Home About the Week News + Resources Contact Get Involved! See Full Calendar

Engineering Success in Business:
Engineering Majors to Business Leaders

Description:

In this panel discussion, Ken Corido, Director of the Edward G. Galante B.S./M.B.A. Program will ask questions to successful Northeastern University College of Engineering graduates, Satish Maripuri MS’88 and Phil Ponzek E’56, in order to uncover their stories of how they went from engineering majors to business leaders. Upon the completion of the formal presentation, the panelists will be available to answer questions from the audience.

Participant information:

Ken Cordio,
Director of the Edward G. Galante Engineering/MBA program, Northeastern University

Ken Cordio is currently the Director of the Edward G. Galante Engineering/MBA program, through the Colleges of Business Administration and Engineering at Northeastern University.

The Galante program seeks to educate top Northeastern University students through interdisciplinary education and experiential learning in engineering and business. This will be achieved through six years of classroom and direct work experiences, culminating in the awarding of both a Bachelor of Science in Engineering and a Masters of Business Administration. In the director's role, Ken is responsible for all aspects of the program, including scholar recruitment, curriculum and event organization, program marketing, and financial development.

Prior to joining Northeastern, Ken obtained a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering at Worcester Polytechnic Institute, and worked for 12 years in the medical device industry. He was most recently a Quality Engineering Manager with DePuy, the orthopaedics division of Johnson & Johnson.

David E. Luzzi,
Dean, College of Engineering,
northeastern University

David E. Luzzi is the tenth Dean of Northeastern University’s College of Engineering, having joined in September, 2007. In this position, he leads a standing faculty of 98 professors in four departments, over 100 teachers, lecturers and staff, and a student body of 2,800. The College of Engineering is an $80 million per year enterprise with an endowment of $25 million, is home to three national research centers in sensing, and imaging, explosive detection technologies, and nanomanufacturing, and is a National Academy–recognized national leader in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) education. Since 2003, he has been the Chief Scientific Advisor to NanoSelect, Inc., a nanotechnology company that develops and manufactures chemical and biological sensors to monitor the quality and safety of municipal water supply systems. NanoSelect was founded based on technologies developed within the Luzzi research laboratory. A second startup company, Solixia – Grand Winner of the 10th Wharton Business Plan Competition - was spun out of Luzzi’s laboratory and the Fox Chase Cancer Center.

Satish Maripuri
MS’88, COO,
Lionbridge Technologies

Lionbridge is the leading provider of globalization and outsourcing services that enable clients to develop, localize/translate, test and maintain their enterprise content and technology applications globally. A 4,600 employee company (2,200 of which located in China and India) that has a business plan that spends the majority of time in the translation business using global outsourcing and internal employees. Clients include Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, and Intel.

In his role, he is responsible for setting corporate strategy and achieving profitable growth in each of the company’s 26 country operations including six delivery centers in India, China and Central Europe. Maripuri has 20 years of experience in building and growing successful global software and services organizations. Prior to joining Lionbridge, he was the Senior Vice President of Business Development for Imprivata, a provider of identity and access management security solutions. He also spent seven years at eXcelon Corporation, formerly Object Design, where he served as President and Chief Operating Officer, leading all aspects of the company's business operations and strategic direction including international services expansion, mergers and acquisitions, and channel development. eXcelon Corporation grew from a $12 million organization to a $60 million organization in that period of time.

 

Phil Ponzek
E’56, Founder and Former Executive Vice President, United Research Company

United Research was co-founded in 1960 by Mr. Ponzek. The firm specialized in management and software consultancy, and helped companies to define and implement strategies that would help leading corporations prosper. Its headquarters in Morristown, New Jersey, and London, England, allowed United Research to tap into the global marketplace. Mr. Ponzek and his partner grew the firm to nearly $200 million in revenues before selling it in 1990 to the Cap Gemini Sogeti (CGS) group, Europe’s largest independent software and services organization based in Paris, France.

 

Tadas (Todd) A. Eikinas,
Chief Technology Officer,
Nestor, Inc.

Tadas (Todd) A. Eikinas, Chief Technology Officer of Nestor, Inc., joined the Company in September 2004 as National Program Manager.  Prior to being promoted to his current position in 2008, he served as Chief Operating Officer of the Company beginning in 2005. In his role as Chief Technology Officer, Mr. Eikinas is responsible for major mission-critical IT infrastructure, technology development and global engineering projects.

Mr. Eikinas has almost 20 years of experience in building, implementing and supporting large-scale systems integration projects with a strong emphasis on managing the installation and operation of Automated Photo Enforcement programs.  Mr. Eikinas came to Nestor from Peek Traffic, Inc., where he served as Director of its Automated Enforcement Program and IT since 2001. He was the technical manager of Americas Technology Operations at Arthur Andersen, LLP in 2001.  He was the Manager of Information Systems at Kforce.com in 2000, Assistant Vice President of Open System at Citizens Bank in 1999 and Assistant Vice President and Manager of Technical Operations at State Street Corporation, Financial Markets Group in 1997.

Mr. Eikinas holds a Bachelor of Science degree in Electrical Engineering Technology from Northeastern University.

Videos

Note: This is video 1 of 7, please visit the Engineering Success in Business Playlist to see the rest in the series!

Site Design by Alex Turnwall. www.alexturnwall.com