NACS Innovation Leadership Program at MIT

The NACS Master of Convenience designation acknowledges the hard work and investment NACS members have made in their personal leadership development. It is awarded to convenience retailers who have attended 3 or more of the 5 NACS Executive Education programs. For questions, contact Brandi Mauro, NACS Education Program Manager: bmauro@convenience.org or (703) 518-4223.

Court Chilton is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. He has helped large organizations produce business results from learning, coaching, and enterprise-wide change efforts for the last 20 years. His clients have included GE Capital, Deloitte, Fidelity, MIT, Bank of America, Ixis Asset Management, Novartis, Merck, Genzyme, Shire, TJX, Home Depot, Clifford Chance, and Baker McKenzie.

Court has worked internationally on a wide variety of business-building initiatives: creating “branded client experiences;” relationship management and service improvement; sales training and leadership development; executive education and coaching; implementing Six Sigma; professional practice management, and re-engineering the learning function. In the course of these initiatives, he has also developed computer simulations, on-line 360 feedback, and process-embedded e-learning. He is an effective facilitator and coach for senior management teams.Prior to working for MIT’s Sloan School, Court was a senior vice president of The Forum Corporation, based in New York and Boston. In the course of 14 years at Forum, he was responsible for the firm’s core leadership, teaming, and total quality offerings. He also managed the $20M+ mid-Atlantic region for the firm and several strategic client relationships.

Court has worked with a number of educational institutions to design advanced courses, coach faculty, and develop tools that help link learning with work. He has also served as part of a “coaching faculty” for MBA candidates. In addition, through the District Management Council, he has consulted with educational institutions such as the Montclair (NJ) and Lancaster (PA) Public Schools to raise student achievement, decrease costs, and improve operations.

Between college and graduate school Court worked in book and magazine publishing in a variety of marketing roles. He lives outside Boston with his family. He has served on his town’s Finance Committee and recently completed four years of service on the town’s School Committee.

Court received a BA ( magna cum laude with high honors) from Middlebury College and an MBA from the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College.

Renée Richardson Gosline is a Senior Lecturer in the Management Science group at the MIT Sloan School of Management and the head of the Human-First AI Group at MIT's Initiative on The Digital Economy.

She is a 2020 honoree on the Thinkers50 Radar List of thinkers who are “putting a dent in the universe,” and has been named one of the World’s Top 40 Professors under 40 by Poets and Quants. Gosline is an expert on the intersection between behavioral science and technology, and the implications for cognitive bias in human decision-making. She is currently completing a book on how we can be smarter in our use of friction to improve decision-making and share value.

Renée’s most recent research examines how social structure and technology intersect to affect performance and judgment, as discussed in her 2022 SXSW featured talk, "In Praise of Friction." She has also pioneered an acclaimed Executive Education course called "Breakthrough CX," which examines the nexus of Behavioral Economics, AI, and Market Stratgey.

Her academic projects have examined: how cognitive style predicts preference for AI versus human input; the interaction of brand status and placebo effects in performance; how consumers determine “real” from “fake” products; the circumstances under which customers perceive value in platforms; and the effects of storytelling in social media on trust and persuasion. In order to address these issues rigorously, Gosline employs experimental methodology, both in the field and the laboratory.

Renée enjoys collaborating with firms on CX, Digital Media Strategy, and Leadership. Prior to academia, she was a marketing practitioner at LVMH Moet Hennessy and Leo Burnett.

Renée conducted her Undergraduate, Master’s, and Doctoral education at Harvard University.

James Rhee is an impact investor, founder, CEO and educator who empowers people, brands and organizations to fulfill their true potential by marrying capital with purpose and truth across multiple systems. The acclaimed story of the remarkable transformation and re-imagination of Ashley Stewart, one of the country’s largest brands serving Black women, under his leadership as chairman, CEO and investor (2013-2020) has served as proof to millions of people, as well as the world’s leading businesses and organizations, that one can do better by being better. The reinvention of Ashley Stewart, which was facing almost certain liquidation in 2013, is proof of how trust and joy, grounded in math and amplified through digital excellence, can overcome impossible odds and fuel individual and enterprise-wide innovation. It is a tangible example of the power of diverse ecosystems, as well as a commentary on a potential way forward for achieving multi-stakeholder goals. At its core, it is also the story of an unlikely friendship between a son of Korean immigrants (who raised his hand to become the self-described “least qualified CEO”) and a predominantly Black female employee group who placed their mutual trust in each other, learned from one another, and then proceeded to quietly shock the world.

As a client of United Talent Agencies, he is a frequent speaker on impact and ESG investing, multidimensional transformation, DEI operationalization through Kindness & Math™, principled leadership, and the future co-existence of capitalism, humanism, and technology. As a senior leader of two Boston-based private equity firms, Rhee helped manage billions of dollars of growth and distressed capital before ultimately founding FirePine Group, a platform that has stewarded the capital of some of the world’s most sophisticated investors.

Rhee is at the vanguard of making knowledge, opportunity, and capital accessible to all. He holds appointments at both MIT Sloan School of Management and Duke Law School as a Senior Lecturer, where he teaches future leaders about organizational systems and deconstructed investment principles relating to money, life and joy. On March 31, 2021, Howard University announced that James would serve a three-year term as the Johnson Chair of Entrepreneurship as well as Senior Adviser to the newly endowed Center for Women, Gender and Global Leadership, beginning with the 2021-22 academic year. Rhee is exploring the intersection of impact investing, ESG, and financial literacy through a new venture called Red Helicopter.

Rhee connects seemingly disparate leaders and organizations that are unified in their goal to make investments and forge relationships that catalyze purposeful growth. He serves alongside global difference makers as an Advisory Council member of JPMorgan Chase’s Advancing Black Pathways, a member of the Governing Committee of the CEO Action for Racial Equity, and a Board Director of Conscious Capitalism. He is also a former member of the board of the National Retail Federation, where he served as chairman of the Innovation Advisory Committee.

His inspirational story has been featured in media outlets such as the Good Business Issue of Bloomberg BusinessWeek, Harvard Business Review, Boston Globe, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, Thrive Global, USA Today, Inc. Magazine, Forbes, Women’s Wear Daily, Morgan Stanley’s Access and Opportunity Podcast, ABC News, National Urban League’s State of Black America, and the Huffington Post.

Rhee is a regional winner of the E&Y Entrepreneur of the Year Award, the winner of one of five 2016 Power Player Awards granted by the National Retail Federation, and the recipient of the 2017 Black Retail Action Group Business Achievement Award, the 2018 Temple Fox School of Business Information Technology Innovator Award, the 2018 Essex County Urban League Centennial William M. Ashby Award for community building, and a 2019 One To World Fulbright Award.

Rhee received his AB with honors from Harvard College and his JD with honors from Harvard Law School, where he was an editor of the Harvard Law Review. He lives outside Boston with his wife and three children. He is a former high school teacher. He is working on a book.

David Robertson is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management, where he teaches Innovation and Product Management. Over the course of his career, Dave has been a consultant at McKinsey, a senior executive at small and large technology companies, a radio show host, and a business school professor.

From 2010 through 2017, Dave was a Professor of Practice at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. While at Wharton, he was the host of Innovation Navigation, a weekly radio show and podcast about innovation management (www.innonavi.com). From 2002 through 2009 Dave was the LEGO Professor of Innovation and Technology Management at Switzerland’s Institute for Management Development (IMD). While at IMD, David was given inside access to The LEGO Group, and wrote his award-winning book Brick by Brick: How LEGO Rewrote the Rules of Innovation and Conquered the Global Toy Industry. David’s new book, The Power of Little Ideas: A Low-Risk, High-Reward Approach to Innovation was published in May of 2017 by Harvard Business School Press.

David currently runs MIT’s largest and highest-rated executive program, the Executive Program in General Management. He also teaches in other MIT executive programs, consults with global Fortune 1000 companies, and is a frequent speaker at corporate events and industry trade shows.

Shira Springer is a Lecturer in Managerial Communication at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Her teaching and research focus on leadership communication, sports strategy, and storytelling. She’s also a journalist. Her columns, features, and essays appear in a variety of publications, including the Sports Business Journal and The New York Times. Her writing often addresses issues at the intersection of sports and culture, especially women’s sports and gender inequity.

Shira's essays have appeared in The New York Times best seller Upon Further Review: The Greatest What-Ifs in Sports History (Hachette, 2018) and Our Boston: Writers Celebrate the City They Love (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013). She’s also coauthored MIT Sloan case studies on the National Women’s Soccer League.

Shira teaches the MBA core course Communication for Leaders and the MBA elective Advanced Leadership Communication. She also teaches storytelling in the MIT Sloan Executive Education program.

Prior to MIT, Shira covered sports for The Boston Globe, multiple NPR programs, and NPR affiliate WBUR. She reported on all four major Boston professional teams, the NBA Finals, World Series, Super Bowl, Stanley Cup Final, and the Winter and Summer Olympics, and she served as the Globe’s Celtics beat writer for seven years. As a Globe staff writer, she also reported extensively on the Boston Marathon bombings and shared in the paper’s 2014 Pulitzer Prize for that coverage. In addition, she's earned national recognition and awards for her investigative journalism, feature writing, radio storytelling and media criticism.

Shira previously taught at Boston University in the College of Communication where she developed and launched the courses Sports Storytelling and Sports, Gender and Justice.

She holds an AB from Harvard University in social studies and an MBA from Boston University.

Melissa Webster is a Lecturer in Managerial Communication at MIT Sloan School of Management. She teaches oral, written, and interpersonal communication, persuading with data, teamwork, and leadership. Melissa also advises student teams in project-based courses (Action Learning) and co-taught Economy and Business of Modern India. Additionally, she designs modules for career development.

Melissa investigates the adoption and implications of ChatGPT and other generative AI in both professional and educational realms. Her research explores its usage by knowledge workers, and its integration in business education, with an emphasis on effective problem formulation, learning enhancements, teaching methodologies, and assessment adaptation for genAI usage.

Before joining academia, Melissa worked nearly two decades in strategy and marketing, occupying roles such as vice president of Skanska's Energy Management Group. Her industry experience includes renewable energy, software, architecture/engineering, and construction. In 2015, Melissa combined her interests in entrepreneurship and leadership to create Vulnerability Lab, which delivers programs fostering professional and personal courage.

Melissa holds a BA degree in architecture from Wellesley College and an MBA from the MIT Sloan School of Management, where she focused on entrepreneurship and innovation.

George Westerman is a Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management and Founder of the Global Opportunity Initiative.

George’s work bridges the fields of executive leadership and technology strategy. During more than 20 years with MIT Sloan School of Management, he has written three award-winning books, including Leading Digital: Turning Technology Into Business Transformation. As a pioneering researcher on digital transformation, George has published papers in Harvard Business Review, Sloan Management Review, and other top journals. He is now focused on helping employers, educators, and other groups to rethink the process of workforce learning around the world through the GOI and several research collaborations.

George is cochair of the MIT Sloan CIO Leadership Awards, a member of the Digital Strategy Roundtable for the US Library of Congress, and learning strategy advisor to the World Health Organization Academy. He works frequently with senior management teams and industry groups around the world. Prior to earning a Doctorate from Harvard Business School, he gained more than 13 years of experience in product development and technology leadership roles.

Since 1994, Dr. Barbara Wixom’s research has explored how organizations generate business value from data assets. Her methods include large-scale surveys, meta-analyses, lab experiments and in-depth case studies; five of her cases have placed in the Society for Information Management Paper Awards competition. Barb is a leading academic scholar, publishing in such journals as Information Systems Research; MIT Sloan Management Review; MIS Quarterly; and MIS Quarterly Executive. She regularly presents her work to academic and business audiences around the world.

Barb joined MIT Sloan in June 2013 to serve as a Principal Research Scientist at the Center for Information Systems Research (CISR). She leads the MIT CISR Data Research Advisory Board, comprised of one hundred data and analytics executives from CISR organizations. The board prioritizes, informs, and participates in data research activities in ways that influence findings and insights at MIT CISR and help advance the field of data analytics.

Prior to MIT CISR, Barb was a tenured faculty member at the University of Virginia (UVA) where she twice earned the UVA All-University Teaching Award (2002, 2010), which recognizes teaching excellence in professors. In 2017, she was awarded the Teradata University Network Hugh J. Watson Award for contributions to the data and analytics academic community. Most recently, she won the 2021 Association for Information Systems AIS Outreach Practice Publication Award for her data monetization research.

Barb is an International Expert Panel Member for The Centre for Information Resilience (CIRES), an Australian Research Council (ARC) Industrial Transformation Training Centre. She is a coauthor of published research with Australian collaborators at the University of Queensland and the University of Melbourne, and an external examiner for Australian doctoral work.

Barb authored her new book Data is Everybody’s Business (MIT Press, September 2023) to inspire workers across organizations to engage in data monetization. She actively works to encourage women, young people, and underrepresented populations to learn about data and pursue data-related careers.