Matthew Levatich
Matt Levatich is an accomplished CEO and experienced Board Member with a 30-year track record of leadership, transformation and increasing shareholder value for Fortune 500 and privately held companies. Matt has deep experience with global, branded, and consumer-durable companies and brings unique insights to strategic growth, risk and corporate governance matters across a broad base of corporate functions.
Matt serves on the Board of Emerson Electric (2012) and on its Audit and Finance committees, having rotated to the Finance Committee after 8 years on the Compensation Committee. Matt also serves on the Board of AriensCo (a closely-held private company in the power equipment business) where he is on the Governance and Compensation Committee.
Matt’s 26-year career with Harley-Davidson (H-D) culminated with 5 years as President and CEO after serving the prior 6 years as President and COO. Along with leadership of key functions and business units, his experience also included two separate overseas roles – in the UK (3 years) and Italy (1 year); each in market and business development. The headwinds facing H-D across its 90+ global markets required significant re-tooling of the strategy, culture and capabilities of the company to become as skilled at building riders as it was at building products. Matt identified the issues and faced them with his typical creativity and determination – leveraging every facet of his experience and leadership strength to accelerate the needed shifts.
Matt is an accomplished speaker on leadership and strategy. He has been a featured speaker at Recode and has appeared regularly on CNBC and Fox Business, among others. He holds a BS in Mechanical Engineering from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and an MBA and MS in Engineering Management from Northwestern University’s Kellogg and McCormick Schools. He is currently serving in his second term as a member of the Board of Directors of the United Way of Greater Milwaukee and Waukesha Counties where he serves on the Governance Committee.
Matt is motivated by four guiding themes – in play throughout his life and career: Deep curiosity, Determination for progress, Passion for pinnacle products and Uncompromising Integrity. He has strong and nuanced leadership capability. Connecting and influencing at a human level has been a core ingredient in Matt’s ability to advance his leadership impact as he progressed in his scope and responsibility. The issues Matt has tackled throughout his career have evolved to be some of the most strategic challenges facing organizations and their Boards.
Matt seeks to be affiliated only with people and organizational cultures exemplifying the utmost in ethical character – those for whom integrity is uncompromising. He is looking to apply his significant experience to provide the highest level of stewardship and governance to help companies grow and prosper for their stakeholders.
The Rookie General Manager (OPNS-925-5)
This course will prepare you to effectively use a wide variety of proven tools to address the issues faced by a first time general manager. The course is organized around a series of cases including (domestic and international, manufacturing and service, large and start-up) companies in various industries where young GMs encounter a series of issues as they assume their new role. The course emphasizes the issues and opportunities involved in making a career transition. Problem areas addressed include marketing, operations, finance and team building, with many encountered in the same case. One of the key goals of the course is to have you apply the functional theories and leadership concepts you've learned in other courses while developing your personal philosophy and style of leading. Our major emphasis will be very tactical, emphasizing actual implementation of a plan. You will have the opportunity to develop skills with a heavy emphasis on setting priorities, integrating action programs, communicating, consensus building and day to day managing. There are short homework assignments for every class, a midterm plus a take home final exam. NOTE: This class is restricted to second-year students.
