Faculty & Research

William Aulet

Senior Lecturer and Entrepreneur in Residence, MIT Entrepreneurship Center
Acting Managing Director, MIT Entrepreneurship Center

Biography

Bill Aulet is a highly accomplished business leader with a track record of success over 25 years. He has raised over $100 million in funding for his companies and directly created hundreds of millions of dollars of market value. He started his career with eleven years at IBM, culminating in being named a prestigious MIT Sloan Fellow in 1993. Upon graduation in 1994, Bill became a serial entrepreneur running two MIT spinouts as the President/CEO of both Cambridge Decision Dynamics and then SensAble Technologies. The latter became a 2 time Inc. Magazine 500 Fastest Growing Private Company. With a presence in over twenty countries, SensAble also won over two dozen awards and was featured in Fortune Magazine, BusinessWeek, The Wall Street Journal and many other publications for its innovative products and strong business foundation.

In 2003, Bill was recruited to help turn around Viisage Technology, a security technology company with a dual focus in the areas of drivers' licenses and facial recognition, as the Chief Financial Officer. At the time of his arrival, Viisage was losing $2.4M per quarter. During his 2 1/2 year tenure, Viisage developed a new strategy, overhauled its operations, made three major acquisitions and executed two major fundraising rounds totaling over $55 million including a highly successful public offering. During this timeframe, the market value for Viisage increased from approximately $50 million to over $500 million.

In October of 2005, Bill was appointed Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the Entrepreneur-in-Residence at the MIT Entrepreneurship Center. In this capacity, Bill has been able to positively apply his knowledge and experience to assist students, new ventures and established firms associated with MIT to become more successful. He has also taught and worked with hundreds of entrepreneurs and executives at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Bill has also been engaged around the world to do onsite in depth work with a full spectrum of companies ranging from single entrepreneurs trying to launch new ventures to large corporations such as Danfoss, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft, Mobilink and Saudi Aramco to seeking to more effectively achieve their goals through effective use of entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship and innovation.

Bill also serves on the board directors or advisors of a number of highly innovative companies. Bill conceived, developed and teaches a new graduate level class called "Energy Ventures" at MIT exploring the new brand of entrepreneurship and innovation required to meet the energy challenge.

Bill Aulet graduated in 1980 from Harvard University with honors in engineering. In 1994, Bill earned an MMS degree in business management from MIT Sloan School of Management as a Sloan Fellow. Bill is a former professional basketball player who is married with four sons and lives in Belmont, Massachusetts. Bill is a regular featured speaker at management leadership programs around the world on topics such as entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, entrepreneurial marketing, technology innovation, creating sustainable rapid profitable growth, financing strategies and operational excellence. He is also a contributor as an Xconomist on these subjects to the popular and respected blog. Bill is also the Chairman of the MIT Clean Energy Prize.