Overview

Session Leaders

Dr. Gina Colarelli O'Connor is associate professor in the Lally School of Management and Technology at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute where she has taught and conducted research for more than 15 years. She has served as the Director of the Lally School’s MBA/MS programs, Associate Director of the Severino Center for Technology Entrepreneurship, and is currently the Academic Director of the Executive MBA program. Doctor O’Connor is also the Director of the Radical Innovation Research Program, ongoing at the Lally School since 1995. In that role, she recently lead a team of ten researchers across three universities in the program’s second phase, a longitudinal research study designed to understand and improve large, established companies' implementation of radical innovation capabilities. She is responsible for recruiting twenty one Fortune 1000 companies to participate in this three-year effort, which is now complete and has culminated in the publication of a book, titled Grabbing Lightning: Building a Capability for Breakthrough Innovation.

Before joining RPI in 1988, Dr. O'Connor earned her Ph.D. at New York University. Prior to that time, she spent several years with McDonnell Douglas Corporation and at Monsanto Chemical Corporation's Department of Social Responsibility.

Professor O'Connor's teaching and research interests lie at the intersection of corporate entrepreneurship and Radical Innovation, Marketing, and Commercialization of Advanced Technology. The majority of her research efforts focus on how firms link advanced technology development to market opportunities. She has published more than 30 articles and is co-author of the book Radical Innovation, How Mature Firms Can Outsmart Upstarts.

Alex van Putten brings both entrepreneurial and corporate experience to his consulting practice and teaching at Wharton. He is a principal of Cameron & Associates LLC and an adjunct faculty member at the Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania where he has been teaching graduate students since 1993. He is actively involved with executive education programs at Wharton, Duke CE, and Melbourne Business School where he lectures on issues surrounding innovation, corporate entrepreneurship and strategic growth.

Prior to teaching at Wharton Mr. van Putten was in business for 20 years. He was a general partner in Norton & Co. a substantial arbitrage partnership and he has been an advisor, investor, and board member of several technology ventures. He gained senior level corporate experience

as a division manager at Chrysler Capital Corporation where he was responsible for a significant investment portfolio. Earlier he worked in the investment departments of Bankers Trust and Safeguard Insurance Companies.

Mr. van Putten studied at Boston University, Columbia University and the Wharton School, and is a DBA candidate at Edinburgh Business School. He is the co-author with Ian MacMillan and Rita Gunther McGrath of “Global Gamesmanship: Competing in Multiple Markets” Harvard Business Review May 2003; “How to Make Real Options Really Work” written with Ian C. MacMillan, Harvard Business Review December 2004; “Using Real Options Discipline for Highly Uncertain Technology Investments” co-authored with Ian MacMillan and Rita McGrath published in Research-Technology Management Journal of the Industrial Research Institute, January-February 2006; and Unlocking Opportunities for Growth co-authored with Ian C. MacMillan for Wharton Publishing.

Ron Pierantozzi is currently a partner in Cameron and Associates, LLC, an innovation consulting firm in Philadelphia.  He works with both large organizations and small start up companies on growth strategies and technology innovation.  He is the former CEO of PPT Research, a materials technology company in Allentown, PA. He retired from the management ranks of Air Products & Chemicals, Inc, where he served in a variety of technology and business leadership positions over a 28 year career. Ron previously served as Air Product’s Director, New Business Development, which focused on new venture creation and technology transfer. This involved a wide range of duties that included identifying and commercializing new technologies, forming and incubating new technology-based ventures, managing external partnerships and forming market alliances, and investing in both early and late stage companies working through high profile VCs. Ron continues to work closely with VCs in the advanced materials and machine-to-machine sectors, where he provides expertise in market strategy and business valuation.

Ron also served as Director of Technology with Air Products and Chemicals, Inc. in both the gas separations area and industrial chemicals. Ron is an inventor/co-inventor, and holds of 32 U.S. patents and authored 16 publications. His most recent publications “Implementing a Learning Plan to Counter Project Uncertainty” with Mark Rice and Gina O’Connor was published in Sloan Management Review, January 2008 and in December 2009 the Harvard Business Review article, titled “Create Three Distinct Career Paths for Innovators” with Gina O’Connor and Andrew Corbett was published.

Ron is a lecturer at Wharton Business School, where he teaches classes on innovation and entrepreneurship. He is also a member of the faculty for the program on Corporate Entrepreneurial Leadership at the Danish Technical University, where he conducts a seminar on developing business plans for the global enterprise. He was an executive in Residence at RPI’s Lally School of Technology Management for the 2007-2008 academic year.

Ron received his B.S. in Chemistry from Temple University and his Ph.D. in Inorganic Chemistry from The Pennsylvania State University.

What you will learn

1. How do you capture true breakthrough opportunities?

2. What processes must be in place to realize the full potential and earnings from new discoveries, services, and technologies?

3. How should you manage innovation platforms and the functions that support them?

4. How do you escape the mindset that limits investments to low-impact innovations so you can pursue serious growth opportunities?

These two sessions will provide real-world, practical insight into building organizational capability and using decision criteria to ensure high-payoff innovation.