Northwestern University, James L. Allen Center, Wednesday, October 31, 2007

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Panelist and Moderator Bios:

Leading Companies and Communities (Panel):

 scott_w.jpgWalter D. Scott, Kellogg Professor of Management and Senior Austin Fellow

Since 1988, Walter D. Scott is Professor of Management and Senior Austin Fellow at Kellogg. He teaches courses in leadership and board governance of nonprofit organizations. Professor Scott currently holds leadership positions in several nonprofit and for-profit organizations, including the Center for Executive Women, Chicago Communities in Schools, Chicago Public Education Fund, Goodcity, and Intermatic Inc. Prior to joining Kellogg he was a senior partner of Lehman Brothers, CEO of IDS Financial Services and of GrandMet USA, Executive Vice President of Pillsbury and Associate Director of the Federal Office of Management and Budget.

David Pope, President Village of Oak Park

David Pope is President of the Village of Oak Park, a diverse community of 53,000 residents just west of Chicago. Elected in April 2005 at the age of 38, David is one of the youngest municipal chief executives in the state of Illinois. He brings to the role a professional background as a management consultant, having served as a Principal with Price Waterhouse's Strategy Consulting Practice. As President (a.k.a. Mayor) David has made intergovernmental coordination a priority and has instituted improved accountability and a results orientation that goes well beyond typical public sector practices. David was recently named Chair of the Sustainability Task Force of the U.S. Conference of Mayors by that organization’s senior leadership (the Mayors of Trenton, Miami, and Seattle) and appointed to that organization’s leadership group (comprised of 40 mayors from around the country). David is a 1994 Kellogg Graduate where he was an Austin Fellow. He served as a Peace Corps Volunteer in Thailand for 2 ½ years. He is also a founding Board Member of RAINN - the United States' national rape crisis hotline. David considers himself tremendously fortunate to be the husband of Beth Houle and the father of two wonderful daughters, Elise and Vivienne.

Ellen Carnahanm - Managing Director, Seyen Capital Partners and William Blair Capital Partners

A highly successful investor with nearly twenty years of venture capital experience at William Blair Capital Partners (WBCP), Ellen Carnahan serves as cofounder and Managing Director of Seyen Capital Partners. Prior to joining WBCP in 1988, she was Vice President of Marketing & Planning at SPSS, a then $30-million software company; and, Manager of Financial Planning & Analysis at Trailer Train Company, the largest operator of railroad flatcars. Active in the community, she is on several boards including Chicago Communities in Schools, The Chicago Network, the State of Illinois Technology Development Fund and TiE Midwest. Ms. Carnahan is a CPA, graduated as salutatorian from the University of Notre Dame, and received an MBA from University of Chicago .

Robert J. Bennett - Vice President, HR Performance and Support, FedEx Express

 As Vice President of Human Resources Performance and Support at FedEx Express, Bob Bennett focuses on how Human Resources initiatives can have a positive effect on the company’s bottom line. Since assuming his role in 2003, Bennett has been instrumental in establishing the FedEx Talent Management Program to recognize and assess high talent in employees. Bennett, who first joined FedEx in 1979, currently serves on the Boards of the Salvation Army, The Leadership Academy, Memphis Oral School for the Deaf and Memphis Academy for Health Sciences. Bennett received his Bachelors and Masters degrees in Industrial Engineering from Cornell University and his MBA from Bernard Baruch College at the City University of New York.

 

Leadership & Turnarounds (Panel):

James B. Shein- Clinical Professor of Management and Strategy, Kellogg School of Management

 Professor James B. Shein is Clinical Professor of Management & Strategy and also is part of Kellogg’s Larry and Carol Levy Institute for Entrepreneurial Practice. He teaches Managing Turnarounds (MGMT 934) and Entrepreneurship and New Venture Formulation (ENTR 462). Professor Shein is also counsel at McDermott, Will & Emery with primary areas of practice including corporate financial and operating restructurings, business startups and acquisitions, and fiduciary duties of officers and directors.

Previously, Professor Shein spent four years as the president and chief executive officer of R.C. Manufacturing and ten years prior to that as president and chief executive officer of Northbrook Corporation.

Professor Shein has chaired programs at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago on the outlook for the troubled steel, textile and plastics industries. Professor Shein conducts seminars and workshops on commercial loan structuring and workouts for the Bank Lending Institute and the Banking Law Institute. His work with corporate director led to his article, Trying to Match SOX: Dealing with New Challenges and Risks Facing Directors, published in The Journal of Private Equity, 2005.

A frequent lecturer and author on corporate renewal, he has been highlighted on National Public Radio programs as an authority on restructuring and downsizing. He was elected by his peers as Vice President of the Turnaround Management Association, an international organization of 7,000 turnaround, bankruptcy, and restructuring professionals, and is on the International Board of Directors.

Professor Shein graduated with an engineering degree from Purdue University and then earned an M.B.A. from Indiana University. He also holds a doctoral degree in organizational behavior from Indiana University. He later received his juris doctor degree, cum laude, from Loyola University of Chicago, where he was lead articles editor of the Law Journal.

 

Mike Donohoe - President, Gendex/DEXIS

Gendex/DEXIS is a leading provider of dental x-ray and imaging solutions for dentists worldwide. The business is an integration of three acquisitions over the last four years (Gendex Corporation, DEXIS LLC and Dentrix Imaging) and is part of the Medical Technologies platform at Danaher Corporation.

As President of Gendex/DEXIS since July 2005, Mike Donohoe is responsible for the development of strategic business and operational initiatives, organizational development and driving market share leadership in the high growth digital imaging segment.

Mike has been with Danaher since 2003 as Vice President of Business Development (M&A) for Fluke Corporation in Everett, Washington, where he was responsible for served market expansion, acquisition target cultivation and due diligence management. At Fluke, Mike had an integral role in driving their growth as a business platform.

Prior to joining Danaher, Mike was Senior Director of Strategy for Philips Electronics, where his key responsibilities were development of strategy and portfolio management. Other corporations Mike has worked for in the past include Bain & Company and the Hamilton Standard and Otis Elevator divisions of United Technologies. Mike has a demonstrated record of developing and driving business strategies aimed to deliver substantial and sustainable results.

Mike earned his Bachelor of Science degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he majored in Mechanical Engineering. He subsequently earned his MBA from Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University.

 

Teresa McMahon - FTI Consulting Managing Director , Corporate Finance

Teresa McMahon is a managing director based in Chicago. She has 20-plus years of business experience as a corporate financial executive with public and private companies. In her role as Chief Financial Officer, she has been responsible for leading the controllership, tax, treasury, planning and analysis, information technology, human resources, and customer service functions. Ms. McMahon was the co-founding partner of a business-consulting firm where she led the firm for nearly ten years.

Consulting Experience

As a consultant, Ms. McMahon has worked with growth and distressed companies. She has consulted on preparing business plans for raising capital for multiple businesses including a start-up planning to specialize in data streaming over the internet, a security company expanding its product offerings into the dot com arena, and a pallet manufacturer. Other engagements have included financial and operational due diligence, acquisition integration, and organizational infrastructure development. For companies in distressed, she ran the financial operations during the bankruptcy proceedings for a subprime auto finance company with 10+ securitizations and than managed the liquidating estate over 5 years during the time that the residuals from the securitizations were realized. She has acted as Chief Restructuring Officer for Union Acceptance Corporation, also a subprime auto finance company, and most recently acted as financial advisor to a creditors’ committees during bankruptcy proceedings. She has played interim financial management roles stepping in to lead financial operations.

Industry Experience

From 1992 to 1995, Ms. McMahon was Vice President of Finance for StorageTek Distributed Systems Division, Inc., a provider of information storage and retrieval equipment for mid-range computer systems. Highlights of accomplishments include overseeing the merger of the organization’s operations into its parent company, improving company performance by facilitating process reengineering changes throughout the organization, divesting of non-core business units, and performing a review of customer profitability in order to assess required price changes. These initiatives resulted in improving operating results from a $23 million lost to a $12 million profit in approximately a year timeframe.

From 1987 to 1992, McMahon served as treasurer, then chief financial officer, for Prime Capital Corporation, a public company specializing in health care equipment leasing. Prior to 1987, McMahon held financial positions with Financial Investment Associates where she was instrumental in preparing the company for an initial public offering and Mediflex Systems (acquired by HBO & Company, Atlanta) where she was involved in the company’s initial and secondary stock offerings.

She began her career at KPMG Peat Marwick and Deloitte & Touche, serving entrepreneurial client companies in the planning and supervision of financial statement audits. Ms. McMahon is a Certified Public Accountant and holds a B.A in Accountancy from the University of Illinois at Urbana where she graduated with high honors

 

James A. Mesterharm - Managing Director, AlixPartners, LLP

 Jim Mesterharm specializes in developing financial and operating strategies for companies emerging Chapter 11 and troubled companies. He has significant expertise in crisis management, cost reduction plan development and implementation, cash management, capital structure refinancing, and business plan development for acquisition and restructuring purposes. Jim has served in senior management positions in turnarounds in roles such as Chief Restructuring Officer, Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer.

Jim is currently leading AlixPartners team which is serving as Restructuring Advisor to a leading plastic packaging company. Through AlixPartners’ efforts the company recently completed an out of court restructuring and refinancing which provided the company with the time to develop and begin the execution of a turnaround plan, and obtain the additional liquidity required to finance the road to recovery. Jim is currently serving as the Chief Operating Officer of the company.

Recently Jim led AlixPartners’ team as Restructuring Advisor to Silicon Graphics, Inc. (“SGI”), a pioneer and leader in high performance computing. At SGI he led a team which developed and implemented broad sweeping cost reduction initiatives which have generated over $130 million in cost savings, secured incremental financing, and negotiated a pre-arranged bankruptcy restructuring. These initiatives allowed SGI to emerge from bankruptcy in approximately five months with a right sized cost structure, significantly reduced leverage, while enabling SGI the flexibility to pursue new growth opportunities.

Prior to SGI, Jim’s most recent completed assignment was serving as Chief Restructuring Officer of Parmalat USA where he led the company’s day-to-day operations and its successful restructuring efforts. During Jim’s tenure at the $550 million dairy products manufacturing division of Parmalat SpA of Italy, Parmalat completed a fast track restructuring in under 14 months while successfully implementing over $15 million in operational EBITDA improvement initiatives, shedding non-core assets which generated over $50 million in proceedes, and negotiating and separating the company from the scandal plagued Parmalat SpA, thus avoiding over $2 billion and claims. For his work in the Parmalat USA bankruptcy Jim was recognized by Turnarounds & Workouts making their list of “People to Watch – 2005, Business Professionals Making Their Mark”.

Prior to Parmalat USA, Jim served as restructuring advisor to Safety-Kleen, a $1.6 billion industrial waste management company in its successful restructuring. Prior to the Safety-Kleen restructuring, Jim was a member of the AlixPartners team at Zenith Electronics Corporation which was honored as “Most Effective Restructure of a Company with a Chapter 11 Reorganization,” by the Turnaround Management Association.

Prior to joining AlixPartners, Jim was a manager in the Financial Advisory Services practice of Ernst & Young. He graduated from Northwestern University’s J.L. Kellogg School of Management with an MBA degree in finance, strategy, and organizational behavior, and holds a Bachelor of Science degree in accounting and management from Purdue University. Jim is a Certified Public Accountant.

 

Leading Diversity (Panel):

Julius Pryor, III - VP of Global Diversity, Coca Cola Enterprises

 Julius Pryor, III, is Vice President of Global Diversity for Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc., the world’s largest marketer and producer of liquid nonalcoholic refreshment. Mr. Pryor oversees the company’s diversity initiatives and implements strategies and programs to establish a winning culture among its 74,000 employees.

Mr. Pryor has a unique ability to align diversity-management strategies with business objectives—strategically leveraging diversity and inclusion as an approach to deliver results.

Most recently, Mr. Pryor served as Vice President of Global Diversity for the Johnson & Johnson Consumer Group —home to such well-known brands as BAND-AID® Brand Adhesive Bandages, JOHNSON’S® Baby, AMBI®, NEUTROGENA®, SPLENDA, TYLENOL, LISTERINE and REMBRANDT®.

Prior to joining J&J, Mr. Pryor served as the Chief Diversity Officer at both Russell Corporation and TAP Pharmaceutical Products.

Russell is a branded apparel company. Its best-known lines include RUSSELL ATHLETIC®, JERZEES®, and SPALDING®. At Russell, Mr. Pryor reported directly to the Chairman and CEO.

TAP is a joint venture between Abbott Laboratories and Takeda Chemical Industries Ltd. of Japan and is the maker of PREVACID® and LUPRON®. Mr. Pryor created the company’s Strategic Diversity Management Plan. Before being named TAP’s first-ever Diversity Chief, Mr. Pryor worked in sales management.

Mr. Pryor spent six years on active duty as an officer in the U.S. Navy, serving in shipboard commands in Surface Forces Pacific Fleet.

He has conducted workshops and delivered presentations at the Linkage Summit on Leading Diversity, The Conference Board Diversity Conference, the IQPC National Diversity Seminar, the Kellogg School of Management (Northwestern), the Rotman School of Management (University of Toronto) and the Ross School of Business (University of Michigan).

Mr. Pryor currently holds the rank of Captain in the U.S. Navy, most recently reporting to Commander 2nd Fleet/Commander Striking Fleet Atlantic. Mr. Pryor has completed coursework at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA, and the National Defense University in Washington, D.C. He is a certified instructor for the Navy’s Officer Leadership Development Course. He is a graduate of Morehouse College .

 

Angela Smith Cobb - Program Manager, Allstate

Angela Cobb is responsible for Allstate’s Civic and Cultural Affairs in Chicago. In this role, Ms. Cobb directs Allstate’s community investments, working with The Allstate Foundation as well as other corporate functions to strengthen support of Chicago’s cultural and civic institutions. Angela joined Allstate in 2005 to develop and manage The Allstate Foundation’s Domestic Violence Program, an initiative that seeks to create a holistic network of programs and services – focused on economic self-sufficiency – to empower domestic violence survivors and their advocates. Prior to joining Allstate, Angela was Business Development Director for Monster’s Diversity and Inclusion division. During her tenure Monster revamped its diversity product line and formed a key strategic partnership. As a result, the division doubled its revenue and customer base. Angela has nearly fifteen years of experience in the areas of recruiting, diversity, community development, corporate philanthropy and change management. Her experience includes serving as Program Director for the ATHENA Foundation and working in various capacities at Deloitte, an international professional services firm. Her roles at Deloitte included work in the firm’s change management consulting practice and managing the firm’s diversity and community outreach programs. As Diversity Manager, she worked with the firm’s senior leadership to implement firm wide diversity initiatives, including conducting a diversity environmental assessment, enlisting leadership support, developing strategies and measurement systems, and designing and implementing minority recruitment programs. As Manager of Community Outreach Programs, Angela was responsible for managing record-breaking national, local, and regional United Way campaigns and other outreach activities. She also supported Deloitte’s former Chairman and CEO, in his role as Chairman of the United Way of America Board of Governors. Angela joined Deloitte in 1993 as an Audit Associate in the Cincinnati office and transitioned to the national recruiting staff 1995.

Angela completed a term as a Trustee of the University of Notre Dame in Spring of 2002. She also served as a member of the Advisory Council for the University’s Mendoza College of Business from 1996-1999 and from 2002-2005. Angela is also an Alumni Interviewer for the Kellogg School of Management.

Mrs. Cobb is a 2000 graduate of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management where she received an M.B.A. in Organizational Behavior and Strategy. Angela is a 1993 graduate of the University of Notre Dame where she received a B.B.A. in Accounting . She is a Certified Public Accountant in the state of Ohio.

 

Wendy Lewis - Vice President, Strategic Planning, Recruitment & Diversity, Major League Baseball

Wendy Lewis is Vice President of Strategic Planning for Recruitment and Diversity for Major League Baseball, Office of the Commissioner. Her responsibilities include directing the recruitment and workforce strategy for Major League Baseball's Central Office and its 30 member Clubs. As head of Recruitment, Wendy also directs the workforce diversity initiatives, analysis and reporting for the Commissioner's Office and its franchise owners. This diversity reporting is a key element of the strategic plan for Major League Baseball's workforce and marketplace diversity objectives. In 2006 she led the team that developed MLB’s new talent pipeline, The Executive Development Program (EDP). The EDP is a two year rotational career development program whose goal is to add to MLB’s high-potential talent pool as well as establish a platform for succession planning.

Wendy is also the leader and strategist for MLB’s Diverse Business Partners Program. The Diverse Business Partners Program is an economically-driven business initiative established to cultivate new and existing partnerships with minority-owned and women-owned businesses. Wendy directs the activities that support MLB's Central Office and its
Clubs to ensure that a greater number of businesses have an opportunity to participate in the procurement process for desired goods and services. Since the formation of MLB's Diverse Business Partners Program, well over $400 million dollars have been spent with thousands of minority-owned and women-owned businesses.

Prior to Wendy's current position, she was the Vice President of Human Resources and Office Operations for Major League Baseball. Her responsibilities included directing the recruitment, compensation, benefits, performance planning, training and development for Major League Baseball's Central Office in New York and its satellite offices. Additionally, she served as the corporate liaison in the area of Human Resources to all 30 individual Clubs. In this role she formulated an infrastructure for Human Resources Management and established industry best practices.

Ms. Lewis has a BS in Psychology from the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh and an MBA from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. Her accomplishments have been recognized by various organizations, including the Black Women in Sports Foundation, which presented her with the Legends Award. Wendy has also received the Schaffner Award for preeminence in her field and outstanding service from Northwestern University. Other honors include the Pioneer Award from the National Association of Black Journalists, MIB’s (Minorities in Business) annual award for outstanding effort in diversity within sports, and “The Effie Manley Sports Executive of the Year”, presented to her by Rainbow/PUSH. Additionally, Wendy has been honored by The Network Journal as one of the “25 Influential Black Women in Business.” and has been listed as one of Sports Illustrated’s, “Most Influential Minorities in Sports”. Other recognitions include The Diversity Champion of the Year for Sports from the Urban Financial Services Coalition and the Women of Distinction Award from the Girl Scouts of New York. Wendy has been featured in numerous publications; has delivered many keynote speeches and serves as a panelist for a host of conferences and professional meetings.

Her board memberships include: Cornell University and Howard University.

Wendy resides in New Jersey and is the proud mother of three daughters and two granddaughters. She is actively involved in various church activities and enjoys reading, exercising, and sports.

 

The Innovative Leader (Panel):

James Gerard Conley - Clinical Professor of Technology, Kellogg School of Management

 James Conley serves on the faculty of both the Kellogg School of Management and the McCormick School of Engineering at Northwestern University. He is a faculty contributor in the Kellogg Center for Research in Technology & Innovation and serves as a Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Design Engineering and Application (NU IDEA)

His research investigates the strategic use of intangible assets and intellectual properties to build and sustain competitive advantage. Additionally, he engineers product design and development technologies and studies the impact of computer automation on product realization. Research sponsors include the National Science Foundation, NASA, FAA, NIST, the Department of Defense, Motorola, Daimler-Chrysler, the OECD and others.

He has served as the General Electric Foundation Professor and the Pentair-Nugent Professor of Manufacturing and Business Leadership since 1996. Additionally, his publications have been recognized with “Best Paper” commendations from the American Foundry Society, the Society of Automotive Engineers, The Rapid Prototyping Journal and others. In November of 2003 he delivered the Heinz-Nixdorf Lecture at the WHU in Germany on the subject of Intellectual Capital Management.

Professor Conley’s scholarship is informed by professional practice. In 1994, he founded Syndia Corporation together with the late Jerome Lemelson and entrepreneur Roger Hickey. In addition to being an inventor (7 issued US patents and others pending), Conley through Syndia has grown and acquired a portfolio of intellectual properties that Syndia licenses to many entities in Asia, North America and Europe. Additionally, he serves as a Principal at Chicago Partners, LLC and is the founder and Principal of Chicago IP Management, LLC.

He is happily married to his kindergarten classmate Sally and they have 5 children.

 

Dan Cohen -Principle, Deloitte Consulting

 Dan is a Partner with Deloitte Consulting and focuses his consulting activities in the area of large-scale organizational transformation. He leads the Human Capital Energy practice area and developed the Firm’s Global Change Leadership methodology. His primary consulting activity centers on deployment support of organization change. He has worked with such organizations as Southwest Airlines, The Coca-Cola Company, ExxonMobil, Merck, AFLAC, Dell Inc. and Shell Oil Company as well as a number of other major organizations in the technology, consumer business, financial and airlines industries. He has also lectured at the University of Detroit, Ohio State University, Miami University and Southern Methodist University on organizational behavior. Prior to consulting he worked in the manufacturing, financial and real estate industries for over 15 years in various executive human resource positions. Dan obtained his BA at Adelphi University, MA at University of Detroit and his Ph D at Ohio State University.

In addition, Dan has been a guest speaker and workshop leader for numerous professional and national/international industrial groups: CIO Magazine’s Annual Conference, SAP South African Conference, World On Line, Human Resource Society of Finland, Wits University in South Africa as well as Ryerson University in Canada. In addition Dan has been interviewed on TV (CNBC) and radio (KYW in Philadelphia, Northeast Public Radio, WBIS in Baltimore, Voice of America and Powernomics). Finally, Dan has made presentations and provided counsel to executives at such organizations as HP, JPMorgan Chase, Monster, Global Health Exchange, Merck, Pfizer, BayCare Health System, Lockheed Martin, Wellpoint, Discovery Channel, HealthSouth, Coors Brewery, Peabody Energy, Department of the Navy, United States Air Force, Royal British Navy, Defense Department of Australia, Industrial College of the Armed Forces National Defense University, National Security Agency, Central Intelligence Agency, Qantas Airlines, SAS Airlines, Telstra, Sosal, Saab Motor Company, Ondeo Nalco, Vodafone, ICI, Discovery Networks, Woori Financial, Korean Exchange Bank, Temasek Management Holdings, Singapore Power, PNB, POSCO, AECL, Bristol City Managers and the Canadian, Australian and British Governments.

Andrew Hayek - President, VillageHealth (DaVita)

Andrew is the President of VillageHealth, a renal care management and insurance company, wholly owned by DaVita, a leading provider of dialysis services. Previously, he served as President and COO of Alliance Imaging, Inc., a $450M diagnostic imaging and radiation oncology business. Andrew has also held positions with Capstone Consulting, The Pritzker Organization, Boston Consulting Group and Astaga LLC, a technology company he co-founded.

Andrew obtained his BA summa cum laude from Yale University.

Tracy Crocker - Vice President/General Manager - Latin America, Ecolab

Mr. Crocker is the Vice President and General Manager for Ecolab’s Latin America business, where he is responsible for all Ecolab business units including Supply Chain management. Mr. Crocker joined Ecolab in 2002 as the Vice President of Marketing. Previous to that, Mr. Crocker spent 14 years with PepsiCo in several General Management and Marketing roles. Prior to joining Pepsi, he spent 3 years with Procter & Gamble in Sales and Brand Management assignments.

Tracy earned his BA degree from the University of Iowa, where he was captain of the 1982 Rose Bowl team, and his MBA from Pepperdine University.

Jeff Semenchuk - Executive Vice President Head of Growth Ventures & Innovation Global Consumer Group, Citi

Jeff joined Citi in April 2006. Prior to this he was Vice President, Global Innovation at Pfizer Consumer Healthcare. While there, he led the company’s transformation from no focus on innovation and zero growth, to an organization-wide innovation effort that produced double-the-market growth rates in 2004 and 2005. These results led to Pfizer’s Board to decide to sell the business unit to J&J in 2006 for more than four times its estimated value four years earlier.

Prior to Pfizer, Jeff launched or co-founded four start-up businesses. Two of these were sold, one continues to operate profitably in the U.K., and one was shut down. He was a principal at Doblin, one of the world’s leading innovation consultancies. He was also VP/COO of a fast-growth marketing and communications firm and began his professional career with Andersen Consulting (now Accenture).

Seasons of Leadership: Resilience, Transformation and Insight (Workshop):

Michelle L. Buck -Clinical Associate Professor of Management and Organizations; Director of Leadership Initiatives; Associate Director of Executive Education, Kellogg School of Management

 Michelle L. Buck is Clinical Associate Professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She teaches Leadership and Negotiations courses in Kellogg’s MBA and executive programs. She also serves in a newly created position as the School’s Director of Leadership Initiatives. In this role, she coordinates and leverages existing leadership-related offerings, such as the array of student clubs, activities and programs, as well as leadership curriculum. She also helps to identify and develop future directions for leadership development at the School. Professor Buck also serves as Academic Director of xecutive Education, designing and directing executive programs in leadership and general management, and customized programs for organizations. She has directed some of the School’s international alliance programs, such as Skills, Tools, and Competencies (STC) for Brazilian managers with Fundacao dom Cabral (Belo Horizonte, Brazil); and the Latin American CEO’s Management Program, in alliance with Seminarium (Santiago, Chile). From 1992-1994, she worked as a post-doctoral fellow in Kellogg’s Dispute Resolution Research Center.

Prior to her current position at Kellogg, Professor Buck was an Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Faculty of Management at McGill University in Montreal from 1995-2001, and a Visiting Assistant Professor of Organizational Behavior at the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis from 1994-1995. She received her PhD and masters degrees in social psychology from Princeton University, and a bachelors degree in psychology from the University of Michigan.

When teaching Leadership, Professor Buck uses innovative methods in emphasizing three primary themes: 1) Leadership and rganizational Communication; 2) Leadership as Relationship, and the dynamics of leading and following; and 3) the Leader’s Journey, focusing on leaders’ development of their own vision, values, resilience, and stories of learning from experience. Professor Buck teaches Negotiations as a process of effective communication and creative problem solving in which people are able to transform perceived conflict into new opportunities.

In executive teaching, academic direction, and consulting, Professor Buck has worked with organizations including: Baxter International, Canadian Council for International Cooperation, Ernst & Young, Exelon, the FBI, Hewlett-Packard, HSBC Bank, Merck Frosst Canada, Mitsui & Co., National Research Council of Canada, Petro Canada, Pratt & Whitney, Seyfarth Shaw, and YPO.

Professor Buck’s research interests in alternative work arrangements and in negotiations are rooted in a fascination with processes of individual and group transformation. She was a member of an interdisciplinary research team investigating alternative work arrangements among managers and professionals in firms in the United States and Canada, and focused especially on the negotiation of professional part-time work. Professor Buck’s commitment in all of her work is to facilitate individual, group, and organizational transformation, enabling people to find new possibilities in the way they interact with others, the way they work, and the way they think about themselves.

 

Effective Leadership of Cross Functional Teams (Workshop):

David Gent -Associate Director, Career Mgmt Center

 Dave Gent (KSM ’91) is a Senior Associate Director in the Kellogg Career Management Center. He also is an adjunct faculty for Kellogg’s Global Issues in Management course. He has 15 years of education and nonprofit experience. He began his career as an instructor, manager and trainer for the Close Up Foundation, an experiential learning program based in Washington, D.C. After graduating from Kellogg in 1991, Dave served as a consultant with Towers Perrin in their human resources and employee communications practice. He then drew on both his education management and consulting experiences by serving as Director of Operations for Chicago Cares, a community service organization with more than 5,000 members. Dave returned to Kellogg in 1996 as an Associate Director within the Office of Admissions and Financial Aid where he oversaw the admissions for the MMM and joint programs. In 1999, he moved over to the Career Management Center. In addition to his counselor role, Dave serves as the office contact for companies in the consumer packaged goods, retail and technology industries. He oversees on campus recruiting operations with a co-leader role in the development of the Career Management System, Kellogg’s web based career management software system.

He holds a BA with Honors in English from the University of Michigan and a MBA from Kellogg with concentrations in marketing, MORS and public/nonprofit management. Among various volunteer activities, he volunteers as a board member for Public Allies, a youth leadership development program.

 

Rebecca Dalton - Director, DaVita Strategic Growth, Lifeline

Becky received her MBA in 2006 from Harvard Business School. Prior to HBS, Becky worked in healthcare consulting at Accenture.

During her MBA internship for DaVita's Redwoods leadership development program, she discovered a passion for the Lifeline vascular access business and broke the mold, becoming the first corporate Redwood when she joined full time in 2006.

After completing the Redwoods program, Becky is now a Director of DaVita Strategic Growth Director for Lifeline. She has opened 20 Lifeline centers in the last 14 months and has 6 teammates reporting to her.

 

 

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