Alumni Leaders

40,000+ Strong

A Connected, Professional Network

Roundtable Salons

Across the country and throughout the year, alumni leaders, senior administrators, deans, faculty-experts and current students attend Roundtable Salons, where they engage in lively discussions related to topics of interest to the Clarkson community.

The salons are offered as part of The Roundtable Society, the University’s distinguished membership society.

In 2017, Roundtable Salons were held in Marco Island and Tampa, Florida; in Skaneateles, Schenectady and Clayton, New York; in Boston, Massachusetts; and in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

The events provide opportunities for networking and socializing, as well as a way to engage with the University while building on the leadership, experience and expertise of the Clarkson community.

For example, the topic of the Boston Roundtable was “Innovation: Clarkson’s Past, Present and Future.” The salon included opening remarks by Clarkson President and chief executive officer of Fish & Richardson, a global patent and intellectual property litigation law firm, and moderated by Kerop Janoyan, dean of the Graduate School and professor in the Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering.

Panelists included Ron Ayers ’02, director of product and marketing at Atlantis Technology, a software company;

Jennifer Howland '85

Daniel Heintzelman ’79, Clarkson trustee and vice chairman (ret.) at General Electric Company; and Amy Villeneuve ’86, president and COO of Kiva Systems (now Amazon Robotics, a subsidiary of Amazon.com), a company that manufactures mobile robotic fulfillment systems.

Alumni Leaders on Campus

organic foods brand, and former head of Nestlé Start Healthy Stay Healthy global strategy and chief marketing Klauser shared insights on leadership and career success in the food and beverage industry during Global Entrepreneurship Week. Jennifer Howland ’85 addressed implicit bias and the value of diversity in the workplace at the December Recognition Ceremony and in an on-campus talk to faculty, staff and students. Howland is the IBM executive for the Pathways program for experienced, diverse technical talent. Her 32year career at IBM as an engineer, manager and executive has spanned engineering, strategy, product and services

Ron Ayers '02, Prof. Kerop Janoyan and Amy Villeneuve '86 Rick Klauser '85 Jonathan Parry '07 and Mallory Fisher '16

Tony Collins and was hosted by Peter Devlin ’80, president

Rick Klauser ’85 is CEO of Sprout Foods Inc., a national officer for Nestlé Nutrition North America (Gerber).

development; business and process transformation; and service delivery. Howland was recently recognized in Good Housekeeping’s “10 Women Changing the Way We See the World” as a leader in science and technology.

Student-Alumni Connections

Last year, MBA candidate Mallory Fisher ’16 (business innovation and entrepreneurship) had a five-month internship that aligned with her passion for innovation startups. Through Marc Compeau, instructor of consumer and organizational studies, Fisher connected with Jonathan Parry ’07 (business and technology management), director of GENIUS NY, the in-residence business competition accelerator hosted at The Tech Garden in Syracuse. Teams in the competition work on innovations in unmanned systems (e.g., drones) and vie for nearly $3 million in funding.