New Global Initiative Director Takes Broad Outlook
Hawes Hall Groundbreaking
Lumry Chair Supports IT and Entrepreneurship
HBS to Host Venture Capital Forum for Women
MBA Cohorts Will Merge Next Year
Three Promoted to Full Professor
John C. Sawhill Remembered
Faculty Retirements

New Global Initiative Director Takes Broad Outlook

When Kathleen Cooke Ryan took up her new role as executive director of the HBS Global Initiative last March, she joined a thriving organization. After the successful 1999 launch of its first international research center -- the Asia-Pacific Research Office, in Hong Kong -- the Initiative began gearing up to open its second center in Latin America over the summer.

But Ryan, a graduate of the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, was well prepared for the School's accelerating interest in international research. She arrived at Harvard after serving for seven years as chief of staff for Tufts president John DiBiaggio and another five years coordinating one of the Fletcher School's academic programs with activities in Japan, China, Korea, Canada, and Russia.

"Coming to the Global Initiative was a natural progression for me," says Ryan, who has worked and studied in Japan. "And it is exciting to be here now while the Business School is focusing more on international research and programs."

Ryan says her main objective this year is to facilitate and encourage the "international dimension" in faculty research. "Dean Clark wants an international component in everything we teach here," she notes. "One major goal of the Initiative is to feed international cases into the MBA and Executive Education Programs, in all fields of study. We're providing the incentive and the support so faculty can do that."

Launched in 1995, the Global Initiative has begun establishing research centers in key regions to expand the School's global perspective and to enhance collaborations with alumni and business leaders around the world. The Latin America Research Center in Buenos Aires builds on the momentum established by the Initiative's success in Hong Kong.

"Opening the Latin America center was an important step," Ryan notes. "There has been strong faculty interest in the region for a long time. And Dean Clark felt that with so many vital business interests in the area, we needed to be there."

Argentina's President Fernando de la Rúa clearly agreed with that assessment, showing his support for the new center by joining the inaugural dinner on the first night of the two-day conference held in Buenos Aires for the center's opening in August. "The conference was our opportunity to create a network with local practitioners and academics and to get a jump-start on our research activities in the region," Ryan says. "We also talked to local business leaders about what we will be doing there and outlined the benefits of being featured in a case study." (A complete report on the conference will appear in the December Bulletin.)

Each center has an on-site executive director (Camille Tang Yeh [MBA '80] in Hong Kong and Gustavo A. Herrero [MBA '76] in Buenos Aires) and a research staff to assist faculty members with their work. With HBS researchers currently studying companies in more than forty countries, Ryan says choosing the location of the research centers must be done very carefully. "We have to look at where our faculty have been and where the bulk of their research is coming from. We want to broaden horizons, but we also have to be sure that there is a natural inclination on the part of researchers to go to a particular area."

Where will the next centers be? "Plans for centers in Europe are evolving, though the specific location has yet to be determined," Ryan says. "It's still in the feasibility stage, but it is likely to open some time next year."

- Margie Kelley

Hawes Hall Groundbreaking

Groundbreaking took place in early June for Hawes Hall, a new classroom building that will be constructed adjacent to the northeast corner of Aldrich Hall, facing Baker Library. Dean Kim B. Clark opened the ceremony by welcoming the Hawes family, including Beverly and Rodney A. Hawes, Jr. (MBA '69), and their six children and spouses. "Beverly and Rod are a wonderful model for us all," Clark noted. "They have had an outstanding career and life together, raised a fine family, and never lost sight of the importance of helping others. We are grateful for their support and willingness to join the School in creating a truly magnificent educational facility."

Beverly Hawes expressed the family's enthusiasm for the project and the hope that the students who will be educated in Hawes Hall will use the knowledge that they gain "to serve their fellow human beings." Rod Hawes, the retired chairman and CEO of the Connecticut-based Life Re Corporation (purchased in 1998 by Swiss Re of Zurich, Switzerland), also emphasized the importance of service. "Most of the world's problems are talked about by politicians," he noted, "but so many of them are really business problems. With Harvard Business School graduates on every continent, there is such potential for this institution to make a real difference in the world. Our family is proud to be able to play a small role in helping to make that difference."

Three stories high with approximately 50,000 square feet of space, the new structure will share architectural similarities with campus buildings designed by the firm of McKim, Mead & White in the 1920s. Hawes Hall will house eight classrooms equipped with state-of-the-art technology that will, in Clark's words, "stand the test of time, make it possible for us to continue to do great things in our teaching programs, and enable us to take the work that we do to the world."