- December 10, 2024
- 7 min read
MIT Notable Alumni | 10 Famous MBAs From Sloan School of Management
MIT's notable alumni include entrepreneurs, tech visionaries, and CEOs
MIT notable alumni | The MIT Sloan MBA has produced a number of famous alumni ©MIT Facebook
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a famously selective school. No fewer than 105 Nobel Laureates feature among the prestigious group of MIT notable alumni, and its business school, MIT Sloan School of Management, is just as prestigious.
The Sloan Research Fellowship, an accelerated MBA-like program, has welcomed the likes of Nobel Peace Prize winner Kofi Annan, chairman of Ford Motor Company William Clay Ford Jr, and former CEO of Hewlett-Packard Carly Fiorina—the first woman to lead a Fortune top-20 company—and the graduates of the MIT MBA are just as impressive.
With a program among the best MBAs in the USA and ranked seventh in the world by the Financial Times, the average MIT Sloan MBA more than doubles their salary post-graduation, and many go on to be leaders in their fields.
Here are 10 of the most successful MBA grads from MIT Sloan:
MIT Sloan Notable Alumni
Check out our other lists of notable alumni
Stanford University Notable Alumni
Harvard Business School Notable Alumni
1. John W Thompson
MBA Class of 1983
Former chairman of Microsoft
Thompson got his start at IBM, moving up the ranks over a nearly 30-year career at the corporation. It was during this time that he undertook the MBA at Sloan, before leaving to become CEO of Symantec in 1999.
He succeeded Bill Gates as chairman of Microsoft in 2014 and retired from the position in 2021. After that he was chairman of the life science research company, Illumina, until 2023. He is recognized as one of the pioneering businessmen of Silicon Valley.
2. Robin Chase
(© International Transport Forum, used under this license)
MBA Class of 1986
Co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar
Robin Chase met her Zipcar co-founder Antje Danielson in the late 1990s when their children attended the same kindergarten.
Though their working relationship swiftly soured, with Danielson leaving the company in 2001 and Chase being replaced as CEO in 2003, founding the company was the start of what has proven to be a long and successful entrepreneurial career.
As well as Zipcar, Chase has also founded Buzzcar, a peer-to-peer car sharing service, as well as vehicle network communications company Veniam, for which she is still executive chairman. She was named one of Time magazine’s 100 most influential people in 2009.
3. Shuman Ghosemajumder
(© TeachAids, used under this license)
MBA Class of 2002
Canadian technologist, entrepreneur, and author
Ghosemajumder is probably best known for his stint at Google from 2003 to 2010. During this time he led the effort to protect their annual pay per click revenue from click fraud, was one of the early product managers for AdSense, and served as part of the team that launched Gmail.
After his MBA at Sloan he decided to leave Google in 2010 to grow his nonprofit TeachAIDS, an Edtech company using technology to aid HIV prevention. He is also the current global head of artificial intelligence at F5.
F5 was named by Fortune as one of the world's leading AI companies and by CNBC as one of the 50 most disruptive companies in the world.
4. Brian Halligan
MBA Class of 2005
Former CEO and co-founder of HubSpot
Halligan co-founded inbound marketing company HubSpot in 2006, a year after graduating from MIT Sloan.
By 2016, the company reported $271 million in total revenue, and Halligan is now a senior lecturer at MIT, teaching technical innovation, entrepreneurship, and strategic management.
In 2022 Halligan founded Propeller Ventures and directs a $100 million climate tech venture fund specializing in ocean innovation investments. Brian is also a senior advisor at the venture capital firm, Sequoia Capital, where he coaches startup founders.
(© HubSpot, used under this license)
5. Randal D Pinkett
MBA Class of 1998
Winner of season four of The Apprentice
Pinkett rose to fame as a contestant on The Apprentice in 2005. He was the first African American contestant to win the competition, hosted by future President of the United States Donald Trump.
After winning, he undertook the prized year-long apprenticeship with Trump Entertainment Resorts, overseeing the $110 million renovation of several hotels and casinos, before returning to his own consulting startup, BCT Partners.
Pinkett has also dabbled in politics, for instance serving as co-chairman of New Jersey Mayor Cory Booker’s transition team.
He is now chairman and CEO of the consulting firm BCT Partners.
(© Dr. Randal Pinkett, used under this license)
6. Jamie McCourt
(© Commander, U.S. Naval Forces Europe-Africa/U.S. 6th Fleet, used under this license)
MBA Class of 1978
Former CEO of the LA Dodgers and former US Ambassador to the French Republic and Principality of Monaco
McCourt purchased the LA Dodgers in 2004 and joined the organization’s executive team. She broke records in this role as the highest-ranking woman in Major League Baseball, first as vice chairman in 2004, then as president in 2005, and finally as CEO in 2009.
From 2016 McCourt was involved in the Trump campaign and transition team, before taking up a role as Ambassador to the French Republic and Principality of Monaco in 2017.
7. Daryl Morey
(© 451 Research, used under this license)
MBA Class of 2000
President of Basketball Operations for the Philadelphia 76ers for the National Basketball Association (NBA)
Prior to joining the executive team for the Philadelphia 76ers, Morey worked with the Boston Celtics and the Houston Rockets.
In the latter role, he made history as the first such general manager to be hired by an NBA team. Under Morey’s leadership, the Rockets advanced to the playoffs nine times.
Morey is still involved with his old alma mater, serving as the cofounder of the annual MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference.
8. Keiji Tachikawa
MBA 1978
President of the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA)
Hailing from the same MBA graduating class as Jamie McCourt, Tachikawa was brought in to restructure the Japanese space agency after a 2003 H-IIA rocket launch failure, after which the company promised to resume launches in 2005.
9. Bill Taylor
(© Paul Gillin, used under this license)
MBA class of 1987
Co-founder and former editor of Fast Company Magazine
Fast Company is a monthly business magazine launched in 1995 by Taylor and his co-founders Alan Webber and Mortimer Zuckerman.
Prior to founding the magazine,Taylor had been an editor at the Harvard Business Review, and took an active editorial role in Fast Company for many years.
The magazine was sold in 2000 to Gruner + Jahr, just before the burst of the dot-com bubble, which led to significant losses for the magazine. Taylor ultimately left two years later, and now makes a living as an author and corporate educator.
He is an adjunct professor at Babson College, a private b-school in Massachusetts, and wrote a column in the Money section of The Guardian newspaper.
10. Rafael del Pino Calvo-Sotelo
MBA Class of 1986
Multibillionaire and executive chairman of Ferrovial
A fellow member of Robin Chase’s MBA class, Calvo-Sotelo put his MBA from MIT to work in his father’s business, serving as CEO of Grupo Ferrovial from 1992 to 1999, before taking over as executive chairman.
He is still heavily involved in business education, for instance as a member of the MIT Corporation, as well as sitting on advisory boards at other business schools around the world.
He was the third richest people in Spain in 2022, and was awarded as Honorary CBE, for services to the UK transport and infrastructure sectors.
(©Flickr, used under this license)
Read about more notable alumni from top business schools.
Amy Hughes is a contributor to gmac.com. Amy earned a B.A. in English and Related Literature from the University of York, and an M.St in English with American Studies from the University of Oxford.
