Jim joined Microsoft in October 1995, having spent the past 16 years in higher education. For the six years prior to Microsoft, Jim was the Associate Dean at the Graduate School of Management at Wake Forest University. In that position, Jim was responsible for the graduate management school's strategic planning, adoption and integration of technology, student services, human resources, the institute for executive education, financial planning and budget oversight. He also taught graduate-level marketing. In addition, Jim has consulted for numerous businesses and not-for-profit organizations in the areas of strategic planning, environmental scanning, market research and technology planning and implementation. His new position at Microsoft allows him to combine three of his professional passions: technology, strategic planning and higher education. Jim believes that there exists a great opportunity to significantly advance the use of technology in higher education. He is passionate that, in order for education to remain competitive in an increasingly information-based economy, higher education must adopt, and better integrate, information technologies. While such a scenario obviously is in Microsoft's best interests, he believes that, as good corporate citizens, we must invest in helping higher education achieve these goals.
Jim received his BA from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, his Master of Science from Shippensburg University and his Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. He is on the editorial board of On the Horizon, the higher education environmental scanning newsletter published by Jossey-Bass.
E-mail: jimp@microsoft.com