Photographed by Susan Young and Alice Carfrae
Edited by Julia Hanna

MORE ON THE RECIPIENTS

Read more about the 2022 recipients, listen to podcasts detailing their impact, and learn about past recipients.

ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS SITE

MORE ON THE RECIPIENTS

Read more about the 2022 recipients, listen to podcasts detailing their impact, and learn about past recipients.

ALUMNI ACHIEVEMENT AWARDS SITE

For more than 50 years, Harvard Business School has recognized a number of outstanding individuals by conferring on them its highest 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. Exemplary role models, they inspire all those who aspire to have an impact on both business and society.

The recipients of the 2022 Alumni Achievement Awards, whom Dean Srikant Datar will recognize during the HBS graduation ceremony on May 26, 2022, are:
Patricia C. “Tosh” Barron (MBA 1972)
Salman A. Khan (MBA 2003)
Naina Lal Kidwai (MBA 1982)
Robert L. Ryan (MBA 1970)
Robert B. Wilson (MBA 1961, DBA 1963)

Former President, Engineering Systems;
Former President, Office Products Division, Xerox Corporation

Dance, dance revolution: “I studied modern dance in college; the originality of the choreography attracted me, but it also was a form of rebellion, because my father would have preferred me to be more academic—which was a long shot.”

Continental drift: “After college I taught physical education at a school in Oxford, and some Rhodes Scholars who lived in my building encouraged me to go to the United States. I remember my mother bawling away, but the freedom there was amazing. It opened my eyes to what one could do.”

Straight shooter: “My first assignment at Xerox was to help take the company into China. When the chairman announced in the press what we were doing, I chastised him and said that was not something he should have done. Everyone was shocked I had done that, but I think he respected me for it.”

Fate factor: “Working for McKinsey in Tanzania, between my first and second years at HBS, was absolutely life-changing. It’s where I met Rukia Hamisi, who became a good friend; and when she was diagnosed with terminal cancer, my husband and I agreed to adopt her two teenage sons.”

By example: “My parents didn’t teach me their values around work and family—I absorbed them through their example and expectations. My mother was a nurse who was always helping others, and my dad chose to work as a doctor in a poorer part of London.”

Take note: “In leadership, I think the most important thing is to listen; the other is to be decisive. You’re not the only one with a brain, so it’s very important to get input. And you can’t waffle.”

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Founder and CEO, Khan Academy

Origin story: “I was a hedge-fund analyst when I started helping my cousin Nadia with unit conversion. I said, ‘I’m 100 percent sure you can understand this stuff. How about we get on the phone and I’ll tutor you?’ Pretty soon, I was helping many more cousins.”

Lights, camera: “A friend suggested I make YouTube videos to go with the lessons, even though I thought of it as a place for cats playing the piano. But I gave it a shot, and the videos took on a life of their own.”

The plunge: “Soon, tens of thousands of people were using the videos every month. In 2009, I left my job and set up Khan Academy as a nonprofit organization, with the mission to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere.”

Building blocks: “In mastery learning, a student moves at his or her own pace and takes as many shots on goal as needed to master a concept, before advancing. If I’m one teacher with 30 kids, it’s very hard to pull this off; but if you have software tools and on-demand video, it’s possible.”

Job perk: “Selfishly, I like to geek out. Being a hedge-fund analyst was pretty intellectual work, but it was still so much fun to talk with my cousins about kinematics and photosynthesis. Video creation is still something I hold dear: I just made three videos this morning.”

Balancing act: “In leadership, there’s a tension between getting good information from multiple stakeholders and a more top-down approach, where you trust your intuition, take a minority point of view, and run with it. It’s something I’m constantly trying to balance.”

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Former Executive Director, Board of HSBC Asia Pacific;
Former Chairman, HSBC India;
Founder and Chairman, India Sanitation Coalition

Take a memo: “My mother used to ask my sister and me to fetch our father from his office when he stayed too late. I loved spinning around in his big leather chair and knew I wanted to be in business someday. Those visits entered my DNA.”

Culture shock: “My HBS study group had a good laugh when we went grocery shopping together. I was absolutely overwhelmed by choosing from dozens of varieties of jams and tomato sauces.”

Big fish, small pond: “The great thing about working in finance in India was the opportunity to influence the evolution of the country’s financial institutions and regulatory structures. Very early on, I was part of the group that helped set up a second, more modern stock exchange.”

Multiplier effect: “When I moved from Morgan Stanley to HSBC, the team sizes went from a few hundred people to 12,000 and then to 35,000 when I became chair. Diversity and inclusivity were still relatively new concepts then, and it was great to have a part in that work.”

Deep end: “I was head of HSBC in India during the hideous 2008 terrorist strikes in Mumbai, when we had 30 employees in the two hotels that were targeted. Looking back, it’s those trials by fire that reinforce the importance of always, always relying on the expertise of one’s team.”

Downtime: “I love the fact that, in India, we can just shoot off into the jungle for four or five days. Kaziranga National Park is a favorite. It’s been one of India’s great success stories for rhino conservation.”

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Retired Senior VP and CFO, Medtronic, Inc.

Family ties: “My father had a fifth-grade education and worked in a Chrysler plant from the age of 16. He emphasized the importance of education, and thanks to my mother I could write cursive and read before I started kindergarten.”

Pivot point: “I was nearly two years into a PhD in electrical engineering when I realized I was on autopilot. I said, ‘There’s more to life than having a guaranteed job for life.’ I’d always been intrigued by finance, so I applied to HBS.”

Leaps and bounds: “It’s not the only measure to consider, but Medtronic had tremendous growth from 1993 to 2006. The market cap went from about $5 billion to $60 billion in the time I was there. Part of that was pushing us from being a US-centric company to one that was more global.”

By the numbers: “In 2000 I testified to Congress on what’s called pooling of interests, which was picked up by the Financial Accounting Standards Board. What we worked on together exists today in accounting and is called an impairment test.”

Alliance: “A few years ago I worked with local government and pulled in others to help revive and redesign a funeral home that’s served African Americans in North Minneapolis for the last 50 years that was about to be shut down. George Floyd’s service was held there.”

Full circle: “The sacrifices my parents made for my education were truly unbelievable, which is why I feel an obligation to pay it forward through different scholarships, including my fellowship fund at HBS.”

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Adams Distinguished Professor of Management, Emeritus, Stanford University
2020 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences

Gainfully employed: “My first job was at age 7—a paper route that paid $2.45 a week. I always worked: sacking groceries, working at a bottling plant for 75 cents an hour. I bought a .22 rifle, a bicycle, and a nice set of MacGregor golf clubs.”

The big H: “I had a hard time finding my footing at Harvard but did develop a relationship with Howard Raiffa, who coauthored Games and Decisions. It introduced an analytical approach to multi-person decision problems that really interested me.”

Think different: “I had a brilliant student, Paul Milgrom, who wrote a superb dissertation on auctions. We came up with a proposal for the FCC to sell spectrum licenses simultaneously, rather than one by one. Professional auctioneers were adamant it would be an enormous flop.”

Impact: “The revenue raised by using our method is somewhere around $265 billion for the US government and $1.5 trillion for governments worldwide. It was a brief moment in my life but it had an enormous impact.”

Two heads: “There have been several times when I’ve worked on a problem alone and it’s been a disaster. I depend on an exchange of ideas with someone who is more precise and rigorous because I tend to be a somewhat vague, speculative thinker.”

Secret sauce: “Three of my students have won the Nobel Prize, but when these brilliant young people pass through our program, it’s not my doing. The key thing with doctoral students is to offer positive reinforcement and encouragement.”

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