<p>Ryan Legg came to the Johnson School with an interest in entrepreneurship and the clean technology industry. Prior to joining the MBA program, he worked as a program manager at the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise to build programs to help companies assess and capitalize on new market opportunities in renewable energy. His experience includes providing recommendations for investment in biomass energy, and a competitive analysis of the carbon markets for emissions certification and trading. After graduating in May 2010, Ryan joined the GE energy team as part of the Renewable Energy Leadership Program and is currently working on their wind energy business.</p>
Michael Belkin is the CEO and Co-founder of Distinc.tt. Distinc.tt is a LGBT social app. Michael Belkin received his undergraduate degree from Cornell University and his MBA from Harvard University.
Sharon Dauk is a Managing Director of Dauk/Wagner Investments, LLC a private investment company she founded with her husband and partner in 1994. Dauk/Wagner Investments invests in and provides financial and strategic advice to early stage companies in a variety of industries. Of their portfolio companies, Sharon is on the Board of Dotmenu, Inc., holding company of Campusfood.com and Allmenus.com. Additionally, she works as an Executive Coach. Prior to forming Dauk/Wagner Investments, Sharon spent six years on Wall Street first at Smith Barney in their Mergers and Acquisition department and then at Morgan Stanley in their Corporate Finance Group with specific focus on large real estate transactions. Prior to that and after graduating from USC\'s Undergraduate Entrepreneurship program, Sharon started and managed a seminar workshop business in partnership with USC\'s business school. In 1987, Sharon became the first recipient of the Student Agencies Fellowship, which was jointly sponsored by the Johnson School and Student Agencies, a student-run organization whose mission is to provide real-world experience to Cornell students through starting and managing small businesses. During her Fellowship and while earning her MBA, Sharon founded and managed a small Venture Fund directed at student-run businesses; acted as \"Mentor in Chief\" to the student managers; and managed the re-development of 409 College Avenue, a mixed-use property owned by the organization. Sharon remains on the Board of Student Agencies and was Chair from 1995 through 2006. Sharon Dauk earned her undergraduate degree at University of Southern California and her MBA at Cornell University.
Lauren Kay is the founder of online dating company, Dating Ring. Lauren Kay is a graduate of Brown University.
David Weinstein is a Co-Founder at HomeKeepr, a home maintenance reminder/vendor directory app. In addition to HomeKeepr, Mr. Weinstein is an investor and/or consultant in several industries including commercial real estate, web start-ups, and alternative energy. His CRE experience is concentrated in multi-family and hotels on the east coast. Alternative energy project including LNG for transportation and distributed GTL. David Weinstein received his undergraduate degree and MBA from Cornell University.
Caroline Starner is Senior Vice President of Human Resources for Oakley, Inc., a $1.2 billion company with more than 5,000 employees worldwide. As a valued member of Oakley’s executive team, Caroline provides strategic HR leadership to attract, retain, and develop the best team of people on the planet for a company that has earned global renown. Oakley creates innovations that serve sport performance, active and lifestyle customers in more than 100 countries. Caroline joined the Oakley management team in 2009 to strengthen partnerships between the company’s global HR team and its business units, and maximize operational and organizational effectiveness. Her previous experience includes serving as Vice President of Human Resources for Pacific Sunwear of Ca. Inc., where she provided HR solutions for close to 19,000 employees. Her experience and expertise in process reengineering, strategic staffing and management transition goes back decades, including service as Vice President of Human Resources for a $4.5 billion division of Gap, Inc., an organization with more than 45,000 employees. Caroline has held senior human resources positions with global accountability within leading companies that include DuPont, Pepsi Co. and Johnson & Johnson, utilizing skills that range from team leadership to executive coaching and beyond. A native of New Jersey, Caroline has a Bachelor of Science in Industrial and Labor Relations from Cornell University.
Adam Hanina is CEO and co-founder of AiCure. He has been a strategist in healthcare software delivery for over fifteen years and holds over a dozen patents in his name. Prior to AiCure, he helped further develop Cerner Corporation\'s European strategy and was a Visiting Fellow of eHealth at Imperial College in London, UK. Mr. Hanina has spoken extensively on the topic of healthcare innovation and has acted as a subject-matter expert on medication adherence technologies for the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He is currently a principal investigator for multiple NIH innovation grants. He holds an MBA from the Wharton School of Business and an undergraduate degree from Brown University.
Michael Polk joined Newell Rubbermaid as President and Chief Executive Officer in July 2011. Previously, Mike was President of Global Foods, Home and Personal Care at Unilever, where he was responsible for the development, innovation and marketing of Unilever\'s entire 64 billion dollar portfolio of categories and brands. During eight years at Unilever, he is credited with transforming the company’s business in the Americas, sharpening Unilever’s global portfolio strategy, and creating a more competitive, faster-growing, innovation-driven organization. He was a member of the Unilever Executive Board from 2007-2011. Earlier, Mike spent 16 years at Kraft Foods serving as President, Asia Pacific Region, Kraft Foods International and President, Nabisco Biscuit & Snacks, Kraft Foods North America. In both positions, he served on Kraft’s Management Committee. Prior to Kraft, Mike spent three years at Procter & Gamble working in manufacturing and research & development in the Paper Products Division. He has a B.S. in operations research and industrial engineering from Cornell University and an MBA from Harvard Business School.
Jay Walker is one of America's best-known inventors and entrepreneurs and is one of a dozen or so living inventors worldwide to hold 200 patents in multiple fields.
Walker, and a team at Walker Digital, LLC, his invention laboratory, created the central ideas behind priceline.com, the groundbreaking "name-your-own-price" company for airline tickets and hotel rooms.
Walker has also created a number of other successful businesses, including New Sub Services (now named Synapse) a company he co-founded and that revolutionized the magazine subscription industry and was recently sold to AOL Time Warner for $600 million. Walker also co-founded Target Communications, a conference and publishing company which was sold to Primedia in 2000.
Mr. Walker is currently chairman of Walker Digital, LLC, a Stamford, Conn.-based laboratory that invents entirely new ways for businesses to operate and serve consumers. Walker Digital is not a consultancy, but a privately funded active research laboratory that use long-term interdisciplinary invention teams to create solutions in the same manner and style as the original Edison laboratory. Successful inventions are licensed to industry or used as the core intellectual property of innovative startups for which the laboratory provides both personnel and funding. To date, Walker Digital has invented over 600 proprietary business methods addressing dozens of significant business problems in a wide range of industries such as travel, data security, retail, automotive, restaurants, groceries, financial services, gaming and entertainment.
Walker's inventions and innovations have been widely recognized. He has twice been recognized by the editors of TIME magazine as one of the 50 most influential business leaders in the digital age. Business Week selected Jay as one of its 25 Internet pioneers most responsible for "changing the competitive landscape of almost every industry in the world." Newsweek named him as one of three executives at the forefront of the Internet commerce revolution.
Walker and his wife have two children and live in Connecticut. He holds a B.S. degree in Industrial Relations from Cornell University.