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Steven
Ballmer is
Chief Executive Officer of Microsoft Corporation, the world’s leading
manufacturer of software for personal and business computing. Ballmer
joined Microsoft in 1980 and was the first business manager hired by
Bill Gates. Since then, Ballmer’s leadership and passion have become
hallmarks of his tenure at the company. Ballmer and the company’s
business and technical leaders are focused on continuing Microsoft’s
innovation and leadership across the company’s core businesses.
Microsoft’s goal is to provide an integrated platform to enable a
seamless experience across a wide range of computing and non-PC devices
and services. Variously described as ebullient, focused, funny,
passionate, sincere, hard-charging and dynamic, Ballmer has infused
Microsoft with his own brand of energetic leadership, vision, and
spirit over the years. He graduated from Harvard University with a
bachelor’s degree in mathematics and economics. While in college,
Ballmer managed the football team, worked on the Harvard Crimson
newspaper as well as the university literary magazine, and lived down
the hall from fellow sophomore Bill Gates. After college, he worked for
two years at Procter & Gamble Co. as an assistant product manager
and, before joining Microsoft, attended Stanford University Graduate
School of Business. |
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José
María Figueres
After a successful business career, José María Figueres was elected
President of Costa Rica at the age of 39. As President (1994–1998), he
created a comprehensive national development strategy based on the
tenets of sustainability: sound economics, investment in human
development, and a strong alliance with nature. He pioneered the
linkage between sustainable development and technology, work which he
continued after leaving government by helping to create and then lead
the United Nations ICT Task Force as its first Chair. He was the first
to be named CEO of the World Economic Forum, where he strengthened
global corporate ties to social and governmental sectors by identifying
common long-term interests. Currently President Figueres is CEO of
Concordia21 in Spain, dedicated to supporting organizations that
promote development and democratic values around the world. He serves
as Chairman of the Carbon War Room, dedicated to implementing
entrepreneurial market-driven solutions that mitigate climate change.
He is also Chairman of the Advisory Board of Arcano Earth Fund,
investing in key areas of the low-carbon economy. He holds an
Engineering Degree from the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, and a
Masters in Public Administration from the Kennedy School of Government
at Harvard University. |
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Andrew
Harrison
is Communications Director of Idea Connections Systems, overseeing all
aspects of client relationship management, marketing, media, and
community activities. Andrew has a unique background as a social
innovator and researcher on human motivation. In 2004, he turned in his
graduate degree and high-paying sales job to travel the country
interviewing people about how they came to find passion for their work
and life. Andrew’s study of the human element now spans over 150
interviews with a diverse group of achievers and leaders. His interview
experiences have been featured in newspapers, magazines, TV and radio
across the United States. His first book, Love your 84,000 Hours at Work: Stories on
the Road from People with Purpose and Passion,
was released in July 2010. As an understudy to Bob Rosenfeld for the
past two and a half years, Andrew delivers keynote presentations and
leads workshops on the principles that make innovation happen inside
organizations. He is also the writer of the forthcoming book, Innovation Unshackled: A Practical Guide
for the Human Dynamics of Innovation,
which will be available in 2010. He received a B.A. in Writing from the
University of Arkansas at Little Rock and an M.A. in Mass Communication
and Advertising from the University of South Carolina. |
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Pamela
Hartigan
is Director of the Skoll Centre for Social Entrepreneurship at Oxford
University’s Saïd Business School and Adjunct Professor at the Columbia
Business School. She is a founding partner of Volans Ventures, an
organization focused on building innovative scalable solutions to
challenges affecting our future. From 2000 to 2008, she was the first
Managing Director of the Schwab Foundation for Social Entrepreneurship,
a sister organization of the World Economic Forum. Throughout her
career, she has held varied leadership positions in multilateral health
organizations and educational institutions as well as in
entrepreneurial non-profits. She has been responsible for
conceptualizing and creating new organizations, departments or programs
across a variety institutional arrangements and multi-stakeholder
platforms. She is currently a Trustee for different social ventures
that operate around the world. Dr. Hartigan’s latest book, co-authored
with John Elkington, is entitled The
Power of Unreasonable People: How Entrepreneurs Create Markets to
Change the World
and was released in 2008 by Harvard Business Press. A graduate of
Georgetown University’s School of Foreign Service in Washington, D.C.,
she holds an M.A. in Economics and Public Health and a Ph.D. in
Cognitive Psychology. |
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Björn
Johnson is
Senior Associate Professor and Reader in economics at Aalborg
University in Denmark. His earlier research dealt with regional aspects
of consumer behavior, comparative economic systems, and comparative
analysis of strategies in economic policy. His current research is in
the field of institutional economics with a focus on systems of
innovation and the relations between technical and institutional
change. Björn Johnson has been working on innovation systems from the
very birth of this concept. He has played an important role in the
development of the Aalborg version of the system of innovation approach
based on broadly based interactive learning. As leader of a long-term
project on the development of research capacities in Central America
financed by the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, he has also worked
with the innovation system concept in the context of developing
countries. He has published articles and presented conference papers on
innovation and innovation systems individually and together with such
leaders in the field as Bengt-Åke Lundvall and Charles Edquist. Dr.
Johnson received his Ph.D. in economics at the University of Gothenburg
in 1971. |
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William
Kerr
is Associate Professor at the Harvard Business School, where he teaches the Entrepreneurial Manager course in
the first year of the MBA program and in the HBS doctoral program and
executive education offerings. He was designated the HBS MBA Class of
1961 Fellow, received Harvard’s Distinction in Teaching award, and a
Kauffman Junior Faculty Fellowship award in Entrepreneurship Research
in 2009. Dr. Kerr’s research focuses on entrepreneurship and
innovation. One research strand examines the role of immigrant
scientists and entrepreneurs in US technology development and
commercialization, as well as the subsequent diffusion of new
innovations to the immigrants’ home countries. A second research area
considers agglomeration and entrepreneurship, with special interest in
how government policies aid or hinder the entry of new firms and
cluster formation. A final interest area is entrepreneurial finance and
angel investments. He is a Faculty Research Fellow of the National
Bureau of Economic Research (Productivity, Entrepreneurship), the
Innovation Policy and the Economy Forum, and the Center for Economic
Studies. He serves on the Entrepreneurial Finance roundtable of the
Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council and the National Science
Foundation’s Expert Panel for Science and Engineering Human Resources.
Dr. Kerr has worked with firms worldwide Past projects include business
plan development for start-up ventures in Hong Kong, establishing a
corporate entrepreneurship and corporate venture capital unit within a
Korean chaebol, and
evaluating the acquisition of early-stage communications companies for
a US multinational entering the Asian market. He also advised the
governments of South Africa and Singapore on the economic benefits from
telecom market deregulation. He received his B.S. in Systems
Engineering from the University of Virginia and his Ph.D. in Economics
from MIT. |
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Augusto López-Claros
is honorary professor at the European Business School in Frankfurt. He
is also the founder of EFD–Global Consulting Network, an international
consultancy specializing in economic, financial, and development
issues. From 2003 to 2006, he was Chief Economist and Director of the
Global Competitiveness Program at the World Economic Forum in Geneva,
where he led the effort to expand the international profile of the
Forum’s work on issues of economic growth and productivity. At the
Forum, he served as Editor of the Forum’s Global Competitiveness Report
and a number of other publications exploring issues of growth and
development in various regions of the world and the impact of
innovation, technology, and gender on economic growth. Before joining
the Forum, he was Executive Director and Senior International Economist
with Lehman Brothers International (London), and Resident
Representative of the International Monetary Fund in the Russian
Federation (Moscow) from 1992 to 1995. Prior to joining the IMF, he was
Professor of Economics at the University of Chile in Santiago. He has
written and lectured extensively in the United States, Europe, Latin
America, Africa, and Asia on a broad range of subjects, including
aspects of economic reform in transition economies, economic
integration, the role of technology and innovation in advancing the
development process, interdependence and cooperation, governance,
gender, and the role of international organizations. Dr. López-Claros
received his Ph.D. in Economics from Duke University and a diploma in
Mathematical Statistics from Cambridge University. |
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Yasmina
N. Mata
is a Consultant with EFD–Global Consulting Network, formerly a
researcher with the Center for Biological Research (CIB), which forms
part of the National Research Council, in Madrid. She collaborates with
the Extractive Metallurgy Research Group of Complutense University. Dr.
Mata is an independent consultant, offering scientific, academic, and
research knowledge in areas of innovation not traditionally linked to
natural sciences, and bridging different scientific and academic
disciplines. She has published a number of papers in specialized
journals about the biosorption processes of heavy and precious metals
with biomass. She received two undergraduate degrees in Biology and a
Ph.D. in Science from Complutense University. |
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Robert
"Bob" Rosenfeld
is the President and CEO of Idea Connection Systems, Inc. With a
background in chemistry from Drake University, he has been a leader and
practitioner for over 40 years in the human dynamics that make
innovation happen inside organizations. At Eastman Kodak, in 1978, he
created the first Office of Innovation ever to be successfully
implemented in Corporate America. In 1985, Bob co-founded the
Association for Managers of Innovation. In 2001, after working with
many diverse people and organizations, he directed the development of
an innovative process for breaking down barriers between races. Called
“Mosaic Partnerships,” it has been implemented in many cities in the
United States. Because of Bob’s innovation experience, in May 2006, he
was named the Center for Creative Leadership’s first “Innovator in
Residence,” and in 2008, he was awarded Innovator in Residence Emeritus
status. Bob is the author of Making
the Invisible Visible: The Human Principles for Sustaining Innovation
(2006). His second book, co-authored with Gary Wilhelmi and Andrew
Harrison is titled, Innovation
Unshackled: A Practical Guide for the Human Dynamics of Innovation,
and will be available in 2010. In 2008, Bob spearheaded an ICS team in
the creation of the ISPI™ (Innovation Strengths Preference Indicator),
an innovation tool used to highlight peoples’ preferences for
innovating as well as how they prefer to innovate with others. |
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Mahmud Samandari
is a coach for startups at the Swiss Federal Commission for Technology
and Innovation. He is also the CEO of InnovaRadio, a company that
develops technology for energy efficiency solutions for the wireless
industry. He is a founder of the European Baha’i Business Forum and a
member of its Board. He is a serial entrepreneur, having started
companies in the fields of IT, telecommunications, and education both
in Europe and Latin America. Globatel, a company he established in
1998, was a pioneer in satellite-based interactive distance learning,
collaborating closely with the World Bank’s Global Development Learning
Network. Globatel was also an active participant in Micronet, a project
jointly prepared, promoted and set up with the World Bank, the
Ecuadorian government, Microsoft, and Finca Internacional for the
promotion of microenterprises. As the Member of the Board of various
institutions and corporations, Dr. Samandari has been involved with
activities ranging from cable TV, banking software and
telecommunications trade association, to schools, radio stations, and
the Alliance Française, as well as a corporate social responsibility
industry group, and the world’s largest student-run organization:
AIESEC, an international platform for young people to explore and
develop their positive leadership potential. He participated actively
in consultations with the telecom regulator of Ecuador on new
legislation. His thesis on the obligation of states to cooperate with
international organizations earned him a Ph.D. in International Law
from the Graduate Institute for International Studies of Geneva. |
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Hulya
Ulku
is a Lecturer in Development Economics at the Institute for Development
Policy and Management (IDPM), University of Manchester, UK, where she
co-directs the M.Sc. Program in Development Economics and Policy (DEP).
She teaches courses in macroeconomics, and trade theory and development
to Master’s students in development economics. She holds a B.Sc. in
Public Finance from Gazi University, Turkey, and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. in
Economics from the International Business School at Brandeis
University, USA. She wrote her doctoral thesis as three essays on
R&D, Invention, and Economic Growth in OECD countries. Upon
completing her Ph.D., she worked at the Macroeconomic Studies Division
of the Research Department at the International Monetary Fund for one
year, before starting her academic career at the University of
Manchester in 2003. Her research focuses on the analysis of the
determinants of technological change and its impact on economic growth
in developing and developed countries, and the determinants and
consequence in developing countries of foreign financial flows, such as
foreign aid, remittances, and foreign direct investment.
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Gary
Wilhelmi
is Vice President of Idea Connection Systems. For over 30 years, he has
been involved with the development of successful new innovations as
both engineer and manager. He has developed a number of successful
approaches and unique tools to allow organizations and individuals to
understand those invisible attributes within an organization, which
ultimately become either key drivers or inhibitors of successful
innovation. As an electrical engineer at the McDonnell Aircraft
Company, Gary recognized the importance of identifying and
understanding the visible and invisible patterns within organizations,
and how the interactions between business, technology and people can be
leveraged to allow new ideas to become successful innovations. At ITT
Electro-Optics Products Division, he successfully directed the
development and setup of the first operational fiber optic system
installed at the National Security Agency’s Headquarters in Fort Meade,
Maryland, and in subsequent systems around the world. Gary later joined
the Frito-Lay company, where he provided the technical leadership for
several hundred millions of dollars of new product innovation. Gary’s
experiences have provided him with unique insight into the dynamics of
transforming new ideas into successful innovations, and resulted in
Gary’s developing several proprietary tools for assessing an
organization’s culture, level of trust, invisible decisionmaking
process, and how well prior knowledge is leveraged (knowledge
management). Gary is a co-author with Bob Rosenfeld of the forthcoming
book, Innovation Unshackled: A
Practical Guide for the Human Dynamics of Innovation, which will
be available in 2010. He holds B.S. and M.S. degrees in Electrical
Engineering from Texas A&M University. |
Copyright © 2010
The Innovation for
Development Report
Augusto López-Claros,
Editor
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