Harvard Club of Maryland

Professor Bharat N. Anand

Professor Anand is the Vice Provost for Advances in Learning at Harvard University and the Henry R. Byers Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Professor Anand is an expert in digital strategy, media and entertainment strategy, corporate strategy, and organizational change. His work has examined competition in information goods markets, focusing on two central challenges that firms face in these markets: “getting noticed” amidst the increasing clutter of alternatives available to consumers, and “getting paid” for what they produce.

His recent book, The Content Trap: A Strategist’s Guide to Digital Change examines digital transformation in content industries, with a view to distilling the learnings from a quarter century of change that might inform efforts elsewhere. The book has received acclaim for its perspective on strategy and digital transformation, and was named as one of Fast Company’s top ten business books of 2016, Bloomberg’s “Best Books of 2017”, and received the Axiom Best Business Book Award in “Business Theory” in 2018.

Professor Anand created Harvard Business School’s first executive program on digital strategies for media companies, and was a faculty co-found of HBS’ interdisciplinary research initiative on digital issues. He has authored case studies in business and corporate strategy, including those on Danahar, The Economist, International Management Group, News Corporation, Randome House and Schibsted. His research and case writing has received various awards, and has been profiled in numerous media outlets, including The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Entrepreneur, Fast Company, Forbes, Fortune, Inc., and Bloomberg.

Professor Anand has served as faculty head of the required Strategy course in the MBA program, has taught Strategy in the General Management Program, and has served as faculty chair of various executive programs at the school. For several years, he taught the popular second-year course in Corporate Strategy in the MBA elective curriculum, for which he received the Faculty Award for Teaching Excellence at HBS from the MBA Classes of 2006 and 2007. He has also received the Apgar Award for Innovation in Teaching at HBS.

Professor Anand helped create HBS’s digital learning initiative, HBS Online (formerly, HBX), in 2014, and served as its first faculty chair and Senior Associate Dean. He helped oversee the design and creation of HBX’s digital learning platforms, and created one of its first online courses. HBS Online has received accolades for its innovative approach to online pedagogy, and its virtual classroom has been described by Fortune as the “Classroom of the Future.”

In his current role as Vice Provost, Professor Anand leads Harvard’s strategic efforts around online learning, and around leveraging technology to create more effective teaching tools, strategies, and resources for residential teaching. He was part of the leadership team that helped the University transition to remote teaching in 2020, and he currently chairs Harvard’s Future of Teaching and Learning Task Force. Professor Anand received his B.A. in economics from Harvard College magna cum laude, and his PhD in economics from Princeton University.

Dr. Rachel Pfeifer

Dr. Pfeifer is the Executive Director for College and Career Readiness at Baltimore City Public Schools and a Baltimore Curriculum Project Board Member. She served as President of Collegiate Directions for four years (2013-2017) and Executive Assistant to the Chief Academic Officer for Baltimore City Public Schools for two years. (2010-2012).

Dr. Pfeifer graduated with Highest Distinction and Phi Beta Kappa from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she was a Morehead Scholar. After spending two years with Teach For America as a 4th grade teacher in Indianola, Mississippi, she earned a Master’s in Education Policy from Harvard. She then attended Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar, earning a D.Phil. in Education for her research on the factors influencing African Caribbean families’ secondary school choices.

Dr. William E. “Brit” Kirwan

Dr. Kirwan is chancellor emeritus of the University System of Maryland (USM). He is a recognized authority on critical issues facing higher education. He served as chancellor of USM for 13 years (2002-2015), president of the Ohio State University for four years (1998-2002) and president of the University of Maryland, College Park for 10 years (1988-1998). Currently, Dr. Kirwan chairs the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences and serves as executive director of Transforming Post-Secondary Education in Mathematics. He also chairs the Maryland Commission on Innovation and Excellence in Education (commonly referred to as the Kirwan Commission), appointed by Governor Hogan.

Burck Smith

Burck Smith is the CEO and founder of StraighterLine. Ten years before launching StraighterLine in 2009, he co-founded SMARTHINKING, the largest online tutoring provider for schools and colleges. Burck has written chapters for three books on education policy for the American Enterprise Institute (AEI). He is a member of the American Enterprise Institute's Higher Education Working Group. Prior to starting SMARTHINKING, Burck was independent consultant and journalist whose clients included the Gates Foundation, Microsoft, Computer Curriculum Corporation, the CEO Forum on Education and Technology, the Milken Exchange on Education and Technology, Teaching Matters Inc., Converge Magazine, Wired Magazine, Wired News, University Business, the National School Boards Association and more. In the early 1990's, he wrote articles on a variety of subjects including creating community telecommunication networks, electronic access to political information, telecommunications deregulation and the ability of utilities to serve as telecommunications service providers. Burck holds a Master's Degree in Public Policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. from Williams College. Policy from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government and a B.A. from Williams College. 

Laurisa Schutt

Executive Director of First State Educate (FSE) and First State Action Fund. Laurisa is the Executive Director of First State Educate (FSE) and First State Action Fund. Prior to FSE, Laurisa led Teach For America Delaware as Executive Director for six years. She currently serves on the boards of the St. Andrew’s School, Leadership Delaware, the Delaware Coalition Against Gun Violence, and the University of Delaware’s College of Education, as well as chairs the board of 4th Dimension Leaders. Before moving to Delaware, Laurisa worked in Hong Kong for a Fortune 500 company, and founded and led an international accessories business. She has a B.A. from Harvard University in East Asian Studies and a Masters of Philosophy in Chinese from The University of Cambridge.

Roy Carriker

Roy Carriker is a Teaching Professor and Director of Technology Entrepreneurship in the Charles D. Close School of Entrepreneurship. He is also a School of Biomedical Engineering, Science and Health Systems senior executive in residence. Carriker serves as a trustee of the National Arts Program Foundation, is a director of The SEI Center for Advanced Studies in Management at the Wharton School, and is an advising director of Glenthorne Capital. Carriker holds a BS, MS, and PhD in physics from Washington State University, Trinity College, and the University of Connecticut, respectively, and an MBA from the Harvard Business School. His early career focused on the management of R&D, technology-based startups and assessing the market viability of technology based innovations. After growing Sermatech International to over $600 million, Carriker became Vice Chairman of Teleflex Incorporated, helping transform it into a $2.3 billion global provider of goods and services with over 130 operations in 21 countries. After Teleflex, he founded Global Advisors LLC, providing counsel in the areas of technology assessment and business strategy, served as CEO and Chairman of Indivers BV (the Netherlands), a private-venture fund focused on entrepreneurs, and was an advisor to OTB BV (the Netherlands) and the Aerospace Industries Association Board of Governors.

Additionally, Carriker was director of: Teleflex Incorporated; Selas Corporation of America; Laser Technology, Inc.; Heurchrome SA (France); Telair GmbH (Germany); Airfoil Technologies International (a General Electric joint venture); the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia; the Harvard Business School Club of Philadelphia; the Pennsylvania Innovation Network (PIN); the Entrepreneurship Center, Fordham Graduate School of Business. He has been the chairman of the Drexel University Center for the Plasma Processing of Materials Advisory Board and the PIN CEO Exchange. Carriker was a member of the Temple Fox School of Business Enterprise Management Consulting Board. He was recognized as the Pennsylvania Innovation Network 1994 Entrepreneur of the Year for service to small enterprises.