Jeanne Ross will become director of the MIT Center for Information Systems Research with overall responsibility for the center's activities, MIT Sloan School of Management Dean David Schmittlein announced this month.
Peter Weill, who has been director since June 2000, will become chairman of MIT CISR and focus on international activities.Â
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MIT CISR was established in 1974, and is currently funded by more than 65 corporate sponsors and patrons. The center undertakes practical research on how firms generate business value from IT, disseminating its findings through research briefings, journal articles, books, workshops and executive education. In 2007, Ziff Davis and eWeek described MIT CISR as "…the most influential IT academic research center."
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Ross has been at MIT CISR since 1993. As director, Ross will oversee the center's research agenda, coordinate research activities, manage U.S.-based sponsor relationships, provide linkages between MIT CISR and Sloan, host sponsor events in the United States, and manage the center's business model. She will sustain MIT CISR's research focus on how companies manage IT for business value, and increase efforts to make that research accessible to non-IT executives.
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In his new role, Weill will lead MIT CISR's international initiatives. As global commerce and operations increase in importance, he will coordinate research on how firms successfully use IT to generate business value globally, focusing particularly on how companies can achieve both local responsiveness and global scale.
A version of this article appeared in MIT Tech Talk on April 30, 2008 (download PDF).
