Update
HBS
Expands Global Presence
Egawa
Heads New Research Office in Japan
Europe
Business Conference Forecasts the Future
New
Porter Prize Awarded in Japan
Springboard
Boosts Funding Prospects for Women Entrepreneurs
TIME
OUT – Mary Quin: A Life-Changing Story
Health
Industry Alumni Convene for Conference
Design
Fair
Former
Bulletin Editor Remembered
Mary Quin: A Life-Changing Story
Another in a series of occasional articles on HBS
graduates who have taken a leave from their careers to explore
nonbusiness endeavors.
When she describes the experience today, Mary P. Quin (MBA ’88)
remains composed and thoughtful. Yet four years ago, Quin, a seasoned
world traveler who had visited over sixty countries, was taken
hostage in the desert of Yemen and faced what seemed a certain
and violent death. A Xerox vice president and general manager
at the time, Quin has since seen her life change as a result of
her terrifying ordeal, and she is currently taking time off from
her business career to write a book about the incident.
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While on a two-week tour of Yemen, Quin and fifteen
other tourists were captured by Islamic militants who, they later
learned, were attempting to win freedom for a group of Muslim
extremists imprisoned by the Yemeni authorities. The next morning,
as army troops mounted a rescue operation, one of Quin’s
captors stuck an AK-47 into her back and used her as a human shield.
“It seemed impossible that we could survive,” Quin recalls,
“so one part of my brain was saying, ‘This is it, this
is the end.’ But I also had this feeling I would make it,
and I could actually visualize myself back home telling people
what had happened.” In a hail of bullets, Quin’s captor
was shot, and she managed to run to the safety of her rescuers.
Four of the other tourists were killed.
Quin returned home to Rochester, New York, aware that the ordeal
had permanently changed her. But she thought it best to wait until
some of the initial shock had dissipated before making any life-altering
decisions. “Coming so close to death was a wake-up call,”
she says. “It made me reevaluate how I wanted to spend the
rest of my life.” Upon reflection, she decided to leave the
corporate world and take time off to write, with the plan of eventually
starting a business. She moved to Alaska last summer with her
new partner in life, Ray Kaufman, an executive who e-mailed Quin
when he read about her experience in the Rochester
newspaper. Quin sees her move to Alaska as another adventure,
an opportunity for new experiences that so far include learning
how to fly-fish and hunt.
Her longtime interest in women’s issues has kept her actively
engaged internationally and led her to attend the U.N. Fourth
World Conference on Women, held in Beijing in 1995. She then launched
the 100 Heroines Project, a group that awarded grants of $1,000
to each of one hundred women around the world who were working
for women’s rights. Through this project, Quin became aware
of the plight of women in Afghanistan and then worked with Afghan
women to help craft the Declaration of the Essential Rights of
Afghan Women, a document that she hopes will be formally incorporated
into the constitution of a newly reformed Afghanistan.
Last August, Quin returned to Yemen, where she interviewed the
imprisoned Muslims whose release her captors had sought, in order
to better understand their thoughts and personalities. Having
completed the bulk of her research and some writing (she hopes
to publish her book in 2003), she is looking ahead to her next
endeavor. “My interest in business goes beyond the P&L
or the product,” says Quin, who intends to split her time
between her current residence and her native New Zealand. “I
would love to figure out a way to use my skills to help Alaska
and New Zealand become stronger communities and stronger economies.”
— Susan Young (send e-mail
to the author)
RETURN TO THE TOP
Health Industry Alumni Convene for Conference
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Current issues in health care — ranging from finance
and patients’ rights to genomics and personalized medicine
— were among the subjects discussed last November at the
HBS Health
Industry Alumni Association’s second annual conference.
Held on campus and at the Charles Hotel in Cambridge, the event,
which featured a number of HBS professors and alumni practitioners
as panelists and speakers, drew a large and enthusiastic group
of attendees.
After welcoming remarks by the conference chair, RDA Healthcare
Consulting president Robert DeNoble (MBA ’72), Dr. Wolfgang
Klietmann (12th OPM), president and CEO of Mediconsulting, Inc.,
spoke about creating a better model for business collaborations
between biotech and pharmaceutical firms. Said Klietmann, the
conference’s biotechnology chair and a lecturer in pathology
at Harvard Medical School, “The challenge will be to use
the innovative strength in the knowledge-based biotechnology industry
to forge balanced partnership deals with the financially much
stronger pharmaceutical industry.”
A panel led by HBS associate professor Jonathan West discussed
the issues raised by Klietmann, with representatives from both
industries then offering their analyses. Afternoon sessions included
a presentation by HBS professor Clayton Christensen on disruptive
technologies in health care; a panel, moderated by HBS professor
Gary Pisano, on individually tailored health care; and a talk
by Eric Lander, director of the Whitehead Institute’s Center
for Genome Research. The evening’s keynote speaker, Guidant
Corporation group chairman Ginger Graham (MBA ’86), reviewed
issues and technology advances in the field of cardiology.
The next day’s presentations included a breakfast seminar
titled “Managing Your Career in Turbulent Times”; a
panel on “Financing Health-Care Delivery and Innovation”;
two case studies, led by HBS assistant professors Richard Bohmer
and Henry Chesbrough, that examined patients’ rights in the
context of other industry imperatives; and a session on health
policy’s impact on the health-care system.
Reflecting on the conference, the association’s founder and
president, Bunny Ellerin (MBA ’95), EVP, clinical programs,
for Clinsights, Inc., commented, “Thanks to the collective
effort over several months of HBS alumni, faculty, students, and
administration, the event was a huge success. It was very well
received and much appreciated by all who attended.”
RETURN TO THE TOP
Design Fair
Second-year students in Associate Professor Stefan
Thomke’s elective MBA course Managing Product Development
presented their final projects at the tenth annual Design
Fair in December. Among those who displayed their wares
at the Spangler Center were Calona Chan, Mira Huussen, and
Rajesh Bilimoria of Pinball, pictured at far right. The
team, in collaboration with the Design Continuum and the
MIT Media Lab, created a system for fashion retail stores
that utilizes weight-sensitive floor tiles in order to know
where shoppers are concentrated and what items they are
viewing. Relevant promotional and informational content
can then be shown to customers on nearby flat-panel displays.
Also participating were Lance Ward, Amy Reinhard, and Brian
Davis, who, with the Design Continuum and MicroOptical
Corp., created Active Insight. The group’s product
is a head-mounted display system that places data and graphics
continuously in the user’s field of vision. This enables
athletes to watch themselves in real time in order to perfect
motor skills and enhance muscle memory.
Former Bulletin Editor Remembered
Edward
Lovell (“Ted”) Anthony II (MBA ’52), who served
as editor of this magazine from 1962 to 1981, was killed in an
automobile accident on November 18 in Maui, Hawaii. He was 80
years old.
A 1943 graduate of Harvard College, Anthony spent four years in
the U.S. Navy as assistant chief of the Photographic Intelligence
Training Department, where he taught air photo interpretation
and analysis. Before enrolling as a student at HBS, Anthony also
served as assistant to the president of the Daltry Opera Company,
assistant to the headmaster of the Manter Hall School in Cambridge,
and associate editor for the Public Affairs Press. After graduating
from HBS, he became chief of the Publications Division of the
Small Business Administration in Washington, D.C.
Anthony’s career as Bulletin editor spanned nearly
twenty years and the tenures of HBS Deans George P. Baker and
Lawrence E. Fouraker. His detailed reports on faculty research,
campus construction, and the School’s growing international
reach were regular features during that period. In an article
marking the magazine’s 75th anniversary in 1999, Anthony
noted the transitions that occurred while he was at the School,
in particular, the impact of the political and social upheaval
triggered by U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War. “For half
a century,” he wrote, “the attitudes and objectives
of students and faculty at HBS had been fairly consistent from
one year to the next, but the early ’70s marked a turning
point.”
Anthony was a trustee of the Dr. Franklin Perkins School in Lancaster,
Massachusetts, and of the Vermont Academy in Saxtons River, Vermont.
He was also warden of St. Andrew’s Episcopal Church in Wellesley,
Massachusetts. He leaves his wife, Constance; sons Edward III
and Richard; sisters Mary West and Helen James; and four grandchildren.
A daughter, Victoria, predeceased him. Funeral services were held
in December in Hawaii. The family has requested that memorial
donations be made to a charity of one’s choice.
