Entrepreneurship and Innovation

Jim Fitchett is an entrepreneur, a management consultant, and a Harvard Extension School management instructor. He has over thirty years of experience with premier and start-up organizations providing leadership, management consulting, and training for innovation, entrepreneurship, business strategy, marketing, leadership and sales training. Fitchett has started four businesses (three were sold), served as the first chief information officer for Harvard Medical School, and was a management consulting Partner with Ernst & Young, where he led the global knowledge management service for the health care industry. Fitchett has taught graduate courses at Harvard Extension School for over twenty years. His courses on innovation and entrepreneurship have been rated among the top ten in the management program. He also teaches business transformation, strategy, international business negotiation, and business ethics. He has led executive education programs at Harvard and on business and universities campuses in the US and abroad. These programs included innovation, entrepreneurship, strategic management, and sales force training. Fitchett holds a master of arts in government from the Maxwell School of Syracuse University and a bachelor of arts in political science from the American University in Washington, DC. He is a former trustee and chairman of the board of the Boston Society for Information Management, and he serves on the advisory boards of several organizations. Fitchett often speaks at international conferences and has published in several management journals and texts. Fitchett has lived in Southeast Asia, Europe, and New York. He currently resides near Boston.

Bill Wellman is an entrepreneur focused on the application of information technology in the healthcare industry. He has participated in several start-up ventures. He has served six organizations as the chief information officer and has taught business courses at the graduate level for the past twenty five years. He has a proven track record of aligning organizational and information systems strategic direction, transforming underperforming organizations, and delivering projects on time and on budget. He delivers results by collaborating with others and building strong, highly-engaged teams that execute plans effectively. He has information technology, data management, and blockchain knowledge and experience.

Michael McCarthy holds a masters of applied positive psychology (MAPP) from the University of Pennsylvania as well as a bachelors of science in finance and management from New York University (NYU). As a six-time serial entrepreneur, McCarthy started his first business at the age of 16 and his first three weeks of sales financed his freshman year at NYU. From 1994-2004, he was the number one stock market timer in the United States. After a brief period of early retirement, McCarthy founded Budi Products in 2010, a food company designing brain-healthy gourmet snacks, which was acquired in 2015. McCarthy now focuses on teaching entrepreneurship, sales, leadership, and public speaking. He developed the Leadership Sailing Program for the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Sloan Executive Education program in 2016 and is the founder of Boston Executive Training, a Boston based consulting firm. He is the author of Harnessing the Power of Fear, a book to help reduce the fear of public speaking, as well as How to Sell.