Alumni Achievement Award winners (clockwise, from left) Daniel, Makihara, Nielsen, Lafley, and Franklin. Photo by Stuart Cahill

Hundreds of first-year students played a key role in this year’s Alumni Achievement Award ceremonies as they, along with this year’s five award winners, took part in a case discussion in Burden Hall in September. The case, “Rob Parson at Morgan Stanley,” dealt with a star performer who had been hired to jump-start a moribund division of the investment bank. Parson’s success at generating business was offset by performance reviews from supervisors and subordinates that painted him as a poor fit in the firm’s collaborative culture. Should he be promoted to managing director?

Kicking off the event, Dean Kim B. Clark introduced the panel of five alumni and presented each of them with their award, HBS’s highest honor. Next came the case discussion, led by HBS professor Nitin Nohria, featuring comments from both the student audience and the panelists. The award winners’ decades of experience in different sorts of organizational cultures and situations produced many interesting insights and observations — and some disagreements — about how to handle the Parson matter. Panelists’ opinions ranged from “I’d promote this guy in a heartbeat” to “You can’t promote him now because you shoot a hole in the culture you’re trying to build.” No applause meter was available, but on balance, judging from the volume of their cheers and handclapping, Parson got a thumbs-up from the student audience.

D. Ronald Daniel (MBA ’54) view full profile
A director and former managing partner of McKinsey, Daniel has been associated with the firm for nearly fifty years and was its leader from 1976 to 1988. He served as the treasurer of Harvard University, advising three presidents, from 1989 until last June.

Barbara Hackman Franklin (MBA ’64) view full profile
The president and CEO of Barbara Franklin Enterprises, an international trade consulting and investment firm, Franklin has worked in government with five U.S. presidents, including service as secretary of commerce in the administration of President George H.W. Bush.

A.G. Lafley (MBA ’77) view full profile
Lafley, who has been with Procter & Gamble since graduating from HBS, was named its chairman, president, and chief executive in 2000. Since then, he is credited with leading the consumer-products giant to the strongest earnings in its history through his emphasis on innovation, micromarketing, and the nurturing of talent.

Minoru Makihara (AMP 75, 1977) view full profile
Currently a senior corporate advisor at Mitsubishi Corporation, Makihara had been with the company for 36 years, including a stint as head of U.S. operations, when he was named president and CEO in 1992. Over the next six years, he reinvigorated the company — said at the time to be the world’s biggest — by focusing on organizational, technology, and global competitiveness issues. From 1998 to 2004, he served as the firm’s chairman.

Donald P. Nielsen (MBA ’63) view full profile
Nielsen is the former chairman, president, and CEO of Hazleton Laboratories, which he and a partner bought in 1971 and built into the largest independent contract laboratory in the world. Retiring early, he spent eight years serving on the Seattle school board, where he helped initiate bold reforms that attracted national attention.

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