Implementing Enterprise-Wide Transformation

Roberto M. Fernandez is an organizational sociologist who currently serves as the head of MIT Sloan’s Behavioral and Policy Sciences area, and as co-director of its Ph.D. program in Economic Sociology. His executive teaching duties include the management of innovation, change, and human resources; negotiations; networks; and power and politics in organizations. In addition, Fernandez is the chief professor in charge of MIT Sloan’s required MBA course on Organizational Processes. He has traveled extensively, lecturing in Abu Dhabi, Australia, Brazil, Hong Kong, Iceland, Singapore, and South Africa.

Fernandez has extensive experience doing field research in organizations, including an exhaustive five-year case study of a plant retooling and relocation. He is continuing his research on networks and hiring by studying financial services, market research, manufacturing, and retail sales jobs. His current research focuses on the organizational processes surrounding the hiring of new talent using data collected in 14 organizations.

Before joining MIT in 2000, Fernandez was a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business from 1994 to 2000, serving as the area coordinator in charge of the school’s organizational behavior faculty. Prior to Stanford, he was associate professor of sociology and urban affairs at Northwestern University from 1989 to 1994. His first academic job was as an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Arizona from 1984 to 1989.

Fernandez is the author of over 40 articles and research papers published in the top academic journals in his field. A noted expert in organizational sociology, he is the recipient of numerous academic honors and awards.

He holds a BA in sociology magna cum laude from Harvard University, and both an MA and a PhD in sociology from the University of Chicago.

Douglas A. Ready is a professor at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and is the Founder and CEO of the International Consortium for Executive Development Research (ICEDR), a premier global HR talent academy for nearly forty world-class companies and more than twenty-five top-tier business schools. For more than two decades, Doug has been bringing together many of the world’s best companies and business schools to share innovations and excellent practice in talent, leadership and strategic change.

Doug is considered one of the world’s leading authorities on strategic talent management and executive development. He is the author of many highly popular Harvard Business Review articles including “The Power of Collective Ambition,” “The Hallmarks of a Game-Changing Talent Strategy”, “Are You a High Potential?” “Make Your Company a Talent Factory,” “Winning the Race for Talent in Emerging Markets,” and “How to Grow Great Leaders.” He is also the author of several acclaimed MIT Sloan Management Review articles including: “Developing the Next Generation of Enterprise Leaders”, “Enabling Bold Visions,” “Leading at the Enterprise Level,” “How Storytelling Builds Next Generation Leaders,” and “Why Leadership Development Efforts Fail.” His writings have also appeared in the Financial Times, Business Strategy Review, Fortune and The Wall Street Journal. In 2008 he received the highly coveted Marion F. Gislason Award for excellence in the field of leadership and executive development. In addition, Business Horizons recognized Doug as one of the world’s Leadership Gurus.  Doug has been named multiple times to Thinkers50, the premier ranking of the world’s top thought leaders.

Doug is an active advisor to CEOs and top executive teams around the world on developing companies’ enterprise leadership teams and implementing strategic and cultural change.  He has worked with senior leaders at Hess Oil, RBC Financial Group, HSBC, Four Seasons, PricewaterhouseCoopers, LG Group, Ford Motor Company, Continental AG, Samsung Group, United Technologies and the United States Federal Reserve, among others.

Prior to serving as Senior Lecturer at MIT Sloan, Doug taught at UNC’s  Kenan-Flagler Business School and  London Business School.  He earned his Masters in Management from Harvard University and the PhD from Cranfield University in the UK.