To the Members of the Search Committee:
I am pleased to write in strong support of Professor George Monray and his application for a full-time faculty position at your institution.
I had the opportunity to work alongside George as a fellow professor at ESIC Business School in Madrid, where I came to know him not only as an accomplished academic, but also as a dedicated educator and highly experienced international business professional. Our experience as peers allowed me to observe his academic approach, his commitment to students, and his ability to connect rigorous business concepts with the realities of management and international business.
George has developed an unusually broad academic and professional profile. His teaching experience extends well beyond a single institution or educational system. He has taught Business and Economics for more than sixteen years at the Autonomous University of Barcelona and has subsequently worked with students and executives through institutions and programs in Europe, the United States, and Asia. His teaching areas include International Business, Strategic Management, Microeconomics, International Competencies, and related areas of management and economics. This breadth gives him an especially valuable perspective for a U.S. university seeking faculty capable of teaching an increasingly international and diverse student population.
One of George's greatest strengths as a professor is his ability to translate theory into practical managerial understanding. His professional experience outside academia enables him to bring real-world examples, international cases, and contemporary economic developments into the classroom. I have always regarded this ability to connect academic knowledge with managerial practice as an important characteristic of an effective business-school professor.
Importantly, I believe George's research profile should be understood in conjunction with his extensive teaching and professional experience. He is an academic who has remained closely connected to organizations, executives, and international business environments. This combination gives him a particularly strong capacity to teach subjects such as international business, strategic management, economics, and management from both a theoretical and practical perspective.
I have also been impressed by George's international orientation. His professional and academic experience spans Europe, North America, and Asia, and he has worked with students and executives from a wide range of cultural and institutional environments. Such experience is increasingly important in U.S. higher education, where students need to understand business not simply from a domestic perspective but within a global economic and managerial context.
Beyond his academic qualifications, I would emphasize George's qualities as a colleague. Having worked with him at ESIC, I know him to be intellectually curious, independent, professionally serious, and willing to contribute ideas beyond the immediate requirements of his teaching responsibilities. He brings an entrepreneurial spirit to academia while maintaining a genuine commitment to education and student development.
In my opinion, George would be particularly well suited to a U.S. university that values high-quality teaching, international business expertise, applied research, and meaningful engagement between academia and the business community. He would bring to such an institution not only substantial classroom experience, but also an international perspective developed through many years of academic and professional work across different countries.
I therefore recommend Professor George Monray without reservation for a full-time faculty appointment. I believe he would be a valuable addition to a university faculty and would make a positive contribution to students, colleagues, and the broader academic community.
Please feel free to contact me should you require any additional information regarding Professor Monray's qualifications or my experience working with him.
Sincerely,
Mario Weitz
Professor / Economist / International Consultant
World Bank Consultant and former IMF Executive Director
Madrid, Spain. email: marioweitz@gmail.com. Wikipedia: https://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Weitz
To Whom It May Concern,
I am pleased to write a letter of reference for Dr. Jorge (George) Monray a teaching at UAB International Master in Business Management at AUTONOMOUS UNIVERSITY OF BARCELONA (UAB). Dr. Jorge Monray currently teaches a seminar called Emerging Markets at the master Degree at UAB in which I used to be the Director.
Dr. Monray has a long and varied teaching and research career and I feel so fortunate to have acquired him on my staff again this year. In the fourteen years that I have known Dr. Jorge Monray I have been most impressed by his dedication to students and the high-quality teaching skills he brings to his position.
In all of my observations of Dr. Jorge Monray, he has always demonstrated exceptional teaching skills regardless of his class’s age group or diversity of learning levels. Dr. Monray always ensures that his students experience success by challenging their abilities in order to encourage as much growth and development as possible. His students are always treated with great dignity and respect and, as a result, he has an excellent rapport with them. Dr. Monray also has a very good working relationship with the rest of the peers in the program.
Dr. Monray brings a number of special talents to his role as a professor; he is a gifted communicator and he provides excellent lessons to his class, producing a great final output.
While he was with me at UAB for a long time, he has already contributed to the department in significant ways, bringing the most updated global economic data to his courses and publishing at renowned international journals as The International Journal of Competitiveness or the International Journal of Trade and Global Markets among others.
He is well-liked and appreciated by staff, students and management. He has always made himself available to staff members as a mentor and a guide in areas in which he has a 20 year expertise.
I was delighted to hear that Dr. Monray is applying for this position at your school. As well as being a dedicated, caring, skilled professor, I believe he possesses many of the qualities that will make him a very successful addition to your school community.
Though it is with a heavy heart that I see his go, I highly recommend his for the position. If you require further information, please feel free to contact me.
Yours truly,
Dr. Gabriel Izard
To Whom It May Concern:
It is my pleasure to introduce to you, Dr. Jorge (George) Monray, a highly valued teaching member at UAB and other institutions during many years. Dr. Monray is, in my opinion, a truly gifted educator. He quickly develops a good rapport with his students, establishes solid routines, and employs consistent and fair practices in his classroom.
Dr. Monray worked closely with me in developing high performance executive programs and classes for Postgraduate and Undergraduate students at UAB a few years ago. Students in his classes responded very well to his super-engaging approach to education and genuine interest in them. Under George’s guidance and encouragement, students consistently realized measurable gains.
As a peer Dr. Monray was pleasant and cooperative. He has a delightful sense of humor and contributed much to the staff, both professionally and socially.
It has been my pleasure to have worked with Dr. Monray as he is hardworking, well-organized, committed senior professor teacher who has given much its students. He enjoys the respect of his fellow professors and several school administrations.
I am pleased to recommend him without reservation, for any position requiring hard work, initiative, loyalty, and dedication. Please contact me if you need any further information.
Sincerely
Isabel Martinez Cosentino
To the hiring committee at the Economics department
If I were to define what professionalism at its best looks like, I would recall Dr Jorge Monray´s performance. I have had the pleasure of being the director of the academic center where Dr Monray taught for 9 years, therefore I can speak with aplomb.
Dr Jorge Monray is a conscientious, hardworking and amiable professor who´s passionate in what he does in more ways that I can mention. His classes of international trade were regularly evaluated by our students among the top 3 courses in terms of student engagement, rigor, and applicability. This is no small feat as many of our undergraduate students struggled with how much was expected of them at Arcadia University, the center I oversaw for thirteen years.
I used to say to the faculty that professionalism meant not only showing up on time, delivering good lessons and being helpful to the students (aside from knowing about their subject- that is a given). True professionalism, at least the way I conceive it as a former professor myself and language section director at Loyola University Chicago, where I´d taught– is best seen in how a faculty member performs those cumbersome, unpleasant, routinary tasks. The star of this type of unexciting work is the grade appeal. We would often have students underperformingbecause of too much partying (it was Barcelona, after all), or for being just generally unfocused. A grade appeal was something we all disliked: it entailed my arbitering the appeal, gathering evidence, and then forming a tribunal with my peers in Philadelphia. Crucial to this was having accurate records of attendance, performance, grades in pop quizzes, etc. When we had the first grade appeal by one of Dr Monray´s student, he showed just what a superb professional he is. He contested vigorously that the student´s appeal was unfounded and his incontestable evidence (attendance and the rest of parameters aforementioned) rendered the case undisputable. This saved all involved a great deal of time and back-and-forth. It also set the bar as to what kind of professor his peers should aim to become.
I can say that Dr Monray and I established a friendly working relationship, I can say he felt always greatly appreciated at our center and also by his students. His professional demeanor, his research record (with a great book on B2B business which I read despite being a linguist) and his knowledge of the subject area made him a stellar and valued professor.
As should be unambiguously inferred from this letter, I hold Dr Monray in the highest esteem possible. I firmly believe that any department that hires him will be fortunate to have among its faculty an energetic, driven, and knowledgeable professor- professional to the bone.
I will be delighted to provide any further reference for Dr Monray
Dr. Jaume Gelabert