Alumni Spotlight: Business and Technology

Northwestern alumni are leaders in both major, established corporations and in some of the most exciting emerging companies.

Spotlight: Ginni Rometty “Much of what I have accomplished I owe to this great institution. I was around lots of kids who were smart and bright and who had good social skills. But the thing Northwestern does above all else is teach you how to solve problems and how to think. Then you figure out what you are passionate about and apply that thinking there." Ginni Rometty (’79) is the CEO and Chairwoman of IBM. She was named “The Most Powerful Woman in Business” by Fortune Magazine.

Nikhil Sethi (’09) took a course on Web Entrepreneurship at Northwestern. With his classmates, Sethi co-founded Adaptly, which offers clients including PepsiCo and News Corp a unified platform to advertise across all social networks. This earned him a spot on Forbes’ 30 Under 30: Web list.

Gwynne Shotwell (’86), as President, runs the day-to-day operations at SpaceX  in Hawthorne, Calif. The company is one of the leading contenders to provide manned space flight in the post–space shuttle era. Gwynne says the well-rounded experience at Northwestern – from taking economics and art classes, to attending theatre events – helped her personally.

Alex White (’08) took a rough idea for a company and flushed it out through the Business Institutions Program’s Entrepreneurship Class. White is now the CEO of The Next Big Sound, which provides analytics and insights for the music industry.