Executive Fellows

UCR School of Business Executive Fellows Program

Established in 1992, the Executive Fellows program is comprised of C-Suite executives across all industry verticals such as technology, retail, health care, manufacturing and consumer goods as well as senior partners from strategy consulting, real estate, insurance, private equity, and financial services.

The UCR School of Business Executive Fellows program is unique among top business schools because of the scope of our Executives’ involvement at the school. Executives advise and mentor students in their careers, new business ventures, and professional challenges. In addition, they are instrumental to the school’s strategy of bridging theory and practice. Executive Fellows are selected for their outstanding leadership, professional experience, and business expertise.

2024-2025 Executive Fellows

Hilda Kennedy

Hilda Kennedy is the founder and president of AmPac Business Capital, a nonprofit community lender on a mission to finance and foster business success from cradle to legacy. AmPac was established in 2005, and two years later, the lender began providing business loans in partnership with the U.S. Small Business Administration and as a direct lender for small dollar loans for working capital. AmPac has provided loans totaling more than a billion dollars for businesses throughout California in real estate, equipment acquisition, tenant improvement, and ground-up construction and refinancing. Kennedy has been recognized with numerous honors at the local, state, and national levels, and she is an ambassador for Inland Empire Women in Manufacturing, bringing greater awareness to the significant contributions of women makers and manufacturers in the region.

Rod McDermott

Rod McDermott is the CEO and co-founder of McDermott + Bull, one of the fastest-growing executive-recruitment firms in North America with both domestic and international offices. In 2011, McDermott co-founded M+B Interim Leaders to address an increased client need for time-sensitive solutions to important leadership challenges. He is also the founder of M+B Executive Network, a community of in-transition senior-level executives seeking guidance to land their next role, serving more than 10,000 members since inception. In addition, he is the CEO and founder of Activate 180, which helps companies elevate employee performance, productivity, and happiness through affordable coaching.

Jeff Paul ’92

Alumnus Jeff Paul ’92 was most recently the vice president of sales for Red Hat’s West Region. In this role, Paul oversaw the comprehensive open-source software portfolio and consulting services practice for all customers west of the Mississippi. He has more than two decades of invaluable experience collaborating with clients worldwide to help them attain their business objectives and optimize the value of their software and services investments.

Executive Fellows in Action

Rod McDermott Lecture at UCR School of Business

November 25, 2024

‘You Are the President of Your Career’

As one of three 2024-2025 UCR School of Business Executive Fellows, McDermott, who earned a bachelor’s degree in business at UCLA, is spending time on campus throughout the academic year mentoring students and sharing his expertise: For more than 20 years, he’s been an entrepreneur growing companies from the ground up.

October 30, 2024

Executive Fellow Jeff Paul ’92 Is Back on Campus

By sharing a compelling narrative around the significance of the challenge coin, Jeff Paul ’92 explored its backstory and tied it to themes of organizational structure during his October 17 guest lecture in Professor Kyle Ingram’s BUS 107 course. “Jeff demonstrated how a firm understanding of concepts discussed in this course, particularly around key theories of motivation, can contribute to building a business foundation,” says Ingram, assistant teaching professor of management, adding that Paul drew from Ingram’s assigned reading of Edgar Schein’s “Three Cultures of Management” framework

UCR Business Executive Fellows 2024-25 with Dean Wang and Chancellor Wilcox

May 02, 2024

UCR Executive Fellows Celebrate a Year of Mentorship

At the dinner, the new 2024-2025 executive fellows were installed: Hilda Kennedy, a parent of a UCR graduate and founder and president of the nonprofit lender AmPac Business Capital; Rod McDermott, CEO and co-founder of McDermott + Bull executive recruitment firm; and Jeff Paul, most recently vice president of sales west region for software developer Red Hat.

January 02, 2024

Students Win UCR Organizational Behavior Case Competition

Over the course of two weeks in November and December, 60 teams across the upper-division Organizational Behavior course sections competed in a case competition. The final presentations were made on Dec. 7 before a panel of guest judges, who selected the winning team. “Each team was responsible for diagnosing issues and providing solutions for a real organization using course-related concepts covered throughout the quarter,” says Assistant Professor of Teaching in Management Kyle Ingram, the instructor for the course. Teaching assistants select the top team from of their discussion sections to

Meeting 2023-2024 Graduate Ambassadors

View Photos of Executive Fellows Visits on Flickr

UCR School of Business Executive Fellows

2023 - 2024 Fellows

David Gutierrez ’04
David Gutierrez is a healthcare executive providing finance and accounting leadership as the vice president of finance - strategic initiatives for Radiology Partners (RP), a radiology practice with more than 7,500 employees including 3,000 radiologists. He has served as an accounting or finance executive at RP since its early days in 2014 and has helped grow the organization from a start-up with less than $10 million in annual revenue to nearly $3 billion in annual revenue today.

Gutierrez has a tradition of supporting UC Riverside through providing scholarships, serving as an Alumni Association board member, and chairing the Accounting Advisory Committee of the business school’s Dean's Advisory Council. He was recognized as an Outstanding Young Alumnus in 2016 by the UCR Alumni Association. As a first-generation college graduate himself, he’s passionate about supporting education and mentoring youth to achieve their fullest potential.

Bansree Parikh
Bansree Parikh is president of the Inland Empire, California market for Bank of America. As the senior executive in the market, Parikh is responsible for connecting clients, teammates, and communities to the full power of the franchise, driving integration across Bank of America’s eight lines of business. She also leads the effort to deploy Bank of America’s resources to help advance economic mobility and build strong communities. In addition to being Bank of America Inland Empire President, Bansree is a senior vice president and market executive for the Inland Empire for Business Banking.
At the 13th Annual Inland Empire Economic Forecast Conference held in October 2022, Bank of America was the title sponsor and Parikh served as the conference’s emcee. Bank of America has provided other support including the Graduate School of Education’s Bank of America Chair in Educational Leadership, Policy, and Practice.

Timothy Wiseman ’83
Tim Wiseman is a Southern California native and 1983 UC Riverside graduate and member of the 1982 NCAA Championship Baseball team. After graduation and a brief stint in professional baseball, Wiseman started his business career which has since spanned five companies–Allergan, Gillette, Adidas, Nike and SKLZ—in a role progression from customer service representative to CEO, and lived and worked in over 40 countries.
“I believe leadership in today's world is a privilege which requires constant humility, self-correction, and perseverance of purpose. When done well, the people you serve thrive, and anything is possible. It's really that simple!”
2022 - 2023 Fellows

Anita Alamshaw ’91

Anita Alamshaw is the Executive Director, Global Value Access at Amgen, one of the world’s leading biotechnology companies. Prior to joining Amgen, she held high-level leadership roles at Biogen, UnitedHealth Group, and Johnson & Johnson.

As a UCR undergraduate, she was a member of Pi Beta Phi’s California Lambda chapter and was also active with the Highland Clan organization on campus. After earning her undergraduate degree in administrative studies, she earned an MBA from Pepperdine University. Ms. Alamshaw currently serves on the Board of Advisors for both the UCR School of Medicine as well as the Student Initiative Committee.

Armen Karamardian ’93

Armen Karamardian is the Chief Executive Officer of Zov's Restaurant Group based in Tustin, California and served as an Advisory Board Member of the Orange County Restaurant Association. Zov's was founded in 1987 by Chef Zov Karamardian and features contemporary Eastern Mediterranean cuisine and operates restaurants in Tustin, Newport Coast, Irvine, and San Clemente (summer 2022).

Armen is currently the Vice President, Development of the Tustin Public Schools Foundation, volunteers with Tustin AYSO youth soccer, and serves on the UCR School of Business Dean's Advisory Council. As a UCR undergraduate, he was a member of the California Mu chapter of Phi Delta Theta.

Kenneth Leung ’89

Kenneth Leung is the director of marketing at Oracle, responsible for global sales plays and marketing programs in the Oracle database and autonomous services group.

Prior to joining Oracle, Kenneth was director of vertical industry marketing at Avaya and also held marketing positions at Cisco and IBM. Kenneth earned his MBA with a marketing concentration at the UCR School of Business and currently resides in San Francisco, California.
2021 - 2022 Fellows

Maria Anguelova ’03

Executive Vice President at Sony Pictures Entertainment

An accomplished senior executive in mergers and acquisitions and business development and strategy, Maria Anguelova ’03 is an Executive Vice President at Sony Pictures Entertainment. In this role, she oversees corporate development, strategy, and global mergers and acquisitions. Prior to joining Sony Pictures, Anguelova spent a decade as an investment banker, providing financial and strategic advisory services to companies predominantly in the media, sports and entertainment industries, with clients including major studios, agencies and networks. Originally from Bulgaria, she earned a BA in international business from the University of National and World Economy in Sofia before earning her MBA at UCR. During her time at UCR, she served as a teaching assistant. She has continued to support students, participating in an online group and individual discussions about careers in media.

Tim Siegel ’91

Managing partner of LS Capital

A respected real estate professional and investor, Tim Siegel ’91 is managing partner of LS Capital, a fully integrated private equity company he co-founded in 1998. With two primary business lines, loan acquisitions, and fee-simple investments, LS has amassed a portfolio of over 1,000 loans and owns and manages over 1.5 million square feet of commercial real estate. Before founding LS, he also was the founder of TenantDirect.com, started with three friends in a small apartment. He is involved with multiple community programs, including initiatives to introduce low-income children to film-making and music. As a UCR undergraduate, he was a founding member of Sigma Alpha Epsilon’s California Omicron chapter and was elected as a student body representative. After earning his undergraduate degree in administrative studies, he earned a master’s degree in real estate development from the University of Southern California.

Vonda Simon ’82

Founder and CEO of SeaCliff Beauty Packaging & Laboratories

A leader in the beauty and wellness industry, Vonda Simon ’82 is founder and CEO of SeaCliff Beauty Packaging & Laboratories, which produces award-winning designs of stock and custom packaging and turnkey solutions for skincare, cosmetics, personal care, and wellness products. The company works with giants of the beauty industry, including Guthy-Renker, Murad, Estee Lauder, and others, and offers innovative and sustainable packaging solutions to meet today's evolving customer needs, including PCR, bio-resins, and refillable packaging. Simon began her journey in the beauty industry at TricorBraun, one of the world’s largest packaging distributors, where she quickly became the top salesperson. She created SeaCliff Beauty Packaging in 1999 as a one-stop shop where all aspects of beauty brand building could be facilitated, from packaging to formulation, all under one roof. Simon earned her undergraduate degree in administration studies.
2020 - 2021 Fellow

Michael L. Zemetra ’93

Executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer of Veritone Inc.

Michael L. Zemetra is executive vice president, chief financial officer and treasurer of Veritone Inc., a leading provider of artificial intelligence technology and creator of aiWARE, the world’s first operating system for artificial intelligence. Veritone aiWARE orchestrates a diverse ecosystem of machine learning models to transform audio, video, text, and other data sources into actionable intelligence. In addition to his role as an executive fellow, Mr. Zemetra serves on the Dean’s Advisory Council for the UCR School of Business. He is a seasoned executive with financial and operational experience in building, managing and scaling large global organizations, systems and operations. In addition to his undergraduate degree in business-economics from UCR, he earned a master’s degree in accounting from the University of Southern California and a CPA from the state of California.
2019 - 2020 Fellows

Darin Anderson ’89, MBA ’91

Chairman and CEO at Salas O’Brien

Darin Anderson is the Chairman and CEO at Salas O’Brien, a leading national facilities engineering design and commissioning firm which has been on the Inc. 500 fastest growing companies in the US for the last six years. They have achieved 2800% growth over the last 10 years without the use of outside capital. The company is designing projects exceeding $3 billion in construction value annually. Mr. Anderson currently is an Alumni Regent for the University of California, the recent past Chair of the UC Riverside Foundation Board of Trustees, served for 10 years on the Alumni Association board in various roles, and served as Chair of the UC Riverside School of Business Advisory Board for many years.

Dr. David M. Hadley ’71, M.S. ’73

Senior Vice President of Product Development for Cardiac Insight, Inc.

Dr. David M. Hadley is the senior vice president of product development for Cardiac Insight, Inc. and has over 30 years of hand-on experience blending customer needs with information technology through research and development. He spent nine years as Vice President of Research and Development for Quinton Cardiology. In this role, Dr. Hadley was responsible for rebuilding the engineering team, establishing robust new product architectures and developing the next generation of Quinton and Burdick diagnostic ECG products. Prior to his role at Quinton Cardiology, Dr. Hadley was with Primus Knowledge Solutions and Sierra Geophysics.
2018 - 2019 Fellows

Matt D. Lyons '87

Global Equity Trading Manager, Capital Group

Matt D. Lyons has worked in the equity trading area for Capital Group since 1995. Currently, he is the Global Equity Trading Manager, responsible for trading operations in the US, Europe and Asia. Matt has worked on the FIX protocol U.S. steering committee, STALA board of directors, NYSE Institutional Trading Advisory, and is currently the chair of the ICI equity markets advisory committee. Matt is a CFA charter holder, and earned a BS in Economics from the University of California, Riverside and an MBA from the University of Southern California, Marshall School of Business.

Byron Pollitt ’73

CFO of Visa Inc. (retired); Previously CFO of Gap Inc. and CFO of Walt Disney Parks

Byron Pollitt retired as CFO of Visa Inc. in 2015. During his tenure, Visa completed the largest IPO in US history and was added to the Dow 30 Index. Prior to Visa, he served as CFO of Gap Inc. and CFO of Walt Disney Parks and Resorts. Byron was selected by The Wall Street Journal as one of the Best S&P 500 CFOs and was ranked a Top CFO seven times by Institutional Investor. He currently serves on the Board of Voya Financial and on the Finance Commission of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies. He earned an MBA from Harvard Business School and a BS in Business Economics from University of California, Riverside.

William E. Thomas

Executive Vice President and General Counsel, KPC Group

William E. Thomas is the Executive Vice President and General Counsel of the KPC Group of Companies, which owns and manages a diversified portfolio of hospitals, medical groups, ancillary medical providers and real estate in Southern California and India. Prior to partnering with the KPC Group, William was the Founding and Managing Partner of the law firm of Thomas, Luebs & Mort in Riverside. Bill is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of the University of California at Santa Barbara, received his Juris Doctorate from Hastings College of the Law, and Masters of Law from New York University Law School.
List of Prior Executive Fellows
Below are business leaders installed as Fellows of the UCR School of Business and the years they currently are serving or have served. (Please note that the titles indicated are those held by the Fellows at the time of induction):
- Beverly Bailey, President and CEO of Stronghold Engineering (2017-2018)
- Candace Wiest, President and CEO of West Valley Bancorp Inc. and West Valley National Bank (2017-2018)
- Patricia Watters, Ph.D., Co-founder and managing member of Catalina Partners (2016-2017)
- Victor Tolan, President & CEO B&K Precision Group (2016-2017)
- Tobin Sloane BA ’94, MBA ’96, CFO of Ware Malcomb (2015-2016)
- Robert Stapleton BA ’80, MBA ’82, Entrepreneur and manager (2015-2016)
- Timothy Greenleaf ’78, Managing Director at Fairmont Capital, Inc. (2014-2015)
- Susan Atherton ’77, Vice Chair of the Board of Directors, Humane Society Legislative Fund (2014-2015)
- Ching Liu, Executive Vice President, SolarMax Technology, Inc. (2013-2014)
- Michael Vanderpool, President and Chief Operating Officer, Security Bank of California (2013-2014)
- Joseph P. Barr, Principal, Swenson Accountancy Corp. (2005-2006)
- Nicholas H. Goldware, Executive Vice President, Talbot Insurance & Financial Services, Inc. (2001-2002)
- Jack H. Brown, Chairman, President, CEO, Stater Bros. Markets (2001-2002)
- Jack Dangermond, Founder, President, ESRI (2000-2001)
- Joan F. Sparkman, Vice President, Temecula Valley Bank (2000-2001)
- James Robinson, Executive Vice President - Manager, Inland Empire region, City National Bank (1999-2000)
- Barbara Robinson, Los Angeles Region Manager, Bank of America (1999-2000)
- Richard R. Oliphant, President, Affiliated Construction Company (1998-1999)
- Debbi Huffman Guthrie, President, Roy O. Huffman Roof Company (1998-1999)
- Donald N. Ecker, Managing Partner, Ernst & Young LLP (1997-1998)
- Richard Heckmann, Chairman, CEO, US Filter (1997-1998)
- Nicholas J. Coussoulis, President, Coussoulis Development Company (1996-1997)
- Amy S. Harrison, Vice Chairman, President, Children's Comprehensive Services, Inc. (1996-1997)
- Ronald D. Lossett, Executive Vice President, CFO, Pacific Physician Services, Inc. (1995-1996)
- Donald H. Dye, President, CFO, Callaway Golf Co. (1995-1996)
- Glenn F. Kummer, President, COO, Fleetwood Enterprises, Inc. (1994-1995)
- Marcia McQuern, President, CEO, The Press-Enterprise (1994-1995)
- Jacques S. Yeager, Chairman, CEO, E.L. Yeager Construction Co. (1993-1994)
- Craig G. Blunden, Chairman, President, CEO, Provident Savings Bank (1993-1994)
- Steven R. Sensenbach, President, CEO, Vineyard National Bank (1992-1993)
- Donald R. Lea, President, Deutsch, ECD (1992-1993)