Jefferson Yu-Jen Chen

Dr Jefferson Yu-Jen Chen is a full-time faculty of the Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria, and a consultant of Forward Notion Advisory. Apart from coaching, delivering speeches and advising leaders across different sectors in his consulting capacity, Dr Chen is also involved in the designing and lecturing of various customised executive education modules. Many of these modules aim at fostering innovative leaders, strategists, and consultants.?

Prior to joining GIBS, Dr Chen served the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for 8 years and spent the prior 4 years managing his family retail stores. As Dr Chen's second PhD (WBS) focuses on enhancing the collective intelligence of teams for corporate innovation, he is always fascinated by how certain corporates manage to harness the right paradox between contextual self-disruption and steady incremental improvement.

Dr Chen was one of the advisory council members for IBM SA’s Equity Equivalence Investment Programme in 2015. He also served as the Lead Faculty for GIBS–Dimension Data collaboration until 2016 and the GIBS–Accenture partnership around Transforming for Digital Futures until the end of 2017. He is also co-leading the GIBS MBA Consulting Stream and trains a group of meticulously selected MBA Students to become next generation of problem-solvers.

Dr Chen is always fascinated by how certain corporates manage to harness the right paradox between contextual self-disruption and steady incremental improvement. In his spare time, he enjoys chatting with random strangers and often stumbles upon many great insights as the result of these seemingly unrelated conversations.

Qualifications:

• PhD (Wits)
• PhD (UCT)
• MPhil Executive and Management Coaching (SU)
• EDMP (SU)
• MSc Chemistry (RU)

Work Experience

• Senior Lecturer (Gordon Institute of Business Science )
• Principal Consultant (Forward Notion Advisory)
• Lecturer (Gordon Institute of Business Science )
• Manager (Gordon Institute of Business Science )
• Director (Constructegy Consulting)
• Acting Manager: Business Development and Strategy (Centre for High Performance Computing)
• Manager (Centre for High Performance Computing)
• Staff member (Centre for High Performance Computing)
• Post-doctoral research fellow (University of Cape Town)
• Executive manager (New International Trading and ShoeBiz)

Published Research

Published peer viewed journal articles

Chen, J., Mhlungu, N., Alkema, P. (2019). The underlying factors of a successful organisational digital transformation. South African Journal of Business Management, 21 (1), 1-10.

Armstrong, A., Van der Lingen, E., Chen, J. Y., Laurens, R. (2018). Towards a new model of grit within a cognitive-affective framework of self-regulation. South African Journal of Business Management, 49 (1), 5-8. doi:https://doi.org/10.4102/sajbm.v49i1.13.

Chen, J. Y., Urban, B. (2018). Behavioural and environmental influences on entrepreneurial orientation. Journal of Economics and Behavioral Studies , 10 (5), 73-88. doi:https://doi.org/10.22610/jebs.v10i5.2499.

Naidoo, K., Gamieldien, M., Chen, F., Widmalm, G., Malaniak, A. (2008). Glucose orientation and dynamics in a-, ß-, and ?-Cyclodextrins. Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 47 (112), 15151–15157. doi:https//:doi.org/10.1021/jp805174y.

Glass, B. D., Agatonovic-Kustrin, S., Chen, J., Wisch, M. H. (2007). Optimization of a stability-indicating HPLC method for the simultaneous determination of rifampicin, isoniazid, and pyrazinamide in a fixed-dose combination using artificial neural networks. Journal of Chromatographic Science, 45 (1), 38-44. doi:https://doi.org/10.1093/chromsci/45.1.38.

Egan, T., Chen, J., De Villiers, K., Mabotha, T., Naidoo, K., Ncokazi, K. K. (2006). Haemozoin (ß-haematin) biomineralization occurs by self-assembly near the lipid/water interface. FEBS Letters, 580 (21), 5105-5110. doi:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.febslet.2006.08.043.

Chen, J., Jansson, J. M., Widmalm, G., Maliniak, A., Naidoo, K. (2004). Molecular properties related to the anomalous solubility of ß-cyclodextrin. Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 108 (14), 4236–4238.

Chen, J., Naidoo, K. (2003). Evaluating intramolecular hydrogen bond strengths in (1-4) linked disaccharides from electron density relationships. Journal of Physical Chemistry B, 107 (35), 9558–9566.

Chen, J., Naidoo, K. (2003). The role of water in the design of glycosidic linkage flexibility. Molecular Physics, 101 (17), 2687-2694.

Published peer reviewed teaching cases

Nkosi, N., Chen, J., Scheepers, C. B. (2020). Allianz Global corporate and specialty SE: Leading digital innovation with cross-functional smart evolution unit (XSE). Ivey Publishing, 9B20M154.

Chen, J. Y., Scheepers, C. B. (2019). FNB codefest: Fostering corporate innovation through in-house hackathons. Ivey Publishing, 9B19M030.

Published peer reviewed case teaching notes

Nkosi, N., Chen, J., Scheepers, C. B. (2020). Allianz Global corporate and specialty SE: Leading digital innovation with cross-functional smart evolution unit (XSE). Ivey Publishing, 8B20M154.

Chen, J., Scheepers, C. B. (2019). FNB codefest: Fostering corporate innovation through in-house hackathons. Ivey Publishing, 8B19M030.

Non accredited journal articles

Chen, J. Y., Karuri-Sebina, G. (2017). Innopreneurship: The foundation of the truly smart city. Leadership, South Africa.