SPEAKERS

Professor Michelle Buck

Michelle L. Buck is a Clinical 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 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 Executive Education, designing and directing executive programs in leadership and general management, and customized programs for organizations. Prior to Kellogg, Professor Buck taught at McGill University in Montreal and the Olin School of Business at Washington University in St. Louis.

Professor Buck’s current interests and work includes courageous conversations, the use of arts-based learning in innovative leadership education, and transformational leadership and the pursuit of prosperity (which emerged from travel to Rwanda). Through her research, teaching and consulting, she has worked with organizations including: Banco de Mexico, Chicago Public Schools, Ernst & Young, the FBI, Hewlett Packard, HSBC Bank, Mitsui & Company, Petro Canada and YPO. 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.

Professor Julie Hennessy

Julie Hennessy is a Clinical Professor of Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Professor Hennessy’s MBA and Executive teaching focuses on the development of marketing strategies to enhance long-term competitive advantage and profitability. She works frequently with technology-driven firms that desire to become more customer-centric, in both new product/services and mature product/services categories. At Kellogg, she teaches both Introduction to Marketing and Advanced Marketing Strategy courses at the MBA and Executive level. Recent Executive teaching assignments have included work with Facebook, Audi, Anheuser Busch, McDonalds, Abbott, Novartis, General Electric, American Express, and Microsoft.

Professor Hennessy has been a regular recipient of teaching awards at the Kellogg School. In 2007, she received the Lawrence G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award, Kellogg’s top award for teaching quality and impact, as voted by the Kellogg graduating class. Professor Hennessy has also been recognized by her academic department, winning the Marketing Department’s Core Course Teaching award in 2011, 2007, 2005, 2002 and 2000. Professor Hennessy’s writing concentrates on cases for classroom use. Recent cases include studies of TiVo, Apple, Invisalign Orthodontics,Synthroid in the hypothyroidism market and Biaxin and Zithromax in the antibiotics market.

Professor Loran Nordgren

Loran Nordgren is an Assistant Professor of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management. He teaches leadership and management in organizations courses in the MBA and PhD programs at Kellogg. A former Fulbright Scholar, his research considers the basic psychological processes that guide judgment and choice. Professor Nordgren’s research has been published in leading journals such as Science, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, and Psychological Science and has been widely discussed in prominent forums such as the New York Times, Forbes, Harvard Business Review, The Economist, and the Wall Street Journal. In recognition of his work, Professor Nordgren has received the Theoretical Innovation Award in experimental psychology.

Professor Julie Shechtman

Julie Shechtman is a Financial Advisor and Financial Planning Specialist at Morgan Stanley Wealth Management in Glenview, IL. She works with individuals, families and small businesses, helping them to build, protect and enjoy their wealth. She takes clients through an in-depth financial planning process and brings a disciplined, comprehensive approach to money management while striving to take the mystery out of the markets. Prior to Morgan Stanley, Julie spent more than a decade as a Vice President and financial advisor to large institutional clients at Goldman Sachs and Drexel Burnham. She received a BS in Economics with concentrations in finance and accounting from The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania in 1987and her MBA from Harvard Business School in 1991. Outside of work, Julie currently serves on the Glenview 34 Board of Education. She is also the founder and former President of Friends of Youth Services, a local non-profit and founder of the Professional Women’s Networking Group of Glenview. Julie and her husband, Brad, reside in Glenview with their four children, ages 14, 13, 10 and 10.

Dean Kate Smith

Kate Riley Smith ’98 is Assistant Dean, Admissions and Financial Aid, at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She oversees the Admissions and Financial Aid offices of Kellogg’s Full-Time, Part-Time, and Executive MBA Programs.
Kate joined Kellogg earlier this year with 14 years of proven experience in the marketing field, most recently serving as senior marketing director and general manager for the Gatorade G Series PRO line at PepsiCo. In her decade with the company, Kate also held the position of senior marketing manager, and developed strategies for products such as Mountain Dew and Aquafina. Prior to PepsiCo, Kate worked in various Marketing positions for General Mills and Procter & Gamble.
In addition to earning her MBA from Kellogg, Kate graduated magna cum laude with a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Illinois, where she also played basketball for the Illini.

Professor Leigh Thompson

Leigh Thompson is the J. Jay Gerber Professor of Dispute Resolution & Organizations and the director of the Kellogg Team and Group Research Center and the Kellogg Leading High Impact Teams Executive program. Professor Thompson’s research focuses on negotiation, team creativity, and learning. Her current research includes: how reorganizations facilitate team creativity and the social impact of information technology. She has published countless academic articles and has authored 6 books, including: The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator (Third Edition) (Prentice Hall, 2005 and Creativity and Innovation in Organization (2006). In addition to her research, Professor Thompson is a member of the editorial boards of Organization Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, among others. In addition, her work has been highlighted in numerous popular media outlets including: The New York Times, Forbes, Good Morning America, the Chicago Tribune and Glamour.

Professor Thompson teaches in the part-time, full-time, doctoral and executive programs at Kellogg and in executive programs for corporate clients. Her teaching and consulting work has brought her in contact with executives and leadership from American Bar Association, AT&T, Caterpillar, Chevron Texaco, Chicago Office of Tourism, Children’s Memorial Hospital, Compaq, Fleet Financial, Fresh Express, MacLean-Fogg, Microsoft, Novartis, Premier Healthcare, Sears Holdings, UBS Asset Management and the University of Kansas. In her free time, Professor Thompson is an avid competitive cyclist.

The Women's Leadership Workshop is presented by Women's Business Association and Kellogg Admissions.