Gary Akehurst is a freelance management consultant, researcher and author. He is also an Adjunct Professor at RSM Erasmus University in Rotterdam (a top business school triple-accredited by AACSB, EQUIS and AMBA), a Visiting Professor at Nottingham Business School, Nottingham Trent University and an Emeritus Professor of Marketing of the University of Wales. Previously he was Director of the School of Management & Business and Professor of Marketing of the University of Wales Aberystwyth. Other previous employments at Deloitte Consulting London, Price Waterhouse London, and various universities including Portsmouth, Cardiff and Surrey. He is Founding Editor of The Service Industries Journal, ranked 61st by ISI in the top 300 world management journals.Gary is a member of the Editorial Board of The Journal of Vacation Marketing (Sage) , Journal of Financial Services Marketing (Palgrave Macmillan), Service Business (Springer, USA), and the Board of Reviewers, Decision Sciences (Blackwells, USA).
Vinnie Jauhari is M.Sc. (Hons.) in Electronics from Panjab University, Chandigarh and MBA (Gold Medalist) (Marketing). She received her Ph.D. on Corporate Entrepreneurship from IITD and Post-Doctoral from the United Nations University, Tokyo in the area of Technology and Society. Before she joined at Hewlett Packard, she was professor and head of the School of Management and Entrepreneurship at IIMT. Dr. Jauhari is currently Region Lead-India, Open Innovation Office at Hewlett Packard India. She is also the founding editor of the Journal of Services Research and has over 75 publications in National and International Journals and has also authored three books on Business Strategy, Technology Management and Services Management. Her area of expertise is Strategic Management, Technology issues and Marketing.
Dr. Fevzi Okumus is currently the interim chair of the Hospitality Services Department at the Rosen College of Hospitality Management, UCF. He received his Masters degree in International Hotel Management in 1995 and his PhD in Strategic Hotel Management in 2000 from Oxford Brookes University, UK. He worked in the hotel business and held managerial positions before starting his academic career. Before joining the Rosen College in 2005, Dr. Okumus was the Department Head for Hospitality Management at Mugla University Turkey. Previously he held positions as Associate Professor at Mugla University, Turkey, Research Fellow at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, part time Lecturer at Oxford Brookes University, UK. During his PhD, he worked for InterContinental and Forte Hotel groups on the implementation process of some specific projects in their hotel units.
He has over 85 publications and presentations. He has published in leading journals, including Annals of Tourism Research, Service Industries Journal, Tourism Management, Management Decision, International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management and Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research. His publications have been cited over 100 times by other academics and industry practitioners in numerous academic and industry publications.
He is the editor of the International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, which is rated as a tier one journal in the hospitality management field. He also serves on the editorial board of seven journals including Annals of Tourism Research and Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Research. His research areas include strategy implementation, change management, competitive advantage, learning organizations, knowledge management, crisis management, cross-cultural management, and destination marketing.