View Jon's Substack.

Rebecca Portnoy has been consulting, researching and teaching in the areas of management and organizational development for more than 15 years. She is a Visiting Professor at both the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley, as well as at the Lokey School of Business and Public Policy at Mills College. She teaches Management and Organizational Development and Organizational Behavior/Leading People in the M.B.A. and undergraduate programs.

Her research has been published in multiple academic journals and highlighted in The Wall Street Journal, Miami Herald and The Lewiston Tribune. Rebecca received her Ph.D. in management at the University of Washington Business School and her B.A. from the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. Read more about Rebecca.

Omar Romero-Hernandez is a continuing lecturer in the Haas Operations and IT Management Group and the Institute for Business and Social Impact at the Haas School of Business. He leads the Advanced Project Management Practice for the graduate programs. He has worked for a diverse range of public and private organizations and has more than 25 years of experience working in medium and large complex projects. Omar is an international educator, board member, national researcher and author of various books and several peer-reviewed international publications on project management, business modeling, green operations and sustainable development. Read more about Omar.

Matthew Stepka is Managing Partner of Machina Ventures, an investment firm focused on early stage, artificial intelligence and data science–enabled companies. He also advises companies on a variety of strategic issues, including fostering innovation, leveraging artificial intelligence/ data science technologies, and driving social impact. Stepka is a public speaker on how emerging technologies are reshaping our society and economy, and the important role of mission-driven enterprises. He is a Visiting Scholar/Executive in Residence at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business.

Senior lecturer Peter Wilton has been a lecturer and professor at Haas School of Business since 1992. He received his Ph.D. from Purdue University and his B.A. (1st Class Honors) from the University of New South Wales (Sydney, Australia). In addition to his teaching, Peter is also the CEO of ORBIS Associates, a research product evaluator at the National Science Foundation and a reviewer at numerous publications. His current research and interests include:

• Marketing and corporate strategy
• Innovation strategy
• Organizational transformation
• Customer-loyalty strategy
• Global strategy and international management
• Customer-experience strategy
• New-product management
• Sales force productivity
• Competitive strategy for high-technology organizations
• Competitive strategy for financial service institutions

Read more about Peter.

Since August 2016, Arman has been a lecturer at Berkeley Haas on entrepreneurship and innovation. He is also the CFO at Prodigy Software. Previous positions include Head of Finance at Farmstead, Head of Value Creation at Quona Capital and Director of Business Development at RocketSpace, among other leadership positions. Read more about Arman.