Jonathan Rotenberg

Last updated
Jonathan Rotenberg
Jonathan Rotenberg.jpg
Born (1963-04-29) 29 April 1963 (age 61)
Alma materBrown University, Harvard Business School
Occupation(s)Executive coach, Management consultant
Known forCo-founder of The Boston Computer Society
Relatives Marc Rotenberg (brother)

Jonathan Rotenberg (born April 29, 1963) is an executive coach, management consultant, and author. In 1977, he cofounded The Boston Computer Society, which became the world's largest personal computer user organization. He is currently writing a book about what he learned from his early mentor, Apple founder Steve Jobs. [1]

Contents

Early life

Jonathan was born in Boston, MA. He is a graduate of Commonwealth School, an independent high school in Boston's Back Bay. As a 13-year-old freshman, he cofounded The Boston Computer Society in the school's library.

Education

Rotenberg has an A.B. in Economics from Brown University; an MBA from Harvard Business School; and a Graduate Certificate in Executive Coaching from the Massachusetts School of Professional Psychology.

Career

The Boston Computer Society

Rotenberg cofounded an organization to demystify personal computers called The Boston Computer Society, popularly known as the BCS. He was its president from 1977 to 1990. During that period, the Society became the leading international forum where personal computer companies unveiled groundbreaking new products and technologies to the public. For example, in 1979 Dan Bricklin and Bob Frankston introduced the first spreadsheet program, VisiCalc.

In 1984, Steve Jobs and Steve Wozniak made the first public presentation of the Macintosh at the BCS. Mitch Kapor introduced Lotus 1-2-3. Dozens of industry leaders — from Bill Gates to Michael Dell, Nolan Bushnell to Esther Dyson, Ray Kurzweil to Sherry Turkle, Seymour Papert to Dan Bricklin — came each month to connect with BCS members. The Society developed more than a hundred user and special-interest subgroups, many of which became the largest of their kind in the world. It published over 20 publications and sponsored nearly a hundred educational programs each month.

Before his twenty-first birthday, Rotenberg had been profiled in The Wall Street Journal [2] (front page), PEOPLE, InfoWorld, [3] The New York Times, [4] BusinessWeek, [5] The Boston Globe [1] and TIME magazine, and on CBS Evening News. [6] In 1990, Jonathan moved from president of the BCS to become its chairman.

Management Consulting

Jonathan began his career in management consulting at a Cambridge, Massachusetts consulting firm, Monitor Group, which was founded in 1983 by six entrepreneurs with Harvard Business School ties.[3] He was with Monitor from 1991 to 1999. Jonathan became a strategy consultant with internet consulting firm Viant Inc. in 1999. He later joined Fair Isaac Corp. and was co-leader of its management consulting organization.

Jonathan's work as a management consultant focuses on customer-centric enterprise transformation: Helping large companies redesign sales, marketing, e-channels, customer care, and operations around the needs and desires of target customers. He has advised and guided senior leadership teams of several Fortune 500 companies on multi-year, enterprise-wide transformation initiatives.

Executive Coaching

Since 2012, Jonathan has been an executive coach. He works with senior executives on leadership development and developing high-performance organizations.

Writing

Jonathan is writing a book called My Teacher Steve Jobs. The book is about his friendship from 1981 – 2011 with Apple founder Steve Jobs, and what Jobs taught him about idealism, spirituality and leadership. A first chapter of the book was published by High Tech History. [7] [ better source needed ]

Awards

Rotenberg was named one of the “Top 100 Young Entrepreneurs in America” by the Association of Collegiate Entrepreneurs. Computer Reseller News named him “One of the 25 Most Influential Executives in the Personal Computer Industry.” And Slashdot named him one of the “Top 150 i-Technology Heroes of All Time.” [8] [ better source needed ]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Dan Bricklin</span> VisiCalc inventor

Daniel Singer Bricklin is an American businessman and engineer who is the co-creator, with Bob Frankston, of VisiCalc, the first spreadsheet program. He also founded Software Garden, Inc., of which he is currently president, and Trellix, which he left in 2004. He currently serves as the chief technology officer of Alpha Software.

Management consulting is the practice of providing consulting services to organizations to improve their performance or in any how to assist in achieving organizational objectives. Organizations may draw upon the services of management consultants for a number of reasons, including gaining external advice and accessing consultants' specialized expertise regarding concerns that call for additional oversight.

A consultant is a professional who provides advice or services in an area of specialization. Consulting services generally fall under the domain of professional services, as contingent work.

Engineering management is the application of engineering methods, tools, and techniques to business management systems. Engineering management is a career that brings together the technological problem-solving ability of engineering and the organizational, administrative, legal and planning abilities of management in order to oversee the operational performance of complex engineering-driven enterprises.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Larry Tesler</span> American computer scientist (1945–2020)

Lawrence Gordon Tesler was an American computer scientist who worked in the field of human–computer interaction. Tesler worked at Xerox PARC, Apple, Amazon, and Yahoo!.

A consulting firm or simply consultancy is a professional service firm that provides expertise and specialised labour for a fee, through the use of consultants. Consulting firms may have one employee or thousands; they may consult in a broad range of domains, for example, management, engineering, and so on.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Jon Rubinstein</span> American electrical engineer (born 1956)

Jonathan J. "Jon" Rubinstein is an American electrical engineer who played an instrumental role in the development of the iMac and iPod, the portable music and video device first sold by Apple Computer Inc. in 2001. He left his position as senior vice president of Apple's iPod division on April 14, 2006.

James (Jim) Champy is an Italian American business consultant, and organizational theorist, known for his work in the field of business process reengineering, business process improvement and organizational change. He co-authored the book "Reengineering the Corporation: A Manifesto for Business Revolution" in 1993 with Michael Martin Hammer, which was considered one of the 25 most influential business management books by Time (magazine).

Management fad is a term used to characterize a change in philosophy or operations implemented by a business or institution. It amounts to a fad in the management culture of an institution.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Boston Computer Society</span> Personal computer user group, 1977–1996

The Boston Computer Society (BCS) was an organization of personal computer users, based in Boston, Massachusetts, U.S., that ran from 1977 to 1996. At one point, it was the largest such group in the world, with regular user group meetings, many publications, permanent offices in Boston, and hosting major product announcements, including the East Coast release of the Apple Macintosh in 1984.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Berkeley Macintosh Users Group</span> Largest Macintosh users group, active 1984-2000

The Berkeley Macintosh Users Group, or more commonly "BMUG", was the largest Macintosh User Group. It was founded in September 1984 by a group of UC Berkeley students including Reese Jones and Raines Cohen as a focal-point for the nascent Apple Macintosh user community. With more than 13,000 members, or "BMUGgers" at its peak in 1993, the group was the largest, and generally understood to be the most important, Macintosh users group. A few of the notable members include John "Captain Crunch" Draper, the Sultan of Brunei Hassanal Bolkiah, notorious murderer Enrique Zambrano, early hacker-chaser Cliff Stoll, Inktomi founder Eric Brewer, and may prominent computing journalists like John Dvorak, Ilene Hoffman, Leo Laporte and Adam Engst. An example of the group's omnipresent blue-floppy-disk lapel pin is held in the Smithsonian Institution's American History collection. BMUG's history and activities were closely linked with the MacWorld Expo meetings, traditionally held in San Francisco each January and Boston each August.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Marc Rotenberg</span> American lawyer

Marc Rotenberg is president and founder of the Center for AI and Digital Policy, an independent non-profit organization, incorporated in Washington, D.C. Rotenberg is the editor of The AI Policy Sourcebook, a member of the OECD Expert Group on AI, and helped draft the Universal Guidelines for AI. He teaches the GDPR and privacy law at Georgetown Law and is coauthor of Privacy Law and Society and The Privacy Law Sourcebook (2020). Rotenberg is a founding board member and former chair of the Public Interest Registry, which manages the .ORG domain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Monitor Deloitte</span> Multinational strategy consulting practice of Deloitte Consulting

Monitor Deloitte is the multinational strategy consulting practice of Deloitte Consulting. Monitor Deloitte specializes in providing strategy consultation services to the senior management of major organizations and governments. It helps its clients address a variety of management areas, including: Organic Growth, Strategic Transformation, Innovation and Ventures, Business Design and Configuration, Strategic Sensing and Insight Services.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Martin Henson (computer scientist)</span> English computer scientist

Professor Martin C. Henson FBCS FRSA is an English computer scientist based at the University of Essex. He is dean for international affairs and is affiliated to the School of Computer Science & Electronic Engineering. Henson was head of the department of computer science from 2000 to 2006.

The Computer Entrepreneur Award was created in 1982 by the IEEE Computer Society, for individuals with major technical or entrepreneurial contributions to the computer industry. The work must be public, and the award is not given until fifteen years after the developments. The physical award is a chalice from sterling silver and under the cup a gold-plated crown.

Digital Consulting Institute (DCI) was a seminar company launched in 1982 by George Schussel and his wife Sandi from their home in Massachusetts. It evolved out of a series of database seminars taught by George Schussel in the 1970s.

William R. (Bill) Synnott was an American organizational theorist, Vice President of Bank of Boston, author, consultant and lecturer, known for his work in the field of computer technology in business in the 1980s.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Ellen Petry Leanse</span> American author and businesswoman

Ellen Petry Leanse is an American author, businesswoman, educator, entrepreneur, and online community pioneer. Leanse has spent 35 years working with leaders at Apple, Google, Facebook, as an entrepreneur, and with dozens of startups. She's a writer on topics of workplace dynamics and a Stanford instructor. Her work has spanned entrepreneurship, corporate leadership, investing, and strategy consulting.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nneka Abulokwe</span> British Nigerian tech entrepreneur

Nneka Abulokwe, OBE is a British Nigerian tech and digital governance entrepreneur. She is one of the first Afro-Caribbean professionals in the UK to serve on the board of a leading European digital transformation organization, she is the founder and CEO of MicroMax Consulting. In 2019, she was honoured by Queen Elizabeth II as an Officer of the British Empire (OBE) for services to Business.

References

  1. 1 2 The Double Life of Jonathan Rotenberg Boston Globe, March 29, 1995. p.63
  2. The Latest Whiz Kid of Computers Runs on a Novel Program Wall Street Journal, October 19, 1982, p.1
  3. Growing Pains in Boston InfoWorld, November 26, 1984, p.29
  4. Boston Computers: A User's Decade New York Times, January 11, 1987
  5. A Different Kind of Computer Whiz Kid Business Week, March 9, 1987, p.97
  6. Interview, by Charles Osgood CBS Evening News, October 29, 1982
  7. June 6, 1981: The Day I Met Steve Jobs
  8. Jonathan's About page