The Lally School of Management & Technology

Rensselaer is a Leader in Breakthrough Innovation Knowledge

The Lally School’s deep involvement with Breakthrough Innovation has resulted in the publication of two milestone books on the topic – Radical Innovation: How Mature Companies Can Outsmart Upstarts in 2000 and Grabbing Lightning: Building a Capability for Breakthrough Innovation in early 2008.

The Innovation & Corporate Entrepreneurship Program is currently lead by Gina Colarelli O’Connor. Professor O’Connor coauthored Radical Innovation in 2000 and was the lead author on the new book, Grabbing Lightning. She serves on the Editorial Review Board of the Journal of Product Innovation Management and the Board of Directors of the Product Development and Management Association, and has published over 25 articles in refereed journals.

Gina Colarelli O’Connor is Associate Professor of Marketing at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute’s Lally School of Management and Technology and Academic Director of the Radical Innovation Research Program. She currently serves as Director of the Executive MBA program at Rensselaer. Professor O’Connor’s teaching and research interests lie at the intersection of corporate entrepreneurship and radical innovation, marketing, and commercialization of advanced technology. The majority of her research efforts focus on how firms link advanced technology development to market opportunities. She has published more than 30 articles in refereed journals and books.

Andrew Corbett is Associate Professor of Entrepreneurship and Strategic Management at the Lally School of Management and Technology. Professor Corbett is a leading entrepreneurship scholar and award winning instructor for his innovative curriculum design and delivery. His research on the learning and cognitive aspects of the entrepreneurial process has appeared in a number of top management and entrepreneurship journals. Professor Corbett’s research and consulting partners include companies such as IBM, Corning, Motorola, P&G, GE, and others. Prior to working in academia he spent 12 years in sales and marketing management positions within the publishing and media industries.

Joanne Hyland is President and Founding Partner of the Radical Innovation (RI) Group and former Vice President, New Venture Development at Nortel Networks. Ms. Hyland now works with global companies developing innovation capabilities for growth and corporate renewal. These leading edge innovation practices are based on Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute research and ongoing work with innovative companies that view innovation as a new management discipline and capture value through an open innovation model. Ms. Hyland sits on venture advisory boards and teaches in corporate entrepreneurship executive education programs.

Ron Pierantozzi is currently the CEO of PPT Research, a materials technology company in Allentown, PA. He is also a member of the Radical Innovation Group, a consulting firm that works with global companies to develop their innovation capability. Dr. Pierantozzi previously served as Air Product’s Director, Business Development, which focused on new venture creation and technology transfer. He is a professor at Wharton and Lehigh University business schools, where he frequently lectures on subjects dealing with innovation and entrepreneurship. He is an Executive in Residence at Rensselaer’s Lally School of Management and Technology for the 2007-2008 academic year.

Lois Peters is an Associate Professor at Rensselaer’s Lally School of Management and Technology, and a Principal Investigator at the Rensselaer and National Science Foundation (NSF) sponsored Nanoscale Engineering Research Center. In addition to organizing three international conferences related to the management of technology and innovation, Peters has been an invited visiting professor at the Max-Planck-Institute für Gessellschaftsforschung in Germany and an invited speaker in Japan, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), European Community (EC), Latin America, and Thailand, among other places. She is coauthor of Radical Innovation and Grabbing Lightning.

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