Wesley Balda

Dr. Wesley Balda is Executive Director of the Centre for Advancing International Management [AIM Centre] and Professor of Management at St. George’s University. Previously, he was the founding Dean at the George Fox University School of Management, where he developed their executive and professional MBA tracks, and created the first doctorate in management in the Northwest US. Prior to joining George Fox University, Dr. Balda served as the Director and Chair of the Executive Management and Ph.D. programs at Claremont Graduate University’s Peter F. Drucker Graduate School of Management in California. In addition to leadership positions, Dr. Balda has taught at the Drucker School, Claremont School of Theology, Azusa Pacific University, and Hope International University; he also served as Director of Student Services at Claremont School of Theology, MBA director and chair of the business program at Hope International University, and Director of Institutional Research at Fuller Theological Seminary.

He co-founded the Simeon Institute (with Dr. Janis Balda), which led the U.S. State department’s effort to provide crisis management education to officials of the former Soviet Union. Dr. Balda has worked in international efforts, including the 1985 Ethiopia Famine, community development projects in several international urban centers, and created management education programs at Cambridge, Oxford, and in Brazil.

Dr. Balda’s professional background also includes work as a senior agency head for the City of Ontario (CA), Ontario Police Department, World Vision U.S., World Vision International, and as a destroyer officer in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam conflict.

Dr. Balda served as edited several publications and has written numerous academic journal articles. His writing, consulting and presentations have focused on a variety of topics in the areas of management history, non-profit organizations, and disaster and crisis response. He is a member of the academic advisory board at Erasmus University’s Rotterdam School of Management, and has been a board member for numerous nonprofit organizations.

Balda received his B.A. in urban planning from University of Washington; M.A. in historical theology from Fuller Theological Seminary; and Ph.D. from the University of Cambridge, focusing on organizational continuity in management history.