Aahad Osman-Gani

Professor Dr. AAhad M. Osman-Gani, Dean and Managing Director of IIUM Academy of Graduate & Professional Studies, obtained PhD and MA from The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio, USA. Prior to these, he had MBA with double majors in Management and Marketing. He is also working as a senior Professor of HRD & International Management at the Department of Business Administration, Faculty of Economics & Management Sciences of International Islamic University Malaysia (IIUM). Before joining the IIUM, he was a professor at the Nanyang Business School of Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore for seventeen (17) years. He was also the Director of IIUM Graduate School of Management for several years. He is now a Specially Appointed Professor of Graduate School of Management, Kyoto University, Japan and was working as an Adjunct Professor of Kyoto University for a number of years. He was a Visiting Graduate Faculty of the University of Texas at Tyler, USA, and a Visiting Professor of few other universities in Asia. He is also the Director of Asia Business Leadership (Malaysia) Project based in Japan. During the past 45 years of his professional career, he has held various teaching and research responsibilities at several universities and organizations including The Ohio State University, Public Utilities Commission of Ohio and the University of Chittagong. He was a distinguished Guest Professor of East China Normal University, Shanghai; Visiting Professor of Peking University, China; King Fahd University of Petroleum & Minerals (KFUM), Saudi Arabia; University Technology Malaysia (UTM). He was an External Examiner (PhD Dissertations), External Reviewer (Curriculum), and External Assessor (Promotion & Tenure) for several universities, including the University of Minnesota; George Washington University in USA; Liverpool University, UK; UniSIM, and NTU, Singapore; and currently serves as External Examiner and External Assessor of many international universities from USA, Japan, and Malaysia (UPM, UUM, UTM, UNIMAS). He is a member of the Board of Trustees of the International Accreditation organization ABEST21 (Alliance on Business Education and Scholarship for Tomorrow-21st century organization), and Coordinator/Chair of Malaysia Council for Nurturing Global Management Professionals. Professor AAhad is a certified administrator of MBTI, STRONGS, FIRO-B, and BENCHMARKS Leadership tools. Currently, he is an Editor of International Journal of T&D (Wiley-Blackwell) and Editorial Board Member of the Human Resource Development Quarterly (Jossey-Bass), Human Resource Development International (Routledge), and Human Resource Development Review (Sage). He was the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Islamic Management Studies (WAIM), IIUM Journal of Case Studies in Management, and a Board Member of Journal of Transnational Management Development, Journal of Teaching in International Business, International Journal of Organizational Analysis, Advances in Developing Human Resources and several other international journals published from the USA & UK. He has taught many subjects in several reputed universities and consistently received excellent teaching feedback reports for teaching various courses at the undergraduate, MBA, DBA and PhD levels. He has supervised many postgraduate theses and dissertations, and produced some outstanding doctoral theses that won recognitions from some reputed scholarly and professional societies. Professor AAhad has published extensively in reputed international journals (ISI/ SSCI, SCOPUS indexed) and regularly presents scholarly research papers in top international conferences in his fields of interests (Academy of Management, Academy of International Business, Academy of Human Resource Development). He has published more than 150 journal articles, conference papers, book chapters, case studies, and research monographs. He has authored/co-authored several books including: Human Resource Development in Malaysia (Pearson Publishing); Spirituality in Management from Islamic Perspectives (IIUM Press); Performance Development and Training: Asian Perspectives (McGraw-Hill). Workplace Training & Learning: Cases from Cross-Cultural Perspectives (Prentice-Hall/Pearson). His doctoral dissertation on International Technology Transfer was selected by the ASTD Research Committee in USA as one of the top three in the field of HRD. Professor AAhad received the prestigious global recognition from the Academy of Human Resource Development as “Outstanding HRD Scholar”, which was awarded at its Annual International Research Conference held at the Knoxville Marriott Hotel, USA in 2010. He is the first Asian scholar representing an Asian University to receive the distinguished Award in recognition of his outstanding records of continuous publications in high quality scholarly journals. Beside this, Professor AAhad had received several other global recognition. In 2011, The Ohio State University Alumni Society has selected him as an Outstanding Alumni to receive the Distinguished Career Advancement Award. He was elected as a Director of the IBSTPI (International Board of Standards in Training Performance & Instructions). In 2009, he was recognized for his distinguished services to the Asian human resource development at the Academy of HRD Annual Conference held in Washington DC. In 2008, his research paper was selected as a Best Paper for publication in the prestigious Best Paper Proceedings of the Academy of Management Conference in USA. He has also received the “Cutting Edge Research Award” presented by the Academy of HRD for authoring the best research papers in 2005 & 2010. He was conferred the 2007 Leadership Award at the 14th Annual International Conference on Advances in Management (ICAM) held in Niagara, Canada. In 2006, he was honored for his contributions to the development of HRD research & practice in China at the Sixth Asian conference of the Academy of HRD. Professor AAhad also received the President’s Citation, Charles Mendenhall Award from The Ohio State University, and Public Service Award from the Public Utilities Commission of Ohio in USA, for his distinguished scholarships and professional achievements. Professor AAhad has been a Keynote Speaker at many regional and international conferences held in USA, Japan, Korea, Taiwan, India, China, Bahrain, UAE, Turkey, Malaysia, Indonesia and Singapore,. During the past few years, he has made invited presentations as the Featured Speaker at scholarly Seminars organized for faculty members and graduate students of some reputed universities (Indiana University at Bloomington USA, University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign USA, The Ohio State University at Columbus, Ohio, USA, and Kyoto University in Tokyo & Kyoto, Kumamoto University, Japan). He is a member of the Advisory Boards of some professional organizations, and provides advisory services to local and international organizations. He has also managed the family business operations for a number of years in real estate, manufacturing/production and trading sectors. Professor AAhad is also involved in social services & philanthropic activities, and served as a Member of the Board of Directors of Perdaus, and Mercy Relief International Singapore. Currently, he serves as a Director of the Academy of HRD Foundation Board in USA, and is the Chairperson of Outstanding HRD Scholar Award Committee of the academy. Professor AAhad is the founding Chairperson of Asia Chapter of the Academy of Human Resource Development, and was the Vice President of the International Congress of Advances in Management. He was the Conference CEO & Program Chair of the International Conferences on Human Resource Development in Asia for 12 years (held in India, Thailand, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, China, Bahrain and Turkey). He was the Chair of Malaysia Committee of ABEST21 and the Peer Review Team for accreditation. He is now the Co-Chair of GMA-EA (Global Muslim Tourism Associations of East Asia). Professor AAhad has also provided professional consultancy services to many local and international organizations including The World Bank, The Asian Development Bank, Economic Development Board, Trade Development Board of Singapore, SingTel, Singapore Productivity and Standards Board, Asian Productivity Organization, Singapore Military Training Academy (SAFTI), Ministry of Defense (MINDEF), Ministry of Trade & Industry (MTI), Ministry of Environment of Singapore, AKEPT (Higher Education Leadership Academy) of Malaysia, General Motors Corp of USA, Honda of America, IRTI of Islamic Development Bank in Saudi Arabia, GIBS of South Africa, and many Universities and SMEs. He was the Lead Member of the External Review Team for evaluating the performance of Higher Education Quality Enhancement Project (HEQEP) funded by the World Bank and awarded to the Department of Management Studies (2010-2013), University of Chittagong. A former World Bank scholar, Professor AAhad pursued graduate, postgraduate, and professional development courses at the top ranking universities of the world. He was featured in the Harvard Business Reference of the Profiles in Business and Management: An International Directory of Scholars, and in Baron’s Who’s Who of the Asian Pacific Rim. Professor AAhad’s expertise and research interests span the areas of International and Cross-Cultural Management, Human Resource Development, Spirituality in Management, and Leadership & Talent Development.