Please post some information about yourself that you would like to share with your classmates. This will hasten our getting to know each other. And it is fun to see what great diversity and talent will be sharing the classes with you.
Unless your email address clearly indicates your name, how about including your name in the text. Thanks.
My name is Linden Freeman. I'm originally from Australia and moved to the Bay Area half-way through high-school. I work at a growing start-up company called Revinate (www.revinate.com) which is a cloud-based software platform allowing hotels to manage their online reputation (e.g. reviews, social media). I'm a strategic account manager at Revinate which means I oversee/manage our largest enterprise partnerships and make sure clients needs are met. Really excited about this class as I endeavor to one day manage my own team and want to make sure I have the skills and knowledge to grow a successful team and be a strong leader.
ReplyDeleteHello!
DeleteMy name is Magali Spinther. I am French and moved to Stanford in August. I am on a one year sabbatical as my husband attends the law school. I started my career in Stategy consulting and worked 7 years for Accenture. I then moved to Human Ressources where I focused on individual and team development. In my last position as Director for Organisation Development, I was in charge of change management, learning and internal communication for the R&D teams of Danone, a major French food manufacturer. The topic of leadership has been strongly present in the training path we developped. I am very interested in the "creativity" angle of this course. I hope it will feed me with food for thoughts in order to develop new learning opportunities when I go back to my job and at a personal level it will have open new dimensions for my leadership.
ReplyDeleteHi!
DeleteHello! I am Ramasamy Chandrasekaran, go by Ram. I am originally from India, currently live in Palo Alto, Natural Business Development and Sales professional with 13+ years of global BD & Sales experience. I have sold Non-technical products /services and IT Hardware & Software solutions across Asia, Europe and in USA (for the last 6 years). I've helped 3 startups and 1 mid size companies to grow their sales globally and in my last full time employment role I was VP of North America Sales for Nityo Infotech. Last September I decided to into get into entrepreneurship full time, I founded ValueLinked, an Innovative IT Outsourcing and Consulting company. Also I am VP of Strategic Accounts and Alliances for a Hot Healthcare IT startup for the last 2 years as part of the core team. I was very impressed with my 1st Stanford Continuing Studies class earlier this year and joined 2 more courses this time around. I have been always asking questions to myself and wondered "Am I creative? How creative I am?" and falsely believed that I lack creativity. Just started reading the book "Creativity & Leadership", within 1st chapter itself, I came to the conclusion that I am very creative and hoping that Essence of my creativity will blossom by the time I complete this course. I believe I am natural leader, so I am interested learning how leadership is defined in the course.
ReplyDeleteHi all,
ReplyDeleteI'm Carina Fang. My past life was a design verification engineer and now I'm engineering program manager and chief of staff to a senior VP of a high tech chip making company. My job scope has been about driving engineering deliverables and delivering chips with as highest quality as possible, and, on time, on budget. As a chief of staff, I also assist in establishing and enforcing an efficient and effective infrastructure within the organization, which is a very dynamic challenge. Creativity is essential in successful leadership in this very fast pace silicon valley. I'm looking forward to learning from this class and meeting you all.
I'm Vera Hill and I look forward to meeting you all tomorrow. This class intrigued me because of the marriage of leadership and creativity, and I am one of those who maintains that I am not creative. I took the test, and there is some potential, but let's see where this takes us. I have not been in a college class room in 20+ years, as I graduated with a BS-International Business Degree probably before you all were born. I have worked around the world for great Fortune 500 companies such as Procter & Gamble, DEC, and Toshiba.
ReplyDeleteThose who posted, many thanks. We are beginning to see how much we can learn from each other. See you tomorrow,
ReplyDeleteHal
Hello, my name is Gail Kent. I’m currently at Stanford Law School Center for Internet and Society on a visiting Fulbright Police Research Scholarship. Back home, I work for the United Kingdom National Crime Agency, where I have responsibility for tackling cybercrime within the International Department. I joined UK law enforcement after reading Social and Political Science at Cambridge University. Through out my career I have worked on organised crime investigations and strategy, specialising in international co-operation and working with a wide variety of international partners. Most recently I served abroad for four years in Italy (a tough job, but someone has to do it!). At Stanford, I am working on developing a system for the sharing of information between law enforcement and internet companies in different jurisdictions, and definitely picked an interesting time to do this, with all the implications of the Snowden revelations. I’ve spent much of my career thinking about, researching and trying to act out good leadership skills. I’ve worked for a couple of inspirational leaders, and hope to have learnt something from them. I’ve also tried to learn from the national and international teams I have lead. I’m really interested in creativity in leadership, because I believe in the UK we often mistake management for leadership, forgetting creativity which can be the inspirational element that takes people with you. I think that creative leadership is a prerequisite for the internet age, where many of the rules, laws, systems and ways of thinking we have are insufficient to meet new and exciting challenges. I’m looking forward to meeting you all and learning more about leadership from and with you.
ReplyDeleteWow Gail, you are really in an exciting field! Look forward to meeting you. - Vera
DeletePS: I was born in Bedford, England but came to the States as a six year old child.
Thanks Vera! Not sure if it's exciting, stressful or (at the moment) confusing. Never dull though. I'm really looking forward to learning from people like you, with lots of business experience - and especially ones with British connections. See you tomorrow.
DeleteHello everyone!
ReplyDeleteMy name is Carolina Inoue. I'm from Brazil, currently living in Mountain View. I'm a graduated Fashion Designer, but I've been working with Fashion Business.
Creativity and Leadership sounds like a perfect fit to me, as I'm working on improve my professional skills.
Looking forward to meet you all tomorrow!
Hi! I'm Carol Chui. Grew up in Malaysia and came to the US as an exchange student for my undergrad and ended up staying here now for about 10+ years. I live in San Francisco and work for a networking/technology company in South Bay and manage a team of Systems Engineer and there are challenges we deal with daily where I can definitely expand my creative side to tackle problems or have a new viewpoint to growing myself as a leader as well as the business. Am really excited about the course and looking forward to meeting everyone!
ReplyDeleteHello Everyone,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Roxanne. I am originally from Montreal, Canada. I moved to the bay area a little over a year ago due to a work transfer. I am an accountant by profession, and as such enjoy playing around with numbers. As a very logical and over analytical person, I always believed that my creativity has been buried very deep where I can’t reach it. Reading the material so far I feel that this class was made for me, I am really looking forward to unlocking my creative potential, and meeting all of you.
Hi everyone, I am Laura. I am a postdoc in immunology at Stanford. I'll be setting up my own lab in a few months, so I can definitely use some tips on creative leadership. Looking forward to meeting everyone tomorrow.
ReplyDeleteHi, I am Tharun Reddy and I am working as a technical lead at high-tech chip company. I am looking to grow preofessionally by venturing into business side of the semiconductor industry and hoping this course will help me on how to create and cultivate business ideas in my profession.
ReplyDeleteHello! My name is Sebastien and I come from Montreal, Canada. I moved in San Francisco 6 months ago in order to work for a web company as Interaction Designer Lead. I have had my own company in Montreal for 10 years and I'm always interested to know more about the Leadership and Organizational Culture. My job is always to have a different Point Of Vue on what we are doing. I always developed and managed my "leadership" by intuition. Is there any way to improve the quality of leadership? I think I will have a better understanding on how I/we can improve that with your course. Looking forward to meeting you tonight.
ReplyDeleteHi everyone,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Yvonne Ericsson. Living in Palo Alto over the past 3 years, originally from Sweden. My background is in marketing and communications and I have worked for several Swedish companies as Head of marketing. 8 years ago, I started my own company (Widely) and I am now working as a consultant mostly in the field of events and sponsorships.
Since moving here, my business has focused on planning and organizing innovation trips for Scandinavian companies, where senior executives want to learn about leading edge technology and innovation from Silicon Valley. My customers are from different industries like; Technology / High Tech, the Media and Entertainment industry, Banking, and my last project was for the Norwegian Government, when a Norwegian Business Delegation of 70 people, visited San Francisco Accompanied by TT.RR.HH. Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess.
I am very much looking forward to this course, as I am very interesting in the mix of creativity and leadership.
See you later!
Yvonne
Hi Yvonne !
DeleteDo you have time for a coffee ? I would like to know more about the innovation trips you organize. Please email me at magali_spinther@yahoo.fr.
Magali
Hi every one,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Aude Henno-Blance and I moved from France 18 months ago with my family. I spent most of my career working for large industries (microelectronics, aeronautics, food industry) in the supply chain management and production control. I have reached a satisfying level in terms of skills and in term of business recognition but I sometimes feel like I have hit a glass ceiling. I want to be able to surpass it and take the lead on a project, a team...
Another part of my life is dedicated to artists. In France, I was volunteering for a group of artists, helping them to manage the business side of their acivity (cash flow management, advance planning, communication, event organization, contract). I realized how much they needed a partner for the practical aspects of their profession so I started a business to provide those services and it worked pretty well.
I had to interrupt my activities when I moved to California, and currently can not work (visa situation). Since last October I have volunteered at Stanford's Museum.
The official right to work will be given to me within a year, I want to use this time to optimize my knowledge and push myself a little bit further.
Leadership and creativity immediately sounded interesting, and I am sure that the diversity of the students attending will be a great value to the experience.
Looking forward to meeting you all!
Aude
Hello,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emily Blair. I have been living in the Bay Area for about 7 years now. I am a Project Manager at a local construction company that specializes in education, commercial, and healthcare projects. Construction is an industry that is famously slow to innovate and change over time, so I am very excited to learn about how I can bring out my own creativity to help change this aspect of the business. I have a BS and MS in Civil Engineering, so I during my studies I was not overly exposed to a lot of creativity and may have been guilty of thinking that it wasn't something that suited my personality/career path. I'm looking forward to the class to develop personally and also apply the principles learned in my daily work. Enjoyed the first day!
Hello everyone,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Sandra Poetgens. I'm originally from the Netherlands, and ended up in California in 2005, via England, Colorado, the Netherlands and Germany. I've been working in Translation and Localization for almost 17 years, and currently work for an internet company in the South Bay. I'd like to expand my skill set to become more efficient in my current role and to increase any future career opportunities. I enjoyed yesterday's class and I look forward to the next classes!
Hi everyone,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Nazli and I moved from Iran 18 month ago. I got my master degree in human resource management from Golden Gate University and I want to establish my own start up with my husband. I grew up in a very small town and even doesn't appear on the map. But I always followed my inner voice, intuition and as a result I got everything that I wanted. It maybe sounds strange for you but I started to hear it since I was 14. I made very arduous decisions during my life but because all came from my heart I never fell down. As a result I am here and have a wonderful life. Because of my unique way of thinking and acting I am always subject to attack of rational and skeptical people. When they ask me how do you know, I can't answer them. Because there is no rational behind my actions simply all came from through some unexplained flash of insight. I left my all career, family, memories, home and embarked to a new journey toward unknown. But whenever I scared my intuition whispered GO Head! Rumi said" I closed my mouth and spoke to you in a hundred silent ways"
At the end I would like to share one of Rumi's encouraging poem with you.
The call of perfection
The rational mind is a denier of love,
though it may pretend to be an intimate.
It is cleaver and knowing, but not empty of itself.
Until your angel has become nothing, it is a devil.
In word and deed the rational mind is our friend,
but when you come to the case of intimate feeling,
it's worthless. It's worthless because
it hasn't left its own self-existence
it didn't willingly become nothing.
Most die unwillingly, but the spirit is perfection
and is call is perfection.
Greetings ... my name is Ed Jaramillo. I am an IT Security Manager for a financial services company. My wife and I live in San Mateo, and we enjoy exploring the local area as well as the city. We also love travelling, and we are due for an international trip soon! I am very fortunate to live close to my father, brother, sister in law and two amazing nephews. Golf is my favorite sport ... still trying to get better at it :) I am looking forward to sharing knowledge, ideas and experiences with all of you.
ReplyDeleteHello Creative Leaders! My name is Tifin Dillon, and I am happy to be a part of this class. I am at another crossroads in my work life and am seeking a new direction. I have been an educator and coach and entrepreneur...and have spent the last six months serving on a jury. The case is nearly over, and I will be searching more actively as soon as we are done. I am a teacher and coach at heart...and have had many opportunities to explore creativity and leadership in education and personal development. I am very curious about what is out there in the business world, and am eager to find new ways to contribute and engage. I love travel and nature and reading and learning new things. I love playing with color and texture and making things. I am thrilled to meet all of you and share this experience.
ReplyDeleteHello, everyone! My name is Bianca, I'm 23 and from Brazil. I have been in America for 7 month as Au pair and I take care 4 lovely children. I'm a graduated in business and got in America to improve my English. In Brazil I have worked in an important bank called Itaú Unibanco in Human Resources.
ReplyDeleteI'm looking forwards for the next class.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Everyone,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Michael King. I'm originally from the Bay Area, and also completed my undergraduate studies locally at Stanford. Currently, I lead community support and content safety efforts at a local education technology, non-profit, start up called Gooru.
Much of my work revolves around finding creative, effective solutions to foster a supported and fully engaged experience around my organization's main products. For this reason and more, I am excited further develop both my creative and leadership styles.
I look forward to our next class, and sharing this learning experience with each of you!
Hello Classmates! My name is Kathryn Wilcox. I liv and work in the city so the weekly visit to Stanford is a welcome breath both physically and mentally. I am the Vice President of Sales at Clear Channel Media and Entertainment in San Francisco. CCM+E is the largest media company in the US and as such, we are in a constant state of evolution. As consumer media consumption habits change, our job is to ensure distribution on any device or platform where any consumer might seek us with well curated and relevant content. As a leader in this environment, my role is all about creativity and leadership both in identifying new ways to use emerging technology to meet advertiser needs but, moreover, in ensuring that we have an educated and empowered team of employees who are high on curiosity and willing to take risks. When not working, I love sailing (both for fun and sport) in the world-class playground of the SF Bay, skiing in Tahoe, traveling abroad, catching weekend yoga classes etc. One of the great treats of living in this area is the regular access to arts and culture. I do my best to explore new experiences. For example, just last night the SF Opera debuted the first work of Stephen King as Opera. It was killer... Literally! :)
ReplyDeleteLook forward to this journey we are on together to learn both from our instructors and my fellow students.
Hi,
ReplyDeleteMy name is Ania and I lead a Creative team of professionals at Apple Inc. I commute back and forth to work from San Francisco, so you may see me drinking lots of coffee in class in the next couple of weeks. I went through Apple University training created specifically for Apple managers and I am looking forward to Stanford's view on Leadership and Design.
Ania- Glad to see I have a fellow student commuting from SF. Hoping to connect with folks on occasion for a city-based coffee perhaps every other week. If you, or anyone else reading, has interest please email me at kathrynhelvi@me.com
DeleteHi everyone! My name is Stefania Escobar, I'm Industrial Engineer from Colombia and I moved to the Bay area, like 8 months ago just to further improve my english, now that i Have the chance, I'm coming to Stanford, since i'm very curious about the approach that you can have about creativity and leadership together, as a great tool that's worth to develop in any professional, better in every human being, since is something that we can use on a daily basis. About me, I can say that i really enjoy outdoors activities, going hiking, to the beach, the reading of a nice book.
ReplyDeleteLooking forward for what's next!