College Park, Md. – October 22, 2010 – The Robert H. Smith School of Business congratulates five of its scholars identified as the likely leaders of the next generation of academics by top industry group the Marketing Science Institute (MSI).

More than 200 executives came together for an exploration of leadership at “The New Challenges of Leadership: Public and Private Sector Perspectives,” the inaugural conference of the Smith School’s new Center for Leadership, Innovation and Change (CLIC) on October 1. The center is led by directors Kathryn M. Bartol, Robert H. Smith Professor of Management and Organization; Paul Tesluk, Tyser Professor of Organizational Behavior; and M.

Supply chain and logistics management is much more than getting manufactured goods from factories in China to shelves in suburban America in time for holiday shopping. For some supply chains, careful management can be a matter of life and death. Take, for example, the risks in moving fuel and supplies to troops in landlocked Afghanistan.

With constant change, economic challenges and the havoc that events such as Gulf oil spills, natural disasters and terrorist threats can create, old models of balancing supply and demand are no longer effective. In this edition of Smith Business Close-Up with the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business, Sandor Boyson, research professor and co-director of the Supply Chain Management Center, discusses the new risks for today’s supply chains and how organization can deal with volatility.

College Park, Md. – Oct. 6, 2010 – The Supply Chain Management Center at the University of Maryland’s Robert H. Smith School of Business is bringing together top industry and government leaders to address inefficiencies in today’s supply chain and come up with innovative ways to manage risk.

Thursday, Oct. 21, 2010, 7:30 p.m.; Sunday, Oct. 24, 2010, 7:30 a.m.; Monday, Oct. 25, 2010, 4:30 a.m. Managing a VolatileSupply Chain     With constant change, economic challenges and the havoc that events such as Gulf oil spills, natural disasters and terrorist threats can create, old models of balancing supply and demand are no longer effective.

Curt Grimm, Dean’s Professor of Supply Chain and Strategy, described coaching his young son’s softball team to a rapt audience in Frank Auditorium. Grimm knew that only two of the children could reliably catch the ball. So he put those boys at first and second base, and then instructed their teammates to only throw the ball to first and second. It proved to be a winning strategy, because his son’s team took the championship that year. Grimm asked his audience to assess his competitive strategy: was it good, bad or ugly?

In the 12 years that Lawrence Gordon, Ernst & Young Alumni Professor of Managerial Accounting and Information Assurance, has spent pondering the economic issues related to cybersecurity, the risks have changed significantly. Businesses and government agencies no longer have to worry about teen hackers taking a shot at their organizations for bragging rights. Instead, multinational corporations and government agencies are suffering cyber-attacks from organized crime, large-scale fraud, disgruntled employees and even terrorists.

The Smith School made its presence known at the 32nd Annual National Black MBA Conference hosted by the National Black MBA Association. This year’s event was held in Los Angeles, California, from September 21-25, 2010.