Fellows Present and Past

Fellows
Present & Past

Meet the sitting class.

Want an authentic look at the MIT Sloan Fellows experience? The alumni network is a key motivator for many when considering becoming a Sloan Fellow. Here, you will meet the program’s most eloquent ambassadors—the fellows themselves. They represent every corner of the globe and a broad swath of industries, but each Sloan Fellow holds in common one essential characteristic: a dedication to changing for the better the way we live and work. Find out why these fellows made the decision to apply, their firsthand experiences in the program, and its impact on their careers and their lives.

Amy Gowder Graban

Amy Gowder Graban, SF ’10

Director, Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company

Amy Gowder Graban started her career at Accenture, where she rose steadily through the management ranks. She was a thriving supply chain consultant when Lockheed Martin offered her even more challenging career opportunities. After only nine months at the company, Gowder Graban became one of its youngest directors. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics President Ralph Heath urged her to enter the MIT Sloan Fellows Program to continue her strong career trajectory.

Richard Resnick

Richard Resnick, MOT '04

CEO, Genome Quest

Richard Resnick is a genetics pioneer, a serial entrepreneur, and a music innovator, but a more accurate characterization might be high-tech explorer. Resnick has planted so many flags on so many tech mountain peaks, it’s dizzying. Today, he’s channeling everything he’s learned in those many pursuits into his role as CEO of GenomeQuest.

Ron Williams

Ron Williams, SF ’84

CEO and Chairman, Aetna

“One of the basic principles of successful leadership is to keep your head in the clouds and your feet on the ground. You have to start with a large-scale, long-range vision and then operationalize strategies that deliver real value to stakeholders.”

Kofi Annan

Kofi Annan SF ’72

Ghana

Former Secretary-General of the United Nations

Nobel Peace Prize 2001

Kofi Annan can remember the day. It was 1971 and he was in the middle of his first term in the MIT Sloan Fellows Program. He was walking along the Charles River, ruminating about his place in the class, wondering how he fit into the audacious group of global leaders who were his classmates.

When the answer came to him, Annan says, it came to him most emphatically: “Follow your own inner compass...know who you are, what you stand for, where you want to go, and why you want to get there.” He recalls that at once, his anxieties began to fade.

Annan believes that as a result of that walk by the river, he took away from MIT “the intellectual confidence to help me locate my bearings in new situations, to view any challenge as an opportunity for renewal and growth, and to be comfortable in seeking the help of colleagues, but not fearing to do things my way.”

MIT and the United Nations, Annan says, have more in common than might be at first obvious. The experimental method, for example. “An international organization,” he says, “is an experiment...an experiment in human cooperation on a planetary scale.” He notes that “international organizations must be closely tuned to their environments, quickly correct their mistakes, build cumulatively on their achievements, and continually generate new modalities as previous ways of doing things become outdated.”

Although that introspective walk along the Charles River is now more than 30 years past, Annan’s experience at MIT still informs his decisions. “As a Sloan Fellow, I learned management skills that I could draw on in refashioning the United Nations for the new century.”

Ron Williams, SF ’84 CEO and Chairman
Aetna
Marcelo Ballestiero, SF ’10 Founder/CEO
Spirits Tecnologia
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Marcelo Ballestiero

Marcelo Ballestiero SF ’10

Brazil

Founder/CEO
Spirits Tecnologia

Meeting global leaders

“During our international trip to South Africa and Brazil, I was struck by an incredible sense of momentum. The nations we visited were very different yet equally committed to sustainable fast-track development. The government and company leaders we met gave us tremendous insight into the possibilities for responsible entrepreneurship.”

Collaborating with innovators

“I’m preparing to start a multinational company focused on data analytics. The best thinkers in business, entrepreneurship, and IT are all right here. The one-on-one interactions with faculty and global leaders are unlike any other educational experience. And your fellow students are the best of the best. I remember looking across the classroom and thinking: just the dozen of us in this room could change the world.”

Sharing with family

“My family considered it ‘our’ Sloan Fellows year. My wife, who is also an entrepreneur, was able to work remotely from Cambridge. My children became fluent in English, played soccer, and took classes through MIT’s fantastic SPLASH program. They loved the idea of studying at MIT, just like Dad.”

Marcelo Ballestiero has always been a master of developing ideas from scratch. So when Philips Brazil spun off its automation department, Ballestiero left the company to establish his own entrepreneurial niche. His software company Spirits Tecnologia has forged custom telecom, manufacturing, mobile, and business intelligence solutions since 1994. Ballestiero used his year at the MIT Sloan Fellows Program as a springboard for the launch of a new global company.

Kofi Annan, SF ’72 Former Secretary-General of the
United Nations, Nobel Peace Prize 2001
Pedro Baranda, SF ’01 President
Otis Elevator Co.
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Pedro Baranda

Pedro Baranda SF ’01

Spain

President
Otis Elevator Co.

"I had a PhD in engineering and was doing well in my career, but was at a disadvantage without a solid base in finance and economics. My plan was to go to the Sloan Fellows Program to fill those gaps. In that amazing year, I was able to accomplish that and so much more–for example, learning the importance of people and how to listen and collaborate. At MIT Sloan, I worked with extraordinarily gifted people–faculty, my Sloan Fellows peers, members of the MIT community. During program trips, I met crucial industry contacts. And my thesis advisor was none other than Nobel Laureate Franco Modigliani, one of the greatest economists of our time. What it all adds up to is a network that has been indispensable as I have moved up and around the world with Otis."

Marcelo Ballestiero, SF ’10 Founder/CEO
Spirits Tecnologia
Morten Bay Jensen, SF ’11 Vice President, Global Supply Chain
ECCO (Xiamen) Co. Ltd.
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Morten Bay Jensen

Morten Bay Jensen SF ’11

Denmark

Vice President, Global Supply Chain
ECCO (Xiamen) Co. Ltd.

Accessing the brain trust.

“You work so closely with your professors, their network becomes your network, and their networks are pretty amazing. Most valuable, though, is your 100-fellow brain trust, representing diverse cultures, industries, markets, and global experience. It’s one of your greatest resources going forward. Make no mistake—it’s a network that opens doors.”

Living extraordinary days.

“What makes the MIT Sloan Fellows experience so powerful—and what makes it possible—is total immersion. You could not build these bonds, gain this depth of knowledge, and live these extraordinary experiences on the job. There’s just no way of gaining this level of value outside this intensive format.”

Growing a global vision.

“How global you are can’t be measured in frequent flyer miles. A truly global leader has a deep understanding of the world—all parts of the world—the industries that thrive in each region, the work and family culture, the geopolitical relationships. It seems an impossibly outsized lesson to learn, but it happens naturally in the MIT Sloan Fellows Program.”

ECCO is the only major footwear company in the world to own and manage every stage of its supply chain, from tanning the leather to manning the cash register. After a career dedicated to the company, Morten Bay Jensen decided he needed a chance to step back and take stock, end to end, of that prodigious value chain—and of his own life and career. And he knew the best place to do both was the MIT Sloan Fellows Program.

Pedro Baranda, SF ’01 President
Otis Elevator Co.
Iris Bombelyn, SF ’09 Vice President and Program Manager
Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company
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Kofi Annan

Iris Bombelyn SF ’09

United States

Vice President and Program Manager
Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company

“With 25 years of aerospace experience behind me–integrating and building satellites and working on international launch teams–I had plenty of technical expertise when I started the MIT Sloan Fellows Program. But to advance to the highest levels of leadership, I needed to boost other fundamentals, like finance, strategic planning, and organizational dynamics. I left the program with those core skills, deep insights into innovation and technology strategy, and a tight-knit global network of classmates in almost every industry. When you get to a certain point in your career, there are a limited number of people you can safely consult when sticky issues arise. Now, if I come up against a challenge in any aspect of my work, I can call upon a team of experts in 26 countries, who also just happen to be close friends.”

Morten Bay Jensen, SF ’11 Vice President, Global Supply Chain
ECCO (Xiamen) Co. Ltd.
Adriane Michelle Brown, SF ’91 President and COO
Intellectual Ventures
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Adriane Michelle Brown

Adriane Michelle Brown SF ’91

United States

President and COO
Intellectual Ventures

“Sitting down with leaders at MIT and around the world, seeing how they were able to change the path of their companies, seeing the power of the ‘Sloan Fellows effect’ on their careers and their businesses…such high-level conversations transformed my perspective of my own possibilities, just as other elements of the program transformed my ability to fulfill those possibilities. Recently I flew back to MIT to address the fellows as part of this very same seminar program. My goal was to inspire them, as I had once been inspired, to envision themselves at the top.”

Iris Bombelyn, SF ’09 Vice President and Program Manager
Lockheed Martin Space Systems Company
Randa Jamali Charamand, SF ’08 Chief Operating Officer
Benchmark Development
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Randa Jamali Charamand

Randa Jamali Charamand SF ’08

Lebanon

Chief Operating Officer
Benchmark Development

Emerging confident

“The value of the program was extraordinary. It opened my mind, stretched my thinking, and fueled my creativity in ways I did not think were possible. I emerged with the confidence and ability to make a difference in my company and in the community.”

Bonding with colleagues

“I was the very last person in the class to arrive on campus. I came upon a group of fellows deep in discussion. When they realized who I was, they immediately welcomed me and dropped everything to help me get settled and ease my transition. That Sloan Fellows bond is powerful – and lasts far beyond the program.”

Expanding value

“Every day, I feel the impact of my Sloan Fellows experience. I am more innovative, more strategic, more global in my thinking. The value of the program is integral to everything I do and everything I am. Two years have gone by, and I keep waiting for that sensation to abate, but it doesn’t.”

Randa Jamali Charamand was finance manager at Millennium Development when the company’s CEO, Bassim Halaby, SF ’02, joined the MIT Sloan Fellows Program. Halaby returned transformed, and Charamand was determined to follow in his footsteps. In 2006, she joined Halaby at Benchmark Development and became a fellow with Halaby’s enthusiastic support. Now COO of Benchmark, Charamand heads regional operations and $1.5 billion in projects.

Adriane Michelle Brown, SF ’91 President and COO
Intellectual Ventures
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Barbara J. Corning-Davis

Barbara J. Corning-Davis MOT ’01

United States

President
SHUR (Sustainable Healthcare in Underdeveloped Regions)

Bringing more to the table

“A management program at MIT Sloan was a strategic choice for me. An MBA from MIT underlined my technical credentials while giving me skills that are complementary—rather than redundant—to the strengths of the other executives sitting around a boardroom table. I find I bring a richer base of knowledge and a broader perspective to problem-solving efforts.”

Change through collaboration

“I have been working with local civic and medical leaders in Guatemala, El Salvador, and Qatar on developing sustainable healthcare models. Key to success is building strong multicultural relationships, a skill I developed in one of the most collaborative cultures on earth—MIT. I learned that if you don’t have robust relationships in place, change isn’t sustainable. After spending a year at MIT, the ability to build teams—and consensus—is second nature to me.”

Growing a family

“Family is so important to us that my husband and I once took a year off and lived at sea with our two children on a 32-ft sloop. So when I was considering a year at MIT, the kids figured heavily into the decision. They were middle school age then and found Cambridge, MIT, and the children of my program peers fascinating and inspiring. My daughter very much responded to the rich intellectual and multicultural environment and is now at the Royal College of Surgeons in Dublin. Her plan is to get involved with Doctors without Borders. My son, after a summer robotics program at MIT, is making his career in electronic game design. That year very much shaped who we all are today.”

Barbara Corning-Davis is redefining models for patient-centered care in physicians’ offices and hospitals in first- and third-world countries around the globe. Director of Operational Improvement for a Boston-area medical center, she is also president of SHUR, a nonprofit dedicated to bringing critical health technology to underserved regions of the world. Corning-Davis says her MIT experience has been a crucial resource. Her thesis, which centered on introducing innovative technologies into the healthcare realm, has shaped her career. And the MIT Sloan network she built during her year at MIT has provided crucial contacts, from Guatemala to Qatar.

Randa Jamali Charamand, SF ’08 Chief Operating Officer
Benchmark Development
Bruce Dewar, MOT ’92 CEO
LIFT Philanthropy Partners
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Bruce Dewar

Bruce Dewar MOT ’92

Canada

CEO
LIFT Philanthropy Partners

Leveraging the year at MIT

“Every day I find myself tapping into skills I learned during that intense year at MIT. How to communicate and build strong partnerships, for example. How to guide the evolution of organizations. How to drive change. These capabilities are now in my DNA and have been crucial to realizing my vision—and in helping me help others to realize theirs.”

Evaluating technology trends

“I was self-sponsored, so going to business school was a major investment. I decided on MIT because a business school set within an engineering school could give me a much more informed perspective on new technologies. I knew that having the skills to understand technology trends would be of enormous value going forward—and it has been.”

Generating ideas and connections

“One year immersed in an idea-generating environment with some of the best minds in the world is an extraordinary opportunity. The faculty, of course, taught me so much, but I learned just as much from my peers in the program. Working closely with these inspiring, highly accomplished people day in and day out, I picked up valuable knowledge across an astonishingly wide spectrum of the global marketplace.”

As CEO of 2010 Legacies Now, Bruce Dewar, MOT ’92, proved that regions hosting the Olympics and Paralympics could leverage those events as catalysts for creating broad, sustainable community benefits like athletics programs, arts initiatives, even healthcare and literacy programs. Now, in the wake of the 2010 Winter Games, Dewar has evolved 2010 Legacies Now into a still more advanced community-service model with a new enterprise called LIFT Philanthropy Partners. LIFT uses venture philanthropy to support not-for-profits, with a combination of skills, expertise, resources, and funding so that they grow into sustainable and highly impactful organizations. He says his time at MOT gave him the multifaceted skills and capabilities necessary to make this demanding model work.

James C. Foster, SF ’85 Chairman & CEO
Charles River Laboratories
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Kofi Annan

James C. Foster SF ’85

United States

Chairman & CEO
Charles River Laboratories

When Forbes magazine named James C. Foster “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2002, the Chairman and CEO of Charles River Laboratories had transformed his 56-year-old family business into one of the world’s leading biotech companies. And he did it by taking back control of the company from a multinational corporation.

Although he had a law degree, Foster knew if he was going to grow Charles River Laboratories into a biotechnology giant, he needed a strong management foundation. Not wanting a traditional MBA degree, Foster never even considered other schools or programs. He knew what the MIT Sloan Fellows Program had to offer and headed straight for it.

Foster says that the program prepared him for the gauntlet of professional challenges that culminated in his 2002 award. “The MIT Sloan Fellows Program is not just an education, it’s a life-altering experience,” he says. The powerful relationships forged with faculty and fellow students, the CEO seminars, and the trips to New York City, Washington, and beyond made the program an experience that he says was perfect for him at that juncture in his career. Charles River Laboratories now employs 8,000 people at 70 facilities in 18 countries.

MIT Sloan taught Foster that to be successful in running a business, you have to take balanced risks and create an environment in which people are given incentives to be risk-takers. “You want to be constantly soliciting people’s input,” he explains, “to say, ‘What do you think?’ and ‘Why don't you go out and try that?’ And if it doesn't work, you have to be able to say, ‘Thanks for trying.’ ”

Bruce Dewar, MOT ’92 CEO
LIFT Philanthropy Partners
Ric Fulop, SF ’06 Founder
A123Systems
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Ric Fulop

Ric Fulop SF ’06

Venezuela

Founder, A123Systems

“Most MBA programs are formulaic–graduating is almost like getting your passport stamped. The MIT Sloan Fellows Program, on the other hand, is a 360-degree experience. As a serial entrepreneur, I was able to take courses in any area of the Institute I thought would help me to grow my company. In those two years, I built the broad and powerful range of skills I needed, all the while taking A123 from startup to success. I think it’s the impact that Sloan Fellows have on their companies that best illustrates the strength of this program.”

Founded this renowned alternative energy startup, one of the world’s leading suppliers of high-power lithium ion batteries.

James C. Foster, SF ’85 Chairman & CEO
Charles River Laboratories
Bruce S. Gordon, SF ’88 Former President and CEO
NAACP
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Bruce S. Gordon

Bruce S. Gordon SF ’88

United States

Former President and CEO
NAACP

Bruce S. Gordon is that rare hybrid, a social visionary and an astute businessman. After 35 years rising through the ranks of Bell of Pennsylvania, Bell Atlantic, and Verizon, he retired at 56. In his final position, he led the company’s largest division, retail markets, which served 33 million residential and small business customers. He also directed corporate advertising and brand management and brought in $25 billion in annual revenue. After his retirement, Gordon took the helm as president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) until stepping down in the spring of 2007.

Often lauded for outstanding leadership, Gordon was included in Fortune magazine’s 2002 roster of “The 50 Most Powerful Black Executives.” Black Enterprise magazine named him “Executive of the Year” in 1998. “I'm definitely a believer,” he says, “that leadership technique has an immeasurable impact on a business.”

Gordon believes his experience in the MIT Sloan Fellows Program was critical to making him the leader he is today. “Executives from 17 countries were represented, very accomplished business people from a wide spectrum of business, industry, government, and military organizations,” he says. “Even if working with that diverse group of people was the sum total of the Sloan Fellows experience, I would have walked away a winner, but there was so much more – the faculty, the curriculum, the learning experience, the trip to the Far East. The experience was remarkable.”

Ric Fulop, SF ’06 Founder
A123Systems
Amy Gowder Graban, SF ’10 Director
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company
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Amy Gowder Graban

Amy Gowder Graban SF ’10

United States

Director
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company

Reaching across MIT

“I strategized with the world’s top aeronautics scientists, explored pivotal technological innovations at the MIT Media Lab, learned from leading security experts in political science–even tapped the latest thinking on defense policy at Harvard’s JFK School of Government. If it was essential to me as a leader, I could reach across the MIT universe and get it.”

Exploring and reflecting

“Immersion in the MIT Sloan Fellows environment is not just about rigorous academics. It’s about the accelerated learning you experience by being at MIT full time: the dozens of thought leaders who visit campus each week, the spontaneous brainstorming sessions over coffee, and the exploration and reflection you never have room for in your normal routine.”

Developing perspective

“Working so intensely with classmates from around the world day in and day out meant that, by year’s end, their experiences became my experiences. Today, as I leave the program, my perspective encompasses a wide swath of countries, cultures, and industries. I could not have developed that expanded view any other way.”

Amy Gowder Graban started her career at Accenture, where she rose steadily through the management ranks. She was a thriving supply chain consultant when Lockheed Martin offered her even more challenging career opportunities. After only nine months at the company, Gowder Graban became one of its youngest directors. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics President Ralph Heath urged her to enter the MIT Sloan Fellows Program to continue her strong career trajectory.

Bruce S. Gordon, SF ’88 Former President and CEO
NAACP
David P. Hess, SF ’90 President, Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Company
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David P. Hess

David P. Hess SF ’90

United States

President
Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Company

“The MIT Sloan Fellows Program didn’t just change the way I think about business. It changed the way I think. If ever there were a brain trust for engineering and innovation, it’s MIT. As a fellow, I had access to that incredible depth of technical expertise and cutting-edge research. And the reward of focusing without distraction on ideas, learning, discovery, and growth was incalculable. When I returned to UTC, I found I had a new confidence born of spending a year measuring myself against some of the best minds in the world. I also found myself asking questions that wouldn’t have even occurred to me before the program. The MIT Sloan Fellows Program was a mind-expanding coming-of- age experience, and it prepared me to take the next big step in my career.”

Heads global operations in the design, manufacture, and service of aircraft engines, space propulsion systems, and industrial power systems.

Amy Gowder Graban, SF ’10 Director
Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company
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Priya Iyer

Priya Iyer SF ’05

United States

CEO
Anaqua

“When I was about to begin the program, I was worried. ‘One year?!’ It seemed an eternity to spend at that point in my career. By graduation, I was wishing I had another nine years. Until you arrive at MIT, you don’t realize the extent of the adventure that awaits you. As the CEO of a startup that has grown from six to 60 people in five years, I use what I learned in that jam-packed year every single day–technology strategy, system dynamics, product marketing, competition, leadership. In fact, to some extent, we have modeled Anaqua on the MIT Sloan Fellows Program itself, bringing our clients together from various countries and industries to pool their knowledge and help one another thrive. It is an approach that has proved as successful for Anaqua as for the program that inspired it.”

Leads Anaqua’s overall vision, strategy, and execution, with a focus on building teams, technology, and a strong client community.

David P. Hess, SF ’90 President, Pratt & Whitney, a United Technologies Company
Xoli Kakana, SF ’08 Executive Chairperson & Group CEO
ICT-Works
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Xoli Kakana

Xoli Kakana SF ’08

South Africa

Executive Chairperson & Group CEO
ICT-Works

Unfolding value.

“Whenever I’m faced with decision points, I realize just how that year as an MIT Sloan Fellow equipped me for so many facets of my career and my life. Three years later, the full significance of my time at MIT is still unfolding on a daily basis. ‘Aha,’ I often think, ‘so this is what that lesson meant.’”

Shaping the future.

“The intellectual climate is exhilarating. You are among the global movers and shakers, adding your own experiences and perspectives to the mix. I wanted to jump out of my skin, I was so excited by the global leaders I met and the peer conversations I had with faculty I have admired for years. I knew I was contributing to dialogues that were shaping business.”

Deepening understanding.

“You take away a whole lot of wisdom when you leave the program, including a deep understanding that we see things not as they are but as we are. I am a more conscious leader and a more global thinker, and I take that sensibility into every situation. My colleagues tell me that I am a very different leader since I’ve returned from MIT, and I know they are right.”

Xoli Kakana founded ICT-Works in 2000 to raise the standard of IT and telecom services in South Africa—and to prove that women are major players in IT. Kakana invited three other women technologists to join ICT, which now holds multi-million dollar contracts and employs more than 100 people. In 2006, as business began to boom, she realized that a year in the MIT Sloan Fellows Program was the best way to assess progress and chart ICT’s next decade.

Sarah Kennedy, SF ’11 CEO
Vitaco Health Ltd.
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Sarah Kennedy

Sarah Kennedy SF ’11

New Zealand

CEO
Vitaco Health Ltd.

Embracing adventure

“MIT is on the crest of the world, and I feel like a kid on a skateboard with my hat on backwards ready to take off. I’m in this adventure for the thrills and for the chance to stretch, discover, and expand.”

Harvesting the ecosystem

“In New Zealand, we are great innovators, but we are not commercializing or exporting nearly enough. As a CEO and a passionate New Zealander, I need to fix that. Just a couple of weeks in, I’m already building a powerful global network and tapping into MIT’s entrepreneurial ecosystem. This is exactly where I need to be right now.”

Building community

“The Sloan Fellows Program is a strong, inclusive family. When my husband saw how enthusiastic the partners are about the program and how close-knit the community is, he decided to make more time to visit from New Zealand so he can take part.”

In 1998, veterinary surgeon turned retail marketing executive Sarah Kennedy took the helm of Healtheries, a modest New Zealand health products company. In the decade that followed, Kennedy led the cycle of growth, acquisition, and merger that created Vitaco, the third-largest health and well-being company in Australasia. Now, she’s partnering with New Zealand’s Foundation for Research, Science, and Technology to increase commercialization of the country’s R&D.

Xoli Kakana, SF ’08 Executive Chairperson & Group CEO
ICT-Works
Ray Leach, SF ’02 CEO
JumpStart, Inc.
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Ray Leach

Ray Leach SF ’02

United States

CEO
JumpStart, Inc.

Boosting emotional intelligence.

“Personal and professional growth are interdependent. A leader’s increased emotional intelligence can have a huge impact on an organization—even on the bottom line. As a fellow, I learned the value, power, and responsibility of leadership, the contributions I could make to society, and how to build a successful career that’s about more than maximizing profitability.”

Earning horsepower.

“As I left the program, I was approached by a group of corporate and philanthropic leaders in my home state. They wanted me to head a catalytic initiative that would grow entrepreneurship in Ohio. I was an experienced serial entrepreneur, but what interested them was that I was an MIT Sloan Fellow. With this credential, they knew I had the horsepower to do the job.”

Bonding with family.

“I heard from alumni that the MIT Sloan Fellows Program was a profound family experience. For me that was a pivotal differentiator and a powerful reason for going to the program. It wasn’t just that I wanted to make the year worthwhile for my family. I wanted us to bond and build shared friendships. The year topped all our expectations.”

An entrepreneur since age 22, Ray Leach has been handpicked by the Obama administration to serve on the U.S. Advisory Council for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. His accelerator, the nonprofit JumpStart Inc., is a model for StartUp America, a new national effort to develop regional entrepreneurial ecosystems across the country. Leach credits the MIT Sloan Fellows Program with giving him the credentials and the leadership kit-bag to grow enterprises that grow enterprises.

Sarah Kennedy, SF ’11 CEO
Vitaco Health Ltd.
Mirela Marku, SF ’07 Senior Engineering Manager
General Dynamics Information Technology
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Mirela Marku

Mirela Marku SF ’07

United States/Albania

Senior Engineering Manager
General Dynamics Information Technology

“It’s an engineer’s dream to go to MIT, so when it was time to make the transition from engineering to management, I immediately thought: Sloan. I polled executives at GD and they immediately thought: the Sloan Fellows Program. They said it was the perfect way to develop the perspective I needed to advance in the company, and they were right. I remember every lecture, every trip, every assignment–and every cultural lesson. I learned from the Japanese fellows the importance of listening. I learned from the Latin American fellows the importance of emotion. I learned from the American fellows the importance of confidence. And I continue learning from them.”

Ray Leach, SF ’02 CEO
JumpStart, Inc.
Pascal Marmier, SF ’08 Consul and Director, swissnex Boston
Consulate of Switzerland
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Pascal Marmier

Pascal Marmier SF ’08

Switzerland

Consul and Director, swissnex Boston
Consulate of Switzerland

“I came to this program to think outside the inbox. Executives have few opportunities in their lifetimes to reflect, absorb, and put all the pieces of their lives together. The MIT Sloan Fellows Program offers a highly valuable refueling station at the crossroads of our careers. In the program, we figure out just where we should be headed and how to get there. All the while we’re meeting people we could never meet and learning things we could never learn anywhere but here. I really valued the intersections. You might find yourself in a negotiating class with a real estate expert, a neuroscientist, and a mechanical engineer. As a result, I know so much more about so many things. I can see the impact this very deep knowledge and experience has had on my life and work.”

Manages Swiss/United States collaborations with universities, high-tech startups, and decision makers in IT, nanotech, life sciences, and clean energy. Trains and advises transatlantic entrepreneurs.

Mirela Marku, SF ’07 Senior Engineering Manager
General Dynamics Information Technology
David McBagonluri-Nuuri, SF ’11 Worldwide Director
Hypodermic Injection Systems
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David McBagonluri-Nuuri

David McBagonluri-Nuuri SF ’11

United States

Worldwide Director, Hypodermic Injection Systems
Becton, Dickinson and Company

Strategizing with experts

“I wanted the high-level access to MIT faculty that comes with being a Sloan Fellow–to be able to talk over problems with Nobel Laureates in physics and economics, with innovators and ground-shakers. I have seen the remarkable power of MIT Sloan thinkers, and I wanted to learn from them and grow to be one myself.”

Mapping for expansion

“My company is eager to reach out into the world and become a great enterprise. I see this year of immersion as the nourishment of that aim. When I was deciding whether to apply, I mapped all our goals and gaps to the opportunities offered in the program and achieved a one-to-one match. I couldn’t afford not to come.”

Discovering depth

“The Sloan Fellows are so legendary, I wondered if there was an element of myth. But during orientation, I realized the elite caliber of the fellows is real…the depth of accomplishment, the breadth of diversity, the global network, the bonding and collaboration–all greater than I could have imagined.”

As David McBagonluri-Nuuri was helping to revolutionize Siemens’ manufacturing technology, he developed nearly 30 patent applications, rose to director of R&D and IT, and received the Black Engineer of the Year–Most Promising Scientist award. Wooed by Becton Dickinson in 2008, McBagonluri-Nuuri agreed to take charge of the global hypodermic injection systems division when the company endorsed his plan to attend the MIT Sloan Fellows Program.

Pascal Marmier, SF ’08 Consul and Director, swissnex Boston
Consulate of Switzerland
Alison McGuigan-Lewis, SF ’12 Senior Trade & Investment Commissioner
The Australian Trade Commission (Austrade)
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Alison McGuigan-Lewis

Alison McGuigan-Lewis SF ’12

Australia/Ireland

Senior Trade & Investment Commissioner
The Australian Trade Commission (Austrade)

Expanding impact

“Even if you think of your business as a domestic operation, you probably have global links in your supply chain. The companies that thrive today can launch innovation on an international platform. No other resource can provide the depth and breadth of global perspective I can build in the MIT Sloan Fellows Program.”

Learning 24/7

“In the daily life of business, I focused, like everybody does, on solving immediate challenges. There just wasn’t the opportunity for thinking about larger issues. I’ve come to the MIT Sloan Fellows Program to focus on vision, leadership, and everything I can learn from this incredible community. That means keeping my eyes open—no blinking until May.”

Sharing experience

“It’s hard to take in the dizzying breadth of this cohort, a melting pot of the international marketplace. I want to know what my peers know. Why Singapore is so good at attracting outside investment or how Bangalore is handling the economic downturn. I’ve come here to learn the secrets of the global economy from the people around the world who know them best.”

Alison McGuigan-Lewis has worked in London, Johannesburg, Budapest, Melbourne, and Washington. One of her chief reasons for attending the MIT Sloan Fellows Program? Ratchet that global IQ even higher. As the U.S. country manager for Austrade, she knows the greater range she can add to her international perspective, the greater success she will have helping Australian companies internationalize and attract overseas investment.

David McBagonluri-Nuuri, SF ’11 Worldwide Director
Hypodermic Injection Systems
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Richard Resnick

Richard Resnick MOT ’04

United States

CEO
Genome Quest

Taking ideas the distance

“Before MOT, I started a small company, and it was successful, but I felt I could take my ideas much further. I realized there were gaps in the story I wanted to tell about myself. I needed the pedigree and capabilities to match my vision—and a management program that could help me develop that. It’s true. An entrepreneur who wants to bring revolutionary technologies to market has one clear choice in business education—MIT.”

Moving the world forward

“MIT is instrumental in moving the world forward, and my year in the MOT Program gave me the resources to join that effort. On top of everything I took away, I can show up on campus today and ask for whatever I need—with the confidence that that need will be met.”

Shaping history

“At GenomeQuest, I am riding the most exciting technology development in the history of mankind. But I am convinced that if I hadn’t taken that year out for the MOT Program (now Sloan Fellows), I would still be a mid-level technical manager in a biopharma company. My time at MIT gave me everything I need to go as far as I want to go.”

Richard Resnick is a genetics pioneer, a serial entrepreneur, and a music innovator, but a more accurate characterization might be high-tech explorer. Resnick has planted so many flags on so many tech mountain peaks, it’s dizzying. Today, he’s channeling everything he’s learned in those many pursuits into his role as CEO of GenomeQuest.

The possibilities inherent in the study of the human genome first became clear to Resnick right out of college when he worked as a computer scientist on Eric Lander’s Human Genome Project at MIT. Now, he is at the front lines of the business of genomes, helping to advance the use of the genome as a universal and affordable diagnostic tool. And he is drawing on his MIT education—and network—to move forward on that frontier.

Read Richard Resnick’s blog at GenomeQuest.

Alison McGuigan-Lewis, SF ’12 Senior Trade & Investment Commissioner
The Australian Trade Commission (Austrade)
Carlos Sierra, SF ’12 Managing Director
Inalambria
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Carlos Sierra SF ’12

Colombia

Managing Director
Inalambria

Waking up to the world.

“I’ve only been here a few weeks, but I can already feel something within me waking up, something that has been long dormant. It’s a renewed excitement about the world. When you are always frantically responding to the day-to-day demands of your work and family life, your window on the wider world tends to shrink. Suddenly, I feel I can see farther and through fresher eyes.”

Tapping the e-ecosystem.

“If your life is the business of new technologies, MIT is the hub of your universe. I want to spend my life creating companies, so it’s important that I plug into this ecosystem where advanced thinking about business and technology fuses with advanced thinking about entrepreneurship. The world is being reinvented here every day, and I need to know how.”

Pushing boundaries.

“This program is designed for people who need to know how the world works and how it thinks. My company is about to launch a radical technology in the global marketplace—it could change life for many in the developing world. Just within my cohort, I can test the concept and get essential feedback about how this invention will play across the globe.”

Carlos Sierra has always made it his business to be ten steps ahead. An influential mobile technology industry innovator, he founded the pioneering company Inalambria and is actively working to boost the creation of tech companies in Colombia. Last year, as he prepared to take Inalambria global, Sierra realized that knowing how to innovate wasn’t enough. He needed a strategic set of skills and a powerful international network—and he knew where to get them: the MIT Sloan Fellows Program.

Richard Resnick, MOT '04 CEO
Genome Quest
Milan Singh Minsky, SF ’11 Business Development Manager
NanoLab
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Milan Singh Minsky

Milan Singh Minsky SF ’11

United States/Canada

Business Development Manager
NanoLab

Drinking from the firehose.

“I’d been warned about the MIT ‘firehose effect.’ Opportunity is so relentless here, you must have a plan of action. If you balance focus and exploration, you will have the best year of your life. I learned the fundamentals I needed, but also ended up a founder in one early-stage venture—and took another to the final track of the MIT $100K with two entrepreneurs in my Media Tech class.”

Building bonds.

“You grow incredibly strong bonds working so closely together over the year. You couldn’t build that global network of advisors any other way. If I suddenly need to understand the private equity industry or how to set up a retail franchise along the Pacific Rim, I have close, trusted friends in every corner of the world who can provide answers.”

Executing big ideas.

“I used to be guilty of the entrepreneurial fallacy that if you have a cool product, people will buy it. Here, I’ve discovered that a great idea is no guarantee. What matters is execution. As an MIT Sloan Fellow I gained an understanding of the market, how to lead the people bringing it to market, and the best practices for getting it to market. I couldn’t get that combination anywhere else.”

An accomplished entrepreneur in the energy efficiency industry, Milan Minsky has helped develop successful technologies and companies in entrepreneurial hotspots from Boston to Tokyo. Minsky regularly encountered MIT Sloan Fellows as she followed the new enterprise jet stream around the world, and their wisdom stood out. When she decided to bring her business skills to the level of her technology skills, therefore, the solution was obvious.

Carlos Sierra, SF ’12 Managing Director
Inalambria
Keiji Tachikawa, SF ’78 President
JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
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Keiji Tachikawa

Keiji Tachikawa SF ’78

Japan

President
JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency

Keiji Tachikawa was actually disappointed when placed in charge of NTT DoCoMo, the mobile telephone unit of the Japanese telecom giant Nippon Telephone and Telegraph. He’d had his eye on what he considered a more coveted job leading NTT East, the company's local phone service unit.

That disappointment only served to fuel Tachikawa’s vision for DoCoMo. Three years after taking the job, he had grown the unit’s market capitalization to $225 billion – bigger even than that of NTT itself. He also took the company global, carving out stakes in mobile companies in Europe, Asia, and America.

Tachikawa was named CEO and, soon after, “Asian Businessman of the Year” by Fortune magazine “for his role in one of the world’s greatest business successes of 2000.” The honor, the magazine explained, was bestowed on the leader who proved to be “ahead of the pack, in profits and vision. Tachikawa leads on both fronts.”

Tachikawa credits the Sloan Fellows Program with helping him shape an effective methodology for business management and decision-making. “In addition to the basic courses of law, economics, and accounting, and subjects such as strategic policy, finance, and marketing, I became aware of the diversity of ideas,” he says.

If Tachikawa’s entrepreneurial triumph took the global business world by storm, it did not surprise his classmates in the MIT Sloan Fellows class of 1978. Indeed, it was his experience at MIT Sloan that inspired his motto for corporate management, “Think drastically, execute steadily.” A motto he has brought with him to the Japanese space program–JAXA–which he has headed since 2004.

Milan Singh Minsky, SF ’11 Business Development Manager
NanoLab
Mikko Uusitalo, SF ’08 Vice President, Worldwide Alliances Sales
HP Communications and Media Business
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Mikko Uusitalo

Mikko Uusitalo SF ’08

Finland

Vice President, Worldwide Alliances Sales
HP Communications and Media Business

Learning to lead

“The program is a microcosm of the corporate environment. You work closely with people who hold very different perspectives from your own. You evolve from accepting those differences to counting on them. You learn there’s far more power in collaboration than in competition. And you learn not just how to lead, but when to lead.”

Transforming the dialogue

“My year as a Sloan Fellow was the best of my life. I met so many influential leaders and saw how they integrated who they were with the fundamentals of good leadership. When I returned to my job at HP, my dialogue with senior executives was transformed. I was immediately making things happen in my company.”

Improving the world

“I always knew I wanted to do big things with my life. As a Sloan Fellow I gained a deeper understanding of how the world works – economics, finance, ‘the Street’ – but I also learned about poverty, sustainability, and social issues. I gained a clearer, more actionable vision of how to make the world a better place.”

Mikko Uusitalo credits his love of all things tech for his smooth transition from corporate lawyer to marketing executive at HP. But as a leader of a worldwide sales team, Uusitalo knew he needed the MIT Sloan Fellows Program experience to perform at the highest levels of business. Energized by his year at MIT, Uusitalo is strengthening HP’s capacity for innovation as head of global alliances for new initiatives.

Keiji Tachikawa, SF ’78 President, JAXA, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency
Ron Williams, SF ’84 CEO and Chairman
Aetna
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Ron Williams

Ron Williams SF ’84

United States

CEO and Chairman
Aetna

Ron Williams has his head in the clouds, and that’s exactly where he intends to keep it. “One of the basic principles of successful leadership is to keep your head in the clouds and your feet on the ground. You have to start with a large-scale, long-range vision and then operationalize strategies that deliver real value to stakeholders.”

As President of Aetna, Williams stands as powerful proof of his theory. He oversees the bulk of Aetna’s $25 billion business and has been named one of the “50 Most Powerful Black Executives” by Fortune magazine. He credits the MIT Sloan Fellows Program as a major force in shaping his ideas about leadership.

“I went to Sloan to turn myself into a generalist with a wider view of business. I wasn’t alone. At the start of the program, all the participants tended to define a problem in terms of their specialty. By the end of the program, we’d moved beyond our respective functional disciplines and learned to match the right discipline, or combination of disciplines, to the problem at hand.”

Williams looks back on this collaborative experience as a fundamental step in his evolution as an executive. “Working with a world-class faculty and high-performing classmates, I was able to take everything I knew about business and raise it to the next level.”

Mikko Uusitalo, SF ’08 Vice President, Worldwide Alliances Sales
HP Communications and Media Business
Francis Yeoh, MOT ’93 CEO
National Research Foundation
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Francis Yeoh

Francis Yeoh MOT ’93

Singapore

CEO
National Research Foundation

Developing visions

“MIT is an intellectually invigorating, high-energy environment. You are surrounded by people who are pushing themselves to realize their dreams. Accomplishment is not about status at MIT. It’s about making something important happen—something that makes a difference in the world. I found that spirit infectious. In fact, it influenced the course of my career.”

Expanding perspectives

“During my time at MIT, I came to realize that I had a very ‘Singaporean perspective,’ and that if I were to discuss an issue with colleagues back in Singapore, they would share that perspective. My program peers from Brazil, Japan, and other cultures, however, would share very different ideas on the same issue. It was incredibly illuminating. Now, if I want an alternate perspective, I have a global network I can turn to for advice.”

Integrating value

“MIT looks at technology holistically. The value of integrating management strategy, marketing, technical issues, and other factors is an approach that has proven successful again and again worldwide. And it’s a perspective that has been extremely valuable to me as I help bring innovations to market in my work at the NRF.”

Francis Yeoh is an innovator’s innovator. An engineer with a PhD in telecommunications, Yeoh has been immersed in high tech entrepreneurship for most of his career. He was CEO of an internet services company, headed an R&D organization that spun out a bevy of start-up ventures, even set up Singapore’s first Internet service provider. Now, as CEO of Singapore’s National Research Foundation (NRF), Yeoh is driving research, innovation, and enterprise using a holistic, highly collaborative model inspired by his time at MIT.

As head of the NRF, he connects inventors with investors and subject experts to develop multipronged commercialization strategies that increase the odds of entrepreneurial success. And through the pioneering initiative CREATE—Campus for Research Excellence and Technological Enterprise—he is bringing together many of the world’s top research institutions (including MIT) under one roof to pool knowledge and solve some of the most intractable problems of our age.

Ron Williams, SF '84 CEO and Chairman
Aetna
Kofi Annan, SF '72 Former Secretary-General of the
United Nations, Nobel Peace Prize 2001
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Stephen J. Sacca, Director

Photo of Stephen Sacca

Welcome to this virtual introduction to the MIT Sloan Fellows experience.

Many MIT Sloan Fellows begin their life-long relationship with the program right here on this website. Throughout these pages, you will discover essential facts about the faculty and the curriculum. You will meet fellows, past and present. And you will learn about the program's immense value to your company, your career, and your life.

As an alumnus and the program's director for nearly a decade, I have experienced the program's power–and I have seen it at work in the world. I'll be honest. Don't come to this program if you are happy with the status quo. Come here to take the lid off your world. Come here to give your vision velocity. Come here to find a way–maybe many–to achieve what others have crossed off as impossible.

You will find answers to many of your questions here on this website, but be sure to register with us to get more in-depth information. Just click the Get Started button below.

Stephen Sacca
Director, MIT Sloan Fellows Program
in Innovation and Global Leadership

Stephen Sacca MIT Sloan Fellows Get Started Button
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