William Aulet

The discipline of entrepreneurship

On 11 March 2015, the Rafael del Pino Foundation organised William Aulet's Keynote Lecture 'The Discipline of Entrepreneurship'.

William Aulet is a recognised business leader with a track record of success spanning more than 25 years. He has generated hundreds of millions of dollars in market value. His career began at IBM - then among the best training centres for high-tech executives - where he spent 11 years.

This phase of his professional life led him to win the prestigious Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Fellowship at MIT in 1993. After completing the programme in 1994, Bill became a serial entrepreneur. He led two companies that spun out of MIT: Cambridge Decision Dynamics and, later, SensAble Technologies. The latter - which grew to a presence in more than twenty countries - was twice recognised as one of Inc magazine's 500 fastest-growing private companies and won more than two dozen awards.

In August 2009, Bill was appointed the Director of the MIT Entrepreneurship Center. In parallel, he is a professor at the MIT Sloan School of Business. This position allows him to apply his knowledge and experience to help students, new ventures and established companies associated with MIT succeed. At the Sloan School of Management, Bill has had the opportunity to work with and help hundreds of entrepreneurs and executives. Over the past two years, Bill has spent time advising governments and companies in Quebec, the Middle East, South Asia and Europe on how to improve the entrepreneurial ecosystem.

In the fall of 2007, he taught a new graduate course on "Energy Ventures" in which he investigated the new kind of entrepreneurship and innovation needed to meet the massive energy challenge. It was then that Bill conceived and founded the NSTAR Clean Energy Entrepreneurship Award co-sponsored by MIT and the US Department of Energy, of which he is Chairman. Bill is also a member of the evaluation committee that awards US Department of Energy Entrepreneurship Grants.

Bill serves on the boards and advisory committees of several innovative companies, including TeraXion, Hort Research, Sonitec Inc, OmniGlobe Networks, Sofizar and Xconomy Inc. His particular areas of interest include entrepreneurship, technology innovation, superior performance through alignment, Web 2.0 and energy innovation. Bill Aulet received a bachelor's degree with honours in engineering from Harvard University in 1980. In 1994, he earned an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management. He is a regular guest speaker at management and leadership programmes around the world, where he addresses topics such as entrepreneurship, intrapreneurship, entrepreneurial marketing, technology innovation, creating sustainable and rapid growth, financing strategies and operational excellence.

The Rafael del Pino Foundation is not responsible for the comments, opinions or statements made by the people who participate in its activities and which are expressed as a result of their inalienable right to freedom of expression and under their sole responsibility. The contents included in the summary of this conference, written for the Rafael del Pino Foundation by Professor Emilio González, are the result of the debates held at the meeting held for this purpose at the Foundation and are the responsibility of the authors.

The Rafael del Pino Foundation is not responsible for any comments, opinions or statements made by third parties. In this respect, the FRP is not obliged to monitor the views expressed by such third parties who participate in its activities and which are expressed as a result of their inalienable right to freedom of expression and under their own responsibility. The contents included in the summary of this conference, written for the Rafael del Pino Foundation by Professor Emilio J. González, are the result of the discussions that took place during the conference organised for this purpose at the Foundation and are the sole responsibility of its authors.

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