Session 14: Innovation and Its Measurement in the 21st Century

Knowledge, innovation, and technology—the products of research and development (R&D)— increasingly fuel growth in the global economy. The expectation is that this process will accelerate in the 21st Century, and that scientific developments will re-invent existing industries, produce new industries, and will propel further productivity gains. Session participants will outline some of the new products, technologies, and industries we might anticipate in the 21st century, discuss the efficiency of innovation itself, and consider methods and metrics for measuring innovation in the 21st century.

Speaker Materials

Christopher Magee slideshow
Joseph Kennedy slideshow

Speakers

Sydney Smith Hicks
NABE Corporate Planning Roundtable Chair

Sydney Smith Hicks is currently a professional director and consultant. She serves on the board of Smart Start, Inc, an ignition interlock company. Smart Start produces ignition interlock devices, franchises nationally, currently in over 25 states, and is the largest company in its industry. Prior to her current focus, she was CEO of VECTORsgi, Inc. and Senior Vice President, Corporate Strategy, for Metavante Corporation. VECTORsgi is a financial technology software and services company which Hicks sold to Metavante in November 2004. Its products and services are sold primarily to the top 125 banks in the U.S. Metavante is a $1.5B company delivering banking and payments technologies to financial services firms and businesses worldwide.

Hicks was CEO of VECTORsgi, Inc., from 2003 to 2006, where she was responsible for maximizing business performance and strategically guiding the growth and expansion of VECTORsgi. Under Hicks’ leadership VECTORsgi expanded product lines, increased sales, and generated increasing levels of profits. Prior to the acquisition by Metavante, VECTORsgi was owned by management and Thoma Cressey Equity Partners; Hicks was also a Board Member. Investors tripled their investment over 15 months.

Before VECTORsgi became private, Hicks was senior vice president of Sterling Commerce and CEO of the Banking Systems Division of Sterling Commerce, the predecessor of VECTORsgi. During Hicks’ tenure, she set the strategy to transform the company from mainframe technologies to distributed technologies. With the advent of Check 21, her company was positioned with new products, allowing the company to capture the market for image exchange. For more than six years prior to being CEO, she was vice president of Operations and Business Development where she led new business development, supervised product acquisitions and was responsible for managing the strategy, design, development, maintenance, installation services, training services, and customized consulting for 11 product solutions, containing over 50 products. Hicks joined Banking Systems as Director of Marketing for Item Processing Solutions in 1996.

Prior to Sterling Commerce, Hicks gained an extensive knowledge of banking and electronic transactions at NationsBank, a predecessor of Bank of America, where she served as senior vice president of Transaction Solutions and Image Initiatives. Hicks was chief economist for NCNB (and First Republic and InterFirst), financial economist for the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and a visiting scholar for the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. During her career, she was on the board of the Electronic Check Clearing House Organization (ECCHO), was the founding chairman of the board of Payment Systems Network (PSN), now owned by The Clearing House Payments Company, and held various academic positions.

Hicks is currently on two not-for-profit boards in Dallas, is a Mentor/Advisor for STARTech Early Ventures, and is Chair of the Corporate Planning Committee of the National Association of Business Economists. Locally she has led several boards and organizations over the last 25 years, including IWFDallas.

Hicks earned both a master’s degree and a doctorate in Economics from Washington University (St. Louis). She also has a bachelor’s degree in Economics from Cornell College (Iowa), where she graduated with distinction in economics. She currently serves on the Advisory Board of Cornell College’s Berry Center for Economics, Business, and Public Policy.

Christopher L. Magee
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Christopher L. Magee is the Director of the Center for Innovation in Product Development and a Professor of the Practice of Engineering Systems and Mechanical Engineering all at MIT. He has held these positions since January 2002. Prior to this, Dr. Magee had 35 years of experience at Ford Motor Company ranging from early research and technology implementation work to later executive positions in Product Development emphasizing vehicle systems and program initiation activities.

Dr. Magee has a Ph.D. in Metallurgy & Materials Science from Carnegie Mellon University and a MBA from Michigan State University. Professor Magee’s current research focuses on the innovation and change process in complex systems. His teaching subjects include product development, complex system modeling and systems engineering. He has been a participant on major National Research Council Studies whose topics span Design Research to Materials Research. Dr. Magee is a member of the National Academy of Engineering, a Fellow of ASM and a Ford Technical Fellow.

Joseph Kennedy
Economic Statistics Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce

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