Biography
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE
Pearson Education, Boston*, MA{} * , MA 2005 - Present
Director, New Ventures and Business Development. Currently advise executive management on new initiatives and business strategy.
Director, Product Management, Core Technology Group._ _Led product teams for industry-leading eLearning platform based on uPortal with 2 million active users globally.
CitySoft, Inc., BostonMA* * Boston, MA 2004 -2005
Chief Operating Officer. In a cash-constrained environment, led transition of proprietary license-based software company to an open source SaaS model servicing the not-for-profit and association marketplaces.
StructuredSoft, Inc., Cambridge*, MA{} * , MA 2001 -2004
Principal and Co-Founder. Key executive leading strategy, product development, business development and fundraising for open source development platform based on Eclipse. Presented at several forums, including IDC's Demo 2002 conference on emerging technologies.
Cambridge Incubator (now CIC), CambridgeMA* * Cambridge, MA 2000 -2001
Managing Director. Recommended investment and advised portfolio companies at early-stage venture creation company backed by Draper Fisher Jurvetson.
Sapient Corporation, Cambridge, MA* * MA 1997-2000
Director. At a leading global e-business consultancy, led the creation and development of its Customer Relationship Management (CRM) capability. Responsible for client engagements in financial services, health care, e-commerce, manufacturing, government and entertainment.
Mercer Management Consulting (now Oliver Wyman), Lexington, MA* * MA 1994 - 1997
JYACC (now Prolifics), Wellesley, MA 1991 - 1992
Cambridge Technology Group (now CTP/Novell), Cambridge*, MA{} * , MA 1986 - 1991
EDUCATION
MITSloanSchool MIT Sloan School of Management. SM (Management, Seley Scholar) 1994HarvardCollege*.* * 1994
HarvardCollege AB (Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering) * 1986 1986
COMMUNITY INVOLVEMENT
Boards / Advisory Experience. Chestnut Hill School (Chestnut Hill, MA), New Profit, Inc. (Cambridge, MA), Winsor School (Boston, MA), Bethel AME Church (Boston, MA).
Platform Statement
My vision for JA-SIG is to provide leadership through community within the higher education ecosystem. JA-SIG has done an excellent job cultivating community around its core open source projects - uPortal, CAS and Hypercontent - and extends that leadership through its collaboration with other community projects, such as Sakai, DSpace, Fedora, Kuali, Internet2 and Fluid. By providing a forum for open source projects to reach technology leaders in higher education, JA-SIG can further service its members and extend its influence.
I hope to contribute to the board in several ways. I have significant experience in helping organizations and companies think through their core value and how to realize, cultivate and extend that value. I am an integrative strategist and business architect, so I care about locating value and connecting it to mission, pulling diverse assets together to achieve the mission, and building capabilities that last. I am an experienced product evangelist and I am good at selling concepts that I believe in.
I believe that JA-SIG must balance its role as custodian of technology projects with its role of leadership that may transcend those projects as they are incarnated in a particular version of technology. For example, I was a strong advocate of finding a pathway forward for uPortal to transition its membership to a next generation platform. Legacy platforms die, and their communities die with them. That is not consistent with what will best serve higher education institutions. Instead, by riding the wave of innovation - through our projects and how they relate to the rest of the world - we better ensure the posterity of JA-SIG projects and the communities that have built up around them.
As an employee of a commercial entity, I can bring a breadth and depth of perspectives regarding the direction of the higher ed market from a commercial perspective. As Director of New Ventures, I can lend to JA-SIG the insights I obtain in the course of the market scans I do as a part of my job.
Finally, I believe that technology plays a critical role in solving the challenges of higher ed today. As a member of the JA-SIG board, I can continue to contribute to be part of the solution.