Brian O'Dwyer
Author & Founder, 5stepCareers
Commercial Founder & Executive Chairman, CognaLearn
Adjunct Professor, Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Asia
Career skills experience
• Reviewed over 10,000 resumes and interviewed hundreds as a hiring decision maker in finance interviews and management consulting case interviews.
• Led Credit Suisse Investment Banking recruiting in Singapore (hiring decision maker).
• Led A.T. Kearney Strategy Practice recruiting in Chicago (hiring decision maker).
• Career mentor to Columbia University and Duke University students for nearly 20 years.
Industry experience
• Corporate finance experience in 50 corporate finance debt, equity, and M&A transactions (including 20 deals in aviation) with a total deal value of US$15 billion.
• Chief Financial Officer of Australian and London Stock Exchange-listed Skywest Airlines until the sale to Virgin Australia in 2013.
• Investment banker at Credit Suisse in New York, Chicago, and Singapore.
• Management consultant at A.T. Kearney in Chicago.
• Entrepreneur: Founder of 5stepCareers, co-founder of CognaLearn and MEDNIVA.
• Appeared as an Aviation Analyst on Channel News Asia on 20 occasions.
Teaching experience
• Adjunct Professor at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University, Asia teaching Aeronautical Science for Management, Airport Administration and Finance, and Airline Management.
• Co-inventor of patent-pending method to optimize learning based on cognitive science with Ranga Krishnan, Dean of Duke-NUS Medical School (2008–2015). Entrepreneur-in-residence, Learning Technologies & Methods at Duke-NUS Medical School (2014–2015).
• Invited speaker, panelist and chairperson at eight conferences on blended learning, technology, and flipped classroom in Asia, Australia, and the United States.
Additional information
• MBA, Finance, Duke University.
• BS, Industrial Engineering, Columbia University.
• Founding President of the Duke University Alumni Club of Singapore. Private, commercial, instrument, multi-engine and seaplane pilot.