With a new semester comes new professors. A warm welcome to our four new BIC faculty, Andrei Chahine, Aste Gutiérrez, Jane Lacher, Sam McNerney and Craig Elimeliah. They will be teaching Creative Round Robin, Design & Portfolio, Data Analysis & Optimization, Consumer Behavior & Persuasion and Competition Ready, respectively. We also want to welcome back our stellar returning faculty members Michael Farmer and Rodes Ponzer co-teaching Internal Management, Scott Lachut teaching Brand Experience, Jessica Lomasson and Marina Beldi team-teaching Creative Concepts, Sandra Stahl teaching Branding Influentials and Peter Walpole teaching PR Branding Campaigns. In addition to being BIC Program Director and Management/ Brand Strategy Track Advisor, Nancy Tag will be teaching BIC Capstone: Corporate and Portfolio Thesis: Mgmt/Plan. Jaime Schwarz teaches Portfolio Thesis: Creative and Katina Scott is back teaching Portfolio Thesis: PR. 

A former pro jazz pianist, Andrei Chahine is teaching Creative Round Robin this semester. He is an award-winning creative director with 18 years experience leading campaigns and teams at top ad agencies like Anomaly and BBDO, in-house at media brands like MTV and Meta/Instagram, and most recently in tech at Cash App where he's Brand Creative Director. He's won most every major award in both traditional and new media. He now resides in Chapel Hill, NC with his young family, two cats, and a very cherished basketball hoop. 

Helping young talent in any way is the best part of his job, and our BICsters taking Design & Portfolio are lucky to have him. Aste Gutiérrez is a multiple Grand Prix winning ECD / CD / Writer, who’s worked in iconic agencies like Droga5, 72&Sunny, BBH, and TBWA\Chiat\Day, leading brands like Nike, Coke, IBM, Meta, Nissan and more.

A futurist and strategist, Jane Lacher brings extensive agency experience in establishing brands, delivering integrated marketing communication and creating customer value most recently as Head of Growth at GroupM. Teaching Data Analysis & Optimization, Jane is a business strategist with a diverse marketing, insight and planning background. Jane has worked in trends, strategy, digital transformation, creative, research and media roles on behalf of start-ups to Fortune 500 clients such as Chase, Georgia Pacific, Oracle, Kraft Foods, Verizon, 2U, General Mills and UBS.

Teaching Consumer Behavior & Persuasion, Sam McNerney is the Co-Founder of McNerney Insights & Marketing, a research consultancy that serves growing ecommerce brands. He has sold research solutions to global brands including P&G, Walmart, and Citibank and has been published in Scientific American, The Washington Post, and Psychology Today. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife and two kids. 

Currently Chief Experience Design Officer at VMLY&R and teaching our Competition Ready one-credit course, Craig Elimeliah is an award winning creative leader with 18 years of experience designing and architecting innovative solutions for real world problems, attacking those problems with diverse, cross functional teams and innovative ideas. He applies new ways of connecting brands across the entire customer continuum resulting in differentiated experiences that reinvent categories, are deeply rooted in culture, and challenge the status quo. In addition to being recognized at award shows such as Cannes, D&AD, ADC, LIA, Clios, The One Show and Webbys, Craig is a regular contributor for many industry publications and speaks at some of the most well-known industry events. 

Here’s to a great spring semester!