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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Ian Buggs, MBA 2011
Recent Alumni Achievement Award
Per Lofberg, MSIA 1973
Alumni Achievement Award
Suresh Sethi, Ph.D. 1972
Alumni Achievement Award
2014
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
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