Getting face time with the top executives of a major luxury car company is an uncommon experience for most people. But for McDonough School of Business Associate Professor Paul Almeida, it's just another day.

Last year, Almeida met with the leadership of Rolls Royce North America. He visited the company's plant in Indiana and spent hours consulting with company heads as part of MSB's customized consulting program.

"Paul gave them the impression that he understood their business as well as they did, and that really makes a difference for people who are at the very top," says George Liebensfeld, director of academic affairs at McDonough.

When Almeida considers a consulting request, he asks a few questions, namely, "What are you looking to come out of this and how would you like to use me?"

If the executive is looking for someone who will give employees a pep talk or provide external legitimacy for internal decisions, Almeida always responds with a firm "thanks, but no thanks."

What he will do is take a no-nonsense approach and help a company focus on the ways to reach a unique solution for their business challenges.

"I will help guide you through the process of assessment and help demarcate a couple of clear solutions which may be tough or easy to implement," Almeida tells executives. "After that it's up to you."

Cutting to the chase is part of what makes him an expert in strategy and management.

"Strategy is actually about systematically increasing the chances of success," he says. "And that means not only understanding your playing field, but shaping your playing field -- making choices that may actually change the game."

Instead of accepting that an organization just needs to "play the game better," Almeida encourages executives to think about whether they're playing the right game.

"Business is an applied discipline," Almeida says. "If we cannot make a difference and apply these concepts and these tools to businesses in the real world, maybe we are not as smart as we think we are."

Almeida says executive education programs also demonstrate the relevancy of business schools to the business community.

"We're applying concepts and theories to the practice so that we can improve the practice," he explains. "It brings business into Georgetown and Georgetown into business and I think that creates a richer environment for both."

Students in Almeida's classes witness the benefits of this relationship firsthand.

Aliz Agoston, a second-year executive MBA student and staff member at the Mortara Center, says Almeida's approach has many practical applications.

"I'm looking beyond what's written on a paper, what people are thinking or when someone comes up with an idea," she says. "You cannot just look at what's happening today or tomorrow, but look at it in the long term -- five years, 10 years later, what is the impact of that decision?"

Agoston, who is interested in strategic human resource management, says Almeida's distinctive teaching style makes him stand out among faculty members. Others have taken notice too. Almeida holds numerous teaching awards from students in the business school and was listed as one of the Best Professors by BusinessWeek magazine.

"He challenges us and pushes us to the limit, never handing us anything on a plate," Agoston says. "Instead he makes us come to conclusions where he wants to take us, makes us say out loud the solutions to any problems we want to discuss."

A native of Goa, India, Almeida worked as an engineer and then launched India's first auto loans scheme at Citibank in Calcutta. But neither of these careers fulfilled him.

He went on to pursue an MBA at the Indian Institute of Management and a doctoral degree at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of business, where he was drawn to research and teaching.

"I love distilling what I think are the key ideas and making them come alive to the audience," he says. "To me, the challenge of teaching is not knowing stuff, it is understanding for that class what people really need to take away and figuring out how to make that alive for them, exciting for them, and how do you make that part of their thought process and their actions."

Almeida attended Jesuit schools growing up, and says that influenced his decision to come to Georgetown, where he has taught for 11 years.

"The ability and willingness to thoroughly analyze, to be logical with humanity … I can play to that at Georgetown," he says. "That's a huge part of me, not just giving back, but building a platform for this work."

Almeida is expanding his efforts through the new Global Executive MBA Program, which he anticipates will be launched next year. The courses will look at commonalities among business practices across cultures and include residencies in Europe, South America, Russia and the United States.

Almeida says that as globalization has created a number of new jobs and new realities in the business world, executives should be trained to tackle these developments in the best way possible.

"In the end I always tell my students, it has to make a difference to your business decision down the line. If it doesn't, I could have been entertaining, I could have been smart or clever but it doesn't matter," he says.

"It has to be able to change and improve your decision-making ability. If someone asks you a question, they shouldn't just say that's a smart man on the street -- they should say that's a sophisticated Georgetown student."

Source: Blue & Gray