NCCI Annual Conference

On Sept. 1, 2019, Ángel Cabrera became the 12th president of the Georgia Institute of Technology. Cabrera came to Georgia Tech after serving for seven years as president of George Mason University (GMU) in Fairfax, Virginia.

From 2004 to 2012, Cabrera served as president at Thunderbird School of Global Management, now part of Arizona State University. Prior to that he was dean of IE Business School in Madrid. As a business educator, Cabrera has played a key role in advancing professional ethics, internationalization, and corporate social responsibility. As a senior advisor to the United Nations Global Compact, in 2007 he was the lead author of the “Principles for Responsible Management Education,” now adopted by more than 700 schools around the world.

Cabrera’s research has been published in leading academic journals. He has been quoted by leading global media, including The Economist, BBC, CNN, CNBC, El País, Forbes, The International Herald Tribune, and The New York Times. His op-eds have been published by The Washington Post and the international press, and he has appeared on NPR programs and PBS NewsHour.

He’s been named a “Young Global Leader” by the World Economic Forum, a “Star of Europe” by Businessweek, “Henry Crown Fellow” by the Aspen Institute, and “Great Immigrant” by the Carnegie Corporation of New York. He has received honorary degrees from Miami Dade College and Universidad Politécnica of Madrid.

Cabrera serves on the boards of the Atlanta Committee for Progress, the Bankinter Foundation for Innovation, the Metro Atlanta Chamber, and the National Geographic Society. He is serving on the newly formed Task Force to Restore Georgia’s Economy.

Cabrera earned his M.S. and Ph.D. in cognitive psychology from Georgia Tech, which he attended as a Fulbright Scholar. He also holds a telecommunications engineering degree (B.S. and M.S. in computer and electrical engineering) from Universidad Politécnica de Madrid.

He is married to management scholar and Georgia Tech classmate Elizabeth. Their son Alex is a recent Georgia Tech graduate and currently a Ph.D. student at Carnegie Mellon University. Their daughter Emilia is a senior at Harvard University. Cabrera is the first native of Spain to serve as president of an American university.

Since beginning his tenure as Georgia State University’s seventh president in 2009, President Mark P. Becker has led Georgia State through a dynamic period of growth and advancement and put it on a trajectory to reshape itself and its region. Under his leadership, the university has pursued a 10-year strategic plan through which Georgia State has emerged as one of the nation’s leading higher education institutions.

Georgia State’s consolidation in 2016 with Georgia Perimeter College, a two-year institution with five campuses in metro Atlanta, raised its student population to 53,000 and made it the largest university in Georgia and one of the largest in the nation.

One of the most diverse universities in the U.S., Georgia State is a national model for student success, setting records for its graduation rates and the number of students it graduates, and leading the country in eliminating disparities in student achievement based on race, ethnicity and income. In 2017, Dr. Becker was honored by the Carnegie Corporation of New York with their Academic Leadership Award in recognition of the University’s achievements in “eliminating disparities in graduation rates based on race, ethnicity, income level and first-generation status.” Most recently, President Becker was the 2019 recipient of the TIAA Institute Theodore M. Hesburgh Award for Leadership Excellence in Higher Education.

Under Dr. Becker’s leadership, Georgia State has built a burgeoning research enterprise, growing sponsored research at more than twice the national rate. Through the rapid development of its campus and its engagement with civic and business leaders, the university has been recognized as a major catalyst for the revitalization of downtown Atlanta and the economic vitality of its region.

Adding to Georgia State’s increasing national profile, Dr. Becker has fostered the development of NCAA Division 1 athletics. The university’s intercollegiate teams have won nine conference championships since rejoining the Sun Belt Conference in 2013, and Georgia State’s football team made its first bowl appearance in 2015. With MLB’s Atlanta Braves’ decision to vacate Turner Field in downtown Atlanta, he led the university’s acquisition and renovation of the stadium that became the home for Georgia State football in 2017.

Dr. Becker attended Harford (Md.) Community College, earned his bachelor’s degree in mathematics from Towson State University in 1980 and his doctor’s degree in statistics from the Pennsylvania State University in 1985. He grew up in Havre de Grace, Md., near Baltimore.

Ralph Gigliotti, Ph.D. is the Director of the Center for Organizational Leadership at Rutgers University, where he provides executive leadership for the overall planning, delivery, and assessment of signature programs and services. He engages directly with academic and administrative leaders in strengthening the Center’s role as a hub for leadership development research and initiatives. He also serves as an associate faculty member in the Ph.D. Program in Higher Education and part-time lecturer in the Department of Communication.

Ralph’s research and consulting interests explore the intersection of organizational communication, leadership, crisis, and training and development within the context of higher education.

Ralph has authored and co-authored several books, including the following:

• Leadership in Academic Health Centers: Core Concepts and Critical Cases (with C. Goldthwaite, Kendall Hunt Publishing, forthcoming)
• Crisis Leadership in Higher Education: Theory and Practice (Rutgers University Press, 2019)
• Leadership, Communication, and Social Influence: A Theory of Resonance, Activation, and Cultivation (with B. Ruben, Emerald Publishing, 2019)
• Leadership: Social Influence in Personal and Professional Settings (with B. Ruben & C. Goldthwaite, Kendall Hunt Publishing, 2017)
• A Guide for Leaders in Higher Education: Core Concepts, Competencies, and Tools (with B. Ruben & R. De Lisi, Stylus Publishing, 2016)

Ralph is a National Examiner for the Malcolm Baldrige Performance Excellence Program (National Institute of Standards and Technology, United States Department of Commerce). He also serves on the Board of Directors for the Network for Change and Continuous Innovation (NCCI) and the leadership team of the Training and Development Division for the National Communication Association.