Aaron Evans

Senior Advisor

Gordon Fellow, Aaron returned home to Central New York and joined Strategic as a member of the investment team covering the Energy and Materials sectors.
As a Senior Advisor Aaron partners with clients of all ages to oversee their financial affairs. He develops structured financial plans and investment portfolios to achieve a wide variety of client goals and helps clients discover what their goals might be if they are just getting started. Aaron is also a member of Strategic’s Investment Committee.

Prior to joining Strategic in 2011, Aaron managed and designed defense solutions for the United States Armed Forces with Lockheed Martin Corporation.

Adam Wimsatt

Senior Manager: Sustaining Engineering

Adam Wimsatt is a Gordon Fellow with a Masters in Computer Systems Engineering from Northeastern University. Wimsatt is a Software Engineering Leader and Certified ScrumMaster with a breadth of experience in leading innovative and complex technology solutions including full-stack web and mobile applications. He develops high-performing teams through mentoring and training in Agile methodologies including Scrum and Kanban.

Art Rousmaniere

Engineering Manager, Farm Design, Inc

Art Rousmaniere experience as Mechanical Design Engineer, Team Leader and Project Manager of a wide range of products in the computer hardware, medical, sporting, consumer, industrial and military markets from pre-concept into production.

Brad Morrison

Senior Lecturer, Leaders for Global Operations Program

Brad Morrison studies problems in organizations, organizational change, and management that are rooted in the interactions of human behavior and the dynamically complex environments in which we work. One stream of his research focuses on implementation problems and other organizational pathologies, trying to understand why some cases lead to successful implementation while others lead to failures. He has studied implementation in contexts such as process improvement settings and firms adopting the practices of lean manufacturing. His research draws strongly on organizational theory, with a methodological emphasis on interpretation through the lens of system dynamics.

Another stream of his research focuses on human performance in dynamically complex settings in healthcare, such as emergency departments and operating rooms. He is currently Principal Investigator for a study supported by the National Institutes of Health to investigate emergency department crowding and organizational resilience. He is also a faculty member and researcher at the Center for Medical Simulation in Boston, where he works with doctors, nurses and other healthcare providers using full-field simulation improve safety in healthcare.

He has been a partner at a leading global management consulting firm and has more than 20 years of consulting experience in the retail and consumer products and healthcare industries. He has assisted dozens of organizations wrestling with change in areas such as product development and supply chain management.

Morrison has taught system dynamics and operations management in a variety of undergraduate, masters, and executive education programs at the MIT Sloan School of Management and at the Brandeis International Business School. His publications have appeared in a range of journals including the Academy of Management Review, the American Medical Journal, Academic Emergency Medicine, the System Dynamics Review, and the Journal of Operations Management. He is the 2012 recipient of the Jay W. Forrester Award from the System Dynamics Society, recognizing the best work in the field for the previous 5 years. He holds a Ph.D. in Management (System Dynamics and Organization Studies) from the Sloan School of Management at MIT, an MBA (Finance) from the University of Chicago Graduate School of Business, and undergraduate degrees in Chemistry and Management Science from MIT.

Brian Walker

SVP of Global Technology and Product Operations

Brian Walker is a technology executive with deep experience building and managing a diverse range of product teams and solutions. This includes mission-critical enterprise systems, multi-platform mobile applications, and high volume (7-8M uniques/month) consumer social media, eCommerce platforms as well as on-line Marketing platforms for a CPG company. Served as a key leader in multiple technology companies, capitalizing on new market opportunities to build scalable solutions for both start-up and established organizations.

Christa Dhimo

Professor of the Practice at Northeastern University, Founder and Lead Consultant at Impono LLC

Christa is a Professor of the Practice, Biotechnology Programs at Northeastern’s Professional Science Master’s in Biotechnology at the College of Science.  In this role, she bridges her real-world expertise with an academic application while serving as Faculty Lead for the Enterprise Concentration and contributing to the competitive global growth of the program.  She applies that same bridging of real-world and academia to additional service at Northeastern with her work as a D’More-McKim School of Business (DMSB) Domestic Consulting Sponsor and Mentor; a Faculty Affiliate and Program Designer for Corporate Learning’s Leadership, Strategy and Execution Courses; an Adjunct Professor for Strategic Portfolio Management at the College of Professional Studies; and a Distinguished Speaker for the Gordon Engineering Leadership Program.

Christa is also the Founder and Lead Consultant for Impono LLC, an advocate consultancy for early-stage health and bioscience companies and Women Business Enterprises.  She leverages her Impono work in support of her Northeastern COS and DMSB work and surrounds herself with like-minded, highly efficient consultants who enable her to be successful at Impono as well as Northeastern. 

Her 25+ year career has placed unique emphasis on business models that integrate the Sales, Operations, Financial and People side of business.  In the last 10 years in biotech/pharma, she has launched products and/or led growth initiatives for diagnostic and therapeutic products such as Axumin®, Quadramet®, DEFINITY®, and Luminity.  She has also led 483 (compliance) Remediations, Quality Enhancement Programs, and Operational Efficiency Programs.  Previous to biotech/pharma, Christa worked in a range of industries such as Aerospace and Defense, SAAS, HR Business Outsourcing, Financial Management, and Professional Services.  All of her roles contributed to or led the start-up, growth and overall performance improvement of the companies in which she worked.

Philanthropically, Christa is part of the #GiveGirlsRoleModels and STEM-GEMs movement originating in Atlanta, GA and fiercely seeks to offer girls and young women role models in STEAM careers.  She is a former Executive Advisor (and current Strategy Advisor) for The Women’s Brain Project in Switzerland, creating their Business Plan and offering the framework strategy for years 1 and 2 as she continues to help the organization grow and thrive going forward.  She is also a Board Advisor for Dreams Soar, Inc., in which she previously served a full term as a Member of the Board of Directors.

Christa has an MBA from Northeastern University, a second Masters in Management from the University of Dallas, is a certified Project Management Professional (PMP®) with PMI, and is a Master Certified Strategic Organizational Leader from Villanova University.

Dexter Ang

Executive Chairman

Dexter Ann is the Chairman of the board and a co-founder of Pison. He specializes in on business development, government affairs, and strategic OEM partnerships to expand his organizations capabilities and offerings across sectors. Ang’s technical expertise spans mechanical engineering, signal processing, and low latency computing. He is an inventor on 11 issued and 10 pending patents.

Dr. Joan Cullinane

Vice President Supply Chain Operations at Oracle

Dr. Joan Cullinane is the Vice President of Supply Chain Operations at Oracle. She is an industry expert in supply chain health metrics in global networks with a primary focus on the transition of products from design concept into execution, ramp and volume production. She was recently named one of the top 100 Most Influential Leaders in Supply Chain by one of the industry’s most prestigious think tanks. She is a double husky with a BS and MS in mechanical engineering from Northeastern, holds an MBA from the University of New Hampshire and a Doctorate in Management and Operations from Drexel University.

Fritz Morgan

CEO Walmart Advanced Systems and Robotics, Vice President Automation

Fritz Morgan is a results-driven, entrepreneurial executive with a proven record of transforming promising disruptive technology into revolutionary products and creating new markets. He is a motivational leader and market evangelist, with success recruiting top talent, inspiring commitment, and leading high performing teams.

General William Rapp, PhD

Senior Advisor at Thayer Leadership

Major General (Retired) Bill Rapp is leadership and strategy consultant. Beyond leader development training, Bill serves on the Board of the Association of Graduates at West Point. He recently served as the Lecturer in Military Affairs in the Belfer Center at Harvard Kennedy School from 2017-2021 after serving more than 33 years as an active duty Army officer, retiring as a Major General.

His book on learning contemporary leadership from history is now on the shelves! Look for Accomplishing the Impossible- Leadership that Launched Revolutionary Change on Amazon or other book sellers!

His passion is leader development and he teaches leadership to executives in courses at Wharton Business School (UPenn), Sloan School of Management (MIT), through Thayer Leadership, and the General Officer education program of the US Army War College. He consults with several companies on leadership and leader development.

During his career, Major General Rapp served over five years in Germany, a year in Japan, and nearly four years total in Iraq and Afghanistan. He commanded an airborne sapper company in the First Gulf War, an engineer brigade in Iraq in 2005-6, and was Deputy Commander (Support) for US Forces in Afghanistan in 2011-12. During the Surge in Iraq, he served alongside General Petraeus for a year in Baghdad. He was the Army’s senior liaison to the U.S. Congress, the Commandant of the United States Military Academy at West Point, and most recently served as the Commandant of the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania.

Among his awards, Major General Rapp has earned two Distinguished Service Medals and two Bronze Stars. He was distinguished honor graduate of Ranger School, Jumpmaster School, and the Infantry Officer Advanced Course. He is a Master Parachutist and holds the Combat Action Badge.

A graduate of West Point in 1984, Major General Rapp earned a Masters in Strategic Studies from the US Army War College and a Masters and PhD in Political Science from Stanford University.

John Carson

Chairman Jenike & Johanson, Inc.

John Carson is the chairman of the board of Jenike & Johanson, Inc., a world-renowned engineering consulting firm specializing in the storage, flow and processing of powder and bulk solids. For almost 50 years Carson has played a key role in developing Jenike & Johanson to its present position, and my technical ability and wide experience in the field of storage and flow of solids have been recognized worldwide.

Carson received my BS in Mechanical Engineering from Northeastern University in Boston. As an undergraduate student at Northeastern University, Carson worked on co-op in the materials handling research group at US Steel’s Applied Research Laboratory. In 1970 Carson completed his Ph.D. at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), after which Carson joined Jenike & Johanson, where he has been active in research, consulting, and management of the company. Carson retired from full-time employment in 2018.

An author of over 150 articles on various topics dealing with solids flow, including bin and feeder design, flow of fine powders, design of purge vessels, and structural failures of silos, Carson has lectured extensively on these and related topics. For more than 40 years, he was involved with the presentation of the AIChE Continuing Education course, “Flow of Solids in Bins, Hoppers, Chutes, and Feeders.”

Specialties: Bin loads, particle segregation, structural failure, two-phase flow problems, bin and feeder design, troubleshooting solids flow-related problems, lecturer, expert witness

Julie Mitchell

Manager, Solutions Design and Innovation, Amazon Robotics

Julie Mitchell is a Solutions Design and Innovation manager at Amazon Robotics, focused on robotic solutions for Amazon’s Customer Fulfillment and Transportation business units. Julie’s team is responsible for designing next generation fulfillment and transportation solutions that meets the business requirements and customer needs in North America, Europe, Asia and other emerging regions. Julie’s team collaborates with several Amazon worldwide engineering design teams to integrate Amazon Robotics solutions into the overall building design and network topology. Prior to joining Amazon Robotics, Julie was the Product Line Manager for Oracle’s Systems Business Manufacturing and Supply Chain organization. At Oracle, Julie lead a team of manufacturing engineers, test engineers, and Operations program managers to bring new products from concept development to customer release, as well as responsibility for sustaining of several high volume product lines. Julie joined Oracle through the acquisition of Sun Microsystems, where she held roles as a Supplier Engineering manager, Program Manager and Manufacturing/Mechanical Engineer. Julie is a Six Sigma Black belt. She holds an MS in Management from MIT’s Sloan School of Business, an MS in Systems Engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, an MS in Manufacturing Engineering from Boston University, and a BS in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Cornell University.

Laura Schroeder

Senior Director, Global Development Engineering at Bose Corporation

For more than 20 years Laura has successfully led global organizations that spanned research, development, validation, quality, manufacturing, and the supply chain. Laura currently leads Global Development Engineering as its Senior Director under Bose. Her delivered results include significant cost reductions, designs that were key to new products, new initiatives, and more.

Laura also has the ability to see the potential in my team members. Laura has mentored numerous people throughout my career, pushing them to develop both personally and professionally.

Michael Bunis

Co-chair, Choate’s Intellectual Property Litigation Practice Group

Michael Bunis, co-chair of Choate’s Intellectual Property Litigation Practice Group, is a leading litigator with more than 25 years of experience representing biotech, pharmaceutical and life sciences companies in high stakes litigation and other complex, IP related disputes. He has been recognized by The Legal 500, Best Lawyers in America, IAM Patent 1000, Lexology, Benchmark Litigation and as a Massachusetts Super Lawyer. Mr. Bunis is a member of the Firm’s Executive Committee.

Nan-Wei Gong

CEO of FIGUR8

Dr. Gong is currently the CEO of FIGUR8 Inc – the industry leader in transforming musculoskeletal (MSK) care with objective data and AI-driven biomarkers. Her work has been recognized by major news outlets such as the WSJ, Forbes, Bloomberg and INC. In the past, she was on the award-winning founding team of 3dim Tech, gestural control for mobile devices (acquired in 2014); founder and managing partner of Circular2, an engineering consulting firm specializing in rapidly transforming ideas into production-ready products. Her clients include top universities, MIT and Harvard, as well as, Fortune 50 companies such as Google and Samsung. She was assigned as the R&D lead of Project Jacquard at Google ATAP from 2014-2017.

She received a Ph.D. from the MIT Media Lab in 2013. As an innovator driven by rigorous scientific and engineering training, she has published over 30 peer-reviewed papers, won two best paper awards at ACM CHI, and filed and granted over 10 US patents to date.

Dr. Patricia Guinan

Associate Professor at Babson College

Patricia Guinan is an Associate Professor at Babson College where she has taught multi-disciplinary courses to both undergrads and graduate students; as well as taught in numerous Executive Programs at Babson’s School of Executive Education. She has worked directly with the leadership of organizations on their technology initiatives in social media technologies, and has conducted extensive cutting edge research on technology implementation, innovation and adoption.

Sharon Els

Project Manager & System Dynamics Expert

Sharon Els has specialized in business modeling and simulation for over twenty years. her client work has included: predicting market change and evolution, optimizing corporate resource allocation, and improving development project performance. She has advised corporate executives and government leaders on complex strategy, policy, and program challenges at a number of technology, aerospace, finance, gaming, and government organizations including: AT&T, Atlantic Lottery Corporation, BAE, Boeing, DARPA, MasterCard, Pepsi, Pfizer, Raytheon, US Navy, and the US Marine Corps.

Primary Expertise:

Market analysis, strategy analysis, and scenario planning – Use System Dynamics simulation and other techniques to analyze market and company behavior under different scenarios to identify investments and strategies that deliver superior, sustained performance.

Improve performance on major projects and programs – Work includes assessing project outlook, identifying strategic risks, diagnosing reasons for cost and schedule growth, developing recovery options, and analyzing leverage points for improvement. Have particular expertise in providing rigorous analysis and advice on the full impacts of changes over time, and how best to mitigate cost and schedule impacts.

Negotiation support and dispute resolution — One area of specialty is diagnosing and quantifying the full impacts of changes and other unexpected project conditions. Work with stakeholders to help reach agreement in negotiations, mediations, and legal disputes.

Specialties: Strategy analysis; scenario planning; market analysis; project and program analysis; System Dynamics; delay and disruption quantification; and simulation modeling.

Tim Root

GM/VP Products & Peripherals Group at Dell

Tim Root is an experienced executive who can impact a company technically, culturally, and provide business leadership. Tim has held ‘C’ level positions for the last sixteen years, in both public and venture backed companies. A business leader with global technology companies (UC/Telecom, IoT, and Robotics) experience with driving a P/L and growing revenues through partnerships, product strategy, and sales strategy.

Tim is a technical and pragmatic leader with the ability to develop growth strategies and motivate an organizations around a clear vision. A demonstrated history of success within multiple global markets and industries. Business development strategies that focus on win-win models and long-term revenue streams, a partnership list includes companies such as Cisco, Microsoft, Google, Zoom, Mitel, and Bluejeans.

A recognized thought leader in the UC industry with a history of leading product teams that have built the most successful products for the most recognized enterprises in the market.

Product Management and Engineering leadership for the development of industry leading products, high volume manufacturing and IP management.

Tim was the founder of VGo Communications (acquired by Vecna) an early IoT and Robotics play, inventing the marketing which is now called Robotic Telepresence.