Curriculum Vitae
Teaching multiple sessions of Managing a 21st Century Career to students in the BS for Applied Arts and Sciences.
Working with Toulouse Graduate School to introduce a new PhD in Interdisciplinary Studies designed for the working adult based on the feedback from companies in City of Frisco. The PhD requires UNT and THECB approval.
Working with College of Business to introduce a new “Professional MBA and Dr. in Business Administration (DBA) to be exclusively offered at the UNT Frisco campus for the working adults.
Worked with College of Information, College of Education and Toulouse Graduate School to review the graduate enrollment processes, marketing, and analytics to improve the enrollment at the Frisco campus.
Worked with UNT International office and Toulouse Graduate School to create a partnership with KEIT university in Pakistan for a “Head Start” graduate students’ program in Advanced Data Analytics where students can start the graduate program in Pakistan and finish the degree in USA.
Partnered with Pakistani executives in DFW, UNT International office and UNT Advancement to create a new Pay it Forward Pakistani Scholarship for international students with an initial commitment of $100,000.
Partnering with UNT Advancement and Society of Information Management (SIM) to create a “Minorities in Data Analytics” Scholarship for graduate students at the UNT at Frisco campus.
Worked with TGS, UNT Alumni Association and Frisco Chamber of Commerce to establish a Frisco Graduate Council for the promotion and advancement of the UNT at Frisco campus.
Working with leadership team for Texas Center for Educational Technologies to assist in organizational setup and website oversight for communications.
As a clinical professor, designed, built, and delivered five career readiness classes with a focus on learning pedagogies of Constructivism and Connectivisim where the role of the faculty is that of a facilitator while the students learn as much from peers, guest lecturers, etc. as they do from the faculty. The following classes were taught over the last two years: Collaborative Thinking, Professional Communications, Problem Analysis, Team Creativity and Scholarly Research.
As the program director, partnered with UNT administration, faculty, enrollment, student services, marketing, admissions, and scholarships to first design the applied BS degree program with a focus on Project, Design and Analysis that would be delivered as a cohort over three years.
Played an instrumental role in the recruitment of the first two cohorts of 23 and 27 students to kick off the new degree for the UNT at Frisco campus under an existing interdisciplinary degree.
Worked with the Associate Dean to get the new degree approved first within UNT and then with Texas Higher Education Control Board.
Partnered with City of Frisco, nThrive and Savista to bring real projects into the classroom such that the students were applying their integrated learning from all the core and humanities classes directly on the project.
Nominated and serving on the UNT Faculty Senate Mentor Committee as a Group IV representative till September 2023.
Served on the New College search committee with the Associate Dean, Chair, Associate Chair with a rotating college chair that hire eight multi-disciplinary faculty members for New College at Frisco.
Worked as a team with Associate Chair to develop and deliverd an onboarding training program over 5 days to all the new faculty that was hired in summer of 2020 to support the teaching needs in Frisco for Fall 2020.
Worked with industry to bring the first foundational scholarship of $30K into New College for UNT at Frisco students.
Worked with Dr. Childers to be awarded $5K from UNT which was used to conduct a Problem Based Learning workshop for UNT faculty and PBL high schools in Frisco in Summer of 2021.
Instructor at SMU Leadership Development Center where we deliver a 3 hour “Cultivate Your Leader” workshop for MBA students based on my book with the same title once each semester since 2018. Received “Teaching Excellence Award” in Fall 2018.
Taught social media integration into corporate data analytics class three times as part of the SMU Data Analytics certificate program. Received the highest evaluation of all the instructors that taught in the program 3 years in row before joining UNT as full time professor. Average Evaluation 4.7/5.0.
Developed and delivered a master’s level course for 52 students titled “Key Decisions in Enterprise Architecture” as part of UT Dallas Adjunct Faculty in cohort setting for students in Mexico City, Mexico.
Utilized HBR and project-based approach to learning with all the students providing input to each other for final grade like real life.
Ali Z., Meng N., Warren S., Lin L. (2022) Integrated Problem-Based Learning: A Case Study in an Undergraduate Cohort Degree Program. In: Spector M.J., Lockee B.B., Childress M.D. (eds) Learning, Design, and Technology. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-
Ali, Z., Knox, A., (2021). Gaming Leadership Development with Multi-Rater Assessments. Performance Improvement Quarterly.https://doi-org.libproxy.library.unt.edu/10.1002/piq.21373
Meng, N., Dhimolea, T., Ali, Z., (press). Teaching and Learning Reimagined, book chapter in Bridging Human and Artificial Intelligence.
Turner, J., Baker, R., Ali, Z., Thurlow, N. (2020). A New Multiteam System (MTS) Effectiveness Model. 8(2), 12. Basel: MDPI.
Ali, Z., Meng, N., Lin, L. (2020) Key Lessons Learned in Problem Based Learning Case Study. AECT 2020 Convention Proceedings.
Z Ali, S Motavalli (1993). Requirements from a new generation of CAPP software, Proceeding Industrial Engineering Robotics Conference, IIE, Norcross GA, 1993.
Led annual cohort based Leadership Development (LEAP) program with representatives from various companies participating physically one day per month. The program utilizes assessments, surveys with peer-to-peer learning and flexible agenda.
Delivered several workshops since 2015 years in the areas of Leadership, Sales, Communications, High Performing Teams, Six Sigma, etc. to corporate clients like Brightstar, Blue Green, AmeriSource Bergen, Pepsico, Grapevine ISD, Dillards, LogistiCorp, etc. Each solution was customized by partnering with the industry leader to address the unique needs of the organization.
Co-led a monthly cohort based coaching Leadership Development program for UNT System known as “Deans & Chairs Leadership Development” for UNT Denton, UNT Dallas and UNT Health Science Center participants.
Executive Coach contracted on an annual basis to assist leaders at various levels of the organization for companies like Wipro, Intel, Capital One, LogistiCorp, Essilor, etc.
Ever since I completed my Master’s in Industrial Engineering in 1992, I have always wanted to further my education with a PhD and teach at a university. After working in the industry for 29 years in senior leadership roles, I was fortunate enough to start as an assistant clinical professor at UNT in 2018 as well as a student in the PhD program in the College of Information.
My academic journey has been an excellent learning experience by taking classes from UNT faculty consisting of Drs. Warren, Norris, Lin, Cockerham, Spector, Turner, Bedford, Kellner, and Lee. As a student of these experienced faculty, I was able to adjust professionally in the classes that I taught at UNT, as well as grow intellectually in four key areas: Education, Research, Technology and People Development.
My biggest learnings have come in the areas of education and research. My faculty and classes have provided me with a better understanding of the evolution of education, learning pedagogies, and instructional design. Based on my leadership style, I gravitate towards experiential learning and partnering with organizations to bring real life projects into the classroom with a fundamental belief that failure is the best teacher, and the role of the faculty is that of a facilitator. I also have learned to appreciate the value of traditional pedagogies especially with repetition and memorization as a useful tool in the learning process. My instructional design now allows for improved scaffolding and balance of skill development with application. In the areas of academic literature review, we were able to achieve Citi certification, two approved IRB’s, two articles published and an additional two publications that have been accepted with peer review feedback incorporated with seven different authors. My classes have taught me to better understand researcher bias and my own personal biases to reduce the risk of invalidating my research. My journey has also taught me to be more aware of quantitative and qualitative research methods, using proven instruments, investigator training, proper selection of sample size and the effort required to properly design and deliver a research project.
In the areas of research, I had to unlearn before I could re-learn and I am grateful to the feedback provided by my faculty. Traditionally, I have made passionate bold claims, however feedback has taught me that thinking through counter points will allow me to be more accurate on my claims. I am learning to provide background information before making a claim and then to support the claim with an example or citation. Faculty feedback has helped me get better at arranging connections to the main thesis while being concise and providing definitions. Tactically, I am consciously avoiding words that would be considered “figures of speech”, as well as the use of “etc.”. I have also taken to using an “APA format generator” to help references and learning to document my keywords and research databases.
My technology classes allowed me to build on my corporate experience as well as sparked the idea to lay the foundations for building an “adaptive learning platform” that leverages learning theories of Cognitivism, Constructivism and Connectivism. Class learnings, research and guidance from Drs. Norris, Lin, Warren, Turner and Cockerham as well as my experience as an executive coach allowed me to identify gaps in current multi-rater systems. This allowed my team and I to build a prototype of an Adaptive Learning Platform that addresses the gaps of current multi-rater systems such as customized assessments that are aligned with organization goals, “what if” data analysis performed online by the participant, personalized learning recommendations and personal development planning with execution for potential behavioral change.
My research interests and professional goals are to continue to assist with people development. My dissertation objective is to explore the application of the currently developed yet untested functionality of the Adaptive Learning Platform for Career Readiness in higher education or leadership development by working with UNT or a corporation as part of Design Based Research. I would also like to explore future prioritized functionality via research to make a transformational difference in Career Readiness and Leadership Development by leveraging emerging technologies such as machine learning and artificial intelligence.
Founded Sunbonn in 2009 and grew to 46 team members in 3 countries (USA, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan) serving some of the largest companies as well as startups as clients. We have delivered significant value to clients such as Barnes & Noble Education, Saudi National Bank, Capital One, Essilor, Schlumberger, LogistiCorp, etc.
Sample accomplishments include:
Worked with the client to define the strategy, develop the partnerships and then led the automation of solution to drastically change the prescription eyeglasses buying experience at the local Ophthalmologist to better service the client with finished eyeglasses delivered in 3 days vs 2 weeks while reducing the shipping costs by 50%.
Integrated the eCommerce for the largest retailer in the world with global lens provider by managing a team spread over Dallas, San Francisco, Bentonville, Paris, Jerusalem and Beijing such that prescription sales orders are taken from the retailer anywhere in the USA and eyeglasses manufactured in China are delivered to their home in one week.
Implemented the mortgage data analytics and management program for one of the largest banks in the USA. This included setting up the agile development process in four teams as they integrated the data of four mortgage acquisitions.
Developed an application that significantly automated the book adoption process for 900 universities with 800K users while significantly reducing the time it took to adopt books while improving the forecasting processes and reducing the manual book adoption process in the bookstores by 60%.
Developed microfinance and business services portals for the largest bank in the middle east that automated the manual processes and allowed the bank to service their clients in an B2B automated environment.
Instrumental part of the Schlumberger Excellence to Action (ETA) global team sponsored by the CEO to define the vision for operational excellence where five of our recommendations were approved by the executive team for implementation.
Led the Finance transformation initiative of ETA to establish a global Finance Shared Services Center in Dubai that provided services to all continents in a matrixed organizational model by focusing on standardizing 80% of the financial processes on a global basis to significantly reduce costs as well provide consistent reporting to the executives and the street.
Client executive for Moneygram IT Transformation initiated by Benchmarking with peer group and creating an IT Transformational Journey to become a technology leader in IT industry.
Completely turned around a failing CRM implementation by diverting the attention to focus on business sales processes, getting sponsors, defining metrics, and then automating the processes with technology to ensure that it met all the stake holder expectations.
Reduced $2M in annual IT spend by standardizing and renegotiating in the areas of telecommunication, internet services provision, hardware procurement, etc. while improving the services provided to our internal and external clients.
Implemented a customized agile software development process as well as operation support for all our services to reduce cost as well as improve our turnaround time on service calls by 100%.
Hired by NCH from being a consultant to lead the global transformational journey for this 90-year-old global manufacturing company with 3 divisions and operations in 52 countries.
Built an internal 80-person consulting team compromising of people with 20+ years of NCH experience and new Oracle consultants to support a three-year implementation to change every process and application in the organization while supporting existing business.
Team delivered 5 releases in 2 ½ years with standardized global Chart of Accounts, Sales process, Payroll and Benefits and rollout of complete standard business template in Canada as a model to be followed on a global basis.
Moved the organization from custom application development shop with no documentation of applications and aging workforce to well managed Program Office and Methodology.
Led the Oracle Customer Relationship Management (CRM) and Supply Chain Management (SCM) practice of the Oracle ERP Practice Management. Responsible for the PNL of the practice with a focus on working with Sales team in structuring the proposed solution and working with practice members to deliver the solution that exceeds client’s expectations.
Leader of the sales team for Emerson Electric to get Wipro selected as one two preferred offshore vendors for Oracle Application implementation services across all divisions for this $18 Billion conglomerate. Strategically positioned Wipro to win the Shared Services bid as well as several divisional work on a global basis. Worked with Corporate to define the Corporate Standard ERP template and with Divisions to adopt the standard templates in the areas of Finance, Procurement, Customer Relationship Management, Human Resources, Supply Chain, Warehouse Management, etc.
Other sales client wins included Sony, i2 and Best Buy where solutions were positioned by clearly understanding the business requirements to address them with ERP applications.
Led the team responsible for bundling consulting sales with the hardware product sales. The company faced hard times in the dotcom bust yet was successful in selling consulting services as well as leading the delivery such that the company would not lay me off.
Clients included Sprint and Medical Utility Company (startup) where our consulting services advise changed the founder’s mindset from build to partner allowing MUC to go to market within months vs years to start generating revenue in less than six months from company launch.
Typically, part of the client sales team and responsible for delivering over 12 client projects of averaging $5M in revenue and managing a team size of 5 to 35 consultants.
Built an internal $2M internal Strategic Innovation Center for Product Development in Chicago that allowed Accenture High Tech clients to look at innovative ways to improve their business functions such as: Finance, Procurement, Customer Relationship Management, Human Resources, Supply Chain, Warehouse Management, etc.
Part of two startup client teams at Takeda and Greenleaf to bring them into existence.
Started as an engineer focused on improving aircraft manufacturing processes by implementing newer technologies such as computer aided process planning and auto-riveting to reduce time in operations while making life easier for production personnel.
Selected and became part of the global team that implemented Bombardier
Manufacturing System (BMS) founded on the principles of lean six sigma and Toyota Production System. Worked in a cross functional team spread over four cities in three countries to standardize process from engineering design to jet deliver to the client for Learjet 30, Learjet 45, Learjet 60, Canadair RJ and DeHavilland aircrafts.
First job after graduating as an Electrical Engineer and responsible for the electrical design from very simple to complex manufacturing Flexible Manufacturing Systems (FMS) by working with the Mechanical Engineering group to understand the client’s business requirements and designing the electricals as well as the configuration of Programmable Logic Computers (PLC) to automate the manufacturing line by using various kinds of sensors.
Started out as a summer job while pursuing my education at WSU and turned into a full-time role leading to Manager of the department.