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The irrational exuberance of the dot-com era has yielded a wave of social activism, and many now see business education as a means for improving the world.
Corporate responsibility and sustainable business are foremost on the minds of many MIT Sloan students, alumni, and faculty members. And they are resolute that social responsibility should — and does — make good business.
In an MIT Sloan In Depth report, we highlight this increasing sense of social responsibility and how it is influencing the practice of business.
The experience of Jeremy Hockenstein, SM '00, illustrates the power of applying business innovation to social issues.
Determined to expand the horizons of young people in Cambodia and Laos, he began Digital Data Divide (DDD), a nonprofit venture, five years ago. Today the company has 200 employees in three offices.
DDD employs disadvantaged and disabled young people in the two countries. The employees work half a day on data entry projects for U.S. companies and go off to DDD-financed school for the second half of the day. In three or four years they graduate and, with their enhanced education and experience, are able to land better jobs.
While Hockenstein is making a difference through entrepreneurship, MIT Sloan Senior Lecturer Otto Scharmer says socially responsible business is an emerging career path for B-school graduates joining established ventures.
NGOs and nonprofits are beginning to pay competitive salaries, he says, and an increasing number of corporations are making social responsibility central to their business model.
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Reunion 2007, June 7-10, will bring together 10 MIT Sloan classes for a weekend of activities sure to rekindle old ties and yield new ones.
Alumni in this year's reunion classes — '57, '62, '67, '72, '77, '82, '87, '92, '97, 2002, and 2006 — will have a chance to catch up with old friends during class dinners, take part in a traditional family BBQ, and get together at a special Reunion version of MIT Sloan's weekly C-Function.
Alumni will also have the opportunity to participate in an Executive Education workshop led by MIT Sloan Professor Richard Locke on corporate responsibility in the global supply chain. Locke will explore the difficult challenges global companies face in upholding a high standard of corporate citizenship.
Reunion will also feature Back-to-the-Classroom sessions with MIT Sloan professors. Among the dynamic professors presenting this year are Shane Frederick, JoAnne Yates, Thomas Malone, and Arnie Barnett.
And Ken White, SM '69, and MIT Sloan Professor Lotte Bailyn will present a career workshop for alumni on the challenges professionals face in juggling individual career and lifestyle choices.
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MIT Sloan Fellow Alan Mulally takes helm at FordAlan Mulally, a senior Boeing Co. executive and a 1982 MIT Sloan Fellow, was named chief executive of Ford Motor Company, replacing William Clay Ford, great-grandson of the company founder and also an MIT Sloan alumnus (SF '84).
The move comes as Ford Motor seeks to transform itself and emerge from financial troubles. The company lost $1.4 billion in the first half of this year and has embarked on a plan to close 14 plants and cut 30,000 jobs.
President and chief executive of the commercial airplane division of Boeing, Mulally has no experience in the auto industry, but analysts say his experience at Boeing suits him well for the Ford post. He ably steered the airlines division amid the industry downturn and restructuring in the wake of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
“The rest of our management team really needed someone who had been through all of this — been through the wars, had the battle scars, and been victorious,” said Ford, who remains chairman of the company.
The MIT Sloan Fellows Program in Innovation and Global Leadership is a one-year MBA program that trains mid-career executives of exceptional promise and enables them to build knowledge, networks, global understanding, and their own personal leadership paradigms.
Its roster of distinguished alumni includes United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, President of the NAACP Bruce Gordon, and Carly Fiorina, former president and CEO of Hewlett-Packard.
Photo: Alan Mulally, SF '82, who is the new CEO of Ford Motor Company.
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Network geared toward fulfilling great expectationsAlicia Anderson came to MIT Sloan as a mother of two, enrolled her children in preschool across the street from the School, and went on to have a third child during her second year in the MBA Program. She emerged in 2005 with an MBA, plans for an entrepreneurial venture, and a keen appreciation of MIT Sloan's supportive and inspiring network.
Anderson is one many women who have forged their own path at MIT Sloan and beyond — balancing work, family, social life, and career ambition. Their stories reflect a community where the only barriers are self-imposed, where social, academic, and professional bonds form easily, and from which women can fulfill their dreams.
Jackie Yeaney, MBA '96, entered MIT Sloan as a veteran of the U.S. Air Force and an electrical engineer who had eyed a PhD in engineering. Today, she leads a large integrated marketing organization for Homebanc Mortgage.
Limor Sinay, MBA '04, arrived at MIT Sloan at age 28, expecting her first child and intent on challenging herself to grow.
“For me it was about an exciting and energizing environment that allowed me to make friends with incredibly talented individuals from all over the world,” she says. “It was about exploring a world of interests and opportunities. It was about learning from others and making myself a better person.”
When Robin Chase, SM '86, arrived at MIT Sloan, she was struck by how many of her classmates were committed to providing employment opportunities, producing cheaper fuels, and improving the environment. She went on to co-found Zipcar, an innovative company that provides 24-hour self-service access to cars, and to accept a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard in which she examined how to reduce CO2 emissions.
Their paths are different, but themes emerge from the stories of women who attend MIT Sloan. The atmosphere is inspiring, the community supportive, the opportunities bountiful, and the bonds enduring.
Says Paula Stick Horowitz, MBA '95: “One of the best aspects of my MIT Sloan experience is that it did not end when I received my diploma. I am lucky to have a strong network of female friends from MIT Sloan who truly are there in good times and in bad. We counsel, console, cheer on, challenge, and congratulate each other on everything from work and family matters to wine and food pairings.”
Photo: Robin Chase, SM '86, who co-founded Zipcar and as part of a Loeb Fellowship at Harvard examined how to reduce CO2 emissions.
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CIO Symposium: Maximizing the business value of ITOnce consigned to managing technical people and assets, chief information officers are emerging as important strategic leaders — asked to partner strategically with other units, to develop profit and product centers, and to help drive the corporate agenda.
This is one of a number of trends on the agenda at the MIT Sloan CIO Symposium, June 21. The symposium brings together 500 senior-level IT decision-makers for a day of networking and spirited discussions on today's business and technology issue.
With the theme “Maximizing the Business Value of IT,” the symposium will focus on the impact of recent IT developments along two tracks: Technology & Business and IT Organization.
Panels will address the following topics:
Dave Girouard, who manages Google's growing enterprise business worldwide, will deliver the keynote address. The symposium is organized by the MIT Center for eBusiness and the MIT Sloan Alumni Club of Boston, in association with the Society for Information Management (SIM).
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MIT Sloan community makes key contributions to relief effortsFrom late 2004 through the fall of 2005 catastrophic natural disasters hit nearly every region of the globe. Members of the MIT Sloan community, from Thad W. Allen, a 1989 MIT Sloan Fellow, to MIT Leadership Center Club Copresident Nathalie Butcher, MBA '06, have been front and center in planning, aiding, analyzing, and overhauling relief efforts.
Coast guard Vice Admiral Thad W. Allen took the reigns of the Gulf Coast hurricane recovery from FEMA Director Michael Brown. Another MIT Sloan Fellow, Bruce Gordon, SF '88, president and CEO of the NAACP, put his organization at the forefront of those same recovery efforts to help the poor and displaced. On International Day for Disaster Reduction, Secretary-General of the United Nations Kofi Annan, a 1972 MIT Sloan Fellow, called for a hard look at how disasters are affecting the most vulnerable members of society.
Back on campus, MIT Sloan professor Thomas C. Kochan participated in the high-profile MIT symposium, "Big Questions after Big Hurricanes." As part of this month-long series of discussions, Kochan and other members of the MIT community assessed the realities of disaster management and looked to productive solutions.
MIT Sloan is a global community and concerns about disaster relief extend to Pakistan and Indonesia and to all the countries facing massive recovery efforts. Nathalie Butcher, MBA '06, spent the summer of 2005 in Indonesia, where she helped remote communities rebound.
Disasters have a long and devastating reach through global systems, from the energy industry to the economy, and members of the MIT Sloan community have been analyzing the impact from each of these catastrophic events.
MIT Sloan Professor Deborah Ancona, faculty director of the MIT Leadership Center, believes the involvement of the MIT Sloan faculty, students, and alumni is second nature, a manifestation of MIT's Mens et Manus credo. "The engineering roots of the Institute have grown an action-oriented culture. MIT is all about putting theory together with action," she says. "People learn problem solving here. They think about what needs to be done and they do it.”
Read more about these and other MIT Sloan experts and their insight on relief efforts.
Get their perspectives on:
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Bright lights of business converge at MIT Sloan Convocation 2005Alumni traveled to MIT Sloan Oct. 6-8 from around the world to get late-breaking knowledge from business legends like Morris Chang, chairman and CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor, John Thain, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange, and Carly Fiorina, former CEO and chairman of Hewlett-Packard.
At this, MIT Sloan's much anticipated triennial convocation, alumni had the opportunity to connect with one another, with faculty, and with some of the great business minds of our era. They took classes with the school's top faculty — intensive updates like Rebecca Henderson's "Standards and Strategy: Competing in Increasingly Open Worlds."
Many of the weekend's discussions dealt with issues of global responsibility — "Making Globalization Work for All," for example, featuring Hannah Jones, vice president for corporate responsibility at Nike, and "Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty" with Barbara Stocking, director general of Oxfam, Great Britain. During a networking lunch, MIT Sloan students presented a poster session, sharing information and insights on current projects that are changing the world.
One of the high points of the convocation was the Passion to Action Summit. The event celebrated the launch of the MIT Leadership Center and featured panel discussions organized around critical global business issues. Featuring such headliners as biotech pioneer Bob Langer, Nobel prize-winning biologist Phil Sharp, and Ethernet inventor Bob Metcalfe, the summit presented discussions that illuminated the hallmarks of productive, visionary leadership.
Photo: Carly Fiorina, former CEO and chairman of Hewlett-Packard, speaks at MIT Sloan Convocation 2005.
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MIT alumnus Ben Bernanke poised to lead nation's economyBen Bernanke, PhD '79, has been nominated by President Bush to succeed Alan Greenspan as chairman of the Federal Reserve. If confirmed, Bernanke, who holds a doctorate in economics from MIT, will become the most powerful financial arbiter in the country — the head of the nation's central bank.
Word in Washington and on Wall Street is that Bernanke's confirmation will face relatively mild opposition, even from Democrats. Stocks rallied as soon as news spread of his impending nomination. Renowned as one of the best economic minds of the day, Bernanke was governor of the Federal Reserve when he was tapped earlier this year to chair the president's Council of Economic Advisors.
Bernanke came to Washington after a long-time career in academia. He was chairman of the economics department at Princeton and taught at several universities, including his alma mater MIT, where he was a visiting professor of economics.
Should he take the helm from Greenspan, whose term expires in January 2006, Bernanke says his first priority will be to "maintain continuity with the policies and strategies established during the Greenspan years." Known for his tough attitude toward inflation, he is expected to hike interest rates if there is any sign that inflation is accelerating.
New York Senator Charles Schumer, a member of the Senate Banking Committee and a democrat, praised Bernanke. "We need a careful, non-ideological person who understands that the Federal Reserve's main job is to fight inflation, and Ben Bernanke seems to fit the bill." He noted that the country needs a chairman who will "adopt the Greenspan model of flexibility in monetary policy that has served our economy so well.”
Bernanke has published extensively on a wide variety of economic issues, including monetary policy, macroeconomics, and the Great Depression. His works have been used in economics courses at MIT Sloan and in MIT OpenCourseWare.
Read more about Ben Bernanke's nomination to the Federal Reserve post.
Read more about the Federal Reserve.
AP Photo
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MIT Sloan alum assumes leadership of NAACP1988 MIT Sloan Fellow Bruce S. Gordon in August assumed leadership of the NAACP, the nation's oldest and most powerful civil rights group. Former president of the Retail Markets Group at Verizon, he is widely seen as having the social vision and business expertise to reinvigorate the organization.
Renowned for being that paradoxical variety of leader, the level-headed visionary, Gordon was deemed most likely to succeed in meeting the complex challenges facing the 500,000-member civil rights organization. "Like the excitement around the election of Barack Obama," Earl G. Graves Sr., founder of Black Enterprise magazine, told The New York Times, "Bruce Gordon will generate excitement in corporate America.”
Gordon retired in December 2003 after a 35-year career in the telecommunications industry. As president of the Retail Markets Group at Verizon, he was responsible for the company's consumer and small business customers and directed corporate advertising and brand management. Often recognized for his outstanding leadership, Gordon was named to Fortune magazine's list of "The 50 Most Powerful Black Executives" in 2002.
“It's a fantastic fit," Tony Lewis, president of Verizon's office in Washington, D.C., told the Associated Press. According to Lewis, Gordon guided Verizon through a number of mergers and helped the company adapt to modern times. "He understands that we need organizations like the NAACP," said Lewis. "The needs change, but the needs never go away.”
Read more about Bruce S. Gordon.
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MIT Sloan Convocation 2005: Theoretical insights. Practical methods.Every three years, MIT Sloan alumni travel to the Institute from around the globe to monitor advances on the frontier of management. The three-day MIT Sloan Convocation draws some of the world's most renowned alumni, all dedicated to investigating new directions in technology, entrepreneurship, consumer behavior, and management practice.
The 2005 MIT Sloan Convocation, Oct. 6-8, featured talks by Morris Chang, SB '52, SM '53, ME '55, chairman and CEO of Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Company (TSMC); Carly Fiorina, SM '89, former chairman and CEO of Hewlett-Packard; and John Thain, SB '77, CEO of the New York Stock Exchange.
MIT Sloan Convocation offered alumni the opportunity to upgrade critical knowledge by attending an invigorating roster of talks, discussion groups, and seminars with the industry leaders and MIT Sloan professors who are defining their fields. Rebecca Henderson, for example, explored strategies for competing in an increasingly open world. Michael Scott Morton investigated corporate strategy for information technology.
Other faculty led panel discussions, including Richard Locke, who hosted Hannah Jones, vice president for corporate responsibility at Nike, and Scott Nova, executive director of the Workers Rights Consortium, in a frank dialogue about socially responsible globalization.
The convocation kicked off Oct. 6 with the Passion to Action Summit — a confab of MIT leaders that served as the official launch of the MIT Leadership Center. In addition, the 2005 convocation celebrated two key landmarks in the history of management education: the 75th anniversary of the MIT Sloan Fellows Program, the first executive program in the world, and the 25th anniversary of the Management of Technology Program, a trail-blazing program that inspired more than 250 imitators. The two programs merged in 2004.
Read more about MIT Sloan Convocation 2005.
Photo: In one session at MIT Sloan Convocation 2005, MIT Sloan Professor Rebecca Henderson explored strategies for competing in an increasingly open world.
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MIT Sloan alum takes charge of Gulf rescue operationsMIT Sloan alumnus Thad W. Allen, a 1989 MIT Sloan Fellow, is now managing search and rescue operations along the Gulf Coast in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Allen, U.S. Coast Guard vice admiral and Coast Guard chief of staff, has been one of the key agents of change at the agency since the September 11 terrorist attacks.
Division of Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff handpicked Allen to lead the federal recovery efforts. Frequently praised for reaching out to other agencies and for developing big picture approaches to homeland defense, Allen took over from Michael D. Brown, the embattled former FEMA director. Lives and reputations are relying heavily on Allen, who was described in The Washington Post as "unflappable, engaging, and intensely organized.”
Allen is collaborating with Army Lt. General Russel L. Honore, head of the Joint Task Force Katrina, to oversee, manage, and lead all military and civilian recovery efforts in a devastated region where the death toll is expected to rise into the thousands in the wake of the country's worst natural disaster.
Retired Admiral James M. Loy, former commandant of the Coast Guard and former deputy secretary of Homeland Security, was quoted in The Post as confident that Allen has the experience to help steer the federal response to the Katrina catastrophe in the right direction after initial shortfalls. "He always brings a new idea per minute to the table as far as how to grapple with difficult situations.”
Read Washington Post article on Allen's appointment.
Learn about MIT's response to Katrina.
AP Photo
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