The mission of Harvard Business School is to educate leaders who make a difference in the world. More than 65,000 HBS graduates strive to make these words a reality in a wide array of organizations that affect the lives of millions of people around the globe.
Since 1968, with the help of suggestions from alumni, students, faculty, and friends, the School has selected a number of outstanding men and women to receive its most important honor, the Alumni Achievement Award. Throughout their careers, these distinguished graduates have contributed significantly to their companies and communities while upholding the highest standards and values in everything they do. As such, they represent the best in our alumni body. Exemplary role models, they inspire all those who aspire to have an impact on both business and society.
This year's winners:
Rahul Bajaj
MBA 1964
Chairman & Managing Director, Bajaj Auto Ltd.
In the 1970s, India was a socialist state, a land of overarching regulation rather than of opportunity. "As a result, there was no entrepreneurship, and businesses couldn't do a thing without government approval," recalls Rahul Bajaj, a member of one of India's most prominent families, who became CEO of Bajaj Auto Ltd. (BAL) in 1968 at the age of thirty. More
Nancy M. Barry
MBA 1975
President, Women's World Banking
As president of New York City-based Women's World Banking (WWB), Nancy Barry has changed the lives of millions of poor women and their families around the globe. The nonprofit organization is a network of fifty-three microfinance institutions and banks in developing countries that make small loans to low-income women—and in some instances, men—so that they can build their own business and move beyond poverty. A customer in the Gambia, for example, used her loan to purchase a refrigerator for storing juice from baobab fruits, which she then sells at the local market. More
Louis V. Gerstner, Jr.
MBA 1965
Chairman, The Carlyle Group
Former Chairman & CEO, IBM
In any survey of great American corporations that have left their mark on business history, IBM would always hold a special place. Its origins date back to the late 1880s, when mechanical time recorders and tabulators were the leading technology of the day. Since then, IBM's influence has become increasingly international, with approximately 329,000 employees working in seventy-five countries. Now the world's largest information technology company, it recorded revenues of more than $96 billion in 2004. More
Judith R. Haberkorn
111th Advanced Management Program, 1992
Retired President, Consumer Sales & Services, Verizon Communications Inc.
When Judy Haberkorn graduated from Briarcliff College in 1968, it was commonplace for women to think more about their marriage prospects than their business future. Nevertheless, Haberkorn walked into the Baltimore employment office of the AT&T-owned Chesapeake & Potomac Telephone Co. of Maryland and landed a job in the telecommunications industry that turned into a distinguished career of more than thirty years. More
Joseph J. O'Donnell
MBA 1971
Founder, Chairman & CEO, Boston Culinary Group Inc.
When Joe O'Donnell talks, people listen. Last spring, one magazine ranked him the most powerful person in Boston—head of a privately held, billion-dollar company he built practically from scratch; friend and advisor to politicians of both parties, from Boston's Democratic Mayor Thomas Menino to the Bay State's Republican Governor Mitt Romney (HBS MBA '74); member of Harvard's Board of Overseers; and benefactor to many good causes. Not bad for a "cop's kid" who grew up nearby in the blue-collar city of Everett. More