Dr. Bijan Azad is full Professor of Innovation and Strategy at the Olayan School of Business (OSB), American University of Beirut and the Director of Samih Darwazah Center forInnovation Management and Entrepreneurship.

Before joining AUB, Dr Azad had 25 years of industry experience in managing innovation, digital transformation, change initiatives and strategic problem solving in the corporate world both private and public sectors.

Dr. Azad holds Master’s and Doctorate degrees from Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He teaches in OSB’s Executive MBA (Masters in Business Administration),

Executive Education as well as MBA and MSBA (Masters of Science in Business Analytics) programs.

Since joining AUB, Dr. Azad has taught executives many topics including: innovation management, business strategy development, business strategy implementation, change management, operational excellence, and branding strategy.

Dr Azad, most recently was a roundtable speaker at 2025 annual conference of MIT Sharper Center for Prosperity and Entrepreneurship – New Calculus of Growth.

In 2016 he designed AUB’s first Small and Medium Businesses Growth Readiness Program that focused on overcoming their scale-up challenges funded by US Agency for international Development.

In 2019 he designed a similar program jointly conducted by AUB/OSB and IE University, called Global Scale Up Program.

In 2023-2024 a third edition of the program was designed and implemented in partnership with SPRAK NGO and EU in Lebanon—SSS – Program Scaling Up.

Dr. Azad is also very active in the startup ecosystem serving as bootcamp mentor/instructor at many startup accelerators including Arab Bank Jordan Fintech iHub, Flat6Labs, and Berytech AgryTech, IM-Funding MIT Venture Mentoring Service in Lebanon. He is also serves on the investment committee of AUB iPark.

Dr. Azad, in 1988 was co-founder of a successful map technology startup in Cambridge, Massachusetts, GIS/Trans, which was acquired later by Google Maps.In 2001 he co-founded another successful map technology startup International Land Information Systems bv acquired by ARCADIS bv 2003, in Arnhem, Netherlands.