Carnegie Mellon University

Tepper School Alumni Awards

The Tepper School Alumni Awards recognize excellence in our alumni community for outstanding career accomplishments or achievements and for impressive service to the school and alumni community.

 

2024 Alumni Awards Nominations Are Now Being Accepted

The 2024 Tepper School Alumni Awards nomination process is now open. Please submit nominations! The nomination form will be open until Friday, January 5, 2024.

The Tepper School Alumni Board Awards Committee will review the pool of nominations submitted by the Tepper community. The awards will be presented at the Tepper Reunion weekend celebration, April 20, 2024.

Submit Your Nominations


2023 Alumni Awards

An awards committee of the Tepper School Alumni Board selected the 2023 winners from a pool of nominations submitted by the Tepper community. Our 2023 alumni awardees accepted their awards at a celebration ceremony on April 22, 2023.

Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award

The Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award is intended to recognize both the longevity and consistency of professional achievement of the highest caliber over one's professional lifetime. These distinguished graduates have contributed significantly to their industries, companies, and communities and brought honor to the Tepper School of Business by upholding the highest values and traditions of the school.

Alumni Achievement Award

The Alumni Achievement Award recognizes the nominee's outstanding accomplishments and leadership in his or her profession, which brings honor to the Tepper School of Business upholding the highest values and traditions of the school. Alumni may be nominated for contributions such as industry innovation, significant impact in one's field or substantive value creation.

Alumni Service Award

This award recognizes volunteer service to the Tepper School community or its alumni organizations, including active participation in alumni or university affairs; faithful and continued effort in maintaining class, chapter, interest group or other alumni organizations; or assistance in expanding the influence and prestige of the Tepper School and Carnegie Mellon University. Breadth, length, and impact of volunteer service to the school will be considered.

Recent Alumni Awards for Achievement or Service

The Recent Alumni Award is intended to recognize either outstanding professional accomplishment and/or service to the Tepper School community by those who have graduated within the last 10 years.

The committee will award both a Recent Tepper Graduate Alumni Award and a Recent Tepper Undergraduate Alumni Award.

2023 Award Recipients

Ted Decker (MSIA 1993)
Tepper Alumni Achievement Award

For his exceptional career as an international leader in the retail industry as well as for his volunteer service to the Tepper School and Carnegie Mellon University, Ted is receiving the 2023 Tepper Alumni Achievement Award. He currently serves as Chair, President and CEO of The Home Depot, the world’s largest home improvement retailer with more than 2,300 stores and 500,000 associates. He joined The Home Depot in 2000, after holding senior leadership roles in strategy, business development and finance with Kimberly-Clark Corp., Scott Paper Co., and PNC, including overseas roles in England and Australia. A passionate alumnus, he has been active as a speaker and recruiter at the Tepper School as well as hosting several summer welcome receptions for alumni and interns at his home in Atlanta.

Ozgur (MBA 2005) and Mugé Erdirik Dogan (Ph.D./ENG 2007)
Tepper Alumni Service Award 

For their outstanding volunteer leadership and service to the Tepper School alumni community, Ozgur and Muge are being awarded the 2023 Tepper Alumni Service Award. With their high-level careers at Amazon -- Ozgur is currently Vice President for World Wide People Engagement and Muge is President of Amazon Fashion -- they have been incredible role models for our students and alumni and strong supporters of the university. Originally from Turkey, this CMU couple has established an endowed fellowship for international MBA students and has generously held receptions for alumni and students at their beautiful home. Ozgur has also served Tepper as a long-time leader in the Seattle Alumni Chapter, a class reunion volunteer, an active recruiter, speaker, and mentor, and member of the Tepper School Alumni Board from 2014 to 2020, chairing the Alumni Awards Committee.

Craig Saldanha (MBA 2013)
Tepper Recent Masters Alumni Award

Craig is being honored for his impressive career accomplishments in the tech industry. After earning his engineering degree in Mumbai, he went on to receive a master's in Computer Engineering from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, before joining Intel for nine years, leading a team that developed strategies around new features on Intel's next generation of microprocessors. After his MBA at Tepper, Craig spent almost nine years at Amazon in Seattle, eventually become Director of Product and Engineering for Prime Video. In 2022, he joined Yelp as the company's Chief Product Officer. Craig and his wife, Tepper classmate, Sasha (MBA 2014), have been activity engaged with Tepper as corporate recruiters, chapter volunteers, and mentors in the Seattle alumni community.

Heather Rae Martin (MBA 2013)
Tepper Recent Masters Alumni Award

A chemistry degree graduate of Princeton, Heather earned an MBA from the Tepper School and a Master of Science degree in health care policy and management from the Heinz College in 2013. As an alumnus, Heather has always been active, serving as an admissions ambassador, a career advisor and college mentor, a recruiting volunteer, a member of the Tepper Reunion Committee, and a member of the Carnegie Mellon Black Alumni Association. Heather is especially passionate about increasing diversity and inclusion in higher education and society and is a noted speaker and advocate. With more than a decade of experience in biotechnology, pharmaceuticals, and healthcare strategy, Heather currently serves as Sr. Associate Principal at EVERSANA CONSULTING in NYC.

Owen Parker (BS 2013)
Tepper Recent Undergraduate Alumni Award

Owen is being recognized for his rapid career success in the financial services industry and his ongoing support of his alma mater. An honors student and a member of the football team at Carnegie Mellon, Owen has stayed connected with the athletics program supporting the Carnegie Mellon Athletics DEI Endowed Fund. He joined Deutsche Bank after graduating from Tepper in 2013 in sales and trading in commercial mortgage-backed securities. In 2017, he joined Blackstone, the world’s largest alternative asset manager, and was promoted to Managing Director in Real Estate Securities in Blackstone’s Structure Finance Group where he is involved in investments in liquid real estate securities. Grateful for the opportunities Carnegie Mellon and the Tepper School have afforded him, Owen has returned to campus to attend alumni events, football games, and to speak to students in the Tepper Real Estate Club.

Past Alumni Award Recipients

2022

2022 alumni award winners

Henry J. Gailliot (BS 1964, MSIA 1965, Ph.D. 1973)
Tepper Alumni Lifetime Service Award

Kevin Willsey (MSIA 1989, BBA)
Tepper Alumni Achievement Award

Homaira Akbari (MSIA 1996, BBA)
Tepper Alumni Achievement Award

Michael A. Smith (BS 1989, MSIA 1995)
Tepper Alumni Service Award

Christopher Gassman (MBA JD 2012)
Tepper Recent Masters Alumni Award 

Troy Witt (BS 2016)
Tepper Recent Undergraduate Alumni Award

2021

2021 award winners

Francisco (Frank) D’Souza (MSIA 1992, T)
Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award

Frank Risch, MSIA 1966, BBA
Lifetime Service Award

Rajinder Singh, MSIA 1996
Achievement Award

PJ Juvekar, MSIA 1996, ABA
Service Award

Barton O’Brien, MSIA 1981, ABA
Service Award

Elissa McGee, MBA 2011
Recent Alumni Award

2020

2020 award winners

William Lambert, MSIA 1990
Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award

Cindy Padnos, MSIA 1980
Lifetime Achievement Award

Shrinivas Dempo, MSIA 1995
Tepper Achievement Award

Tammy Loucks, BSBA 2000, MBA 2005
Alumni Service Award

Daniel Angarita, MBA 2014
Recent Alumni Award

2019

Ann Marie Petach, MSIA '84
Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award

Brian Olsavsky, MSIA '89
Alumni Achievement Award

Ryan Baum, MSIA 1992 
Alumni Service Award

Justin Krauss, MBA '09
Recent Alumni Service Award 

 

2018

2018 Tepper Alumni Award Winners

Devin Anderson, MBA '05
Alumni Service Award 

David Coulter, MSIA/BSIM '71
Alumni Lifetime Achievement Award

Gunjan Kedia, MSIA '94
Alumni Achievement Award

Michael Miller, MBA '11
Recent Alumni Service Award 

2017

2107 Tepper MBA alumni award recipients

David Mawhinney, MSIA 1990
Alumni Achievement Award

James Ostry, MSIA 1994
Alumni Service Award

Swetha Arbuckle, MBA 2009
Recent Alumni Service Award

Tod Johnson, MSIA 1967
Lifetime Achievement Award

2016

2106 Tepper MBA alumni award recipients

Manoj Singh, MSIA 1976
Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award

Joel Adams, MSIA 1986 (T)
Distinguished Alumni Achievement Award

Rimmo Jolly, MSIA 1995
Alumni Service Award

Geoffrey Bent, MBA 2007
Recent Alumni Award

Shamir Karkal and Joshua Reich, MBA 2006
Recent Alumni Award

2015

2105 Tepper MBA alumni award recipients

Ian Buggs, MBA 2011
Recent Alumni Achievement Award

Per Lofberg, MSIA 1973
Alumni Achievement Award 

Suresh Sethi, Ph.D. 1972
Alumni Achievement Award

2014

2104 Tepper MBA alumni award recipients

Daniel Jester, MBA 2009
Recent Alumni Achievement Award

John McCue, BS/CIT 1981, MSIA 1987
Alumni Service Award

Marc Onetto, MSIA 1975
Alumni Achievement Award

2013

2103 Tepper MBA alumni award recipients

James Swartz, MSIA 1966
Alumni Achievement Award 

Jon Kinol, MSIA 1992
Alumni Service Award

Geoff Entress, MSIA 1988
Alumni Service Award

Patrick Macedo, MBA 2003
Recent Alumni Award

(T) denotes CMU Board of Trustees