DU’s Daniels College of Business faculty experts available for many topics
As the holiday season approaches, faculty experts at the University of Denver’s Daniels College of Business are available to share their knowledge about a variety of relevant seasonal issues, including travel, shopping, supply, spending and charitable giving.
Charitable donations, end-of-year giving/planning
- Sharon Lassar, the John C. Gilbert Professor and director of the School of Accountancy
Topics: Tax loss harvesting, maximizing retirement contributions (401k, 403b, IRAs), the expectation of receiving information reporting (form 1099-K) for payments of goods and services received from Venmo, PayPal, etc. (this is new for 2022)
Bio: https://daniels.du.edu/directory/sharon-lassar/
Economy, inflation, supply chain, holiday shopping
- Jack Buffington, assistant professor of the practice
Topics: inflation, food supply, inventory, online grocery shopping, Christmas shopping, global supply chain, energy, sustainability
“Retailers and suppliers will continue to battle through the Christmas season (too much or too little supply/demand) and COVID, but now many place a priority on the larger, longer challenges they will face in supply chain over the next five years.”
Bio: https://daniels.du.edu/directory/john-buffington/ - Mac Clouse, Sorenson Distinguished Professor of Finance
Topics: Consumer spending, personal finance and budgeting, credit card usage, reducing expenditures, saving, finance, the economy, inflation, Wall Street
Bio: https://daniels.du.edu/directory/maclyn-clouse/
Note: Clouse will be unavailable Dec. 3-10
Employment/HR issues during the holidays
- Cindi Fukami, professor of management, is an expert in organizational behavior and human resource management.
Topics: Employee productivity during the holidays, end-of-year bonuses, strikes, lay-offs, unions, labor disputes
“Stress is always higher during big holidays,” Fukami says. “Given the added element of the national climate, family and coworker conflict might be higher than usual this year.”
Bio: https://daniels.du.edu/directory/cynthia-fukami/
Note: Fukami will be unavailable Dec. 25-Jan. 2.
Shopping, Black Friday, credit card debt
- Ali Besharat, associate professor of marketing, studies consumer behavior
Topics: Besharat’s current projects explore how financial decisions can be translated into sub-optimal choice preference, unhealthy consumption and overspending. He also researches brand alliance, effectiveness of marketing communications and branding within digital environments, competitive advertising and brand phonetics.
Bio: https://daniels.du.edu/directory/ali-besharat/
Note: Besharat will be unavailable Dec. 24-Jan. 2
Small business, startups, crypto
- Joshua Ross, teaching assistant professor, director of Entrepreneurship@DU
Topics: Crypto, blockchain, NFTs, entrepreneurship, small business, startups
Bio: https://daniels.du.edu/directory/joshua-ross/
Travel: Airbnbs, hotels, airlines, airports, restaurants
- Karen Xie, associate professor of service analytics, is an expert on the travel and hospitality industry.Topics: Travel trends in the current economy, perks and saving tricks during the travel season, how to use technology to make holiday planning and traveling easier
Bio: https://daniels.du.edu/directory/lijia-karen-xie/ - Lowell Valencia-Miller, associate teaching professor of management, spent 24 years of his business career in the airline industry. He was one of the original team members to help get Frontier Airlines off the ground back in 1994. His professional experience includes airport operations, customer service, marketing, e-commerce, information technology and business strategy. He is always available to share tips of how to make travel during the holidays a little more bearable.
Bio: https://daniels.du.edu/directory/lowell-miller/