Speakers

Julie Hennessy ’82 is a Clinical Professor of Marketing at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. Professor Hennessy’s MBA and Executive teaching focuses on the development of marketing strategies to enhance long-term competitive advantage and profitability. She works frequently with technology-driven firms that desire to become more customer-centric, in both new product/services and mature product/services categories. At Kellogg, she teaches both Introduction to Marketing and Advanced Marketing Strategy courses at the MBA and Executive level. Recent Executive teaching assignments have included work with General Electric, American Express, Microsoft, Diamond Consulting, Bausch and Lomb, Microsoft and Sony.

Engineering and Management Sciences at the McCormick School of Engineering. Professor Hennessy has been a regular recipient of teaching awards at the Kellogg School. In 2007, she received the Lawrence G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award, Kellogg’s top award for teaching quality and impact, as voted by the Kellogg graduating class. Professor Hennessy has also been recognized by her academic department, winning the Marketing Department’s Core Course Teaching award in 2007, 2005, 2002 and 2000. Professor Hennessy’s writing concentrates on cases for classroom use. Recent cases that she has written include studies of TiVo, Apple iPod, Invisalign Orthodontics, and Biaxin and Zithromax in the antibiotics market.

Harry M. Kraemer, Jr. ’79 is a Clinical Professor of Management and Strategy at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. In 2008, Kellogg students honored Professor Kraemer with the L.G. Lavengood Outstanding Professor of the Year Award for teaching quality and impact. He teaches a course called “Managerial Leadership” to help students understand the character, characteristics and challenges of leadership in various organizational settings. A central theme of the course is the critical importance of values based leadership in today’s world.

In addition to teaching at Kellogg, Mr. Kraemer actively engages in business, education and civic affairs. He is an Executive Partner with Madison Dearborn, a private equity firm based in Chicago, and the former Chairman and CEO of Baxter International Inc., a $9 billion global healthcare company. He serves on the board of directors of Science Applications International Corporation and Sirona Dental Systems GmbH, and on the board of trustees of Lawrence University, Northwestern University, the Conference Board and Evanston Northwestern Healthcare. He is a member of the Dean’s Advisory Board of Northwestern University’s Kellogg School of Management, the Dean’s Advisory Board of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, and the Advisory Board of LEK Consulting. He is a member of the Business Council, the Commercial Club of Chicago, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, the Executives Club of Chicago and the Economics Club of Chicago. Mr. Kraemer enjoys jogging, tennis, skiing and reading, especially world civilization. He and his wife Julie live in Wilmette, IL with their five children.

Michelle L. Buck is a of Management and Organizations at the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University. She has previously served as the School’s first Director of Leadership Initiatives from 2006 to 2013, designing and coordinating opportunities for personal leadership development to complement the School’s academic curriculum. She has also served as academic director of numerous Kellogg executive programs, including partnership programs with Fundacao dom Cabral in Brazil, and programs for Latin American executives with Seminarium. Professor Buck has worked with private, public, family business, and nonprofit organizations including Banco de Mexico, Baxter International, Chicago Public Schools, Ernst & Young, the FBI, HP, Mitsui, YPO Latin America, and Zurich Insurance. She previously taught at Washington University in St. Louis and at McGill University in Montreal, where she won “Professor of the Year” awards at both schools, and has a PhD in Social Psychology from Princeton University, and a bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of Michigan. Professor Buck’s commitment in all of her work is to inspire and empower others to unleash new possibilities for themselves, for others and the communities in which they find themselves. Her work focuses on designing innovative, inspiring, and important learning experiences that transform lives by providing purpose, passion, and possibility.