As one of the Kellogg School’s key corporate supporters, Motorola’s investment in the school impacts areas critical to the education of current and future leaders, including knowledge creation, support for professional networks and sponsorship of student-led events.

One such Motorola-sponsored initiative is undertaken through the Kellogg Center for Research in Technology & Innovation, which supports research to understand how technology can improve business performance, promote organizational effectiveness, drive innovation and create competitive advantage.

In 2002, Motorola’s help was instrumental as the center introduced the Technology and Innovation Scholars Program. Motorola was the first sponsor, creating the successful Motorola Scholars Program, which enables two Kellogg students per year to engage in applied research on issues that are of interest to both Motorola executives and center research faculty. To date, six Kellogg students have benefited from this opportunity, while leaders at Motorola have gained new insights from the students’ research.

Warren Holtsberg, corporate vice president at the company and founder of Motorola Ventures, said of his experience with the Motorola Scholars Program: “The exchange with creative, entrepreneurial graduate students is always a refreshing experience. Their ideas about the future — what they expect and what they can envision — are challenging and thought-provoking.”

Motorola also is a founding member of the Kellogg Innovation Network (KIN), a select group of corporate executives, Kellogg School faculty and faculty from Kellogg partner schools in Europe and Asia. KIN’s objectives are to understand innovation challenges and to survey and synthesize solutions across industries, as well as to motivate meaningful change. The KIN organization is a thriving network of professionals interested in advancing knowledge frontiers in the discipline of innovation.

Said Mohanbir Sawhney, the McCormick Tribune Professor of Technology at the Kellogg School and director of the center: “The Kellogg-Motorola relationship shows how business schools and industry leaders can collaborate to co-create scholarship and thought leadership. As Motorola is one of the founding members of KIN, Toby Redshaw, Motorola’s corporate vice president for IT, serves on the advisory board of KIN. Toby has been an invaluable adviser in charting the course for the KIN.”

The company also has been a leader in the area of student-run events, one of the hallmarks of the Kellogg School experience. During the 2003-2004 academic year, Motorola provided platinum-level sponsorship and two executives to share their experiences with participants at the Digital Frontier Conference, as well as panelists to speak at the Latin American Business and Asian Business conferences.

Kellogg School conferences last year brought 200 to 700 business leaders per event to campus, serving as opportunities for companies to gain exposure to students, alumni and corporate partners. (For more information, visit the Kellogg School's Corporate Involvement Web site).

Another valuable component of the partnership is the education of Motorola employees by the top-rated Kellogg faculty. Each year, a contingent of the company’s rising leaders enrolls in The Managers’ Program. (TMP’s Class of 2003 included 13 Motorola graduates.)

And Motorola executives have long looked to the Kellogg Executive MBA program to provide the skills they need to be even more successful in senior leadership positions. Since 1991, the company has graduated at least one employee a year from the EMBA program. In all, more than 300 current Motorola employees are Kellogg alums — just one measure of a successful and continuing partnership between the two organizations.

Said Kellogg Dean Dipak C. Jain: “Motorola should be proud of the strong contribution it has made to the education of future leaders at the Kellogg School. We are certainly grateful for the support of this corporate friend in furthering our students’ knowledge creation.”