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Today's Revolutionaries
Meet some of the great leaders of our age. Pioneers on many different frontiers, their vitae couldn't be more diverse. But it's their similarities that define them. All are independent thinkers and innovators within their respective realms. All are inspiring new generations of leaders. Most important, all are changing the world in positive ways.
Bruce S. Gordon, SF '88
Former President and CEO, NAACP
Bruce S. Gordon, a 1988 MIT Sloan Fellow, is that rare hybrid, a social visionary and an astute businessman. The combination has made him a powerful leader in both corporate and nonprofit enterprises and has landed him in a high-profile position requiring both. Gordon took the helm as president and CEO of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) in August 2005 until March 2007.
After 35 years rising through the ranks of Bell of Pennsylvania, Bell Atlantic, and Verizon, Gordon 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.
Often lauded for outstanding leadership during his corporate career, 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 remembers. “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."
Kofi Annan, SF '72
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 program, 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 constantly 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 still draw on today in refashioning the United Nations for the new century."
Damien Balsan, MOT '02
Vice President International Sales and Business Development, Way Systems
When Damien Balsan first crossed the MIT Sloan threshold, he was toting a fairly hefty global business resume. A post at France Telecom in Mexico. Several general management positions in Europe and South America for Gemplus, the world leader in “smart card” solutions.
But despite ten years of solid international business experience, Balsan knew that to rise to the next level, he needed to expand his global perspective still further. Instead of entering a European MBA program, he set his sights on MIT Sloan's Management of Technology Program. With one of the highest percentages of international students of any business school in the country and class business trips around the world, Balsan felt that Sloan was the most strategic place to expand his already broad horizons.
As a self-sponsored student, Balsan used the program to build a global network of faculty, classmates, and senior executives. “One of the most amazing things about the MOT Program was the opportunity to network with international business leaders,” Balsan says. “A class trip to Taiwan completely changed me. Only at a program like MOT do you meet such a heavy concentration of global business leaders. On class trips and events, I met investors that put millions of dollars into my company. I use the connections I made through MIT Sloan every day."
Balsan also benefited from MIT's integrated environment of business and high-tech innovation. Not an engineer by training, he wanted to develop a technologist's perspective on emerging worldwide trends. Putting these lessons to good use, he recently led to victory the company he cofounded with other Sloan graduates, Way Systems, in the Harvard Business School “Battle of the Business Plans” competition. “MIT Sloan helped tune my radar to focus on new opportunities in technology, entrepreneurship, and global business."
Ron Williams, SF '84
President, 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."
Carly Fiorina, SF '89
Former President & CEO, Hewlett-Packard
As success stories go, hers is the stuff of legend. Secretary spends her days typing bills of lading for a large company, never dreaming, with her degree in medieval history, that she will go on to lead that same multinational corporation. Her name is Carly Fiorina, and she is one of the most innovative leaders in the global business realm.
Fiorina studied law for a while but found the convention of precedents confining. She stepped into the world of business at that point and never looked back. When she entered the MIT Sloan Fellows Program in 1988, she was at a point in her life when she was attuned to the possibilities rather than the limitations of life. “One has to look beyond the immediate choices at hand and dare to dream big, dare to strive for the art of the possible, dare to truly aspire."
Fiorina has propelled those aspirations along with the lessons about leadership that she learned at MIT Sloan into a career that only a dreamer could have created. And her leadership philosophy is founded on the principle of giving other dreamers the same opportunities that she's had.
"Leadership in this new landscape is not about controlling decision making,” Fiorina says. “It's about creating the right environment. It is about setting guidelines and boundaries and parameters and then setting people free. Leadership is not about hierarchy or title or status. It is about having influence and mastering change. It's about challenging minds and capturing hearts. Leadership is about empowering others to reach their full potential."
Keiji Tachikawa, SF '78
Former President & CEO, NTT DoCoMo
The story goes that Keiji Tachikawa was disappointed when placed in charge of DoCoMo, the mobile telephone unit of the Japanese telecom giant Nippon Telephone and Telegraph. Apparently, he'd had his eye on what he considered a more coveted job leading NTT East, the company's local phone service unit.
If the rumor was true, 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 demonstrated that he or she was “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.”
Terry Hsiao, MOT '98
Founder and former CEO, InphoMatch, Inc.
Nextel had big plans for Terry Hsiao when they sent him to the MIT Sloan Management of Technology Program. Following his graduation in 1998, the company moved Hsiao to Nextel headquarters and gave him a new assignment — implement a business plan and build a new franchise from scratch.
Using the skills and experience he'd gained at Sloan, Hsiao helped put in place the necessary legal and operating structures, raised $230 million, and launched Nextel Partners, an affiliate of Nextel, Inc. The venture enabled the two companies to expand their wireless coverage to include, at last count, 198 of the top 200 U.S. markets.
Immersion in the MIT environment exposed Hsiao to brainstorming sessions on how to turn new and emerging technologies into business successes. After completing his assignments at Nextel, Hsiao used these experiences to found a new company, InphoMatch, which was recently named to the AlwaysOnTM List of Top 100 Private Companies.
One of Sloan's great advantages, according to Hsiao, is its integration of technology and management perspectives. “In the management of technology,” Hsiao says, “the key is good management. But you certainly can't afford to be left behind technologically. At MIT, I knew I was at the center of the technological world.”
Gustavo Roxo SF '04
CIO for Latin America, ABN AMRO
“Don't be afraid!” Gustavo Roxo, SF '04, cautions the uncourageous. Roxo is alluding to many things—the fear of taking risks, the reluctance to strive for a dream, the hesitance to step outside of the cocoon of the work environment to attend the MIT Sloan Fellows Program for a year.
The greater risk, Roxo says, is not having the courage to embrace the unknown. With respect to the MIT Sloan Fellows Program, he believes the greater risk is not joining the program if there is any opportunity to do so. “Once you've been through the Sloan Fellows program,” he says, “you realize this. Beforehand, it's not possible to understand just how much you'll gain from the program, how much you'll be changed by it. Afterward, you can't imagine going forward in your life without that experience behind you.”
Of course Roxo is no shrinking violet. CIO for Latin America of the multinational Dutch bank ABN AMRO, he pursued a spot in the Sloan Fellows program at the age of 35 because he wanted to introduce innovation and what he terms “a tropical flavor” to the European banking environment. Roxo's background is in engineering and he holds a masters degree in statistics. His interest: stochastics, risk management, and finance. MIT, therefore, was a no-brainer — and the MIT Sloan Fellows Program, the ultimate confluence of technology and business, even more so.
“I knew that MIT had everything to do with my background and everything to do with my future,” Roxo recalls. “I was interested in creating a thriving, pioneering environment within the conservative banking industry. I wanted to focus on new ideas, finding a competitive edge amidst local and global players. In the MIT Sloan Fellows Program, I was able to take basic courses that I needed to fill out my knowledge, but also to concentrate on leadership, on everything related to innovation and tech strategy—including a strategic financial perspective.”
Roxo's wife was also embracing risk in moving to Massachusetts with two small children during her husband's time in the program. Dora Rocha Awad, a successful lawyer in Sao Paulo, looked forward to the MIT adventure as a vehicle for expanding the boundaries of her own knowledge.
“Dora was able to take courses on economics, leadership, and work-life balance at MIT and Harvard,” Roxo says. “She often got together with the other spouses and learned a lot about life in China, Japan, Mexico, and other countries. She volunteered at the Boston Ballet and improved her English immensely. It was a remarkable year for all of us.”
Roxo returned to Sao Paulo reinforced to take on a new role within ABN AMRO as CIO in charge of 7,000 sales points in Latin America, an 800 million Euro budget, 11,000 employees, and 12 million customers. He immediately launched a landmark IT program—making his the first company in Latin America to fully outsource the IT function.
The challenges are enormous, the risks steep, but Roxo isn't complaining. “As a leader, managing high stakes realities is what it's all about. If you're prepared, as I was, you can go forth and do what you need to do with confidence. It's a rewarding position to be in.”
Yvonne Jones, SF '88
Director, Financial Markets & Community Investment Team
U.S. Government Accountability Office
Yvonne Jones is not afraid. Not of crazy ideas, unfamiliar challenges, or bucking the status quo. And her chutzpah has paid dividends—in both professional success and personal satisfaction.
Jones encourages managers rising through the ranks to maintain mental and organizational flexibility and to be open to getting ideas from anywhere. “A great idea,” she says, “can come from a bizarre place. Openness to something that might appear crazy is important. Don't discount anything without stepping back and looking at it first.”
This might seem uncharacteristic advice coming from a woman who holds a position as what some might consider the ultimate bureaucrat. Jones is a Director of the Financial Markets and Community Investment Team at the Government Accounting Office (GAO)—basically the auditor of the United States government. In her hands, however, the position is an adventure in people and systems, in negotiation and achievement.
“It's the possibility of discovery that really motivates me. It's so important not to grow rusty or complacent in any area of your life. In this position, I am balancing everything I've learned to this point with a whole new environment and all new challenges. It's a dream job for me.”
The enterprising Jones reached this dream job after considerable knowledge gathering, networking, and soul searching. And after a long career with the World Bank, where she worked with developing countries as a lead operations officer.
In fact, throughout her professional life, Yvonne Jones has embarked on explorations that have taken her around the globe and across myriad spectrums of knowledge. “Always continue to learn and to get to know yourself and your job better,” Jones says. “It's about pulling together everything you've experienced and are experiencing, everything you've learned and are learning, into a continuous process of growth.”
That philosophy was the impetus behind Jones' entry into the MIT Sloan Fellows Program. She entered the program to boost her technical and financial knowledge but, she says, that constituted just a small nugget of what she took away from MIT Sloan. “Yes, I increased my level of technical and analytical skills, but I also learned so much about organizational culture, about how to move levers in an organization, about understanding what motivates your staff.”
Jones believes that the Sloan Fellows Program altered the course of her career and opened heretofore closed doors. “Some of the jobs I took on after graduating from MIT Sloan were directly related to the fact that I had garnered a much broader and elevated skill set in technology, finance, and economics. I had also gained something much less quantifiable but just as important—an overarching perspective on management.”
Reflecting on her Sloan Fellows year, Jones ticks off everything she took back to her career. “MIT integrates knowledge in areas of technology, globalism, socially responsible business, human relations, organizational structures, theory, strategy, and finance.” It's that crosscutting perspective, she says, that makes all the difference. “Today's managers must be able to address issues on multiple fronts. The Sloan Fellows Program gave me the rare opportunity to become knowledgeable in so many of those vital areas, and it helped me to make better decisions, both personally and professionally. I would urge anyone lucky enough to be at MIT today to take advantage of as much as you can. Throughout your career, you'll be very glad you did.”
Vivien Crea, SF '92
Vice Admiral, U.S. Coast Guard
When you are second in command of the United States Coast Guard, your days are packed with life and death responsibilities, and Vivien Crea considers mentorship to be among them.
Mentorship, Vice Admiral Crea believes, is as important to the lives of individuals as it is to the organizations that rely on them. It's a lesson she says she learned from a succession of inspiring bosses.
Crea entered the Coast Guard at 22 and progressed through the officers' training program. She wanted to attend flight school but at the time, women were barred from enrolling. “My boss encouraged me not to give up. He said, ‘We're going to change that.’ ”
Crea didn't give up, and with the help of her boss and other mentors within the Coast Guard, she became one of the first two women to attend flight school and earn her wings. She rose through the ranks, becoming Atlantic Area Commander in charge of the eastern half of the world.
Today, Crea manages flag and senior staff and oversees all major acquisitions—including replacement of the Coast Guard's $25 billion offshore capabilities. She also runs the leadership council and sets the strategic agenda for the Coast Guard's top leaders, including the Commandant, Admiral Thad Allen, who is also an MIT Sloan Fellow and one of Crea's pivotal mentors. The culture of the Coast Guard, she says, has been very much influenced by the MIT Sloan Fellows Program. “Every year the Coast Guard sponsors a fellow to the program, so we have our own internal network of MIT Sloan Fellows. In fact, there's a vertical line of fellows starting with Admiral Allen at the top. We find we share many of the same values, the same reliance on teamwork, the same views on ethical leadership.”
Mentorship, Crea says, is an important aspect of that culture. “Rely on the people working with you. Reinforce them. Accommodate them when you can, and give them room to do what they do best. I want to do for them what my mentors have done for me—help them to achieve their dreams.”
Sook Hee Lee, SF '07
CEO, d&shop
Daum, the Google of Korea, is the fourth most popular Web site in the world, and like Google, is a Web portal on a speed-of-light trajectory of innovation and expansion. That's exactly what attracted Sook Hee Lee, SF '07, COO of Daum's Commerce Strategic Business Unit.
“My career can be divided in half—before and after joining Daum,” Lee says. “Before Daum, I worked in marketing for a leasing company, then a telecom, an airline, and a government agency. I spent seven years job-hopping because I wanted greater challenges.”
Daum cured Lee of her restlessness. “Life at Daum is always exciting,” she notes. “The culture is open and entrepreneurial. And there are always new challenges and opportunities. Everything I want in a career is there.”
So how could she leave her dream job for a year away at the MIT Sloan Fellows Program? First, she did not see it as time away. Second, she felt it was vital to keeping that dream job. “It is so important to upgrade yourself relentlessly. Don't become starry-eyed by your own performance. Your past performance made you who you are. Your reputation is a reward for that past performance. If you rest today, there will be no performance, no reputation, and no reward in the future.”
Lee believed strongly that if her dream job was to remain a dream job, she had to keep up with its dizzying twists and turns. “I needed distance from my workplace. I needed new skills and a new perspective. Sometimes, the very strength that enables you to succeed in your present position is the obstacle to success in your next.”
As a Sloan Fellow, Lee says, she had the chance to stretch herself, build knowledge, and share experiences with other seasoned professionals, including faculty, fellows, and the prominent global leaders she often met in the program.
But the most significant ROI, she says, was self-knowledge. “I learned that what I most lacked was self-confidence and candor. In the Sloan Fellows Program, I realized how important it is to have the courage to share my views, not just within my divisional comfort zone, but on a wider, cross-functional scale.”
Daum, Sook Hee Lee believes, has big things in its future and her dream job is to be a part of it all. “Before entering the Sloan Fellows Program, my career and performance had been focused on division-level strategy. I had performed well in that environment, but I had no experience with corporate-level strategy in sustainability and competition. My year at MIT gave me the ability to operate in that zone—comfortably and confidently.”
James C. Foster, SF '85
Chairman & CEO, Charles River Laboratories
When Forbes magazine named James C. Foster “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2002, it sounded a clarion call that entrepreneurship is now a pivotal aspect of corporate culture. Chairman and CEO of Charles River Laboratories, Foster transformed the 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, he knew if he were going to take Charles River Laboratories from a producer of animal research models to a biotechnology giant, he needed a strong management foundation. Not wanting a traditional MBA degree, Foster never even flirted with other schools or programs. He knew what the MIT Sloan Fellows Program had to offer and went for it.
Foster says that the MIT Sloan Fellows Program prepared him for the gauntlet of professional challenges that culminated in his 2002 award. “It's not just an education, it's a life-altering experience,” Foster says of the program. The powerful relationships forged with faculty and fellow students, the CEO seminars, and the trips to New York City, Washington, D.C., and abroad made the program an experience that Foster says was perfect for him at that juncture in his career. Charles River Industries now operates 77 facilities in 15 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?' '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.' “
May Li Qunmei SF '02
CFO, Gao Hua Securities
As Ron Williams, SF '84, President and CEO of Aetna, once said, “It's important to have your head in the clouds and your feet on the ground.” Fellow alumnus May Li Qunmei '02 seconds the motion.
Qunmei has always dreamed on a large scale, and her career has soared with her ambitions. She launched it all with a degree in accounting systems in 1988. She quickly ascended the ranks of the China International Agriculture Trust and Investment Corporation (CATIC), working in its overseas investment area, then moved on to positions in both Guam and Houston. Qunmei then moved back to Beijing with Price Waterhouse and is now the CFO of Gao Hua Securities, Goldman Sachs' domestic partner in China.
One of Qunmei's early dreams was to attend MIT. Pursuing that goal took her first to Tsinghua University in Beijing, which Qunmei refers to as “China's MIT.” Both her parents were professors there— her mother teaching the history of technology and her father, industry process control systems.
In 2001, Qunmei wanted a new challenge. “I had reached the limit of my career development at that time. I was working with senior people who had been overseas. In China, we call them ‘returnees’;—Chinese professionals who return to China after a chunk of time abroad, many with overseas degrees. These people were best positioned for growth in China-based international organizations. I felt it was time to reinvent myself and attend MIT.”
Happily, Qunmei says, the MIT Sloan Fellows Program was exactly the program she was looking for. As a mid-career finance professional, she did not want to take a step back and attend school with young MBAs. She wanted to learn alongside her peers. She wanted to learn from their experiences and their perspectives.
“The MIT Sloan Fellows Program was the best time of my life. I enjoyed enormously debating crucial issues with famous professors and classmates with unbelievably strong backgrounds. I helped them with their accounting and they helped me in perfecting my English.”
The true value for Qunmei, however, was in being able to step back from the microeconomic perspective and get a wider view of international business management. “I am a focused, detail-oriented person and I never had the opportunity to get the macro view. The Sloan Fellows Program helped me to build a strategic assessment with the benefit of new, critical information.”
Qunmei also credits the program with giving her the confidence to pursue the next level of her career. “I knew exactly what I would be able to take on from that point forward. I understood what qualities I possessed—including those I'd built at MIT—and I could go forward with complete confidence in my ability to reach my next goal.”
Luda Kopeikina SF '90
Founder and CEO, Noventra Corporation
“Inertia,” says Luda Kopeikina, “is a high risk behavior.” This serial entrepreneur, angel investor, author, innovator, and all-around leadership guru should know. She has taken a succession of risks—colossal risks—and experienced the ROI.
Kopeikina left a comfortable faculty position in computer science at St. Petersburg University in the early 1980s to restart her career in the United States. If it was an outsized risk, Kopeikina had outsized goals. She wanted to climb the ladder of a large corporation. She wanted to lead a publicly-traded company. And she wanted to succeed as an entrepreneur.
Kopeikina has accomplished all these feats and more. After a year as an MIT Sloan Fellow, she rose through the ranks of GE to hold VP positions and work directly with Jack Welch on strategic efforts. Then she took on the ailing Celerity Solutions, turned the company around, and grew it six-fold—in only two years. Interactive Week, in its annual Executive Worth Survey, ranked Kopeikina among the top 20 CEOs of high tech public companies in the US.
After her success at Celerity, Kopeikina launched three successful companies, the latest of which is Noventra, a business consulting, training, and executive coaching company that helps leaders create winning organizations. She is also founder and vice-chair of the MIT Enterprise Forum of South Florida.
Kopeikina says the network that she established during her year in the MIT Sloan Fellows Program has been instrumental to many of her successes. That network includes MIT faculty, some of whom convinced her to turn her pioneering work in decision making—work begun during her year as an MIT Sloan Fellow—into a book. The Right Decision Every Time, published in 2005, has been translated into several languages including Korean, Mandarin, and Russian.
“As an MIT Sloan Fellow, I learned to be open to all the input coming at me from various directions. Don't screen, be open. ‘Luda Kopeikina as author?!’ I might have dismissed the idea if not for the urgings of my MIT Sloan support system. I realized, ‘Why not?’ It was completely uncharted territory, and I loved it.”
Lisa Festa, MOT '99
Commander, United States Coast Guard
You can't always anticipate the forces that will change your career and your life. United States Coast Guard Commander Lisa Festa certainly would never have predicted that a system dynamics course might be one of those turning points.
The Coast Guard sent Commander Festa to the Management of Technology Program in preparation for her leadership role in the $17 billion Deepwater Project. “It was an enormous undertaking,” Festa remembers. “We were recapitalizing all of our large ships or cutters, our aircraft, our logistics systems, and our communications systems.”
Festa found an essential tool in MIT Sloan Professor John Sterman's system dynamics class, “the most important course of my academic career,” she says without qualification. “System dynamics can be applied to just about any situation in work, in life. It helps you to understand just how the elements of an organization work together.” Because her work at the Coast Guard hinged on leading effective teams, she found the course a revelation.
In fact, Festa entered the program thinking that team building was the one thing she already had down pat, but from her first day at MIT Sloan, she found she was learning essential new lessons about team dynamics. “The faculty immediately took us through different exercises and approaches to team building. Before my first week in the program was over, I could see it was going to be an amazing year.”
Festa also found the entrepreneurial knowledge she gained of particular value. “In this period of competing priorities in support of defense and homeland security, there's a great deal of pressure to present a sound business case for all expenditures. The best business cases are created by people with both a strong business background and a strong entrepreneurial spirit.” Festa should know. Her program was just honored for submitting “the best business case” within the Department of Homeland Security.
Joe Gilman, MOT '90
Assistant Vice President - Global Network Operations, AT&T
At a pivotal point in his career, Joe Gilman realized that what he needed was expansion. He wanted to develop his knowledge and skills. He wanted to broaden his network and his perspective. He wanted to increase his exposure to the latest research and trends. So when BellSouth gave him the opportunity to achieve all that at MIT Sloan's Management of Technology Program, he jumped at it.
Gilman knew that the MOT Program, in addition to being the premier management of technology program in the world, would give him access to the wealth of resources imbedded in the MIT environment. He would also be able to work closely with a top-notch faculty, industry experts, and a diverse, dynamic, highly motivated peer group.
"Attending the MOT Program was a heady experience. MIT is the premier research university in the world. Just to be among that caliber of people is exciting. You almost take it for granted until you go back to the workaday world. You find that you're hungry for the same level of intellectual discussion.” Gilman remembers the day he returned to work after a year at MIT. “I wanted to talk about what was happening in the world, but everybody else was talking sports scores or about something they'd seen on TV."
Gilman says he's divided his life into two parts: pre-MIT and post-MIT. “My time at MIT gave me a chance to step back and look at my job and my life through a different set of filters. I came to appreciate just how many really smart people there are in the world and how many different approaches there are to solving a problem."
He says his family also grew from the experience. “The MOT Program was my first opportunity in working closely with people from other cultures, and I'd made a commitment early on that I didn't want my own children to grow up without having exposure to the wider world. After MOT, I went on to positions in Australia and Belgium."
Gilman believes that sponsoring companies are also richer for an expansive experience like the MOT Program. “The participants all had the opportunity to look at the world through a different lens, finding innovative ways to make their company more efficient. And that's absolutely essential for a company interested in growth."
© 2009 MIT SLOAN SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT