Global is Local Business Summit

Charlé LaMonica has held service to the state front and center in her work. Since 2013, LaMonica has significantly expanded UNC World View’s support of educators, influencing 100,000 students in North Carolina in 2019-2020 alone; and increasing partnerships in both rural and urban settings. LaMonica and the World View team have led more than 21 global study visits through UNC World View, taking K-12 and community college educators around the world to learn about educational systems, classroom experiences, history, business and culture. These educational destinations have included Japan, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Slovenia, the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador, Costa Rica, Nicaragua, Germany, South Africa, China, Dominican Republic, Moldova and Ireland. Since the founding of UNC World View in 1998, more than 25,000 teachers have participated in UNC World View programs from every county in North Carolina.

Margaret Roberton returned to Central Carolina Community College as the Vice President of Workforce Development in August 2020. Prior to that role, she served as Associate Vice President of Workforce of Continuing Education with the N.C. Community College System (NCCCS). In her role as Vice President of Workforce Development, Margaret ensures that workforce development is part of all conversations at Central Carolina Community College, from how they respond to employers, advise students, create learning opportunities, and develop equitable paths to success. Margaret believes that workforce development is the cornerstone of what community colleges provide, whether it be literacy programs, short-term workforce credentials, customized training, small business centers, technical degrees, or transfer pathways. Margaret and her husband live in Chatham County.

Jayashankar (Jay) Swaminathan is the GlaxoSmithKline Distinguished Professor of Operations at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School. He is an internationally recognized thought leader in productivity and innovation in operations related to retail, healthcare, customization, sustainability, agriculture, e-commerce and emerging markets.

He teaches courses in global operations, global execution models and global supply chain strategy and management. Dr. Swaminathan has published more than 100 articles on these topics and is the author of “Indian Economic Superpower: Fiction or Future?” He has received numerous awards, including the National Science Foundation CAREER Award, George Nicholson Prize, Schwabacher Fellowship and Weatherspoon Distinguished Research and Excellence in Teaching awards. He has been a principal investigator on grants from the National Science Foundation, Obama-Singh Knowledge Initiative and U.S. Department of Education.

He is an inducted fellow of the three prominent professional organizations: INFORMS (The Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences), POMS (The Production and Operations Management Society) and MSOM (Manufacturing and Service Operations Management Society), a recognition of his lifetime intellectual contributions. A fellow of the Academic Leadership Program in the Institute of Arts and Humanities at UNC, Dr. Swaminathan has served UNC Kenan-Flagler in many leadership roles including senior associate dean for academic affairs, associate dean for the Global OneMBA Program and UNC-Tsinghua Dual Degree EMBA Program, director of the Global Business Center and chair of the operations area.

He has also served as vice president of INFORMS and MSOM society and as president of POMS College of Supply Chain Management. He currently serves as a department editor for Management Science and Production and Operations Management journals. Dr. Swaminathan has consulted with numerous firms over the last two decades, including AGCO, Agilent, CEMEX, Cisco, IBM, Kaiser, McKinsey, Nokia, Public Health Institute, Railinc, Samsung, Sara Lee, Schaeffler Group, TVS Motors, UNICEF and the U.S. Navy. His work with UNICEF led to major changes in the global supply chain planning and execution for Plumpy’Nut (RUTF) into Africa. His work to configure-to-order assembly using vanilla boxes impacted the electronics industry in the 1990s.

He received his PhD and master’s in industrial administration from GSIA (now Tepper) at Carnegie Mellon University and his bachelor’s degree in computer science and engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi.

Dr. Meenu Tewari works on the political economy of economic and industrial development, poverty alleviation, small firms, and the urban informal economy from a comparative, institutional perspective. She teaches in the areas of economic development, historical and institutional analysis of development processes, and microeconomics.

Dr. Tewari’s research focuses on comparative local economic development, and upgrading and adjustment in developed and developing countries. She is particularly interested in the implications of global competition for firms, workers, public sector institutions, and local economies, as well as the prospects for upward mobility in regions that are restructuring. Her research explores why, and under what conditions, are some regions, firms, workers, and institutions more able to deal resiliently and innovatively with the pressures of globalization than others; and what kinds of institutional arrangements and circumstances help diffuse these capabilities widely within the regional economy.

Dr. Tewari is a member of the Research and Advisory Committee of the Institute of Small Enterprise Development in India and has served as a consultant with the United Nations Industrial Development Organization, the World Bank, International Labor Organization, the Asian Development Bank, and the Inter-American Development Bank. She taught at MIT from 1997 to 1999 as a lecturer in Economic Development and Urban Planning. Prior to that, she was a post-doctoral fellow at the IFO Institute for Economic Research in Munich, Germany.

Vick moved to the USA from India for High School at the age of 16. He attended college at WPI, Massachusetts (high distinction) with a semester in Copenhagen School of Engineering. He is a Michigan resident and has worked with Bharat Forge and its global subsidiaries since 2003 and worked in areas of program management and sales. Vick worked as a resident engineer at Ford during the launch of powertrain components in NA from India.

Since 2008, he has held the positions of Sales Director in Bharat Forge’s global subsidiaries in the USA and Sweden. He held management positions in BF Kilsta AB managing the company sales of 90 M€. He represented Bharat Forge for the Sweden-India Business Council. After 4 years in Sweden, he returned to the USA and currently is the Director of Sales position for Bharat Forge Aluminum USA Inc (USA) and allied business development activities for the US markets, including the new Aluminum forging green field activities for automotive light weighting solutions.

Vick has a passion for space & aviation and is a flying enthusiast, and is working on getting his PPL (Private Pilot License)

Jimmy graduated as valedictorian from Western Harnett High School and obtained a B.A. degree in Political Science from UNC-Chapel Hill. He began his professional life in human resources with American Airlines, then returned to Sanford and worked in multiple roles with the Sanford Area Chamber of Commerce for nearly six years. During that time, he served as a board member and volunteer with numerous community organizations, including the United Way and the Lee County Partnership for Children.

Margaret Roberton returned to Central Carolina Community College as the Vice President of Workforce Development in August 2020. Prior to that role, she served as Associate Vice President of Workforce of Continuing Education with the N.C. Community College System (NCCCS). In her role as Vice President of Workforce Development, Margaret ensures that workforce development is part of all conversations at Central Carolina Community College, from how they respond to employers, advise students, create learning opportunities, and develop equitable paths to success. Margaret believes that workforce development is the cornerstone of what community colleges provide, whether it be literacy programs, short-term workforce credentials, customized training, small business centers, technical degrees, or transfer pathways. Margaret and her husband live in Chatham County.

Rutuja graduated with a bachelor’s degree in Chemical engineering from Mumbai University in India in 2012 followed by a master’s degree in Mechanical engineering from the University of Cincinnati in 2015. After graduating school, she spent 4 years in the USA working through various engineering and management roles at Edison Welding Institute in Ohio and New York, where she started as a project engineer in Additive Manufacturing and by 2018 was leading their Additive Manufacturing vertical which includes managing a project portfolio of $3M. In 2019, Rutuja made the move back to India to set up Bharat Forge Limited’s Additive Manufacturing Business in Pune. However, at the time, Bharat Forge was also looking to expand their manufacturing footprint to the USA and offered Rutuja the additional opportunity to manage the launch of its first international green field setup in the USA. After 2 years of back and forth between India and the U.S., and a successful launch of an $80M auto component production facility in Sanford, NC, Rutuja is now based out of the US and manages new strategic initiatives for Bharat Forge and their affiliated group companies in the USA.