MIM's Faculty

Dr. Tom Coughlan is a business professional, and academic, with over 39 years of experience in the field. He stated his career in marketing communications and management within the technology, professional services, and commercial real estate industries. Included in his professional experience has been the development of global campaigns for some of the worlds largest technology companies, a senior leadership position at an INC 500 company, and several successful entrepreneurial startups. 

In his academic career, Dr. Coughlan has been the Associate Dean of the Mercy College School of Business - where he has also been Program Head of the Mercy College MBA Program - and is currently a Tenured Associate Professor of Graduate Business. In addition, he has held or currently holds adjunct professor appointments at Sacred Heart University, University of Bridgeport, Manhattan Institute of Management, the European School of Economics, and the Weller International School of Business in Paris. 

Course taught by Dr. Coughlan often include marketing, management, and innovation. However, most of his graduate teaching covers courses that require the integration of disciplines such as case analysis, entrepreneurship, and capstone sequence of several MBA programs.    

Dr. Coughlan is also active in scholarship. He has been a member of the scientific board of ISPIM - the largest global professional society dedicated to the management of innovation. He has founded a peer-reviewed journal on the disciplines of management and innovation. He is current on the review board of several peer-reviewed journals, and has been a contract writer for Harvard Business Publishing. In addition, Dr. Coughlan is working with the University of Toronto Press on a book covering the developing crisis surrounding the management of remote workers. 

Ben has a BS Accounting and a MBA in Taxation. He is a Certified Public Accountant and a Chartered Global Management Accountant. Ben has over 35 years of auditing, and consulting experience. Ben was an Audit Director at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, North America's largest transportation network. As an auditing professional he achieved an estimated $100 million in savings through revenue enhancement, cost reductions, process improvements, and elimination of fraudulent activities. He was an Adjunct Associate Professor at NYU and has taught accounting and auditing for over 25 years and received the Award for Outstanding Service.  He teaches accounting and auditing at Baruch College Zicklin School of Business graduate school. He was nominated for the Presidential Excellence Award for Distinguished Teaching. Ben is a member of the American Institute of CPAs, New York State Society of CPAs and the Institute of Internal Auditors. Ben served for six years on the NYSSCPA Committee on Internal Auditing. He been a presenter at conferences for the Institute of Internal Auditors, MIS Training Institute and American Public Transportation Association. 

John T. LaPerla has over 30 years’ experience in Management, Customer Service and Training Management, both on the domestic and international fronts. He began his career as a pioneer of the Financial Services Customer Service Center and as a liaison in the United Nations environment. He continued his career at a major firm on Wall Street and went onto many years of experience in Customer Service Management in the field of Human Resources Information Systems. He spent several years training major clients in Customer Service and Software Applications.  He then used his keen ability to train others at the inception of the American operations of an Indian-based digital media company and was an integral part of a Business Consultation center, which received very positive feedback from a major client. He recently trained for the Professional Development Program for a major university. 

Leveraging his ability to train and educate, Professor LaPerla has spent much of the last 10 years of his career as an Adjunct Professor. He has taught classes in Management, Business Policy, and Strategy, as well as International Business.  Professor LaPerla has been asked to speak by the American Society of Training and Development and at Career Development seminars at universities in the New York area. He returned to the United Nations to facilitate a team of students participating in the MNUM. He has been published in several journals. Most recently, Professor LaPerla attended and facilitated a session at the IABE conferences in Munich, Germany and Los Angeles, California as well as in New York, New York. He virtually presented in the IABE conference in Nuremberg, Germany in June 2020 and June 2021. 

Ammar ElSankari is a financial expert and a professor of finance and economics with extensive experience in the U.S. capital markets, which he acquired over the course of his career on Wall Street. He became known to TV audiences as a regular financial correspondent from the New York Stock Exchange on Al Jazeera TV. He also made many appearances on the BBC and other news channels. Ammar has 14 years of teaching experience. He won the Neblett Prize for Educational Excellence in Teaching & Learning from Union County College in 2021. 

Anna Necakov has been an EFL and ESL teacher in Europe and in the U.S. since 2001. She has experience teaching in private and public school sectors, as well as in education
management. Anna holds a BA in TESOL, an MA in English Philology, she is a member of NYS TESOL, as well as a volunteer peer reviewer for Commission on English Language Program Accreditation, which operates worldwide. In her free time, Anna enjoys photography and volunteers at a local community garden as a member of a composting team.

With his extensive experience and education in coaching, training, and business, Elliott has devoted his career to developing the cross-cultural business communication skills of organizations and individuals.  He has worked across the globe as a business communication consultant and executive coach, with experience working in the US, Kenya, Costa Rica, Thailand and over 8 years in China. During his time in China and abroad he successfully developed training and culture-change programs to enable organizations to effectively manage the cultural challenges of overseas markets. 

As a former engineer, Nathan enjoys data science because it allows him to use a mathematical skill set which he acquired developing algorithms for individual products in order to optimize the behavior of entire organizations.

Nathan began his career developing algorithms for wireless communications at Qualcomm. He subsequently worked in data analytics for IP applications, and in data science for WiFi applications. Nathan is currently a data scientist at Silicon Valley Bank, creating machine learning models for banking and marketing applications. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Illinois, an MS in Electrical Engineering from the University of Michigan, and an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. When not working, Nathan enjoys skiing, cycling, wakeboarding and spending time with his wife and three sons.

Joe Comeaux is a Meteorologist , Software Engineer, Data Scientist and Instructor with experience teaching at all levels.  Along with his wife, he runs a non-profit company, Exploration Universe, whose mission is to get kids excited about science and technology as possible career choices.   Mr. Comeaux earned his MS in Meteorology from Florida State University and a certificate in Data Analysis and Visualization from Denver University.  He recently worked at Flatiron School and currently works at Pluralsight Inc and Manhattan Institute of Management as a Data Analytics and Data Science Instructor.