Anita Balaraman

Project Management and Teaming

Anita is a technology product leader with more than 10 years of experience in building technology products that delight the customer both in the B2B and B2C domain. She is also an adjunct faculty at UC Berkeley, teaching and coaching hi-tech product management. She is currently the founder of an early stage ed-tech startup. Most recently she led the digital customer experience practice at Cisco Systems, designing and launching enterprise solutions for customer experience. Prior to that, she led the product team at WalmartLabs launching products that combine machine learning, predictive analytics and personalization. She consults independently and on the board of technology startups in the advertising, ecommerce, and ed-tech space. Anita received her MS in toxicology and applied statistics, and an MBA, both from the University of California, Berkeley.

Babak Jafarizadeh

Accounting & Finance

Babak is an engineering economist. He thinks engineering is about economic solutions to the technical challenges of an uncertain world. He has worked as a senior analyst in energy industry, supporting investment decisions for multi-million-dollar projects across the globe. He is also an industry expert, and an assistant professor of petroleum engineering at Heriot-Watt University in Scotland. He teaches and conducts research on the art and science of economic decision analysis.

Babak’s interests are at the intersection of decision analysis and corporate finance, with applications in engineering and industry. He is the author of the upcoming book “Economic Decision Analysis”. He holds a PhD in Investment and Decisions Analysis (University of Stavanger, Norway) as well as MSc and BSc degrees in industrial engineering.

Benjamin Fell

Communications for Engineering Leaders

Benjamin is a second-year student at the School of Information pursuing a Master of Information Management and Systems, following the Data Science track. Before joining Berkeley, he worked as an eCommerce Manager at an airline based in South America. He has a bachelor’s in Industrial Engineering and Computer Science from the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile. Outside of work, he enjoys climbing, hiking, and traveling.

Bulent Erbilgin

Entrepreneurship, Project Management & Teaming, R&D Tech Management

Dr. Bülent Erbilgin has over 20 years of executive experience leadership and teaching experience in technology.

As an executive of seven startups and several public companies he successfully released products ranging from cyber-security, network security, web applications, SaaS, complex high-availability software, highly-distributed systems, analytics, big data, IOT, machine learning to network intelligence products.

His teaching experience includes leadership, teaming, ethics, innovation, entrepreneurship, design thinking, product development as well as engineering management at UC Berkeley, Northeastern University and KAUST.

In addition, Dr. Erbilgin has mentored founders and students in various entrepreneurship classes to identify startup opportunities, develop business plans, and VC presentations. He spent significant time with number of teams guiding them through all stages of forming a startup. Served on panels together with VCs to evaluate and score various startup teams as part of the classes.
Most recently Dr. Erbilgin led the Security Software Development effort at Workday. Prior to that Dr. Erbilgin was a VP Engineering at Telesense, VP Engineering at Cryptography Research/Rambus, VP Engineering at SS8, and several other companies.

Dr. Erbilgin holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering (Computer Architecture) and MS in Computer Science from Stanford University.

Cal G. Gonzales

Professional Ethics; Organizational Behavior and Negotiations

Cal is a seasoned attorney with significant government, regulatory, investigative and in-house experience. He served as a trial attorney with the U.S. Department of Justice and as an enforcement attorney with the US Securities and Exchange Commission. He is currently an Executive Director in Morgan Stanley’s Legal and Compliance Division, and Deputy Head of the Special Investigations Unit, where he leads, manages, and supervises internal investigations across the Firm’s Wealth Management business. He is an active member of the American Bar Association, currently serving as Chair of the ABA’s Council for Diversity in the Educational Pipeline, and previously serving on the ABA’s Commission on Racial and Ethnic Diversity in the Legal Profession. Cal received his undergraduate degree at UC Berkeley and a law degree at UCLA.

Dan Himelstein

Organizational Behavior & Negotiations, Teaming & Project Management, Global Leadership Expertise, Coaching for High Performing Teams

Dan Himelstein has been a senior executive in both academia and business and has worked in a variety of organizational settings, ranging from the large and complex to the small and entrepreneurial. In the business world, Dan has extensive international experience, having worked with numerous start-ups as a founder, executive, director, and consultant and in a number of corporate settings as well.

In academia, Dan is currently a faculty member at the University of California, Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and the College of Engineering’s Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership. He has also held key leadership posts at UC Berkeley and the University of San Francisco. At Berkeley, he has served as the Executive Director of the Haas School’s Undergraduate Program and as the Associate Vice Provost for Academic Planning and Facilities in the Office of the Chancellor. At USF, he was the Executive Associate Dean at the School of Management.

Dan received his BS from the Haas School of Business at the University of California, Berkeley and his MSc from The London School of Economics.

Edward Kass

Organizational Behavior & Negotiations

Professor Kass draws from his own research on conflict resolution, social comparison and fairness, and what it means to be a good employee. More recently, Dr. Kass is focusing on the drivers/aspects that serve or hinder the process of successful negotiations. He is also working with students to examine the impact of alliances, biases, personal trust and organizational ethics.  Eli holds a Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior with a Minor in Sociology from Tulane University and a B.A. Cum laude in Psychology and Economics from Brandeis University.

Elizabeth Kovats

R&D Technology Management, Innovation, Entrepreneurship

Elizabeth Kovats teaches innovation and design at Berkeley Haas. She has created new courses at Berkeley Haas and BerkeleyLaw in the area of design thinking. Elizabeth served as the Director of the Berkeley Roundtable on Applied Innovation and Design, BRAID, and she regularly collaborates with innovation executives based in Silicon Valley. Her area of interest is in design and ethics, and how we can design products and/or processes to advance the common good.

Prior to academia, Kovats worked in the high technology industry. Joining a start-up in the telecommunications industry, BigBand Networks, as the eighth employee in the U.S. office, she helped scale operations, ultimately leading to a Company IPO. She attended graduate school at the Jesuit School of Theology, focusing on philosophy and design, and studied creative writing at the University of Arizona and the University of Iowa.

Heidi Kritscher Weller

Communications for Engineering Leaders; Coaching for High Performing Teams

Heidi has over 15 years experience coaching executives and Haas MBA students, drawing from her diverse professional experience in international consulting, startups, and public/nonprofit environments. She most recently co-developed the UC Berkeley Haas Global Access Program, where she taught leadership practices and coached undergrad and graduate students from across the globe.

She is an active Leadership Coach with state-level democratic campaigns, and a former elected public school board trustee. A Cal crew athlete alum, she continues to enjoy outdoor sports with her husband and three children, and looks forward to every trip abroad.

Ingrid Gavshon

Lecturer, Executive Coach and Communications Specialist

Ingrid Gavshon serves as a lecturer at UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, for EWMBA/EMBA, and Undergraduate Programs; Seminar in International Business (South Africa), Leader as Coach and Leadership Communications and Creativity and Leadership, and at UC Berkeley Executive Education’s course High Impact Leadership. She is a partner at the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute in charge of Diversity and Inclusion Projects. She is a member of the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute Faculty, and serves as executive coach and senior training consultant. She has been a Guest Lecturer at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership, Germany, The University of Witwatersrand, The London School of Printing, the University of Alabama and at the Coleman Fung Institute.

Ingrid facilitates leadership, communications, presentation and coaching programs at a number of international companies, in the USA, Southern Africa, Asia and the Middle East.

Ingrid obtained her MBA from the Berlin School of Creative Leadership and is a certified Executive Coach from the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute.

Ingrid is also a photographer, exhibition designer and an award-winning documentary filmmaker who has made several documentary films about President Nelson Mandela. Ingrid draws on her experience running her media company and her filmmaking skills integrated with the executive coaching process that helps leaders discover their authentic selves and helps them actualize their vision, dreams and aspirations. She believes in bringing humanity back to the workplace.

Jack Mason

Entrepreneurship for Engineers

Jack is an entrepreneur, executive, engineer, educator, and consultant with more than 40 years of experience in the energy industry. He started several businesses as both an entrepreneur and intrapreneur, raised venture capital for one; and led several to acquisitions. He managed directly or indirectly more than 1000 energy-related projects, some as large as $10 million, managed organizations as large as several hundred employees, developed and supported numerous national multiple facility companies’ energy programs, facilitated as a consultant two dozen turn-arounds at large national energy companies, and served as president of a $50 million public company during a turnaround. He developed entrepreneurship programs and curricula at two universities and taught as an adjunct at several others. He earned doctor and masters of science degrees in nuclear engineering at MIT, a master of science degree in management as a Sloan Fellow at MIT Sloan School, and a bachelor of science degree from the US Naval Academy.

Janel Wellborn

Organizational Behavior & Negotiations; Product Management

Janel runs a global boutique consulting firm with Fortune 500 clients (e.g. Walmart International, Macy’s, H&M, Latam Airlines, etc.) across North & South America, Europe and Asia. She embeds herself within her clients’ organizations to transform their culture by shifting mindsets at all levels, helping them make many small changes in their ways of working that have big impacts on their ability to meet their customer needs & deliver measurable business value.

She does this driven by a passion for helping people be more effective at & engaged in the work they do–at the individual, team & organizational levels–facilitating changes that develop talent and shift the organizational culture around them so they have the space in which they can thrive and have the biggest possible impact.

In particular, she specializes in building high functioning product teams that leverage technology to solve real customer problems & rally around measurable outcomes within the digital product lifecycle, & leads digital and agile transformations with the goal of increasing their speed to market and optimizing the ROI of capital invested in launching digital capabilities.

Jennifer Caleshu

Communications for Engineering Leaders

Jennifer Caleshu is a lecturer, facilitator and certified executive coach for programs in leadership, communications, design thinking and innovation who believes every human deserves the opportunity to bring their most authentic and powerful self to work every day.

She is a member of the professional faculty at the University of California’s Haas School of Business where she teaches in MBA and undergraduate programs as a Lecturer for courses including: Fundamentals of Design Thinking, Building Trust-Based Relationships, Leadership Communications, Active Communicating, Leader as Coach and Haas@Work. She has also taught leadership and innovation programs with UC Berkeley Executive Education, Nanyang Business School, and the Berlin School of Creative Leadership.

She is a faculty member and executive coach for the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute (BECI), where she facilitates leadership, communications and coaching programs with diverse clients globally. As an executive and communications coach, her clients have included a wide variety of leaders seeking to empower themselves and their teams, as well as create and deliver powerful presentations. She also serves as the Vice President of Marketing & Operations for BECI.

Jennifer earned an MBA with honors from the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business, where she received the “Outstanding Graduate Student Instructor” award. She also holds a BA in Human Biology from Stanford University with a focus on Issues of Adolescence. She is a certified Executive Coach from the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute.

Jennifer Yang

Organizational Behavior & Negotiations; Marketing and Product Management; Power of Diversity and Inclusion for Engineering Leaders

Jennifer Yang holds a Bachelor of Science in Economics with concentrations in Marketing and Multinational Management from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and a Master in Public Administration with a focus in Leadership from Virginia Tech, Center for Public Administration and Policy. In addition to the Fung Institute, she teaches at Western Oregon University and works with UC Berkeley School of Information on the Master in Data Science and Master in Cybersecurity programs. Her work experience includes strategy and marketing consulting for Fortune 500 companies and start-ups.

Jim Morris

Coaching for High Performance Teams

Jim is a coach for product management leaders and teams in early stage startups, tech companies and Fortune 100 corporations.

Previously, Jim was an engineer, product manager and leader at startups where he developed raw ideas into successful products several times. He co-founded PowerReviews which grew to 1,200+ clients and sold for $168 million. He product-managed and architected one of the first e-commerce systems at Fogdog.com which had a $450 million IPO.

These days, he adapts product management principles to a variety of industries including machine learning, computer vision, business services, e-commerce, digital health, and energy infrastructure.

He graduated from Stanford University with a BS in Computer Science.

Keith Tandowsky

Project Management & Teaming

Keith Tandowsky recently retired from a 35-year career at The Clorox Company, a world-class Fortune 500 consumer products company, where he had spent the last 19 years as an executive officer, including time on the Clorox Executive Committee and extensive experience working with the Clorox Board of Directors. Keith started in the Finance function and played many roles as a business partner in all areas of financial management and information technology (Keith also held the role of SVP – Chief Information Officer for 7 years).

Keith had leadership responsibility for teams as small as 10 and as large as 400 people. Over the last twelve+ years of his career, Keith developed expertise in High Performance Executive Team Coaching and had the opportunity to coach many of the key leadership teams and top-ranking individuals at Clorox.  He is passionate about the impact collaborative high performing teams can have on business results and the important steps it takes to get there.

Given his belief in this approach as one of the last areas of competitive advantage, Keith is devoting himself to this area in his retirement from Clorox, developing and coaching corporate teams/individuals in high performance. In addition to private clients, he’s also come full circle and is now at his alma mater, UC Berkeley, working with the Haas Executive Education program and the UC Berkeley Engineering School’s Fung Institute. He completed his undergraduate work in Economics followed by an MBA from the Haas Business School.

Ken Guss

Project Management & Teaming

Ken Guss is an industry recognized leader with over thirty years of executive-level leadership including the General Management of three Fortune 500 companies and the Chief Executive role for ten divisions of a London-based plc. His background includes the leadership of over thirty public and private international companies in complex manufacturing, distribution and MRO in both the Commercial and Military Aerospace markets. Most recently he was the Chief Executive Officer of GroupAero, a Corinthian Capital portfolio group of six companies in the US, Europe and Mexico. Over the past decade, he has distinguished himself by transitioning organizations from technology-centered to business/customer-centered operations as a change agent who revitalizes underperforming companies through a focus on people, processes and services. When managing change, he is known for forging strong multi-cultural relationships through morale-building initiatives that generate trust, drive innovation, and accentuate a customer service ethic that underscores the brand identity that reflects his leadership.

Today he is the CEO of Imagine Consulting working on advisory boards and helping companies reach new levels of performance through his passionate approach to leadership and cultural change in organizations. Ken holds both a Bachelor in Law and Juris Doctor degrees from the Western States University of Law in Southern California.

Kenneth Jeffrey Marshall

Strategy and Analysis, Entrepreneurship

Kenneth Jeffrey Marshall is an author, professor, and value investor. Outside of the Fung Institute he teaches value investing and personal finance at Stanford University. He also directs the value investing courses in the masters in finance program at the Stockholm School of Economics in Sweden. He is the author of the 2017 McGraw-Hill book Good Stocks Cheap, which in 2019 was also published in Chinese; and the Small Steps to Rich personal finance series. He holds a BA in Economics, International Area Studies from the University of California, Los Angeles; and an MBA from Harvard University.

Krishnan Natarajan

Coaching for High Performance Teams

Since 1988 Krishnan has been in Silicon Valley, working with both startups and established technology companies focused on systems, web applications, and software security. Most of his professional focus has been in product management and marketing,
He is currently Director in the Global Sales Development organization at ServiceNow.

In addition to his current role at the Fung Institute at UC Berkeley, he has also been an active undergraduate mentor at MIT over the past several years. He is on the advisory board for the MIT Undergraduate Practice Opportunities Program.

Krishnan received undergraduate and graduate degrees in Aeronautics and Astronautics as well as a graduate degree from the Sloan School of Management, all from MIT.

Leah Edwards

Coaching for High Performing Teams; R&D Tech Management

Leah is a serial co-founder and advisor to startups and investors. Beginning with her first company being acquired for $380 million within two years, she went on to sell several companies to major companies.

Leah then directed the Center for Entrepreneurial Studies in the Stanford Graduate School of Business, where she oversaw the development and management of innovation and entrepreneurship courses and programs, and she now teaches at Stanford, UC Berkeley and and other universities.

As an investor and advisor, Leah has worked with both startups and corporate investors to bring innovative technology and business models to a wide variety of industries. Leah is also an executive coach, helping leaders scale innovations in startups and corporations.

Leah also holds a BS in Business Administration from the University of California, Berkeley and an MBA and Certificate of Public Management from the Stanford Graduate School of Business.

Lee Fleming

R&D Tech Management, Technology Strategy

Dr. Fleming earned his bachelor’s degree in Electrical Engineering at UC Davis. Dr. Fleming went on to earn a Masters in Engineering Management from Stanford University in the Honors Cooperative Program. He then received his Ph.D. in Organizational Behavior in the Department of Industrial Engineering at Stanford. He also completed a Masters in Statistics during his doctoral years. Between 1998 and 2011, he was a professor at the Harvard Business School, most recently as the Albert J. Weatherhead III Professor of Business Administration. His research applies machine learning and NLP techniques on large datasets with causal inference models from management and social science. His work investigates how mobility influences creative output, innovative search strategy drives firm performance, non-competes change labor mobility and entrepreneurship, governance influences innovation, and investors value innovation search strategies. His recent work published in Science illustrates how almost one third of U.S. patents rely on government funded research.

Margaret Kolb

Communications for Engineering Leaders

Margaret Kolb joins the Fung Institute with a PhD in English Literature from UC Berkeley and a BA in abstract mathematics from Washington University in St. Louis. Before completing her PhD, she worked as a quantitative analyst in economic research at Bank of America. Find her writing on literary history in Victorian Studies, Configurations, and The Palgrave Handbook of Literature and Mathematics; her book reviews appear in MAKE Magazine. She has also served as a Lecturer in English at UC Berkeley, an instructor at San Quentin Prison, and founded two short story groups, one in Abu Dhabi and the other in San Francisco.

Mark Bauer

Communications for Engineering Leaders

Mark Bauer brings his focus on the effective use of language to the Fung Institute’s Communications for Engineering Leaders courses.  He received his PhD in English from UC Berkeley, where his research centered on twentieth-century autobiographical poetry and the modes by which poets alternately embrace and question the ability of language and literature to capture their personal experience.  Mark has used the insights gleaned from this research to design and teach courses in reading, writing, and English literature at UC Berkeley and UC Davis.  Additionally, he has worked with a local tech start-up on the development of artificial intelligence software designed to help students improve their writing.  Before coming to Berkeley, Mark received an MA in English Education from Colorado State University and taught high school English.

Martina Lauchengco

Marketing

Ms. Lauchengco’s multi-disciplinary approach pulls from over 20 years of experience in executive positions in marketing, product management, and as chief-of-staff to the CEO at companies including Microsoft, Netscape/AOL and Loudcloud/Opsware. Martina has helped contribute to several industry leading products, but she is best known for her work leading marketing initiatives – first for Microsoft Word and Microsoft Office and later for the Netscape Browser, two of the most successful software products of all time. Ms. Lauchengco has most recently been a strategic advisor to a wide range of startups and Fortune 500 companies. Martina earned her B.A. in Political Science and M.A. in Organizational Behavior from Stanford University.

Matthew Rappaport

Entrepreneurship, R&D Tech Management, IP Strategist

Matthew co-founded IP Checkups in 2004 to help companies align their patent strategy with their R&D and business objectives. He has managed hundreds of engagements and advised large and small corporate clients, start-ups and investors on IP strategy. Matthew co-founded the Center for Intellectual Property (CIP)-Berkeley. An academic and executive-education program focused at the intersection of business, R&D, and intellectual property. Since 2010, Matthew has been selected by his peers as a member of the IAM Strategy 300, a list of the world’s leading IP strategists.

Nick Farrell

Project Management and Teaming

Nick Farrell has 25 years of experience in high tech, working at startups, large universities and multi-national tech companies. He is currently a Senior Artificial Intelligence Program Manager at Microsoft, managing projects using reinforcement learning to solve industrial automation problems for Fortune 500 companies. Prior to working at Microsoft, Nick worked as a product manager in the healthcare software sector. He has also started software quality assurance departments at a pharmaceutical tech company, a healthcare device startup and an advertising agency. Nick has a degree in English Language and Literature from the University of Michigan.

Nima Shomali

Coaching for High Performing Teams, Speaker Series

Nima Shomali is an expert in technology strategy and organizational behavior. He specializes in creating high-performance corporate cultures, building elite technology strategy, and leading large-scale corporate turnarounds.  

Nima serves as Managing Partner for Acceleration Technology Partners, an organization and innovation advisory firm. He holds a dual position as leadership coach at the UC Berkeley College of Engineering Fung Institute for Engineering Leadership and Fellow at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business Amena Center for Innovation Economies.

Previously, Nima was Program Coordinator of the UC Davis Graduate School of Management’s MBA Foundations of Technology Program. Nima also holds an appointment as Assistant Professor of Strategy and Organizational Behavior in the MBA and undergraduate business programs at St. Mary’s College of California, where he was awarded the 2016 Outstanding Faculty of the Year. He also serves as an Instructor at UC Berkeley Extension, where he teaches Innovation. Additionally, Nima has guest lectured at the London School of Economics, HEC Paris, and New York University Stern School of Business.

Prior to founding ATP, Nima served in the Office of the CEO for Yahoo Inc. under Chief Executive Officer Marissa Mayer as strategic initiative and corporate culture lead. In this role, he created the Yahoo IdeaLab Internal Product Incubator.

Previously, he spent four years in IBM’s elite Strategy and Innovation Consulting Practice. In this role, he worked to create Afghanistan’s first private equity fund and start-up incubator while living for a year on Camp Stone, a NATO operated base in Western Afghanistan. He also operated as Project Lead for the University of California, Office of the President’s key initiative to rebuild their university wide risk management system.

Nima has also worked in the Investment Management Division of the Goldman Sachs Group. Prior to this role, he spent two years designing jet engines for the F22 Raptor and F35 Joint Strike Fighter Planes as part of Pratt and Whitney. Previously, he designed satellites at UC Berkeley’s NASA affiliated Space Sciences laboratory.

Nima also serves as Program Adviser to the Chinese Software Professional Association and has been the keynote speaker at Silicon Valley Innovation Center’s Leading Digital Transformation Conference. His publications include articles in the Washington Post and New York University Graduate Business Journal.

Nima holds a Masters of Business Administration Degree from the New York University Stern School of Business, a B.S. in Mechanical Engineering from UC Berkeley, a B.A. in Economics from the UC Santa Cruz, and is an alumnus of the London Business School’s #1 world-wide ranked MBA program.

Promita Deb

Project Management and Teaming

Promita is a project manager in the oil and gas field for the past 15 years. She received her undergraduate degree in chemical engineering at the University of Southern California and then obtained her MBA at Cal State Bakersfield in August 2016.

She has worked for several companies across California such as Chevron, Jacobs, Fluor, and Worley. She helped found a non-profit organization called Empower with Code, which helps to educate youth on coding. She has co-authored an academic paper in 2018 called “Machine Learning: The New Big Thing for Competitive Advantage.” She has taught several undergraduate business courses at Cal State Bakersfield and is thrilled to continue her teaching career at the Fung Institute of Management. In her spare time, she enjoys teaching yoga and playing the piano.

Reginald Bailey

Entrepreneurship, R&D Tech Management, IP Strategist

Dr. Reginald Bailey has over 40 years of experience within the defense, cargo security, and educational technology industries, with a background in software and systems engineering, and project management. He has led teams (collocated, distributed) for large multi-national companies (e.g., IBM), large defense companies (e.g., Lockheed Martin), as well as small technology startup companies (e.g., NoRedInk). He has taught in the master and doctoral degree programs for The George Washington University, and is excited to now be a part of the teaching staff in the Master of Engineering degree program at UC Berkeley.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in computer science from the University of California Berkeley, a master’s degree in systems engineering from The George Washington University, and a doctor’s degree in systems engineering from The George Washington University.

Ron Star

Entrepreneurship

Ronald Star is a Partner in the Corporate and Securities practice at Arnold & Porter  LLP, and co-chairs the Northern California Emerging Companies group. His practice focuses on financings, venture capital, technology transactions, corporate governance, securities law and mergers and acquisitions. He works closely with start-up and private companies on issues related to equity and financings, intellectual property matters, the structuring of executive compensation (including stock arrangements), strategic ventures, acquisitions and management buy-outs. He is a frequent lecturer on venture capital transactions, acquisitions, strategic partnerships, employment matters, succession in family businesses and closely held businesses. Mr. Star holds a JD, MBA and BA from Harvard University.

Sarah Holliman

Organizational Behavior & Negotiations

Sarah has over 20 years of experience as a CMO building marketing and communications teams in a variety of industries, including multi-national consulting firms, global membership organizations and high-tech startups. She is currently running Cantaré Creative, a marketing services agency, working with both established brands and rapid-growth startup companies. Sarah holds an MBA with a concentration in Marketing from UCLA’s Anderson School of Management and a BA from Furman University. Prior to marketing, Sarah held leadership positions in management consulting and banking.

Sonner Kehrt

Communications for Engineering Leaders

Sonner Kehrt is a writer and journalist whose work has appeared in the New York Times, Wired Magazine, The Verge, and numerous other publications. She has taught courses both at the Fung Institute and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism. Prior to journalism, she worked as a public affairs officer in the US Coast Guard, where she was stationed in the arctic and divided her time between driving an 18,000-ton polar icebreaker and effectively telling the stories of research being conducted aboard the ship. She holds a Masters of Journalism from UC Berkeley, a Masters of Arts from Georgetown University, and a Bachelors of Science from the US Coast Guard Academy.

Susan Houlihan

Communications for Engineering Leaders

Susan Houlihan is a Communications Consultant, Executive Coach, and Electrical Engineer who leverages her 15+ years working in engineering and operations in the high-tech sector to bring a perspective firmly rooted in business applications to her consulting and coaching work. In her previous career, she led global engineering and operations teams in manufacturing, sourcing and supply chain. Today she is the COO of the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute.

Susan is a Lecturer in Leadership, Communications & Coaching in the MBA Programs at the UC Berkeley Haas School of Business. She has been a Guest Lecturer at the Berlin School of Creative Leadership in the Executive MBA Program since 2013.

As a coach and workshop lead for Fortune 500 Companies globally, she is particularly interested in helping leaders to build the skills to motivate and inspire their people to their highest potential, as well as reaching their own maximum potential. She has worked with companies such as Adobe, Bio-Rad, Cisco, Facebook, Ideo, Genentech, Moody’s, Novartis, Peterson Caterpillar, Salesforce.com, UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital and Zendesk.

Susan holds a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering from University College of Cork in Ireland, an MBA from the Haas School of Business at UC Berkeley, and is a certified Executive Coach from the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute.

Thomas Fitzpatrick

Communications for Engineering Leaders

Thomas is a leadership development educator and executive coach. Over the past nine years, he has taught at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business, the Berkeley Executive Coaching Institute, UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, the Berlin School of Creative Leadership, and Nanyang Technological University in Singapore. In addition, he has consulted within leading pharmaceutical, heavy equipment, consulting, computer software, and high-technology companies, facilitating workshops as well as coaching clients in a one-on-one setting.

Thomas has over 15 years experience in the technology sector. He has held positions in Operations, Business Development, Product Management, and Strategic Partnerships and he has led multicultural, globally-distributed teams. He has roots in education, having taught high school Latin and Ancient Greek prior to his business career. He holds a Masters in Business Administration and a Certificate in Executive Coaching from UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business and a Bachelor of Arts in Classics and Philosophy from College of the Holy Cross.

Tina Piracci

R&D Technology Management and Ethics

Tina completed a Master of Science in Architecture while obtaining her Certificate in New Media at UC Berkeley. Her undergraduate degree is a Bachelor of Fine Arts with minors in engineering and entrepreneurship. She served as a research affiliate at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory studying clay 3D printing applications within developmental engineering. With over 10 years in product development ranging from medical devices to water filters, she is a research consultant for international businesses within ceramics, such as Potters for Peace. She also runs a small makerspace in West Berkeley where she incubates early businesses and constructs digitally fabricated products.

Yogesh Lund

Organizational Behavior, Coaching for High Performing Teams

Yogesh Lund has 20+ years of experience in IT Services, Manufacturing and Consulting. He currently is Director of the Business Resiliency Consulting Practice at Dell Technologies. In this capacity, he manages a portfolio of projects and a team of consultants that specialize in IT Continuity Strategy, Data Protection, Cyber & Disaster Recovery Services. Prior to this role, he has worked in various capacities at Dell, NTT Data Services and General Motors. He is also an Adjunct Faculty member at Texas State University’s McCoy School of Business, where he has taught Quality Management and Supply Chain Management. Yogesh enjoys learning and applying leadership best practices to diverse, global, and dynamic workplaces. Yogesh holds a Bachelor’s in Production Engineering from the University of Mumbai, a Master’s in Industrial Engineering from the University of Toledo and an MBA from the University of Michigan- Ann Arbor. He is also a certified Project Management Professional (PMP) and a Scaled Agile Framework® (SAFe) enterprise leadership professional.