Loretta O’Donnell

Dr. Loretta O’Donnell was appointed in 2013 as the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs at Nazarbayev University in Kazakhstan. She also served as Interim Provost in 2016.

As the Vice Provost for Academic Affairs, Dr. O’Donnell coordinates with Deans to develop international quality academic systems for educational programs. She liaises with Nazarbayev University strategic partners, including Duke, National University of Singapore and University of Wisconsin-Madison to implement the academic mission of the University and to share NU experiences with local and regional universities.

Dr. O’Donnell is the co-founder and co-chair of the NU/KAZGUU Annual International Academic Integrity Conference.

She presents on Eurasian higher education themes at international conferences including: ASEF (Asian European Foundation) Rectors’ Conference; Eurasian Higher Education Leaders’ Forum; Times Higher Education Asian Universities Summit and University Alliance of the Silk Road and the NU Annual Gender Forum.

She has over twenty years of experience in teaching Executive MBA, postgraduate and undergraduate business students in the Australian School of Business, University of New South Wales (UNSW) located in Sydney, Australia. As an elected faculty member of the UNSW Academic Board, and as Associate Dean Education, she combined academic policy development and implementation with her teaching, learning and research interests. She was Program Director for the UNSW AGSM Graduate Certificate in Change Management and for the Masters of Commerce program. Dr. O’Donnell has won awards for her teaching and for research on human capital analysis in financial markets.

Previously, she consulted in organizational change for a large global firm in Sydney and Chicago, and in a boutique firm specializing in developing management systems to sustain change. Her academic qualifications include PhD in Management (Macquarie Graduate School of Management); MBA (AGSM, UNSW), Graduate Diploma in Education and Bachelor of Arts (Honours) (N’cle).