Helena Barnard

Profile

Helena Barnard is a full professor at GIBS and responsible for the GIBS doctoral programme. She was on the organising committee for the Academy of Management Africa conference at GIBS in 2013, serves on the editorial board of the Global Strategy Journal and is the Academy of International Business (AIB) Vice President for Administration for 2017 to 2020.

Before she started her academic career, she worked at Home Depot in the USA from 1999 to 2004, first in Instructional Design and then in Logistics. Her first career was in the field of Adult Basic Education and Training (ABET).

Helena has been an invited speaker on emerging market multinationals at inter alia Aalborg University in Denmark (February 2006), Northeastern University in Boston (August 2012), the COST Action Group at the European International Business Academy in Sussex, UK (December 2012) and at NYU at a conference organised by Phankaj Ghemawat (September 2016).

From 2008 to 2010 she, together with the University of Lund (Sweden) conducted a cross-national project on innovation in the automotive and ICT industries in South Africa, India and China.  Helena served on the executive and scientific committee of an EU-funded FP7 project on global innovation networks (2009 – 2011). She also developed the proposal leading to Academy of Management, the leading professional organisation for management scholars, conducting its first-ever conference outside of North America at GIBS in Johannesburg in January 2013.

She is involved with ongoing projects with the University of Strasbourg (France) and Maastricht University (Netherlands) on global academic collaborations and with the Oxford Internet Institute on how online markets are changing business across borders. She is a fellow at the CEIBS Center for Emerging Market Studies and has been invited to join the DIODE network (Development Impacts Of Digital Economies) at Manchester University. She has been rated as an internationally recognised scholar by the South African National Research Foundation.

Responsibilities

Director of the Doctoral Programme. In this role, Helena manages the DBA and PhD degrees, and ensures that the research of doctoral students helps support the identity of GIBS as a school that is close to business, and an expert on Africa.

Consulting Involvement

She has been involved in an EU FP7 project on Global Innovation Networks and has been the recipient of grants from the SA-based NRF and Canadian grant agency IDRC. She has done work for SAMRO on the South African music industry.

Significant Achievements

• 2016: Recognised by the NRF as an internationally recognised scholar (ranking effective 2106 to 2021)
• 2013: Programme committee member and liaison with host organisation of the first-ever Academy of Management conference outside of North America
• 2010: Co-editor of a special issue of Journal of International Management together with Peter Gammeltoft and Anoop Madhok on emerging multinational
• 2007: Best reviewer, Academy of International Business
• 2007: Knut Holt Prize for Best Paper, ISPIM Conference, Warsaw Poland
• 2005: Rutgers Technology Management Research Center Dissertation Research Award
• 2004: National Research Foundation (South Africa) prestigious scholarship for doctoral study abroad
• 1998: Old Mutual Gold Medal for top MBA student at University of Pretoria.

Qualifications

• BA (Hons) English (UP)
• MBA (UP)
• PhD (Management) (Rutgers)

Fields of Interest

Her research interests are in how knowledge (and with it technology, organisational practices and innovation) moves between more and less developed countries, particularly in Africa.

She researches both organisational mechanisms (notably emerging multinationals and internet-enabled businesses) and individual mechanisms such as scientific collaborations, doctoral training and the diaspora.

Professional Memberships

• Academy of Management (2003 to present)
• Academy of International Business (2003 to present)
• Globelics (Global Network for Economics of Learning, Innovation, and Competence Building Systems) (2004 to present)
• European International Business Academy (2003 to present)
• Strategic Management Society (2014 to present)