Joseph Ziskin joined IBM Corporate Strategy at the end of 2006. His responsibilities include developing strategies for new business opportunities/business models and improving operations focusing on service delivery, service platforms, and ecosystems. He works across IBM to drive strategy efforts in the areas of Cloud Computing Business Models, Networks, and Mobility/Wireless. Joseph Ziskin is a graduate of Cornell University.
Ratan Tata is the chairman of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, India's largest and most successful business conglomerate. Under Tata's leadership, total revenues of the Tata Group have increased more than sixfold, to over $22 billion this year(2006).
The Tata Group now has over 90 operating companies, employing about 220,000 people in seven business sectors. It operates in more than 40 countries and exports to 140. Some of its biggest holdings are Tata Steel, Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, India's pre-eminent hotel chain, and Tata Motors, an automobile manufacturer whose products include the first car designed in India. The family business began as a textile mill, launched under British colonial rule in 1860 by Tata's great-grandfather. Tata joined the Tata steel division in 1962 and became chairman of the conglomerate in 1991.
Tata earned a bachelor of architecture degree at Cornell University in 1962 and completed the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 1974-75.
Cheryl Francis has been the Vice Chairman of the Corporate Leadership Center since 2002 and an independent business and financial advisor since 2000.
From 1995 to 2000, Francis served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) for R.R. Donnelley & Sons Company, a print media company. She currently serves as a member of the Board of Directors of Morningstar, Inc., HNI Corporation and Hewitt Associates.
Francis holds a bachelor's degree from Cornell University and a Master's degree in Business Administration from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business.
For more than 30 years, Howard Glickberg has led Fairway Market in achieving the high standard of excellence established when his grandfather founded the market before World War II. Howard came back to the family business in 1974 when it was clear that Fairway was suffering under absentee management.
Howard and his dedicated team spent the next 20 years adding specialty food items, expanding the space, and building Fairway Market into a New York City icon.
He has been named Entrepreneur of the Year from Deloitte & Touche and Business of the Year by the Westside Chamber of Commerce. With his partners, he was named to the Top 50 Influential Businessmen in NYC by Crain's in 1997.
Clare Brett Smith is President Emerita of Aid To Artisans. Aid to Artisans (ATA) is a non-profit organization based in Hartford, Connecticut whose mission is to offer "practical assistance to artisan groups worldwide, working in partnerships to foster artistic traditions, cultural vitality, improved livelihoods and community well-being." ATA works with artisans in every region of the world through its product and market development programs, business skills training and Small Grants Program.
Smith served as President of ATA from 1986-2005. Prior to that, Smith owned and managed Primitive Artisan, a well-known import company specializing in handicrafts of developing nations. The company was sold in 1982.
Clare Brett Smith graduated from Smith College, where her major field was history and where she was Editor-in-Chief of the college newspaper.
William Weldon is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Johnson & Johnson and is the sixth Chairman in Johnson & Johnson's over one-hundred year history.
Weldon joined J&J as a sales representative for the McNeil Pharameutical division in 1971 and eventually became the head of J&J's Ethicon Endo-Surgery business in 1992. He became the head of J&J's pharmaceutical operations in 1998 and then became J&J's CEO in 2002. As CEO, Weldon engineered some of the largest acquisitions in J&J's history including the purchase of ALZA and Pfizer's consumer-health product line.
William Weldon received a BA in Biology from Quinnipiac University.
Wayne Meichner is President of Polo Ralph Lauren Retail Corporation. He oversees all aspects of the Ralph Lauren stores in the U.S. and Europe. Previously, he spent 23 years at Saks Fifth Avenue in numerous capacities, including the Executive Vice President of merchandising.
Wayne Meichner received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University.
Mike Leven is Vice Chairman of the Atlanta-based Marcus Foundation, where he has been a trustee and a member of the board of The Marcus Institute and Georgia Aquarium since 2003. The Marcus Foundation was founded by Bernie Marcus, co-founder of Home Depot.
Leven was formerly President and CEO of US Franchise Systems, Inc. (USFS), the company he founded in 1995 which franchises the Microtel Inns & Suites and Hawthorn Suites hotel brands. Under Leven's tenure, USFS gained national recognition as a fair franchisor, both customer and franchisee-oriented. Prior to that, he was president and COO of Holiday Inn Worldwide. From 1985 to 1990, he was president of Days Inn of America, where he led initiatives to hire older workers, people with disabilities and the homeless, and was recognized by AARP as Outstanding Employer. He also served as president of Americana Hotels.
Mike Leven holds a Bachelor of Arts from Tufts University and Master of Science from Boston University.
Lois Baldassari-Mather is a systems engineering manager at Lockheed Martin.
Prior to her position at Lockheed Martin, she worked for 21 years at Hewlett-Packard and one of HPs spinoff companies, Agilant.
Lois Baldassari-Mather recieved her undergraduate degree in electrical engineering and her Master's degree in Engineering from Cornell University.