Claire Preisser, Senior Program Manager, Business and Society, The Aspen Institute

Wed 10/1, 10am – 11am EST
Forum: Engaging New-Generation Students & Employees

Claire Preisser is Senior Program Manager at the Aspen Institute Business and Society Program. In this role, she focuses on dialogue-based projects with business academics and executives; she currently leads the Aspen Undergraduate Business Education Consortium, and the annual Aspen Institute Business Education Symposium. Claire was Program Manager and Associate Director of the Business and Society Program from 2001-7. In 2008-9, Claire was Development Director at the Tobin Project, which seeks to connect academic research agendas with pressing public policy issues. She has also served as freelance writer on several projects examining corporate leadership.

Claire’s early career experiences include two years at a boutique management consulting firm specializing in systems thinking and seven years in direct service roles with the elderly, women in recovery, and political refugees. Claire holds a BA from The College of William and Mary and an MBA from The F.W. Olin Graduate School of Business at Babson College.

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Ambi M.G. Parameswaran, PhD, Advisor, FCB Ulka Advertising

Tues 9/30, 10am – 11am EST
Forum: Engaging New-Generation Students & Employees

Ambi as he is known, is a Chemical Engineer from IIT Madras (Indian Institute of Technology) and a Management Graduate from IIM Calcutta (Indian Institute of Management).  In a career spanning three decades he has handled assignments in marketing, sales and advertising with companies like Rediffusion DY&R, Boots Company and UDI Yellow Pages before dropping anchor at FCB Ulka Advertising over two decades ago.  He has had a key role in the transformation of Ulka Advertising into FCB Ulka Group, one of India’s top three marketing communication group, with interests in advertising, media, consulting, digital, and healthcare. He has worked on numerous brands including Digene, Brufen, Santoor Soap, Sundrop Cooking Oil, TCS, ICICI Bank, Wipro, Tata Indica Cars, Zee TV among others, covering diverse categories such as automotives, healthcare, telecom, FMCG, corporate etc.

Ambi has been contributing articles to premier business publications, has conducted seminars and branding workshops for Indian/ MNC organizations and industry bodies. He has been a speaker at international forums including the Kellogg India Conference at Northwestern University and Cornell University; he has also been a guest faculty at several business schools including Indian School of Business and his alma mater, IIMC. He has also presented papers at international conferences of Association for Consumer Research and INFORMS.

Ambi now has seven books to his credit including: “FCB-Ulka Brand Building Advertising – Concepts and Cases”; “Building Brand Value – Five Steps to Building Powerful Brands” (Winner of 2007 NTPC – DMA Book Prize), and “For God’s Sake – An adman on the Business of Religion” (the last book was inspired by his research on “Religion and Consumer Behaviour”)

Ambi is involved in several industry organizations such as CII, IAA and has served as the President of Advertising Club Bombay. He successfully completed his PhD from Mumbai University in 2012, and the Advanced Management Programme from Harvard Business School in 2014. He was inducted into the Board of Governors of IIMC in 2007 and he received the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Madras in April 2009. Ambi was elected as the President of the apex advertising industry body, the Advertising Agencies Association of India (AAAI) in July 2014.

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Giselle Weybrecht, Bestselling author of ‘The Sustainable MBA: A Business Guide to Sustainability’

Thurs 10/2, 11am – 12pm EST
Forum: Engaging New-Generation Students & Employees

Giselle Weybrecht is the bestselling author of The Sustainable MBA: A Business Guide to Sustainability published by Wiley, 2nd edition 2014. The book aims to educate the next generation of business leaders about sustainability issues, whether these be students or business executives. Giselle has over 15 years of experience as an advisor in sustainable development and business topics internationally with the United Nations, business schools, governments and the business sector. She is a frequent lecturer and trainer on these topics and is a Special Advisor to the United Nations Global Compact on management education issues. Over the past 100 days she has been exploring how the MBA can adapt to ensure that it trains the kinds of sustainability leaders that organizations and the world needs by posting one idea a day at 100futuremba.com.

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Jeffrey Selingo, Contributing Editor, “The Chronicle of Higher Education”; Professor of Practice, Arizona State University

Wed 10/1, 9am – 10am EST
Forum: Engaging New-Generation Students & Employees

Jeff Selingo is a best-selling author and award-winning columnist who helps parents and higher-education leaders imagine the college and university of the future: how families will pay, what campuses will look like, how students will learn, and what experiences will lead to success in a fast-changing economy.

His book, College (Un)Bound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students, was a New York Times best selling education book in 2013. His latest book, MOOC U: Who Is Getting the Most Out of Online Education and Why, was published in September by Simon & Schuster, and he is working on his next book about the post-college job market due in 2016 from William Morrow/HarperCollins.

A contributing editor to The Chronicle of Higher Education, Jeff is also a professor of practice at Arizona State University. He is the former top editor of The Chronicle, where he worked for 16 years in a variety of reporting and editing roles. His writing has also appeared in The New York TimesThe Washington PostThe Wall Street Journal, and Slate, and he is a contributor to LinkedIn, where you can follow his blog posts on higher education.

Jeff’s work has been honored with awards from the Education Writers Association, Society of Professional Journalists, and the Associated Press. He has been the keynote speaker before dozens of associations and universities and appears regularly on regional and national radio and television programs, including NPR, ABC, and CBS.

Jeff received a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Ithaca College and a master’s degree in government from the Johns Hopkins University.

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Jeanette Horan, Managing Director, IBM Corp.

Thurs 10/2, 12:30pm – 1:30pm EST
Forum: Engaging New-Generation Students & Employees

Ms. Horan was appointed to the role of Managing Director for Bank of America account in July 2014. In this role she is responsible for IBM’s business with Bank, bringing IBM innovations to help the Bank in their ongoing transformation.

Previously Ms. Horan was the Chief Information Officer of IBM where she led the development and implementation of a technology strategy in close partnership with the business. Her emphasis was on the confluence of social, mobile, cloud and analytics; and how to use these technologies securely to personalize and enhance employee and client experiences.

Prior to her CIO position, Ms. Horan was the vice president of Enterprise Business Transformation, leading IBM’s transformation program for key back office processes to accelerate IBM’s leadership as a globally integrated enterprise.

Ms. Horan joined IBM in 1998, and has held leadership positions within the Lotus brand, Information Management and IBM Software Group Strategy. Prior to joining the CIO office in 2006, Ms. Horan was responsible for worldwide product development for the Information Management business in Software Group, and was the General Manager of IBM’s Silicon Valley Laboratory.

Prior to joining Lotus, Ms. Horan spent four years with Digital Equipment Corporation where she was vice president of development for the AltaVista business, bringing the Web search engine and suite of intranet products to market. She has more than 30 years experience in development and management roles in the computer industry.

As part of her business and personal involvement in the advancement of technology and service to the community, Ms. Horan serves on the board of Microvision Inc., an innovative display and imaging solutions company. She also serves as a director on the board of Jane Do No More Inc., an organization committed to improving the way society responds to victims of sexual assault.

A native of the United Kingdom, Ms. Horan earned a bachelors degree.

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Michael J. Fenlon, PhD, US & Global Talent Leader, PricewaterhouseCoopers

Tues 9/30, 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm EST
Forum: Engaging New-Generation Students & Employees

Chat: Wed 10/1, 1:00 – 1:30 pm EST
Leading Millennials

Michael Fenlon serves as the US and Global Talent Leader for PwC, a global network of firms with 190,000 people across 158 countries.  He has responsibility for employer branding and social media, talent acquisition, analytics and talent management.  He has held a variety of senior leadership roles in Human Capital since joining PwC, including strategy, operations and lead generalist roles.

Mike is a psychologist with expertise in strategic and organizational change, talent management and leadership development.  He directed executive programs, including: Highlights of the MBA, the Leadership Development Program, and the Columbia Senior Executive Program, as well as custom programs for global clients. He was a faculty member of the Columbia Business School executive education team that was ranked by The Financial Times as #1 in the world.

He also served as Associate Dean for Executive MBA programs in New York, London (with the London Business School) and in Silicon Valley (with the Haas School at UC Berkeley), and taught a popular course on Executive Leadership. He has consulted in the non-profit and government sectors and served in Executive Programs at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

He previously served as a Principal Consultant with Price Waterhouse LLP in the strategic and organizational change practice.

Mike is a member of the American Psychological Association and the Academy of Management.  Publications include “Rethinking Retention Strategies: Work-life Versus Deferred Compensation in a Total Rewards Strategy” in the World at Work, and “Developing Leaders and Teams Who Build Exceptional Client Relationships,” and an article for HR Magazine on using human capital analytics to drive strategic change. He has been featured in The Financial Times, The New York Times and Fox Televison Business News.  He was educated at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee and Columbia University where he received three master’s degrees and a Ph.D.

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Deborah Dugan, CEO, RED

Wed 10/1, 3pm – 4pm EST
Forum: Engaging New-Generation Students & Employees

“Today, the key to being groundbreaking, relevant, timely and successful is embracing disruption.  If you are not breaking the mold – someone else is. Since joining (RED) in 2011, my goal has been to move fast, break things and innovate.  Traditionally, it has been business that owned the market on product and service innovation. What Apple did for music… what Spanx is doing for cellulite… what Twitter has done for communication… non-profits like (RED) are now doing to fight the world’s greatest problems. We’re making fighting AIDS simple and accessible on a mass scale.”

In 2011, Deborah Dugan joined (RED) as the non-profit’s Chief Executive Officer, and under her leadership (RED) has welcomed global proud partners such as The Coca-Cola Company, SAP, Bank of America and Latin America’s major mobile carriers Claro and Telcel.  With Deborah Dugan at the helm, (RED) has solidified its identity as both a non-profit and a brand – standing for optimism, the best in art and design, perpetually game-changing, impact obsessed and purposefully provocative.  Her motto:  (RED)’s DNA is creativity.  Tap into the creative passions of consumers so that they give a damn.  Tap into the creativity of major celebrities so that they use their reach to give a damn, and tap into the best creative talent at major companies so that they too give a damn.  Only when these forces work together can (RED) break the dam of indifference and create real change in the fight against AIDS.

In just three short years at (RED), Deborah has continuously pushed the boundaries for how social media is creatively used for social good. Her accomplishments include leading (RED) to both set and break a number of world records. In 2011, (RED) was recognized as the first cause to have reached audiences over 1 million on both Facebook and Twitter. In June 2013, (RED) partnered with Mashable and set a new world record using the emerging video app, Vine; and in February 2014, (RED) teamed with Bank of America and U2 on a Super Bowl initiative, raising more than $3million and breaking the world record for the most digital downloads of a song in 24 hours.

Deborah has written for the Huffington Post and McKinsey’s Social Innovation publication. Her recent speeches include: IEG Sponsorship Conference, the University of Utah Law School Commencement address, New York’s WIE “Trail Blazing” Conference, Columbia University’s Social Enterprise Conference 2013, NYU Social Innovation Summit 2014 and Boston University Business School. Deborah was included in Forbes Magazine’s “100 Most Powerful Women” issue for ‘Social Entrepreneurism’, and is a “Disruptive Innovation” Fellow.

Prior to (RED), Deborah was President of Disney Publishing Worldwide, generating $1.8 billion in global retail sales.  During her eight years at Disney, she oversaw 275 magazines and published more than 4,000 new book titles. In addition, she acquired Baby Einstein, and launched Disney English language learning programs throughout Asia. She also served as Senior Advisor to the Tribeca Enterprises Board.  Deborah’s roots are in the music industry – she spent eight years as Executive Vice President at EMI/Capitol Records. Deborah began her career as an attorney on Wall Street.

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