Chat: Thurs 10/2, 11 am – 11:30 am
Matt is co-founder and CEO of Nomadic Learning, where he leads content design, production, and overall strategy. He is the former CEO of 50 Lessons, a fluent mandarin speaker, and an independent film producer. Learn more at https://nomadic.fm.
Thurs 10/2, 10am – 11am EST
Forum: Challenging the Business Model of EducationThurs 10/2, 3pm – 4pm EST
Forum: Evaluating Policy & Rankings
John A. Byrne is chairman and editor-in-chief of C-Change Media Inc., a digital media startup that is launching a network of websites for the global business community. C-Change currently has two highly successful sites, Poets&Quants.com and Poets&QuantsforExecs.com. Little more than two years old, P&Q generates more than one million monthly page views and boasts a book imprint division which published its first title in 2012. Byrne is also the author of “World Changers: 25 Entrepreneurs Who Changed Business As We Knew It,” his first book in ten years since the publication of his collaboration with General Electric Chairman Jack Welch. That book, “Straight from the Gut,” was a New York Times bestseller for 26 consecutive weeks.
Byrne’s collaboration with Mort Mandel, a self-made billionaire and highly successful entrepreneur in both the for-profit and non-profit worlds, will be published in December of 2012 by Jossey-Bass as part of its Warren Bennis leadership series. The book is entitled “It’s All About Who You Hire, How They Lead…and Other Essential Advice from a Self-Made Leader.”
Until Nov. of 2009, Byrne had been executive editor and editor-in-chief of BusinessWeek.com. He led BusinessWeek.com to record levels of reader engagement and traffic, oversaw the redesign of the site, and launched extensive new areas of coverage on management and lifestyle. Mr. Byrne initiated the site’s twice-daily executive news summary, weekly interactive case studies, multi-media classroom videos, as well as new blogs and podcasts. He helped to develop and launch a major Web 2.0 initiative called the Business Exchange, an innovative product utilizing social media and news aggregation.
Under his leadership, BusinessWeek.com won two consecutive National Magazine Awards, the most prestigious recognition in magazine publishing, an EPpy for Best Business Website with over one million unique visitors (over The Wall Street Journal), and second place honors as the Best Website of the Year for news and business by the Magazine Publishers Association. In 2008 alone, BW.com captured an unprecedented 21 awards and nominations for journalism excellence. His weekly podcast on Business Week’s cover story has been downloaded nearly 10 million times. Mr. Byrne’s views on the future of journalism have made him a popular speaker and essayist. In the past two years, he has spoken at more than a dozen conferences, has been frequently interviewed about the new world of journalism, and has been published by Harvard University’s Nieman Reports, The Christian Science Monitor, and MediaWeek magazine.
Prior to role at BusinessWeek.com, he was the executive editor for the print publication since 2005, during which he began three new annual franchises, including the highly successful Customer Service Champions and the Best Places to Launch a Career, and recruited to the magazine such popular weekly columnists as Jack and Suzy Welch, Maria Bartiromo, and renown wine critic Robert Parker.
Previously, Mr. Byrne was editor-in-chief of Fast Company magazine. He joined Fast Company in April 2003, succeeding founding editors Alan Webber and Bill Taylor, where he worked to reinvent the business magazine. Under his leadership, Fast Company won many coveted journalism awards, including its first Gerald Loeb award, the highest honor in business journalism. Mr. Byrne also made Fast Company the first business brand to launch an online blog and created, through a partnership with Monitor Group, an annual award competition for social entrepreneurs. More importantly, Mr. Byrne found and cultivated a buyer for the magazine, resulting in a $35 million purchase that saved the publication from an almost certain closure.
Before joining Fast Company, he worked for BusinessWeek for nearly 18 years, most recently holding the position of Senior Writer and authoring a record 57 cover stories for the magazine. His articles have explored the fairness of executive pay, the folly of management fads, and the governance of major corporations. Mr. Byrne’s magazine writing has won numerous awards and has been republished in collections of the best writing on business. He was named a National Magazine Award finalist as well as a Gerald Loeb award finalist twice. Among his more widely recognized cover stories are “Philip Morris: Inside America’s Most Reviled Company,” a provocative exploration of the men who ran the largest tobacco corporation in the world, “The Fall of a Dot-Com,” an investigative story on how big-name investors, blinded by Net fever, poured millions into a dot-com that fell into bankruptcy, “Joe Berardino’s Fall from Grace,” a narrative of how Arthur Andersen’s CEO presided over the demise of his legendary firm, “The Man Who Invented Management,” a reflective essay on why management guru Peter Drucker’s ideas still matter, and “Are CEOs Paid Too Much?,” an early examination (1992) of why executive compensation was out-of-control.
Mr. Byrne developed the idea of a monthly best-sellers list, launched the industry-leading business school rankings, established and managed the magazine’s ranking of the best and worst corporate boards, and created its annual list of the most generous philanthropists. He also built out the business education franchise online in the mid-1990s, setting the stage for a highly regarded online community and one that has reaped tens of millions of dollars in annual revenue for BusinessWeek. He has been a frequent commentator on television, having appeared on CNN’s Moneyline and CNBC’s Squawk Box and Business Center.
Mr. Byrne is the author or co-author of more than ten books on business, leadership, and management, including two national bestsellers. World Changers, to be published by Penguin Books’ Portfolio imprint, is his first book in ten years. His previous book, published Sept. 11, 2001 by Warner Books, was Jack: Straight from the Gut, the highly anticipated collaboration with former General Electric Co. CEO Jack Welch. The book debuted at the very top of The New York Times bestseller list and remained on the list for 26 consecutive weeks. Mr. Byrne has written or co-authored seven other books, including Chainsaw (HarperCollins, 1999), the behind-the-scenes story of Al Dunlap’s rise and fall as a business celebrity. The book received widespread acclaim. Publishers Weekly called the book a “blistering saga” and a “sizzling tale.” The Street.com said Chainsaw “should be required reading in all business and accounting schools.”
Mr. Byrne’s other books include: Informed Consent (McGraw-Hill, 1995); The Headhunters (MacMillan, 1986); Odyssey (Harper & Row, 1987), the business biography of former Apple Computer chairman John Sculley; and The Whiz Kids (Currency/Doubleday, 1993), which explored the life and times of ten Army Air Force officers who helped to remake the Ford Motor Co. in the post-war period. Managment guru Tom Peters called The Whiz Kids “an important milestone in American management analysis. Warren Bennis has said the book is “the best history of American business from World War II to the present.” Mr. Byrne also wrote BusinessWeek’s Guide to the Best Business Schools (McGraw-Hill, 1989, 1990, 1993, 1995, and 1997) and co-wrote BusinessWeek’s Guide to the Best Executive Education Programs (McGraw-Hill, 1992).
As part of a new book imprint division at Poets&Quants, Byrne also is the co-author of “Handicapping Your MBA Odds: Profiles of 101 Applicants & Their Odds of Getting Into a Top Business School.” The book was published in the summer of 2012.
Wednesday 10/1, 9:00 pm – 10:00 pm EST
Forum: Increasing the Value of Management Education
Dr. Jacob M. Chacko is the Dean of the College of Business Administration at Abu Dhabi University. Prior to joining ADU, he was the Dean of the School of Business at Clayton State University, in Atlanta, Georgia. Dr. Chacko has also held administrative positions as Associate Dean and Department Head at two universities in the US.
At his prior institutions, Dean Chacko successfully led the AACSB accreditation and reaffirmation process. As the Dean of the School of Business at Clayton State University, Jacob led the initiative to develop an academic niche in Supply Chain Management. Under his leadership, the first BBA and an MBA in Supply Chain Management and Logistics in Atlanta were developed. He was also instrumental in developing the Center of Supply Chain Management to connect faculty and students with practitioners and companies for consulting, training, internships, and placement purposes.
Dean Chacko received his bachelor’s degree in accounting from India, bachelor’s and master’s degrees in marketing from Nairobi, Kenya, and Doctorate in of Business Administration in marketing and international business from Marshall Goldsmith Questrom School of Business in San Diego. He is a graduate of the Management Development Program from Harvard University, and was a Fulbright-Hays scholar to Singapore and Malaysia.
Dr. Chacko teaching interests are in international marketing, international business, marketing management, personal marketing, and strategic market planning at the MBA level. He has had his research publications appear in three books, in over 30 national and international academic conference proceedings and in 20 academic journals in marketing and international business. His research interests are the emerging economies of Asia and Central Europe, niche marketing, and ethics in international business. Dean Chacko chairs the AACSB’s Small School Network and he has been an invited speaker at AACSB and SBAA conferences on faculty development, online course management, and assessment of student learning. He has lived in Asia, Africa, Europe, and the United States.
Tuesday 9/30, 10:30am -11:30 am EST
Forum: Cultivating Innovation and Entrepreneurship
He is responsible for innovating solutions that enable the world’s most important brands to connect and deeply engage with the customers they serve. His team works with Global 250 enterprises to solve high-value problems, ones that blend consumer internet and enterprise assets from the broad Microsoft portfolio. In this capacity, he leads an inter-discipline organization that spans field sales, marketing, and engineering, and is comprised of a Consumer Insights team and an xD (Experience Design) team.
Rick has introduced the ‘Studio Model’: an approach for innovating insight-powered experiences that provide people more of what they want, and less of what they don’t – at work, home, and on-the-go. The insights are based on highly-differentiated frameworks for understanding human behavior, based on the primary research of the Consumer Insights team[1]. These insights are brought to life through design-based capabilities of the xD team. The Studio Model emphasizes co-creation with consumers, brands, and partners, and a test-and-learn iterative approach where are ideas are framed, vetted, and then ‘prototyped into existence.’ In this model, solutions are ‘pulled’ into the market – tuned by the evolving digital habits of consumers and the competitive demands of high-ambition CMOs.
Rick has 25+ years of experience as an entrepreneur and advisor, helping organizations build substantial market and competitive value through commercializing technology products, services and management approaches. Prior to joining Microsoft, Rick was a managing director at TCG Advisors, a boutique strategy and transformation firm based in Silicon Valley. Some of his work with companies such as Adobe was incorporated in a book on strategy and innovation, Escape Velocity, by Geoffrey Moore (Houghton Mifflin, September 2011). He also served as interim executive and start-up entrepreneur. As interim executive, he was CEO for LOBBY7 and Vice President, Corporate Development for Brix Networks. LOBBY7 was acquired by Nuance (NASDAQ: NUAN) and Brix was acquired by EXFO Corporation (NASDAQ: EXFO).[1] Key frameworks as described in the book by Natasha Hritzuk and Kelly Jones, both on Rick’s team: Multiscreen Marketing: The Seven Things You Need to Know to Reach Your Customers across TVs, Computers, Tablets, and Mobile Phones. CxO implications of these frameworks can be found in the Afterword.
Tues 9/30, 11am – 12pm EST
Forum: Cultivating Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Youngsuk ‘YS’ Chi is a leader in the media-tech industry. As Chairman of Elsevier, he works directly with governments, Elsevier customers and in industry associations worldwide. In his primary role as head of Corporate Affairs for Reed Elsevier, he is responsible for government affairs, corporate communications, corporate responsibility, and Asia strategy for Elsevier’s parent company. Chi also serves as President of the International Publishers Association, a global organization that represents the interests of more than 50 publishing industry association members from around the world.
Forum: Engaging New-Generation Students & Employees
*Forum Hosts engage throughout the 60 hours at unscheduled times.
Sangeet Chowfla is President and Chief Executive Officer of the Graduate Management Admission Council®, the nonprofit education organization of leading graduate business schools and owner of the Graduate Management Admission Test® (GMAT®). He became President of the worldwide association in September 2013 and Chief Executive Officer in January 2014.
Sangeet has more than 32 years’ experience in P&L Management, General Management, Product Management, International Business Development and Venture Capital investment, gained in North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, India and the Middle East. His particular area of expertise is the management of high-growth enterprises, the creation of high-performance teams, and the internationalization of businesses.
Most recently, Sangeet was EVP-Global Markets and Chief Strategy Officer at Comviva Technologies where he managed the company’s customer-facing Market Units (SAARC, Africa, MENA, LATAM, Europe/Americas). Previously, Sangeet managed the company’s Mobile Solutions unit, comprising all the product businesses, and was responsible for establishing Comviva’s operations in Africa and Latin America. During his tenure, Comviva’s overall revenues quadrupled to approximately $100 million, while international business grew 12-fold with a customer base of 110 mobile operators in 85 countries. As CSO, he advised the board on long-term strategy and direction.
Previous to his work at Comviva, Sangeet was a partner with Timeline Ventures in San Diego (2001-2006), participating in the acquisition and turnaround of Del Mar Datatrac (mortgage software). Sangeet was the lead investor and Executive Chairman of Technocom, leading the company’s Series A round of financing.
Earlier in his career, Sangeet held various management positions at the Hewlett-Packard Company over an 18-year period including sales and marketing management positions in Athens, Germany and Singapore. In 1995, Sangeet moved to San Diego, California, where he was Vice President and General Manager of HP’s Inkjet Media Division, which he grew from a startup to $300 million in revenues.
Sangeet took his BA in Economics from St. Stephen’s College at Delhi University and his MBA, with focus on marketing and finance, from the Faculty of Management Studies, Delhi University.
A global citizen, Sangeet has worked and lived in India, Dubai, Greece, Germany, Singapore and the United States.
Thurs 10/2, 9am – 10am EST
Forum: Cultivating Innovation & Entrepreneurship
Professor Christensen holds a BA from Brigham Young University and an MPhil in applied econometrics from Oxford University where he studied as a Rhodes Scholar. He received an MBA and a DBA from the Harvard Business School, where he is currently the Kim B. Clark Professor of Business Administration. He is regarded as one of the world’s top experts on innovation and growth.
Christensen founded a number of successful companies and organizations which use and apply this theories in various ways: Innosight, a consulting firm helping companies create new growth businesses; Rose Park Advisors, a firm that identifies and invests in disruptive companies; and Innosight Institute, a non-profit think tank whose mission is to apply his theories to vexing societal problems such as healthcare and education.
Professor Christensen is the best-selling author of nine books and more than a hundred articles, including the New York Times best-selling, How Will You Measure Your Life? He received the Global Business Book Award for The Innovator’s Dilemma and The Economist named it as one of the six most important books about business ever written. In 2011 and again in 2013, thousands of executives, consultants and business school professors were polled and named Christensen as the most influential business thinker in the world
Professor Christensen was born in Salt Lake City, Utah. He worked as a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the Republic of Korea from 1971 to 1973 and continues to serve in his church in as many ways as he can. He and his wife Christine live in Belmont, MA. They are the parents of five children and grandparents to five grandchildren.
See other VIP guest from Harvard Business School: David Gavin
Thurs 10/2, 5pm – 6pm EST
Forum: Supporting 21st Century Competencies
Jim Ciriello is Associate Vice President of IT Planning and Innovation for Merck, where he is focused on orchestrating the work of strategy, portfolio, architecture, innovation, digital business modeling, communications and learning across the larger organization. His previous roles at Merck include Executive Director, Strategic Planning and Health IT, which was focused on shaping the external environment and preparing the organization to compete on a new landscape of health information infrastructure, Senior Director of Strategy and Service Architecture for Shared Business Services and Senior Director of Business and Solutions Architecture for Human Health Information Technology. Prior to joining Merck, Jim worked at Boston University as Executive Director and Executive-in-Residence for the Boston University Institute for Leading in a Dynamic Economy (BUILDE), a research collaborative created to explore the effects of emerging technologies on competitive markets and organizations. Program Director for Global Mobility Insights and Innovations (GMII), a multi-university research program created to study the business impact of mobility and convergence of communications. In both roles, Jim worked with academia and industry to explore business platforms, real options, technological innovations and end user framed design. Prior to joining Boston University, Jim worked at AT&T and Lucent Technologies as a Director in positions spanning core business and the information technology organization. He is deeply rooted in the disciplines of business strategy, demand creation, functional architecture, systems engineering, and software development.
Jim is co-author of managerial points of view, including “Smart Health Community: The Hidden Value of Health Information Exchange”, “The Story of Island Man: It’s Not Just the Technology”, “Shaping the Future through Experimentation: Dr. Moulton’s Evolving Cone of Possibilities”, and “Convergence: Creating and Capturing Value for the Enterprise”. Jim holds degrees from St. Peter’s College (BS) and Stevens Institute of Technology (MS) in New Jersey, and attended the Tuck Executive Program at Dartmouth.
Thurs 10/2, 7am – 8am EST
Forum: Supporting 21st Century Competencies
Kevin Cox is the Chief Human Resources Officer at American Express. He is the primary architect of the company’s human capital plan and related strategies that focus on making American Express one of the most financially successful and respected companies in the world.
Kevin has been a leader in Human Resources for more than two decades. His expertise lies in the fields of organizational effectiveness, talent management, and driving large-scale complex change.
He joined American Express in 2005 after 16 years at Pepsi-Cola and the Pepsi Bottling Group (PBG), where he held positions leading strategy, business development, technology, and Human Resources. He played a significant role in the successful initial public offering of PBG in 1999.
Kevin is a member of the board of directors of CEB as well as Kraft Food Group, where he is chair of the compensation committee.
He is active in a number of professional HR organizations, serving on the boards of the Human Resources Policy Association, the National Academy of Human Resources, and the Cornell University Center for Advanced Human Resources studies.
Kevin is a frequent speaker on strategy, building organizational capability and increasing the role and influence of Human Resources in global businesses.
He holds a Master’s of Labor and Industrial Relations from Michigan State University and a Bachelor of Arts from Marshall University.
He is an active member of his community in Connecticut, where he and his family enjoy their involvement with a wide range of charitable organizations. His hobbies include golf, weightlifting, and listening to an eclectic collection of music.
Tues 9/30, 3pm – 4pm EST
Forum: Increasing the Value of Management EducationChat: Thurs 10/2, 1:00 pm – 1:30 pm
Management Skills Necessary to Thrive in the Creative Economy
Steve Denning is the author of the award-winning books, The Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Re-inventing the Workplace for the 21st Century(Jossey-Bass, 2010), The Secret Language of Leadership (Jossey-Bass, 2007) and The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling (Jossey-Bass, 2005).
From 1996 to 2000, Steve was the Program Director, Knowledge Management at the World Bank where he spearheaded the organizational knowledge sharing program.
In November 2000, Steve Denning was selected as one of the world’s ten Most Admired Knowledge Leaders (Teleos)
He now works with organizations in the U.S., Europe, Asia and Australia on leadership, innovation, business narrative and most recently, radical management.
His clients have included many organizations, large and small, around the world, including GE, IBM, Microsoft, McKinsey, Shell, Netflix, Bristol Myers Squibb, Deloitte, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Syngenta, Danfoss, McDonalds, Unilever, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Abbott Laboratories, MWH, Ernst & Young, CRM Learning, Xerox, Oracle, Maritz, Target, Burns & McDonnell, Mitre Corporation, Innovation Council, Deluxe, Fetzer Foundation, Diageo (UK), UK Parliamentary Ombudsman, Nestle (Switzerland), Novo Nordisk (Denmark), International Energy Agency (Austria), Symbiosis (Austria), PMI (France), Ambrosetti (Italy), ARK group (UK, Asia, Australia), Air New Zealand, World Bank, UN, UNDP, US Army, USAID, CIA, NSA, Defense Intelligence Agency, NetHope, The Brookings Institution, American Institute of Architects, California Workforce Association, CIA, NSA, NIMA, FAA, NY State Government, Oregon State Government, Australian government ministries, New Zealand ministries and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (Norway).
In April 2003, Steve was ranked as one of the world’s Top Two Hundred Business Gurus by Davenport & Prusak, “What’s The Big Idea? (Harvard, 2003).
Steve’s most recent book, Leader’s Guide to Radical Management: Re-inventing the Workplace for the 21st Century (Jossey-Bass, 2010), was selected by 800-CEO-READ as one of the best five books on management in 2010. It offers a comprehensive guide to the reinventing the organization for the 21st Century.
Steve’s book, The Secret Language of Leadership: How Leaders Inspire Action Through Narrative (October 2007) was selected by the Financial Times as one of the best books of 2007. It was also selected by the book distributor, 800-CEO-READ, as the best book on leadership in 2007. It is a comprehensive guide to transformational leadership, particularly how to use develop and use narrative intelligence to inspire enduring enthusiasm in any audience for your cause.
Steve’s book, The Leader’s Guide to Storytelling (2005) is a comprehensive guide to the various ways in which leaders can use of storytelling to achieve a variety of organizational purposes, including spark action, communicate who they are, transmit the brand, transfer values, share knowledge, inspire collaboration, tame the grapevine and lead people into the future.
Steve’s book, The Springboard: How Storytelling Ignites Action in Knowledge-Era Organizations (Butterworth Heinemann, 2000) describes how storytelling can serve as a powerful tool for organizational change and knowledge management.
Steve’s book, Squirrel Inc.: A Fable of Leadership and Storytelling was published by Jossey-Bass in June 2004. It discusses the seven highest value forms of organizational storytelling, about which there is already considerable advance praise.
Another book, co-authored by Steve Denning along John Seely Brown, Katalina Groh and Larry Prusak, was published in June 2004 by Elsevier. It is entitled Storytelling in Organizations: How Narrative and Storytelling Are Transforming Twenty-first Century Management
Steve was born and educated in Sydney, Australia. He studied law and psychology at Sydney University and worked as a lawyer in Sydney for several years. He did a postgraduate degree in law at Oxford University in the U.K. Steve then joined the World Bank where he worked for several decades in many capacities and held various management positions, including Director of the Southern Africa Department from 1990 to 1994 and Director of the Africa Region from 1994 to 1996. From 1996 to 2000, Steve was the Program Director, Knowledge Management at the World Bank.
Steve was a Senior Scholar at the Burns Academy of Leadership at the University of Maryland from 2006-2009.
In the Fall of 2009, Steve was a Visiting Fellow at All Souls Colleges, Oxford University, UK.
Steve was a member of the Quality Council V of the Conference Board from 1993 to 1996.
He has published a novel, The Painter and a a volume of poetry Sonnets 2000.