2019 Business Leader of the Year Award Dinner Recap

HBSANC 50th Annual Business Leader Dinner Honoring Keith Krach from HBSANC on Vimeo.

The 50th Annual Business Leader of the Year Award Gala was held on November 1, 2019. The largest annual fundraiser event for the Harvard Business School Association of Northern California (HBSANC) was once again a big success, with a full capacity ballroom at the Palace Hotel SF celebrating the 2019 BLD honoree! It was a fantastic event for our alumni group and gave attendees the opportunity to network and catch up - as well as learn from some fascinating speakers.

This year HBSANC honored Keith Krach (MBA 1981), former Chairman & CEO of DocuSign and co-founder/former Chairman & CEO of Ariba, who is now serving our country as Under Secretary of State. We had an impressive group of supporters, including Keith’s family and many friends and business associates. Our sponsors included the Krach Family Foundation, Intel Olympics Program, Morgan Stanley Private Wealth Management, Accenture, Chevron, Silicon Valley Bank, BitGO and The MAVEN Project.

Keith Krach is a Silicon Valley veteran, best known for being a builder of innovative high-performance companies, a disruptor of paper, and a creator of categories. He has brought powerful transformational leadership to many sectors—factory automation, engineering, commerce, education, philanthropy, and even the way people sign. Krach is known as an early pioneer in the robotics industry and had a key leading role in the creation of the categories of Business-to-Business (B2B) Electronic Commerce, Mechanical Design Synthesis, Digital Transaction Management (DTM) and e-Signature technology.

The evening Guest speakers included: Michael Brown, President Elect of the Harvard Board of Overseers, and co-founder of City Year; Stanley McChrystal, retired Four-Star U.S. Army General and founder of the McChrystal Group; and Das Narayandas, the Edsel Bryant Ford Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School. Michael Brown discussed Keith's impact as a leader in both business and the community. A wonderful video of Das Narayandas followed focused on Keith's Transformational Leadership and Mentorship contributions. Keith's longtime Purdue friend and business collaborator, Marc Carlson, spoke about Keith's transformational formula for Success. After Keith's introduction, the program moved to a fireside chat with special guest, retired four-star general Stanley McChrystal. Keith is indeed deserving of this year’s recognition and honor as the 2019 Business Leader of the Year! Event Chair Jean Kovacs offered a big congratulations to Keith during the presentation of the award at the HBSANC 50th Annual Business Leader Dinner.

Not only was the celebration for Keith an entertaining and successful event, the evening was an opportunity for folks to connect to business leaders across industries, network with colleagues and new acquaintances, catch up with old friends and classmates and just have a good time!

Proceeds from this event support the Harvard Business School Association of Northern California. The HBSANC is a non-profit organization, whose mission is to CONNECT and INSPIRE the over 7,000 HBS alumni in the Bay Area and enable them to make a positive IMPACT on their community.

The HBSANC fields a broad range of events and programs for alumni, including the award-winning Community Partners program (servicing Bay Area nonprofits) the  and fast-growing StartUp Partners program (servicing the Bay Area’s Entrepreneurial environment, including nonprofit startups).  Additionally alumni can take advantage of the other amazing programs in HBSANC, e.g. the 1 Harvard New Venture Competition (recognizing exceptional Start ups in the community), Alumni Forums (offering professional and personal growth), Alumni Angels (offering mentoring, angel investing) and other engaging programs.  
 

HBSANC members can watch the full-length the videos from case study and fireside chat. Check out some of the event photos!

HBSANC gratefully acknowledges and thanks the following for their generous support:

HBSANC 50th Annual Business Leader Dinner Honoring Keith Krach from HBSANC on Vimeo.