Prominent CEOs and senior executives from various business sectors, including banking and information technology, are signing on to teach graduate-level business courses in the School of Management as part of the school's new CEO-MBA Series.

Malcolm Burnett, former CEO of HSBC Bank, kicked off the series with a one-week, three-credit course, "Marketing Financial Services," that was offered earlier this month as an elective to students enrolled in the school's full-time MBA and Professional MBA programs.

Although that course was offered during the students' winter break, it generated tremendous interest. Forty-five students enrolled in the course, which was held in the school's Jacobs Executive Development Center located in the Butler Mansion at the corner of Delaware Avenue and North Street in Buffalo.

Currently serving as CEO of BNKR, financial-services consulting firm, Burnett provided students with instruction on conglomeration, modernization and internationalization initiatives within the changing financial-services industry.

The course included presentations from several senior industry executives, including Mark Remington, executive vice president, Citigroup; Joseph Wolfson, president, Cartel WorldNet; Barbara Walter, senior vice president, Federal Reserve Bank of New York; Michael Pinto, CFO/CIO, M&T Bank; Robert Zack, CEO, Merchants Insurance, and Randy Lively, CEO, American Financial Services Association.

The CEO-MBA Series was initiated by management Dean Lewis Mandell, who last year team-taught a course on city economics with Buffalo Mayor Anthony Masiello.

"The idea is to give students the opportunity to see through the eyes of top executives whose decisions impact large, complex organizations and whole industries," explains Mandell.

He noted that the CEO-MBA series is scheduled to continue in May with the three-credit course, "High-Tech Start Ups," to be taught by UB MBA alumnus Ajit Pendse.

Pendse is founder and former CEO of eFusion, an Internet service company that recently was acquired for $52 million by ITXC, one of the world's largest providers of Internet voice technologies.