The Board of Advisors helps guide the vision, strategic direction and business development efforts of the management team. These eminent individuals provide perspective and input on dynamic market, product, organizational, and financial topics. Read more by clicking on a name in the list below.
Eileen Shapiro is President of The Hillcrest Group, Inc. in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Trained as a traditional consultant, she now does most of her work as a "venture consultant," working with pre-IPO companies on a wide range of strategic, organizational, and financial issues. She continues to work with some established companies, focusing on those that want to move fast, face key issues directly, and implement solutions that their organizations can and will own.
Eileen’s work as a consultant has taken her around the world and involved her with companies in a wide range of areas including information-based businesses, financial services, heavy industry, biomedical/health care products, and packaged goods. In the for-profit world, she has consulted to Fortune 50s, mid-size companies, and startups. In the non-profit world, she has consulted to health care, arts, and educational organizations.
Eileen is also the author of Fad Surfing in the Boardroom, hailed by Fortune, The Wall Street Journal, and The Financial Times for its "cogent discussions of modern management mantras and manias," its power to "demythologize the whole range of management strategies that purport to solve every executive’s quandary," and its "common sense and shrewd eye for what actually happens in companies." John Kay, writing in the New Statesman Books of the Year, described it as "one of the few management books that is actually fun to read." Her newest book is The Seven Deadly Sins of Business: Freeing the Corporate Mind from Doom-loop Thinking (Capstone, 1999).
Earlier in her career, Eileen was a consultant with McKinsey & Company, Inc. She received her AB from Brown University and her MBA with Distinction from Harvard Business School. She serves on the Board of Directors of Tufts Health Plan and several internet-based start-ups, as well as on the boards of several non-profit organizations and educational institutions. Her website, which is just for fun, is www.fadsurf.com and she can be reached by e-mail at eshapiro@hillcrestinc.com.
Howard H. Stevenson is Sarofim-Rock Professor of Business Administration at Harvard University, Graduate School of Business Administration. The Sarofim-Rock Chair was established in 1982 to provide a continuing base for research and teaching in the field of entrepreneurship. Dr. Stevenson is its first incumbent. The program for entrepreneurial studies uses a multi-disciplinary approach to the creation and maintenance of entrepreneurial focus of business organizations. He is a Senior Associate Dean and Director of External Relations. From 1999 to 2001 he served as Chair of the Latin American Faculty Advisory Group. He also served as Senior Associate Dean and Director of Financial and Information Systems for Harvard Business School from 1991 to 1994. He has been chairperson of the Owner/President Manager Program in Executive Education and of the Publications Review Board for the Harvard Business School Press of Harvard Business School Publishing Company.
He has authored, edited, or co-authored six books and 41 articles including New Business Ventures and the Entrepreneur, with Michael J. Roberts and H. Irving Grousbeck; Policy Formulation and Administration, with C.R. Christensen, N. Berg and M. Salter; The Entrepreneurial Venture with William Sahlman, ‘The Importance of Entrepreneurship’ and ‘Capital Market Myopia,’ with William Sahlman; ‘A Perspective on Entrepreneurship,’ and ‘Preserving Entrepreneurship As You Grow.’ ‘The Heart of Entrepreneurship’, ‘How Small Companies Should Deal with Advisers’ and ‘Why Be Honest If Honesty Doesn’t Pay’ have appeared in The Harvard Business Review. Other scholarly papers of his have appeared in Sloan Management Review, Real Estate Review, Journal of Business Venturing, Journal of Business Strategy, Strategic Management Journal, and elsewhere. He has also authored, co-authored, or supervised more than 150 cases at Harvard Business School. He is the author of Do Lunch or Be Lunch: The Power of Predictability in Creating Your Future, published by HBS Press. His latest book, co-authored with David Amis, is Winning Angels: The Seven Fundamentals of Early Stage Investing.
John Preston has broad experience analyzing inventions and converting inventions into technology-driven businesses. Mr. Preston has founded, directed, and invested in many technology companies and is an advisor to three venture capital firms. He is on the board of directors of Clean Harbors and several private companies, and is also the CEO of Atomic Ordered Materials. He is a contributor to Thinking Ecologically: The Next Generation of Environmental Policy, (Yale University Press, 1997), which outlines an environmental policy for the United States and other nations. Mr. Preston’s areas of expertise include energy, environment, materials, and new high tech venture creation.
He managed MIT’s intellectual property (Technology Licensing Office) and is skilled at moving technology from university to commerce. He has helped create over a hundred new companies.
